Chapter I. The Blue Keep.

The fog scattered against the prominent side of the neighboring mountain range. Weakening itself before reaching a mile from the watchtower, vanishing amongst the dewy valley of browned tundra westward of The Blue Keep. Stationary at its center watchtower, a stoic Caddiceus watched intently. He would not cease his focus, not until he could see the twisted monument that stood a safe distance from his post. As if aware of Caddiceus's apphrension, the misty cloud soon pulled back, tickling at the malformed construct and taunting the watchman's dedication.

“If they were going to show, they surely would’ve done it by now." Clattering noises from the new arrival besmirched the tranquility. "It’s morning Caddiceus, garner what rest you can and I’ll see you at dusk.” The voice was that of Verner’s, the opposing shift. Caddiceus could hardly see the morning sun through the storm clouds.

“What rest is there to receive? I close my eyes only to open them hours later with no rest gathered. Every attempt is a waste of our time.” Caddiceus muttered as he gathered his bow and cloak.

“Curious. Might want to have Malthus look at that. Can't do anything about the sourpuss act, but could find you a nice poppyroot to get you through your rest.” The watchman chortled. “And if it cures you of our curse, might be luck turning around, eh Caddiceus?”

Caddiceus had left the chamber before he could hear the heckler’s nonsense. He felt it wasn’t valuable to indulge regardless. The cadence of his steps along the stone staircase allowed him to think. 

The anxiety of waiting, a cruel punishment to patience. We gain no advantage with this, both sides with immeasurable time. When they attack, will it be in the night, or during that fool's round? The endless circle of uncertainty.  If only I could be at two places at once, maybe my insecurities could all be relieved. Rain began to fall, pattering against the stone walls, right as Caddiceus had entered the common hall. To his left, the arched doorways into the ruined courtyard revealed the rain pelting the shattered statues and what was left of the shrubbery. After all the work Celiah had put into that soil, it reduces to mud in mere minutes. On his right, the portraits of lords and ladies who lived at the estate. Most of them tattered and ruined, be it by age or an episode of enraged revelation to the cursed forms each of the depicted had awoken in. Except for the Lady of the Castle. The portrait adorned in a frame of gold accents, that still shimmered even in the damp light of the hall, a delicately painted portrait of Lady Celiah bearing the soft flesh she carried in her best days. Her golden brown hair descended daintily across her facile cheeks, which held the tiniest smile. Her dress of pure white, decorated by freshly picked flowers sewn into a mantle across her collar. Even the compliments of the acrylic paint couldn’t capture the foreboding thoughts racing through the ladies’ mind, as this picture was painted only days before everything changed for the residents of the manor.  Caddiceus caught the blue light from his face against the sheen of the painting. Wisp-like and blue as a pale moon. It gathered into a simple reflection, depicting his face’s silhouette with its ebb and flow of iridescent flame. The glow of his ethereal skin obscured the painting and robbed Caddiceus of his appreciation for it, leaving him bitter.  It reminded him of the flesh he lacked. Every day passes, further placing me in this state of dread. Do I long for what we all once had? Before this madness. More and more I see that within myself I tend to forget what it felt like, was it all so truly different from this? Was there not a fate worse for us if this curse never came?

After wrestling the old door that caught itself on its hinge, Caddiceus entered his study. The tables, chairs and shelves kept as messy as he left them, books and pens and ink scattered on top. Inevitably, Caddiceus found himself searching through an open tome, hoping to find his place from before with no avail. A mild frustration entered and left him, his attention was drawn to the view from his window revealing the rusted monument that sat in between the mountain ranges outside the estate. It too was drenched with rainwater, but the fog was nowhere to be seen.

The puppets tease us, relishing the thought of us turning pale at the sight of their sickly fog. They always stop there, never daring to march forward. The gnarled monument stood far enough to be seen perfectly from the studies’ location. The twisted metal of it consists of what was once three different statues. The original forms lost to time, now a shapeless mound of molten iron. Caddiceus scanned over the passage in his tome of the monument of three kings that once stood to signify the kingdoms of man. Prosperity, Valor and Sanctity; when those words meant something. Men and women would dedicate their lives to the causes of the kingdom on these values, if only they knew how little it all mattered. The hordes were those who once looked upon the statues with hope in their eyes. To think what they see now when they look upon them. Reflections of the hell we both inhabit.

Caddiceus closed the book with a slam. Pondering on the lesser beings that patrolled the Ruin drew him closer to anger and sadness, two feelings Caddiceus had his fill of. 

“C-Caddiceus!” The light feminine voice echoed from the entrance of his chamber. Caddiceus turned to address it, soon to find the desire to smile. He always did when he saw Celiah, but today his smile never formed.

“Celiah.” Caddiceus replied. “I told you my thumb has never been green, I’d only harm your plants rather than help them.” Caddiceus placed his book down.

“Always finding your excuses to stay in your study, Caddiceus. This won’t be so easy to find yourself out of.” Celiah gave a small grin, she only seemed to smile anymore when Caddiceus was around and he was wise enough to notice. She was still fair even with her flickering skin, her hair almost improved with the blue and white flames that plumed from her pale head. Her eyes had lost their color, but Caddiceus saw them as moons crafted from pearls. “Father had requested you. He says it is urgent.”

The request had shook Caddiceus from his enamour. “The old wart again? I have told him to leave me to my study in peace. If he wishes to speak, there is a watchtower I am stationed to every night. There are many hours in my watch that I can discuss his fruitless thoughts.” Caddiceus still had spite in his cold heart, the old man had tasked him on the overnight watch to occupy his time. The time has been occupied and now he wishes to occupy the spare as well?

“Caddiceus.” Celiah despised Caddiceus’ callousness towards her father. “He will find you, he knows where you are. I insist you find him, this time.”

Caddiceus argued with petty intent for a little longer, wasting the poor girl’s time. He knew he would accept the request, he simply longed for a moment of enjoyment to be shared with his old friend. They descended into the lower chambers where the girl’s father, Cedric, had sunk himself in. Heirlooms placed in the lower levels of the Keep were far more intact than those of the surface’s. Silver chalices, adorned candelabras, scepters and cloaks and even a statue of Cedric’s late hound. The Lord of The Blue Keep truly had a grip on the riches and worth he had in life, lest he ever lose sight of them.

“Caddy!” An obnoxious shout echoed off the narrow corridor followed by a clattering of mail. The fool was waving. “Happy to see you up and about. Me and Berry here thought you’d been sent on tower duty for good, plenty of time up there for your books, eh Caddy? ” Galus was especially perky today, another omen to spell out the dread Caddiceus was to endure.

“Cedric has sent for my advisory, Galus.” Caddiceus stabbed. “I am certain wasting my time with these idle questions is not within your duties as guard of his quarters. Maybe I could convince him to have Malthus turn the both of you into hounds so you may perform your duties fittingly.” The twin oafs lost their swagger.

“Oy then, Caddy. You can find a different way through this door, cause it won’t be through us.” Berry spoke. “Maybe Ol’ Cedric il finally toss you to the damned like he shoulda done when ye-!” Berry expanded his chest as he rose, when he was interrupted, he inflated like a sick bullfrog. The twin doors opened behind Galus and Berry without them noticing, and the stern, withered hand of Malthus, Render of Kaladan, warped the very color of the coward’s skin when placed on his shoulder. Galus was wise to move aside, the sorcerer was known for his impatience and temper.

Caddiceus took one last look at Celiah, who had taken steps away from him. He wanted to say something, a defense for himself. The words never saw light. She looked blank, the memory brought to her was once suppressed. Soon, she saw her way into the hallway’s shadow, leaving Caddiceus to squalor in the regret. He wanted to forget it too.

“Caddiceus. Come.” Malthus’s face wore rows of age, cracked and grooved in a way that seemed lattice. There was weight on his brow, the kind brought on by stress. 

“Of course.” Caddiceus knew better than to deny his mentor a swift response. He pushed aside the two imbeciles, who sneered as he passed, and followed Malthus into Cedric’s quarters. The sorcerer closed his palm, a wisp of violet smoke puffed from it and the door slammed shut.

“What you see today does not leave here.” Malthus held no waver in his voice. The intensity caught Caddiceus off guard, was this not one of Cedric’s attempts to brighten the poor soul’s mood with conversations of mundanity more adept at putting one to sleep than relishing the blessings in life?

“It shall not.” Caddiceus had not been so daunting with his mentor in quite some time. He spoke with a foreboding dread, not since the dawn of the curse had he held such tension speaking with him.

Malthus opened the doors into Lord Cedric’s chambers, the damp air rushed in souring Caddiceus’s nostrils as they entered. The source was no doubt from the rain outside and the reservoirs tasked to store it, the bastion had been designed to collect the falling water and reserve it for the harshness of summer. Nowadays, water does little to aid the day to day lives of the residents, so further collections stay dormant until Malthus makes use of it for his alchemy or research. This, to Caddiceus’s dismay, takes enough time to fill the room incessantly with the dank smell of mildew which for some reason left Cedric unaffected. Caddiceus was reminded of how little he missed this, and how little patience he had for Cedric when it came to waiting on the old man to notice his company.

Cedric sat staring at the egress window that revealed the rain shattering onto the ground, a look of emptiness that was not too common on the buoyant man. Caddiceus half expected the old fool to turn from his chair with a rosy smile recanting the boon that rain supplies to the earth. However, when the man turned half his face to acknowledge him, a solemn gaze crept alongside.
“Do you recall the day you and Malthus told me we were the last of our kingdom, Caddiceous?” Cedric said, dredged in malaise.

“Last of sane mind, yes.” Caddiceus assured the elder. He wondered what relevance bringing up such wretched times brought. “Those lost souls serve their king with madness and depravity. You know as well as I, there is no returning them.”

Old Cedric shifted in the cracked leather of his seat. His wrinkled and worn look now faced Caddiceus entirely. “I have not brought you here to toil on idle hopes of reclaiming our fallen. Instead, there is hope in sowing the seeds to our future, with tenacious kin.”

Caddiceus’s eyes beamed. “What madness has claimed you, Cedric? A babe has not cried in these halls since before the fall of man. There is no woman alive to bear children, and even if they could, what promise is there that they won’t be born abominations of undeath like the rest of us?” The zealous scribe felt his mentor’s hand on his shoulder. Silence accompanied Malthus, but it was enough to convince Caddiceous to reduce his emotions.

“No, there is no hope that my family or any in the Blue Keep shall bear children again. However, we were ignorant to believe that this place held the last of mankind.” Cedric rose from his chair, and drifted to a door nearest to his mantle. The sunken, swollen oak bellowed as Cedric began to open it.

“Keep your calm, Narrowfly.” Malthus whispered over Caddiceus’s shoulder. It brought him bittersweet nostalgia to hear the name his mentor used in the summers that formed Caddiceus’s talents. He couldn’t help but feel condescended.

“I am calm.” Caddiceus muttered. “My frustration lies in the inability of the both of you to be clear with me .”

Cedric turned over his shoulder as he entered the hallway beyond the door.

“Excuse my secrecy, Caddiceus. I hope you can respect this being a matter to see to be believed.”

The amberlight of the hall’s torches had the walls of the keep shimmer like gold ore. Trophies and tokens from a former life hung from the fixtuares, maps of battlefields, rusted swords hung in jeweled scabbards, and the crests of the House in which Cedric and Celiah belonged. The raven of House Bluewealth, carrying a single strand of wild grass in its beak and taking flight overlapping a diamond-shaped frame. The crests sat upon the same wall used to hang a painted portrait of the two, intact after countless years. Caddiceus forgot the old man looked far portlier in flesh, he had not seen this painting since their last meeting.  A narrow hallway preceded them, leading past the door to Cedric’s study, locked tight, and into the door of the old war room. The war room’s door was left ajar, with a warm light of hearthfire spilling from it. There was the faint scent of cinnamon in there, which confused Caddiceus. Taste was a pleasure of the living, inhabitants of a less fortunate state were cursed to relieve themselves of such fancies.

“You brought me here to critique your cooking? Bread that will smolder to char in my mouth as I eat it?”

“Bold of you to assume I would prepare sweet bread for a foul soul such as yours, boy.” Cedric chuckled. “No, I believe our guest has far more stomach for Malthus’ old recipe.”

Caddiceus was stopped in disbelief for a moment. “A visitor?”

The door was cracked, but Cedric had to push it hard to get it moving. It creaked until the moment it stopped against the cobblestone floor with a bump. Malthus walked ahead of Caddiceus entering to their left, Cedric left the door open with his arm and ushered the wide-eyed scribe through into the warm room. He turned in and peered past the open door, to see the table used to plan many battles in the days of war. The torn map upon the table, pierced with knives never thought to be moved, marked by ink dried in countless hours by fire, and with wooden blocks representing battalions and armies from a different time scattered haphazard across it. The most curious object was a plate of porcelain, freckled with crumbs of a freshly eaten sweet bread. A fork and knife left unmoved from the sides of the dish. The crumbs led beneath the single chair pulled to the head of the table, and a huddled body wrapped in a wool shawl sat in front of the hearth making noise as it chewed. Caddiceus stepped forward, proceeding with caution. Then it turned, revealing the face of a boy with his cheeks swollen with the remains of sweetbread. He sat with legs crossed in direction of the fire, black hair damp and oily of a beating from the storm, and stared at Caddiceus with wide eyes. It didn't take long for the boy to return to chewing, Caddiceus wore a face aghast.