The Wilting Ballad

7

A knock on the tiny room door sent Xarabia on his feet. A room that consists only of bed, table, and chair. He closed his writing book as he did so, "Who is it?" He called, slightly off guard in the twilight breeze.

"It's me." Answered a familiar, albeit, unpleasant voice.

Xarabia sighed and opened his creaking door. He gestured inside the woman who was his old apprentice and fellow survivor and, though it wasn't his choice, first lieutenant. Jejtsu, a once beggar who becomes one of the most respected Shīza, is one of the seven to be allowed the mark of a Star.

Jejtsu pulled the chair and slumped down facing the bed, "Sit, Xarabia. I bring news." He sat on the edge of his bed and measured the tone in which his distinguished lieutenant had spoken. She's afraid. He thought bluntly. He hasn't seen her so... unconfident before.

"Yes?" Said Xarabia, his interest peaked.

"There was... trouble at Fawnmace earlier when the evening starts. A certain man who looks noble, wearing a blue leather suit and have deep red eyes slay a bunch of hoodlums and..."

"This concerns us why?" Asked Xarabia.

Jejtsu paused, staring at him, not at all gratified. "Because he went and kill in search of Maladin." She said.

"And he found a fake Maladin." Xarabia exasperated, "We always do. Maladin doesn't show herself, you know this. She's too..." He hesitated, running through fogs of different sceneries, his eyes turned wide.

"She did this time, though." Said Jejtsu, as if reading his mind. "Those who witness the events and still have the will to speak spoke of an old lady in a ragged dress, smoking a pipe, who 'makes everyone frozen' and called 'a violent wind to those she command'. It seems after the noble was shot through his leg she binds him and... take him prisoner."

He chuckled merrily and gave an obnoxiously growling laughter that wakes all his neighboring rooms. "Oh, this is elegant. So very much elegant." He said, standing, arms out wide to his side. He could dance right now if there were any room. He spins nonetheless.

Petrified. Confused. "What is? What is it?" Jejtsu asked.

"Because for the first time since Maladin Hozeer, who threw away the honour of the mark, left us to do her deal with the devil one year ago we know where she can be located. Or rather, we're going to." He giggles once more, "I met with him, you know. Baronn."

"Baronn?"

"The blue leather-wearing noble you were speaking of. We've been acquainted beforehand, six years ago. Before... everything." He exaggerated the last word as if it was particularly hard to mutter, "He's a good man. I cannot say, however, the same for his family. Anyway, he came asking for my help, and I rejected him. Me being, who I am, I want to know all his whereabouts while staying here.''

Jejtsu grinned broadly, as if proud of Xarabia, "You have him followed.''

"Oh no no no no. I don't just have him followed. I have.... Eerie followed him." He said, speeding out the door. He knows what kind of reaction he's about to receive. Better to run, avoiding seriousness than stay and being scold.

"What! What in the big belly of Siaur were you thinking?" Jejtsu demanded, tailing her light-headed leader, "He's only a child! What if something..."

"Is that so? But also, he's a child who can change into seven different creatures. Six if you don't count his normal human self. And... he's a more efficient spy than you lot."

Jejtsu looked aghast, insulted even. "What does that mean? If it's about that time in Morbaan, I've told you numerous times that it was Cassav's fault. What you are doing is endangering the boy."

Xarabia whips his freezing eyes and rests them in the soul of Jejtsu, sending a spark of fiery fear scorching through her. "What I am doing will locate the traitor who murders our brothers and sisters. You will do well to remember. I care not about the well-being of one creature if it brings justice for our people." He pauses and looked at Jejtsu as if he can't quite understand her, "And here I thought you, Jej, of all people, will want her to be found. Don't you want to silence the woman who murders the ones who took you in? When you were starving? When you were sick? When you begged on the streets of Lyorenbatra?" He paused letting his words sink in the thoughts of Jejtsu and paced on.

He pushed open a door where inside two dirty ragged vagabond-looking fellow sleeps in a shared bed with a single candle alighted beside their heads. They were old, on the verge of their third hundred.

Feeling the warmth and seeing the light of the sun now seems like a distant dream, in dreams they were out in daylight, running around with their younger selves through plains of green that no blight reach. Full of life that was blissfully ecstatic with joyous wonder, but alas, they awake to the cold dampen room that has mold piercing cavity woods for walls, on a creaking shared bed where under bowls of their own pungent day old feces whiff in their nostrils, prickling it.

Xarabia gently wakes them, they did not rise, for it was pain to them, on the doorway stands Jejtsu with her head down, "Fathers, I have dire requirements for the Cauldron. I ask for your permission to use it." He said, with the gentleness that can calm a mad horse.

With great difficulty, the elders lying on the bed each reaches for a pouch they kept under their pillows and handed him. Xarabia loosens the pouches, inside one was a key that was round as the moon when full, inside the other was also a key but the shape of a star. "You know where it can be found?" Asked the one closer to him called Mekme, meaning keeper.

Xarabia nods, "Yes... and with it, we shall receive justice, that I promise." He bows and turns to leave.

"What will you do with it?" Wheezed out the other one called Maloi, meaning loyal.

Xarabia glances back at them, with a smile warmer than the morning sun, "Something... glorious. And quite possibly reckless." He said, and walks out the door. With the ever-serious Jejtsu close on his tail.