Echoes of the Fey: The Prophet's Arm
Copyright 2016
For more Echoes of the Fey, go to https://www.woodsy-studio.com/echoes
Sofya Rykov was supposed to be dead, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at her. She had bright, piercing eyes—one blue, one green—that peered out from beneath a swoop of dark hair. Her skin was pale but full of life, blushing at the first sign of anger or the second drink of the night. She had narrow shoulders that helped her conceal her well-toned arms under a worn, cropped leather jacket. Her teeth gleamed white, brighter than the smiles of most inhabitants of the border town of Vodotsk, betraying her noble birth.
In fact, the only sign of the injuries that should have killed Sofya was a single scar. It was a thin crease that ran from the her forehead down to a point just above her nostrils, cutting across her left eye and betraying that her striking heterochromia might not be natural but the result of an awful trauma.
Of all Sofya’s scars, it was the only one she couldn’t figure out how to hide.
“Have you considered makeup?” Heremon ir-Caldy asked as Sofya stared at herself in the mirror. “I believe that applying some sort of cosmetic concealer would be the simplest solution.”
“No,” Sofya said. “Because that wouldn’t solve anything.”
“It would make the scar invisible.”
“I would still be able to see it.”
Heremon grunted. “So you’re going to stay in here until you can get the incantation to work?”
“You’re usually curious about my magic. Don’t you want to know why it can hide my burns, but can’t touch this one stubborn little mark?”
“I’m not curious about a question when I already know the answer,” Heremon said. “The spell won’t work because you won’t let yourself forget.”
Heremon ir-Caldy had a tall, thin frame and smooth, chestnut-colored skin. His golden hair was bound into thin, intricate ropes, which he subsequently tied into a neat ponytail. He had a narrow face with a dimpled chin. Unlike many of his people who remained in Vodotsk after the war, he made no attempt to conceal his long, pointed ears. He wore his Leshin heritage proudly.
Like all of his people, Heremon was ageless. His skin did not wrinkle or sag, he remained perpetually youthful. He could have been thirty years old or three hundred. Sofya often wondered how old he was, but even she wasn’t sure how to broach the subject. He knew all of her secrets, but she still couldn’t bring herself to ask for just one.
“You know it would be safer if you didn’t use any concealing magic at all,” Heremon said. “If it ever wears off in public, it will raise questions. No human your age has even managed to perform the simplest of glamours. It’s not worth the risk.”
“Sometimes I forget you’re not human,” Sofya replied. “But often you find a way to remind me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Sofya laughed. “Vanity, Heremon.”
“Leshin can be vain.”
“It’s not the same,” Sofya said. “You care about presentation—about showing how much effort you put into your appearance. But humans want our appearance to be effortless. We want to look naturally beautiful.”
Heremon furrowed his brow. “Everything is naturally beautiful,” he said.
“Yes, that is exactly what every girl wants to hear,” Sofya replied. “You’re as equally pretty as everyone else.”
Before Heremon could respond, the soft chime of a bell drifted up from the first floor. “We have a customer,” Heremon said, allowing just a hint of excitement to enter his voice. “I hope you’re feeling presentable.”
Sofya looked at herself once more. “It will have to do.”
~
A sharp, pungent odor stung Sofya’s nose as soon as she descended to the first floor. She recognized the scent immediately. Leshin perfumes were especially strong and, to humans, possessed a noxious edge that resembled heating fuel.
Even though the Leshin occupation of Vodotsk was over, Sofya wasn’t surprised to have a Leshin visitor. Hundreds of them remained in the city. When the war ended, the Leshin of Vodotsk were allowed to remain under certain conditions: they had to renounce the ir-Dyeun and register with the County government. Most chose to leave, if only to avoid living side-by-side with the people they had spent a decade fighting. But a few remained, refusing to give up their home.
“Welcome to Rykov Private Investigations,” Sofya said as she descended the staircase into the lobby of her modest office. “How can I be of service?”
The Leshin man standing in the doorway looked up at her. He was impeccably dressed in a light green tunic and perfectly tailored leather pants—a demonstration of the vanity that Heremon had just described. He had bright red hair and a dazzling white smile, but that was not the first feature that drew Sofya’s eye. Arching up from his back were two shimmering wings. They were thin, almost translucent, as if made purely of light. They shined through small slits cut in his jacket and fluttered in the breeze from the door. Winged Leshin were rarely seen near the border, as they hailed from far west beyond the Great Forest that divided the continent. He had come a long way to Vodotsk, which made it especially strange that he would find his way to Sofya’s door.
“Private investigations?” the Leshin man said. “What does that mean?”
“We’re like mercenaries,” Sofya replied. “But we try to avoid fighting. We find information. Cheating spouses, mostly, but we’re more than open to any sort of work you might want.”
“Good. That… That sounds like what I want. They told me to come here, so I was hoping you would be able to help me.”
Sofya looked back towards the stairs. “Did you hear that, Heremon? We’re getting referrals.”
“Yes, but who is giving them?” Heremon asked. He stood halfway up the stairs, eyeing the Leshin visitor with suspicion.
The redheaded man considered this question. “It was the man who polices the city. The Imperial Inspector. I believe his name was–”
“Luka?” Sofya interrupted. “He told you to visit me?”
“That is correct.”
“Now that’s a surprise,” Sofya said. “Here I was, thinking that he hated me…”
Heremon sighed. “You have not heard what this man wants,” he said. “Perhaps Luka sent him here to torment you.”
“No!” the redheaded Leshin exclaimed. “Nothing of the sort!”
Sofya shrugged. Rent was due in a few days for the office, which meant that she didn’t much care how work was sent her way. “So, that brings me to my original question: What can I do for you?”
“My name is Braden ir-Alba, and I am… Hmmm… I am the curator of the Alban Museum of History.”
“You’re a long way from home,” Heremon muttered. “Especially for a historian.”
“Yes, yes, I understand. Are you from Alba as well?”
Heremon shook his head. “Caldy. Still west of the forest, but I’ve never been as far as Alba. So if you’re here…”
“It is very important,” Braden said. “But no one here is willing to help me. I suppose I understand why, but that does not make it all the more frustrating. You may be my last hope, unless you plan to refer me off to another intelligence agency?”
“Don’t worry,” Sofya replied. “We’d love to have your business.”
“We don’t even know what he wants,” Heremon said. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Braden, tell us why you’re here.”
Braden fidgeted with his hands as he sat down in the chair across from Sofya’s desk. “It is about a historical artifact,” he said. “An item of great importance to our people that has been lost. It was here in Vodotsk during the occup
ation and has gone missing since.”
“What is it?”
“An arm.”
Sofya raised an eyebrow as she looked at the nervous Leshin man. “An arm?”
“Yes. Well, a prosthetic arm. It belonged to Cathal ir-Dyeun, the messenger and recorder of Dyeun’s Will. During the war, the ir-Dyeun believed it had magical properties and thus brought it to Vodotsk during the occupation. They wanted it close to the front lines. But after the war ended, and the Alliance of Free Cities imprisoned the ir-Dyeun radicals and Vodotsk was returned to the humans, the Arm disappeared.”
“Disappeared how?” Sofya asked.
“When the peace was agreed to, I sent a messenger to Vodotsk asking the AFC to ensure that the Arm was brought to Alba for our museum. It seemed like the proper place for it, as Alba was the birthplace of the prophet. But in the chaos of the transition, it was stolen.”
Heremon grunted. “Stolen by whom? Humans or free ir-Dyeun radicals?”
“I don’t know,” Braden said. “That is what I want you to find out. I admit that both possibilities are quite likely, and I have no active leads. But the museum has authorized me to provide up to eighty gold pieces for information leading to the recovery of the Arm.”
“For the recovery of a magic artifact?” Sofya asked. “I suppose that sounds fair. Plus any expenses that we incur.”
“Yes, yes, if you agree to help I suppose I could also use discretionary funds from the museum for minor expenses. But you must find the arm.”
Heremon approached Braden, arching an eyebrow as he examined the other Leshin man. “What do you intend to do once you have it?”
“I’m going to place it in our museum, of course. What else would I do with it?”
“Well, for one thing, I’m sure that there are ir-Dyeun out there who would pay a lot more than eighty gold pieces for an item that genuinely belonged to the prophet Cathal.”
Braden’s eyes went wide. “You would threaten to give the Prophet’s Arm to the ir-Dyeun just to get more money out of me?”
“Nothing of the sort,” Heremon replied. “The arrangement you propose is fair and even if we were mad enough to collaborate with ir-Dyeun, contacting them would be difficult for us. But it would not be difficult for someone with connections west of the Great Forest. My fear, in fact, is that you would pass the Arm along to ir-Dyeun radicals to turn a tidy profit.”
“I am a historian!” Braden exclaimed. “I have no interest in selling the Arm to anyone.”
Sofya reached out and put her hand on Braden’s shoulder. “Don’t worry,” she said. “My business partner is just very cautious about the kinds of cases we take. I’m still interested in helping you, we just–”
“Wait a minute,” Heremon said. “Sofya, can I talk to you alone?”
“Don’t be rude.”
“This is important.”
Sofya returned her attention to Braden. “I’m so sorry. This will be just a moment.” Before Braden could even respond, she hurried back upstairs with Heremon right behind her.
Heremon closed the door leading to the staircase and whispered, “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that this is easy gold,” Sofya replied. “I can sense the presence of Fey-enchanted objects. It’s one of the few powers I have that consistently works. This is the perfect job for us. The Arm is probably sitting in some junk shop somewhere and the owner doesn’t know what he has. I just need to go around to the right places, ask the right questions and–”
“This isn’t just any enchanted object, it’s a sacred ir-Dyeun artifact. It’s the arm of their first prophet. Do you know what kind of trouble we’ll get in if the Empire gets wind of what we’re doing? Or even the county guard?”
Sofya shrugged. “Why would they care? We’re not going to give the arm back to the ir-Dyeun.”
“You’re giving them too much credit. We’re giving it back to the Leshin people. Most humans—and especially the humans who could get us in trouble—don’t know the difference between a museum and an ir-Dyeun temple.”
“Then they’re dumb. The ir-Dyeun were overthrown. The Alliance of Free Cities controls the Leshin lands now. They’ve cooperated with humans in ending the war and the occupation here in Vodotsk. People know the difference between the two.”
Heremon shook his head. “No they don’t. Trust me on this. We’re all just primitive, untrustworthy Elves to most of your people. I don’t know whether Braden ir-Alba can be trusted to put the Arm in a museum or if he’s going to turn around and sell it back to the ir-Dyeun. But either way, it doesn’t matter. Taking this case is going to draw attention to you. And aren’t you here in Vodotsk to avoid that?”
“C’mon, take some risks,” Sofya said. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
“The Empire decides that the Arm is a weapon and puts us in prison for attempting to return it to the ir-Dyeun. Or the county decides the same thing and kills us outright.”
“It’s just a fake limb,” Sofya replied. “How could they call it a weapon?”
“Listen, the ir-Dyeun didn’t keep it in Vodotsk during the occupation because it was a safe place for a historical artifact. I don’t know what they think it did for them, but they must have though it gave them an advantage.”
This just made Sofya even more intrigued. “Did it?” she asked. “If the Arm has anything to do with the Leshin’s connection to the Fey, we might be able to use it to help us understand my own situation.”
“It’s baseless superstition,” Heremon replied. “The only thing that a false arm would be enchanted with is a spell to give it movement. Simple telekinesis that almost any Leshin mage could apply. Perhaps, since the Prophet was a particularly powerful mage, it was especially well articulated. Maybe he could move all the fingers independently, like a real hand. But that’s it.”
“All the more reason to give it to Leshin moderates, so they can reveal the lies of the ir-Dyeun.”
“You’re just going to find a reason to look for the Arm no matter what I say, aren’t you?” Heremon asked.
Sofya smiled.