Iron Bullet Legacy

Chapter 1: Stranger Beyond the Veil

Stranger Beyond the Veil

Sitara's POV

One part rosemary. One part basil. Steeped in three parts storm water preheated over a fire of birch...

Lennox hollers on the other side of the door. "Wait! Please retract your wings upon entering!" It's too late. Glass shatters as she calls out the warning. "We are not a wing friendly environment!"

I creep out onto the service floor to find the local dew harvester, Aster, in a flurry, wings now out of sight.

"Oh, do mind me! I hadn't even given the thought!"

She never does.

My apprentice gathers fistfuls of her hair, sighing in defeat. Luckily, the smashed mason jars were empty, but the wind also extinguished four of the white candles we light each morning to purify our workspace. She'll have to reenchant them before we can burn them again. "It's not like there's a sign beside the entrance."

I wink at her with a shrug as she grabs a wool cloth to wrap the broken glass in. "You can leave that in the back. I'll transmute it later."

She nods, mouth agape to respond, but the frenzied faerie quickly refocuses our attention on her.

"Ah good, you're both here! Please help! There's a human! I brought it here from the waypoint on the outskirts of North Haven!"

A human? In these parts? This late at night? "The waypoint down the road, at the edge of the forest?"

"You must help! Outside, quickly!"

Lenny raises her eyebrows as we exchange a glance. That waypoint can't be accessed directly from the portals on the human side. The dew mistress doesn't let us get a word in, though, mobilizing her wings again and fluttering out the door. The flames of two more candles reduce to smoke. Lenny loudly proclaims that today just isn't her day.

We follow the trail of mist and sparkling dust towards my practice's emergency entrance, where Aster is crouching beside a limp body almost a whole hare taller than any of us. It'd be a wonder she was able to transport it alone if not for her profession. I check for the pulse beneath a thick cloak and turtleneck. She's right. Definitely human. A deeply unconscious one, it seems.

"I didn't know who else to bring him to. I found him lying face down on my way to work."

The visible lacerations on his hands and face are only superficial, meaning something else caused him to pass out. "Lennox, could you retrieve the stretcher?"

"Hemp or leather?"

"Leather. This man is very much alive." Hemp is reserved for necromancy and the deceased. "Where exactly did you find him again?"

She motions behind me, beyond the roots of my residence. "Not more than a few yards from the waypoint down this road, just on the edge of the path."

Maybe he knows a neighbor and came to visit... Doesn't explain why he's in such rough shape, though. "Alright. We'll take care of him right away. Would you like to rest? Bringing him here must've taken a toll on you." By the looks of his grass stained pant legs, she surely dragged him up to my tree.

"Nonsense! He's hardly heavier than a bucket of dew. I'll get on my way and leave you to your magic."

Well, that's my job, after all. I find I have to remind myself these days, but that's not what they see. The only known Mage of the Eight on either side of the veil. Aside from repairing broken bowls (or jars) and the rare oneiromancy sessions reading other faerie's dreams, work hasn't demanded anything my apprentice can't handle on her own.

A human, though... This has my full attention, for sure.

Upon carrying him inside, 'hardly heavier than a bucket of dew' is not how I'd describe the stranger, but Lenny and I are able set him up in the treatment ward just beside the service floor. The room is small, with two beds and cabinets overflowing with little rhyme or reason. I conjure a set of cedar logs to heat the space and establish healing energy. We usually care for fae back here, but he isn't our first human patient.

All species are welcome on the enchanted side of the veil, but I have no idea what this human in particular has been doing, let alone why he's unresponsive.

"Maybe he's a merchant?" Lenny proposes, gathering some honey and sea water before I even ask for them. She stacks his tall boots and cloak on a nearby chair as I hand her them. I move to open the leather satchel he'd been carrying over his shoulder, but she grabs it and adds it to the stack. "Don't go through his things! It's impolite."

"Well, he isn't carrying any goods to sell," I counter, "that I can see, anyway." It all looks similar to military garb, yet the metal accents are iron, a faerie's only natural menace, able to melt a our skin. It takes us both to strip him of his fancy coat with shiny buttons and caps on the shoulders.

"This looks like a colonel's jacket, of sorts, doesn't it?"

Of sorts, but not entirely. "If so, he must be undercover with the military." That, or he stole this. "The buttons aren't branded with the usual insignia. The boots aren't military issue, either." Not to mention this hair is far from regulation. I gently comb through the loose ponytail with my fingers, tucking the strays out of his face. His hair is soft and nightfall black, and just a little longer than mine.

"What if it was some drug exchange gone bad?" she suggests with a laugh, gesturing theatrically.

A smuggler wouldn't dress so obviously foreign and flashy... what human would though, traveling through here? I lay him flat on the bed and unbutton his shirt, revealing patches of abrasions on his chest. Blood-soaked gauze clings to a gash across his stomach. It looks like it wasn't even treated. "Can you bring me a bucket of water and extra cloths?"

She rushes out of the room.

These wounds are a mix of shallow incisions and some superficial punctures from lame slivers. Who is he? What is he? I reach for the man's satchel. Impolite or not, I don't intend to blindly trust this perfect stranger. There's no identification in the front pockets, but I find a few different kinds of currency and some pink sweater buttons. I feel around the main compartment, settling on a familiar frame. A gun. Not just any gun, an F3, clearly some new advancement, though. I don't bother examining it further, quickly popping the magazine, pocketing the bullets, and stuffing a few loose sprigs of sage in their place. I busy myself with halving the sea water, some for a healing tea and some for his injuries, as Lenny returns.

"I wasn't sure if we had any candles left in here, so I brought a few black, white, and red."

I smile, avoiding her eyes. "Do you know me at all? I have too many candles everywhere." I contrive one from my planar pocket. "On my person. At all times."

She laughs, shaking her head. Telling her the man was travelling armed will only worry her, or fuel those drug running notions. No need to do that. Lennox is like a little sister I adopted after the war. We aren't really family, but I vowed to protect her the moment I took her in, with my life, if necessary.

My eyes fall on the human again. Unconscious, he does look peaceful. Conscious may be another case. "Hey, Lenny, do you think we should chain him here for when he wakes up, just in case?"

"Isn't that a little drastic?"

Maybe. Doesn't seem like he's a salt runner. The way I see it, it's possible he could've traveled here through the other waypoints, but what business could he have in this area? It's largely residential. It could have been an accident, or misdirection, perhaps? My only other working theory is that he slipped through the veil from the human side, either through a new tear or one I've failed to discover. But how in hazel could he have done that?

And why does he have a gun with iron bullets?