by David Dickie
Brandin looked like he was struggling to keep up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Grim sighed. “The military, the deal for building Storm Bull temples on the empire’s rimmi if you let them do some add-ons, like a secret World-Gate-building program to hide the fact from the elves. The bad elf with his terrible sword. You fill in the blanks.”
Brandin frowned and said, “I was following you until the bad elf and terrible sword thing.”
Grim was beginning to realize that, while Brandon and Pellen Barso had clearly both been part of the program that had used Storm Bull temples to hide human-built World Gates, they had clearly taken different paths to survive since those times.
Grim said, “But you were the head priest here when the ohulhug overran the place, just like Pellen. Did you actually know him?”
Brandin paused for a minute. Then he said, “In a way. I was the head priest, and whoever I am now, I did, or part of me did, know Pellen.”
Grim went to put a hand to his head, but there was a dagger in one and the lightning stone in the other, so he settled for wincing. “And here we go with the weird metaphysical mumbo jumbo again. Can you just spell it out for me?”
Brandin looked like he was struggling with himself. Finally, he said “What do you want?”
Grim pulled back. “You mean, what do you need to give us to keep quiet?”
Brandin shook his head. “No. I mean, why do you care? Are you trying to extort money from the enclave, or is there something else to this?”
Grim frowned. He hadn’t thought about it, about why he was confronting Brandin in the first place. After a few seconds, he said, “I guess I just have a hard time with someone killing others to extend their own lives.”
Brandin looked thoughtful. “Good. Good. Then I feel like we may have common ground, for I would as well. And I assure you, I have no idea what you mean by that.”
Grim said, “Let’s go back to square one. You are four hundred years old. And I know, I know, in a manner of speaking, sort of, in a way, blah blah blah. Because it can’t be simple. So how about you…” and Grim stopped. “Sorry, how about you release Stegar and Daesal first.” Neither of them had spoken or complained, but Grim knew they had to be uncomfortable. “Then you tell us exactly in what way you are four hundred years old.”
Brandin nodded. “The spell is released.”
“Thank you,” said Daesal. She and Stegar both stood, looking relieved to be able to do so.
“Go on,” said Grim, turning back to Brandin.
Brandin leaned back and said, “Four hundred years ago, the temple was about to be captured by ohulhug. We were nearer the border than Pellen’s temple and had almost no warning. We invited the leader of the ohulhug clan to the temple to negotiate a surrender. It was a ploy on both our parts. Everyone knew the ohulhug hatred of human religion. The ohulhug chieftain accepted, I think, to see if there were any defenses he needed to worry about. They might despise religion, but they knew it could include powerful spells. For our part, the military who were experts on the World Gate had found a way to transfer someone’s mind into another body using the gate. They set it to go off at a predetermined time, and I – or I should say, the person I was at that point in time -- offered to take the chieftain, just the two of us, to see the grounds, I led him to the gate at the right time to take control of his body.”
Grim frowned. “I thought making someone into something else via the gate required their consent, or bad things would happen.”
Brandin said, “Yes. But in this case, it’s the person inhabiting the new body who gives consent. The original owner is … less involved in the outcome.”
Grim said, “You mean dead?”
Brandin shook his head. “No. Subjugated. I don’t know that there is a term for it.”
“Subjugated, huh? Well, that doesn’t sound dead, but it doesn’t sound good either. What happens to your original body?”
“It dies.”
“And the subjugation of the new body? What is that, specifically?”
“There is a residue left, elements of personality, of personal relationships, desires and fears. And the memory is more or less intact, although a bit fuzzier than the new owner’s memories. But they live on, and they are a part of me now. That is why I say I am not the person I was then. Each one of these transfers comes at a cost. Not so much the loss of a part of oneself as the acceptance of a small part of someone else. Even with as little of the ohulhug chieftain that remained, it was enough to separate my tie to my god. And with that came a need to protect the clan, the wife, and the children. With the ohulhug’s memories, and some aspects of his personality and drive, I took his place.”
Daesal said, “That’s why this place was bypassed by the ohulhug. You were pretending to be the war chief.”
Brandin nodded. “Yes. It worked well enough. But there was an unintended side effect besides the loss of my connection with my god. I felt a kinship with the ohulhug that I could not deny. And, while I had saved the enclave, other ohulhug clans were decimating the rest of Pranan. Without the comfort of my religion, and caught between the two races, I decided to dedicate myself to finding a way for both to coexist. As the ohulhug swept south, I convinced the other high ohulhug of the clan to follow the front lines and fight the humans, and I told them I would stay behind and consolidate our power in the region using the enclave as a home base, destroying the symbols of the Storm Bull to show it was no longer a temple. The front line continued to move south, and the high ohulhug with it. So after many years, I groomed a low ohulhug as my replacement, then I took his body. By that time, the humans were driving the ohulhug back up the peninsula, and it was time to become a human again. This is my fifth body since this all started.”
Grim nodded. “And the legatee, your replacement, is your next body.”
Brandin nodded.
“You’re going to kill that kid.”
Brandin said a little heatedly, “I am going to elevate that kid. Who wants to do nothing other than serve the enclave. And with my experiences, with four hundred years of knowledge, I will give him the tools to do it.”
Grim cocked his head. “Really. So, I kind of noticed he wasn’t a go-getter. A nice but placid kind of kid. Not a lot of personality. Seems like he was pretty sheltered from the world too, no chance to talk to outsiders. Didn’t seem very opinionated. If I had to sum it up in a single word, I think it would be … bland.”
Brandin looked uncomfortable. “I have found in previous… transitions, it’s easier to integrate with someone that is not too…”
“Strong willed?” said Daesal. Her eyes were sparking dangerously.
Brandin said desperately, “The enclave is a bastion of peace in a war-torn world, a place that’s been left standing through three wars when all others have perished. It has helped generations of people, human, ohulhug, and halfbreed, thousands, tens of thousands. You understand, I was the legatee. I know what it is to make this transfer, and it’s a sacrifice I would willingly make again.”
“Would you?” asked Stegar, contempt in his voice. “Then let us test that theory. We will pick a worthy successor, someone who has the strength of character and will to continue the enclave’s mission, and we will let him take your body. It looks like you have a few years of service left in that shell. And you won’t be dead, correct? Just diminished.”
Brandin shook his head. “No. Too much would be lost. I need to be the one, for the enclave’s sake.”
Daesal approached Brandin’s chair and sniffed. “You are lying. You know you’re lying.”
Brandin collapsed back into the chair. The impression of strength, of agility, had departed. He looked… old. “But I’ve done so much good. That makes it just.”
Daesal stood back. “It does not. But I am not sure what there is to be done, particularly since the last victim, or what is left of him, would be punished as well were we to pass judgement on you. And the enclave would suffer, and I agree
it is a place that is worth preserving. Just not at the cost of what you have been doing.” Daesal thought for a moment. “You say the military set up these gate commands. Is all of the documentation still in place from that time?”
Brandin nodded. “As the ohulhug chieftain, I was able to let the soldiers escape, but there was little time. They had to leave everything behind, and they never came back.”
Daesal and Stegar looked at each other. Stegar said, “There’s going to be a hundred times better chance to find what we are looking for in those records than what’s in the regular library.”
Daesal nodded agreement. “Who else knows about the World Gate?”
“No one,” said Brandin.
Daesal sniffed and said, “He is telling the truth. Then this is what we will do. You will take us to the gate. You will show me the command to do this transfer. I will keyword lock it so it may not be used again. If you have a gate key or master key, you will surrender them to us. You will also give us access to any documentation the military left behind. In return, we will tell no one about your… history.”
Brandin blanched. “But the enclave… the enclave will collapse.”
Stegar shrugged. “Things do not last forever, nor are they meant to. Perhaps, instead, it will become something greater. Perhaps it will wither and die. But going forward, it is going to be by you choosing a successor rather than by you becoming the successor.”
Grim brandished the lighting stone. “Frankly, I’d prefer boiling your eyeballs out of your head. It’s a good deal. I’d take it.”
Brandin looked defeated. “I… I will do as you ask.”
Daesal sighed. “You are lying. You are thinking you’ll turn the tables on us. You know other gate commands, don’t you? Or have a gate key and can channel its power.”
“No,” said Brandin, but he looked panicked.
“Kiss me,” said Daesal.
Grim and Brandin stared at her. “What?” asked Brandin stupidly.
“Kiss me,” said Daesal again. She walked up to Brandin and leaned down.
Grim poked Brandin with the dagger. He had no idea what Daesal was doing, but he trusted that she did. “Do as the Lady asked.”
Brandin opened his mouth as if to speak, and Daesal pressed her lips against Brandin’s, her open mouth against his. And Brandin suddenly… relaxed.
Grim looked at Stegar with raised eyebrows.
Stegar said, “Daesal is a woman with many talents. Brandin is going to do anything she asks.”
Daesal finally pulled her lips back from Brandin’s. Brandin was looking… unfocused. “Can you hear me, Master Brandin?”
“Yes,” said Brandin, but he spoke slowly, and there was a dreamy quality to his voice that was decidedly un-Brandin like.
“You understand what I want? You will take us to the gate, turn over any gate keys you have. Do you understand?”
Brandin nodded.
Grim looked at Daesal, a little afraid. “What was that? Is that?”
Daesal signed. “An ability I truly wish I did not have. But we do what we need to do, and I cannot sit by and allow this to continue, and at the same time do not wish to bring ruin to this place.”
Grim shook his head. “We’ll have to catch up again some time, and you’ll have to tell me more. In the meantime, the fire is burning on Rotan. I’ll leave this place to you.”
Stegar and Daesal nodded. Daesal said, “Thank you, Grim. We are much more likely to find out about Morpangler from military documents concerning the World Gates than randomly searching the library.”
Grim grinned. “Happy to help. And thank you. For … everything.”
Daesal laughed. “I’ve done nothing, Grim, other than to know who to trust, and I am better equipped than most to do that.” Then she turned more serious. “Do be careful. You are walking into a fire-spider nest and poking a stick through the webs.”
Grim nodded. “I’m always careful, Daesal.”
Then he turned and left.
Chapter Thirty-One
Grim was hanging out under a dock in Nyquet, quite literally. He had a rope with two metal hooks he’d inserted through the boards of the dock above and was balanced on the resulting arc of hemp. The ohulhug steamboat was a few feet from him, tied up to that same dock. He was near the aft end, the far point from the shore, but it wasn’t time to move yet. He touched the belt one more time, checked on the jewel there. Alan had done as promised, ported with him to the Evael, talked to a number of elves there while Grim had been surrounded with salsenahain, artificer’s weapons pointed at him. Then he’d outfitted Grim exactly as requested. The jewel was an artificer item, a doppelgänger spell. He also had one get-me-out-of-here emergency teleport, the blobby gold ring that had been on Alan’s finger the entire trip.
“Why didn’t you use it when the Venture went down?” asked Grim when Alan offered it to him.
“I would have had to leave Lug behind, and that meant not using it until there was no other choice,” said Alan.
Grim looked at him strangely. “An elf worrying about abandoning his salsenahain. I thought they were spear carriers, sacrificial placeholders to keep an elf from being harmed?”
Alan had been quiet for a moment. Then he said, “I’m not sure I’m an elf, not in this state. When I regain my memories, when I can link with the others, I may feel differently. But at the moment, it is not in me to treat him so callously.”
Grim snorted. “Careful, Alan, or I’m going to start thinking you’re human instead of a pretender to the throne.”
Alan smiled and shrugged. “And I will take that as a compliment, not an insult. Good luck, Grim. The probability of success on this mission is not high. Are you sure you want to commit to it?”
Grim laughed. “The way I see it, I’ve had so much bad luck so far, the gods of the dice owe me a good roll. I’d be a fool not to collect.”
Alan nodded. “Impeccable logic. I will talk to you on your return.”
And so Grim and Lug had been outfitted and ported to the Elvish embassy in Nyquet, where they found the staff ready and waiting. Lug had created a small disturbance on the dock, long enough for Grim to slip underneath with his rope and hooks. He’d used them to quietly work his way out and to the side where the ohulhug ship was, then as a simple sling when he was close to the boat. Now he waited for the next step to play out. That would be some paid instigators starting a larger disturbance, a fight in the vicinity.
On cue, Grim heard yelling and the sounds of a scuffle from the end of the dock. He waited about a minute to make sure everyone on the boat was looking toward the fray. He took one of the hooks, which had leather padded handles, dropped off his perch so all of his weight was hanging off the one hook, then lifted, twisted, and pulled the other hook through the slats in the wooden planks of the dock. He was hanging by one arm at the edge of the dock, the other hook in his free hand. He looked up at the steamship. The deck was about four feet above him. There was no evidence of any ohulhug. If they were watching the commotion, they would be at the front of the ship, as far away as possible. Grim swung once, twice, and on the third swing was high enough to use the second hook to catch the corner of the deck. He let go of the first hook and used the second to pull himself up until he was eye level with the deck. There was no one nearby. The cylinder that held water for the steam engine sat in front of him, blocking any view of the front of the ship, and in turn keeping anyone there from seeing him.
He pulled himself over the edge and let the hook go over the side. The rope made it swing under the dock, which was good enough. He wasn’t going to need it again; so as long as no one saw it, it didn’t matter where it ended up.
Fayyaad had described the layout of the steamboat, and Grim was relieved to see that description seemed accurate. There was an entrance on this side of the ship, a square hole with a simple wood covering on hinges. Grim lifted it. Stairs led down into what Fayyaad had called the engine room. Grim stuck his head below the level of the deck. There
was no one there. If things were going according to plan, the melee on the dock would be reaching a fever pitch right now. The high ohulhug would need to stay below deck, but they would be forward, closer to the fighting on the dock, trying to determine whether it concerned them or not.
At the end of the engine room was a door. He dropped through the hatch. It was hideously hot, and Grim could see two big stoves with the red glare of a raging fire peeping through mostly closed grates. There were bins next to the stoves with black rock in them, about one quarter full. That had to be the coal Fayyaad had told him about. They were keeping the furnaces lit in preparation for a quick departure.
At the engine room door, Grim listened for a moment, then opened it a crack and peered out. There was a long hallway leading to a larger room at the front of the ship. He could see the backs of ohulhug facing in the other direction. The front of the ship had multiple hatches, and the ohulhug were waiting in case they had to boil up out of the boat to defend against an attack. It was what he’d been hoping for.