Back in the earlier days of his ventures into the Red Juno Catacombs, Yarrien had discovered a secluded exit door hidden at the western base of the shallow rock promontory on which the grand Red Juno building was constructed. This door, made of reinforced oak, had no handle on the exterior side, and, due, to a series of hardy hinges, opened only outwards by way of a hefty shove. Yarrien barged this door open as he had done each evening of the last month, and stepped out onto the unlit, unoccupied gennel, making sure not to slip on any rubbish that had blown through from the larger side street to the right. This time, though, it felt different. He tasted providence in the night air.
The alley was tucked away from the bustle of the Southern Wyndylith nighlife. He climbed up the slip at as slow a pace as possible, weaving in a slight zigzag. It was cavernous and dark, so much so that he would startle occasionally when his foot made contact with a random piece of detritus every now and again, which itself would go skipping away in some unknown direction, leaving rattling tapping sounds in its wake. To the left lay the blank outer wall of a grand statehouse, likely belonging to some metals dealer or mine owner. To the right, the sinister Red Juno building took up most of the view, like a great white veil.
As Yarrien reached the end of the alley he began to hear the merry sounds emanating from the semicircle promenade that lined the front of Red Juno. He hung right, quickening his pace a little at the rememberance of the late hour. Luckily, it meant was plenty of time to think on what he'd just experienced while walked to the north of town. After a few more minutes he joined the foray of people making their own ways along the promenade.
Red Juno stood to the right, its icy-white stone cutting away at the night sky. He crossed the Grand Canal via the Painted Bridge and wandered past a series of restaurants. Socialites and Councillors sat at private outdoor booths, sipping iced wine in the summer heat, while jugglers and flower salesmen tried desperately to promote their trade. Yarrien took another left, sidestepping a crowd of Ruskelite soldiers who were encircling a fight between two drunk salarymen throwing loose haymakers at each other. He hunched his shoulders and looked away, as if the precious, classified knowledge swimming in his mind was on display for all to see, as if it could be stolen from him.
Up ahead came another canal crossing, and he considered purchasing a ride home on a water carriage. The notion of paying for such an extravagance would've curdled his stomach two months ago. What a waste it would be! But such concerns of frugality seemed thinner, less tangible, less... serious now.
Ideas, possibilities, strategems were evolving within Yarrien's brain. The information now in his possession felt to be a gift. A gift from the Goddess Ruskel, maybe? How could it be? One of the core tenets of Ruskel's divine lore was that she loved the Ruskel people above all else, the same as the love Collosea has for the Colloseans and Haemonie has for the Haemonines. But the plans he was devising were, at their core, treasonous beyond measure to the Ruskelite realm. Although, Ruskel was the Godess of both peace and conflict, maybe she was exercising her ruling power through him?
Yarrien pushed thoughts of the gods to the back of his mind. It was crowding his process. The real question was whether he could betray his Realm, his people. For the first time on his journey back, he started to focus on the crowds around him, picking individuals from the busy mass: The Grandfather with the strong back carrying a grandchild on each shoulder, a handsome couple in cheap clothing sharing a single glass of wine between them at a corner table beside a wood-panneled tavern, young soldiers wearing their platinum and royal purple uniform cloak hoods bunched forward around the necks as was the fashion among the recruits.
But Yarrien, in that moment, realised he felt a warmth for the individuals, the Orosians rather than the Ruskelites. Despite the rampant patriotism purposefully instilled within the Ruskelite people from a young age, Yarrien never truly felt that fellowship. He felt it a falsehood, like a beautiful oyster shell with no pearl inside. It made sense that their society was built around a ideal of 'Us vs Oros.' Ever since Ruskel's inception during the second age, it had always been one of the more diminutive realms. But it pervaded, stood resolute as wars erupted around it and other fiefs fell only for new ones to rise from their ashes. They pervaded because of what Ruskelites called the 'common destiny', the unnering love for their land.
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Most of the lessons tought at the ramshackle citizen's school that Yarrien had attended seemed, in their own ways, to revolve around some model of Ruskelite superiority. They focused on Ruskelite discoveries, the successes of their fierce military, their talents for both secrecy and philanthropy. But as the tutors droned on, Yarrien denied himself from raising his hand to ask the challenging questions that seemed to push into his mind like water from a spring. Fighting this urge was a necessity if he wanted to avoid both communal shunning and perhaps even criminal punishment. He'd taken the brand of the lit candle on his thirteenth birthday, served his mandatory conscription in the soldierhood, and cheered at Council Ceremonies, but inside him the sense of pride was little if any.
The streets were growing quieter as he ventured further north, following the canal that adjoined the pavement. He spied another water carriage, although this time he immediately refuted the option of boarding. It was letting off the soft gaseous purr indicative of an undara engine. The ride would be a two ducad score coins minimum for such a modern vehicle. The driver was leaning casually against the side of the boat, reading a green-embossed book. He offered Yarrien a kind smile as he passed, then returned to his reading.
'Undara serum!' Yarrien thought. 'How that blasted moss has turned things inside out.' Talk of war between Collosea and Haemonine was invading most conversations. That and the trade standstill. Even the Ruskelite commonfolk, wary as they were of speaking heresies against the Ruskelite Assembly of Councillors, were beginning to speak of dissatisfaction, of growing poverty and unsustinable borrowing, of dwindling supplies. The people Yarrien had passed in the streets had seemed jovial, carefree. But he knew, deep down, these things ate at them, even the mine owners, for war had little necessity for precious metals. Whatever rumours carried on the wind from the other realms, of sects and bombs and arcane flora and corruption, it was clear that Undara, or more the Haemonine's control of it, was truly at the heart of the turmoil. It didn't take listening to the private meetings of Councillors to realise that.
Yarrien was ten minutes from home but he still had plenty to consider. He stroked the knotted rusty-brown beard that warmed his chin. Suddenly he felt a mist of rain dappling at the bald crown of his head, but when he looked up, the sky was clear; just a cast of stars circled by the Wyndylith Mountains, and ahead to the north the towering Qollardine, The Cathedral Mountain, with it's thin obsidian hide dwarfing all around it.
The sight of this beautiful peak, the sheer scale of it, returned some of the guilt that had been dancing through and around Yarrien. This was something for which he did feel pride. The Watchtower of Ruskel. But then another feeling streaked through him, one just as bitter: A sense of injustice. It had entrenched itself within him since the end of his childhood. How he'd been told from a young age of how Ruskelites, whatever their class or creed, had the ability to become anything, to climb life's ladder with ease. But every rung of his ladder had been bent or broken.
He'd aspired to be an aeromancer, but was told he lacked the qualities one inherits from a more formal education. Then he turned, as many Ruskelites do, to politics, only to be shut down at every step by a series of protectorate middlemen. When that path was barred, he reinstated himself in the Ruskelite military service. His time spent during the mandatory conscription had granted him some sense of camaraderie at least. 'Perhaps I could be a groover or a cliffwalker.' He'd thought, as his mind cast scenes of fame and renoun before his eyes. And yet, he could never climb beyond the rank of Marcher, due to the overcomplicated 'Order of Tranches' system devised by the Council of Fortitude.
All his life he'd been impeded by the sickness of beurocracy so rife in the firmament of Ruskelite Society. And as this realisation took hold of him, all other considerations, any essence of guilt, effervesced from his blood. But with this came a new series of concerns. What could he do with this information? Should he return to find see if he could find out more? And who was the third party who joined Ianto, the Head Councillor of the Ruskelite Triskellion Fief, and Gwilleme Keight, Head Councillor of Honour?
As Yarrien Fala turned onto the steep path that led to his two-room house, and spotted, at the rise of the lonely hill, his Father standing before the open door, lit gently by the dim candlelights from within, he focused on the first question. Travelling to Collosea to sell them the information was a logical option, he had family there after all, his Half-Sister and her husband and children. But how could one make it there in such times of increased monitoring? Thereby lay two choices in Yarrien's mind: Enlist the aid of the smuggling gangs, or worse, one of the underground sects.
