Tiernan stood towering over his clothes for a minute, then crouched over them and began examining each article as he picked them up off the floorboards. He stretched, smelled, shook and turned inside out every article piece by piece before he re-dressed himself properly and noticed Drystan staring at him.
He went back and sat down, pulling out his notebook from his satchel he had hung over the back of the chair, flipping to a blank page in the back and jotting down whatever was on his mind right then. "Have you noticed her magic leaves a smell on everything? Not a foul one, mind you. It's something like a damp forest-very, very curious. I had no idea Enkiri magic was so remarkably different from that of humans."
"I don't generally go sniffing things Akkali has used her magic on, as nine times out of ten they're dead people," said Drystan with an amused chuckle. "You do realize she'll burn that book if she decides she doesn't want you to write anything about her in it. And you too if you don't hand it over."
"My previous statement still holds: I don't care what she does until I see her raise the dead. I'm not even particularly mad over the Returner guildhall, truth be told. Quite frankly most of those men are godless bastards and deserve whatever inglorious deaths they were tended. Saints forgive me but I hope all people like that die screaming." Finishing his notes with a quickly scribbled date, he closed his book and finally looked the Inferi in the eyes. "So. Running off again."
The man nodded. "It's unlike this Inferi to go more than one or two days without contacting someone in the order. And he left with three others, plus at least that many squires. Given that and what Ser Dead-Woman-In-My-Head was raving about down in the warrens, there's probably something pretty bad going on out there."
Sitting back and stretching his legs out Tiernan rolled his head back to see that it was indeed still pouring outside, then groaned as a flash of lightning briefly brightened the room before plunging it back into the dim yellow glow of the lamp hanging from the middle of the ceiling. "Our reach only extends as far as the Inquisitorial garrison in Whiteshire. We don't send scouting parties any further west than Hark River. I don't even think we've maps beyond there that have been updated in this century."
"I'll worry about that later," said Drystan with a shrug.
"Typical." Tiernan scowled disapprovingly at the man. "You keep running off with your bootlaces only half-tied and you're going to trip and fall on your face sooner or later."
"You just said nobody has maps!" retorted the Inferi, resisting the urge to regress a decade and stick his tongue out at him. "And where the blazes are you coming up with these metaphors anyway? You're speaking like some crackpot wizard hocking paper fortunes at a carnival."
"I said the Inquisition doesn't have accurate maps. I never said there were none to be had." He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "If you just answer my questions, I'll help you."
"What?" Drystan stared across the room at him. "How, exactly?"
Tapping his temple he replied, "My father, uncle and I scouted leagues west of Hark River before they were murdered. The information in my head is fifteen or so years old, but it will be better than going out there blind."
The Inferi shook his head, knowing very well that Tiernan was capable of doing exactly that but not willing to ask the man for something that closely tied to the memories of his slaughtered family. "I appreciate it, but I'd rather not make you relive that."
"I'm not twelve anymore," snapped the man, insulted by his words. "And you'd do bloody well to remember that, you son of a bitch."
"Well excuse me!" He rubbed the side of his face and groaned. "It's not as if I meant it as an insult."
"Oh for the love of everything rooted," muttered Akkali, suddenly very awake and on her feet. Turning to her side she stabbed one finger at Tiernan though he could tell by her expression that she would have dearly liked to slap him across the face with something sharp. "You need to speak up and tell Drystan whatever you're brooding over before he leaves or get the hell over whatever your bloody problem is. Antenox does not have so many Inferi as to allow one to chase after something that is clearly the Inquisition's problem and I for one am damn worried about what has become of Archer. That man and his revenant just happen to be friends of mine who do not go missing unless they're actually missing body parts."
She wheeled around on Drystan an instant later, killing the smug grin that was starting to form on his face with a withering stare she normally only used on people a quarter of his age. "And you. You're an ass for walking out on Tiernan twice regardless of how high and mighty your reasons are, especially when you have been telling me for years now how he is supposedly like a brother to you. You just let him know the biggest bloody secret on Eral-one that happens to be pretty damn sacrilegious, if you remember what your stupid holy books say. You can't tell a zealot something like that and expect just him to just get over it and give you a hug."
He could feel Arathron laughing at the both of them and for the first time in recent memory he wished he had a way to reach out and punch the revenant just so he could shut the man up. The utterly dumbstruck, fish-mouthed look on Tiernan's face was only making the spirit laugh harder. He couldn't remember the last time someone had scolded him in such a manner, and obviously the Inquisitor couldn't either.
"Jansa, watch him," she said to the dog, pointing at Tiernan. Compliantly the mutt hopped off the bed and curled up on the floor between the Inquisitor and the door, keeping her mismatched eyes fixed on the man as she settled her head atop her crossed paws. "You idiots work out your damn issues."
Tiernan looked about ready to stand up and follow her out when a low growl from Jansa caused him to remain in place. "And where are you going?"
"Away from you two." She glared at him with the same look she had used on the Inferi. "Maybe I'll go downstairs and help the scullery maids before the cook slogs in. Maybe I'll go kill myself a tavern full of Returners and paint the town red with their entrails. I'm not sticking around two grown men mewling like a pair of spoiled princesses over whose feelings were hurt the worse when they showed up to the ball with the same bloody tiara."
"Akkali, it's pouring outside," Drystan insisted. "You're going to make yourself sick."
Glancing at the window she seemed to snarl at the weather, apparently having forgotten all about the rain in her anger at the both of them. "Then I guess I'll just be downstairs ignoring you two idiots."
She walked out without sparing them another scathing word, closing the door behind herself with a lot less force than she normally would have used when angry. Drystan watched her leave, realizing that without her there he had just lost his last method of avoiding meaningful conversation with Tiernan. It hadn't occurred to him how much he didn't want to explain himself to anyone until he was face to face with the man that wouldn't let up until he had a satisfactory answer to whatever puzzle he had decided to figure out.
He turned to look over at Tiernan and found him staring right back at him with his arms crossed against his chest and a rather disappointed frown on his face. "Just answer my questions, Drys."
Throwing his hands up in the air in surrender he sighed, "Fine. Ask away."
Tiernan watched his face carefully, and having employed the technique countless times in his own questionings he knew the man was watching for his tells to catch him in a lie. "Do you really believe in what you're doing?"
"Of course I do. What kind of question is that?"
"Knock it off, Drys," snapped the Inquisitor. "What happened to that Inferi that was at the tavern in Whiteshire? The one wearing the wolf pelts. Why isn't she the one giving you orders if she's the one that plucked you up in the first place?"
Drystan pursed his lips for a moment, not overly fond of sharing what had happened at the end of the fight with the Oratio in the City. After countless long minutes of uneasy silence he replied, "She and her revenant Samalyn decided to walk into the waters of Leilenheim rather than face what would become of them if they continued on after absorbing so much Pandemonium magic to defeat the Thrall. The well swallowed them whole."
A strange mix of fascination and disgust washed over Tiernan's face. "What would have become of them?"
"It's not something we generally like to talk about, Tier. We don't even discuss it among ourselves."
The man gave him a disappointed sneer. "So you have no clue."
Shaking his head, he leaned forward and propped his elbows up on his knees. "It's different for everyone. Some choose to kill themselves when they start feeling the change. Some go mad and lock themselves away. And still others... well..." He glanced up at his friend through strands of still-wet blond hair. "They become Exiles, and we put them down before they can do too much collateral damage."
"What change?"
Having no idea how to explain the feeling Drystan let Arathron answer for him. "'Tis not a change that can be seen. 'Tis more so a shift of purpose, from becoming one who hunts to protect to one who hunts to feed."
Though he looked clearly perturbed knowing that he was speaking with the revenant the Inquisitor pressed on with his questions. "Feed on what, exactly?"
"The magic of Pandemonium. A tainted but powerful energy which corrupts everything eventually, like the drug you have here... opium, I believe 'tis called. We Erenmi-revenants, as you call us-though we are from the City, cannot purify the taint which all magic from Pandemonium bears. We are simply better at coping with it than you humans because its containment was our purpose. The more gates we must siphon of power, the more spells we must deflect, the quicker the change comes upon us."
Tiernan's eyes narrowed as he realized he was no longer talking to Drystan himself. "So the longer you fight the more corrupted you become. You start... seeking out Pandemonium magic to... eat it?"
"In a sense, I suppose... Absorb is more of an accurate term. I do not eat magic-I find the thought quite foul, actually." Arathron pondered whether or not to continue on and Drystan managed to urge the revenant into finishing his thought. "The length of time differs for each pact made. When she and Samalyn chose their end, Erminhild Coord herself was over a hundred and fifty years of age. They had been fighting as an Inferi for well over a century. Enkiri, as I understand it, fare the best, but they in turn are plagued by... other things which best left for another day."
"You're not going to age," said Tiernan in a quiet tone. "Or get sick. Or become infirm. You'll just simply... decide to die one day, and that'll be it? Here lies Drystan Nighttyr, dead because he had a craving for tainted magic."
"Why are you so fixated on this?" asked Drystan as the revenant relinquished control once again.
"Why?" The man glared at him as if he had just uttered the most foolish question yet recorded by humanity. "Because you're my bloody friend, that's why. You're a shortsighted moron who has developed some seriously questionable tastes in associates but you're still you. What, do you think that simply because you were a complete jackass and threw eighteen years of your life out the window that's somehow going to make our years of friendship meaningless? I'm bloody well entitled to be concerned with if and how you die, idiot! Especially if there's a chance your death involves turning into a monstrous magic-eating fiend I myself may end up killing."
"Well," murmured the Inferi slowly, not quite sure how to take his friend's multiple assertions that he was a fool, "that particular circumstance is pretty rare."
"Junan's grace, Drys, that is not helping your case." Tiernan pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled a long, slow breath. "Listen to me. This entire... revenant thing is very... disconcerting. So is the fact you went tromping about in the City-I don't even want to hear about how you got there ever again. But saints help me, Drys, you had damn well better believe in what you're doing, and that whatever that happens to be, it's the right thing."
Drystan raised an eyebrow. "Right by Junan, or right by Eral?" Shaking his head he continued, "After everything I've seen, Tier, I can't tell you with a straight face I believe in everything the Verses of Redemption say anymore. Or... anything we were told as kids, really."
The Inquisitor shook his head. "Right by your own soul, Drys. And probably the soul of whatever fool was stupid enough to make that-what was it you called it, a pact-that pact with you. Arathron what's-his-name warden of the whatever."
He found himself laughing, half in relief and half in sheer amusement at Tiernan's flustered face. "All right, I think we can manage it."
Nodding, he got to his feet and headed for the door. As he reached out to lift the latch Jansa sprung to her feet and came to sit at his heel, seeming to glare at him with her mismatched eyes. "I'm just going to check and make sure she hasn't killed the innkeeper for looking at her sideways. Feel free to escort me, you crabby little mongrel."