Magic - Part 2

Sirus took care to lock the door before he chose his equipment. It was almost night and the sun was falling fast, but he had to be careful not to be spotted that night. His target would surely have friends who would seek to follow the kidnapper and do harm if they knew who it was. Also, the foxtailed man knew his target would be 'home' by the time the sun lost its battle and was swallowed up by the horizon. He waited the appropriate amount of time in contemplation of the evening. His horse, and a second mare, were stabled below in the inn's stables. Sirus had paid the stableboy a visit, and knew the horses would be fully saddled and ready to go by midnight. When the sun finally dropped and darkness decended, Sirus unlocked his window and opened it. The cool evening wind washed through the room, blowing back the blinds. It was a refreshing breeze, erasing memories of the previous night, a hot, sticky evening completely at logical odds with the geography of the area.

Sirus paused to open the drawer below the table then quickly changed from his imperial robes into more comfortable attire. The number of knives on the table had doubled to twenty four knives now resting within arm's reach. Donning his tight leather boots, more appropriate for a trapeze artist or theif than a bounty hunter, Sirus began fitting his knives into various hiding spots on his body. One fit easily below each wrist, two in each boot, two on each thigh, six sat in two careful rows on the right side of his belt. Six he tied spaced out to the strings on the base of his cloak. They hung down like feathers while the cloak lay on the back of a chair. The kitsune was ever mindful of his tail, and he made certain to tie the last two knives to his tail, making it more a weapon than a distraction. He fastened the two swords to his left side, wrapped the face mask around his mouth and over the arc of his nose, through a wound rope over his shoulder, picked up the hand crossbow in one hand, the javelin-like spear in his other hand, and departed through the open window into the black night.

Darkness would have been his friend in such a position as he now found himself in, but the moon had decided that the night would be a good time to shine like a bloody demon. It was one of those nights of magic, when the Wild Hunt would ride out through the lands, scaring peasants and reaffirming that yes, fairies still existed. Stories like that were just legends up north, but where Sirus came from in the south, they were fact. He marvelled silently at how quickly fact became legend when it seemed too extraordinary to contemplate. Not only was the night almost as bright as day, but the moon rose in all of its proud glory, a full moon. On a distant building a cat stood admiring the scene. Sirus scowled at it, his kitsune instincts kicking in. He didn't like cats or neko anymore than any others of his race. But eager to be on his way, and with the full moon in mind, he silently hoped, as he dropped from the rooftop, that there were no werewolves this far north.

He dropped his spear before he hit the ground, letting his cloak act to slow him and his knees crumple to absorb the fall. Kneeling, the kitsune looked back and forth to make sure no one had spotted him before picking up his spear and sprinting down the length of the street. This late at night, no one was out. They would be eating dinner, dicing in the taverns, maybe even frolicking with one of the maids, but wouldn't be on the streets. Only a madman or a brave man went walking the streets on a full mooned night like this. Thanks to superstition, people wouldn't even look outside their windows that night, afraid they might somehow attract evil's attention. Sirus couldn't have timed his strike better. Yet always when a character starts thinking thoughts such as these, something comes along to spoil it and prove them wrong.

Sirus caught the noise of a gang around the next corner, and the moonlight glinted blue-toned from a series of violent looking weapons. This won't do, Sirus thought unhappily. His plans had been spoiled for the night and he would be late thanks to this. It appeared, upon putting his head around the corner, that a group of ruffians had cornered a cloaked figure, a girl probably no older than Sirus himself. They were proposing rather indecent suggestions, as well as your standard run-of-the-mill, "Give us yer money, girl, or we'll cut yer throat!" speech. There was an easy way to deal with the men, then there was a theatrical way. Sirus had always been fond of theatrics though.

He stepped into the light. "Now now, gentlemen. That is no way to treat a lady." The villains turned as they heard the courtly accent. All that faced them seemed to be a shadow, a black clothed kitsune as they could spot from his ears.

"Haha, son," the oldest of the group said. Scarred and crop-cut, he looked like the leader. "You're goin' to want to back away nice an' easy. We don' want no trouble from folk like you. An' you don't want no trouble from us." The others grunted in a form of gutteral laughter, or snickering. Sirus wasn't sure which. Another of the bandits had snuck up close to the back of the kitsune, thinking himself hidden from view. He obviously wanted trouble from 'folk like Sirus', though the leader had specified otherwise.

Tipping his head to the side, the kitsune cocked his eyebrow, "alright then, have it your way." He spun on his left heel, cloak and tail spinning out and slashing the closest bandit in the shin. The other criminals were slow to react, yet moved immediately out to encircle their attacker. Still using the momentum of his spin, Sirus threw his spear straight and true, impaling one of the bandits before stepping close to another and slashing at its throat. The bandit let out a low gurgling sound and fell to the ground, suitably chastised. Sirus flicked out his arms and two throwing knives spun through his fingers before being launched at the throats of another two bandits. Now there were four left. The leader drew a hand crossbow from his cloak, aiming it not at the bounty hunter, but rather at their victim. The girl stood perfectly still as the bolt trained on her.

Crossbow in hand, the bandit leader smiled though Sirus was poised to throw a knife at another bandit. "Well, well, well, looks like we've got ourselves at an impasse." He spoke the last word slowly, sounding out each syllable. Sirus guessed that the leader may have been a scholar, driven out by hard times, resorting to street gangs. Or of course, he could just be a bandit leader who picked up the word by chance, probably from an 'impasse' with a now dead noble.

It was a dilemma certainly. Sirus had no want to kill the leader, though he would undoubtedly prove trouble later on. But he also wished to save the girl, who was not in the most fortuitous of circumstances at that moment. Ironically enough, it was the girl who broke the stalemate, saving herself and Sirus. While the bandit leader was busy concentrating on Sirus, the girl had been working her hands in the air. It looked as if she was scribbling, or drawing, or something. Sirus had barely half a second's warning as the place the girl was scribbling grew bright as the sun and shot out, blowing the bandit leader into the stone wall of the building behind him. Fine mortar powder trickled onto his head as he coughed up blood and fell in a heap. Sirus was stunned. The girl is a mage? And of destruction magic too? She's more rare than she looks. Though of course he couldn't see her face, hidden as it was by a heavy hood. From the rest of what he could see though, she cut a fine figure, especially in skin-tight cloths. Silk perhaps?

The other bandits were not so 'rooted to the spot stunned' as Sirus was. With frantic calls of "Witch!", "Devil spawn!" and "Demon!" they ran screaming down the street, turned the corner and were soon gone. The girl turned back to Sirus. He half expected her to destroy him where he stood. Instead she laughed. "Thank you stranger." Her voice had a strange, musical quality to it. "You saved my hide just then. I'd run out of power and those men happened to think it would be a good time to take advantage of the situation." She pushed back her hood, revealing the most beautiful face Sirus had ever seen. He almost felt enchanted by her beauty, and he was wary not to fall into any trap she might have laid, using the bandits as bait. He still had enough enemies to occasion a look over his shoulder every so often. "My name is Siarra," she said, "and yours?" She pushed the hood off of her head and Sirus couldn't, wouldn't believe what he saw. Couldn't believe his bad luck.

Siarra was a neko.

Magic - Part 1

Sirus chuckled gaily to himself as he flicked through the papers in his hands. Each was an 'official' document, 'signed' by the Lord Imperior himself, stamped with a small wax blob holding the image of a well forged signet ring. They were papers naming Sirus as William Damasque, a wealthy noble on a diplomatic mission to the Hawk Aeries in the mountains of Niral.

The guards looked warily at Sirus as he left the council chambers. He didn't blame them. He was about medium height, with green eyes, a sharp nose and high cheeks. His eyes were constantly moving, reassessing the area. And his most prominent features marked him out as a kitsune. Two fox ears poked out of his ruffled hair, their orange, white-tipped fur in contrast to his black, unkept hair while a single fox tail swept nervously behind him. He was dressed in an imperial uniform: a close-cut black robe buttoned on the side, sweeping in the street below him. Gold trims raised the shoulders, and a single sword was fastened to his left side. The collar on the robe was high enough to brush his chin when he turned his head, a perfect imitation of this season's 'in fashion' clothing.

Yet though he was dressed as a noble or imperial agent, the guards remained wary. Sirus knew it was because he was a kitsune. Though they were not a rare sight, there was a certain amount of racism towards them. They were considered sneaky, cunning, and untrustworthy. A generalisation to be sure, but then again, Sirus had always believed in perpetuating stereotypes. Further, the guards were wary because of the power 'William Damasque' might hold with the local council. Who knew what he was doing in town besides himself.

Tail turning, Sirus flicked a gold coin from his sleeve towards the guardsmen. They blinked in surprise before dropping to the ground to fish the coin from the mud, cleaning and examining it. Probably that was a week's wages to them. To Sirus, it meant the guards would be less likely to stop him and more likely to side with him were events to turn against him in the future. He grinned at the guards happily clucking and cooing over their coin and continued his way down the street. By the position of the sun, he guessed it was late afternoon and he was heading in a northwards direction. His aim was a house in the north-eastern quadrant of Callan, but first he had to go back to the inn to change.

The streets were clearer now than an hour ago. Merchants with precious cargo who could afford to pack up did so and went home to their wives and strongboxes though Sirus wasn't sure which of the two they loved the most. Many of the town labourers had gone home, replaced by their evening-shift counterparts. To the east, the council had decreed a new bridge be built over the Kinnean River, and its construction was putting Callan into an economic boom. On the sides of the streets the beggars left, knowing they would get no more charity now that the visitors in town had returned to the inns and taverns. The homeless would head to the inns for handouts after dinner, or to the back alleys looking for prime real estate: a nice, warm place to sleep. Others would head back to the Beggar's Guild to pay tribute. They shared what little they had; communism working in practice.

Sirus ducked to the side as an inflated pig's bladder wooshed over his shoulder, kicked towards him accidentally by a child playing. Laughing, they scattered to their hideaway spots. Hoping to curry favour with them, Sirus kicked the ball back to where it came from. A young kitsune jumped out to stop it from heading too far the other direction, staring at wonder at the lone adult who had inadvertantly joined their game. The kid scooped the bladder into the air and kicked it towards his companion, a young human girl. The game it seemed was simple: the aim was to kick the bladder into the face of another player. There was enough water within the primitive ball to give it weight, though it wouldn't hurt on contact. Sirus, his child years long passed, smiled sadly in nostalgia and continued walking.

Three blocks down was the inn, The Troubled Fox. Lit up by torches within metal casings, the inn was one of the richer establishments in town. Before the heavy oak door was a stone archway flanked by ionic columns. Hanging by a chain on either end, the sign showed a comic looking fox struggling vainly to grab a grape from a vine high above it. Appropriately, The Troubled Fox catered rooms for the largest number of kitsune in town. Neko, people with similar attributes to kitsune, but cats rather than foxes, rarely visited the inn due to the rivalry between the two race's gods. But though The Troubled Fox held many kitsune, it held fewer foxfolk than it did humans, who outnumbered every other species in the city. Sirus stayed there not because he was in need of the company of his own race; he was used to being alone. No, he slept there because he needed to be unnoticed, and more importantly because it was the closest inn to the house he was to find that night.

Sirus pushed open the heavy doors and immediately his ears were met by laughter and polite talking. The inns and taverns differed in many respects, and Sirus normally preferred to stay in taverns. The raucous boasting and swearing, shouting and catcalling, were all familiar noises to him. Taverns were noisy places full of drunks, pickpockets, hardened veterans and whores. By comparison, an inn was almost like a tea party. Besides, inns didn't serve Oapos, the hallucination-inducing kiwifruit wine. Instead they only had sour wine, the 'drink of the gentleman'. Sirus didn't know how courtiers and imperial agents managed to survive on that.

He walked through the waiting chamber to the stairs, heading to the second floor, down the hall and through another side passage to his own room. There was nothing of great interest in the clean wooden hallways. Though kept meticulously clean, the inn usually held a great number of mice. Maybe the lack of cats in the establishment allowed them a certain amount of freedom. There were no rats in the inn. As far as he knew, there hadn't been a rat in Callan in over a century. He'd heard fragments of stories of the Pied Piper variety, though thankfully the townsfolk had taken warning from the previous stories and actually paid the fellow. Rats were no more and the town had managed to keep a firm hold on their children. But that was before Callan became the main merchant city where the Silk Paths from the east crossed the Kinnean River coming down from the mountains to the north. Since then it had tripled in size, and not a single rat.

Sirus had reached his room. He drew a key from inside his left sleeve, fitting it into the well oiled lock and twisting. The lock clicked and the door swung open slightly to admit the kitsune. He swept the room with his eyes, then stepped in. On the table lay his collection of weapons: a hand-sized repeater crossbow with five shots, twelve spare throwing knives that wouldn't have fit into the clothes he was wearing, a spare sword, a polearm and a scythe. Inside the cupboard he found his other clothes, a close fitting black leather outfit and a large, thick, black, hooded robe. He didn't travel light. One couldn't afford to travel light when one was a bounty hunter.

Magic - Prologue

As so many fantastical stories seem to begin, this one began with a pact. Normally, it is the story rather than the plot which begins with a pact. You usually don't find out until further into the book, probably halfway through, that it was indeed a pact which began said book. You wind through many a page of hopeless dialogue, red herring love stories, insane villainy and even more daring heroes before you even get a glimpse at the idea that there may have actually been a pact through which the events of the remainder of the story have unfolded and will then unfold.

But this isn't a normal fantasy story like most. The pact it begins with is just as important to the story to know about, it is no form of dramatic irony, though it happened in a secret meeting. What kind of pact is it? One of those 'I'm the demon, give me your soul I'll give you anything' sort of pacts.

In the deep, dark corners of every castle lies a villain. He may not be exactly the kind of villain you'd guess would be lying in the deep dark corners of a very drafty castle. Unless you normally have thoughts about mice being the villains in stories. Well actually, I lied. This mouse wasn't even a villain. He just liked to tell himself he was because it was the only way he could ever get a feeling of self importance. I mean, come on, he lives in a giant, drafty castle with deep, dark corners. Who wouldn't start to feel a little insecure after a while?

But this mouse was luckier than your common mouse who lived in deep, dark, drafty castles. He happened to live in a fantasy realm filled with magic. And sooner or later magic will cause animals to gain some kind of self-awareness. Apart from the mind-jarring realisation of his life wasted, this mouse then found he failed at communicating with the other people in the castle. Mice ceased to be interested in his mindless consideration of politics and philosophy, humans and their ilk understood little.

So that was why he was standing in a pentacle inscribed on the stone floor chanting a summoning spell on another larger symbol before him. The symbol was a pentacle incased within a circle, small tildas and doodles surrounding it. Magic was a complex affair, especially summoning Greater Demons. The mouse was stupid to try something like this copied from a scratching on a bit of leather he happened to come across whilst wandering the halls. But this mouse happened to be unnaturally lucky. Normally, failing to draw the etching properly ended in horrible things which varied from losing one's spleen to a simple Armageddon disaster. Thankfully it didn't do anything like that.

"Why are you summoning me?!" The large entity spoke finally, summoned by the persistent squeeking. "Ah, a mouse..." it seemed puzzled, searching in its vast memory for any time where a mouse had summoned a demon. He vaguely remembered a fox doing this centuries before, and that was when the kitsune were formed. But a mouse gaining any kind of intellect was curious. The demon had already found a weakness in the pentacle; he could, if he wanted, escape and vaporise the castle and its occupants. But something held it back. A thought in the back of its mind which questioned, what would a mouse possibly want from a demon?

But then came the even more difficult, and slightly embarassing moment. How was one to communicate with a mouse? The demon conjured up a chair and sat contemplating, watching the squeaking and dancing of the summoner. He couldn't make sense of it. Eventually, from concentrating on the frantic gestures of the tiny rodent, the Greater Demon understood what he wanted.

"Ohhh, you wish to speak? Why did you not ask so in the first place?" The irony struck him as funny enough to comment. It seemed the mouse could understand what was spoken, but had little ability to form the sounds for itself. Since he was bound only by a faulty pentacle, the demon was free to do as he wished. Unfortunately, he could not touch the mouse as it sat within its own pentacle, perfectly formed. The protective symbol stopped the demon from attacking the mouse, but also stopped the summoned creature from gifting his master with speech. He tried an old trick, "Step outside of the pentacle and I shall bestow it upon you." Any summoner with brains would identify a trick like this and stay the hell inside their symbol. As long as the symbol was unbroken the demon was bound. The mouse was innocent though, ignorant of the tricks played by any demon to achieve freedom.

It stepped outside of the pentacle and instantly was given the power to speak rather than just squeak. The demon chuckled to itself. It was free now. No symbols contained it, no summoner could send him back without high-level magics, there was nothing left to do but run before the mouse got smart and sent him back. With a pop, the Greater Demon vanished. Most likely he headed straight to Bermuda or Hawaii, or whatever the tropical paradise was called in this world. I know I would if I were a newly free demon. Within days, the demon would begin to lose the ability to freely shapeshift and settle into whatever form he chose. Most likely the demon would choose a human. They always went for the cliche 'tall, dark and handsome' figures.

And he left the mouse standing quite unsure of itself outside of a pentacle. The mouse looked around. He seemed to see things with a new light. The mouse was grey, with brown wings hinting around his ears. He had dark, black beetles of eyes, and now a voice to match his blossoming mind. He looked younger, and felt stronger. Whatever the demon had done, it had done more than asked.

"Bloody hell, what've I done now?" He asked himself, wondering what mischief the Greater Demon would get up to.

Winternest Part 2

The guildhouse door burst open as the young kitsune barreled his way in shoulder-first. He spun on the handle, using his weight to push the heavy door closed again. Sirus' feet strained as he pushed against the floor. He held the pot out with one hand while the other pulled the heavy bar into place.

He slid to the door with a sigh. The guildhouse appeared silent, but behind each wall was a trained assassin, a guard of the highest eschelon of the Theives Guild. They each carried a chained knife, a hand crossbow and enough poison to knock out an entire city. Hopefully it would be enough to stop whatever was chasing him, though how long he might live after this was over he wasn't sure. But the Theives Guild prized the ability to turn invisible and it looked like Sirus would have to do just that.

He moved slowly through the lobby to a side door. Through the door was a long, beige coloured carpetted hallway leading to a second door. Behind the door was a staircase leading downwards to the city's underground. The guild was like any Theives Guild; it put on a simple exterior, a pretty gameface, and the promise of a deep, dark secret.

Down the staircase was another room: a lobby where the entry level thieves gathered, where the leader of their section had his offices. It was well hierarchically set out, probably, ironically the most organised in the city. Sirus walked down the corridor holding onto his prize. This was his goal, the item he had to steal to rise to the next level in the guild. He'd been told to find a piece of pottery from a rich man's home, and he had the bad luck to pick something that murderers were out for too.

Winternest Part 1

The city was asleep at this time of night, even the lanterns had burned low. Guards rarely walked the streets anymore and it was anybody's game. The occasional cloud passed over the moon, extending the shadows between the buildings until nothing could be seen of the murky dirt road, patched by pavers, riddled with wagonholes.

Sirus kept running.

The ten year old kitsune boy ran flat out, tail and robes swinging behind freely. He gasped as his robes caught on a wagon spoke, tearing and making a noise ill-fitting in the dark. He sucked his breath in and tried not to yell from fright though some kind of monster was on his trail. Every loud noise grew to his ears, every small crack of sticks in the path he'd clearly blazed with heavy footfalls shook his nerves. Goodness knew what would happen if he were caught.

The half-fox boy kept a tight hold on his prize: a blue pot, red rimmed and covered in gold decorations. He had no idea what was in it; all he'd done was take what he'd been told to take. That was before the man helping him was killed.

It seemed whomever these monsters were, they were after the same pot. And they didn't even flinch at killing to get it. Sirus knew he'd been lucky to get away. He briefly considered dropping it, leaving his troubles behind. But he knew that whatever was chasing him wouldn't stop with the pot. It would want him dead. It was a simple rule of the underground that no one saw you take anything, and if Sirus knew who had the pot he could tell someone. That and Sirus had been witness to a murder. That sort of thing doesn't bode well when one is running from the killer.

No, it was best to hold onto that container harder, keep running faster, and never stop. Once he got to the guild house he would be safe. Safe from whoever, whatever, was chasing him.