Beyond the Void

Chapter 79, This visage

of Stagnation 419 - With the rise of the Freehold of Whitefall, a new major player entered Tavran. As the Freehold grew richer and richer, it attracted the attention of mages from the surrounding lands who in turn founded the Arcane Crux as a counter to the Eternal Empire of Tavran. 

An excerpt from the diary of Pia...

AERIN

Five moons and two tens since the Mark of the Other One blossomed.

Heart pounding, Aerin walked past the man. She turned the corner and saw that Sonera was not alone anymore. "I told you he wouldn't notice!" She exclaimed. "Nice of you to finally drop by, Garret." Aerin added in a colder voice.

"By the Six Makers, what are the two of you up to?" The ragged keeper demanded.

"Have you slept at all?" Sonera asked. "You look terrible, Garret."

"Never mind me and tell me what is going on? What are you two up to? What is that thing up to?" Garret demanded with bulging eyes.

"It was a bet. He doesn't pay attention to anything. I could easily grab that coin pouch of his. Shame there's not much in it." Aerin sighed. "It is unsettling."

"What is?" Garret and Sonera asked together.

"He stands there and stares into the air. Sometimes his mouth moves as if he is talking. And I can walk right past his face and he does not notice a thing." Aerin explained.

"He is eating an apple." Sonera remarked dryly.

"Dresden's information was reliable. He is about town, interested in the most meaningless things. Yet no one still knows where the bastard sleeps. Or where his friends have gone." Garret complained with a weary sigh.

"He has a lot of gall to stay in Ironcourt." Sonera growled.

"Or rather." Garret had paid no mind to Sonera's comment. "You still haven't found out where the bastard sleeps. Aerin." He kept his gaze on Aerin.

"That's the unsettling part. He pays no attention to his surroundings right now. But come evening, he disappears." Aerin shied away from Garret's gaze. What she said, was not entirely true.

"He looks familiar. I've never seen a human like him but I can't shake the feeling I have seen the prick somewhere." Garret said and Sonera looked meaningfully at Aerin.

Aerin bit her lip and said nothing.

"The more I look at the bastard, the more I keep remembering Will. But that can't be right. I mean look at him. Even Pelesians don't look like that. And he is no Alyar either."

"That's a stretch, Garret." Aerin mumbled.

"He has to know we are here." Sonera kept following her own train of thought. "He has to be a bloodmage! He has to be able to read presences. Why do we have to keep this idiotic surveillance on him?" Sonera demanded from Garret. She even punched the scraggy keeper in the side.

"And you can do what fifty other snatches, keepers and messengers couldn't. If you can catch the arsehole here and now, by all means." Garret said incredulously.

"The gatekeeper told us to do more than observe." Sonera grumbled.

"Bassor tells us a lot of things. Right now, we keep an eye on him. If you ask me, Bassor has lost it. We should count our losses and move on. No one died, but as of this morning twenty-some of our people are unable to work." Sonera's head turned sharply in Aerin's direction when Garret said those words. "Bassor has forgotten how we operate."