Eulogy

by D. T. Conklin

  Chapter Nineteen

  Rippon wasn't like Farren.

  This city's buildings stood taller, its streets broader. Where the southern city's windows were humble, little more than meager portals to people within, these panes had been built wide and sturdy, revealing homes that burst with life. Not necessarily happy. Fathers hoisted children to their shoulders, patted their backs and assured them everything would work out. These people ate their meals with haunted expressions, slurping soup or oats with a longing, mechanical motion.

  "They're not being fully recovered from the plague," Gar Tsi muttered.

  Irreor couldn't take his gaze from the homes, the shops and markets littered with dust and grime. Very few women occupied those houses. Fewer walked the streets.

  -And I'll take their wives and their daughters. They'll need a reason to fight, and sorrow is as good as any. Desperation. Ah, the wondrous things they'll do with desperation.-

  This wasn't like the southern city, but in ways it felt like it—the sense of foreboding, almost close enough to touch but too far to see. Something horrible awaited, but no mumble or cry could describe it. In ways, this place was worse than Farren. Not crime or corruption, but a sense of helplessness.

  Of defeat.

  "Void's tit," Gar Tsi said. "I should've been coming here last year. Plague be damned, it should've been too important to ignore. Kinslek needed to know things were being this bad."

  From the back of the wagon, Teel touched his shoulder. "You couldn't have known, my love. We couldn't have done anything—"

  "Might've been."

  "Like die?" Irreor shook his head and snorted. "You're an idiot if you'd consider risking a plague to sell a sack of beans. And I doubt Kinslek would've listened to a silly old merchant."

  The merchant snapped the reins to turn down yet another wide avenue. He took them past rows of open, sorrowful homes, past sludge-filled, reeking gutters, toward Rippon's far eastern edge. There, markets stood in front of the harbor, dusty tent flaps whipping in the ocean's breeze, salt heavy in the air. Two large ships from the Inner Empire bobbed in the bay, sailors scurrying to wrap and pack sails.

  Gar Tsi swung the wagon into an empty spot, yanked the reins to halt the donkey, and rummaged in his pockets. He withdrew a sheet of parchment, crinkled and battered, words already half-faded, and handed it to Irreor.

  "You're wanting to find yourself a way to save your friends and city?"

  "If I can."

  "Then you'd best be knowing your enemy. Find out what they're being capable of. Find out how good they are. Void's tit, man, find out how good you are. They're planning a war here, and it isn't going to be a pretty one—"

  "You need me at the wagon." Irreor glanced across the market, where only three women walked with baskets on their arms. The rest were hard-faced men, rugged and dangerous. "You brought me here to protect—"

  "No! This war will be dark and harsh and mean, the kind my father's father warned of. Teel will be sitting with me at the wagon. She's got her dagger ready enough, and there aren't many going to match her glare." He leaned close to whisper, "Harpy."

  Irreor matched the merchant's smirk. "I'll be back before the sun's too far set."

  "Do what you've gotta be doing."

  Teel slipped an arm through the merchant's. "Come, my love, let's find you a bath. Then we can lock up the wagon and have a skip through the brothels. Those, at least, must still be here."

  Gar Tsi grinned a happy grin.

  ***

  The parchment said, 'Come one and all and one and all to the heart of my pretty little city. I'll tick and tack and tick every day for a month. This month, that month, which month? We'll whack and whack swords in the Tournament of the Melon, and the victor will receive twenty thousand sparkly coins.'

  Even with smudged, half-faded words, Irreor could read it.

  Gar Tsi had been right. He needed to know more about them, more about himself.

  And yet, the message said nothing about the tournament's nature. Was it to the death? First blood? Until one man yielded?

  His father had once said, 'Don't take a life unless you've no other choice, for you'll be robbing a child from their father or mother. You don't want to think of those things, Son. They're terrible paths to tread, full of darkness and sadness and loss.'

  Other than training with Kipra, Bran, and his father, he'd rarely matched swords with another. Just the once, his first encounter with Crest's men, but never afterwards. He'd come close on the trails, driving away beggars or desperate villagers, but without any real danger.

  Could he kill another man? Would the Mad King demand it as part of the tournament rules? No, Irreor couldn't kill. Not like that. Not for a game. If the king demanded death, Irreor would slide his blades into their sheaths and refuse to take part. He'd simply return to the wagon.

  Signs of the tournament, which had run for two solid weeks, with two weeks remaining, covered the city. Abennak's letter must've filtered through the entire northern kingdom, and families had responded to it, filling the streets. Twenty thousand coins was worth it.

  Ragged children gripped their parents' hands, and men sharpened jagged longswords. Women cooked with tin pots, uncaring if the ash blackened the cobblestones. Many people slept and ate in the streets, while others had packed into inns and taverns. There simply wasn't enough space. Bandages covered many of the men's arms, faces, and chests, and even some women's—failures from earlier tournaments.

  He could deal with bandages.

  Just as the note had said, registration stood in the very heart of the city. A line of men wound from the scrivener's desk, centered in the road and ringed by half-a-dozen mailed guards. Farmers, potters, millers, craftsmen and more—all types waited to sign their names. The odor of sweat filled the air, mingling with a subdued hum, as if they were frightened to speak too loudly.

  Irreor took his place at the end of the line, beside a gaunt, poorly shaven man. A dough-splattered apron hung from the man's neck, and he swayed back and forth slightly, a notched sword hanging loosely in his fist.

  "Don't want to," the baker muttered. "Don't want to."

  The line lurched forward—another name signed, another entry accepted—but still the man repeated those words. Again and again, like a mantra, he clung to them.

  "Then why do it?" Irreor asked.

  The baker widened bloodshot eyes. "No choice. Plague took my wife. King took my shop for taxes, said there were enough bakers remaining. I've got nothing, but all that money could solve so much. So much."

  The line lurched forward.

  "Is the tournament to the death?" Irreor said.

  "Hah! Abennak can't afford to kill us so quickly. Needs us for his army."

  "What will he do once he's gathered it?"

  "Don't much care."

  -Answers will come slowly. For what will an answer be, if not something known? It will be little more than that. Yet they'll fear those answers. Anticipate them. In their hearts, they'll already know.-

  He'll attack Alkar. Farren will come first.

  Another two men signed their names. Another four, then ten. The baker scrawled something onto the registration parchment, and a stern-faced man led him away.

  Ink stained the scrivener's fingers, and he slumped in his chair as if he'd sat there for hours. Breath wheezed from his lungs, a slow, steady intake and expulsion. He watched Irreor with a smooth, expressionless face, then thrust his jaw toward the parchment.

  "Sign it," he said.

  "No one dies?" Irreor asked.

  "No one dies. Smack your swords together until someone is declared a winner."

  "When is it, and who declares the winner?"

  "This round begins tomorrow, seconds after the sun's edge touches the first cloud, whatever that means." The scrivener nervously dug his nails into the desk. "Abennak declares the winner, of course. Now sign the void-forsaken parchment."

  Not much of an answer, but it would do.

  Chapter
Twenty

  The next morning, Irreor waited within the loose ranks of more than two hundred other entrants. The castle's courtyard encircled them, a high-walled monstrosity that stretched deeper than it should have. At the head of the courtyard, grimy stairs, riddled with blackened splotches, led to the castle. Unswept cobblestones ground against their boots, and statues towered above them, glaring from the castle's entrance as if to stride from their bases and attack.

  Guardsmen—mail shining under a cloudless sky, faces creased with frowns—marched amongst the tournament entrants, ordering straight backs and proud jaws.

  "You're about to meet Abennak," one snapped. "King's cock, suck in your gut. Act like you've got life in your bones. You want to be seen as a lackwit, slack-jawed fool?"

  None did, but most of these men couldn't help it. They'd worked as farmers and craftsmen, and had entered this tournament only out of desperation or greed. However, they attempted to stand straight, suck in their guts and square their jaws.

  This was easier for Irreor. His father had taught him these things from the second he could walk.

  His blade gleamed where others were dull, barely-sharpened lengths of steel. He scanned the other men, searching for a threat, scouring for any danger. Only one man in ten held their blades with confidence, and less than half of those bothered to match his eyes.

  Could his army be so weak? Is it so easy? No, it can't be. It never is.

  'Don't get cocky,' his father had always warned. 'Even a fool with a stick can be lucky, and their luck will mean your death. Expect them to be better than you.'

  So he did.

  He'd trudged to the courtyard before sunlight had brightened the sky with splashes of orange. Then he'd trained until his muscles warmed, weaving maneuvers until his eyes opened fully. A war awaited the island, but the freshness of the sun against his cheek, and the promise of this tournament, had lightened his step.

  Horns boomed across the courtyard, throbbing bursts that hammered beneath his skull.

  Guardsmen snapped to attention as the castle gate swung open. A man skipped through hugging a large, yellow mellon to his chest, caressing it as he descended the castle stairs. Long, gray hair swayed over his forehead to partially obscure his eyes.

  Those eyes were madness—no mere whisper on a calm lake, but a wordless shriek, a gnashing terror like the jaggedness of a cliff. The man closest to the Mad King gulped, and a ball of sweat dripped from his chin. The king slid up to him, strangely fluid and dangerous.

  Abennak snatched the man's hand and pulled it out to caress the melon. "Kara loves melons." His murmur reached the farthest corner of the courtyard. "They're sweet and tender on the inside, but hardened like a shell on the outside."

  "Yes... yes your highness."

  "I can't think of honoring anything better than a melon, can you?"

  "N—no."

  "And why is that?" Abennak squinted one eye and pushed it against the entrant's cheek, as if trying to look within the man's head. "Whirling whirling, but you're not sure why, are you?"

  "No."

  Sweat beaded.

  The Mad King licked a drop from the entrant's forehead. "It's because you're incomplete. You can't think. Can't feel. Not yet. No, perhaps not ever. Are you ready to fight and fight in my tournament?"

  "I am."

  Abennak strolled before the gathered men. "And are the rest of you ready to fight and fight in my tournament?"

  "We are," they shouted.

  Irreor kept his voice lower than the others, watching as the king paced back and forth. This man was his enemy, one who planned to gather an army and send it south to burn his city and murder his friends. Beyond doubt, beyond reason—the king was insane. No, he was more than that.

  Void take me, what is it?

  -To lift my people ever higher I must first smash them down. I need something to do that. No, not something. A simple item won't instill the terror they must discover. Ah, but a person can do that. Yes. Someone.-

  So you chose him?

  -Choices and choices. What will they choose? It must have consequence. It must have meaning.-

  Answer me!

  Silence.

  Irreor frowned, his earlier thoughts forgotten. This tournament, and the entrants at his side with blades in their fists, weren't meant to be enjoyed. They were a way to understand his enemy, to discover a weakness.

  Abennak halted before Irreor and leaned close to whisper. "This melon means so much, so little. Yet a heart beats at its center. How would you find it? How would you touch it?"

  The king's breath smelled of garlic and steak.

  "I'd cut it open," Irreor said, careful to keep his voice strong and sure. "There's no other way."

  "Correct." Abennak tapped Irreor's nose. "We're all prickly on the outside, like gnarly beatles of gnarledness. But on the inside we're a mushy gushy mess. Like this melon. You want to win? Understand that."

  The king pivoted away and strode to the top of the castle stairs. He spread one hand wide, clutching the fruit in the other. "My lovely little melons! Today you'll smack your swords together. Some will bleed and others will laugh. None will cry." He pointed at Irreor. "Except you. For you... I can't save you. I wish I could."

  The entrants shifted, uncertain of what their king planned.

  What does he mean he can't save me? I don't want him to save me!

  No answer came.

  Instead, the king said, "One will fight two, three will fight four, and five will fight six. I suspect you'll catch on rather quick. Hah! Quick and six, they almost rhyme."

  Then Abennak skipped amongst them, careless as a girl at hopscotch. First he tapped one man on the forehead, then another and another. With each tap, he shouted out a number, counting higher and higher. He tagged Irreor with thirty-seven, and thirty-eight was the poor baker he'd waited in line with.

  If he wanted to reach higher, understand his enemy better—

  I'll do what I must.

  Abennak returned to the stairs and lifted the melon above his head. He paused there and scanned the entrants as if anticipating something, and then a faint, wispy cloud touched the sun's edge, and the Mad King smashed his melon into the courtyard. Flesh—oh so hard, oh so protective—split, and the fruit's yellow heart slopped to the ground.

  "Attack!" he screamed.

  War erupted.

  With no clear direction as to how they should fight one another, the entrants sprinted toward their given number. Some tripped over their fellow entrants. Others simply attacked anyone who came close. Insanity, just as the king must've planned. Swords flashed and fell. Blood stained stone.

  Through it all, the Mad King giggled.

  Irreor found his target at the courtyard's center. The baker lifted his blade and charged, but Irreor leapt to the side and smacked the flat of his longsword against the other's wrist.

  Irreor swept his sword up to touch the other man's neck. "I'm sorry."

  The baker's face wilted.

  "End and end the first round!" Abennak shouted.

  Clangs quieted, then stopped.

  "For those of you who lost, go find your houses. You know who you are."

  More than twenty men shuffled from the courtyard—wearied, beaten, mournful—but nearly one hundred should have. Abennak frowned, knelt amongst the smashed melon, and scooped up a handful. He slurped it up, uncaring of the juice that dribbled down his chin.

  "Counting and counting," he said, and he crossed the courtyard to stand before the baker. "But what's a number? I've never been good at that, but I know a loser."

  The baker cast Irreor a pleading look, as if begging him to remain silent. "I'm not—"

  "You are. Guards, take this man."

  Two large men stepped to the Mad King's side.

  "Introduce him to a rat." Abennak tilted his head. "Or a hammer, or a ratty hammer. It doesn't matter or patter or batter. Do something vile to him."

  The baker screamed as the guards carried him away.
/>   Irreor licked his lips, found them parched. He needed to do something to save the baker, but what? The man wasn't his friend. They'd known each other for less than a day. I can't do a bloody thing.

  But he needed to try.

  "You didn't need to do that," he said, careful to keep his tone respectful. "He would've left, given half a choice."

  Abennak turned to face him—regal, powerful, somehow sane—and scowled. "I gave him half a choice, and he half took it. But I was never given a choice. You know that, don't you? Of course you do. No, not even half a choice. My Kara, my little girls."

  A tear wiggled at the corner of his eye, but he blinked it away and bent to slurp down another chunk of melon. When he lifted his face, madness had returned. But it had worsened, become deeper, like a riverbed scoured beneath countless centuries. He spat the melon to the dirt and stomped on it like an angry child.

  And he screamed.

  Void take me, what is he?

  Oh, how he screamed.

  ***

  "It's worse than you can possibly imagine," Irreor told his friends, and he shuddered. "Abennak knows exactly what he's doing, most of the time. Other times it's something I can't explain. It's a feeling."

  Gar Tsi and Teel sat across from him at a cracked, thin table in one of Rippon's seediest taverns, and one of the merchant's favorite. They gripped twin tankards, sipping from them as if they contained the highest quality draft.

  The scent of soap drifted from the merchant's skin, and his clothes had been scrubbed until the edges frayed. He was finally clean, and a grin stretched his face wide.

  His wife rested her head against his shoulder, caressed his forearm, and winked at another woman across the tavern.

  Irreor shook his head, unable to enjoy her flirting. He pinned the merchant with a glare. "You understand what I'm saying?"

  "Aye," Gar Tsi said. "You're meaning the king lost what little sense he had. Color me unsurprised. It's not being much more than I'd suspected, but I suppose it's a potent enough story."

  The tournament's sixth round had ended three hours ago, with the last two scheduled for the next day.

  Two more rounds of madness.