Chapter 22: All Dressed Up And Nowhere To Go

Landar

Voices spoke in the dark swirl that was my consciousness. The wolf had gone dormant. Her rage exhausted, along with my own. The scenes from the fight, the mad dash up the stairs, and finally my magical gadgets inversion filled my nightmares.

I came to a simple conclusion. I really did need to test my stuff before I tried to use it.

Eventually I woke up with my eyes closed, in a comfortable bed. I could hear the breathing of half a dozen people, and felt the cords that tied my hands and feet together were magically reinforced.

I wasn’t going anywhere.

The door opened, and a man breathing heavily who had clearly been running entered the room.

“Your grace, I am here.”

“Good. Sigvold, what can you tell me about this ax?”

“I was told there was an attack. Are you alright, your grace?”

“Yes yes, I'm fine. No one was seriously hurt, and everyone is alive. Now tell me about the ax, please. Then we can get to all the melodrama of the young.”

“Oh, um. Alright. Let me see. These are some finely crafted runes. Dwarven work to be sure. Not quite master level, but close. Fit for a human hand, given there are slots on the handle for four fingers. Dwarves only have three and a thumb, and they’d be a thicker handle if it were meant for dwarven use. Rune formations for speed, strength, mana holding, and look here. These gems along the central shaft near where the ax head is? Those are mana storage. Rare and expensive.”

He contemplated the battle ax I had been given years ago some more before speaking. “The haft itself is made from the bone of something. Some monster, or as our new friends might call them ‘spirit beasts’ were used. It looks like the creature was in the process of evolving when it was harvested. It hadn’t yet made it to the next level, or stage. Maybe level two or three. Or Iron, or low steel stage as our easterner friends might say.”

“Thank you. Is that all you can say about it?” Mortimer asked.

“Are you looking for me to answer a specific quandary, your grace?”

“Yes. But I want to see if you can figure it out first.” Duke Mortimer sounded smug, as if he had found a puzzle he was sure his friend could solve.

“I take it this has something to do with the tied up young man on the bed over there pretending to be asleep?”

Damn it Sigvold, I thought as several bodies shifted their attention back towards me.

“I think this was made for his hand specifically. But I can’t be sure without more in depth tests.”

“Hmmm. That just adds to the mystery. Who are you kid, that dwarves would make something that special for you?” Mortimer’s voice trailed off for a moment. “Hey, I asked you a question. Who are you kid?”

I sighed, and sat up. My hands and feet were tied together, so it took some effort to get to where I could see the duke. “My name is unimportant.”

“No it's not. Look kid, I'm the guy in charge around here. What I say goes. Usually. Unless Sigvold is involved. Guy likes to think he can boss me around sometimes.”

“That is not true, your grace. Only in the heat of battle, and only because I am standing at an advantageous position to call out danger. I am not trying to tell you -”

Mortimer waived it off. “Yeah yeah. My point is, I'm in charge. So just scan the kid. I’m already getting bored.”

“As you wish, your grace.” I felt an immense presence wash over me, examining every inch of my body, mana channels, pool, cores, and chie lines. And he wasn’t gentle. Anywhere I tried to even instinctively withdraw or reflexively reacted by pulling away he pinned me down until he saw all of me.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

When he was done, the room fell silent.

“Hello Sigvold.” I said, and I couldn’t help but give the man a sad smile.

“You know this kid? Sig, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. Or, like, something worse than a ghost because I've seen you see a ghost and you didn’t react nearly as poorly. What the hell is going on?” Mortimer demanded and for a moment as he glared at me I thought he might try to scan me himself.

That would have been like a mountain rolling over and crushing a twig. Even if he was trying to be gentle, I doubted I'd leave the experience without some kind of scarring.

When Sigvold spoke his voice was soft. His face had already gone pale. Well, paler than usual. “Your grace, you know that child I told you about? The one who Mother Margaret, and Captain Gaudhaus fought Militant Commander Tavis to protect during the coup attempt?”

“Yeah, there was a lot of cleaning up and hurt feelings that needed to be soothed after that nonsense. The kid disappeared though, if I remember right. Why is this him?”

“Yes. Yes, this . . . this is Landar.”

“Oh good. Maybe mother Margaret can stop giving me the death glare every time she has to work with Tavis now. That’d be nice.”

“That bastard kidnapped my sister.” I couldn't help but say the words. My rage had returned upon hearing his name. “And probably killed Roland, her fiance in the Gray. And my father is a drunk now. Tavis deserves to die.” I glared at the girl who had wrestled me to the ground. She was shooting daggers at me from one of the room's corners. “And you stopped me from doing it.”

The room grew tense as the woman who was clearly the girl's mother turned her full attention on me. She was powerful in her own right, and I felt a trickle of fear run down my spine as she glared.

“You will be silent, feral child. Or I will end your existence.”

“Woah now.” Mortimer interjected, and I felt the creeping terror recede slightly. “There's a lot of stuff you don’t know that’s going on here. This is actually kind of a happy moment. At least for me. I get to be the good guy for once.”

I turned my glare at the duke. “What? How is this happy? You're going to execute me, before I can even kill that bastard Tavis!” I felt my mouth closed firmly shut by magical hands, as Mortimer sighed.

“First off, stop calling Tavis a bastard. He’s actually a good person. Even if he is a stiff, who never lets me get away with cheating at cards. Second, you’ve been missing for what? Five years?” He looked at Sigvold who nodded in agreement.

“Five years. You don’t know anything about anything. So stop pretending like you’re on some moral quest for vengeance here. You're still a baby in my eyes, and I'm not having a kid executed because he got a bit rambunctious. But I will break your jaw if you keep up with the insults, and let it heal naturally. Trust me, that’s not a lesson you want to learn.”

He rubbed his own jaw absently as if he had learned it once himself.

“Now, what was this nonsense about Tavis kidnapping your sister, and marrying her or something? You’re saying that Tabira is your sister?” He looked at Sigvold. “I thought she was an only child. Wasn’t his sister that Tabitha, the girl who the blue dorks keep ranting and raving about, and Margaret is still sore at losing to them?”

Sigvold nodded. “I believe there is some deep confusion here, your grace.”

“Yeah, it sounds like it. If I remember right . . . yeah. All this stuff is coming back to me like a bad nightmare. Wasn’t this one of those ‘blessed spirit’ people that the clergy is always on about?”

Sigvold nodded. “That was part of our suspicion. Yes, your grace. One of the many reasons his loss was tragic. I suspected him of being a soul gifted to us from the Gods.”

“Right.” The Duke narrowed his eyes at me as if staring into my soul. “Yeah, I can feel it. There’s something off about him. Even now. It's like, there's too much . . . him. Shoved into his soul.” He then glanced at the girl who had tackled me, and her mother stiffened. “You know, I sensed something was off when you two were wrestling around. You’re one of those too, aren’t you?”

The girl froze like a deer in headlamps.

“Well that reaction alone tells me I was right. Yeah alright. Both of you. I want your memories looked into. It's standard practice for anyone who's seen another world. We need to make sure you’re not being mind controlled, possessed, or that there’s some other extra planer nonsense going on to make you a threat. The fact the Gods let this crap happen so often is why they’re all a bunch of—”

“Your grace.” Sigvold glared at the Duke, who sighed.

“Fine. I’ll stop committing blasphemy. But only because you’re my friend. She gets scanned too.”

The girl's mother began to protest but she put a hand on her elbow. “I’m happy to submit, mother. I’ll be alright. I am no threat to any but our enemies.”

“Tell me my lady, has your daughter ever experienced severe, unexplained fevers that lead to a noticeable change in her personality or memory?” Sigvold asked, his voice kind. “If so that is a common sign that she has been given a gift from the Gods. But a child's mind is not always equipped to handle such things. This is why we do these scans.”

The woman looked uncomfortable for a moment and she hesitated to answer. Finally, her daughter spoke. “Yes. This happened. But my memory of that time is weak.” She looked to her mother, and the woman finally relented.

“Five years ago she suffered major fevers. Mana poisoning. It was my and her fathers fault, he had pushed her in her cultivation but delayed her training with mana control. Until it got too late. She nearly died. Her mind and memories of that time and before might be muddled. Take that into account, and do not see it as a threat. She has shown no signs of any illness of the mind or abnormal danger to her kin or clan.”

There was an implicit threat under that woman's words. One I somehow knew she earnestly thought she could back up.

“Good. Sigvold, you’re up. Get that tiara thing, and whoever else you need. Get this done so we can move on from all this melodrama.” He winked at the girl's mother. “At our age, I suspect you have as little patience for it as I do.”

The tension eased in the room, as the foreign woman returned his smile. “Yes, your grace. Very little patience for it. I am confident my Sakura will pass this test. Might I sit in with her?”

“Would that be a problem Sigvold?”

“No, it shouldn't be an issue. I’ll find someone suitable to meld with her memories and we’ll have it finished. Let me assure you my lady, this is all very routine. We only wish to be assured that whatever fever dreams or visions the Gods have sent these children, whatever blessings they have bestowed are just that. Blessings. And if there needs to be healing done to the mind, that it is done in good order.”

“I see,” her stance eased, and the tension fled like the night before the sun.

“As for you,” Sigvold stared at me. “We have a lot to catch up on. Trust me when I say, there is much you do not know.”

I couldn’t force myself to speak. The terror the woman had inspired, followed by the Duke's seeming nonchalant attitude about everything had scared my voice away. So I nodded, and the tension in Sigvolds shoulders eased.

“So let it be decreed.” Mortimer put a hand on Sigvolds shoulder. “Fix all this stuff, because honestly? I don’t have the patience for it anymore. If this kicks up another civil war in my city I might just have everyone's heads, rather than sort through whose guilty and not.” The way he said it sent fresh shivers down my spine, and cold sweat sprang to life all across my body. He locked eyes with me for a moment, before returning his gaze to the High Priest of the Grey Priesthood. “Understood?”

Sigvold nodded.

“Perfect! Now, I leave you all. I have a tower climb to prepare for.”