The Cursewright's Vow

Chapter 12: In Titansgrave, Part 5

 The trip from the interrogation cells in the fortress's upper levels down to the second subcellar where the morgue could be found was a lengthy and confusing one. Despite the building's history, Ammas had spent little time here and only knew a few of its secrets -- just enough to effect an escape if Thalia wasn't too concerned with keeping him a captive. They did not pass the noisome crevasse that comprised the Titan's Grave itself, but while marching down a narrow stairway that opened onto the subcellar Ammas could feel it lurking nearby like a living presence. "Titansgrave" was more than just a name; according to legend, one of the Dread Titans themselves lay eternally decomposing at the bottom of that fissure. If anyone had ever plumbed its depths to find out the truth, Ammas had never heard of it. 

The fortress's narrow corridors and oppressive architecture inspired dread rather than awe, and Ammas often supposed the fellowships that had studied and trained here must have been very strange by modern standards. Supposedly, the fellowship of cursewrights had begun here, with the Lady Terazla herself as one of the earliest arcane alumni to bear that title. But Titansgrave's history was even murkier than that of its more recently destroyed fellow academies. Myth and rumor had filled in a great many empty pages in that book.

The Argent Brand had appropriated for its morgue a vast, low-ceilinged series of vaults that were always chilly. Whether the temperature was due to natural forces or enchantment, no one seemed to know, nor did they know what the rooms' original purpose was. Once Ammas had spun a gruesome tale of it clearly being a prison for tainted elemental creatures and ever-ravenous undead beings, greatly relishing the looks of terror on the guardsmen who had been listening to him. Mielle Thalia had been there, and even she had seemed unnerved. Later he would tell Irgrin he was quite certain this was where the old fellowships had stored their beer.

Phylo Irgrin was the undisputed master of this domain. Irgrin was a former seer-magistrate who had served Munazyr for twenty years before the dissolution at the Doge's Hall of Judgments. Despite severe injuries sustained during the Emperor's purge, he continued to serve the Argent Council in a less visible capacity. "My own damned fault," he had told Ammas over drinks and Whistling Jack one night in the morgue a few years before. "I'd heard there were some refugees from Autumnsgrove and I took out a schooner to see if I could rescue them. It was a trap, of course. Argent Brandsmen found the wreck, told the Emperor's troops I was dead. I'm pretty sure the fat fuck knows I'm alive and has for maybe a decade, but I'm not worth breaking the peace."

Irgrin greeted them now, rolling over to his Captain and his arcane colleague in the custom-built wheelchair he used to traverse his realm. He wasn't fully paralyzed, and could "gimp along at a nice pace" if necessary, but it became excruciatingly painful for him to do so after only a few minutes. Ammas guessed he was perhaps five years older than his own father would have been, placing him on the latter side of his seventies. Dark brown eyes gleamed with intelligence and no small amount of spirits from a weathered face that was brown as a nut and generally unshaven, scraggly salt-and-pepper hair tumbling to the nape of his neck in waves that had been quite lush in his youth.

After a quick (and, Ammas thought, ironic) salute to Mielle Thalia, he grinned and offered Ammas his hand. Ammas took it with a smile. He and Irgrin didn't see each other often. Even in Munazyr, it was unwise for fellow alumni to spend too much time together. Rumors of collusion reaching the Malachite Throne would make it go ill for the entire city.

"I knew you'd be showing up at this mess. Shocked when I heard they actually went for you. A little surprised it didn't happen sooner if it was going to happen, though. But then I figured the wolfies knew better."

Ammas shook Irgrin's hand gently, mindful of the old joints, though the man was hale for his age, apart from his paralysis. "Apparently, they didn't. Perhaps they do now."