Guardian of the Night

7

When a sleepy looking young man appeared, listened to her petition and rubbed his eyes, he turned away before turning back, rolling his hand for her to follow. After a few steps, he shambled back to the door in the gates and closed it, shoving a heavy iron bolt back into place. The man, his hair in disarray, clothing rumpled and creased, shuffled his way around the courtyard, through a building, out to the other side of the courtyard and then paused, scratching his head before turning and heading toward a different tower altogether.

As she followed the young mage's lead, she took the opportunity to take in everything that occurred around her, where mages practiced their arts, out in the courtyard, as warriors would practice their weaponry skills. Practice dummies burst into flames, or froze to ice. Plants grew from the hard-packed soil, twisting into complex designs, or into the very image of someone. Other mages merely sat across from each other, glaring with intense eyes but showing little else of what occurred between them. A battle of wills, or invisible magics, or both.

Entering the tower, the young mage pointed toward someone sat at a desk before turning away, yawning and leaving the tower, scratching his backside as he went. Bilain only then noticed the man wore two different slippers upon his feet. She had experienced something similar to all this before, when negotiating for the Weather Mage services, and she knew the Compound clerk would speak in their own good time.

"Bilain 'Bil-Hook' Grasall. Captain of The Sprawl Ward Watch, former Captain of the army. Mother, wife and grandmother. Lately ..." The voice stopped abruptly as Bilain turned and glared at the man. She expected he thought it came across as learned and mysterious to know these things. It was not. "Yes, well. We know of you, Captain. Are the Weather Mage services not to your satisfaction? Oh, I am Chancellor Nesh-Tu-Vash Vash. Yes, 'Vash' is my given name and also part of my family name. It's a Yash-A-Hallat thing. You may call me ..."

"Chancellor. The Weather Mages we will get to presently, don't you worry about that." Bilain looked the man up and down, taking in the thin, draping robes that covered colourful, embroidered clothing, native of the Yash-A-Hallat nation. "I am following a ... several investigations and I have need of a Mage's knowledge. Specifically, someone with knowledge of both shadow magic and forest magic."

Colour drained from the man's face and his head spun in several directions before coming to rest his eyes upon the clerk behind the desk and scowling at him. Crouching, as though anyone could miss the bright, multi-coloured clothing he wore, the Chancellor gathered Bilain's arm in his and began to lead her toward the spiral staircase that led to the higher levels of the tower. He maintained his conspiratorial head turning along the way, hushing and shushing Bilain every time she tried to talk. Obviously, she had said something more than a little controversial.

After several flights of stairs, the Chancellor led her into a suite of rooms where she saw an extensive library off to one side, a bedroom to the other and this room, between them, where another young man sat, sprawled in a chair, leg lolling over one arm, a book in one hand and long hair twirling between the fingers of the other. That man looked up, almost with utter disinterest as Bilain and the Chancellor entered, until the Chancellor began to push and shove the young man out of the door, bolting it and leaning back upon it, breathing heavily.

Before Bilain could speak, the Chancellor held up a finger, urging her silence, before rushing to a nearby table, uncorking a bottle sat upon it, drinking a good amount of the contents before gasping for breath and drinking again. He leaned against the table for a moment, before opening a drawer and taking out a plain, silver bracelet, which he hung upon a nail on the door. He adjusted the bracelet and then, finally, turned to Bilain.

"Sorry about that, but mentioning 'that' magic is tantamount to having the agents of certain nations gutting you in public. It's a ... sensitive subject." Vash moved to the chair where the young man had sat, arranging his light, flowing robes before clapping his hands together and sitting. He offered a hand toward a nearby seat. "Come. Sit. We can talk about 'that' magic now. The ring will hold our conversation secret unless someone magically eavesdrops. That happens far more often than you'd think. Perverts, some of them."