The Worldwound Gambit

by Robin D. Laws

  "I can't do it anymore."

  Vast and stony, Nerosyan heaves into view. Dark clouds shine shafts of hard, late-afternoon light on its bastions and battlements. As always, it percusses: hammer on nail, chisel on stone. Its construction is constant. When there is nothing in need of repair, the Queen's restless workmen add another new defense. Since Gad last saw it, new telescopes of glinting brass have appeared on the city's turrets. Soldiers scan the sky for aerial threats. Where before the looking glasses would point only west, to the Worldwound itself, now they are turned in all directions.

  Pine scaffolds, their joints bound together with resined rope, scale the fortress walls. Masons beetle across them, mortaring blocks of freshly quarried white granite into place. Pulleyed chains hoist the stones from groaning carts below. Members of martial orders, holding competing pennants aloft, raise pikes and halberds to protect the straining laborers.

  The fortress watches over a meeting of rivers: the cold Egelsee, flowing from east to west, and the colder Sellen, running north to south. The Sellen forms the border between Mendev and the demonlands. Many times the chaos-spawn have pushed the border back, seizing its eastern banks, only to be eventually rebuffed by the crusaders. Nerosyan occupies a diamond-shaped oasis of stone and brick between the rivers. White towers, numbering in the dozens, jostle for space along its upper reaches. Green coppery screens angle from the top of each tower, slit to let the snow slide through, and to offer archers unobstructed shots at demons screeching down from above.

  "Ah," says Gad, "the Diamond of the North."

  "Aren't you still wanted here?" Tiberio asks.

  "Who among us can truly say we're not wanted in Nerosyan?"

  "I can."

  "And you're wondering why I brought you?"

  The slap's impact throbs across Calliard's cheek. A red, hand-shaped smudge forms on the right side of his angular face. He works his pointed jaw. With the tip of his tongue he checks to make sure that his small, delicate teeth are still firmly lodged in their sockets. The contents of an upended slop pail soak his flowing linen shirt to his wiry chest. Droplets of stinking water fall from his dark, curly hair. As the moisture sinks into them, the loops of leather cord securing his arms to the rests of his wooden chair tighten.

  His captor's voice pitches itself at the junction of silk and gravel. "Shall I repeat the question?"

  Mucus, and perhaps blood, runs down the back of Calliard's throat. "Shall I repeat the answer?"

  "Where is Gad?" asks the paladin.

  "I still honestly don't know," Calliard breathes. "Thus saving me the effort of lying to you."

  Fraton rubs his hand. He straightens himself to his full six feet and four inches. His hair sweeps down over his forehead and flows luxuriantly to cover his ears. Fraton's high, flat forehead wrinkles peevishly. A bow-shaped mustache, one shade lighter than his chestnut hair and upturned at each end, spasms.

  The paladin has removed the vambraces and gauntlets of his polished plate armor. His pail-shaped helmet lies beside them on a round beechwood table on the other side of the spacious armory room. The rest of the suit scrapes and clanks as he paces a tight circle around his prisoner. A richly dyed tabard surmounts his breastplate. Sewn to its front is a quilted coat of arms. Divided into quarters, the crest encompasses a watchful hawk, a fortress, and the sunburst and longsword of the warrior goddess, Iomedae.

  It is the emblem of a knightly order, the Everbright Crusaders. Five like-armored warriors, each proudly wearing the same crest, array themselves around Fraton. Only his crest appears in the frame of golden thread that befits an order's commander.

  At a respectful remove, motionless against the armory's stuccoed walls, stand four fighters of lowlier status. These men-at-arms, kitted in chain and leather armor, hold hook-headed glaives.

  "You are unaware of his present, exact location," says Fraton, "but you can predict where he is headed."

  "I haven't seen him in months."

  "But you will soon," Fraton ventures.

  "Unlikely," says Calliard.

  Fraton steps back to evaluate his prisoner's demeanor. After a pause he says, "You are certain of this." It is half question, half statement.

  "We parted on uncertain terms," says Calliard.

  "Tell me about it."

  "Go to hell."

  Fraton lashes out with closed fist, striking Calliard on the other side of the face.

  "When you do that," Calliard chokes, "you clearly show yourself to have the upper hand."

  Fraton hits him again. "It was foolish of you to return to Nerosyan."

  "I agree. In my defense, I was dragooned. Apparently the Order of the Flaming Lance sees the wisdom in having a demonfinder at their beck and call."

  "In falling for your claims, the Flaming Lance erred greatly."

  "You say it as if I sought their company, when in fact I did my best to avoid it."

  "They were misinformed, Calliard, by the web of lies that is your reputation."

  "Believe me, I'd be happy not to have one."

  "That is your first true statement. As the men of my own order were, when by Iomedae's grace I rose to its generalship, the Flaming Lance shall be redirected to the path of virtue. By turning you over to me, they have taken their first step upon it."

  "It's lucky then, that Mendev is not presently in the grip of an ever-fiercer demonic assault. Because, if it were, the ability to sense demonic activity might prove advantageous."

  The crusader's chiseled visage contorts. "Sarcasm is the mark of a polluted mind. To sense demonic presence is to invite it to take up residence in one's soul."

  "At least get your accusation straight, Fraton. Decide whether I'm a fake or a consorter with chaos. I can't be both." Calliard braces himself for another blow.

  Instead, Fraton reaches for his holy symbol, a silver sword over a golden sunburst. He jabs its point at Calliard's face. "That is where you're wrong, you crawling worm. Demons besiege us because we have fallen into sin. When the first crusaders came here, more than eighty years ago, they were warriors of unimpeachable virtue. They fought with sword and spell, but won by purity of character. Then the others came. Freebooters. Adventurers. Pirates, panderers, coffer-fillers. Rogues. They came not for hatred of evil, but for love of gold. They brought with them their whores, their rum, their gambling dice. Their kind could not defeat chaos, because it was already in their hearts. So long as vice weakens the souls of Mendev, the demons shall overrun it, inch by inch. The only way to fight them is to first eradicate you—the degenerates, the blackguards, the silvertongues. And in Mendev, there is no greater incarnation of turpitude, no more egregious flaunter of righteousness, than your confederate, Gad. So tell me where he is, and earn yourself a greater mercy than your case would warrant. By this redemptive act, you'll earn the chance to shrive your purulent soul."

  A wintry gust spends itself against the chapel's street-facing wall. Stained-glass windows rattle in iron frames.

  The harsh wind adjusts its attack, slicing through the narrow cobbled lane below. Bright sky shines above, shorn of any scrap of cloud.

  A multitude of flags and pennons crack. They peacock for glory, mounted on the tight row of war-chapels lining the street's northeast side. Each chapel houses a warrior order dedicated to the extinction of demons, the accrual of renown, and the massing of loot. In some few orders, the three goals are upheld in that order. The chapels stand shoulder to shoulder, each one taking up where the other leaves off. As is the style in Nerosyan, dark timbers proudly expose themselves, stained in rich browns and varnished blacks. Between them the panels are stuccoed white. The freshness of the white and the darkness of the timbers vary from chapel to chapel, a symptom of shifting fortunes.

  Across the lane stands a complementing phalanx of taverns and rum houses. Wordless wooden signs, painted as brigh
tly as the flapping flags, hang above each doorway. Their images, carved with grotesque humor, proclaim the establishments' names: the Rusted Hawk, the Frozen Rat, the Shattered Crown, the Crooked Road, the Pony Rampant, the Skull and Snake. A few ascetic orders shun the drink-halls at their doorsteps. Most do the opposite. That's why they cluster here: The demon fighter's calling is a thirsty one. But it is early yet and now only a few crippled ex-heroes and sozzled caretakers bend the elbow in shadowed rum house corners.

  Gad drinks watered ale. Red wine stains Tiberio's tusks.

  They wait in the tavern kitty-corner to the war-chapel of the Everbright Crusaders. A carved wooden hawk perches atop the chapel's main steeple, the Everbright crest clutched in its oaken talons. The crest flies also on a freshly laundered banner.

  "I won't do that either," Tiberio says.

  "It's easy," Gad says.

  "For you, maybe."

  "He's never seen you."

  "I'm not the talker you are, Gad."

  "It's not about talking. It's about listening. With anyone, but especially with Fraton. Give him the slightest opening and he'll talk until your pointed ears fall off."

  "How do I ...no, I won't do it."

  "Fraton may be a sadistic, strutting, self-loving blowhard and a vexation to honest thieves everywhere. But no one has more informants than he does, not even the queen's men."

  "So he'll see through me."

  "Okay, you're afraid of him. Let that show. Nothing he'd like better. To believe a hulking pile of muscle such as yourself is intimidated by him."

  Tiberio crosses his thick arms. "I can't do it."

  "You can. He craves that kind of flattery. Let him talk. Then—all right, here's the story. Tell him you want to join the order."

  "Join the Everbright Crusaders?"

  "Don't worry, he'll refuse. Then tell him you're plagued by terrible dreams, and keep hearing the name of Yath. Even if he keeps his trap closed, his expression will tell us something. Then when he's out of sight, head around to the back alley and do the other thing."

  "I told you, I won't do the other thing."

  "Everything will be fine."

  "I won't hurt anyone."

  Gad leans back behind a pillar so he can't be seen from the street. The arch-shaped door of the Everbright War-Chapel, chased in brass with an image of Iomedae, her sunburst sword held aloft like a lantern, swings open. Out step Fraton and his armored holy knights. Gad counts them, to be certain. "That's all of them," he says. "You won't have to fight anyone. I promise. Go."

  But Tiberio is already gone, marching straight for Fraton. The mustached paladin holds up his gilt-thread half-cape to shield his face from the cutting air.

  Tiberio raises his tree-trunk arm in greeting. Gad sees him square his shoulders. He leans back, basking in the familiar, unconscious marshalling of determination.

  "Are you Fraton?" Tiberio asks.

  The mustache forms a hard line atop the tall man's lip. "Of course I am." He sweeps on, trailing his knights behind him.

  Tiberio's long legs easily close the distance between them. Then he has to slow himself so as not to outpace him. "A word with you, please."

  "You come to me reeking of wine, orc-whelp?"

  "I wish to join your crew."

  Fraton snorts. "My crew, you'd have it?" His knights trade haughty smirks.

  Tiberio knots up his heavy brow. It seemed half-plausible when Gad explained it. He's no smooth-tongue. How did he let himself get talked into this? "Your order. I wish to kill demons, your excellency."

  Fraton is not entitled to this honorific. Guilty satisfaction tugs the corners of his mouth. "So you have at least one decent impulse?"

  "Too many will be hurt if the demons aren't stopped."

  "Why the Everbright Crusaders, half-man?"

  "You're the fiercest. Everyone says so."

  Fraton claps Tiberio's shoulder with a leather-gloved hand. "Fighting demons, my friend, requires more than simple brawn." He says the word friend as if he means dog. "Steel not only your sinews, but your soul." He pivots and comes to a halt, blocking Tiberio's path, poking at his breastbone. "Before a man may enter my service, he must retrain his heart. He must abstain from personal impurity, for that is what the demon seeks. The hordes of the Abyss hunger for tainted souls. As they destroy the luckless bodies of their victims, they hope to also consign their ineffable essences to the chaos planes. The souls of the righteous are shriven free, to seek celestial reward. But the righteous are few in number, my tusked friend. Sinners, they are many. Like worms, they crawl. Like ants, they multiply.

  "You are no good to the Everbright till you purge yourself of every baseness. Cease your drinking. Your whoring. Your lying, your greed. Become holy, and then perhaps—only perhaps—you'll possess the rectitude needed to subscribe to our irrevocable oaths."

  A knight behind him snickers. Tiberio wants to see which one, but stays fixed on Fraton. "But what about Yath?"

  "Yath?" says Fraton.

  "The final battle nears," Tiberio says. What am I talking about? he thinks. "Against Yath. This new demon lord."

  "New demon lord? What rot! Clearly you have never peered your flatted nose across so much as a single page of a demonological treatise."

  "But I keep hearing that—"

  Fraton resumes his march. The others follow. Tiberio keeps up.

  "You keep hearing rumors and claptrap. Yath does not exist. Yath is a trick, a mirage, an imagining."

  "But many have spoken of it. It appears in dreams—"

  "There is only one question concerning Yath. It is either a diversion cooked up by the demons to send us scurrying in circles as the true threat grows worse by the day, or it is the name we give to our fear and weakness. Whatever the answer, no crusader worthy of the title should allow such foolishness to dribble from his lips."

  "But—"

  "Your insistence on continuing this discussion merely proves your unsuitability for the Everbright Crusaders, man-orc. There is no Yath. Those who seek Yath will find only futility and ruin. Now please, step aside, and disturb no more our rightful peace and dignity."

  Tiberio steps aside. He waits until Fraton and retinue have rounded a corner. He pivots, striding briskly in the other direction. When he passes Gad's position in front of the tavern, he discreetly scratches his nose. His speed increases until he reaches the next laneway and disappears into it.

  He finds the back alley, counting buildings until he reaches the chapel he seeks. He needn't have bothered. The freshness of the stucco and the emblem carved into its timbers make the Everbright Chapel as unmistakable from the back as from the front. Tiberio stands back, judging his route. He is thankful once more for the mannerisms of Nerosyan architecture. To decorate a building in exposed half-timber is to cover it in sturdy handholds. Tiberio uses them to clamber quickly up the chapel's rear face. His bulk is no impediment; heavy muscles propel him ever upward.

  Then he is perched on a timber beside a stained-glass window. He wobbles slightly, then corrects. He is a little heavier than the last time he tried this. Retirement has added ten, maybe fifteen flabby pounds, he judges. Road life will melt that away soon enough. In the meantime he feels the heft on his bones, factors it into his balance calculations.

  The window's colored-glass design is meant to be seen from the inside. It depicts the warrior goddess Iomedae, her sunlit blade adorned with demon blood. She stands triumphantly astride the ruined carcass of her insectoid foe.

  Tiberio peers through her flowing white tabard into the room inside. He sees Calliard, slumped and bloodied, tied to a chair. He sees the ill-equipped, out-of-shape hirelings left to guard him. He understands why Gad said he wouldn't have to hurt them. Why he was silently counting the number of proper warriors who left with Fraton, to make sure that it was t
he same number they watched going in.

  With an elbow he smashes the window, breaking the delicate threads of iron that delineate its separate panels of etched and tinted glass. He pokes his head and hands through. The hirelings stand and stare as, with improbable efficiency, he pulls himself through the constricting frame. He unfolds himself to his full commanding height.

  "Hello, Tiberio," says Calliard.

  "Hello, Calliard."

  The youngest of the hirelings, a slump-shouldered man of thirty-five who relies on one good leg, shuffles a step toward him, polearm outstretched.

  "You don't want to do that," Calliard informs him.

  The man hesitates. The others make formation behind their friend.

  A snow-bearded guardsman shoves the point man from behind. He takes a reluctant step.

  "Fraton doesn't pay you enough for this," Calliard says.

  Tiberio lowers his lip so that his tusks look bigger.

  The guardsman waves his weapon, as if on purpose, to disguise his trembling.

  "Yes, Fraton will discharge you if you let me go," says Calliard. "But Fraton will also discharge you after Tiberio beats you to a pulp and then spirits me away regardless. Either the first result will pertain, or the second. There are only the two outcomes."

  Tiberio cracks his knuckles.

  "If you get sacked without suffering a savage battering," Calliard says, "you can find other jobs right away. You know it isn't hard, in Nerosyan. It's a seller's market for sword-arms, strong or feeble. If you let Tiberio crush your bones and snap your tendons, you'll be recuperating for months. Months of pain and idleness you can't afford." A drop of blood chooses this moment to gather at the bridge of Calliard's nose, then travel down its length and jump from its tip onto his tunic.

  The guardsmen imagine themselves looking like Calliard.

  "Let's all be smart for once," Calliard says.

  The elderly guard gets an idea. He points the blade of his polearm at Calliard's throat.

  Tiberio balls up his fists.

  "You don't want to do that either," Calliard says.