At first, the party knew little of this, for Dopplegilghul disappeared from their knowledge, and no more was heard of him for some time. Those who had traveled to the Hoita River eventually met with those who had traveled to the Temple of Hermes (without Slepnir's aid it was a two day walk). On the first day it was noticed that Flamefeather's body did not cool, but in fact grew warm to the point that it was almost too hot to handle. It was wise Noose who suggested burning the body (as it was a custom of his people anyway, and Flamefeather's name seemed to suggest it). A bier was duly built and lit, and the smoke and fire rose to the heavens, and when the flames were at their peak Flamefeather stepped alive from them, whole and unharmed, but missing the Phoenix feather that was her dearest possession.
When those who had traveled to the Hoita River met with those who had not, another opportunity was granted to speak with the high priest of the temple, who advised them to seek a holy hermit who lived in the mountains to the north. Mercy's injuries prevented her from accompanying the party, and she remained at the town of Crossroads, guarding Water Spider, along with Daniel Moon and Measure Strangemask, who were still cursed by Hermes, and dared not undertake a long journey. The remainder of the group - Shekkara, Flamefeather, Noose, Gilghul, and Nightsky - traveled high into the mountains, there to meet with a crazy old hermit who led them on a dreamquest. That night each traveled to the citadel that some had seen previously in dreams [card V69 - Ed] but this time they were able to walk up the final step and stand directly before the gate. Though still unable to make out the figure in the doorway, each was able to hear the whispers of the gate guardians. "Go back," they whispered, "go back. The gift-givers must be stopped before they give their gift, else all is lost. Go back. Go back. This was but an illusion, a trick, a misdirection by the gift-givers. Go back. Go back. Seek the quiet. The quiet seek. Break the silence to find the path. The gift-givers rely on silence. To defeat them, you must defeat the quiet. Now. Go back."
This dream made those who experienced it very uneasy - it felt like a bad dream, and everyone agreed that they were missing something. Shekkara used her mind magic to probe the minds of any who consented, and found that each person had, in fact, dreamed essentially the same dream, though Shekkara spoke to the creature on the left, Flamefeather to the one on the upper right, Noose to the one on the lower right, and both Gilghul and Nightsky stood on the upper step but heard no instructions.
Noose spoke with the spirits, but the spirits weren't interested in talking about the dream - they were interested in talking about the disturbances to the afterlife brought about by a new force that was traveling the land - a force of chaos which stretched between this world and the next, which grew more powerful as the days went by, and which was now reaching beyond the veil to gain power from the souls of the dead.
They wanted to talk about Dopplegilghul, and the prophesy which Dapple had granted Noose. Now, they said, was the time. Now Noose must interpret the prophesy and find the weapon to defeat this creature, else all of Temple would be destroyed. Time was short. Days had been wasted. And while the dead do not usually count the days, those with whom Noose conversed had a very keen sense of time.
While they were gone, those at Crossroads felt the first stirrings of the War gods. Jack Shadowkin reappeared and attacked the party with a dagger from Battlefield, slaying Daniel Moon and wounding Mercy before finally being slain himself by the combined efforts of Waterspider, Measure Strangemask, and the Crossroads militia. Parties of armed raiders struck at the town several times, and rumors told of the great kingdoms mobilizing armies for the first time in over a thousand years.
Those who had traveled to see the hermit returned to find that war stalked the land. Noose, struggling to determine the focus of the prophesy, suggested that the party travel to the sea, hoping to gain insight into what he sought. But with the gods of war abroad, and seemingly in a blood frenzy, the party found its way blocked, and was eventually confronted by Dopplegilghul himself, along with the demigods Phobos and Deimos. In the battle which followed Gilghul and Nightsky were both slain, most of the rest of the party was injured (some such as Noose quite severely) and Measure Strangemask's mask was shattered by a blow from Deimos. However, the death of Gilghul at the hands of the demigods weakened Dopplegilghul momentarily and Nightsky was able to lop off his head with his dying stroke. While this did not kill Dopplegilghul it did break the link between whatever power had been feeding him and the realm of Temple, freeing the more sensible war gods and allowing the various pantheons to curb the power of Ares and others like him.
Sometime during the confusion, of the battle and its aftermath, Water Spider slipped away. Upon discovering his absence Shekkara once again attempted to use her mind magic to locate him, but the psychic turmoil in the area prevented this. None Flamefeather followed his tracks for several hours, but was never able to catch him, and a sudden rainstorm finally obscured the trail. Noose conversed with the spirits, who claimed that he yet lived, but otherwise were largely uninformative on the subject, commenting only that it was not yet his time to die.
Battered and injured, with several party members dead, the remainder
agreed to return to Everway and confer with the Librarians on the next
course of action.
The feast had not been a big one, for the survivors of Walker's Market have little enough to spare, but the band had been treated to enough feasts in their honor already - the quality of this one was less important than the spirit in which it had been given.
Mercy walks quietly among the carts, away from the fire where her companions warm themselves. Though the rain is little more than a drizzle it has been steady for hours, and the occasional drop falls from her battered hat or the bedraggled feather to land on her shoulders. She pauses a moment, looks at the sky, then at the fire, then at the earth beneath her feet. She draws a deep breath, feeling the air fill her lungs.
"The four elements," she thinks, "they are with us always. Did the Librarians do this on purpose, so that we might always be surrounded by reminders of our duty?"
She sighs, and turns to look up at the gate, dimly silhouetted by the fire. "By the Walker," she breathes, "has it only been three months?"
Three months... three months since she stepped through that gate, full of fire and hot for revenge against the man who had almost killed her. Three months less a day from the time she had taken that revenge, had beaten Waterspider bloody and senseless at the edge of the Hoita River, had felt the satisfaction of feeling his lip split, his nose break as she pummeled him with her fist in the waist deep water.
Three months since he stuck a knife in her during that fight, and damned near killed her again. If not for Jack Shadowkin, she would have bled to death there on the banks of the Hoita River. As it was, the wound laid her up for two weeks. Two weeks that Daniel Moon didn't have before the very same Jack Shadowkin used a Battlefield dagger to take his life, before he himself was brought to bay by Measure Strangemask and the Crossroads militia and spitted on a spearpoint.
"Was my revenge really worth Daniel Moon's life?" Mercy ponders the question, then shrugs and shakes her head, scattering water from her hat. "Too many questions." she thinks. "Too many dead."
A snatch of a ballad flows through her head like water from an unexpected spring, and she chants the words softly under her breath:
"This lonely traveller longs for grace,Gilghul had seemed like a nice guy when she first met him at the Fortress of Chance, such an idiot when they confronted the Basahn trader, and so careless when the party entered the realm of the Crookstaffs. Daniel Moon had been the Fool, but the Fool reversed - never a connection with reality, never a focus. But he had saved so many here at Walker's Market that the villagers were building a monument to him. Nightsky had been unknown, and as far as she could tell unknowable as well - a puzzle wrapped in an enigma. But by the Walker
For the mercy of the gods; grief hangs on
His heart and follows the frost-cold foam
He cuts the sea, sailing endlessly,
Aimlessly, in exile. Fate has opened
A single port: memory. He sees
His kinsmen slaughtered again, and cries:
'I've drunk too many lonely dawns,
Grey with mourning. Once there were men
To whom my heart could hurry, hot
With open longing. They're long since dead'"
Exiled. Stickytoes. Flux. Granite Mouse. Corvus. Akkaman. So many gone. So quickly. Of those who stood that first day in the Chamber of the Four Elements only Flamefeather and she herself remain.
Measure leans back and sighs, "So, tomorrow we return," in a voice revealing mixed emotions - a longing to return, disappointment at the lack of progress in the real Quest, and a degree of weariness - the past three months have been hard and there is much to do in Everway. "When we have returned, I must go my own way for a time. If you need me, send word to the Fortress of Chance - I will attend to it when I can"
Shekkara looks into the fire as though trying to make a decision, then murmurs, "As much as I hate to leave untidy ends, I am not loathe to leave this place. For all our efforts, my brother's death has been in vain and those responsible have not yet been brought to justice. Perhaps the Librarians will have other leads to follow..."
Noose scratches absent-mindedly at the splint on his broken arm. "Well, I certainly won't claim to understand even a fraction of what's gone on here. But anything which can make the Dead sit up in their graves and take notice is worth investigating further. I'll come with you all to Everway, if no one objects. I haven't been to the Library there in some time."
Measure replies, thoughtful. "Why leave it to the Librarians ? I have access to other resources and I intend to use them. For instance the enemy had a presence in Everway right up to our departure - including a mage powerful enough to produce the doppelGighul. Both my family and my mother's try to keep track of such people - and perhaps you have contacts in the Stangerside magical community ?"
Mercy nods. "Certainly the Strangemasks have treated us better than the Library thus far - to the best of my knowledge they have insinuated no traitors or assassins into our ranks due to a random draw of a deck of cards. The three of us," she points to herself, Flamefeather, and Shekkara, "are all oath-sworn to the Library, but even so I think it is time that we started distancing ourselves as much as our oaths allow. Whatever we are involved in is powerful, subtle, and goes right to the core of Everway's power. Our foes have access to weapons from Battlefield, apparently in plentiful supply. They have been able to insinuate troublemakers in our ranks. They have the services of a mage so powerful that he is able to create a doppleganger of Gilghul, an act which disrupted the entire sphere of Temple."
She half-heartedly throws a stick into the fire. "And I will wager that it doesn't get any easier from here," she finishes quietly.
"Mercy may be right about the Library, but then, in my world one would not ever trust those within one's own Temple, and I think the Library would definitely count as a Temple. As for contacts in the magical community, Akkaman and I made few contacts, and we met Mercy and Flamefeather while under a hostile spell from an unknown magical quarter." Shekkara looks at Strangemask as she continues, "If you have any more reliable contacts, I would like to meet them."
Flamefeather listens carefully to everyone's words, uncharacteristically subdued. She glances at Measure Strangemask, biting her lower lip. Finally, she nods, staring at a distant firelight for a moment.
"If we are to find anything in Everway," she muses, "it will be in Strangerside. Secrets rooted so deep into the structures of Everwayan power will be protected in the armour of tradition, but in Strangerside the balance is different. Determination, cunning, and the occasional bribe can open more doors there..." She looks at Measure's new, featureless mask and tries to see his eyes behind.
"The Obeyers served at The Fortress of Chance for a year," she continues, "and everything they hear or see, the god Kwan-Ti also perceives. Kwan-Ti is a god of both war and fortune, and so tangled in the theft in several ways. After the theft of the Everway Tarot, he had ordered the Obeyers, who are bound to him, to offer their services to Whimsy Strangemask. What have they seen and done for him during their time at the Fortress? What did he learn or do?" She shakes her head, frowning, then turns her gaze to the gate.
"Tomorrow, we may be awaited as we step out of the Walker's Gate," she murmurs. "I am of a mind to cross early to Everway, tonight even. We could go directly to the Fortress of Chance and try to take any Everwayan spies by surprise, perhaps dig a bit under the surface before we report to the Librarians."
Measure ponders Flamefeather's words. "Your proposal is not lacking in merit, but there are risks to be considered. If you are awaited, the Librarians will know that you returned early and did not report back. I do not think that the Librarians are united against this Quest - but you run the risk of losing all support by making your distrust open."
He shifts. "Perhaps it would be better if those of us not sworn to the Library returned first to set things in motion. If there are messages you would send, things you would know before acting we can make a start. And let us not overlook the significance of the Gilghul doppelganger. Where there is one there may be more. Who knows how many people have been copied and replaced ?"
"Measure, your plan seems a good one." Mercy reaches into a pouch at her waist and pulls out a scroll. "We of the Chamber Platinum were all given one of these. We know that they carry some magic. It may be possible for those of the Library to detect our presence in Everway, should they be searching for us. You and Noose, should he agree to accompany you, should be the ones to go to the Fortress of Chance. Noose is unknown in Everway, or at the very least his association with us is not common knowledge."
Mercy returns the scroll to its pouch. "Shekkara, Flamefeather, and I should go from the Walker's Pyramid directly to the Library of All Worlds. Whether we arrive now or in the morning is not of particular importance, though we stand a better chance of surprise if we return now. On the other hand, it would perhaps be better to enhance the surprise value of you and Noose. Certainly we should not arrive together."
"I suggest that you and Noose go now. As a resident of Everway you should be able to get into Strangerside. We will go at first light. Since the travel time through the gate varies somewhat, we may arrive either before you or after you, but it is unlikely we will arrive at the same time. When we have made contact with the Library we will seek you out in Strangerside at the Fortress of Chance. If you do not hear from us within a week, come looking."
Flamefeather gives a sharp nod of agreement to Mercy's words, and sends a small shower of droplets flying. Absentmindedly, she wipes from her face the water left by the drizzling rain. "I look forward to untangling this skein," she murmurs. "Noose, what do you say to this plan?"
Noose stands and shoulders his pack, taking care not to jostle his broken arm. "I'm ready, Measure. On the way, you can explain to me precisely what's at stake in Everway. I've only been to the City once, and my understanding of its politics is lacking."
The featureless mask bobs. "That's settled then. Let's get our things together. Explaining all of Everway's politics would take years, and I don't know how the alliances have shifted in the last three months - but I'll try to explain what you need to know".
"Good luck to you both," says Flamefeather. "Some of the Eternal Ones at least are on our side." She shivers.
After Measure and Noose walk through the Gate, Flamefeather, Mercy and Shekkara walk back to the buildings, dry up and turn in for the night.
Shekkara peers out from under her cloak into the drizzle to watch their
companions go. "Eternal Ones? It could be they're just very,
very old, and very, very bored to play with us so. If we're lucky,
we may never know. Goodnight, Flamefeather. Goodnight, Mercy.
Goodnight, Akkaman." Shekkara settles back under the cloak to get
some rest.
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