The Crossroads, Chapter 17: A Fish Which Flies

It had been hours since the feeling set in, but Lan had not been inclined to worry.  The river was, at its heart, a chaotic process.  Eddies, whorls, ripples where the surface was disturbed–all were commonplace.  But what was not common was constancy, and as dusk fell, and Lan docked beside a shallow crossing, and Gene and Bleeding Wolf disembarked heavy with apprehension which Lan knew–uniquely perhaps–was ill-founded, he found himself more and more distracted, more and more irritated with the anomaly he had apparently left behind in the Crossroads.  Alone on his vessel, he stared down the river’s burbling surface, contemplated the currents’ beginnings and endings and assimilations.  And there it was.  The constancy.  The source of his unease, it seemed, was not a ripple–it was a ripple which had disappeared.

This was serious.  He made up his mind to return to the Crossroads.  Then he was there.

Stepping off his boat with highly irregular purpose, he made for the tavern at the end of the tradesmen’s street.  The timbre of the cricketsong told him the apothecary was presently occupied, and the other ideal witness was…compromised.  This left the fateful stowaway repacking his experience with mulled wine in the tavern’s soft candlelight.  Ah, yes, he was there: Lan kicked open the door, slamming it into its hinges hard enough to dislodge a nail, to the clear consternation of the proprietor and her patrons.

“Where is the girl?” he barked at the third table from the door.

“Ah!” Naples gasped, looking up with a jolt from his journal.  “Captain al’Ver, I’d thought you were awa–”

“Answer, man!  Everything depends on it!”

“What?”

“The girl!  Miss Orphelia.  You were to be watching her.”

“But, I,” Naples sputtered.  “What–no!”

“No, of course you never agreed to,” Lan said, charging the table and grabbing Naples by the shoulder, “but you certainly intended to.”

Even in the dim light of the barroom, the shock on Naples’ face was electric.  In the split second of silence that followed, though, the presence of the tavern’s denizens reintruded.

“Mr. al’Ver–” the barkeep began.

“Captain!” Lan corrected.

“Yes, uh, what is this about?” Lan swept his hand dramatically in the direction of the bar.

“A girl has gone missing, my lady, and Mr. Naples is to help me locate her!”

“I swear to you there was nothing untoward about–”  Lan interrupted Naples limping excuse with a roll of his eyes:

“Yes, yes, you wanted to investigate her connection to my illustrious self.  I am very interesting.  Now gather your things.  We have work to do!”  

As he snarled the order, Lan instinctively scanned the rest of the tavern.  Most of them were visibly bewildered by the intrusion, a small few were adeptly ignoring the interruption which, for all its suddenness, was still in no way their business or their problem, but there was one set of eyes fixed significantly upon Lan with intent that was not immediately readable nor obviously benign.  It was an old man with a hat at the table in the corner.  His presence wasn’t right, Lan noted, but it was far less wrong than Orphelia’s disappearance, and time was short to get Naples moving.  

He turned, twirling his umbrella, and exited as Naples scrambled to catch up.  Outside, he paused and stared up at the half-moon between the night’s murky clouds, as much for the pragmatism of allowing his new disciple to finish his exit as for respectful consideration of the ill omen that the damn sky always seemed to bring him.

“I truly have not seen her since this afternoon,” Naples said, stumbling through the doorway behind him.  “She was sneaking out of the apothecary’s, went to the market, then toward the old theater. But that’s when I lost her, I swear to you.”

“I have no reason to doubt your sincerity, Mr. Naples,” Lan replied, still staring skyward.  “And I will admit I already knew the answer to my first question.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“‘Where is the girl?’ Mr. Naples.  It was a trick question.  Miss Orphelia is currently nowhere.”  After a brief silence, Naples attempted a response:

“I…don ‘t follow.”

“The river runs always, Mr. Naples, from today to tomorrow, from spring to summer, from one year to the next, and we all swim in its current like so many fish.”

“A lovely turn of phrase, Captain.”

“And so much more besides,” Lan said, beginning to wander up the street.  “The trouble is that Miss Orphelia seems to have leapt from the stream.”

“Well, to run with the metaphor, fish do jump sometimes,” Naples offered.

“Except she has not come back down.”

“Ah.”  Naples went silent, thinking for a moment.  “Like a flying fish?  Or perhaps a fish snatched by an eagle and carried elsewhere.”

At the words, Lan felt a surge of fire run up his spine, and the clarity of the old man’s gaze upon him in the tavern returned.  He had been familiar, Lan realized.  The wide-brimmed hat.  The burning in his eyes.  Ah, yes.  That one.

“We had best apply our razors, Mr. Naples.”

“Sounds danger–oh!  Like the Thagosian idiom?”

In spite of the foreboding complexity manifesting in the currents, intruding upon Lan’s consciousness, so rudely calling “Wake up!” at this inappropriate hour of night, he could not help but smile.  Naples continued to be a pleasant reminder of how long it took for humans to truly forget anything.

“Precisely,” Lan replied.  “If you don’t mind, I have further want of your aid.  It has come to my attention that a few old friends of mine have come to visit.  One is at the apothecary now–let us go and meet him.”

***

“Lazy fucking idiot.  Wake up!”

Devlin started awake at the rough voice, inches from his face, as a rough hand grabbed him by the throat and dragged him from his bed.  He opened his bleary eyes to see a shaggy face and a singed hunter’s jerkin by the dim light of Brill’s infirmary before being flung, skidding to the floor.  He whimpered.

“Oh, shut up,” the man sneered.  Devlin blinked his eyes open, shivering as he pushed himself half-upright.  The man, he could see now, was tall, tall enough that the candlelight didn’t reach his face above his beard.  But that notwithstanding, Devlin had never seen him before in his life.

“Wha–what do you want–” he began to stutter, but the man reached back to a quiver tied behind his waist.  He drew a short spear with a gleaming, serrated tip, and Devlin stopped cold.

“Where’s your sister?” the man asked, testing the tip against his forefinger.

“I don’t…I don’t know?”

“Really, fucker?  Been outta the hag’ claws three days now, and you still think that’s an acceptable answer?”

“I don’t know–”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” the man mocked.  “Best start payin’ attention, then, huh?  And don’t try to feed me any crap about being sick–you haven’t been sick since that fop pulled the bitch off your finger.  You just figured that if you could still be sick, then it couldn’t have been your fault you killed your stupid mom.”

At this, Devlin sobbed and, scrambling to his feet, tried to run for the door, but the man grabbed his shirt and pulled him back, slamming him against the wall.

“And while you were making excuses, your idiot sister jumped into the deep end of the river.  Time to take responsibility.”  In a motion Devlin couldn’t really follow, the man pulled a hook-like implement from his belt, slotted the spear into it, and flung it backward.  The spear embedded itself with a thunk in the wall.  “You’re gonna fish that girl outta there, or I’m gonna kill ‘er.  Those are the only two options.”

At that moment, the apothecary door on the other side of the infirmary curtain burst open, and Devlin stared, terrified, into the man’s burning eyes for several horrible, silent seconds before the curtain was swept aside by a man Devlin only dimly recognized.  This one had come with Orphelia often when she came to visit him back here.

“Daniel,” Lan al’Ver said sternly.  The shaggy man grunted disdainfully without taking his eyes off Devlin.

“Minding the shop now, are you, ‘Captain?’” he asked, curling his lip.  Another man stumbled in behind Lan, freezing upon seeing the situation in the room.

“Oh!” he exclaimed.  “Oh dear.  Uh, who are you?”  The shaggy man turned to face the newcomer, his venom now tempered by the slightest tinge of confusion.  “And, uh, yes.  Why are you threatening the boy?”

Daniel stared the newcomer down, weighing what Devlin could only imagine was a clear urge toward violence against unknown considerations.  He kept his cool, apparently, backing begrudgingly away from Devlin and turning back to Lan.

“Stinks of cruelty, dragging an innocent into the Gyre,” he said.

“I navigate the waters as I please,” Lan replied.

“With passengers?”  Daniel’s laugh was bitter.  “You’ve a poor track record with what you carry, you know?”  With that, Lan drew his rapier, defiant, scowling, prompting an outburst from the third man as Devlin tried as best he could to sink invisibly into the corner of the room.

“Hold on now, both of you!” the man said.  “Whatever this is about, we need to find the girl, right?  Orphelia.  Let’s set the weapons down and talk!”  At the mention of his sister, Devlin perked up.  He did not understand the nature of this sudden interruption, though he was certainly glad for it.  But more people looking for Orphelia made him even more anxious to find her.

The room was silent for a moment before Daniel straightened, reattaching his hook to his belt.

“Minding the shop indeed,” he muttered.  Then, to the third man: “Fine.  You two go get the girl out and take this little bastard with you.  He owes it to her.  And to Harmony.”  Devlin gulped as all the men renewed their attention on him.

“Who took her?” Lan asked.

“Rom,” Daniel said, with a tone that Devlin could swear smelled of smoke.  “I understand there is a certain Jin Gaenyan he wants pulled back into the fold.”  Lan nodded, sheathing is sword, and Daniel retrieved his spear, all to the third man’s obvious bewilderment:

“Captain, what does all of that mean?”

“Fear not, Mr. Naples.  We have our destination now, and we shall make sure that dear Orphelia and young Devlin are reunited once more!”

Daniel, meanwhile, made for the door.

“The personas, all three of you,” he muttered.  “Who the fuck wants humanity anymore?”  And then he was gone.

Devlin looked up, shaken, as Naples approached him with the ersatz, showy alarm of a concerned citizen with only an arm’s-length notion of how one ought to interact with children.

“Dear boy, are you quite alright?”  Devlin nodded, limping away from the wall, which seemed to satisfy the man, as his focus returned to Lan: “Captain, please no more oblique reference–what on earth was that all about?  Who was that?”

“That, Mr. Naples, was Daniel Patch.  He is part of an entity called Harmony.”

“The cult of Matze Matsua?”

“Precisely.  And yet also not at all.”

“Captain…”

Devlin took advantage of the moment of pleading confusion to swipe his ring from the table by his bed.  Over the past several dazed, he had attempted to reach it several times, but his efforts had been thwarted: The table had been kicked, its contents had been swept aside for a bowl of soup, he had received a sudden, semiconscious hug from Orphelia–each had, at the time, pushed the ring just out of his grasp, and each, he was beginning to realize, had been the direct or indirect work of Captain al’Ver.  He had little idea why the Captain would care about the ring or his possession of it, but he certainly didn’t want to ask.  And to make sure he wouldn’t have to, he decided to hide the reacquisition of his treasure.

As his fingers touched the cold silver, he heard the faintest sound of flapping wings outside the infirmary.  It chilled him, and it comforted him, and while he could fathom the reason for neither, he was far too afraid to lose his last link to his family to question any of it.

“The magic of legend itself shrouds them, Mr. Naples, and even I cannot speak directly of what binds Mr. Patch and his colleagues.  You will have to pardon me in this respect.”

“Very well,” Naples replied, dejected.  “But what of the names he mentioned–Rom?  Jin Gaenyan?”  Lan laughed.  The bravado of the gesture seemed uncharacteristically brittle.  “What?” Naples inquired.

“Well-read as you are, I expect you’ve heard of them,” Lan said.  “The second is the clue we needed, for though the name ‘Jin Gaenyan’ has been lost to all but the most observant chroniclers, I can assume you have encountered some mention of the Saraa Sa’een?”  Naples scratched his chin.  Devlin, unsure of what to make of this conversation, began to inch toward the door.  He didn’t trust these men, and he wanted to find Orphelia before they did.

“The Saraa Sa’een was killed by the Barabadoon nearly sixty years ago,” Naples mused, “with–oh you clever dog!  This is exactly where we left off three days ago!  They did it with the help of–”  Lan snatched Devlin’s hand as he attempted to sneak out the doorway.  He froze, looking timidly up at the Captain.  The man’s grip was amiable but frustratingly firm.  He smiled warmly down at Devlin before facing Naples again.

“My friend, you should know better than most how history may play reanimator to even the longest-dead,” he declared with the inflection of a showman.  “But in this case, the Saraa Sa’een is quite literally alive.  He was, as it happens, captured, to be used as a defensive measure by the architect of the place where dear Orphelia will reenter the stream.”  Naples exhaled, the expression on his face souring.

“The Chateau de Marquains,” he confirmed.  He glanced at Devlin and grimaced.  “That’s no place to bring a kid.”

“No.  But it is as Daniel said.  We are navigating the waters together, and my path is thus ordained.

“Hmm.”

“Mr. Lan?” Devlin piped up.  “Are you sure this place is where we need to go to save Orphelia?”

“Indeed I am, my dear boy.”  The man’s smile was still warm, and Devlin still found it suspicious.  But needs must.

“Then I’m not scared.  Let’s go!”  It was partially true: Devlin truly did not fear the Chateau de Marquains, in large part because he knew nothing about it, but he was terrified for his sister, for the violence that had seized the both of them weeks ago and, it seemed, would not let them go.  Would not let her go.  He felt the wind of wingbeats brush against his cheek.  He needed to save her before it was all gone.

“We are decided, then!” Lan proclaimed.  “Let us depart before Brill discovers your intrusion, Mr. Naples!”

“A fate to rival the False Gods,” Naples joked mirthlessly.  He moved to follow Lan out of the infirmary, pausing momentarily to look in the direction of Devlin’s bed.

“Come on, Mr. Naples!” Devlin called.  Shaking his head, the man turned and exited.

The Crossroads, Chapter 16: Mr. Ruffles

Recent weeks had been short on both comfort and normalcy, but Orphelia was beginning to rediscover all of their annoying side effects now that they had returned.  For the first time since the Bad Stuff, she had a place to sleep, food she didn’t have to steal, even a daily routine running errands for the apothecary and the blacksmith’s apprentice.  Devlin’s illness had improved dramatically: He was still bedridden, but he was spending more time awake every day.  However tenuously, things felt as if they might turn out alright.  And gods was she bored with it.

Part of that was certainly a lack of freedom: She had been running messages and packages across town for days now–nothing valuable, nothing salacious, nothing interesting–but Brill’s oversight remained draconian.  Every day, the apothecary would run errands of their own, asking questions of Orphelia’s contacts the previous day, making absolutely certain she had not defected, absconded, sabotaged, or otherwise deviated from her terminally uninteresting schedule in any way.  And this was to say nothing of the uncanny frequency with which she found Captain al’Ver on her path–or at her destination–on “business” of his own, no doubt in truth to facilitate her supervision.

To their credit, if she found even a shadow of a reason to cause trouble, she totally would.  But their constant anticipation of it was just exhausting.

Still, beyond the benevolently oppressive gaze of her newfound caretakers, Orphelia was slowly beginning to accept what had likely been apparent to both Ty and Bleeding Wolf during their odd sojourn to the Bloodwood: There was a capacity in which she thrived on the threat of violence–and that she was feeling it call back to her after only three days of peaceful stasis…it scared her.

But in spite of her apprehension, she found herself growing excited for the incremental change in status that would arrive that afternoon.  Captain al’Ver was leaving for a day, taking Bleeding Wolf and the blacksmith a short distance down the river, which meant she would get to talk to Mr. Ruffles again.

Amidst her friend’s few words since the Bloodwood, she had been keeping careful track: He had not stopped speaking to her–he simply would not speak to her when Captain al’Ver was present, and it turned out he was present all the time.  He had parked his boat next to the apothecary’s shop, so he was within earshot of the room where she and Devlin slept.  He was at market when and where she was carrying her deliveries and notes.  More often than not, he was somehow loitering on the tradesmen’s street when she returned.  Orphelia liked the man well enough, of course, but she found his omnipresence troubling, to say nothing of the silence it seemed to instill in Mr. Ruffles.

When Mr. Ruffles did speak, he did not mention Captain al’Ver, though he did seem apologetic for his silence.  He also hinted that an important message was forthcoming and that Orphelia’s destiny would “shake the sea and sky both”.  She had no idea what that meant, but she was surprised to find herself looking forward to finding out.  She realized that it had been a matter of days since she had been praying for safety, and she supposed she still wanted that for Devlin, but for her part, she thought she might be ready for the sort of danger that a destiny entailed.

“Daydreaming again, Orphelia?” Brill asked from across the shop.  She looked down at the bottle that had been in her hands the last five minutes.  Devil’s Breath (Distilled) the label read, with a double-X next to the title, indicating that the substance was never to be ingested alone.  It belonged across the room, on the shelf behind Brill’s counter.

“No!” she protested, calculatedly embarrassed.  She’d gathered by now that if she was, inevitably, to have a reputation as a liar, it was better for her lies to be stupid, easily detected, trivial.  She rose and hurriedly carried the bottle over to Brill.

“Careful with that,” they warned, snatching the bottle and placing it gingerly at the back of their shelf.  Then, softer: “What’s on your mind, child?  Your thoughts have been wandering all morning.  I do apologize, I know cataloging is not the most interesting of–”

“Captain al’Ver’s leaving today,” Orphelia volunteered.

“Ah, yes,” Brill said, quieting.  Their brow furrowed.  “I don’t think you need to worry about Mr. al’Ver–”

“Captain.”

“Yes, Captain al’Ver.  I’m sure he’ll be back soon.  The others, however…”

“Where’s Dog Boy going?” Orphelia asked.  The particulars of the expedition had been hushed in her presence before, but Brill seemed worried now–worried enough that they might actually spill the details.  They frowned, clearly considering their words.

“Bleeding Wolf and Gene are going to speak with a, uh, dangerous person.  To ask them for help.”

“Ooh!” Orphelia gasped, unable to prevent her face from lighting up.  “Who is it?  What are they asking for?  Why is Gene going?  Isn’t he old?”  Brill shook their head, grabbing the bridge of their nose with immediate regret, and began examining their order ledger in defiance of Orphelia’s barrage of questions.  She continued to press for several minutes, finally eliciting a response:

“In my opinion, child, Gene should not be going.  He is old.  Too old–we all are, these days.  Except Bleeding Wolf.”  They sighed.  “Dear, we need to get back to work.  And I would appreciate if you did not repeat what I’ve told you to anyone in town.”

“That’s okay!” she replied cheerfully.  “I don’t talk to people in town!”  Fairly speaking, that was true.

Orphelia was more efficient in the ensuing hours, excited to be engaged–even fruitlessly–in the Crossroads’ preeminent controversy, and she worked, peppering Brill with questions they refused to answer, into the mid-afternoon, at which point the apothecary kicked her out of the shop.  They had an errand to run over by Marko’s, they said, but they also instructed her not to be back until dark.  She had her doubts that any errand Brill could make would actually take that long, but she supposed they could both use the time free of each other.

As she stepped out onto the yellowed afternoon shade of the tradesmen’s street, clutching Mr. Ruffles under her arm, she considered where she wanted to spend her hours of lurking.  The market street seemed like the obvious choice, but no sooner did she turn onto the alley leading there than Mr. Ruffles, right on schedule, offered an alternative:

Marko’s theater, my dear.  That your journey may begin.

“Are you sure?” she muttered beneath her breath, in spite of the empty alley’s lack of eavesdroppers.  “They saw me last time I went there.”

Do not be afraid.  One must invite the beast’s passing to harness its wake.  Today, you shall learn to navigate the waters.

Orphelia paused, now at the alley’s mouth, glanced right, then left.

“Like Captain al’Ver?” she whispered.

There is no better teacher.  Few more terrifying, besides.

She turned right, toward the town square–and Marko’s.

“Then why are you teaching me?”

Because I would teach you what he would prefer you not know.  Perhaps what he would prefer to un-know himself.

The market street was still busy at that hour, though its intensity was beginning to tend toward outflow.  Even so, there were countercurrents of merchants and wagons still weaving their way into the traffic from both the north and south ends of the street.  Among them, Orphelia felt familiarly unseen, the way she had before her frightful previous encounter in Marko’s theater.  It wasn’t invisibility, she knew, not exactly.  Pedestrians on the street would step around her, stop to let her pass, react to her presence–subconsciously, at least–but not one of them made eye contact.  None of them acknowledged her as a person, not to her, not–as far as she could tell–to themselves.  And with the feeling of anonymity returned its companion: power.  At these people’s periphery, with free reign to exploit any blind spot, with freedom from all their stupid control–it reminded her why she had trusted Mr. Ruffles, how he had helped her and Devlin to survive when no one else would.  After moments among the crowds which felt much longer than moments, she reached the square.  Marko’s theater, ostentatious in spite of its weathered exterior, loomed from the other side.

“Why wouldn’t he want me to know it?” she said back to Mr. Ruffles at last.

Because it is in our nature to regret where we falter.  It requires both strength and insight to recognize the ways in which our failures become gifts in their own right.

“Are you saying Captain al’Ver failed at something?”  She approached the theater’s currently makeshift front door.

Hardly.  I am saying merely that he thinks he failed.

Before she could put her hand on the handle, the door barged open and Marko stepped out, Brill in tow, each with a bulging satchel slung over their shoulder.

“Not much time,” she caught from Brill, along with “…from Holme,” as the two of them hurried past her, just as oblivious as the market street crowds.

Inside, my dear.  Find the stairs behind the stage.

Orphelia shuffled quickly through the open door and past the theater’s modest foyer to the familiar, torchlit, detritus-filled audience area.  Just like before, she climbed up to the stage by way of an empty, overturned crate and crept over to Marko’s desk.  It was piled high with papers and codices, including a rolled piece of parchment sealed prominently by wax sculpted into a relief of a bearded man’s face.  Gripped by curiosity, she reached for the oddly-sealed scroll, but Mr. Ruffles’ whisper stopped her:

Don’t get distracted now.  Remember: the stairs.

She withdrew her hand, noting the shadows in the recesses of the stage.  She could make out an opening in the floor where the faintest outline of a staircase descended into the dark.  She cautiously stepped toward it, allowing her eyes to adjust to the increasingly dim light.

“Are we going to steal something from Marko?” she asked softly, testing the first step with her foot.

We will not steal anything from this Marko today.  Our aim is to make a fair and common exchange of time for space.  But only places of certain power are capable of handling the particulars–or quantities–of our transaction.

“I hadn’t realized you were such an accomplished businessman,” Orphelia said, proceeding down the stairs.  She immediately regretted her choice of words–she had never before been so familiar with Mr. Ruffles, and the thought of losing his confidence in her breach of their decorum felt icy in her gut, all the more so for the darkness closing in as she made her way below the floor of the stage.

I see the one you call “Captain” has taught you flippance.  Repelling the Deep is instinctive, I suppose.  And we all attempt it in our own ways.

Relieved by the acceptance she read in the response, she found a cadence descending the stairs without the aid of her vision as the gloam turned to pitch, and she lost sight of the stairs completely.  It wasn’t quite right to say she lost count of the steps she’d taken–she hadn’t been counting in the first place–but after some time, she craned her neck over her shoulder to find she could no longer see even a glimmer of light up the stairs from where she’d come.

Patience, my dear.

She gulped and continued downward.  The uncanny darkness continued for several more minutes before a thin, pale light began to illuminate the contours of the steps beneath her, and her descent finally opened to a wide, gently-curved staircase that spilled into a darkened sitting room.  She whirled in bewilderment, tallying the impossibilities that had suddenly materialized before her.

Despite the numerous unlit sconces and candelabras about the room, she found its features–the intricate patterns of the carpet; the staircase bannister, immaculately carved and adorned with silver catfish bearing teeth like razors; the painting which dominated the wall before her of an empty chair beside a crackling hearth–visible, well enough, by what was apparently moonlight streaming in through windows on one side of the room.  Up the stairs, there was no trace of the passage by which she had arrived: She could see the top of the staircase end at a hallway, down which she recognized the orange flicker of firelight.

Take care with your silence.  We are trespassers now, and alerting our host will bring terrible consequences.

Orphelia swallowed her objections, frantically wondering how Marko’s staircase–which by all rights should have led underground–could have brought her somewhere in view of the sky at night.  It had been mid-afternoon when she’d left…right?  She hurried quietly as she could to the window.  Outside, beyond a garden wall, she could see grassy plains stretch into the distance, rippling in the nighttime breeze under a cloudless, starry sky.  The gibbous moon, almost blindingly bright, resembled a face, half-turned, attention fixed calmly upon something nearby but elsewhere.

This one was clever.  We will need to find the entry point to his reservoir.  But first, I think perhaps you are owed an introduction, Orphelia, daughter of Errol.  Look to the bookshelf.  There is a vessel upon it far more potent than the one you carry with you.

She glanced away from the window, quickly finding the bookshelf he meant.  It was a tall piece, made of foreboding, blackened wood, towering beside the strange painting of the empty chair.  Approaching it, Orphelia found she needed no clarification as to what the “vessel” might be.  Among the numerous aged scrolls and codices, one–a thick, leather bound grimoire–seemed to seize her attention of its own accord.  Timidly, she wrapped her fingers around its spine and hefted it from the shelf.

Surprising indeed that Le Marquains collected a copy.  I only ever transcribed three, and I left none near this place.

Orphelia peeled open the cover, carefully separating a dusty title page from the leather.  Straining her eyes, she made out the words: A History of the Wars Fought Under Shadow, by Rommesse of Khet.

“Is that your name, Mr. Ruffles?” she whispered.

“I was called Rommesse of Khet by scholars far from my birthplace,” came the response, in every way the same voice Orphelia had heard over the past several weeks, but more real, more there.  She turned to face its source and saw a man in a dark robe standing beside the window.  His hair and short beard were silver, his skin was ashen, and his eyes were lined and creased with a sense of burden that belied the easy smile on his face.

“Few of them ever met me,” he continued.  “Of those that did, I was called ‘Twice Traitor’ by some.  The rest, my friends included, called me Rom.”

Orphelia opened her mouth, already overcome by questions for Mr. Ruffles–for his human incarnation–but her reply was interrupted by another voice, this time from behind her:

“Holy fucking shit.”

She jumped, spinning to face the speaker.  It was Ty, standing in the doorway at the edge of the room, staring in disbelief.

The Crossroads, Chapter 15: Preparing the Olive Branch

“Apologies for disturbing you, then.  If you see him, please let one of the peacekeepers know.”

The door shut, and Bleeding Wolf glanced over at Anita.  She shrugged, resigned frown just barely visible in the torchlight.

“He’s gone most likely,” she said.  “We can see if Michel found anything, but my bet’s he skipped town.”

“This bodes poorly,” Bleeding Wolf growled.

“Why?  Doesn’t him leaving solve the problem for us?”  The reply came from the shadows down the street:

“It very likely does not.”  Anita stood at attention as a young, bespectacled man strode into the light.  Gene, grim-faced, shuffled into view behind him.  “As long as the Crossroads remains the last place Ty Ehsam was seen, it will remain of interest to the Blaze.”  The newcomer offered his hand.  “Bleeding Wolf, I presume?  Hero of the Ouroboros?”  Bleeding Wolf took it cautiously.

“You must be Mayor Bergen, then.”

“Indeed,” the mayor said.  “I would offer my apologies for failing to introduce myself during your visit five years ago, but I gathered your early departure was…intentional.”

“I’m not much for politics,” Bleeding Wolf replied, guarded.

“Nor am I,” the mayor said without a hint of humor.  “And yet.  In any case, I understand the Blaze is an occasional client of Marko’s.  I’ll negotiate with him to see if news of Ty’s departure can reach our fiery friend before he has to ask.”  Gene punctuated the declaration by spitting loudly, grinding his foot into the stain he left in the dirt.  The mayor glanced back.  “Concerns, Gene?”

“Bastard broke the peace, John,” the blacksmith grumbled.  “Need to be consequences.”  Eyebrows raised, the mayor looked to Bleeding Wolf then back to Gene–less at a loss for words, Bleeding Wolf gathered, than for consideration of the acidity of his response.

“Yes, Gene,” he finally settled.  “I will of course consider how we might best punish an omnicidal warlord.  But–” he turned back to Bleeding Wolf and Anita.  “That is not what I needed to discuss.  I understand you spoke with Brill earlier today, and you have an idea as to the identity of Marko’s assailant.

“News travels fast.”

“The right news, yes.  For the right reasons.  But you would know more about Brill’s judgment than I.  My thought, rather, is that the Blaze’s incursion provides us with bargaining material, and the enemy of our enemy may be interested in a bargain.”

“What makes you so sure they’re enemies?” Bleeding Wolf asked.

“To the Blaze, everyone is an enemy, no?” the mayor replied.  “His trail of ash across the Gravestones and Hazan does not suggest an affinity for alliance.  And even if this witch of the Ironwood does not fear him, she would surely agree that the Crossroads is better off not in his grasp.”

“That’s a dangerous line of thought,” Bleeding Wolf remarked.  Gene seemed to agree: The old man placed a hand on the mayor’s shoulder.

“What do you intend to give ‘er?” he grunted.  Mayor Bergen smiled, not comfortably but perhaps vindictively.

“That brings us here,” he replied.  “I have no idea what she wants, hence the operation I discussed with you previously, Gene.”  The blacksmith nodded as focus shifted to Bleeding Wolf.

“What?” the beastman asked.

“We need to establish contact with her,” the mayor said.  “And as far as I am aware, you are closest among us to knowing how.”  Bleeding Wolf crossed his arms.

“Word is she ain’t much for bilateral communication.  It’ll be easy enough to send a message to the Ironwood.  Her giving a shit–enough to give us a comprehensible response–that’ll be the hard part.”

“Do you imagine it’s safe to send a messenger?” the mayor asked.

“Safe?  No.  What I hear, she likes to ‘disassemble’ unwanted visitors.”

“Hmm.  Then I may have a favor to ask the two of you.”

A Walk Between the Paths in Autumn

A story told by fallen leaves in the style of a young Nietzsche

***

Note: To be clearer to those less familiar with the context, this is a discussion of various literary themes (or just personal points of interest) in Elden Ring.  It’s meaty for a series of essay-fragments, but disconnected and certainly not a complete treatment of any of these topics, much less the game as a whole.  The style might be something I return to–temporally, though, I had just been reading a collection of Nietzsche’s earlier aphoristic work (alongside, as I mention, Borges), and it seemed a decent way to expound upon the contents of my brain at the time.

Cross the fog to the Lands Between.  In the tradition of Bloodborne (and in contrast to Dark Souls) Elden Ring is rather forthcoming with the metaphysical nature of its action.  The Lands Between are ruled by a goddess who has banished the very concept of death, power is conferred by “runes” (including the Elden Ring itself) and “grace”, individuals physically accomplish insane, abstract tasks like “holding the constellations in place” or “literally being two people” (including the fecundity implied by a less abstract multiplicity)–no need for the subtlety of a bird ride that transcends substrates of reality, but that’s okay.  I mean it genuinely.  It is often okay to say what one means, especially with the cat so far out of the bag.

Familiar Miyazaki-isms return: The fog from without the Lands Between again symbolizes the shifting becoming of materiality giving way to the divine being of grace (the Christian through-line) and runes (the Norse through-line, perhaps to be taken as Viking geometry, linking the metaphysical language to the old Platonic stand-in).

Perhaps it’s the Borges I have on my brain at the moment, but it’s all rather evocative of a labyrinth.  Lands of resolved solidity delineating (forming pathways amidst) the fog (or vice-versa–the negative of a labyrinth is also a labyrinth)–I sure don’t have any idea what it was meant to house (or I lack the energy to enunciate it–you guess which), but labyrinths are awesome and, definitionally, provide both a goal and at least one path to tread in one’s delving.

***

Long lost grace.  Grace, the guidance of gold, a network of glittering signposts and rest stops left by the Greater Will (the Outer God from which the Golden Order and the Two Fingers arise; and against whom both Marika and Ranni rebel), a golden glow in the eyes of the blessed–beyond its utility as supportive game mechanics, it sounds kind of like “purpose” and even more like “commandment”.

For the player character it’s a rough constant, but it’s worth considering the others for whom it comes and goes.  Back before the Shattering, Godfrey, First Elden Lord, was divested of grace and “hounded from the Lands Between”, as far as I can tell not for any indiscretion, but because he fulfilled his commandment.  He was done conquering the Lands Between in the name of Marika and the Erdtree, so as is only just, she banished her champion and the father of (some of) her children and remarried…herself.  Divinity certainly is a strange thing.  No one would appreciate me extrapolating this logic to IRL religion, but it’s worth ruminating on this characterization of “divine love” and the rules it plays by.

Anyway, when Godfrey is banished, loses the guidance of gold, he becomes Tarnished.  Because From Software spends approximately a bazillion dollars (or at least hours) on English translation, we should be careful with their words–and we should be very suspicious when it looks like they aren’t.  To which end, pure gold doesn’t tarnish–silver/other stuff does.  The implication, then, of calling the Erdtree’s discarded guardians “Tarnished” is subtle but important: The golden grace which they formerly held was not a transmutation of the soul but an alloying.  They, at base, are not gold but silver.

Sound familiar?

“I said; ‘but all the same hear the rest of the story.  While all of you in the city are brothers, we will say in our tale, yet the gods, in fashioning those of you who are fitted to hold rule, mingled gold in their generation, for which reason they are the most precious–but in the [guardians, Samzdat’s words] silver, and iron and brass in the farmers and other craftsmen.’”

-Plato, Republic

TL;DR/#AllGreek2U, the rulers are gold, the soldiers are silver, everyone else is economically replaceable, and in the Lands Between, we sometimes stuff warriors into cabinets (or jars) until (or, more realistically: so that) they get corroded and gross.  It’s worth considering as well that (Plato’s) Socrates presented the city based on the noble lie not as an ideal city (as he might have claimed for plausible deniability) but as a hellscape, a festering city, an absurd monument to the tendency of human complexities toward strife.

You can blame the genre or the philosophy, but either way the result is what you’d expect: Strife arrives, the gold-souled rulers are proven untrustworthy (or at least unworthy), so the conduits of grace on the ground begin unearthing their guardians.  In other words, they not only followed Adeimantus’ bad example–they followed his bad example badly.

This is to say nothing of Miquella, child of Marika alone, who championed “unalloyed gold” as a countermeasure to the influence of the Outer Gods.  Because philosopher kings are clearly the solution.

***

Game of rings.  “Sonic or Gandalf?”  Depends on how fast you are.

An obviously relevant point of discussion is that the development of Elden Ring’s pre-Shattering mythos was a collaboration between Miyazaki and the much vaunted (though perhaps tarnished in his own right) George R.R. Martin.  Less obvious is exactly why this is relevant.  We do know that the collaboration was not longitudinal: Martin’s involvement was at the beginning, in creating a “D&D sourcebook” for a setting that Miyazaki would then twist.  What’s not clear is where the line is drawn–the degradation of the Lands Between was not by a single event, be it the Shattering (the war), the shattering (of the Elden Ring by Radagon), the Night of the Black Knives (which likely catalyzed both), or the banishment of Godfrey (which exposed–or even created–the cracks in the order that led to all the rest).  Miyazaki has commented that some of the characters ended up unrecognizable from Martin’s original submission, but that raises more questions than it answers (like the degree to which that difference is editing versus the in-story corruption of the Shattering).  All I can say now is that I would give not-zero appendages to see Martin’s original document.

In the same vein, I’ve long wondered about the particulars of Miyazaki’s collaborative strategy.  The structure of this arrangement is particularly clear (in spite of the aforementioned ambiguities), in the sense that such arrangements must exist in most, if not all, collaborative works of long-form literature, and we, as onlookers, rarely get this degree of insight.  Meanwhile, during the development of Elden Ring, Miyazaki was also directing Sekiro, on which he has stated he took a backseat on most of the object-level writing.  Yet: Sekiro remains a beautifully-written work with the same hallmarks of style and attention to detail.  I realize this observation is nothing especially profound, but I’m still curious about the nuts and bolts: Is Miyazaki himself especially good at directing his own style?  Are From Software’s processes particularly conducive to that style?  Do they simply maintain a staff of talented and faithful imitators?  I have no idea, but I would love to understand how I could scale my own work in the same way.

***

Yass, King, I seen’t it!  There’s something cowardly to me about getting too low-level in one’s critique/analysis, but there’s one piece of Elden Ring for which I’ll flirt with the lower bound of my standards.

Miyazaki has said before that his favorite boss in Demon’s Souls is the Old Monk, the proprietor of a tower in a swamp who was driven mad by a relic he acquired: a long, flowing, vibrant yellow robe.  His reasons for liking this boss are likely multiple.  There’s a lot to like, from the super creepy aesthetic (it’s instilled in me a lasting affinity for piles of discarded chairs), to the fact that the fight is not against the monk himself but an invading enemy player “possessed” by the robe (a mechanic which reprised its role in Dark Souls 3), to, of course, the literary reference.  Hidetaka Miyazaki, too, has seen the Yellow Sign.

That The King in Yellow is so close to Miyazaki’s heart (or at least his portfolio) makes his use of the color yellow in Elden Ring nearly unignorable.  To be fair, even not taking that into consideration, the precision (and deliberate obfuscation) of it is diabolical–or did we think that the representation of no fewer than four distinct (and bitterly-opposed) factions by nearly-identical yellow particle effects was merely sloppy art direction?

For accounting: The Golden Order, the “good guys” in the quest for a restored balance via the Elden Ring are, insofar as they are in any way a united front, represented by projections of pale yellow light and a predictably golden aura.  Those Who Live in Death, worshippers of Godwyn the Golden (the first demigod to die) who would see the rune of death reintegrated with the Elden Ring, are characterized by a golden aura intermingled with black smoke, as if to connote some corruption of Godwyn’s original purpose.  Similarly, the Omen, the curse of horns and filth that cuts its victims off from the Greater Will (see Margit/Morgott, Mohg, and the Dung Eater) is the same gold, interspersed with brown.  And of course, the Frenzied Flame, ender of life and bringer of madness, is also yellow, this time more saffron–though it is scarcely distinguishable from the Golden Order’s particle effect when it is in an NPC’s eyes.

Far be it from me to offhandedly summarize the “point” of The King in Yellow without citation, but I think a respectable try looks like: 

“A sort of madness, transient or not, of devotion to something larger than ourselves, even–especially–at the expense of the reality we would otherwise affirm, is endemic to the human condition.”

Shabriri and the Frenzied Flame thus stand at one end of the spectrum, wearing the same color but demonstrating, perhaps, just how deep the yellow/gold rabbit hole goes, while the remaining Erdtree derivatives reticently acknowledge that all that glitters, well, maybe it has something in common.

Less artistically but 100% also the point: The narcissism of small differences is often much more bitter than any rivalry with an alien Other.

***

We’ve made some improvements to the chapel since 2015.  Furthering the “thematic connection to Bloodborne angle”, the two games’ use of runic alphabets is worth interrogating, and Elden Ring in particular gives a useful starting point for the aspiring Lorax linguist: the tree.  The Lands Between admittedly incorporate several linguistic traditions (Latinate, e.g. Raya Lucaria, Dectus; descriptive English, e.g. Volcano Manor, Redmane Castle; and of course Germanic, e.g. Leyndell, Fortissax, Placidusax), but since most of them are allocated to the names of specific people and places (which is about how you would expect culture to work), the question of the Erdtree (a more fundamental concept) stands out.  It’s definitely a tree, that part makes sense, but per the name, it’s also an “Erd”, so what’s that?

My own leap of logic lands me on “œd”, short for œdal, the Elder Futhark rune for “heritage” or “estate”, a fitting symbol for the Golden Lineage (used also by the Nazis, a connection which I will not explore here).  It also seems to be the nominative basis for Bloodborne’s Great One, Oedon (not to mention the Norse god Odin).  Except, one problem–the œdal rune looks like this:

And the Oedon rune looks like this:

Actually, no, not a problem, just a connection.  You see, the seal of Queen Marika is this:

…which bears reference to Odin’s infamous vigil, hanging from a tree, and closely resembles the Anglo-Saxon rune “ear”, meaning “earth”:

…implying a “heritage of the earth” (Biblically, “inheriting the earth”) or the less grand “earthly heritage”, or both.  There are fruitful implications to either.

Note: While I did mention before that these explorations are largely incomplete, it’s worth mentioning the trail of breadcrumbs leading to the “elgaz” rune as well:

The literal meaning of this rune is “elk”, which is a less useful similarity to Marika and the Erdtree, but given its visual similarity to “ear”, it might indicate some connection to the moose/elk-themed Ancestors present in various locations throughout Elden Ring, whose culture is believed to predate the Erdtree.

If we’re going to grill the Erdtree, we ought to do the same with its disfavored progeny.  Thankfully, the Haligtree is easy–”Halig” fairly clearly derives from the Anglo-Saxon “hægl” rune

(or “haglaz” in Elder Futhark–aside, I am continuing to reference Elder Futhark mainly because Wikipedia’s entry for it is way better, but evidence points to the Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet being the most appropriate reference for Elden Ring’s runes), meaning “hail” or “precipitation”.  Aesthetically, hail is appropriate–the Haligtree is located in the snow-covered northern mountains–but at a deeper level, the significance of the Haligtree is much better understood as precipitation, that which falls from the storm or, less meteorologically, from the heritage of the Erdtree.  Miquella is an Empyrean, one of the three potential successors to Marika (Miquella, Malenia, and Ranni, for reference), and he intended the Haligtree to be a new symbol of a new order in the Lands Between.  That it should be named for precipitation–or consequence–is entirely reasonable.

Lastly, just as we are shown the modified “ear” as the symbol of Marika, we are shown another rune as the seal of Radagon:

This is a superimposition of the epigraphical and manuscript variants of the Anglo-Saxon rune “gēr”:

“Gēr” signifies “year” or “harvest”, connoted as “year/season of plenty”, which in Radagon’s case might be taken ironically.  In his role as champion of the Golden Order, he was “harvested” from his place at Raya Lucaria, ultimately leaving Liurnia in disarray (if not outright ruin), and the metaphor only gets darker in the sense of “harvest” as it applies to fertility.

Radagon and Marika had two children, Miquella and Malenia, both of whom wound up cursed, presumably by the particular degradation of the divine gene pool that occurs when one’s parents are not merely related but are, in fact, the same person.  And if the problem of the harvest is a problem of one’s descendants, of succession, then it’s worth noting that the Shattering was literally a war of succession, preceded, of course, by the literal shattering of the Elden Ring–by Radagon.

***

A golden parasite for the golden lineage.  Also returning in the Lands Between is one of Sekiro’s most potent symbols: the centipede.  The one-armed wolf had a pretty good time with this one–literally, it is a creature that infests the corpses of the divine carp that swim in the Dragon-blessed waters of the Fountainhead Palace.  It lines the corpses with its eggs, and as the flesh breaks down, the eggs bleed into the overall water supply, into the runoff that flows to Ashina.  Then, when the mortals below drink the water, they find themselves “blessed” with an unpleasant and hollow brand of immortality.

The immortality, of course, is the result of the giant centipedes whose eggs they swallowed, now growing through and infesting their still-living body, though the “why” is definitely where the literality starts to blur.  Is it because they are parasites to the divine?  Is it coincident, in that the centipedes are themselves divine (which would allow them to devour the carp in the first place)?  Sekiro isn’t especially clear on the biomechanics, but it all but bludgeons you with the notion that the immortality granted by the waters of the Fountainhead is only a crude imitation of that granted by the Dragon’s Heritage.  A note, obvious within the Ashina province but worth clarifying for the Europhilic audience of Souls/Elden Ring: This is an Asian dragon we’re talking about here, no wings, serpentine, aquatic, celestial (a combination of adjectives worth dragging back to Bloodborne, by-the-by).

It should not be surprising that all of the supernatural creatures present in Sekiro (the carp, the centipedes, the giant snakes of the valley) all bear some morphological resemblance to the Dragon, to the divinity they emulate, but the implied ladder there also calls to mind a fable of a Buddhist monk and a centipede, where the centipede is expounded upon as a lesser creature which may yet regain its honor through rebirth.  

Do you see it?  Where the paradigm switches around?  In traditional Buddhist teaching, the centipede is on the same continuum as man–in Sekiro, the ladder to divinity is snakeybois top-to-bottom, and that divinity (be it the literal gestation of centipedes in your gut or the more metaphorical “feeding” of the Heritage via Dragonrot) is a parasite to mankind.  Yeah, religion.  Someone call Bong Joon-ho and see if he can work that into the sequel or something.

Right, this is about Elden Ring, but all that is necessary context.  So when Elden Ring’s Rune of Death is the Mark of the Centipede and golden centipedes begin to appear in places frequented by Those Who Live in Death, that is the lens we need to use to understand what it all ought to imply.

From the basics, the centipede, originally, is death, a threshold upon which the things that are become the things that were and then fade into the everything from which they were born.  It is fitting that the true Cursemark of Death, broken into half-wheels during the Night of the Black Knives, is not one, but two centipedes in a circle.  An ouroboros.  Fitting for a conception of death meant to coexist with the rest of the Golden Order, but Marika dIdN’t LiKe ThAt PaRt.  She cut it out of the Elden Ring, gave it to Maliketh, and what she got was a different death–not integrated cohesively with her Order but jammed askew into its cogs, birthing Those Who Live in Death.  For all points and purposes, they’re undead, much the same as the Senpou monks who drank of the Fountainhead in Sekiro, but that is a slim overlap with Sekiro’s otherwise extremely well-developed mythology for the symbol.

With the exception of Rykard, Elden Ring’s pantheon is nowhere near so serpentine as Sekiro’s, but consider the position of the centipede in particular.  Our myriapodal friend may be at the bottom of the spiritual totem pole (a turn of phrase made literal in Elden Ring: Godwyn, an unwilling recipient of the Half-Wheel Mark of the Centipede rests amidst the roots of the Erdtree), but the bottom of that hierarchy has more in common with the top than wherever mortal man hangs out (ie, not in the hierarchy at all).  The theme of parasitism is not as eminent as in Sekiro, but the game is clear that adherents to the Golden Order are not stoked about the centipede stuff at all, reiterating that even the most reverent dogmatists tend to find some expression of the divine they would rather revile.  And, of course, the parasite’s absence leaves an echo: Follow the Erdtree’s totem pole up to the very top to find the Greater Will, overwhelmingly interested in keeping the course of history in the Lands Between confined to its Golden parameters.  For a being so immense, so abstract and multifarious, it is difficult to even formulate the question, but in the end, what can mankind be to such a creature?  The answer: a pet, a pest–or a host.

The Crossroads, Chapter 14: The Nemesis

Ty, for his part, had little interest in being found at this time.  He’d been in the scav trade for over a decade now, and he knew the dangers of being findable.  He’d known companions who were findable, who got found carrying something worth finding, who let the wrong people know their names.  None of them were around anymore, and with dragonlings hissing his name in the streets of the Crossroads, Ty had a feeling he was standing on a very similar precipice.

But Marko, for all his sleaze, had been true to his word:

“Sold the Keystone two weeks ago,” he’d said.  “To a girl.  Good chance she’ll be back here tonight, but you heard none of it from me.  

“And better write it clear for ya too,” he’d added.  “If you follow her, you’re dead.  No guarantee it’ll be preferable to whatever the Blaze has for you either.”

This had left Ty at the limits of his imagination, though–he had no idea what might await worse than the Blaze’s promised, excruciating immolation–so he had decided to take his chances.  When he emerged from Marko’s office and saw the hunched figure of the dragonling making its rounds about town, he took to the rooftops.  And now, the sun low in the afternoon sky, he watched with muted anxiety as Marko’s visitor made her way down the street below.

“Girl” had been an accurate if inadequate descriptor.  She was clearly young–no older than sixteen, likely younger–but her aloof demeanor, braided hair, garb of fine silks and silver jewelry even the wealthiest merchants wouldn’t dare boast on their person–it was like watching fiction step out from the stories of the walled cities, before the war, before the roaches and the scav trade, and pass before his eyes.  The townsfolk stared as well, Ty noticed, but they soon averted their gaze.  No doubt they all realized it would be better if they didn’t know too much.  So it was with Marko’s customers.

Ty had no idea who she was and no desire to get too close, but luckily, she did not seem to be taking any measures to disguise her presence.  She approached Marko’s office, knocked at the door, and stepped inside.  A few moments later she exited, carrying a small parcel, and as she made to leave the Crossroads by its southern thoroughfare, Ty followed.

He kept a sizeable distance, blending with the sparse merchant caravans remaining on the road where he could, but that luxury had all but vanished a mile outside town, so he resorted to keeping by the brush at the roadside.  He was weaving his mana as best he could to elude notice, though he couldn’t really tell whether it affected the girl at all.  Either way, she never so much as glanced over her shoulder.  Miles on, as the sun began to set, she came upon a tall figure, cloaked and hooded, leaning against a tree.  From behind a boulder, Ty watched them exchange a few quiet words before they both left the road, heading east together.  Apprehension growing, he followed them as best he could.

By dusk, they had reached a small shack in the scrub.  The cloaked figure gestured something unintelligible to the girl, took her parcel, and went inside.  The girl merely nodded, turned back the way she came, and began to walk directly toward the patch of brush where Ty was hiding.  As silently as he could, he moved to get out of her way, but as he turned, he froze.  The girl was suddenly standing before him at the edge of the brush, hands folded at ease behind her back.

“Father wishes to know if you would like to keep your arms and legs,” she said in carefully enunciated, emotionless syllables.  Ty bolted.

He made it scarcely ten feet before his legs went numb and collapsed under him.  He pushed himself faceup, scrambling backward to see the girl approaching at a leisurely pace.

“He would like you to know that, by default, you would not, but you have met us on a fortunate night.  He is willing to discuss the matter.  May I invite you inside?”

Ty was at a loss for words to describe how little he wanted to enter that shack, but he still couldn’t feel his legs.  Powerful magic was certainly involved, and he was quick enough to ascertain that any choice he had was illusory.  Teeth grit, he nodded, and sensation returned abruptly to his limbs.

He climbed to his feet and followed warily as the girl led the way, unconcerned, almost carefree, to the shack.  He paused periodically, testing her attention, looking for any opportunity to slip away, but each stop in his progress was met in kind–she would halt on the very same step, looking over her shoulder expectantly.  No such luck, he noted with dampened dread.

She reached the door, opened it, beckoned him inside.  He entered and waited.  The cloaked figure stood over a small, spare hearth which he lit with a snap of his fingers and a pulse of mana.

By the firelight, Ty saw little luxury or comfort in the room: two tables–one piled with scrolls and codices, the other completely bare–two chairs, two narrow bedrolls tucked into a corner, and, to Ty’s horror, a pile of perfectly preserved, naked human corpses, eyes and mouths stitched shut.  The cloaked man set his parcel upon the empty table and took a seat, pulling his hood from his face.

Ty swallowed.  His visage was distressing–red chitinous scales formed plates, hornes, and spines, arranged around piercing yellow eyes in an…artistic impression of a human face.  Moreover, though, it was distressingly familiar.  The man spoke, opening his mouth of wicked, shining fangs:

“Do you know who I am?”

Ty did.  The sobriquets marched, funerary, through his mind: the Citadel Stitcher, Favored General of the Bloodfish and the Roaches, the Eternal Dragon of the Westwood–or as the people of the Crossroads referred to him, simply “the Dragon”.  Ty knew exactly who this was, and his cold paralysis was as much indication as the False God needed.

“Good,” he said, his maw approximating a smile.  “Please have a seat.  I require your assistance.”

As the man spoke, the sound of a deadbolt sliding into place behind Ty jolted him to his senses.  Resigned but still apprehensive, he did as the Dragon asked while the girl moved to stand by the table as well.  With claw-like hands, adorned with the same spikes and scales as his face, the Dragon unwrapped the parcel, withdrawing a small wooden box from the unfurled bundle of sackcloth.

“May I inquire as to what drew you after my Fortuna?” he asked softly, his attention otherwise focused entirely on the box.  He flicked the clasp open with a sharpened forefinger.  “You walked an awfully long way after the poor girl.  I would hope it was not any…untoward motivation?”

Ty took a deep breath.  He could engage with the accusation or not–he doubted the False God’s plans for him varied that much either way–but he was somehow being given an opportunity to broach the one subject that mattered in the minute likelihood he escaped with all his limbs, and he was most certainly going to take advantage of it:

“I need to find Excelsis’ Keystone,” he blurted.  The Dragon paused, finger on the lid of the box, jaundiced eyes flicking up at his emboldened prisoner.

“Now how…” he mused.  “Ah.  Marko.  Your lapse in discretion will not go unmentioned, but…”

Carefully, he lifted the lid, reached inside, and withdrew a glowing green fiber–the very one Lan had cut from Bilgames’ corpse–clasped gingerly between the claws of his thumb and forefinger.

“Fortuna, sweetheart,” he muttered, peering intently at the object.  The girl had already turned to rummage among the stacked materials on the other table.  She soon produced a spool of thread which she placed in the Dragon’s open hand.  Setting both the spool and the fiber on the table, he began to trace slow, precise symbols with his fingers in the air above them.  But despite the man’s intense focus, it was not clear to Ty that anything was actually happening.  He glanced around.  Fortuna seemed just as entranced by the Dragon’s strange ritual, and though he dared not make another run for it, he wondered if they would notice if he stood up.

He shifted in his chair, but no sooner did he put weight on his foot than he was all but knocked from his chair by an explosive pulse of mana.  Hanging from the edge of the table, he felt an overwhelming wave of nausea rise through his gut.

“Patience,” he heard the Dragon undertone–unsure to whom–as he retched, fell to the floor, vision hazing over.  Dimly, he felt another blast of mana, but he lost consciousness before he could register any of its other consequences.

***

Ty woke on his back, shirtless, splinters from the table digging into his shoulder blades and an almost electric spark of pain cycling around his clavicle and up the back of his neck.  The Dragon loomed over him, eyes glinting in the firelight, one claw pressed lightly against his chest, the other angling a fine–but sickeningly long–white needle toward his face.

Instinctively, Ty thrashed, attempting to twist himself off the table, free of the Dragon’s grasp, but his captor swiftly–almost carelessly–grabbed him by the throat and pinned him in place.

“I would have sedated you,” the Dragon said.  “But then I would have had to wait hours to see the results.  So please,” he again pressed Ty into the table, “settle before you give yourself a lobotomy.  I need to connect your optic nerve before we can conclude.”

Ty suppressed a yelp as he felt the Dragon’s needle pierce the back of his scalp.

“What have you done to me?” he grunted as the Dragon pulled the needle away, a softly glowing thread trailing behind it.

“A less…intrusive version of what I’ve done to them.”  The Dragon gestured in a direction Ty could not look but–he intuited–likely referred to the stitched corpses he had witnessed when he entered.

“Less intrusive…death?”  Ty winced as the needle entered behind his ear.  The Dragon chuckled softly:

“Oh, they are not dead.  Suspended, metabolically hibernal, but experientially?  I doubt they are inert.  You should count yourself lucky.  You would be among them had you met me any other time.  But as it stands–”

Ty screamed as he felt the needle jam into his temple, and the electric pain, for a moment, drowned out everything else.  Slowly, the Dragon’s voice reclarified in his ears:

“…met at a confluence.  A confluence of new frontiers and burning curiosity.  Up with you, now.  That should suffice.”

Ty sat up slowly, still dizzy from the excruciating thrum at the base of his skull, dulling but not disappearing as the Dragon conjured a flame in his palm to burn the needle clean.  He slotted it methodically into a leather roll of similar implements before returning his attention to Ty.

“Now, please look left,” he said.  Ty obliged.  “Look right.  Excellent, it is working.  Better for you to understand sooner rather than later that you are mine now: I see what you see, I hear what you hear–”

“And should I require it, I may speak with your voice,” Ty said, clapping his hands to his throat as soon as he did.  The Dragon’s monstrous smile broadened.

“Ah, the Hunter of Beasts wore the guise of a lumbering oaf, but he was a brilliant mage,” he said.  “Not so brilliant, though, that I cannot improve upon his methods.

“As you can see, we are linked,” he continued, pacing away from Ty and stuffing his tool roll amongst the detritus on his spare table.  “This has implications you should be wary of…”

He drew up the edge of his cloak to reveal a portion of his forearm unprotected by scales, across which he cut a clean line with his claw.  It left no mark, but Ty felt a searing in his own arm.  He glanced down to see a trickle of blood, dripping from the incision the Dragon had apparently made in his flesh instead.

“…and some you might find advantageous.”  The Dragon suddenly grabbed Ty by the wrist and plunged a claw through his open palm, to a bloom of shooting pain.  Ty wrenched free and rolled off the table, clutching his hand, but when he looked down to inspect his wound, it had disappeared.  He looked back up at his captor, who gestured at the pile of corpses.

Warily, still rubbing his palm, Ty crept closer to the bodies.  He noticed it first on one which had apparently tumbled from the top of the pile, its limbs splayed across the whole macabre fixture: Its right palm was red, and at the center of the contusion was a tiny puncture, scarcely more than a pinprick.  Ty was at this point beyond terrified, but he found he was interpreting the Dragon’s theatrics with surprising acuity.  He inspected another corpse’s right hand, then another.  In all, five, maybe six of the bodies had light wounds matching the first–matching where Ty had been stabbed, with no wound of his own to show for it.

“Diffusion of harm across phylacteries,” the Dragon said.  “A new set of scales for a new eternity.  I dare say even the One-Eyed Hawk would be jealous.  And of course, as we work together you may partake–at my discretion.”  Ty whirled.

“Work together?  What?”

“Don’t think too much of it, insect.”

“No–what the fuck do you want from me?”

“You were doing so well,” the Dragon remarked with a shake of his horned head.  “It has everything to do with what you want from me.”  Ty paused.

“The Keystone?”

“Indeed.  You were told true that Fortune acquired it.  I of course attempted to extract its secrets, but with other irons in my forge, I gifted it to a colleague who I hoped might elucidate its mechanism by more…careless means.  Your work for me is to determine what he’s done with it.  Hell–retrieve it if it suits you.”

“Why not just ask him yourself?” Ty proposed, reaching for his shirt.  The Dragon just laughed.

“Because he is merely a colleague.  Unlike his grandfather, Les Marquains is no one’s friend, and he does not especially appreciate the intrusion of those he cannot dominate.  His domain is not suitable for me.”

“What makes me any different?” Ty asked, chilled.  He had heard stories of Les Marquains before–the man was a notorious sadist, and he and his cult had, in the opinion of dealers even beyond the Riverlands, made all of the Southern Reaches better off avoided.

“What makes you different from me?” the Dragon repeated with cruel incredulity.  “Benighted creature, you are not to treat with him, though if you do, your subsequent rape, torture, and unwilling…integration with a thornbush will be far more entertaining vicariously.  No, you are to infiltrate his chateau, ascertain his findings, and, if you would forego the aforementioned, get out.”

Ty digested this, pulling his shirt over his head and retrieving his pack from the corner next to the corpses, where Fortuna had presumably placed it.  The Reaches were at least a week’s travel south, but with the Blaze’s cronies looking for him ever further from the Gravestones, south didn’t sound like such a bad idea.  Les Marquains did, though, and the constant, minimal pulsing of the thread the Dragon had sewn into him was more reminder than he needed that though this meeting had given him a way forward, his choices were growing less and less palatable.

“Oh, yes,” the Dragon added as Ty made for the door.  “Since I’m curious what you make of the omen, recall that I spoke to you before of confluence.  A confluence in Time is coincidence, after all, and the only being I’ve ever feared once told me never to trust coincidence in the Riverlands.  Consider it.  I foresee a storm over the horizon, and I intend to keep my distance, but you–I imagine you’ll be amidst the tempest soon.”

Ty regarded the False God for a moment.  Then he shook his head, bewildered, and left.

The Crossroads, Chapter 13: An Unsavory Heritage

The damp night air washed over Bleeding Wolf as he stepped through the door.  It smelled sweet, like sugar mixed with smoke from the glimmering fire he spotted in the distance.  He was cold, and the fire was a welcome sight.  He hurried onward.

As he approached, he found the fire well-attended, crowded even, with the huddled figures of children sitting cross-legged around it.  At one end, an old man gestured animatedly, his thin voice cutting through the soft background of gentle breeze and swishing branches.

“The kingdom was eventually destroyed,” he said.  “The Dead Queen angered a power even greater than herself.  But before our doom came, we had already escaped.  A great prophet rose among us and led us into exile, in defiance of her tyranny.  Do you know who that was?”

“The Cloudman!” a child shouted.  Bleeding Wolf stared for a moment, having seated himself on the circle’s outer rim.  For some reason, the child looked familiar, but he could not place exactly why.  The old man nodded.

“Yes.  Indeed.  The Cloudman saw a path that no other did.  He led us out of dead, rotting Khet and into the mist, into the sky.  Where we would be safe.”

“Why did you leave?” the child asked.  No.  Not a child, Bleeding Wolf realized.  It was Lan al’Ver.  He took a deep breath of the saccharine breeze and looked up.  The sky was pitch, starless–but also strangely cloudless.  Something was wrong.

“We fell,” the old man said, an unsettling grin spreading across his face.  A chill ran down Bleeding Wolf’s spine as he realized that every child around the circle was smiling as well, gaze set unblinkingly upon Lan.  They said in unison:

“And even you couldn’t save us.”

***

Bleeding Wolf gasped, his eyes snapping open in the midday sun outside Brill’s shop.  Next to him, wide-eyed and breathing heavily, was Brill himself.  And before them was chaos:

Lan, seemingly the least perturbed in the scene, was covered in soot, vigorously dusting himself off.  Before him was a corpse, unrecognizably charred, still visibly smoldering.  Behind him, Orphelia and other bystanders seemed to be groggily emerging from the same trance as Bleeding Wolf.

“I am so sorry!” Naples exclaimed, catching Bleeding Wolf’s attention.  The man was doubled over, sweeting, offset from the crowd just enough to have not been immediately noticeable.  “That ending–the creepy turn–I don’t know what that was.  It’s never happened before!”

“Two of you, then,” Bleeding Wolf growled, beelining for the self-described scholar.  “That’s a coincidence I don’t trust.”

“Again, I’m sorry,” Naples said, catching his breath.  “I’m not sure I foll–”  He cut off with a gurgle as Bleeding Wolf grabbed him by the throat.

“I was taught not to trust mind mages,” he said, teeth bared and sharpening visibly before Naples’ eyes.  “So far I’ve never regretted that advice.”

“That is–” Naples wheezed, “that is quite understandable, but I was just saving Captain al’Ver!”  Bleeding Wolf looked over his shoulder.

“It was indeed helpful,” Lan said, answering the cue, continuing to wipe down his blade.  He seemed otherwise disinterested in the altercation.

“And by-the-by,” Naples added, smooth hands gently attempting to pry Bleeding Wolf’s claws from his throat, “what do you mean by ‘two of us?’”  Bleeding Wolf held his gaze for a moment, grip unmoving.

“Girl.  Orphelia,” he said, maintaining his stare at Naples.  “You know this one?”

“I think I heard his name!” Orphelia replied cheerfully.  “It’s Mr. Nipples, which is kind of creepy to be honest.” 

“It’s…Naples…” Naples gasped.  Bleeding Wolf relinquished his grip, and the man stumbled backward, clutching his throat.

“Whatever your name, you have a lot to explain,” the beastman hissed.  “What was this all about?”  Naples coughed, massaging his throat for a moment before composing himself.  He gestured to the burnt corpse:

“This dragonling had accosted the Captain and his ward–he’d started quite the incendiary mess, you see–” Bleeding Wolf’s eyes widened.

“Dragonling?” he interrupted.  “The Blaze?”

“Yes, yes, well, the Captain had dispatched him by the time I intervened, but there was quite a lot of fire.  So I harvested it–standard fire magic technique, I’m sure a mage like yourself would be familiar–but then I needed something to do with the mana, so I invoked a memory.  My childhood–that’s what you saw.”

For all his experience, Bleeding Wolf in fact had very little knowledge of the practice of fire magic.  But the scene in the street was beginning to draw a crowd, and while Orphelia seemed fixated on Naples’ explanation–and Lan much more interested in the deluge of ash upon his attire–the bystanders appeared to be looking to Bleeding Wolf, awaiting an interpretation of the stranger’s credibility, one he was…loathe to express.  The man’s explanation for his unsavory skillset was plausible.  Just as much as it was worrying.

Bleeding Wolf found himself nodding slowly, acceding that odd measure of public trust for which he found himself gatekeeper.  For now, there were more concerning aspects of the situation to address:

“Why are the Blaze’s fuckin’ lizards starting fights here in broad daylight?  This is supposed to be neutral ground!”  As he said the words out loud, he registered their hollowness–and an uneasy whistle from Brill confirmed well enough that his doubts weren’t solitary.

“Perhaps a question for our erstwhile companion,” Lan declared, slotting his rapier back into his umbrella.  “The miscreant was looking for Ty.”

“He didn’t clarify why, of course,” Naples added.  “He really was quite rude all around.”  Bleeding Wolf swore under his breath.  He had meant to hold the monk to his end of the bargain, to pry out his secret when they had returned, but the fallout of the night before had taken precedence.

“Brill, let the mayor know the Blaze has broken the piece too.  I have a Khettite to find.  And you,” he turned to Naples.  “We’re having a conversation when I get back.  If you fuck with anyone else’s head, I’ll fuckin’ kill you.”

The Crossroads, Chapter 12: Calls to Disadventure

Thock, thock, thock.

“I’ll give ya a gold piece for the lot, plus your time,” Marko muttered, massaging his temple.  He seemed to wince each time the sound of the apprentice’s hammer rang through his office.

“A gold piece for the armor of a legendary hero?” Ty asked.  “That’s it?”  Marko growled and reached for a steaming, herbal-smelling cup on his desk.

“Yeah,” he spat.  He took a gulp.  “Ya got a buyer who’s paying more?”

“No–”

“Ya feel like breaking our contract, then?”

“Our contract was that you’d pay fair value!”

“What, that ain’t fair?” Marko snorted.  “Does it do anything special?”

“I don’t know,” Ty said, “but coming from the Hunter of Beasts–”

“Well there you have it,” Marko replied, clutching his head.  “You don’t know what it does, might be nothin’, I’m payin’ less ‘cause I’m the one that gets to find out.  It’s called speculation.”

Thock, thock, thock.

Bleeding Wolf rolled his eyes as the “argument” went on, vaguely wondering if this routine had worked on any of Ty’s previous dealers.  The Khettite knew what he was doing–no way he’d been in this line of work for more than a job and hadn’t figured out what Marko was telling him–but a gold piece was fair, Marko knew it, Ty knew it, and Bleeding Wolf was growing impatient.

“Ey, Marko!” he called out, interrupting Ty’s fourth or fifth objection, to another visible wince from the dealer.  He gestured at the splintered entryway: “The fuck happened here?”

“Disruptive customer,” Marko grunted, taking another gulp of his brew.

“They dead?”

“No.”

Bleeding Wolf chewed on that, noting the bandage around Marko’s arm.

Thock, thock, thock.

“You…lookin’ to do something about that?” he asked.  Marko glared at him.

“Not yet, Dog Boy,” he scowled.  “Keep in touch.”  He glanced back to Ty.  “We done here?  I’ve got unconsciousness callin’ my name.”  Ty sighed:

“Fine.  One gold piece.”

“Ah, sorry,” Bleeding Wolf cut back in.  “There was one more thing.”  He rummaged in his belt pouch as Ty took a step back, eyebrow raised.  After a moment, he withdrew the fiber Lan had cut from the Hunter’s corpse.  Despite the full night’s travel, its vibrant green had not faded, and in the shadows of Marko’s office, the faint glow it gave off was clearly visible.

Marko considered clipping, raising the cup steadily to his lips.  Perhaps too steadily, Bleeding Wolf thought.  The dealer’s eyes had widened, his posture ever so slightly stiffened, and if Bleeding Wolf was not mistaken, the man’s pulse had picked up just enough to hear.  At last, Marko spoke:

“Ten gold pieces.”

“Twenty,” Bleeding Wolf countered.

“Done.”

Bleeding Wolf flinched, to Ty’s visible concern.

“Dammit,” he muttered, climbing up to Marko’s stage to make the exchange.

“Best not beat yourself up,” the dealer said, counting gleaming coins into a pouch.  He slid it to the end of his desk.  “I wasn’t speculatin’ on that one.”

“Got a buyer already?” Bleeding Wolf asked through a forced smile.

“Ain’t your business,” Marko replied coolly, watching Bleeding Wolf exchange the fiber for the pouch.  Bleeding Wolf raised an eyebrow but offered no further reply.

***

“You see, the reason Ka’s eastern flank was unassailable at that point was because Le Marquains had an established alliance with Ali’Khazan of the Barabadoon, probably the most influential warlord in Hazan at the time…”

The man’s–was his name Naples?–voice droned on at the other end of the makeshift infirmary in the apothecary’s shop, no doubt fueled in enthusiasm by Lan’s intermittent, excited outbursts, but Orphelia didn’t follow, let alone care.  Her attention was on Devlin, curled, shuddering, unconscious on the cot before her.  He looked even sicker than when she’d left him the previous morning, his face gaunt, his wrists and elbows bony and protrusive, dried mucus and blood caked over his cracked lips.  Despite the sweltering temperature in the room, he still shivered, and his forehead was cool and slimy.

“You must be his sister.”  The voice came from behind her.  She turned, hunched, to see the apothecary, the wizened person Lan had referred to as Brill, approaching from the swaying curtain that marked the divide between the infirmary and the rest of the shop.

Orphelia nodded but kept her mouth clamped shut.  For a brief moment after their return to town, Mr. Ruffles had broken his silence to issue a warning: The Crossroads would become interested in them, in the Bad Stuff, and she mustn’t let them know.  She didn’t know what Brill knew already, what it was okay to say, whether it was okay to say anything at all.

“Have you heard then?” they asked.  “He saved the whole town.”

“What?  How?!” she blurted, surprise momentarily overtaking her trepidation.

“A monster tried to break into Marko’s stock last night.  Your brother helped fend it off.”

“Is that why he’s not waking up?” Brill frowned.

“I do not believe so,” they said.  Orphelia found it strange that she could not tell whether the apothecary was a man or a woman, but she found their voice calming nonetheless.  It wasn’t parental–perhaps she was thankful for that?–rather it felt like a sort of pragmatic compassion, and it put her at ease in spite of Mr. Ruffles’ warning.  “Actually,” Brill added, “I was hoping you might shed some light on the source of his illness.  Do you know when this all started?”

There it was.  Orphelia consciously shut her mouth, her eyes, shook her head for a moment, thinking before she spoke:

“No…a few weeks ago, maybe.”  The tears welled in her eyes, one rolling down her cheek.  “We were with a caravan when he got sick.”  It was an acceptable performance, Mr. Ruffles assured her.  They would tire of questioning soon.

“Do you perhaps know whose caravan it was?”

Orphelia sobbed again and shook her head.  Brill considered this and opened their mouth to press further, but it was at this moment that Orphelia’s deliverance arrived, and Bleeding Wolf stepped through the infirmary curtain.

“Ah, al’Ver, there you are,” he said.  “Got coin for you.  And Brill, a word.”

“A pleasant surprise as always, Bleeding Wolf,” Brill replied sardonically.

“Yeah, yeah,” the beastman muttered.  “Sorry.  Yesterday was a rush.  Still need to talk to ya.”

“Very well.”  Brill glanced apologetically down at Orphelia, but before they stepped away, an angry look flashed across their face.  They turned on Naples.  “You!” they shouted across the infirmary.  “I do not recall giving you invitation to recline here.  Your talk is–I would surmise–of little help to my other patient.  Please recuperate from your questionable decisions elsewhere!”

Naples shrugged aggressively and glanced among the infirmary’s other occupants in search of defense, but finding none, he adjusted the bandage on his head and, dejected, left the room.  Brill sighed and followed Bleeding Wolf beyond the curtain into the main shop, and Lan, easing himself from the empty cot where he’d playacted Naples’ attentive audience, sauntered to Orphelia’s side.  His demeanor seemed carefree, but as he reached her, his expression grew suddenly forlorn.  He knelt by Devlin and took the boy’s hand.

“Please, Sister,” he whispered, slipping a dirty, iron ring from the boy’s finger.  He placed it on the table beside the cot.  “Let the child rest.”  Orphelia threw her head back in mock affront, objecting:

“Mr. al’Ver!  I am not your sister!  How informal!”  Lan turned to her, his face overtaken by a mischievous grin.

“My apologies, Miss Orphelia, I forget myself.  But quick, we must away!  An encounter is close at hand, and I am ill-inclined to leave it to chance!  He swept out of the room, and Orphelia, bewildered but heartened, made to follow him, taking one more glance at Devlin before she did.  Mercifully, his breathing had calmed and his shivering ceased, and for the first time in weeks, she felt truly reassured.

***

“What’s this business about an attack last night?”

“You’ve heard already, then,” Brill sniffed.

“Just the bare bones.  Marko was tight on details.”

“I wonder, then…”

“Wonder what?” Bleeding Wolf asked.

“The…thing that attacked.  It was clearly one of the False Gods’ abominations, but not any handiwork I recognized.  It was an eight-foot-long centipede, anatomical liberties notwithstanding, wearing a cloak, walking upright, pretending to be human.  Except…”

“Hmm?”

“Except there wasn’t a bit of flesh on the thing.  It was entirely steel, a machine.”  They paused.  “This familiar to you?”

“The witch of the Ironwood,” Bleeding Wolf muttered.  “I’d never seen substance for any of the talk, but there’s scattered rumor down south of a mage-monster who lives in a metal forest near the Junction.  They call her the Ben Gan Shui.”

“She makes metal monsters?”

“Guess?  The rumors say she can turn a man to steel, make ‘im immortal.  Metal bug monster seems within the realm of possibility.  But then…fuck.”

“What?”

“We brought back a trinket, likely similar to the Hunter’s flower, and Marko bought it off us.  Said he’d already found a buyer.”

“I don’t follow, Bleeding Wolf.”

“I was kind of hoping the witch was his buyer.  It was too little and esoteric for anyone small-time, and my list of False God tinkers isn’t long.”

“The Sculptor, then?”

“No.  It’s a plant that strengthens flesh.  He would need stone to fit in somewhere.”

“Then…oh no.”

“Yeah.”

Abruptly, both turned to the door as an eruption of shouts poured in from the street.

“What the fuck?” Bleeding Wolf growled.

***

“You are looking for a Khettite?” Naples repeated to the hunched, hooded figure.  “Well I’m sorry to say you may be at a historical disadvantage.  The kingdom of Khet fell centuries ago when the Blood God of Kol took power, and–”

“They ssay you arrived on the ssame boat.”  The figure’s voice was guttural and whistling, and Naples had to conclude he didn’t care for its tone.  No, he wasn’t going to be helpful here, he decided.  He continued his pedantry:

“I certainly didn’t arrive with anyone from a place that doesn’t exist.  And I’m afraid I did not interrogate my traveling acquaintances regarding their heritage.  In my opinion, we’ve come together here in the Revián, and in this way we are all Riverlanders in this place.”

The creature expressed a noise between a grunt and a hiss, and beneath its threadbare cloak, Naples caught sight of a bandaged fist, clenched in frustration.  He considered whether it might be prudent to cut this conversation short–before that fist were to be propelled at his already tender skull–but the apothecary’s door opened behind him before he could make a decision.

“Ah,” he said, noting the emergency of Captain al’Ver and the urchin girl.  “If you are so interested in the circumstances of my arrival, then I should introduce the gentleman who conducted me.  Captain–”

The figure had already turned to al’Ver, shambling rapidly, unevenly past Naples.

“Boatman,” it growled.  “Tell me where I might find–”

“Yes, yes, the Khettite, Ty Ehsam,” al’Ver said, drawing a rapier from the handle of his umbrella, to a look of perhaps-feigned shock from the girl.  “Tell me: What manner of cowardly creature art thou to threaten innocents in the street for these questions?  In broad daylight, no less!”

“That iss none of your concern.”

The figure had barely finished speaking when al’Ver lunged, catching the hood of its cloak on his blade.  The escalation caught Naples by surprise.  He was no stranger to scuffles, of course, but Captain al’Ver had not seemed the type to strike first.  But then the hood, sliced at the crown, fell to either side of the stranger’s head, and Naples caught up to the Captain’s intent.

The creature’s face was a bizarre, careless distortion of human anatomy.  Its skin was blackened unevenly by burn scars, the top of its cranium squished low and smoothed, marked by irregular–presumably decorative–bone spurs jutting through its flesh in the shape of horns, and its jaw had been pulled forward and fashioned in the shape of a snout, suggesting an overall reptilian appearance.  It was an abomination–in the technical sense, of course, clearly a product of magical experimentation by an unhinged mind.  But in this case, if Naples was not mistaken, he had had a pretty good idea of which unhinged mind that was: This individual was a dragonling of the Blaze.

Snarling, the creases in its scarred flesh alighting like embers, the dragonling leapt at al’Ver, who rebuffed it with the explosive unfolding of his umbrella.  As it reeled backward, the Captain calmly swiped a nick across the creature’s snout, sending flecks of black blood across the street.  Naples noted expectantly that the blood burst into flames where it landed.

“WHERE ISS HE?!?” the creature shrieked.  “WHERE ISS THE THIEF?!”  Wild-eyed, it turned to the girl and leapt again, arms outstretched, the boney claws adorning its fingertips now fully visible.  Al’Ver stepped between them, sword raised, shield braced, and before Naples could call out what he realized might be a…relevant warning, the dragonling had fallen on al’Ver, impaling itself on his blade.

The girl screamed.  The Captain grit his teeth.  The creature belched liquid fire onto him, its burning blood pouring for good measure down the hilt of his sword, onto his arm.  And Naples took a deep breath.  Perhaps he would be helpful here after all.

He reached out, felt for the hungering violence of the flame, surrounded it, drank of it.  All of it.  Too much, too hot, but it must be gone in the end.  And then it was in his gut, in his heart, rising, fighting to burst from his mouth, boiling the nerves behind his eyes.  It had to go.  He exhaled, channeling the death the only way he knew how.  He started with a campfire.

The Crossroads, Chapter 11: Security Considerations

Been dealing with other aspects of life for some time, but hopefully getting back into the swing of semi-regular updates.

“Do you know what it was after?”

“Nah,” Marko spat, wincing as Brill pulled a stitch closed on his shoulder.  From the other side of the table, John Bergen, mayor of the Crossroads, stared half-lidded, annoyed and unimpressed.

“What would it have found in your office had you not stopped it?” he ventured.

“None of your business.”  The mayor sighed and glanced between the others in the room, probing for reactions–Gene, arms crossed, leaning against the wall; Michel and Anita, the peacekeepers, standing at attention by the door; Brill, focused on his stitches, but not so focused that he forgot to turn his head, avoiding the mayor’s withering scrutiny.

“Brill, you have a key to the back room, don’t you?” Brill looked up, nearly dropping his needle.  It was confirmation enough.  “Would you kindly provide it?”  Brill gulped as Marko interrupted, slamming the table with his uninjured arm:

“I said it’s none of your business!”

“He’s right, boy,” Gene grumbled.  “You’re oversteppin’.”  The old man didn’t mean it unkindly, but the mayor bristled anyway.  It was endlessly frustrating to him that the elders refused to lead but still insisted on ramming their fingers through the spokes of his solutions.

“I do not intend to seize any property,” he clarified, staring Brill down.  But since your patient has decided not to help in the effort, I would like Michel to take a look and help me estimate what portion of our town has just narrowly escaped ruin.

“John…” Gene cautioned.  The mayor placed a hand flat on the table and turned to the blacksmith as slowly as his anger would permit.

“I’m not so young that I don’t remember what happened fourteen years ago, Gene.”

“What?”

“The last time Marko’s stockpile was attacked,” he intoned.  He turned on Marko.  “Hazani scavengers found the cave up north where you were storing your acquisitions.”

“What of it?” Marko shot back.  “It wasn’t even a setback in the long run.”

“Yes, but the short run was a year long.  A year you didn’t have the funds to purchase inventory.  A year your credibility was damaged by the exchanges your ‘non-setback’ made impossible.  A year our three largest trading companies plotted routes bypassing the Crossroads, directly to Holme–do you recall, Marko?”

“I do,” Marko growled.

“Do you recall that during the food shortages we experienced that year, one in five of us died or left?”  Marko practically snarled but did not reply.  The rest of the room had fallen silent.  “The key, Brill,” John said.

Before the apothecary could react, Marko stood, sending his chair skidding backward and tearing the needle from Brill’s fingers.

“Oh, fuck you, kid,” he rasped, moving to rip the thread from his shoulder just as Brill intervened, cutting it free with a hastily produced pair of scissors.  “I took precautions after that, I gottem now, I’ll add some more fuckin’ precautions right fuckin’ now if it’ll help you sleep at night.”  He paused, turning angrily back as he reached the door.  “Long as you keep your damn nose to yourself.  Gene, send your apprentice by me tomorrow.  Door needs fixin’.”  And with that, he stormed out.

A quiet moment passed before Brill, prompted by a pointed look from the mayor, begrudgingly rummaged the key from his pocket.

“You probably don’t have much time to use this,” they said, placing it on the table.  “He’ll be booby-trapping the place as soon as he gets back, no doubt.”

“I can head over now, sir,” Michel offered.  John shook his head.

“No need.  Marko answered the question well enough.  Tonight was indeed a closer call than we can afford.”  He reached over and picked up the key, noting its ornate design and filigree handle.  “This isn’t your work, right Gene?”  The old man leaned over the table, squinting.

“No,” he confirmed.  “It ain’t.”

“An artifact, then,” John said.  “He won’t be able to change the locks very easily if that’s the case.  I’ve no doubt we’ll find a use for it soon.”

“Whaddya mean, ‘we’, John?” Gene asked.  “I don’t like this one bit.  It’s bad precedent.”

“Marko isn’t like the rest of us anymore, Gene.  He’s too important.  You and Brill, you’re the backbone of this town, and I will always be grateful for what you’ve done for us.  But dead things have backbones too.  Marko’s trade is our lifeblood, and we can’t pin our livelihood on the dubious solace of his paranoia.”

Gene considered the argument for a moment before gritting his teeth and flicking the table in frustration.

“Do you disagree,” John asked.  Gene huffed:

“No.  I agree.  Still don’t like it.”  The mayor turned.

“Brill?”  The apothecary sighed.

“I sympathize with  your position, John,” they said.  “I understand what you are trying to protect, and I’ve given you that key to use as you see fit.  But I would have you understand that when we are finished talking here, I will be visiting Marko to advise him of what transpired and how he might protect his interests in spite of it.  I am his friend, or the closest he has to it.  I think that has its own importance in your web of incentives.”

The mayor grit his teeth but said nothing, regarding Brill silently until the apothecary, ascertaining that their point had been made, turned timidly to leave.

“Brill,” John muttered, grasping at the last thread he could think of.  “Do you know where you stand in the end?”

“With the Crossroads, of course,” they replied, before making their exit.  The mayor thought about it for a moment, nodding to himself as the others waited for a reaction.  Gene pushed away from the table, snapping him back to reality.

“Gene, before you go.  The boy.  What was his role in all of this?”

“Ain’t sure, but I don’t like it either,” the old man grunted.  “Barely coherent, sicker’n anyone I’ve seen since the war, but he shambles into the square and hits the thing with some kinda spell.  Stunned it just long enough for Marko to pin it down.”

“Do we know where he came from?”

“Nah.  Showed up with a caravan two weeks back.  Think he goes by ‘Devlin’, but that’s all I’ve got.”

“I’ll look into it.  Goodnight, Gene.”

Constellations

Getting back out of my house once more.

“You might try then, as I did, to find a sky so full of stars it will blind you again.  Only no sky can blind you now.  Even with all that iridescent magic up there, your eye will no longer linger on the light, it will no longer trace constellations.”

-Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

The problem is that you think a constellation is a picture.  You see in the Night Sky’s plumage an unknowable design–but merely a design, to be studied for meaning, for intent.  But would you study it for its use?

A pair of points makes a line, and each line is a connection, yes, but also a barrier, a demarcation separating one side from another, a within from a without.  And in the Night Sky, millions of lines, millions of walls become a vast, shining labyrinth, home and prison to Existence’s greatest shame and most inexorable inevitability.

When the Night Sky first dreamed the world into being, he had yet to look upon it.  As he did, the multiplicity of his subconscious vision greeted him: the earth, the forests and fields and seas, the creatures, the first gods and their Magics, and yes, of course, mankind.  But beneath it all, a second greeting, singular, arose from the darkness.  It was Hunger.  It was Lack.  It was Cold.  It was Freedom.  It was Song and Promise and Desire, All That Was Not, All That Should Have Been, All That Might Yet Be.  The humans gave it many names–the Minotaur, the Wendigo, the Voice that whispered and sang in the night–for it hunted and devoured them with a cold and unfathomable tenderness.

To spare the rest of his dream, the Night Sky sealed the darkness in the space between the stars.  Its whispers would not be silenced, and its hunger–the hunger of all creation–would not be sated, but for a time, none could heed its call.  They would look skyward and be saved, struck senseless by the vast array of beauty and light.

The Maze in the Mists

Slight change of pace. This is the introduction for a new setting I’m working on for the Rale universe. Credit to Kelsyn for the original concept.

You have been walking this road for some time now.  It is an unremarkable road, unpaved, trodden uniformly by an infinity of unrecognizable footsteps.  All around you is mist, itself unremarkable for its familiarity–you’ve been living in it for longer than you’ve been walking the road, after all.  It is everywhere in this place: blanketing the fields, suffusing the woods, wrapping the scattered towns between in its damp embrace.  You suppose you can still remember that there was a time without the mist, but the specifics elude you.  All you remember is this:

You were a soldier once.  You and your companions.  You no longer know who you fought, what you fought for, or where, but by the time you stopped you had nightmares.  Bad ones.  The kind that woke you not screaming but frozen, paralyzed by the notion that whatever you had been running from in your sleep had crossed into the waking world.  It was there with you, standing over you, behind and to your left, just out of your peripheral vision, breathing heavy, deafening.  You could feel the rancid condensation of that breath on your forehead as that nameless creature reached down and caressed your hair with dirty fingers and whispered:

“Why would you do that?”

Whether you could answer the query is moot–you can’t anymore.  You never told anyone about the nightmares, save your companions, and you all agreed it wasn’t the sort of story anyone would want to hear.  The war stories, though?  The ones that preceded the nightmares?  Those you traded away gladly for the means to sleep soundly again.

That was the thing.  This place in the mists operated by different rules.  The people here had different wants, a different economy.  When it came time to pay for your meal, your provisions or board, they did not ask for coin.  They asked for a story.  And when you told it to them, it was gone.  It was no longer yours.

Not all of your stories were horrible.  The good memories you traded for fine food, company, and wine.  The solemn ones you traded for fresh clothes or flint.  The everyday occurrences, the uninteresting daily nothings weren’t worth much, but in a pinch you found they bought you attention, an ear to listen as you vented your increasingly formless rage.

You learned ways to make your stories last.  You could tell only a single side of a complex tale, embellish banalities, omit details that you could cling to for a while longer.  Sometimes it worked.  Most often they would see through you, not that they minded.  You were still offering a story of sorts, and it was still payment.  A falsehood was just worth less than a truth, and what you bartered for was measured accordingly.

As time passed, as you walked the road, you grew poorer and poorer, and you remembered less and less.  Sometimes you were able to trade your labor for someone else’s story.  Sometimes your travels and choices and happenstance allowed you to forge your own anew, but too often you found yourself giving away more than you got, and now…well, now you have been walking the road for some time.  You don’t remember the last time you saw anything but the dirt and the mist and the imprints of travelers before you.  But, of course, that could be for a number of reasons.