Golden Rook Ch. 25-32

Notes: 1) If you see this version of the story anywhere other than Literotica it isn't supposed to be there. 2) Because of shorter chapters, this is being posted in chunks.

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*Twenty-five*

It hadn't been hard to find Juddri. Syreilla had just gone to the place she'd have wanted to make camp and found the dwarf next to his fire. It was up a small rise away from the walls where some sort of stone building had once stood. Only a small corner of a wall still remained but it made a nice windbreak and she liked being able to see.

Stifling a yawn, she inclined her head as she approached the fire he was building.

"It's not quite evening yet, but you look like you could stand an hour or two of rest. I can take the first watch, Rook." Grimgrip studied her with a frown.

"I could use it." She stretched and glanced around. "You don't have any wards set. I can lay down a few-"

"No wards, Rook. We don't need them and I'd rather not stumble into one of those nasty things you laid at the inn. Get a little rest."

Syr grinned and shook her head but climbed into the tent without arguing. When he woke her to take her turn sometime after dark, she still felt tired, but a sip of the kave and a quick bite of the sausage he had next to the fire for her helped a great deal.

Despite his insistence on not putting up wards, she moved around the fire with a stick, tracing the lines of one of the protection wards she'd learned from the dead mages before she'd come back to the world of the living in a circle around the small campsite.

Traced deeply enough and with the words murmured once it was in place, it barely required anything from her. It would wait like a trap, and anyone who cast a spell across it would feed it. Syr didn't like being out in the open with no tricks up her sleeve and if someone came at her with magic she could replenish a little of what she'd spent putting out the temple fire.

The dead mage she'd learned it from had said to be wary. The circle didn't distinguish between spells from within the circle or those being cast from outside. It would protect but she couldn't cast anything across it, she also needed to make certain she kept a stick to wipe the lines away with as she dispelled it.

Too many spells would make the air crackle with power and the barrier would become nearly impenetrable; she could become trapped. Still, it was better than nothing and no one living should know the danger or how to use it against her.

Finishing her work, she reclined next to the fire to sip the kave and gnaw on the sausage. After a time, a few armed men approached cautiously, one dressed in white as Cyran had been.

"You-You're an abomination." The man in white gripped a sword at his side but looked as if he would rather be anywhere else.

"Not that I'm aware of."

"You deny that you," one of the men swallowed and glanced at the others, "you burned the temple?"

"No. I took dragon's fire to my Uncle Imos' temple for lying and murdering. He was meant to be a god of justice and righteousness but by his actions, he's chosen to be neither. I admire justice served as it should be, but I settle for revenge." Syr gave them a wide mirthless smile, "You can rely on a Rook."

They all took a step back. The one in white seemed to gather his courage however and pulled his sword. "You stole the stone from the crown of Mabor."

"Not at all. It was given to me in payment for putting out the fire and not burning that wretched city to the ground. I've never liked Withia-"

"Return it."

Syreilla started to laugh, which didn't seem to be the correct reaction. The one in white cast a bolt of lightning at her and it hung in the ward, making the air shimmer with power between her and the men. She laughed harder and he poured out what must have been every spell and every bit of power he could summon until the air crackled and tasted metallic inside the circle.

"By the Nightforged..." Juddri peered out of the tent at her, "I asked you not to put up any wards, Rook."

"It's a good thing I did. Otherwise, they would have put me in a bad mood." She gave him an impish grin. "I've seen power stored in stones and steel, I want to try it for myself." The theory was much the same as putting a spell on an object, she was certain.

Taking out the stone she closed her eyes and murmured the siphoning spell pulling the power out of the ward and then laying it on the stone, the chain heated until it felt as if her skin was burning and she tried not to grimace. But it seemed to work, she could feel the power there. As the air cleared, the men were still standing on the other side staring nervously.

"Do you have any more? I like having a little extra to draw from."

The man in white shuddered and backed away, the rest of the men did the same. "You-you're..."

"I'm the Golden Rook." Syreilla came to her feet with a broad grin. "I help those who help me, I burn those who cross me, and I look after those who know how to get my attention when they go before Hevtos.

"Imos was lying by the way, when he said he would reward you after death. Hevtos has always been the one who judges and he's gotten a little sour about people expecting to get into paradise without even a nod in his direction all their lives. The best places in his domain, where you will all go in time, are reserved for those who remembered the old traditions and gave him a nod however quietly.

"Consider that information, and your lives, my thanks for the power you fed me." She widened her grin until it hurt and they turned and ran as one.

"You're going to have them giving him at least a nod but they'll be desperate to find out what they can do to get you to intercede." The dwarf came out of the tent with a shake of his head.

"Magpie suggested a medallion with a golden rook on it. Would-"

"Human smiths will make your sigils, Rook." He gave her an annoyed smile. "You'd start collecting dwarves otherwise and our gods wouldn't be pleased."

"I wanted to ask about them." She gestured to the fire as she took a seat again, "If you want to stay awake for a bit."

"What do you want to ask?" His face took on an expression like Mordaeg's when he was getting ready to scold someone.

"Hammersworn asked Imos if it were possible for her to go to the dwarven gods in death. That was why he had her murdered, he thought she was trying to get out of Uncle Hevtos' punishments for thieves." The certainty felt like an ache in her heart as she paused and shook her head, "That wasn't why. She would have taken whatever waited as long as she could be with her family and her clan. I have her here..." She tapped her chest. "Uncle Hevtos tried to put us back together. I wanted to be whole, but it hurt her and I let her stay separate from me. She shares memories sometimes, bits and pieces of what she has left. Uncle takes away a great deal."

"You want to ask if she can still go to our gods?" His face softened.

"Yes. She was given back to me as payment, Uncle may not be happy with me but she should be mine to give over if it's possible."

"I'll ask some of the others if it might be possible. Our gods don't meddle as much as yours do." He reached into his bag for a bottle. "Wine?"

"I prefer mead or cider, or a good dwarf beer, but thanks for asking." Syr sighed and settled by the fire again.

"That was your only question?"

"I should probably ask if I'm allowed to visit a mine, I suppose. I want to see Hammersworn's children. They should know why they shouldn't think warmly of Imos and that I'm going to take dragon's fire to every temple of his that I can for as long as I can until I'm stopped or he's dead. I'm looking forward to Brosa. I may burn it and then shatter the stones it stood on."

"I think you can be allowed a visit if the Master of the mine is willing to let you in." Juddri took a drink from the bottle and smiled faintly. "You want your Uncle to know you're planning a visit to Brosa?"

"No matter how much she helped him secure that place, he can't keep me out. Let him lock the doors and wait in fear. His priests will break and run and it'll burn just like this one. They called me the Beast of Brosa once, I'll remind them why."

He swallowed and put the cork back in his bottle. "I'm going to try to get some sleep. Don't murder anyone."

"I make no promises." Syr grinned at him as he turned to scowl at her, "If they leave me alone I'll stay here by the fire, if they come back and annoy me... bloodshed is their choice to make."

"Batran Hammersworn said Syreilla was a different woman when she returned, softer, less... I can see the things you took with you that she no longer had."

"Then you saw the things she had that I ache to have back. I'd still rather send her to be with her clan than-" She stopped and turned to scowl at the trio of approaching shapes.

"That's far enough." Juddri grabbed his axe and came to stand next to her. "I don't want any bloodshed."

"There won't be any, Master Grimgrip," Odos' cheerful voice made her relax as much as it did the dwarf. "You've been causing trouble, Rook?"

"I've just been sitting here!" Syr gave the old man an innocent smile.

"We met a sobbing priest on our way here. He seemed to think you'd done a great deal more than that." Odos stopped at the edge of the ward she'd carved and arched a brow.

"I didn't see the point in letting it go to waste."

With a snort, he started to mutter under his breath and wipe out her work with a stick of his own.

"Antien said that everything we'd believed was a lie." Cyran looked a little shaken. "The men with him spoke openly and respectfully of-of Hevtos."

"As they should, cousin. He can be a hard judge but I've watched long enough to think him a fair one."

"Speaking of fair..." Magpie came to sit near the fire with a small smile, "Has Master Grimgrip spoken to you about your old circlet?"

Odos smacked the man on the side of his head with a sour look.

"No, he hasn't, but that wasn't mine; it went with Hammersworn." She looked into the fire for a moment as she felt the ache of a memory of a child's face as he pleaded to come with her and anger that Hammersworn's child had both lost his mother and been stolen from. "It should have gone to her youngest boy."

"It'll be wasted in a mine!"

Magpie was giving her a sour look as she lifted her gaze from the fire.

"There are a thousand things I can think of to use it for in a mine. Theft is only one. He'll keep himself and others out of harm's way and he'll be able to continue helping his clan the way his mother used to. It goes to her son. Put it out of your head, Magpie, or you'll have me to deal with."

He swallowed and dropped his eyes, nodding.

"Lady Rook," Cyran sounded awed, "Your eyes burned..."

"A trick of the light." Odos smiled faintly.

"Hammersworn carried a knife..." Juddri took a seat by the fire again.

"'My golden-haired girl with fire in your eyes, let the heat of my forge draw you home.' I remember. It was beautiful."

"She was buried with it."

"Good. Her daughter got all of her figurines?"

The dwarf smiled into the fire, "She did. One of the younger priests suggested Kyrilla give them away because they'd been stolen. He got to see the famous Hammersworn temper for himself."

Syr stretched and gave Odos a grin, "I'm not like Magpie, I've never liked much enough to want it for myself, but those figurines... We were sent to be a maid in Withia and they had a girl. She was awful and when we marveled at the beautiful figurines she had, she smashed one. We got a beating for it and were told not to even look at them unless we were cleaning them.

"Stealing them... It felt good and we loved them more than she did."

"I was worried when you took them." Odos took a seat next to Cyran. "I thought you were going to develop the bad habit of keeping what you took."

"No, we just wanted those." She shook her head. "We didn't get paid for that year of work. If anyone wants to argue with Kyrilla about the rightness of keeping them..."

"They were payment taken for services rendered." The dwarf nodded with a grim smile. "With your temper, Rook, how did they manage to keep their beds from catching fire?"

"We were only ten, Juddri. We hadn't learned how to fight back yet."

"Hammersworn's children never needed to learn. That woman..." The dwarf uncorked his bottle and offered it to her. "Oduil's ears have a little point to them, one of the guards that accompanied us made the mistake of pointing it out and laughing. It took four from Clan Hammersworn to hold her back and when he hefted his axe and told them to let her come, the grin that crossed that woman's face made my blood run cold."

"It would have made Khiril proud?" Odos was grinning.

"Orsas would have given her a place among the Nightforged if she were a dwarf."

Syreilla took a sniff and a sip of the heavy spiced wine and handed it back, "Did they let her go? She doesn't remember."

"Not until the guard had been made to apologize and Mordaeg had firmly suggested he go take some air. In Lew."

She grinned and shrugged, "She must have gone soft if he didn't get sent to Pale at least."

"If it had been you, Rook, I'd have sent the man all the way home." Juddri took a drink from the bottle with a laugh as she clapped him on the thigh.

"I've never liked my ears. If it had been my child he mocked, you could have sent him wherever you liked. The place hasn't yet been made that can keep me out if I'm determined to get in."

The dwarf gave her a silent, sour look and it was quiet for a moment until Magpie spoke up. "I've always wanted to hear the story of how you got into the Nameless. The story says you were drunk."

"We'd been drinking, we weren't drunk. There's a difference." She gave him an impish grin and the half-elf leaned his head on his hand.

"We?"

"Hammersworn and I, when we were the same person."

*Twenty-six*

Kwes rode on a horse next to the cart pulling the Rook and dwarf, listening.

"There is no way to keep out a determined thief. With enough time and the right tools, no place is impenetrable. That's not a boast, Juddri."

"Hammersworn left a way into the treasure hall, that's all it was."

"We started fortifying it before we were split and I promise you it was more secure than the Nameless if you didn't have the keys. If it were me... There was water in that one cavern, we told them it should be pumped out but they insisted it was an obstacle. We saw it as an entrance. If it were me, I would have looked for a flooded shaft-"

"You think she swam in." The dwarf looked startled.

"She didn't use dragon's fire? Unless she had the keys, I know she did. The water has to come from somewhere, no one seemed to know where. They refused to pump it out and put in grating over any holes they found-"

"The shafts would be black and not even you can breathe underwater."

"I can hold my breath better than you would expect, and I'm certain there are air pockets, or you can fill leather bladders with-" She stopped and grinned as he swore in dwarvish. "Not to mention, she had our old circlet. I'll tell you now, one of the reasons we knew the water was an entrance is because we studied every inch with that circlet on. Common sense and experience were the other two."

"It'll be pumped out and grating will be put in. What else, Rook?"

"How secure are the air shafts these days?"

"She made some suggestions but they weren't all followed." He frowned.

"Then I can get in easily enough even if you put in grating. We liked to stack the obstacles so that doing it the easy way and pouring some dragon's fire down would only get you so far."

Kwes grinned to himself.

"What are you grinning at, half-elf?" The dwarf sounded sour.

"Only she would think pouring dragon's fire down a shaft would be an easy solution."

"It clears the way, Magpie. It trips wards like a living thing, melts even the strongest steel, it's the most versatile and useful of my tools. I'm going to teach Cyran how to mix it, I'll teach you too if you'd like."

"I would-"

"You shouldn't be teaching anyone, Rook. That skill should die off." Grimgrip shook his head.

"I won't teach Hammersworn's children. It's a skill that few know because most who try to learn it die while they do. I won't risk them getting themselves killed."

"It's that dangerous?" Kwes suddenly felt less certain that he wanted to learn.

"If you can follow directions and you know how to draw power from a nearby magic source to heal yourself you're almost guaranteed to survive, Magpie." She gave him a smile that might have been reassuring if he could do more than one of those things.

"Tirnel said that my grandfather had a great talent for magic, neither of us inherited it in the same proportion." Truthfully, he had no talent for it at all, and Tirnel could only do a few minor elvish spells with great difficulty.

The Rook looked surprised and a little appalled, "Olthon was sharper than Tirnel, but so are you..."

"There's more to it than sharpness, my little rook." Odos was smiling as he turned to glance back at the old man. "It's something you're born with."

"He's my brother, he should have what I have." She turned on the cart bench and frowned as Odos snorted.

"How like my brother am I? We have different talents as do you and the rest of my fledglings."

"Magic isn't something you gave her?" Kwes met her perplexed gaze.

"No. It was a surprise. I tried to give her a good education but I may have chosen teachers who were too-"

Rook started to laugh. "Old man... You found me the most competent teachers you could. Old mages know the most and they don't get old by being sweet."

"Who taught you the ward you used yesterday evening? I haven't seen that in a few hundred years."

"You started my education. I enjoyed it so much I decided not to stop finding teachers." She gave Odos a warm smile. "I've been told I should have given up being a thief and been a mage instead."

"If my brother had gotten you while you were young..."

Everyone glanced at Cyran.

"I'm not a mage."

"No, but you have the potential." Odos looked almost smug.

"I should refrain from teaching the Magpie, but I can teach you, cousin. You do know the basics, yes?"

"I pray to the divinity and he gives me strength. The power is not mine and all I do is shaped by his will."

Kwes grinned at Rook's annoyed expression. "Tirnel said gathering power for a spell was like catching a breeze in a net."

"Master Odos, thank you for my education." She put her face in her hands.

"Give us a lesson." Kwes tried to turn sideways in his saddle.

"I've always wondered what mages are taught." Grimgrip looked curiously amused.

"The most valuable spell I learned was the siphoning spell, there's power all around us." She paused and frowned before hopping down, "Look, this ward, Juddri, let them borrow the circlet to see it properly." Syreilla made a gesture and muttered something as they all came to a stop. "You'll see, it draws from whoever steps into it. There's power in a person, in an animal, even in plants I was told. But what you need is something that can be tapped." She waited as the circlet was dug out and passed around.

"It looks like... like a plant." Kwes squinted at the faint lines of the ward and took a step closer.

"Careful, Magpie. It has tendrils and if you step on one you'll be in it before you realize it, it'll draw you." With a motion of her hand and another murmur, it was gone.

"Everything has power," Grimgrip muttered speculatively.

Rook took the circlet off of his head and Kwes blinked as the too-bright day faded.

"Yes, but to do anything with it, it needs to be in a usable form. My first teacher, Ofeus said there are rivers and reservoirs of power untouchable to most. The skilled can siphon off power like water from those places at will, most basic wards and close dispellings can be cast without the aid of an imbued object by doing so. But it ebbs and flows and if you leave it to chance you may find yourself helpless if you need more than the traces around us.