The Ghost's Crusade

XIV: Drystan (cont.)

Tiernan stood towering over his clothes for a minute, then crouched over them and began examining each article as he picked them up off the floorboards. He stretched, smelled, shook and turned inside out every article piece by piece before he re-dressed himself properly and noticed Drystan staring at him.

He went back and sat down, pulling out his notebook from his satchel he had hung over the back of the chair, flipping to a blank page in the back and jotting down whatever was on his mind right then. "Have you noticed her magic leaves a smell on everything? Not a foul one, mind you. It's something like a damp forest-very, very curious. I had no idea Enkiri magic was so remarkably different from that of humans."

"I don't generally go sniffing things Akkali has used her magic on, as nine times out of ten they're dead people," said Drystan with an amused chuckle. "You do realize she'll burn that book if she decides she doesn't want you to write anything about her in it. And you too if you don't hand it over."

"My previous statement still holds: I don't care what she does until I see her raise the dead. I'm not even particularly mad over the Returner guildhall, truth be told. Quite frankly most of those men are godless bastards and deserve whatever inglorious deaths they were tended. Saints forgive me but I hope all people like that die screaming." Finishing his notes with a quickly scribbled date, he closed his book and finally looked the Inferi in the eyes. "So. Running off again."

The man nodded. "It's unlike this Inferi to go more than one or two days without contacting someone in the order. And he left with three others, plus at least that many squires. Given that and what Ser Dead-Woman-In-My-Head was raving about down in the warrens, there's probably something pretty bad going on out there."

Sitting back and stretching his legs out Tiernan rolled his head back to see that it was indeed still pouring outside, then groaned as a flash of lightning briefly brightened the room before plunging it back into the dim yellow glow of the lamp hanging from the middle of the ceiling. "Our reach only extends as far as the Inquisitorial garrison in Whiteshire. We don't send scouting parties any further west than Hark River. I don't even think we've maps beyond there that have been updated in this century."

"I'll worry about that later," said Drystan with a shrug.

"Typical." Tiernan scowled disapprovingly at the man. "You keep running off with your bootlaces only half-tied and you're going to trip and fall on your face sooner or later."

"You just said nobody has maps!" retorted the Inferi, resisting the urge to regress a decade and stick his tongue out at him. "And where the blazes are you coming up with these metaphors anyway? You're speaking like some crackpot wizard hocking paper fortunes at a carnival."

"I said the Inquisition doesn't have accurate maps. I never said there were none to be had." He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "If you just answer my questions, I'll help you."

"What?" Drystan stared across the room at him. "How, exactly?"

Tapping his temple he replied, "My father, uncle and I scouted leagues west of Hark River before they were murdered. The information in my head is fifteen or so years old, but it will be better than going out there blind."

The Inferi shook his head, knowing very well that Tiernan was capable of doing exactly that but not willing to ask the man for something that closely tied to the memories of his slaughtered family. "I appreciate it, but I'd rather not make you relive that."

"I'm not twelve anymore," snapped the man, insulted by his words. "And you'd do bloody well to remember that, you son of a bitch."

"Well excuse me!" He rubbed the side of his face and groaned. "It's not as if I meant it as an insult."