Rythe Falls

by Craig R. Saunders

  No.

  'Leave me sleep,' he whispered into his bedding. 'Please...please...'

  'Renir...'

  Softer, this time. His wife had never been soft.

  What's she playing at?

  'Renir...'

  'No, Hertha. I'm tired...so tired...please...no more...'

  'Renir, you always were lazy. No more. You think a king rests easy? You think a king sleeps sound at night? No. A king hears screams in his sleep. He worries, he frets. And he should. A country's life and the lives of the people are held in that king's hand...tenderly or with an iron grip, it matters not. A king's burden is a heavy one. Sleep? Pfft.'

  Renir opened one eye, looked at his wife.

  She sat at the end of the bed. She bore the scars of death even here, in his dream. In his dream he slept (or tried to) in their marital bed. The home they had shared for such a short while had been little more than a shack. Freezing in winter, unbearably hot in summer. Heavy drapes at the mean, narrow windows, hangings on the walls to keep the drafts from sneaking between the timbers.

  How the hell can I be so cold, in bed...in a dream?

  Hertha smiled as sweetly as the memory of a corpse could.

  It's cold because she wants it cold.

  He groaned. He wasn't even the master of his own dreams any more.

  Never, never, marry a witch.

  Wish I'd known that before I married her, he thought, in the deep places within the mind where a man is still free to think his own thoughts, even within a dream. Even while haunted (no, harried) by the memory of a dead wife...or her ghost. For without a doubt, the haunting in his mind was no mere ghost, no simple memory. Hertha had been a witch in life.

  In death? Here, in his mind? She had power, still. And a damn sight more than he.

  'Hertha...I need rest. I'm not a king. I'm a man, and a simple one at that. A tired man. Each night you come to harangue me and lash me with your tongue. I'm tired, though. Please let me sleep, if only for one night.'

  'Pfft,' said Hertha's ghost once more, impatient, even though this was just a dream within a dream. 'Lazy.'

  'Goodnight.'

  'Ungrateful, too.'

  Renir nodded, and snuggled back into his blankets. Then a suspicious look crossed his dream-face.

  'Ungrateful?'

  'Yes, Renir Esyn. Ungrateful. I came to warn you, and you scold me for doing you such a service.'

  Renir sat, even within the dream, and stared at his dead wife.

  'What warning?'

  'A man comes. It is your time.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Time to stop being a baby at your friend Shorn's tit, a cowardly lad under the whip of Caeus and those shiny paladins of the Sard and all the people telling you what to do, telling you who to be.'

  'You tell me what to do all the time!'

  'That's different. I'm your wife.'

  'What? You're...'

  Dead, he was going to say...but he didn't, even here, in the dream.

  'Shush, man. Don't tell me what's what, just get up. It's time to be a king. The king. The last king of Sturma...or the first.'

  'What man? Hertha...damn it...what man?'

  'Wake up and see. He's right here.'

  *

  Wake up...

  Renir sat briskly up in his bed. Moonlight, a solitary candle struggling in the autumn wind beside his bed. Scars on his torso seemed even darker in the wan light.

  But there was no man.

  No sound, no breathing. No sense that he was anything other than alone.

  The rain pounded against the heavy stone of the castle, dripped down and pooled below the open window. The air, already, was chill. Goosebumps stood out on his arms and chest.

  'Nothing. Crazy witch. Nothing.'

  Beside him, as always, his axe rested. Haertjuge, the heavy butterfly blade on the flagstones, the handle within easy reach.

  'Nothing.'

  His hand grazed the handle, his own heart still ill at ease following his dream.

  But it was cold, and he was tired, and it was just a dream.

  Renir lay his head back down and closed his eyes with a sigh.

  'I bring greetings, King-to-be,' said a voice with a smirk somewhere in it, from the shadow.

  Renir sprang from the bed, the blade already in his hand.

  But the voice moved again.

  'Greetings from the Queen.'

  Behind him, now...against the wall.

  Renir spun and slashed and hit...nothing.

  'The Queen wishes you nothing but well...peace, Renir Esyn. If you wish to live...to gain the Crown that Caeus hunts...be at peace. I am no enemy.'

  There...there in a corner.

  'There is no Queen,' said Renir, and swiped at the voice in the dark once again.

  Not in the corner, then.

  Then, from the shadows, a man stepped into the light.

  'Not your Queen, Renir Esyn...but mine. The Queen of Thieves sends her regards to the man who would be king to this nation.'

  For a moment, Renir was given to pause by the man's appearance alone. He was utterly bald, but with long moustaches. He had parchment thin skin, but Renir could feel vitality radiating from the man. Not old, nor frail...but sun-starved, perhaps, pale and almost luminous even in the dim light.

  Renir did not let his guard down, but held his axe, ready to strike, should the man move at all.

  If I could...thought Renir, grimly. He is fast...

  'How the hell did you get in here? I can't get out, and you...just...stroll in? How?'

  'Man of dubious talents, your Grace...'

  'And you who boasts such talents? You are?'

  'Me? I'm but a humble fool, a thief, a rascal, a rogue...'

  'Wordy...'

  'Wordy, yes. A friend of mine called me such...long ago.' A look of such deep sadness crossed the bald man's face that for an instance, a mere second, Renir was disarmed.

  Wary, now...might be I've been fooled before...

  'Please, Renir Esyn...forgive my lapse...it has been some time since I have bandied words with a...man. I am the Queen's...consort?'

  'And does the consort have a name?'

  'Once...maybe. Roskel Farinder, the last time I was known by that name...' said the man. He inclined his head slightly, like a bow, but without taking his eyes from Renir's the whole time. He did not finish his sentence, but moved on. 'Anyway...let us agree that it has been a time. And then, perhaps some more...'

  Renir's axe remained ready.

  Don't let your guard down, he thought, and the voice sounded almost like Shorn's...the wisdom of warriors.

  'Well, Roskel Farinder...you have a strange way of greeting a man. In his bed, in the middle of the night. I wonder, now, whether the guard know you are here...and if maybe they would like to. Kindly leave me to my sleep, and perhaps we will talk more in the morning.'

  Farinder inclined his head slightly, once again, but that look of sadness that made him seem warm, like a man who might be worth a little salt, slipped by so fast that Renir wasn't sure he ever saw it there.

  'You misunderstand...' said the bald man, but did not finish his sentence, because as he spoke he moved. The next thing Renir knew, he was in the dark again.

  This time, not the soft dark of a city night, with moonlight and candles and the distant glow of streetlamps and torches in a castle's halls.

  Pure dark. The kind you get below the ground where there is no memory, even, of light. Uncomfortable dark, like when a man is forced to wear a sack over his head while being carried over a man's shoulder like a lamb, and jouncing steadily and ever downward.

  *

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Fat Monk Inn was wide and low and steeped in shadow, day or night. Once, it had been a barn - the rafters had been packed with hay and tools. On the outskirts of the city of Naeth, it now served wayfarers, merchants...mercenaries. Warriors, maybe. Dark men with dark characters, rubbing shoulders with farmers or rubes, fresh from
the fertile fields come to trade their stock and wares or to lose their shirts in games of Royal Houses, or scoop cad. There were plenty of dangerous men in the Fat Monk, too. They bore long blades and their eyes were narrow and sharp. In short, men like Shorn, and Bourninund and Wen Gossar.

  Once, maybe, any one of the three fighters would have found cause to fight, to draw blood...to kill, even, on nothing more than a whim. But no more.

  The three men sat quietly and unmolested in a corner near a small hearth with a dying fire. There was a large, round central hearth where most of the customers would sit. A large fire that would heat the room and light up unruly faces.

  This fire was for the kettles, the pots. For warming the bread.

  In the morning, it would be stoked, water would be boiled and bread warmed. Now it was low, the light sparse, the warmth more than enough for men accustomed to sleeping in makeshift shelters in rain or snow.

  At this time of night (on the cusp of morning, in truth), most patrons had already moved along, or taken to their rooms to sleep. Wen, for his part, snored softly, sound asleep on a hard bench with his back to the wall. His fabled sword the Cruor Bract, once worth a pretty fortune when the blade had been sharp with rubies, peered from his shoulder. Just a sword, now, but a damn heavy one with the strongest of the three still alive to wield it.

  Wen still held a mug of dark Sturman ale in one thick fist. With his dark skin, his bald pate, his utter stillness, he could have been mistaken for a shadow. But for the snoring, and the immense sword on his back. A dangerous kind of shadow, then. The kind that fights back.

  Grey-haired and thick of beard, Bourninund was younger than Wen, though he looked older by far. He stared at the embers of the fire. Occasionally, he lifted his own mug to his lips, took a drink, wiped his lips and moustaches on his sleeve, then simply returned to watching the glowing logs in the grate, like it was the most interesting thing in the whole tavern.

  Perhaps it was.

  Shorn, the younger of the three dangerous men, was done drinking for the night. His own sword was at his back. On his arm he wore a shining steel brace, flared and sharp - the work of a master smith, and the only reason he was still able to wield his own heavy sword with two hands.

  Once, he'd been fearless. Unstoppable.

  Monstrous?

  Shorn snorted at the thought. Bourninund grunted, but was too tired or too drunk to involve himself in Shorn's thoughts this evening.

  Shorn was a man with a warrior's soul. A man who knew himself like no other.

  Or at least, I thought I did...

  His bones and sinews remembered the hundreds of battles all too well. The cold and damp, the poor rations. The campaigns, the wars. Sleeping in blood-soaked fields, or passed out in a thicket on the way to the next battle...always, he'd known where to go. Someone had always pointed, and he had gone. His life had been simple enough. He was a soldier, never a leader.

  So, now Renir and Drun were thick as thieves, lording it up in the castle that towered over the city. The castle, a bloated giant, looking down on the rest of them. Maybe Renir and Drun, too.

  Renir...a king?

  Shorn shook his head.

  I'm just drunk...low and drunk...they want the lead, let them. I'm a soldier, right?

  He was waiting. He knew how to wait. A soldier was, perhaps, better at waiting that fighting, even.

  So what was the problem?

  Exactly, Shorn...what is the problem?

  He was waiting. He had his orders...

  Because we're friends, damn it. Friends. Friends don't treat each other like...soldiers.

  Shorn snorted again and this time he did take a drink. A long drink. He'd thought he was done for the night. Already his head swam with drink and dark thoughts, but drunk was better than sober when you couldn't think straight. And he couldn't think straight because there were too many damn thoughts, all jostling within his head. The head of a soldier, and he knew this. And yet, was he a simple soldier now?

  They'd battled the Draymar barbarians and lived. Forged friendships that he thought even death could no longer break. They'd grown, learned, travelled, drunk together.

  Met the Seafarers and won passage...met his son! Shorn shook his head, once again. That he should have a son...Poul.

  He knew he would never see the boy again, but he'd made a mark, hadn't he?

  Hadn't he?

  Could it all be for nought? Nothing more left for him of note but to be fodder on a Protocrat's blade when the end, finally, came?

  His hand was shaking now and he tried to steady himself to take another gulp of the heavy ale people drank in this city. His hand was shaking, he knew, because he was angry. He didn't want to be angry.

  Bad things happened when he became angry.

  With all the force of his will, Shorn steadied his hand and finished his drink. But his mind wouldn't still, no matter how much he tried to drown it.

  It wasn't the friendship...it wasn't...

  He was struggling, now, to get his thoughts to go in a straight line.

  'Not the friendship...'

  Bourninund didn't seem to hear him.

  Not just that...they'd...what? They'd fought their way to the end of the world, even! To the frozen wastes of Teryithyr...into the heart of the volcano.

  Who else in the world but they could boast such a feat?

  They'd found the bloody Red Wizard, Gods help them.

  Was this to be the pinnacle? Was there nothing more left for the three of them, warriors all, but to pit themselves in a final war, to die? And should they live, what would there be for men such as them? Games of Fiddler's Thirteen, drunk and dropping teeth? Sitting in their own stink, growing fat, spending what coin they had on drink and meat and women?

  'No,' said Shorn, more loudly than he'd intended.

  His outburst made Bourninund slop his ale onto his shirt.

  'Brindle's balls, man. What's got into you? You've been maudlin ever since Renir went up to the castle. You soft on him?'

  'Maudlin? I'm not maudlin, Bourninund. I'm angry. I'm bored. I'm drunk. I'm not maudlin in the slightest.'

  'Could've fooled me,' said the older man. He shrugged and turned back to staring at the fire. 'Could get yourself up to the castle. If you wanted. You're not an outlaw no more, you know.'

  Shorn was silent for a while. Then he smiled, the expression wicked on his deeply scarred face. The greatest scar, that which split his nose nearly in two, curved like a scimitar.

  'You're right, Bourninund. You're wise, for an old man.'

  'Damn right,' said Bourninund, his head nodding down onto his chest.

  Shorn, too, nodded, then pushed himself up and strode quickly to the door and out into the night.

  'What?' said Bourninund. Then his head fell against Wen's shoulder and the two of them snored happily in the warmth of the fire and the ale.

  Once outside the Fat Monk, Shorn stood breathing the damp, chill air of the Naeth night. Drizzle came down, waking him from his anger and his drunken depression. He sensed something in that sudden moment of clarity, despite the fog of drink and the dim light.

  Sensed something...dangerous...

  Now!

  His hand, his good right hand, was instantly on his sword. Shorn was drunk, yes, but his life was violence. Drunk, but still fast. His hand to sword, sword from scabbard...as fast, if not faster, than a man could think the action.

  But this night, not fast enough.

  A thud, dull, and a clatter of steel. He looked to his right hand, where his sword should be held. Looked for the blur of his great sword named Faerblane, in what should have been a glittering arc through the dimly-lit sky.

  The sword was not in his hand, but on the stones beside his feet. His right hand was not moving as it should, but falling, like it had died.

  And it had.

  He stared down at the source of the sudden pain coursing through him and saw fat, black feathers at the end of an arrow shaft, jutting from his chest.
>
  Struck my spine, he thought. Crippled...on the right...

  Blood feels...dirty. Still standing. Not for long. Poisoned. Crippled.

  Get the poison out...live...call out...get...

  'Oh,' he managed, then toppled forward with a thud against the cobbles of the city streets. The arrow pushed through so that the poisoned head pointed upward to the sky, but the archer was thorough and perfect. The barbed steel head and the shaft both were coated in poison.

  The archer was the best there ever was. The best there ever would be. The archer's name was Guryon, the Planes' Assassin. He was not one soul, but many. The souls of all the assassins that ever lived, with one dread purpose their only reason for existing.

  As the first rays of the new day broke the horizon, the Planes' Assassin went from one spot to the next instantly. It pulled the broken mercenary from the bloody cobbles, and vanished, taking Shorn with it.

  Not matter what he'd done, Shorn would have been too late.

  *

  Chapter Nineteen

  Naeth Castle stood atop a slight hill that brought its foundations higher than most other buildings in the city, and its towers to what seemed dizzying heights from below.

  In a long, cold hallway of the castle, torches sputtered in the damp air. Wind whistled and rain dripped for the lintels above the high windows. The castle was old, the city's heyday centuries gone. It was a relic, a crumbling edifice from days past. More, perhaps, a monument to the memory of greatness than greatness itself.

  Daylight might have broken, but for most, it was still night. Only when Rythe's largest sun, Carious, fully broke the curve of the world would most wake. The night was for brawlers and thieves, for drunkards and wicked men. The day for merchants and hawkers and Lords and Ladies alike.

  One such lady slept, still. A lady who knew both worlds, the light and the dark. Outside her chamber, she was guarded. But few were guarded within their own minds, or from their own memories.

  Cenphalph Cas Diem sat with legs crossed to one side of the lady's heavy wooden door. His long, straight sword was unsheathed on the floor beside his right hand. Though his eyes were shut he was not sleeping, but guarding, and maybe wishing he had power like Drun Sard, his friend and, perhaps, his conscience. Then, perhaps, he would have been able to give the Lady A'm Dralorn succour from her darkening dreams. Her tortures, both sleeping and waking, were more apparent than ever. She would hardly leave her rooms, merely picked at whatever food came to her. She was uncomfortably thin, now. Her face was drawn, her black eyes now black underneath and above, too.