Sitting down on the bed, Ultrina considered the room as it currently stood. She had stirred up the little dust there was looking for something but in all honesty, she wasn’t entirely sure of what she was looking for. She needed to get to know the Princess, whose name she hadn’t even been able to decipher because High Form was not a language she used.
All that was left for her to search was the bookcase, a small set of shelves with a dozen or so books on it in High Form, near the Princess’s desk. Ultrina dreaded the very idea of trying to decipher what any of those said because she couldn’t read any of it. Yet, she had no choice but to keep looking. Somewhere in this room, there was the key to the Princess’s mind and with it the key to her spirit and ascertaining if she could be returned from the dead. Ultrina needed that key. Careful not to disturb the dust directly in her face, Ultrina pulled the first of the books from its place and looked at it. Something, something, High Form. She needed an interpretor. Someone who knew these titles and their purposes would be nice. Unfortunately, she had been locked in the room by Mongen and he was unlikely to set foot in the Princess’s chambers for fear of being struck dead by the King. So far, only Ultrina had been allowed in since the Princess’s death. Drawing another book from the shelves, Ultrina began to flip through it.
She almost put it back when she noticed something which drew her eye.
The title was in the typical and expected High Form. The note inside, Common. The note was a simple one: Corbin lives.
Ultrina didn’t know who or what Corbin was, but there was something about them or it important enough that the Princess had written their name in one of her books.
“So what are you Corbin?” Ultrina muttered to herself. This could be a clue, or it could just be a will o’ wisp chase. Will o’ wisps were dangerous, leading a person off into the darkness where something else would find them and eat them. Ultrina did not intend to be the meal of anything hanging out in the dark.
She was the larger predator anyway.
A thick and heavy knock interrupted her thinking.
“It’s near on time for supper,” said Mongen through the door.
Had it been so long? Certainly they had only just had breakfast. However, the sudden rumbling of her stomach told her it was indeed true. Time had gotten away from her as she searched.
Knowing better than to reveal what little she had been able to uncover during her time in the chamber, Ultrina tucked the information away in her mind. Corbin. The name reminded her of a bird, and birds could fly, often when it suited them. The reason for the name perhaps?
Ultrina continued to look through the books, one at a time, flipping their pages looking for more notes in Common. That was when one of them fell out of their cover completely. The cover, upon closer inspection, had once belonged to a different set of paper. Now there was a smaller book inside keeping it filled on the shelf. Ultrina picked up the pages and began to leaf through them.
Common. It was all written in Common. Ultrina blinked rapidly. “What is this?” she murmured to herself. There were dates. She flipped to the last entry in what appeared to be some kind of personal journal or log.
Becoming Corbin, if only for the night. There are those who will never understand the world I live in. Who will never see the diamond making pressure which makes me. But for the moment, I will live as Corbin and I, like a bird, will be free.
Ultrina considered the entry, eyes roving back and forth across it. Corbin lives. Was the Princess Corbin? Ultrina didn’t even know the woman’s name, just her designation as the heir to the Holy Land. Now there was a new name and it was a question of who was it in the chamber that the King had traded his life force to keep from corruption?
Ultrina tucked the smaller book away and put the cover back on the shelf with the others. She needed to read it more fully and she didn’t dare give away what she had learned so far.
A mystery awaited her, but she now needed to see about her bodily needs: first to void then to fill.
The King awaited her at the dining table when Mongen entered and Ultrina trailed behind. The book she had hidden on her person stabbed her in the ribs repeatedly as if reminding her of its presence, but Ultrina gave nothing away. She didn’t know yet what was held within its pages, but it certainly needed to be kept a secret at least for now. Corbin, whoever that was, knew something about what had happened among the royal family and Ultrina needed to know what that thing was. He or she might well know exactly what was going on with the Princess being dead. Perhaps someone had snuck into the citadel, the most heavily armored place in the Holy Land, to exact their revenge upon the royal house because of some squabble. Unfortunately, Ultrina didn’t know for certain what was going on. Instead, she had hunches which could lead to anywhere. For the moment though, she had her own problems: an empty stomach and a full bladder. She hadn’t drunk much water throughout the day, but what she had consumed at breakfast had never left. Now she needed to see about that.
Mongen turned to the King and bowed. Ultrina did not do the same, but then again, she could hardly be expected to, she was little better than a heathen in this place; her very existence an affront to those who thought death was the end of life. Of course, there was no telling what the King was thinking, he seemed absorbed in his own thoughts which were undoubtedly quite heavy from the way his brow creased.
“What have you learned?” the King posed the question to Ultrina.
“Your daughter was a learned one,” Ultrina said guardedly. She didn’t want to set him off, but she also didn’t know what she was expected to have learned in the time she had been locked in the Princess’s chambers. The King waved the compliment away as one would swat a fly from their food.
“I mean what have you learned about my daughter to help retrieve her from the afterlife?”
His question did not surprise her, nor did it make her nervous. It was, in fact, expected. The Princess being returned from the afterlife was the key to the bargain. The key to Ultrina’s freedom and continued life. If she failed to deliver, the King would have her beheaded. Granted, he could very well have her beheaded the moment his daughter opened her eyes and gazed once more upon the world. Ultrina shrugged and hid a wince as the book stabbed her once again.
“I do not read in High Form,” she admitted. “It makes it difficult to read your daughter’s private papers to make me privy to her thoughts. Did she have companions? Someone with whom I could speak to teach me her ways?”
“She had a nursemaid and a playmate from young age,” he said. “However, she has not needed either as of some time. Therefore, no, she was a solitary creature, my daughter. One who thought herself above those who dared to call themselves my court.”
Ultrina couldn’t help hearing the bitterness in his voice. Was it reproach for her death or reproach of the life she had chosen to live? Ultrina did not know, but it made things all the more interesting. The doting father might well have been little more than an act. Then again, there could be other things weighing on him. Ultrina resolved to tread carefully.
“So she had no friends of her own? Not even a cherished maid who might have been privy to her secrets?” Though she had little to go on, Ultrina could not help wondering if loneliness might well have caused the girl to strike out on her own. It would explain a great deal. The sumptuous food set out before them gave off delicious aromas, but Ultrina needed to void her bladder before she could hope to sit and eat anything. “I need to relieve myself,” she said abruptly, all too aware of her rising from her seat causing Mongen to do the same.
“You are not to wander about the citadel unattended.”
“Then attend me,” Ultrina said flatly. “Or send for Tal, if you think you would rather not go.”
Sending for Tal took mere moments, she must have been waiting right outside the door for Mongen’s signal. The small woman took Ultrina’s hand in her own and kissed it, a gesture of subservience that Ultrina hardly believed. However, she had little time to worry about it. If she didn’t hurry, she was going to pee in her breeches. Tal led the way out of the dining room and through a set of ornate hallways which Ultrina didn’t even try to follow where they were going. She allowed herself to be led through those halls until they reached a red door.
“Here,” Tal said. “Always the red doors.”
The red door led into a private room with a water filled pot. Despite her full bladder, Ultrina chuckled to herself. The extravagance of having something like this in one’s home seemed strange even here in the center of the Holy Land’s royal power. A chamber pot full of scented water to relieve one’s self in, such waste. Yet she stripped herself of her breeches and used the pot anyway. When in the citadel, do as those who are in the citadel do. However, now she knew what that red door in the Princess’s chambers led to. She hadn’t looked beyond it in her efforts to find out what was going on because Ultrina had become preoccupied with the bookcase and its contents. Now she wondered what, when there were no leaves, one used to wipe themselves. A small heap of rags sat beside the pot and a basket of them on the other side of the room. Ultrina grasped their use quickly and then of course she shook her head. Clean rags best used for wounds to wipe one’s self with over a pot of scented water to hide the smell of the humanness. It was to laugh.
Tal awaited her outside the door.
“I want to go back to my room,” Ultrina said.
“Certainly you won’t overlook the chance to dine with the King.”
“I need peace and quiet to consider what I have learned and how I might best use it to his advantage,” she whispered. “Have food brought if there is to be any and make whatever excuses you want.” What she truly needed was to get the book out of her tunic before she developed a livid purple bruise on her ribs which she would later have to explain. Tal nodded without a word and then led the way back to Ultrina’s quarters where she let the woman in and then disappeared.
Ultrina retired to the edge of the room and stared at the tapestries for a few moments waiting for the footfalls to completely cease. Then she dragged the book out from under her tunic and flipped it open once more to the final entry. Corbin. A bird undoubtedly. Free as a bird instead of caught in a gilded cage. Ultrina had to wonder where the Princess had flown to. Of course, there was no telling without going through the diary which seemed to span several years.
Good. It would offer her insight into the Princess as she was before she died and truthfully before even that. And perhaps, if she delved further, she would be able to find out how to return her from the afterlife with as little fight as possible. All things considered, Ultrina had a mystery on her hand and she didn’t dare let it go without looking into it.
She flipped back to the beginning of the diary and began to read. It was written in a mix of High Form and Common with script one might find more akin to a child on some of the letters. It spoke of a day when she and her father spent time together.
“A happy memory,” Ultrina murmured. Something the Princess would retreat to. Ultrina flipped forward a few pages, the script became steadier and the dates progressed forward. Now there were tear stains on the pages here and there and the script had become full Common, as if she had something to hide. There was something poignant about the Princess’s pain in those pages. It reached out to Ultrina with grasping claws to drag her in. A spirit suffering. A spirit waiting for death was contained in those pages.
But what Ultrina couldn’t quite come up with was why. The Princess had everything that she could want, so why was she begging for death? Ultrina pressed on. Those entries became frantic, but the name Corbin kept showing up. As if the Princess were invoking them as a talisman against the grief she felt.
“Corbin is yourself.” Ultrina said. Was that her given name? Ultrina growled in frustration. She didn’t know and no one seemed to treat her as a simple woman with a name. It was infuriating. Corbin, if it wasn’t her given name, lived a life of adventure outside the walls of the citadel. Choosing to appear at place called the Gilded Lion. Ultrina wondered if she would be allowed to go there. If she wasn’t allowed, she would still go, but she would have to be quick about it. “Disappear and return without anyone knowing I’m gone.”
It couldn’t be terribly far away. The Princess had to be able to get there and back on foot at night without anyone noticing, unless there was something else afoot which Ultrina didn’t think there was. It might have been a simple case of the Princess needing more excitement than anyone dared to allow her to have. A knock at the door brought Ultrina out of her thoughts and into the immediate moment where she hid the book underneath her where she sat. She didn’t dare admit to having taken anything out of the Princess’s room. Much less something so dear as a personal diary.
Tal reentered with a tray balanced before her.
“I thought you might actually be hungry, so I brought you some of the food.” Before she put it down on the nearby table, she looked at Ultrina meaningfully. “Did you learn anything?”
“Such as?”
“What’s happened to our Princess?”
“You mean, your Princess,” Ultrina corrected. “I’m just a heathen unworthy of life, remember?”
“I never said that about you.”
“You don’t have to. Everyone knows that. You’re simply polite enough not to say it.”
Tal colored at her cheeks, her bright skin giving it away easily. “I don’t think that about you.”
“Tal, why are you still in here?”
While she might have been interested in knowing what Tal was thinking, Ultrina didn’t care to try and pull it out of her. Instead, she wanted to know and know now what Tal was doing remaining in her room. Beyond the door, shuffling was heard and Ultrina flicked her gaze in it’s direction.
“Mongen,” Tal began. Ultrina shook her head, whatever came after the name of the Royal Guard Captain was enough to make her not want her meal, so she preferred not to hear it. Instead, she thought about getting up, but the book reminded her of its presence under her legs. Instead, Ultrina sat there and waited for Tal to say her piece. The headdress of her station wasn’t askew, but Ultrina could tell it was a little off from its usual prim and proper placement.
“Mongen,” Tal started again. “Wanted me to make sure you’re doing something to actually see this through.”
“He no longer trusts me?”
“He’s never trusted you,” Tal said. “And don’t think he’s forgotten about how your creature killed every one of his men he left behind at that camp. He’s had to go through with messages for all of those families. Some of them had their own triads, you know.”
To have progressed so far in life only to be cut down, Ultrina mused. Of course, there was nothing she could do to bring them back. The Holy Land law of burning the bodies made it difficult to resurrect anyone. Which only made it stranger the Princess’s body wasn’t burned. There would undoubtedly be those who thought it necessary, but for now, the King had preserved his daughter for all to see.
The Consummation ball would be soon. In less than a month’s time to be certain, but there was no telling how long it would take Ultrina to bring the Princess back, especially if they insisted on treating her as if she were a danger the entire time. She knew she would be given the sacrifice, but then again, a sacrifice wasn’t all she needed. Knowledge. She needed knowledge. Knowledge the diary hinted at was out in the streets of the Citadel where there were others who knew the Princess by the name of Corbin.
“He doesn’t have to trust me,” Ultrina said. “He has to let me work. If I cannot deliver, then the King will see to it that I suffer for it.”
“Yes, by making Mongen cut off your head and then they will burn your body to insure you don’t return to haunt them.”
Oh toothless saw, necromancers returning to haunt those who had done wrong by them. It wasn’t without merit, but it also wasn’t just necromancers one had to worry about. The ghost pit should have taught them that. In that moment, Ultrina was back in those dank halls under the mountain waiting for something to come. The ghost she had brought with her waited quietly in the background as if he needed to be acknowledged before she could call him into action. Ultrina’s eyes shifted to see the spirits of those near her. Tal’s burned like a white flame, undoubtedly her power made manifest through her soul. The ghost however hovered in a great darkness, an anger which could not be fully contained.
“Mongen doesn’t have to worry about that,” Ultrina said her concern anything but real. “He’s going to be able to put away his sword, I’m going to deliver.”
Ultrina flipped through the diary more and more as the night went on after Tal left. The food, practically forgotten, grew cold where it sat on the tray. She knew she had to key to what she needed to know in front of her, but she definitely needed to figure out exactly where the key led before she could make her next plan of action. Finding a way out of the citadel seemed imperative if she was going to talk to these people who had known the Princess as Corbin. Corbin, a young man who appeared out of nowhere and disappeared just as well. Ultrina couldn’t help but chuckle. There were certainly things which were necessary to the disguise, such as a binder, which she had to find. Ultrina had a plan forming in her mind.
“I have to follow in Corbin’s tracks,” she murmured to herself and that meant getting to the Gilded Lion. Of course, there was the simple problem of her being confined to the citadel. Nothing would make Mongen allow her out, that much she didn’t even consider. Therefore, she had little choice but to consider sneaking out. Sneaking out under the nose of the Royal Guard, she closed her eyes and shook her head. There was something frightening about that prospect and exhilarating. She hadn’t snuck away from the authorities in some time, her choice to become nomadic had made it largely unnecessary. However, that didn’t mean she didn’t know how. All she truly needed was a distraction. One that couldn’t be tied to her though. Distractions were only good if they did their job of keeping the folks occupied for long enough that she could disappear under their nose.
A small part of her considered whether or not she could just ask the King to allow her to leave. Ask him for her freedom in order that she might complete the task he set before her; unfortunately, she didn’t trust him to allow her such. He would, most likely, see it as her attempting to sneak away from her asked duty. With a sigh, she went back to thinking of ways to sneak out from under everyone’s nose. Mongen, who was undoubtedly expecting something, would be the one she most needed to take care of. Tal might, or might not, be an issue as well. Ultrina considered how she could manage to get the Royal Guard Captain out of the way at least temporarily. In all truth, she didn’t want to hurt anyone. Hurting people and not killing them left enemies at one’s back, she’d found, so she preferred to finish what she’d started; however, in this case, that simply wasn’t a good course of action. A sly serpentine thought slithered through her mind, could she perhaps recruit Mongen? Get him to help her or at least not stand in her way. Drumming her fingers on the book, Ultrina invited that thought in and let it unfold for a bit.
Mongen, Captain of the Royal Guard, helping her escape. That would be one for the bards. Tal might help, but that was an awful size might. The Sister might well turn her in to curry favor if things came down to that. No, she was going to have to do this on her own. There was no one in the citadel who could help her, but if she was going to make a distraction, she was going to have to learn more about how the citadel ran. Otherwise, she could make it in the wrong place and end up running right into the arms of her captors to be executed. No, she didn’t dare just run off without a plan.
Again she came to the thought that the Gilded Lion couldn’t be too far away. It had to be close enough the Princess could dart out and dart back before sunrise and the return to her duties, whatever those were. After thumbing through the book a bit more, Ultrina fell upon an entry with a cryptex and a key. Another something she would need, undoubtedly. With a deepening mystery, she went to the door of her room and opened it carefully. There was no one immediately in the hall; however, that didn’t mean there was no one around the corner, out of sight, waiting for her to make a move. She shut the door and leaned against it. The obvious answer is usually a bad one. She couldn’t go out that way. Mongen and his would be expecting that. Most likely she couldn’t go out the window either, they would be expecting that. How, her brain turned on the question, how was she to escape? Without killing anyone the citadel would miss? Her door wasn’t locked, more for convenience than because they trusted her. It was far easier to barge into a room without a locked door than one that was.
Her saddlebags lay in a heap near the door and Ultrina considered them as well. She had a few things in there she would prefer others didn’t know she had, but that didn’t mean much when she knew she had been searched. If they were still there, she knelt next to the bags and started to rummage, then they simply didn’t know what they were and couldn’t be bothered with taking what they couldn’t identify. A few small vials greeted her hands as she searched and a smile crept across her face. Maybe she would have some luck after all. Between the scroll in the heft of her ax and the vials they hadn’t taken either out of disinterest or fear, she could possibly do a great deal. Now she still needed a plan, but something might come together once she had rested. Ultrina replaced the vials in the saddlebags and hefted the entire apparatus over her shoulder before heading into the bedroom. Though there was a four poster bed in the center of the room, Ultrina crawled under it. She didn’t want to be in the bed should someone decide to attack. Covers were a devil to deal with in an emergency. So she slept on the floor beneath the bed, darkness all around hiding her and shielding her, while she waited for daylight to show itself once again.
Ultrina pondered the next day. Would she be trotted out before the King again before being locked in the Princess’s chambers again for the day? If the King wished to see her, he would. If he did not, he wouldn’t. Such was the nature of being the King. Envisioning the high windows in the Princess’s chambers, Ultrina tried to remember if she had actually looked out them at any point to see what was directly around the chamber. Her recollection was spotty, which meant she might have looked but didn’t really observe what was out there. She hadn’t been looking with purpose. Now she needed to look with purpose. The Princess’s rooms obviously had some route of escape which would allow her to disappear; otherwise, how would the Princess have gotten in and out without being noticed? Unless there was someone on the inside who was looking the other way? Interesting possibility. Did someone know something she could use, and she just hadn’t found out who they were yet? The questions settled into her mind like seeds as she closed her eyes to the room.
The next morning, Mongen walked into the chambers assigned to the Puppeteer and quite nearly called for a search of the citadel for her before realizing she had not left her rooms. Ultrina stuck her hand out from under the bed to the sound of her name being called a moment before he summoned the rest of the guard.
“What are you doing there?” he asked pointedly, his annoyance at her behavior showing through.
“I’m resting,” came the voice from under the bed. “What are you doing here so early?”
“It isn’t early. The sun has been up for hours and you are expected to continue your inspection of the Princess’s chambers for clues as to her death.”
“Understood,” yawned Ultrina mangling the word. Mongen scowled. She seemed awfully lazy for one whose life was on the line. Tal’s information from the night before told him nothing he couldn’t figure out for himself. This puppeteer had something up her sleeve. Of course, she did. His suspicions rose further when it appeared she was gone without having left the room. He didn’t know the extent of their powers but he knew puppeteers were dangerous.
“Rise and come with me,” he said.
Ultrina took her time rising from where she had lain for the night, dragging herself from under the bed, her saddlebags in tow. When she did not set them down again, but swung them up on her shoulders, Mongen asked,
“What are you doing with those?”
“I’m taking them with me.”
“What for?”
“Because there might be a reason,” she said seemingly all too aware of how things might appear to him. She was preparing to escape. He couldn’t let her.
“No,” Mongen said. “You will leave those here and you will have them when you return.”
“I will need things from within for the ritual to restore the Princess,” Ultrina said deliberately. “Having to send someone for them will only slow down the process. The sooner I’m done, the sooner I’m free.” She made no move to drop the bags.
Mongen, his size often making him intimidating, moved into her space and reached for the bags. “They are to stay here,” he said.
Ultrina sized him up with eyes far darker than they had been a moment before. The edges of her teeth began to show between her lips. Mongen felt the ire rising like steam off her body. Then she touched him, her eyes nothing better than a starless night.
Ultrina came back to herself a moment after she had shoved Mongen’s spirit out of his body and realized what she had done. The scroll told her such a thing was possible but she had never done it. Then again, these last days had been first for a number of things. However, she knew she had maybe a few minutes before someone discovered the giant leaning against the wall, but of course, there was nothing she oculd do about it just then. She would have to make a run for it. Damn it. Of course she was going to have to make a run for it when there was nothing further that she could do. That had not been her plan. However, it dovetailed just fine with what was going on. She needed to get out of the castle immediately. SHe didn’t dare take his things, but she needed to get out of the citadel without being noticed. Therefore, she would need to take his cape. Taking his cape was probably something that could get her executed, but having the royal purple of the captain of the guard would help her to get away from pursuit at least for now. She would come up with a better plan once she was outside the citadel walls and into Renate proper. Perhaps she wouldn’t even have to think about it until she reached the Gilded Lion. Rolling Mongen over took a moment, perhaps exacerbated by the fact that she wasn’t sure if he was breathing. Had she killed him accidentally? No, his soul had been removed, but the body had not been killed. Instead his body continued to breathe and his heart thudded thick in his chest. At least she didn’t have to saddle herself with that guilt as well.
She took the cape and headed for the nearest portal out of the place.
Getting out of the citadel wrapped in the cape of a Royal Guard Captain was simple enough. No one glanced at her twice, despite her obvious to her difference from the rest of the guard. She didn’t try to hail them or anything of the kind, but simply moved as though she were in need of being somewhere quickly. Alba was in the stable waiting for her. She saddled her horse and trotted him into the yard. No one stopped her, thankfully. She needed to be quick.
The alarm would be raised soon enough with Mongen down and her gone. There would be no question of her escaping from the King’s custody. However, she needed more information than she had to do what was asked. Therefore, she was doing what she was told, even if it didn’t look that way.