<html> <head> <style></style></head> <body class='hmmessage'><div dir='ltr'> Xavier paced, as unsettled as the storm that raged outside. It felt like someone, probably Saroth, was raising a shield around the Keep, drawing the lightning and diverting it away from the flammable roofs of Keeptowne and Euper. That, at least, was going well. He wished he could say the same for the rest of it all. He had not liked Alexis. She was too wild, too forward in his opinion, even for a Metamorian. Worse, she had encouraged Drift into some of his wildest and most reckless schemes, chief among them the wing-shaped contraption his pacing took him past with every turn. Still he would not have wished such an end on anyone, and if what Drift said was true, Xavier intended the justice visited on her murderer to be swift and terrible indeed. For the moment, though, it was on Drift that he focused, and that was more than enough to worry about. The samoyed had seemed to recover his energy on the walk home, and threw himself into drawing in his workshop. This was not the good thing it could have been. Drift's movements were jerky and broken-edged, almost spastic, as if he were leaping from idea to idea without ever managing to settle on one long enough for it to materialize. He scribbled and scratched things out seemingly at random, muttering to himself under his breath too quietly for Xavier to catch more than a few snatches of words. Most of what he did understand was 'No', just before the parchment being drawn upon was flung aside, fluttering down to join a growing pile of rejection. The nobleman winced at the expensive waste, mentally tallying the price of the reams Drift would go through at this rate and comparing it to what he knew of the samoyed's finances. Then he caught himself and scowled. Now was not the time for such thoughts. Another barely-started drawing fluttered to the floor, this one physically torn by the samoyed's claws. Enough was enough, Xavier decided. He reached for Drift's shoulder to pull him away... and thought better of it when his approach was met with a cavernous growl. Drift hadn't even looked up. Deciding on an alternative target, Xavier seized Drift's remaining supply of parchment, but Drift's own hand came down squarely on top of his, pinning the whole stack in place. "Leave it," Drift growled. "Drift-" The growl became a snarl. "I said leave it!" The samoyed's grip tightened, painfully squeezing Xavier's retracted claws. The leopard's eyes narrowed. Building and maintaining the wind shield in Euper had depleted his lightning rods, but with a massive thunderstorm outside, that was hardly a handicap. A strong electrical jolt into Drift's upper arm popped his hand free, and Xavier whisked the parchment away. Drift rose in anger, but stopped short when he saw what awaited him. Lightning coursed over the leopard’s dark fur like a thundercloud given flesh, and the weather mage glared with icy disdain. "Striking me," he warned, "would be unwise." The moment stretched, thick with the crackle of electricity and the acrid smell of ozone. Then Drift sank back into his chair, as if only now realizing what he'd done and been about to do. He buried his face in his hands, ashamed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that." "I know." Xavier set the parchment back down and dropped his lightning shield, then pulled over a stool and sat so he could be at the samoyed's level. "This isn't the first time I've seen you hurting. But you weren't alone back at Ice Lake, and you're not alone now. I promise you, we will get to the bottom of this." "I shouldn't have left." Drift almost whispered it. "If I had stayed, they'd have stayed focused on me. They wouldn't have gone after her." "You don't know that." Drift's head snapped up, a flare of rage. "It should have been me! Why wasn't it me?" Rising, he stormed out of the room. Xavier caught up in time to see him screaming at the stained glass window in his bedroom, the one with the Yew on it. "Why wasn't it me? Why her? Why did you let me go to the Glen if I was going to come back to this?" Xavier's eyes widened in shock. One did not talk to the gods like that, no matter what the provocation! Any Lothanasi could tell you that, and surely the Ecclesia's Eli was no better. This was getting out of hand! But before he could interrupt, a knock at the door distracted him. With a glance at the still ranting samoyed, he slipped out to see who it was. ----- "Are you sure that this is the spot?" The first time Jim Morganson had asked Wolfram that question, the Watch Investigator had been openly concerned. Now, doubt was starting to creep into the goat Keeper's tone, along with a faint hint of 'you had better not be wasting my time'. They had searched the burnt-out building for nearly a quarter of an hour now, without any success at finding Alexis' body. Worse, the snow was piling up now that the embers had been quenched, making their task harder with each passing minute. "Positive," Wolfram replied, unflinching. He would not let his friend down, not after such a blow as this. He'd dig the entire building out by himself if he had to. Not, he realized a moment later, that he would need to. The blackened beam from which he'd just brushed snow bore Drift's bloody handprints, as well as several broken-off claws embedded in the grain. "Here," he said, beckoning Jim over. This is the place. Help me get this snow and debris cleared away." It only took them a minute to find the fallen wall that had pinned Alexis, along with the bloody prints where Drift had scrambled under it to make his horrible discovery. Wolfram stooped, preparing to follow the same path, but Jim stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "Wait. Something's strange here. Burned hair and flesh have a very distinctive smell, but..." He paused to sniff the air. "I'm not catching a whiff of it." Wolfram's eyes narrowed, his stooped position giving him the start of a look underneath the wall. "Something strange here, too. No blood pool. If her throat was cut..." A sudden hunch curdled in the ram's gut, and he seized the wall and heaved. "This might as well have been lead earlier," he grunted, "but..." The wall lifted far too easily and fell aside with a crash. Both of them gaped. There was no body, no blood, only a strange, blackened handprint burned deep into the floorboards. The fingers of the print extended far beyond those of a normal hand, five trails of charred wood vanishing into the rubble all around. "What the hell?" "Where's the body?" ----- Xavier opened the door on a pimple-faced youth, either a boy on the cusp of the Curse, or an AR trying to be as old as possible. In either case, he was dirty and dressed in rags, and carried a shapeless bundle well wrapped in cloth. "Delivery," he said, pitching his voice low and flicking an anxious glance down the hall. "For Snow," he continued, and tried to press the bundle into Xavier's hands. The noble leopard would have none of it. Clawtips gleamed against the wooden doorjamb as he blocked the way, his other hand keeping its grip on the door beside him, denying either entry or a place for the package. "Edward Snow is accepting no deliveries tonight, especially not from such an obvious vagabond as yourself. Leave immediately or I shall call the Watch." A white-furred arm blurred past Xavier's nose and slapped the door from his hand, then shouldered the leopard aside with little care for courtesy. Drift stepped through the gap. Sniffing the air, he fixed his eyes on the bundle. "Jasmine. This is from Alexis." It wasn't a question. The look he then turned on the boy could have etched glass, and his voice rivaled the fierce thunder outside. "Tell me why you're here, now, or I -won't- call the Watch." The boy's Adam's apple bobbed. He glanced down the hall again, this time looking like whatever he was wary of might be a better choice than facing the unsmiling samoyed. A small tightening of Drift's grip on the door convinced him otherwise. "T-The Lady said I should give this to you," the boy stammered. "If anything happened to her tonight, I mean." It was the wrong thing to say, but the youth realized his danger a moment too late. Drift's left hand closed on the package as if to take it, but in truth only to pinion the boy's hand to it. Then, with a jerk, Drift pulled him in close and seized him by the neck in his strong right hand. Heaving the boy off the ground, Drift slammed him against the wall with enough force to rattle teeth. If he had thundered before, he roared now. "How long?!" "Wh-ack!" The boy clutched at the hand around his neck with all the effectiveness of an ant trying to beat off an elephant. "How long did she know she might be in danger?" Sensing movement out of the corner of his eye, Drift snarled, "Xavier, if you shock me again, I will drive you into the ground like a tent spike!" He slammed the boy into the wall again. "How long!" "Drift, he can't breathe!" With a twitch of annoyance, Drift loosened his grip, but only fractionally. The boy gasped for air. Leaning in until his breath ruffled the youth's hair, Drift dropped his voice almost to a whisper. "I'll ask you one last time. How long did she know this was coming?" Only momentarily deterred by Drift's unusual, if obviously heartfelt, threat, Xavier paused in the midst of retrieving his rapier to listen. "I don't know!" the boy squealed. "She just gave this to me today! Said you'd know what to do with it! That's it! She always plays her cards close to the vest!" Drift glared at him for a long time, narrowed brown eyes boring through the youth's skull while thunder cracked outside. Finally, he loosened his grip on the package enough for the boy to slip his hand free, while still keeping a hold on it himself. "That does sound like something Alexis would do," he growled. He set the boy down, his grip loosening with the slowness of muscles made sore by exertion. "Fine. Get out of here. Don't let me see you again." The boy didn't have to be told twice: he vanished down the hall as if chased by all the hounds of Hell. Drift didn't bother to watch him go. He shut the door with a negligent flick of his wrist and took the package into his workshop. Xavier stared. He had seen Drift hurting. He had seen Drift berserk. But he had never seen Drift like this before. It scared him and, for the first time, he felt reassured to feel the weight of his sword on his hip. He followed once he'd finished buckling it on, but what he saw when he got there froze him in place. The package, unwrapped on the desk, appeared to be a rectangular wooden box. Opened, it revealed a long lutin knife, stained faintly red as if from some long-ago use. Drift leaned against the desk as if he might collapse, holding a crumpled piece of paper in a fist against his forehead. His features writhed in a dying effort not to lose control. "Damn it, Alexis," he whimpered. "Damn it, damn it, damn it-" The explosion, when it came, was terrible. With a roar, Drift flung the paper down, rounded on his workshop, and started smashing. Work of months, shattered against the wall or pulverized beneath a hammer blow of his fist. His bat-winged glider he heaved up with both hands and slammed to the floor, breaking its back in a crash of rending wood and metal. Painstakingly shaped and lacquered fabric shredded under a stomping foot, claws ripping. Xavier tried to pull him away and wound up flattened. He had never dreamed Drift could be that strong. With barely an effort, the samoyed had bodily thrown the leopard, knocking the wind out of him on the stone floor. This would, he promised, be the last time he underestimated the smith. By the time Xavier got his breath back, Drift stood in the midst of complete ruin, chest heaving. A flare of temper flashed across Xavier's mind. How dare that peasant strike me! He quashed the thought, but the ember smoldered on in spite of his best efforts, sharpening his tone and edging his words as he picked himself up. "Do you feel better now?" He twitched. He hadn't meant to say that. He pushed on. "Edward Snow, you're coming with me. I don't care where we go, whether it's the Follower chapel or the Lothanasi temple, but you're going to talk to someone. Preferably without smashing more of your life's work." The words hung in the air like a poison cloud, and Xavier nearly slapped himself. What was wrong with him? He opened his mouth, tried to apologize, but the words caught in his throat. He tried again, failed, and settled for looking down and away, ashamed. Finally, what he'd meant to say came out. "You should," he said quietly, "talk with the Lothanasa or Father Hough." It was too late. He could see it in Drift's eyes. The samoyed's glare was acid. Without a word, Drift stalked from the room. "Where are you going?" "To the privy," Drift snapped, neither pausing nor looking back. "Can I at least do -that- alone?" Chastened, Xavier turned away. This was beyond out of hand. This was catastrophic. What had possessed him to say such things? The leopard ran his fingers through his metallic hair, trying without success to settle jangling nerves. He wished that Wolfram and Misha would hurry. There were too many coincidences swirling about, too many wild emotions, too many secrets. He picked up the paper that Drift had dropped, smoothed it out as best he could, and held it up to the light. It was, he hoped, time for some of those secrets to be revealed. As he expected, it was a letter from Alexis. My beloved Edward. If you are reading this... Xavier's eyes narrowed to slits as he continued down the page. "You idiot woman," he growled under his breath once he'd finished, his ears laying flat with anger and disbelief. If even half of this was true, she should never have let them leave for Glen Avery. She should have told them all, and he and Misha would have taken it to the Duke himself. A jealous business rival, corruption in the Watch, murder, attempted murder, conspiracy... It read like madness, and yet it all fit. Compellingly so. His own family had been under the thumb of a rival before, and he knew the depths to which such people could stoop. "Damn Loriod," he cursed, the memory of the fat man springing unbidden into mind. What he would have given to put his claws through that blackmailing bastard's- Pain startled him from his vengeful reverie, and he opened a hand he hadn't realized he'd clenched. Blood stained Alexis' letter- his own. In his anger, he'd put a claw through it and into his palm. What was more, both of his hands shook, so hard that the writing of the letter blurred out of legibility. Every instinct he had was screaming at him to run, to flee for his life and not look back. In a moment of stunning clarity, he realized why, and every hair on his body stood on end as he put it all together. Greed, deception, rage... he dropped the letter as if it were on fire and backed away from the boxed lutin blade as from the Glen Avery trapmaster's most lethal creation. Where anger had edged his voice before, terror now galvanized it. "Drift! Drift, we need to leave, right now! Do you hear-" He sensed the attack from behind a fraction of a second too late. ----- Drift paced in his room, his thoughts flying in all directions. Don't think. Don't feel. I have to do something! Nothing left. Nothing left for me. I have to do -something-! Don't think about the blood. Don't think about- I HAVE TO DO- The image of the knife flashed in his eye. The cold of the hilt remembered itself on his fingertips. A new thought whispered into his mind. Something. He glanced toward the workshop. Xavier would stop him. So would Misha or Wolfram if he didn't get out of here in time. They wouldn't understand. None of them would understand. He considered the leopard-man again, this time not as a friend, but as an obstacle in his way. His back was turned... You could- No. His hands closed on a different weapon instead, lifting it carefully to minimize the noise. Just hold still, Xavier, and this will all be over in a moment... ----- Drift's only chair smashed down on Xavier with enough force to shatter it. The hidden compartment inside broke open, scattering his mother's keepsakes across the room. He hesitated. Hurry! He nodded. There would be time to pick up once he'd beaten a confession out of Arkos Linafex. Or killed him. Or killed him. He'd certainly dreamed of it often enough. Xavier groaned, stirred. Drift punched him. This time the leopard stayed down. It might come to killing, Drift thought, and his eyes narrowed. He won't get away again. Not this time. "Sorry, Xavier," he said aloud, resting a hand on the leopard's chest to make sure he was still breathing. He was. "You are far too dangerous for me to risk being gentle." He allowed himself a moment, over the voice's protest, to carefully prop Xavier's head with the cushion from the broken chair. But enough sentiment. Rising to his feet, Drift first retrieved a particular vest from his workshop, then grabbed the smithing hammer from the forge. He turned next toward his bedroom... and his eyes fell on his grandfather's Canticles. It, too, had fallen from the broken chair in which it had been hidden, and it now laid splayed open face-down on the floor. Hurry! Drift walked over to it, picked it up- There's no time! -dusted it off- He'll get away! -and closed it. Setting it gently on the table, he picked up the knife instead and buckled it to his belt. Walking into his bedroom, he lifted his hammer and eyed the stained glass window that he had once loved so much. Lightning flashed beyond it. He didn't care. "He's not getting away this time," he promised. "I'll make sure of it." ----- The imp Miroweke paused under a shuttered window of Agemnos' palace, his ears perking as they caught a voice from within. "What do you mean, he's gone? I tasked you specifically with keeping him occupied!" A long pause followed. Then, in a voice so tightly controlled it could carve apart steel, Agemnos seethed, "He is far too powerful a rogue element to be allowed to roam unsupervised at this critical juncture. Find him. Now." A splash followed, as of a scrying pool forcefully dismissed, then a dark growl. "Cousin, you had better not be doing what I think you're doing." ----- The Snow hammer spun into the night, shards of broken glass cascading down in its wake. More followed as Drift broke out the remaining pieces of the window, then stepped up on the sill. Crouching to fit into the opening, he squinted against the wind and driving snow, planning out his path. Soundlessly behind him, a low doorway opened in the wall, and metal tapped on stone. Drift half-spun, his shocked expression matched by that of his newest guest. "Uncle?" Jump NOW! Don't let it stop you! Drift flung himself into the storm, Madog's face appearing momentarily in the window before darkness and distance swept it from view. Freefalling down the side of the Keep, he waited until nearly the last moment to activate the magic of the vest Misha had made for him. Even with that precaution, the wind pushed him well clear of his intended landing zone, and he winced in pained anticipation as the Keep stables rose from the storm to greet him. The Polygamites paused in the midst of an argument when they heard something land on the roof of the stables. Every head turned upward at the soft thud and slide of snow. "What the-" exclaimed the head stallion, and he stepped outside to see what had made the sound. More snow had drifted up against the stable door, however, and it took him a few extra moments to push it open. By that time, Drift was already gone, vanished into the night. "Huh," the horse-man grunted and pulled the door shut again before more heat escaped from the warm stable. "Must have been the wind." Unseen, a bat-winged shadow flitted from a nearby rooftop, disappearing into the night after the samoyed. Another followed a moment later, careful to keep out of sight of the first. Deep in the shadows of the stable, a dark-haired man smiled, swathed in a cloak that rippled like smoke. He followed, unhindered by either the night or the snow, unconcerned by any hazard that might be hidden there. His tracks and Drift's faded away as he passed, vanishing as if they'd never been. Back in the stable, the argument faded, and for at least one place in Metamor, peace descended for the night.  </div></body> </html>