Chapter 7 - Part 1

The hall was cold, but not one of the four men dared clear the ash and charcoal and light the fireplace.  Even in the stronghold of their allies, they would not give anyone privy to their conversation.  Sitting on their legs in the dark room they spoke in hushed tones, though few in the keep spoke the middle tongue with anything more than an ability to engage in small talk.

"I have found evidence of him.." the man in grey acknowledged to the group.  His partner grunted, the information not new to him.  "But he is gone."

"Then he is dead?  The jack rabbits nibble on his bones?" the man in oiled leathers asked.  Under the darkness his pale face relaxed in a deepness only made possible by the past 6 minor moons.

The grey man continued, "No, there is no evidence of that either"

The leathered man rose up onto his knees and leaned toward the speaker, "What does that mean," he hissed, "You have found him or not?!"

His partner who had been hushed to this room while still undressing from his last foray was still wearing a silver breastplate that gleamed in the dim light provided by the minor moon and its stars.  Never whisper secrets when the minor moon inhabits the sky, he thought of the popular saying, he'll come back the next day and tell your tale.  The major moon at least holds on to your secrets for half a tide cycle after she leaves.

"Wuob-Rduap,"  (put in comments section: Rduop literally translates to "master" but is used any time in the middle tongue when an inferior addresses a superior) Arms Master by the common tongue of Pho-Boteth.  The armor clad man bent his back down slightly and offered no further words.  He need only say the title of the man in leathers, while paying deference to him, to help him recollect himself and his station.  The nüdwuob (literal translation of secondsword) everywhere often held the responsibility to support their superiors in following the code.  A life of a Secondsword was not all blood and battle.

The Wuob, backed down, his oily leathers sliding easily as he settled back into place.

"I believe he is alive." the man in grey continued, "but injured."

"Then he is in hiding?" the partner of the man in grey prompted.

"Possibly, but those bastards know better than to cut communications for long, lest we destroy their queen."

"What if he were incapacitated?  Unconscious?" the Wuob suggested.  The air hung thick at the throats of each of the four men.  They did not want to quickly exhaust their alternate hypothesis and hear the worst possible scenario.

"I thought that first as well.  There is evidence that somewhere, he was attacked, mugged possibly.  I found blood, his blood, at Aedak's crossing and again at Geibin's (Small Eirdred coastal towns' connecting roads).  After that the trail runs cold."

"How is that possible?  I thought they were damned near invisible, to the rest of the world." the Wuob reasoned.  It was his neck on the line, for this mistake.  If somehow he could make the claim that their messenger was at fault, perhaps he might yet survive the courts.  That is, if he even made it to the courts.

"I did find something more telling. Men, we must face the reality.  I believe he is abducted."

The Wuob's face when white.  Though it was not possible to see it in the darkness, his comrades likely knew it.  "Then tell me, bih'kepk'opb (the middle tongue's words for a bei'thal.  prior to contact with Pho-boteth, the Chosen empire had no word for compromised.  They had the word disloyal, but that was it.  Bih transformed to Bei when it hit their tongue.  Kepk is the indigenous word in the middle tongue for keeper, "opb" is the suffix to a title used to indicate peers), how could you possibly suspect that?"

The man in grey produced a thin, silver collar.  "There was not much to see, of the body I found this on, but it was most certainly human."

"Someone took it off?" asked the man in grey's partner.

"A peasant, superstitious that it might contain magic?" suggested the Wuob.

"Then where he? Why take the creature and not the treasure?  And if someone did that the body, how could such news really be contained in any one of those gossip hovels?"

"So who are we looking for then?" asked the Secondsword, eager to be in the realm of decisions and action.

"Someone traveling in a small party."

"Someone who could afford to kill a man to keep a secret."

"Afford, or had the strength to?"

"And burn the body afterward." the man in grey added.

"A fire would attract more than a few eyes on the road.  Particularly one large enough to burn a body."

"Maybe it wasn't burnt.  What exactly was the condition of the body?" the grey man's partner asked.

"No tissue or vitals.  All that was left was bones, and they were brittle at that.", the grey man answered.

"Were they charred?  Did you see black streaks on them anywhere to indicate the smoke?"

"They were black, but not in streaks."

The grey man's partner contemplated the situation, trying to decide what to say, and what to withhold.  The room's darkness did well to hide his deliberations.  "Wuob-opb, we have a substance in the laboratory that devours flesh and eats away at the bones.  It has been used for decades now, and we know its secret was released some time ago, though it remains rare.  But the ingredients are neither easily obtained nor cheap."

"So our culprit is wealthy, and worldly.", the Wuob observed.  "Men, that leaves us one very obvious group of people in this province.  It is time we put on our dancing sandals and join the music."