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With the evening, the shadows creep higher and higher over the tiered city, rising from the lowest levels, slinking upward as the sun falls. When it slips over the horizon, even Tsenoble is enshadowed. Arcades has long been a city of killers.
Tonight a Judge called Schirra waits in the shadows of Judge Magister Gabranth's private quarters, concealment deepening with the evening. His armour, his safe conduct through the palace halls, lies discarded against the wall. He will move silently, when the time comes.
At the sound of the outer door Schirra pulls back behind the door of the bedchamber and stills completely. Armoured footsteps come closer, pass through the doorway beside him, and he can see his mark- Dalmasca's kingslayer - short cropped blond hair emerging as the telltale helmet is laid aside. Four years without his country, without his name... Schirra's grip tightens about the hilt of his dagger as Gabranth removes vambraces, shoulder plates, finally his breastplate.
Schirra slips from behind the door, dagger already free of its sheath.
Gabranth bends to reach the fastenings of his boots.
Schirra lunges. Gabranth straightens, turning as he rises, and the dagger's thrust aimed for his heart penetrates instead deep in the left of his back. Schirra wrenches the weapon free as Gabranth faces him, scoring the flesh of Gabranth's arm before a still-armoured knee connects with Schirra's gut and sends him staggering back. Gabranth gropes for his swords, fingers closing on a hilt before Schirra can attack again, bringing the blade up before him. Then he stills, one arm clutching his side, the shock in his eyes and the scar on his brow giving Schirra pause.
"You fell. On Shiva." The point of the Chaosblade wavers, dips. "After we fought -"
There is no air. Gabranth he'd never met, not for the man to know his face. Fraternity should have yielded likeness, but never scars, never eyes that would look into him so deep.
The blade wavers again before Schirra's eyes. It was the sword arm he'd cut, and Gabranth could not change hands without losing pressure on the deeper stab wound. Gabranth. The Kingslayer. Not - but his look is too familiar.
Now it is not only the blade, the man sways. "Vossler- " He goes down hard on both knees, sword clattering on the floor. "It cannot end thus."
But his eyes are closing, body folding even as he speaks, and Schirra - Vossler - cannot breathe.
The noise of his blood rushes in his ears, but Vossler kneels, reaches for the man's unconscious face. The scar is real - and old. The left ear is notched. Not a stranger. Not an enemy. And the blood pooling beneath the outstretched forearm is far less damning than that seeping through the rent linen at his back. The blood of that wound will be flowing inward, filling every inch of his belly until his veins are empty.
Vossler's chest is hollow as he fumbles the hi-potion free of his belt, tears Basch's shirt to reach the wound. He has only the single bottle. It has to be enough.
The opening is less than two inches long- he pulls the torn flesh apart with his fingers, tips the bottle above it, but the liquid spills over. Vossler catches the overflow on his fingers; buries them in Basch's side as deep as they will reach. Battlefield healing is the only kind Vossler knows. Magic prickles across his fingertips, far less strange than the heat of Basch's blood, and he pours again, fingers making a path for as much of the potion as possible to reach inside. When the flesh begins to knit, he withdraws his hand and holds the skin together for the edges of the wound to seal.
He finds his lips shaping an invocation to the Light, and cannot stop, even as he remembers Basch's element was always the Dark. Are there gods that will answer for Archades?
He saturates a piece of Basch's shirt with potion, wraps it about the still-bleeding forearm. Finally he angles Basch's head against his thigh, presses open the unresisting mouth, and tips the last drops over his tongue.
Vossler's hand rests in too-short hair, and can find no grip. He shifts it to Basch's neck instead, seeking a pulse, keeping it beneath his fingers. Basch would wake. He had to. The gods were not this cruel.
The first stirring is reflexive, the body curling in around the pain, but after a moment his eyes open, and they are the same grey-blue Vossler knew they would be. It is easier than it should be to say the name.
"Basch." His hand steadies Basch's cheek until those eyes focus. "Where are your potions?"
Basch's lips move, he swallows thickly and tries again. "Bag. In ... other room."
Vossler's hand pats Basch's cheek once, then he shifts Basch's shoulders and head down to rest on the floor again. "Don't move."
When he returns, Basch's eyes are closed, but they open again at his footsteps. "How are you... here?"
Vossler slides his hand beneath Basch's neck and shoulder and lifts as gently as he may, grimacing at Basch's grunt of pain. "Drink first." He holds the bottle's edge to Basch's lips. Basch's eyes search his face for something, and he scowls, and Basch's eyes crinkle at the corners as he drinks.
--
The worst of the pain fades after a few moments, and the warmth of the potion's magic pools around the deep ache in Basch's side. Vossler's arm is around his shoulders, propping him up against Vossler's chest, and he can smell Vossler's sweat as real as his own blood. His fingers close around Vossler's forearm, tighten to feel the muscle and sinew beneath the skin.
"You ...fell."
Vossler shakes his head, a disavowal if not an explanation. "Basch. Are you healed enough to move? How did you come here, wearing this armour, this name?"
"My brother died, and Lord Larsa still had need of a magister. I took his place." Basch shifts, lets Vossler help him sit up. "It seemed fitting." He breathes until the room settles around him, and some things, at least, begin to form sense. "You came for him, then."
Vossler looks away, jaw tight. "Yes."
Basch's hand is coated in blood. He wipes it across the front of his ruined shirt, and reaches for the buckle of his shin-guard. Vossler's hand is rough jerking Basch's away, but his removal of Basch's armour is more gentle, fingers sure while Basch's want to shake. He lets Vossler remove his boots, bracing himself upright on fisted hands.
"...I'm glad you didn't succeed."
"Through no doing of yours! Any man in armour could have approached your door from within the palace and not been questioned."
Vossler growls and tugs harder at the strap of Basch's left greave, until it finally comes free and clatters loud against the floor. "Even now you summon no one! What kind of fool relies on his assassin for aid?"
"Who could I summon, who would give me truer aid?" Vossler snorts, turns aside. His anger is familiar, and Basch is suddenly so tired. He reaches out, fists his still-bloodied hand in the front of Vossler's shirt. "I will call no one against you." Vossler is still, has stopped fighting, perhaps only because Basch has started.
"Have you truly any quarrel with me now?" Vossler's refusal to meet his gaze is denial enough. Basch lifts the empty blue vial from the floor, holds it out. "What assassin would do this?" Vossler's eyes lower, and slip sideways, away from his palm, and Basch curls his fingers around the cold glass. The backs of his knuckles turn Vossler's face back to meet his eyes.
"I would have slain you." Vossler's voice is thick. Basch lets his hand fall, tightens his fingers on the vial. "Four years of folly, thinking I could atone - I would have slain you and realized nothing!
The howl buried in Vossler's words aches in Basch's chest. The magister he has sworn to be tells him to remember the desert, the airships descending, Nightmare clashing hard against his stolen sword, but Basch's head is swimming, and all he can see is the only man who smiled, seeing him alive out of Nalbina.
"It was always easier to trust you."
"You were always too soft." Vossler looks away again, pulling away out of Basch's reach, but some of the tension is gone out of him. Basch can see the pulse in Vossler's turned neck, can watch it beat, moment after moment. He heard something once, about a man's blood being closer to the surface than a woman's, perhaps it had to do with the moon.
"...-sch. Basch!" For an instant Vossler's voice is too loud, and Vossler's hand on his face jarring. Basch blinks hard to force himself more alert. Vossler's jaw is tensed again. "How sharp is the pain?" Vossler's fingers are warm, but the pressure on his abdomen only heightens the ache.
"Not sharp. Not bleeding inside. Just tired."
"Go to sleep, then, but not on the floor." Basch imagines he can feel the growl vibrating into him through Vossler's fingers.
He lets Vossler clean the blood from his hands. The pressure of a washcloth is a strange sensation when Basch is not the one controlling it. No one touches in Arcades, and even if they should try, his brother's armour would keep him from feeling it. Vossler's strokes are repetitive, soothing, like gentling an animal, the cool of the water the only thing keeping Basch awake.
When his arms are mostly clean, Vossler makes him lift them- though the left will only rise to the level of his shoulder - and pulls the remains of Basch's shirt over his head. The water is colder on his torso, and he is shivering hard before Vossler gets him clean.
"Bed, Basch. You need to get warm."
Basch pushes upright, makes it to standing before things start greying out at the edges and his knees give way. Vossler swears, but his arms keep Basch from falling, hold him up against Vossler's body. Vossler is warm. Basch leans his face into Vossler's shoulder, where he smells like metal and oiled leather and sweat. Like Vossler. He fists his hands at Vossler's back, shields suddenly burning eyes in the fabric of Vossler's shirt.
He hasn't dared think of deserts in so long, hadn't been able to remember a time he wasn't here, in this city, and there's an ache so deep in knowing he's not Noah, but the part that was Basch suddenly feels like the floatweed up above the mosphoran, cut free and no longer needing the ground.
"I'm glad you're alive." The arms around him tighten, and Vossler's hand brushes over his hair, closes on his shoulder. Maybe that means Vossler agrees.
He stumbles over his feet when Vossler urges him backward, but then the edge of the mattress is against his leg, and Vossler lets him down so slowly.
Basch reaches after Vossler's wrist when he moves away, but Vossler only strips down and stretches out beside him on the mattress, shifting to pull his arm free and drape it over Basch's back when Basch moves closer. Basch lies on his right side, since the left still aches, Vossler's heat chasing away the worst of the chill. He lets one arm fall across Vossler's chest, fingers curling reflexively in the hair there.
"You've stopped waxing. I like you furry like this. It's soft. Like nanna pelt." He can feel Vossler's huffing exhalation.
"You've no blood left for thinking, Basch. Go to sleep."