Reborn Darkness - 3

Title: Reborn Darkness
Book: 1 - Overlady Arisen
Arc: 1 - Paternal Legacy
Chapter: 3 - The Scoundrel's Rest
Date: 3567 RE, 37th of Rekonar

It had become a heavy, clouded night by the time Kelaris decided to move. A veil of shadowy gloom had descended, shrouding everything in a layer of mystery. But the Evernightian elf could see perfectly clearly. She had still not grown fully accustomed to the bright light of the day, so, alongside the nightly chill, the darkness came as a loving reprieve.
The flow of people crossing the gate had slowed to a steady trickle, and under the cover of the dark she could move mostly unnoticed. She entered the city with Rin at her side, the cloak that the boy had acquired for her in Trailpath did a reasonable job of hiding her swords and armour, and she trusted the humans' poor night vision to do the rest. 
They passed over the wide draw-bridge and between the guards, trailing slightly behind a group of late-returning hunters. Past the gate and the watchtowers, they entered a small, roughly circular plaza, in the centre of which stood a large statue of a kingly-dressed man astride a rearing horse. The square was surrounded by small, erratically placed houses, between which several well-worn stone roads branched off into the city. Most of these were small, perhaps wide enough to permit two people walking side-by-side, while the main one on the opposite side of the statue was broad enough to let wagons cross each other without vying for space.
"Where do we go?" Rin asked hesitantly.
That is a good question.
"First, we need to find somewhere to sleep. Anything comes to mind?"
"Well, an inn would probably be the best place for that." Rin said. "Many innkeepers here don't ask questions if the visitors pay up front and don't cause trouble. There are quite a few of those in the city." 
Kelaris nodded. "Good idea. Do you know the way to any of them?"
The boy scratched his chin thoughtfully.
"We are in Palm, so there should be a few not too far away, probably by the main road."
Kelaris looked over sharply. "We are in what?"
"Oh, I have probably forgotten to tell you. Meadowsweet is roughly separated into seven districts. Two on a broad hill in the middle, and five around them, of different sizes and shapes. The north-eastern of these is called Palm." Rin explained, he looked a little worried at the elf, as if afraid she would punish him for not having mentioned this sooner.
"Right." She said, before starting to walk around the stature deeper into the city, Rin hurrying to catch up.
The streets were less deserted than she had expected. Even if most of those walking out this time seemed to be guards on night patrols or beggars trying to find a good spot to sleep. They ignored the later but avoided the former. Rin had said that it was not exactly illegal to be wandering around at night, but that it was suspicious, so they should probably avoid attention from the guards if they could. There were also more than a few unsavoury-looking characters standing in alleys or at street corners. Though they were only challenged once.
They had walked down a side alley to avoid a guard patrol, when a reedy-looking man in tattered clothing and a small stocky one, whom she suspected of being a halfling, had stepped out in front of them. The two men had brandished a pocket knife each and demanded their money. But when Kelaris had pulled her cloak aside to reveal that she was wearing armour and carrying swords, they had skulked back into the deeper alleyways, not considering them worth the trouble.
They had walked deeper into the city for several minutes when Kelaris noticed something. "Keep looking straight ahead." She said quietly.
"Okay. But, eh, why?" Rin asked hesitantly.
"We are being followed."
To his credit she saw out of the corner of her eye that the boy stopped himself from looking over his shoulder. Kelaris was not sure how long they had been followed, their pursuer's steps were so quiet that even to elven ears they were little more than a whisper against the stone road. It was no common thug, that much was certain. 
She caught a faint mirrored glimpse in one of the many dark windows littering the buildings on either side. The person following them was alone and kept about two dozen meters distance. It was hard to tell, but the figure appeared to be female, and was dressed in a hooded cloak of a dark material and had something that could have been a bow slung diagonally across their back, but she could not make out any details in the dirty window.
Kelaris steered them around a corner and into another little alley on their left side further down the road. She stopped around the corner and told Rin stand back and be quiet. She drew her dagger. The second the figure turned the corner, Kelaris grasped her by the collar of her clothes and swung her against the wall, pinning her with the blade at her throat.
"Who are you?" Kelaris hissed. "And why are you follow-"
She stopped abruptly as the other young woman lifted her face. Kelaris recognised the angular features of the moonlight-pale face, the lush brown hair, and eyes as radiantly cyan as her own were sapphire.
"Thyra!?" She asked in stark surprise.
She stepped back from her closest friend ever since childhood, shocked at finding her here of all places.
"Is that any way to welcome a friend? When did you get all 'stab first, ask questions later'?" Luthyra asked sourly.
"Sorry, I am just tired and apprehensive right now, I have not slept well for two weeks now. But what are you doing here?"
Luthyra gave her a strange look. "Waiting for you, of course. As you asked me to. I have been waiting rather long for you in fact. What have you been doing all this time?"
Kelaris sheathed her dagger. "Well, this is awkward. I... can't actually remember, the only thing I can really recall was that there was something important in Meadowsweet, and I was supposed to travel here. That would probably be finding you..."
Luthyra sighed. "Hmm, I am not sure how much I can help clear that up. You left me pretty much in the dark as well when you left. But I suppose we should take that conversation elsewhere than in a dark alley in a human city?"
"Good point. Any suggestions?" Kelaris asked.
"I do have a room in one of those human inns not far from here. Should be space enough for the two of us."
She looked beyond Kelaris to the boy standing some distance away. Kelaris was sure that Luthyra had spotted him immediately, she had always been remarkably observant.
"Who is that?"
"Right, introductions." Kelaris said. "Thyra, this is Rin, he helped me out of a sticky situation a little while ago and asked to come along. Rin, this is Luthyra Dusklight, a close friend of mine... well, the only close friend of mine."
"Nice to meet you." Rin stammered.
Luthyra nodded once before turning her attention back to Kelaris. "Well, space enough for the three of us then."
She looked Kelaris up and down. "And you could probably do with a bath, I can barely see the princess that left Evernight under all that dirt and blood."
"That would be appreciated. I feel like I am covered in enough grime to bury a dryad." Kelaris replied, sneering a little at the use of her title, as Luthyra always did when she wanted to take a teasing jab at her.
"You're a princess?" Rin asked in surprise, drawing the attention of both elves.
"Oh yeah." Kelaris said as she rolled her eyes, to Luthyra's quiet amusement, they had been down that road many times.
"A princess from a kingdom which lies half-abandoned and -forgotten across the sea, with no king and a self-exiled queen. And I might as well have been the daughter of a traitor for all the respect the others gave me."
"That has nothing to do with your heritage." Luthyra interjected. "They just don't like you."
"Thank you for making me feel so much better." Kelaris remarked sarcastically.
"You're quite welcome." Luthyra said in her typically snarky tone, before she surprised Kelaris by stepping in close and hugging her tightly.
"Good to see you safe and sound, Kelaris. Looks like you have been through some tough spots."
Kelaris was stunned for a moment, Luthyra was almost never this expressive. As her friend let go, she wondered if she might have been gone for far longer than she had suspected, or if something else had happened in her absence. Kelaris followed Luthyra back towards the inn where she apparently was staying, with Rin trailing closely behind her. She led the two of them deeper into the city for a while.
"How did you get a room in the city?" Kelaris asked. "I can't imagine that elves are very welcome here."
"Welcome might be stressing it a bit." Luthyra answered. "But while rare, elves, as well as dwarves and halflings, are not really an unknown here. Most come to trade from Illirium, Hammer Gorge and the Mellow Hills. Though a few a travels from further afield. Greenvale, and especially Meadowsweet, is rather wealthy, which brings a lot of strange people."
"It's true." Rin said, sounding like he wanted to contribute something of value to the conversation. "I have seen all manner of strange people and creatures here. Ruborians, Imperials, Fairies, even a troll once."
"And the Vales just allows this?" Kelaris asked confused. What little she knew about the place painted a more hateful and xenophobic picture than what she was hearing now.
"Tolerate would probably be a better word from what I have seen." Her friend replied. "The Vales seem to love wealth almost as much as dwarves, so in the name of greed they can ignore a pair of sharp ears, dark skin  or whatever other feature an outsider has, at least for the duration of a deal."
Soon, Luthyra stopped before a fairly large building somewhat off the road leading to the large market in the centre of the district that they had passed on their way.
On its facade hang a board which bore a painting of a cloth domino mask, like something an old fashion stereotypical bandit might wear.
"Welcome, to the Scoundrel's Rest." Luthyra announced in a mocking theatrical voice. "The finest establishment in this fair city for thieves, ne'er-do-wells, rascals, scum, and people-who-just-wants-to-be-left-alone."
"I- I don't think we should go in there." Rin stammered. "It has a bad reputation."
"Of course it does." Luthyra said. "Otherwise they might get honest clients."
Seeing Rin's frightened expression, she sighed. "Relax, I have been here over a month. Here are no cutthroats or other murderous idiots. But the innkeeper pays the city guardsmen to stay away from here, so it is mostly a resort for those that want to avoid tangling with the law. He also don't really care about non-humans one way or the other, which is the main reason I came here."
Luthyra pushed the door open and they all entered.
The first thing that struck Kelaris was the sound. Compared to the relative silence of the street outside, it was like getting hit by a wall of voices talking over each other in a cacophony of noise. Then came the acrid smell. A hideous combination of stale drink, mouldy food, unwashed bodies crowding in an enclosed space, and smoke from a lit fireplace, nauseatingly spiced by a dose of horse dung and dog urine, no doubt dragged in from the streets outside by careless boots. She almost choked at the odorous assault, realising that the keen senses on an elf certainly had their disadvantages sometimes.
The inn was a surprisingly large place, with room for perhaps sixty people or so. And apparently nighttime was no hindrance to business here, as almost three-fourths of the chairs and tables were fully occupied.
Most of the patrons were human, but Kelaris spotted quite a few dwarves and halflings amongst them. Though despite her friend's description of the place, Kelaris was relieved to see no one present who reminded her of Flint and Grey. Though she guessed that dedicated bandits like that rarely entered the city, never mind the inns.
Luthyra walked over to the innkeeper. He was a large man with a flushed face, small beady eyes, dirty brown hair, and an impressive moustache. From the way he beamed at Luthyra as soon as she approached, Kelaris guessed that she must have been a good patron here during the last month. Well, that or perhaps it was the fact that it could hardly hurt the business to have an attractive elf regularly walking about the place. Kelaris had a moment of fun imaging how many of the male patrons had suffered a few broken fingers or worse from trying to grope a feel.
"Ms. Dusklight! What can I do for you tonight? A drink after a hard day outside, perhaps?" The man said in a voice hoarse from shouting, as Kelaris and Rin walked up behind her.
"Not tonight, Emeric. My friends here would like to share my room... and one of them needs a bath. Afterwards we'll come down for some food."
"You'll be paying up front as usual?" The innkeeper asked.
Rin handed Kelaris a small handful of silver coins, which, judging from the fact that she was the one carrying their money, he had probably just nicked a few moments ago from another patron in here. Kelaris paid the man, who told them that some washing equipment would be brought up to them shortly, before they moved up a series of stairs and down a hallway to Luthyra's room. Like the inn itself, the room was larger than she had imagined, with a fair bit of space, even beyond the two beds. The only light source was a single dirty window in one wall. Beyond the beds, the room was empty save for a chamber pot in one corner.
Luthyra removed her bow and quiver and placed them on one bed, as well as removing her cloak to reveal that she was wearing a close-fitting suit of leather armour identical to Kelaris', though instead of dark blue, hers was coloured in matte tones of browns and greens, and in much better condition.
"The innkeeper seemed to like you." Kelaris said as she sat down on the other bed. "Quite a bit, if he is willing to have bathing gear brought up here."
Luthyra nodded. "I learned early that it was a good idea to be on his good side. So I always paid promptly and a little more than was necessary, I also helped him out of a few troubles when some fights broke out."
"How did you get the money?"
"Small jobs, mostly bounties from killing wolves or other dangerous wildlife or bandits that threatened the peasants. I was keeping my aim sharp anyway, might as well earn some gold while doing so. Besides, living targets makes for better practice than trees."
"Master Mareen would have your head for saying that." Kelaris grinned, recalling their very conservative tutor.
Luthyra shrugged with a small smile, both of them had always been a rather liberal in their interpretations of traditional elven dogma.
"You're hurt?" Luthyra asked, pointing at the bandages visible in the side where the armour was torn.
"It is healing." Kelaris brushed the concern aside.
"Well, then let me see what I can do about that armour of yours." Luthyra said, turning her attention to more practical matters.
"Sure."
Kelaris stripped out of her sleek armour and handed her friend the pieces of hardened unicorn leather, one by one. Luthyra pulled out some basic maintenance tools that she carried around with her and started working on it. As Kelaris removed the chest piece she noticed that Rin had suddenly become very interested in looking at his feet. There was a knock on the door. Rin hurried over to open and allow several strong servants to enter with the bathing equipment before they left once more. It consisted of a large barrel of water, some rough brushes and a towel.
"Hmm, I am surprised this place even has stuff like this." Kelaris noted. "I would have thought that this was at the low end of the scale, as far as such establishments go."
"It surprised me in the beginning as well. But the Scoundrel's Rest apparently make a rather good living on those who won't, or can't, visit more respectable places. So over the years it has actually become one of the better inns in the city. Though the patrons take care to not spread that word around so that they can be at peace from others." Luthyra explained.
"Makes sense, I guess." 
She was about to strip out of her underclothes for the bath when Rin suddenly jumped up from the floor where he had sat down.
"I... I think I am rather hungry." The boy stammered. "I'll go down to get something to eat."
Kelaris stifled a laugh at the boy's sudden prudishness. Though she supposed that he was still somewhat scared of her. She shrugged after the boy left in a hurry, and turned her attention back to the bath. 
Though she undid her makeshift bandage to check her wounds again first. The one in the leg had now also healed completely. But she was now getting worried about the one in her side. It did not appear to be inflamed, but even seven days of her naturally accelerated healing had not visibly reduced the wound in any way, and it was just as painful to touch as before. She wondered whether the cut, whatever had caused it, had been more serious than she had realised.
She put that out of her mind for now and stepped up in the bathing barrel. The water was shockingly cold. Starting to scrub and brush herself clean, she turned to Luthyra who was already busy worked on repairing the armour as well as she could with the limited equipment she had available. "So, care to tell me what happened back in Evernight. Why are we out here?"
Luthyra did not look up from her work as she answered. "Hmm, it started over a season ago. You had some kind of talk or row with Queen Fay, I don't know what it was about, you didn't tell me..."
Kelaris nodded, that conversation was the last thing she remembered from before waking up, wounded and hunted, in the Withering Woods.
"...But whatever it was, it must have been pretty shocking. You spent days alone in the deeper forest. You seemed to have gotten over it when you returned, but something had clearly changed. You spent much of the time talking with travellers and visitors from the rest of the Sacred Light."
Luthyra stopped her tale a moment to deal with a particularly stubborn problem with the leather before she continued.
"I had the feeling that you were going to leave Nosyar, it was clear that there was something important that you wanted to do. I think you wanted to tell me about it, but was reluctant for some reason. After a long discussion we agreed to meet in Meadowsweet a season later, because that was where you would travel afterwards. But when I got here there was no sign of you. I waited for several weeks. Until tonight, as I spotted you walking in through the north gate after nightfall."
"Thank you, but I am afraid I can't shed much light on why I asked you to meet me here. I can't remember anything from after the conversation with my mother, until I found myself here." Kelaris said.
To her relief, Luthyra did not ask her what that conversation had been about, probably figuring that Kelaris would tell her when ready.
"Well, Greenvale is half the continent away from Evernight. You can't have come here just to get some privacy. You probably wanted something here. Likely something to do with that talk, as it seems to have been what triggered this chain of events."
"Yeah, probably... ouch!" Kelaris winced as she carefully cleaned the wound in her side to prevent infection.
She had a suspicion why she wanted to be here, but she would not jump to any conclusions just yet.
"What is the first you do remember after the blackout?" Luthyra asked.
Kelaris explained how she had awoken in the Withering Woods, hurt and hunted by something she still did not know what was. She had fled for four or five days until she had come across the bandit camp, then laid out the details of that had happened there and the subsequent trip to Meadowsweet. By the end of that tale her body had gone numb with cold and she exited the bath barrel before the cold harmed her more than necessary.
She wasn't properly clean yet, but at least the worst layer of dirt, grime, and blood had come off, and she had managed to mostly wash the stench of the swamp out of her hair, which had returned to its gleaming black colour. She dried herself and rebound her wound with some clean cloth Luthyra passed her, before putting her clothes back on, which, of course, immediately undid half the cleaning she had just undergone. But she contented herself with the current result as she was not going to wash all her clothes and armour now.
Luthyra sat up from her work. "There is not much I can do with the armour though. I don't have the necessary equipment or skill to repair it here."
"That's okay, even damaged it is still better than walking around without protection." Kelaris said as she re-armoured herself.
For a moment she put her hand in her pocket and let her fingers glide over the smooth surface of the honey-hued jewel. Like each time, it was warm to the touch and sent a comforting tingling through her cold fingers.
"True. But come, let's go get some food before we turn in for the night."
Kelaris nodded and the two of them went downstairs where they quickly found Rin and joined him at one of the side tables by the windows. One of the serving girls took their order, and Kelaris spent the time waiting for their food by examining the other patrons present.
They were clearly a disparate lot, though as Luthyra had said, many looked like the sort of people who would prefer not to tangle with the more lawful side of the city life. 
At the centre of the inn was a group of people, which included four humans and three dwarves, who were currently engaged in a game of dice. The humans were losing, badly.
To their left were two men, one muscular with half a dozen facial scars, the other a cunning-looking one with a swarthy complexion that suggested Ruborian heritage. On the table between them were two leashed fighting spiders only slightly smaller than a cat, fighting to kill one another; with several onlookers betting, cheering, or booing at the results of the fight.  
A group of three men and a woman was sitting two tables in front of hers. The men were each telling tales and appeared to try to impress the woman, who, Kelaris noted, was acting all enchanted by the stories while slowly slipping coins from their pockets whenever they were not looking.
In the far corner were three people hustled closely together with a map between them, who could not have looked more suspicious if they had tried. They each bore a small branded mark of a pair of leaves on their arm, a mark of a Greenvalish slave, according to Rin.
A grave-looking elf was sitting alone near the bar with a haunted look in his eyes, a small knife in his hand carving small random patterns in his table in what appeared to be stress-relief. Kelaris nodded to him, but he did not acknowledge her, either he had not seen her or he pretended not to.
A pair of short, ginger-haired young women, clearly twins, were dancing around each other near the bar and leading several members of the patrons present in a vulgar song about the award-winning carrot of Mayor Gromgard and how it shrunk during the winter times.
An old woman, who no one seemed to want to get too close to, was sitting by herself alongside a small, pale-green poison toad, and talking in a strange chanting to her bowl of soup.
Near the exit, two halflings were busily and loudly arguing about whether the meat was over- or undercooked, and seemed to be on the brink of erupting out into a fight.
A few tables behind her was a group of six people, quietly discussing how to find their way to some kind of hidden dungeon.
It was a motley group: an armoured dwarf with far too many axes to be practical; a heroic-looking human man with fine clothing, mail armour and an enchanted sword; a soft-faced, matronly woman wearing a white robe and what appeared to be a prayer book; a thin, haughty man with a black goatee, clad in a red robe and with a wooden staff leaning by the chair; a sultry woman with the sharp ears of elven descent, a lyre, a bow, and wearing a skimpy suit of low-cut leather armour that provided far too little protection; and lastly a gruff man who was so large and ugly that Kelaris was almost sure he was at least part troll.
At the table by one of the stairs leading to the upper floor were three cloaked men talking in hushed voices with another who wore a cloak of much finer quality, beneath which she saw a hint of a uniform. This suggested a group of smugglers or thieves bribing a city official or guard of some kind.
A man sat alone at the table across from the three companions. He had a tall, powerful build, and was dressed in an unremarkable dark grey coat. His age was hard to gauge, his hair and thick stubble was still a rich blond shade, but his face looked drawn and weary from experience. His bearing was proud, if tired, and his demeanour grave. There was a power about him. Kelaris imagined that he was, or had been, a high-ranking soldier, perhaps a commander or general even. He had that air of authority about him.
As she looked at him, he looked over at her.
It was an odd thing. He reacted, but not in any way that she had expected. His expression barely changed, but there was a glint of recognition in his pale eyes, and there was a shock hidden within that recognition. It was with a strange gaze that he stared at her. It was not the look of a lascivious older man who had spied a girl who had taken his fancy. This was the look of someone who might have been unexpectedly reunited with a lost sibling or perhaps a father seeing a child he had believed dead.
She imagined scenarios; if he was a high-ranking veteran soldier perhaps she reminded him of a daughter left behind, or perhaps of a young favourite trooper lost on the line. Feeling self-conscious, Kelaris broke the eye contact and looked away, the attention had been mildly uncomfortable.
A few moments later, their food arrived. As she began eating, Kelaris stole a glance back, but the man was gone. She could not see him in the rest of the inn either and wondered whether he might have retired to a room upstairs, or left the inn altogether. She did not give the matter much further thought. Though a strange, foreboding feeling was nagging at the back of her mind, a thought she could not quite give voice to.

Moriah strode through the desolate city streets with long purposeful steps. It had begun to rain, the downpour of the howling liquid projectiles shot down in a relentless cascade. A cold wind had swept in from the north and sent a chill to the bone of everyone braving the elements at this hour.
But the weather mattered nothing to him. Those few of the guards and thugs lurking by the alleys that had not yet sought shelter avoided him, as if they could sense the urgency of his passage, and the danger of interfering with it.
He replayed the sight of the sylphlike girl over and over in his mind.
At first he had thought it was simply a superficial resemblance, his mind playing tricks on him. But now he was almost certain it was not so. The sharp features of the slender face, especially the slanting almond-shaped eyes and pointy ears were too familiar. If she was who he thought she was, then that changed everything. 
Crossing through a mostly empty district, he reached a small, long-abandoned warehouse and pushed open the door, which creaked on its rusty hinges. The building had once been used to store grain and other kinds of food, but for whatever reason had not seen use in decennia.
A brusque snort greeted him as he entered. His white stallion rubbed its head against his shoulder and he briefly brushed its mane with his hand in greeting. Stepping past the great warhorse, Moriah strode over to the secret panel where he had hidden his wargear.
Picking up the equipment with a grave expression he noted that though they needed to be polished, his durium plate armour and heater shield remained in as excellent condition as always. Lastly he drew his priced cadence longsword. The master-crafted durium warblade was as flawless as the day it had been forged seventy years ago.
He nodded to himself solemnly, it had been too long since they had seen worthy battle, and it would be with pride that he would use them to fulfill his duty and see his honour restored.