Councillor E. Gausswinder
Aureate, The Gilded State
Gausswinder wasn’t sure how much time she had left, and so she had to work quickly. She manoeuvred her spider-bot through the dark and winding vents of Imafenduwell Hall until she finally arrived at the room where she hoped to find the answers she needed.
Once she made it to the large greenhouse-like bedroom, the little robot made its way into the middle of the grove within it. There, she began searching it for information. Specifically, she was looking for something they could use against the elf. As time went on, though, Gausswinder found herself willing to find anything of significance.
Getting into the place would be doable—difficult, but doable. It was how to deal with the elf once they got in there that would be the tricky part. On the outside, the former councillor had access to every file on every citizen that she could want. However—before she had been evicted from the High Council—Gausswinder realized Imafenduwell had done a frustratingly good job at keeping her cards close to her chest in all regards. Her personal files went little further than the accounts of the history books the elf was in. And so, it was with great glee that she finally came across Imafenduwell’s diary of all things while searching her bedroom.
Gausswinder tore through the book’s pages with lightning speed, scanning for any useful information that could distract or persuade the elf. And while she didn’t quite find what she thought she might, what Gausswinder did come across in those pages was altogether illuminating; notes about the elf’s insecurities, her regrets, and more deliciously…her fears. There was nothing she could really use in terms of blackmail—again, frustratingly—but what she found could still be used. The councillor would simply have to be a little more creative in her efforts than originally planned.
She also made a quick note of the mentions Lalauri made of the little human girl that she had apparently adopted and how she had an incredible affinity for the nature, earth, and transfiguration axioms of magic. All at the incredibly young age of eight as well. Astounding. Also usable.
Just as Gausswinder steered the drone away from the bedside and back towards the open vent it entered by, a wave of static passed over her screen as some strange wave of interference passed over the machine. At first, she thought nothing of it. It wasn’t unusual for a remote controlled drone of any kind to meet some interference to its signal ever once in a while.
Suddenly, the strangest dogs that she had ever seen faded into existence.
One by one, their paws touched down on the ground all around the drone. Gausswinder whirled it around and watched as it quickly became surrounded.
“They’re ghosts.” Gausswinder muttered to herself. “Imafenduwell Hall is haunted?!”
“Little spider…” growled a voice through the monitor’s speakers. It came from the largest of the ghost dogs and caused Gausswinder to jump a little in her seat. “I have grown tired of your meddling and your snooping. This drone will be stopped. Your snooping around in this Hall will be stopped. You, Evangeline Gausswinder…will no longer be tolerated.”
A chill went right through the councillor. How does the spirit know my name?!
Under the former councillor’s direction and panic, the drone darted between the legs of the one of the hounds just as it tried to shoot it with a blast of unidentifiable energy. Sadly, that was about as far as it got. As the sound of another blast being let loose rang from the speakers of Gausswinder’s handheld device, the signal from the drone went out completely, leaving nothing but a wall of static on her screen.
Gausswinder threw the handheld device to the ground in a fit of anger and as she cursed the ghosts for getting in her way. She instantly regretted throwing the device, though, as its screen was now properly cracked.
However, as tears blurred her vision, she admitted to herself that it hardly mattered at that point. The drone that the ghosts had destroyed was one of her last ones—the only other one was still perched on top of the dwarf brasshulk she had hijacked some time ago now. And seeing as the ghosts—or whatever they were—were now onto her and were on the lookout for her drones, she couldn’t risk using the last drone to spy on the house. She no longer had the money to afford a new one.
Gausswinder chuckled. “Looks like mummy broke another one of her toys, Deji.” She turned around to look at her son, only to realize that she was still alone in her new, cramped shack of a home. Memories from the past week or so flooded her mind, and she couldn’t hold back the tears that flowed freely down her face.
Deji was gone now—no, not simply gone. Deji had been taken. Taken by her own family, no less. When she tried to go to the remaining senior members of House Gausswinder to beg for more money so that she wouldn’t be forced out of her home, they did more than deny her request. Seeing as she no longer had enough funds to keep her home, they decided that, rather than see her son end up in The Maze—or worse—they would seize him and have Deji raised by another.
And seize him they did.
Abandoned by her family and stripped of her wealth and property, Gausswinder sought sanctuary in the Guttermaze, the sprawling network of underground sewers that ran beneath the city.
This place—known as “The Maze” by its denizens—was a landscape comprising ill-maintained brick homes, storefronts that were built into the sewer walls by some unknown architect, and almost labyrinthine streets made from the sewers. Rats ran around freely, the city’s poorest and most desperate skulked its corners trying to eek out some sort of way of surviving—typically by criminal means—and frequently the air itself was thick with a suspicious, heavy smog in a variety of colours.
The former councillor had never had to pay much attention to a place like this before then. That was not the case anymore, though.
Out of nowhere, she was startled by the sounds of people brawling outside the small, abandoned house she now called home. They filled the air with the sound of men shouting for backup, and a menacing snarl that could only be from a feral dog. The fight was punctuated with the sound of gunfire.
Footsteps made their way towards the front door, and Gausswinder quickly snatched up the only thing she had to defend herself—a broomstick—in a flurry of panic.
A knock came to the door, and Gausswinder gave the greatest sigh of relief when she recognized the voice that followed.
“Evie?” Grimshaw bellowed, knocking on the door. “Are you still in there?”
“Y—Yes!” Gausswinder called out. “Come in quickly.”
Lincoln Grimshaw shoved open the door and did his best to put it back into place. Once inside, he stood there and took in the small, two room building. “Please tell me you at least have some sort of bathroom.”
“In the other room.” Gausswinder got to her feet, and did something that on any normal occasion, she never would have done: she hugged him. She hugged Grimshaw as tightly as she could, even as the poor man nearly tripped backwards from the impact of her rushing up to him. “You’re the only one who’s stuck by me.” She said, tears streaming down her face. “Everyone else left or is keeping their distance…and Deji…they—”
“I know.” Said Grimshaw, the weariness sneaking into his voice a little. “I heard. I am sorry, but I couldn’t find out where they’re keeping him. The peacemakers didn’t even know where your House had him when I asked Vayla about it.”
It figured. The peacemakers were a powerful—and typically reliable—tool to use in normal circumstances. However, they only had the power that was granted to them by the different Houses. And her House was bound to be more careful than to let anyone know where Deji was. They would have known that she’d probably have some contacts willing to talk to her still.
“Fine.” Said Gausswinder, wiping her nose. “I know what I need to do, then. I lost my last drone today, but thankfully it wasn’t a total loss. I found the elf’s diary.”
“You…what?”
“I found her diary, Lincoln. Lalauri’s diary. And within it, I found what I’ll need…now here. Take these notes on the girl that I gathered.” She extended her hand with a notepad for him to take. “You’ll need to keep this in mind for when your hijacked Infernal Madcaps of Phlogiston—”
“Just call them imps.” Said Grimshaw, as he went over the notes. “That’s what everyone else calls them.”
“Fine then. You’ll need that for when you and your imps that you hijacked go on the inside.”
“…You actually red her diary?”
“Oh shush! Take the notepad!”
As soon as Grimshaw took the notepad from her, he began scanning the notes intently. She watched as he looked up at her, down at the notes, and then back up at her. Even though his face was masked, she could tell that suspicion was etched on his face.
“How are you going to go through with this, if that’s just what the little girl can do?” Grimshaw said.
“Because she’s only a little girl. An eight-year-old girl at that. She’s nothing, though, Easily dealt with. In fact, I plan on using her to help me deal with Ms. Imafenduwell so that you and the imps can get in and out with minimal issues. I just need a way to deal with those ghosts. Now…to find my son…”
Grimshaw looked up at her and said, “Wait, ghosts?”
Not bothering to answer his question, Gausswinder reached underneath the pillow of the bedroll she had placed on the ground and pulled out an old, dirt-covered tome of spells. With a slow wave of her hand over the tome, the cover opened itself and the pages flipped over to a spot in the book explaining how to cast a scrying spell.
“No!” Grimshaw said, now fully stepping back into the shack as the inside was filled with a luminous purple aura that Gausswinder was creating. “Bad—that’s a bad idea! The last time you tried magic, you spawned a monster as a byproduct—”
“I don’t care!” Gausswinder cast the spell and a small, round window of ethereal purple light formed in front of her.
The round window stabilized and on its surface appeared a large bedroom filled with a child’s stuffed animals and furniture.
“Wait,” said Grimshaw, leaning up to the image. “Where is this?”
“This is Imafenduwell Hall. We’re looking at the bedroom of the elf’s new child.”
“But…why not at least use the spell to find Deji?”
“I already tried that.” Gausswinder groaned under the strain of the spell. “But my House put measures in place to block spells like this from locating Deji.” She was not used to casting magic at all, yet alone maintaining focus on spells of concentration like this. She could already feel the sweat building on her brow as the strain built up throughout her body. Now was not the time to buckle, though. There was still more that had to be done.
From out of a knapsack that she had kept to the side, Gausswinder picked out a smiling, purple, stuffed moose—one of Deji’s favourite toys. It was the last of Deji’s things that she owned. Everything else was either stolen by the elders of her House, or she had to sell them at one of the shops in The Maze to get money for food.
Gausswinder took the toy moose and magically suspended it in mid-air above the tome. She chanted the next spell that she arrived at in the tome and watched as the toy became infused with lime green magical strands of power. The eyes of the toy moose slowly flickered with light before filling with a solid lime green.
“Hello? Testing one, two, three…” Gausswinder said to the toy. And as she did, the words were echoed by the toy as if an electrical speaker of some sort was inside of the toy. “Excellent.”
Then the former councillor pushed the toy through the magical window and had it float down onto the little girl’s empty bed to be discovered later. With her task completed, the portal dissipated, the tome fell to the ground, and a very winded Gausswinder fell to the ground in exhaustion.
“Gausswinder! Evie!” Grimshaw rushed to her side, and she watched as he fussed over her for a minute. “Evie…your skin…your hair.”
For a moment, she stared at him, confused. Then she pulled out a small mirror out of her knapsack and in it, she saw what he had meant: her skin had become more wrinkled—especially around her eyes. And her hair, once a luscious dark green, was now a lighter teal colour, and one solid lock of hair was pure white. Though she had only been thirty-two before, her magic had aged her, making her look like she was pushing forty.
A small part of her absently wondered if she really should have aged that much if she had only aged by about eight years or so. However, she then remembered that her mother looked about the same at forty years old. As it had turned out, they had both aged sooner than they had wanted.
“It doesn’t matter.” Gausswinder said, gently pushing Grimshaw away and pushing herself back onto her feet. “Everything is in place now. Now all that’s left is to watch and wait for the right moment to let the girl find her new toy.”
