Peace in the Valley

[Aurin]

The High City of Zaichaer
34th of Searing, Year 122 Steel

She spends too much time with herself every night
Fooling around with her fears
In the morning she mourns the decline of her mind
Drowning in a bottle of beer

It's too dangerous just to think about what she might have been
If she'd sung for salvation, if she'd danced on her dreams
But there's gonna be peace in the valley tomorrow
Lord, 'cause tonight she's gonna blow it all away
She feels so twisted, she ain't ever gonna fix it
She's just waiting for the light to shine on a brand new day

Aurin awoke to a bang.

Not like that. Eshar was lying beside him in their bed, but the banging was over at this point. Oh, he had forgotten to release the bonds. They were awake now, as well, so Aurin hadn't imagined that. When the screaming began, they were both immediately alert and he cut their bonds rather than waste time unbinding them. The way they were ready for action in an instant would have aroused him all over again, but his veins were already thrumming with racing blood and he was pulling his pants on.

Eshar didn't bother. One moment they were gloriously naked; the next they were clothed and sprinting toward the door, boots in hand. That was wise. A glamour couldn't protect one's feet from sharp rocks and glass.

"Don't die!" he called after them, grabbing his own boots and his tunic.

Something was rippling through the aether. Whatever was happening, it was big. Something that big and unexpected was almost certainly bad news. Time would be of the essence, so he paused rather than dressing, and began to seek connections as Valencia had taught him to do. The fabric of reality didn't seem damaged so he figured there was no time but the present to start practicing his gifts.

Be the gate, he thought, working the Railrunner trick through his Rune. He winked out of existence.

He don't know if he's a communist, a hedonist, or a whore
Spent too much time riding on a white line to find the door
If he did and he opened it, he'd find those letters in the hall
He's too blind to read between the lines
'Cause the writing's on the wall

But there's gonna be peace in the valley tomorrow
Lord, 'cause tonight he's gonna blow it all away
He feels so twisted, he ain't ever gonna fix it
He's just waiting for the light to shine on a brand new day

He winked into existence.

"Put your pants on, Urs," he said, getting an eyeful of the good doctor. There was always time for lechery. "And pack your bags. That might have been our cue to depart."

Aurin's business with the covens wasn't complete, but he supposed that if Kalzasi had made a surprise attack on the High City, he wouldn't want to be there, and he would need to help the covens, at least, escape. He stumbled out of Urs' room and quickly dressed, throwing his necessities into his pack as well. He was a bit more stable when he returned and flung his pack onto Urs' bed.

"Keep an eye on this for me. Stay here. Going to investigate."

He winked out of existence.

He winked into existence.

The sky was on fire. No, but it was tearing magically, and Aurin could sense the chaos roiling within until the Dread Mists and other things began to pour out.

"Fuck," he muttered, looking back down at the ground. The Market was full of turmoil; some staring gape-mouthed at the sky, others running like chickens with their heads cut off. When he recognized one of the runners, he grabbed the boy by the arm. It was the youngest of the Whispers he had met. Using his own momentum to swing him around, face to face, and catching his other arm. Hazel eyes bored into his.

"Run home, kid," he ordered. "We're getting out of here today."

Once the kid managed a nod, Aurin nodded and gave him an encouraging little shrug in that direction.

He winked out of existence.

He winked into existence.

His stomach rebelled.

"Fuck," he muttered, and Jacq caught him when he faltered. Aurin breathed, trying to steady his breathing, his heartbeat, and his stomach. He could sense panic all around him. He admired the Whispers, but they were children. He had been a child when he had been on his own as well, but still and all, he was going to claim ownership of them now, at least until he fulfilled his part of the bargain and got them to safety.

"Rift in the sky," he explained. "Dread Mists. We're getting out of here. Pack what you need. Leave what you don't. Airships aren't going to be safe so we'll be traveling on foot, at least at first."

I've got ecstasy, but I need some company
You've got that mystery; Lord, I need a plan
All I've got is this compromise and a bag full of alibis
Lord, as empty as the bottle of whiskey in my shaking hand

There's gonna be peace in the valley tomorrow
Lord, 'cause tonight we're gonna blow it all away
Lord, we feel so fucking twisted, we ain't ever gonna fix it
We're just waiting for the light to shine on a brand new day.

[Rune]

Jacq felt reality shudder through the city and pulled himself instantly back from where he'd thrown his vision and hearing to catch the latest information about the war effort from a middling level intelligence agent who liked to gossip with his mistress as he readied for a meeting.

The young coven leader had never felt or imagined anything like what was vibrating over his aetheric senses. It felt like the struggles of a fly the size of a city block were vibrating down the shattered-glass lines of a broken-mirror spiderweb.

Clearing his throat as he looked around (sometimes he forgot to drink or even breath much if he was too distracted elsewhere), about to call out to the other members of his little band of lost children but they were all stirring around him or walking into the main room of their hideout. They would have felt what he had. Doing an instant head count he said,

"Where's 'Rick?"

The eldest girl, Petra took half a step forward, looking, as all of them did, like she was ready to bolt.

"He went to The Market, keeping an eye on Kavafis." Jacq nodded, the boy would be back as soon as he felt that something was wrong.

"Pack everything, we're leaving today, with or without Kavafis." The scramble of every person at once filled the room for a surprisingly brief moment as everyone went to take care of tasks they had practiced many times. It wouldn't be the first time they had abandoned a hideout when danger threatened. Perhaps they wouldn't lose anyone this time.

Jacq was half way through his own tasks when he felt a recognizable warping of the air to one side of the main room. He took one step to the side as Aurin seemed to appear out of the air, but was still close enough to reach out and catch the man when he looked like he might fall. Traversion was brand new for the redhead who had agreed to take them to safety, Jacq knew. Having it under the current circumstances seemed fortuitous even barely trained.

Once Aurin was steady on his feet he rifled through his already packed bag and pushed a packet of powder into the man's hand.

"It'll help with your stomach. Everyone is here and we'll be ready to go in another minute. Except 'Rick, he was in The Market but his things will be ready before he gets back. What's our move?"

[Aurin]

"Rick ought to be here shortly," he assured the young witch. "Ran into him on my way here... Thanks." By now, he was leaning nonchalantly against the wall, though he wasn't quite certain whether the powder was meant to go into a drink or other; in the end, he just tipped his head back and tapped it into his mouth, swallowing it dry. There was no time for niceties. When he tried to speak, it tickled his throat and he had a brief coughing fit, but managed to gather himself after a moment.

"I'm packed. Wardell's got my pack and is staying put. I'm going to find us a more skilled Railrunner and see if we can't get out through a portal... If not, I'm going to find some Sunsingers to latch onto. More firepower so we can get the Mists out."

Aurin nodded approvingly at the packing already well underway.

"You'll have my tricks and my blades and my wits to get you and the kids out of here. Whatever's happening, there will be those who want to stay and those who want to go. We're gonna go."

Once they were agreed, he left their hideout, looking for those opportunities they would need to get out. He swung by the inn, told Urs where to take their things. It would be best if all the people he had to get out safe were in one place.

Finally, he found a bit of a vantage and stepped out of the tumultulous flow of foot traffic to meditate upon whatever the hell was happening. It was chaotic to his senses: mundane explosions; Dread Mists; strange energies he hadn't a name for. The air was turgid with fear and anger and desperation. This was going to get ugly and quickly.

A portal then, or stalwart warriors, and perhaps one of his contacts to let them know he was absconding with the Whispers per their desire to break with Zaichaer and her Watchers. He didn't want them to think he was running out of sheer cowardice. He was a terminus of an underground railroad now, and if he hadn't accomplished all his goals for the trip, surviving to negotiate another day trumped those.

[Rune]

The streets boiled over with chaos, people running in every direction, running into one another in the blind dash for safety from what many of them did not even know. The Mist were just beginning to creep down, dripping from the great rend that had torn its way across the sky and forming swirling masses that, to anyone who knew the Mists, would herald the coming of a Mist Storm. Even to the masses uneducated enough to understand exactly what was coming the sight alone was enough to send panic roiling through them.

As Aurin stepped out of the safe house of the Whispered the air beside the redhead shifted, sucked in a little in the way he would now recognize as the precursor to someone stepping along the aether lines with Traversion. It was just enough time to realize what was happening before Valencia was standing next to him looking both surprised and a bit peeved.

"Where were you, Kavafis? The lines I have tied to you were scrambled like I've never seen before."

Realizing he must have just stepped from the house she glanced up at the dilapidated building with raised brows of disbelief before turning away from the mystery, there were greater monsters in the sky today. Literally, she realized, belatedly as he mind used a phrase that her grandmother had taught her as a child. There were literally monsters in the sky today, or, if there were not yet...

Another huge regurgitation of Mists pushed their way from the Rift above the city like the spilling of afterbirth. What sort of birth came before such as this? It was something she would wonder about for a long time.

Holding out her hand to the man who she knew could not travel more than the distance that his eyes could see yet she said,

"Come, the Railrunners are being called in by ever Coven we are allied with. We have to get them out and while you are not yet ready to ferry folk away your skills will still be desperately needed. I was hoping you would have time to learn our art before you would have called on to defend our people but we do not choose the times and places we must make our stands."

Her expression said she expected no objection or delay, that his coming with her was, now, a matter of course.

[Aurin]

Valencia's appearance was fortuitous and calmed his nerves for all of an instant before she started griping at him. He was nowhere near the ability to track with their trick, but if she was able to find him, then it seemed possible, probable, and if his traveling had confused her, well, that was hardly his fault. He didn't answer, though; whether the question was rhetorical or not, there were more important things to do.

She held out her hand to him and he considered for an instant.

"All right," he said. "But I promised to get the Whispers out of Zaichaer, and Wardell is here under my protection. I don't know if he got what he wanted from the Grymalka, but I need you to open a portal for them to Kalzasi. Use my knowledge of the place... use my aether if you need to... Help me keep my word and I'll stay and protect the coven. The covens."

Not waiting for her to dissuade him, he pictured the yard between Kilvin's Forge and the house. He engaged the Rune she had inscribed upon his shoulder, and he began what would have been magical suicide—attempting to open a portal from once city to another as a mere novice. But she had given him his Rune and she seemed able to follow what he did with it, so she would bend to his gambit or not.

Jacq and his lot could be of help, but he didn't know how many of them had tricks other than knowing, and they were already prepared to abandon ship. Wardell could heal, which would be helpful if things went violent as things tended to do in his experience, but if Aurin was going to be any help to the covens to whom he had tied himself, he needed Wardell off to safety as well so he could focus, risk, and succeed. With Aurin's name on his lips, Jacq could get help from Torin until Aurin got back to see to the Whispers. They would be safe and sound in Kalzasi, and the smith would probably even enjoy the chance to speak to a coven full of people with the same trick as he had.

But, for now, he focused on the spell to force Valencia's hand so he could lend his hand to hers in the wider struggle.

[Rune]

The human woman looked at Aurin as though she might protest, but what he said was not unrealistic. The Railrunners would be opening portals all over the city to, herding civilians into them in the hopes that they might survive better anywhere else. Kalzasi was a stretch, but she had to assume that, as the runner of a safe house for those wanting to escape Zaichaer, the newest member of her coven would know what he was doing.

Their hands were already linked, and while touch wasn't strictly required, it was all but when trying to use a rune in tandem with another inscribed with the same rune. It had been her Scrivening link, fading but not yet gone, that had allowed her to find the him, not the fact that she had been the one to gift him the coven's chosen magic, but that was a detail unimportant. When he began immediately pulling aether for the jump that was, for him, impossible she swore.

"Oh, Nuenna's sake!" But reached through the place where Traversion touched her own soul and pulled enough aether to overwhelm and take over what Kavafis was attempting. She had lines to Kalzasi, and if not to whatever specific place he'd started for, she could follow the lines he seemed to know so well. Perhaps it was to his own home.

The Whispers (She had head of the tiny coven made up of mostly children but had no associations with them. Such covens popped into and out of existence frequently.) seemed to be aware of what was happening for they appeared at the door to the dilapidated house, carpet bags and sacks in hand. The portal pressed through reality and shimmered as the image of a door that Valencia imagined it to be. With a backwards glance at the kids she gestured with the hand not clutching onto Aurin's.

"Well? Off you go and be grateful!"

The little group hesitated for a moment before the eldest, a young man, shouldered what she presumed to be his belongings, hunched said shoulders and marched toward the hole Valencia had torn through space for them. The others followed quickly, as though more afraid to lose their leader than they were of her magic.

Just as the leader reached the threshold the oldest girl called out,

"Wait! Rick!" The leader hesitates, looking to Kavafis but Valencia overrode whatever objection this was.

"If there are more we'll have to pick them up as we go, I'm closing this in one minute and anyone left on this side can stay!"

The leader looked back as his people before ushering them through, he waited till last, leaning close to Kavafis and meeting his eyes before following. The portal snapped shut with a pop that contained hints of a door slamming closed. Tightening her hold on Aurin's hand the witch frowned.

"Whatever deals you've made we best see to quickly. There are bigger things that need attention today. Where is Wardell? If you know, take me to him, if you don't, he'll have to survive on his own for a while."

[Aurin]

Aurin helped as he could, mostly staying out of her way and providing whatever energy he could. His will being done, he was compliant.

"This goes to the forge of Torin Kilvin," he said so Jacq could hear him. "Tell him Aurin Kavafis said to keep your coven safe until I return to sort you out. If there isn't enough room, he has a key to my cottage." He swore, wondering where the little Whisper had gone off to instead of where Aurin told him to go. "I'll keep an eye out for the other one. Go." He gave the young man a nudge.

When the portal flickered out, he gave a gruff, "Thanks."

Then, "I just have to keep an eye out for their youngling. I suppose my priority now is Railrunners and Myshalarai, but... fuck it. Let's save some witches."

He gave her hand a surreptitious squeeze. He would deny it having happened if it were commented upon, but Valencia had helped him come back from the terrors of the Aetherium and he didn't need a magically binding contract to want to help her. When Urs arrived, Aurin sighed at his tardiness and took his pack from the man. "Tell your elf the Kindred are interested in speaking to him. Not sure when they will be taking messages, but..." If Aurin survived, he would ask whether the man got what he wanted from the Grymalka. Aurin liked to know things.

"If you can send him through, I'm all yours," he said to his mentor in the Railrunner coven. Slinging his pack over his shoulders, he adjusted the weight distribution so he wouldn't be thrown off if he had to move quickly and carefully. He squeezed first one bracer and then the other, assuring himself that his insurance policy was in place.

[Rune]

When it became apparent that Aurin intended to wait for the witch-doctor she rolled her eyes but stayed.

"Might as well do what we can." Ripping open a portal to a village on the border between Zaichaer and the Imperium, a place she went sometimes because it was idyllic in appearance at least. It was as good as anywhere else.

Raising her voice and flushing it through Masquerade so it boomed around her she called to the crowd that safety was on the other side. Fewer people than she might have hoped turned from their aimless flight toward her offer. Prejudice was stronger than self-preservation, she thought with a bitter twist to it.

These people had no way to know that the evil witch woman wasn't just taking advantage of the chaos to herd them into her cook pot or some other, equally horrific, fate. She accepted that, but it was still deeply frustrating under the current circumstances.

"Fool Zaichaeri!" He growled, even as she cast a Mesmer net out of the crowd and tried to keep an expression of concern and desire to help on her face. Many more people turned abruptly to pour, shoving, through to the meadows outside.

When Wardell finally arrived she closed her Mesmer net and then the portal.

"Give me the location again, Kavafis." She ordered, nudging at his rune in a way that must have felt, for someone unused to having anyone else skilled enough to reaching for someone else's magic, very strange. When he opened himself to the intrusion the platinum blond women probed briefly to be sure she wasn't about to rip open any of the kids they had sent through minutes before. Adjusting the sight so it would open onto an empty area she let her own aether join their intention till she could see through.

On the other side she could now see a very large blond man swearing only a leather apron over filthy trousers, and a much smaller blond boy trying to herding the members of the child-coven into the house she'd glimpsed the first time. Wardell had none of the hesitation of either the kids or the panicky citizens and strode right through. On the verge of closing the opening again she her a voice, high and piping call,

"Wait!"

Glancing over Kavafis' shoulder she saw a young boy, perhaps ten years, rushing toward them. Her Semblance senses were cast in a wide net, trying to filter through literally thousands of individual lives and honing in on any one was impossible under the circumstances but as soon as she saw the child something of her instincts set out a warning cry. Without more information than that she did not know how to react as the child caught up to them and the portal.

Without hesitation he headed for the hole in reality, then, when he was three paces from it he turned toward the mages holding it open and smiled at them. His mouth spread across his cheeks and just kept spreading till it had split his head from ear to ear in such a grotesque imitation of the intended expression that, as experienced as she was, still made Valencia want to throw up.

There was something in the mouth, something like teeth, except the angles were wrong, the pupils of his eyes split from top to bottom in mirror of the stretch of the lips. From this close what had been sounding the alarmus inside the witches' mind found a name.

"Mists..." She whispered, as much an expression of horror as putting a name to the wrongness.

[Aurin]

Aurin was a bit more prepared for Valencia using him to guide her own magic this time, and did what he could once more to stay out of her way but support the portal with his own fledgling power. Then, after Wardell had gone through, it seemed for a moment as if all his ducks were in a row, the last little Whisper finally answering the call. But he could sense something wrong in the timbre of the voice, in the ease of the smile, and then what had been 'Rick became a monstrosity, and without even thinking, Aurin found his dagger buried to the hilt in the thing's neck.

"Shut the fucking portal, Valencia," he snarled, pissed not at her, but at whoever was responsible for him not keeping up his end of the bargain he had struck with Jacq. He held the monster, keeping it as still as possible as its death throes came upon it. Aurin didn't know if anyone had seen what happened, or if it was even visible through the portal. He was new to this trick. He wasn't, sadly, new to monsters, nor to killing things that looked like people.

Or people.

When the struggles didn't cease as quickly as he would have liked, he yanked, near decapitating the body. He sensed the corrupted life fleeing the thing and muttered something like a prayer that he had heard from the Grymalka, hoping nothing had damaged the kid's soul. He wiped the ichor from his blade on the corpse's shirt and tossed it aside.

"Let's go," he said, pushing away everything, even his revulsion, to be dealt with later when the work was complete.

She knew he wasn't much with Traversion yet, but she had catalogued his Runes and knew he could sense, glamour, and shield. These skills and what he could do with blades would surely come in handy.

[Rune]

Aurin's instincts were honed sharper than Valencia's in matters of violence. She couldn't feel anything but gratitude as the child-thing sputtered around the dagger and then what was probably still blood.

Ripping her aether away more harshly than she would have under other circumstances caused the portal to fall apart more than snap closed. Motes and after images of the shock on the faces seen through the opening floated before her eyes for a moment as her own aether's return hit her like a band of rubber under tension being cut.

When the abomination (even as offended as Valencia was by the use of the word, it was the only one that felt correct in this circumstance) did not stop moving quickly the redheaded man, with a snarl that he might not even have been aware of, pulled his blade around until the thing's head hung by only a few shreds of skin. Cleaning his blade as he tossed the small body away he was not the one to suggest they leave. Agreement would be pointless so, instead, she gripped his hand again, not flinching from the droplets what spattered it as she opened a four portal and took them both through.


The next several hours were belonged to bedlam and blood. The Railrunner headquarters were overrun, by those who had contracts with the coven and those who had decided that making deals with devils was safer than facing the city they loved. The most important members were already gone, as was right. They would regroup elsewhere. Valencia and the remaining cardinal members decided that opening portals to anywhere else to let people through was the best option under the circumstances and began funneling people en masse, with their will or against it. While this went on others went through the city to see how the other covens fared.

Valencia was already attempting to conserve her aether, walking where she could walk and taking only small jumps to avoid areas drench in Mist or too compacted to navigate quickly. Aurin could make such jumps on his own, and seemed to be learning from her use of Traversion even as they made their way. When they ran into a group of Sunsingers who refused to leave while the city needed their defense and several of them seemed to know Aurin, Valencia released him to fight with them. His skills were better suited to combat, and it wasn't as though he could portal people out himself. Better to let him use what aether he had left in something more useful than watching her back. Even if her back remained currently intact due to the redhead's timely guardianship during more than one tense moment.

She hoped he survived, more than most. In a way that was impossible to explain to someone who had never gifted a rune, he was hers and, if after her what remained important tasks were finished, she could come back for him, she would.