by Garon Whited
I love Tort. Sometimes I love her more than other times. I wasn’t sure which way to count this.
“But… but…” I didn’t know what to say. Is this what it’s like to be a celebrity? Is this the equivalent of occult fan mail? People sending prayers at me instead of paper? Directing thoughts toward me instead of email? Would it continue, now that I was actually present and could be addressed directly? Or would it get worse, as people took it as a sign that their prayers might get answered?
I didn’t like this crap when Bob and his black-hearted undermountain cronies did it; I didn’t like it when the people of the plains did it. Sure, the Lords of Night—vampires, nightlords, whatever—used to be regarded as godlike by people some thousand or more years ago, but when they were finally hunted down and destroyed, wouldn’t that tend to break the pattern?
Or was that just a case of a more powerful god going to war with lesser gods? Or am I missing something fundamental about the cultures of a magical world? I know some tribal cultures toward the south, near the Mountains of the Sun, used to worship dragons as divine beings. Do people in this world just naturally regard powerful magical beings as gods? That can’t be right!
Can it?
Oh, damn. Was that why I found what’s-her-name… Parva, that was it. Did she pray? And, far worse from my point of view, did I answer?
Part of what annoys me is being bowed to and all that stuff. I didn’t like it when regular people started doing it; I just endured it, because they expected to do it, and I hate to disappoint people. As a king, I get to determine protocol, at least somewhat, and can minimize the required groveling. It doesn’t change the fear and terror I have about being responsible for a kingdom, though. I’m not qualified to be a king. I never took that class. I don’t have a political science degree, nor a law degree, not even an MBA!
And they expect me to king based on legends of being all heroic.
Now they expect me to do this, apparently. I’m going to disappoint them. I know I am. Because, nightlord, vampire, marivel, arhela, angel, arhia, whatever they want to call me and wherever I fit in the species index of magical creatures, I am not a god.
Even worse, perhaps, is that they’ll grovel. I hate groveling. Dragging people up from their knees is one thing; getting them off their faces and standing is a lot more work. Slaves can resist their masters; worshippers generally don’t want to.
This will not end well. I feel it in my super-dense, reinforced bones. I feel it in my useless, undead guts. I know it.
“I can’t live up to that,” I told Tort.
“Then do not be a god,” Tort replied, serenely
“Beg pardon?” I asked, confused. She seemed very relaxed about the whole thing. I wondered if she was connected to the shadow-shrine-thing in some way. She said she never encouraged it, but that might just mean she never went out looking for converts.
Is it bad that I suspected her of being a priestess?
“Do not be a god,” she went on. “Be who you are, what you are. If they choose to be… well, devoted… then that is their choice. Do what you always do: be kind, be helpful, be encouraging, be good.” She paused, thoughtfully. “Simply be my angel.”
“I’m always your angel,” I assured her. “It’s just that this worship thing makes me edgy and nervous. Zirafel conquered H’zhad’Eyn, the lands of the god-king Falken; his followers believed blindly in their god-king, and it didn’t end well for him or his people. He came to believe in his own divinity and it made his ego drive him to do stupid things!”
I was so upset, I barely noticed the headache of remembering something I never learned.
“Then ignore them,” she told me. “Allow them to be a… a quirky little cult, and ignore them utterly. As I said, do as you always do. If people choose to believe, then they believe. If they do not, they do not. Answer prayers if it suits you, or ignore them. Say nothing either way and let them do as they please. What does it cost you to allow it—or, rather, to ignore it? You were not made unhappy by it until you learned of it, after all. Can you not pretend you know nothing of it still?”
I rested my head in my hands for a minute.
Was she right? It wouldn’t bother my ego to prayed at; sometimes it could use a boost. With my psychic sensitivity, could I ignore people praying? I know I’m not something to pray to, but, as Parva proved, people desperate enough will try anything—even ask for help from the thing that’s going to eat them… if they’re lucky, I’ll do it when they’re old and dying. I’m the gateway from life into death. Like a God of Death, taking people from the world…
Damn!
No, this was too raw to think about. I needed time to let this one cool down.
“All right. I’m going to ignore this, for now,” I said. “I’ll revisit this later. I’ve got to think about this, but I can’t, not right now.” I brooded for a moment. “I don’t like this. I really don’t. But I don’t see what I can do about it right now. I’ll… need time to think.”
“Of course, my angel.”
Funny. That doesn’t bother me. I’m her angel, always have been, always will be, and that’s that.
I spent the rest of the day helping Seldar with booster spells for some of the trainees. Amber and Tianna were there in the late morning to help mend injuries. We staged an assault on a section of Mochara’s wall. The city guards defended it with buckets of mud, wooden weapons, and large clods of dirt. The guards had a grand time; the knights-to-be, less so. Still, it was good practice, and Kavel had produced quite a lot of practice armor, so the degree of injury was acceptable. By that I mean there were lots of injuries, but most of them were minor.
I kept them late; we did more wizardly training that afternoon, mainly focusing on the healing spells. It was that kind of day, really; assaulting a wall is almost a sure ticket to injury. Still, nothing was so badly out of joint that it wouldn’t be better by morning. Amber and Tianna went back into Mochara—against Tianna’s protests—while everyone else reviewed wizardly methods of healing injuries.
I sent Seldar off with instructions to go buy his lady friend dinner; I even gave him some silver. He looked embarrassed, but saluted. I don’t think he liked having his business known, but he was also pleased to be told to be about it. That’s me, bringing joy and confusion wherever I go.
I continued to be distracted by my religious dilemma. Now that I was looking for it, there were a number of people who seemed… I don’t know. Something about them said to me, somehow, that they weren’t just subjects or citizens, but something else.
I didn’t like it, but I did my best to ignore it. I still didn’t like it when I went back to Tort’s house for dinner, brooding, and thinking. I didn’t even respond when Torvil and Kammen noted Seldar’s absence and speculated on where he might be. It was the subject of some good-natured banter between them and Tort. I sometimes forget that Tort is hard to shock or scandalize. She looks about thirty; she’s really over ninety!
She does seem young, though. I should ask how she does that, just for safety purposes.
After the sun went down, I decided that I would take a bit of a walk to think, check for anyone just aching to die—that is my job, after all—and visit the Temple of the Mother of Flame, a.k.a. Sparky’s house.
Wandering through the rainy streets of Mochara is kind of like navigating a muddy maze of canyons. No one understands the concept of “city planning” around here and “drainage” is a myth. “Straight line,” is also a sadly underutilized idea. People put up a shop or a house somewhere because they thought it was a good spot, not because it conformed to some idea of where the road should be. When they got around to turning the footpaths and cartways into roads, they mainly dumped gravel on them, or pounded smooth-topped rocks into the ground. Even the main streets tend to twist between the buildings; they’re just a lot wider. This creates a twisty-turny mess they call a town.
If I had ridden Bronze, I wouldn’t have got lost. She knows her way around the place. At le
ast, she found Sparky’s temple on the first try, which is more than I could manage. It started to rain shortly after I realized I was lost. I conjured an umbrella spell and continued walking. I wasn’t in a hurry to have an argument with a fiery, nonhuman entity.
Getting lost did not help my mood, but a long walk still wasn’t a bad idea. I tried to shift to a positive outlook. It didn’t work.
On the other hand, since I was walking and trying to figure out where I was, I was paying more attention to my surroundings; I noticed someone following me. A mugger? An assassin? Either way, it was a really bad night for him. I was not in a good mood.
What to do? Confront, evade, or ignore? I supposed the sensible thing to do would be to just ignore. If they don’t know that I know, it could be advantageous. If I evade, then they have to go to the trouble of finding me again. Confronting, on the other hand, is usually more satisfying.
While considering my options, something magical happened nearby. It only lasted a few seconds, but it was powerful enough to be noticed. I routinely felt the tiny flickers as people generated light spells, warmth or cooling spells, water-deflecting umbrella spells, all the minor things you might expect in a magical society. But this was a major working, not something a part-time hobbyist could pull off—at least, not intentionally. Nothing exploded, though, and no Things came crawling out of the spaces beyond the world.
Why I assumed it had something to do with me, I don’t know. Is it caution? Or pessimism? It’s not really paranoia. There’s got to be a better word for it; there are people out there who really do want to kill me. Tonight was a really bad night to try.
Confrontation, then. I went around a corner at the next cross-street and stood flat against the side of the building, waiting. He came around the corner and I seized him by the throat of his shirt and his belt, lifted him over my head.
“Hello there,” I said, cheerfully, smiling up at him with a mouthful of very sharp teeth. I even conjured a small light, just to make sure he could see the teeth. “You have no idea how glad I am to meet you. What can I do for you on this fine evening?”
He replied with a choking noise, so I switched to an ankle grip and continued to hold him, only now he was upside-down.
“Better?” I asked, at my most solicitous.
“Yes?” he squeaked. He didn’t sound certain at all. He was right to be uncertain.
“So, what do you want with the King of Karvalen?” I asked. Uncertainty turned panicky.
“Nothing. Nothing at all! I’m just going home!”
“And you just happened to take the last four turns I did?”
“I’m not in a hurry?”
“In the rain? I’m dead. I don’t mind being rained on. You don’t even have a spell to keep the rain off, and you’re not dead… yet. I don’t believe you.”
Lightning flashed obligingly. Thunder rumbled counterpoint. Lovely! Something went right!
“I really just want to go home!” he wailed. I believed him; I’m sure that really was his chief desire at that moment.
The crossbow bolt entered my back above the line of my shoulderblades, just to the left of my spine, and the point stuck out just below my left collarbone. Either a very good shot, or very lucky. It stung, but they always do. If I’d worn armor, it might have just deflected.
I canceled my light spell on general principles and dropped my captive.
“You,” I said, “wait right here. Do not make me hunt you down.”
“Yes, lord,” he groaned.
I turned around and was shot three more times: Chest, chest, and neck. Four crossbowmen, three just fired, and the first guy was still reloading. A fifth man stood a pace or two behind them. He didn’t seem armed, but he was much better-dressed.
They looked scared. Determined, but scared. They should have looked terrified.
Before doing anything rash—even at the best of times, I don’t like being shot, and putting holes in my clothes is guaranteed to make me grumpy—I had the presence of mind to check for supernatural protection. The man in the back had a golden glow about him that cast no shadows; it was definitely something mortal eyes wouldn’t see. It looked decidedly magical, rather than one of the clerical things I encountered when dealing with the Hand.
The other four, however, were not protected nearly so well. Their spells were dull things by comparison, but still enough to be a nuisance if I just tried to grab them with hands or tendrils. Therefore, I did not reach for the people; instead, I lashed their protection spells directly, attacking them and shattering them. Yes, it hurt. It was kind of like punching through a car window to reach the driver. But it works.
Once their shields were broken, the darkness of my spirit uncoiled and struck, snapping through each of them like whips, ripping the vitality from them in instants. They suffered a sudden attack of exhaustion, bordering on coma, but I deliberately restricted myself to their physical vitality and did not touch their souls. I wanted them alive for later.
I walked forward while they collapsed around me, stopped when I stood in front of the man with the golden glow.
“Since no one else seems too eager to give me answers, I’ll ask you. What do you want?”
He licked his lips. This was not part of his plan. Good. Although, it did cross my mind to wonder: what sort of idiot would choose to face me at night? It seemed either overly optimistic, ignorant, or a distraction. While waiting for his answer, I glanced around quickly to see if any ninjas were about to jump down from rooftops, or some equivalent nastiness was about to happen.
He raised both hands before him as though gesturing me to stop. His sleeves slithered back from his wrists. Jeweled bracers blazed to my arcane vision as they activated. A horizontal line of light formed between his hands. It split in two, up and down, and started pulse, around and around, forming a ring. I could still see him through it, dimly, as though reflected in muddy water.
I didn’t recognize the spell—
—the spell was a circle gate, a bent-space teleportation method. It folded space, punched a hole through, and allowed one to step across through the circle, much like one of the greater gate spells. It required a considerable amount of power, but the bracers were designed to hold a magical charge specifically for the purpose of casting is quickly, rather than spending an hour investing the spell—
—and realized I did recognize it. He was trying to escape. In less than a second, it would stabilize and he could step through. In the meantime, anything I directed at him from this side of the portal would go through the wrong side of it and wind up nowhere—or outside of everywhere. It was both a shield and an escape. Clever.
I ignored my sudden memory-headache and drew my sword in a maneuver the dama called kizimak, a combination of drawing and cutting in the same motion, a lot like the Japanese iaijutsu. I didn’t aim for the portal; that would just ruin the blade. Instead, I hit him about mid-forearm, slashing upward along the edge of the portal, taking off a long strip of arm and hand, including his little finger.
It did terrible things to his concentration and his spell.
He screamed and clutched at the spurting wound while his forming gateway exploded on a purely mystic level. A ring-shaped shockwave blasted outward in a vertical circle as the disrupted spell released all its stored energy. Nothing happened on the mundane level; the street wasn’t harmed. Any spells in the path of the shockwave, though, would definitely come apart. I hoped no one was doing anything delicate in the plane of the burst.
I slugged him in the side of his head with the pommel of my sword. He went down. I felt a powerfully painful sensation as I struck; the side of my hand was smoking from the outer edges of his protective spell. It was really quite a good one. As a nightlord, I didn’t want to touch him, and, as a wizard, I wasn’t sure how much effort it would take to break it. I turned to my first captive; he was sitting where I dropped him. I pointed he blade at him while my hand stopped smoking and started healing.
“You.” He sat up strai
ght. “Tie off this man’s wound so he doesn’t bleed to death.” He moved quickly to obey. I watched him do it, nodded when he was done. The spreading red on the street wasn’t flowing with the water; it crept toward me and slithered up my boots. Yes, I could feel the blood seeping into me.
I’m not sure I’m going to get used to that. I’d much rather just bite people. This is more convenient, I grant you, but it’s creepy to watch and creepier to experience. It’s like their blood wants to be consumed. At least biting throats doesn’t weird me out.
Hmm. How quickly the new and strange becomes old and familiar.
“Good,” I told him. “Now, do you know where the Lady Tort resides?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Go there and tell her I want her here. Bear in mind that your life depends on it.”
“Yes, my lord.” He ran off down the street—not the way we came, but for all I knew, that was the quickest way back.
I searched the other four. Each had exactly five gold coins in cash; I didn’t recognize the design. I paused for a moment, just in case I suddenly did recognize it, but no, it remained unfamiliar; it wasn’t something from the age of Zirafel, then. They also each had a crossbow and four quarrels remaining.
That reminded me. I pulled the bolts out of me and examined them; the one in my back required me to pull it the rest of the way through. Yes, they all bore telltale traces of spells. Entering my defensive zone, however, had destroyed those; they were spells, not enchantments, and therefore comparatively fragile.
The ones they hadn’t fired, however, appeared to still have spells on them. I decided not to touch them for two reasons. First, if I did so without opening my shield, the spells would go poof. Second, if I opened my shield to examine them closely, they might go off on me; it depended on the trigger conditions. Does it have to hit something with the point? Does it have to be launched? Does it have to touch flesh? Does it go off whenever it encounters an undead?