((ooc: sorry for the rambling post…^^’))
She wasn’t going to last much longer. Her ribs were bruised and her eyelashes were singed, stray spells flew around, and she couldn’t stop shuddering. The riddle had become a game of chicken in which the two of them would barely tilt another cube into its place before leaping away from danger. Pages upon pages of the sketchbook were filled with ideas, from grouping words based on topic, to counting letters and even a crossword. The number of combinations, especially if their order mattered, was practically infinite. Nina had had stern words for their ‘examiner’. Who in this age would know what values were ‘wise’ for a being older than the mountains? Yet Kipling firmly insisted that all that was necessary for solving the riddle had been given to them.
When a gust of wind magic pulled her sketchbook out of her hands and scattered it over the courtyard, Nina broke down. She fell to her knees, head against the ground, and burst into tears. She curled into her mind, loose threads of memories brushing past her cheeks. ‘Could I listen to it again, please?’ Her earlier words to Kipling echoed. ‘I don’t know. It’s been a long time.’
‘Choose wisely, or not at all.’ Repeated in her mind a voice that wasn’t hers. The girl’s tired mind picked it up like a refrain. ‘Or not at all. Or not at all.’ She mused.
A terrifying CRACK pulled her out of her thoughts, and she raised her head to see the platform they were standing on breaking, and her ice mage companion angrier than he’d ever been. When the dust scattered, when one loose cube hit the ground, Nina’s mind lit up as if struck by lightning.
“Well you solved it now.” She whispered, terrified. ‘Not at all’ was the
solution. ‘Not at all’ had been one of the options all along. She stared at Kipling’s broken head, uncertain if to feel sympathy. Or was it the solution?
‘Manners, though…’ The knife-edge voice continued under her temples.
‘Manners?! You dare talk about manners?! How about trying not to kill people, that’s manners.’ The effort of replying to the unknown telepath made Nina once more burst into tears. She barely pulled herself together as blue runes lit up all around them. Kipling’s skull re-formed. Her hand reached out for the ice mage’s sleeve.
There was a swirl, of a wind that wasn’t wind. It seemed to pick up soot from the black stones and as it swirled closer around them, Nina thought she saw it form feathers. The feathers coalesced into a dark figure, in conversational distance from them. Kipling bowed to the newcomer. He – for it was a man - looked ageless, or at least any age between 30 and 50. His outfit was the black of soot, with a cape and cowl. His white hair was caught in a ponytail, and his eyes had something of the frost of the mountain sky.
“Greetings.” The man said. His lips curled in a slight smile. “I am the master of Crows”. Nina’s hands dropped by her sides like lead.
She knew him. It was the same man who had been writing messages in her flesh all these weeks, telling her not to come here. Gray, the Master of the Clocktower, assassin of the Azure Dynasty, executioner and torturer for anyone important enough to waste his time (as he put it)…could he also be the Master of Crows?
“Laugh, then.” The woman told him. She struggled to push the words past her lips, as one would struggle to raise a sword after they’ve been stabbed in the gut. Her voice swung between mismatched pitches, in the manner of one fighting back hiccups. “Forcraig, don’t trust him. He toys with people’s minds.” He tortures people, she should have said, but her mind had frozen. “I’ll be going now.”
“Is this how you react when faced with your greatest fear? This is the last test, you know. People are complex, and not always who you think they are.” The man smiled. “Disappointing.”
It was a smile she knew well, a smile without any emotion but interest or disinterest. There were words in there that she should have heard, but the smile dug like a screw through her temples. Nina countered:
“You know what I want.”
“Say it. Words are powerful.”
“I want you to take away this curse!” Nina shouted.
“Let me have a look.” The man stretched out his hand. He stood like that, in his characteristic manner, seemingly frozen in place until Nina reacted. It unsettled her that even in this superficially subservient posture, he still had all the power. The man carefully pushed the sleeve of her coat up to her elbow, then the sleeves of her other layers, until he revealed the bandages underneath. Then he started to peel them away, layer by layer, gently pulling bandages away that had been glued with dried blood, as Nina winced. The last layer was drenched in fresh blood, and as the last bandage fell spiraling to their feet, Nina saw new words budding under the man’s hands over the tangle of letter-shaped scars. Capitals. Gray had never used all capitals before.
GOOD LUCK.
YOU SURE AS HELL WILL NEED IT.
“So you want me to end the effects of…this.” He checked. Nina nodded. “Ah. Simple. You have to jump down.” He pointed.
“Jump.” Nina repeated, dizzily.
“Down. Yes.”
Nina walked past him, to the platform edge. Before she or anyone else could do anything, she peered over the edge and let herself go. Later, she wouldn’t be able to tell exactly why she did it. Something about a day filled with magic, about being pushed to the brink with riddles and the culmination of weeks of privations, had brought her to a trance-like state. Part of her expected herself to fly through the air.
The Master of Crows turned to address Forcraig just as the sound of Nina’s body hitting solid rock echoed through the courtyard.
“Now that this is out of the way…” He said.
Moments later, a giant snake of white marble spiraled up through the air, climbing a staircase of loose stones that flew up from the ground just in front of its forked tongue. The snake looked for a moment at Forcraig, before resting its head between him and the Master of Crows. Inside its open mouth there was a very bruised, obviously very scared girl, holding onto its meter-long fangs for dear life. She was covered in chalk dust. Careful observation of the previous moments would have seen the giant snake leaping from its wall to catch the traveling painter just before she struck the ground.
“Ah. Made some friends, did you?” The man in black commented, in a tone so flat that you couldn’t tell whether it was amiable or resentful. “Snake.”
“You tried to kill me.” Nina uttered. She wasn’t shaking anymore. She’d gone beyond that. Her eyes were wide and she didn’t seem to blink. “You tried to kill me.” She whispered.
“You were stupid enough to listen.” The elder mage brushed it aside. “I was expecting the one who killed the Master of the Clocktower to have a tad of common sense.”
“The one who…” Nina’s eyes widened. She didn’t look at him. “I didn’t kill you. You’re not Gray. You’re not the Master of the Clocktower, though you wear his face. Who are you?”
“I told you. I am the Master of Crows.” There was little expression on his face and in his gestures, just like the original. “I told you. This was the last test. And people aren’t always what they seem.”
Nina’s hands clenched against the fangs. When she realized it, startled, she let go and patted the roof of the sculptural snake’s mouth.
“You are a cruel old man and if you don’t start explaining properly, I will…” Nina’s anger bubbled into the most extreme thing she could possibly say. “…leave.” She felt free and cold.
“Leave? After coming all this way?” That smile. Not his, but borrowed, and hurtful even more.
Nina stared. Not at him. He realized, surely. The hike she would have to take down the mountain, for weeks, carrying the weight of her failure on her shoulders. The hunger. The gate with its emotionless toll. Even climbing down from the platform safely would require feats of ingenuity from her, a non-magician. He mocked her as if all that was nothing to him. Yet, she still had her dignity. Her pride. Nina fought not to cry.
“Yes.” She said.
“Ah. Forgive me.” He waved his hand through the air. “Most of your predecessors were…less than polite when visiting.”
“I wonder why.” Nina murmured through gritted teeth.
“So, about your curse-“
“And no, I will not.” Nina interrupted. The elder mage looked at her as if he’d been spit on.
“I will not forgive you.” Nina repeated.
The mage gave a curt, acquiescing nod before continuing.
“Every generation, almost, the current Master of the Clocktower makes their way here for information.” He started to explain. “It amuses me to test them this way. To appear as their greatest fear. Inevitably, always, what they fear most of all is the previous Master. Always, almost. The title is passed through blood, to the apprentice daring enough to assassinate their master.” He shot Nina a long glare. “That your predecessor isn’t dead - “ He waited for Nina to confirm, and she awkwardly raised her arm. The bloody writing had been covered by chalk. “-is concerning. There are Rules. The first Rule of the Clocktower is that there can only be one who wields its power.”
“I don’t have any powers.” Nina chuckles.
The mage, without any overt change in expression, looked as if he might kill her.
“Three generations ago,” he said, “a man came to visit me. He slipped through the
undead unseen, and he carried enough bitterness inside him that he barely noticed the gate. As customary for those of the Clocktower, he worked as an assassin for the Azure Dynasty. There was a war brewing. He asked, no, demanded, that the Clocktower component currently in my care was given to the war effort.” The mage patted the marble snake. “I told him to ask it for himself. The Snake nearly ripped his head off his shoulders. The man went on to become a nightmarish legend, who thousands feared and still fear in a certain country, but he never came back."
Nina took the time to think that through.
“So you fooled yourself into thinking I have magic powers and tried to murder me for them.” She said.
“Dear gods, no.” There was an expression on the mage’s face, that if Nina had been less frightened of him she would have recognized as concern. “I just wasn’t expecting you to jump off a ledge.” He looked uncomfortable. “I…I can’t suffer fools.” His hands moved in complex patterns that seemed to flicker in front of her eyes. “Look! Look at what you call your ‘curse’.”
Nina looked down at herself, and let out a cry. She could see through her flesh like through glass. On her forearm, below the blood, the scars, below the veins and the arteries, there was a glowing string. Nina let out a weak cry as she traced it up her arm, and down the other, and through the whole of her body.
“That’s not it.” The mage said. “Those are the channels that your life energy flows through. Look closer. Closer. Do you see the cracks in them? That’s what we call a Mark. It occurs, rarely, when someone with a natural inclination to magic, but no training, pushes themselves far beyond their limits. Very powerful thing, a Mark.” The mage’s voice grew deeper. “It allows a human to surpass their limits. It allows unbelievable feats of heroism. There is a reason,” and his voice grew colder, “why those limits are there. Marks are rare, because they’re lethal. It’s like bleeding on the inside. Magic and life, seeping out. No one can see it. Then you die. Look.”
Nina narrowed her eyes. She brought her hand closer to her face. Wrapped around the glowing string, there was a faint flicker of silver. A silver thread, thinner than spider silk. It, too, spread throughout her body. Nina pressed a hand on her chest, unsettled to find her heart wrapped in silver threads.
“The thread. The silver thread. It’s stitching the cracks together.” Nina whispered.
“Masterpiece.” The mage whispered, and the woman thought she’d imagined it.
“I don’t understand.” She said. “Gray…helped me?” She found herself hugging one of the snake’s fangs for support. “Tell me! What happened?! Or are you naught but empty words and insults for those you think below you?”
“I’m not sure what it is.” The mage looked tired. “There are Rules, and…Gray must’ve broken them. Not the rules of Magic, evidently, but secondary rules that make the clocktower tick. I…I need to think about this. This is intriguing.”
The Crowmaster turned to Forcraig’Diin. His appearance shifted once more.
“My apologies for the delay. What is it that you wish to know, Rith Aoenic Craftsman?”
@
Focraig'Diin