Marked I
Sharn, Breland.
The rain poured down.
Of course, in the city of towers, it could never really pour very far. It usually hit a roof or a walkway, and then it would run off the edges of that in a semi-solid curtain that would fall until it hit another. Even just a few levels down from the highest spires, it was a peculiar effect.
Near the bottom, it was pure hell if you were trying to stay reasonably dry or, more frequently, alive.
On one walkway, on the seedy side of Dragoneyes in Lower Tavick’s Landing, mostly shielded by the one directly above it, two figures were plying their trade.
The first, a brightly coloured figure wrapped in a dark grey cloak, strummed his lute with barely a thought. The tune was light and strangely reminiscent of the pouring rain, but there was no vocal accompaniment. It was late in the evening, practically early in the morning, and few people were about. The bard, however, occasionally glanced out from under his wide brimmed hat with its sodden feathers at the lithe human pacing the other side of the walkway.
She was beautiful, almost unearthly perfect, with smooth curves and skin the colour of milk. Her hair was long and loose, chocolate brown, her dress a similar colour and just a little too revealing for the weather and the situation. The way she paced indicated she’d been doing it for a very long time.
Someone was approaching.
Encouraged by the sight, the bard picked up his chords a little, even humming in places. If the pacing woman noticed, she gave no sign.
The man, a heavy-set human with a slick, sleazy look about him, barely registered the existence of the lutist, idly flicking a silver piece into the bowl at his feet. He was concentrating on the woman.
She flicked her hair over one shoulder as he approached. “Cold night, sweetheart?” She purred, twisting one strand of hair around a finger. The man chuckled.
“Don’t worry, treacle. I can keep you warm.” He casually put one arm around her shoulders. “How much?”
“For you? Ooh, I don’t know…” she slipped out of his touch smoothly. He laughed. Neither of them had registered the fact that the bard had stopped his playing and got to his feet.
“Playing hard to get, are we?” He snickered, his eyes rarely rising above the woman’s collarbones. “Alright, I’ll make you an off- ungh.”
Slowly, the human keeled over.
“About time!” the woman put her hands on her hips, glaring at the young half-elf. “I’m bloody freezing!”
The bard bowed deeply, whipping off his hat with a flourish. “My deepest apologies, Lyssie, yet again I can only thank you for the fact that we’re actually going to eat tomorrow.”
She snorted, tipping back her head and shaking her hair out. In a matter of seconds, her skin was pure white, lightly tinged with blue, her limbs a little too long, her curves much less pronounced and her hair strait, thin and colourless. Her eyes were milky with a slight pinkish tinge, her nose and lips barely pronounced and her ears nonexistent. The half-elf calmly threw her a dark coloured cloak, kneeling to flip the man over.
“Lyssie, lend us a hand.”
“The moment I’m not in serious danger of my dress falling off.” She wrapped the dark material around her, tightening the various cords that held the flimsy garment in place. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve got rather a lot less… body…in my natural form.”
“You said buy you a dress and you’d change to fit it.”
“I didn’t quite expect one so… unflattering. Besides, Mylo, if I didn’t know better, I’d think that was the way you wanted me to look.”
The bard, Mylo, paused in counting the gold coins in the man’s belt pouch to put a hand over his heart in mock agony.
“Lyssie, I am truly hurt. How could you suggest I would ever want to see you as anything but your beautiful true self?”
“Flatterer.” The dress suitably refitted, Lyssie knelt down to go through the stunned man’s pockets.
“Whatever, treacle.” Mylo had to duck a punch from the wiry changeling.
“Don’t you dare,” she threatened, but Mylo had already changed the object of his attention. He prized the pentagonal cards from her hand.
“Wonder who he was.” The half-elf commented, flipping it open. There was a moment’s silence, then he swore softly.
“What?” Lyssie covered her eyes in despair. Mylo just shoved up the human’s left sleeve to show the lurid swirls of a Dragonmark.
“House Orien.” He commented, almost conversationally, as he dropped the identification papers to the ground and produced a box of tindertwigs. Lyssie sighed, snapping the chain holding a small amber pendant around the man’s neck.
“Burn his travel papers too. He’ll spend a day or two in the cells until someone can be bothered to go down and get him. Serves him right too, bastard. Nice taste in clothes, though.” Lyssie fingered the braid on the cuffs of a reasonably tasteless plum velvet shirt. Never one to mess around, she started stripping off his tunic.
They finally got to their feet; confident they’d pilfered the man of all he had. Lyssie had even taken his boots, on the ground that a House of couriers ought to have damn good boots. Apart from the pile of ash where his papers had been, the large bruise on the back of his head and the conspicuous lack of several items of clothing (although Mylo had put his foot down about Lyssie stealing his breeches as well, and she’d reluctantly agreed that if he died of hypothermia, she would be slightly upset), there was little evidence to indicate their presence. They exited the walkway as quickly as they dared.
“D’you know…” Lyssie mentioned conversationally, testing the point of her new throwing dagger as Mylo expertly snagged a grappling hook on the edge of a bridge ten feet above them. “All we have to do now is rob someone with the Mark of Making and someone with the Mark of Storm and we’ve got the whole set.”
“You’re joking. We haven’t accidentally robbed someone from every single House, have we?”
“Well, we haven’t got House Phiarlan yet, but there’s two Shadow Houses so we’ll have got every Mark.”
“Amazing you remember these things.” Mylo yanked hard a few times on the rope and then stood aside, gesturing for Lyssie to climb. She glanced at him suspiciously.
“You better not look up my skirt.”
“Would I, Lyssie, would I?”
There was a pause.
“On second thoughts, don’t answer that question.”
* * * * *
Mylo pushed the door open for the Changeling, who promptly rushed past him and sprinted up the wooden stairs on one wall of the tavern. Sighing, the Half-Elf moved through the dark room towards the best table, right next to the roaring fire, making curls of pipe smoke billow as he moved.
“Mylo! You look like a drowned cat. That girl been having you out all night again, kid?”
“Some people have to pay their rent, you know, Fireta.” Settling into a chair opposite the Dwarf, Mylo smiled as he regarded quite possibly the strangest member of the species he had ever met.
Most Dwarf women were known for beards as full as the men’s, but Fireta shaved her face smooth, plaiting and coiling her pale blond hair like a human woman. Dressed in a loud harlequin shirt with huge drop sleeves and a broad, floppy collar and cuffs trimmed with bells, baggy purple trousers tucked into knee high turn-down red leather boots, and a pointed cap with a huge fluffy feather, she cut a comical figure, yet Mylo knew better than anyone that she could hold her own in a fight. So well, in fact, that she’d once saved the life of the owner of the Owl’s Rest, who had granted her a room and one good meal a day for as long as she chose to keep it. The offer, plus that of free booze, had kept Fireta in the tavern as entertainer and occasional impromptu bouncer. The flute and mace hanging from her plaited belt were occasionally mixed up, with disastrous results.
“Oh, well, some of us are just gifted. What you get?”
Leaning closer, Mylo muttered. “House Orien courier.”
“Not bad. Burn his papers?”
“Yes.”
“That’s alright then. Lyssie steal his boots?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s my girl.” Fireta drained her tankard. “Lot of gold?”
“Eleven gold, thirteen silver and a dozen copper pieces.”
The Dwarf cleared her throat and pulled a slip of paper out of her sleeve. Mylo groaned.
“You’re calling in my debts NOW?”
“Oh yes. I’m a little short of cash at present, kid.”
“How much?”
“Altogether? Five gold and twelve silver. Cough up.”
Mylo counted out the coins obediently and slid them across the table. Fireta counted them again with great deliberation and dropped them into a coin purse.
“Cheers, kid. Anything else? Trinkets, you know.”
“Not a lot, really. A silver ring, but it’s cheap and the stone’s just glass. A pendant, real amber. Most of his clothes, of course, Lyssie insists…”
“She’s a smart girl. Go on, kid.”
“Lyssie got herself a new dagger. That’s about it.”
Fireta swirled a piece of bread around her plate, mopping up stew. “Mylo…”
“Yes?”
“I’m not being rude, kid. But do you ever get the feeling Lyssie’s got you wrapped around her little finger?”
“Oh yes.” The Half-Elf smiled. “I don’t mind.”
The Dwarf raised her heavily plucked eyebrows. “Well, now, there’s a thing. Mylo, you know what I think? I think you-”
“Am I missing anything?”
Both the Bards started, glancing up at the Changeling now changed into her normal clothes, a fitted lavender shirt, dark blue breeches, soft black boots and a quilted emerald green waistcoat very similar to Mylo’s own, only not quite so well made. She swept her wet hair out of her milky eyes and flopped down onto the third chair at the little table.
“How’s the stew?”
“Delicious. The bread’s fresh baked too.” Fireta slapped Mylo’s hand as he reached for a crust. “But you can get your own.”
The Changeling looked pointedly at her partner. The Half-Elf pushed a handful of copper pieces and three sizeable gold coins across the tabletop.
“Extra bread for me, Lyssie, and don’t let them skimp on the meat. I’ll have half a pint of ale too. And pay off our tab while you’re up there. That’s a good girl.”
Lyssie pouted for a moment, then took the money and flounced away.
“What was that about little fingers, Fireta?” Storm-grey eyes sparkled mischievously. Fireta laughed, pushing her hat back on her elaborate coiffure.
“Heads up, Mylo, we’ve got trouble.” She nodded towards a particularly rowdy table that lay between them and the bar. As Lyssie sauntered past it, one of the rather tipsy men, an artificer of house Cannith if his looks and clothes were anything to go by, grabbed her wrist.
“’Ello, sweetness, looking for a good time?” he leaned over, slurring his words. Lyssie calmly twisted her wrist free, backhanded the drunken human across the face, and continued her stalking. Most of his friends were on their feet in an instant.
“Hey, watch your manners, girlie!” One of them started fingering a warhammer at his waist. Lyssie put one hand on her hip, her position casual, but her other hand disappeared under her shirt at the back, reaching for a concealed dagger.
“Here, now, we’ll have none of that!” Fireta got to her feet and stomped in their direction. “Haven’t you read the articles?” She gestured to the sacred parchment pinned behind the bar that read quite clearly:
No Stealing
No Fighting
No Damaging
of Property
No Undead
or Monsters
No Scrying,
Seeing or Fortune Telling
No Money,
No Service
Please do
NOT ask for Credit for a Kick in the Teeth often offends.
“So get your act together or I’ll have to kick you out.” The Dwarf folded her arms resolutely. The men looked like they were going to argue, but one of them, the only one who had stayed seated, slammed his hand down on the table.
“That’ll be enough of that, lads. Toasting the new schema is one thing, but I told you there’d be none of this carry on!” And then, to Lyssie. “My apologies, miss. Apologise, Duran!”
The offending human paused, then, under the glare of his supervisor, lowered his eyes.
“Sorry, miss. I’m a bit too drunk, I think.”
“I’d agree with that. Apology accepted, I suppose.” Lyssie tossed her hair, turning towards the bar again. The abashed humans returned to their seats, as their leader got to his feet in turn, finishing off the glass in his hand.
“I’ll see you lot tomorrow morning, and the gods help you if even one of you is too hung over to work strait.”
And with that, he stalked out of the room.
Fireta returned to the table. “What a pickle your girl gets herself in, eh, Mylo?”
But the Half-Elf was gone.
A minute later, Lyssie dropped a coin and two mugs of ale onto the table.
“Where’s Mylo?” She asked, with typical bluntness. Fireta shrugged.
“Ran off somewhere. He’ll be back.”
“Damn it, he’s got all the money and they’ve got berry strudel!” After a moment’s pause, Lyssie turned and shot her best smile at Fireta.
“Well, you’ll have to wait until he gets back then.” The Dwarf was resolute. The Changeling pouted again, but soon brightened up.
“Well, I guess I’ll have to go find him… or that gem merchant that usually lurks around here…” She twirled a chain with an amber pendant on one long forefinger. Fireta scowled.
“Where d’you get that?”
“Palmed it off Mylo, of course. Don’t look like that, Fireta, I’m always doing it. He never notices.” And with that, Lyssie skipped away.
Shaking her head, Fireta consoled herself by drinking most of the ale the Changeling had brought.
* * * * *
“You know, you shouldn’t really walk the Bazaar at night alone.”
The artificer wheeled around, one hand on his weapon, the other at the collar of his high-necked coat. “Who’s there?”
A figure, wrapped in a long grey cloak and with a plumed hat pulled low over his eyes, leant against the wall behind him. It chuckled.
“But then again, you never did have much sense, Ardon d’Cannith.”
“How do you…” at that point, the figure raised his head, and Ardon saw clearly the sparkling grey eyes of the Half-Elf.
“Mylo! By the Last War, I haven’t seen you in…” Ardon swept his fringe out of his eyes, smiling suddenly, and held out one forearm.
“Six, seven years?” Mylo grasped it with a smile. “How time flies, eh?”
“Gods above, you’ve barely changed!”
“You have! Last time I saw you, you were barely a teenager.”
“How in Breland did you recognise me?”
“Dragonmark.” Mylo brushed his throat with a forefinger. Blushing slightly, Ardon pulled the scarf at his neck a little higher.
“Anyway, what are you doing these days?”
“Oh, this and that.” Mylo waved it aside.
“That wasn’t your girl, by any chance, was it?”
“Lyssie? Good Gods, no. We know each other.”
“Oh really?” Ardon leant against the wall beside the Half-Elf. Mylo produced a small flask and offered it.
“She gets herself in to trouble fairly frequently. I talk her out of it.”
“You went and became a bard after all, then?” Ardon took a swig, coughed, and passed it back. “Bloody hell, that’s strong.”
“Dwarf whisky.” Mylo chuckled, tipping the flask up. “Yes, I went and became a bard… much to Daddy’s distress, I imagine.”
“I can’t say the House were too disappointed.” Ardon glanced sidelong at his old friend.
“Oh, please don’t mention the House.”
“Mylo…”
“Yes?”
Ardon paused for a long moment, staring at the rain. “When you ran away… it wasn’t anything to do with me, was it?”
“Why d’you say that?” Mylo responded carefully. Ardon shrugged.
“It just seemed a little too convenient, that’s all. I mean, you were the first person I told about… you know.” The Artificer’s hand went to his throat. “And then… two days later, you disappeared off the face of Eberron.”
Mylo shrugged. “There were a lot of things going on. I figured… I figured now you were Dragonmarked, and you’d be getting all that attention… you wouldn’t miss me so much if I went.”
Ardon’s eyebrows raised, but he didn’t say anything.
“Still,” Mylo continued. “I’m glad I ran into you again.”
“Yes.” The artificer latched onto the change of topic with false enthusiasm. “It was good seeing you again.”
Sensing that it was probably best to end the conversation there, Mylo held out his arm. “Don’t be a stranger, Ardon.”
“Likewise, Mylo.” The human clasped his forearm with a smile. Someone cleared their throat loudly behind them.
“Am I missing something?” Lyssie raised an eyebrow, her arms folded and one hip dropped to create the perfect indolent posture. Mylo released Ardon’s arm quickly.
“Ah, Lyssie, this is an old friend of mine. Ardon, Lyssie. Lyssie, Ardon.”
“Pleasure’s all mine.” The artificer held out one hand. Lyssie returned the gesture warmly.
“Just wanted to say thank you again for saving me back there.” The Changeling fluttered her eyelashes. Behind Ardon’s back, Mylo raised one finger in a silent warning that Lyssie ignored. The human blushed again, waving it aside.
“Well, you know…”
“Oh, but really! You were so brave!” Lyssie stepped closer, both hands clasped at her collarbone. Ardon took a step back, glancing to Mylo for support.
“They’re alright really, they wouldn’t have done anything. Cowards to a man. Anyway…”
“Anyway, Lyssie, stop acting like a love-sick Pegasus.” Mylo grabbed the Changeling’s collar, yanking her back a step. Lyssie jerked free, scowling. Ardon nodded to them both.
“I had better be going. See you around, Mylo.”
“See you, Ardon.” The Half-Elf patted Lyssie on the head. “Say ‘bye-bye’ Lyssie.”
“Fuck off.” The young thief turned her back as Ardon waved, smiling, and headed off into the rain. Mylo scowled at his partner.
“You better not have stolen anything.”
“Oh, really, Mylo.” Lyssie held up the heavy House Cannith ring she’d been examining with a superior expression. “What do you take… me… f-”
Mylo darted forward, catching the Changeling as she fainted dead where she stood.
“Lyssie?” He lowered her to the paving stones. “Lyssie! LYSSIE!”
Hearing the yell, Ardon turned, and seeing the slumped figures on the ground, hurried back to Mylo’s side.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know, she just…”
“Gods above, she’s burning up!”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“I’ve never seen someone get so warm!”
“We better get her inside.”
“We need a healer.”
“We’ll find one after we get her inside. We’ll take the back door, follow me!”
Lifting the slight little Changeling in his arms, Mylo lead the way down an alley, Ardon in tow.
And wrapped in a shroud-like robe under the falling curtains of water, a distant watcher started laughing.
* * * * *
Mylo elbowed the door to their room open, dumping Lyssie on her bed. Kneeling down beside her, he quickly put his hand to her throat.
“Oh gods… she’s not breathing and her heart’s so slow…”
“I’ll go get a healer…” Ardon started for the door, but the half-elf grabbed his sleeve.
“Forget it, you don’t know your way around Dragoneyes. I’ll send Fireta up here and run to the temple. Wait with her!”
The artificer leant over the unconscious changeling, his concern obvious. He didn’t understand even the basic tenants of healing, and didn’t quite know what he was going to do if she started to worsen, or even how he’d know. He put his hand against her neck as Mylo had done, and wondered for a moment what the half-elf had been feeling for. There was nothing there.
And then he realised that the reason her throat was so still was because she wasn’t breathing, and her heart wasn’t beating.
Her hand leapt upwards and closed around his wrist, and suddenly he was staring into eyes that were pitch black, not milky pink.
“So it begins.” She hissed, in a voice that wasn’t quite her own, with the barest breath of air.
Then she fell back, dead.
Ardon pressed himself against the wall of the tiny room, his head spinning. Theories of undead and possession swirled through his head, followed up by a nasty, creeping thought. This is the hallucinations starting, you knew you were going too far, and now they won’t ever stop…
“Lyssie?”
Fireta flung the door open, took in the tableau in one glance, and darted to the changeling’s side.
“What the hell did you do to her?”
“Nothing! I didn’t… Mylo said he was going to get you and run on to the temple, and she… she…”
“What? What did she do?”
“I don’t know, but she…”
Lyssie flung herself upwards with a single great, sucking breath, and started screaming.
Ardon almost fell over himself trying to back away further. Fireta tried to pin her to the bed as she started writhing and screaming.
“Stop standing there like a complete idiot! Give me a hand!”
The artificer numbly followed her orders, grabbing one of Lyssie’s arms to hold her down. Fireta bolted out, the dwarf’s little legs working overtime as she shot down the stairs and out the door. Even from where he was, Ardon could hear the yell, coming, as it was, from a very impressive set of Bard’s lungs.
“MYLOOOOOOO! GET YOUR ARSE BACK HERE NOW!”
Lyssie tore herself free with a colossal wrench, taking advantage of his momentary distraction, and flung herself against his chest.
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I’m sosososososorry…” She fumbled something into his hands and collapsed, sobbing, into his shoulder. “I didn’t w-want to take it! M-Mylo made me do it! Make it stop hurting! PLEASE m-make it stop hurting!”
“But… what… I don’t…”
Mylo appeared at the door and froze, Fireta a second behind him. Ardon made a gesture of helplessness as the changeling clung to him. Fireta snorted, but Mylo was beside them in an instant and tried to prise her away.
“Lyssie, by all the Gods, what did you…?”
She jerked away violently, falling on the floor.
“Don’t touch my back! Don’t touch-”
Then she just curled into a ball, quivering. Mylo knelt on the dirty planking beside her, but she shrugged away his hands every time he touched her. Ardon realised that Fireta was staring at the object in his hand, and he glanced down out of sheer curiosity. It was his ring, a heavy, silver thing with the shield of House Cannith carved into a large bloodstone.
“But…” he frowned. “She… she gave this to me, but it’s mine… she seemed to…”
“Talk sense, kid. You don’t half stumble over your words.”
“She seemed to thing this was the reason all this happened. She thought I’d done this…”
“Did you?”
“No!”
“Leave him alone, Fireta, and give me a hand!” Mylo jerked his head up. Lyssie’s quivering wasn’t quite so violent, and neither were her attempts to slap his hands away. “I think it’s her back, help me get her on the bed…”
The changeling didn’t fight them as she was manhandled onto her bed, face down. Mylo stripped off her waistcoat and hissed as he saw dark spots of blood leaching through the lavender underneath. Fireta tilted her onto her side so they could unbutton the shirt, Ardon hovering in embarrassed concern.
“What do you think is wrong…” his voice trailed away as Mylo’s deft fingers unlaced the thick corslette underneath, bright lines like burns or cuts running across her pale skin. Her back fully exposed, the few swirling lines they traced were clear, yet unconnected and meaningless. Or maybe not.
“Oh, gods above.” Ardon suddenly realised where he’d seen lines like that before. Lyssie lifted her head, turning it to the side so she could see them.
“What’s going on?” She whispered, her brow tight with concern. “Why am I…?”
Fireta got to her feet, waving the two boys out of the room.
“I don’t care what they are or where they came from, but I’m gonna bandage them up and that means you two have got to wait outside. Go downstairs and have a beer or two. Put it on my tab.”
Mylo leant against the heavy stone wall in a state of shock, slumping down to the dirty plank floor. Ardon followed suit, still fiddling with the ring.
“What the hell.” The half elf enunciated quite clearly. “Just happened?”
“I don’t know.” Ardon replied. Mylo glanced at the ring.
“Could it be that? I mean, could there be some kind of enchantment on it?”
“No. I’d know about it. Part of the training, you know, randomly targeting your friends with spells. I’d have picked it up if someone else’s ring had a curse on it, or someone would have noticed if mine did.”
“Then what could it be?”
Ardon was silent for a moment, then muttered. “I don’t know. But I could hazard a guess.”
“What?” Mylo looked concerned. The artificer sighed, tapping the side of his throat.
“Your Dragonmark…?”
“No. Hers.”
Mylo was speechless. For just a moment.
“Dragonmarks don’t manifest like that!”
“They do… well, not just like that, obviously, I didn’t stop breathing or go all freaky and possessed and it didn’t bleed, but it comes in a little bit at a time and you get a temperature and feel woozy.”
“But… but she’s a changeling! They can’t have Dragonmarks!”
“Is she a full blood changeling, though?”
“I… don’t know.” Mylo paused, gaping like a fish. “But still…”
“If she’s half human or something, then it could be an aberrant mark. That would explain all the strangeness.” The look on the half elf’s face clearly illustrated that he remembered the scorn and hatred the Dragonmarked families held towards people like that. Ardon pulled off his hat and ran a hand through his hair.
“But…”
“But what?” Mylo jumped on the words. The artificer shrugged.
“It’s so big. Once the rest fills in, it’s going to cover her entire back.”
“A greater aberrant mark?”
“I don’t know.”
The half elf was silent for a while, then rubbed his eyes.
“It’s not a Dragonmark. It can’t be.”
“I was just saying…”
“I know. Forget it. I don’t know. Maybe aberrant marks do do that.” He paused, then laughed weakly. “It’s funny, you know, she said, earlier on, that we only had to steal something from someone with the Mark of Making and someone with the Mark of Storm and she had the whole set. I guess now we… we’re only one off.”
“Oh, Mylo…”
“What?”
Ardon stared at him for a long time, his eyes sad. Finally, when he spoke, his voice was flat.
“You’re a thief.”
“Well, it pays the rent.”
“You said you went and became a bard, just like you said you would!”
“I did! It’s just… every tavern around here has it’s own minstrel and I’m pretty good on the Lute, and I can sing, but it’s not really a very inspirational instrument, and I can’t write pub songs. I just can’t get it right. Every time I come up with a catchy tune I can’t think of the words to go with it and every time I do have words it’s for something more operatic… I mean, I’d be okay if I was writing for a theatre or opera house or something, but to get there I’ve got to be noticed and I don’t have the time to write a whole play or…”
“But… stealing? Breaking into houses?”
“Gods, no!”
“Well, what? You’re a pick pocket?”
“Not exactly…”
“What do you mean, not exactly?”
“Well, we usually hit them over the head first.”
Ardon went quiet. “Dear gods, Mylo, you could have done so much better…”
“Just like you, you mean? I guess you’re an overseer now. Nice place in Dragontowers, three meals a day…”
“It’s not like that…”
“Better than having to share a room the size of a stable with a hyperactive changeling who keeps nicking your spare change and living off a bowl of weak stew and half a loaf of bread.”
“Damn it, Mylo, if you hate this so much, why did you run away?”
“Because I didn’t know it was going to be like this! I can’t go back, and I couldn’t stay… I couldn’t! I hated it! All their rules and expectations and…”
“If you think it was bad for you, try being a Dragonmarked heir sometime.” Ardon retorted bitterly. Mylo looked like he was going to say something, but changed his mind.
“I hope Lyssie’s alright.” He muttered. The artificer put a hand on his arm.
“I’m sure she’ll be fine.” He paused, then added. “By the way, Mylo, you and Lyssie…”
“Partners in crime. Literally.”
“Well, I figured… but, I mean… you’re not… y’know…”
“She’s not my mistress, if that’s what you mean.”
“Oh.”
“Doesn’t much hold with that sort of thing, does Lyssie.”
“Oh.”
“Exactly.”
“But you like her, don’t you?”
“Oh, leave me alone!” the half elf punched him on the shoulder. “You used to do this when we were kids!”
“Still pisses you off.”
“Yes, it does.”
“Do you like her?”
“Maybe. I dunno. Why does it matter? She doesn’t like me.”
“Are you sure?”
“Very.”
“Oh.”
There was another long silence. Finally, Ardon cleared his throat.
“And by the way,” He slotted the ring back on his forefinger. “I live in the Cogs, actually.”
“Damn, and I thought I had it rough.”
“It’s not bad.”
“What do you do, anyway?”
“Construct maintenance, mostly, although I’ve been working with a couple of other Artificers on a new homunculus schema.”
“Oh.”
“You don’t have a clue what that means, do you?”
“Well, kind of…”
“I fix golems.”
“Oh.” Mylo stretched. “Sounds boring.”
“It isn’t bad. I get plenty of free time, though.”
“Hang around Dragoneyes a lot, then?”
“No… usually I head up to Downstairs for a play.”
“A play?” The half elf paused, then groaned. “Downstairs? You mean the Diamond. You mean you actually watch those monstrosities Luca Syara calls plays?”
The Artificer riled. “Luca Syara is a genius!”
“She’s morbid.”
“She’s wonderful. I’ve seen nearly every one of her plays… I’m nearly always there on the opening night.”
“I’ve met her, y’know.”
“You have?”
“Well… I’ve seen her. I was… well, I was hoping to audition for Gailan’s… she got shown in and very quickly everyone else got shown out. I did hear one pompous old fool tell her that he didn’t like her plays, and she just stared at him, and then said that she hadn’t written them for him to like them.”
“Wow. What did she look like?”
“Sick.”
“Oh.”
“Really pale. All in black. Kinda pretty, but dowdy all the same.”
“Oh.”
“What, you were hoping she’d be gorgeous?”
“Well, I had heard…”
Mylo snorted. “Unbelievable. You’ve got a crush on someone you’ve never even seen.”
“No worse than having a crush on a hyperactive Changeling that steals your spare change.” Was his coy reply. The half-elf almost hit him.
“For the love of… Ardon! For the last time, I do NOT have a crush on Lyssie!”
“You’re denying it. You know that’s always proof.”
“Oh, shut up. Lets go get a couple of beers.”
“And then a couple more. It’s been a hectic evening.”
“Yeah, and it’s on Fireta’s tab.”
* * * * *