40. Interlude

“Dear reader, as Finnius might say,

Time is a fickle beast. Memory more so. Which is why I ensured that the goblin shaman, Izzig, record this account. But often it is our most difficult moments that are the hardest to recount. All stories unfold, but not all stories are retold.

While The Watcher records all things as they happen, with alarming accuracy and acuity, I have always preferred the biased, ever flawed, accounts penned by the hands of the characters themselves. Though some might say that Izzig was a minor player in this grand tapestry of events, I would heartily disagree. The decisions he made, and will go on to make, influence all that will follow in a manner most significant.

Thus I collect and compile to make a collection of tales which is, admittedly, dwarfed—not a pun—by all the other metaworld scribes. But to my view, all the others write by compulsion and live in a way of languid passivity that I could not abide. Even here, I felt compelled to insert myself into yet another work.

And you may likely view this as a strange, unnecessary inclusion.

And, dear reader, you are very likely right.

But Izzig was due to destroy this volume in a fit of rage, so you should forgive me for leaving my mark.

Forever faithful,

The Alchemist.”

Sybille thought the world was slower, blurrier, and quieter than usual now she was led from the solid walls of the cart and onto the darkening streets of the stone city. She almost wondered if she were dreaming, because Ekkill was wearing Hjorvarth’s ruined shield and those in the back cart poured out, leaking blood and tears.

One of Ekkill’s daughters had been struck by an arrow but her father seemed not to care.

Jarl Thrand cared not at all, either. He led Ruby and Fati forward, which caused Sybille to move as well because she was holding onto both their hands.

The Bard’s Circle loomed above as a circular monument of stone, propped up by ornate columns that had been worked with carvings of stars and battles.

Sybille had the thought that the structure made those beneath it insignificant, small people that were withering and fading, that would rot or burn to ash long before this masterwork ever collapsed.

She thought she could hear Atsurr shouting in the distance, and was surprised to see him standing beside her. Grey guards waited at either side of the paved approach to the Bard’s House.

They stood together and brandished spears towards men and women that looked displeased with the inconvenience.

Sybille was glad that they would walk straight through because the entrance ahead glowed with the warmth and light of torches and braziers and she realized, shivering, that she was quite cold. “I’m hungry, as well.”

“I’ll find you something to eat,” Fati assured in a loud whisper.

Sybille squinted as they crossed into a wider chamber of stone, populated by disgruntled folk in fanciful clothes that were now being pushed aside by guards in mundane armour.

She swept her gaze about, searching for something, or anyone she recognized, but there was no one. She could smell food, and soon had warm bread in her hands.

Sybille sat down in a secluded place, separated by a purple curtain, and she ate.

She hadn’t noticed the furor of nose until she was free of it and now the world felt eerily silent. She was terribly sad of something, something that made her eyes well and her lips tremble, but she couldn’t place it.

She had the sudden urge to search for her brothers when Fati swept in through the curtains only then she realised that it was another man dressed in black. A man with one arm and a gaunt face. “Have you come to kill me?”

The man seemed to her the words at delay and then suffer devastation. “Of course not, Syb’. I shouldn’t be here but I saw you in the streets and you looked terribly unwell. Where is Gudmund? I need to warn him. I need to find him.”

“He is dead… along with my brothers. Along with everyone.”

“Dead?” The man shook his head. “No… no, I would have heard of it.” He reached out, but hesitated. “I have to go. Stay safe, sister. I doubt we will meet again. If you see Geirmund, do not trust him. Do not even let him get close. Do you understand me? And ware of men in robes. Or anyone that covers their face.”

Sybille took a long while to understand his words, and by the time she understood them her young brother was gone.

A new black clad man arrived, and this time it was Fati. “Did a cripple come in here?”

“No.”

“Have you ate your food? Are you feeling better?”

“I am,” Sybille evenly replied. “My father has not been found?”

“No search has been made for him,” Fati said. “I do not believe he is dead. I do believe that he is involved in a plot to murder Jarl Thrand. But the reason I am alive while the other counselors are dead is because I do not care enough to stop it. So either I applaud you for your acting, Sybille, or I hope I have—for the moment, at least—alleviated your grief. Though I would still prepare yourself for his passing and for your own imprisonment. Jarl Thrand has seen off stauncher foes and more cunning assassins than the likes of Gudmund.”

“Perhaps he has,” Sybille admitted. “But if my father fails then I can always stab Thrand in the throat.”

“Be wary of the woman, Ruby, then. And of the blade that the old Jarl hides in his cane.” Fati shrugged, offering his hand. “Come. I’ve been instructed to take you to your seat on the balcony. I myself am no longer to be counted among trusted company, so Atsurr will hold the main burden of thwarting attempts on Thrand’s life.”

***

Sybille had been led by the hand through wide stone halls that were clogged with crowds of people, some sweaty, some perfumed, all of them noisy.

She had been blessed with a semblance of quiet when she crossed by the wall of guards that blocked off a small section of the Bard’s Circle.

Sybille had crossed into a small room, furnished by chairs of green leather, led through a corridor, then up two stairs and through a modest kitchen before she arrived at a wide chamber where dozens of guards lounged in stone seats, while they laughed and joked and were served ale and wine by a pair of buxom green-dressed women.

The hall extended ahead of her, and opened to the balcony on the right.

“This is as far as I go,” Fati said. “There is a place for pissing at the end of the hall, and the balcony, obviously, is to your right.” His smile was almost kind and almost regretful. “I’m sure Atsurr will accost you when you reach the precipice. Joyto’s Luck,” he added.

Sybille watched him go then regarded the guards who now stared at her. She frowned at them and then turned to the balcony. Atsurr marched up to meet her before she made a second step. He grabbed at her with gauntleted hands and pressed down around her dress to check for weapons. “Take a seat,” he instructed. “On Jarl Thrand’s left, if you please.”

Sybille nodded, smoothed her red dress, and walked over to take a seat.

Jarl Thrand and Ruby pretended to appear rapt with the performance on the grand stage below but they still managed a suspicious glance. She counted a score of chairs arrayed on the balcony in all, which meant that seventeen were left vacant.

As she sat down beside the old man, the thought of the surrounding empty seats sent a chill up her back. She pictured, briefly, all those she had lost the seasons past around her. Grettir grinning despite being uneasy at any formal gathering. Geirmund reposed, and quite at home. Ralf and Eirik doing their best not to draw any attention.

The red-haired giant, Ragi, who would struggle to fit in the ornate seats. He had been kind, and brave. She wondered if he would have still wanted her hand had he survived the war. And Agnar, if he could be here, wouldn’t be.

He had skipped so many feasts and gatherings. And now, it seemed, he was skipping another. Her brother hadn’t died. Unless she’d imagined that. But it wasn’t like before when she was hurt. He had seemed real this time. Older and haunted. But entirely alive.

“Glad you could join us,” Jarl Thrand eventually rasped. “I assume you’re feeling better?”

“I am.”

“That’s good news, then,” Ruby said.

Sybille could not see her, only the cruel eyes and withered cheeks of Jarl Thrand. “I suppose it is.”

She looked down on the scene below, where hundreds of stone benches curved around in rising tiers that faced the main stage, which was draped in colourful curtains and painted ornamentation that belied the cold stone of the timeless structure.

“There aren’t many people here,” Sybille mentioned.

“The opening performances are ran by amateurs,” Thrand explained. “Most will arrive later, when they are drunk or robbed of sense from substance. So that they can eschew watching or listening in earnest and still make claim to possessing some semblance of learnedness or culture.”

“I see.” Sybille nodded. “And are we not worried about the Crooked Teeth?”

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Why would we be?” the old Jarl snapped. “I have no fear of them. I am in plain view. If they wish to walk in here with a bow then I will sit and watch as they take aim from beneath my feet.”

“Perhaps the arrow would fly high enough to win your consideration.”

Jarl Thrand answered that with a scowl. “Be quiet, and watch the performance.”

“And what is it?” Sybille asked.

“A new thing,” Thrand replied with obvious distaste. “Made by some young fool that thinks he knows better than to imitate the old masters. Yet they were masters for a reason, and this… story of his is a joke.”

“I don’t know,” Ruby said, “I quite like it.”

***

The Bard’s Circle had filled out so that there were few seats spared below and the air was filled with a steady clamour of mirth, charged conversations, shouting matches, and uproarious laughter.

Sybille’s stomach struggled with the cloying mix of perfume and sweat, wine and ale, greasy meats and pungent cheeses, and other less savory thing things that all folk made regardless of their social standing.

The old story had ended and now the stage lay unattended.

Sybille hadn’t followed it. She didn’t really understand why it was that the same people were changing clothes or why they had young men playing as women, or handsome men made up to look like ugly men. She thought it would be simpler to invite the drunken onlookers up onto the stage, and let them act out their natural parts.

Lanterns, those that burned untended along the curved walls of the Bard’s Circle dimmed, brightened, then did the same twice more. Those seated seemed to take that as a sign to quiet down, though only by a small measure.

“Finally,” Jarl Thrand muttered. “I wish for this night to be over.”

“I think it is unwise to wish for anything,” Sybille said.

“You almost said that as if I should care what you think.”

“As did you.”

“Now, now,” Ruby chided. “Stop snapping at one another. I’m trying to watch.”

Sybille blinked and the light faded to leave the place almost in darkness, save for more balconies that were lit, as hers was, by the muted flames of covered lanterns. She almost thought those that sat high up were part of some grand conspiracy.

They could see everyone and everything, while those below could only see what they were meant to see, what they were supposed to see. Perhaps, she decided, noting wrestling of all kinds in the shadows, it was better not to see anything at all.

Flames bathed the stage in anticipation of an arrival. A graceful man with golden hair strode out onto the stage, his warm smile at contrast with shadows and cold stone. Sybille had never seen a man so beautiful, but no part of her considered him to be good company to keep. She felt only vicious revilement and terrible sorrow.

The golden haired man cleared his throat. “Good evening, to you all. I regret to inform you that tonight’s performance has been canceled. The original actors were bound and replaced by members of the Crooked Teeth, whom are no longer in the waking life.” He raised his hands to stop alarm and protest. “Have no fear, have no fear,” she loudly announced. “They are already taken care of, and you are all safe in this place. I even have a story if you’d like to hear it… alas it might lack the lyricism and costumes and pomposity that you expected on arrival… but for some it may suit.”

“Atsurr,” Jarl Thrand snapped. “What is happening?”

“It is the story of the sons of Weskin,” continued the golden haired man. “One son, in particular, Gudmund son of Geirulf, who was born as the middle son to a middle son. I expect you all know his younger brother, Brolli the Black of the Black Hands who now rests within the cold waters of Horvorr’s Great Lake. But what you may not know is that Brolli and Gudmund killed their older brother in his sleep. It was by that act that all things began, that this city is under threat from the Low King, who was able to conquer the lands of Weskin after making a sordid deal with Jarl Thrand.”

The man took a breath. “But now that deal is broken. Now Gudmund is in this city for revenge. Now the Low King is one day away with an army that numbers over two thousand and he has come to topple the pretender Jarl of Timilir. Mark my words, Jarl Thrand dies tonight. The Low King marches for the stone city. And, for those who do not wish to hide within the stone walls of their shadowed homes, I will tell you how all these things came to be… beginning with how the forefathers of Jarl Thrand betrayed the true rulers of the stone city, of how he stole this place from the venerable ancestors of the Landing. For what kind of people, other than callous thieves, could take the sigil of the World Worm Ouro?” He smiled up at the balcony where Sybille sat. “Take peace in the knowledge that Jarl Thrand will have choked on his own tail by the time dawn rises.”

“It is time to leave,” Atsurr grated. “If no guards have moved to attack him then there are none left.” He helped Jarl Thrand up and the two women rose on their own. They each stopped dead when they came to the adjoining room.

The guards lay sprawled across the floor and on their seats, while the two women were long gone. There were a few puddles of vomit but no blood to be seen.

Atsurr drew sword and turned to footsteps at their right.

“Captain?” the arriving guard asked in an old voice that Sybille almost recognized. “Lady below… what happened? I swear by Broknar, I was only gone for a moment.”

“It’s poison,” Sybille said. “Are you all so simple?”

Atsurr nodded to the guard. “Call for the men at the carriage. We will wait here for your return.”

The guard hurried off, stumbling on a fallen man, then righted himself and disappeared into the kitchen.

Jarl Thrand began laughing. “To believe I thought you could protect me, Atsurr. And all your men have been brought down by a pair of serving women. I suppose it is a lucky thing that you do not drink, isn’t it?”

“These men may yet recover,” Atsurr said.

“No.” Ruby lay over a pallid man with purple lips. “They’re all dead.”

“In any case,” Atsurr said. “We have another way out and there are carriages waiting. And as to you, Ruby, I’ll need you to stand near Sybille. We know well enough you’re working with the Crooked Teeth.”

Ruby’s eyes widened and she reached for a dead man’s dagger. “I am—”

Atsurr kicked her so hard, sending her head bouncing into the stone wall, that Sybille thought she might be dead. Blood pooled from Ruby’s brow and she groaned on the floor among the silent guards.

Jarl Thrand’s laughter grew both desperate and manic.

Atsurr moved to face his old master. “This was a considerable mistake but not one that will undo us. In all likelihood the carriage is safe.” He paused. “We should still leave by the back way… the last guard is likely now as dead as the others.”

The rattle of an armoured man sounded at a distance, soon followed by panting breaths.

Atsurr stepped forward to block the corridor with a drawn sword. “Halt.”

“It’s me,” said the same old voice as before. “The carriage was there… all fine. They’re sending men up. But they gave me the old signal word and there were men there I didn’t recognize. In armour that didn’t fit them.”

“He saw all—” Ruby murmured from the ground.

“Do you wish to die?” Atsurr growled, kicking her in the stomach. He turned back to the guard. “We will leave through the tunnel.”

Sybille helped Ruby walk and they both followed Atsurr and Jarl Thrand down the short corridor and into a square room with a wash bucket and a stone seat with a hole. She wondered for a moment if they meant for her to climb down through the seat but then stone clicked and the wall grated inward to reveal a darkened staircase.

“You lead,” Atsurr said to the guard. “I will close it behind us.”

Sybille crept forward into musty shadows, mindful of treacherous steps. She struggled to keep Ruby upright while the pair made an awkward descent of the spiraling stairs.

The door groaned to a close and left them all in darkness for the long trudge downward. Ruby murmured warnings, Jarl Thrand shouted in anger, and the two old guards spoke in worried tones about their dire situation. By the end, only the armoured men appeared any happier when they finished the climb.

The stairs opened out to a dark night that stank of refuse and rotting food, and they each stepped out from under the looming walls of the Bard’s Circle.

A small black carriage, led by a single oxen and guarded by ten men, waited near a broken stone bridge. Both of the guards drew sword when the group approached.

“Have you all made your prayers?” Atsurr asked loudly.

The carriage guards seemed to startled at the question but then one of them stepped forward. “To Ilma and Luna both.” He frowned as the group approached the bridge. “What’s happening here, then, captain? I’ve heard some fighting in the streets—”

“Put these women inside the carriage, and have them bound,” Atsurr growled. “It is time for Jarl Thrand to leave. We are to return to the Estate at all haste.”

***

Jarl Thrand sat without humour or patience in his carriage while it rattled along the stone streets of Timilir. He had watched one young woman make a vein effort to bandage the head of the other. He had waited for his death to come, for all their deaths to come, but no such arrival was heralded.

Atsurr had already made the slowest possible approach to the gate. He had checked the men’s faces, and asked question after question only to find that they were who they claimed to be and that that all had been quiet at the Estate.

Jarl Thrand might have almost been happy were it not for the embarrassment, were it not for the waste. The carriage ground to a final halt behind the closing, and he rose with muted irritation and stepped out into the cool night. “Home safe, then?”

“I do not believe that to be the case,” Atsurr spoke in all severity. “I know your trust in me is shaken. But I will ask you now to spend the night in the safe room until the other carriages have returned, and I have ensured the loyalty and identity of all those with us.”

“Very well,” Thrand answered, not bothered where he slept for the night. He simply wished to be alone. “Have someone see to Ruby and then have both the women imprisoned. When the guards are recovered, ready as many as you can for a dawn raid on the north quarters, then the south quarters, then the slums. I wish to see an end to the Gem Cutters, and the Black Hands, and the Crooked Teeth. Offer a sum of gold for whomever turns in their leaders or offers information of use, and offer a smaller sum for any members that are given to us dead or alive.” He paused. “Understood, Atsurr?”

“Yes.”

“Once that is done, have Luta and Thrand returned to the estate,” the old Jarl instructed. “Have the word spread that Gudmund died fighting the Crooked Teeth and that his daughter is still to marry my son. And please ensure that the speaker who disparaged me at the Bard’s Circle is killed.” He paused. “Also… send scouts to verify the falsity of his claims regarding an approaching army of the Low King.”

“I will have it all done,” Atsurr assured. “If you come with me, I will arrange loyal guards to watch over you.”

Jarl Thrand idly nodded. He obliged other requests without little thought or argument. He watched, with some satisfaction, while Ruby and Luta were trapped like caged birds. And then he followed Atsurr down the long halls of his marbled halls until they came to a wall that by all appearances seemed solid.

A brick clicked and it opened to a modest room with rich furnishings.

Jarl Thrand smiled at the cushioned bed and decided he would be glad of a long sleep. “The guards can wait outside, Atsurr. I do not trust them and I do not want them keeping me awake. If Gudmund returns to the Estate while I’m sleeping, have him killed and say he expired from his wounds on arrival. A hero’s death.”

Atsurr grunted. “Do you wish for food to be brought?”

“In the morning.” Jarl Thrand didn’t bother to look at his protector. “Make sure that Sybille does not escape or take her own life. I will try to reassure her that she may still have some semblance of a life left ahead of her.”

“Yes, my Jarl,” said Atsurr. “I will check in on you when I can.”

Jarl Thrand wanted to protest but stepped forward instead. The door closed behind him and he rebelled in the silence and darkness. He was safe in a room with no doors or windows, no friends or enemies. He was alone. He could sleep without worrying that some emergency would wake him or that some coward would cut his throat. He did not bother to take off his clothes. He simply ambled over to the bed and collapsed.

Jarl Thrand was not aware of falling asleep, but he woke with a groggy mind all the same. He could hear hushed whispers, soft footsteps.

He opened his tired eyes to a burning torch. “Atsurr?”

“You’ll need to shout louder than that, friend.”

Jarl Thrand’s stomach sank when he saw the smiling smudge-cheeked man.