The Sun had gone down before Rodgar left so I knew I had about four hours to kill. I thought about taking a nap but I felt I might sleep through till morning. Instead, I went over every blade in the house with a stone and oil. Then I checked the other contingency plans. The iron capped club next to the door, the three bucklers stored near the other blades (I oiled their straps and rivets whether they needed it or not) and finally my brother’s sword, long enough to be almost useless in these quarters. I oiled it and looked at it in the torchlight. The swirling arms of its wrapping hilt looked like molten gold in the light and the blade was a beam of orange hugging cold silver. I sheathed it and wrapped the whole thing back in the cloth. The drakes head pommel was the last to be covered and it watched me the whole time.
After the weapons were done with, I made tea and sat reading the war section of a week-old print. It was guaranteed to make me think of nothing else. An officer of a western trade company was interviewed about the situation in south Daeleah. He assured us that the King was no closer to pushing the Horde back over the river and if there wasn’t Imperial military in the area by this time next year the loss to trade would be astronomical. In the southern sea, our navy was fighting to secure the lands bought from the Vishanth while under constant attack from the Sunset fleet. He went on to give descriptions of the various naval forces and their strengths and general territories, as well as to gush about a few new inventions by the Naval scientists. When I finished it I was halfway through the pot of tea.
With still an hour at least to kill, I picked up a book of history and studied every word. When the time came to leave I found everything I had read had fallen off my mind like rain on oilskin. I drank the last of the tea near the window and cracked it open. The sound of the rain came in clearly and I felt like I was floating out in it. In the depth of the sound, I felt the vastness of the city around me stretching into the dark and rolling storm. I closed the window and was left with the shallow sounds of my room.
I took three knives from their places and put them under my coat. I grabbed a hand lamp off the shelf and checked the oil in it before putting it on my belt. I lit my pipe and stood in the dark until my eyes adjusted, then I went out the door and passed under the glowing red eyes of the watcher’s pipes. Out on the street the rain had picked up. The sky was darkened by the clouds and without stars or moonlight.
The Tavern was one I was familiar with though I had never been inside. It was four blocks east at the edge of a textile district. The lantern laws were often ignored in that part of town so when I saw the first patch of dark I unbuttoned my coat and took the lamp out. I had been smoking my pipe upside down and just enough to keep it alight. I lit a spill on the pipe then lit the lamp. I moved the lamps plate to the back so I wouldn’t lose my night sight and let the rain put out the spill before I put it away. There were a few other alehouses on the way with lanterns li,t but they were little more than islands of flickering orange in a sea of solid night. In one dark alley, I saw a huddled group of men, standing in postures that shouted ‘thief’ to my experienced eyes, their forms vaguely betrayed by a dim light in a window far behind them. They turned to face me as I went by. I looked at them and they didn’t do anything else. I heard them shifting and whispering behind me for a bit but I already knew nothing would come of it. Half a block later I found the tavern.
It was all wood face and slanted roof stuck between two towering brick workers quarters. Some clothes forgotten on lines fluttered off of them like torn skin. The tavern itself had a single dingy lamp in front of it and I could see the broad shadow of the doorman just below it. A dull sulfur colored light hummed out of the grimy iron grilled windows of the ground floor and silhouetted shifting forms on the glass. There were tables out front where during the day workers crammed in to eat lunch and heckle. Now they were dark and still in the rain with sagging forms thrown over them like corpses. Some of the bodies stirred and mumbled as I walked up. I put the lamp out and the doorman looked me over then opened the door with one arm like a tree trunk. I stepped, still dripping, into the fluttering light and roaring sound.
There was a low fire in the hearth at the far wall and lamps flickered on all the tables and hung from the beams. It was a well put together crowd, the kind that did all their drinking and roaring for the night sitting down. The few that were out of sorts were either off in corners spilling on themselves or already on the tables outside. The man behind the bar had the figure of a sack of scrap iron standing up all on its own. His face was scared but the eyes were bright and when they saw me he raised a hand and bellowed out.
“Evening, Welcome.”
I took my hat off- “Evening.” - moved to the corner seat, took off my coat, and laid it on the long bench. I had hardly sat down next to it when a serving girl came up and asked me what I’d be having. She was young and stout with the barman’s eyes and the calm of a girl who had seen men broken open for saying the wrong thing to her. I ordered my spiced ale and she left. I had a chance to smell the food, mostly reheated bread and some kind of dull savory remnant. When she came back I ordered bread and whatever they had that was hot. She brought back some old bread with lard and a thick rice stew with the taste of meat, but only a few bones to tell of it. I sucked the marrow out of those first then went to work on the rest. I sat back with my pipe and the ale and read the pamphlet on the war of angels about three times. That took a few hours with only a few shouting arguments from the bar for a distraction. The tavern started to clear out slowly. After another hour of counting raindrops, I was alone with the barkeep and a few muttering bodies in the corners. Most of the lamps had been put out and I was nearly hidden in the darkness.
The girl came out again and told me in a quiet voice to follow her. We walked behind the bar then through the kitchen and a storeroom to a steep staircase in the corner. There was a hall of small bedrooms on the next floor and she took me to the end of it. She unlocked a slim door I thought would be a broom closet, but opened up to a brick shaft with a ladder in it. She stepped to the side.
“Go upstairs and sit down. He’ll be up soon.”
I nodded and went up the ladder. Lamplight flickered on a wall above the hatch. She closed the door behind me and I was climbing out of solid darkness.
The attic was lit by a lamp on a small table. The windows were covered with drapes that looked like they’d been used to birth a foal a thousand years ago. There were crates and small chests scattered along the walls, with a few ruined couches and dressers. In the center of the room, a few high back chairs with just enough cushions to give you the idea surrounded a flat-topped chest that was serving as a coffee table. I sat in one of the chairs and puy my coat down on another. After a while, I heard the hatch open. The ladder creaked as someone come up and closed the hatch.
It was the barkeep. He was holding a bottle in one hand and had a wide dagger on his hip. His brown hair was back in a dark cloth and he walked up to me as I stood up.
“I’m Heldar.”
“I need to get into the Complex.”
“You won’t be doing that. You’ll give me what you want to put out, and I'll make it seen. Understand?”
“Not really. You’re gonna go inside my head?”
“That’s right.” He set the bottle of liquor down on the table in front of me.
“Thanks, but I’d like to go into this thing sober.” I said.
He smiled. “That’s for after.”
He dragged a chair from the side of the table and set it behind the one I had been sitting in.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
“Our friend said you were looking for someone. What kind of message are you going to send?”
“A memory of a meeting. After I give it to you, what happens to it?”
“I'm going to send it to a tower. Do you know what that means?”
“No. I’m out of my stream here.”
“A tower is someone who can speak to a large number of people. They tie the whole thing together.”
“And they’ll show what you give them to everyone else?”
“Not quite everyone, it doesn’t work like that.”
“Well, how does it work?” I felt like I was planning my funeral.
“No one gets contacted unless they ask, but I have enough, credit, you could say, to get your message seen by people who will know what to do with it.”
The idea of my memory being passed around like a dirty novel made me sick.
“In your professional opinion, what are the chances this thing gets seen by who I want it to?”
“That’s impossible to say unless I know who they are.”
He said it like I had asked him to read tea leaves. I decided to stick to more concrete inquiries.
“How will I know if they respond, can I come back to you?”
“Yes. You can come around back and knock after hours. If you see anyone else in the alley waiting, it'll be best to keep walking.”
I took a moment to run through what I knew in my head and tried not to fall into the gaping holes.
“If they don’t see it, can I have you resend it?”
His face had the stillness that comes from not trying to have an expression. “Once it's out there it's out there, and me sending it again won’t do a bit of good. Without getting into too much explanation, I’ll tell you there are people who keep these sorts of messages for others to look up later.”
I stopped myself from asking what the hell that meant.
“How do we do this?”
“Sit down.” He motioned to the chair facing the table. I sat down and watched the lamplight dance on the liquor bottle. I heard him sit down behind me and it occurred to me that Rodgar’s man or not, he could knife me very easily.
“Take a breath and relax, then turn the lamp down and close your eyes.”
I did it and tried not to think of any reason Rodgar would have to want me killed. I breathed silently for a while and when Heldar spoke again his voice was quieter and had a rumbling quality to it.
“Relax. Grab the edges of the armrests firmly.” They had the unmistakable feel of wood that had been worn smooth by countless squeezing, sweating hands.
“Now, think about the table you were sitting at downstairs. Imagine yourself sitting there just as you were, but with no one else in the tavern. Can you do that?”
It was a bit of a struggle. I’m not usually the daydreaming type, but eventually, I got it.
“Yes.”
“Good. Stay there and don’t think of anything else until I tell you.”
There was a good minute of silence where I pictured myself sitting at the table all alone, taking drinks from an unending ale cup.
“You are sitting all alone. You reach into your pocket and pull something out. Something you would hate to lose, and something I have never seen you with.” He said.
That ruled my pipe out, so my first thought was of my brother’s sword, but that wouldn’t fit in my pocket. Then again, this wasn’t real, so I imagined myself reaching in and drawing the sword. Its wrapping fell away and I held it there, bare bladed, before me.
“Do you have it?” he said.
“Yes.”
“Good, focus on it, but keep the room. Go over every detail of it with your mind, slowly.” I struggled to maintain the thought of the room and the sword at the same time, so I imagined myself moving the sword in the lamplight and trying to reflect it across to the bar.
Then I felt it. It was like the sensation on the ship but far more subtle. The tavern in my head shuddered and small features changed. Things I had not remembered were suddenly there, and things I had misremembered were corrected. That primal, unspeakable fear rose up again, like being watched and smelling death all at once.
“Focus.” He whispered. I did, but now in my mind, I held the sword in front of me as if the tables were going to attack.
“Ah, it’s a sword, with a basket hilt and a drake pommel?” I dug my heels into the carpet, my voice was a weakened gasp.
“Yes.”
“Brace yourself.” He said. Instead, I ground my teeth so I wouldn’t whimper.
The tavern solidified. The sword became real. The feeling of sitting in that old attic, grabbing the arms of the chair, fell away as if I had fallen asleep. Then the sword and the tavern fell out of my mind and I was floating in darkness. I tried to open my eyes instinctively but it was no good. I panicked and tried to scream. Nothing happened and Heldar spoke to me.
“Relax and give me the memory.” His voice cut through my mind like a razor and for a moment I thought it was me saying it. I couldn’t feel any part of my body but I knew I wanted to vomit.
“This won't get any easier. The faster you get it out the sooner I can let you go.”
I tried to scream and thrash some more but I didn’t have a body that I could feel and my voice was just an idea. I knew I needed to get grounded somehow so I thought about the inn, The outside of it, in the fluttering lamplight that night.
“Is this what you want me to take?” I couldn’t speak so I thought.
“No, not yet.” It echoed, not in the way sound does, but as words do in the mind.
“Then show me what you want me to take.” He said.
I imagined myself going in the Inn. I walked to the room and opened the door.
“This room?”
“No!”
I lay on the bed with my back to her and looked out the window. Then I forced out the memory.
A red bird landed on the ledge outside the window. It chirped and looked around. I felt her raise herself up on her arm to look over at it.
“Did it wake you?” She asked.
“Yea, loud son of a bitch.” I said.
“Remind me to thank it later.”
She moved her hand under the sheet and I tried to cut off the memory.
“Go over it again, only what you want me to send.” Said Heldar.
A red bird landed on the ledge outside the window. It chirped and looked around. I felt her raise herself up on her arm to look over at it.
No. I started again.
A red bird landed on the ledge outside the window. It chirped and looked around. I felt-
God dammit!
A red bird landed on the ledge outside the window. It chirped and looked around. A red bird landed on the ledge outside the window. It chirped and looked around.
It felt like a weight had been taken off my skull. I floated in the void as the red bird landed on the ledge, sang, then landed again, sang, landed again, and again, and again.
“I've got it.” He said.
The vision shattered into nothing and I felt and saw nothing. Then there was a strange flash, as if a light was turned on in my head, my memory, and my surroundings all at once, and there was that strange sensation of being watched again, but this time I felt like I was watching something too. All this was cut off in a snap and I fell into darkness. Some time passed that I couldn’t measure then the room hit me like a punch.
I gasped for air and squeezed the chair so hard my knuckles ached. I was hovering above the seat with my heels driven into the ground. I let myself down in a thud. The room spun to a stop and I saw a clay pot on the chest in front of me. I vomited into it then took a gasping drink from the liquor bottle. I sputtered and took another swig, this time spitting into the pot and wiping my mouth on my sleeve. I took another full swig and leaned back. After I caught my breath I looked behind me.
Heldar was nowhere to be seen. I didn’t have any immediate reaction to this so I drank again. I looked around the room, and on a small table a few feet from me was a bowl of something that looked like food. The table had been against the wall somewhere in the clutter before I had gone under but now it was just far away from me to not be knocked over had I woken up flailing. I shambled over to it. It was bread and cold stew of some kind that had started to film over. It never stood a chance.
While I was mopping up the last of the soup with the crust, the hatch opened and Heldar came up smoking a fat cigar. He walked up like a pallbearer and looked down at me.
“Can you walk home?”
“Yea. How long was I out?”
“It'll be dawn before the hour.”
I couldn’t believe him at first, but when I tried to think back in time I found a lot of dead space.
“I'll be going then.” I said.
I stood up and got my coat on and then my hat, which had found its way across the floor. I set the bottle down.
“Take it with you.” He said.
“Thanks.”
He was looking at me like I was a sick man.
“I’m fine. I'll be alright. I'll come by in a few days to see if you have anything.”
He kept looking at me without saying anything.
“Is there a problem?” I said.
“Do you remember anything happening after I got the message?”
“When? After the b-“ He held his finger up to silence me.
“Yea, about after that.”
“No. Just a flash and then I went out.”
“A flash?”
“Yea. Is that normal?”
“Do you remember anything just after the flash?”
I didn’t like the way he didn’t answer me.
“No, just the flash then I was out, like I said. Is that a problem?”
He took his time getting his answer out, for all it was worth.
“No.” It was more of a sound than a word. I nodded and headed to the latch.
“I'll be in touch.” I said. I could feel him watching me all the way out.
The tavern below was dark except for two lanterns in a line. I followed them down the hall then saw the door. Outside a light rain was still coming down and the sky was beginning to glow. I walked the whole way home as if I was in the land of the dead. Not a soul on the streets, not even the usual eyes in the alleys. I started to feel that I had never left that tavern and I was fast asleep, but I couldn’t remember ever feeling this ill in a dream.