The Veil of Night

The result of the night watch assembly was rather unimpressive, Nila refused to come along all together, while Riaz made an excuse of having a night shift prayer. Yet, no matter how long we stared at him through the window, his modest posture by the table, as he was enjoying one of his exotic teas, was unwavering. Servant of the goddess happened to be disingenuous with his words, he was perfectly aware of it, since he never turned his head in the direction of the outside window, as if intentionally avoiding eye contact with us even through the glass.

"This corrupt priest!" exhaled Faust and kicked dirt with his boot. After all, we were in this together, as Faust also refused to call the merchant with us. Not like that middle-aged man would suddenly collapse for having insufficient sleep for one night, but no matter my words, Faust refused to get him involved.

The reason for my agreement to his impulse was quite complicated… so complicated, in fact, that I did not understand it myself. Naturally, I was unhappy to crawl around the village in the dark, but once Faust took my wrist, leading me outside, I just could not break away. Not like his grip was particularly tense either. I just did not break away and thus, stood alongside him and looked at the lights of houses' windows and stars, only two things that faintly illuminated the village.

"Seems like no one is coming after all." I murmured and Faust turned to me with a grin, "Well then, I guess, we are together in this rendezvous."

After his words, my wish to accompany immediately diminished, in case it was within me to begin with, of course. But once he made his first step forward, with his cloak swaying on the wind, I was taken aback by his build. He was taller than me, his back inspired confidence and there was no hesitation in his gait, although he immediately turned to me and scratched his head with a nervous laughter, "By the way, could you cast that Polaris spell?"

My composure returned upon hearing his request, I rustled in my pocket for a while and fished out Manuela's wand. It was a starry night with no clouds in sight, from Nila's explanations, the condition when human magic was at its strongest. I was not sure which direction could be North, thus I darted my eyes across the starry field and found the familiar figure in the sky, the Ursula Minor. I pointed the wand at the brightest star within this constellation and whispered, "Polaris."

At first nothing happened, but after imagining the breath of cosmos flowing from the far star onto the tip of my wand, the bright white dot sprouted and became the third source of light around the place. Previously, I cast this spell reflexively, which was not the most effective way of using human magic aka breath of cosmos. As Nila explained, reflexivity was more effective in the realm of natural magic. Since stars were always in the sky, even people with no natural aptitude to magic were able to use it. She forced the map of the night sky into my head and never trained me during the night, when stars were visible, and now I understood why. Even in the case of Polaris, the star that never moves in the sky, it was far easier to use its breath during the night compared to the day when you do not actually see it. Stars worked like beacons, barely moved, and were more than happy to give away their energy to any passerby.

"Whoah, impressive! You cast it way faster than the last time."

Faust clapped at the sight of my success, but I did not share his enthusiasm. Previously, I would have been more than happy with the result, but after learning more about human magic, movements of the stars and intricacies of using magic… it seemed trivial, as the same Nila had been doing way more impressive things with limited knowledge that daytime provided.

I did not say anything, though, so we came forward in search of unnatural sights in the village. It was a quiet place at night, which was a given for a place that was bustling from early morning… Although remembering the leisurely order of the village from the Schöltum region, it could have been just a matter of laziness from their side.

We walked past several wooden homes of local inhabitants, examining windows, but nothing seemed out of place. However, when our stroll continued down the stalls, we noticed that animals inside were weirdly observant, their eyes illuminated from inside the stalls. None of them were slumbering despite the late hour.

"Huh, that's weird, usually animals are the one to fall asleep much sooner. Unless…" whispered Faust and pondered for a second, but then we heard rustle from behind which made us turn with a gasp. Faust extended his hand towards his polearm's handle, but stopped midway, since the one who disturbed our outing was Layla.

She was smiling, but her eyes were pointed at stock animals behind wooden bars. For some reason, she did not come close to us, her form was barely illuminated by Polaris's light due to that.

"The animals are just not used to your smell yet, there is nothing to worry about, but I appreciate your concern."

She bowed deeply to us, to which Faust dismissively waved his hand, "It's fine, it's fine. But may I ask what are you doing outside at this hour?"

The woman tilted her head and replied, "Should not it be my question? I believe it is more suspicious when an outsider walks around the village at night, not a local resident."

Her words made Faust scoff, and he moved in the direction of our houses, "That's an extremely fair point! Excuse us for startling you, we will return back right away. Come on, Dusk."

I raised my brow, but followed through with his suggestion to return, even though we explored just a fraction of this village. I glanced at Layla when she said, "Sleep well, dear visitors." and saw her waving at us, although her figure quickly disappeared in the dark when the light of Polaris no longer reached her.

We were going forward in silence, but once Faust diverged from the path I could not help but narrow my brows, "I do not need more people with topographic cretinism, Nila is more than enough!"

Faust smirked, and he shook his head, the eyes of this man were overfilled with mischief as he said, "I really get bad vibes from her, so let's just have a peek what kind of skeletons they might hide in their storage."

Soon enough, we reached abandoned houses Layla introduced as storage space for the village. Faust's remark was quite childish, however, his wish to explore their storage rooms was more than acceptable to me. Who knows what kind of riches we might stumble across inside? After we came closer, the smell of rotten wood immediately struck our noses, or rather, it was something more than wood. The scent was quite unpleasant from the beginning, but overtime it became more pungent.

"Did their harvest go bad? What the hell is inside?" groaned Faust and squeezed his nose as if his life depended on it. I was not as affected by it, due to my experience with all kinds of smells, but I still thought that he overreacted.

We tried to peek inside through windows, but every single one had some kind of black cloth, covering the views from the inside. Every single window was tightly shut, so we quickly moved to the front door, which did not look sturdy, but still did not budge from Faust's pulls.

"It is locked, maybe there is some kind of key under the rug?" he suggested and leaned down in search of it. I followed his lead, but instead of crawling around like a sewer rat, I chose a more pragmatic approach and went for the lockpick. I fiddled around with the keyhole using my paper clip, and soon enough, the lock clicked.

Faust turned to me and smiled, "That's quite a handy skill you have, pal."

I nodded at his words as he lightly pulled the door. The pungent smell increased, now it was obvious that the house was not the only thing rotting inside. Moreover, Faust's words about skeletons in the storage happened to not be just a metaphor, as there indeed were skeletons lying in the centre of the room, many of them, in fact. Those were bodies of dead people who perished quite a while ago, yet the scent of death remained.