Minion

[Dicey Reilly]

Sinead McManus had run a city sponsored orphanage in the Beggar's Court district of Freeport for going on eleven years now. She was a hard woman, with no love for children and the burden that those abandoned to her care put on the society of Freeport. She did her job as asked by the Overlord's officials, even though she questioned the reasons for keeping the pitiful lot alive that ended up in her home.

The Halasian woman looked down at the man at her door in disgust, as the smell of death and decay that clung to his almost skeletal form made its way to her nose. His stringy white hair obscured his eyes and most of his face and in his gnarled hands he clutched at a wailing child swaddled tightly in rough spun clothe mere hours old and human by what could be seen of her.

The Overlord doesn't pay me enough to deal with this scum, she thought as she looked out of her meager house into the cold Freeport street. She was used to being awoken in the middle of the night, but she never hid the disapproving glare from those that disturbed the little rest she was able to get caring for the children that no one but the Overlord wanted.

"Her mother died in the birthing room," his voice rasped without emotion.

"And her father, or other kin?" She snarled thinking of all the other children already in her care, and what minuscule room she had left of her own.

A chill ran down her spine as the man looked up at her with cold, almost dead eyes, the hair falling away from his face revealing someone much stronger and younger then his gauntness and posture had led her to assume.

"None that live would care for her, and none dead," a cruel smile formed at the corner of his lips, "have the will to try."

With that he handed off the child whose cries he had not even acknowledged, let alone attempted to soothe, and turned to walk away.

"Does she have a name, or at least a surname. I need something for the Overlord's record keepers," she called out to the retreating figure.

The man turned, his eyes gleaming a ghostly white in the shadows and replied, "Her mother...well, who really cares what her mother was going to name her now. Name her what you will, but as for a surname, a least half of her kin are now found in the Collins' crypt."

The woman looked down at the crying infant in her arms and examined her more closely. She had bright blue eyes, red-rimmed and swollen from tears, and pale almost alabaster skin with features that were oddly exotic. Unswaddling the child, a small gasp left the woman's lips as white hair the color of the man's adorned her brow, and the tell-tale ears of a half-breed became visible for the first time.

Cursing and closing the door against the cold, Sinead began to fix a meal to quite the baby. Hopefully this one will end up useful in some way, she thought, if the brat lives long enough that is, and the Overlord continues to raise children beholden to him and Freeport.         

[Dicey Reilly]

Edana kicked and flailed, her blows missing her intended mark as Sinead wrapped her arms around the ten-year-old girl's waist. Blood streamed down the right side of her face from a one inch gash at her temple, and stained the edges of her ghostly white hair a deep crimson. Animalistic grunts and snarls escaped her lips directed at Rory, a Halasian boy of thirteen, who was being pulled in the opposite direction by Sinead's husband Ciaran.

"You filthy little Ayr'Dal," Rory spat back at her, fighting off the older man to stand on his own. "No wonder your father abandoned you here, rather then raise your vile blood as his own. At least both of my parents are dead, and not ashamed to be near me."

Edana lunged at the boy, pushing off of Sinead's hip with both of her feet and propelled herself right at the boy's face, breaking free just long enough to knock him down and split the corner of his lip, before being tossed over Sinead's shoulder and then dumped onto a sack of sugar and locked in the pantry to be dealt with later.

She stared at the little bit of light that made it's way under crack of the door, her knees pulled up to her chest and her blue eyes red-rimmed as the day she was born and brought to the door. Rory and a few of the other boys had been using her father as a weapon against her since she was six and they had somehow discovered that one of her parents was still alive; or at least was still alive, when she was left in the orphanage's care. Sinead and Ciaran argued over her and them all the time, and the muffled sound of harsh words seeped under the door, a testament to how things don't change. It didn't matter that they all knew that Rory was to blame for this and almost every other incident that had landed her on top of the baking goods. Ciaran would take Rory's side no matter what the situation. He was Halasian. She was not.

Everyone in the orphanage, including Sinead and Ciaran knew that he tormented her every chance he got. The derogatory comments about her father were tame next to the comments about what kind of woman her mother must have been to have tainted her elven blood. Which as time passed, then led to the speculation that her mother must have been a filthy mixed-race herself. Not that anyone knew anything about her mother. No one even knew her first name let alone what she was like, and even if she had been married to her father. The only thing that was known was that she died birthing Edana, whom Sinead had named after some long lost cousin since her father couldn't even be bothered to give her a proper one of her own, that he couldn't get rid of her fast enough, that he was the reason for her pure white hair, and the surname Collins.

Edana hated her surname. She'd whisper evil things to the spiders in her room about what she imagined they should do if they ever came across the man that had given her that name. Pictures of how they were to infest his clothes and his bed, rip at his flesh and make his every waking moment torment filled her head. They were to make him know all the barbs and stings and all the nasty words that were ever said about her and her half-blood race. They were to make him pay. The spiders would go, searching the city with their many-faceted eyes, looking for a man with hair the color of bone, bleached pure white after years in the sun. But they never found him, looking among the living for one who was more at home with the dead.

She murmured to the spiders again, from her sad perch, explaining to them her side of the story: how Rory had told her she would have been luckier to be dead, then live the life she was bound to live, unwanted and alone; how he had thrown a book at her that caught the side of her face, because she hadn't reacted to the cruel words. The spiders obeyed her soft pleas for justice, not that they understood the words, but they knew the feelings, and saw in their little minds her childish visions of what should be done. Later that night, when everyone slept, they swarmed Rory's bed, biting and ripping at his exposed flesh just as she had imagined they could do to her father without her being aware of how her powerful her tiny agony-filled voice, and her vivid imagination had become.

[Dicey Reilly]

Sturdy iron, formed expertly into a undead male and female twisted in agony, held the musty tome tightly closed. Archaic runes made of bone finely etched and cold to the touch were inlaid into the leather cover and spine. The overall impression of death and suffering caused most that grabbed the book off the shelf to recoil instinctively from it and to depart quickly from the area of the Library of the Arcane Sciences that Edana had gathered this and the other books in the stack on the table in front of her. Smooth fingers traced the carvings with macabre fascination, her pale blemish-less skin barely distinguishable from the bone. Carefully, she unlatched the claps and opened to the spot in the book where her studies had stopped the day before. Most of her afternoons were spent in the same spot, pouring over whatever lore caught her eye. More and more as of late though, she found herself drawn to the books of the dead and the undying. There was something comforting to her in bone once exposed and striped of the lies that masked the living around her.

Mornings and evenings found Edana running errands and working around the orphanage at whatever tasks the McManus' felt her able to undertake. She was a reliable and honest child. She diligently went about whatever she was asked, and was able to be trusted with the limited funds available to purchase items for the household. She never once tried to keep any of the spare change the merchants gave back to her, and her stern face inspired most adults to treat her more fairly then they treated the other children who came for their wares. Other then those duties, the orphanage was content for her to go about her studies alone, and undisturbed. It wasn't that Sinead and Ciaran didn't like the girl or that she caused trouble. It was just more comfortable a place to be when she wasn't around. The older boys who had tormented her stopped bothering her in the last two years, turning their attentions to the other more developed girls of Beggar's Court and their own forays out into manhood. When that abuse stopped, so too did Edana's lashing out at those around her. An almost silent child had emerged, though not a docile one.

Edana made the other children in the orphanage uncomfortable with the intense way that she watched them. It was as if she was waiting for them to commit even the most minor childhood transgression, so that she could find the other children unworthy. The boys whose offenses were of the more mean-spirited temperament often found themselves with painful insect bites that varied in severity depending on how particularly cruel they had been. The girls and adults never seemed to experience these attacks, but found their possessions, whatever it was that mattered most to them, broken or gone. No one ever accused Edana, but there were whispers.

Shadows lengthened in the hall and the smell of burning candles began to overcome the dank and dusty odor that permeated the secluded area that Edana had retreated to. Engrossed in her studies, the Ayr'dal barely noticed the pasting of time, until her stomach let out a minor complaint at being ignored all to long. Gathering up the stack of books she had retrieved earlier, Edana glimpsed a figure out of the corner of her eye, emaciated and luminously pale as it disappeared down into the rows of books. Her breathe caught in her chest as the sight of stringy white hair caused goosebumps to form on her arms and the pit of her stomach to go cold.

He's alive.

[Dicey Reilly]

The spiders began searching with new vigor.  These descendants of Edana's first and only confidants would leave nightly, the woman-child's visions clear in their tiny minds methodically looking.  There was only so far one on eight legs could go, and soon, those most devoted to her began to leave for longer periods of time, and venture into the other districts vainly, trying to find the one man who could satisfy Edana's need for vengeance.  Still there was nothing but the glimpse, and the knowing.  In time, the spiders of Beggar's Court were born knowing, as the vision was passed from parent to child, and the need increased unsatisfied.

Knowing, Edana pondered what it was to know in less then a second a truth so surely, that the body physically reacts to it, even now, three years after the brief incident in the Library.  Though she spent more and more time there as she grew older and more adept at her studies, she never again saw the man pass her.  There were many in Freeport with white hair.  Teir'dals for the most part, had white hair much the color of her own.  Humans, especially the elderly also had many with whom she shared this trait, how could she possibly be sure that that was her father, whose presence she barely noticed until his form had disappeared into the surrounding gloom?  Edana answered herself always the same way, because knowing felt different then not knowing, because even now, at the depths of her, where what was true was laid bare against all of the other lies people told and tried to believe, even in that place, Edana knew.  He's alive.

The Library became not only a place of study for her insatiable hunger for knowledge of the undead and necromancy, but also for the kin she had never known.  The Collins name first appeared in record that she could find, as slaving merchants.  The family ran an auction house, that opened over 500 years ago and was in continuous operation until the shattering.  The family was human, but with exceptionally long lives, as evident by the length of time between heads of household changed.  One man held the title for over 120 years, unthinkable for a human.  There were complaints over the years of murder, grave-robbing and defiling of corpses, that with the unusual length of life for the Collins family members, made Edana speculate if her interest in necromancy might not be an inherited trait.

Pouring over more recent documents, Edana found a reference to a robbery at the Collins family crypt.  It appears that the door of the extensive crypt had been forced open and the most recent additions disturbed while someone ransacked the first chamber for valuables.  The inner rooms of the crypt had remained unbreeched, due to wards that were put into place guarding the final resting place of the most elder Collins members.  The Crypt was established the record stated to prevent those who accused the family of the more egregious acts against the dead, did not respond in kind to those who passed on into the void of the Collins family.  The crypt apparently was re-sealed but the scroll suggested that the most recent head of household, a Mr Marcus Collins, hired some dwarven slaves, to conceal a hidden doorway into the crypt, to easily ensure that the dead remain undisturbed, without again breaking the seal.  He felt, it seems that the last set of robbers had been clumsy, and that had they been better at their job, it would have been years before the theft would have been noted.

The Collins crypt was in the graveyard that has entrances to and from it to some of the district of Freeport, and so Edana began to alter her route home to Beggar's Court to include a detour.  She left the library a half an hour early to allow for the trip, and some extra time to search.  She was unsure exactly where the crypt was located, as the documents had referenced other notable families at the time they were written, but for one such as herself, those landmarks were useless.  Many of the graves had been destroyed, crumbling over time, or fracturing with the sinking of the cities foundations, and the catastrophes that came with the shattering.  If they are still there, many of the stones were weathered beyond recognition, but she felt her way through the maze of stones and crypts, anyway.  She would find it, she was sure.  The knowing made her believe that.  It was the only way her world made sense.

[Dicey Reilly]

Pristine.  That was the only word that applied to the Collins' crypt when Edana found it finally.  This section of the graveyard had somehow avoided damage with the earthquakes and the catastrophes both natural and intentional during the rendering and the shattering.  The crypts were of bone white marble and cast in powerful enchantments to prevent weathering.  Edana reached out and touched the cool stone, marveling at the smoothness of it.  It was as if the stone had been cut and polished yesterday.  Her fingers traced the name in the lintel above the door.  Quickly gasping in pain, she pulled back, amazed.  Instinctively she placed one of her fingers in her mouth and sucked it. As the sharp metallic taste of blood washed over her tongue, she wondered how it was that the stone had retained such razor sharp edges after all this time. 

She could feel the power of this place.  It's magic was old, and new at the same time.  With every death, new enchantments were added to those of old, and subtly, layer upon layer of magic built up a presence frightening and awe inspiring at all at once.  Edana breathed deeply of this place.  The musty smell of death and decay permeated
everything here, even in its outward pristine state.  Mixed in with the enchantments surrounding the deceased, the necromantic scholar thought she felt traces of the oldest and most powerful of that art.  She was not surprised, as she suspected her family to be necromancers from the details of the crimes that they were continuously accused off, before the more open acceptance of the art.  What did surprise her was the feeling that some of these spells were newly formed.  Crisp, and clean in their bindings, instead of frayed at the edges, if she were to describe the sensation in a visual way.

She slowly reached out and tentatively touched the door of the crypt.  The door was solidly sealed, as the article she read had stated it would be, and only a fool would miss the pulsating of powerful and deadly magics that vibrated just below the surface.  Another day, she mused.  She would be back, and find that secret way in.  That night as she whispered to the spiders a new vision was added to all the others of old.

Infested.  Slowly, webs appeared on the crypts in the older area of the graveyard whose enchantments were not strong enough to repeal desire, and the search was frenzied once again. 

[Dicey Reilly]

Without the aid of the spiders, Edana may have never found the entrance to the crypt.  The wall in which the doorway had been hidden appeared seamless.  There was delicate relief work adorning the marble of every facade, but none of it appeared deep enough or regular enough to contain an entry.  The spiders were however not deceived by the clever tricks that the dwarven stone smiths had used.  They followed every crack, crevice and narrow depression delving deeper and deeper into the stone until the way in was known to them.  The inner workings of the locking mechanism was also explored, though comprehension of its workings was beyond them.

They conveyed their knowledge to Edana in visions that were strong enough to take over her dreams.  She saw the area in minute detail, envisioning her fingers tracing the spaces that the her small black and brown friends lead her.  Placing gentle fingers in small depressions carefully to avoid harming any of the arachnids that would guide her. 

The dreams had a realness to her, that had distinguished her spider dreams from those other more mundane dreams of her own.  She had experienced this before only once, when Rory had first been attacked at night by insects after leaving the small scar on the side of her temple when she was ten.  In the morning when she woke, she was terrified and a small part of her joyful to find out that the boy had been hurt badly enough to warrant the calling of a priest to the orphanage.  That expense was something that wasn't taken lightly due to the meager funds provided by the Overlord, and in all her life, it was one of only three occasions, one resulting in death, that a priest had actually been called in to the house.

Edana woke with a start, and knew that this too was a true dream.  The spiders had found a way in, and she must go now, even in the middle of the night to them to see where it is that they lead her.

[Dicey Reilly]

Edana hadn't bothered to get dressed, and the cold night breeze went right through her threadbare linen nightgown.  With her disheveled white hair and the odd lack of focus in her eyes, she looked right at home with the other shades that inhabited the graveyard at night.  Even with the spider's guidance, Edana couldn't see a door in the wall before her, but she trusted what her dream told her, and tentatively reached out feeling her way along the depressions that they found for her.  Her fingers paused, and went back over a small area again.  There was a difference, a smoothness in the carvings that had otherwise kept their sharp edges.  It was intentional, she was sure of it.  She closed her eyes and studied the surface by touch.  Yes there.  Her fingers glided along the stone.  And there. Her thumb stopped naturally in a spot, and the rest of her hand rested as if the stone was molded around it, or at least someone's hand maybe slightly larger, maybe male's by the size of it.  She pressed slightly, and the stone gave easily with a small click.

The door swung open noiselessly, a tribute to the craftsmanship of its dwarven makers, and the dank musty air of the crypt invaded Edana's nostrils as it made its way out into the open fleeing its confinement.  Edana stood eyes adjusting to the darkness inside before carefully taking a step in the antechamber.  As soon as she cleared the threshold, the door swung silently closed behind her.  Panic filled Edana as she turned to the door, but on this side to her relief, there was no puzzling locking mechanism, just a simple and clearly defined handle and lock.  Turning back, Edana noticed that the room was not as dark as she would have expected.  Two corridors lead off this main room, one directly across from her and another midway through the wall on the left.  It was from the later direction that  something was glowing which cast a diffuse light into the space.   There was a large sarcophagus in the center of the room made of the same bone-white marble as the rest of the crypt.  Along the wall directly to her right there were two sets of alcoves each with three shelves holding corpses draped with discolored ceremonial linens.  Similar alcoves adorned either side of both of the doorways, and Edana knew that these were the remains of last of the Collins' family members to be buried here.  Sealed jars were piled haphazardly, and a few tapestries of what was once extravagant materials hung from the walls.

From her studying, she knew that the corridor in front of her contained the rest of the families remains, which had been moved as new inhabitants were added to the front room.  The sarcophagus in front of her contained the first real patriarch of the family, the man who commissioned the crypt in which she stood.  The corridor to the left, led to a room that had been labeled vaguely as Artifacts, in which there was a stairway that led to two subterranean chambers that had been labeled only as The Archives.  It was this way that the spiders were headed, mostly ignoring the room directly across from her, scurrying directly into the dimly lit corridor.

Edana paused briefly to run her fingers over the sarcophagus' surface before following the lead of the creatures that brought her here.  The corridor opened up into a museum like room, filled with curiosities, which mostly seemed to be necromantic in nature.  Bits of bone of all sorts of creatures were clearly labeled along expansive shelves, along with other artifacts which seemed to pulse with the power of the undead.  A carved skeletal hand had been placed at the top of the stairway leading down.  The hand clutched a blue stone that cast a eerie blue glow and was the source of the light which had been emanating throughout the crypt.

More hands had been placed at regular intervals along the staircase to illuminate the way down.  Edana began her descent slowly, making sure not to step on the many spiders that swarmed down before her.  When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she found herself in a small chamber that had not been marked on the original plans.  It contained an armoire and a small table cluttered with everyday objects, an armchair and a small mirror on the wall.  It reminded her of the things one would find in a foyer of someone's home, and not anything one would find in a crypt. 

Off of this chamber were the other two doors from the original design.  The door closest to her was open and the room was dark.  Edana peered in and saw bookcase upon bookcase lined with scrolls and tomes that rivaled that of the Library's section on necromancy and the darker arts.  There was just so much knowledge contained in that room, that Edana forgot where she was momentarily.  She heard a rustling behind her that startled her slightly. The sound was coming from the other room.  This door was only partially open, and along with the blue glow of the stones she could see the occasional flicker of what appeared to be candlelight.  She moved to the door and let out an involuntary gasp.  A man with white stringy hair bent over an expansive desk in what was apparently his living quarters and study.

She took a step forward into the room and the man look up, and into her eyes with a cold recognition.

"Welcome child," he rasped, a cruel smile once again on his lips.  "My darling," his gaze moving to a different part of the room outside of Edana's view, "It seems our daughter has come home."

The rustling that Edana had heard earlier began to get louder, as slowly a woman's figure, with the unnatural shifting gate of the undead moved into view, and Edana's hand moved to her mouth to prevent the scream that was welling up inside her from ever escaping her lips.

[Dicey Reilly]

The shuffling figure stopped a pace behind and to the left of Edana's father.  Unable to tear her eyes from the rotting corpse in front of her, Edana missed exactly what her Father had been saying.  Slowly words began to register but they were distant, as she stared into the lifeless eyes of the woman who was her mother.

"...quite a resourceful young lady it seems she has become. Regrettable that is. Isn't it dear?"

The corpse turned to Edana's father and nodded as if in agreement.  Edana's eyes shifted to her father's mouth which was moving as if speaking, yet she couldn't comprehend the meaning.  A ringing in her mind had begun to get louder and louder as she stared in shock at her parents making thought slow if not impossible.   It was then that she noticed an oil portrait hung behind them on the wall.  It was of a much younger man, but obviously still her father with even then a gaunt appearance and bone white hair.  Behind him, much like the corpse was now, was a proud looking Feir'dal.  She was beautiful, and defiant looking with a thick ornate gold necklace predominately showing above her finely defined collar bone.  The band was thick, thicker then any choker necklace Edana had seen.  It took a few seconds for Edana to understand the significance of the metal, however intricately carved.  It was a collar, a symbol of servitude.  Her mother was a slave.

Looking back down from the painting, Edana's eyes again went to her mother.  Much like now, she thought.  He couldn't even let you be free in death.  A sharp prick to her fingers brought Edana back to her surroundings.  A blue glint  from the oddly glowing stones reflected off a dagger in her father's hand as he moved slowly from his seat behind the expansive desk and began to move in her direction.  The ringing in her head that had been causing her difficulty in thinking began to clear as she was able to recognize it for what it was, a million tiny minds begging to be set free to do what they had waited a lifetime for.  Edana's hand rose to inches above her face and she whispered quietly to the spider that torn at her flesh in warning.

"Go little ones. Go."

Edana's father seemed puzzled at his daughter's behavior, but not enough to stop his measured advance in her direction.  Edana's mother moved in behind her father keeping a pace or two behind, but in general with her master.  With his empty hand, he swatted at his leg, and then the back of his neck as the first of the spiders dropped onto his robes from their hiding spaces.  The first two were quick to find exposed flesh and to bite causing a minor annoyance.  The others waited until they were able to find ways inside the robes crawling swiftly along the fabric until there were hundreds waiting to exact Edana's revenge.

A sharp cry of pain echoed throughout the crypt as her father stumbled and dropped his dagger clanking in a hollow tinny way against the ancient stone.  He clawed at his robes, ripping at the material in an attempt to escape the increasing number of inhabitants.  Blood streamed from the marks as the alabaster skin on his now bare chest began to turn a deep crimson and black from the writhing mass of insects that swarmed him.

Edana's attention moved from him to her mother's dead eyes.  Please, she thought, please don't make me let them kill you too.  The woman turned her dead gaze on her daughter, holding the girls stare and Edana thought that she saw a spark of that defiance that was so clear as it hung on the wall behind her.    The corpse moved slowly over to the dagger and awkwardly bent to retrieve the blade.  Edana took an involuntary step backwards fearing that the zombie was preparing to finish that which her master had started.  Instead, the woman shuffled to the now prone figure of her father as he unsuccessfully attempted to free himself of the swarm of spiders that were attacking him.  More swiftly then the rest of her movements had suggested she was able to move, the slave plunged the dagger into her master's chest.

Edana took another step backwards, and then another as the zombie raised the dagger again and stabbed down into the soft now exposed flesh of her father's back.  At the movement the zombie looked up and again held Edana's gaze.  The dull emptiness that Edana saw caused her to flee up and out of the crypt.  Through hundreds of many faceted eyes, Edana watched as her mother's corpse plunged the knife into her father over and over again.  Frozen in shock and fear she slumped down against the cold stone, afraid that when the zombie was done she would have to attempt to kill it alone or maybe with the help of one of the guards that often were given the duty of protecting the citizens of Freeport from grave robbers and other unsavory types that would use these tombs as a base of operations.

But as the life seeped out of her father, so too did the animating magics from the woman and as she fell over top of the man whom she had spent her life and death in servitude to, the dagger again clattered against the stone.  Edana sobbed and closed her eyes still unable to summon the strength to move.   The morning sun still found her there, eyes open staring out in front of her at some distant object, silent tears falling slowly from her red-rimmed eyes

[Dicey Reilly]

"You, Miss!" the morning guard on his rounds called out from the pathway leading into this section of crypts.

Edana turned at the sound, confused and cold from the night spent out under the moon.

"You can't sleep here, you've got to move along." The guard stated mistaking her for just another of the cities homeless trying to find a bit of shelter from the wind and cold. It wasn't until he got closer and he noticed she was in her rough linen nightgown that he realized there was something more to what was going on.

"Are you okay, Miss?" He asked quietly. She was his daughter's age and he cringed at the thought of what must have happened to her to drive her into the night dressed as she was.

Edana blinked a few times and focused on the face of the guard as he spoke to her.

"What?" she said. "Can't be here?" she stood and stumbled forward a bit and the guard reached out to steady her.

"Let me walk you home, you've near froze to death out in a night like last in that thin gown."

"Home?" Edana shook her head as if to make sense of what was being said to her. "Home, yes please take me home."

The guard looked at her concerned that she thought he meant his home and he quickly asked, "Where is that Miss, where is home."

"Oh," Edana paused a minute searching though her memories for the answer. "Beggar's court. The orphanage run by Sinead."

The guard shook his head. He knew the place. He also knew that the barbarian woman ran a decent place. That relieved him a bit as he knew that whatever had happened to the young woman in front of him, it hadn't happened there. Sinead might not like her charges, but she didn't let them get abused in anyway that would cause a father pause in leaving a teen in her care.

The guard took off his cloak and placed it over Edana's shoulders as he began to walk her back home. It was for propriety's sake he told himself as he steadied her along the path. It wouldn't due for him to be seen in his uniform walking a barely clad girl out of the graveyard at this time in the morning. People would assume him to have been the one to have taken her there in the first place. Better she be warm and less obviously distressed while he walked her there.

Edana offered a weak smile as the cloak warmed her slightly. The two walked in silence the guard having to keep Edana from stumbling and falling a few times along the way. Sinead opened the door before the guard even had a chance to knock, Edana's empty bed being discovered when the girl had not responded to her calls to start the morning fire.

"Where have you been?" Sinead asked harshly before having a chance to notice the haggard appearance of her charge.

"He's dead, they're both dead." Edana murmured to Sinead in response.

Sinead looked to the guard for some explanation of the comment, but the guard just shook his head in bewilderment.

"I found her in the graveyard, leaning against one of the larger crypts, the Collins one, I believe." The guard said as if to clarify his involvement in the girls disappearance.

"Collins did you say?" Sinead a bit uneasy at the mention of Edana's family name.

"Aye, in the older more affluent part of the cemetery where those crypts be bigger then some folks homes."

Sinead cupped Edana's face in her hand and tilted it up so that she could see directly into her eyes. "Whose dead child."

Edana's blue eyes focused in on Sinead's and she said almost as if she needed to convince herself that it was true, "My father and mother. Dead both of them."

The guard was puzzled by this exchange as he knew that this was an orphanage and why else would Edana be living here unless she were an orphan. Sinead however breathed in sharply at this news, and exhaled calmly before she turned to the guard and handed him back his cloak.

"Thank you for walking her back home. I think she just needs a bit of rest." With that she closed the door and lead Edana to her pallet. Edana allowed herself to be put to bed going about the motions of the activity woodenly the shock still not having worn off. Sleep came almost as her head hit her pillow, and the child slept into the next day. Dreamless for the first time in a long while.

[Dicey Reilly]

With her wakening the next day came the fever and with the fever disturbing dreams. Even in her few moments of lucidity, her vision was a confusing blend of her room at the orphanage and the multi-faceted visage of her family's crypt. Threads of silk wrapped around rapidly decaying remains in order to protect it from any more defiling, and bone laid bare as flesh was stripped viciously from the recently departed competed with her rough bare walls and thin pallet. The former brought her waking mind a sense of horror, and oddly a sense of satisfaction. The later offered her comfort in it's familiar lack of almost everything. As the fever raged on, some of her companions began to return home. Scraps of cloth and bits of white hair came with them and began to clutter the area around and under her bed, presents for their mistress.

It was days before Edana was able to separate her own surrounding from the bits and pieces she glimpsed from the eyes of the spiders, and a few days longer still before she was able to push this other sight to the back of her attention, only calling it forth when she wanted to know something specific from the collective minds of her friends.

Sinead had questioned her early regarding her statement that her father was dead. The girl had just shaken her head and repeated it over and over again. The older woman suspected that there was more to the situation then she could gather from her sick ward, but as the days passed, and no guard came asking questions regarding the death of anyone, and there were no rumors circulating about any odd or suspicious missing persons, she figured that Edana had finally found a lead that explained what happened to the rest of her family. When the questions stopped, so too did Edana's speaking on it.

The fever broke in the night of the sixth day, and in the morning with it returned Edana's hunger and an odd sense of inner strength. It was done, and she had caused it. For the first time since her pets had attacked Rory when she was young, Edana was able to fully admit to herself that she was the driving force behind the retributions and justice that had been done silently on her behalf. The lust for that power and the guilt caused by it waged war on her soul, but as she adjusted to the idea and the shock of her father's well deserved death wore off the self-righteousness of her feelings took over. No one had ever gotten hurt that didn't deserve it. She had never asked the spiders to harm anyone one, and even if she had through her own whisperings about the injustices of her youth they had never harmed anyone who hadn't brought it on themselves. Edana secured herself in this notion of vigilante justice and the guilt slipped away leaving her even more jaded in the process.

Sinead called a priestess after the fever broke to see ensure that the illness had not damaged her ward's mind. The girl had become even more recalcitrant and detached then she had been prior to the fever. Edana met the priestess's level gaze an odd smile curving at the corners of her mouth, while her aura was tested for any infirmity. The woman made a quick motion as if to ward off evil curses and hexes after she had finished before confiding in Sinead her findings.

"The child has touched death, though not with her own hands. But she knows it, and she is one of them that lay down with it just to rise again. She's not touched in the head by it just yet, but you never know when you deal with death. You never know."

Sinead thanked the old priestess and handed her over a few silver in payment. She knew that the overlord would pay the healer as well for the time in dealing with the orphanage, but she wanted to thank the woman herself as well. It was good to have a healer know you appreciate their craft, for times when you are in dire need.

"She can go about her normal duties again then?" Sinead asked right before closing the door on the woman's retreating figure.

"Of course she can, it might be good for her to get back into her routine. It might even break the hold the dead have on her soul spending more time with the living."

Sinead closed the door against the bustle of Beggar's court to find Edana out of her room, still in her linen nightgown.

"I am okay then." Edana said, a statement and not a question.

Sinead nodded her head and continued to look at the half-breed in front of her a bit concerned at the possibility of an insane child replacing this bright if judgmental one.

"You can resume your duties. I would suggest you bath and eat quickly. It is later then normal, and you won't have time for studies until the work you were unable to do these last few days is finished. Nora had been given your tasks, but we all know she is not nearly as diligent as you are in seeing that things are done properly."

Edana smiled in spite of herself. Nora was sloppy and inattentive but she wasn't mean or lazy. She was slower then the other children, but she was honest. There would be a lot that Edana would have to do over but she wasn't upset about that. Her smile turned to a slight frown as she realized that it would be a bit before she was able to get back to the tomb and see to her mother's remains. A day or so longer was nothing, she reminded herself when one considered how long ago it had been since her mother deserved a proper burial.

[Dicey Reilly]

She found the depressions much easier this time now that she knew where to feel for them.  The blue eerie glow held fewer mysteries this time as she entered.  Some of her friends had remained, and the jars were draped with a gossamer layer of silk.  The remains in the room and the sarcophagus were left untouched however.  If that was because the enchantments placed on them were still strong, or because of respect for her wishes Edana would never be quite sure, but she was pleased regardless of the cause.  She wouldn't want to have to send her confidants away because they were infesting her ancestor's final resting place.

She walked back into the room straight back from this grand entry that she had ignored on her first trip here.  There was another sarcophagus, much less ornate then that of the first Patriarch here but still very finely made. This one was made with a lid that slid easily back to partially expose a pit that had been made below.  It was here that the older corpses had been removed to.  There was a pulley system that made adding remains an easy task, and Edana figured that it wouldn't be difficult for her to transfer the oldest of the linen bound deceased her herself to make room for her mother's.  The task was awkward, and had it not been for the enchantments holding the corpse together within the linens, Edana would have had trouble moving the now skeletal form in one piece.  When the task was done, the young girl pushed the lid back into place until she heard it secure tightly and the seal reform.

She made her way downstairs dreading the next task she had given herself.  Her mother's preparation for burial and the enchantments that she would cast on the decomposing remains to ensure that at last her soul was in peace.  The candle that had been burning had long since extinguished, and the only light came from the blue stones held within the skeletal hands placed evenly so that one could maneuver without fear of hurting yourself in total darkness.  As Edana finished her descent, something odd pricked at the back of her mind.  There was no smell.  She had expected the clear, unmistakable smell of rotting flesh to have permeated the tomb on this level.  It was completely absent.  She began to get very uneasy, had she been dreaming?  Had her father not died, or had he someone in his employ that came and found his corpse and the badly decomposed corpse of her mother?  Her hand slowly pushed the partially closed door to her father's living quarters open, as her heart pounded in her chest so loudly it deafened her.

On the floor where it had dropped was the dagger her mother had stabbed her father with until his life seeped out of him ending her servitude.  The hollow tinny sound as it had fallen to the floor echoed in her mind as she examined the two remains in front of her. Her mother's corpse had been tightly wrapped in a silken cocoon.  Edana had no idea how many spiders it had taken or how many hours or even days to accomplish the task but she was grateful that this aspect of laying her mother to rest had been made easier. 

Beneath the cocoon, where her father's newly decaying corpse should have been, stiff from riga mortis was only bone.  Everything had been stripped bare.  They were not yet dry and brittle as if they had been left in the desert and allowed ages to weather, but that was what they reminded her of,  the bleached bone one would find as the sand shifts and some unfortunate traveler's final resting place in unearthed with the ebb and flow of the dunes in the winds. 

Edana gently lifted the cocoon amazed at how much weight the delicate looking bundle still had.  She cradled the bundle in her arms much like one would carry a baby and slowly made her way up to the main burial chamber and the alcove she had readied for her mother's corpse.  After the body was laid out, she reached into her hip bag and brought out myrrh, rosemary, garlic and other spices she had found to be used in the oldest enchantments to ensure that her mother's body would never again be raised and placed into servitude.  She also brought out a small notebook and a pendant which she placed over the cocoon and above the area where her mother's heart would be.  She crushed the herbs and read a small incantation from her notebook calling on the strength of the other protected spirits in the tomb, hoping to add this body to the ancient magic of protection the original patriarch built into the very foundation of the crypt.  Her skin tingled as the ancient enchantments responded to her newer one, and the edges of the two entwined until she could no longer tell where one began and the other ended.  The process exhausted her, as she was still a novice in regards to the necromantic arts and she had needed to draw on much of her own essence to accomplish the spell, but it was done.  Her mother was at last at peace.

She made her way back downstairs, and stepped over the bones of her father on the floor.  She walked over to his desk, and searched for a candles to replace those that had burned themselves out.  In the lowest draw, there appeared to be more then enough to light the desk area, and Edana sat down back in the plush chair her lids heavy in the comforting glow of the candlelight.  It took but a few moments, but sleep overcame her desire to examine all that her sire had left behind.

[Dicey Reilly]

The candle flickered before her in casting a bit of warming glow in the otherwise cold blue chambers.  The desk in front of her had a much more meticulous appearance then it had the first time she had seen it, but other then that much of the decor remained the same.  The portrait of her parents remained on the wall behind her, and the dagger  and bones remained on the floor.  Reminders of how she got here, she told herself every time she stepped over them to sit in the plush chair tucking her hair behind her ear.  It always seemed to fall into her face at the least opportune time.

A small meal of fresh bread, cheese and some fruit sat untouched while Edana puzzled over an old scroll from the Archives.  There was so much to learn, and so little of the information found here had duplications in the Arcane Science's Library.  Her ancestors had been fanatic in their cataloguing of the lore that they had come across relating to necromancy.  There were secrets here that might give insight into the Overlord's power and the deal that he struck with The Foci.  She was not surprised that her father had been so effected by the break-in that he had chosen to live in the crypt himself.  It hadn't taken long after Edana had begun to study here herself instead of the library for her to decide that it might be prudent to do the same.

She had of course lied to Sinead with what her plans were when she departed.  She had found a stupid boy and had convince him that she intended to run away with him to explore the Faydwer.  She had purchased tickets for the two of them, and had him come to the orphanage.  Sinead of course was not unhappy to see her go it was always good when one of the older children left.  It gave her a bit more space if even for a little while, but she didn't approve of the circumstances.  Edana knew as much but figured that if Sinead thought that Edana were still in the city, she might try and find out what exactly she was doing, and the young girl didn't want that.  She didn't really want anyone else aware of what laid behind the warded doors.

Frowning, Edana noticed a reference to another scroll in the crypt that she had not seen before.  There was so much she just didn't know, and she didn't even begin to know where to look.  She took a small bite of the apple before her. and then a sip of water from a glass that was to the side of the small plate.

"Minion," she called "bring me the scroll reference here...the one detailing the works of Auhrik Siet`ka of Paneel."

Her skin tingled and she heard the telltale clattering as the bones before her desk rose from their position of rest.  Empty eye sockets turned and faced her, and the deep resonant voice of death spoke to her.

"As you wish, daughter.  As you wish."