Jackal Among Snakes

Everyone stirred, most of them grumbling. Barring the untiring Orion, only Artur looked to be awake, but that was only because he hadn’t fallen asleep. Dark circles marred his eyes from a tired night. Argrave sympathized, but he couldn’t slow his trot for the Magister with dwarfism, pitiable though insomnia was. After all, it was do or die time. And Argrave much preferred the do.

“Get up. Get up!” he shouted eagerly. “You can’t sleep while the world’s catching on fire.”

#####

When they came back to the Mother’s Steppes, Anneliese waited there for him on the grasslands before the first of many altars. They reunited with a hug, and the others stood around awkwardly as they caught up, still waking after Argrave’s greeting.

“You succeeded,” she said when she pulled away. “Congratulations.”

“Failed a lot before that,” Argrave admitted.

“Hmm,” she stared at him. “I see it. The echoes. Like faint maroon shadows following your movements. It is… rather bewitching,” she admitted.

Argrave smiled—he’d been nervous about how she might take it, seeing as she disliked Garm’s eyes so much. “Is everything prepared?” he asked her.

“Yes,” Anneliese nodded, refocused. “Exactly as you wanted it, I think. Provided you obtained the essence from the other side, then all that remains is creation.”

“I did get it, little lady. Let’s go,” he pulled her along, heading for the altar with determined steps. “Let me tell you how deep we’re into this, Anne…”

Perplexed, she followed after as he caught her up to speed with the foe they faced.

#####

The sole boon they had in rousing the elven pantheon was the ability to travel quickly by utilizing the Mother’s Steppes. Though allowing fast travel, walking across those grass plains frozen in time with Sarikiz sleeping amidst all of it made Argrave uncomfortable. The Holy Mother uneased him, like she might wake up at any moment and cause problems. But waking gods was rough enough work and doing it accidentally would be quite the feat. He only hoped that the centaurs paid him little mind from that icy lake they took refuge atop.

The key to allowing gods freedom from their other realm before their time was something well-documented in a side quest down in the old dwarven cities, where the Ebon Cult persisted. The most important factor was giving the gods on the other side an anchor to this one. With an anchor in place, they could manifest through their own efforts. There, the process of melding the mortal and the immortal worlds would begin for this cycle of judgment.

An anchor to the mortal realm required two things, primarily—something containing an aspect of the gods themselves, like the favor Argrave had been given, and something persisting on this realm that was directly tied to them. It might be, for instance, a weapon they’d used in battle during the last cycle, or a garment they’d worn while manifested on this realm.

Fortunately for them, finding items they valued had already been attended to. Argrave had merely circumvented the cycle in talking to Chiteng, using spirits from another source to empower him briefly. The other parties had been tasked with the more conventional method of awakening. Grimalt, Bastel, and Rasten, his Veidimen officers, had been assigned larger parties for the purpose of finding, securing, and using these items.

Anneliese dealt with the minutiae of the ritual for each altar—ensuring that the environment suited the god in question properly so as to ensure the process went smoothly, gathering excess items of sentimental purpose to strengthen the anchor, and other such tasks to make sure everything went flawlessly.

The altar she’d visited was Merata’s, and it was the first place they stopped. The altar had been overrun by small bloodsucking woodland creatures, and so retrieving the man’s item—his crook—had come difficultly, she told him. But Moriatran had come with her, and she said that helped with that task. And in the end, they stood before that altar.

#####

Anneliese planted the crook into the ground before the rock altar of Merata, unadorned and unimpressive just as Chiteng’s had been. Wildlife bloomed up it, rising up the rock and onto the grasping roots of the Bloodwoods in a display of his unchecked yet unwitting power. Elsewhere, there was a sickle, a pair of sandals… all items of Merata’s, placed here to enhance the strength of the anchor.

Anneliese had done well. Argrave felt rather uncomfortable seeing the crook that had been placed at his neck not yesterday, but he pushed past that and placed the silver coin acting as the elven pantheon’s favor in place atop the crook. He balanced it gingerly, then stepped away.

“And lastly…” Argrave looked back. “The blood and prayer of an earnest worshipper.”

Ganbaatar returned Argrave’s gaze, then looked to the crook and coin. Everyone looked at him expectantly.

“…maybe we ought to find someone else. I didn’t know your circumstances about the whole disavowal,” Argrave clasped his hands together. “You can still contact your people, right? You have friends, don’t you? True believers?”

“I’ll do it, damnit,” Ganbaatar stepped forward, untying the loops on his leather bracers to free his arms.

Once the bracer was off, Argrave watched as Ganbaatar drew his knife and cut his forearm. He held it out, letting it pour out over the crook and coin both. Anneliese made to heal him, but he waved her away and held his hands together.

Nothing happened for a time, and Argrave watched the coin expectantly. As time ticked by, he looked at the rejoining Moriatran, who remained reticent as ever. Anneliese claimed he had been quite the large boon in clearing a path to obtain this crook. He didn’t quite have the measure of the man yet, but was thankful to him nonetheless. He looked back to Ganbaatar, but things remained slow.

“…maybe think about why you believed in the first place,” Argrave suggested.

Ganbaatar exhaled in what might’ve been annoyance. Argrave stepped away, letting him do his work in peace. He looked at Nikoletta, Mina, and Anneliese in turn, waiting patiently. Finally, he looked back and was about to suggest heading back when dancing teal sprites emerged from the silver coin, wreathing around the crook. In time, these sprites jumped to the sickle, then the sandals, and then every other item of import in this room.

And without so much as a noise, they all vanished, fading away like breath on a mirror. The coin fell through the air, and Ganbaatar quickly grabbed it before it touched the ground.

“Hey,” Argrave said in surprised pleasure. “There you go. That’s done it,” he patted the elf’s shoulder.

“…I decided to proffer one last chance,” Ganbaatar said lightly, handing him the coin back. “Despite their failings… if they can help us, I want that.”

Argrave didn’t know how to respond for a moment, then said quietly, “…well, you’ll have to proffer a couple more last chances, considering that was the first of many stops we need to make.”

Ganbaatar sighed.

“Be thankful you have this chance,” Orion’s voice came, hard yet raw.

#####

Throughout the whole day, they gradually reunited with the other members of this expeditionary force as they headed for each altar in turn. All things considered, it had been quite a fruitful day and he was proud of the work he’d done. Though he hadn’t done much of anything—he’d let the others take care of it all. That was the role of the king, he supposed. He talked to the leaders, and now he let his people do all the bleeding.

Then again, he’d done enough bleeding for all of them yesterday.

Argrave sat down in the endless grassland, Anneliese by his side while the rest of the party camped out in the tents of the Veidimen’s making. Though a short while had passed, he was still happy to rest and catch up with her. They’d managed to knock out half of the anchors today, and the rest would come tomorrow. Now, the burden rested on the gods to manifest themselves. He was a little muddy about the specifics of this, but he was relatively confident it would work out well. If not, he’d figure something out.

“You were right about that self-pity being useless spiel. Hell of a motivator,” he told her absently.

“You carried yourself well,” she praised him. “I cannot imagine going through that.”

“The abandoned dwarven cities faced this scenario previously—there, Gerechtigkeit used his influence to thin the boundaries between realms, causing gods to emerge earlier there,” Argrave explained to Anneliese. “Presumably he sought to curb the Castellan of the Empty and his waxing power, as Gerechtigkeit viewed them as a big threat.” Argrave stroked his chin. “Little humbling, reflecting on that. Means Gerry’s scared of me enough to do all of this.”

Anneliese nodded, looking at distant rising smoke. “What does this mean for the dwarven cities?”

Argrave blinked for a moment, then shook his head. “No use to think on that. I need help, Anne. The difficult part remains carrying out this ridiculous plan of mine to combat Kirel. Any refinements to what I told you?”

Anneliese opened her mouth to respond, but closed it and looked elsewhere.

“Argrave…” came a man’s voice, and Argrave turned his head to see Artur standing where Anneliese looked. The Magister continued, “We should talk.”

“Talk?” he repeated, displeased to be interrupted. “We’ve been working hard all day, and you didn’t sleep. You should—”

Anneliese grabbed his arm. When he turned his head, puzzled, she shook her head and looked at Artur in concern. Evidently whatever he had to say had gravity.

“…alright, let’s talk,” Argrave eventually gave in.

“When you were in that realm…” Artur looked off to the side, his eyes dark and colorless. “Someone appeared before me. An elven woman.”

“What do you mean, appeared?” Argrave asked, completely caught off guard. “She snuck in, what?”

“I mean she appeared,” Artur managed a glance at Argrave’s eye, but could not hold it for long. “She was suddenly there—not a step, not a sound. White hair, tan skin…”

“Amber eyes?” Anneliese asked, her mind quicker than Argrave’s by half a second.

Artur looked at her. “Precisely. I briefly pondered if it was you, Your Highness, for half a second, but she was shorter, with far longer ears…”

“Hold on, hold on…” Argrave stood suddenly, feeling a sinking feeling in his chest. “You’re serious? Wha—” he sputtered in panic, then gathered himself to ask deliberately, “When did this happen?”

“After you had returned from the elven realm the first time,” Artur managed to look up at Argrave. “She provided me with a letter.”

“A letter,” Argrave repeated, then asked quickly, “Where is it? What did it say?”

Artur closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “It was a contact from a business associate of mine. Or… someone who I thought was a business associate, but now…?” he sighed. “In it, he called in a favor I owed him. It was about your activities here.”

Argrave stepped forward and grabbed the Magister’s arm. “You got a letter from Onychinusa while I was in the god damned elven realm… and you didn’t think to tell me?” he said in a low voice. “Didn’t think to inform me immediately?”

“What in the blazes was I supposed to do?!” Artur ripped his arm free. “A woman appears from mist and bursts into it again in not half a second, delivering an enchanted letter from a man I’ve conversed with for years! Gods be damned, I’ve met this man in person!” he yelled defensively, holding his arms wide. “She was a monstrous spellcaster, well capable of killing me before I could even blink. She found me in some dank underground altar where there was more blood than air. Who knows if she was listening? Who knows what she’d have done if I started spilling my guts the moments you got out of that portal? What do you expect from me?!”

Argrave pinched his fingers together before and held them before the man’s face, shouting, “The bare minimum, which is to tell me!” He stepped away, throwing up his hands. “Do you know what this means? I’ve got the laser focus of over half a dozen gods on me, eagerly watching to see if I’m trying to screw them over, and I’ve just woken most of them up. They’re already suspicious of me, but now you’re—”

“It is already done,” Anneliese interrupted him with a firm voice.

Her voice brought him away from the rising panic and fear pushing out his paranoid thoughts into harsh words. He calmed and quieted, stepping away from the man and walking towards Anneliese before he did anything else that was unbecoming.

But the paranoia did not end so quickly. Erlebnis was here, and he knew exactly what Argrave was doing, where he had gone, and who he travelled with. Was Artur compromised? Was this letter some bait to sow dissent? Artur was the only of them who’d refused to enter the realm of the elves… did that have meaning behind it, or was it a coincidence? Were other members of his group part of this, involved in this, informing on him? Moriatran, perhaps, or one of the hundreds of Veidimen under his command, could all be watching, reporting, and waiting. But to what end?

“First Kirel… now this?” Argrave shook his head, then as he reflected on the whole situation started to laugh slowly.

“Why are you laughing?” Artur asked from behind.

Argrave turned back, still laughing. After a while, he explained, “Sometimes things are so thoroughly messed up you just have to laugh.”

Anneliese put her hand on his shoulder, offering quiet assurance in a time of distress. He put his hand over hers idly, trying to focus on how he might get out of this pit. Anneliese hadn’t indicated that Artur had been lying at all. Still, he’d need her insight once this conversation was finished.

When Argrave was calm enough to think clearly, he asked, “What did the letter ask of you, precisely? Do you still have it?”

“No. It was enchanted better than anything I’m capable of, and burnt the moment I finished reading it,” the Magister shook his head, then looked up. “It mentioned what you were doing here,” Artur explained, finally able to meet Argrave’s gaze without turning away. “And it asked me to meet him in person.”

Argrave closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose, at a total loss. This alliance he’d earned was shaky enough as is, but with this… he could only laugh again, reflecting on how desperate things were getting.

“Do you think I should meet with him?” Artur asked.

Argrave opened his eyes and looked at him squarely. “Who?”

“Dimocles,” Artur answered.