Caewen took her time enjoying the hot water. It felt like an age since she was last able to get really clean. No one else seemed to want to make use of the bath house, which was fine by her. It was a very old building, possibly predating the inn itself, and constructed in the style of Ancient Pyreathium. Terracotta mouldings that were mossy in the crevices decorated the ceilings. Tiles and blocks of hard polished limestone made up the rest of the interior. There was a steam room, which Caewen did not use, and a hot water tub, which she did.
Fetch did not enjoy the humidity it seemed, and he kept muttering and complaining in a voice just low enough to be difficult to precisely catch–but loud enough to give off a clear sense of his irritation.
Long used to the vagaries of weather on the road, Caewen kept spare clothing and some other items that she wanted to protect in a tight roll of oiled cloth. The clothing, towel and other things smelled slightly of aromatic oils, but they were at least dry. When she was washed, dried and dressed, Caewen heaped her dirty muddy clothing into a basket. She had arranged for these to be laundered and dried overnight in front of the furnace.
Pausing at the door, she felt the jarring slap of icy air at the point where the hot air from the bathhouse billowed and churned outwards. There was a gap of about thirty paces between the bathhouse and the rear of the inn.
The whole world seemed to be a mass of dripping noises, quietly, succinctly drumming out small notes among the leaves, under the eaves of the buildings, against stone and dirt.
“Rain’s stopped,” observed Caewen.
She looked up at the sky. There was a rent in the clouds. No moonlight showed but a few stars spotted the ravine between cloud banks.
Barely considering if it was a good idea–or even necessary–Caewen dug into her pack and took out a bowl: perfectly round, perfectly black and polished to the same hard gleam as freshly cooled glass.
“Tsch. Wouldn’t you rather just go inside and get some sleep?”
“It’s been a couple days since I last looked into the waters. The moon has been too bright to work by starlight alone.”
Fetch sighed.
Caewen worked her way into the darkness, picking a path among grassy hummocks. She found a place that was private enough, but not wholly within the stands of trees that encircled the inn, then she knelt down. She wanted to be quick. There was still a taste of rain in the air, and distant thunder drummed itself against hillsides. Another squall of rain might come through at any moment. With haste, she filled the bowl using drinking water from a skin. Stars in sparkling pocks appeared in the blackness of the water: too many stars to be a simple reflection of the sky above, which was still mostly storm clouds.
Fingers moving in deft actions, she found the ivory lockbox and carefully lifted from it a parcel wrapped in old velvet. With utmost care, Caewen lowered the fragment of the Old Great Spell into the water, where it floated as if it were on top of a puddle quicksilver.
“The fragment shows the way,” said Caewen. As always, the water roiled and swirled until shapes appeared in the rippling shadows of the surface. Caewen stared into the reflections. She saw heaps of black silver, jewellery in weird coralline shapes, iridescent pearls–and something else. A thing that was huge and ancient and covered in wet scales and barnacles. It heaved and shifted in its slumber. The fragment of antler tinked into the rim of the bowl, three times: tap, tap, tap. “The fragment shows the way,” repeated Caewen. The enchanted scrying bowl had indicated roughly the same direction that Caewen had been travelling. That was good. She had not overshot her destination.
Another issue of thunder from the sky reminded her that it would be very easy to find herself soaked to the skin again, and she had no more spare dry clothing.
With a few rapid movements, she put away the fragment, closed the ivory box and tidied away the bowl. She was about to return to the inn, when Fetch’s voice snapped at her. “Be still!”
She froze.
In a bare whisper, Fetch said, “Do you feel it? You got the attention of something. Tsssch. Tsk.”
She could feel it. There was a sudden presence in the night air: something inhuman and carrying with it a tight bundle of power. She strained her eyes, scanning the woods, staring into the darknesses between blacker tree boles. Something moved: a shape… no… two shapes. They prowled this way and that, sniffing at the ground, moving their great heads to and fro. Eyes like firelight lit the darkness. What bodies she could see were something like a dog, something like a fox that had been stretched upwards, tall and thin and entirely ashy black.
“Fire-things,” said Fetch. He was always terrified of any elemental demon that was larger than him. Demons were not averse to eating demons, as it turned out, and he was rather small, as demonical things went. “Back away slowly,” he advised, stark fear in his voice. “Do not break eye contact. Tssssch. Do not make them think you are prey.”
Caewen did one better. She drew the sword. Witch-light from the blade spilled on the ground and over her arms and skin.
The two pairs of eyes in the darkness attended to her.
She took a few steps backwards, testing their reaction.
They did nothing. Just watched. Just waited.
She was not far from the inn now, but she dared not turn her back to them. With measured, careful steps, never breaking her gaze, Caewen made her way to the door. Once she was in the pool of light coming from a storm-lantern hanging at the back door, the creatures lidded their eyes, lost interest and receded back into the dark woods.
“Those were not feral demons,” said Fetch. “They belong to someone.”
“Our secretive magician, presumably.”
“Tsch. Yes.”
“But who?”