Echoes of the Fey: The Prophet's Arm by Malcolm Pierce
~
As Sofya and Heremon walked towards the Vodotsk Fey Reactor district, Sofya took a moment to appreciate the reconstruction that was happening around them. Just five months ago, when the Alliance of Free Cities officially withdrew from Vodotsk, the streets were in ruins. Over a decade of Leshin control had destroyed most of the technological infrastructure. The reactor had been mostly disassembled, the pipes that carried its energy across the city were a decaying patchwork, and most of the streetlamps had been scrapped.
The Leshin had even allowed the city water and sewage system to fall into disrepair, though that was mostly an unintended consequence of their rule. Without Fey-powered lamps, fixing most parts of the underground tunnels was impossible. The Leshin could have done it using their own natural magic to create light, but they preferred the use of wells and outhouses so they were slow to respond to plumbing failures.
This wasn’t the only side effect of the Leshin prohibition on technology. Holes were carved out of buildings to allow more natural light, exposing them to the harsh storms of the border region. Trash piled up outside homes and Leshin-bred animals were introduced to the city and encouraged to scavenge the streets. In theory this would reduce waste, but Vodotsk was not built like a Leshin town and quickly found itself dirtier for the influx of western wildlife.
Despite years of neglect, Vodotsk was already on its way back to shades of its former self. After the hand-off, there was no ruling house controlling the region. A county government was established by nearby houses and a handful of refugees who had lived in the city during the occupation. They acted quickly to begin the reconstruction and stave off Imperial agents who wanted to subsume the region under the direct control of House Lapidus. Many other occupied counties had given in to the Empire immediately; Vodotsk and its surrounding lands were ready for a fight.
In the end, both Vodotsk County and the Empire contributed to the rebuilding effort. They waged their war for control over the region not with guns and swords, but with hammers, nails, and fey-powered cranes. The reactor was back up and running within a month. Water and sewage had been restored to over half the city. Buildings were repaired and the streets re-paved.
Not everything was perfect—Leshin gnil-beasts could still be seen scurrying about in the alleyways—but the progress was remarkable. Even from the Reactor District, Sofya could see the new capitol building under construction. It would be the tallest structure in the region—eleven stories tall, with a view that would reach the border of the Great Forest. The only question is who would eventually occupy it—the Vodotsk council or a governor appointed by the Emperor.
“They’re re-opening the heated baths near our offices,” Sofya said as she scanned the street signs for their destination, the offices of Utkin Continental Transportation. “You should really give them a try.”
Heremon scoffed. “You know, Leshin also can warm water with Fey energy. We just don’t need to pipe it in from a contained rift miles away. We do it ourselves.”
“I bet it’s not the same,” Sofya replied. “The baths have some kind of metal embedded in them which makes the heat completely uniform. It never gets too cold or too hot, and requires no effort on your part. You can just relax.”
“You know I am very liberal,” Heremon said. “But even I feel a bit of discomfort about warming myself with Fey energy sucked out of a rift.”
“Really? Interesting…” Sofya was silent for a moment, then worked up the confidence to follow up with a question. “I know this is a sensitive subject, but where do you draw the line? What’s a proper use of Fey energy and what isn’t?”
“A sensitive subject?” Heremon chuckled. “That is, perhaps, the greatest understatement of our time. A sensitive subject leads to an argument, not a thirty-year war.”
“Fair enough, but I wanted your line. And given everything you know about me, it’s only fair that I have some war-starting material on you.”
Heremon considered this request. Sofya could tell that he was very reluctant to answer. “I was raised religious,” he finally said. “My father wasn’t an ir-Dyeun, but he believed their teachings and tried to pass them along to me. I don’t necessarily think that Fey energy is sacred, but I believe that it is not given to us unconditionally. I don’t hold it against you that you enjoy a heated bath, but I would not use it for a luxury resource.”
“But you just said that Leshin have heated baths as well.”
“It’s different when you draw the energy from yourself and when you draw it from a rift you opened.”
“How?”
“It just–” Heremon stopped. He realized he had raised his voice and quickly calmed himself. “It just is, for me. And I don’t even think I can articulate why. I can just say it was how I was taught and what I believe. Is that enough?”
Sofya nodded. It was the best answer she was going to get and it was better than any answer she’d heard from a Leshin. “We should have taken a carriage,” she said, changing the subject.
“Just be patient. We’re almost there.”
“How do you know?”
“The address is right across the street.”
Utkin Continental Transportation was a small, one-story building in the Vodotsk Fey Reactor District. It didn’t look like much. The dirt-paved lot behind the building was occupied by three ramshackle carriages and an assortment of horses that grazed on withering grass nearby.
“I don’t know if I would trust these people to move my personal belongings, let alone a priceless historical artifact,” Sofya said, wrinkling her nose as they approached.
“The museum likely didn’t have much choice,” Heremon replied. “Months after the end of the war and most businesses in Vodotsk still refuse to serve Leshin. Imagine how it was in the first few weeks. If they already had a business established, they probably lived here and worked under the occupation. ”
“Wonder why these folks took the job…”
“I’m guessing it is the same reason that we are here.”
Sofya approached one of the carriages. The front wheel closest to the road was split from the axle and was barely holding up the body of the vehicle. Closing her eyes, Sofya tried to sense whether a magical artifact had ever been placed in the carriage.
This was one of Sofya’s easiest spells. Along with the glamours hiding her scars and low-level ice sorcery, this sensory magic was the only kind of magic she could reliably control. Everything else was volatile—it came and went in fits and starts.
“Something was here,” Sofya muttered. “It was quite a while ago. I can barely feel anything. I can’t even be sure it was the Arm but–”
“Hey!” a voice shouted, pulling Sofya out of her concentration. “What are you doing? Get away from there!”
Sofya’s eyes flew open and she turned to see a squat, bearded man approaching them. Her mind raced as she struggled to come up with a cover story that would allow her to continue inspecting the carriages.
“Greetings, sir, are you the owner of these vehicles?”
“Yes. What does it matter to you? Who are you?”
“Well,” Sofya said. “I’m a traveling machinist and I happened to notice that your carriages are in an awful state of disrepair. If you’d like, I could offer–”
The bearded man scoffed. “You’re no machinist,” he exclaimed. “Look at your hands! Ten fingers. No callouses. Who are you trying to fool? Explain why you’re here.”
“It was a good try,” Heremon said. “But it seems we may just want to be straightforward with this man.”
Sofya looked back to the bearded fellow. His scowl was even more intense than before. She immediately regretted the ruse. “Okay, I’ll come clean. I’m a private investigator hired by the Alban Museum of History. I’m looking for a particular item of theirs that may have been in the possession of one of your couriers four months ago.”
“Why were you poking at my carriages then? I wouldn’t be a very good courier if this item of theirs was still sit
While it would make the investigation much easier, Sofya couldn’t explain her magical sensitivity. Magic came naturally to the Leshin, but for humans took decades of learning and practice. Even then, most ancient human magicians had only a fraction of the various abilities Sofya had demonstrated since her power began to manifest. There was no telling what humans—or Leshin—would do to her if her magical skill was discovered, so she had to stay quiet.
“Well, I still think I could probably fix this wheel in exchange for some information,” Sofya replied. “Though you should be more than happy to help, since otherwise it might look like the item we’re looking for disappeared on your watch.”
The bearded man considered this for a second. Sofya had both threatened him and offered him a deal and he clearly wasn’t sure which to respond to. He settled with simply introducing himself. “It seems we started ourselves off on the wrong foot,” he said. “I’m Nikolai Utkin, owner and manager of Utkin Continental Transportation. How can I help you?”
“How long have you been in Vodotsk?” Sofya asked.
“Me or the company? It’s my father’s business. I took over some, say, sixteen years ago. But he started it at least twenty years before that so–”
“You were here during the occupation?”
Nikolai hesitated. His eyes darted to Sofya’s jacket—it had once been an Imperial army issued long coat, now tailored to a more fashionable cut. “Well, I was never called to war on account of my bad shoulder. Childhood injury. Couldn’t swing a sword or keep a gun stable if I had to. So I stayed here and ran the business. When the Elves—I’m sorry, the Leshin—when they invaded I didn’t have time to pack up and run.”
“Can’t imagine there was much business for a human courier when the city was occupied,” Heremon said. “If I recall, there were blockades on both sides.”
“Well, I… You know, I did what I had to do to survive.”
Sofya crossed her arms. “Did you run courier service for the Leshin? We’re not going to judge you. I was kicked out of the army for collaboration myself. Wasn’t true. Not really, but I’m hardly in a place to throw blame around.”
“What did you do?”
Heremon put his hand on Sofya’s shoulder, as if cautioning her to be careful with her words. The reasons for her discharge from the army and the emergence of her magical powers were closely intertwined. While one was public record, the other was a dangerous secret.
“I was stationed at Onigrad during the Immolation,” Sofya said. Nikolai’s eyes went wide. “We knew that the attack on the Fey reactor was done by a bunch of radicals. When it became obvious the reactor would overload, I freed our Leshin prisoners so they could escape. They had nothing to do with it, they didn’t deserve to die. But you can imagine how that looked to army brass in the immediate aftermath.”
Nikolai shook his head. “They weren’t there. They want to second guess you.”
“During the Leshin withdrawal, you were contracted by the Alban History Museum to transport certain items from the ir-Dyeun temple established here in Vodotsk. Do you remember that?”
“The withdrawal was a crazy time,” Nikolai replied. “Thousands of Leshin needed help moving out of the city. We refused to deal with the ir-Dyeun and only took on contracts from civilians. Even then, our carriages were going between the city and the forest almost non-stop.”
Heremon pulled out the piece of paper Sofya received from their client and gave it to Nikolai. “The man you dealt with was named Braden ir-Alba. Here’s his handwriting, if that helps.”
“His… handwriting?”
“He won’t remember it, Heremon,” Sofya said. “We don’t recall that sort of thing.”
“Oh.” Heremon reclaimed the piece of paper. “I still don’t understand how you trust written communication if you can’t recognize the distinctions of handwriting. Anyone could impersonate anyone else over letters.”
“We know when it doesn’t look right, but we don’t remember people by their–” Sofya groaned. It wasn’t worth it. “Never mind. I’ll go over it later.”
Nikolai stood in silent contemplation for a moment. He looked back at his office. “I think I remember the contract. Not much of one. But, like I said, I wanted to make sure I was only taking on jobs for Leshin who recanted the ir-Dyeun. A secular museum seemed safe enough.”
“The item we’re looking for is an artificial arm,” Heremon explained. “The Prophet’s Arm.”
“An… arm?”
Sofya gave Nikolai the description she received from Braden. The Prophet’s Arm wasn’t just a standard human replacement. It was engineered and articulated to allow Cathal ir-Dyeun the same range of motion as his real hand. Whether or not he had been able to control it was matter of Leshin folk tales. The prophet had died hundreds of years ago. There were none, even among the ageless Leshin, who had lived alongside him and could remember the truth behind the legacy.
“I never saw anything like that,” Nikolai said. “I would remember that. A steel arm? That would stick with me, especially if it was some kind of ir-Dyeun magical charm.”
“I highly doubt it truly has the power the ir-Dyeun attribute to it,” Heremon said. “If it belonged to the Prophet, and he used it as the tales say, then it would have some lingering Fey energy. But it is, at best, a historical curiosity.”
“Still, I don’t remember anything like it. And I probably inventoried the shipment myself.”
“Speaking to our client, it sounds like the arm may have been hidden in another item,” Sofya replied. “An urn. The museum was afraid of raiding parties and searches once it passed into the Great Forest. They knew that the ir-Dyeun would want to take it and stuffed it inside something else.”
Nikolai glared at Sofya. “Then how am I supposed to remember anything about it? Listen, if our customers don’t let us properly inventory their shipments, how can we be held responsible when something goes missing?”
“The museum isn’t trying to hold you liable,” Heremon said. “They just want to find the Arm. Could you, by any chance, bring us the paperwork related to this job? It would have been approximately four months ago.”
“Of course. I will be right back.”
As soon as Nikolai disappeared into the office, Sofya returned her attention to the carriage. “We should have opened with that,” she said. “I really doubt he’s going to be able to remember anything. And the records? Likely just as useless. I’m going to have to do this all by myself.”
Sofya placed her hand on the broken wheel. She closed her eyes and focused on the glimmer of magic energy she had perceived before being interrupted. It was faint, barely enough to feel. At first, she couldn’t be sure if it was the Arm. Nikolai had been running a courier service for the occupying Leshin for years. Undoubtedly, he transported magical items on several occasions. But none of them would be old or strong enough to leave an echo like this.
“The Arm was here,” Sofya said. “Or something like it. Something ancient and unusual. Are you sure it doesn’t still have some magical function?”
“After all these years, it would have to be enchanted on a level unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” Heremon replied. “The Fey energy remains, becomes more ingrained in our world. But its utility decays over time. Most magic weapons need to be re-focused every few years. The Arm was enchanted centuries ago.”
Sofya opened her eyes. “What if someone was re-focusing the Arm? Keeping it ready to be used?”
“Used for what?”
“I guess that’s a question we’ll have to ask when we find it,” Sofya replied. “It wasn’t in this carriage long. It was removed after just a few hours. Not long enough to get to the forest.”
Heremon sighed. “So the Arm was lost before it reached the Leshin border?”
“Are you disappointed? Now we can earn our full payment.”
Across the lot, Nikolai emerged from his office. He hurried over to Sofya and Heremon, a bundle of
Heremon took the papers and turned immediately to the courier’s report. “This says that the courier was stopped at an outpost just outside the city,” he said. “What can you tell me about that outpost?”
“When the occupation ended, most Leshin left the city,” Nikolai said. “Under the terms of the surrender, each Leshin was only permitted to take two pounds of gold currency. I don’t know why; that’s way over my head. But, of course, some Elves–” Heremon prickled but didn’t interrupt. “–tried to get around the rules. Emperor Lapidus set up checkpoints on most of the roads to the Forest to check for gold smuggling.”
“How extensive are the searches?” Heremon asked. “Do they go through everything?”
“Depends on the person performing the inspection,” Nikolai replied. “Sometimes they wouldn’t even search the cargo. They trusted that a human wouldn’t help the Leshin plunder gold on the way out.”
Sofya took the courier’s report from Heremon. “This is, what, about a half hour west of the city?” Sofya said. “This is it. This is where the Arm was lost.”
“How do you know that?” Nikolai asked. “Are you saying this was my fault?”
Ignoring him, Sofya continued to page through the documents. “We need to head to this outpost. If it’s still active, we can talk to the people there. If not…” She didn’t finish her thought—not in front of Nikolai—but Heremon knew what she was proposing. The Arm had a very strong Fey signature and would have left its mark on the outpost if it had been stored there for more than a few minutes.
“It’s not your fault,” Heremon said. “Someone with the Empire found the Arm during the inspection. Maybe they knew what it was, which means we’ll never get it back. But you weren’t put in prison for smuggling it out of Vodotsk, so I suspect it was taken for another reason.”
“Another reason?” Nikolai asked. “What is this thing? What does it do? Is it dangerous?”
“We don’t know,” Sofya said. “But don’t worry. Before we hand it over to the Leshin, we’re going to find out.”