by Joseph Lallo
"Well done. This way please. This is a bit of a reunion, so I've finally got a reason to open some of the vintage. That alone is reason enough to celebrate," he said.
They walked through the doorway to a larger room with various dried and smoked foods hanging along one wall. Along another was rack after rack of fine wine. Most of the rest of the room was littered and stacked with chests of various sizes. In the center was a table with two chairs. Desmeres lit a set of candles on the table and several lamps that lined the walls.
"As you see, we aren't equipped for guests. There is usually only the two of us here, if anyone at all. Pull up a chest or something to sit on. I dare say I've emptied quite a few waiting for this fellow to show up," he remarked as he looked over the stock of wine.
Myranda did so. It was already quite clear that she would have no answers until Desmeres was ready to give them. The white haired fellow opened a bottle and set it on the table, then set about finding enough glasses for all in attendance. After leaving the room, he returned with two heavy clay cups and one metal one.
"The honored guest gets the special glass," he said, setting it before her.
It was not until she watched him pour a splash of the wine that she realized that the chalice was of solid gold.
"Where did you get this?" she asked, admiring the work of art.
"I don't recall. Some people cannot afford payment in coins alone. I am willing to accept anything, so long as it is gold," he said, pouring the rest of the glasses.
Lain returned to his seat after fetching some manner of dried meat. Desmeres set out some cheese on a plate.
"To old friends and new ones," Desmeres said, raising his glass. Myranda joined in the toast, while Lain simply tore into his meal.
After sampling the wine, which was as subtle and delicious as any that she had ever tasted, Myranda set the glass down.
"May I please have some answers?" she begged.
"But of course. Just a moment though. Lain, are we keeping any secrets for ourselves?" he asked.
"Use your best judgment," he answered.
"Oh, are we using our best judgment now? Because based upon your last few decisions, I thought the new policy was to try our very best to get ourselves killed and lose everything we have worked for. My mistake. Now that good judgment is the choice of the day again, perhaps things will get done. Questions please," he said. His words had been riddled with sarcasm, but still carried the necessary sting. Lain weathered them as though they were anything but rare.
"Who are you really? What exactly do you do?" she asked.
"I am this fellow's business associate," he answered.
"But he is an assassin. What could you possibly do for him?" she asked.
"Oh, not much. I make all of his weapons. I build, manage, and maintain networks of contacts and informants. I locate and contact prospective clients, manage cover businesses, handle finances, keep records, collect and negotiate payments. Basically everything but get my hands dirty," he said. "And in exchange I get half of his fee."
Myranda frowned.
"So you are as much a murder as he is," she said.
"Heavens, no! If there is blood to be had it is entirely upon his hands. I merely point him in the most profitable directions," he said.
"And arm him," she said.
"Bah. We've had this discussion. A weapon is merely a tool, and I merely make it. He is the one who decides what to do with it," he said.
"But-" Myranda began.
"But, but, but. I have had decades to hone my rationalizations. They are quite solid. I suggest you ask another question rather than lecturing me," he said, not a drop of anger in the voice. There was a sense of his having done all of this before. There was that sense to everything he did and said, as though this absurd life he lived was mundane.
"Well, what is this place?" she asked.
"A store room. One of many. A repository for surplus funds, a library for old records. I keep most of my better weapons here. Of course, in times of need, this place also serves as a safe house, and ever since that fellow there decided to hand you over to the Undermine, the times have most certainly been of need. Clients tend not to react well when the person they hired to capture someone decides to release the target. When the client has an army at their disposal, it generally turns out poorly," he said.
"What is the damage?" Lain asked.
"The tavern and the inn have been seized. I still have access to a pair of the armories, but the rest have been closed as well. Our little enterprise has all but disappeared from the map," he said, almost grinning. "It will have to be rebuilt from the ground up."
"What are you talking about?" Myranda asked.
"We have a handful of legitimate businesses that we use for meeting places and to attract clients. Trigorah and her Elites have been taking them down one by one ever since her pet target vanished. She can be a real pain sometimes," he said.
Lain stood and headed for the door.
"Where are you off to?" Desmeres asked.
Lain continued silently.
"Well, enjoy. I had more to say, but it can wait," Desmeres said, obviously knowing Lain too well to expect a response.
"Get back here! I'm not through with you! I followed you here for a reason! You have a job to do and so do I!" Myranda cried.
Lain slipped out the door, shutting it behind him. Myranda rushed after him, but by the time she reached the door to the entry room open again, the heavy trapdoor was clicking back into place.
"Oh, never mind him. He will be back. There is no place else in this world that will have him right now. He is probably just out to hunt. Between you and me, he hates prepared food. At any rate, you must have more questions, and if you don't I've got a few," he said, leading her back inside.
Myranda was helpless to follow Lain even if she had wanted to. She remembered the blades and knew neither how to deactivate them nor what triggered them. She entered the dining room and sat in Lain's chair.
"Any more questions?" Desmeres asked.
The young woman wondered for a moment why she had ever thought she could convince Lain of anything now that he had a whole world to hide in. In following him, she had left paradise for the sake of a hole in the ground, and perhaps nothing more.
"What does it matter? You will only lie to me," she said bitterly.
"Oh, not at all. As a matter of fact I have a feeling you will very soon find me to be the most infuriatingly honest person you have ever met. So, if you have any questions, feel free to ask," he said.
Myranda sat numbly and shook her head.
"Then I have a few for you. You say he has a job to do. I assume you are not speaking of his still pending task of turning you over to the Alliance Army. What then?" he asked.
"He is one of the Chosen," she said.
"The what? Oh, that's right. I remember them giving that speech at least a dozen times in Entwell," he said.
"But it is true. It is proven!" she said.
"How so?" he asked.
Myranda explained about the ceremony that had taken place in Entwell before she had left. She told of the summoning of an elemental, a Chosen One, and the fact that Lain was still standing when the creature was formed. The mystic being had even approached him. According to the peerless minds of Entwell, this was only possible if Lain was Chosen. Desmeres nodded thoughtfully through the entirety of the tale, sipping at the wine as it was told.
"Hmm. I always hated Hollow," he said when the recollection was through, speaking of the prophet who had predicted the ceremony and its meaning. "Frankly, I’ve never trusted the whole concept of prophesy. The fact that things occurred precisely as he’d predicted they would certainly punctures my theory that he has been speaking pure nonsense for all of these years. And you say that this other Chosen One, the one you conjured up, it just flew away?"
"Yes," she answered.
"That is a bit odd. You would think that after being brought into existence one would be eager to ge
t to the task for which one was summoned. I haven't heard anything about an elemental showing up and bringing widespread peace, though," he said.
"I believe that the Chosen will not turn to their task until all five have appeared and joined forces," she said.
"Ah, yes. The fabled 'Great Convergence.' I imagine that the meeting of the Chosen will be a rather difficult thing to arrange with Lain dedicating himself to other tasks, the mysterious elemental flying about waiting for something, and the others sight unseen," he asked.
"I've seen one. In the field. He was dead," she said.
"One would imagine that would only further complicate matters," Desmeres said. "Tell me. If he was dead, how did you discover that he was Chosen?"
"He had the mark. This mark," Myranda said, showing her scar.
"Say. That looks familiar," he said.
"There is one just like it on Lain's chest, one on the forehead of the elemental creature, and it was all over the dead swordsman's weapons and armor. It is the mark of the Chosen," she said.
"Am I to assume then that you are Chosen?" he asked.
"No, no. A Chosen One must be divine of birth and born with the mark. I am only human, and mine is a scar," she said.
"And yet you feel compelled to hunt the others down. You do realize that if the prophesy has come true thus far it is likely to finish itself off without your help," he said.
"That is just it. I believe I am part of the prophesy. Hollow may have mentioned me," she said.
"I see. You don't suppose you are suffering from delusions of grandeur, do you? Well, I suppose you wouldn't be very well suited to answer that. At any rate, this is all very interesting but I hope you don't mind if I change the subject. I tend to enjoy talking about things that have already happened rather than things that are about to. Less chance of spoiling surprises that way," he said. "I take that you set your mind to magic back at Entwell. How far did you get?"
"Full master," she answered.
Desmeres tilted his head.
"No . . . in half a year?" he remarked in disbelief.
"A bit less than that," she said.
"And yet an olo got a hold of you. Not very fast with the spells yet?" he said, indicating the trickle on her leg.
"I manage," she answered, directing a bit of thought to the wound to close it.
"Hmm . . . I may need to renegotiate," he said.
"Renegotiate what?" she asked.
"Your price. It is already the highest that we've ever been offered, but now that you are a full wizard I may just be able to squeeze a bit more out of them," he said.
"You are still thinking of turning me in?" she growled.
"Myranda, it is practically all I think about," he said, quite unapologetically.
"But now? After you know me? After you know what I must do? How could you?" she asked, appalled.
"Did Lain ever tell you what you were worth?" he asked.
"No! What does it matter?" she asked.
"Oh, with a number this large? It matters," he said, standing and hurrying out the door.
She stood to follow.
"No, no. Stay there. You were impressed with the gold goblet, right?" he said amid door creaks and chest slams. Finally he reentered and walked to the table. He slammed something down on it.
It an enormous brick, as thick as her arm and nearly as long. Gold.
"One gold ingot. Think of it as four hundred gold coins melted together. We currently have just under thirty of these, plus enough other gold coins and knickknacks to equal perhaps one hundred more. The Alliance Army, for a reason that we are not entirely certain of, is willing, nay, eager, to pay us one hundred and twenty-five of these for your corpse and the sword you carried," he said.
Myranda's eyes locked on the block of gold and widened.
"However! That is merely the base price. If you are still breathing when we hand you over, the price is increased tenfold. One thousand, two hundred and fifty of these bits of auric masonry. That is equal to five hundred thousand gold coins. Five million silver coins. Two hundred and fifty million coppers. I would say that you are worth your weight in gold, but that is a massive understatement. You are worth something on the order of three hundred times your weight in gold. You are the single most valuable thing I have ever seen," he said.
"But . . . why?" she asked, dumbfounded.
"As I said, their motivation is a mystery to me. Most interesting is the fact that they did not even want specifically you. At least, not at first. Their orders were to retrieve that sword of yours, which we have by the way, and anyone who touches it directly and lives. We were also told not to touch it ourselves, if we value our lives. I do and I have not," he said.
Myranda's mind began to stir.
"That sword . . . that sword belonged to the swordsman. That sword is what gave me the mark. It has something to do with the Chosen. And they want me, alive . . . " she thought aloud.
Deep in Myranda's mind, thoughts and instincts clashed together. Thoughts that had been forming since Lain had first told her the truth about why he captured her. Longings and hopes merged as she tried to find some explanation for such actions. Almost hammered into her mind at birth was the belief that the Alliance Army had the best interests of the people and the world at heart. That thought planted the seed of an idea. They wanted the person who touched the sword, if possible alive. The seed grew until finally it found its way to her voice.
"They know! They know about the prophesy! They came to the same conclusion I did, that the person who is scarred with the mark by the sword is the one who will join the Chosen together. They must want my help!" she said, more certain of it with every moment.
"Possible. I have seen greater stretches of the imagination come true," he said, nodding thoughtfully, then frowning. "Not the least bit likely. In fact, now that I th-"
"Desmeres, I must meet with the Alliance Army at once!" she said.
"Not so quickly, I am afraid," he said, dropping the interrupted thought and embarking on a new one. "You see, when Lain decided to free you and keep them at arm's length from you, it made them believe that we were no longer willing to turn you over. That has put the two of us on a very exclusive list of insurgents who are to be killed on sight by the Elites. It is clear that those very same Elites are the ones who seek to claim you as well. Until we can establish that Lain's little idiosyncrasies are harmless and that we are indeed still willing and able to relinquish yourself and the sword, we are going to have to wait."
"I will just go to them myself," she said.
"That would not be wise. Lest you forget, the attempts to capture you have been less than pleasant in the past. The rest of the agents out after you are not so well disciplined as the Elite, and I would wager to say that they have not been offered the same compensation as we. If you meet them first, which you most certainly will, they might be just as willing to turn over a corpse as a captive," he said.
"I will take my chances. I can take care of myself," she said.
"That freshly healed wound on your leg and the close calls of the past would seem to indicate the contrary," he said. "Besides, if you go off and turn yourself in, we will not get paid, and that would just be a tragedy."
"Hmm. And Lain is Chosen. I would have to find him again after all," she said.
"Precisely. So what do you say? You stay on as our guest until I can smooth out relations just enough to allow an exchange. That is, of course, unless you don't want to, in which case you will need to stay on as our prisoner. I would suggest choosing the former. It has better accommodations and the conversations are a tad less one sided. That will give you time to convince Lain of his place in the cosmic way of things, and it will allow us to protect our investment. Then you and he can go off and find elementals and all manner of other eldritch companions and create a tale we can all tell our children about," he said, lifting the ingot to return it to its storage.
Myranda frowned at his mocking tone toward the end of the speech. Wh
en he reached for the gold, it made Myranda realize something.
"Wait. The war is good for you. Why would you allow me to help bring peace?" she asked.
"Do you honestly believe that you will be able to convince Lain to join forces with the Alliance Army and put his life on the line to somehow put this war to an end? They have hunted him for decades, and when they caught him, they tortured him for a month, if my sources can be believed. He will never work with them without what he considers to be a very good reason, and I doubt such a reason exists," he said frankly.
"He will see the light," Myranda said confidently.
"Yes, well, I sincerely doubt it. People like Lain have lived in the dark so long, when they see the light they tend to close their eyes. Say . . . why do you assume the war is good for us?" he said.
"Lain told me how the hatred it stirs up is what gets you your business," she said.
"Mmm. It would generally be true to say that war is good for the business. Of course, a war would generally only last a few years and be far less widespread. During a normal war there are mad scrambles for power. People stabbing each other in the back to grab a hold of the largest slice of power and land. This war has been going on too long. Everything has stabilized. Anyone who wants power and has the means to get it has done so, often with our help. The rest are too weak to hope for anything better or too poor to manage it. Now, if this war were to come to a sudden end, chaos would ensue. The bottom would be pulled out from under society. The old guard would panic and throw money at anyone who could help them hold onto any power at all, and newcomers would jump at the dozens of holes in the hierarchy. We would barely be able to keep up with the clients," he said.
Myranda shook her head.
"You would end the war because it would be profitable to you? You would do the right thing for the wrong reasons," she said.
"I never said I would stop the war. And besides, who cares about the reason, so long as the right thing gets done?" he reasoned. "But enough philosophy. Would you care to have a look around? There isn't much to see, but I am quite proud of it all."