Nova Flare (slow updates)

Chapter 2: High Sage

The door opened to a corridor straight from medieval history, with colonnaded walls, high, arcing roof and tapestried stone walls.  By the time it wound its way into the castle's heart, Ben wasn't surprised to see a pair of crouching gargoyles, gray as granite and grinning fiercely, when they came around the last corner to a heavy set of polished wood doors.  He was surprised, however, when they moved serviceable looking pikes and crossed them in front of his mysterious benefactor.

"Purpose" the gargoyle on the left lost its smile and demanded with a throat-shredding growl.  The man gestured back at Ben.

"I've brought the smuggler to the mistress as per orders, keeper.  Now, step aside."

The pikes snapped out of the way and the doors opened silently inward.

"Proceed," the gargoyle hissed, the grin returning to its grotesque stone visage and the man chuckled softly before looking over his shoulder at a bemused Ben.

"Coming, Mr. Talbott?"

Ben eyed the two gargoyles as he stepped in between them, dancing light from the torches set high on the walls to provide illumination caressing the silver blades of their pikes.  Then they were behind him and the doors were closing as silently as they opened and Ben found himself in a vast chamber.  It was obviously the castle's great hall, its roof soaring high overhead and its walls nearly twenty metres apart, no less than four massive fireplaces, one for each wall, burning brightly to heat and light the huge room.  And, in the exact center of the great space sat a heavy wooden chair, although throne was a better word for the massive, ornately carved piece of furniture.

So massive and imposing was it, it nearly swallowed the lithe, dark robed woman who sat curled up on its plump, leather cushion.  She cocked her hooded head with feline grace as they approached, a slight smile playing across her full lips.  To say she was beautiful was like saying the castle was made of stone, perfect in a way only Nature was capable of.

"Ah, Bartholemew!  You've returned with Mr. Talbott," she purred, her silky voice sending a chill up Ben's spine.  "The transport?"

"Destroyed," the big man reported, now named as Bartholemew, with a shake of his head.  "The technomages 'cleansed' it."  He came to a halt in front of the throne to bow his head in respect to the coiled woman.

"I barely managed to retrieve Mr. Talbott before their cruiser opened fire."

Frowning as prettily as she had smiled, the woman shook her head in resignation.

"Fools," she quietly stated before lifting liquid green eyes to look past Bartholemew at Ben.  "You've mixed yourself up with some rather unsavory individuals, Mr. Talbott.  The Determined Union have done you no favors dragging you into this."

Ben grimaced as the information Geft had poured into his brain pushed insistently to the forefront as if demanding to be revealed.  He grimly stuffed it into the back of his head with a visible effort the woman easily made note of.

"No, they haven't," he conceded with a shake of his head.  "I owe your associate my life."

The woman smiled thinly as she looked at the older man for a brief moment.

"Bartholemew does have a remarkable sense of timing."  The smile vanished as she returned her gaze to Ben.  "Perhaps you'd be so kind to explain to me why my most trusted associate risked his life to spare yours from technomage wrath, Mr. Talbott."  She frowned when Ben tightened his lips in reply, obviously reluctant to share what the Union has poured into his wetware databank.

"Or not," she dryly noted, her voice tinted with disappointment.  "Very well then; we move straight to business.  But first ..."

She paused slightly.