By the time Gideon returned to his table, the lamps had already dimmed. Clonk was sitting on a small wooden chair in the middle of the stage, tapping his foot and staring at the spotlight they’d hastily set up earlier that day.
He only stopped once Gideon took his seat. Gideon looked around awkwardly—he hadn’t realized they were waiting on him before starting.
Clonk jumped to his feet a moment later, kicking his chair behind him, where it shattered into pieces against the stone wall. Surprise rippled through the audience. The rats’ attention flashed back and forth between the suit of armor and the debris behind him.
Is he going to destroy furniture every show? Gideon wondered, already trying to add up the cost of doing so. Or is this a special occasion?
When Clonk spoke, his voice echoed through the hall. “On our first dinner adventure, we looked back at the history of the castle…” he began, holding out his hands as if to encompass the audience.
“The only people here who were there for that are you and Gideon!” Grimsby shouted. He was standing near the back of the hall, still wearing a heavily stained apron, with his bony arms crossed in front of him.
“Silence, heckler,” Clonk said, shaking his fist. “I was still getting to that. I planned to provide a synopsis.” He paused to collect himself, then looked around the hall. “Believe me, if you had been there, you would not be this calm to be here.” His amplified voice boomed with laughter.
Gideon tried not to look around nervously as he imagined another giant spider smashing through the window. Mariel turned to Gideon and shot him a questioning look, and he gave a blank, pleasant smile in reply.
“Last time…” Clonk said, pausing to stare awkwardly at Grimsby, who threw up his hands. “Last time I told the story of a defeat. Tonight, I will tell you the story of a victory.”
There had been some chittering in the audience. But as Clonk began, the crowd grew silent.
----------------------------------------
Most of my victories happened long ago, so this will be an old tale from before the crusade. Despite the years, my memory of that time has not yet dimmed. If anything, it has only crystallized and become more pure.
They say any good story starts with a confession. So let me confess that once upon a time, I did not like to receive guests to the castle. I knew they would hate this place.
It was a common occurrence over the centuries that beggars and petitioners would come up the pass to seek an audience with the Castle Lord. But they never wished to be here. They dreaded it.
The arranged marriages were even worse. So many despairing young lords and ladies cursing their luck that they’d found themselves exiled to the far corner of the kingdom. By the time of tonight’s story, I had watched this kind of thing unfold for centuries.
All of which is to explain why I was despondent when I learned the Young Master’s father had not only invited Harmony Wirtford to the castle, but had asked her to stay through what I knew would be a long and bitter winter.
If I had known she would never leave the castle again, that in fact, she would find final rest here, I would have been more understanding. But on the brisk autumn day we received her, I despaired when I saw her carriage approach.
It circled the courtyard as if considering escape before stopping outside the main doors of the keep. A man I assumed to be her servant jumped off the front of the carriage and opened its door, bowing as he did so.
Harmony cautiously emerged, placing a hand against the door frame to support herself as she stepped down. I noticed she wore satin green robes, the sign of a master wizard—an accredited one. No one had mentioned that in the conversations I had overheard about her.
She certainly outranked the young heir, the Not-Yet-Lord Kelvan Kastorus.
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“I didn’t realize this story was going to involve me so frequently,” Kelvan muttered. In the shadows outside the stage light, he stared out of his mirror for a long moment with glowing eyes. “This had better be flatteringly inaccurate, Sir Clonk.”
“Ahem,” Clonk said. “My Lord, unlike with Grimsby, I do not wish to impugn your honor by calling you out as a heckler. But the audience is to remain silent at all times. It is the first rule of Dinner Adventures.”
“Bah!” Kelvan cried. His eyebrows furrowed in frustration, and a vein on his forehead seemed on the verge of popping. “I do not consent to this production, Clonk. Find a new story. A different one that does not involve me.”
“This is the only one I rehearsed,” Clonk said, his voice increasing in pitch. His helm swiveled slowly as he took in the audience. “I must apologize, everyone. I suppose Dinner Adventures is canceled. My post-debut debut, once again, is ruined.”
A wave of distress began to pass through the rats as they realized the entertainment for the evening had already ended.
“I’m just happy tonight’s show didn’t involve the worst day of my life,” Grimsby said. Gideon turned and saw the skeleton had already started strolling to the exit.
Gideon tried to think of a way to salvage the situation when Uncle Kelvan floated off the mantle and towards the stage.
“Damn it, you fool,” Kelvan said. “You will cancel nothing.” He floated up, hovering in one-half of the spotlight. “I’ll just need to be here to correct you when you tell things incorrectly or shout over you when you say something you shouldn’t.”
“If you insist,” Clonk said. “Though I doubt you can match my volume control, my Lord. I have been practicing.”
Kelvan gritted his teeth. “We’ll see. Now, continue.”
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Where was I? Oh, right.
Usually, the marriage candidates who came here were of lower rank than the Kastorus they were matched with. On account of the modest status of the Kastorus family—
I mean, compared to—
The great and noble Kastorus lineage was so powerful that arranged marriages often paired a Kastorus with a less impressive wizard. This was done from an abundance of caution to prevent their talented genius offspring from conquering the world.
Harmony Wirtford, then, was a notable exception.
On that first day I saw her, I could already tell she was struggling with something, even from a distance. She reached into her pocket and retrieved a small vial filled with a glowing blue liquid. She removed the stopper and drank it, her throat glowing as it went down.
Harmony looked up at the castle with grim determination, and her raven-black hair spilled loose from her hood as it fell back. Her eyes flicked to the side, and she made eye contact with me on the overlook. It was one of the few times I recall being noticed while up there.
The overlook has long been my favorite place in the castle. Sadly, I realized that according to protocol, I should have already been downstairs to receive her. As if she could sense my shame, she winked at me, approached the door, and rapped the large iron knocker.
By the time I made it down, Master Kelvan was already offering to levitate Harmony’s luggage up to her room while Kelvan’s father, Lord Kalder, watched them from a safe distance.
Harmony’s servant was still carrying her luggage in from the carriage, and the open door swung in the wind. Avoiding the awkward situation in front of me, I approached the door and held it, waiting for the man to pass inside with the last of the bags.
To my surprise, after he did so, he did not stay with Lady Harmony to guard her in this strange, foreign place. He returned to the carriage without a word, snapped the reins, and drove away. I continued holding the door for him, expecting he would park at the other edge of the courtyard and return on foot. I kept expecting this until he rode through the gate and was gone.
Lord Kalder snapped at me. “You’re letting in a draft, you ingot.”
Nature chose that exact moment to gust a stinging autumn wind into the castle, which made my foolishness even more apparent. I closed the door just as Harmony smiled at Master Kelvan, then lowered her voice.
“Please, Kel,” she said, and I stared at her in horror. Kel. Even now, the syllable fills me with shock. What the hells was unfolding before me? What kind of debauchery was I about to be subjected to?
“You know I can just as easily float them up myself,” she continued. She raised a hand, and a flash of discharged mana burst from her palm and arced towards her belongings. The luggage dutifully formed a train and filed deeper into the castle.
“But you don’t know the way, Harmony,” Kelvan said. Imagine him with a much shorter beard. Less dangerous eyes. Hair on his head.
Tons of hair, to be clear. So much hair, like you wouldn’t believe.
“Your room is in the other direction!” the not-even-remotely-bald Master Kelvan said. Indeed, Harmony’s baggage train was now entangled in a traffic jam at the bottom of the stairs, and I wondered how one human could ever need so much stuff. I didn’t know yet that most of it was what she used to make her medicine.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Kelvan stepped forward, waving his staff, and the bags slowly started to file in the other direction.
Having both moved to get a better view, Kelvan and Harmony were now standing shoulder to shoulder.
Lord Kalder screamed at the servants to take the bags before his son damaged the walls or furniture. They were trying to grab the luggage as it bobbed and weaved around them.
“I’ve missed you, Kel,” Harmony quietly whispered. Lord Kalder could not hear them, and I doubt they realized I was in earshot. It was meant to be a private moment.
I guess it isn’t one anymore. Sorry about that.
“I missed you too,” Kelvan said.
And suddenly, it all fell into place. Why a master wizard would be here at the castle. There was a history between them.
They were—I dreaded to even consider it—in love.
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The luggage eventually made it to Harmony’s room, which was as far from Kelvan’s room as possible without making her sleep on the floor. No doubt, her family had sent a message to Lord Kalder regarding their chaste expectations for this visit, at least until all necessary formalities had been finalized.
Yet they had felt no need to escort her. A fact I still found curious.
Later, Harmony was summoned for dinner. I stood in the corner of this dining hall and watched Lord Kalder, Kelvan, and Harmony sit at a large rectangular table in the center. They were attended by the much larger staff of servants employed by the castle in those days.
“Thank you for inviting me, Lord Kalder,” Harmony said. “It is an honor to be a guest here in your domain. My parents certainly regret they were unable to visit.”
Kalder grunted and nodded without saying anything, then took another bite of the large roast on his plate. He drank deeply of his goblet, then waved at one of the servants to refill his wine.
He was a difficult man to read, but the truth as I knew it was that Master Kelvan had insisted on this after returning from college at the illustrious Ebonreach Institute. None of this was his father’s idea, though Lord Kalder had been happy to go along with it because the Wirtfords were respectable.
“Yes, well, it’s wonderful you’re here,” Kelvan said, smiling across the table at his betrothed.
“If you want to thank me,” Kalder said hoarsely, “have children quickly. That’s all the gratitude I require.”
While this may be surprising to my modern audience or, indeed, anyone who has known the joy of romance, Kalder Kastorus saw marriage as primarily a way to make babies and an implicit promise to do so.
Though Kelvan must have known he should have said something at this moment, fear of his father held his tongue. An alternate explanation, no less valid, is that Kelvan knew Harmony would prefer to handle this herself. Looking across the table, he supported her with a loving gaze.
Harmony frowned and looked down at her plate. “You should know, Lord Kalder, that I suffer from ill health, and it is more than likely I shall never bear children.”
Lord Kalder stared at her for a moment before setting his fork down. He snapped his fingers, and a servant came and cleared his plate. The meal was unfinished, but the latest news had soured his appetite. “This was not disclosed to me,” he said, furrowing his brows.
“I’ve disclosed it now,” Harmony replied. “It’s a sensitive topic.” Her eyes darted to Kelvan, pleading for an intervention.
“Harmony is an extremely accomplished wizard, Father,” Kelvan said, finding his tongue. Or perhaps he had decided that now was the opportune time to speak. Only fools rush into such tense affairs. “She’d do our family great honor by joining it,” he continued, but his father’s red eyes only darkened.
“You knew of this,” Kalder said, closing one of his hands into a fist and tapping it against the table. There was no significant force behind it. But we all must have felt the energy in the room change. “You did not tell me this, boy. After your mother died for you, this is what you bring to my family in return?”
“We could adopt,” Kelvan said. “It is hardly a problem.”
“Ah, yes,” his father replied. “Pluck a mange-ridden orphan from the gutter and name them Kastorus. With none of our family’s bloodline or grit.” He shook his head, scowling. He raised his wine cup in the air. It wasn’t even close to empty, but the servant filled it anyway. Afterward, the only sound in the room was Lord Kalder drinking heavily.
“Please excuse me,” Harmony said. She stood, gave a little bow, then fled the dining hall without bothering to push in her chair.
I couldn’t help but be put off by her lack of etiquette.
Lord Kalder shot me a look. He didn’t speak, but he had been Castle Lord for almost forty years by then, and I knew what he wanted me to do. It wasn’t that he cared for her wellbeing. But he was worried she might cause a scene. So I went to check on her.
When I left the dining hall, I heard Lady Harmony’s footsteps receding up a nearby staircase. I thought she was headed back to her room, so I didn’t follow right away. I waited, straining to listen to the conversation still unfolding behind me.
My curiosity must have gotten the better of me.
“You decrepit knave,” Kelvan said. “Why the hells did you do that? Right in front of her, too. None of it is her fault.”
“You should have told me,” Lord Kalder said.
“If I had, you never would have agreed.”
“That’s exactly why you should have told me!” Kalder screamed, followed by cursing I find myself unable to repeat in front of an audience. “What does she have? Some kind of mana disorder? I pity the poor girl, but I forbid you to suffer on her behalf. It is a death sentence.” There was a pause, and when his voice returned, it was much quieter, even sad. “I suppose I shall have to apologize to the Wirtfords for sending her home early.”
“No apology will be necessary,” Kelvan said. “I still intend to marry Harmony.”
“You intend?” Kalder said. “Without the seal of a lord, you may do no such thing. In case you haven’t forgotten, I am not dead yet.”
The last word was said with menace, which made things awkward when a fit of phlegmy coughing followed.
“Damn it all, Father,” Kelvan said morosely. “I’ve made my decision. I made it during our second year at Ebonreach, and there’s nothing you can do to change my mind. As for her death sentence, I believe we all have one, whether we like it or not. I will take the time fate has afforded to us, and I will do so happily.”
Realizing I had tarried, I took the stairs two at a time, trying to catch up to Lady Harmony, only to find her room empty. It took me frantically searching two floors until I found her on the overlook, right where I’d been watching from when she had arrived.
My joints creaked and squeaked as I approached, and she turned towards me with a sad smile. Her hood was up, and she held her robes tight around her. Her breath fogged in the air.
“Good evening,” she said. “I’m afraid we were never formally introduced. I’m Harmony.”
“Good eve, Lady Harmony,” I replied, joining her at the parapet. “This time of year, it starts to get dreadfully cold at night, so it would be best to return inside. The servants have already kindled the fireplace for you.”
“I prefer it out here,” she said, then looked down at the courtyard. “I don’t like to be too comfortable.” A few of the castle’s servants were tending to the horses in the stable, but it was mostly quiet. “When someone tells you their name, it’s polite to provide one of your own.”
“I don’t have one,” I confessed. “My Lord usually calls me tin can, ingot, or clod, things of that nature.”
“He seems like the sort of person who calls many people clods, though,” she replied. “So I suppose you can’t take it personally.”
“You’re not wrong,” I said, suddenly unsure of where our conversation was going. “He says a lot of things to a lot of people.” It was as close as I could get to apologizing to her.
“You must have a name of your own, though. I can’t call you those other things.”
“They are perfectly pronounceable words,” I said.
She laughed and told me I was funny, but I didn’t understand why.
“In any event, my Lord does not consider me alive, so he claims naming me would be unnecessary.”
“I think you’re alive,” she said. Her eyes focused on me, and her pupils dilated as if trying to see beneath my armor. “Alive enough, at any rate.”
“Lord Kalder disagrees.”
She nodded. “But surely you’ve had a name before?”
“I think I must have,” I told her. “Or at least, I wish to believe I did. Sadly, I can’t quite remember what it was.” I paused. “Kelvan, however, has always called me Clonk. It began as a joke when he was still a child, but it has stuck.”
“He spoke of you often at the Institute,” she said. “You meant a lot to him when he was young. I mean, you still do.”
I didn’t know how to respond, so I said nothing.
“But, ‘Clonk?’” she said. “It’s so short. ‘Sir Clonk,’ perhaps? That has a better ring to it.”
“I’m no knight,” I said. At least, I didn’t think I was.
“You must be,” she told me, grinning. “Since you came out here to check on me.”
“I was commanded to do so,” I said. “I have no interest in you.”
On reflection, Lord Kelvan is right about me—I have no talent for deception. Sometimes, my honesty turns accidentally cruel.
Thankfully, she only laughed again. “That is much more like a real knight than you must realize,” she said. “And do you do everything Lord Kalder asks you to?”
“No,” I said. “Only most of it.” Though I had read many books by then, tales of knights and wizards and dragons, they were mostly fiction. So, I did not quite understand what she meant by a real knight, but I found the idea of one intriguing. “If I may say so, I was surprised that a lady such as yourself was not accompanied here by a knight of her own.”
Harmony shrugged. “My family decided I didn’t need protection.”
“Do they not care for your safety?” I asked, alarmed—no wonder she had come to this dismal place if her home situation was worse.
“My family cares a little too much, Sir Clonk. My mother wept for days when I told her my intentions to leave. My parents would have been quite pleased if I had never left their bosom.”
“Yet they did not provide you with a chaperone?”
“They did not,” Harmony said. “Probably because they know that if I wanted to, I could kill every person in this castle.”
She said it so casually, not even intending it as a boast, that part of me believed her. I made a noncommittal humming sound from deep within my torso. “You couldn’t kill me,” I said. Even then, I had my honor.
“Perhaps not,” she agreed. “My point is, the thing I need protection from is inside my soul.”
“That I can’t help with. But I wouldn’t do any killing just yet,” I said, trying to be helpful. “Lord Kalder will be dead within a year, so you might as well wait him out.”
“You seem very certain of that,” she said hesitantly.
“An infection is spreading to his lungs, and winter will soon descend on the Frostpeaks. They were not named that for nothing. I have seen many Castle Lords come and go. By now, I can feel the rhythms of such changes.”
It took me a moment to realize how candid, perhaps too candid, I had been.
She didn’t say anything for a while, perhaps digesting this new information, until she cleared her throat. “Sir Clonk, I should thank you.”
“You should?”
“You did me a favor,” she said. “More than you know.”
I said nothing.
“When I heard your footsteps, I had been figuring out if I could jump from this ledge and float down the mountain in one long glide. The wind changed, and I feared I’d end up in a tree. But I thought I could have reached Emberly and bought a horse before anyone knew I was gone.”
“Many would still consider that a wise course of action,” I said.
“You would say that, wouldn’t you?” She turned to me and smirked. “You never lie, even when you should. So, let me ask you another question.”
Having sensed my weakness, she seemed eager to press the attack. I backpedaled towards the door and said I would check on the fireplace in her room to ensure it was adequately roaring.
But the wind gusted, and suddenly, she stood on the other side of me, blocking my path. I knew Harmony had done something—shift herself through space, but it had felt like she’d moved the castle around us.
I wanted to push past her, but I could hardly do that to a guest of my lordship. I considered diving off the overlook and plummeting to the courtyard below. It would have been preferable in many ways, but instead, I accepted my fate.
I only hoped the truth, as I saw it, would be enough.
“His father is only half of it. Kel has barely said anything to me since I arrived. What does he think? Is he going to sit there in terror of his father forever?”
So I told her the conversation I’d overheard earlier. Lying being impossible for me, I found I needed to include every detail.
When I was done, she smiled and bowed her head. I could see her eyes glistening until she turned away and beckoned me forward. “That damned fool,” she whispered. “He said all that to his father, but he didn’t come after me?”
I was familiar with the concept from many of the books I had read. The power of pursuing a loved one. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I did the best I could with him, but I’m afraid he’s grown up horribly emotionally stunted. He probably didn’t even realize—”
And then I stopped speaking.
Because Master Kelvan had leapt from the top of the keep and was gliding down the mountain, his glowing staff held aloft as he flew. He passed above the courtyard, casting a strange shadow on the grounds which caused the servants to look up in alarm.
“Kel!” Harmony shouted, but it was far too late. I knew Kelvan hadn’t learned guided flight yet. He was using a mere levitation spell. Once in motion, there was no good way for him to turn back without plummeting to the ground below.
He screamed at us, and I waved at him. His voice grew more distant, fading beneath the noise of the wind.
I realized I was going to have to send a carriage down the mountain to fetch him. An extreme inconvenience. My dismay had only grown as the night had gone on.
But for some reason, Harmony was smiling so brightly I swear she lit the clouds above us. “Let’s go see that fireplace, loyal knight,” she said.
“You don’t wish to jump off the mountain?” I asked, surprised by her decision.
“Maybe tomorrow,” she said. “I’ll think about it.”
But she never did.