Chapter 25

The decayed fortress was all but waiting for a final gust of wind to blow away what remained of it: the ramparts had crumbled, and were covered in ivy; the timber on the portcullis and gates was rotten; and all the structures within the walls had been raised to the ground. Aurora imagined that she could hear the banshee's cry while she was walking through the rubble; her hair stood on end against a rotting fort.

Eros, Typhon and Sabriel led the party on; Astraea customarily skulked at the rear. They moved through the ruin, until at last they came to what was formerly the captain of the guards' chamber. The exterior wall was undamaged, the oak door looked worn but still functioning, and all the panes of glass were still in the windows. Then the princess screamed.

"What was that for your highness?" Sabriel said, "There is nothing here but ourselves."

"I saw someone looking at us from the window."

Eros looked in the direction that Aurora pointed, but there was nobody there. Then he felt a foreboding in the air. He moved his sword hand closer to his weapon. It was a feeling that had swept through the whole party. They all felt that danger was imminent. In the courtyard, surrounded by crumbling ramparts, and a captain's keep, they readied themselves for combat. When they realised what the great creaking noise that reverberated around the courtyard was, they had already been swallowed by it.

"Queen Vega will come!" Aurora said looking around the pit which they had all fallen into.

"There's no ghost," Astraea scorned while she got to her feet.

Daylight poured in through the trapdoor before it closed, and the only light they had was a flickering torch mounted on the granite wall.

"You're captured," an aristocratic voice, said, "I will ask you questions. Know that your survival is dependant upon how satisfactorily I deem your answers to be." The tenor of the voice was elderly, and it contained a mixture of madness and play. It swept in through a grating at the far end of the dungeon.

The voice queried in its eccentric tone, "Who are you?"

"We're soldiers of Hyperion, and Lemuria."

The mysterious voice feigned alarm, "Soldiers! What business could soldiers possibly have here?"

"We come seeking information."

"Information about?"

"Ancient stones containing potent sorcery."

A prolonged silence followed. Eros looked at the others, fearful that he'd strayed into error.

"None but the vita obscura know of the sorceress's stones." More silence. "The truth is you are of their order and have come here to assassinate me. It's true isn't it?"

The old man had a certain finality in his voice, which Eros sensed.

"I don't know who I am addressing, but recently a man retrieved Uroboros, he pulled a stone from a mad king's skeleton, and raided the Temple of Kafka. It was there we encountered him, and he mentioned the sorceress's stones. We are of Hyperion, and Lemuria charged by our king, Ixion III, to seek out this crusader, and to arrest him."

The old man didn't respond.

"We don't know who he is, or what his designs are. We don't know of ancient lore, and seek out someone who does. We are no threat to you unless you are the unknown that we pursue."

Once more silence descended, and there remained. At last the grating of metal sounded, the bars receded, and passage could be gained to where the voice had originated from.

A bewildered Eros strode forcefully into this room where his eyes poured endlessly over great pieces of art hanging from the walls, and damasks of red and blue that were surpassed only by gilded furniture. He was struggling to digest the opulence of the apartments when he perceived the old man himself hunched over a magnificent fire. The man was dressed in an old and worn scarlet red gown, his white hair was shaggy, and his beard unkempt. He wore slippers upon his feet, and under his dressing gown had loose fitting silk clothes.

"Who are you?" Sabriel asked in utter astonishment.

"I," the old man paused as if he didn't recall his own name, "I am Daoine Maithe."

It was the same man that Sutekh had said he feared Eros would meet.

Typhon took up a seat upon a luxurious divan, "Why are you here?"

"I'm afraid it's a rather long story." He shuffled from the fireplace to a marvellous armchair of rich blue leather. "It's been a while since I've received any welcome guests," Daoine chuckled to himself, and lighted his pipe.

"Nonetheless, we'd like to hear it."

"Very well, I was of noble birth in Tonberry. My life had been charted before ever I could walk," the old man pointed to a worn insignia upon his garments. "I honoured my family, and led the life that they desired. I was a fine young man with money, women and power. I had then much with which to feed my appetite, but it was clear I had even more. My father imparted a secret to me. Upon his deathbed he held me close, and spoke of an ancient order," Daoine puffed upon his pipe, "He said that blood was bound."

"The order?" interjected Eros, turning from his scrutiny of Daoine's collection of jewelled ornaments.

"Yes, the order, or rather the vita obscura."

Daoine Maithe rested his eyes upon Eros, fastidiously they did more than cast him a cursory glance: they interrogated and scrutinised his physiognomy; his muscular back; the way his right hand didn't deviate from the vicinity of the hilt of his sword; his plaintive eyes; his furrowed brow. The slightest detail did not escape the eccentric sage who called himself Daoine Maithe.

"Vita obscura?" uttered Typhon. At length Daoine's attention was diverted from Eros.

"There lived a tyrant who'd enslaved the world. The prominent people of the time united, and formed a secret society aimed at ridding the world of this terrible foe. They succeeded." Daoine scrutinised his pipe before continuing, "They however, lived long enough to see themselves become the tyrants. The vita obscura became an evil society."

Astraea remained at the rear of the room, absorbing the paintings by Harshal and Shiva, priceless pieces about religious subjects, about sorceresses.

"I followed my father's wishes as I always had. I joined the vita obscura, and quickly climbed the ranks until I became a grandmaster." Daoine Maithe paused, but the young faces staring at him couldn't appreciate of what he boasted. He changed the course of his dialogue, "You may know one present grandmaster, for he is none other than your king."

"La!" Aurora was extremely impressionable, "My father is in the vita obscura?"

Daoine Maithe choked on his pipe as he laughed, "You are Ixion's daughter. We have a princess. It's my pleasure to make your acquaintance, though I must concede that your father and I never did see eye to eye."

Eros paced the carpeted floor, "What happened?" He said.

"As I have already alluded to, it is a cruel order. I did my share of wicked deeds though I am not proud to say it. My soul is blackened, and if I am to save it," Daoine looked plaintively at the fire, "I must repent."

The old man didn't stir from this deep reverie, Eros at length prompted him, and Daoine continued.

"However, my purported penance did not sit well with my brethren because schism is not to be tolerated. One may join, but one cannot leave, only two have ever tried." Astraea still walked about the back of the room, examining the artwork as she listened. "The man you killed," Daoine pointed at Eros with a finger, "and myself."

The remembrance of the Hyperion throne room came back to Eros, of Aavak speaking to Ixion III, the words made little sense to him then but now were clear: Aavak had alluded to the vita obscura and his purported coup d'etat.

Daoine Maithe perceived Eros bite his lip; he paused before he continued to recount his tale.

"They of course came for me, but I realised their weakest frontier was in Cannered-Noz." Daoine laughed, "Relying on local superstition I reside here quite comfortably." He turned his watchful eye on Sabriel, who was absorbed in some affair, "You might keep them my dear."

Sabriel was scrutinising a pair of pistols within a glass case, whose opulent wooden base - decorated by tracings of gold - was well accented by exquisite silver furnishings. A case of balls sat at their side.

"Aren't these the pistols of Medusa?" Sabriel was lost in their beauty, "It was said she killed a behemoth with a single shot, the greatest gunslinger there ever was," Sabriel's chest fluctuated with bouts of excitement, "I may really have Medusa's pistols?"

"A gift my child." Daoine Maithe was a curious old man.

Eros asked, "What do you know of the stones?"

Daoine Maithe's complexion darkened. Eros thought he would refuse the question, but Daoine on his quest for penance did not.

"There existed a conflict on a global scale: an omnipotent sorceress on her quest to keep safe her lands crafted three stones of unspeakable power - a weapon to end the war. One was said to harness the power of the sun."

"The solar flare," uttered Typhon.

"The second, the power of the stars."

Skoll thought of the mad king, and the star that fell from the sky.

"The third, the power of gravity. Together they form the sorceress's stones."

"We believe the crusader will try to get the third, please tell us where it can be found so that we might stop him."

"I know only what the old scrolls report," said Daoine Maithe eager to make amends and to cleanse his soul, "The third power was being moved by a great armada. The emperor of Nunnehi - so captivated by the beauty of Antigone of Isora - that he offered her father, King Miro, anything in exchange for her hand in marriage. The king asked for the sorceress's stone, and it was granted. The emperor sailed himself with his armada for Isora, unable to await the return voyage with his love at his side. However, fate played a cruel trick, and the armada's voyage met a terrible storm somewhere between the Sengen and Shaka straits. Of 500 ships, one returned, its young crew saved by fortune alone. Because the lost treasure was so great, many chanced to recover it, but to this date it remains somewhere on the seabed, presumably yet around the neck of the Emperor of Nunnehi aboard his ship the Sunblade Victory."

Eros apprised of the stones at last, turned to another brooding thought he wished to expiate, "Isn't it likely that our enemy is of the vita obscura? That being so you may know or suspect his identity."

"Indeed it's almost certain that only the vita obscura know of the location of the stones, though that does not necessitate a member behind this plot." Daoine perceived Eros's scepticism, "Mighty Eros, you have learned of the stones of power, is it too much to suppose that another has also?"

Eros was very much worried.

"What do you suppose his purpose is? Why seek the stones, and Uroborus?"

"I don't know, although history has a terrible habit of making record of tyrants who seek to make Lucretia their mistress, and, whoever this tyrant be, he must be stopped." Daoine Maithe stood waving his pipe in the air with all the tenacity his frail old frame permitted.

The sound of an old grandfather clock echoed around the mansion, the conversation, of which only the salient parts have here been recounted, had lasted for hours. The 85th remained as guests at Daoine Maithe's behest, having the pleasure of a fine meal before each bathing and preparing to pass the night.

Two important events then transpired before the coterie turned in for the night.

The first was - as Astraea showered and returned to her room - she had about her figure only a towel; by chance Daoine Maithe had been going from room to room, to see if his guests had quite settled in and needed ought before he himself retired, but as he knocked and entered Astraea's room he was shocked, he froze staring at her right forearm.

Astraea's long wet black hair fell down her back, water dripping down her body, and upon her arm could be seen a tattoo that wound its way about her wrist, and started up her right forearm.

Daoine Maithe gasped and steadily advanced, refusing to take his eyes off Astraea's forearm, and the mark it bore.

"I am sorry, I am sorry for all my kind has done to you my child," he fell to his knees covering the mark in kisses. Astraea was frightened, and withdrew her hand. Daoine perceived the worry which he'd occasioned, and hastily withdrew repeating over and over, "I am sorry, I am terribly sorry." Astraea stood in silent contemplation.

The second event was that Astraea, upon passing to and from the lavatory, crossed paths with Eros, who himself was bathing and preparing to retire.

Astraea asked, "May I speak with you a moment?"

Eros assented, and together they went into his room.

"In the temple of Kafka you said that you would not leave me, not again. What did you mean?"

Eros hesitated because it evoked a painful memory that he didn't wish to recall. The pain manifested upon a rancorous countenance, but Astraea, taken by curiosity, pressed Eros. Before her perfumed skin, and mesmeric visage, he couldn't refuse her.

"When I was a child on the streets, I met a boy my own age. He was like me," Eros smiled recollecting the fond memories, "We were the best of friends growing up, we dreamed of riches and glory, and in the grand military academy our dreams didn't change."

Astraea sensed the warmth in Eros's voice, and smiled.

"We graduated together, but soon after war came to our country: Lemuria invaded. We fought together, and found ourselves facing the enemy king alone. The black king tried to flee, but Thanatos and I pursued him," Eros paused, "Thanatos was his name." It was hard for him to speak it.

"We came to be in the throne room, and there we dispatched our adversary, but the room was unstable, and collapsed." Tears choked Eros's voice; he appeared unable to continue because guilt tore away at him, "I left him there, I failed him, it's my fault he died."

Astraea perceived the anguish in Eros's voice; they struck her like daggers. Eros broke down. Astraea embraced, and consoled him as best she could before retiring to her own room. When she traversed the hallway, she could still hear the sound of Eros weeping.

Astraea returned to her bedroom, silence was restored to the old fortress. She sat upon her bed, looking out the window, and beyond the crumbled ramparts. She knew that Lord Sutekh wouldn't be far. She had done well to inform him of the 85th's movements, the location of Daoine Maithe was a chance coincidence, and afforded her master a chance to kill two birds with one stone. All she had to do was to slip away into the night, and watch as the fortress burned behind. Astraea, however, lingered because she didn't find it so easy to abandon the people that she had come to know.