Eden

Eden reached for her lute as quickly as she could, but one of the wererats was a bit quicker, saying with words that caused her spine to tingle,

"Silence, fool!" As her lute stopped its motion around her body and into her hands, the soft thunk she expected to hear from the lute never came. A pall of quiet fell over her, and she realized she couldn't hear anything at all. Not the footfalls of the wererats as the collectively stepped forward, not the chatter of the street below her window, not even her own breathing.

It seemed the wererat that had spoken was a caster of some sort and was there specifically to ensure that Eden couldn't do any magic. That coupled with the facts that she was outnumbered and the window and door were both blocked meant that she was in a bad way.

But fine. That's just fine. She changed to summer; her burnt-orange body was accentuated with bright red highlights that glowed a bit. They tried to ensure that she couldn't fight back? Ha! She was going to fight regardless of their efforts. She slung her dagger out and cut the strap of her lute, dropping the lute to the floor and freeing up her movement in the enclosed environment. The wererats all laughed at this, though they couldn't be heard.

"What are you going to do with that bit of useless metal?" one mouthed at her.

She charged forward, the blade flashing out at the mouthy wererat; his face turned deadly serious when he realized that there was now a jagged opening in the front of his chest. He fell backwards onto the floor, and if there wasn't a pall of silence on the area, Eden probably would have heard gasps.

Not wasting any time, she turned and slashed the hand of another wererat who was reaching for her. He pulled his hand back and clutched it, letting loose a scream she couldn't hear. An hand grabbed her left wrist. She gave the wererat that was holding her a look of sheer contempt. Eden swung the dagger at him just for that wrist to be grabbed by another wererat, hard, and the weapon wrenched from her grip. The final wererat, one with long, greasy hair, strolled around Eden from behind until he was standing directly in front of her with his arms crossed behind his back. The wererat turned to look at his fallen companion, who was being treated by the caster; a golden glow was emanating from the caster's hands as they pressed on the stab wound. The standing wererat reached in his pocket, produced a pebble, and tossed it at the caster; the caster upon being hit by the tiny rock turned his head and raised his eyebrows at his companion, who pointed to the downed wererat and turned his hand palm-up in a question. The caster nodded and smiled reassuringly. The greasy-haired wererat turned back to Eden, who struggled to no avail against her captors who held her in place.

The wererat brought his fist back, launched it forward, and struck Eden square in the forehead, causing her world to envelop in blackness.

***

Eden ran through Almaz, sprinting around corners with no thoughts to her own safety; there was no slowing down; she had to save him this time. helwolves rushed after her, swinging at her with weapons that had never been maintained and snapping at her with slavering jaws that dripped with glowing green saliva. She paid them no heed. There was one thing on her mind: save Azrael. The street blurred underneath her and the white-stone buildings seemed to make way for her.

Up ahead, she saw the fountain she was racing so hard to reach. There were two figures that were standing there by the fountain that was now spouting blood. They both knelt in defeat. The giant form of Garm suddenly loomed above them, swinging his axe down, missing them and demolishing the fountain and the ground beneath the fountain. Eden ran faster.

She saw herself and Azrael stand up and stumble as the axe fell beside them, then take off running. She was almost there! Eden wasn't fifty feet from Azrael and her other self, but the ground fell out from beneath the elavis at the last moment and he fell. Both Edens screamed. She leaped forward as her other self reached desperately for her friend, but as the Eden by the pit missed Azrael's hands, the Eden who leapt landed five feet away, watching her friend fall into darkness, disappearing entirely in the dust that swirled in the pit. The Eden directly beside the pit lowered her head to cry. Helwolves approached from all around, laughing, giggling, tittering in their cruel, mad way. Eden stood up and started to bring her own hands up to her face to cover her tears, but stopped--her hands were red, slick with blood.

The laughing stopped.

The other Eden looked up at her, eyeing the red hands, and asked,

"Who are you?" in revulsion.

Eden spun around to see Garm, the god, pick her up in an iron grasp. He brought her close to his great, glowing, orange eye and spoke in a voice that stormed forth like thunder.

"You're farther away than ever, little, lonely elf!" He then squeezed her in his grasp.

***

"...gods look at that bruise!"

"You're not helping, Vorol. Sariel, can you heal her?"

"Not without coming into direct contact with her."

"Can you rock your chair over?"

"I can try. Vorol, is there nothing you can do?"

"My fighting style assumes that I am free to move, and, as you can see, I am not. I've got nothing for a situation in which I'm restrained."

Eden slowly came to, hearing this. She stirred a bit before shaking herself awake. Her head was killing her. It smelled bad, here, wherever she was. There was a grey stone wall directly in front of her.

"Hey, here we go! Eden! Are you okay?" Sariel's voice. She shook her head confusedly.

"I... was ambushed." She turned her head to the right to look at him. He was sitting. bound by rope to his chair; even his legs were tied to the chair legs. His robe was dirty with traces of blood here and there. It occurred to Eden that she was in the same predicament: she was also sitting, tied to a chair, unable to move anything but her head.

"We all were, Eden." Bran's voice. She turned her head to the left. Bran was... well, he was also tied to a chair, but more than that, underneath the ropes, he was wrapped in bed sheets and seemingly nothing else. He wrenched his mouth into a humorless smile. "They got me while I was in the bathtub. I suppose I'm fortunate they gave me anything at all to be covered with." He didn't say it, but the fact that he didn't bring it up suggested to Eden that he didn't want it discussed out loud just yet: there was no panic button down here with them.

"Well, welcome to the festival," Vorol, on the other side of Bran, also tied to a chair, joked, "where pain is the treat and various forms of suffering are the rides!" From where Eden was sitting, Vorol didn't look to be in bad shape.

"Vorol! How'd they get you?" Eden inquired.

"Sleep spell. What about you?"

"Some sort of silencing spell. I couldn't produce any music. They restrained me and knocked me out."

"Yeah," Bran spoke up, "we need to get that bruise on your forehead healed up, as soon as possible. I wonder why they were so rough with you."

"Probably because I nearly killed one of them and wounded another."

"How?" Vorol asked, keenly interested.

"With the silvered dagger our merchant friend sold us."

"But you're a bard--" Bran began, squinting at her; he was interrupted, however, by Vorol practically yelling,

"Hells yeah, girl! I knew you wouldn't go down without a fight, magic or no!"

"Regardless," Sariel stated softly, "It seems the guild did their homework. Vorol isn't somebody you want to get into a fight with, even if you outnumber him, and he's resistant to most poisons and other concoctions, so they used magic to render him unconscious. Bran is resourceful enough to where you don't want him getting his hands on anything, so they waited until he was naked and used sleeping powder on him. For you, they used a silence spell to keep you from your music, where you are your most versatile and dangerous. For me, they fireproofed themselves and bound me. All my useful spells require that I have my hands free, prayers or no."

"So now we're here." She paused. "Are we where I think we are?"

"I think so, unfortunately." Bran replied. "In the sewers under Valekenport. To rebut what Vorol said earlier, I don't think that we're here to be tortured. I think they would have separated us and started if that was the case. I think we're getting an audience."

"An audience?" Eden asked. "With the guildmaster? Do you really think?"

He nodded. "If not him, then someone else of notable rank within the guild."

A thought occurred to Eden. They all were facing a wall. They could see a wall to the left and to the right and a ceiling a few feet above, which probably meant that they were sitting with their back to an opening.

"So," Eden ventured loudly, "do you think that you have gotten enough information and we can get on with whatever you have planned for us?" She heard a groan behind her.

"Pay up." A gruff voice said, behind her. There was a coin clink, then another voice replied,

"It's not fair. They knew we were listening in. They mmmight've fed us bad informmmation."

"In which case you should probably pay mmme even mmmore, as it's further evidence that they knew we were here." Said the first voice.

"In any case, we have our orders. It's timmme to mmmove them to the boss' chammmbers." the second voice said, obviously annoyed. There was the sound of hard wheels against stone, then two hobgoblins strode in front of the group's vision. They slid Sariel's chair to the side and picked both chair and occupant up and moved them out of Eden's eyesight. They came back and Eden started struggling, shaking the wooden chair back and forth.

"Stop it." One of the hobs commanded quietly, almost politely. "If you knock your chair over, we won't correct your position; you'll just be commming with us laying on your side." Eden stopped struggling and thought about it for a moment, then nodded gingerly. Her chair was picked up and set down behind Sariel's chair on a rickety flat cart. The hobgoblins repeated the process with the remaining two group members and once all were loaded up on the cart, both hobs pulled the cart along.

Looking around Eden saw that they were indeed in the sewers. A vast, dome-like cavern of professionally carved grey stone lead on as far as her eyes could see. Splitting the floor down the center, leaving walkways about fifteen feet wide, was a river of water muddied by refuse and trash that flowed animatedly ahead; stone bridges as wide as the walkways crossed the river every so often at equal intervals. centered between every set of bridges were large, reinforced, rusty iron doors.

Shady-looking humans, clad in black, huddled in groups; dwarves, dressed the same, gathered in pairs or groups of three, drinking from unlabeled jugs; halflings and goblins walked together, avidly discussing something that Eden couldn't hear; Hobgoblins rolled crates and packages around in wheelbarrows and carts, causing those caught in their path to squeeze against the wall to allow them to pass. Though it wasn't anywhere near as busy as the streets above, Eden was surprised at how much activity there was in the sewers.

One of the humans standing by a ladder was one that Eden recognized: it was the bartender that was rude to her on her search for Raenaugh. Bran did say that the bar was a guild front, but it hadn't really occurred to her that the bar's employees wouldn't just be working at a guild-affiliated bar. She found his presence there interesting, and as she moved along, she kept track of where the hobs were pulling her. Straight for five bridges, then right across the fifth bridge, heading straight, down an intersecting tunnel; three-hundred feet, then a left across another bridge and down another intersecting tunnel on the right side and then a stop.

The hobs stopped at a large, reinforced, yet rusty iron door. It looked exactly like every other rusty iron door to Eden, but the hobs seemed to know which door to stop at, perhaps out of sheer habit. One of the hobs knocked nine times in steady succession; there was a screech of metal, and then the door opened from the bottom, sliding up into the ceiling. Two humans, two dwarves, and two more hobs stepped out of the building and brought the group into the room.

The room was quite large, decorated with expensive-looking intricate tapestries and treasures of varying sorts, from urns, to weapons on display, to jewels. On the wall that the group was now facing was a large vault door, replete with a spindle on the front. They were here. They were actually here at the vault that they wanted to get to, albeit under poor circumstances, powerless to do anything with the opportunity that had dropped itself in their laps. More notably, however, than the giant vault door ahead of them was the seemingly naked man sitting at the desk in front of them, counting coins. The man fixed his silver eyes on Eden--and Sariel-- and Vorol-- and Bran. The man was notable, not because he was naked or that his eyes were silver; he was notable because he was covered in silver eyes, spaced perhaps an inch apart on every visible part of his body. Two eyes focused on the coin-counting, eight eyes focused on Eden's group, and the remainder continually roamed the room, as if looking for intruders. Eden realized that this must be Eliyr, the guildmaster that Ichabod mentioned.

Before Eden could stop herself, she blurted out, shocked, "You're-- an elavis!" All the eyes snapped up and focused on Eden.

"That I am." The man said in a surprisingly normal voice. "Judging by your reaction, you know a silver elavis?" He paused and then added, "Or perhaps one arrayed with eyes like myself?"

Eden shook her head. "A silver-eyed one. My friend."

"Where is this silver-eyed friend, now? I might have to meet them." he asked almost threateningly.

Eden hung her head and saw that she was in winter. "He's dead. He perished at Almaz."

"Ah. A pity. There's so few of us left, whether gold or silver."

Eden looked up. "I don't believe I've ever seen one like you." Eliyr nodded, which was a bit disconcerting to watch. His eyes started to wander as he replied.

"My line is rare. When I was gold, I could manifest golden, spectral wheels of protection around me. I knew a fellow elavis who looked fairly normal, but he could manifest additional heads. Now he was really something, and--" He stopped and all eyes snapped back to Eden. "You have a gift for conversation, don't you?" Eden shrugged. He stood up from his desk, showing that he was wearing a rather tight shendyt about his waist and stepped around the desk. There were silver eyes all down his legs to his feet and up into the skirt-like shendyt. "I would expect nothing less from a bard. But that does bring me to the point of us meeting. Not too many outsiders have met me, as it's not something I find productive; I find it better to be an unseen bogeyman, most of the time, frightening to those who feel my work from afar and terrifying to those who have seen me. But word comes to me that a bard, a noble, a gladiator, and one of Ra's faithful have succeeding in pissing off my new business partners, I feel the need to meet them to take care of this business in person."

"So we're to be executed, then?" Bran asked solemnly.

"Not necessarily. To start with, I'm going to ask you a few questions, and you're going to answer me. Reginald, here," he said, gesturing to a nearby hobgoblin, "has cast a spell that will tell him if you are lying or not." Eden considered this; Eliyr didn't say that the spell would be able to detect omissions. That was good. Bran should be able to work with that. "Now, it won't do for all of you to speak up in an un-orderly fashion, so I will allow you a few moments to decide who will be speaking on all your behalves."

Eden turned to look at Bran and said, "Bran." It should be him. He's the leader of the group and was more knowledgeable than her on... well... just about everything.

Bran replied, "Eden." What?

Vorol said, "Bran." That's better.

Sariel stated, "Bran." They get it.

Bran turned to look at Vorol and stated very pointedly, "Eden." Why?

Vorol frowned and nodded, slowly, saying, "Eden..."

Sariel got the point a little quicker and stated, "Eden." They all looked at her. Then she understood. They were counting on her to talk them out of this situation. She was probably more persuasive that Bran was, all things considered. Okay.

She nodded and confirmed, "Me." Eliyr eyed them all with curiosity.

"Interesting. It seems the noble leads the party, not the bard. I must say I didn't see that coming, and I see much. So, allow me to start: "Why did you choose to rescue the young Lord Joyautombe, a man that few knew was in Valekenport?" Eden pondered how she should respond. Things might not go well if she responded with "Because he had been kidnapped", and other catty retorts she so desperately wished to use. Straightforward it was.

"Because we didn't want you to get your hands on the treasure that Raenaugh might be able to lead you to." He looked with four of his eyes to the hob, who nodded.

"Why? What reason would you have to interest yourselves in whether or not I acquire treasure?" She bit her tongue. It probably wouldn't be good for her to say "Because we were told to by a demigod senator". A pragmatic response should be fine.

"Because it means that you would have enough money to buy a noble title for yourself as Raenaugh's father did, which would be a bad thing." Another multi-eyed glance, another nod. Fantastic!

"Humor me." Eliyr said, scratching the corner of an eye on the top of his bald head, "why do you think it would be such a bad thing for me to attain nobility for myself? If a pirate can do it, why not me?" Eden relaxed a bit. Come to think of it, Eliyr hadn't been aggressive, nor had he made any threats. It seemed to Eden that, perhaps, that he was just trying to understand.

"I don't know that it was a good thing that the elder Joyautombe did so, but he simultaneously retired from piracy and I assume he paid off any local bounties he had. You, on the other hand, wouldn't be retiring from the guild, but would instead empower it even further." Eliyr glanced to the hob who shrugged. Eden froze.

"Too much speculation for the spell, I see." Eliyr said calmly. "But still, that makes sense from your point of view." Eden suddenly dropped from winter straight into summer, illusory flames burning along every other lock of her hair, reflecting brightly in Eliyr's silver eyes.

"Point of view? You have children commit crimes simply because it makes you money. The only point of view there is--"

"Enough." Eliyr interrupted her in a voice that, while not particularly loud, cut through Eden's words like water dousing a flame. He snapped his fingers and each member of the party, Eden included had their heads pulled back and knives pressed to their throat.

Eden, in full winter once again, was very silent, and the whole room seemed to hold their breath for a moment.

"It seems I've left some room for arrogance to fester within you, Eden." Eliyr said, not relenting in his chilly tone. "You are in my demesne. Mine. You have no authority with which to entertain righteous indignation. Not here. In fact, the only reason I haven't killed you already is that you might actually convey a point better alive than you would dead. Say 'Yes sir,' if you understand me, each one of you."

They all did. Damn, this was bad.

"Good. Now that you're all comfortable, and you know your place, I can get to the point. Oh, and Eden, you're still speaking for your crew, so don't hesitate to ask questions; however if you have any more self-righteous outbursts or moral objections..." his voice trailed off and the knife at Eden's throat cut her just a bit to emphasize what Eliyr was saying. She got the point.

"So, onto why I've brought you in instead of killing you immediately. My guild isn't ordinarily in the business of killing anyone, but as I have said, you've made the crew of the Headsman's Joy quite upset, and our business deal is very fresh. So allow me to tell you the nature of this business deal we thieves have with the pirates. I have control of the port. Anything that comes in, I get a cut of. Naturally, the books won't reflect that, but if sailors want to safely do trade in our port, they pay us out of their own pockets. It's quite profitable and cuts down on in-city muggings, you see. Less reason for us to use force when we are being given what we want. But I digress. The pirates want a place to safely dock and sell merchandise that isn't worth hoarding. Naturally, they have their own place to hoard treasure, but selling off the less-valuable things they take from people, that's just good business, plus we get some exotic trade that our own vendors can sell.

"Their side is two-fold: The first is if they want to smuggle something in or rid themselves of a hot item, we'll be here to help them out; the second is obvious. As you've stated before, there is treasure here in the city. Part of our agreement was that if we help them find the treasure, we get to keep a cut of it. So we helped secure the younger Lord Joyautombe and provided some of our precious wererats to assist them, and in return..." He gestured to Reginald the Hobgoblin, who walked over to the vault, spun the wheel, and opened it.

Inside was what seemed to be a room easily four times the size of the room they were in, filled, except for a very short walkway in, with gold, silver, jewels, and miscellaneous precious items. It cast something of a glow across the room they were in, dazzling all four of the captives.

"I doubled my resources with the treasure that the pirates paid us with! In fact, so great was the treasure that was uncovered down below, that even now the pirates are still hauling it onto their magical ship! Now, gaze upon the treasure and mark it--mark it well, for if you cross my guild in any way again, big or small, whether it's harassing the crew of the Headsman's joy or even causing one of my men to run into trouble, I will abduct you again and kneel you in front of this open vault before slitting your throats, so the last thing you see is the sheer wealth and power of mine that you were ultimately nothing against! Do not forget, for I will not. I am a man of my word, and my word is as good as gold."

The group looked on in silence, not really knowing what to say in response--not that anyone but Eden really could. The spectacular elavis standing in front of them seemed more and more insane with each word he spoke, having been cool and collected at first, but practically shouting at the last. No one in the group doubted that Eliyr would do exactly what he said he would.

"Understand," Eliyr said, finally sounding a bit more calm, "that while I said that this is my demesne, the whole of the city is actually my demesne; the topside people just haven't realized it yet. You have, so watch what you say from now on. And to make sure you stay in line, I demand tribute from you in monthly increments. You don't have to pay me money, but you do have to provide me something of worth. And if one of you doesn't check in, I will hold three others ransom, killing off one per month until I get my due! And if you all disappear, I will take the children I have in my employ, one by one, and kill one a month until you return and make up for lost time." He was screaming again. "There will never be another moment in your life where you aren't thinking about refraining from angering me!

"Reginald, close this vault and escort our guests out of here with their eyes covered."

"Before we go," Eden called out, causing every eye in the room to rest on her, "I have something important to tell you: a story you need to hear, powerful guildmaster, given as tribute to you, as your monthly due, that you might have it as well as your treasure!"

"Speak your piece, then, bard, but remember my warning about moral outbursts or objections to my practices; I don't tolerate them."

Eden gulped and started her story. "In the early days of the world, there were two spirits who were in competition with one another: the spirit of the sun and the spirit of the moon. The spirit of the sun boasted to the moon spirit one day that not only was the sun spirit more powerful, but people worshiped him in his might. He exuded power that scorched the earth and the people below would pray to him, that in his mercy he might grant them reprieve. The spirit of the moon asked the spirit of the sun 'Do these people really worship you? Or are they praying to you out of terror? You've made yourself lord over deserts and barren places! In fact, if you look closely down below, your worshipers cower in caves, shielding themselves from your mighty light! Watch closely, spirit of the sun, as night falls! Let your light diminish as it usually does around that time, and watch my own worshipers!' The sun spirit scoffed at this, and agreed, anxious to see the spirit of the moon's weak followers and laugh at them. The spirits waited until nightfall, when they saw the people below emerge from their caves, singing praises to the moon. There were more worshippers there than the sun had ever seen, and they were all thanking the spirit of the moon for providing light while not cooking them. The spirit of the moon had so much goodwill directed towards her that even the oceans followed her. The spirit of the sun, realizing that he was wrong, retreated to his domain, and from that day forward reduced his power significantly; he still kept for himself deserts and barren places with which he could admire his power, but he also provided lesser light that helped plants grow and livestock to flourish. The domain of the sun hasn't yet become equal with that of the moon, but with the new way the sun rules, he hopes to someday gain enough goodwill to rival the moon."

There was silence for a moment after Eden finished the story. Eliyr opened his mouth and asked,

"Why was this story so important that you felt you must offer it to me? I could be mistaken, but the story had the feeling of a moral criticism."

Eden shook her head. "No, guildmaster, It's important because a dragon told that story to me."

Eliyr frowned and turned several of his eyes to Reginald, who nodded seriously.