by Dale Lucas
“Indilen,” Rem said, “I love you. You know that.”
She smiled and cupped his face in her hands. “Of course I do, you fool. And I love you, too—but let me finish. I love you, and if you’re ready, we can find ourselves a place of our own, a place that can be ours, not just yours or mine. But if we’re going to do that, I think we need to have a few more talks about … the past.”
“The past,” Rem said. He should’ve known that would come up. How couldn’t it?
Indilen nodded. “I feel I know so much about you,” she said. “But you and I both know that something’s missing. There are things you haven’t told me”—he started to speak, and she laid her finger on his lips again—“because I’ve never asked. I assumed we would each give up our secrets in time, as our hearts moved us. But if we’re to take this step … I think perhaps some of those secrets need to be aired. Sooner rather than later.”
Rem studied her. She did not seem distressed or overeager or insistent. Her voice was perfectly calm, her demeanor easy. But what she asked … that they tell each other everything …
And why shouldn’t you? he asked himself. You just asked her to share a room and a bed with you, you silly sod! Why shouldn’t she ask for everything that you’ve been hiding from her?
But what if I tell her the truth and she leaves? What if she decides that secret was too weighty to keep from her? Or that she’s afraid to get involved with someone like me, for fear of what might come in the future?
Or worse, what if she embraces it? What if the truth leads her to try to get me—get us—to go back there? What if, when she learns of the power and privilege that was once mine, she wants that for herself?
“I see the struggle in you,” she said then, and Rem felt his face flush warm and red like a roasted apple. “I’m making no demands, Remeck. I’m just saying … a home can’t be built on secrets and lies. If it’s going to last, it’s got to mean the end of that.”
“It’s really no great thing,” Rem said half-heartedly.
“If it were no great thing,” Indilen countered, “you’d have told me by now. Besides, why do you think it’s only you?”
Rem’s eyes narrowed. He studied her. Indilen raised her chin, a subtle but defiant gesture that made him love her and fear her all at once.
“You’re not the only one with secrets,” she said, and the challenge in her voice was implicit.
“Well,” Rem said, then drew a deep breath and blew it back out. “I suppose the time’s come, then—”
“Not now, you fool,” Indilen said, shaking her head. “It’s getting late. You need to go.”
“But I thought—”
“You asked me to live with you. I’m saying I will. But I’m asking you to tell me the things you’ve been keeping from me, and I’ll do the same. But it need not be now. Fair enough?”
Rem drew her into his arms and held her.
“I love you,” he said.
“I know,” she answered.
For those few breaths, it seemed that he couldn’t squeeze her tightly enough, couldn’t take in enough of her. He held her close, loving the feel of her warmth against him and the faint smells of jasmine and lavender that rose from her hair. Gods, but he wished he could just blow off work tonight and stay right here with her. Lay everything out. Bare all that he’d hidden from her and leave his silly fears and misgivings behind.
But the ward needed him, as did his watch, and—most of all—his partner.
“I won’t let you down,” Rem said.
“You never have,” Indilen said. “I wouldn’t expect you to start now. Finish dressing. You need to go.”
The onslaught of a bitter wind forced Rem to pull his watch-issued greatcoat closer around him. It was a good garment, modeled on the sort used by whalers and fishermen, sewn from oilcloth, with a high, stiff collar and a broad mantle over the shoulders to keep the rain off—but at present Rem wished he’d been smart enough to wrap himself in a few more woolen layers, or perhaps a nice warm muffler. In another clime Rem might have expected snow; the evening sky was bruised, leaden, the fast-falling sun obscured by clouds, and the air slashed mercilessly, like tiny crystalline daggers, at any inch of exposed skin. But there was no snow in Yenara. Its continental placement and the sea currents that churned Hatarau Bay all ensured that, however cold it seemed to get, it would rarely, if ever, be cold enough to snow. More likely was a wet, stinging rain driven by a bracing wind, preceded or followed by a swirling pall of impenetrable, porridge-thick fog. That was Yenara, the City by the Sea: cold, damp, windy, misty, rainy. Rem made a mental note to buy himself some good gloves—the best he could afford on his salary, anyway. Maybe even a hat—though he knew he’d look a fool in one. When he’d come south from the Vale, it had been at the onset of summer; he hadn’t thought to bring winter clothes with him. On some level he probably hadn’t expected to still be in Yenara when winter arrived. He’d really had no clue where he was headed, or where his journey would end.
Rem quickened his pace, shrinking into his coat as he advanced against the press of the cold wind, which grew more frigid, more insistent, with each passing moment. After what felt like an eternity, he finally rounded a corner, the narrow lane he’d been walking along spilling onto a wide, uncobbled boulevard that intersected ahead with several other streets. There were a number of grogshops and stew kitchens hereabouts, their separate shingles creaking in the gusts as the soft, warm light within them spilled into the gloomy street. Rem felt a pang of envy. He’d pay good coin to be by any one of those hearths right now, basking in the warmth of a flickering fire, smelling stew meat and broth and warm, soft vegetables, enlivening himself with a tankard of ale or a cup of brandy. Anything but to be out on these cold streets, about to reunite with his partner and question a bunch of chisel jockeys who might or might not be terrorizing the city’s dwarven populace.
Up ahead, right in the middle of the great intersection, Torval waited, staunch and unmoving, a statue awaiting a fountain yet to be built. There were numerous people in the streets—laborers done with their laboring, mongers done with their mongering, friends off to sup and carouse with companions—but Torval let them all mill and flow around him, totally oblivious to their passage. As the waters of a stream might part and flow around an immovable boulder, the strollers flowed around Torval. The dwarf wore his own greatcoat, but it flapped in the breeze, wide-open and unbelted. In truth, the frigid air seemed to trouble the dwarf little. Rem wished he had been built so stout and impervious; he’d love to stand out in the elements—on this night in particular—and say that he barely felt anything. Instead he just trudged up to his truculent partner, cursing the wintry winds, numbed hands deep in his coat’s pockets.
“I’d just about given up on you,” Torval said, then hawked and spat into the cold mud.
“Sorry I’m late, old stump. Indilen woke me and—”
“Say no more, lad,” Torval cut in, the barest hint of a smile on his face. “I’m surprised you bothered to meet me at all.”
Rem understood immediately. “No. Not that. I only wish …”
Torval must have noted the dejection in his voice. “What’s the trouble? There’s no quarrel between you two, is there?”
Rem shrugged. He scanned the intersection and located the Stonemason’s Guildhall about a hundred yards down a side street. He was sick of the cold. With luck they would perform their interrogations inside. Rem led the way and Torval followed.
“No quarrel, precisely,” Rem said as he walked. “Just … questions. About the future.”
“Well, you’re going to marry her, aren’t you?” Torval asked, as though it were a long-settled conclusion agreed to by all.
“Well, of course,” Rem said. “I mean, I suppose. Truth be told, I just hadn’t thought about it yet.”
“I’ve seen you together. You’re besotted, the both of you. Go see the priests and start the baby making.”
“Hold on, then!” Rem said. “Who said anyt
hing about babies?”
“That’s the way of things, isn’t it?” Torval asked. “You love someone, you marry them, you breed. What else is there?”
“What about just enjoying one another?” Rem asked. “Taking our time?”
“What time?” Torval asked, and he suddenly swung right into Rem’s path. He stood his ground, blocking Rem from going any farther. The guildhall was just a hundred feet away, but Torval didn’t seem to care. Rem felt a lecture coming on.
“There is no time,” Torval said slowly, absolutely earnest. “We always think there is, but there isn’t. No promise of it, anyway.”
“I’m young, Torval,” Rem said. “So is she—”
“Aye, and young people die every day,” Torval spat back. “We see it, don’t we, lad? Knifed in an alley. Head cracked for a purse full of coin. A bad oyster. Fever. Plague. A runaway horse.” The dwarf snapped his fingers. The cracking sound echoed in the largely empty street. “Over. Done. In an instant.”
Rem drew a deep breath, then ran his hands through his hair. Were they really discussing this? Didn’t they have suspects to interrogate? Work to do? It was too bloody cold out here to be having this conversation now.
“I know, all too well,” Torval carried on, “how all the time in the world suddenly turns into no time at all. Only you know your heart, lad, so only you can decide—but remember this as you do: there is no time. There is never any time. There is only the moment, a miracle unparalleled and unrepeatable.”
Rem was always caught off guard by that—how the stout, rough-spun dwarf could offer the deepest wisdom, the most profound insight, and make that bloody poetry wholly native to his cursing, grumbling little mouth. Rem looked into his flinty blue eyes and saw great depths of feeling there—passion, pain, love, loss, hope, despair. The dwarf’s gaze was like a sea before a storm: roiling, but not yet surrendered fully to chaos.
“It’s not so simple,” Rem said. “There are things I haven’t told her.”
“The same things you haven’t told me?” Torval asked.
Rem was taken aback by that. Before he could answer, Torval barreled on.
“You think I don’t know you’re hiding something?” Torval continued. “Probably running from something? I’m no shoat in the wallow, boy. I see you. Even if I don’t know the whole truth, I can piece out enough of it to paint a picture.”
“Torval, I—”
“Shut your mouth,” the dwarf said. “I don’t need an explanation. These months we’ve been walking the ward, I’ve seen all I need to see. You’re brave, you’re honorable, you do your duty, and you watch my back. We’ve supped together, gotten drunk together, faced death together, and laughed it down. You’ve broken bread at my table and made my children smile. I know all I need to about you, lad. Whoever you are—or were—whatever it is you ran from … I don’t care. And I’d be willing to lay coin that Indilen feels the same way.”
“It could change things,” Rem said.
“Then let it,” Torval said. “Tell her the truth and let her decide. If she stays, she’s yours forever. If she leaves, she was never yours at all. My coin says she stays.”
Rem stood there in the middle of the street for what felt like a long time, mulling over Torval’s words. He knew the dwarf was right, damn him. But that didn’t make acknowledging the fear he felt when he considered telling Indilen the whole truth any easier. To be honest, it terrified him.
But why should it? he wondered. Why should it be so frightening?
The truth, he realized, was this: the prospect of losing her frightened him because he honestly, truly loved her. He did want to take her to the priests. He did want to call her his wife. He did want to have children with her. But even knowing that troubled him somehow. Where did that doubt come from?
Torval suddenly slapped him. It was aimed at his temple, but it took his ear and made it ring. “Raathen’s balls!” Rem exclaimed. “What was that for?”
“Get out of that haunted head of yours,” Torval said. He gestured toward the waiting guildhall. “We’ve got work to do.”
On they went. Rem’s cuffed ear throbbed in the cold night air.
The guildhall was nothing special from the outside: stone-and-mortar walls topped by stucco with an inlaid timber frame, two stories high, brooding beneath its slate-shingled roof and glowering eaves. A matching pair of beautifully wrought iron lanterns on matching iron hooks flanked the entryway, their light dim but welcomingly warm in the cold darkness of the street. Just beneath the lantern to the right of the doorway hung a hand-chiseled plaque of marble, mounted with rusted iron bolts.
Stonemasons’ Guildhall, it said. Sixth Chapter, Fifth Ward. Established 6 Miras 5654 A.R.A.
Beneath that inscription lay a motto in Horunic: Out of Chaos, Order.
“Just over a hundred years old, then,” Rem said. “Is that all?”
Torval stepped up to the door. “The Yenaran Stonemasons’ Guild, all in all, is over a thousand years old,” the dwarf said. “This must be a younger chapter. Established during the Reclamation, as the city was putting itself back together.”
A polished brass bell hung beneath the lantern on the left, a thin line of hemp trailing from the unseen clapper within. Torval grabbed the frayed cord and yanked. For such a small bell, the sound was loud and strident in the largely empty street. It made Rem’s head hurt.
Torval elbowed him. “Badge,” he said. Obeying, Rem went rooting beneath his coat for his lead watchwarden’s badge on its cheap, sturdy chain. Torval had his out in an instant and held it before him, not even waiting for someone to answer the door.
After a few interminable moments, a peephole in the door slid open and a pair of eyes peered out. Torval raised his badge to be sure that whoever was on the other side of that door saw it clearly through the little rectangular window.
“Watchwardens,” Torval said, as though he were declaiming some ancient monologue upon a stage. “Official inquiry. Open your door, please.”
The peephole slid shut. Rem heard locks clanking, a heavy wooden bolt thrown back, then the stout door opened inward. They stood face-to-face with a handsome young roughneck, seventeen or eighteen, trim and muscular, with a short-cropped nest of brown hair and rather limpid-looking blue eyes. At the boy’s side stood a big, muscular dog, not pretty, but probably loyal unto death.
From within, Rem heard the low murmur of men’s voices in conversation, the scuff of benches on a wooden floor, the distant crackle of a fire and the pop of an exploding pine knot. He smelled roasting meat, then fresh, hot bread. His stomach growled. He’d been in such a hurry to get here and meet Torval that he hadn’t eaten since waking. Gods, he wanted to be over that threshold.
“Watchmen,” the boy said, studying their badges under the light of the door lanterns. “What can we do for you?”
“You’re not in charge,” Torval said. It wasn’t a question.
“No, sir,” the boy answered politely. “I’m just on door duty tonight. If you could state your business—”
“What’s this about?” someone said from within. A moment later a second form materialized out of the gloom. Rem studied the newcomer: older than the boy, probably nearing forty or just past it, with the strong shoulders and muscular arms that marked all who worked in stone, but on a more wiry physique—taut, ropy. He had a narrow, hangdog sort of face with shrewd eyes and a wide mouth that seemed to smile knowingly—haughtily, even—as though he were in on some private joke that never ceased to amuse him. Rem had known a hundred careless, arrogant, entitled spawn of lords—jackasses and villains, most of them—who’d lived with similar expressions on their faces. That look made Rem nervous. He could never quite trust a person who smiled like that.
Then Rem realized who he was looking at. It was the fiery speaker from the riot in the dwarven quarter, the very same man who’d broken that first dwarven pot, setting everything off.
As the newcomer studied Rem and Torval, he sipped from the cup in his hand, th
en installed himself in the doorway, just behind the polite young man. The way he stood, propped against the jamb, wholly unimpressed by their badges of office, told Rem that he didn’t give a coal miner’s fart for their official business. Though he might not openly fight with them, he certainly wasn’t going to make their errand any easier.
The man’s cunning eyes set upon Torval and rested there.
“What can we do for you, good officers of the watch?” the man said slowly, silkily.
“We’re here on official business,” Torval said again. “Questions regarding a fire set in the ward last night at the Panoply temple, not far from here.”
“I can assure you,” the man said, “neither myself nor my fellows would have any knowledge about such things. That’s not our contract, you see.”
“No longer, anyway,” Rem interjected, just to see if he could ruffle the man.
The stonemason’s eyes shifted to Rem. He gave a slight, deferential shrug. “Aye, that’s the way of it. We’d laid the foundations and built up the walls, but the clergy did not renew our contracts. Now if you’ll excuse us—Come on, Jordi.”
He laid a hand on the boy’s shoulders and gently drew him back into the dark vestibule. When the elder mason moved to close the door, Torval stepped forward, laying one thick, square foot just over the threshold, making it impossible for the man to shut them out.
“A guild’s hall is sacred ground,” the man said to Torval, as though explaining something to a child. “I’d suggest you remove your foot, old stump, before I’m forced to remove it for you.”
Within, the big watchdog snarled, a low, rumbling sound rising from its thick, muscular throat. Rem’s hand emerged from his pocket and drifted toward his sword’s pommel. His hand was numb in seconds, but he was determined not to put it back in his pocket again.