A bald man in outdated formal wear received them in the echoing foyer. Mourn and Gala were seen to the servants' quarters. Sunlight gushed through the windows, illuminating swirling dustmotes. Two fires snapped in the manor's central hall. Dante accepted a padded red seat in front of one hearth, where he warmed his hands and gazed across the wall tapestries: stitched portraits of middle-aged men, most of whom showed grass-green eyes and regally aquiline noses. Their beards were a timeline of high Gaskan style: trim, pointy triangles; then aggressive, full-face snarls that would have driven off a bear; finally the cut of the previous generation, square sideburns which continued perpendicular from the earlobe to connect to a straight, manicured mustache.
"Warm enough?" Behind them, a tall, green-eyed man clicked across the stone, his padded coat clinging smartly to his chest. His coat was green as his eyes and divided into neat squares by glossy black stitching.
Dante rose. "Lord Perrigan."
"Lords Winslowe and Lionstones," he greeted Dante and Blays in turn. Dante quashed his frown at the names Blays had given. "I'm honored you'd look to me on your expansion to Gask."
"The loftiness of your reputation competes with the peaks of the Junholds," Blays said, entirely straight-faced.
Talk turned for some minutes to the common ground of all wealthy strangers—whether they enjoyed their trip, had they yet been to Dollendun's Frozen Gardens, the shortsighted taxation policies of their respective rulers. Perrigan's self-deprecating discourse on the nature of success in business, which he compared to a blind shepherd repeatedly driving his flock off a cliff, then crowing in triumph after one of his fallen sheep broke open a vein of gold, was charming enough that Dante temporarily forgot the lord had built that fortune on the literal backs (as well as hands, legs, and sinews) of hundreds if not thousands of norren slaves.
"Fifteen or twenty," Blays said once the topic finally turned to their own business, specifically the number of laborers their tea-growing operation would require.
Perrigan raised his thin black brows. "Then you hardly need even my modest expertise. You could fill that order at the backmarket on your way home."
"That's just for the initial outlay," Blays said. "It's all about feasibility, you know. The sustainability of the strategy. We could wait another three or five years and plunge whole-barrel into the operation, but who knows how diluted the market will look by then, you know? Whereas if we start now, well, the leverage cranks itself."
"Of course."
"In which case we'll need a regular supply of bodies," Dante said.
Perrigan gazed across the faces of his ancestors on the wall tapestries. "Strong backs are always in demand, of course. But we may be able to arrange an annual contract."
"Not all of our investors are as confident as we are. We were hoping to make a strong initial splash."
"Nothing opens a man's eyes like having water dashed in his face," Blays added. "We heard you were in possession of the entire Clan of the Green Lake."
"Ah." The man leaned back in his padded chair, smoothing his rich green coat. "Fearsome warriors. Their ploughshares are as fierce as their swords."
"So you have them," Dante said.
"No."
Dante's face fell. "Do you know who does?"
"Naturally. I'm the one who sold them."
"We were hoping to make the buyer an offer. With workers such as those—"
"I'm afraid not," Perrigan cut in with a regretful smile. "Let's leave it at that."
"We're all gentlemen here." Blays drew back his head, shoulders straightened. "Surely we can make a gentleman's agreement not to tell any other men, gentle or otherwise, that the name of a certain other gentleman was disclosed here."
"It's easy enough to earn money. Much harder yet to earn a reputation. I bank on my integrity more deeply than any credit. The deal was made in private, and there it must remain."
"There must be some arrangement we can make," Dante said, thinking quickly. "We're not just men of business. We're men who make things happen."
"Oh, no doubt. So when I say the matter is closed, it is with trepidatious hope you do not use those powers to do against me."
Along the walls, the eyes of the tapestries swung to focus on Perrigan. Their gazes grew steely, glaring; beards bunched as jowls soured into frowns and sneers. Their lips began to move, muttering silent condemnations, the dark rhythms of curses. The movement caught Perrigan's eye; he did a double take, staring expressionlessly at the displeasure of his ancestors, their shaking heads and curled lips. Like that, they stopped, once more still stitching hanging from the wall.
"You don't see that every day," Blays improvised. "How often do all your relatives agree on anything?"
The last wisps of nether fell from Dante's grasp. "That depends on who is convincing them."
To Perrigan's credit, he met Dante's eyes, his cheeks and brows showing mere hints of strain. "What is this supposed to prove?"
Blays smiled. "How crummy your afterlife would be if you suddenly joined them."
"It's not a threat," Dante said. "Just a display of the powers we could put at your disposal."
"I'm a wealthy man." Perrigan smoothed his mustache, and with it his face. He gestured to the high stone walls, the snapping fires, and finally the tapestries, where his gaze lingered, hardening into a resentful scowl. "My face isn't beside my ancestors'. That's because the only one worthy of capturing my likeness to hang along my forefathers refuses to do so on account of the grounds by which I made the wealth that would pay her. Her name is Worring. She lives on the east side."
"And if we acquire her service?" Dante said.
"You'll also acquire the buyer's name."
Their departure was as chilly as the air outside the manor. A servant closed the groaning doors.
"You know, we could just ask one of them," Blays gestured toward the servant. "They'll usually respond to beatings."
Dante buttoned his coat to the collar. "The few who know would probably be killed for speaking. Let's see Worring and see what happens."
Their carriage waited. As Dante piled in, Mourn leaned in to the norren driver and exchanged a few words. The horses trotted down the path, wheels grinding loose pebbles. From the hilltop, Dollendun stretched for miles, bifurcated by the silvery band of the river. The carriage swung a sudden left down an alley of tight-packed houses and descended another hill into a wide plaza of packed dirt and trampled grass. At the square's fringes, humans jabbered to each other, scribbling notes, exchanging them, frowning, and then scribbling a fresh note, often to the exact same reaction. Behind them, norren crouched in cages of thick wood and pitted metal. Many were half-naked, others shoeless. A fat man lumbered forward, leaning against the weight of the bucket hanging from his hand. Water splashed over his shoes. He slopped the bucket across the floor of one cage, rinsing waste onto the muddy ground, then turned and waddled back toward the fountain at the plaza's center.
Men in padded cotton coats milled about the grounds, pausing in front of occupied cages. Then, with their hands on their hips or chins, they appraised the captive subjects from tip to toes. Equally well-dressed sellers approached to point out abundances of muscles and teeth. As their carriage cornered down another alley, an eye-patched man, accompanied by two others brandishing spears, swung open the bars of a cage and shouted its occupant into the sunlight. Blays, who rarely stopped talking even after years of travel together, didn't speak until the carriage wheels clicked onto the mortared stone of the bridge.
The eastern shorefront was a profusion of shops, warehouses, and public houses from whose open windows wafted spiced tea and spicier tobaccos. Dante called a stop outside a shop with a carving of a loom above its door and rugs piled in its windows. Mourn hopped down and went inside while Gala watched the street, sword on her back. Mourn emerged a minute later and fed the driver directions to Worring's.
Her shop stood in the middle of a cockeyed street so narrow they had to debark the carriage and continue o
n foot. The building's squarish design, slightly flared at the top, suggested it had once been a yurt long since plastered over with timber, and its cramped, dark interior only confirmed that. The close air was heavy with the smell of soap and dried linen. Dante seated himself on a bench a few inches too high, where he was joined by Blays and Mourn, and kicked his heels.
Between the three of them, there was scarcely space to turn around. Though Dante had spent little time in Narashtovik in the last few years, and littler time yet attending to the ceremonial and social sides of his post as one of the twelve-person Council there, he'd nonetheless acted as a man-about-town on more than one occasion. Often enough to think Worring's shop was all wrong for her apparent stature. The floors of finest artists and craftsmen were supposed to be open and airy, intentional wastes of space which called all the more attention to the sparse examples of their work on display (and thus how valuable these few pieces must be). By contrast, Worring's main floor was a crush of raw fabric, loose threads, and steel needles, the unfinished materials lumped in piles around the finished work.
Work that more than justified the urgency of Perrigan's vain request. Most of Worring's tapestries showed landscapes and cityscapes: misty hills, dignified white rowhouses, and the primally civilized hill-homes of the norren. A minority displayed the faces of human men and women, most in three-quarter or full profile, but a few straight-on, their gazes so superior and regal they made Dante feel as if he'd loudly farted. Yet there was a softness to their eyes, too, a mitigating light that suggested all was forgiven, that we are, after all, all human, even those of us whose blood runs blue as the sky. This liveliness was shared by the landscapes and cityscapes; when Dante glanced away or an unseen draft ruffled the room, the rivers and lamps and stars twinkled. In short, they were amazing. He had half a mind to hire Worring's services for himself.
After the clearing of a throat or two, a thin norren woman emerged from the back room. At six feet tall, her brown eyes were nearly level with Dante's, or at least as close as he had ever come on a norren. Her bare arms could easily pass for human as well—though one that got plenty of exercise, say a water-carrier or a widow who'd taken charge of her late husband's farm. She indicated her three guests. Her hands were as swift and precise as a professional swordsman's.
"I know why you're here." She seated herself behind her cluttered desk. "You want me to build you an airship."
Dante blinked. "We're here about a tapestry."
"Well, you're obviously not here for the jokes. I can spare five minutes. Please don't waste them."
He launched into an extremely abbreviated version of what had brought them to her. The woman cut him off as soon as he got to Perrigan's name.
"Absolutely not."
"I don't think you understand." Dante glanced toward the closed door, as if spies might have their waggling ears pressed to the other side. "If we do this for him, he will give us the location of an entire clan of slaves. Slaves which, if we have our druthers, won't be slaves for long."
"Then beat it out of him."
"That's what I suggested," Blays said.
"This is true," Dante said. "It's much easier to wrest dozens of unwilling captives from their baronial owner when you're arrested or dead."
Worring's brown eyes didn't sway from his. "You're not going to guilt me into this. You know what Perrigan does. The only work I'll ever do from him will be sewn from his own hide."
Dante sighed inwardly, wishing he had the power to annihilate the entire kingdom of Gask, Norren Territories and himself included, and thus avoid another single moment of this self-defeating nonsense. "I know the perspective must be very skewed from a horse that high, but I'm trying to help."
"And I'd help you if I could. But immortalizing that man would violate every principled bone in my body. Unfortunately for you, that's all of them."
"Well." Dante rose, feeling like he weighed a thousand pounds. "Your work is exceptional."
He left to meet Gala in the crooked alley. Blays glanced back at the shop. "Is it time to go beat a nobleman?"
The idea was tempting as a basement-cooled beer after a long day, but Dante shook his head. "That's our last resort."
"I didn't realize we had any other resorts."
"Mourn, I need you to tell me more about the Nulladoon. Gala, I need you to find out to what extent Worring participates in it."
"It's a little like chess," Mourn said.
Gala shook her head once. "More like hearts. Or plock."
"I was getting to that."
"I thought you said it was like dice," Dante said.
"That too." Mourn tipped back his head and considered the high, patchy clouds. "It also resembles an argument."
"An argument?" Blays said. "How's that?"
"Mostly because it is one."
Dante exhaled audibly. "I think I need to see this. Is there somewhere we can sit down and play a round?"
Mourn shrugged his broad shoulders. "Oh, just anywhere."
The norren man gave Gala the name of a public house and directions to it. She nodded and strode down the alley. Mourn led them toward the docks. Baked vegetables and potatoes steamed from vendors' stalls, tickled with herbs from all over. At a thoroughfare, norren drove mule teams or simply hauled the wagons themselves, leaning into leather straps tied to flatbeds bearing bricks or chopped wood or burlap sacks. About one out of ten women showed brands on their cheek. Mourn led them into a busy tavern with two leaping salmon painted above its door. Inside, norren partook in the standard drinking, laughing, gossiping, and news-chasing, but an unusual number of the crowd were gathered at the back, peering over the shoulders of three men seated at a wide table.
Blays bought pints. Mourn went to speak to the bartender and came back with a set of battered wooden cases. Dante sipped beer, cold as the street and just as bitter.
"Nulladoon," Mourn said, unprompted. "First, you have a board."
"Well, that sounds easy enough," Blays said.
"Most things do when you have no idea what you're talking about." Mourn rubbed the thin strip of bare skin between his brows and hairline. "Sorry, I'm under a lot of stress here. There are classical map arrangements some players specialize in, but you can arrange your tiles freeform, too, with opponents taking turns until the map's complete. Pieces are affected by elevation and water and so forth."
He unsnapped the hasps of one case and fanned out a handful of flat wooden squares, most painted blue or green. From a second case, he drew several wooden figures, worn and chipped but still identifiable as archers and spearmen and scouts.
"Then they are your pieces. Like chess, they all move and attack in their own ways, but they can do other things, too." Mourn pulled the twine from a deck of cards and spread them out. Dante didn't recognize a single one. "Then you have cards. Your opponent does, too. You both have cards. Cards affect units and conditions like weather and you can use them to provoke your opponent into using, losing, or giving you some of his cards. Think of them like ploys. Battlefield gambits."
He stared at the array of equipment. Dante picked up the cards and leafed through them. "Where does the argument come in?"
"Everywhere," Mourn sighed. "Each turn also involves an ongoing philotheosophical debate. Like the maps, they can be classic topics or decided on by the players. The soundness and originality of your argument influence play similarly to the cards."
"You're just making this up, aren't you?" Blays said. "Arguments? So after you've shouted at each other for a bit, the other guy's just going to say 'Oh, good point. Here's my king'?"
"The merits of each player's arguments are decided by one to three arbiters. If the argument's that good—or that bad—the spectators weigh in. A biased arbiter won't stay biased for long. Not unless he enjoys black eyes." Mourn glanced to the back of the room, where men roared with abrupt and unified triumph. Once it quieted, he went on. "Victory is achieved through wiping the other guy out or forcing him to concede. The winner collects his n
ulla, the terms of which are decided before the match."
Dante looked up from a carving of a fanged, long-nosed beast. "That's the idea. All I have to do is beat Worring in a match. Perrigan gets his tapestry, we get our name."
"Before we get any deeper, I think we should talk about something," Blays said. "Like what the hell this has to do with why we're here."
Mourn clicked the tiles against the table. "It's a good plan. It's also a very bad plan."
"Start with the good."
"If Worring plays—and they all do—she'll abide by her debts."
Blays quirked his mouth with doubt. "She'll break her personal rule about 'No dealing with abominable slavedrivers' to stick by the rules of some game?"
"Yes," Mourn said. "And if that doesn't do it, the threat of fines, beatings, and in extreme cases enslavement should convince her instead."
"So what's the bad?" Dante said.
"You can't possibly win."
"Of course I can."
"How long have you been playing Nulladoon?"
"Well, never."
Mourn gestured to the spread of pieces, cards, and tiles. "Never. You've been playing for never. Which is funny, because most of this city's been playing since always. Since they were kids."
"Big deal," Blays snorted. "We can just cheat."
Mourn went as still as one of the wooden units. "You can't cheat at Nulladoon."
"I can cheat at anything. I'll cheat you right now if you want. What would you like to be cheated at?"
"It's...sacred. It's not something you do."
Dante leaned in, matching the low tones of the norren man, if not his awed disgust. "Mourn, what does it matter? We're talking about saving your cousins' lives. Is that less important than the rules of a game?"
The norren exhaled until his whole body slumped like a discarded shirt. "I don't like this."
"Me neither," Blays said. "It's more tangled up than spiders playing tag."
Dante reached for his beer. "If you can think of a better way, I'm all ears."
"I can think of twenty."
The Cycle of Arawn: The Complete Epic Fantasy Trilogy Page 56