The Mage Hunter - Chapter 3

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'This can't be right,' Athena was comparing the Cartographers' Guild information to that kept by the Order of the Mage Hunters. 'How could we not know who the dead mage was but we know two of his accomplices, neither of which are named Tremlor Aralius, but one is the man who…’ Athena didn’t have to finish her sentence for Cassida Rane to know who she was talking about.

‘You certain? Do we have illustrations?' Cassida Rane glanced over from his own search through the Book of Known Mages, a significant number were dead or imprisoned but some, too many for his liking, were free to summon carnage somewhere out in the world. Between them were copies of the ledger pages from the Cartographers' Guild. Not only had they made note of his name, the tasks he was to complete, how much he was paid, and whether he'd accepted the tasks at the main guild or an outpost but also made note of any accomplices on the jobs that required others, where he maintained residence, and his mark. The mage had signed the ledger with a wavy line inside a circle, clearly a Silver Serpent. Most who couldn’t write made their mark an X or an O. Cassida Rane thought Tremlor Aralius was attempting humour. rather than genuinely being illiterate. It was not a joke he found amusing.

'One is in profile but I’m certain it’s the same man, no name though, but the other one is like she sat down for her portrait,' Athena said, incredulous. 'How is she still running amok?'

'Not every visage is detailed by our own, sometimes it's taken from other records, Arstar used to require foreigners wear name cards with their likeness on them, Coradel keeps drawings of every lawbreaker not sentenced to execution. But many, like that one in profile, is hastily drawn by our own covert hunters in taverns, carriages, and elsewhere if they are unable to capture or kill the mage in question.'

'So not every Mage Hunter runs head first into danger as if hoping for their own death?' Athena pursed her lips.

'No,' Cassida Rane considered a lengthier response but thought better of it. Athena had been at a knife's edge because of him, the weapon in the hand of the mage they were chasing no less.

'Cowards,' Athena smirked.

Perhaps she doesn't blame me for it, at least not entirely, Cassida Rane laughed. 'Ask a scribe to make copies of those two. We're returning to Arstar.'

'You said all the mage's would have scattered.'

'That's before I knew what task the Cartographers' Guild had assigned them.'

'Them? All of them?'

Cassida Rane nodded. 'Massive survey into unknown lands. If they're hoarding scrips for some reason they aren't going to flee from this job now we've requisitioned this purse,' he patted the pouch of Silver Serpents resting on the table. Given this mage killed one of his compatriots I doubt he is fearful of us.'

'A rift between this group could work to our advantage,' Athena said. She was standing with the parchments in hand. 'When do we leave?'

'Get those copied, we leave tomorrow morning. First light.'

The carriage ride back to Arstar was uneventful. The road was clear, the morning dew glistening on the stalks of rye and wheat that lined the paved ridge heading into the city. They had left the morning prior and not stopped over night. Few people were on the road so early, even fewer due to harvest being around the corner. Wandering labourers and farmhands would have found a hold to work for so late in the season and cities like Arstar had tightened their purse strings ready for the restocking of the granaries and storehouses.

The carriage was courtesy of the Castrum, though it bore no official insignia and it was a common carriage with a single driver and one horse to pull it. The Mage Hunter's greatcloaks were symbol enough to those in the know but it was still unwise to announce their presence from the off. Cassida Rane had the driver ride into the city and along the exterior road that sat under the shadow of the walls connecting gatehouse to gatehouse. Halfway between the Morning Gate they had entered and the watchtower at the eastern corner was a guest house called The Gilded Shrew, which fronted an Order of the Mage Hunters outpost. He tried not to use the same one twice in the same year if he could.

'Planning a long stay?' Athena furrowed her brow as she stepped out of the carriage, accepting the driver's hand in assistance.

'Better to be prepared than caught short,' Cassida Rane hopped down, paid the driver with a Castrum promissory note and retrieved the small bundles of luggage from the roof. He led Athena into the establishment. Two women were wiping down tables, fair haired and dressed in long daub dresses, while a balding man swept the floor. The thud of a cleaver echoed from a kitchen deeper into the building. 'Good morning,' Cassida Rane announced.

'Morning,' the man sweeping replied with a gruff accent. He was heavyset and bore a criss cross of scars on his knuckles. 'Looking for a room? The price will not include today's breakfast, that'd be extra.' He leant his broom against a high narrow table and reached behind the bar for a key before, finally, turning to see his “guests.” 'Oh, err, apologies masters,' his accent softened and became polished. He returned the guest room key to its hook behind the bar.

'Understandable mistake so early,' Cassida Rane regarded the two women, but neither flinched at the man's change. 'I haven't stayed at this particular guest house before, I'd be thankful for directions.'

'Of course, if you take that hallway,' he pointed behind him to a dark corner under the staircase. 'You'll find a door at the end, you'll need...' He went behind the bar and spent some moments finding a set of keys. 'This one,' he held up a brass key, 'opens the door at the end of the hallway.' He found a silver one, 'This opens the main chamber and the rest open the various bedrooms and other... err... closets.' He set the keys in Cassida's hand.

'Thank you, my goodman.'

'Let me know if you need anything.'

'Something to eat and a basin of hot water,' Cassida Rane headed for the inconspicuous corridor, Athena at his heels.

'Coming right up,’ the man headed in the opposite direction to Cassida and Athena.

'No names?’ Athena asked, in a hushed tone.

'No names. Maintains a measure of ignorance as a precaution.'

'Against what?'

'Capture by mages or allies of mages, plans being leaked, being tracked down… I don’t know it's been a long time,' he set the brass key in the first door and it unlocked with a tinny click. 'At this point it's tradition not to give names at outposts.'

'I... see... and the main guildhall in Arstar was what? Haunted?' Athena shut the door behind her.

'No, but it will be watched. I would like to at least attempt to remain incognito.’

‘Watched by whom?’ Athena asked. She had grown up in a world where the Mage Hunters were respected and mages so rare some people thought they didn’t exist at all. Cassida Rane had too but he had had history drilled into him from an early age, not that he remembered the details but merely the conclusions. Athena had lacked the luxury of a bookworm master.

Cassida Rane shrugged, somethings his apprentice had to figure out on her own. The corridor before him was pear shaped with five doors leading off it. Each door was curved to fit the curve of the wall and fitted with a gargoyle knocker fit with thick fangs and a wolf-like snout. A thin layer of dust sat upon the brass handles of each door save for the nearest on the left. He tried to open the dustless door but it was locked. He thought better of finding the key in case a fellow Mage Hunter was using it, though he suspected not he did not let his suspicions get the better of him. ‘The door directly ahead leads to a common room, a pantry, and a few other cubbies. The others are all bedrooms, pick any that are unoccupied, meaning the unlocked ones.’ Cassida Rane chose the one nearest on the right. The door opened without issue and he went inside. He closed the door, sighed, and leant back against the curved oak.

The room had a chill, the fireplace barren for what seemed an age. A stack of logs to one side was home to a nest of dust and cobwebs. Cassida Rana knelt before the fire. He managed to get a fire going, although it took him longer than expected. As he stood up there was a knock at the door.

‘Your hot water,’ a voice echoed in the pear shaped atrium.

Cassida Rane let the man in and he set the basin and jug on the dresser with a washcloth and linen to dry himself.

‘A meal is on its way,’ the proprietor smiled as he left.

No sooner was he out the door than one of the fair haired ladies entered with a plate of poached eggs, pepper sausage, two rounds of fresh bread, and a dollop of butter. She set it down on the small dining table, curtsied, and left without a word. Cassida Rane pondered her silence but soon forgot it as the peppery aroma filled his nostrils. He sat down and noticed a slip of paper beneath the plate. The bone white paper was folded twice and sealed with a plain stamp of wax and inside was a message which read:

The Council of Chapter Commanders has served Vice Master Tiberius an ultimatum. “Begin the election for a new Grand Master or be removed from office.” The Commanders are not guaranteed to have the votes, someone has been convincing members of Tiberius’s virtues.

Remain in the field as long as you can, I do not foresee this ending well.

Ascalon

Cassida Rane sat back feeling much less hungry than before. The decision must have been made mere hours after him and Athena had left. Few ultimatums had been served in the Order’s history, only one had resolved without bloodshed. The Vice Master had allies, friends, loyalists, those who owed him their success or position both within and without of the guild, some were Chapter Commanders and Ascalon had made no mention of if their decision had been unanimous. Cassida Rane knew it wouldn’t have been. He could think of at least three staunch Tiberius supporters, Darius, Fosca, and Lilith. All fine Mage Hunters in their own right and people he would rather not have as his enemies. He ate mindlessly, only managing half the meal before washing himself of the road.

Later on, closer to noon, he stepped out into the pear shaped atrium and called for Athena, not knowing which room she had chosen. She appeared a score of breaths later. They each locked their doors in silence and headed out the front entrance, Cassida Rane locked the door from the main bar too.

The sun had reached its zenith and the hum of the city was at full cacophony. The humid scent of dung lingered in the air as donkeys, horses, and cattle were driven up and down the street either to be sold at market or pulling wagons behind them. Chickens, cats, and dogs scurried by too, headed to market as food, rat catchers, and loyal guards. The press of animals and people flowed like a river with myriad opposing currents that somehow never clashed.

‘We head to the building we found the Silver Serpents in,’ Cassida Rane told Athena and then dropped into the stream of people, allowing himself to be carried onwards. As the torrents of man flowed hither and thither he considered the possibility that someone, probably the mage who had got hold of Athena, had gone back to search the place. Dispose of the body and unearth any other secrets. He drifted to the edge of the street and flitted towards an alleyway like a piece of silt. Athena was still behind him, her expression impassive.

A few twists and turns later and the master and apprentice were on another bustling street and soon turned onto the avenue with their destination. The building looked much the same as it had before, save the top floor window shutters were now all closed meaning someone had been inside. Cassida Rane hoped it was merely the landlord and the city watch.

The building had two entrances he now saw but he was loathe to send Athena round the back in case there was someone, or someones, inside. The avenue was wide enough for a cart or two horses passing and the buildings were three or more storeys high, the floors stacked on top of each other as second thoughts. A gaggle of older women were coming down from one end while a few workless men milled around drinking sour wine. Cassida Rane decided to try the front door and to his surprise it was unlocked. He opened it into darkness, one of the men gasping then coughing. Cassida Rane didn’t know whether it was the sour wine or that he had stepped foot inside this particular property and he didn’t have the inclination to ask.

Athena quickly found a candle, lit it, and shut the door behind them. The soft glow illuminated the derelict home. A thick layer of dust and grit lay on the table and benches, cobwebs hung from the corners of the ceiling and off the cabinets, long dead flowers lay in a scattering of petals along the windowsill, their stem grey and wilted in the vase. Plants were mere husks and mice scurried for the last of the rotten crumbs. Cassida Rane found his own candle and began to search. The cabinets had all been opened, ransacked, or smashed. Linen lay in heaps on the floor, crockery, tankards, old smoking pipes, broken pieces of pottery, odds and ends of thread and cloth and yarn. Someone had been here looking for something. Cassida Rane headed up the stairs, were that faint light had led him to the corpse of a mage many days ago. There was no light, no trace to follow this time. Whoever had returned had refrained from using their influence.

Cassida Rane reached the top floor room, the door was open, the body gone. A stain remained on the floor boards, a deep dark brown in the vague shape of a person. The bed had been flipped, the pillows and mattress torn apart littering the room with straw and wool. The wardrobe was open, emptied whatever it had held. At the foot of the bed was an enormous chest, big enough for Cassida Rane to have hidden inside, and it was closed. Hope swelled but when he opened it disappointment came swift. The chest was empty save for a few torn scraps of paper, the lid was too heavy to remain open. He retrieved the scraps and headed back downstairs.

Athena had opened the shutters and daylight now flooded the lower floors for the first time in years, judging by the dust floating in the air. No room had been left untouched, whether by their target or by moths. Every rug, curtain, pillow, and item of clothing had little holes in them from being turned into moth food.

‘There is nothing here, save these scraps. I don’t know the language it is written in, possibly some sort of cipher,’ Cassida Rane said.

‘I found a book,’ Athena held up a leather bound tome. The gold text on the spine had faded to nothing but a few flecks, the stitching holding the pages together was frayed and loose. She opened to the frontispiece, ‘The War of the Black Arts; A Comprehensive History. Author unnamed, claims to have been printed in the Year of the Seventh Turning two thousand three hundred and eighty five.’

‘One hundred and twenty eight years ago… That is not a common book to have lying around the kitchen,’ Cassida Rane said.

A shadow stretched over them from the doorway, ‘I told you not to hunt me.’

Cassida Rane drew his ankacite sword.

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