FOUR YEARS AGO

I was tired.

There is a lot you can say about tiredness. A lot of poetry to pen. But I am not a man of poetry, even when I make war as a scribe. Perhaps especially then. So for my sake, let it be enough to say I was just... tired. And I don't mean in a physical way.

I pressed fingers to my eyes. Scarred fingers. Heavy fingers, built by wars won with good iron, not ink.

"Eloquence be damned," I murmured. A blade could rend and tear as much as any word, and generally quicker. As with all things, what matters was placement.

I breathed in a breath as long as autumn and let the breath out just as slow. I rubbed circles around my cheeks, over the baggy skin beneath my eyes, over the wrinkles.

Age dealt me a kindly blow, even if the world had not.

I scratched at my beard. Pinched small fingerfulls and tugged at it, enjoying the little massage.

My eyelids drifted shut...

I indulged in a sigh.

It was a big sigh, and of course it was. 'Everything about Gareth is big', they say. 'Limbs like a cedar. Chest like a bear-' in both fur and form, mind you '-and heart of a dragon.'

I liked the way Kel said it best.

'Laughter wide as a summer sky! And oh, the scars...

'They run as deep as they are long,' he would say. 'Now, the most clear scar is that cleft. Right there, you see? Aside the nose and between the eye, like a crevice in cliff face-'

A very lucky hit which could've blinded me

'-Aye, most clear indeed. But ah, the more visible scars, you see, they are the ones you can see only when he moves. Scars from sacred wounds which shape a man like the chisel of a sculptor. The biggest part of Gareth be these scars he can't hide. Many a man be large as life. But few have the impact of a man like him, whose scars shine with an ancient and indecent light.'

Yes, Kel was the poet.

'When the people see those scars,' he'd say. 'the men think of honor and duty and what makes a man, while women think of safe winters and children by the hearth. And the children...'

Here Kel would make a flourish with his hand, splaying out the mind, playing with a man's imagination as a painter plays with color on tight canvas.

'Ah, when the children see those brilliant scars! They think of their Da and the stories we've forgotten. Stories we were born knowin'. Stories we cannot afford to lose.'

I stared at the papers on my desk. Glowered, more like.

Stories indeed.

Through wide-cast shutters, a lowering sun lit up my back with its warmth, casting the room into all its shades of imperfection. Lines crawled across the page with penmanship of a man who learned his letters late in life.

Gloamy lines. Efulgent lines, crossed through again and again and again. The sun brightened the pages so they almost hurt to look at, while my face remained dark.

I didn't need a mirror to see that.

People told stories about me. All kinds of stories. Good and bad, and the kinds I hate to hear. The favorites seem to never get the facts straight. Like that one time I threw a horse at a man...

'Wait, or was it through his front door?'

'No! It was through the window of a tavern, and it wasn't over a man, but a woman!'

I dragged a palm down my face. It was easy for some to imagine me mad as a drake with its tail in a trap. Others prefered to think me cool as a chaste priest. Or was I revenging? Or was it all part of some elaborate joke? I snorted humorously.

For all folk speculated about the toss, what I remembered best (or worst, perhaps) was how tiresome it was to carry the blasted beast all those miles.

But it was nothing- Blasted nothing! -compared to the weight of a single life, much less a town, much less a nation.

"I'd rather carry the horse," I grunted to nobody in particular.

Ugh.

Call me old if you want. Fact is, I was tired.

I slouched, hanging my head over the back of my chair, staring at nothing. The ceiling faded into a blackness deepened by the harsh light of an ending day.

It was a place between times, a space between lines, existing at the boundaries of sight where natural becomes un. Cedar beam and wooden sky, whorls in the grain seemed to move, to pass by, to blink, and change their designations...

I closed my eyes before I got too nauseous from the motion. Yes, that is what turned my stomach: the lying movements of grain in the wood, nothing else.

...surely nothing else...

A faint and consistent sound pressed itself into my ears, and my spirit took note before my mind.

I sat up slow, a smile sneaking its way across my face, easing off the greater portion of tiredness.

Beyond my office, out past the wooden panels of my walls, the floorboards protested at the sure steps of someone practiced in much burglary, but not yet trying to hide.

Familiar steps. Lovely steps, a sound you only learn from many and more years.

I snatched up the ream of papers and- tap tap -set them aside in an orderly stack. Day was done. Work, done. It would keep til tomorrow! I pushed away, chair trumpeting as it slid across the floor.

The door opened.

If you asked anyone about the man who stood there, their reply would depend on whether they were intimate with him (not in a sexual manner, mind you), or but a stranger.

The latter would see nothing out of place.

But those who knew him well would say he was an odd creature. Eyes, bent like a fox. Grinning, with too many teeth. Laying up on the doorjamb like a whip held loose and ready to bite.

Standing still, yes, even standing still, he radiated motion. Heat, as seen above a sunning stone. Then, when he did move, it was like alcohol as seen through water.

Simply put, he was all wrong in the right ways.

Ten or so years my junior, yet seeming half as old, he met me as moon meets night. Where I was dark of complexion, eye, and of memory, and hard as a hammer, he was bright in every way and sweet as a xither.

"Aki," he said simply, addressing me with a Faen word that takes too long to translate.

"Kel! Aki," I cried, throwing my arms wide. "The days grow short without you-"

He met my embrace like beer meets mug. "Then let us lengthen them one more!"

The exhange reeked of ritual and ceremony. But we spoke with none of the casual restlessness of a comfortable lie. Breath free and naked in speech, we met one another as honest as the days of our birth.

I grasped him by the back of his head and pulled him down into my shoulder, kissing his temple as he laughed and pretended to resist.

Then I dragged him up and set forehead to forehead, eyes not a handspan apart, "Kel! Tell me!" I began. "How did it fare with the greyhorn?"

But the smile in his eyes was restrained and immediately I knew something was off.

There were no secrets held when so close.

"Ah, aki," he began with a feignt. Not a lie, just slight of hand, but in word not deed. "It went well with hunt and horn. A good tale! Better when flush with good wine and strong beer. So let me tell it over drink, not now, when we've a more pressing matter..."

Kel let go of me and I let him back off.

He brushed a knuckle at his nose.

It was an old tic, meaning he felt his nerves, and a strange omen. I'd seen him take on a wyvern without a twitch, whereas when it came to women, he would oft come around looking like one just in from playing in the snow.

"I saw the man speaking with Mari on my way in, and told her I'd take the news to you m'self." And here he paused, just barely too long. Then blurt out, "A noble! We-" and he slowed down "-we've a noble looking to offer us a quest."

The heat in the room vanished as if a shade had passed by. But likely a shade only I could feel.

Kel noticed.

"Hope, aki! The noble's a young 'un, all by his hisself, hooded up like he thinks his carriage and man out front don't give him dead away." He rubbed at his nose. "A good start, maybe."

"'There are few secrets among spies'," I quoted dully. "Young and secretive or not, this will draw attention to us even if it is a youth trying to avoid his father's eye."

"Aye, but a secret mission of lesser import won't give the scare a greater noble might."

I did not reply right away.

But I won't pretend to have pondered it for long.

There were times when I complained. Sorry to say for those who think me a saint. Yes, at time I'd grunt, and grumble, for example, a thing about horses and what I'd carry rather than the weight of my calling...

...but these were empty words, and I knew that.

When it came down to the sweat of it, to the time of tooth or tail, when a man must rise to his word or prove himself a cheat, I did not hesitate.

Not anymore, at least.

I waved Kel with me and headed to the door of my office, "Come, then. We've a little noble to entertain."

----------------------------------------

The room smelled nice.

I described it this way because I don't know any of the names of herb, oil, or whatever plant-matter comprised the incense in the censure, okay? Okay.

Then again, even if I did, to name them all would assume I could pick each individual scent out from the confusion. Which I could not, mind you. Furthermore, it was supposed to be calming.

Not that I could tell that either.

But it was nice. That, I could tell.

So I said, "Thank you, Miri," and left it at that.

The lass- Well, to me a lass, to you she may be a mother, -replied in her quiet way, only giving a nod and returning the smile as she left. I closed the door.

The sound changed. From the rustic calm of a guildhall when, as of yet, most of the men were yet on their way in from the field; to the brooding echo of a narrow room filled by a man burning with words to speak.

I silently studied him.

Kel had well-labeled the noble as young. I would not peg him as being out of his teens just yet. But I'd been wrong before. Some folk were simply young-in-face.

That said, the young noble's dour expression did nothing to age him, only making him appear petulant. He stood straight-laced, but not tall. His cloak was muted in color, but too well-tailored, and with the carriage and man outside, he must not have been trying too hard to hide his status.

Not to mention the gaudily wide hood. Oh, it would hide his face quite well, and he would need it to cover his embarassment if he ever got the what-for a proper tutor would give him...

...a taching I was quite nearly inclined to offer.

Put simply, if discretion was the aim, then it was an incompetent attempt.

Yet what disappointed me most was the constant fidgeting.

A tug at a hem...

A tap on a ring...

A shift of balance, one foot to the other...

It sang of clear anxiety and unclear thinking. For a commoner, it was pitiable. For a noble, it was inexcusible to the point of fatal error, given the world they treaded.

I held myself relaxed and still, expression and posture neutral as water. A warrior's stance. Chin neither up, nor down. Arms laying at my sides, but placed to suggest a hand resting on the head of a hammer.

Not that I wore one at the moment.

But no, no, I wouldn't write off the young noble as incompetent. Not yet. Not when anger twitched beneath every motion, under the fluttering of his cheeks, in the quivering at the corner of his lips...

And not anger only, but something even more violent. He stood, watching me with the subtle defiance of a noble with something to prove.

Whether Kel saw it or not, he ambled over to a chair and flopped down, kicking up his feet.

And began picking at his teeth. Oh, he saw it alright. Now he was just being deliberately provocative. I held my mirth. It was so like him, to pester nobility with his casual nature. All the more, when he held power over them, as he did now.

The young noble scowled at him.

"I said," he began with a pinched voice, "I would speak only to-" and here he noticably hesitated- tap tap on a ring -then steeled his chin, "-Gareth of NoHouse, master of the Outside Guild."

I spared him a soft look. Unoffended.

But I also held his gaze and did not blink.

"Kellethel of Faen-" I said as if listing ingredients for a shopkeep "-is my voice, as I am his. We are together master of the Outside Guild."

A concert of bewilderment played across the noble's face. "But when there is conflict, who-"

He cut himself off- pulled at his cloak -and dismissed it with a wave of his hand.

"Nevermind. It is unimportant. I accept your ways."

"Good," is all I gave in reply.

I sat beside Kel and gestured for the young noble to do the same across from us.

He glanced at the chairs. They were, simply put, merely chairs. Shocking, I know. But for him, they were, perhaps, scandalous. Comfortable, yet unmistakably common, belying construction by the low born, unsuited for the high. Grassfibers wove about wooding framing after the local fashion, giving bouyancy and a bit of bounce. All in all, a sensible choice for lounging, but not one any noble was accustomed to.

Well, all but one noble, that is.

He stared at the unfamiliar chairs, then gathered his cloak and sat without fuss.

Good.

He also immediately hunched forward and began spinning that ring of his.

Hm.

More and more, I saw his inexperience. Ironically it worked to his favor, bringing out the part of me who liked teaching kids. For all his inadequacies and distress, I was slowly grow fond of the boy.

So I have him a gift.

"You respect me," I said. "Trying to address me with a full name and title." I said it directly, as a tutor with his pupil, rather than forcing him to guess as an enemy would, playing their game of veiled speech.

"It is only expected," he replied, brushing aside the complement with a hand, not only his words. Even so, some of the tenseness left his shoulders and he sat a little straighter.

He even stopped spinning his ring.

"Expected?" I echoed. "Hardly. You violate the Emperor's law by naming me at all."

Some of his tenseness returned, a leg beginning to bounce.

"We are not in the Emperor's lands..." By his grammar, the words should make a statement. But in tone, he sounding like a school boy unsure of the answer he just gave his tutor.

At the corners of my vision, I saw Kel grin like a fox in a chicken's coop. So, he hadn't missed it. The young noble treated me as his teacher.

There was power in that.

"True." I further rewarded him with a gentle smile, softening my eyes. "Therefore, while here with us, you will call me Gareth of Outside, or Master Outsider, and the same with Kellethel. And who do we have the pleasure of entertaining?"

For the first time, he surprised me.

Sudden grief cleaved through the anxiety on his face like a river split. He leaned forward, straining to force it down, to collect the surge of emotion into white knuckled fists.

"I am Joahin of house-"

His voice caught and he bit harshly, iron bleeding into his tone.

"-Ararat. Master Ararat. Beyond myself, all which remains are my sisters and those who keep faith to his legacy. My father and his heir are dead."

Kel sucked air in through a cage of teeth. He dropped his feet off the armrest and sat up, leaned in, spoke slowly, "Assassins, yes? Not open war?"

Joahin nodded tersely.

"Mm, and why aren't you dead?"

The young noble dug slim, delicate fingers into the back of his palms. Muscles in his neck stood out against the storm inside. He forced a cough. Eyes glistened.

"I-"

His voice failed him, and he cracked. It all came spilling out with a sob.

"I fought with my father the- night before they came and- left in a rage. I- I took an old bottle with me in spite, swearing to defile this- name of mine with drunkenness and-"

He sucked in air, as if to keep from crying, forcing another cough instead of a sob.

"-and when I woke, I found myself in- a whore's bed. None knew I was there, not even my fa-"

He cut away entirely, screwing his eyes shut, hands clenched as in in prayer, whole body fighting to hold it all inside.

I spoke in a voice that was quiet and low, "It's not good to hold tears in."

Something like a mix of cough, laugh, and sob broke out of the young- so very young -noble and he buried his face in the crook of his arm, coughing and making tiny, sharp noises.

It reminded me of the sounds small animals make.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

I let it move me to him, kneeling and embracing Joahin where he sat. He resisted at first. But I did not budge, and it took very little time before he stopped fighting and let it all go.

In time, we separated.

"How old are you?" I asked, testing a suspicion.

"Fifteen, as of Wilting Day."

So fifteen, barely. I had been wrong. The youth was not merely young in face. In actuality, he may look a bit mature for his age. Among his noble peers, at least. Perhaps I'd been gone too long to make a proper comparison anymore.

...and he came all this way on his own.

No, he was not incompetent.

Kel grimaced, all teeth, and caught my gaze.

"What do you know?" I prompted, narrowing my eyes.

"Aye, so, for a decade now- and young master Ararat, do correct me, as all I have be rumor -Ararat has been last and only among the greathouses to preach peace in the Emperor's ear. All lesser houses, or as many as rumor can tell, hate the warlust and petty rivalries of the greats, but have neither heart nor man enough to resist on their own..."

Here he splayed his hands, palms up, as if showing a spread of food to his guests, "and so Ararat found power. Ararat was their voice, their unity, their peace..." he trailed off.

His hands were still, not the hint of a twitch, not the flicker of any movement toward his nose. This is where he thrived. In a hunt. In the running between. In the connecting of piece and parcel to part.

"Gareth... Aki, the Empire is going to splinter."

Civil war.

I kept my reaction to myself.

Joahin nodded along, taking calming breaths. After the good cry, he was far more composed. He would be stronger for it. That is, if he survived.

"You are well informed," he said. "I fully expected you to require educating as to the estate of the empire, considering how long you have been gone, Master Outsider."

I nodded, "Kellethel is not in exile. Without need to conceal his face, he can move freely. So he takes the far hunts and distant quests in part to survey the land for rumors."

Kel flashed his signature foxish grin. Too full of teeth. But it fell from his eyes before fading from his cheeks, as though his face were made of various parts working in concert, rather than the union of a singular whole.

"So," I continued, "you do not deny Ararat's fall."

The reply came swift as a sparrow's wing. "I was not my father's heir. I have neither competence nor respect needed to lead the house, nor do I have the defenses to survive. The assassin may be one of the gods."

For the second time, he surprised me.

This time, I showed it.

I don't know how it looks from the outside, but I felt it leak from within me. My presence hushed the other two, room going full-quiet for a second time.

The muffled goings-on of the guild proper filtered through the walls. First stragglers, in from the fields. Distant conversations. Laughter and the clink of tableware.

Kel shifted, floorboards groaning under the feet of his chair. He put a hand to his mouth, as if to keep it from speaking against his will.

Joahin touched his ring, but did not spin it.

I alone did not move, but for the rise and fall of my chest.

The gods did not commonly involve themselves with the affairs of men. When they did, men begged them to leave. In the times when they stayed...

...well, history recorded cataclysm. Whether caused by the gods, or if the gods were merely responding to events in motion, none could say, though many speculated.

Regardless, the connection remained unbroken.

I finally took a breath and leveled a stare at Joahin, "How do you know?"

He struggled to meet my eyes, and instead opted to speak while staring through the floor.

"The assassin was not discrete. The wall of my father's bedroom was blown in from the outside, but with little charring. A concert of mages can produce a fireball of sufficient size, but, of course, the flame would have destroyed the entire room and left smoke and ash, of which there was none.

"The warding of the house against external magicks remained intact, and as for internal magicks, the servants and nightwatch both saw no one come or leave. Bribery to silence is implausible, as we have lost none to desertion, and what is there to gain, to remain in a dead house?

"Finally, they... that is, my father andh is heir, did not die to the explosion, and there were... unnecessary wounds." He spoke in a near whipser. "They were made sport of...

He met my gaze, and a bit of defiance returned, as if expecting a retort from me. "We were not a weak house," he closed.

All the while, he spun his ring.

It seemed too large for him.

"You are not the heir," I commetned. "So that signet ring was not yours."

Joahin stopped spining it, and nodded. "It was my father's. The assailant did not take the ring. Nor any valuables, as far as we know. I left immediately, so my sisters may have learned more, but I doubt we will find any theft..." and he trailed away, brow knit in some dark thought.

It was time for business. "So," I said, not changing my posture. "What do you want from us, Joahin of Ararat? Is it protection? Revenge?"

He did not hesitate, "Justice."

"And what is justice?"

"To know who killed my family and-"

His voice became small, so small.

"-to accuse them before the Emperor, of murder and treason against the crown."

"Oh? Treason?"

Joahin clasped his hands together, venting anger with a careful tongue. "You know how this will end, Gareth of Outside. Civil war. This was no petty act of vengeance or greed, though it may have satisfied both of those as well. We were a house of defense, full of peace. We have our skeletons, of course, as do all, but we had no outstanding vendettas and certainly none to warrant so cruel and blatant a display."

He grew more heated as he preached. "This was a sure attempt to destabilize the empire! All knew Ararat meant peace. We had become a symbol, Gareth of Outside! A symbol! For one to bring an end house Ararat is to bring an end to peace."

He struck out his words with a fist in front of his face. "This was their purpose, and of that I have no doubt."

He truly did not. He seemed older, for a moment. Taller...

I blinked.

Before me, in the eye of my spirit, I could see what Joahin could become. High, and lithe as a sword. Firm, but fair. Tongue sharp as a surgeons blade, not harsh, but clean. He would stand above the people, violent as a wind sundering sea from sea, separating the crowds of wicked men so men of peace would pass between unharmed.

The vision passed.

I blinked, and came back to the present.

"You think the Emperor would listen?"

Joahin flinched as if at the lash of a whip. "He has to," he said, but his voice was suddenly now like a child. Plaintive. Nearly a whisper again. After all, he knew after the likelihood of that.

We all knew.

Kel waved his hands, gathering our attention. "Aye, aye, all fine. But we are a guild, and we live by the quests we take. So let us speak again of that. The quest at hand is a hunt, yes? You want us to hunt the enders of house Ararat and bring justice to them and to you?"

"Yes," Joahin said, barely loud enough to hear.

I held up a hand to stay them both, and stood, looking at Kel.

"We have things to discuss," I said. "As for you, Master Ararat, rest here and wait for us. Take some food. It will do you good."

"Yes, thank you," Joahin said.

Kel stayed with Joahin as I left in search of Miri.

The commons area of the guildhall had filled up and was getting louder by the minute. Men, mostly. A few of the wives joined. The single men and women would be around later on, after wrapping up what their elders set them to.

More than a few shouts and greetings set upon me, but, politely, I waved down any request to join, and they let me go. Miri stood at her usual spot behind the reception desk.

I set her to the task of bringing a touch of food for young Ararat.

"-and do watch him, would you?" I added. "It may do him well, to have the presence of a young woman."

There was no subtext to my words and Miri knew that quite well. She knew I meant what I said, and nothing more. I don't allude to anything. If I mean sex, I say sex.

"If he wants to wander, try to distract him. But if he must, don't stop him, only follow. If he interrogates you, tell him we told you to do so."

Miri nodded, and raised a slim hand to catch one of the kitchen girls. The much younger lass whastened over, and was sent off again with instructions I didn't hear. Miri then accompanied me back to the sitting room where I gathered Kel.

Together, we retreated upstairs to my office.

----------------------------------------

We didn't talk at once.

I walked aimless circles around the office, trailing fingers along the walls, tracing the grain of the wood. I stare at them, seeing, but not seeing.

I was not present, but far away.

So Ararat symbolized peace. Likewise, these walls symbolized my guild, and the guild symbolized all I had built here over the years, not merely of wood and clay and stone, but in heart and mind and home...

The local folk, a severe people who softened so slowly to me.

The orphans I brought in over the years.

The ones I raised. The ones I taught to raise the rest.

Here, Outside, I had built a town where one, by all natural rights, should not exist. Built by force and necessity. By tenderness and passion. By the dual-sided shape of kin and kind...

I pressed my hand flat against the wall.

...and where this guild symbolized the town, and the town in turn symbolized the people, the people symbolized all the memories which brought me to this day.

How many more would die, that those who were dead might live again?

'There are memories in the walls,' I heard an old man tell his son once. At the time, I understood what he meant. But now? I know. Now, I have tasted and seen for myself that there are memories in the walls.

At the back of my mind, I was aware of Kel, watching me with a cocked tilt of the head. But his attention drifted. Off, over to my desk. He padded around to peer at the papers.

"'The weight of a man-'" he read aloud.

I shut my eyes, bracing myself with a breath as long as autumn.

"'-is not measured by stone. It is not measured as one measures wheat, or barley, or rye. It is not measured as one measures gold or good iron. The weight of a man is measured as one measures his guilt against his glory, set to the scales of his shame and his story..."

He glanced up, then down and licked his lips. "'My arms did not weary when I carried ten of my brothers to the warsurgeon. Yet the weight of bearing only nine of them back home crushed me under a load I could not take. Is it so strange, that a man weighs more in absence? More when he is gone, than when he is near?'"

Kel trailed off, reaching the end of what I'd written. He looked up to see me frowning at him.

"Aki! When did you learn to write poetry?"

"I erased that," I grumbled.

"No, you scratched lines through it."

"You know what I mean."

"But do you know what I mean?"

"I'm sure it has something profound to it, man. But I'm not in the mood for your riddles. Besides, I'm convinced more than half of your riddles are not riddles at all, but rather simply you deciding a thing has profundity, and going off in hunt for it."

He did not balk or back off. "'All profundity is found, not made,'" he quoted, smiling with all teeth at me, yet standing prim and pompous, one hand on his heart, the other waving the sign of the Inescapable at me. "Aki, aki, aki, you should know that by now!"

Then he burst into a cackle, dropping the pretense.

A smile crept onto me face, though I had half a mind to swat it off. At times, Kel's playfulness distracted from his seriousness. At others, it was exactly what I needed to hear him more clearly.

This time, I couldn't tell you which it was.

Perhaps both.

Kel dropped into my chair, sprawling, one leg over the armrest, and chided me, "Not in a mood for pondering riddles, you say! Aye, yet we've a living, breathing one downstairs you aren't so shy to ponder." He flailed his arms about. "Tell, tell! What is in your spirit?"

I sighed and turned my back to him, taking for myself the space to speak. It was difficult, at times, to do so when present in this world. So I stood in the spirit, far away, yet closer than the beat of a heart.

"It is written," I said, "that the Inescapable did not take pleasure in the death of the wicked, and I have grown likened to him. But then I hear the empire is on the verge of civil war, and I am glad." I tore the last word out of my mouth with my teeth to emphasize my anger.

"There is delight in freedom, aki, and freedom in justice. You may yet be revolted at their death, even when well-deserved, while at the same time, as chains of their slander fall off- what a release! The delight they quenched will bust out like an overdue shit!"

I could not repress a snort at the crass analogy.

He continued, "Better out in tears or laughter than out the ass!"

I waved off the joke like a bad fart, though I couldnt stop myself from grinning with him. "Yes, yes, Kel. You made your point." The grin faded. "But is that why my heart gladdens? Or am I looking to what I prefer to believer to distract myself from my guilt? I do not want to be an poser. I was one for too long..."

"Aye, so you know the taste of the sickness."

I did know, and I felt none of it. Yet I doubted myself.

I pressed fingers to my eyes. Scarred fingers. Heavy fingers...

Kel moved on, "And how does this relate to our young problem?"

I spat it out, "I want to take the quest, Kel!" My hands made fists, hammers of flesh, and with every turn of phrase, at every word, I struck, as if moving through a martial form, as a politician-

Argh, a damned politician!

-expresses their passion with their body, not only their tongue.

"I see in this boy the answer to our hope, Kel! Power enough that our enemies do not want to strike. Taken quickly enough, before they recognize us as a threat worth making the effort to-"

I made a snatching motion, as if grabbing a candle flame.

"-snuff us out."

I bore down, channeling my intensity into my gaze, and staring straight into the foxish man's eyes.

His grin faltered and his hackles rose. His body tensed, ready for tooth or tail.

I bore on, never breaking eye contact. "The weaker houses want for a leader who can give them the means to protect their wives and children."

I stepped closer. "Most want peace at any cost. I hate them for it, but, ah! It is what it is. 'The only weapon we can use is the one in hand'," I quotes, "so I must use them as they are. For all they will follow the factions into war, they will hate it because they will be the paying for the worthless victories in the blood of their sons!"

Closer, I stepped, "If we can, by clever infiltration in their war, rescue many..."

Closer, "...if they can see themselves gathered once more under a new banner of life, remembering that together they can resist and overcome the strength of the isolated... they will follow us! We will be as a great house!"

Closer, closer, eyes wide with sight into a vision, "But! We will be a great house on the outside. Outside the world; and if we draw the plans right, perhaps, yes, perhaps the war can end with the emperor dead- the empire, dead and fractioned! Each land too small to care about invading us."

At this point, I towered over Kel, looking down on him. A part of me wondered what I seemed. A tyant? A king? A god? "Let them squabble and keep their suffering. We will accept any who wish to leave their cruel and callous world behind."

I could smell the fear wafting of him. His blood sang with it. Eyes bright as the dawn. Nostrils flaring as when in a chase, like a fox on the scent of a rabbit.

His teeth spread.

In fear,

In dreadful, intoxicating, delicious fear.

"Gareth... Gareth, aki... Nan morimas torune!" May the greatness of the death not turn you aside. A Faen blessing. "This, this is why I followed you, all those years ago; and follow you still!" For a moment, he seemed to forget he was my equal. Or, then again, perhaps not.

Ferocious delight filled me. I felt giddy, like the boy I was, once. A boy I lost. A boy, reclaimed by hands not my own. "Not because you love me?" I joked.

"Oh, aki! You big fool, this is love!"

I took Kel's hand and yanked him to his feet. Nose to nose, eye to eye. My joy cooled first. "But is this the way? Am I mistaking it? Is Ararat an answer to prayers, or a temptation?"

Kel allowed himself a scowl. It looked so wrong on him, and not in the right way. "Are you not a man? Does our god not trust you yet? Has he not raised you as a father raises son, to do his work, and placed you in a position of making decisions?"

I felt the rebuke as the sting of an open palm, yet sweeter than a kiss, and I cherished it, drinking it in, letting it seal the cracks in my faith. I offered my aki an awkward, apologetic, lopsided look.

"I doubt, father," I confessed.

Kel placed a hand where his collar had once lain, and laughed and laughed and oh how he laughed! "Ah, then as your priest, I absolve you of your sin. In penance, lead me, lead us, and pray to the Inescapable-" he held up one palm, "-and prey-" he held up the other, "-on the empire of our enemy."

"If he wills," I said.

"If he wills," Kel agreed.

----------------------------------------

Once more, the masters of the Outside Guild sat across from Joahin of Ararat.

I resumed the role I held before.

Kel, however, shifted forms, as one shifts from whip to arrow. He bowed in his chair, all sharp angles and curved lines. Fingertips met before his lips, as if to force his words through a steeple to reach the young noble.

"So," he began, "to clarify, the quest you propose us is a hunt. To expose the enders of your house. To bring them justice. To bring you the same."

"Yes."

"First, then, a queston. Why come to us? To Gareth of Outside."

For once, Joahin did not fidget. His voice was small, but it was not weak. "Where else could I go?"

"Mm," Kel tasted the answer and did not pause. "What do you think of him? That he bears resentment and bitterness against the world that cast him out? Do you think he would see this as chance for vengeance? Justice for himself?"

Joahin shook his head. "No. Frankly, if it were so, I would sooner expect you to throw me out than aid me. To revel in my suffering, as if I were a symbol of the world he hates."

"Or perhaps he would take pity," Kel countered, "seeing in you a symbol of his youth."

Joahin glanced at me, meeting my gaze, steadily, even if for but a moment. "If so, resentment would not be the reason for such a thing," he said.

"Is that why you came, then? Hoping he would pity you?"

Joahin looked down- tap tap on the ring -but seemed at peace. "It is not a new thought, I will admit. But no, it is not the reason. My reason remains the same. What other hope do I have? For all that we united the lesser houses, our house remained alone. All greathouses within the empire... all who wield power enough to aid me are potentially ones who petitioned a god to end us. I cannot trust any of them."

Here he narrowed his lips- tugged on a hem -and looked up and askanse at me, as if the weight of my presence was too much to see stand in the moment. "But Gareth Blood-Letter? Gareth, Pen of the Emperor? The symbol of law itself in the shape of a man, yet the very same one who denounced the law, dead to us, and yet alive Outside?" He looked back to Kel. "Here is a man I may yet hope to trust."

Kel cocked his head, "Why do you not think it he who petitioned the god? What a revenge... to end an entire empire with a single blow to a single house..." And here Kel grinned.

Oh, he grinned.

Joahin blanched, He looked at me with new fear. He held onto his cloak, and looked down.

Had he truly not through of that?

No... no, it was not that kind of fear. The young noble steeled himself, and he fidgeted, and I could read his tone for what it was: something aking to embarassment.

Joahin took a stabilizing breath and said, "I read the transcript of your denouncement speech. That man would not do such a thing," and he spoke with a tone of something aking to awe.

So, there was a bit of hero worship in the boy.

I could wield that.

Kel chuckled, and did not deny it. "Oh my, noble or not, being caught with that..." he pretended to give it due thought. "They would not have executed you, true, but your father would have to spend a great deal to keep you from exile. And a second son may not have been worth that, especially if, in weakening his position by the cost, in weakening the symbol of peace, the empire itself would be threatened."

The blood drained from Joahin's face. This time, the fear was of one who hadn't thought of that.

Kel moved on as Joahin remained off-balance, "Second, what is your plan for yourself, if we take this quest? Come now," and he showed teeth, "if you don't ask for protection, surely you have a plan for yourself?"

Joahin regained some of his color. "I do. My sisters will be fine. They can marry into lesser houses fairly well. We have friends among the lesser houses, and with the men of Ararat gone, so also is our house, so there is no reason to attack my sisters. As for me, I will have to disappear." He then looked back and forth between Kel and I, "We are going to discuss the quest's reward, yes? The current question feeds into that one."

Kel gestured as if to say, 'go on'.

Joahin took a deep breath, sat up and straightened his clothing, then, with another breath, took off the signet ring. He laid it on a palm and held it forward.

"As reward, I offer this. My house is ended, but we have time to gather my inheritance. Only I know where many of our riches are hidden and how to access them. What is more, my name still carries weight with those faithful to us. If you will hunt for my enemies, then you would want use of our networks, so it would be useful for me to accompany you. The ring by itself is useless. But with me, as a symbol it bears all the power yet remaining to my house."

It pleased me, to see the change he wrought on himself. At the start of thos whole ordeal, his posture had been weak where it should be hard, and hard where it should be supple.

But now, he corrected this. Much of the auseterity he had lost when he cried, he now took hold of again in full measure, only this time without the restlessness.

The change aged him well. He was still young, but the glimmer of the man he could be... well, it shone brighter now. As nobility, confidence was his brithright. With the death of his father, his inheritance had been challenged. Now he claimed it as his own.

He was rough, not incompetent.

I could work with that.

"That is what Master Ararat offers the Masters of Outside as reward for his quest," Joahin said, as in the ritual of a formal offer. "If they will hunt the enders of his house unto justice and help him live out the rest of his days, however many that may be, then as Joahin of Ararat, final master of Ararat, everything that yet remains to me I offer to you as reward."

I had expected nothing less. I would take nothing less. But this was not yet the reward I had decided to choose, up, in my office, with Kel's blessing still in my ear.

So I did not pretend to consider it.

For the first time, I altered how I held himself before the young noble. Like Kel had before me, I changed form. Eyes narrowed in sleepy disdain. I lifted a hand, resting a dark cheek upon a loose fist. The fingers of my other hand drummed on the armrest.

Scarred fingers.

Heavy fingers...

Joahin had come expecting to see a certain man. A man who by all rights should be dead, but, though greatly changed, was not. He expected to see a man lifted from the stories of old. The man who had killed ten-thousand in the vally of Gulgoll. He expected the Million Hammers. He expected Dragon's Bane and Na-Gool, the one who slaughtered the eldest of beasts.

He expected the son-in-law of an Emperor.

He expected the only man known to have killed a god.

From within myself, I unsheathed scorn, lacing my words with it with the same delicacy of a man caressing the neck of another with the tip of his blade.

"What wealth does a dead house give me?" I asked. "To a man in exile..." I gave the barest suggestion of a curled lip. "Emperor's gold is not something I can spend. What do you see here? The farmhands cannot make change for a silver piece. Shall I take your gems and your coins to the blacksmith to make a bauble for a girl? She would wear it, laugh, and set it next to the wood earings carved by her grandfather which she holds far closer to her heart than mere stones and metal...

"Yes, yes, I can spend your wealth, but only on the task you give me to earn it. And what reward is that? There is no true value in that which does not endure." This time I really did curl my lip in disdain, and it was no act.

None of it was.

I could see each word land as a blow on Joahin's back. The boy fought to not shrink into himself. His mouth worked soundlessly, as if wanting to offer defense, but having nothing.

Perhaps if he was elsewhere, calm and collected, considering our exchange from a distant space and different frame of mind, he could have thought of something. Not that I wouldnt have a retort.

Oh, I would.

But now was not a time for reasoning, for training minds. Right now, he was not out there, somewhere. He was in here, with me, pressed beneath the weight of his grief and my scars.

He was not strong enough to handle this, and for the time being, I was not training his mind, but his heart. I broke him down into something I could mold, and it was all he could do to clench at his cloak, as if to hold on, to endure...

I knew what I was doing to him. I was taking his house and his home, and holding it over a cliff. Taking everything he had, and his paperthin hope and holding it up to a flame.

There was nothing left for him, if I declined the quest.

Nothing.

And he knew it.

In my seat, I changed my stance, hard as stone, strong as leather. Forward, ever so slightly. Arms, legs, repositioning, barely an inch. Collecting power. A beast about to strike.

Speaking the approach of death without words.

Joahin broke into a sweat. His mouth no longer moved. He no longer clenched at his cloak. He had let go, completely at the mercy of my whim.

In my mind, I heard the echo of old boasts. What can a man do against BloodLetter? Who can move against he who is symbol of an Emperor's Law? I used to love that man.

Now the faintest wiff of him made me sick.

In the past, I would have embraced the sickeness. I would have used it to smear this boy like shitstains on a boot, just because it had felt good.

But there was no worth, no need, to treat him like waste. I had the boy pliable enough. Now was the time to rebuild. I opened my mouth with the hint of a smile.

"Tell me, boy, what if I asked for your mother?"

Joahin cringed even as his eyes widened in shock. So he hadn't even considered it.

It was not so strange, and I had not expected a strong response. Daughters were raised to bear the duty of marriage for political gain. Love could be cultivated. As the only male of house Ararat, Joahin had every right to require such unions, not only from his sisters, but his mother as well.

But Joahin had not offered them. He had not thought of them as part of his house.

Neither had he spoken of his mother.

Not once.

I assumed it meant she was dead. Even if not, it didn't matter to my play. Joahin had claimed to offer everything. But I needed to him to know what it meant.

A house was not furniture and gold and horses. It was people. It was the nature of rulers to trade in people. Slaves were an easy example, but they were a cheap and profane one.

What did it mean to belong as family, one to another? To have the authority to command, to make decisions over the life and death of another who was, in every respect, your equal?

What if you sent ten brothers to war, and none of them came back? What if it were your wife, your daughters? What if it was your own son?

What if, with a single speech, you lost everything?

These were the questions a ruler must face, and to offer me his brithright, Joahin must understand what he was giving.

"Come now, boy!" I spoke like an encouraching army.. "Are you not master Ararat? Is your mother not yours, even as you were hers at her tit? And what of your sisters, shall I ask for them?" I pushed him, and he buckled.

"My mother has been dead for years..."

"And your sisters? What of them? Do you not hold the ring? Are they not yours to command?"

"Yes," he whispered coarsely.

"Say it louder, man!"

"Yes!" Joahin practically yelled, reeling under the weight of his dangerous words. "Yes, they are mine to offer."

"Good. Because now I name my price. Not your sisters-"

I said that first to shock Joahin into paying more attention. His head shot up, eyes wide at the sudden breath of hope.

"-not the wealth of your house. All that is Ararat belongs to you. Joahin, you are the symbol of Ararat. You are Ararat."

I locked eyes with Joahin and made my bid.

"Joahin of Ararat, son, my reward for this quest is you."