“Chisteen – sanctuary of knowledge and harmony,” proclaimed Sadh. “Capital state princedom of Baendol.”
“Better known as ass of the world,” said Doin. “You want to know why, new girl?”
“You call me that again, you won’t live to tell the reason.”
“Feisty. Anyway, this so-called ‘city’ is dubbed the world’s ass because anyone can come here and take a dump on them. They’re a pacifist people, can you believe it?”
“Careful,” said Addie. “Your tongue may just be enough to turn them violent.”
Gryphik gave them the eye which warned them to be quits with this crap. That silenced them, and they pursued the smugglers on mules like a cur does its tail.
Edgaar Roiland, who was at the front of their group, kept pointing with his middle finger at what appeared to be a floating white circlet high in the cobalt sky. It took Addie some time to register that the circlet was not afloat rather on the head of an unnaturally large statue of the great Khannar Shmeg. Towards it they were headed.
At what had to be the heart of the city – the Capma District, it was called – there was a bedlam of toy sellers, illusionists, fortune tellers (not Seers), soothsayers, wagon wrights, vegetable barrows and other homeless folk. Men selling felts and women selling charms. Spice vendors and vendors of glassware. Firecrackers which made all sorts of explosive noises, on which Maihui scoffed, saying the alchemists’ guild would make these look like child-in-a-bonnet’s play.
For the most part Addie was impressed by the city. There were no beggars that could be seen, and more shockingly, no cutpurses – either that, or they were very good at what they did. No men of the Watch carrying scabbards on their tabards. No discernibly starving people. The children didn’t have that feeble look about them like the Hicks’ children in Rivate did. They didn’t seem scared of strangers.
Many pulverized stone buildings walked up to meet them. Further in, and gray tiles paving the main street were shattered. Shingles lay strewn about. Eaves of many a house looked like they’d fall in a sneeze, like they’d been newly, and shoddily, replaced. Roofs made originally of slate had been replaced by thatch, some with straw, even. Something unfortunate had happened here. And not too long ago.
Past the District a posh area peered down at them. Ford Gdrag’nar, an awning in front of a shuttered establishment read. A lot less hullabaloo here. Yet something was wrong here also; fine residuum of board and timber poked at the air. “They have been attacked recently,” Gryphik observed quietly.
When they were passing a huge, windowless, rectangular building eight stories high painted leaf-green and grey, Addie dumbly realized this was the renowned Educatori. An institute Khannar Shmeg had founded, an institution which had honed some of the sharpest minds in the last two Eras – be it Arrupe or Madhiya or Deshna.
“Trust me, you’ll get a much better education at the Pheeliax,” Sadh whispered to her. “A much more relevant education.”
Around the building men in friar coats and burnooses were swarmed like a bunch of dragoses. They smelled of capon, sausage, aspic and earthenware. Addie’s stomach churned.
“They’re running for presidency elections,” Sadh said, reading the curiosity on her face.
“Presidency?”
“Presidents are heads of educational organizations. In this case the Educatori.”
To Addie this was a peculiar, peculiar and ridiculous, idea. Such democracy would doubtlessly lead to violence – either inflicted by hired muscle or by glib tongues.
A chant went up amongst the burnoosed men, as though they had sensed her thoughts. A nonsense chant of “Trust the sled! Trust the sled! Trust the sled!”
These chants, or at least remnants of their noise, followed them all the way to their destination, which was the giant Khannar Shmeg likeness half a mile off Ford Gdrag’nar. The craftsmanship of the statue had to be appreciated, even by someone like Addie who knew not the first thing about craftsmanship. Khannar Shmeg looked stubborn as the tales did tell, and proud, with wisdom beaten into every hair. The white stone his idol was made out of seemed to glow from within. More impressive and imposing than even the Inner Terdam wall of Rivate.
They kept their necks craned upwards to admire the thing before Gryphik asked Maihui, who further asked another smuggler, who passed the question to Edgaar: “Where are the buyers?”
To which Edgaar loudly replied, “They will come.”
They did indeed come, not a hundred beats from then. “They” being a host of armed, armored men on proud orrocks, with a sage-green flag carried between them. A flag bearing the sigil of a flat, impractical weapon with a pointy end, sketching a trail of blood – almost like a large quill leaking red ink.
Addie recognized this as the same flag that had been waved earlier at them from the lighthouse.
The sigil she knew belonged to the Highlord Commander, Cossva Garnif, of Baendol.
“Fuck me with a thousand cunts,” Doin swore. “Our customer is the second most powerful man on Heim?”
“They’re a pacifist people, you said,” Addie muttered. “Let’s hope they go easy on us when we tell them what our drug does.”
The knight at the front hopped off his orrock. Edgaar stepped forward confidently and extended his hand.
“Nice to finally meet you in person, ser,” said the smuggler to the knight.
Addie had to commend the man’s air of credence. He gave off the vibes of a harmless, trustworthy diplomat. No one would have been able to tell on the ship he had cursed worse than sailors at the smallest wetness that got to his bone.
The knight took Edgaar’s hand, then surprised them all by collecting the man into a hug. “It is indeed nice,” said the knight in a hideously rich accent. “Our apologies for not being there to welcome you at the docks; it is simply uncustomary here in Baendol to greet a guest so close to Frunota’s territory.”
“That apology is as unneeded as it is humbly accepted,” said Edgaar.
The knight regarded the other eleven strangers on mules. “This is an unusually large party for men in our line of business.” He surveyed Addie, as she surveyed his odd armor – it seemed to be wooden, only painted to look like metal. “And women,” he added considerately. “You would do well to be a little more . . . discreet.”
Edgaar lowered his voice so only the knight would be able to hear him – but Addie kept her ears as whetted as her blades – or perhaps, now that she thought on it, it could be part of her Tester mageic she had always harnessed without knowing – and she heard some of what was said.
“. . . keeps the package distributed. Less loss if one of us gets mugged.”
The knight nodded. “Come. This is no place to do business.”
He mounted his orrock gracefully enough for a man wearing an armor of wood. The host turned and started. The smugglers and mages followed.
The soldiers came on foot, none the less formidable for it. Lord Parush had been expecting them for a while now, but that did not prevent Setul’s heart from jamming with fear at their sight.
The Boy King’s soldiers were led by an abnormally large man in a heavy red breastplate with the crown insignia embossed on it. Setul’s men – boys, really – crossed their rundown spears to block the entrance to the slum.
Setul himself stepped forward anxiously, looking up at the man and his soldiers. He waited for the man to speak first.
The man obliged. “I wish to see Shmeg’nar,” he said shortly, his voice crude like sand.
Wish, Setul noted. Wish. Not need, nor want. Wish.
“Lord Parush has no wish to chat with shit-licking dogs like you.”
“I believe he does.” Although the large man was wearing a helm that hid his face, Setul knew the man was smirking. “Tell your lord the General is here to see him.”
The General? The General! Setul could scarcely believe he was speaking to the Red Warrior himself – Alrej Whasu had earned that name, amongst others, due to his unparalleled mastery of fight. Not a knight and not a noble and certainly no Ardaunt, but the General held a fearsome reputation in Rivate.
Setul gulped. “Why would you want to be seeing Lord Parush? If you lay a finger on him, there will be blood.”
Again, that unseen smirk. “I trust that,” said the General. “Now, if you wish to not be short of both your balls, I suggest you remove yourself from my path.”
The boys looked at Setul, the spears trembling in their hands. They would never stand against armored King’s men, they could scarcely stand against novice Skillers with a bit of steel. They were ferocious only in mobs.
Then, Setul wasn’t much of a fighter himself. He just wanted a better life for his children, and Lord Parush would help him work towards that goal. Lord Parush was a man of revolution and promises, and Setul strongly believed he would not let those promises go hollow.
“You will wait here,” Setul told the General. “You will not be allowed to carry any weapons inside.”
The General tilted his head and shrugged his massive shoulders mockingly.
Flushing, both from humiliation and anticipation, Setul whispered into a fellow Hicks’ ear. The Hick hurried over sludge into the doddery brick structure not a couple hundred span inside the slum. After many awkward moments he returned, out of breath, and hissed private words to Setul.
Setul nodded at the boys, all of them, not just the two holding the spears. The King’s men were stripped of their swords and any secret weapons they might be carrying. This process was carried out admirably well by the Hicks, though each of them appeared as scared as Setul felt.
“An undue twirl of that sword, kid, and you’re dead.” The General told this to the boy who scoured him. The boy stumbled away under the weight of his heavy Ylar sword.
One of the soldiers behind the General spoke up – “Can we go in now, or you want to fondle our crotches to see the other swords we’re packing?” – but he quieted at a subtle glance from the General.
Setul breathed gently, feeling beads of sweat rolling down the nape of his neck. “You’re good to go.”
At first the General did not say or do anything. “Stay right here,” he then told the soldiers, evenly surprising both Setul and his own men.
No. He wasn’t here to assassinate the Lord Parush. A dozen soldiers more, and they would likely have been able to take on the whole slum at this time. But that would also mean they would face the wrath of the followers of Parush Shmeg’nar, which were now a great many in number.
What was it then that the Boy King wanted from them, for which he would send the Red Warrior?
Setul was left wondering as the General traipsed over to the brick structure with a heavy step. A single lock of flame-red hair poked from beneath the back of his helm.
Setul stood outside with the King’s men and his own as Alrej Whasu entered the doddery structure. Inside the structure a man of brown skin and a build as daunting as that of Whasu himself sat on a grimy moleskin carpet. A clay pot filled with dry corn was placed before his lap.
Opposite to him, cross-legged, was seated a girl with a serious face and twig-like hair. Her brother next to her wore the same serious mask along with a bald head. They were identical looking.
“I was beginning to think your steps would never grace our home,” said Parush, flinging a kernel of corn into his mouth. “Don’t mind the twins. They’re harmless enough . . . most of the time. Come, come sit, my friend.”
Alrej Whasu removed his helm. His hair was a red mass knotted to his head by sweat.
“You mustn’t call me that,” he said in his characteristic crude voice.
“As you wish.” Parush patted the carpet spot besides him, a gesture Whasu willfully seemed to ignore. “Although I hope I exact no offense by confessing my disappointment. I sincerely believed the association between us was a form of friendship.”
“Then you were sorely mistaken,” said Alrej Whasu, looking around the room. The uncleanliness wasn’t what disturbed him, the lack of furniture was. And the lack of everything else. And the awful rank of dung, and the twins’ watchful pair of eyes. “I am committing crime in what I risk to keep your rousing rallies safe. The little stunts you pull at Butcher’s Square while I keep my men occupied on other pettier problems is an inconvenience the sorts of which I don’t expect you to understand. It pains me to have to do what I must; I love Alain like I would love my son.”
“Careful, General,” chided Parush. “Your words border on treason. One would almost think . . . you have had a hand in the slaying of a king before.”
“I did not kill Aryan Khad,” said Alrej Whasu, but there was a stiffness to him as he did.
“And I did not cry when I first made love.” Parush winked.
“Do not make light of my compromises, hermit! You do not want for my patience to run out, and you certainly do not want to call me your friend. We are merely acquaintances working for the same cause. A cause I hope you do not stray from, for your own sake.”
“Whyever would you say that, my dear acquaintance?” Parush asked with a grin. “I am as committed to our cause as you are.”
“Are you? Lord Parush, they call you. I was under the impression we are to demolish the nobility, not replace them.”
“Ah, my dear General acquaintance, but names are meaningless sounds we provident humans use to refer to one another. After all, am I to now believe your balls weigh a dozen stones?”
“Names give barons their power. Names make kings what they are. A nameless king is no king known to another soul.”
“What a fascinating way to look at something as plain as names.” Parush popped another corn into his mouth, then got to his feet seeing the General would not sink to his level. Parush was shorter, but with more muscle to swing. “My dear acquaintance, I do not choose to be called lord. I do not chose to be hailed as a herald of the Avney. I do not choose the people that show to my cause, for I need them all. Choices are a luxury where I can hardly afford to filter the followers I have gained by blood and sweat. So, I am deeply sorry if what the people call me puts an itch in your bum.”
Alrej moved closer to the man Parush. If this intimidated the shorter man he did not show it. The twins spectated passively.
Then the two stood men grinned very similar grins.
“For the people,” said General Alrej ‘Steelballs’ Whasu.
“For the people,” Parush agreed. “We will dethrone that foolish scion just yet.”
When the General took his soldiers with him out of the slum but left their swords behind, Setul was about as puzzled as any person had ever been.
“His name is Ser Irelli Codwan,” Edgaar said, pointing at the knight in wooden armor riding to their front.
“No,” said Doin, brushing his amber hair.
Edgaar frowned. “What do you mean, no?”
“His name is Irelli Codwan. The ‘Ser’ is a prefix born of knighthood.”
Sadh laughed his charming laugh, strong white teeth fully on display. Maihui snickered too. Addie rolled her eyes; perhaps Master Harl would have been proud of her.
“I was of this place once,” Edgaar told them.
“You were a westerner?” Addie said, because the smuggler didn’t show any hint of such an accent as the others here seemed to show.
“Aye,” said Edgaar with a mischievous smile. “Not born here, but I spent most of my youth in this very city. Good place for people in my line of work. There are several research holdings all over the princedom, funded by the Highlord Commander himself. The scientists there keep cooking up interesting stuff now and then behind his back, like the package we’re carrying right now. But they’re scientists, not sellers. That’s where I came in.”
“You were a middle man for drug trades,” said Addie.
Edgaar nodded with pride. “Built quite a name for myself. Biggest dealer in all of west. Gaar the Grand, Roiland the Roiler, they called me, you might have heard.”
Addie had the decency to shrug.
“Anyway, I got so big, I started gathering attention from all sorts of bad folks. I was hurting their business. Then there were the addicts . . . I got myself locked into a tiny corner at some point and decided to surrender to the Highlord Commander.”
“Surrender?” Addie asked incredulously.
“Aye, surrender,” said Edgaar, and here she detected a bit of the accent creeping back into his voice in the way he trilled his ‘r’s. “But on my terms. I told the Commander I would help him squish all the moles in his facilities. Snitch on fellow dealers.”
“And did you?”
“Only the ones who were biting at my ass. I helped Irelli Codwan here put some of dirtiest, scummiest men in Chisteen into the dungeons – excepting me, of course.”
“And Garnif kept his word?”
“How do you think I am still here?”
Addie smiled her cheap, charming smile. This explained the embrace by the knight, at least. But . . . “Isn’t being back here dealing with him risky? If an old enemy saw your face . . .”
“Trust me, flower, I look entirely too different to be recognized,” said Edgaar. “Besides, if I fooled them once, I can fool them twice.”
“Let us hope,” Sadh muttered.
Only Gryphik of the four mages seemed unsurprised of their buyer being the Highlord Commander. Thence Addie said to him, “You knew?”
“I had my guesses,” he replied evasively.
“Still you came, and let me tag along to your little ‘cross-sea adventure?”
“Yes,” said Gryphik. “If someone as important as Garnif is interested in the Elixir, then the drug is more dangerous than we imagined. Think about it, shren-aef. A passive princedom like this, suddenly in want of enhancing powers of their mages. And they were clearly recently attacked. Why?”
“So they’re girding to fight Ptirre, too. Maybe planning to cheat a bit. How does that justify putting our necks on line?”
“Ptirre would not be so foolish as to attack the south and the west together, especially with the distance dispensed between the two. No. These people are at the lip of war with somebody else. I have my guesses again, but I intend to find out for certain.”
Addie lowered her tone to say, “The Rys . . . the enemy, you mean?”
Gryphik nodded gravely. “Maybe if this Elixir is as effective at boosting mageic as Maihui claims, it will give us the strength to . . . fight.”
He gritted out the last word like inside his mouth it were a disease. Then, likely by his mageic, he made his mule speed up.
As good a time to practice your Tester mageic as any is now, her nails – all of them, not just the two forefinger ones – advised her.
This took Addie by surprise. She had never known any of the others to have voices, or hold any command at all over her mageic . . . but it appeared there was an individual reservoir of power hid from her behind each of them. Until now.
She ordered her Wolf to travel between the nails. It leaped across them unseen to the eye, in blasts of White and Violet and Red Smokes.
Addie focused on the Violet, focused on it like the world depended on it. As maybe one day it would. In no time the Smoke filtered itself out from the others, crawling up her neck like enchanted vines. Addie felt strength flood her body, and her mule apparently felt it too, for she might as well have started to run.
The strength was still present in her every bone like a corrupt ruler latched to his throne as they broke step with a beautiful garden to their side. A big trellis guarded it along with equally big linden and olive trees.
“Why are we stopping?” Addie asked.
Her question was soon answered as Ser Codwan slapped a green band – green as her eyes had been till dawn, Addie thought with discomfort, but now they were blue – around Edgaar’s left wrist. Soon the guards were clapping these bands around all twelve of their wrists. When Addie was approached, she recoiled.
“It is a sign that you come in peace,” the guard said, not unkindly.
The band felt like a manacle around her wrist. Sadh looked nearly as sickened by it as her.
Their mules were left behind for them to enter wherever-this-was on foot. The garden to their side turned out to be more a park than a garden, for it stretched out besides them as they crossed a slightly arched oaken bridge. Inhuman roars issued from the park, and Addie looked at her companions to make sure she wasn’t just hearing things.
At the end of the bridge a totem of sorts depicting the Unburnt Goddess Aerilys had been erected. This in itself was highly unconventional, because of all the nine anointed gods Aerilys was the least worshipped. She was more a seneschal to Ebynaq Ebyna, their head. Moreover, the totem reminded Addie of Aeri, the doe-eyed little girl on the road to Fehnia.
What was even more odd, were the words stenciled behind the totem on the bark of a basswood. Sadh read them out to be “Wisdom for the wise – word for the third of three.”
After he said them he looked at Addie with his deep grey eyes. Third of three. Could that have anything to do with there being three Tri-Wielders, or were they seeing things having discovered what she really was?
They did not let this oddity distract them from the large stone wall now in view. Buttresses abetted it like planted metal feet. There was a gateway arch at the center of the wall, surrounded in another horizontal arch by palisades of lacquered wood. Not unlike the wood which made the guards’ armors, it would appear.
Ser Irelli Codwan nodded at the guards. They compliantly formed four rows of four each to escort the strangers around the palisade and to the other side of the wall.
There was a park similar to the last one located there, and from here too those inhuman roars were being issued. However, it was the keep that more caught their eye. It looked to be the part of a castle which wasn’t there, with its mottled stone and the occasional vine-overcome brick. Ironic, how the keep of the Highlord Commander should look on its last legs where the city he overlooked was for the most part pristine. Whatever stone made Khannar Shmeg’s idol glow had not been given to the masons who built this keep.
Hard concrete flagstones led up to the open door – door, not gate; how irregular, Addie thought – of the shabby structure. They walked to it in a single file, with Ed-‘Gaar’ the Grand on the anterior with Ser Irelli Codwan and Addie placed between Puhezer Gryphik and Sadh Bornak. She heard him mumbling nervously behind her.
“What’s the matter with you?” said Addie.
“There is bad blood between Garnif and Tehzvans,” Sadh said in response. “During the Therly War, we . . . well, Tehzvans demanded for a substantial chunk of Baendol farming lands from Khad Johri for serving him in the war. Baendol being an agrarian nation obviously didn’t take that well.”
“I never knew that,” Addie admitted.
“Many don’t. The whole matter was buried deep under once a compromise was achieved. And since Chisteen is where most such books are scribed, that wasn’t a hard job to do.”
“That was over fifty years ago,” she reasoned. “You haven’t even met the man, how can you be so sure he holds all Tehzvans in contempt?”
“Because,” said Sadh, “I have been getting cross looks from pretty much everyone I’ve encountered here, even the bloody vendors. I don’t blame you for not noticing, but I couldn’t not notice.”
“I still think you’re being needlessly jittery.”
“You think books are needless too. I don’t much care for your word.”
“How dare you speak to me, the first Emthralea in Holder knows how long, like that? My word is scripture.”
“Your word is only that – your word.” But she could hear a smile in his voice. “Now don’t talk of . . . that while we’re here. And hope your eyes don’t turn pink in front of Garnif.”
This hadn’t occurred to Addie. Evidently neither had it occurred to any of the mages, or they wouldn’t have agreed to let her come.
Too late for regrets, spoke her nails – all her nails – as she stepped in through the door, into the Peetel Hall, behind a Tester minstrel.
Hello! Nice to see you (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.)
Surprise, surprise! General Alrej 'Steelballs' Whasu has been helping Parush with his protests to overcome our Alain's regime?
*Le gasp*
I've been throwing in clues everywhere, even in the very first scene we meet Whasu in. They've all been very abstract, though.
Let's see if someone will bust the General as a traitor!
Addie and the gang, meanwhile, tagged along to sell drugs - and now they're in a very powerful man's keep...oops?
Tsk tsk maybe this will get her information regarding her heritage.
SERIOUS: Please do let me know what you think of the story so far. Your favorite/ least favorite characters, scenes, concepts, any and everything!
What you hate, what you like, what you love.
I just really need to hear your thoughts in copious, delicious, bitter details ┐(´д')┌
help a guy out and stick around <3