Chapter Text
Essek sat at his desk, hands shaking so hard that he could barely read the piece of paper he was clutching. It didn’t matter; he’d read it already. He knew exactly what doom it spelled.
His contacts in the Dynasty, his allies with whom he kept in loose contact, probably hadn’t even meant to tip him off – it wasn’t as if they knew, after all. But a word here and a name there had kept him on edge, recently, and then this letter…this…
Being in Eiselcross had, without question, saved him. Had he been in the Dynasty, where magic worked normally and hence could be contained without complication, he had no doubt he would have simply been arrested, no second chances, no mercy for a traitor to the Bright Queen. Instead, they were trying to lure him back, and Light above, he knew he should go, but he’d come so far, and there was no way they could see that. He’d been handed a second chance by the people he’d come to care about most in the world, and he’d be damned before he threw that away.
So Essek picked up the bag he’d been keeping under his desk ever since he’d parted ways with Caleb in this very room after they both returned from Aeor the second time, and with one last look around the study that he knew he’d never see again, teleported to Uthodurn.
He never imagined they’d be waiting for him there.
They shouldn’t have been able to guess exactly where in the city he’d go. They shouldn’t have been able to see through his magical disguise to know it was him. He’d had his guard up, naturally, so why had he been surprised when an unfamiliar elf shoved past him on the street, and he’d looked down to see a dagger sunk hilt-deep in his gut?
It was too late by that point; his grunt of pain made no sound as it left his lips, and he realised he was within a Silence spell. As he raised his hands and mentally ran through all the spells which didn’t require verbal components, a drow broader and taller than he was grappled him from behind, slamming him to the floor. With his arms pinned to his sides, he hit the ground hard, his cheekbone scraping across the rough stone and his ribs protesting the weight as the bigger drow knelt on top of him. The dagger was pulled free with a gout of blood.
“Wait, please!” he tried to beg, but no sound emerged.
A second pair of knees dug into his back as hands grappled his arms behind him, twisting his shoulders painfully then holding his wrists tight. Someone pried his fists open, then suddenly Essek felt the impact of a cudgel across the knuckles of his right hand with bone-splintering force. The pain was blinding, and Essek screamed, feeling the reverberations of his voice through his skull with no audio to complement it, and just as he thought he was running out of breath, the blunt weapon came down across his other hand and the pain redoubled.
They were taking away his ability to cast. Panic and adrenaline coursed through Essek’s body, even as he knew it was futile – as long as whoever was casting Silence held their concentration, he had already lost. That feeling was reinforced as someone grabbed his hair and yanked his head backwards, trying to stuff something into his mouth, though Essek clenched his teeth as hard as he could, resisting, until –
He couldn’t see much, from his face-down position on the ground, but out of the corner of his eye he swore he saw a large animal leap, followed by the weight on his back suddenly lessening. The cloth fell away from his mouth and Essek squirmed, trying to get a better view.
And then, suddenly, sound came back into the world. Like the shock of teleporting into a busy place, shouts and the thuds of impacts met Essek’s ears, and he didn’t think. He just pictured safety, and using his last high-level spell, vanished from Uthodurn.
~
He’d only scried on Caleb Widogast’s new house once before, and as soon as he appeared in the street Essek knew he’d messed up. At least there was no one around as he pushed himself shakily to his elbows and knees, waiting for his head to stop spinning and watching blood drip from his stomach. He tried not to look at his hands. Nausea rose in his throat and Essek barely had time to lean sideways before the remains of his lunch from hours earlier made a reappearance, filling his mouth with the taste of bile and making his entire body shiver.
When he felt ready, he stumbled to his feet, leaning heavily against the wall, silently grateful that Disguise Self wasn’t a concentration spell, and hence hadn’t dropped through the ambush. He wasn’t sure he could have cast it again, not with his hands as they were. Thanks to the spell, his clothes still looked pristine from the outside, but he could feel the tacky blood drying on his real clothes around the stab wound in his gut, and he pressed his wrists into it in the hope that perhaps he could slow the bleeding long enough to get help.
What “help” entailed entirely depended on where he was now. There was no point delaying it. Essek swallowed the lingering taste of bile in his mouth, and stepped out of the alleyway.
Between one step and the next, sunlight blasted him and Essek’s vision went white, a hot bolt of pain lancing through his skull as he staggered back into the shadows, his legs nearly giving out from under him. Light above, that hurt – literally. He stayed there, trembling, for at least a minute before he found the strength to move again. The next time he stepped out of the shadows, he was more prepared, his head angled downward and his eyes almost closed. The light was still bright, and felt uncomfortably hot on his face and neck, but it was bearable, for the most part.
It had been just past sunset when he left Eiselcross, and at this time of year, he knew that the sun would be setting later to the south. Given the low angle of the rays, he reckoned he couldn’t be too far south, or west, which was good. Even better, though the streets were wholly unfamiliar to him, Essek recognised the Dwendalian architecture of the buildings around him, and the street signs in Zemnian, which he could not read well but felt oddly familiar with after spending hours listening to Caleb’s quiet monologues in the evenings they spent preparing spells in the Tower, or puzzling out his room’s copy of Der Katzenprinz in the early mornings while waiting for Caleb to finish his rest.
As he walked down the street, trying to look as innocuous as possible despite his awkward gait – unused to going about on foot rather than floating – Essek spotted a couple more signs containing the word Rexxentrum, and felt a flood of sharp relief mingled with dull fear. He hadn’t been too far off with his teleport after all – but if he was spotted by a member of the Assembly before he could find Caleb’s house, it might have been better if he’d allowed himself to be taken by the soldiers from Rosohna. At least then someone might know what had happened to him.
He knew he had to head for the Tangles. He knew it was a relatively nice part of town, next to the Shimmer Ward with its many towers, so surely it would not be too hard to find? Essek scanned the streets and the rooftops, looking for any sort of clue, but nothing seemed to provide evidence one way or another.
Knowing it would be of no use to stand still, Essek picked a street and began walking. Hopefully he’d find somewhere with a better view soon, and be able to orient himself.
Half an hour later, Essek had to admit he was hopelessly lost. Not only that, but his ankles felt rubbed raw in their shoes, and the soles of his feet ached so badly that the pain seemed to pulse all the way up to his knees. He was pretty sure the people who saw him on the street thought he was on some kind of drugs, shaking and shambling but unbloodied to the casual eye, and he did not blame them when they gave him a wide berth. He’d rather not have a stranger pry anyway, even if he could have asked them for directions.
He had to admit, though, he was running out of energy. His stomach had continued to ooze blood around his wrists, and that probably wasn’t good – he didn’t know the consequences of slow blood loss, biology was not his subject of research or reading, but the shivering had been getting worse, and he felt cold, now, even in the fading sunlight. A strange, dream-like quality had settled over everything, and occasionally his sense of up and down did a little dip-and-weave and he had to catch himself before he faceplanted. He wondered, with a detached curiosity, who would find him if he just lay down by one of these closed storefronts and quietly bled out. Someone would probably be quite surprised. Caleb would be quite sad. He didn’t want that.
He kept going. More and more, he felt like he was going the wrong way but couldn’t figure out which the right way was. He’d never been good at direction without the Nein to guide him. Hah.
And then the next step didn’t quite hold his weight, and his knees buckled beneath him, and Essek fell gracelessly to the cobblestones, curled on his side and waiting for his brain to wake up and realise he needed to move. He didn’t know if he could. Instructions to his limbs didn’t seem to reach their destination, and every time he thought about lifting his head, another voice in his mind immediately went ‘no’.
“Well well, you look like you’re in a bit of a pickle,” said a voice from somewhere outside his own head, strangely resonant.
Essek raised his head in surprise and looked behind him. There was no one there. He turned back, and jumped violently to find a figure crouched less than a foot in front of him.
The figure wore a green cloak which enveloped their body, with a hood that cast their face into deep shadow, but despite that, Essek could make out a mane of curly red hair, impressively bushy eyebrows, and ears far longer and sharper than his own. He sucked in a tight breath. The streets of Rexxentrum were not where he had expected to run into an Archfey, but he recognised the danger he was in.
“Whatever help you intend to offer, I do not want it,” he told the figure with as much sincerity as he could muster. “I have no intention of falling into one of your traps, or owing a debt which I cannot repay. Please leave me be.”
The Archfey cocked his head to the side, curious and openly amused. “You don’t recognise me, do you? You really weren’t paying attention in Aeor.”
“I…what?” Essek stuttered, confused. He knew it was a bad idea to entertain this conversation. But increasingly, he realised he was missing something, and the fuzzy light-headedness really didn’t help him rearrange his thoughts.
The cloaked figure waggled his fingers, and for an instant, Essek could have sworn his face morphed into that of a crimson weasel, the ghosts of lollipops floating around his head, before the image scattered and it was the intimidating eyebrows once more.
Essek stared. “…Sprinkle?”
“The Traveller, if you don’t mind. You may have heard Jester talking about how cool I am.” The Archfey’s grin widened until it seemed it would split his face.
And Essek, for all that he was terrified, felt a single kernel of hope. He couldn’t allow his guard to drop, though. “Have you been watching me?” he asked, eyes narrowed.
The Traveller shrugged. “I drop in on all of Jester’s friends from time to time. I have a vested interest in her happiness, you see, and I like to know she’s in good hands when I’m off doing whatever takes my fancy. Lucky you, I was feeling nosey today. So, would you mind very much not upsetting my favourite person by bleeding out on the street like you seem so determined to do, and accept a little helping hand?”
“You swear that there’s no trick or hidden bargain?” Essek pressed.
The Traveller rolled his eyes. “I swear by the oak and the ash, the rowan and the thorn, I offer my aid to you freely and demand nothing in return for this act, now or until the sun and moon stop their dancing.”
“Good enough,” mumbled Essek, a little taken aback by the weight in the Traveller’s words. They were binding, he could hear it in the cadence, and it reassured him enough that when the Traveller stood and proffered a hand, Essek reached for it.
The Traveller’s surprisingly solid grip on his elbow hauled Essek to his feet, but as he stumbled and waited for his vision to stop dancing with black spots, he blinked to realise the green-cloaked figure was nowhere to be seen. His stomach lurched painfully as he wondered if he had been tricked after all, when he saw a flash of green disappearing round a corner up ahead.
This was his best chance. “Jester, I’m counting on you,” Essek murmured, and with painful steps and aching muscles, followed.
The time on his disguise ran out just after he passed a sign indicating that he was entering the Tangles, still following the flashes of green cloak that always seemed just one corner ahead of him. Essek shrank into the lengthening shadows and ploughed on, knowing it would be futile to attempt to cast another one in his state. Instead, he focused on putting one foot in front of the other, losing track of the minutes as the headache-inducing sun dropped below the horizon, until finally, finally, he turned a corner and there was no cloak; just the short garden path and neat, familiar building at the end of it.
Essek almost sank to the ground in relief right there, but he forced his aching feet to carry him the last few yards to the door, where he caught himself against the doorframe and knocked as loudly as he could manage with his elbow.
Please let Caleb be home. Please let this be the right place. Please…
The door opened, revealing a familiar face, looking a little windswept and still wearing his scarf. Essek watched his expression go from surprise to delight to horror in less than a second.
“Caleb…” he murmured, stepping forward.
And then Essek passed out.