by L J Chappell
‘Then why are you so certain that you want this work?’
She paused briefly, selecting the right words: words that would sound convincing enough that he wouldn’t question her decision any further. ‘Something felt unusual about that last job – not quite right. But I’m not sure exactly what. Perhaps it was nothing, but I’d like to make sure.’
‘Very well,’ he agreed. ‘I’ll see that the retainer is sent to your Common Room, but you should hurry. The job is marked as urgent. Take posthorses to Port Evendar, and then a fast boat to Little Tirassa. Try to leave within the hour.’
‘I’m almost ready to go, Master.’ She kept her bags half-packed beneath the bed, so she was always “almost ready to go”.
‘Be careful, Atterlie,’ the Guildmaster added. ‘My instincts also tell me that there is more than meets the eye to these contracts.’
3
Before Lanvik had a chance to act on his growing fixation with the name “Uvellia”, the day they had agreed to deliver Vander to their employer arrived. The contract specified a mid-morning meeting, opposite the clock in the Dolphin Square, so Kiergard Slorn wanted some of the Company to be in position well before that.
‘Garran, Vorrigan, Lanvik and Menska: you’re with me and Vander,’ he had told them over breakfast. ‘Bane, Vrosko Din, Ethryk, Karuin take the perimeter and be careful – they might already have people in place. Thawn, Ubrik, Tremano, Lisamel, Magda: hang back – you’re the backup team. I don’t want them to see you. I don’t want to see you.’
They had scouted out the square and agreed vantage points on their second day in Perastia, so everyone already knew exactly where they were going. The perimeter group split up and left the hotel separately so they would reach the square along different approaches and at different times, in case anyone was watching.
An hour and a half later, Kiergard Slorn, Vander and the others entered the Dolphin Square as one group, from beside the clock: that gave them the longest time to study the opposite side as they walked. They assumed that their contact would be waiting for them at a table outside one of the cafés on the far side: they had no description, but Garran and Kiergard Slorn had made the original arrangement and would recognise her if it was the same woman.
They had discussed a number of plans to cover the possibility that no-one turned up, but they needn’t have worried. Two of the tables were occupied – one by two old men sipping slowly from tiny cups, and the other by a chubby middle-aged woman with a small bag on the table in front of her. As soon as Vander saw the woman he began to speed up towards her and, it seemed, couldn’t help smiling.
Lanvik was surprised: the woman looked more like Vander’s mother than his secret love.
Vander greeted her: ‘Where is she? Is she here?’
It was Kiergard Slorn who answered him. ‘She’s on that balcony there,’ he waved one hand casually across to their left and slightly behind them. ‘But I’m certain she’ll be with us shortly.’
They all turned to look.
There was a young woman, a Dark Elf, sitting on a balcony that belonged to one of the hotels overlooking the square. She was wearing a high collar and a hat with a wide brim, so that her features were in shadow. Seeing herself observed and pointed out by the group below, she stood quickly and turned to go back inside. At that moment, Karuin and Ethryk stepped out and blocked her way: they exchanged a few words, and went inside together.
‘Let’s wait for her,’ Kiergard Slorn suggested. He pulled out a chair and sat down, indicating that Vander should do the same. The others leaned against nearby tables.
When the woman emerged from the front door of the hotel, it was Bane who accompanied her: they walked across the square to the table. Lanvik glanced round as casually as he could – there was no sign of Ethryk and Karuin.
‘Please join us,’ Kiergard Slorn invited her, and she sat down between the older woman and Vander. She and Vander held hands on the top of the table and, despite the fact that things were obviously progressing differently than she’d planned, she couldn’t stop herself from smiling either.
‘If you send someone else as an agent in order to stay safe,’ Slorn cautioned her, ‘then don’t come yourself as well. That’s just some friendly advice, for the future.’
She glanced across at him with an expression of brief hatred, but he ignored her look and continued: ‘I assume the bag is empty.’ He nodded to the little bag on the table in front of them, the one that had been there all along.
‘Yes,’ the older woman agreed, speaking for the first time. ‘I was supposed to check that Vander was with you. Then I would leave you here and fetch your payment.’
‘And you are?’ Slorn asked.
‘Hirendra,’ she said. ‘Lady Aruel’s family have been my employers for my whole life, and she grew up under my care. Most people call me “Nanny”.’
‘I prefer Hirendra,’ Slorn said. ‘Are you working for the family now, or only for her?’
‘Oh no, only for her. Her family wouldn’t condone this sort of nonsense, especially not with someone from outside the palace like Vander. But I’ve always tried to help the two of them.’
‘That’s enough, Nanny,’ Aruel told the woman. She brought out a tiny purse, opened it and looked inside. She selected a number of gemstones from inside and laid them on the table in front of Kiergard Slorn. He caught her hand by the wrist, took the entire purse and passed it to Vorrigan.
‘It’s alright,’ Vander told her before she reacted. ‘We can trust them.’
Vorrigan sat down at the table. He opened the purse, and emptied twenty or twenty-five more gemstones onto the table next to the ones she had offered. Then he gradually looked through them, examining a few closely.
‘Some of these stones are extremely valuable,’ he remarked, ‘but I assume those ones would be difficult to shift, particularly in the vicinity of Arrento.’ The girl Aruel said nothing to contradict his implication that the gems were stolen and would be recognised. He laid two larger dark blue gems on the table beside him – Lanvik assumed they were sapphires – and took two of the smaller, highly faceted clear stones as well, presumably diamonds. Then he returned the other stones to the little purse and handed it back to her.
‘Are we settled?’ Kiergard Slorn asked him. There had been no talk of the value of the contract, so presumably that had been discussed earlier.
‘Completely,’ Vorrigan said.
‘Well – after the extreme lengths that we had to go to in order to free Vander, that was gratifyingly straightforward,’ Slorn leaned back in his chair, apparently completely relaxed. ‘Shall we drink to the successful conclusion of our business …’
He gestured to a waiter, who had been hovering out of earshot in the doorway of the restaurant, presumably sensing that they didn’t want to be disturbed.
‘Of course,’ Vander agreed.
‘And to wish you both the greatest happiness in the future, of course.’
4
‘There’s no reason to linger here,’ Slorn told the others as they walked back to the hotel. ‘We should be on our way.’
‘What’s our destination?’ Lanvik asked.
‘We’ve been out on the road for a long time, so I think it’s time we went back home. We have a place in the Inner Sea – somewhere to relax, as well as to store our things and our gradually increasing wealth.’
‘Like a secret base?’
‘Exactly like a secret base,’ Bane agreed. ‘Except that it’s more like a secret villa. A secret luxury villa, with a small beach. And it’s not hidden in any way, so not really secret.’
‘Bane’s making it sound very grand,’ Menska laughed, ‘which it isn’t really. But it is comfortable.’
‘You haven’t mentioned it before.’
‘No,’ Kiergard Slorn agreed. ‘We didn’t want Vander to know about it.’
‘And where is this … luxury villa?’
‘It’s in the Inner Sea, between Marsalea and Corvak. We passed close by on the
way here, more or less.’
‘All this travelling,’ Lanvik chuckled. ‘We should have our own boat.’
‘We do have our own boat,’ Magda admitted. ‘It’s in the harbour.’
‘So as well as a secret base, we have a secret boat?’
‘Yes.’
‘In Perastia?’
‘Yes.’
‘How long has it been in Perastia?’
‘Since we knew this was where we’d do the exchange,’ Ethryk explained. ‘We left it here before heading north to Tremark.’
‘You didn’t mention that we had a boat.’
‘With every contract, there can be treachery or other unforeseen circumstances that require us to leave secretly, in a hurry. So we didn’t want to let Vander or Aruel know about our means of escape.’
‘Or me,’ Lanvik noticed.
‘Or you,’ Garran agreed. ‘At any time in the last few weeks, you could have remembered something about your past and decided not to come with us. Or we might have discovered something really unpleasant about you, other than your tambourine playing. So the less you knew, the better.’
‘But now we know you’re coming with us, we’ve told you,’ Karuin said. Then she saw the expression on his face and asked: ‘You’re not sure?’
‘I’m not sure,’ he admitted.
No-one said anything, but the Company slowed down as they walked, gathered closer so that everyone could hear what he had to say.
‘I’ve been restless ever since I heard the name Uvellia,’ he explained. ‘That name’s in my head, and I can’t stop thinking about it. It might be where I’m from, or it might be somewhere important to me. Perhaps I stopped there at some point in the past, maybe on the way from Ceran’Don; or perhaps there are people there who know me.’
‘So you want to go to Uvellia instead of coming with us?’ Karuin asked him.
‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘I thought I’d have longer to decide.’
They had reached the hotel: Kiergard Slorn glanced around the faces of the others, and said: ‘We can wait a little longer before leaving, then. We’ll stay another day – give you more of a chance to decide what you want to do, because you don’t sound very sure.’
‘No, I’m not,’ Lanvik admitted.
‘Drinks?’ Garran suggested, changing the subject. ‘At the hotel bar?’
The others agreed.
‘Not for me,’ Lanvik told the others. He needed to think, and he was already confused without the added fog of alcohol. Instead, he spent the next few hours walking around Perastia in the same places that he had become familiar with over the previous few days. It didn’t help, though: he was still no closer to a decision.
“Uvellia” was important – it had to be. Why else was it so persistently lodged in his head?
But did he really want to leave the Company now? To set off on his own, with no idea what or who he might find there?
He returned to the hotel: he passed the others on the way in, but decided not to join them straight away. He went to the room instead.
A few minutes later there was a knock at the door. It was Kiergard Slorn and Magda.
‘We’ve talked with the others,’ Slorn told him, ‘and even though you haven’t completed any contracts with us, we all agree that you feel like a full member of the Company. So if you choose to leave us now, then we’ll each donate a share of this contract. To give you funds. Otherwise you have nothing.’
‘Not a fortune, of course,’ Magda explained, ‘but you shouldn’t be making this kind of decision based on anything to do with money. And we certainly don’t want you to feel forced into staying with us because you’re too poor to leave. So we’ll give you enough to travel for a few months, to Uvellia and wherever else you need to go after that.’
‘That’s … that’s really kind of you, thanks.’
‘And there are ways that you can get in touch with us as well: places where you can leave messages,’ she added. ‘We’ll let you know what they are. If you go and do the things that you have to, you’ll always be welcome to come back to us, however things work out.’
‘Thank you,’ he repeated.
‘Don’t get soppy,’ she warned, and left.
‘Come over,’ Kiergard Slorn invited him along to the room he was sharing with Bane, and closed the door behind them. ‘Be honest,’ he continued: ‘Which way are you feeling more inclined?’
Lanvik shifted uncomfortably.
‘You’re thinking you should go?’
‘Probably, yes. It’s not that I need to go immediately, but I can’t get the idea out of my head. The longer I do nothing about it, the more I find myself thinking that I should, so it’s becoming more and more pressing: more and more urgent. I think I’ll have to go to Uvellia at some point to find out what’s there, what’s calling to me, even if I don’t go now. And if that’s the case then I’m better going now, when I’m already so close.’
‘It sounds as if you’ve actually made the decision,’ Slorn said, ‘but you haven’t convinced yourself.’
‘I haven’t, no. I’m afraid of what I might find there, especially if there are people who know me or know about me. I’d rather have some memories of who I am before I go, and it would be good to know what really happened in Lanvik.’
‘I understand,’ Kiergard Slorn nodded. ‘It’s like stepping out into the unknown.’
He opened his bag and unwrapped the Emerald Crown. ‘Look at this,’ he changed the subject: ‘Can you guess what I’ve managed to do with it?’
‘No,’ Lanvik said, curious. ‘What?’
‘Nothing at all. Absolutely nothing. For all I know, this is only a huge piece of tasteless jewellery that has never possessed any magic. Or perhaps I need to collect all the Trophies before they work: gather the Trophies together and you can lead the Army of the Undead – that’s what they say. And I have need of an army.’ He turned the Crown over in his hands.
Lanvik wondered what Kiergard Slorn believed he needed an army for, especially an Undead Army. But instead he asked: ‘Do you know where they all are? The other Trophies?’
‘I don’t even know what they all are: The Crown, The Hand, The Sword and the Fourth Trophy – the Eye, or the Ring, or the Shield, or the Cup, or the Heart, or whatever it is. They say the Four Trophies were hidden at the corners of the world – but we already know that’s only partly true, since the Emerald Crown was never really “hidden”. So perhaps the whole story’s nothing more than a legend.
‘Even if it’s true, how many people must have tried to gather them over the millennia? Dozens? Hundreds? So there’s no guarantee that any of the Trophies are still where they’re supposed to be. But I’m going to go and look for them anyway because sometimes you have to decide what you want and simply have faith that it will work out. And that’s my advice to you: decide what you want and then put your efforts into getting it – don’t let doubts stop you.’
He turned the Emerald Crown over in his hands again and chuckled: ‘That philosophy’s working for me so far – look, I have the Crown.’
Neither of them said anything for a few seconds, and then Kiergard Slorn continued in a different tone of voice – casually, conversationally: ‘I had a mind to search for the Ruby Hand next – I know roughly where the Twilight Isles are, and with a couple of ships and a few months I’m sure I could find them, so the Hand seemed the most obvious choice. But now, I’m beginning to think that the Glass Sword should be next. Its resting place is apparently on the Eastern Shore, protected by three Witches.’
‘The “Eastern Shore” is supposed to be in Ceran’Don, isn’t it?’
‘Yes it is, but people have been telling me not to go there since I was very young. No-one says it directly, but that’s the message behind all those tales of mages and the Vampire Brood … that Ceran’Don is an alien and dangerous place which should be avoided. So now, even as an adult, the very name makes me feel nervous.’
‘You’ve never been?’
> ‘No, never, but I’ve made it my business to track down people who have and to talk with them.’
‘And?’
‘Most of them say it’s just like everywhere else, but that it’s difficult to travel further than the western ports. And that leads me to think that matters would probably be simpler if I had a mage with me.’ Kiergard smiled and squeezed Lanvik warmly by the shoulder.
‘Well,’ Lanvik told him: ‘If you think you might need a mage, then you’d better hope my memory comes back.’
‘That would be ideal … perhaps: it would depend on what you actually remember. You might recall your way around Ceran’Don, but you might equally recall that you hate all Dark Elves, or that you are urgently required elsewhere. I mean, somewhere other than Uvellia or Ceran’Don.’
‘Yes,’ Lanvik agreed. He had also been wondering about the possible consequences of recovering his memories. Lurking at the back of his mind, so uncomfortable that he didn’t like to consider it, was the possibility that he was actually a killer as they had accused him of being in Urthgard.
What if the memories of a hundred murders came back to him?
What if his memories returned and he discovered that he was a different person from who he thought he was. Someone arrogant or angry or timid or anything else that he didn’t think of as him. Would that old personality return at the same time, and despise the new “Lanvik” that he had turned into? He quite liked being Lanvik: what he thought and who his friends were. Would his new friends even like the old him, if he was radically different?
Or, if he kept this new personality, how would his old friends react to it?
If he had any old friends.
He was sure that regaining his memories would answer a lot of his questions, but he was equally sure that it would raise a number of new ones.
There was a loud banging on the door. ‘Are you in there, Kiergard?’ It was Bane’s voice.
Slorn opened the door a little, keeping the Emerald Crown out of sight. ‘What’s happened?’
‘You’d better come. There have been … complications.’