Unbound

Atar leaned over the table, closely inspecting the blasted piece of metal before him. It was covered with a delicate tracery of sigils, markings that were almost invisible to the normal eye. However, to his advanced perception and particular talents, they stood out like glowing coals. He focused, trying to decipher the precise function of the sigils, but their strange shape made it difficult. Looking too closely at them caused a strain in his eyes, a familiar yet unplaceable sensation.

Focusing was hard. Ever since Alistair had left in the Shadowgate, Atar had been distracted. His current activities provided a temporary distraction, but it was a tough battle. Frankly, he missed Alistair.

"What is taking so long?"

Isla, her hair done up perfectly and a coronet of silver holding it back from her forehead, paced the floor just beyond Atar’s workbench. Her dress swished about her legs as she went, a sound that distracted a number of young, eager apprentices. She watched Atar. Or rather, she watched the work he was doing.

"I thought you said this would be quick," she said.

"It should have been quick," Atar replied, failing to hide the annoyance from his voice. "But there are layers on this thing that I do not understand."

"Layers?" she echoed. "What are you babbling about? This was the work of ruffians, not some master crafter."

"That's the thing," Atar said. "I think someone knew what they were doing when they made this. Someone with some serious Skill levels."

Isla muttered something under her breath and Atar went back to ignoring her. Neither of them were enjoying working together, but their cooperation was requested by Darius Reed. At the very least, it helped Atar pass the time. Plus, he didn't much like people that tried to kill him. Not as a rule.

Not exactly the plan, but I like the enthusiasm, Flame.

Isla sighed heavily. "How hard is it to read some sigils? A child would be done by now."

Atar glared at the chanter, and his core twisted.

change of plans. kill her first.

He took a calming breath and tightened his grip on the binding array around his center. "Isla, you don't need to be here for this. I'm checking every bit for rogue sigildry. That takes time. These layers take time. Don't you have someone to question, or something?"

"All of the leads went dry. There's no trace of anyone matching the descriptions we have, and there have been no attacks." She jabbed a finger at the workbench. "This is all we have, and I am impatient to be done with this duty."

You and me both, lady.

Hoping he could forget Isla was there at all, Atar returned his attention to the scraps in front of him. There were several significant chunks that survived their respective explosions, and from what he could tell they had made a cylindrical artifact. Applying his tool, Atar shaved a piece of the charred exterior away. Originally meant for working inscriptions into metal or stone, the flat-hook lathe was extremely good at revealing buried sigaldry. After the first stroke, the light from above caught on a faint shape embossed into the curved surface. An engraving, extremely small and obscured by layers, but distinctly patterned. Atar lifted it up, inspecting it closely. It wasn't present on the other scraps they'd found, and it seemed to have been hidden, only revealed as he stripped pieces of it away.

"Isla, have you ever seen something like this?" he asked.

The blonde Chanter looked over at him and gasped. "Zara, if this is a joke it is in poor taste.”

“What’re you talking about?"

"That is a maker’s mark, placed by artisans on their projects. I know that one. It is very old." She took a breath as if to steady herself. "It belongs to Anguin."

Atar set the metal down slowly, ensuring that the sample was undamaged before speaking. "Who in the blighted Night is Anguin?"

"So, a Chanter is working against us?" Atar questioned, his voice barely above a whisper.

"I cannot be certain of that," Isla replied, glancing around to ensure no one was within earshot as they walked the city streets. "All I know is that a piece of Anguin's metalworking got into that explosive device. It is suggestive, that is all."

Atar pulled his cloak tighter against the chill wind of early spring. "And your plan is to walk into his house and interrogate him? How's that going to work?"

"We are friends," Isla stated simply.

Atar raised a pale eyebrow. "I didn't know you had friends."

Isla laughed, a sound that echoed off the stone buildings around them. "I have lost more friends than I care to count. We are going to be delicate here, because I do not wish to lose another. Understand?"

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Something in the woman's tone touched Atar, though he tried hard to avoid it. "I do. I'll follow your lead, then."

"That's all I ask."

Down the winding streets of the Scale Quarter District, Atar and Isla made an odd pair. One dressed in a pale blue winter cloak, the other in black. Blonde and white hair stuck out among the dark stone buildings as snowflakes cascaded across their path. They moved through busy streets, past crowds gathered at cafes and shops that had sprung up on every corner.

Atar was impressed with how Elderthrone was developing, and how quickly. It felt like not too long ago that the entire place had been a desolate expanse of stumps and blasted earth, sundered by their battle with the Archon and his metallic servants. Seeing shops and houses and storefronts all around him gave him an odd sense of dissociation. It almost didn't feel real.

And now, as they walked toward a suspect that was also a Chanter, that unreality felt amplified. The world had gone strange after Felix had left, and everything felt…tense. He wasn’t sure if that was because Alister had left or just the attacks, but he felt his skin crawl like he was being watched.

"This is it here," Isla said, pointing a slender hand to a tall, thin structure, three stories high, and built entirely of Fiendstone. A rarity in the Scale District.

Atar whistled. "Anguin must have paid a fortune for this place."

"He desired the status of Fiendstone."

"Oh yeah? So I suppose not even Sorcerers are exempt from material things."

"We are still people. Long-lived. Powerful. But still people."

The two of them walked up the front steps to the apartment. When Isla raised her hand to knock, she found the door ajar. They traded a worried glance before slowly opening the door. Inside, snow and leaves had been blown into the hall, mingling with the tossed-about parchment and tumbled furniture of a ransacked home.

“Activate your amulet,” Atar instructed as he fed Mana into his own. A faint hum came from the simple steel plate on his chest, and it felt like a layer of the world had been shorn away. “If those bastards are here, it should cancel out their stealth enchantments they’ve been using.”

Isla nodded and he heard her amulet begin to hum as she stepped in further, her head swiveling in all directions. The parlor was to the left and the sitting room to the right, and both were all but smashed apart. Immediately, the blonde Chanter rushed upstairs, leaving Atar behind.

“Hey!” Atar kept his voice low, but the woman had already disappeared. “Whatever. I’ll just look here.”

He slipped into the parlor, stepping atop piles of loose and ripped parchment. Inside, the desk had been thrown sideways and its drawers torn free. The contents were dumped onto the floor, where someone had roughly pushed through it all before tromping all over it. A empty mantle above a cold fireplace otherwise dominated the sparse room, and remnants of carved wooden figures were shattered against the hearth, along with a number of books that had been shredded by what looked like knives or claws.

"Burning ash, what is going on here?" Atar muttered. Someone had been searching for something, but what?

atar.

The Flame’s voice was faint owing to the binding array, but Atar leaned closer and listened.

destruction was wrought here, the flame said. it smells familiar.

"Familiar? What does that mean?"

something was lost, burnt away. The flame pulled in a deep breath. Atar didn't even know it could breathe. It exhaled. something predatory was here.

Atar shook his head, trying to make sense of the flame's cryptic words. The fireplace had been used, judging by the soot on the heart and the ashen remnants of several other books. When he tried to investigate them, however, they crumbled beneath his fingers.

Isla returned down the stairs. "I found no sign of Anguin upstairs," she reported, "though it appears that everything he owns has been overturned."

Atar gestured to the parlor around him. "It is clear that they were searching for something. He’s a Sorcerer, does he have artifacts hidden here? Could they have been searching for them?”

“That is possible. Not every Chanter is gifted enough to craft our own items, but we’ve all built a collection over the years. Enchanted oddments. But to break into a Chanter’s home like this? That is risky. Either the thieves knew exactly what they were looking for, or they were extremely capable. I’m unsure which concerns me more.”

Atar bent over and picked up the broken wooden boards that were once a book. The leather was embossed with a title. “Amateur Metallurgy. My assumption was that Anguin was working with our suspects, but could they have gotten his metalwork from somewhere else? Does the guy sell it?”

“Not that I’m aware of. Perhaps they came for more. But metalwork was always a hobby of Anguin's, something that he worked on to appease the long, lonely hours.” Isla snapped her fingers. “The metal used in the explosives, what Tier was it?"

Atar shrugged. "It was high steel. Tier III at best. Nothing particularly remarkable—” Atar cut himself off as his Mind worked at the issue, leaping ahead. “But…if you have an explosion that isn't powerful enough, you wouldn't want a strong outer casing. You'd want something weak, something that could shatter."

"How easy is high steel to procure?" Isla asked.

Atar scratched his jaw, thinking. "Fairly simple, especially around here. Well, for me. We have teams that extract it from a metal-attuned Domain nearby. But I suppose for your average person it would be a good deal harder to get. Expensive, certainly.”

Isla nodded along. "So perhaps they couldn't get enough material, and they were hunting for any source they could. And since I cannot find Anguin anywhere, I have to assume he has been taken as well."

Atar put his hands on his hips. "Well, what do we do now?"

“We need a clue on where they took Anguin. Search—”

Isla kept talking, but Atar struggled to listen as a faint pressure gathered at his temples. His head felt warm and his thoughts stumbled. Not now Flame.

“—find it. Anguin is a Goblin, so look low for evidence of a struggle. He is strong, so whoever did this would have had to be—”

—do not ignore me—!

Atar pulled on his core, hauling the burning bird close in a single mighty lurch. What!

someone is escaping out of the window.

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