Chapter 6

A Chapter by Pyre

Hasn't been edited yet, so please forgive all the errors and mistakes =) This is the first translation from handwritten to type written =x

Chapter 6 (S2P1)

Section 2:

The Evolution of Night

“Although today we tread this path of darkest night,

Hold fast all ye faithful.

For in time there will come a dawn to vanquish shadow,

And Bring the Light.”

-Excerpt from The Book of Dawn

“Of all the burdens I have borne, I think her slight form have have been the greatest.” He murmured to himself on the steps of her home. He remembered well the day she had swept into his world, like a whirlwind she had rearranged all in her path. A tempest amongst leaves she had upset the balance of things, forever refusing to let the world remain. She had changed him, he accepted that. She had thought she could change this place for the better, she had been naive.

It was the same day he had started to question, he questioned now as he had once always questioned. Unthinking faith was the stuff of soldiers, not leaders. Or so Valmora had once told him when he asked her why she tolerated all his questions when she allowed not a single one from any other. He certainly questioned now, as he hadn't in untold centuries. He had found himself near her by accident at first. He just found himself at that particular market, or that specific street where she just happened to be. The guardsmen had smiled when he came by, even they noticed him watching. She was hard to miss, he had to admit, a radiant sunburst in a wash of gray. Eventually he admitted to himself that she intrigued him. But even that small admission had taken three years and several kegs of ale plied continuously upon him by several other officers. How quickly time had passed since that day.

He wandered through the merchant quarter as his thoughts tread a similar path through the city of memories within his mind. He had seen her a thousand times, whenever duty allowed him to find his way to her. But it took five years before they spoke. He recalled well the soft music of her voice, how it had enchanted him immediately, catching him off guard and sending his mind reeling. All thought had fled in the instant she spoke and his pulse had raced faster than in any battle he had ever fought. He shook himself violently free of the reverie and returned to reality with a jarring feeling of utter emptiness as if a gaping hole had replaced his midsection. With an effort he rose and took account of his surroundings. The new moon's pale silhouette was high enough to indicate a significant passage of time. He slowly placed one foot in front of the other and trudged out of the merchant quarter. He wandered with a thick melancholy in his step as he worked fervently to keep his mind free of thought. The slow climb kept his legs busy and he was in no hurry. The low light was more suited to his vision and he strayed far from any lamp or candle burning that might mar the perfect dark. Through his eyes the world was far from black, he saw brilliant shades of blue, purple and red. To him the stone glowed with the residual heat of day, lighting a dim blue path before him has he treaded through the squat homes placed in new rows upon the well ordered grids of the residential districts.

Slowly he filled his mind with his beloved city, watching the gentle slope increase its incline as he meandered toward the center of the city. The buildings grew taller and more ornate as the architecture began to reflect the change in neighborhood. An elaborate terrace here and an intricately carved door there began to dot the homes. Soon the squat utilitarian abodes had transformed into the familiar apartments of the minor families. Much larger than the dwellings of the newly added merchant quarter, only three hundred years old, they towered above the one story sea beneath them on the flat ground surrounding the first of the Icharian hills. They rose well above the standard housing at four or five stories as they grew progressively more impressive and heavily gilded as he found his way into the city proper.

After much musing on stone and earth he approached the great square. Here wealth was clearly on display by all the great merchants who lived above their shops fronting the massive piazza. Only the wealthiest of traders could afford a store here and they flaunted it with darksteel emblazoned doors and silver ringed windows. Even the walls were etched with fantastical friezes painted over with glittering metallic hues.

He ruefully remembered the early families who had tried to paint their homes in the traditional western styles. The garish colors had simply rinsed off with the first winter storm, unable to withstand the sulfuric rains that scoured the city six months of the year. He wished it would rain, it had been too long since he had felt rain that didn't burn at the touch. He longed for the soft warm rains of his southern home, when it had still existed. The rain still reminded him of home, even if searing skin was the price. He paid it gladly. The scars always healed eventually, even if they served to promote his reputation for madness on occasion.

He reached the edge of the great square and smiled with pride. The massive plaza was empty now but during the day it was filled to bursting with life. Lining the eastern side of the five hundred span long space a series of columns stood sentinel. Spaced evenly in a long arc each held a familiar face. Atop each was a statue, the heroes of the empire. He knew their faces by heart and had personally overseen the sculpting of each, despite the protests of Valmora. The monument had been her idea after all. She had said it was better to celebrate their lives than forever morn only their passing. Carmen had said much the same. Centered in the square was the great tomb, a massive edifice of white marble it stood out starkly against the black and white checkered tiles of the square. Within they were housed, forever reminding him of the lives he couldn't save. Once he had avoided the square, seeing it only as a reminder of his failures.

She had changed that. He understood what Valmora had always said, but never had the patience to explain. Her shy smile had returned colors to his world he had thought long since washed away in a river of blood and ash. She found good in everything, showing him a beauty in his monochrome world he hadn't even known existed. She found joy and love in everything, even his grief. With a low growl he punched a nearby granite wall painted with bronze and flaked with glittering silver. It groaned and cracked loudly, leaving a small depression he his fist had bit deeply into the stone. He muttered a few colorful curses and made a mental note to send the stone masons by in the morning.

Normally he controlled his emotions rigidly, never allowing anything to slip through his iron visage. She had changed that as well, making him prone to sudden emotional spells when he thought about her too much. By the ravens she was beautiful though. Wing and stone, the way her eyes caught the morning light sent shivers down his spine at the mere memory of it.

He carefully unclenched his mailed fist and stepped away from the sculpture that had come painfully close to being converted into gravel. He sat down at the base of the statue and read the inscription to himself. The name meant nothing to him, but he remembered the face. Some hero, he thought with a rueful chuckle as he noted he was only a minor hero, relegated to the lower gallery beyond the great square fronting the necropolis gates. That weasel had been the one who had specialized the market system. He was a hell of a businessman, but he was still a weasel. The weasel had unhealthy appetites too. In fact the discovery of them in new eden had brought the man to the dark city.

He remembered with grim satisfaction the punishment he had exacted upon the weasel upon his first offense. It was quite difficult to violent younglings when one lacked the necessary equipment. The man could have bought any woman he wanted, but it wasn't enough. Leoric had watched him from the moment he took his oath, knowing full well his past history. The weasel was not the first criminal nor the last to take Valenoch's standing offer of asylum, no matter than crime. Leoric did take a certain satisfaction warning such fellows then personally punishing them when they inevitably slipped up. Valmora didn't particularly applaud his measures, but she didn't argue their efficacy either. The legendary harshness of Valerian law was the best deterrent of all and he had worked hard to culture it, making sure that the rumor was far worse than anything he could actually conjure up.

Many things had changed during the weasel's tenure as grand poobah or whatever the traders had decided to call their grandmaster at the time. The city had grown from the inner city out into the sprawling outer quadrants behind the great walls. He hadn't believed Valmora when she had said they would fill it all one day, it just seemed so big. He hadn't even bothered to guard the outer walls in the first few centuries, allowing foolish invaders to come inside the outer walls and make camp in the outer city. He would then promptly send archers onto the outer walls and rain hell down on them. He even recalled with a fiendish grin when he had once closed the outer gates on an invading army himself, chuckling as they watched in utter horror as the raven guard descended upon them amidst a shower of arrows. Ever since he had enacted a standing policy of allowing no invaders to return. Originally he had allowed a few to escape, letting them spread tales of annihilation and utter destruction. He had since discovered that letting none escape created far more fantastical tales, which always improved with the telling. It was a standing tradition in the Valerian empire to invent more fantastically gruesome tales about how horrible Valerians could be. He supposed it desensitized them to the true harsh realities of the city. Then again, he had always been of the mind that anything that improved moral without breaking the rules was a good thing, and thus his support of prostitution and gambling, so long as it was heavily taxed and closely monitored.

So much had changed in his time here, the city sprawled endlessly around him now. So much had changed. In the last few centuries the cost of space within the city had led a few fools to build in what was now the outer city. The thought that they filled the massive space within the outer walls still boggled his mind, but the idea that anyone would build outside them had never crossed his mind until they actually started erecting the crude wooden buildings forty or fifty years ago in what was now jokingly called the outer outer city. He just called it shanty town. So much had changed, the way men thought, the way they dressed. Even the way they spoke now changed, he remembered how his men had joked about his archaic dialect for at least a century until he finally accepted that he must change as well to avoid notice. He had changed with time, but men like the weasel did not.

Leoric had to admit the man had been useful though. After becoming a eunuch he had focused singlemindedly on the city and had become one of her greatest benefactors in all truth. He had single handedly cornered their hold on the weapons market within only a few decades through a series of assassinations and sabotages. He still remembered how the legend of Nyordian steel had vanished overnight when half their swords had shattered in a particularly important civil war. Now everyone knew that if you wanted a weapon, you bought Valerian steel. They still had their competitors, but even they tried to replicate Valerian marks on they blades, knowing full well no mercenary nor quartermaster worth his salt would by anything lacking the Valerian Raven.

The weasel had also been instrumental in specializing the the various districts of the quarter, organizing merchants from various empires to come and resettle here under his careful vision. The man had lived to well over a hundred and doubled Valenoch's coffers in his life time. Leoric supposed that perhaps he had thought to make up for a life of villainy by helping his fair city. Then again all of the gains made had been done in the most underhanded ways. Leoric approved handily and decided that the mans statue could continue existing in its current, unpowdered form.

He wandered amongst the high end shops, those catering to frivolous nobles searching for trinkets and exotic fabrics. He did appreciate the shiny bits, but most of it was heavily overdone. He preferred quality and subtlety rather than brash overstatement of wealth. He continued his wander through the sparsely populated streets, finally finding his way to the inner city itself. He lingered the gates, brushing his finger tips against the massive pinion feathers of the great bird arcing across the gargantuan tunnel. He paused a moment, not wanting to end his loving caress. Sorsha had always been his favorite among them, her mind was keen even to this day and he missed her still, the ache of longing still keen despite the passage of time. He released a muted sigh as he passed beneath her, still standing sentinel, immune to time.

After the beauty of Sorsha's visage the imitations of nobles row paled in comparison. They were creative though, he had to admit. He supposed he just missed the original too much to truly appreciate the children of the muse. What had once been stone cottages had grown into manor houses and eventually into palazzos. He had liked those ones though. They had copied the southern style of the large open homes with massive open air gardens in their central courtyards. The general layout remained the same, but after a century or so they had abandoned the exorbitant expense of gardens. Although shipping in shrubbery had been extremely lucrative for a while he remembered with a grin. Leoric had always enjoyed the occasional economic gamble and this one had been quite successful for him, financing a number of interesting projects that had piqued his curiosity at the time. Unfortunately for the massive influx of gardeners, the water in Valenoch was not particular kind to plants and since it was cheaper to ship in plants once a month than water every day, horticulture had become one hell of an industry for a century or so. He would like to think he had helped the world of agriculture blossom as a result. He really loved greenery and it was yet another thing he missed from his ancient southern home, now long since turned to ash and rubble. On the upside, the nursery business was still booming in the borderlands, as the nobles of new eden had taken of the fad of extravagant gardens, always happy to jab a thorn in the Valerian side.

The last three, or was it four centuries? Regardless, the nobles had focused on turning their homes into more permanent works of art after the shrubbery debacle. Valmora had always encouraged petty squabbling and oneupmanship among the nobles, so long as it was non violent and extremely expensive. She said it gave them something to do. He supposed she was right, she often was. It did keep them focused on importing new sculptures and spending fortunes on stone masons growing new wings onto their palazzos.

In some cases they quite literally grew wings as most affected the shapes of birds of prey in homage to their cities patron. He wandered now past a host of the smaller variety. Mostly they were large rectangular buildings with a large bird growing out of the front or a few wings growing out of the sides. It was only when he reached the ultra rich homes of the east end that the entire houses became bronze or brass monstrosities of nature with windows and doors growing out of them. He did like the great three's homes though, even the Zethian debacle was impressive if nothing else. The great three's homes dominated the capital square and arched over it menacingly. He approached from the west along the great road smiling slightly as he examined each home rising above him as he entered the huge piazza fronting the outer walls of the citadel.

The eagle to his right was by far the biggest and impressive certainly, but the phoenix was by far more eye catching. Mostly this was due to the bronze coating expensively applied each year on the home. That particular family had extensive mining operations though, so he doubted the cost really had any impact on their pocketbooks. Even though the eagle rose above the outer walls of the citadel itself, it was the falcon he loved best. By far the most graceful, it curved sinuously as it rested perpetually preparing for flight whilst the eagle flapped its wings ferociously. He supposed that the eagle was trying really hard to show off while the falcon didn't really feel it needed to. Rather than a towering monument surmounting the manor it was part of it. It seamlessly slipped in and out of sight beneath a row of towering trees sculpted entirely from darksteel. While a clear statement of wealth, it was far less gaudy than the diamond encrusted, and heavily guarded, shrubbery that surrounded the Zethian eagle arcing over the square.

Leoric pondered for a minute the clearly contrasted lack of guards beneath the darksteel trees and chuckled at the thought of thieves trying to lay handles on a tree of razorblades, let alone lifting it. He let his gaze return to the gaudy gem studded creations scattered haphazardly across the Zethian entryway. The Mal'Zeth family certainly had their uses, but they were completely incapable of subtlety. Some jokingly claimed that any child showing the least wit was clubbed at birth. Though in fact, he supposed it was more likely whispered, as jokes at Zethian expense often ended rather violently, albeit quietly. They weren't subtle, but they did clean up after themselves at least. He wished they would display the same good housekeeping with the piles of golden monstrosities they called art littering their lawn.

Continuing the previous tangent concerning Zethian wit he chuckled, remembering the most recent complaint of the Zethian Matron mother about the lack of command positions allocated to Zethians in the legions. He remembered it well.

“Turion has served faithfully for forty seven years and has training raw recruits for over twenty now! I demand renumeration! He has the best swordsman in the legions and he shouldn't be dealing with green boys that just fell off the turnip wagon!” expounded the matron of Mal'Zeth vehemently.

“Mother, I am placed where I am needed, not as befits my position in the council.” Turion replied with his usual quiet respect. The fact that he spoke at all does him credit. It cost him immensely no doubt.

“You will speak when spoken to!” She cried shrilly. The sheer volume of the ninety seven year old matron always impressed him.

“Matron, Turion is a fine soldier, and an even finer swordsmen. He trains the RavenGuard as well as the legions. The newest recruits require the finest hand, for they need his skill and experience the most. I know in your house the master at arms only trains the highest of your house, but it is the lowest of your house that see the most combat. In the legions we give the best training where it is most needed, not where there is the highest breeding.” Leoric replied in his usual mechanical way used when babying the more powerful of the nobles, pretending he was explaining to a child of eight rather than one of the most powerful women in the empire. Her grimace relaxed somewhat in the light of this unknown honor and she prepared to speak again, the subtlety of his previous comment no doubt lost on her as she most likely stopped listening after he admitted her son trained the elite guard.

“However, we do not announce positions such as Turion's for very practical reasons. They are highly coveted as you no doubt realize and as such have been extremely prone to assassination in the past.” Leoric continued before she could begin another tirade.

“I have never heard of such!” She scoffed acerbically.

“The last attempt was one hundred and seventeen years ago and it happened to be your great uncle, you may not remember, but if your grandfather was still alive today he would no doubt recall as he was the one who suggested keeping the position slightly more clandestine. He was the soul of discretion and an excellent soldier as I recall. Turion is a credit to his line.” Leoric threw in the last, hoping to distract her from the shock of his previous comment. It was true after all, Turion was a hell of a swordsman and a damn fine soldier, not too bright but a great teacher if a bit harsh. Then again, Valenoch had no room in the legion for slack soldiers and he preferred to let his master at arms work without his interference, a fact not lost upon Turion who had spent his fair share of time training spoiled brats in his own home before Leoric had offered him the position in the legions.

Leoric's musings on fine soldiering were cut short as Turion whistled through his teeth in response to Leoric's previous comment concerning his great great great grand uncle's untimely demise. The matron simply shook violently and seemed on the verge of apoplexy, stumbling toward the door. As her grandson helped her exit Leoric reminded her, I would not like this conversation to become common knowledge. Your position protects you to a degree of course, but I understand your niece is quite ambitious and may be able to help me facilitate a quiet coup should this information find its way back to me.”

What little color remained in her ancient face drained instantly in response, it had been a guess, but it had apparently found its mark regardless. He never participated in the deadly game of houses and generally ignored their constant assassinating, so long as nobody important was killed and it was done quietly. Then again, the matron might not know that. After all, city guards were often bribed to aid in such plots and he was their captain after all. He didn't particularly mind the corruption, so long as no one he cared about disappeared and the day to day operations of the city weren't affected to much. It kept both the nobles and the guardsmen out of trouble and added a nice little stipend to the guards wages. It was done at their own risk of course, and if they died in the process he generally didn't investigate it. He wouldn't want his guardsmen to think they were protected, then he would really have a problem of nobles constantly hiring guards for their dirty work. He of course also had standing orders to torture any noblemen involved in a plot that harmed a commoner. Few were willing to test the theory and as such the game generally stayed inside the inner walls, where it belonged. Anyone foolish enough to take it outside was usually brought to heel in rapid order.

Zethians did make good soldiers though. Leoric supposed it had been bred into them. They tended to be the most brutal in the game, preferring brawn and strong arm tactics. It had been effected as they had held the number one slot in the game for the last several centuries as he recalled. Their constant rival in the number two slot, for the moment as they always liked to point out, was the Corvinius house. The Corvinians preferred a much more subtle approach and always joked that it was just cheaper to let the Zethians be number one, as the cost of magical reagents required to kill Zethian thugs wasn't worth the prestige of number one. True to their phoenix emblem they often were reborn from the ashes, when some new matron mother decided it was time to incinerate half the Zethian guard and claim the number one slot again. They were of course forbidden to combat the Zethians as a result of the last uprising a century or two ago. He recalled the last conflict in which half of his own garrison had been decimated when they had been called up to stop the holocaust that had spread into the great square. It was not the first time Leoric had been glad the city was built of stone. It weathered fireballs just as easily as acid rain, which was consequently excellent at removing bloodstains.

The third house didn't even call themselves a house. The Stonecaller clan was by far his favorite of the great houses as well. Scoundrels to the core they had been banished from their mountain home well over 900 hundred years ago and had long since taken up piracy as their favored trained. Valenoch had proved a marvelous base for them as Valmora didn't care how many nations they offended so long as they protected her own trade interests at sea. Hah, Valmora had even helped to build the first of their famous Stonecaller cairns that were so legendary. Who would have thought of stone boats? Valmora certainly had some interesting ideas sometimes, the idea had even prompted his own minor interest in engineering at the time. The subject had long since developed form a minor curiosity into a mild addiction and coalesced into a cancerous tumor that he had since battled back down into a mild addiction were he preferred to keep it. Finding new hobbies had never really been a difficulty for him, finding time however...

The Stonecallers had a number of wonderful hobbies as well besides the usual pillaging and looting associated with piracy. Though they currently abstained from the great game, they had ascended the social ladder with frightening alacrity when one particular clan chief decided he wanted a better location for the clan hall. After which the clan went from somewhere in the one hundred and twenties to number three in the matter of a year. He had stopped at three stating that the current third house had the best view of the mountains. As such, all the other houses were consistently unnerved by their complacency at number three. The Corvinians and Zethians generally ignored the Stonecallers as much as possible and generally focused on undermining each other whenever possible.

After a few centuries of coastal destruction, largely due to sailing stone ships that were nearly impossible to sink, most merchants simply used Valerian ports. It was much easier than dealing with Stonecallers. As a result the Stonecallers had a fantastic protection racket in non Valerian ports where the city governments found it was much cheaper to simply pay a massive tithe to the Stonecallers rather than rebuild half their fleet every year, not to mention pay for lost cargo. Naturally this had left the Stonecallers with far less to due and as such they took up the long lost art of Dwarven brewing, which has since become their chosen calling. He supposed it was only natural for bored pirates to want to make better ale. Not all were born to tap the great Stonecaller kegs however, those not suited to brewing generally took up smithing or became mercenaries. The Stonecallers now have quite a broad spectrum of military under their belt, with three of their own to match the ten Valerian legions. Not to mention the Valerian Navy being forty percent Stonecaller. Between their protection rackets, mercenary empire, and lucrative brewing enterprises, they were arguably the richest house in Valenoch. The fact that they all claimed they were only the third richest and third most powerful only caused more rumors to speculate about their supposed fast hoards of wealth hidden beneath their clan home.

They had made a fortune off the various civil wars in the north and the succession wars of the south hiring out their seemingly limitless battalions to all sides and occasionally flipping sides when the price was right. Their hadn't been a major war in a good seventy years, but they seemed content to work on brewing and build up arms until the next one came around. Their patience ranked right up with their humility as far as the other nobles were concerned. For the most part the Stonecallers tended to associate with commoners or other Stonecallers, giving them high popularity among the city and spectacularly low opinions among the nobles who affectionately labeled them the Stonecrawlers due to their tendency to crawl home through the gutter after the fourteenth tankard. The Stonecallers loved the name and thought it a compliment, much to the chagrin of the nobles. The name had stuck however and was now synonymous with anyone too drunk to walk out of the tavern.

Leoric supposed not every Dwarf wanted to be a brewer or a mercenary and certainly appreciated the high quality of the many Dwarven smiths in the city. He certainly wouldn't want to be a pirate, while he appreciated the sea for her beauty, he had no fondness for the constant rocking of boats. He personally preferred the endless forests of his youth. He chuckled at the irony of his preference compared to his current surroundings. He never used to laugh. So much had changed since he met her. He wondered what else was different now.

The city was the same, she was stable, his eternal companion, only changing after centuries of pressure forced her to. She didn't die on him, she, like him, endured. When the world fought she grew, always buoyed by strife she had grown fat in the clan wars, nearly overflowing during the northern civil wars. The only source of her current growth however was the inquisition. If Erzalor only knew how helpful the zealots had been to their mortal enemy they would convulse in apoplexy on the spot. He grinned broadly, he was begin to like this more cheery version of himself.

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