“What is a draugr? Our own powers of observation are limited, and the demons themselves refuse to tell us. However, we may make certain deductions.”


    Jean paced back and forth across the narrow space at the front of the sun-speckled lecture hall, as if sniffing out a particularly devious prey. His sword hung at his waist. The ram Raphael stood behind him, having arranged a number of curios on a long table. Anya sat in the back row, in front of perhaps a hundred bored-looking students. Mostly hunters, although a small clique of grass-eaters had occupied one corner.


    “Raphy, show them the bones.”


    The ram nodded and held up a fossilized skeleton, held together with metal wires. It looked like a horse, but it was far too small, and its spine was horizontal, as if it suffered from a terrible deformity.


    “Fossils. You know them, do you not? Bones of strange creatures, bones our earth-magi say taste as old as any common rock. We believe they represent primitive forms of the species extant in the present age. The draugr, next.”


    Raphael pointed to a bear skeleton articulated in the corner of the room. Anya shivered as she saw its skull was horribly distorted: eyes, ears, and nostrils all replaced with miniature jaws, and its true mouth crammed with several rows of teeth. Even its ribs had begun to reform into a vertical maw. A manifested draugr.


    “While antiquarians frequently find skeletons of manifested draugr near the remains of ancient settlements, often in what appear to be holy sites, we have never once found a fossilized draugr. On the other hand, Raphy holds an illustration of cave paintings discovered in southwest Gaul. Note the clear depiction of large draugr, with marks symbolizing wounds. Even in the most primitive societies, we knew and fought draugr. The implication is clear. Draugr came into being with the advent of intelligent life.”


    Someone in the audience yawned.


    “Now, the first written records of draugr are found in the verses of ancient Sumeru, where the saint-king Gilgamesh slays the Bull of Heaven, a fearsome draugr. From the way Akkadian and Sumerian texts conceptualize the Bull, we may glean some insight into how early people dealt with the problem of conceptualizing these supernatural beings. The Akkadian word for Draugr, ‘udug’, has several plausible etymologies…”


    Jean continued to lecture while pacing, keeping one finger trailing along the edge of the table.


    Ah, Gilgamesh, or Bilgames, as you called yourself. Between mirrored stars we danced, in the slow waters of Buranun. Never again.


    “Salutations, Miss Vasilyev. I did not expect to find you here, yet I am gladdened for it.”


    Anya nearly leaped from her chair. Next to her was the old wolf from her first night in Gaul - Duke Hugh Artois. He pushed his wheelchair next to her, and adjusted the scarf tied around his head.


    “Um, good morning, Lord Artois.”


    His eyes flicked over the array of props Jean had brought. He, at least, seemed interested.


    “Just Hugh, if you would. St. Gwyn knows I am far too old to bother with formality. Is Lord Clary treating you well?”


    “Yes, although I see him little. I am even permitted to practice my arts.”


    “Good, good. He would not bind the hands of a painter, and neither should he forbid you your arts. So, do you find the lecture engaging? As an accomplished magus, you must surely have an opinion on the nature of draugr.”


    “Not particularly. I have been granted this power, and I will use it to accomplish what meager good I can. No need to overcomplicate things.”


    “You have an unblemished heart. A rarity in youth.” Hugh chuckled. “The others are simply bored. They came expecting Mr. Clary to give a lecture of military applications of modern scientific arts theory, and are instead subjected to a rambling exposition on ancient history.”


    “Military applications?”


    “Mr. Clary recently participated in a groundbreaking study on the quality of light. I understand his arts allow him to taste it, for lack of a better word, and his research partners determined that there exists a form of light that our eyes are entirely unable to perceive. It is a wicked energy, capable in sufficient intensity of rapidly poisoning the body. Even minor exposure can lead to debilitating cancers. Properly harnessed, our armies would march across the continent unopposed.”


    “Poisonous light? The very idea is perverse.”


    “No worse than blood arts, I should think. In any case, with Mr. Clary the only person in recorded history to possess solar arts outside the Gaulish royal line, the idea cannot be deployed at any effective scale.”


    “He got the king’s arts? Lucky wolf.”


    “He would not think so. The generals see him as little more than a foul-mouthed attack cur, and keep him occupied on the front lines. A few months of good service, and he is given a brief respite to come home and play at academics.”


    “What do you think? About his lecture.”


    “He has passion, certainly.” Hugh waved a bony hand at the audience. “Look at them. Most of them will become officers upon graduation, and rain war-arts upon our enemies. Their heads are filled with drills, tactics, battle-plans, patriotic flimflam. They are fundamentally incurious about the nature of the power they wield. King Henri meant for the Institute to push beyond our limits, yet it has become just another tool of empire. If this is modernity, it is a dead-end road.”


    Hugh tilted his head back, as searching for a long-occluded light.


    “Ah, but you should not burden yourself with such gloomy thoughts. What brings you to the institute?”


    Anya removed a sheet of paper from her dress, where Yvon had copied the runes on the hand of the dead marmot-magus. She explained its origin to Hugh, along with a recounting of the investigation’s progress.


    “Aye, Mr. Clary might recognize them. If it was one of the futharks, I could read it myself, but this appears more akin to the Eastern scripts. Good on you for acquiring it.”


    “I had quite a bit of help.”


    “Modesty suits you well, but I assure you my praise is not granted without reason. If your talent is clear to me, then it is surely clear to Lord Clary as well. Oh, before I depart, if you wish to use the library, you are free to mention my name.”


    The old wolf said his goodbyes and wheeled out of the hall. At its front, Jean had progressed to a jumbled exposition of St. Plato’s theory of draugr as conscious forms.


    The rest of the lecture passed without much note. At its end, Anya slipped past exiting students to the front of the hall.


    Alright. Time to tangle with the beast.


    “Mr. Clary. If you would, a moment of your time.”


    The wolf’s many-eyed veil trembled as he sniffed the air. He shifted, angling his long neck so that his snout was just above her head.


    “Miss Anna Vasilyev,” Raphael interjected, regarding her as one might a particularly bedraggled cockroach. “Your brother’s foreign pornai.”


    “I know her, Raphy. The stench of blood is hard to miss. But what could the little rabbit want?” He brought a hand to her cheek, and she forced herself to not flinch away.


    “I need to translate this.” She held up the illustration to Raphael.


    “This is to do with the assassination? I was given to understand that my eminently capable brother had the situation sorted.” Jean replied.


    “Wait. It appears as some form of hieroglyphics,” Raphael said. “Where did you find this?”


    “On the hand of the magus that tried to assassinate Sofia.”


    “Hieroglyphic runes on a living magus? Give me that.” Jean’s claws swiped at her. Anya pressed the paper behind her back and made her lips smile.


    “Once I know what it says, I would be happy to leave it with you. Besides, Yvon already went through all his books, but he couldn’t make heads or tails of it. He was sure you would know.”


    The wolf’s ears twitched.


    “Jean, she is clearly playing on your-” Raphael interjected.


    “I suppose I could take a look. Come, we’ll set up in the grand archives.”


    Raphael shook his head, but took the wolf’s hand and led him to the exit. They set off along the high halls of the Institute’s outer cloister. At a corner, Jean took the opportunity to fall just behind her, lowering to sniff her rear.


    “Need something?”


    “Just tasting for my brother’s scent. He is a thorough man, and surely by now he has plugged every hole of you.” There was a bitter edge to his words, and Anya resisted the urge to bolt for the nearest doorway.


    “Why, you want to have a go? Our children could have some fascinating arts.”


    Jean seemed caught off guard, and did not respond.


    “Pathetic creature,” Raphael interjected, nearly stabbing one of her feet with his hooves. “Do you abase yourself before Lord Clary in this manner as well?”


    “I beg your pardon?”


    “Why should the hunters change their ways, when grass-eaters such as you willfully submit to be their playthings? When you sunk your teeth into my master, I thought you possessed a shred of pride, but it seems I was mistaken.”This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    “And you are blameless in this regard?” She looked at him and Jean.


    “At least I do not spread my legs.”


    “So the difference lies in my sex? We all have unwilling burdens placed upon us, and I would certainly not choose a relationship with such an arrogant man. How I manage mine is none of your concern.”


    “You do not know the half of it,” Jean grumbled. “He would have nothing to do with his monster of a twin, except to prostitute me out to the army. At what few events to which I am invited, he will reserve but a sentence to me, and ensure the other guests know I may be treated as a circus freak. Even my meager stake in the Clary business lies within his trust.”


    “I am perfectly willing to take your word.” Anya thought of the balls she had attended in Rus, and the whispers that inevitably snapped at her heels. Bloodstained doe. Draugr’s harlot. That one will never be wed, for what man would trust her to bear his kits.


    They came to the grand archives, and Anya gasped. A dome painted with stars was suspended far above them, and several tiers of bookshelves were situated around a central void holding an immense oak-tree. Windows just beneath the dome filled the space with light, and the tree’s leaves diffused an ever-evolving glow throughout the space. She spotted Hugh at the tree’s base, chatting with an old osprey with a satchel of books over her wing. Catching Anya’s gaze, he politely tipped his head.


    Ascending, they found an unoccupied table - Anya noticed that Jean’s steps were lighter, and that his slouch was much reduced. Even the ram’s sneer was somewhat reduced. Raphael disappeared for a few minutes, and returned with a stack of books and a tray with a block of clay and a stylus.


    He took the paper from her, and carefully copied the strokes of the markings onto the clay. When he was done, he cradled Jean’s hand in his own, and brought the wolf’s finger to the clay. They paused for a few seconds before Jean began to read, the ram’s horns brushing against Jean’s fur.


    “It is hieratic, a script used in ancient Egypt,” Jean pronounced. “When draugr stalked the lands and god-kings warred with them, and speech still held traces of the formless root-language of arts. The language is probably Middle Egyptian.”


    “Probably? Can’t you read it?”


    Jean turned his head. For a moment, he seemed an embarrassed child.


    “…You can’t.”


    “A quarter of the letters are nonsense,” He pointed to a couple patches of particularly dense marks.


    “But you could start with the rest, surely.”


    “Rabbit, we are attempting to hold a technical discussion. If it exceeds the limits of your intelligence, I suggest you let us work in peace.”


    Raphael handed Jean a worn book, and they settled into a rhythm of comparing symbols. Anya sat silently for a few minutes, but a stream of withering glares from the ram eventually prompted her to take a seat just out of sight, in a reading chair facing the central tree. She busied herself watching squirrel-librarians race up and down the central tree, bags full of books harnessed to their shoulders.


    Raphael emerged about an hour later.


    “We’ve done what we could. It is some kind of invocation, but we cannot translate enough to gain a complete understanding. It is an interesting source, but I would say you have wasted more than enough of our time.”


    A crushing feeling in her heart.


    “No. Let me see it again.”


    “There is nothing-”


    Anya stepped past Raphael, returning to the table. She took back the paper and stared at the letters, trying to wring some sense out of the dense web of squiggles. Renee had risked so much, too much for Anya to let everything fall apart here.


    “At the dense patches…it kind of looks like there are two layers, right? Some of the lines are a little thinner.”


    “Really? Let me see.” Raphael snatched away the paper, and held it to the light. He squinted, tapping his left hoof against the wood floor. “…Agh, saints be damned, the rabbit is right! It’s futhark on top of hieratic. Jean, feel this.”


    The ram smoothed out the clay and hastily redid the marks in two separated sections. Another period of translation, although now they were too engrossed to shoo Anya away.


    “The hieratic is a fairly standard arts-hymn, I think, although I don’t recognize a few of the details,” Jean said at last. “The additions seem to be corrections in Gothic, although I can’t guess why they’re in an entirely different language.”


    “Futhark is the standard script for arts-runes in Gaul, right? Maybe someone got a copy of the hiero…hieratic and wanted to modify it, but didn’t know enough Egyptian to write something new. So they used futhark instead.”


    “The rabbit’s theory is reasonable,” Raphael replied. “What do you think, Jean? Perhaps we should keep her.”


    “Too forward for my taste. Raphy, would you be a dear and ask the head librarian if she’s seen any other examples of hieratic and futhark used in tandem?” Jean found Raphael’s arm, and ran a light finger along its length - outside of the public setting of the lecture hall, they seemed far more familial.


    The ram left, and returned around half an hour later with a wooden box, a fresh-looking informational card attached to its top. He opened it to reveal a heavy stack of loose papers.


    “One hit. We got lucky, too. Thirty years languishing in storage, and someone finally gets around to cataloguing it this year. There’s a lot of it, though.”


    “Can I help? Looks like it’s mostly in Gaulish.”


    Raphael looked between her and the massive quantity of paper before him. He thumped half in front of her.


    “Fine. Get reading.”


    They began the examination, pausing every so often so that Raphael could read a relevant passage to Jean. When minutes stretched into hours and the archives grew dark, he unsheathed his sword and summoned globes of crystalline light above them, setting them whirling in a planetoid configuration.


    The papers appeared to be a research report produced by a ‘Father Ollivier’ of the Reliquary of St. Brigid,on order of the Directory of Military Arts.


    The practice of increasing arts-resonance in magi through hieratic arts-invocations is well-established among the draugr-cults of the Near East, though it is little-known beyond them. Thanks to the assistance of a certain Gardener, I am fortunate to have obtained ample records. However, if we believe the hypothesis presented by Pellisier that the distinction between magi and non-magi is one of degree and not of kind, then it may be possible to induce arts-aptitude in non-magi. As Rus mass-produces infantry through its use of blood-children, we would be able to mass-produce magi…


    Another page, holding a long list of names.


    Jacques Fichot. Age 14. Invoked a simple irrlicht. Subject burst into flames upon completion of marks. One assistant was seriously injured.


    Lisette Renaud. Age 19. Invoked an ondine. Subject appeared stable and could perform simple water-arts, but rapidly deteriorated after five days into a fish-like creature. Sacrificed and sent to the Institute for dissection.


    She ran through the list. Of the invocations that had some non-negligible effect, there were no survivors.


    “Another failed experiment, outsourced to a crooked priest. The Directory ordered it shut down here.” Raphael said at last, slid a letter across the table.


    “But the man I met was alive, and his arts were perfectly functional.”


    “This is just one experiment. Maybe the Directory found more success on a subsequent iteration.”


    “Or Father Ollivier hid his success.” Jean said. “We have a place and a name. Seems enough for one day.”


    “She has a place and a name,” Raphael replied. “No doubt she means to run back to her master’s shadow and tell him everything she pried for us.”


    “Oh?” The realization dawned, and the wolf’s ears swiveled back in shame. “Fuck. The rabbit played me like a fiddle, didn’t she?”


    “As I attempted to point out. A single woman deigns to speak to you, and you fold like wet paper.”


    “Look, this isn’t about your brother, or Sofia.” Maybe it was a little about Sofia. “Someone died in front of me. A woman with a rotted-out mind and a body full of wasps. I couldn’t do a single saints-damned thing to save her, even with all my arts, and I still think I hear buzzing every time I try to fall asleep.”


    “You assuage your guilty conscience, while you catch his killers for him.” Jean pinched his fingers, extinguishing the hovering lights. “I find you passing tolerable, so I will offer you a word of advice: whatever purpose you set for yourself and your arts, he and his devil of a wife will bend to suit his own ends. Until you break, if necessary.”


    “I see.” Anya rose to go. “Um, thank you. To you both. And Jean, your arts are lovely.”


    Raphael refused to meet her eye.


    “A moment,” Jean said. “Raphy, the moon is nearly full tonight, and the sky is clear, correct?”


    “Yes, but-”


    “Rabbit. I would properly demonstrate the solar arts.”


    “I would rather not be out any later.”


    Yvon’s ears tucked back, as if she had admonished him.


    Get away, Anya. Nothing good will come from fraternizing with this hollow of a man.


    “Actually, I’m sure I can spare a little time. They’re the old royal arts, right?”


    Raphael shook his head.


    “The cur wishes to show his favorite tricks. You will be here all night if you let him have his way.”


    She followed them up to the highest floor of the library, and then through a small hatch into the interior of the dome.


    “Raphael, right? What’s your deal?” Anya asked.


    “Fourth son of a glassmaker who does business with the Clarys. Superfluous from the moment I was born.” The ram did not seem to wish to discuss the matter further.


    A few ladders, and they emerged onto a small platform at the dome’s apex, the thousand lamps of nighttime Parisi glowing bright from the tangle of streets that spread below them. It was a cold, clear night, and the moon cast a silvery glow to her fur. Jean drew his sword, its mirror-bronze surface reflecting the azure sky.


    “The earliest known records of solar arts are from the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt, when the pharaohs took the title of Lord of Two Horizons. Supposedly, they could pull the very sun from the heavens, and blanket the land in its cleansing fire.”


    “Can you do that?” Anya sat on the edge of the platform, letting the wind lift up her ears.


    “No. Magi were far stronger in that time, when men were few and the night hung heavy on the land.”


    Jean steadied his breathing, then performed a complex motion with his hands, as if catching threads on a spindle. The moonlight around him seemed to twist, and then a luminous white line was wound around his fingers. He split the line into a rainbow of colors, using them to form a cat’s cradle. A low chant, and the cradle seemed to harden and intensify. He set it spinning and threw it into the air, where it slowly expanded into a shimmering vortex of color.


    “Three, two, one. Burst.”


    Jean snapped his fingers, causing the cradle to erupt in a dazzling splay of luminous threads. They immediately began to coalesce around each other, forming an ever-shifting tapestry of whirls and eddies that seemed to fill the entire sky. Anya recalled a dream she had long ago, of being cradled in St. Georgei’s divine radiance.


    “What do you think?” Jean asked. The wind whipped through his veil, almost letting her see what was beneath.


    “It’s…art, or something. Yvon would know the right words.”


    “If it is Jean’s brother talking, I imagine ‘masturbatory excess’ would be among them,” Raphael interjected.


    “The rabbit wants more than pretty lights? Raphy, let’s show her the hammer of heaven.”


    “I didn’t say that at all!”


    The two were no longer listening. Raphael stood just behind Jean, resting his head on the taller wolf’s shoulder. He took Jean’s sword-arm in both his hands, and began to aim the blade.


    “How about the lake in the Hunting Wood? Stand up straight. Down, then just a little left. There. Send out a trace-beam.”


    Jean’s arm went still, and the air around them seemed to darken as silver luminescence concentrated in the sword. A faint line appeared at its tip, its end marked by a bright shimmer on the surface of a lake in a forest-park, perhaps a mile out.


    “You are on target. Release when ready. Rabbit, get in front of us, and do not look at the sword.”


    Anya did as she was told, just in time to feel an immense burst of light behind her. The line from the sword went bright for a moment, and then the air around the lake began to distort.


    “The heavens heed my will, their judgment swift and final.” Jean snapped his fingers.


    A pillar of white light descended from the sky, for an instant rendering the horizon as bright as day. The water it struck boiled on impact, sending a vast fountain-plume upwards in a roiling burst. It stayed for a second, enough to generate cloud-rings of superheated air in the sky, then dissipated into nothingness.


    Crack.


    A faint whip-like sound reached her ears. Behind her, Jean stood straight with his sword lowered, his fur billowing in the wind.


    <Even a few hundred years ago, your kind would have lined up to worship him. And now he is merely a cog in a lumbering machine of death.>


    “You should see it in the day, with true sunlight. He could evaporate that lake entirely, or turn a stone wall to slag,” Raphael said. Anya thought she caught pride in the ram’s voice.


    “Or reduce a company of proud Rusyn soldiers to ash. Again and again, until my will is spent,” Jean replied glumly. He sheathed his sword, taking a seat next to her.


    “How long did it take to learn to do that?” She asked.


    “Years. I had a good tutor - Duke Hugh Artois. Not a magus himself, but he knew the old King Henri and understood his arts.”


    “You weave your arts with conviction. I can feel it, I guess, in the way the light moves.”


    “Hrgn.” Jean tilted his head away.


    “If the army no longer needed you, what would you do?”


    “Join one of the new archaeological missions to Egypt or Mesopotamia. Chase the origins of draugr.”


    “Bah. Too much sand for me.” Raphael shook his head.


    Jean brought a hand up, as if he meant to touch her face, then seemed to catch himself and pulled it away.


    “Ah, what does it matter? I will never not be a soldier, and you will never be out from under my brother’s prick.”


    “Um, I think I should start making my way back. Renee will be worried if I stay overlong,” Anya replied.


    “And this is why you are yet to find a mate, my dear friend,” Raphael added, helping Anya up and back to the ladder. The stars were bright above, and for a moment Anya imagined herself drifting upwards, to a place where all the lights of Parisi would blur into a dim flame in a tenebrous wilderness. But it was not to be, and she began her journey downwards.