Son of a Liche

by J. Zachary Pike

  The weaponsmaster’s eyes conveyed sufficient smugness without the benefit of spoken words.

  “Yes, fine. You win again,” said Heraldin, moving the thrones pieces back into place.

  The weaponsmaster tapped the table and nodded at the surrounding space. The tavern’s common room had emptied by this hour, and even the barkeep had shuffled off to bed. The only other occupant of the room was a wrinkled Slaugh, pushing a mop along with short hops.

  “I know the hour is late,” said the bard. “But stay for one more game, my friend. I want to show you something.”

  Gaist shrugged and set up his own pieces.

  Heraldin started the game with the Northerner’s Gambit, a well-known opener from the Edaelmon school. Gaist countered with the Lion’s Ruse, regarded as one of the best counters to any number of openers. The game of thrones continued in a familiar way, following patterns they’d played through many times.

  Then Heraldin moved his king into the path of Gaist’s queen. The stoic man smirked a little as he took the bard’s piece.

  Heraldin shrugged as he swapped the fallen king with one of his paladins still on the board. The bard had often surmised that the mechanic of allowing a king to be “succeeded” by another piece of sufficient rank was why the game was called “thrones” and not “throne.”

  With his new king in place, Heraldin immediately moved it into range of Gaist’s knight.

  Gaist scowled at the board. His eyes darted back and forth over the pieces, clearly searching for a ruse. Seeing none, he cautiously took the bard’s king again.

  Heraldin promoted his last paladin and immediately charged it into danger.

  Now Gaist was glaring at him, annoyance flashing in his dark eyes.

  “Is something wrong?” the bard asked innocently.

  The huge man pointed a finger at the king.

  “Yes? What?”

  The weaponsmaster narrowed his eyes at the bard.

  “Are you implying that I’ve given up?” said Heraldin with mock indignation.

  Gaist nodded once.

  “That I’m throwing everything away too early? That I’ve abandoned the good possibilities in exchange for a foolish sacrifice?” Heraldin pressed.

  Gaist was still staring at the bard through slits.

  “Yes, now you see my point,” said the bard. “But will you remember it this time? I don’t want you to die for me. And if this Iheen the Red was worth half the loyalty you’ve shown him, he wouldn’t want for you to die for him, either. We want you to live, my friend. And if you want to honor him, or to help me, you must want to live as well.”

  Gaist sat motionless, but Heraldin had learned to look closer. There was a barely perceptible tightening around the mouth beneath the weaponsmaster’s crimson scarf. A tensing of the muscles around the eyes that brought the doppelganger’s harsh stare closer to an introspective squint. A faint motion, more of a hint of a nod than an actual affirmation.

  It wasn’t much, but Heraldin smiled anyway as he picked up the pieces. It was the answer he had expected.

  “No response?” Gorm trundled down the path on the gravelly slopes.

  Kaitha turned to him as he approached, a small and weary smile on her face. The patchwork farmlands west of Andarun spread out behind her for as far as the eye could see. Dawn’s light was creeping around the edges of the landscape, but Mount Wynspar still shadowed much of the view.

  “None,” Kaitha said, turning back to look out over the farmland.

  “How long have ye been out here?” he asked, sitting down beside her.

  The Elf rubbed at the bags beneath her eyes. “A few hours before dawn. I thought he might come when it’s dark.”

  “I see ye’ve set out the customary offering for the King in the Wood.” Gorm pointed at a rock a short distance away, topped with purple trinkets piled on a lavender handkerchief.

  Kaitha shrugged. “I just wanted him to know… to see why I’m out here.”

  “Makes sense,” said Gorm.

  For a time, they sat and watched the sunlight draw long shadows over the land.

  Gorm scratched his beard thoughtfully. “Ye know that if we had any idea where he is…”

  “We don’t,” said Kaitha in a small voice.

  “All I’m sayin’ is if we did—”

  “I’ve searched everywhere. We’ve asked everyone.” The Elf shook her head. “I can’t find any sign of him. And if we’re going to stop Detarr, we can’t wait for him.”

  “I know,” said Gorm.

  They continued to watch the amber sunlight creep over the gold and green fields of early spring.

  “We’re bound to find signs of Thane at some point, and ye can be sure that when we do, we’ll go after him as fast as we can. And when we find him, ye can… er, can… uh, ye know…”

  “I really don’t know.” The Elf shook her head with a bitter laugh. “I mean, I had all these dreams of what it would be like when I met the King in the Wood, but they were… I mean, he was different in them, obviously. A Troll? I don’t know what you would… I mean, how can you relate? How would that work?”

  Gorm just shook his head and tried very hard not to think about it.

  “But I don’t know that it couldn’t, either,” Kaitha added. “We had a real connection. I could feel it, Gorm. I could feel him.”

  “I know. We all saw it.” Gorm suppressed a shudder.

  “Besides, most men I’ve encountered buy you a drink and some cheap food and they expect you to… you know.”

  “Say no more,” said Gorm, and meant it.

  “But Thane… I mean, he left his home for me. He saved us more times than I can count. And he’s never asked for anything. You look your whole life for someone that devoted, and that’s saying something for my people. So when the chance at… whatever this could be comes along, I have to take it. But instead, I shot him in the face. Now I just… I can’t…”

  “Not exactly how ye want to leave things with him,” said Gorm.

  “Yeah.” Kaitha’s hands balled into fists. “Or start things with him.”

  “I put my axe in his face a couple of times when we first met, and we still became fast friends,” he said.

  “That’s nothing,” said Kaitha. “Thane followed me from the shadows for months, and I was a fool who fancied him some sort of ancient king. And then he saved me from wandering in the wilderness while in withdrawal, brought me back to the party, and killed an assassin who wanted to slit my throat. And to thank him, I put an arrow through his eye.”

  “It is quite a bit of history to get past, when you put it like that,” Gorm acknowledged.

  Kaitha smirked and wiped her eyes. “It’s hard to imagine a more dysfunctional relationship.”

  Gorm looked back over his shoulder at the tiny inn sitting in Mount Wynspar’s shadow by the side of the Tarapin River. “Oh, not too hard,” he said.

  Laruna wasn’t glaring at Jynn.

  He knew that she wasn’t, because she had been avoiding looking at him for three days now. She looked past him, spoke over him, undermined him, and found myriad other ways to circumnavigate their relationship without crossing his path. Her frosty silence reminded him of when they first met, he noted wistfully.

  Yet, Laruna’s demeanor was a bit different now. She was definitely not glaring at him, per se, but she was leveling a burning stare at the air just over his left shoulder, as though menacing the rafters behind him. “There isn’t another table,” she remarked to no one in particular, and gestured at the tiny common room of the tavern.

  The River Otter was an unusual establishment, set on the edge of a small hamlet just outside the Riverdowns. By most standards it wasn’t an inn at all—the bedrooms were scattered throughout the working farm behind the tavern. For a fee, heroes and mercenaries could bed down in an old barn, find a quiet corner of the loft, roost with the chickens, or rent a private tool shed. It was far from luxurious, but for a certain patronage, secrecy was the only important amen
ity, and the Otter offered that in spades. The differences between a night at the Otter and a night sneaking into a farmer’s loft were discretion and a surprisingly hefty bill slipped under the doorway.

  “I’m aware.” Jynn set his breakfast of bread and cheese down at the edge of the table, next to Burt. “That’s why I’m sitting at this one.”

  “I think it would be polite to let others finish eating before disrupting their meal,” Laruna insisted to the ceiling.

  “And I think it ridiculous,” said Jynn, “that you cannot eat with an omnimancer. But that is your own concern. I won’t be bothered by it.”

  “It isn’t that!” she hissed. The solamancer’s flash of anger melted her resolve not to make eye contact, and she stared at him with eyes like embers. “I just have a problem eating with liars!”

  “You’re eating with Heraldin,” Jynn said.

  “Leave the bard out of this,” Laruna snapped.

  “No, no,” said Heraldin through a mouthful of eggs. “That’s a fair point.”

  “I meant bigger lies than that,” said Laruna. She shifted her eyes back to the rafters. “Lies about who you truly are.”

  “We’re here with a doppelganger,” said Jynn. “No offense.”

  Gaist shrugged.

  “I don’t want to be near your kind of sniveling mongrel!” Laruna sputtered at the ceiling.

  Burt pointed a claw at Jynn. “Let me stop you before you go there.”

  “I wasn’t going there.” The omnimancer put his hands in the air.

  “You’re thrice-cursed right you weren’t.” Burt snorted and turned back to his breakfast.

  “Didn’t the wizard save your life?” Heraldin asked the mage.

  “And I… appreciate that,” said Laruna carefully. “But the fact remains that he wouldn’t have needed to if he had been honest about what he was. How much different could the fight with Detarr have been with an omnimancer wielding the staff?”

  Jynn shrugged off the accusation. “My entire life is a series of events that could have been great if they went another way. What if Mother didn’t die? What if Father’s research had been successful? What if my marriage to Marja had kept Father alive? What if the Al’Matrans never recruited me? What if you and I had done things differently?”

  He dismissed these alternative realities with a wave of his hand. “We could spend an age wondering about the things that could have been. None of them will be. It’s best to set such feelings aside and focus on the work at hand.”

  The solamancer finally looked at him again, albeit with the same face she might have used if he had grown a tentacle from his ear. “You really can dismiss your feelings that easily, can’t you?”

  “I already have,” said Jynn. “There is a job to be done.”

  “Then you and I are just, what? Colleagues?”

  “Professional acquaintances, if you prefer.”

  The heat and fury seemed to drain out of the solamancer’s face, leaving a small, tight smile. “As you’d have it,” she said coldly. “I’ll take my breakfast outside, if none of you mind.”

  Jynn watched her go for a moment before he realized that the other occupants of the table were staring at him. “What?” he asked.

  Heraldin and Gaist shared a sidelong glance. “Nothing,” said the bard.

  “The bard may be dressed like a fool, but you play the part better,” said Burt.

  Gaist nodded.

  “Don’t encourage him,” the bard told the weaponsmaster.

  “I thought Laruna and I resolved things rather well,” Jynn said.

  “Yeah, like lantern oil resolves a fire,” grumbled Burt.

  “It could have been worse,” said Jynn.

  “Not without getting violent,” the Kobold shot back.

  “And there’s still plenty of time for that before we ride out,” said Heraldin. “I don’t want to be here if she comes back.”

  “Yeah, come on,” said Burt, hopping to his feet. “Gorm and Kaitha should be back soon.”

  Jynn mulled over his encounter with the solamancer as the other adventurers filed out of the tavern. In retrospect, he surmised that Laruna had likely ended the conversation more upset than she started. A part of him wished that he had said things differently. Better.

  The wizard set those dreams aside in the box in his mind where he stored all such regrets. It was, he reflected, a very large box. Then he tossed his most recent speck of remorse in as well, closed the mental lid, and turned his thoughts to the day ahead of them. There was much work to do.

  “For starters, they should tear this place down,” Gorm glowered.

  “That’s harsh,” said Kaitha.

  Gorm nodded at the crumbling exterior of the Dwarven Embassy. “It’s just hard to see the ancestral kingdoms reduced to… to this.”

  The Old Kingdoms’ delegation had set up their embassy in the remnants of a Dwarven jeweler’s shop, moldering in the shadow of the Ridge on the fifth tier. Bleached and weathered wood was nailed over the display windows, and tattered banners hung from the second story windows. There was little indication that it was the embassy at all, save for a small sign and a pair of Dwarven guards standing stoically at the door.

  “It does look, ah, a bit modest,” said Kaitha.

  “More like it has low self-esteem,” said Laruna.

  “It’s a thrice-cursed disgrace is what it is,” said Gorm as the three heroes walked toward the decrepit building.

  The well-armed Dwarves eyed Gorm and his two companions as they approached. The older of the pair, a warrior with a snowy beard spilling from beneath his full helm, pointed at Gorm and made a sound like he was struggling to swallow an enraged owlverine.

  “Was that Dwarven?” Laruna whispered.

  “Far as I can tell. He’s got quite an accent,” said Gorm. He waved a hand to hail the guards. “Ho, there!”

  The younger guard was a stout lad with thick braids in his beard and a thicker brogue in his speech. “What business do ye have wid’ der seat of Khadan’Alt?”

  Gorm stepped squarely in front of the two guards. “I’m seekin’ an audience with His Majesty to discuss matters of import.”

  “Ye have a writ of royal invite, do ye?” said the guard.

  “Not as much, no,” said Gorm.

  “Na’ see Forder Hvarthson widdout He Majesty’s writ!” The older guard was only marginally easier to understand when he used the Imperial tongue.

  “And how do we get a royal invite?” asked Kaitha.

  “Not bringin’ a leaden Elf and a she-mage wid’ ye would be a good start,” chuckled the younger guard.

  His elder snorted at the jest. “Only He Majerster or der court can giff a royal invite, ‘curse.”

  “But if the king doesn’t know we want an invite, how would he send one?” said Laruna.

  “Ye’d have to talk to him or his court,” said the younger guard.

  “But we can’t without an invite,” said the solamancer.

  The guards looked at each other and shrugged. “It’s a very secure system,” said the younger of the two.

  Long careers in the Heroes’ Guild had prepared Gorm and Kaitha for such bureaucracy. “Well, that’s a shame,” Gorm said loudly. “We’re old friends of King Johan, hoping to help King Forder with his financial troubles. But if’n he’s too busy, we’d best be on our way.”

  The old guard nodded. “A wise course o’ action.”

  “The only one available, it seems.” Despite his proclamation of surrender, Gorm didn’t step away. The bait was set, and now all someone needed to do was bend the rules enough to take it.

  The embassy door cracked open and there was a harsh whisper in Dwarven. Someone yanked the guards to the door and into an animated, if muted, debate.

  “How’d you know that would work?” asked Kaitha.

  Gorm shrugged. “To hear the town criers tell it, King Forder is the only one in the Freedlands in a worse state than us.”

  The two guards slunk ba
ck to their posts, staring askance at the ground. “It seems His Majesty’s court wishes to extend ye a verbal writ of invitation,” said the younger Dwarf.

  “Well, let’s not keep His Majesty waitin’,” said Gorm.

  They were ushered into a musty antechamber, still save for thick motes of dust wafting through the air. A Dwarven clerk in a worn suit greeted the adventurers with a stoic nod. He ushered them into a barren conference room at the back of the embassy featuring a round table and a poster with a woodcut of a saber-toothed dire cat dangling from a rope over a spiked pit. The caption below the picture read “HANG IN THERE.”

  Gorm went to take a seat at the table, but found that there weren’t any.

  “It’s a bit sparse,” said Kaitha as she and Laruna filed into the room behind him.

  “Certainly not what I expected,” agreed Laruna.

  “I’m going to stick with ‘a disgrace,’ if’n it’s all the same to ye,” said Gorm.

  “I’m afraid it is all we can afford at the moment,” said a voice from the doorway.

  Gorm turned to see a graying Dwarf in silver chainmail robes standing in the doorway, a gaggle of dour advisors huddled behind him. A thin circlet set atop his head marked him as Forder Hvarthson, King of Khadan’Alt, eldest elder and most revered Ancestor of the Old Dwarven Kingdoms.

  Gorm and the women immediately dropped to their knee. “Your Majes—”

  “Enough of that. We’ve already dispensed with too many formalities for ceremony to matter now.” The king waved them to stand as he stamped over to the head of the conference table. “A bow means little when it follows an insult to our embassy.”

  “I was just remarkin’ that it ain’t worthy of our people, Majesty,” said Gorm, feeling a bit of sweat pool on his brow.

  “Of course it isn’t,” said the king over the rumbles of the Ancestors and Fathers tromping into the room behind him. “We used to have a fine palace up by the Pinnacle, but we had to liquidate it. It’s a sun-blasted luxury hotel now!”

  “You sold the embassy?” exclaimed Laruna, forgetting herself. Gorm shot her a dark glance.

  “I’ve sold just about every bloody thing my people can’t eat by now, and they’re still starving,” snapped the king. “If it were any other way, I’d be in the blessed depths instead of taking audience with whatever gangue drifts in off the street. And in that vein, what do you know of King Johan’s plans?”