Chapter 48: What's In That Book? (Parakles)

  The hooves of a horse thunder as it crosses the lands south of Burm. Parakles, the paladin, at the head of a horde, marches from Burm with quick purpose to take control of the Port of Madrol, which the Bruin armies have been using to transport both men and supplies back and forth from the island of Jali far deeper to the south. Parakles and his company know nothing of the major plans happening on Jali or the overall plans of the Bruin House, but they believe that the best option for them to bolster stronger support for the war effort against the armies of Dol would be to challenge Madrol off the win over Burm's garrison rather than march directly at Seutonis, who has taken to a lavish and luxurious lifestyle in the fanciful halls of Lowell, once held by House Flamingo.

  The forces under the Paladin who still bears the blue jay of his former master gained a huge boon from the liberation of the prison camp that was outside of Burm, and then with the aid of those who rallied to his side, they squashed the outpost of soldiers stationed in Burm proper without any major contest. Laroux herself proved most useful in helping bring an end to the occupation of the city. Carlyle, her cousin and head of the Morningsong House, was most welcome to the change so long as the party did not force his active participation, as was often a problem with House Morningsong; they were fiends for research and learning, with their faces in books more than in the lives of others. Carlyle never even challenged Seutonis when they attacked; they never fought, and they simply handed over rule of the city so long as the family could be left to their pursuits of knowledge. Carlyle himself was most keen on the study of history. "Please just do me one favor, Sir Parakles, and cousin," he asked. "When they took charge, the Bruin, Chile himself and his son Vespasian, and several others came into our library and took several volumes with them before departing."

  "Which books did they take?" Laroux had asked her cousin. The Morningsong halls were the echoes of history and wisdom, with most all of the splendors of the world held in their archives. Throughout the years, they were known for employing both librarians, scribes, and copiers to hunt for and preserve books. In fact, several over the thousand-plus years of rule by that house had gained rights to the family by their dedication to the craft and not by blood. Laroux knew this was perhaps why their halls were treated differently than other Houses.

  "They took a couple of annals of the history of their house, House Bruin, and a couple of natural magic spells, and two books by our ancestor Tertull Morningsong," Carlyle spoke. Even as he explained the situation, he found himself not so much focused on the conversation and more on the book in front of his face. This was similar with many throughout the vast hall, as they seemed oblivious and determined to study, to work, to stress the mind.

  "Cousin." No reply or shift from the scholar. "Cousin." Again, the lord of the house doesn't adjust his posture or reply.

  "COUSIN!"

  "What Laroux, what is it?" Carlyle says with surprise in his voice as he finally raises his face from the paper underneath him on the table.

  "What two books of Tertull's did they take?"

  "Well, they took his work 'On The Binding Rituals of the Celestial,' and his Journal." The lord spoke and then instantly returned to his reading.

  "Does that mean anything special, Laroux?" Parakles asked.

  "Well, it must, but I honestly don't know. I mean, the history stuff—if it mentions the Bruin family, maybe it would, but the other two. Well, I have never read Tertull's journal. And I mean, it was just a journal from a family member of something like a thousand years ago. The other book also is an old one as well. I just... well, I... I just... if I had read either of those, I'd have a better idea of the correlation." She pondered for a few moments, thinking. "Cousin, have you read either of those books?"

  "I have." He then moved back to reading.

  "Well."

  "Well, what?"

  "CARLYLE, WHAT IS IN THEM?"

  "GOOD HEAVENS, COUSIN! CALM DOWN! WE'RE IN A LIBRARY!" Carlyle stood up from his desk and slammed his hand on the table underneath him. Laroux snapped and decked her elder square in the face, knocking the frail scholar out cold and to the ground.

  "THUD!" the sound his body made as he smacked the hard floor. A few moments of embarrassment lingered as Parakles commended the sage for a nice punch thrown. Laroux apologized and then realized she needed to cast a healing spell onto her own hand. She backed away and cast one on herself while Parakles sat the lord of the house up in his chair and woke him up from his knocked-out state.

  "WHAT HAPPENED?" the lord asked as he turned his head about and fluttered his eyes.

  "I punched you," Laroux replied. The scholar began rubbing his face and noticed quickly the damage to his more fragile frame. He winced as his fingers found the tender spots.

  "Aren't you going to heal me, cousin?" Carlyle spoke boldly as he kept a hand continuing to explore the tender and injured spots on his head. Laroux signaled that she would not until he answered their questions. "Fine." The scholar finally closed the book that his face had been buried in during their prior parts of the conversation. "Tertull stood alongside Scythe and Reto during the Deity War. His journal is rife with quick quips and notes on the events that transpired, and in fact, several of the poems, songs, and myths about that very war cited his journal as a main source for their inspiration for the retelling of events."

  "Why would they want a journal account of so ancient a war?" Parakles questioned.

  "Perhaps it has to do with the other book they took, which was in fact written by Tertull as well. That book was more or less a manual on binding rituals in relation to the divine beings and immortals. Tertull mentioned in the book all his sources for his information presented, and they were long older than him."

  "Like binding, as in containing a god?" Laroux asked.

  "Or stripping one of their power or physical form, or even forcing one destroyed to return to the corporeal realm. The book was littered with ancient instructions in apparently this magic art practice." Carlyle spoke plainly, without bias or extra thought into what he said; this was the curse of a scholar, to know but not understand, to see but not see. These things confused Parakles, as while in the house of his service the goddess Kaya was worshipped, most of the religious practice had become a myth in itself throughout the land. Even hearing about this Tertull Morningsong and his writings seemed like a farce to the anvil. He believed what he heard from the Head of the Morningsong house, but all the years of neglect for the divine in his experience had him blinded from these ideas and thoughts. Laroux, in many ways, felt similar, as while she practiced the healing arts taught in the faith of Kaya and she was a top sage in the order from her years of dedicated study, she never would have imagined such documents engineered by mortals to exist that taught rituals to control and bend the divine. All three people in the conversation could hear the words and see all the pieces of the puzzle before them, and yet the fog of religion and the truth of that which has become myth and legend in the world kept the simple truth from them that lay bare for a child to clearly see.

  These were the documents that Chile Bruin, with his son and court sages, had in their possession as they marched around the jungles of Jali. Parakles and Laroux stewed over these thoughts as they left Burm on their mission, distracted and curious. Yet, Parakles and his company, as they marched toward Madrol, had no awareness of the Bruin's location and true intent. All he and his party could do was focus on what they could, the freedom and revenge of the Southlands.

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  "There you are, Anvil!" A friendly voice was heard further ahead of the column of the free. Siphon, after the victory over Burm proper, took Gina and went to set up advanced scouting of the port city of Madrol.

  "Good to lay eyes on the lock-picker." Parakles dismounts his steed and ties him to a nearby post as he gives the signal to Gage to let all the people of his armed force know that this would be where they set up their camp before the siege of the port city. Gage did as commanded, and the dusty column of over 80 people who had, in the days since their enslavement and torment, eaten with a purpose to restore vigor and strength. They were still a lean people, using mostly armor and weapons taken from the dead men of Bruin in their conflicts and then repainted to not have further association with the House responsible for their suffering. Most of the people, including the women, all settled for the time in Burm, and Parakles asked a group of the men to stay behind and build extensions onto the city walls and bolster the protection of the Morningsong House, as the family, unlike most of the Houses of Wiera, had the most pitiful of combat specializations imagined for a grand lineage of wealth and rule. At least from those present in the halls of Burm.

  Some of the men in Parakles' company still lacked a full set of proper armor, but what they had they wore proudly, as some even painted a bird on their breastplates and shields to represent the jay of House Cavan. Others wrote the names of their fallen family, and others the names of their former House they served prior to the occupation campaign of Seutonis and his army.

  "So, what is the news, Siphon?" Parakles wasted no time in asking the thief, whom he had been using for reconnaissance of the area, what the lay of everything was down in Madrol. Siphon gestured toward his tent that he had set up. Parakles signaled for Laroux to follow, which meant that Djent came along as well. Inside, Gina gave Parakles a hug so powerful that he was nearly taken off of his feet by the surprise.

  "HEY THERE, ANVIL!" Even she started using the nickname. The term stopped causing the paladin to blush, as he had grown accustomed to the moniker.

  "Hello, Gina." He smiles as she lets herself down. Siphon then pulls out a map and begs everyone to look at it.

  "So this is roughly my findings of the area around Madrol." The thief had, in recent days, drawn on this parchment a rough map of the area to showcase what lay ahead and around the city. "The word has reached the city of the march by our forces. The citizens are thrilled, but the garrison is not." This notion didn't surprise the people at the table, as it was just common sense of the situation when a foreign military is occupying a city absent invitation. "House Porter, and their head, the ancient Tinnus, are under arrest in the dungeons below the keep. Word from the people is that during the siege of Madrol, all of his sons and any of age grandsons, and a few of his granddaughters even fell in combat to the Bruin or were executed afterward for their part in the defense of the city. The old lord was spared because he is very advanced in age, and Seutonis thought it crueler to have him outlive these members of his family while having been too advanced in age to help in the defense."

  "Seutonis really is a monster," Laroux spoke up. She was thankful that her own family was spared from such trouble by having not resisted. However, she was beginning to think their family was not harmed due to the desire of the Bruin scholars for quick access to assets in the Morningsong library.

  "Are others of House Porter still alive with the ancient lord?" Djent spoke up.

  "The offshoots of his clan exist still, and the people of the city are rumored to have hidden away a few other members for safeguarding." Djent had a fiery passion on his face from this news; as he, being from a House that has seen a brutal demise as well, felt that perhaps if he could restore the Porters to their place, that perhaps the sting of having failed to protect the Flamingo family that he served would lessen. Parakles picked this sentiment up and felt it as well for his own situation. Both didn't share this agreed spark verbally, but it was understood between the two of them without words or any nonverbal signals shared.

  Siphon continued, "The city has roughly 200 men present under the command of a man called Melorian."

  "Melorian? Who is he? Is he from Dol?" Laroux asked. She, having been from the noble family of Burm, met with or at least was privy to seeing most of the Bruin leadership during the days when even Chile Bruin visited their halls after Seutonis took control of the city. As she was equally not under any arrest or prohibition due to her status, however, this name of Melorian did not ring any bells for the sage.

  "Melorian is a local merchant here in Madrol who earned enough coin a few years back to begin buying ships and leasing them for trade use and charters. He is said to have tried to marry one of Tinnus' granddaughters but was halted by the old lord in his pursuits to marry into the nobility. He then tried a year or so before all the wars to purchase his way into establishing a house of his own by trying to bribe House Egiar and House Flamingo."

  "That does ring a bell," the blind knight speaks. "I do remember hearing chatter of that type not too long afore the wars kicked off in the Halls of Lowell." He scratches his chin as he thinks harder on the subject. "Didn't both Egiar and Flamingo turn him down?"

  "They did. It was quite a talkin…." Siphon pauses his speech. He then stutters a bit as he tries to move past these points of information back to the general construct of the town's defenses. Gina tensed up seeing the jumbling of her paramour, but he waved his hand, showing he was resetting himself to continue.

  "Sorry… bleh. Where was I…?" he said. "Oh yes, the defenses. They are under this Melorian and the company of men rowdy from their time in this port city. Roughly 200 strong and mostly comprised of pure soldiers with a few mercenaries and swordsmen in the ranks, but no archers were seen in the city and no mages in the ranks."

  "That is a relief," Laroux spoke. The last fight she had with a skilled magic user proved to be difficult even though she was well-versed in her light magic arts. Siphon then laid out the best point of attack, just being a pure rush straight at the front gates with the regular party, but to then have a detachment raid the city from just off the coast into the docks of the city, as the thief feared that Melorian, being a ship owner, would perhaps be apt to try and flee by vessel if the tide of battle turned from his favour.

  "That makes sense. Last thing we need is a troublemaker like him getting away and finding safety in Sultra or somewhere where the Bruin banner still holds power," Parakles remarked. Melorian was a key person to capture as he owned many ships in the South Sea and was also key in the initial failing, or more quickly failing, defense of Madrol as he shipped troops from the Bruin directly around the gates of the city into the docks. Now Siphon hoped to, in a more tame way, return the tactic that was explained to him by the local merchants in the previous days.

  "How do we divide for this battle?" Obviously, the main army has to charge from the front, but who goes with the surprise party?" Laroux asked.

  "That is a puzzling thing," Siphon tapped his hand on the table. "Anvil here is the beacon of our uprising. He has to be at the lead of the main force or they might falter and break under the pressure of the main clash at the front gates. That cannot happen or the people going around to the docks will be overrun and outmatched, having no chance of success, let alone survive."

  "So I am to stay at the head of the column here then," Parakles replied. He knew this would mean that Griff would be at his side in the conflict as the young man was his squire in combat. Siphon knew this as well and began drawing up the number of the side unit that would have the mission of striking the family estate of House Porter, which now held the traitor to his city, Melorian, and those loyal to him.

  "So this will be the unit." He spoke after a few moments of thinking. The unit would comprise himself, Gina, Laroux, Djent, and Gage, who was still recovering his strength little by little to be competent in normal archery again. Siphon also requested Bors, a man who, though not a knight, garbed in heavy knight armor and proved himself well in the battle for Burm. He also requested Marcion, who was previously, before the war, a pugilist who spent years prize fighting in Dol. When the war broke out, Seutonis himself sought out the well-known prize fighters to join his ranks, much like the Bolden family of the slums were sought out to be a lead in the military, but the man declined to fight for the Bruin sigil. He was requested several more times before they finally put him in irons and tossed him into the camp in Burm once it was established. Marcion was no legend in his sport, but he made a living fighting prior to the war and, like Bors, stood out from the rest in the battle for Burm proper.

  Further plans, such as timing, were discussed before the party decided to tuck in and get some rest for the night, with the plans being put into motion on the following day. Though sleep would not come easy for some, especially Siphon, as he knew that he nearly slipped up about himself and his origins which he still kept silent about to the others earlier in the day. He also stirred knowing he would be leading the strike force. Him, a man of cunning, not brawn. Gina could sense this tension as they lay down to rest for the night. She didn't try to offer advice or get her lover to speak, as she also couldn't get the man to go further into detail, but she could tell he was bothered.

  "Even though I trust these people, and I think I love this crazy woman next to me, I can't let them know who I am, not yet. Not now." The thief thought as he crossed his hands behind his head and found his mind racing all through the night.