Harlan’s carriage pulled near the house, he saw a worker run to the door to tell his parents a noble was here, Kass was talking with a guard? He figured they were just here to talk about some issue or another heading this way.
With the money he had given his parents the farm was turning into a small village on its own, it took some talking too for them to take his money but he just had to convince them that no matter where he was this place was his home. It just made sense for him to make this place larger, he was a noble now after all, they couldn’t take his name because Harlan had no authority to actually give them and he was still a very young house, but they didn’t mind.
Harlow and Aida came outside and rushed to hug Harlan. He couldn’t help but notice his father was moving a little more slowly, not putting too much weight on his left leg.
“It’s been a while son, how have you been?”
“Great, I’ve been making toys and golems mostly. How come you are limping a little? Want to run to the healers real quick? I bought my own carriage with my gold.” His parents put on a pensive face.
“Oh it was nothing, just slipped and fell wrong.”
Harlan’s mind spun around and around, noticing details around him. The guard wasn’t from town, he was hired on to protect the farm then. There were 7 more guards around, a few of them in the trees. The workers all seemed to have at least a dagger on them.
Kass had a hard look on his face while talking to the guard, a tree looked like it had been split by a bolt of lightning.
He wasn’t there as Harlan their son anymore, he was there as Harlan the deeply paranoid child.
“What actually happened? Don’t lie to me.”
“Really it’s fine, just a drifter who wanted what we had.”
“Let’s go inside and talk then.” Harlan couldn’t put on a convincing face, they saw he was upset.
They sat round the dinner table.
“Alright, fine. It was someone sent after us to get to you.” Aida smacked his arm.
“Don’t tell him that, he is going to worry.”
“I’m ALREADY worried, what the hell happened?” Harlan wasn’t someone who swore, especially not around his parents, but this was the first time he realized that he wasn’t in danger, but they were and he hadn’t noticed.
“Don’t raise your voice at your mother. The guards said they were from the theocracy. But we hired another 4 guards, we are building a proper fence to stop people from getting close without anyone realizing. We even got some of those weapons you made. You really don’t need to worry.”
Harlan had time to change his face, he pretended that he was wary but was warming up to the idea of them being fine.
In his head he was thinking about things, how to protect them, if he could protect them, how that would work when he was at the academy.
“Alright, it’s fine, I’m not going to worry too much.”
“Well I am glad that you have calmed down then, no one is going to get past our new defenses.”
There was an awkward silence between them, Harlow didn’t believe Harlan would calm down, not really, meanwhile Aida wasn’t sure if she should ask her question now.
After a few minutes of trying to pretend there wasn’t anything wrong she couldn’t hold back.
“Now that we are alone, just your father and me… Do you want to talk about what you were doing there? You’ve been… odd, you’ve always been odd I guess, but that was just you being you. We are worried they made you do something that you can’t take back.”
Harlan cocked his head back and thought.
What should I tell them? What can I tell them? Should I just lie? What did Zella tell them?
“I killed a man, I was knee deep in gore day after day, I nearly lost my life dozens of times, sometimes assassins, sometimes I just pushed myself too much, tried magic I shouldn’t have.”
“The man you killed, what happened?”
“The king is a monster, sent assassins after me, after my friends, after his own daughter. Rosewell… I can’t even begin to understand how I feel about her. She was supposed to feel like a mother to me, to be a chain around my neck. The assassins came quickly, a guard, nice guy but not cut from the same cloth as me.; he was holding one of them off and I made a hole under his feet, Hostin took advantage of this and killed him. I didn’t hold the sword but I still killed him”
Aida and Harlow could only do what they could do, they had no experience with anything like this, Aida was too cowardly to upset Redmond during his stays because she didn’t want to ruin it for everyone, Harlow never tried, he wasn’t close to Redmond and didn’t think it would help.
So they just hugged him.
“I’m sorry we can’t do more. We’re just not prepared for something like this, but if it makes you feel better, come talk to us, whenever you need to.”
“Thanks, I do feel a little better.”
Harlan went out to his carriage, telling the driver that he could wander around or rest if he wanted and brought back inside a few of his toys, a bull, a sheep and a chicken, the chicken was a nightmare for him, bipeds needed more work to be able to move around without toppling over.
Eventually dinner came and Harlan helped himself to a serving of stew. He hadn’t had it since he was taken, he knew that technically the food at redwall mansion was better quality. But he couldn’t help but cry tasting it again. Leading to another group hug for them.
“So what have you been doing? Other than the toys.”
“I’ve been making proper golems. Well, not proper since they are kinda like foxes. But they are made to defend people, I just need to work on them attacking people who aren’t threats.”
“Heh, well we could use a couple of them.” Harlan faked a chuckle for his fathers joke.
“Welp, I think I should talk with Kass. I haven’t seen him since I’ve been back, then I’ll head back to the mansion.”
“Alright sweetie, just stay safe.”
“Keep the toys, give them to someone who has kids or siblings, I don’t care. I’ll be back before you know it.”
He made no promise of staying safe, he wasn’t like he was, he was calm enough to not lash out again, but he didn’t feel really safe as soon as he stepped outside of the house.
Harlan made his way to Kass’s cabin then knocked on the door.
“Harlan, it has been some time manling. Please, come in.” Kass led him to the dinner table for their chat.
“Thank you. So, what have you been up to?”
“Well, I bought my way out of slavery. My debt is paid in full.”
“Are you going back to the confederacy then? I should make you something before you go…”
“No, I think I’ll stay here. I might go to visit my family at some point, but things are calmer here. Back home there are certain… issues.”
“Ah, alright. I won’t pry. I have some people I want you to meet.”
Harlan set Balor and Lugh on the table.
“These are my brothers, introduce yourselves.”
“Pleasure to meet you, I am Balor. I have been alive for less than a year. But I have heard of you, I hope for friendly relations.”
“Lugh can’t talk yet but I think he feels happy to meet you.”
Kass was uncomfortable.
“These… True living items? I do not like them, I have heard horror stories of them.”
Balor didn’t show any discomfort, but Lugh was clearly unhappy at not making a new friend; He snuggled up to Harlan, blunting his edges to not damage his clothes.
“Like what?”
“Some foolish adventurer finds a brand new sword out in the woods and uses it, then it ends up making them drunk with power is how the stories normally go. Depending on who is telling it and where they are from they kill their family or their team.”
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“That only happened once, and it was a shield I made, not these two. And it was for a good reason.”
“Really? So these two are NOT a danger to others?”
“Within reason.”
“Explain.”
Harlan told him what he knew about his first shield with the black soul condor and why it killed its user.
“I still don’t like them. But maybe they will be alright.”
To lighten the mood Harlan pulled a goat toy he had made from his pocket, he had used paint to make its horns bright white and designed it on a mountain goat instead of a farm goat.
“I also made this for you, it is really good at climbing.”
“Let’s test that then.”
Kass took Harlan on a walk in the woods to make a little course to test the goat.
After 10 minutes of increasingly steep hills and jumping from small platforms to other smaller platforms Harlan asked what he was building to.
“Do beastkin have pacts?‘
“No, we are tribes, though even that is a holdover of the past. Using the term pack is offensive to some.”
“What? No, pacts, p a c t s.”
“...How much do you already know?”
“I spoke with The Darkness, she told me a little about Aine and werewolves.”
“Oh… then you already know her.”
Harlan couldn’t help but notice the dark tone Kass took when he talked about her.
“You do know what she is right?”
“A god?”
“Well, truer than what the theocracy calls gods but yes. I meant what she really is, as a… person isn’t really the right word, but how she does things?”
“I don’t really understand, I talked with her. She seems nice.”
“Let me start at the basics, we have 6 gods, Aarde is the high god but they don’t interact with us directly. Then we have the 3 gods who are considered order, Cecht the Light, Anu the Mountain, I follow her, Brigid the Flame. They talk through priests to give us advice as a whole but rarely focus on a single person. Then… we call them the 3 chaoses, The Darkness, she is called a thousand things and few of them nice. I know that you seem to be ok with her, so I will just call her The Darkness. Calli the Storm, Lir the Sea. These three rarely interact with people, but they only interact with individuals. Some of the worst monsters in our history can be linked to them because they do not worry about the bigger picture, they help those who wish to exist outside of the normal. But not all paths lead to happy endings.”
“There is no path of no pain, there is no path of no harm, I can only hope to minimize it.”
“Do you understand what I am trying to tell you? They don’t believe there can be a world with no strife. So they want people to use what has broken so many to try and build themselves, you cannot build a new window from a thousand splinters of glass.”
“I’ll need to keep talking with her, but I will keep what you said in mind.”
Kass was a little beside himself, he hadn’t known anyone who fell to chaos, but he knew what it might look like.
“I cannot tell you what to believe, I only hope that my words let you make the right choice, we are not bound by fate, so do not let anyone tell you that you are destined for something.”
Harlan thought over what Kass was telling him, he knew of fate, but he didn’t really know if it mattered.
If it existed then there was nothing to be changed, and if it didn’t then he would still be making the same choices he made because he was himself.
He decided to move on to other topics he wanted answers for.
“How long have your people been around?”
“After the Fae gods left, I’m told 100 years passed before Marigold came though, she brought the offers of the gods and every man was changed according to his needs. I won’t go into details, but we don’t have any fishmen. Those that do live in the water are unrelated, just some kind of monster. My ancestors lived near a mountain range, so we ended up not unlike the local goats. Yet those who lived near mountains that accepted Calli’s offer ended up as birds. I can’t claim to know why who turned into what.”
Kass hesitated to keep going, he knew Harlan was just an ignorant kid still two years from a man and he didn’t want to plant bad seeds.
“I know you want to talk about the Fomorians.”
With a sigh he continued to speak.
“They predate the leaving of the fae gods, nobody know why they were made and those she speaks too will not tell even under threat of torture and death. I believe they look how they do because they either want to trick people or make them hesitate. When you see an Ibexian, you know what we are. Yet if you meet one of them in the dark woods, would you think it anything but a man? I cannot trust anything she does without knowing why.”
At the mention of torture Harlan felt a burning in his gut, some instincts wanted him to be angry and he was barely keeping it down because it was Kass.
“If your letter got through, what would’ve happened to me?”
Kass jumped and Harlan could see guilt plain on his face.
“I believe you would’ve been fine, we are not The Canis, we can understand that you are not them.”
“If they didn’t understand? What then?”
“Harlan, please. I think it is best to not worry overly about the what if.”
“Don’t give me that bullshit. Big words when the person being taken away to be drained for information and then killed isn’t you.”
“I can only offer my words, if you cannot believe them then there is nothing to be done. I, Ar’Kassivirum Whitehorn, first of his name, believed that no harm would come upon you or yours. I say not to worry about the what if not to absolve myself of some crime but because I know what it is to be pulled into wondering what if instead of what is.”
Harlan felt angry, but he fought it back down into its box.
“I believe you then.”
They decided to head back, night was coming soon enough.
On the way back Kass spoke of Ky and his time there.
Kass was first unsure of him, but having known Harlan he felt it wrong to judge him based on what and not who he is.
When he made his way back he said goodbye to his parents and went back to his carriage telling the driver he wanted to visit town.
It was dark when he reached the blacksmith but he was still working.
“What can I do ya for child?”
“Skysteel parts, like what I’ve had you make before. How many can you make me?”
Harlan explained what he was building, making small designs in the dirt so he could understand the sizes.
“How many ya need? I can do enough for 5 a day. Long as you can pay.”
“You got more work for me? I’ll be… closer for a little while.”
“Stop bein’ ominous, and ya I got orders to fill.”
“Thank you, work on my parts as much as you can, I don’t want to put others out to make my parts.”
“I’ll work on what I want, goody boy. Now git.”
Harlan was pretty sure the old man liked him.
On the way out of Brig’s shop however he bumped into a man with the Blackstone crest, it consisted of 2 arrows crossed over a spear, all of which had their distinct blackstone heads over a white square background.
“Sorry for that.”
“No need to worry, I’ve lost nothing.”
Then the man noticed the crest over Harlan’s heart.
“What a strange coincidence, you wouldn’t happen to be Sir Harlan Fomoria, would you?”
“You wouldn’t happen to be the one supposed to tell me what land I am getting, are you?”
Harlan found himself speaking with the man at a restaurant.
After showing him some plots Harlan picked the one that had a rather large stream on its border, the only downside was that it bordered another county.
“Well, I am glad to have run into you here. I hadn’t planned to eat before our meeting, my horse was spooked by a skoll and broke its leg so I got here late which means I would’ve been at Redwall’s mansion late which… Sorry, I am rambling. I am just glad I didn’t need to negotiate on an empty stomach since I lost my coin pouch when I feel from my horse. At least I have the ring the countess gave me.”
Harlan was slightly unsettled by him, he was… normal? Perhaps a little absent minded, but he felt like a human being instead of a human shaped paperwork golem.
“How is the countess? I should meet her eventually.”
“Sorry, she expressly said I shouldn’t tell you, didn’t want to ruin the surprise she said.”
Either she was insane or she liked jokes, Harlan couldn’t tell which.
He paid for the mans meal and they rode to the mansion together.
Harlan went back to the mansion to get his tools and a mimic tree branch and to tell his sisters that he would be at the farm.
They didn’t really need to know where he was going to be.
He had the carriage driver drop him off in town and then told him to spend time in town before heading back to the mansion, he got a few gold coins to only mention it to Redwall himself where Harlan would be; it was Redwall’s choice if he told anyone else or not.
The only other order of business was putting in a request at the adventurers guild for a runner, he didn’t want to rent a horse, not that he knew how to ride anyway, and it was going to be an hour long walk assuming no delays.
Harlan was ready to wander into the woods and get to work.
“I’ve held my tongue, but is this really the best option? Surely you could just build them at the mansion.”
“I think Lugh wants to see birds.” Lugh and Balor had very different opinions on going to spend a month in the woods.
“I don’t want any distractions and this will let me try some things without so many eyes on me.”
“Surely this is going to end well…”
Harlan reached his plot after some walking, then he started setting up walls 15 feet tall across the entire area he would be working in, this would take hours.
He had barely set up his house, a proper log cabin made from the trees he knocked down when he heard a knock on the wall. He made a mental note to add a door somewhere.
He made a hole in the wall and a woman, barely bigger than him walked in.
“You my boss?”
“Yes.”
“Heard you needed running done, what kind?”
“Parts from the blacksmith in black alley, probably food, I’m not planning to waste too much time hunting.”
“You allowed to be here?”
“Yes, they are my lands. I’m Harlan Fomoria, noble mage.”
“Lots of nobles are mages.”
Harlan began to dread the idea of explaining what he meant every single time he mentioned it to someone.
----------------------------------------
Coronach spread his sight across the woods, he couldn’t rely on her sort of seeing, not that he was any good at it. So he simply found those who didn’t make sense, a hunter with an enchanted dagger, another with poison on his arrows.
He waited, he watched, he didn’t leave bodies behind.