by L. Itram and Ben Yackley Main * Story * Setting * Cast * Illustrations * About * Comment

Chapter 21: Unfinished Business (Posted on 10/26/03 & 11/11/03 )

The sewers of Featherglass are completely unlike the sewers of any other city; apart from the usual assortment of filth and refuse that usually inhabit such places, Featherglass's sewer system also sees a great deal of magical waste from the university. Every time a student botches a potion or mishandles a mixture, the results invariably pass through the great clay pipes and eventually out to the sea. This gives the sewer water - the water through which four cloaked figures were now slogging - a sticky, oily layer of faded color on top.

"Ugh - I'm gonna need such a bath when this is all over!"

"Quitcher whinin', Luen. Was yer idea in th'first place."

"Excuse me? If you think that I would've ever suggested --"

"Hush - I hear something!" The tallest shadow stopped. After a bit of confusion, the other three adopted various postures of attentiveness.

tink! tink!

"Doesna sound like water," whispered Viola finally. She crept to one side of the pipe and listened, Kinto trailing after.

tink! clank

"Over thataway," he said finally. "But it don' sound very close."

Viola peered into the smelly darkness ahead of them. "Tha pipe turns left up ahead."

Luen pulled a glowing crystal out of his belt-pouch. "Great, let's go!"

The pipe turned several times as they followed it, moving occasionally closer or further from the source of the noise as it wound its way around the museum. Twice it branched, and Kinto had to guess which turns would lead them toward the building.

"This place is a real labyrinth - how do you not get turned around?" asked Luen.

"Practice."

"Please don't tell me you've gone sewer-crawling before."

"Eew, no!"

"Davro'll hear us comin' fer miles," grumbled Viola to Kai.

"Let's just hope it's him we've been following and not a toktzakin," he answered with a grin.

The joke sailed over her head. "A wha?"

"You've never heard of toktzakin?"

Her blank expression suggested she hadn't.

"They're... well, they live underground in mines. Really little guys. Miners would hear their hammers tapping -- probably sounded like that."

They listened to the distant clanking.

"Only not as wet, I suppose," said Viola.

Kai nodded. "Miners used to leave bits of food out for them. To stay on friendly terms, y'know. If they took a liking to you, they might lead you to the better ore. If they didn't ... well, you'd end up with bad luck."

Viola stared at him. "Yer makin' this up."

"No, I swear, people really believed that."

"T'isn't true, though, is it?"

"Well, probably not," he admitted, "though a really clever maginaria could've taken advantage of the story. But supposedly they were all over the place. I'm kinda surprised you've never heard of them."

"Me folk are more tha' forest and boats type; we dunna have many miners in Levend." She thought a bit. "I suppose ye get pretty concerned with luck when your work puts ye in danger o' bein' buried under rock every day."

"There is that."

"I don't think we'll get any closer," said Luen.

"What?!" asked Kinto.

"I said I don't think we'll get any closer!"

"At least we don't have to worry about his hearing us!" shouted Kai over the clanking and banging which came through the walls.

"Who cares?" responded Luen. "He'll see us soon anyway. Viola, do your stuff!"

"In case ye hadna noticed" said Viola dryly, or as close as one could manage under the conditions, "we're knee deep in sewage. Where do y'expect me ta chalk me lines?"

Luen glared. "So zap yourself over and --"

"And what? I canna go where I canna see!" She folded her arms in two neat rows across her chest. "'Tis time fer more direct measures."

"Righto!" answered Kinto, sloshing his way to the wall in question. "Th'noise is loudest right 'bout....here." He took a step back.

"Hold on, you'll blow up his machine!"

"Sorry, Kai, can't hear ya over th'noise!"

There was a blinding light and a deafening boom and then...silence, broken only by the faint sound of splashing water and the occasional thump of falling plaster or small bits of metal. Even the constant clanking had stopped. Flickering lamplight poured into the sewer tunnel through the large gaping hole.

Not that the four conspirators stood around to admire the scenery or anything.

"Davro Sedoya, prepare t'meet y'r fate!"

"Who the hell are you?"

"Uh... er - y'are Davro Sedoya, right?"

Kinto's companions crowded into the basement after him, then spread out along the walls. It was a large L-shaped room, subdivided into a maze of tables and shelves covered in papers and small items of obscure purpose. Kinto had made a new doorway in the base of the L, near the corner, amidst the wreckage of a large machine. Viola, keeping an eye out for possible escape routes, concluded that the more mundane entrance must be at the tip of the L. She also noticed the pile of pointed metal slabs on the floor by the wall and one or two interesting items on the tables.

Kinto and Luen were paying more attention to the large figure who had -- up until a minute ago -- been using said machine. He was a Maglatanian man, fully nine feet tall with dull grayish-tan skin. He was generally humanoid - two arms, two legs, one head, and a build that would've been called medium if he weren't so large - but was completely hairless, and his face lacked a nose. If there were any other abnormalities to him, they were hidden under a three-cornered hat, ruffled shirt, long brown leather coat, pantaloons, and boots, all expertly tailored to fit his size. His voice boomed across the chamber, a deep, polished bass that, Viola would swear later on, made the air itself resonate.

"And just who else would be in a museum basement at this hour? You have a lot of explaining to do, young man, if you think you can sabotage my work and get away with it!" Despite his exotic appearance, he spoke perfect Levendish, though with the Almanaque accent common around Featherglass rather than Viola's own Verguston lilt.

"Yer work, eh?" growled Viola. "Was this grindstone part o' yer work?" She snatched up the object in question - the same sparkling blue grindstone she'd spotted in Grandegear - from a side table and held it out. "Was killin' an innocent man part o' yer work?"

"That was not part of the - how did - ahh. It's you!" Remorse, bewilderment and finally realization leapt across Davro's features. "The mages pursuing Alcandor." He straightened to his full height. "You are wasting your time. She is not here."

"We know that," said Kai. "You've made quite a mess of her."

"Mess? I gave her merely what she asked for!"

"You destroyed her mind by Instilling her with an unwilling maginaria. You wrenched a young man's life out of control and murdered an old man who still had years ahead of him." Kai stopped and took a breath. "Was it worth it?"

"Worth what?" Davro backed slowly toward the opposite wall, obviously stalling for time. "Edgegrinder's death - I never intended that and I hold more regret than anyone except possibly the murderess herself. Who is, no doubt, much better off now than she would have been as a fugitive. Her old life is over. You would understand," he nodded at Viola, "even if the others cannot."

Viola stiffened, "Indeed I do not."

Davro shrugged as if to say that her vast ignorance was yet another tragedy of the situation. "And Goldenedge would have been the hero he so wished to become; that he is not is your fault and none of mine. Now, if you do not wish to explain your own case to the authorities, I suggest you leave."

"We've already disabled your alarms," bluffed Luen. "And I think you'd have a lot more explaining to do than any of us. The Dean already knows what's on our consciences!"

"Yer a fine one ta talk of explanations an' regrets, Sedoya!" snapped Viola. "Perhaps ye should thank us fer comin' ta make sure ye dunna add ta them."

"What are you babbling about this time?"

"She's talkin' bout yer knife," said Kinto, the first words since his dramatic entrance.

"Knife! I have no knife! Now go before -- "

"And this would be the knife you don't have, then?" asked Kai, holding a flat, translucent blue blade carefully between finger and thumb. "It was inside that machine Kinto blasted through..."

"D'ya think we're really that dumb?" said Kinto, advancing on the curator. "Th'hardest material in th'world, and th'only grindstone that can shape it. An' someone who'd go t'any lengths to get both. What else would y'want 'em for?"

"An edge that can slice through anything," added Luen. "An Unrelenting Blade that no amount of armor can stand against..."

"What?! Y-you...!" sputtered Davro incoherently.

"We are willing to put aside personal grudges," said Kai. He stopped at the combined glares from Luen and Viola. "Er. Okay, I I am willing to put aside personal grudges and those two are willing to put them off until later. We're just here to make sure you don't use this 'Unrelenting Knife' of yours on some innocent bystander."

"Y-you -- you thought...! Ridiculous!"

"What?" asked Kinto.

"You thought I would use it on a living person?! That?! Just what sort of psychopath do you take me for?!" boomed Davro. "A machine," he continued, brushing past his suddenly speechless antagonists, "can perform tedious work faster than a man." Indignation seemed to have pushed any thoughts of danger or escape out of his mind. "Look here!" One gray hand grabbed a flattened strip of metal out of the pile on the floor. "What do you think this is?"

"I dunna suppose 'tis a sword," commented Viola.

"Suppose? Of course it is!" He slammed the sword into the nearest bench, driving it point-first through the wood. "All it needs is a handle! With that Unstoppable Blade you four have been so concerned about, I can make tens of these a day! Faster than any swordsmith."

"So what?" countered Luen. "So you're building an army and not making an ultimate weapon? Is that supposed to be morally better or something?"

"Can't be very good swords," added Kai.

Davro shot Kai a look. "What do you care if they are good? They are cheap, and they do the job! You wish to equip an army with them? Fine! Quality is your problem! You're an impecunious student and you wish to defend yourself while venturing across Levend? Fine! You probably cannot afford a good weapon; a poor one is better than nothing. You do not like swords? Fine, I can make knives, too - hunting knives, meat cleavers, vegetable knives ... letter openers if such is your fancy!"

"Ye dunna care a whit about craftsmanship, do ye? Ye sound like tha fools in Grandegear."

"You, young lady, are in danger of repeating the past!" Davro strode toward her like an angry stork. "The days of the War are over now and Grandegear won! The time of elites with esoteric knowledge is over. The empire of the mage-kings? A peaceful tropical tourist paradise - I ought to know, I grew up there! Magical artifacts and hand-crafted swords? Museum pieces! I ought to know!"

"And you know what?" he spun around to glare at Kai. "I am tired of museum pieces! I'm tired of the ones in here and the ones out there teaching! That little knife you hold is not simply the beginning of a new age, it is my ticket out of here! I can make my fortune and then I can leave this dusty tomb and return to that little tropical island where magic is meaningless because it's all over the place and they do not even care that they lost the war! And that is what really matters to me."

There was a silence after his words. Into that silence Kai repeated four words.

"Was it worth it?"

"What I did?" Davro shrugged. "I am sorry things turned into the mess they have, of course. I had hoped to arrange matters a bit more neatly. But that's what comes of hiring novices."

"Neatly?" asked Kinto. "Y'drove Zeph crazy, how's that neat?"

"Crazy? He would have been a hero! He was some farmer's son, until those brigands or what have you arrived and then he was some farmer's orphan. Do you think he had any sort of prospects?" He took a deep breath, then added, in a slightly quieter tone, "I did end up getting a Shard through other means, admittedly."

"Our Shard! Which y'hired Auli t'steal from us!" shouted Kinto.

"Which you stole fair and square, I'm sure!"

"An' then ye sent tha two of them ta Redstone when ye had nae more use fer them."

"I did it out of the kindness of my heart!" exclaimed Davro. "Do you think the boy could not have taken on those three idiots solo? Let alone with a natural healer behind him! Who, remember, I saved from a very nasty fate. It would have been a feather in both their caps! A backwoods orphan and a thief from the slums and I gave them the tools to become heroes!"

"A sword of illusion and my maginaria," retorted Luen. "We have some serious accounts to settle, you and I."

"Wait yer turn," said Viola. "Edgegrinder deserves his revenge more than ye."

"I think not," said Davro. "You can account to your hearts content, but I still have plans." Before any of the three could react, he leapt toward Kai and snatched the celestium blade out of his fingers, then sprinted up the stairs.

The four mages squeezed into the narrow stairwell which connected Davro's basement workshop with the museum proper.

"Plans, me tail!" grumbled Viola. "I'll give him plans!"

"There won't be enough left of him to plan by the time I'm done with him!" countered Luen, right behind her.

"Easy there," said Kai. "We don't know what we're rushing into..." Needless to say, he was ignored by the other two.

"One o' him, four of us, don' worry 'bout it," answered Kinto.

Kai raised his eyebrows at the orange figure hopping up the stairs in front of him. "You don't sound too upset."

"You can't run, Davro!" hollered Luen from above.

Kinto grinned over his shoulder. "Did my yellin' already. They're th' ones wit' grudges," he added, sprinting out of the stairwell and giving a quick glance around the storage room. "You an' me, we're jus' makin' sure no one else gets hurt."

"I don't need to," boomed Davro's voice from the far doorway.

"...That's not going to stop you from blowing up Davro's next machine, though, is it?"

Kinto grinned. "Nope." He dived through the doorway into the museum proper. The smile on his face vanished.

The museum was a single room nearly as large as the workshop below. Like said workshop, it was subdivided by furniture and artifacts, leaving narrow walkways around the various exhibits. The display cases ranged from waist-high glass-topped tables to large free-standing shelves. Mannequins in old-fashioned armor and even stranger, presumably magical, attire stood around like bored visitors. The hanging lamps had been extinguished for the night, but dim chroma-lanterns were set into the side walls and on the corners of the larger displays. In the gloom, the museum seemed like an endless labyrinth and Davro, standing in the middle of it with arms folded, might have been mistaken for yet another display - a wax effigy of some general from the bloody days of Gregor and Nyzia.

"You would not dare subdue me with your magic in here, would you? And risk damaging these priceless artifacts?"

The mages spread out slowly into the museum, Luen and Kinto keeping their eyes on Davro while Viola tried to memorize the floor layout and Kai examined the nearby exhibits.

"Your Sword of Farsight is missing," he commented.

"What?" exclaimed Luen. His eyes darted among the displays, but just as he found the one containing summoners' artifacts, Viola appeared next to it.

"'Tha Thaumivorous Specter,'" she read, "'From th' eleventh century...' Nhaal had been safely asleep here till ye gave him te Auli and woke 'im up. No wonder t'was so ill-tempered."

Kinto lifted his staff, taking aim. "Can't be all that priceless if yer gonna give 'em out t'every petty thief y'hire."

Davro glared at him. "These artifacts are my responsibility. I shall 'give them out' to whomever I see fit!" Kinto didn't respond; the curator ducked behind a suit of armor just as a lightning bolt went sailing past his head, leaving a scorch-mark on the wall behind. "Y-you shot at me!"

"Yep. An' I'll do it again, too."

Davro shouted as he dodged and ducked between display cases and armor-stands. "You'll never hit me without tearing this whole museum apart!"

"Not if we have anything to say about it," responded Luen. "Kinto, you know what to do - the three of us'll make sure he stays still long enough for you to hit him!"

"Right!"

Outnumbered and desperate, Davro cast desperately around him for something - anything - he could use to escape. And, with luck, subdue these four maniacs before they completely ruin my plains. There is still a chance to salvage my work... Ah, of course! He looked up just in time to see Kai bearing down on him at full speed, grabbed an amulet on the armor display next to him, and vanished into thin air, leaving Kai to stumble and land sprawled awkwardly on the floor.

"Ack - Viola!", Kai yelled, "He just vanished!"

There was a flash of violet light as Davro re-appeared at the other end of the hall, next to the twin of the Geminate Charm of Recall he had found. Viola followed - one flare of purple light following another, as she warped herself immediately behind Davro and caught his wrists - two hands on each, immobilizing his arms. "Kinto! Now!"

Kinto surveyed the room. Not only was Davro all the way on the opposite side, but Davro had twisted around to use Viola as a shield to block the clearest path he could see... He took a deep breath, recalling his match against Mia, and let loose the tightest-controlled thunderbolt he could manage.

It sailed over Kai's head ("Don't worry, I'm al - GAAH!"), ricocheted off an ornate-crested shield in the corner, through the legs of a mannequin of Dias, up off a slanted pedestal, and straight at Davro's stomach. Most of the spell's energy had been devoted to keeping the bolt under control, but there was enough power left in it to leave the large man reeling from the shock.

Viola saw her opportunity, and bound the curator's wrists with her measuring-rope, all the more suitable instruments being locked up inside a display cases. One good shove and some more rope from Kai's pack later, Davro was laying prone on the floor of his own museum, bound and ready to be turned over to the Featherglass City Guard.

"...Something tells me the Dean will be interested in all this," said Luen finally.

"I'm nae teleportin' him all tha way across campus, afore ye ask," answered Viola, looking down at the tied figure on the floor.

"Why doesn't one of us stay here while the others get the Dean," asked Kai. "And anyone else you can think of," he added.

"I'll stay," volunteered Kinto, before Kai could offer.

"But --"

"Don' worry 'bout it, if he looks at me funny, I'll zot him." The elementalist lowered his voice, "'Sides, they'll need someone with a cool head when y'talk t'th'Dean."

"Excuse me!" exclaimed Luen.

"Are ye insinuatin' that I'm nae rational?!" added Viola.

"I don' 'sinuate. That's what snakes do. And Luen."

"Three people will be better than one, anyway," Kai reassured her. He herded the pair toward the museum's front door. "Look on the bright side, justice has been done and you won't have to crawl back through the sewers."

"Isn't that barrier still up?" asked Luen.

Kai shrugged, fiddling with the various latches on the door. "Not from the inside." He pulled the door open, and stopped short.

The familiar green figure which had been kneeling on the doorstep slowly got to her feet. "Hey, thanks. You saved me having to pick the lock." She brushed past Kai and into the museum. "Where's Davro?"

"He...uh..." said Kai cleverly.

"C-c-" Luen stuttered.

The newcomer adopted a thoughtful expression. "Mmmm....no. No, I don't think so," she concluded, gently patting his shoulder with an oversized hand. "It was a very pretty name, Luen, but Auli suits me better now." She stopped short at the sight of Davro on the floor, and sighed. "Honestly...you people are constantly making my life difficult."