The Right to Choose

by Andrey Vasilyev

  “Father, you’re already drunk. Why do you need more?” I heard a woman’s shrewish voice call from the other side of the door. “Did you forget that we have a big horse race tonight?”

  “How did they not kill you, daughter?” boomed Harald’s voice. “And if they hit you in the head, they should have just killed you then and there.”

  “They didn’t hit me in the head!” It was Ulfrida, but I didn’t recognize her voice at first. “They didn’t!”

  “Don’t lie to your father.” A gurgling sound broke out, the könig didn’t say anything else for a few seconds, and then he grunted before continuing. “You wouldn’t have changed so much if they hadn’t hit you over the head. Where’s my old Ulfrida? What happened to you? You had fun with the young guards, you were always running over to the carousel, and sometimes you drove me bald. And now?”

  “What now?” the girl asked with enough vitriol in her voice for ten people.

  “Only the Gods know!” Judging by the sound, the könig slammed his cup down on the table. “You bring in bizarre people, you spend absurd amounts of money on dresses, and you take baths every day. You even started reading books, and that’s no good for anyone!”

  “Yes, father,” Ulfrida replied, a bit shrilly. “Can you imagine that? I realized that I don’t want to turn into a vegetable here with you.”

  “At your rate, you’re going to turn my treasury into a vegetable!” the könig roared. “If only your Olavsson would knock you up faster; that way you’d get married! The sooner you head to his fjord, the sooner you’re out of my hair.”

  “I don’t want to hurry things,” Ulfrida replied more quietly. “You can believe what you want, father, but I love him, so I’m not taking things quickly. I want him to love me, too.”

  “O-oh…” Something crashed to the floor and rolled across it.

  I peeked in and saw the könig tugging despairingly on his beard next to a much thinner Ulfrida.

  “Who’s there?” the könig barked, letting his beard go. “Can’t you see that I’m talking with my daughter?”

  “Nobody’s stopping you,” I replied as I walked in and waved. “My regards to the royal family. Everything’s the same, still all the fighting between fathers and children?”

  “I know you.” The könig squinted, peering into my face, felt for his cup on the table, didn’t find it, grabbed the pitcher, and poured some of its contents down his throat.

  Ulfrida snapped her fingers. “Oh, right! You’re the guy who saved me from Torsfel, though I never figured out how. You didn’t have any of your own people with you. Hey, you brought our goldsmith with you, too.”

  “Yes, I’m here,” Flosi said. Gunther walked in behind him, armor rattling, and Brother Mikh muttered something from under his hood.

  “Oh, right!” The könig caught his breath and placed the pitcher back on the table. “I’m going to cut an eagle out of you; nice work showing up yourselves!”

  “What? Why?” I asked in surprise.

  “You spoiled my girl,” the könig replied. He leaned his fists on the table and stood up. “What did you bring me? Where’s my Ulfrida, my baby?”

  “She’s right there,” Gunther replied, pointing at her. “By the window.”

  The könig ’s strength gave out, leaving him to collapse back onto his bench. “That’s not my daughter. She’s some other girl.”

  “Father,” Ulfrida said with a frown, “let’s not have a fight with outsiders here.”

  “There aren’t any outsiders here,” Harald replied. “Just state criminals who substituted some other girl for my daughter and who I’m going to execute in the square for the great Yuletide holiday with all the rites and rituals that go along with that. I’m not going to execute you, yet. Maybe, you’ll come to your senses.”

  “I have no idea what’s going on,” Gunther said, looking at me. “Do you?”

  “You have no idea what’s going on?” Harald practically shrieked. “You? I’m the one who has no idea! She used to fight like a warrior, and her curses were the envy of all the hirdmen. And now? Instead of the usual warrior fun, we have these… What are they?”

  “Races,” Ulfrida said. “Horse races.”

  “Exactly.” The könig spat on the floor. “What do we care about horses? Who even rides them?”

  “Gunnar does,” Ulfrida replied implacably. “He loves horses, and he promised to be at the celebration.”

  “Oh, is that Olavsson?” Flosi asked. “Yes, I’ve heard his family raises them.”

  “Now, it all makes sense,” Gunther said. “Love burns in the good Ulfrida’s heart.”

  “Sure, burns away,” the könig said sadly. “I don’t mind that—but why does she have to change? Why can’t she stay herself?”

  “Ulfrida, sweetie?” The door creaked open, and in walked… I hiccupped.

  It was an inconceivable creature. The head of curly blonde hair fell over his shaded eyes, and an elegant patch of stubble graced his chin. His clothes, too, were more than extravagant—a yellow shirt, pants embroidered with jewels, and hairy, knee-high boots that looked like Yeti feet. He wasn’t just a finger in the eye of all the stereotypes I could think of, he was… An embarrassment?

  “You have guests,” he smiled, pulling off something between a half-bow and a curtsey. “Still, time to go; you need your styling, sweetie.”

  “She brought that unclean thing here from the Western Mark!” the könig howled. “He doesn’t eat meat, he doesn’t drink beer, and he scares all my warriors by calling them brutal men. Who even are you?”

  “You need to drink less,” the creature grimaced. “I’m Serg the Wild, master of beauty.”

  The könig blanched, and I couldn’t help but grunt. The rest of my companions were also impressed by what they were seeing.

  The Wild turned to me and looked me up and down.

  “Easy,” he said, making a kissy face. “No laughing; I’m wild like an animal. R-r-r!” He made a gesture with his arm, pretending it was an animal’s paw, and waved it.

  “No questions here,” I replied immediately. “I’m not going to argue with that.”

  “There you go!” Serg shook a finger at me before turning back to Ulfrida. “Sweetie, time to go. Wave to the boys before we go make you beautiful!”

  “König, you just wink, and I’ll take care of this,” Flosi coughed.

  “What would I wink for?” Harald reattached himself to his pitcher as if to let us know that he just didn’t care. Flosi nodded understandingly and turned to the strange creature.

  “Listen up, towhead,” he started in with a smile, leaving Serg to jump away from him. My toilet worker looked nasty, especially to someone new, and especially to someone like that. “Let me go show you something in the garden.”

  “Show me what?” Serg asked and stepped trustingly toward Flosi. “I don’t know, but you’re so brutal, so violent… I’m wild, too; I think we’d get along great!”

  He waved his “paw” again and purred.

  You unlocked Glamor Be Gone.

  Task: Help König Harald get rid of Serg the Wild, star of the West.

  Reward:

  1500 experience

  700 gold

  Cask of winter ale from the könig’s personal cellars

  +2 to your reputation among the peoples of the North

  Note! Serg the Wild is Ulfrida’s servant. She probably won’t like that he was killed without her knowledge.

  -10 to your reputation with Ulfrida

  Accept?

  “Yes, yes, that we will, and the jarl can come, too. I’ll show you where I used to work; you’ll love it there.” Flosi took the Fayroll glamor star by the elbow and winked at me. “Come on, it isn’t far.”

  I declined the quest and turned to the könig’s daughter, who hadn’t noticed anything. “Ulfrida, unless you want to lose your stylist, pull him away from Flosi and get out of here.”

  “Oh, screw you all!” The girl’s iron hip smacked into me, t
aking off ten health, Flosi was sent flying against the wall, and the door slammed.

  “You need a son, König,” Flosi said, rubbing his side. “Or a grandson.”

  “Agreed,” Harald replied. “She’s digging in her heels. She doesn’t want to force Gunnar; she wants them to love each other. But that Gunnar is frozen off in his own little world, afraid of everything. Maybe, it’s because things didn’t work out with the family the last time. Regardless, they’re mincing around each other like two knarrs in a fog.”

  You unlocked Bringing Hearts Together.

  Task: Help Gunnar Olavsson and Ulfrida, the könig’s daughter, realize that they were made for each other.

  Reward:

  1800 experience

  900 gold

  Ulfrida’s gratitude

  The könig’s gratitude

  +3.5 to your reputation among the peoples of the North

  Warning! If you end up driving the two apart, your reputation in the North will be seriously compromised.

  Accept?

  Why not? Life was full of variety, and the quest description didn’t include any penalties for going back and canceling it. I could tell I was going to be in the North for a while, so there was no point in not accepting the quest.

  “Okay, this has all been my business,” the könig said, casting a heavy glance around at us. “What brings you here? Do you need something from me?”

  “I do.” I sat down right across from Harald and got down to business. “I need information.”

  “The story of my life,” the könig complained to nobody in particular. “Everyone needs something; nobody comes in and asks old Harald if he needs something. Nobody has anything for me.”

  “König, I have something for you,” the same servant girl I’d seen the first time said as she walked in carrying a large jug. “It’s nice and cold.”

  “That doesn’t count,” the könig said to me quickly. “Just a coincidence.”

  “Of course,” I replied, suppressing a smile. “It’s always that way.”

  “Okay, so you were saying you wanted, you wanted that…” The könig looked around for his cup again, didn’t find it, and started drinking straight from the jug.

  “Information,” I said, emphasizing each syllable. “It’s simple. I need to know where the land of the White Light is.”

  Contrary to my expectations, the könig didn’t pull himself away from his jug, look around furtively, and press a finger to his lips—nothing of the kind, in fact.

  “I don’t know,” he said half a minute later. His thirst sated, he belched with relish. “Never heard of it.”

  Wait, really?

  I scratched my head. “Could you ask someone? Some veterans, maybe, or the elders?”

  “Go ahead and try,” he said carelessly. “Although we don’t have many elders; none of us live that long. It’s a harsh land, not one for old people. Want a drink?”

  “No, thanks.” I remember that sour crap. It was nasty. “I have too much to do. Hey, König, do you have anyone who might know the old legends?”

  “Of course,” he replied as he wiped his mouth with his hand. “Gruvi the skald. When he went blind, his talent as a skald appeared. Now, he sings and enlightens the people, but about your… What was it?”

  “The land of the White Light.”

  The könig was getting sleepy. “He’s probably never even heard of it. How could he have? He’s ten years younger than me.”

  At least, I still had the Wild Hunt in reserve. It sounded like the spot I was looking for was ancient and holy, but it couldn’t have been older than the Wild Hunt. If it is, somebody took this thing too far.

  “Oh, wait a second,” the könig said. “Talk with Aidus.”

  That name sounds familiar. But how do I know it?

  “Mages know a lot, especially about things people have forgotten,” Harald said thoughtfully. “We should kill them; nobody needs to know that much. The more they know, the worse they get.”

  Right, the mage who went with us to kill Fomor. Didn’t he die, though?

  “But wasn’t he…?” I placed my palms over my eyes, miming a corpse.

  “Who, Aidus?” The könig laughed, his large belly shaking. “I’m not even sure how you’d go about doing that. Mages are like cats—burn them, and they’ll turn a fountain of water on themselves. Toss them off a cliff, and it turns out they can fly. Bastards.”

  The könig chewed on his lip, batted his eyes, closed them, and let his nose drop. His Highness had decided to doze off.

  “Ri-i-ise and shine!” I yelled. The könig jumped up.

  “Always at your service, cutie.”

  “Aidus,” I said, snapping my fingers to get the bleary-eyed Harald’s attention. “Where is he?”

  The könig yawned powerfully. “Look for him in the square. He’s always setting things off for Yuletide eve, so that’s probably where he is. The old guy loves going back to his childhood. Okay, get out of here. I need to rest. The whole night is ahead of us.”

  He got up, tottered, found his way to his throne, collapsed onto it, and broke into snoring.

  “Harald the Curly is getting old.” Flosi went over to the table and picked up the pitcher of ale. “It’s barely noon, and he’s already a goner. The years take their toll.”

  The toilet worker shook his head in sadness at the turn of events and lifted the pitcher to his mouth.

  “Let’s go,” I said, tugging on his beard. “Put the pitcher on the table and come on.”

  “Oh, come on, Jarl,” Flosi said, kind of hurt. “Just a few swallows for the road. You don’t get ale like this every day—it’s herbal! Basically medicine.”

  “I said let’s go.” I was starting to lose my temper. Sure, it was all AI, a program teaching itself, but it was starting to go too far.

  “Okay, let’s go,” Flosi replied. His face looked like a kid you just took a pastry away from. “Jarl, I hope you appreciate the sacrifices I make for you.”

  “Where now?” Brother Mikh asked from under his hood.

  “The main square. Let’s go find that mage.”

  “Hagen, is it true that you’re looking for a particular place in the North?” Gunther asked as we left the hall.

  “Yep. The land of the White Light.”

  “If you don’t mind, I could try to help you,” the knight said thoughtfully. “The mission here in Holmstag is the oldest in Rattermark; really, the one the entire order grew out of. It was here, in the North, that Sonarola, the order’s progenitor, met the Tearful Goddess and laid the first stones in the foundation of the Three Tower Citadel, the order’s first fortress.”

  “Oh, yes, you mentioned something about that,” I replied. The third party to the conversation had been der Bottom, who died in the attack on Fomor’s stronghold.

  “The fortress was abandoned.” Gunther waved off my Why? before continuing. “The archives were moved to the new mission, the one here in Holmstag. So, that’s why I’m thinking I could go check them out. I might find a mention of the land of the White Light there.”

  “Go for it,” I said, but I stopped him before he ran off. “How much time do you need for that?”

  “I’m not sure,” Gunther shrugged. “The archives are huge, spanning more than a thousand years. Our archivists have some sort of registry, of course, but they don’t know everything.”

  “So, you think you’re going to do what a bunch of paper pushers weren’t able to do?” Brother Mikh smiled.

  Gunther clapped his forehead. “Of course, not; that’s impossible. But I can look at the registers and talk with the scribes. If there’s something down there, I’ll have to wait for them to go get it. It could take an hour, maybe three…”

  “Take this portal scroll,” I said to him, holding out the parchment. “If we aren’t in the main square, just head straight back to Lossarnakh’s castle.”

  “Can you just wait for me? We came together, and we can leave together.”

  “Gunther
, what could happen to us in the city?” I started back down the stairs. “There are guards all around, and the people may be rude, but they’re peaceful.”

  “I think our travels have shown nothing if not that anything can happen to you anywhere,” von Richter replied. Brother Mikh nodded in agreement. “Also, you could leave the city, and it’s always dangerous out there. These are wild lands.”

  ***

  Nazir was waiting for us at the exit. He was impassively watching the people walk by, and his figure, leaned up against the wall of the palace, looked like part of the architectural ensemble.

  “Let’s go,” I called over to him. “We’re on our way to the main square.”

  “Good choice,” he replied. “Better stay where there are plenty of people.”

  “Why is that?” I asked as I nodded to Gunther, who patted my shoulder and headed off.

  “We’re being followed,” came the cold-blooded reply. “One of our tails has stuck with us ever since we walked in the gate, and two more joined him. Why are they here? Probably not with the best of intentions.”

  “Are you sure?” I looked around the broad street, where dozens of blacksmiths were pounding away.

  “I never say what I’m not sure about,” Nazir replied coldly.

  My intuition hadn’t led me wrong. I just wasn’t sure who exactly was following me—the potential list was awfully long. Previously, I would have assumed that it was Miurat, but then again…

  “Hey there, everybody,” came a familiar voice, coincidentally breaking into my thoughts about him. Out of a narrow alley came… Yup, there he is, Miurat, in the flesh.

  “Hello to you, too,” I said, looking to see who was behind him. There were two or three Double Shield warriors leaning up against the wall. “Here to see the tree?”

  “No, I wanted to see you.” His tone was playful, but there was no joking in it. This is bad. Okay, let’s make sure we set a few things straight.

  I gestured around at the group surrounding me, a group that had already realized I was talking with a questionable character and had casually placed their hands on their weapons. “Hey, just so we’re clear, they’re NPCs, and you know what will happen if you touch them.”