William always slept great on trains. He found the rocking was comfortable, a slow sway back and forth, the occassional jerks were not overly bothersome. Most of the time they were quiet enough, surrounding conversations and running wheels folded together into a better murmer than pure silence. Also, William never, absolutely never, got an ounce of rest at all the night before travel. That was the real reason he slept well on trains.
He’d tried, last night - went to bed at the appropriate time, laid there tangled in the blankets. A doctor had told him once that even if sleep couldn’t be managed it was still restful lying there, awake and miserable. Anyways, William gave up after an hour and a half to instead sit on his upstairs porch and read the projectile research book. Yes, he’d gone back to the bookshop to pick it up, he wanted it, Perien had pegged it right. He even paid, although Perien had forced their interaction short. William had intended to give the ‘available guard resources’ speech and Perien all but balatently told him he was busy and to get out before William even got through the first options. It was Perien’s loss, although the shop did seem to be in a much better state those few days later. At least all the books were back on the shelves.
The research itself really was as approachable as described, or maybe William was getting better at digesting asterponics jargon. He did not bring it with him on the train. Everett had instructed him to pack light.
William didn’t yet open his eyes. Consciousness had been finding him slow and easy, and he was enjoying ignoring it’s presence as it steadily mounted, filling up the airyness in his head, collecting in his joints. He gave his legs a stretch and hit something with the tip of his boot, something hard, but also a little soft at first, like a shin. Like Everett’s shin.
“Sorry.” William yawned.
Everett only responded with a small hum. William mustered up the will and opened his eyes to his companion across the aisle. Rell still sat to his left side. The two of them had boxed William up in the corner of their four seat alcove. Not that there likely was much thought put into it, but if they were trying dissuade him from going anywhere, there wasn’t much purpose. The second the train started moving William had been dead to the world. He pulled his arms above his head and popped a shoulder. Amazing.
“I was wondering if you would sleep away the whole trip.” Rell said.
William pulled up a sleeve and checked his watch. Eleven-ish. No wonder he felt great, he’d slept five hours of a six hour train ride. That was a whole missing night of sleep made up.
“Are you naturally sleepy? Rell continued, “or you didn’t sleep last night? Nerves?” She smiled wryly.
William was all of those things, but he said, “it’s something with trains.”
Everett looked exactly the same as he did when William had first closed his eyes, leaning back in his seat, hands folded in his lap. Rell had a small bag clutched between hers. She noticed William looking.
“Want some?” She dropped it in his hand. One of those bags of mixed nuts from the snack cart.
He took a look inside. “Did you fish out all of the almonds?”
“There weren’t any, weird right?”
Whatever. William picked out a peanut.
He’d agreed to this journey with the understanding that the final destination wouldn’t be revealed until they arrived. William knew where the train was going, Bianeuve, a mid-sized town north-east of Asier Proper. He had only thoughts and notions about where they would go from there. Everett had reached out two days after the Perien affair. When William had returned home after work another note was slipped under his door, seemed Everett was fond of the method. He’d graced William with the scant details and provided a long list of product codes from a bivouacking catalog, proper outdoor equipment, for those unfortunate enough to have to walk to wherever their destination may be. It stormed the night William called to set up the purchase. He sat in the lounge chair in his office under a throw and listed out, over and over, long strings of digits against the sound of falling rain on the windowsill. He didn’t blink at the final cost, but most would have. William would wager most in the city would have cancelled the order then and there. He wondered how Everett and Rell paid for it. They had matching bags in the cubbies above the seats.
He had to rush ship the equipment for it to arrive by the departure date, and during the in-between he had fretted about additions to the, already lengthy, list. There was no question in William’s mind to include his revolver. Carrying it was a long habit of his, he brought it everywhere guns weren’t banned. Without it, especially in unfamiliar territory, he felt exposed, naked even. William had asked Everett about other weaponry. The act of wearing a sword was drapped in etiquette, and well, William didn’t know where they were going, and Everett had offered no instruction on decorum. The only clarification offered in return was the advice that William might prefer to be ‘fully armed’, so the sword and dagger came along, they were shoved up above William’s head with his pack.
‘Fully armed’, however, had brought on other questions, for William had one more weapon he was competent in. He’d languished over the decision to bring the rifle. That whole evening packing he went back and forth, back and forth. The rifle spent several hours on his kitchen table, then half an hour in his bedroom on the end of the bed, then in the basement, forgotten, then remembered, and retrieved to be placed on the kitchen table once more, wrapped in its fabric case. He’d been all but decided on leaving it behind when he attempted bed, and his opinion didn’t change on the roof, past midnight, under what stars could be seen through the light pollution. After all, it wasn’t the sort of object to take on excursions, it was probably worth more than his house, not that he’d ever gotten it appraised.
That morning he grabbed it as he was walking out the door.
He experienced some sort of visceral, nauseated feeling upon attempting to leave without it. It too, was safely tucked among his other belonging. He’d recieved no comment from Rell or Everett about the extra bag just a little longer than one might expect a hunting rifle to be, for which William was thankful.
The Asieeran countryside flew by behind the train’s windowpane, rolling meadows upon the gentle foothills of the Arcan mountains. Everett had turned his head to better look out the window, but otherwise hadn’t moved a muscle. Rell bobbed her left heel on the stained carpet floor. Nothing was said.
William leaned back in the chair with a little breath and made himself comfortable. He too, stared out the window. He picked at the mixed nuts. Rell had missed two almond at the bottom of the bag.
It seemed a natural time to strike up a conversation, remedy the fact he’d never spoken casually with the two of them, but William couldn’t quite untangle the strange airs over their alcove, and that caused him to hesitate. Had they been stewing like this all morning? He’d had been more than a little out of it when they’d met up at Trou Circle Station. He’d shown up early, he couldn’t remember when. He couldn’t remember how they had acted with any certainty. Now, Everett had his hands wound so tightly together it was pressing white patches into his skin. He clutched that ring he wore on his right index finger.
If it wasn’t obvious before, this trip was fiercely important, but it had been obvious, they’d stunk of desperation the entire time William had known them, and he would know.
(Because smelling desperation was an essential skill in his career and not because of other reasons.)
William decided to sit in silence unless someone else broke it, and instead watch the wildflowers go by through the windows, watch them turn to rows of grains and orchards, and then into town once again. Bianeuve had a good train station, not Trou Circle grand, but there was nowhere on Lucid like Trou Circle. They got off the train with little words more than ‘excuse me’ and ‘thank you’ when Everett got Rell and William’s bags down for them, handing William his rifle shaped strip of canvas. The streets of Bianeuve were more reminiscent of the Cliffs District than William’s own - wide brick roads lined with flowerbeds, done up nicely as befits a city’s center, where the train station had spit them out. William would swear he’d been through here before once. The blue sky against the quaintly colored brick buildings reflected back on him in a familiar way.
Everett stopped them by the road full of cabs, almost all of them horse drawn.
“I’ll go arrange one.” He said. “Stay here.”
Left to his own devices, William found a suitable looking light pole to lean against and dropped the bag of hiking equipment off his back to his feet, not that it was too heavy, on the contrary, it felt quite handleable there hanging off his shoulders. He was lucky that was the case. Hopefully it would continue. Back in his academy days he’d been forced on rucks, and performed fine, William might add, but he’d been a teenager then and he would have to admit his physical conditioning had been decaying somewhat these past ten months. He was a good soldier who would manage, that’s what he was telling himself.
“Can I ask where to next?”
Rell had stayed behind with him. “Presense, a village north of here.”
William didn’t know it.
“Actually, we will get off before we get there.” She continued.
The sternly worded and already long agreed to deal securing William’s ignorance of this journey was doing a lot of heavy lifting in keeping him from badgering her with questions. The whole thing was a little puzzle, a mystery to unravel, and if William didn’t like mysteries overly much he could at least tolerate them, but they were so far north already, the tips of mountains were bearing down on them in the distance. What the hell was even out here?
“Looks like Everett’s ready.” Rell said.
He waved them over in the distance.
The carriage was small with two chestnut draft horses at the helm led by a distinctly northern looking man. William tucked himself into his seat and stared out the window blankly. There was an uncomfortable theory forming in his head that his two companions were attempting to smuggle themselves into Norc. What else was there, other than small villages and their insulated cultures? Even Episier was a distance more west than they currently were, if William was tracking his geography correctly. Was this a failure of imagination on his part? He couldn’t go to Norc via mountain paths, absolutely not, with his position he could get court-martialed for unauthorized travel into a foreign neighbor, not to mention one hundred other reasons he wanted nothing to do with those mountains.
“Are you planning to pass through the mountains to Norc?” William kept his voice low, just over the sound of wheels driving through dirt.
Everett looked at him with… William didn’t know, he could barely read Everett.
“I cannot go to Norc.” He said.
“No, we aren’t going to Norc.” Everett took a quick glance out the window. “We won’t be going into the mountains.” Why was his accent so inscruatable? Where the hell were they going?
A silence fell over the carriage. Everett leaned in, elbows on his knees. “I’m trying to get you the information I owe you. It’s complicated. I’m sorry.” He sat back up. “Rell will take you back at any time, if you want. Please don’t feel coerced.”
Rell didn’t look surprised and made no objections, but didn’t seem happy about it. Neither was William. He took nine vacation days for this, Hakra had been estatic, Bahlin the opposite. No, he wouldn’t be limping home, he’d have to find somewhere else to go for his first voluntary vacation… ever.
The horrific thought of having to back out clouded his head so that he paused at making theories or other rational thoughts and instead took to catastrophizing through his exact geographical northern limit. Would a trip to the mountains be so unbearable? They were east enough from Episier he could stomach it, right? It wasn’t even that he didn’t believe Everett, he did believe Everett. He believed in the inclination he’d observed in Everett to favor avoidance rather than dishonesty. The nerves weren’t very responsive to reason, however.
In the middle of non-descript woods, not a landmark in William’s sight, Everett knocked on the window behind him and bid the driver let them off, true to Rell’s word, with no hint of village in sight. They hauled the gear up on their backs and stepped foot into the woods. From somewhere in his pack Everett had procured a machete, which he used to hack a path through the ood bush, but there wasn’t much growth to handled. There might have even been a thin path weaving through the hills and trees, once upon a time.
“How far?” William asked.
Everett pushed aside a branch. “Not very.” Another blade, a thin small sword, hung at his hip. Different tools for different jobs.
At the crest of a knoll William looked back and saw they had gained a little height. A glance at his watch and a look to the sky showed they hadn’t been trekking for long when Everett brought them to a flat, circular clearing, several metres wide and filled with knee high grass.
“It looks correct to you? He asked Rell.
She hummed her response.
William stepped into the circle, the very perfect circle. The grass and the forest brush wove together at the edges, but he could see the unnaturally flawless symmetry.
“Take a rest if you’d like.” Everett said. He took his pack off and dropped it in the grass.
William sat down. “Is this our final destination?”
“No, not at all.” Everett crouched down and dug through his bag, sparing glances at Rell as he looked for whatever it was he was looking for, then stopped and tilted his head at her. “We weren’t followed.” He stated.
She eyed the horizon behind them, bouncing up on her toes, then looked down at William cross-legged in the grass. “We have one follower.”
For a response, Everett let out only a ‘humpht’, then pulled a small case out of his pack, about the size of a paperback novel.
Perhaps William was starting to get sick of not being included in their mutual understanding, now that he was sitting in the grass and not too focused on navigating the weeds under his feet. The nerves were getting harder to keep in check, his long bemoaned and unappreciated petulant streak was waking up.
“You didn’t need to bring me along.”
“I haven’t known you very long, Will Belafose.” Everett had the contents of his package laid out in the grass. “But I think I’ve gathered some sense for you. You will find your way to what you are looking for regardless of our involvement.”
In his hands, silver metal caught the sunlight. The object drapped between his fingers and clinked against itself, until Everett managed to get it untangled and lifted it over his head. Before it touched his temples, William recognized the object.
Everett locked a clasp around his neck, tight as a choker, and another around the top of his forehead. The aveitium composing the skullclamp twinkled like fine jewelry.
“If that is to be the case.” Everett said. He stood up and dusted off his thighs and looked down to William. “I would prefer to control the narrative.”
Before he even took a chance to breathe William hurried to his feet, took two steps back, around his bag, don’t trip. The animal part of his brain screamed at him, snarling, grab the gun, brandish a weapon back. Prove to that man you are dangerous too. The logical part knew Everett would have him crushed or incinerated before he had his finger around the trigger.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you hesitate.” Everett said. He brushed a finger along the metal at his throat. “Why? What does this mean to you?”
It was strange, because one didn’t need a formal history education, like William had, to have an idea of what a skullclamp was, because they were littered throughout paintings, statues, texts, metaphors, and were always worn by the losing side, though reality had been more complicated than fiction liked to imply. Asier’s winning approach had caused the abandonment of the meliorare chaplet, or had been the abandonment of the meliorare chaplet. History was complicated.
“You don’t know?”
“I don’t.” Everett said. “I’m not from here.”
But even then, who in this world didn’t know at least a little Asieeran history?
“They’re war weapons.” William finally said. They were an escalation. If the tetrad iconom, the thin invisible lines William still wasn’t entirely confident Rell wore on her arms and shoulders was a bonfire, the skullclamp was a whole forest burning, edge to edge. That’s how it’d been described to William, once.
Everett thought on this for a moment. “Is it possible other places used them for something different?”
Obviously so. There was nothing sacred about an auctor worn on the head. That wasn’t the question.
“What are you using it for?” Perhaps this really was a failure of imagination. Maybe William wasn’t thinking right, but he couldn’t come up with a use case for complicated asterponics in the middle of the woods, one that could burn a perfect circle through the undergrowth.
Everett didn’t answer, of course he didn’t. He held out a hand. “Come find out.”
William stared hard at Everett’s hand. After a moment, Everett retract it slightly. “The offer still stands, Rell will take you back if you no longer wish to continue.”
The math was complex and the calculations hastily run, but William came to the conclusion, at a rather alarming rate, that an unknown auctor shaped like a weapon of destruction was less perilous than a trip to the Arcan mountains. There was something unhealthy in that, he’d have to think more on it… later. Eventually.
He flung his bags back on, marched up to Everett, grabbed his hand, and Everett laughed, small and breathy, but he laughed. It was a little small, demure, but it reached his eyes. It looked good on him. Everett beckoned Rell over and twisted his index finger into the meridian at the bottom right of William’s left palm, and the anisity connected them together, that little jolt when the sonnant aligned, the auctor primed.
“You don’t need to be so tense.” Everett said, “I won’t hurt you. If I meant you harm I wouldn’t need an auctor to do so.”
William took a breath. “Just get it over with before I change my mind.” He closed his eyes.
There was nothing for a few long moments save the presence of sonnant tickling his palm. Then, very, very suddenly all sensation sharpened and a white hot, piercing pain shot through William’s head like a bullet. It could be a bullet, William felt like he was going to puke. He’d never been shot in the head before, so he really wouldn’t know, but he was sure he’d stopped breathing. Insofar as he could still feel his knees, they buckled beneath him. Consciousness was leaving him quickly, his ears were ringing, the encompassing agony was fading into numbness and darkness. Before it was all gone he put everything he had left into forcing his eyes open, to a brilliant, deep amethyst purple, covering his vision from periphery to periphery, and then it faded to black.