Arcanum - Of Steamwork and Magic Ch. 08

She drew back, panting heavily.

I gulped. "Well, Miss..." I paused. "Did you ever tell me your last name?"

Her cheeks flushed. "Virginia," she said, nodding. "We, uh, renounce our old names when we enter the Panarii."

"Really?" I asked, quietly. "So, we have more in common than prophecy."

Virginia blinked. "Your name isn't Rayburn Cog?"

"It is now," I said, quickly, feeling as if we were skirting too close to something beyond what either of us were willing to articulate. Telling her I was originally Resh Craig felt far too close to revealing my heart to her. But...a part of me yerned to. Instead, I took her hands and squeezed. "S-Shall we, uh, get dinner? I hear the dining car on the Vermilion is quite good."

Virginia's head bobbed.

Together, we took seats in the corner of the first class dining car. Even so, we drew scandalized looks from the rest of the bourgeoisie customers. A few pursed their lips, and one man tucked his handkerchief into his lapel, as if he was planning to come on over and give me a piece of his mind. But you know what? I was done with this nonsense. And so, as the waiter came over, I leaned back into my seat and loudly said: "I would like the finest wine you have for me and my lovely companion here. Put it to Gilbert Bates' tab."

The waiter bowed his head. "Of course, sir, the Quintarran 1210," he said, then turned to walk off.

As he bustled off, the rest of the cab hastily went back to their conversations. Virginia blushed at me. "Was that wise, Ray?"

"No, but it was satisfying," I said, nodding quickly. I picked up my napkin, then shook it out. I smiled at Virginia. "Let us own up to it. We are both abject cowards. And so, let us turn the conversation to safer waters and our various and sundry mysteries." I set the napkin down on my lap as the waiter returned with a fluted crystal bottle and a pair of glasses. The cork popped and I swear half the men in the room flinched, as if they were being suddenly reminded of a half-orc sitting in their midst. As the wine poured, I leaned back in my seat. "Agreed?"

"Agreed!" Virginia said, nodding. She picked up her glass before the wine had even been poured and, for a few moments, a pantomime began as she held out her glass to be poured and the waiter tried to hastily move the tip of his bottle to match her glass, and both shook with the gentle swaying of the dinner cab. Finally, Virginia set her glass down on the table and flushed. Once her glass was actually filled, the waiter stepped away again.

"We have the mysterious missing dwarves," I said. "The ownership of the Bessie Toonie mine-"

"I had completely forgotten about that," Virginia admitted.

I grinned. "The mysterious map contained within the ancient iron chest and the three metal drums."

"Oh, uh..." Virginia coughed. "I had been meaning to tell you about that."

"What?" I asked.

"We lost the map," she sad.

"We did?" I asked.

She nodded, looking miserable. "I don't know when we did, but we did."

"We still have the newspaper about the Garringsburg robbery, but we lost the irreplaceable map to the ancient machine built by who knows that could possibly do literally anything?" I slumped in my seat, then knocked back my entire glass of wine. "Please tell me we at least still have my schematics for the charged ring and the accelerator rifle, right?"

"We have the original, yes," Virginia said.

"Good," I said, sighing. "Still, the Toonie situation is something we can put on the back burnenr." I frowned. "What do you know of the elves of Arcanum?"

Virginia bit her lower lip. "Well, I know that they mostly live beyond the intersection of the Grey and the Stonewall mountains, in the northwestern corner of Arcanum. I think it's the Glittering Forest?"

"Glimmering, I believe," I said as the waiter returned with bread and with pots of soft butter. I began to liberally apply butter to my bread, frowning ever so slightly. Virginia, meanwhile, simply dipped her bread directly into the dish. "But the elves aren't known for meddling in the affairs of us lowly mortals."

Virginia nodded. "The last time the elves did anything on the political stage was during the Age of Legends, when Nasrudin and the Elven Council laid down the law. I, uh, finally did manage to stop by the Panarii temple in Tarant."

"Oh, did you now?" I asked.

"Yes, while you were meeting with Mr. Bates," she said. "Nasrudin and the elven council were responsible for protecting the younger races during the Age of Legends. Two thousand years ago, magick was far stronger than it was today, and the magickal threats were commensurately stronger. They faced down a great many evils before Arronax. The Bane of Kree, Gorogoth, Kraka-tur..." She shook her head. "Others."

"I've heard of the Bane of Kree," I said. "He was some ancient barbarian, led the sack of Kree, right?"

"That's right," Virginia said, before stuffing half a bread loaf into her face. She chewed with clear relish and, for a few moments, once more looked like the chipmunk faced girl that I had met at the beginning of this adventure. Once she had swallowed, she said: "Gorogoth was some kind of monster with a fondness for eating up whole villages. Unkillable, according to the scripture."

"Then how did Nasrudin punch his ticket?" I asked, buttering another carefully sliced chunk of bread.

"Oh, the Elven Council didn't execute any of the great evils, not according to the scripture," Virginia paused, holding another loaf she had torn in half. She saw me buttering with a knife, blushed, and began to use her own knife, after wiping her hands on the hem of her robes. "Uh, or, they did. It's not entirely clear whether 'banished yonder into the infinite void' is referring to an actual place called the void, or if it's just a way to describe..." She shrugged. "Death."

"Death isn't exactly an infinite void, though," I said, frowning. "Can't necromancers, both white and black, bring the dead back?"

Virginia stuck her tongue out of the corner of her mouth, thinking. "The white branch of necromancy is fully capable of bringing the soul back to a body, assuming the soul wishes to return and the body is freshly dead. The black branch, though, can return a body to animation no matter how long the soul has been gone -- but that's not...that's not the same thing at all."

I nodded. "Like those bloody zombies."

"Exactly," Virginia said, shrugging. "I hope we never run into any of those again."

I frowned. But before we could continue our conversation, the waiter arrived with the meal for the day, setting out the small dish full of caviar, and the freshly cooked scallop and potatoes, with a heaping side of steamed vegetables. I picked at the vegetables with a silver fork. As the waiter left, I said: "If the void is a place and not a metaphor, then that would explain how Arronax is planning to return, no?"

Virginia nodded. Then she shook her head. "But what does all this have to do with the..." She paused, then glanced over her shoulder. Her eyes fell upon every single person in the dining car and she narrowed her eyes, clearly deeply suspicious. Her voice dropped to a quiet whisper. "What does this have to do with the Molochean Hand? Are they working for Arrronax? And the elves who banished the dwarves, what is their angle? Are the elves from Quintarra turning against Nasrudin's rulings, two thousand years after the fact, to try and bring back his greatest enemy?"

I spread my hands. "I cannot begin to guess." I paused. "I don't suppose Arronax had some...kind of evil elf followers? Dark elves?"

"Dark elves?" Virginia asked, snorting. "Really, sir? Next, you'll be saying that there is some kind of gnomish conspiracy running the world via manipulating the banks."

My face heated. "I was not aware it was on the same level as that..." I admitted.

Virginia smiled, shyly. "Sorry. But there are no such thing as dark elves."

***

Sally seemed somewhat frustrated when, four days later, we all stepped off the Vermilion express without me and Virginia having consummated our relationship again. But while Sally might have been upset that she had 'failed' at being a matchmaker, the conversations that Virginia and I had shared had removed the awkwardness that had loomed between us ever since that cold night in the Stonewall mountains. We walked into Ashbury free of such concerns -- which meant, in a roundabout way, that Mead-Mug might get her wish sooner rather than later.

But at the moment, we were more focused on the oddity of the Ashbury extension of the United Kingdom's railroads. Rather than being situated in a place of prominence, like in Tarant, the Ashbury station was tucked away behind a large stone fence that ringed around a rather impressive looking graveyard. One had to walk around the graveyard to reach the city itself -- and the city was quite a pleasant looking one. It hugged the beach in a series of fanciful terraces, each one growing closer and closer to the white sands of the beach itself. The water beyond was glassy smooth, and several tall ships bobbed as they sailed closer and closer to the piers themselves. The smell of salt was strong in the air -- along with a stranger, not quite pleasant scent that reminded me faintly of formaldehyde.

"Why put a bloody train station here?" 'Magnus' asked, her hand going to her beard as we walked along the stone path that wound around the graveyard and to the city proper.

"Human longevity," I said, the realization springing to mind. "Or the lack thereof. Ashbury was not built with a steam engine in mind -- but they wished one and so, they placed it where they could fit it, and elegance be damned."

"That may be it," 'Magnus' said, frowning as Virginia put her hand on the edge of the fence.

"Well, it does mean the smoke blows away from the city and-"

A rotting corpse smashed into the side of the fence. The fence rattled and Virginia leaped backwards with a very loud scream, jerking her blade from its scabbard and swinging it around. The corpse pressed to the wall was clearly animate, and its jaws chomped harmlessly at the iron fence. As Virginia backed into me, a gruff voice called out to us -- and we turned to see that a constable was jogging over to us. An older gentleman with a nearly obsolete revolver on his hip, he came to a stop, waving his hand at the fence.

"Can't you read?"

We saw what he was pointed at. To my chagrin, the sign was quite large and quite clear: DO NOT APPROACH FENCE. ZOMBIES.

I looked at my comrades. They looked at me. From the looks on their faces, I knew that we were all in complete agreement.

The pier would have to wait, it seemed.

Reaching the front of the graveyard took only a few minutes of walking. The front was dominated by a large, currently closed and latched gate. Standing before the gate with an expression of pure vexation upon her face, was a woman. She was tall and willowy, with milk pale skin and black hair. Her eyes were a warm brown in color, but cold in character, and she wore a robe as pale white as her skin, lined with red fur and accentuated with black diagrams upon the back. She turned at our approach and looked at us with an appraising sneer.

"And what are you doing here?" I asked.

"I'm tending my own business, that's what I'm doing," she said, then rolled her eyes. "I swear, the manners of the peasantry."

Ah. A noblewoman. I muttered to Virginia. "At least we peasants have manners," I said. But clearly, I was not as quiet as I had hoped -- because the woman perked up her attention. Then, to my surprise, she laughed.

"Oh! How droll!" She grinned. "Maybe you are not as witless and bland as you look, half-orc. A nice riposte, very well struck." She reached back and smoothed her hood down. "You speak with a cultured accent, not quite the thuggish barbarian hooting your upbringing would leave me to expect."

I crossed my arms over my chest. "And what about your upbringing?" I asked, trying to underline how she was the one who had been insulting from moment one. The woman shrugged one shoulder.

"Oh, you know," she said. "Raised in Caladon, schooled in Tarant, summers off the coast of Cattan. I am Gretchen Tarrellond-Ashe, of the Falsburg Tarrelrond-Ashes, if you know that sort of thing." She put her hand on the gate separating us from the graveyard. In the distance, we could see slouching figures roaming across the green. "I spent a few years in Tulla, too. Boring codgers, every last one."

My brow furrowed, but Virginia proved the explanation: "Tulla? The wizard city?"

"Yes," Ashe said, her voice dripping with condescension as she eyed Virginia. "I dabbled in the necromantic arts there, and when I grew bored of their conservatism, I left. I'm on my way back to Tarant to start up my own business there -- more room for a necromancer than you might think in the old girl." She grinned. "But then I stopped here."

Virginia scowled. "Which kind of necromancy?"

"Oh, you know, the good kind," Ashe said, casually. "But on to why I have stopped in Ashbury..."

"The zombies?" I suggested.

"Your doing." Virginia said. It was a statement that could have ended in a question mark, and yet somehow did not.

Ashe chuckled. "No, no, old girl," she said, causing Virginia to bristle. "There was a famous man who was buried here in Ashbury named Malachi Rench. Quite the necromancer in his day, wrote a few banned books." She yawned, dismissively. "Of course, I have read them. The Necromantic Divinatus and the Canto of Kerghan." She looked at Virginia, as if waiting to see Virginia nod and say she had thumbed through them. When Virginia merely kept scowling, Ashe sneered. "A bit above your grade level, Panarii?"

Virginia scowled. "What does it matter if some necromancer was buried here?"

"Well, clearly, he was buried with something powerful and something has awakened it," Ashe said, chuckling. "The evidence comes in the form of every Tom, Dick and Harry coming back for dinner." She clicked her teeth.

"We should deal with that..." I muttered.

"If you find and return the artifact to me, it will be definitely worth your while," Ashe said.

Virginia took my arm, dragging me closer. She hissed in my ear. "Ray, she's clearly a necromancer."

I whispered back. "So are you..."

"But she's likely dabbled in the black arts, like Pelonius Schuyler and his barmy sons," Virginia whispered.

"Does that necessarily make one a wicked villain?" I asked, quietly. "She's snooty, but that doesn't mean she's actively a monster."

Virginia looked as if the admission was similar to having her teeth pulled from her head sans anesthetic. But she did mutter: "No, one can be good and dabble in the black arts. Magick is, at the end of the day, about what one does." She sighed. "But I don't trust her."

I looked over at Ashe, who was regarding us curiously. Aloud, I said: "We'll head into the graveyard and see what we can see."

"And I'll come with," Ashe said. "Your party does look like it could stand to have some additional, ah, how shall I put it...expertise with putting down undead." She stepped away from the gate. "And I get whatever it is that is animating the corpses?"

I nodded. And, I thought to myself. If you plan to use it for ill, I should be able to evaluate you better after we fight side by side.

Virginia cast me a glance, and I quietly nodded. She frowned, then drew her sword, which hummed with magickal energy. To my right, Sally was pulling out her own battleax, and 'Magus' was retrieving her revolver. Gillian pulled out the sword she had acquired during our last stopover in Tarant. But as she did so, she did mutter: "I am beginning to think that I might have been safer back in P. T Parnell's..."

Together, we set forth through the graveyard gate, closing it tight behind us. I wondered at that -- but Ashe dispelled my confusion after a few steps, saying: "The guards allowed me watch on the gate. Being the local expert and all." With that mystery banished, we began to make our way across the graveyard's greenery, weaving our way past the headstones. A few graves looked freshly disturbed, but the corpses were mostly bunched up against the fences nearest to the train station. Only a few slouched our way -- slowly enough that we made it to the central building within the middle of the graveyard before any drew close.

Virginia kicked in the door and I followed in after her, my accelerator rifle in my hands. I swung it about and we saw no sign of the living dead -- but Virginia pointed to a doorway claiming to be the entrance to the mausoleum's basement.

"Who wants to bet the old necromancer is buried down there?" she asked.

"Good eye, Panarii," Ashe said. Virginia glared at her.

'Magnus' and I stepped up to the door, 'Magnus' holding her revolver to her chest. Sally kicked the door inwards and we covered her with our weapons -- but the initial corridor leading into the mausoleum looked clear and empty. The corridor was made of rough hewn stone, and there were niches in the walls, each containing a coffin. I walked forward, frowning a bit. "Why haven't these wakened?" I asked, looking at one of the coffins. An arm, rotting green and putrescent, shoved its way through the black wood of the coffin, reaching for my throat. I sprang backwards and Virginia stepped up, slashing off the arm with her sword. Then reddish light exploded within the coffin and an unhallowed noise rang out. The shaking of the coffin stopped and we turned to Ashe, whose hand still glowed with red light.

"What?" she asked.

"You are a black necromancer!" Virginia snarled.

"Yes, I said I was the good kind," Ashe said. "White necromancy is useless."

"It can bring people back to life!" Virginia said, her face flushing. "It can cure poisons and disease!"

"Which helps a great deal when one is under-" Ashe's voice was drowned out by the unending roar my accelerator rifle. Electrodynamically accelerated slugs flew down the corridor and struck the shamble of zombies that had emerged around the corner, drawn by our commotion. Each round blew through multiple rotting bodies at once, and soon, for a paltry amount of bullets and a few of my battery charges, I had painted the corridor with dripping bits of rotting flesh.

'Magnus' looked at her pistol, then scowled at me. "Ah, yer not even gonna save a single deader for me?"

"I prefer fighting this way," Gillian said, nodding. "My constitution is not built for slugging it out with slouching blighters."

Sally hiccuped. "What she said. 'Cept instead of my constiblutions, it's cause I'm- hic- lazy."

I shrugged. "Onwards, then?"

We walked through the mausoleum, Virginia's illumination cantrip shining upon the long uncleaned stone. Fortunately, the mausoleum was not exceptionally large, and we soon came to the central chamber. Here, we saw the source of the zombies as clear as day: Six of them were knelt on the ground, their sightless eyes fixated upon a pillar of eldrich flames. Within that pillar of flames was a glowing gemstone roughly the size of my fist, crackling with lightning. The zombies were all looking straight at it, as if hypnotized.

"It's true," Ashe whispered. "It's the gemstone of Malachi."

I hefted up my accelerator rifle. "Can you shut it down?"

"Easily," Ashe said.

"Will you?" I asked.

"Of course," she said, smirking at me. "And I believe I shall forgo the dime-store pulp novel and not betray you once we get our hands on it."

"Oh, how relieving," Virginia hissed.