Creed

Requiem of the Moth S03 C09

Content warnings¹

I might be able to do something about the latter.

As Usira hurries through the streets, hood up and grey cloak billowing behind him, he thinks of that conversation. Has he said too too much too soon? True, he finally knows where the manuscript is, thanks to his friendship with Pai Rilan and Zhiva’s efforts. Melyi has promised that their reputation will be restored once it’s back in Ithreyesh’s hands. And yet…

He can’t forget Pai Rilan and the kindness she has shown him from the first gathering. No doubt she would suffer if the book went missing from her clan’s vault. Can he afford to spare her feelings when Yun and his own clan are in danger?

His lips tingle, remembering Yun’s kisses. He still can’t believe that Yun, the aloof Vessi holed up in his office, has come to him to celebrate his triumph. For once, Usira doesn’t want to think of the means he used to get to that end.

He opens the back door to the familiar scent of mould and incense wafting from the shrine to his left. Home. Part of him is glad to put those thorny questions out of his mind for now. He ducks into the shrine, welcoming the gloom.

“Who’s there?”

The low hiss cuts through his prayer for luck—ironic—and he scurries behind the statue of the Moth. It’s too early in the morning even for moth catchers, or so he thought.

The approaching figure is familiar. “Usira?” he asks, squinting into his direction.

Usira debates only briefly before he steps into the green glowshroom light. “You’re up early, Velin.” His cousin barks out a surprised laugh and they clasp hands warmly. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same, my Lord. Thought you’d gotten too high and mighty for us lowly commoners.”

Usira gestures for silence and listens into the courtyard. Satisfied they’re still alone, he whispers: “I only came to borrow a few odds and ends. Keep quiet about this.” He peers at Velin, noticing for the first time his dishevelled hair and bulging pockets. When he tilts his head, a single silver earring shines on his left ear. “Come to think of it, what are you doing here this early?”

“I couldn’t sleep and came to pray, just like you.”

When Velin smiles, Usira catches an echo of his cousin’s adolescent mischief. Could he still be on his wild bat chase for that poet Ryliss? Usira thinks of coaxing the truth out of Velin, who has been getting into trouble since he could walk, but then he swallows the words. They’re not children anymore, their world not as clean-cut as it once was. “Whatever it is you’re doing, be careful.”

The smile fades. “You too. Whatever it is you came to prepare for, I know you’re doing the right thing. For what it’s worth, I believe in you. The Moth keep you and all that.”

“The Moth keep you.” With one last glance, Usira dons his hood and leaves the shrine. The storehouse is located next to it and blissfully deserted.

---

“Careful now, don’t break it. It should give easily.”

The woman in black shoulders past Usira to examine the latch and line up her crowbar. One push and the latch springs open—thanks to Zhiva’s prior manipulation.

Usira shudders at the whine of the door but the pantry they slip into is deserted so early in the morning. Once they’re in the narrow walkway between shelves, he looks back at his companions: a short puppet dressed in a courier’s brown tunic and satchel and the woman. Almost as tall as him, she’s wearing the typical Ithreyesh mask with its flat snout and pointed leathery ears, a mask he now realises is modelled after the face of the common cave bat.

“I appreciate the help but I’d like to clarify a few things before we move on. Can I count on you to follow my lead?”

“Yes.” Through the mask, her voice is a muffled but firm alto. “But I should warn you that my top priority is the manuscript, not you.”

What is that manuscript, he ponders not for the first time, that Ithreyesh considers it more valuable than any of its individual members and associates? Melyi refused to tell him. Perhaps it’s better that he doesn’t know, in case he gets caught. He nods. “According to my intelligence, they keep it in a vault under the mansion. It’s not a secret—I’ve seen the entrance in the main hall past the front doors but it’s heavily guarded. They keep a lot of valuable art down there, paintings, sculptures, and more.”

“Guards?” the woman asks.

“Hired.” Pai isn’t wealthy enough to keep their own household guard. “I was told you had combat and stealth experience?”

She nods. No doubt she’s conducted her own research. “Leave the guards to me. The puppet will scout ahead and act as lookout. If he notices anything suspicious, I will know.”

Usira lifts his brows at her. “How will you know?”

“Not your concern.”

Usira stares but the black mask is inexorable. Is she saying she can communicate with puppets from a distance? If she were a Noe, he should’ve met her or at least heard of her by now. Does Yun know that Ithreyesh has access to this skill? But she’s right, as long as she keeps up her end of this unlikely partnership, it doesn’t matter how she does it.

Usira tiptoes to the kitchen door and presses his ear against it. “One last thing. What should I call you?”

“Ulan.”

The kitchen is silent. They use Bini, the courier, to scout the corridors and arrive at the lobby without a hitch. Squeezing into an alcove decorated with a swirling fire and water relief, they observe the two guards by the narrow doorway leading to the vault. Ulan takes them out with twin darts to the neck. “Tranquilizers,” she explains as they enter the spiral staircase although Usira hasn’t asked.

They leave Bini tucked away by the entrance. The stairs are smooth as blown glass, worn down by generations of Pai feet. Usira focuses on not slipping until they reach the bottom landing. With only a smattering of glowing mineral veins in the rock, it’s dark even for a clan mansion. They’ve hardly taken two steps into the corridor when a bobbing glowshroom light appears around the bend.

There’s nowhere to go. After another dart in the neck, they shove the guard into a dark corner and take his glowshroom. “We were suspecting patrols down here,” Ulan whispers. “Try to avoid them whenever possible.”

The corridor opens into the first of several caverns, hewn from the rock in rough chunks that betray the vault’s age. Between shelves, covered racks, and chests in all shapes and sizes, sculptures stand eerie vigil, their features hidden in shadow. As they progress, the sweat chills on Usira’s skin. He doesn’t dare ask how deep they are or how long they still have to go.

Thanks to Ulan’s expertise, they traverse the first cavern undetected. When they reach a sheer drop, Usira is glad for his climbing equipment and offers Ulan some chalk. “What a rare treat,” she comments while coating her hands. “Thank you.”

The climb takes barely a stalagmite drip. The second cavern is pitch-black and, judging from the echo, larger than the first. “This is the deep vault,” Usira whispers. “The manuscript must be hidden around here but I have no idea where.”

“At least there are no patrols,” Ulan agrees. “Still, they might come and check for light. Keep the glowshroom covered.”

As liberating as it is to not have to tiptoe anymore, Usira is aware of the time. Every drip they spend searching is one drip closer to detection and failure. What if Bini is discovered? What if they get stuck down here? Usira is carrying rations out of habit but those will only last them one or two nights.

He swallows the rising panic and pauses, wiping his clammy brow with a sleeve. If he were a Pai, where would he store a book he didn’t want found?

He remembers Rilan’s salon, the conversations, the art. She displayed a painting that had been languishing in storage for over fifty yarns, forgotten until the owner died and their grandchild wanted to sell everything. Later, Usira came across the artist’s name, Yan Sivai, while leafing through an old art book in the Noe library. A famous oil painter, he was more well-known for his attempts to display an ideal society. It’s the first time Usira has encountered the word utopia.

Yan Sivai’s portrait had been stern but sketched with an enlightened glint in his far-seeing eyes—a visionary. Come to think of it, isn’t an ideal society also what Ithreyesh is working to create?

The Moth must have heard his prayer. When he casts the glowshroom light over his surroundings again, there it is: a statue bearing that same face as that sketch. It has the wavy hair cut at shoulder length, the chiselled features, the far-seeing gaze.

Usira holds his breath. Could it be…?

Before long, Ulan joins him in examining the statue. Yan Sivai is wearing a long-sleeved robe, his belt and hems adorned with rich swirling relief. When Ulan presses against a knot near his wrist, there’s a click and the sleeve’s outside slides open like a trapdoor. Usira extracts a slim book bound in red bat leather. The title reads The Awakening of the Deep, the author Glass Knifefish, before Ulan drops the glowshroom.

“Bini has been captured.”

Usira shudders. Shoving the book into his tunic, he hurries back after her. He has never scaled a wall so fast. If Bini has been captured, it’s only a matter of time until reinforcements flood the vault and they start suspecting the Noe. Yun’s puppets pass for living beings at first sight but under scrutiny, the truth will come to light eventually.

The Moth must still watch over them, however, returning them to the spiral staircase without a hitch. “We have to leave Bini,” Ulan hisses, taking two steps at a time.

“With any luck, they haven’t discovered what he is yet,” Usira protests. “I have to get him back.” He couldn’t face Yun and confess he antagonised the Pai, one of the first clans to reach out and welcome him into their circle. He’s had enough second thoughts as it is. With Yun’s wrath added to the pile… By the Deep, he wanted to rescue their reputation, not ruin it further!

“It’s too risky.”

They’ve reached the entrance to the vault. Usira catches Ulan’s hand before she touches the metal. “I have to. I owe it to my bonded to at least try.”

“You owe it to him to get out of here unscathed,” she spits, her husky voice brimming with anger, and snatches her hand back. “Fine. I’ll help.”

“Thank you.”

Ulan’s eyes flash behind her mask. “There’s one condition.”

Usira forces himself to wait.

“I’ll retrieve the puppet. You get out now.” Before he can respond, she yanks the door open and light floods the landing.

Author Notes

It’s been a while since we’ve seen Velin or his twin Selin, for that matter… By joining clan Noe, Usira has renounced his old family and drip house allegiance. I don’t think it would be forbidden for him to visit them, just frowned upon. Hence he’s sneaking around in the middle of the night. Plus, he doesn’t exactly want to advertise what he’s going to do with that climbing gear.

The Sedrivar are an underground society and their capital Kandamsin is located in a huge cavern. It spans multiple levels so most residents would be proficient in climbing to some degree—excluding the nobility who use basket lifts, of course. Moth catchers, however, would be alpine climbers as opposed to your standard casual mountaineer, able to scale any surface efficiently. They would’ve investigated ways to make climbing easier and safer too, such as coating your hands with chalk for better grip.

Climbing chalk was only “invented” in 1954 but I imagine Sedrivar moth catchers would’ve paid attention to which rocks and materials aided vs. hindered them when climbing and figured out the effect of chalk even in their pre-modern society.

And on that note, I won’t keep you hanging on the cliff that this chapter ends on for too long… probably.

1. Light violence