The School of the Dragon, Lighthome District, Clockwork Empire
Sometime in the Age of Clockwork
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
- larkin.
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
- larkin.
"Desperate times..." began Thrinó.
"...desperate measures," finished his twin sister, Níre.
"Necessary measures," corrected the princess. She, like the rest of them, were not dressed for their station, but then, Sol'Valen no longer existed - not really. Aranel was of a royal bloodline. None of that mattered with the cloven foot of Kaitos Diraegon on the neck of their people.
They were a necessarily small unit of revolutionaries, and they had already gone over the strategy and the risks. Their intelligence was good and it said there was an artefact from the Age of Dreams here, possibly of divine origin. If not divine, then the creation of a Hytori archmagus. It amounted to the same thing, really. The gods had seemingly forsaken them, and the godless Lysanrin strode over their lands, gloating.
The Solomonari of the School of the Dragon kept many things that didn't belong to them, either for study, to drain their power, or to enact atrocities upon the conquered peoples. Most here present only cared about the Hytori victims, but some of them were coming around to Dhruv's point of view. They may well be the First Children of the Gods, but the Gods' younger children were suffering, too. Malgar had had His due.
Níre unfolded a sketch of the interior of the School, though they had all of them memorized it and their route. But it was a place of magic, and she, rare for their kind, had none of her own. Her blades could kill faster than most sorcerers could cast, of course, and she was hardly defenseless. Add to that, her brother was likely to come to her aid with magic even before a royal bloodline or the rest of their crew.
"Hst!" Thrinó's warning made them all freeze, but it was merely their contact.
The blue-skinned goat man in his red-slashed black robes looked somewhere between nervous, impatient, and righteously angry. Thankfully, he wasn't angry at them, but at the other Solomanari for whatever reasons. If his blighted ambitions helped them abscond with weapons of mass destruction or defense or utility, well, all the better. They wished the worst upon their oppressors. He waved for them to follow, then turned without waiting to see if they would. While he seemed sympathetic to their cause, he was still a Solomonar.
Aranel hooked Dhruv by the elbow, giving him a look and followed the Lysanrin. Her people fell into step. They were dressed like servants, weapons and tools hidden in their drab clothes. Even the high-blooded princess stooped her shoulders and looked at the hem of Qortos' robes. A princess among slaves was still a slave, and they had to look the part whenever they passed other people. She had enjoined him, however, to keep an eye upon their patron in larceny, lest he show signs of proving untrustworthy. She had said over last night's fire, "I want this too much to trust my judgement alone."
And so she trusted Dhruv's.
"Hurry!" Qortos hissed, waving the last of them in through a door. He closed it precisely, clockwork shifting bolts hither and thither, and then he shoved Thrinó forward, trying to get them to move. It was rude, sure, but as they moved down the hallway, their point of ingress was covered by an iris of stone, and the whole building began to rumble and shake, shifting its shape as it was wont to do. Their map would only work between shifts. Then they would be blind.