[hr][hr][h1][color=39b54a][center]Karlus Marsh[/center][/color][/h1][hr][hr]
There comes a time in life of every person where there can be no turning back. Where the multitudinous ways that a life might have turned out narrows down to a single, unavoidable, path. For some, their entire lives are a series of these moments, a continual narrowing of their options, until they are imprisoned, trapped, in the life that had been created for them. For others, this moment only came once. But there are none whom escape its grasp entirely. For what is death, but the final narrowing of our choices?

Karlus had never seen a man die before. Not until he came to Viscelles. Not until he had taken this last step on his journey down the ever constricting path that was his life.

He leaned his head against the wooden side of carriage, feeling the rough texture rub against his skin as they rumbled onward through the darkness of the night. He had been thinking about choices a lot recently. He had been thinking about the choices he had made. The choices Karlus had made had led him here, indentured in a strange land, watching strange men die. [i]But still... I am not there. I am still alive. I am still a mage.[/i] He shivered at the thought of that, the fate he had only just escaped. 

That choice had been an easy one, though in its way it was another constriction. But it was better to be sent to the fog haunted wastes of Viscelles than to be a Mute. In fact, it was probably better to be dead, than to be a Mute. It was not a choice Karlus had been expecting during those weeks he had languished in the dark places beneath the college, bound and chained in a warded cell. He had expected the worse. But when his time had come, and fate threw him this one last lifeline, he had clung to it with a desperate hope. 

There was no turning back, but it seemed for Karlus, that final, inevitable narrowing had yet to come.

[i]But we are not all so lucky... certainly not poor...[/i] Karlus's thoughts stopped in their tracks. He realised then he hadn't known the dead man's name. They had sat together for hours upon hours in this very carriage... But they had sat in silence. He supposed the dead man was free now in some way perhaps. He hoped he was.

And what had he died for? Nothing really. Just so that their new master could scare them into blind obedience. Once they had entered Viscelles, he had taken them deep into the blighted flog, to show them the horrors they would to face. And they had seen horrors alright. Rotted men, bloated like a drowned corpse, but somehow still living, and... hungry. Karlus couldn't remember how exactly it had happened, but he had seen them as they had feasted, ripping... tearing... biting. 

It need not have happened, if they had not been bound, if there had been no ward. 

He pushed those memories aside. What ever happened, he would not let that happen to him. He would become stronger, he would do anything, fight anyone. He would destroy them, these monsters, or The Order. He would find a way to free. 

As the cart rocked Karlus to sleep, he dreamed of freedom.

[hr]
He awoke to the grey diffuse light of an overcast morning, and sounds of life outside of the canvas topped carriage. Bells. Karlus realised, he could hear the sound of bells. He sat up off of the bed of the cart and pressed an eye to tear in the fabric. Outside of the carriage the woods began to thin, walls and towers emerged hazily in the mist. Fort Stag, he presumed, their destination. There came a cry from the walls, and the sound of ratting chains and groaning hinges as the gates heaved open to allow them into the grim fortress. 

The carriage stopped in the outer ward and they were called out by their keeper, Elias Black. Lambert, his fellow from the college went first. Karlus hesitated at the threshold of the cart. [i]Another moment, another threshold, another narrowing, [/i] he thought to himself, until he received an elbow from behind and nearly fell, stumbling into the world outside. 

He kept his head low, but surreptitiously glanced around him. The castle was busy with people, men and boys tending to horses, blacksmiths hammering away at their anvils, and soldiers, many soldiers on duty, or training, or just loitering... watching them. He felt out of place here already. These were rough men, coarse men, he had been trained as a scholar, not a warrior. Worse, he was slight... and pretty. Where men were kept confined with little company, dark things could happen, it had been the case in the college also.

Elias approached Karlus, knife in hand. [i]Gods! Have they waited this long just to gut us here?![/i] He flinched and almost stepped back from the man, until he realised it was only to slice the bonds from their wrists. Clearly they were no longer a threat now they were within Fort Stag. Karlus didn't feel like threat himself right now.  

As that baneful erasure ward came out of the Ward's pocket, Karlus averted his eyes. He had felt its presence the whole journey, always there, always in the back of his mind. Pulling at him. He was glad it would be gone soon. 

They were escorted across the yard as Elias Black spoke to them. The stares were accumulating, and Karlus withered under their presence. Self consciously he buried himself deeper within his cloak, trying to will himself to be unseen. It did not help when they halted by the arrival of some grandee from the keep that looked over the courtyard. This lord adding his own gaze to the collection. Karlus did not meet it.

A woman arrived next, a priest of Minerva, with an accent so thick for a moment Karlus did not realise she had been speaking Common. Elias gave his name to her, Sister Angelique, and then he and Lambert were passed into her care. Awkwardly he slunk through the gathering crowd, eyes cast down, following the heels of the Sister. 

She led them out of the courtyard, and into some hall that led off from it. It was quieter here. As the number of people staring at them began to lessen, Karlus glanced up to get a bearing on his surroundings. Light diffused in from the arched windows of painted glass set high above. Two long rows of wooden pews led down to an altar at the far end, beyond it stood a statue. Flowing hair and robes, snake in hand, and fox curled at her feet. It was one of the Ten Divines, Minerva. They were standing in a temple. [i]Well, that would make sense considering the Priestess.[/i] He would be living in a temple it seemed. [i]I hope they aren't expecting me to give sermons.[/i] The thought almost made him smile.

[b][color=a187be]"This is her Ladyship's chapel. She is a patron of our Order, your patron now."[/color][/b] Sister Angelique paused at the crossing of the nave and transept and looked up to the face of the statue. Karlus followed her gaze. He could see the symbol picked out on the Goddess's forehead. An erasure ward. [i]The God of magic is a Mute.[/i]

They turned down the transept, and went out from a door to emerge into a walled cloister set to the site of the temple. A covered stone walkway led round the circumference of the smaller courtyard, the outer walls lined with many doors. In the centre were raised beds, the scent of medicinal herbs overlay the sulphuric stink Fort Stag had smelt of so far. 

[b][color=a187be]"The Clergy keep our quarters on this side, closest to the temple."[/color][/b] Sister Angelique pointed as she led them down one side of the cloister. [b][color=a187be]"On the far side is the infirmary, where you will do your duty as healers. You'll be under supervision of Doctor Aemma there, she is a little strange, but she does the Lady's work."[/color][/b] They turned the corner, standing under the walkway that led between the Chapel and the Hospital. [b][color=a187be]"This side is where we keep the Mages, the cells at the end should be vacant. If you need anything, please find me in temple, do not disturb Father Marrow, he is a busy man, a great man in fact. You have him to thank for the tolerance Mages receive here in the Order. That is his vision, guided by Our Lady of course."[/color][/b]

[b][color=39b54a]"Thank you."[/color][/b] For the first time Karlus allowed his gaze to meet with that of the Sister. The words he said were low, polite, but there was something in his eye, something cold and hard. [i]They will tolerate me? No, rather I will tolerate them.[/i]

[b][color=a187be]"Minerva bless you both."[/color][/b] The sister spoke as she departed, Karlus kept his head up and watched her go, footsteps echoing down the stone halls. The priestess went back into the temple, and for the first time since he had been hauled out of his cell at the college, Karlus was unwatched, alone. 

Alone that was, except his fellow former student, Lambert. They had both been so silent on their journey Karlus had almost forgotten he was there. But now the elf turned to Karlus, stealing a glance at him now they were unobserved. 

[b]"What happened back at Cambridge? Is it true what they said? Did you try t-"[/b]

[b][color=39b54a]"I don't want to talk about it."[/color][/b] Karlus stopped him. [b][color=39b54a]"You shouldn't talk about it either."[/color][/b] He slipped into one of the ajar wooden doors before them and securely closed it behind him.

[i]Breathe.[/i]

Now he was truly alone.

The room was smaller than the one he had roomed in at the college. It was a stone cell, dusty with disuse. A small window set with bars opened out onto a view of another stone wall, but it did let in a small amount of light. There was a desk, a chair, a wooden trunk, and a bed. His bed now. This was his room, and his room alone. He had never had that at the college. The only time he had been alone was in the dungeon.

Karlus dropped the bundle of his meagre possessions on top of the trunk and sat down on the side of bed. A slow realisation came to him as he lay back. A feeling he hadn't experienced his childhood, since before he had been taken to the college.

[i]No erasure ward.[/i]

In privacy of his own room, Karlus smiled.