Chapter Fifty Five

  A tired arm produced tired strokes of paint upon a tired canvas. The painting was waiting for her to finish, for it to be complete, but it would have to wait longer. For all it longed to find its eternal rest as a completed work of art, Myra longed to rest herself. But it was rude to keep the painting waiting, at least for too long, so she continued. She was working on a decorative pillar and cursed how many there were. She would have to paint them all.

  If I were to find these pillars and smashed them, would that mean I wouldn’t need to paint them? No… then I would have to paint the rubble. Is there a spell to make pillars disappear? …Teleport them into space maybe.

  She was on her third pillar after two hours of painting and was getting sick of it. They weren’t overly complicated pillars for all they were decorative, and if they were Myra wouldn’t have painted all the details anyway; she was just slow. That was fine, Myra’s paintings were often quite simplistic, minimalist the brown nosing art critics would say. Lazily done was how Myra said it. Suddenly, Myra realized she had been staring at a half-finished pillar with her paintbrush still in the air unmoving for the last two minutes and twitched back to attention. The paint on her brush had dried a bit, so she wetted it in some water, and then took a drink of that water to get the art back in her. It was fully sanitary, since Mervil had forced her to get a jar that purified all liquids inside it. Which was a shame because she got fever dreams less often now that she wasn’t routinely poisoning herself. Then again, people pestered her a lot less now that she wasn’t painting those fever dreams.

  “Lady Myra, the Ashen Hand is here to see you.”

  At some point Cellidor approached Myra and informed her of her guest. At some even earlier point there had also been a knock at the door which Myra had entirely missed.

  “Ashen Hand is a cool name… I should name a painting that.”

  “You already have, Lady Myra. That is the name of the painting depicting her rescuing you when you had been kidnapped four years ago.”

  Kidnapped, kidnapped… was I ever kidnapped? I can’t remember. Well, if Cellidor says I was, then I guess I probably was.

  Myra stared blankly at her butler for the better part of a minute before she remembered she was still meant to be talking.

  “Who’s the Ashen Hand?”

  “Asheli.”

  “Uh… who?”

  “The leader of the Thieves Guild.”

  “…The thieves have a guild?”

  “Yes. She is Mervil’s friend.”

  “Oh, well let her in then.”

  “At once Lady Myra.”

  Myra went back to staring at pillars while Cellidor let in Mervil’s friend. It wasn’t long before the painters light was blocked by a looming presence before her. Myra looked up and finally recognized who Asheli was.

  “Oh… you’re Mervil’s girlfriend.”

  Asheli raised one eyebrow curiously.

  “I did not expect you to be aware of the local rumours. But I assure you, they are false.”

  “Rumors…? I just assumed you were a couple since I saw you fucking him that one time.”

  This time there was a much more visible reaction from the gnoll woman who was now reacting in surprise.

  “That has never happened, and if it had you would not see it. You are mistaken.”

  “Huh? Really? …But I definitely saw it.”

  Cellidor intervened this time, providing much-needed clarification.

  “Lady Myra, you painted such an interaction and showed it to Mervil. He had it locked away and unavailable for public viewing. It is likely the knowledge of such a future dissuaded it from occurring.”

  “Oh… yeah, that makes sense.”

  Asheli recovered from her shock rather quickly and latched onto a bit of information that Cellidore let loose.

  “So the future may be changed if it is found to be undesirable?”

  “Uhh… yeah? I guess. The future can’t see my paint… if you just don’t do what I paint, it won’t happen. I just don’t bother… it doesn’t really matter what future happens anyway.”

  “Ah, I see. And out of curiosity, where exactly was this painting locked away?”

  She directed the question to Cellidor, since Myra was unlikely to know, but the butler just gave her a polite shat of the head.

  “I apologize, but I am not at liberty to say.”

  “Ah, more work for me then. It will be a good distraction for when I am not so busy.”

  The conversation was beginning to wear Myra down, and she was sick of painting pillars, so the weary painter fell sideways into a pile of blankets she had prepared next to her easel. She was asleep within seconds of landing, but found herself restless and hot, even in her dreams. It was but a moment of bliss before heat and noise awoke her. Cellidor stood above her, his sword drawn and pointed at Asheli’s throat. Undeterred, the Gnoll clenched the blade with one flaming paw, an intense look in her glowing eyes. Her other hand, and both her feet too were burning, along with the tip of her tail.

  Oh, that’s why she’s called the Ashen Hand… her hands turn things to ash.

  “Lives could be at stake!” Asheli yelled. “Myra’s life could be at stake! And you would be damming it with your stubbornness!”

  “That may be so. But Lady Myra does not wish for her painting to be seen before its completion, and therefore I shall do everything in my power to fulfill that wish.”

  “It’s not a wish, you asshole, it’s a whim!”

  She’s so loud… no wonder I woke up.

  “How… long was I asleep for?”

  Cellidor took a moment to look down to his lady, and took out a silver stopwatch.

  “About seven minutes my lady. I apologize for awaking you, but your guest would not heed my warning to quiet down.”

  “Hmn… it’s fine. She wants to see my painting?”

  “It appears so, my lady. She is being quite insistent on the matter.”

  Ugh, she’s going to see my half-finished pillars… what a pain, I hate using magic.

  It would have been near impossible for Myra to get herself out of her nest of blankets with how tired she was, but she needed some paint. A tendril of black ink emerged from Myra’s outstretched arm like a brush stroke in reality, and clumsily knocked all of her assorted jars of paint from the small table next to her canvas. They smashed onto the ground, painting the floor into a multi-coloured rainbow. Myra had been trying to grab a jar of paint, not knock them to the ground, but this worked too.

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  “Cellidor… knock the painting into the paint.”

  “At once, my lady.”

  Immediately, both him and Asheli burst into action. The Gnoll wrenched the sword at her neck to the side and attempted to yank Cellidor away from the painting, but the elf simply let go of his weapon and hopped backwards. He almost landed on Myra, but carefully placed his feet around her and averted his eyes from the half-finished painting that was now in his sight. He kicked the canvas stand with one foot, knocking it over and sending its canvas towards the multi-colored puddle, but was caught by Asheli before it met its doom. She had removed the fire on her hands, although her feet and tail were still burning. She was about to turn it around to see the prophecy painted upon its surface, when waves of overwhelming fatigue rolled over her. Myra was channeling a portion of her tiredness into the gnoll. It put most people to sleep instantly, but only caused her to stumble. That was all Cellidor needed. He, while still looking away from the painting, grabbed the edges of the canvas and ripped it out of the gnolls hands. At any other time she would have overpowered him easily, but with the fatigue afflicting her there was little she could do to prevent the painting from being thrown into the puddle of paint.

  “Mn… good job Cellidor.”

  With her painting safe from scrutiny, Myra allowed herself to fall back into a peaceful slumber. Cellidor would handle everything else.

  Good thing I have that spell that cleans up paint spills… will it work on that much paint? Ehh… it doesn’t really matter either way…

  *

  To say Asheli was stressed was an understatement. That was fine; stress was her natural state of being. She was so used to being stressed that some people thought she was carefree. Stress was a thing she sought out, how else would she know important things were being done. If the possibility of failure didn’t stress her out, then it didn’t matter. Sandrin though, he stressed her out. An archmage specializing in deception. How would she ever be sure he wasn’t a threat again? He had tricked her into thinking she had once before, he could do it again.

  He’s not untouchable, I’m sure getting caught three years ago was not within his plans. If it happened once it can happen again. We just need to make sure we are not falling into Sandrins plans this time. We killed him last time because he was caught him unawares by chance, but this time he knows we are coming. Damn, if only Myra hadn’t ruined that painting, I’m sure knowledge of the future would throw him off.

  She would have to do without it. Just a bit more stress added to the pile, she had been through worse. Today was pleasant compared to when she razed the old thieves guild to the ground and earned herself the name The Ashen Hand. She had less time to prepare perhaps, but only a singular opponent, and much more experience. More allies as well, and it was one of those allies she was meeting now, on the day of the ritual. Her shaman, Ralkis. Ashal had been sequestered away very securely and Validus had been successfully misdirected, but all of that was expected. Asheli told no one of her plan, only Ralkis would know of it and he was only being told now, mere hours before Shuka’s curse would be removed. She just hoped it would be enough.

  *

  Within a secluded building inside a hidden room there was a man and a spirit. The man was the epitome of ordinary, drab clothing, short hair, and mundane features. He had a face anyone had seen a million times, but no one would recognise. How could they? It was a face that was made mere minutes ago. The spirit, on the other hand, was extraordinary to the extreme. His entire form was translucent and lacked the weight of reality, almost as if he were naught but a figment of someone else's imagination. Still, even with such an ethereal essence, some features stood out. His deep red skin, for example. Every bit of exposed flesh on the spirit’s body was an unnatural crimson. Upon his back were two wings like that of a bat and from his head grew two curved horns. A thin tail, tipped in a spade, floated behind him, exiting out a hole in his pants. His body was the very image of a devil, but his attire spoke to his status as a king. He wore regal clothing in black and gold and was adorned in opulent jewelry. A crown wrought of black iron and embedded with gems as red as the spirit’s skin rested upon his head. Such was the nature of the spirit that even lacking corporality, when he spoke, most listened, even if only in fear. He spoke now, to the mundane man, voice echoing with unnatural power.

  “The girl is a loose end, her fate must not be let up to chance. Once her usefulness has been used up, eliminate her.”

  The man simply shook his head, not interested in following the spirits order.

  “She may still draw the Grand Paladins attention. Besides, her death is not required for my goal and unnecessary murder is unbefitting of an archmage.”

  “Is it?” Asked the spirit irately. “In my age mages were made of sterner stuff. I didn’t realize all the archmages of today were so squeamish over an added corpse or two.”

  “That is because the archmages you knew were all soldiers instead of scholars. I aim to learn, not wave the power of the arcane around like some juvenile bully on a power trip.”

  The spirit scoffed, unimpressed by the claim.

  “You think you’re the first man to claim power won’t corrupt you? Pretty soon you will be a worse bully than me, why not get started a bit early? You are already killing so many, what’s one more?”

  “What’s one less? You are overestimating her importance; whether she lives or dies doesn’t matter. And if it doesn’t matter either way, why put in the extra effort to dirty my hands?”

  It seemed a weak stance to take on the matter to the spirit, but there was little he could do about it. He had known the man for years and rarely did he take his advice. He barely even took his magic lessons, but even a man as stubborn as him knew self-taught demon summoning resulted in disaster more often than success.

  “If this weakness of yours ruins our plan you won’t live long enough to regret it.”

  “Perhaps, but I’m sure I’ll live long enough to send a few anonymous tips to every powerful individual in the Celestial Empire about Venris the Red being back from the dead.”

  Both the man and the spirit were under magical contract to ensure the others safety, but the contract would not last forever. Both were planning for their eventual release from it, in fact the anonymous tip plan was the fourth contingency the man had told the spirit. He made a list and was picking a contingency at random every time he needed one, much to the spirits irritation.

  “Stop telling me your plans you arrogant fool! I don’t care how many you have saved up, all information is a weapon. Even if you are feeding me nothing but lies it’s telling me the kind of plans you would make. You are only working against yourself.”

  The man simply smiled, amused by the spirit’s anger.

  “The stronger weapon than information by far is emotion. Your anger will cause you to lose more than what you gain from my scraps of information.”

  The spirit could have pointed out that revealing that information was, once again, giving him an advantage, but he knew the man already knew that, so he went for a different tactic.

  “If you believe emotions are so dangerous, why are you letting them influence your decision with the girl? Sparing her out of your fondness for her is a mistake and you know it.”

  The smile left the man.

  “Are you quite done yet? Or do you wish to distract me long enough for me to miss the ritual Venris?”

  “Don’t let me stop you, oh great archmage Sandrin. I would never dream of getting in the way of you and your worthless peasant of an apprentice.”

  Sandrin was already out the door before Venris even finished his sentence. He could have followed, but a holy temple filled to the brim with divine spellcasters was not a place a half demonic spirit could wander freely. Besides, he had his own plans while the illusionist was distracted.

  *

  Shuka was the most aggravating mixture of anxious and bored. She was a mere hour away from what was sure to be a life-changing ritual, but she had also spent the last couple of days stuck in a small room with very little to do. All potential conversation topics had been exhausted already and she had already practiced far too much magic in the last few days. Besides, she might need all the mana she could use for whatever was coming. The heavy metal door of the safehouse, with no prior warning or noise, opened. It caused Shuka and a few of her friends to jump in alarm and surprise. The room was magically soundproofed, to the point where it even hid the noise of the lock being turned, but that was a detail known only by Melia. To the relief of everyone, the person opening the door was Asheli, and behind her was her shaman, Ralkis.

  “Are you ready?” She asked.

  “I guess I have to be.” Shuka answered, getting up from the chair she was waiting in. “Lets go.”

  Xorvos got up as well, not content with waiting around while his friend's life was in danger.

  “Me and Maryam are coming too.”

  “I figured as much. Very well, your presence has already been prepared for.”

  The ease at which Xorvos received the answer threw him off, but he was grateful nonetheless.

  “Oh, uh… great. I kinda expected you to tell us to stay behind. I don’t know, call us liabilities or something.”

  “And why would I do that? You two might not be the best fighters at my disposal, but you are hardly useless. And besides, you two are almost as involved in this mess as Shuka, you should be involved in its resolution.”

  “Thank you Asheli, I will make sure you won’t regret this decision.”

  Xorvos had a moment of indecision before slowly bowing to the Gnoll in thanks. Shuka knew how big of a gesture that was coming from him, and especially towards Asheli. Regardless of intentions, she was still a thief. Speaking of thieves, Melia decided this was a good point to chime in.

  “Hey, just so there's no confusion, but I aint going. Seems like a whole lot of trouble that I don’t care about.”

  “I figured as much for that as well. Your presence has not been prepared for.”

  “Aw shucks, no obligations to a big event? You really know how to give a girl what she wants. If ya need me, too bad, I’ll be in a trash can somewhere taking a nap.”

  And with that, Melia scampered past Asheli and into the streets of Sidus, finally free from the constraints of bodyguard duty.

  “Well then, now that that’s out of the way, shall we go?”

  I suppose we shall.