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| - Mehler is sitting on a large rock by the road, examining a pendant in his hand. Taran makes his way casually along, looking like nothing so much as the wandering bard he is. His Lute is carried before him, the strap around his neck and shoulders so that the seraphite strings light his path. Within earshot, one would be able to make out muttering coming from Mehler. He seems to be rambling to no one as he turns the pendant in his fingers. He keeps focus on that, paying no attention to anyone or anything walking along the road. Taran, however, does watch where he's going. As he nears, he cautiously offers, "Light's blessings, my lord. A fine night, is't not? But a bit cool." "Cold like bones. Bones and teeth. Can you hear the scratching? Claws scratching bones." Mehler wraps the pendant around one finger on his good hand. "Fine night? Night is watching. Don't look up. Eyes in the sky." Taran blinks, then, carefully, "...Coda has iron ore in her saddlebags," he offers. "You are Lord Mehler, aren't you? I'd hoped to find you." "Mehler left. Fled the dark. Fled the teeth on bones and scratching and claws and eyes in the sky." Mehler hazards a glance at Taran before looking back at the pendant. "Forgot this. Took hand with him though." Taran carefully comes nearer, to let his Lute's strings shine more clearly on the pendant without startling the man. "If Mehler left," he asks, peering at the pendant, "who is here?" The pendant bears the insigna of House Seamel, a horse in mid-gallop. "Just bones," Mehler replies. "Bones..." he trails off. "Did you hear?" He looks around wildly, starting to slide off the rock and stand on the ground. Taran nods. "I hear," he agrees, and looks down at his Lute, fingers lightly caressing the strings, drawing out a soft chord or two of melody. "You think he will come back for you?" Mehler looks toward the sound, an expression of befuddlement appearing on the man's face. But the tune of Taran's lute is herald to something unexpected. A hand emerges from nowhere and rests on Mehler's shoulder. The owner of that hand, a tall man in a dark cloak, visage shrouded by a hood, materializes behind Mehler. In one hand the figure holds a wicked-looking obsidian dagger. In a deep, gravelly voice, the man intones, "Lord Mehler Seamel, I come to end your madness." Eyes widening with shock, Taran reaches forward, to pull Mehler away, to run. "No!" he shouts - and given the bard's training, the tenor cry is not quiet at all. Mehler is too slow to grab Taran's hand. The obsidian dagger glints in the moonlight before being thrust into the Seamel's back. Mehler utters a cry of pain as the knife is twisted and then withdrawn, the cloaked figure watching the Seamel slump to the ground, motionless. It is entirely possible that it's at least been a good long while since the bard has been so close to a murder, but it's hardly a typical murderer, either. His left hand clenches around the neck of his Lute, but he seems torn as to whether to try playing it, or try swinging it. "You...You are the Burus, aren't you," he says to the figure, and there's definitely no hiding the tremble of fear in that expressive tenor - nor the determination. "Why him? What point?" Not bending, no - that obsidian dagger certainly hasn't gone anywhere. "The Burus? Haha. No." The gravelly voice gives a slight chuckle. "The Burus is merely a quaint folk legend. As for the Lord Seamel, it is none of your concern, bard," The shrouded figure says. "He was broken by that which mere mortals cannot comprehend. When you stare into the Shadow, it stares back at you." "Then who are you?" demands Taran, possibly holding fast by sheer will. "What are you?" "It is none of your concern," The voice repeats. "On your way, bard." With that, the figure dematerializes back into the darkness. The only sound left is the wind on the trees. Taran sinks to his knees shaking, as the dark figure departs, and touches fingers to the body of Mehler. "...What in Light's name drew that kind of attention to you?" he murmurs sadly. "At least...at least he didn't get your body...I need to go get Mistress Balsam." The waiting room of the Sweetwater Apothecary is welcoming and soothing indeed: The walls remaining a pristine shade of white plaster, with the floor beneath them crafted of highly polished pine planks. There are windows to let light and fresh air in, with dark green shutters to close over them when the weather is bad. A box of toys sits in one corner, while the furniture within the room itself remains washable and durable. Small tapestries and sconces provide color and light, futher adding to the mood that the perpetual scent of lavender in the air finishes off perfectly. One door leads out to the square; the other leads inwards to the examination room. Chaori Balsam is straightening the place up. Taran just about bolts into the apothecary, lacking pretty much all of his usual poise. "...Murder in the road," he says. "Lord Mehler..." Chaori Balsam asks, "What?" as she grabs her medical kit. "He's dead," pants the bard. "It came - right out of nothing - killed him right in front of me!" He looks quite set to drag the healer out with him, but swallows it down. "Can't - you can't heal him now -" Oh, yeah, and Sahna's there too-- Previously sneezing into a hankerchief, she looks up with a startled, red-nosed expression. "What? Chaori Balsam hurries over to her cloak and throws it on while waiting for an answer. "Lord Mehler's just been killed," the bard repeats, enunciating remarkably clearly for a man who's out of breath and clearly just had the fright of his life. "Someone came - right out of nowhere -" and evidently decides he'd do better guiding Chaori. "This way." Neatly maintained cobblestones form a road that cuts across this grassy sward, relatively flat, with an expanse of short greenish-blue blades broken here and there by the occasional shardwood tree and clumps of green-stalked weeds. The soil providing sustenance for the grass is rich, dark and loamy. Once in a while, longflank hares and other small wild animals can be seen rustling through the grass. Clusters of homesteads are growing along the road in this fledgling settlement known as Sweetwater Fields. It is a quite cold night. The slightest breeze stirs over the land infrequently. Dark puffy clouds hang low in the sky. The following of the six moons are visible in the sky: Herald (blue/waxing), Serpent's Eye (violet/waxing), Torch II (gray/waxing). Taran leads the way at his long-legged pace to Stormclaw Road, walking quickly to the fallen body of the dead lord. "Here," he says, and then looks around, holding his Lute for light. "He appeared - well. Not like teleporting, appeared - faded into the foreground? Right behind him..." "You didn't hear anything that sounded like buzzing insects?" Sahna queries, marching after Taran with more haste than graze. Sneezing, she adds, "Last I heard, he was returned to the Seamels." Chaori Balsam says, "That's what I heard, along with Duke Oren banishing him from Nillu lands." She comes forward as swiftly as she can and begins examining Mehler. The first thing she looks for are any signs of life Taran might have missed. Taran shakes his head. "Wind in the grass, a snapping twig - that could have been chance, as well. No insects. He -" he pauses, a bit frustrated with himself, snapping his fingers. "Took shape. Took form - I've seen teleportation. This wasn't like that, and I..." he deflates, a bit shaky. "I don't think he just snuck up..." he waves a hand at the ground, and then - somewhat wobbily - starts looking for footprints. "My lands aren't Nillu lands, thank goodness, so that ratty old bastard can't make bans for here." Sahna responds acidly, interrupted by a sneeze only once. Reaching the prone form, she looks down-- Both eyebrows achieving high-orbit over her forehead. "...No, I don't think he snuck up, either." Chaori Balsam is still examining Mehler, peering at this and that. Taran is fairly clearly coming off a state of shock, with adrenaline having its merry shaky way with him. "T..tall man, cloak...came up behind him with a dagger. Stabbed him in the back and twisted the knife - I tried to pull him away, but I wasn't fast enough." He shakes his head, straightening up. "...Can't find any footprints, and if I keep looking I'll just ruin any traces a real tracker might find. If there are any." Moving over to stand at Taran's side while Chaori does her work, Sahna folds her hands with a grim expression. "This would happen when Lucius is away." She muses, softly. "The man wasn't bald, with a mage tattoo, was he?" For someone staring at a (probably) dead fellow, Sahna's fairly calm-- A bit pale, but outwardly collected for the moment. Chaori Balsam says after a few more moments, "I can't find any wounds on his front. Would someone please gently turn him over for me?" Chaori, for the moment, doesn't seem upset in the least. Taran shakes his head, bending down - in a rather controlled way, as to prevent falling - to turn the body to show Chaori where the knife went in. "His face was hidden," he says quietly, and somewhat shakily. "He wouldn't give me a name, anything. If he was a mage ...that was more power than I've seen before." Arm wrapping around the body of his lute, he adds, "Not...that that would be very hard..." Chaori Balsam says, "Thank you, Taran." She looks for a few moments longer. "Here we are. One stab wound, straight to the heart. I'll know more about it when I examine him at the apothecary, but it looks like a very neat thrust, which would explain why blood isn't everywhere." With a rueful expression, Sahna Nillu kneels by the body--- Just far enough back so as to avoid the pool of blood. "Dead, then." It isn't a question. Staring at the corpse for a long moment, Sahna grimaces. "This has the earmarks of an incident. Ideally, what we should do is summon a member of the military on an imperial level, since it's a murder involving a nobleman. I don't think that's a good idea, myself. Taran, have you witnessed anyone seeing this corpse?" Taran waves a hand at the road, and the nearby homesteads. "I've seen no one - I left him only to go to get mistress Balsam." He frowns at Sahna, adding, "If not the watch, who? The mages here? I'm not sure that would be wise, either...something drove the man mad." Blinking, as if just thinking of something, he bends down to take a close look at the pendant in the man's hand. "Yes. Something drove him mad, and thanks to Oren, he was returned to his family." Sahna responds, expression dour. "So nobody really got the chance to investigate. You both may think less of me for this, but I don't want people to get wind of a magical murder here. I'm all for dragging him around like a drunk comerade and dunking him in the Fastheld." Chaori Balsam looks up at Sahna. "Countess, we need to summon the Imperial Watch. Trying to hide this will only make matters worse. Not only is it the right thing to do, it may just keep his father from declaring feud. If there's a man fading in and out of existence stabbing people rather neatly in the back, then the Emperor needs to know about it. He'll probably send Viscount Duhnen Seamel to look into it, but there are worse things." Taran holds up the pendant that had been in Mehler's hand - the pendant of House Seamel. "You want them to know nothing?" he asks, reserved. Sahna rubs at her chin with a lace glove, frowning. "It isn't feud that I'm worried about, Chaori. It's the idea of this being presented as a magical-sort of assassination. I don't think it even takes a particularly active imagination to think of the way people around Fastheld will react. Fine, we can summon the watch, but it was simply a no-witnesses crime of stabbing, if that's the case. There are better ways to get Duhnen and the others to help investigate /without/ screwing all of us over." Chaori Balsam shakes her head. "There are better ways to deal with this than by attempting to destroy evidence of a murder, Countess. They may sting, but remedies often do. No one's going to believe he drowned. Would you rather this came to light and be accused of murdering him yourself, or conspiring with his killer? Call the Watch." The bard, crouched by the body with the Lute in front of him, studies the pendant in its light with a thoughtful look. "I have an open invitation to perform for the Viscount, my lady," he says quietly. "If you wish to trust nothing to paper. Whether you choose to reveal or not to the world...that is your game to play, but I think it a poor move to tell Lord Duhnen nothing." He shows the House symbol on the pendant again. "The death of one of his House on your lands...t'would be poor return for favors past not to tell him, or so it seems to me." "What we have here is a corpse.. Who's been stabbed in the back. A normal crime." Sahna responds, shaking her head. "As opposed to inducing hunts of 'touched out of the fear of a 'touched murderer. I'd rather be called a murderer than see even /more/ angry mobs beating Kael up, for example. Yes, this man was stabbed. As far as the watch is capable of investigating, someone simply stabbed him in the back... And that's fine. We can investigate the actual causes through means thant mundane men do not possess or understand. " She looks up at Chaori, and the red-nose of an allergy sufferer does nothing to mute the flinty hardness of her gaze. "Of course I plan on telling Duhnen and Ester what's going on... Between dealing with the fallout on all of the different levels. But not a word to anyone but other 'touched of this, both of you. I mean it." Chaori Balsam packs up her kit, slowly gets to her feet, and walks back to the town square. Taran pockets the pendant. "It ...or he... gave a warning, then, my lady, that you'd best hear," he says. "He said that when you stare into the Shadow, it stares back at you. For the rest..." he shakes his head and shrugs. "I know the song of silence. It will be as you say." Sahna stares after Chaori for a moment, before smiling ruefully at Taran. "It's supremely ironic that some people still have such faith in authority. I can deal with the loss of her respect, but it's the fact that she actually trusts the people in power to honestly investigate this sort of thing that galls me. I'm going to go have the local guard and imperial watch sent for ..Thank you, Taran, for understanding." Taran takes a few deep breaths. "...I think I'll go roust Kyshen out of my bed, or take over the rug," he says quietly. "I'm in no state to ride and I want a door between me and the world that isn't opened by barmaids, tonight. Rest well, my lady...I'm not sure I will." Sahna stands, nodding slowly to Taran. "Understood. It's my town, so it's my problem to worry about. Try to put it as far from your mind as you can." She turns to walks towards the guardpost at the center of town, sneezing. Taran wobbles to his feet, and makes a rather careful and wobbly path toward Kilning Road, and a bed of sorts.
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