Unwelcome Guests
Thirtieth Day of the Fourth Month 294 AC
"We are on a timer." Siduri's words were delivered with the sort of flat dislike she usually reserved for day long stakeouts and priests trying to get her to mend her wicked ways. "If the Legion does not act before the proclaimed time, whoever is in there will know we are trying something tricky, and it's not hard to guess what that is. I'll teleport us in past the walls and we make right for the target under a veil..."
The shadow dragon stretched, somehow managing to look cat-like even in human form. "Check for traps. It is what I would lay were I minded to catch flies in an enchanter's net."
"Have you seen that pile of stone?" Siduri scoffed. "Trying to lay down a teleportation ward of that scope is a project worthy of the imperial coffers, not this..." She motioned at the grass, the dirt road, the wind whistling through the sparse beech trees. "Wilderness. Paupers, fools, and both together is what you are likely to find here. We would waste more time with a second divination."
"So, do not bother to
divine," the dragon smiled, gripping the shadows well outside the lights of the gathered Legion,
pulling and
twisting. "The veil welcomes all, and through it we may pass."
It did not take Siduri more than ten steps to decide that she disliked the cold clinging shadows of the Realm of Memories more than she did even the concept of racing the clock.
She might have gripped the servant's mind too tightly as she asked, with the full
weight of enchantment behind it, "Where is the lord?"
"Ants, ants, crawling everywhere. He's in there! He's in here!" The man screamed even worse than when Osryx had pulled him into the cupboard.
Ants... like a swarm of balefire ants or something, Siduri thought, confused, though she did not share the thought. She doubted the man before her knew much about the fauna of Dis. Then she recalled something from a report she had seen in passing about explorations leading up to the attack on the unimaginatively named 'Rock'. "Formians, Lord Piss-poor is with
Formians?"
The man looked at her, confused, and not just from the nickname she had just unceremoniously bequeathed upon his lord. Of course, he could not know what a Formian was either. "Giant ants, some of them are gifted in enchantment, and tend to keep their word if you can get them to acknowledge us fleshy sorts enough to give it."
Although the words 'giant ants' seemed to have been the only ones to penetrate, they seemed to be enough. Siduri's newest thrall was nodding enthusiastically. "Yes, my lady, big ants! They came three days ago. The young Lord Mallister let them in at once, treated them as guests of honor, and they have not left his side since."
"How many?" the Myrkdreki interrupted.
Alas, the cringing footman proved a flawed source of intelligence. "One big and red ant, and scores of smaller ones, but still huge, with spears made of man bone. There are some in the west tower meddling with some sort of witchery. I've not gone there, swear it by the Father, I do!"
"At a guess, those are war machines meant to defend the keep," Osryx cut in again. "Though how they expect any defense to hold long term..."
"They probably want to do as much damage as they can at this point. The Lannisters, I mean, not the Formians. I have no idea what sort of bargain they struck." Siduri set her hands to her temples, thinking, one of the few reflexes of her girlhood she had not bothered to shed. "Could their leader be enchanting the 'lord' directly?"
"How long has your lord been aligned with the Lannisters?" the Myrkdreki tried.
"Lannisters, what are you talking about? They are giant bugs!" The man shouted again.
"Sleep," Siduri hissed, not even looking up as he collapsed in a heap. "He is not going to know anything useful."
"Besides where the lord actually is, you mean?" the dragon asked in what was, in Siduri's opinion, far too reasonable a tone. He shook the man awake and finally ascertained that Lord Piss Poor was in the south tower with the head Formian, or at least the 'big and red one'.
What do Siduri and Osryx do?
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OOC: In honor of me forgetting his name so many times I thought I would give Siduri the quirk of not wanting to recall the names of petty mortal lords. She might call Viserys 'Your Majesty' but that is because of what he is not who his father was.
