by Eric Ugland
"Is this just your family?" I asked.
She nodded in the middle of a sip of her bubbly red wine. "I'm not sure when it started, but it's a bit of a tradition that all the Glatons who are going to an event meet up beforehand and have a chat. My father said that when he was younger, it was an opportunity to give out socializing orders. Who to speak to and what to speak about at the event. But these days it's calmed down, and we mostly just have a drink and say hello."
“Where I’m from it’s called a pre-game. Does everyone live here?"
"In this palace? No. But most of the Glatons live on the Imperial Palace grounds. There's plenty of space.”
"What happens if the next emperor isn't a Glaton?"
"The grounds and all the palaces on it belong to the Glaton family. But the Emperor is permitted to have the main Imperial palace as his or her residence while crowned."
"Oh, so, uh, nothing really happens."
"Not much, no."
"How long does this last?" I asked.
"The symposium? Hours—“
“No, this portion of it. The Glaton pre-game.”
“Half an hour, maybe? It gives the rest of the guests time to be brought in. Then we have to go be announced, and everyone claps. It's a horrible ordeal, but, well, tradition."
"Wait, I'm going to be announced?"
"You'll be announced as my escort because you don't have a title. Unless you've gotten a title, then you can be announced as such. Which is another stupid thing that is dictated by tradition. When I was little, I thought about fighting it all. About abolishing all this nonsense, but being a bit older, I decided it's not the hill I want to die on, you know?"
"Got to pick your battles," I replied.
She nodded.
A loud crash interrupted our conversation. The door a the far end of the room flew open, and a figure strode in, boots clacking on the parquet floor.
A hush came over the crowd. I knew immediately who'd come to the party.
"Valamir," someone said in a low tone.
He looked around, decided who was the most important in the room, after himself, I suppose, and began the ritual of meeting everyone.
Conversations mostly resumed, but it was very evident everyone was keeping one eye on the former emperor's brother. Watching everyone watch him, I couldn't help but wonder if Matthew was right. If the entire Glaton family was against Valamir, maybe I’d just been hoodwinked by the man. Maybe he was the sort of asshole who'd kill his brother and try to steal the throne.
"Awfully daring of that man to show up here," I heard someone mutter.
"Can you imagine how insufferable everything will become when he assumes the throne?" another said.
"There's still time for someone else to take it."
"And have Valamir kill them too? I think not."
I looked over at Nadya. She was looking at me, a hint of a smile on her face.
"What?" I asked.
"Just nice to be here," she said. "I'm happy."
"I, uh," I stopped there. No chance was I going to come up with something witty to say, so I just had another bit of bubbly.
“Me too,” I finally mustered.
I felt his presence before I saw him. There was just an aura about the man. It was something I hadn't experienced in his home, though. There, he'd been vulnerable, and more like a normal person. But here, he approached Nadya and me with his back ramrod straight, looking rigid and admittedly somewhat fierce in his military uniform. He looked Nadya in the eye, and gave the slightest bow.
"Niece," he said.
"Uncle," she replied.
"You look beautiful tonight," he said, "you do our family proud."
"I am happy I can look good enough to make the family proud."
"You know what I mean, niece."
"I know I know, but I've been trying to coax you from being awkward for years."
"And it would appear it is something I am fated to be cursed with."
"Nonsense—“
"And who is this?" Valamir asked, turning his gaze on me.
I smiled.
"Clyde Hatchett," I said.
"Hrmph," he replied. "Your pit-worker friend?"
"Yes," Nadya snapped. Then she paused. “You know I work in the pits?”
He gave her a cryptic smile, and leaned in close. “I know many things about you. And him.”
Valamir looked over at me, and it seemed like it almost hurt him to have to address me. "I heard you were quite brave on a number of occasions at the pit. Thank you for keeping my favorite niece safe."
“You're welcome."
"Do you have plans beyond cleaning pits, young elf?"
"Plans?"
"You cannot be happy cleaning pits. Do you think you will spend your next hundred years mucking out after monsters and trash? You must have goals and desires—“
"Uncle," Nadya said, pointedly.
"What?" Valamir asked, and it really seemed like he didn't see any issue with his line of questioning.
And all of a sudden I saw the beauty in his act. If he played at being this awkward doofus of a guy, it gave him so much freedom to say whatever he wanted. To question people. No one would dare gainsay him — not just because of his social position, but because it had been established he was the weird, awkward uncle.
There was the clean ring from a large bell.
"Line up please," called out a man's voice. "Low station to high. No one is here for the first time, you all know your places."
"We will finish this conversation yet," Valamir said. "You can be sure of it."
"Sure, Uncle," Nadya said, as if she was tired of it all. And then we lined up near the end of the line, before Nadya's parents and after nearly everyone else. There was only one couple, and then, at the back, Valamir.
"Odd," Nadya whispered to me as we started walking, "the Emperor's daughter, the princess, she's not here."
Chapter Fifty-Four
Being Announced is silly. Ridiculous really. And yet I've never wanted a title more just so I could be Announced as well, rather than being “and escort.” Probably not the most demeaning moment in my life, but as I descended the stairs, reduced to “and escort," I decided I needed a title. Or just to never be 'Announced' again.
We walked down the stairs, and moved into the party. Except it wasn't really a party. It was more like a receiving line where some obvious sycophants waited to press the flesh with the Royal Family. No one wanted to press my flesh, or Nadya's. We skipped right past it, but there were plenty of people who grabbed at Nadya's parents, and especially at Valamir.
The Monster’s Ball was divided into three main areas. The most active social area was obviously the ballroom itself. There was live music, dancing, and people socializing. Then, in a separate room that was nearly as big, there were monsters in cages. Each cage had at least two, if not more handlers nearby. Curious rich people could walk by and peek at the monsters. From our quick overview, I couldn't see which monsters had been chosen for display because Nadya pulled me along to the third room. It was the smallest of the three rooms, though that's not saying much because we're still talking about an Imperial palace here, which means by my standards, it was huge. The smallest room had a lectern up at the front, and was otherwise filled with chairs. The lecture hall. There were a few rolling chalkboards that had prepared drawings on them.
Nadya picked seats near the back, explaining that she didn't want anyone to pay more attention to her than the speaker, and then she pulled a notebook out of a hidden pocket on her dress. I suppose that was one advantage to big poofy ballgowns — they could hold pockets.
It wasn't a particularly crowded lecture, but the woman speaking was enthusiastic all the same.
"There is little more commonly known about the colloquially known ‘metalmuncher' than it eats metal," she said. "But the danger this beast presents is greater than nearly any other."
One of the aides behind her pushed out a chalkboard that had a drawing of what I
assumed was the MetalMuncher. It had a pretty unique design to it, something along the lines of an insect put in a blender with a squirrel and an octopus. Six legs, long tail with a big sucker at the end and small suckers around the tip. Furry, with something along the lines of a cute face. Until, that is, you saw the thing’s mouth, at which point, you'd wish you could unsee it because it was hideous. It was a horrible collection of small blunt teeth that, according to the lecturer, "moved individually to rip and shred metal and take it down into the creature's highly acidic gullet."
She gave a brief overview of the creature as she'd studied it, that it was found primarily in the caves and caverns to the west in the mountains between the Emerald Sea and the Empire, though it was possible they were elsewhere as well. It didn't appear they did a tremendous amount of burrowing, but they seemed to have an affinity to metal, which allowed them to sense it, as a wolf or lion does blood. Hence, when hunting and studying it, there was no trouble finding the creatures as they came to the researchers and ate the armor the researchers wore. Her main point of focus, at least as I understood it, was the economic danger the creatures posed. They weren't particularly vicious, as they didn't seem to have any desire to consume flesh, and would flee if attacked. The danger was their ability to hide in small places, that some might be transported from the caves to a more civilized area with a higher concentration of pure metals. Pure metals seemed to cause high growth rates for the creatures, followed by high reproduction rates. So if a metalmuncher was released into a commercialized smithy, it could unleash a veritable pandemic of metalmunchers, which might be capable of rendering a town metal-free in a matter of months.
Next up was a man who came to talk about something called a skammarrunna, which was something found in the deep forests and marshes in the western and southwestern areas of the Empire. It looked like a simple mound of leaves or vegetation on the forest floor, but then, it ambushed creatures that walked by, pouncing and eating anything that got too close. The skammarrunna could grow immensely large, but started off rather small, which is when, the lecturer opined, it was actually most dangerous. Because a huge pile of detritus was easier to spot as being a skammarrunna, the smaller ones really seemed like they might actually just be leaves.
The creatures weren't keen on moving — they tended to stick to ambush spots they liked. But they did move on occasion, especially as they got larger, when they tended to become more mobile hunters. Skammarrunnas weren't particularly fast over distance, but they could move very quickly in their attack mode. The lecturer said there was a skammarrunna out in the display area, and there would be a feeding later, which would give a good example of its style of fighting, and the true physiology of the creature.
And then the abominaball. I giggled when I heard the name, but when I looked over at Nadya, she was giving me a serious look. Which, she definitely managed to hold for a solid second before breaking into a smile herself, which she dutifully hid with her notebook.
The abominaball was another ambush creature, this one found in the mountains across most of the Empire. Anywhere that had heavy snowfall, you'd find an abominaball. During the day, they looked just like boulders that had been snowed on. Just big mounds of snow that were mostly ball shaped. But if you got too close, they’d attack. And during the night, the creatures moved and hunted.
It was this facet which made them most dangerous to explorers and adventurers, because they moved with preternatural quietness, thanks to the snow, and they were just so big. The lecturer had several chalkboards ready to go over the physical structure of the abominaball. It was definitely an odd creature. Mostly round, like a giant ball, it had a massive mouth that almost bisected the ball. Short gullet, and lots of its organs were actually stored in the body above the mouth. It didn't really have arms, but it did have fourteen sets of legs that were placed around the creatures' body, almost like a spine. So no matter the direction the creature was facing, some legs would be on the ground. It didn't seem to have a predilection for up or down, so it could roll if it wanted to. Very weird creature.
Thankfully, after three lectures, even Nadya's attention waned, and she decided she needed a break. So we went into the monster display room to see the creatures there. Especially because it was going to be skammarrunna feeding time very soon.
We swung by a table of food and picked up some bites. Small sandwiches with exotic meats on them, and spicy mustard slathered all over. Tasty. But it was a little odd to be eating at the same time as this giant creature stared at me from between the bars of its cage. I'd never been keen on going to zoos in the old world, and this was remarkably similar to a zoo. Except I had the feeling these creatures would be significantly more dangerous. The thing watching me while I ate looked a lot like a tiger, except it was green and black instead of orange and black. And it was bigger. Also, it had a flower on the end of its tail that had a wicked looking spike sticking through the 'petals.' The nameplate at the bottom said the creature was a skogur, a temperate mid-empire skogur to get specific. The two guards for the cage were standing behind stanchions that roped off a section about ten feet out from the cage, which made me think the skogur could snap its tail out about ten feet.
Nadya saw some movement happening further into the room, so she dropped her sandwich and grabbed my hand. It caused my mouth to miss my own sandwich, and I got yanked, sandwich smeared, along behind her.
It was skammarrunna feeding time.
If you didn't know it was a monster, you'd have looked at the cage and wondered why someone had bothered to rake up a pile of leaves and put it there. The cage itself was about twenty feet by twenty feet, so on the bigger side for the displays. And the pile of leaves took up most of the cage. The floor was covered. A portion of the top had been removed, and was hanging above by a rope. Then I noticed a goat being lowered into the cage. A live goat. I felt an upwell of remorse, that we were watching this poor goat get sacrificed. And yet, we were learning, right? It wasn't just for entertainment value.
Nadya had her notebook out, and was furiously scribbling without looking at the page, either drawing or writing what she was seeing.
The goat struggled a bit as it went through the cage opening, and then the nightmare portion of the evening happened.
There was an explosion of movement. It first looked like the leaves flew back and away, which revealed the underbelly of the skammarrunna. We saw a dark, almost viscous snail-like flesh. There were shorter tendrils, maybe two to three feet long, everywhere. In a sense, it looked like the goat was being attacked by a horrific dark-brown mop. Or a shag carpet. Except that there were definitely hooks among the tendrils, not just on the ends, but a bit like suckers on an octopus tentacle. The goat disappeared under the skammarrunna, and the pile of leaves appeared as normal again. Except for a very brief, and gross, crunch.
Then, total stillness again. The whole attack took maybe two seconds, at the outside.
The rope that had been tied to the goat was still in the cage. After a tug, it seemed like it was trapped there, so one of the handlers just cut the rope and let it fall. They lowered the top piece back into place, and then we returned to looking like a group of people standing around looking at a pile of leaves.
Suddenly, I had absolutely zero desire to go into the forest. Ever.
"That was terrifying," Nadya said. But her facial expression kind of said otherwise. She looked exhilarated. Her cheeks were flushed, and she was smiling.
The rest of the cages were more ordinary monsters, which I realize is an odd thing to say. There were red, green, and yellow slimes. Things that looked like slimes with legs. A tank of water filled with fish-type creatures.
It was all very interesting. I was having fun. It was also interesting to see that most people there didn't keep the same sort of work schedule that Nadya did, because she was yawning by the time we sat down to listen to another lecture.
"You need to get some rest,” I said.
"I'm fine," she replied, leaning against
me and closing her eyes.
"Yeah, you totally look it."
She smiled, but didn't open her eyes.
"Trolls," the man at the front said. "Scourge of civilization."
"I think I could go to sleep," Nadya said.
"Not a fan of trolls?" I asked.
"They're gross," she said, getting to her feet.
We made a surreptitious exit, and I escorted her home. Which, in this case, meant walking her to the main stairs.
An armed guard stood menacingly at the bottom of the stairs. But at seeing Nadya, he stepped aside so she could walk up.
"Claude," Nadya said to the guard, "do you have a guest medal?"
"Yes, ma'am," the man said, and he produced a small silver medallion on a blue ribbon from a pouch on his belt.
She took the medal from Claude, and we walked to the next landing up before she handed it to me.
"What's this?" I asked.
"Marks you as an official guest of the family. Means you won't get thrown out if a guard comes across you."
"Ah, might be handy," I said.
"I guessed you probably wouldn’t leave quite yet. Maybe you need to go visit someone's brother?"
No secrets amongst this group. Which could be a good thing. At least people were talking to each other.
"That's the plan," I said.
"It's that way," she said, pointing to the northeast. “Good luck."
She stood there.
I stood there.
She smiled at me. She was waiting for something.
I swallowed hard. Hesitating. Because that's what I do. There was an easy answer. An expected response. But here I was, freezing on the spot.
This beautiful girl couldn't be interested in me, right? Despite all the evidence to the contrary, despite her pseudo-uncle hiring the anonymous-thief me to ensure regular me had no interest in the girl, she didn't like me that way.
Right?
The momentary pause went on for way longer than it should have otherwise.