Vergil trudged forward, forcing one foot in front of the other. Trenches had been cut through the snow by much earlier risers than he but it was still hard work moving forward. Before leaving, Sil had given him something that kept him warm and strengthened him. Two more flasks of it were tucked safely away in an inside pocket of his cloak, next to the letter. The effect of the first was already waning and he wasn’t even halfway to Master Ludwig’s home.
When he left, Tallah and Sil were quietly arguing. By the healer’s expression, he had expected a bloody row between the two, but it ended up as just a simmering, hissed discussion.
If anything, Sil seemed relieved. Under the anger there was relief that she couldn’t feign away.
Whenever I think I get some kind of lock on one of them, it all slides sideways.
Wet cold wormed its way into the toes of his right foot where his boot had sprung a leak. His leg cramped as he forced himself to push forward through the thigh high snow, walking in a near crouch, bundled in on himself.
Argia guided his progress.
<ul style="text-align: justify">
<li>At the next junction, take left hand passage.</li>
<li>Time to destination: Unknown.</li>
<li>Distance to destination: Unknown.</li>
</ul>
Oh, just grand. How lucky he.
“Won’t my head pop off if I get too far away from you, Tallah?”
It had been a legitimate concern for him but the sorceress waved him away. The little thing on the back of his neck felt warm, true, but it didn’t hurt. Sil had promised it would if he were too far and he saw no reason to doubt that.
And why send him, anyway? Why didn’t Tallah go herself? She’d probably not struggle going up the bloody damn stairs. So many bloody stairs even as far as the markets!
Too much pride. Or she’s planning something else that I don’t need to know about. Yeah, maybe that.
Maybe.
The Agora lay deserted for once. Trenches had been cut by the occasional traveller but they were few and quickly filling up, most of them leading into the taverns.
Light spilled out of the Ripe Gooseberry, a worker’s den, and next door’s Godly Pitcher, a popular adventurer watering hole. Without the howling wind there would be laughter and music filling their little nook of the square even at that early hour. With the winds, they were just two blobs of ghostly light, flickering through the dense snowfall. He really, really wanted to go inside and wait out the storm.
Ahead loomed the long, steep climb.
Vergil stared up at the winding path stretching into the green-lit dark above. When they first came that way it hadn’t looked quite so terrifying. He stood and gathered his courage, snow banks ever rising around his freezing feet.
With a huffed-out thick breath, he attacked the first flight.
On the third set he drank another of Sil’s mixtures, resolved not to touch the last until he was on his way back. Hammer blow after hammer blow struck his temples from the inside as if his chip was trying to claw out of his head and drag his brain out to air it.
By the end of the climb, fighting against the ice, the blinding snow, the cutting wind, and the bloody wet sock, he was ready to take the express way down over the lip of the wall.
Tallah’s frenzied stare when she’d told him what he had to do kept him going. He’d never seen her or Sil rattled before. He took a measure of pride from being given the mission, from being trusted enough to go alone into the blizzard.
They trusted him. Or he was expendable—
Vergil walked head-first into what felt like a stone wall. He stumbled back, tripped, and fell onto, and into a blood-chilling cushion of powdery snow.
A strong hand reached down into his hole and grabbed him by the cloak. It lifted him as if he weighed nothing at all.
“Mighty sorry for that, speck,” a booming voice said over the whistles and moans of wind rushing through the narrow alleys of the Alchemists’ Quarter. “I didn’t see ye.”
A vibrantly bright sprite of light hung above the stranger. Vergil had to crane his neck to look up into the face of the man talking. Shining yellow eyes, a flat, crooked nose, and a wide mouth set in a wider jaw met his gaze. A tusk protruded out through the left corner of the mouth, longer and thicker than his thumb.
“I-I’m sorry,” he stammered out, terrified by the apparition in the storm. “I wasn’t minding my way.”
“Are you hurt?” another, gentler voice asked him, by the giant’s side.
He swung his gaze around and met the black eyes of a woman protected from the snowfall by the man’s great cloak. She had a broken lip, bright red blood frozen into tiny crystals upon it.
“No, no,” Vergil said, almost relieved to see another human. “I was just startled, that’s all.”
The woman looked over his shoulder.
“Are you walking the storm alone?” she asked him, something like concern showing on her face. “You shouldn’t be alone in this weather.” Her eyes looked him over in a way that reminded him of how Sil had inspected him back at Mistress Aliana’s. This one’s gaze was harder, more piercing. Her scrutiny made him uncomfortable.
Something like a flash of recognition shone in her eyes.
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“I have an important errand to run. I’m sorry for bumping into you but I’ll be on my way now.”
“Where to?”
Vergil stared at the large arm that barred his way forward. The giant had moved faster than he could blink. Four armoured fingers pressed firmly against his chest. If they made a fist it would be the size of his head.
“Lady asked ye a question, speck,” the giant said. The undertone of his voice suggested that he’d better answer.
“Where are you going, young man?” the lady asked again, pinning him with her black gaze. She held a gnarled healer’s staff in one hand, and the other was hidden under her tight cloak.
Vergil stared at her for a moment, trying to match the face to anyone he knew. She wore a shawl under her hood, with only a stray lock of chestnut hair showing. Dark eyes, sharp nose, narrow lips…
Sil kept coming to mind, as if this woman were an older, sterner, and darker version of the healer. He wanted to be honest with her but something in the back of his skull warned of danger.
“I’m going to see a friend. He’s sick.” He pulled aside his cloak and showed her the metal flask in his pocket. “I’m bringing him some medicine.”
The woman’s eyes darted from his face to the flask and back up. She smiled, finally, and dug into the depths of her own cloak to produce a similar flask to the ones he carried.
“Take this, then,” she said as she tried to hand him the flask. “It will stave off hypothermia and keep your blood hot. Try and find shelter soon. You don’t look hale enough yourself to be out in this.”
Vergil hesitated and she waggled the flask at him.
“Take it,” the giant said, lowering his arm. “The Captain’s a healer.”
Captain?
Vergil took the flask and stared at it. Engraved on the metal surface was an armoured fist wreathed in lightning, the Storm Guard’s seal. His mouth opened and closed, words failing.
“Is anything the matter?” the Captain woman asked. Was she a Captain in the Storm Guard? Was he in trouble? Did they know about Tallah?
He felt his face grow hot and red as he tried to stow the flask in his inner pocket. Instead, he dropped it in the snow, bent to pick it up, dropped it again.
“I think ye scare the boy, Cap,” the man chuckled. He shrugged off snow that gathered in great piles upon his shoulders. Vergil could hear the unmistakable clanging of armour and weapons under the great cloak.
“Shush, Barlo. Let me help you. What’s your name?”
She bent and picked up the medicine.
“Uh… Vergil, ma’am,” he stammered an answer. Should he tell her about Tallah?
No!
He squashed the traitorous thought before it even took root, aghast at the notion. Tallah had saved him. Tallah had trusted him with a mission.
“Well, Vergil,” the woman said as she stowed the flask in his pocket, right next to the sealed letter, “my name’s Quistis.” She adjusted and tightened his cloak even as the wind kept trying to billow it out. “We’re here to help. You don’t need to be afraid of us.” Her lip bled when she smiled. She had dark lines on her face, as if she’d cried… blood? It might have just been a trick of the trembling sprite light.
“Yes, ma’am,” he muttered. “I-I’m not afraid, ma’am.”
She smiled at him.
“Good. Take care, Vergil. See that your friend gets well.”
Barlo came forward and held out his cloak over her. It was heavy. Wind barely rustled it.
“Thank you,” Vergil said as Quistis waved goodbye. He waited in place until the sprite light disappeared into the bowels of the blizzard. And he waited a few minutes more, a frozen statue slowly buried, just to be certain they were gone.
<ul style="text-align: justify">
<li>Please rotate 180 degrees and continue down the path until the next junction. Then take the left hand path.</li>
<li>Time to destination: Unknown.</li>
<li>Distance to destination: Unknown.</li>
</ul>
“Shut up.”
At least the storm had whipped up the Quarter enough that its signature stink and fog had been blown out of the city for the night. He assumed the stink was gone, at least. His nose had frozen shut even before he’d reached the Agora and he feared it might snap off if he tried to remedy the situation.
“Why do they need so many bloody stairs?” he gasped in effort as his interface led him up and down the many narrow corridors and passageways. He hadn’t paid attention when Tallah had led the way but at least his headware had. After going up and down what felt like the same stairs a dozen bloody times he became reasonably convinced that his headware lied with impunity and he was lost.
<ul style="text-align: justify">
<li>Your destination is on the right hand side. Accuracy of placement estimated within 5 meters.</li>
</ul>
It was definitely lying. There was nothing there but darkness and snow. He should have passed a church first. Did he? Maybe. It was hard to be certain of anything in that weather, at that hour. There wasn’t even a hint of light in the sky above and the green haze of the lamps was sparse and narrowed down to arrow heads.
There wasn’t a hint of light anywhere around.
He turned right and walked forward, hands outstretched. Finally, he felt something solid. Wall. Not a door. He walked forward, groping, and his hand slipped into the space between buildings. Then he walked back, until he felt the wooden frame of an entrance.
“Well, I’m sorry if this isn’t the right place.”
He banged on the door.
Nothing happened.
He banged again, harder.
No answer.
Again. Much harder.
“Someone is going to open this door or I will put my shoulder to it,” he grumbled as his fist hammered on the wood. “I am not going back without delivering this bloody letter.”
The door swung inside and Vergil found himself a palm’s breath away from a fireball as big as his head. It hovered above a gnarled old hand. If he could still feel anything above the neckline, the heat of it probably should have stung.
“Why shouldn’t I burn your face off?” a voice asked from beyond the firelight. Its threat felt very genuine. “Do you know the time, boy?”
“Too early for threats, Master Ludwig,” Vergil replied, numb with cold and fatigue, raising a hand to ward off the light. “I was sent.”
There was a long pause. Mercifully, the fireball moved aside and a hard face peered out from the darkness beyond. Yes, it was Ludwig, wearing the same ridiculous nightcap and the same expression, like trying to piss fire.
“Please put the flame out. It’s been a hard slog here. Either kill me or welcome me in. I’m fine with either.”
There was a moment’s hesitation. Blue-red blobs swam in front of Vergil’s eyes. Even when Ludwig extinguished the fireball, he was still blind for a few moments.
“Step inside,” the old man said, sidling away from the narrow door.
Vergil walked forward, and banged his head on the frame again.