The Ashes of Allmau: The Orfolk of Allmau

Chapter 26

Dyll's confidence waned as the shadows grew darker and the path tighter. Where his eyes failed, his ears and whiskers could pick up, but as sensing his dampened, his anxieties rose. All about him in the dark he could hear the scurrying and scratching of little paws against crumbling mortar. Odd shapes moved in the dark, they looked at him, regarded him for a few seconds, before turning about and fleeing deeper. They weren't aggressive at least.

Keeping Rune close, he pushed on through the tight crawlspace. In places it opened out, but in truth it was comparable to a long, tight, dark cave. The path dived down sharply; the faint glow of daylight just highlighted the path below.

"I guess there's only one way we can go." Thought Dyll, with his hand on Rune, "What do you think?"

"You're so cool and calm." He said, patting Rune gently, "I'm terrified!"

Having come this far, he needed to see what was at the end of the tunnel. If nothing else, he could simply turn back. He took a breath and hopped along the path, landing below he slowly crawled onwards, his ears picking up odd distant whispers. He tried to focus on the voice, but it seemed so distant, a broken voice, out of focus. He continued cautiously, reaching the light at the end of the tunnel.

The tunnel opened on top of a wardrobe. His eyes adjusted as the whispering cut off instantly, as though disrupted by him. He found a few of the odd orfolk gathered on top of the wardrobe, now staring at him. Before he could say anything, they scattered. Scaling the walls to the rafters above, and scurrying across the room. Dyll climbed the rafters after them, only then seeing what they'd been watching.

The small room he was now in was the accommodation for Rosalyne, who stood staring out a window towards the towers. With her were her guards. Dyll slowly made his way along the rafters, watching the oddfolk disappear into a shaded corner.

He glanced back down and caught sight of the box sitting on a dresser in front of a mirror. Rosalyne paced across the room, to the box, and back to the window. Her mind was racing, there was thunder in the aether. The red witch had lost her composure.

"Leave me," she said to the guards.

The remained, as though unsure. Although their expressions had also fractured into something more cautious, one more angry and the other more mournful. They looked to one another.

"Go!" she demanded, and they obeyed.

Left alone, she was free to act out the thunder in her mind as her fortifications crumbled. This wasn't how it was meant to be. She would return to Allmau, there would be nothing, and everything that had happened would just be the fanciful work of a child's imagination. But they were real. They had been real. She failed them. He killed them. Her plans, the aether would – could have helped Eymier. Could it still? Was it all too late? She'd been away all too long. Was it a waste? Did she had more time?

She stood for a moment, looking at her reflection in the window, and at the end of a defeated sigh, she turned, took the box and left. There was still a crackle in the air that Dyll was unfamiliar with. An undissipated charge, as the elders of Apia had said, humans did odd things to the aether. In this case they'd stirred it up fiercely and left it swirling. With the room empty, Dyll's attention returned to the oddfolk of Langsine.

"One thing at a time." He told Rune, she agreed. He rushed along the rafters to follow them into the shadows, continuing his investigation.

The door of the apartment opened. Euol walked in and made his way straight to the balcony, casting open the doors and exhaling a nervous quivering breath. Something about that whole situation had shaken him to the core and he wanted to clear himself of the sickly-sweet incense that clung to him.