The towers of Caer Ingrath glowered down upon the vast city of Ichaer, whose chimneys were beginning to smoke as the dawn broke across the land. Caer Ingrath never struck Azrael as a gloomy place, but lately its visage had taken on a somewhat brooding appearance. He could not quite put his thought directly in line with why, and perhaps he wasn’t meant to know…it just seemed to have deeper, more ponderous thoughts swirling around it of late.
Caer Ingrath – home of the seat of command, of Bael Turath’s best military minds, the center around which all her campaigns against the legions of Arkhosia danced their orbit. Certainly a focus of political attention in the Empire. Azrael looked up from his seat at the small cafe’, watching the mists of the city slowly drift over the street while he stirred the coffee in his mug. He could never be sure why he enjoyed the drink, it seemed almost a comfort in its bitterness. He glanced down at the steam rising from it, so similar to the mists of the city.
It had been two weeks since he’d taken his leave of the family estate. His choice was now down to a very few options – one of them, in the lead now, was to enlist as a soldier within Caer Ingrath. His housemaster had given him leave to contemplate his choices, but had indicated that he had certain connections which could guarantee him a favorable assessment should he choose to apply as an officer.His tail twitched as he contemplated the paths before him, much like that of an annoyed cat. His eyes, metallic reflections of the mists crossing above him, did not move.
From the window next to him, a female voice – low, but clearly feminine – spoke out. “I only just poured that for you – drink up before it becomes simply warm and you begin to complain to me about it.”Azrael smiled. Meshanta was a fling the family would consider an unavoidable but inadmissable connection. Fully human, she was definitely an eyeful, but from the perspective of status she offered nothing for the family to approve of. She knew it, he knew it, but they both were having fun.
She obviously understood there was more to a tail than balance.
He downed half the mug in a few swallows, thinking more on the towers ahead. As he did, the milk-wagon pulled around the corner, coming to a halt before the door of the cafe. The eight halflings pulling the wagon stood panting for a few moments, as the front two disengaged themselves from the harness and proceeded to unload three crates in front of the door. The proprietor came out to inspect the contents, nodding. He signed the board offered to him by the smaller of the two, and they promptly returned to their positions and pulled the wagon away.
“You are Azrael, no?” a male voice said from behind him.
Turning, Azrael saw a cloaked, hooded figure standing a few feet behind him.
“I am. You are?”
“You may call me Balenor. May I join you?”
“The seat is empty.”
The man pulled the chair out and sat in it. Meshanta looked out of the window. “Drink, sir?” Her accented voice somewhat more formal than before.
“Please. Whatever this fellow is having will be fine, and if you have any pig left over from last night it would be appreciated.” She nodded and vanished into the shadows inside.
“What can I do for you?” Azrael leaned back, looking at the cloak, assessing the material. Rich, but not blatantly so. The weave had subtle patterns in it that the casual eye would slide right past – but that it was tailored was beyond a doubt on closer investigation.
“Well, now that is a very interesting question. You are Azrael of the house of Ille Macreane, are you not?”
“I am.”
“Born to Delmenea, son of Torior, on the nineteenth of Mesic Padacim, twenty five years past?”
“You seem to know a lot about me.”
“I do. I wanted to be certain to whom I was speaking before we spoke.”
“So, I am bound to ask why was this so important to you?”
“You are aware of the omen surrounding your birth, are you not?”
“I don’t really believe in omens. Divinations are little more than spit in the wind – if you pay attention to the wind, you already know where it will land, there’s no point in fouling the air.”
“Such contempt, and yet such divinations are why I seek you out.”
“Then perhaps you have had better quality diviners than I have, sir, since the ones I have had experience with were no better than charlatans hiding their lack of any other meaningful talent.” Azrael finished his coffee as Meshanta brought out a cup for the new visitor and a small plate. He handed his cup over to her with a nod for more. “I still don’t know you, mister Balenor. Why would you seek me out?”
“The omen under which you were born was rather…unique. And very specific.”
“Will you do me the honor of telling me about it?”
“Of course, but all things in their time.” The man took up a bone from the plate, roast pork hanging from it. With his other hand, he drew back his hood, and Azrael finally got a fair look at him.
The man’s skin was a faint yellowish, with a shock of red hair that looked almost translucent. The musculature driving his jaw was pronounced as if molded to the side of his head with clay, and it moved smoothly as he chewed the meat from the bone. His eyes were a clear white, strangely with no blood vessels showing at all, green irises like a spring forest – and the pupils of which were dual purple specks set side-by-side. His species was completely unfamiliar to Azrael.
“Good meat. You choose your locations well.” The man nodded while waving a rib in Azrael’s direction.
“I choose more for the company than the food, but yes, that’s been an added benefit,” Azrael smiled as Meshanta dropped off his coffee and hit him playfully in the shoulder. “That looks good, might I have some as well?” She nodded and smiled as she returned inside.
“So, mister Balenor, what did you come to speak with me about?” Azrael leaned back in his chair, sipping slowly at the blackness in his mug.
The man lowered the rib he was gnawing on, and looked up without moving his head. “Just Balenor, for now. No ‘mister.’ Service, actually. Yours to me.”
“Service?”
“Yes, to me.”
“I caught that part. I am asking what kind of service.”
“Military.”
“Did Master Voedle send you? He mentioned he had connections…”
“No, I know Voedle, but his word isn’t what brought me here today.”
“Then what?”
“As I mentioned, omen.”
Azrael tilted his head. “This must be some omen, to bring you here more than the influence of Master Voedle.”
“Voedle is a servant of your house, and a good contractor. He has served Ille Macreane for what, seven hundred years? His blood entered yours half that long ago or more, did it?” Balenor looked over at Azrael, still holding a bone bared of its attendant flesh.
“That sounds about right, yes. He’s been with the family for more than a few generations. I believe I might be a great-great-great grandson or something along that order. Not many in the family can’t trace their blood back to him in some form or fashion.”
“Then understand it is not to brag to you, but to simply offer perspective, when I tell you that Voedle has been my creature since I created him from the soul of a merchant, who had fallen on hard times, twelve hundred years before he contracted your grandcestor service to your family.” As he said this, Belenor’s hair faded from view as if it had never been, and a flash of blue flame crawled up from the base of his collar to dance in a widow’s peak on his forehead. Almost as quickly, the flames vanished and the hair reappeared.
Azrael’s heart sped at a rather undignified rate for a few moments. “You certainly have my attention. I fail to see how I come to be of such notice, however.”
“Things come to pass for reasons even we of the Legion cannot say. I have reasonable certainty in the divinations given me that you will be a valuable addition to my army’s strength.”
“Which army do you refer to? That of Bael Turath, or the army awaiting your command among the Legions?”
“Certainly that of Bael Turath. Depending on whether the predictions show themselves to be true, then perhaps both.”
“Exactly what did this prediction say of me?”
“Exactitudes are not part of divinations, I’m afraid.”
“Can you tell me anything of it?”
The fiend bit off half the rib, crunching the bone loudly with his eyes closed, smiling at the taste and feel of it. “It specified you by the date of your birth, the location of it, the family to which you were born, and your blood heritage.”
“So, it identifies me, or at least someone very like me. But prophecy is nothing without an effect. It predicts me, but what about me? Am I to die early, live forever, bring down the Arkhosian Empire single-handedly?” Azrael couldn’t help but smile at the thought of the cryptic medium reading tea leaves for this great devil.
“You bear your name because of it.”
“I don’t understand. What?”
“Torior chose your name – Azrael – because of this omen. You know of the origin of your name, do you not?”
“Yes, Azrael, angel of death, the one responsible for seeing souls into the queue for the Raven Queen to pass judgment upon. I thought he simply had a morbid fascination to name me after such.”
“Close enough that I need not correct you. Your naming was not inspired by a fascination with the angel, though. It was with his role. The prophecy said that the one born would one day have a hand in the passing of many multitudes of the dead. It is hard to put the thing into words, as prophecy rarely lends itself to linguistic clarity.” Now Balenor was gazing over at him idly.
“Hmm. That is interesting.” Azrael stared up at the tops of Caer Ingrath again. “And how do you see that helping you? I do spend the majority of my worship before the altar of the Black Queen, that is true, but I don’t see how this omen comes into play with the military forces of the Empire.”
“Suppose, for a moment, that the prophecy is somehow to come to pass. If you are to have a hand in the passing of a great many, I would be profited greatly in seeing to it that your hand was around the throats of your Empire’s enemies.”
“I suppose, but the prophecy was not so explicit, was it? I could just as easily be responsible for a great defeat that brings a great many of Bael Turath’s champions to their graves.”
“Perhaps I believe that destiny can be guided – that the overarching fate that awaits us all can be divined, but that the details of that fate can be, shall we say, ‘tuned’ by intent.”
“So you think that in your service, my intent toward your success will result in my destiny playing out in a great victory for you?”
“I not only believe it, I am certain of it.”
“How can you be?”
“I am not of this world. I can be certain of a great many things. While I may be mistaken on some of them, on this I do not think I am.”
“That is not an answer.”
“You should know by now that my kind rarely gives full answer to any question.”
“Touché.”
Balenor smiled.
Azrael slitted his silver eyes, and scratched the base of his left horn. “Suppose such a happenstance is not what it means at all, but that someday I shall become an Exarch to the Black Queen, instead?”
“Then I shall surely benefit by having your service as a member of my troops for however long you remain, and further by having a connection close to Death herself.”
Azrael said nothing for a moment. “I note you did not say ‘ally’.”
“I would not presume to know the future.” Balenor’s smile became a smirk.
“So…you seem to have thought this out rather thoroughly.”
“I did not attain my station with short-sightedness.”
“Then let us talk about what it might mean for me.”
“As in what would be the benefits to you of this choice?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“I am prepared to enter you directly into training to become an officer, with a commission awaiting your successful completion of that training. Payment appropriate to your rank, on a monthly basis, including a place in the queue for you and any soldiers under your command to have looting rights on battlefield trophies. You will be clothed at my expense in a uniform I determine, and your initial weapons and equipment will be provided by the Empire.”
“Land? Title?”
“On completion of your committed tour, you shall be granted land appropriate to your status. I can make no commitment now as neither of us knows the distance you will cover, but you will have my word that it shall be so. Your name already grants you title, but if you make rank of Captain I will grant you a Lordship as is my right by contract.”
“Much of that has dependency on other agency.”
“You’ll find almost all things in life do. Even the barbarians of the Northlands recognize the interrelatedness of the fates of individuals. Given what Voedle has said about your command of Arcana and History I have few doubts that you will exceed common expectation.”
“This is much to think about. All this over an omen.”
“The omen is only part of this. It caused me to seek you out. I can see that you are of good material. You are half-blooded, as well, which I consider a trait of value. No common human, without a hint of the blood, would have drawn such attention, prophecy or not. You pose a useful commodity to me. If you prove your worth, I will reward it. It is as simple as that.” The smile was gone now, Balenor’s face was completely serious.
“This is no small decision to make, Balenor.”
“I would not expect it to be so. But among your alternatives, I believe it to be the best.”
“You do?”
“Without hesitation. We have only discussed the direct implications of the military benefits. We haven’t even begun to discuss the intangibles.”
Azrael raised an eyebrow – on an elf it would have been far more dramatic, since the Shadrim couldn’t raise it further than the base of his right horn. “Hmm…Such as?”
“Association with the Legion, for one thing. Serve me well, and I will remember. Through me, you meet others. Opportunities abound among my kind for an enterprising officer. I don’t expect you will always be a member of the Empire’s army, even if you take a career path within it. I am always looking to augment my own Legions with good talent. Depending on how you perform for your Empire, you might find service with me.”
“I see.”
“Know that I offer you nothing unusual relative to the others similar to you. This choice is a beneficial one regardless of the origin point of the individual taking it.”
“I understand. What would our relationship be in the military?”
“I would not be your commanding officer, but your commander would likely serve me directly, or with perhaps one layer of rank between us.”
“I would like to see the entirety of the offer in writing, of course.”
“Of course. I shall have a courier bring you the contract this afternoon. If you decide to proceed, you may report to Caer Ingrath with the document and sign it there.”
“One more question, if I may?”
“Ask away.”
“How much longer are you bound to the Empire?”
“One hundred fifty-one years, six months, seventeen days, seventeen hours, and thirty-seven minutes.”
“That was rather precise!”
“It rarely pays to be otherwise, don’t you think?” With that, the creature deposited three coins on the table, stood, nodded, and walked away.
A few moments later Meshanta came out to clear the table. “Who was that?”
“An officer from the army.”
“They sent an officer from the army to try to get you to join? That’s different.” She looked puzzled.
“He came of his own accord.”
“Strange.” She walked back inside, carrying the plates and cups.
As the clatter of the dishes being cleaned echoed out to him on the street, Azrael looked up at the top of the tower.
“Strange indeed,” he muttered.
His mind was made up before the papers arrived.
