Chapter 6: Neuverie no more

Aware of being himself again, he started to process and realize several things at once.

Firstly, the sun had not risen, and so it was still night. Secondly, there came the sound of heavy boots marching outside his door. Thirdly, the sense that he didn't belong here had reaffirmed itself within him. Finally, he realized that he was lying on top of his blanket and must have fallen asleep on top of his covers. Becoming aware of the extreme abnormality of the second point, he immediately pushed himself into full readiness and sat upright.

A moment later, two armed and masked men forced their way through his door, both brandishing short swords in their right hands. Not sure what to do and still quite confused from his dream (the world seemed to be spinning like the prior colours), he could do little else but sit still as the men towered over him.

Seeing their quite obvious intent to kill him, many thoughts rushed through Kira's head. Whilst he felt now, and maybe even accepted, that he wasn't prepared to be king, that didn't mean that he would be content with his life ending. Up until this moment, he had been rather pathetic. He had achieved nothing, relying solely on others for teaching and protection and then never putting either of those things to use. To think that he might die now mere days before he could actually establish something useful with a guild of loyal manipulators was a terrible thought.

And so, he became certain of one thing: he had to survive. Even if he didn't know quite how he would, he just had to survive. This repeating thought made him consider himself differently from how he was used to, and time seemed to slow down around him. This meant that, by when the men had lifted their blades above their heads, he saw something.

He had been able to see something within him that he hadn't before, and this may have been thanks to his dream because he had seen his soul, his consciousness, as nothing more than a constantly moving stream of colours.

Seeing this flood allowed him to mentally reach out to it, just like he remembered the person in his dream doing, and he pulled and then pushed on the stream, watching its movement with trepidation that he rarely felt. Coming to terms with this and instinctively recognising the action as correct, he pushed out his stream towards the streams surrounding the two men looming it over them and used it to disconnect their streams from them.

Despite only achieving it for a moment, and feeling exceptionally drained afterwards, the two men fell to the floor unconscious and one even stabbed himself on the way down. Stepping down from his bed, carefully avoiding the growing pool of blood and taking the sword that wasn't implanted within one of the men, Kira stepped out into the centre of the royal apartment. Looking around, all the other doors to the rooms containing his siblings were hanging open and, without entering them, he immediately knew - perhaps he even saw - that no one within them was alive.

That was really not good. Feeling like a spectator, he considered the situation. He might have not wanted to be king, but he still didn't want the lands to fall into ruins if its royal family was removed without warning, and even if he felt separate from them in an emotional sense.

Moving out into the corridor outside the apartment, Kira found himself in a standoff with Sadis at one end and Ulric, his face contorted into a snarl, standing at the other armed with a longsword. Backing into the apartment, before he was noticed, Kira watched as Sadis calmly approached the swordsman. Ignoring his demands to stay back, Sadis stopped just out of striking distance for Ulric's blade.

Sadis then paused and watched as Ulric was seemingly picked up by an invisible giant's hand and repeatedly thrown into a nearby wall until he slumped down onto the floor, either dead or unconscious, with one last mighty crack.

Unsure as to what to do, Kira backed away until he bumped into someone standing behind him who softly said, "Boo" and sent him jumping back out into the corridor. Looking around, it seemed that Thea had somehow snuck behind him and was standing grinning at him. Sadis then came walking over and, remembering that he still had the upper hand because of the condition placed upon them both, Kira stood ready to stab either of them should they do anything suspicious.

Sadis turned to Thea, ignoring Kira whilst his sword was seemingly ripped from his hand by an invisible force, and said, "He killed them?"

"Knocked them out," responded Thea, "But one of them managed to stab themselves, think that we should take him?"

"Yeah, better had. They're both dead now?"

"Yup."

With that, their conversation was over so Sadis turned to Kira and told him, "The other royals are dead, so what are you going to do now?"

"Did you kill them?" Kira demanded to know, wondering how that would have been possible given the condition he had forced onto them.

"Not us directly," Thea told him, "We just facilitated it." Grabbing at his hand.

"I see… I'm going to be coming with you, then?" asked Kira, fully aware of their earlier meaning and what may have just happened whilst also struggling to process having nearly killed two people. "I think… I think that I may have just become a manipulator."

Having heard that, Thea burst out laughing, "Really? Come on, that was a random anomaly we're going to be looking into; don't act like you've suddenly developed abilities as well."

"So that's what that was? I'm a manipulator now?" continued Kira, with his heart racing with excitement at the idea but being contained by his uncertainty in the situation.

"Well, it's back to Krinestadt then," stated Sadis and, as he started to lead the way out of the keep, Kira felt that he had no choice but to follow.

Thinking quickly, Kira knew that they couldn't harm him on account of the conditions he had seen placed upon them, and if he could learn to be a manipulator, then he could just abandon them at a later date before ever having to reach Krinestadt thus saving him from their mandatory conditions. Having arrived at this conclusion of sorts, he began feeling a lot more confident about his future. Finally, he would not be expected to lead some nation that he cared little for, as he would likely be assumed to be dead.

The only remaining question he had was why Thea and Sadis had so suddenly changed from taking part in planning his murder to deciding to take him alive. Arriving outside of Merek's study, the three of them went inside and in the attached room, Kira could see the corpse of at least one of Merek's apprentices.

With Kira noticing the bodies, Sadis told him, "We killed them, and Merek has gone back to Krinestadt now to report on your death."

Nodding in response, Kira was still trying to come to terms with this whole turn of events that proved that Merek had been working for Krinestadt when Thea handed him a bundle of clothes to wear. Going into the adjoining room and being careful to avoid the bodies of both apprentices, he quickly changed, noting how the clothes that he had been issued had likely belonged to one of the apprentices. They were now to serve as his disguise.

Whilst changing, he couldn't help but note how both apprentices had died from the exact same wound, a deep cut to the back of the neck. Wondering how someone had achieved such precision in their assassination, he headed back out to where Thea and Sadis were impatiently waiting. Here Sadis handed him a stained brown cloak with a deep hood that hid his face under a mask of shadows.

Heading outside, they hurried together through the training yard (it was deserted as the sun was still not up) and climbed up onto the inner wall through one of the towers framing it. From here, they crossed a bridge to the outer wall and slowed down to calmly march past the guards still patrolling it, with Kira wrapping his hood tighter around his head to conceal his face. Once past them, they resumed their previous pace and went into a gatehouse.

A small party of six masked and armed men, similar in stature to the ones that had attacked him, were waiting. Upon seeing the manipulators, the men asked about their colleagues and, upon hearing the news of their deaths, decided that it was best to leave. Immediately turning to lead the way with Kira, Sadis and Thea in tow, they trooped down a tightly winding staircase and out through a sally port.

Reaching the outside, the men disappeared into the darkness, leaving Kira alone once more with the manipulators. When one of the men accidentally broke the night's silence by tripping on a stone, Sadis hissed the insult – or maybe it was a statement - "Barbarians." after them.

Turning the other way, Thea led the way through Neuverie's winding lower streets towards the docks. They tried to move as quietly as they could past residential districts but, when they started to hear movement within the nearby houses and light appeared on the horizon, any caution was soon abandoned. Arriving on a quayside overlooking the river Cox, they skirted around several mooring lines attached to boats quietly waiting in the harbour and entered a small wooden warehouse.

Its floor sloped away into the river, and there was no end wall allowing smaller vessels to be launched from within. Sure enough, waiting in the water at the ramp's end, there was a moored boat with a central mast and small cabin. Sitting at the helm was a portly, middle-aged gentleman who was already dressed in warm clothing to help him weather the night.

Upon seeing them approach, he nodded at them and hissed, "You said that there would only be two."

"Plans change," responded Sadis as he boarded the vessel and entered its cabin, with Kira and Thea following closely behind him.

The man then hurriedly cast off and they quietly glided out of the hanger, using the current to their advantage, moving into the centre of the river. For whatever reason, the harbour authorities had not put an end to their unexpected launch. Whether they were still in bed or had noticed and just hadn't bothered stopping it, Kira did not know, but he was still relieved to be putting Neuverie behind him. Sat at the tiller, he heard their captain say a quick prayer to some deity named Thous.

Putting his giddy excitement aside, he Kira noticed that the centre of the cabin's floor was dominated by a large wooden container with a tarpaulin of cloth pulled across it. Curious about what could be inside it, he pulled it back to reveal nothing except empty space. However, the musty smell that now came from it and filled the cabin was clue enough about what the vessel had been transporting. It seemed that this was a smuggling vessel for a special type of mushroom that was in frequent circulation in the Arkadian underground, which went some way to explain why the container had been hidden deep within the cabin of an inconspicuous private vessel.

Kira must have then drifted asleep on account of his sudden exhaustion because, when he woke, light poured through a small window cut into the cabin's side and the sun was clearly visible a hand's breadth above the horizon. Suddenly, the gradual rocking of the vessel took a sharp increase so that, without the ballast of the usual cargo, it seemed nigh on tipping over and he realized that some change in direction must have occurred. A few moments later, the boat came to a stop with a soft thud as it came into contact with the river's bank. Getting to their feet and bracing themselves with their arms against the cabin's walls, they filed out and leapt ashore.

Once Sadis had thrown back a small pouch of coins to the man left on the boat, they turned towards the nearby tree line and walked into the woodland. Following some squabbling about which bush it was behind, Thea and Sadis reached behind a particularly prickly one and produced two travel bags that they slung over their shoulders. Unsure as to whether or not he should ask to carry something for them, Kira stood staring blankly at them.

"You can have your own bag later. We're not going far, and Sadis always over-packs supplies anyway," commented Thea, and with that the group moved north.

They made their way through the foliage by following several animal tracks which steadily climbed up the flank of a low hill. The climb seemed to go on forever and was extremely monotonous because the horizon was obscured by trees in all directions, so any progress was sure to be missed. Any conversation was very mute and hardly seemed to include Kira, but he was too tired to care. Ever since the adrenaline of leaving Neuverie had worn off, whatever he had done earlier to the two men in the keep seemed to have taken a dire toll upon him. When they finally arrived at the hill's ridgeline, there was a small break in the trees, allowing them to look back up the valley. In the distance, Neuverie could be seen awakening to a new day.

Glancing at him somewhat oddly, Thea asked him, "Aren't you bothered about what's just happened? You do seem pretty relaxed about this whole thing…."

This question took Kira off guard because, truthfully, he felt guilty that he hadn't been more affected by the likely death of his family. However, he only felt guilty about it like an outside observer might feel bad about the suffering of a community ravaged by bandits because his family, up until this point, had been strangers, and he hardly was going to get to know them better now.

Therefore, his only response was, "Not really. I know that that sounds terrible, but I hardly knew them, and I honestly didn't feel cut out for the role that they wanted me to play."

"Oh really, I thought that the whole conditions thing at the party was pretty clever; that was your idea, right? To capitalize off what your father said because that went some way towards showing that you were cut out for the role."

"I don't think that he would say that," mumbled Kira.

"Still took quick thinking," she responded, marching off ahead this time, travelling towards the east.

Sadis took off after her, and Kira was left jogging to keep up with them and their inexhaustible stamina despite the heavy packs. Soon even the animal tracks had faded away and became lost in the undergrowth, and they slowed to push through rich greenery reaching up to their waists. Emerging at the side of a small stream, gurgling down the hill's side, they crossed over it making use of some flatter stones to avoid getting too wet. However, Kira hadn't been entirely successful in this respect and was left with wet feet to contend with.

To end the monotony and perhaps slow the manipulators down, he decided to try and strike up some conversation with them. "So," he began, just wanting to be able to talk about anything at all without caring much for the direction of the conversation, "When were you thinking that you would start training me to be a manipulator?"

"Training?" asked Sadis.

"Yes," replied Kira wondering if that response was a bad sign for what was to come.

"You'll do plenty of that in Krinestadt."

Great, thought Kira, with his mood sinking even lower, if they don't want to train me, I'll just have to ditch them even earlier than I had previously thought. Wanting to at least get something out of journeying with them, he tried pressuring them with, "But, if you don't want to train me, can't I just leave you?"

"No," laughed Thea before Sadis could respond with his brow furrowing further, "Where would you go? Why do you think that we're not tying you up, or doing something else, just without harming you? It's not like you can run off anywhere plus, if you want to be a manipulator, Krinestadt is the best place for you. We also don't care if you run off because, simply put, it doesn't matter that much if you come with us or not. You're unlikely to do anything back here."

"But I am valuable, aren't I? manipulators are rare," he called back, having to raise his voice slightly as Thea got further ahead, but there was no reply.

Resigning himself to a miserable journey for the second time in a month, Kira had little choice but to trudge after them. Eventually, they came to a dirt road, heading west to east, and joined it heading towards Ostermark. The occasional Marxan node markers now read Ostermark 200Nd and had reduced to Ostermark 190Nd by the late afternoon. Having passed this marker, they were now outside of official Arkadian territory. However, there was no actual border here, so Arkadian patrols could sometimes strike further east, particularly when looking for fugitives from the murder of the royals who were likely to flee that way.

Coming to a bend in the road, rather than continuing on along it, they turned off and fought their way through yet more undergrowth for a good twenty minutes before stopping in a minor clearing. Sadis, taking into account Kira's heavy breathing, then declared that they were far enough from the road to make camp for the night.

"Finally," exclaimed Thea, throwing down her pack that clanked loudly upon the impact with the ground, "What do you even put in these things!" whilst gesturing accusingly at Sadis.

"You'll be thankful for them," Sadis replied calmly.

He then immediately set to digging a small pit in the centre of the clearing and produced several metal items from Thea's pack. Watching with some degree of suspicion, the others were left sitting off to the side to let him work. Firstly, he lit a small and smokeless fire from some mossy fuel in his own bag and then he set up a tripod structure over it with a pot hanging underneath. Finally, he poured some soup that he had produced from a flask again inside one of the bags into it. Once it was suitably heated, he produced three bowls from a bag and handed them around after they had been filled with the gently steaming liquid.

"Three?" asked Kira.

"I told you two that you'd be thanking me for a bit of careful preparation."

Indeed feeling thankful towards him, Kira ravenously consumed the soup and moved closer to the fire, taking off his shoes to dry them on the tripod above it. With night closing in, Sadis took out two sleeping bags and carefully unfurled them on either side of the fire.

Seeing that there were only two and mindful of his place in their group, Kira had to ask, "What am I going to do then?"

"Sleep somewhere else," answered Thea.

With the area around the fire taken up by the manipulators, he ended up having to lie down on the rough ground near a tree at the side of the clearing. Thankfully, the night's sky was clear. So it was unlikely to rain and, on account of being tired, he quickly drifted asleep whilst experiencing several scattered dreams involving Owen, Favian and Maria. In the morning, he immediately regretted his choice of sleeping arrangement because several roots digging into him throughout the night had left him with an incredibly sore back. After breakfast, he helped Sadis fold the sleeping bags back up, and they continued on their way, heading east.