Before.
She waited exactly one sun before she took the aetheryte shard. Crystal blue melted, faded into silken, crystalline everything, and when her feet finally found solid ground again she swallowed hard against the disorientation and the near overwhelming nausea that rose with it. To say it was silent could not be true: the dust-tinged sky of Thanalan was replaced with metal walls and ceilings and artificial light. Around her, everything hummed. Castrum, Delial reminded herself, anchoring herself to the word while the rest of her wound her senses around it. Banurein. Then, sourly, Wolfsong.
Someone nearby cleared their throat. Raising her eyes from the fading pale blue halo at her feet, she regarded her attendant: a woman of precise shapes and crisp edges, not a guard though Delial noted a slim weapon at her hip. She said nothing at all but her lips pursed and pale eyes looked away the moment she recognized she had their guest's attention. The rest of her followed, spinning not a degree too far or too short, and she marched without so much as looking to see if Grimsong was following. It was expected for she was expected and Delial allowed herself the time to take quick deep breaths, one, two, before she took pace behind her.
The halls wound and coiled into themselves, a blur of grey tubing and hard light. Long wires, sometimes in bundles thick as limbs, bounced between round nodes pierced by thin tube-like projections. They walked beneath several before she could confirm that they followed their movements, whirring in sockets, tiny red lights flashing back to a gentler white only when they passed. There were doors and pipes and things she assumed were engines, lit in hard patterns and lines; sometimes there were windows and sometimes they were barred. The one time she veered towards one to try and take a look, her guide gave her boots a particularly sharp click and Delial grudgingly fell back onto the path the woman was setting for her, unobtrusive and safe dead center through the halls. If something had scratched at the other side of that door, then Delial would never know.
Eventually one side of the hall was overtaken by broad double doors flanked by two proper guards. They may as well have been statues for they did not move nor utter a word as the guide-woman punched some pattern into a panel beside one of them. Several turret nodes ringed the ceiling there before the doors, perpetually blinking warning red at them. The doors hissed open much more smoothly than Delial would have expected given their size, spilling a pool of softer light into the unending hall. Again the guide spun, this time to face the Highlander with a wordless and near expressionless stare. Her lips remained pursed, haughty and disapproving, impatient for Grimsong to pick upon meaning without speaking a word. The door yawned wide and beckoning. Repaying silence with silence, Delial turned and stepped through. Then behind her, the doors hissed shut, gouts of steam erupting from vented pipes on either side.
This new room was even wider than its doors and its high ceiling, covered again with ropes and bundles of wires and broad tubes and pipes, was speckled with spotlights instead of turrets. Only a few were lit, casting broad circles on the sterile grey floor. The biggest and brightest of them was in the center of the room, where a woman in blue stood beside a table and a metal cart. As Delial strode closer, she could make out tubes and jars, trays of shining instruments, vacuous crystals and books etched with pulsing glyphs. Upon the table, a man.
"Miss Grimsong." Raelisanne Banurein spared little courtesy. She did not speak loudly but the chamber carried her voice clear as a bell. "You decided to join us. Good."
Wolfsong appeared unconscious though he breathed hard and harsh against the chains that bound him. It was not difficult to spy the black, otherworldly things that were introduced to him in the house where he had been held captive back in Vesper Bay. Nor was it difficult to note the beginnings of new scars, thin but laced with residue, glistening in oily shades of black and indigo. Beneath closed lids, his eyes rolled wild.
Banurein did not wait for Delial to respond. "You brought your weapon, I trust. We have a great deal of work ahead of us." Then, at last, the pale woman's head turned and hard eyes settled upon her guest. "Can you do it?"
Delial took a breath to speak but something twisted inside her, a momentary vertigo rising through her alongside a memory: a voice, vast and dry as wind through dying leaves, spoken by a woman who wore shadows defiant of the firelight in her hall. Hands upon her own, heavy and too large, too long, cutting shapes across her skin like ink as a cold shape was pressed into her palm. Quick, easy. Everything has it's cost and it all begins with a cut. My little dove, she sang, and Delial remembered the shine of teeth beneath shaded veils. Can you do it?
She heard, muffled, Banurein with an edge of impatience drawing her cold tone even colder. "Yes or no will do." But as Delial gathered herself she felt the blade already in her hand, a cold and solid comfort reminding her of her task, of the resolve she had cut out of better men than traitorous Wolfsong.
“Yes,†she said, more hoarse than she would have liked; the stale air of the Castrum dried her throat, she insisted inwardly, stole away the strength in her voice. On the table, Wolfsong writhed against the terrors in his blood.
“Good,†said Banurein, though there was no hint of pleasure in the word. The scientist turned her attention back to her subject and then to her instruments, running her fingers over them as she considered her choices. Beneath her fingers, the vials pulsed an impossible violet light, staining her otherwise pristine robes. “Come. Show me what you can do. What we can do,†she said, and for the barest instant Delial thought she saw the other woman was grinning. “Together.â€
---
On the quiet days they permitted her entry, alone that their patient not be disturbed, and never with her weapon once they identified the burns. It was a mystery to her why she even bothered. He was as much a corpse to the world as he was the sun they found him. After the first few visits, she gave up on talking.
Delial was certain they had explained it to her once: his condition, their thoughts and theories on the what’s and why’s, but it had all gone right over her head. Just as she could glean nothing from their words, they could gain nothing from her. That they hadn’t turned her and Wolfsong in on the spot had been miraculous in itself, but there was nearly nothing they could explain of the man they’d brought or why someone had embedded tubes into his flesh.
It was Banurein’s work, of that there was no doubt. But what was it? What was it meant to do? Why Taeros, and not...
Her heart had fallen when they found him, secreted away in an already secret place. The last thing she had expected to find was a man that looked suspiciously like Jameson Taeros. The thought hadn’t even occurred to her until Gharen made mention of it, and some small part of her wondered if it was guilt that drew her to his bedside. It was not her brother hidden in that room and so it may as well have been a stranger. It was not him and so he did not matter.
Except he did. Clearly, he did - Taeros always mattered to someone, somewhere and in her silent vigil Delial resented him for it. In her loathing, her thoughts wandered to Crofte and Lady Eglantine, and what they would think of his state. Enjoy your pickled man, something had said in that room and Delial hadn’t given it much thought.
“At least someone,†she said aloud, “Is having a worse time than me.â€
She waited exactly one sun before she took the aetheryte shard. Crystal blue melted, faded into silken, crystalline everything, and when her feet finally found solid ground again she swallowed hard against the disorientation and the near overwhelming nausea that rose with it. To say it was silent could not be true: the dust-tinged sky of Thanalan was replaced with metal walls and ceilings and artificial light. Around her, everything hummed. Castrum, Delial reminded herself, anchoring herself to the word while the rest of her wound her senses around it. Banurein. Then, sourly, Wolfsong.
Someone nearby cleared their throat. Raising her eyes from the fading pale blue halo at her feet, she regarded her attendant: a woman of precise shapes and crisp edges, not a guard though Delial noted a slim weapon at her hip. She said nothing at all but her lips pursed and pale eyes looked away the moment she recognized she had their guest's attention. The rest of her followed, spinning not a degree too far or too short, and she marched without so much as looking to see if Grimsong was following. It was expected for she was expected and Delial allowed herself the time to take quick deep breaths, one, two, before she took pace behind her.
The halls wound and coiled into themselves, a blur of grey tubing and hard light. Long wires, sometimes in bundles thick as limbs, bounced between round nodes pierced by thin tube-like projections. They walked beneath several before she could confirm that they followed their movements, whirring in sockets, tiny red lights flashing back to a gentler white only when they passed. There were doors and pipes and things she assumed were engines, lit in hard patterns and lines; sometimes there were windows and sometimes they were barred. The one time she veered towards one to try and take a look, her guide gave her boots a particularly sharp click and Delial grudgingly fell back onto the path the woman was setting for her, unobtrusive and safe dead center through the halls. If something had scratched at the other side of that door, then Delial would never know.
Eventually one side of the hall was overtaken by broad double doors flanked by two proper guards. They may as well have been statues for they did not move nor utter a word as the guide-woman punched some pattern into a panel beside one of them. Several turret nodes ringed the ceiling there before the doors, perpetually blinking warning red at them. The doors hissed open much more smoothly than Delial would have expected given their size, spilling a pool of softer light into the unending hall. Again the guide spun, this time to face the Highlander with a wordless and near expressionless stare. Her lips remained pursed, haughty and disapproving, impatient for Grimsong to pick upon meaning without speaking a word. The door yawned wide and beckoning. Repaying silence with silence, Delial turned and stepped through. Then behind her, the doors hissed shut, gouts of steam erupting from vented pipes on either side.
This new room was even wider than its doors and its high ceiling, covered again with ropes and bundles of wires and broad tubes and pipes, was speckled with spotlights instead of turrets. Only a few were lit, casting broad circles on the sterile grey floor. The biggest and brightest of them was in the center of the room, where a woman in blue stood beside a table and a metal cart. As Delial strode closer, she could make out tubes and jars, trays of shining instruments, vacuous crystals and books etched with pulsing glyphs. Upon the table, a man.
"Miss Grimsong." Raelisanne Banurein spared little courtesy. She did not speak loudly but the chamber carried her voice clear as a bell. "You decided to join us. Good."
Wolfsong appeared unconscious though he breathed hard and harsh against the chains that bound him. It was not difficult to spy the black, otherworldly things that were introduced to him in the house where he had been held captive back in Vesper Bay. Nor was it difficult to note the beginnings of new scars, thin but laced with residue, glistening in oily shades of black and indigo. Beneath closed lids, his eyes rolled wild.
Banurein did not wait for Delial to respond. "You brought your weapon, I trust. We have a great deal of work ahead of us." Then, at last, the pale woman's head turned and hard eyes settled upon her guest. "Can you do it?"
Delial took a breath to speak but something twisted inside her, a momentary vertigo rising through her alongside a memory: a voice, vast and dry as wind through dying leaves, spoken by a woman who wore shadows defiant of the firelight in her hall. Hands upon her own, heavy and too large, too long, cutting shapes across her skin like ink as a cold shape was pressed into her palm. Quick, easy. Everything has it's cost and it all begins with a cut. My little dove, she sang, and Delial remembered the shine of teeth beneath shaded veils. Can you do it?
She heard, muffled, Banurein with an edge of impatience drawing her cold tone even colder. "Yes or no will do." But as Delial gathered herself she felt the blade already in her hand, a cold and solid comfort reminding her of her task, of the resolve she had cut out of better men than traitorous Wolfsong.
“Yes,†she said, more hoarse than she would have liked; the stale air of the Castrum dried her throat, she insisted inwardly, stole away the strength in her voice. On the table, Wolfsong writhed against the terrors in his blood.
“Good,†said Banurein, though there was no hint of pleasure in the word. The scientist turned her attention back to her subject and then to her instruments, running her fingers over them as she considered her choices. Beneath her fingers, the vials pulsed an impossible violet light, staining her otherwise pristine robes. “Come. Show me what you can do. What we can do,†she said, and for the barest instant Delial thought she saw the other woman was grinning. “Together.â€
---
On the quiet days they permitted her entry, alone that their patient not be disturbed, and never with her weapon once they identified the burns. It was a mystery to her why she even bothered. He was as much a corpse to the world as he was the sun they found him. After the first few visits, she gave up on talking.
Delial was certain they had explained it to her once: his condition, their thoughts and theories on the what’s and why’s, but it had all gone right over her head. Just as she could glean nothing from their words, they could gain nothing from her. That they hadn’t turned her and Wolfsong in on the spot had been miraculous in itself, but there was nearly nothing they could explain of the man they’d brought or why someone had embedded tubes into his flesh.
It was Banurein’s work, of that there was no doubt. But what was it? What was it meant to do? Why Taeros, and not...
Her heart had fallen when they found him, secreted away in an already secret place. The last thing she had expected to find was a man that looked suspiciously like Jameson Taeros. The thought hadn’t even occurred to her until Gharen made mention of it, and some small part of her wondered if it was guilt that drew her to his bedside. It was not her brother hidden in that room and so it may as well have been a stranger. It was not him and so he did not matter.
Except he did. Clearly, he did - Taeros always mattered to someone, somewhere and in her silent vigil Delial resented him for it. In her loathing, her thoughts wandered to Crofte and Lady Eglantine, and what they would think of his state. Enjoy your pickled man, something had said in that room and Delial hadn’t given it much thought.
“At least someone,†she said aloud, “Is having a worse time than me.â€
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