“Don’t worry about what I want,” I said.
“A fool’s errand. I am only taking you to him because it would be remiss of me not to. But you won’t get anything from this, Pitman.”
The duke resided in – yep - a shipping container. To give them credit, this was the grandest of the lot, a structure of containers built upon other containers, and then painted gold on the outside. Tacky, but it got the message across - an important dude lives here.
The lower three levels were taken up by gnomes in bureaucratic occupation, and Rabert led me up a staircase and to the uppermost container, where we stepped onto a veranda.
From this height, I got a good view of the city around us. It was mid-morning, and things were in full swing. Blacksmiths pounding metal and sending sparks flying, people standing a good distance away from burn barrels and using long sticks to stir the boiling goo inside. I looked at each barrel, each different colored goo, and wondered what they did.
“Wait here,” said Rabert, and knocked on the duke’s door.
I looked around, trying to get a view of the landscape around the city and maybe see the port or the sea, but no such luck. The only thing worth noting was a collection of giant hills maybe a mile away, and a quarry or giant sinkhole of some sort nearby.
“I’m busy, Rabert. I have lots of duke-things to do, you know that,” said a voice, his words drifting from the doorway which was open just a crack.
“I understand, Duke, but one of the pitmen says he knows you from before.”
“Before what?”
“Your old life, Duke. Before the portal.”
Silence then.
“Oh,” the duke finally said.
“Should I send him in?”
“I…uh…I want you to stand outside. With the door closed. Don’t listen to our conversation, but listen for noises. For violence, especially.”
“He is an unarmed pitman, duke. Even so, wouldn’t it be better that I stay inside with you?”
“I will speak to him alone.”
This was interesting. The duke wasn’t behaving as I expected. Gotta say, he sounded worried to me. Or maybe not worried, but nervous? It was hard to say from a conversation I had to struggle to hear, without seeing facial expressions.
If he was on edge about my arrival, it meant I’d have to take advantage of it when I spoke to him. The duke was uncomfortable, and it was his discomfort that would help me.
He was used to the gnomes acting subservient to him, and if I did that too, he’d start to feel more at ease. I’d have to act differently. Not subservient, but not outright hostile. Something to think about.
The door whined open. “The duke will see you now.”
I nodded at Rabert and as I walked past him, he grabbed my collar. “If I hear a single noise that I don’t like…”
“You’ll assume the duke and I are making passionate love, and give us our privacy,” I said.
Rabert blinked. I took his hand and calmly removed it from my shirt, and headed inside, shutting the door behind me.
The duke’s office was sparse. There were no windows inside, and instead of daylight there were four glass vials in each corner of the room, and they had goo glowing inside them.
Other than that it was unfurnished and definitely not lavish, occupied with merely a great oak desk and the podgy duke sitting behind it. This was the first time I had seen him up close, and I noticed the question mark-shaped birthmark on his cheek.
“Admiring my desk? The workmanship? I made it myself. I taught myself how.”
“It’s great,” I said. “A man needs a hobby. But we have things to discuss, Duke. Portal things.”
I had a vague idea of where to take this, but the problem was that much of it would rely on what the duke said, and I couldn’t predict all of that.
I had tried to imagine the sort of things he might say to me, and I had formulated responses. I had wracked my brains thinking of as many of his responses as I could. Of objections he’d raise, and even threats he would make. In my head, I’d tailored my responses accordingly, all leading to a single goal.
Convincing the duke that it was in his interests to let me go free.
“You need to discuss portal things?” said the duke, tugging on his shirt collar.
“You know, Wadtrop….”
“Woldstone.”
“Got it. Yeah, you know, a portal. Big, blue things that open in the sky like a birth canal. They bring unwitting people into a foreign world, where they wake up alone. Defenseless…”
“That’s quite enough,” said the duke. A bead of sweat trickled from his forehead. He glanced at the door, and then at me. He did this twice.
What was with this guy? Was I giving him flashbacks to when he’d first come through a portal? Stirring up trauma, PTSD, or something?
I had to press him on the portal thing and make him even more uneasy. “Waking up alone,” I said. “Looking around, seeing a place you don’t recognize. Hearing noises and you don’t have a goddamn clue what they are. The first night’s the worst. It was for me, anyway. But I don’t remember the portal, exactly. I remember waking up and I was tied up. Bad things can happen when you first get here if you run into the wrong…”
“That’s enough!” said the duke, standing. His forehead was wet with sweat now. I felt a little bad for him. I mean, I was a fellow stranger to this world. That gave us a kind of kinship, I guessed. Ordinarily, if this world even had anything you could describe as ordinary, I’d have said we should stick together.
Besides, I had so many questions. When did he get here? How had he risen so high he was ruling a whole damn city? Did he remember anything about Earth, about his old life? Did memories come back the longer you were here?
So, so many questions.
But look at the duke! Pale. Covered in sweat. Starting at me like I was a cobra ready to strike. I had him more rattled than a tin can blowing down the street during a storm.
This wasn’t just bad memories about a portal. No idea what it was, but there was something wrong here.
The duke pinched the lapel of his jacket, straightened it in as dignified a way as he could, then sat down. He opened a drawer and took out a small knife.
This made me tense up, but he set the knife down on the desk and stroked the hilt with his finger. He wasn’t looking at it as if he was ready to use it; it was more of a mournful look.
This guy was weird.
“They sent you, didn’t they?” he said.
I had two choices here.
The duke was scared. Scared of they, whoever this was. And I needed him to stay this way; in fact, to get what I wanted from the guy, I needed him in any state other than confidence. So, it was in my interests to foster his fear.
Or, I could question him about this, about everything. I might get answers, but I would break the illusion he had that I was part of ‘they.’ Without his fear of whatever he thought I might be, the duke wouldn’t give me what I wanted.
No, questions would have to wait. I almost had what I wanted, and I couldn’t lose it.
“They sent me,” I said, nodding and lowering my voice and trying to make it sound mysterious, yet vaguely threatening. No idea if it worked.
“I’ve always known. A man shouldn’t cheat a prophecy.”
“He shouldn’t,” I agreed.
“I have gold now. Lots of it. Does…your kind…like gold? Up there, I mean? The heavens? Can you spend it?”
Was this guy out of his mind?
“There might be something you can bargain with.”
“What do you need? Anything! Just don’t spoil this for me. I know what I did, but I have lived a good life since then. I rule the gnomes well. I have been fair, just, and charitable. The city has grown since I became its duke.”
So, the duke had done something bad, and…what? He thought I was here for revenge?
Anyway, if his secret was so bad, why had he cracked like a nut under an elephant’s foot? I’d hate to se
e this dude really get interrogated. He’d scream before the interrogators even looked at him.
Maybe he’d spilled it because I was human, and I spoke of portals. Maybe the circle on my forehead helped, too? I don’t know. But something about me had set him on edge.
I had to play the advantage while I had it. “I want my freedom. You will also free the pitmen and temple workers whose names I give you.”
“Free them? But where would we…”
“Think about the portal, duke.”
“What are their names?”
“Write these down. Harrien, Judah, Tosvig, Adi-Boto, Kayla, Cleavon, and…uh...human temple woman.”
“They will be freed.”
“We will need all of our things back.”
“Certainly. Anything. Thank you for staying your retribution, oh just one.”
“We will also need vials of your alchemooze,” I said. “Various types. Actually, give us some of every kind you make. And we want food, water, and maps of the wilds around us. Weapons, too.”
“It will be done.”
“Finally, duke, I hope you do not think you can make an agreement with us, and then follow with a knife ready to plant in our backs. We will take Rabert with us, hands bound. He will travel with us until we are a safe distance away, and then we will release him.”
The duke stared at me for the longest time then. I held my breath. I hoped I was showing an air of disinterest, menace, and confidence. I wasn’t quite sure what that expression would look like, but still, it seemed appropriate.
“And I have your word our paths will not cross again?”
“You have it.”
“And you won’t…tell them?”
God, it was killing me to know what made him so spooked, but that would spoil everything.
“As long as you do not go back to your old ways,” I said, wondering what the hell his old ways were, “we will not speak again.”
“Oh god…the guilt has eaten at me for so long…it is almost a relief that we have settled the balance. Thank you, sweet Arch Angel of Retribution.”
“Call me Isaac, yeah? An angel has to keep a low profile around here.”
***
21 Years Before Isaac
Hurley woke up in the middle of a field. He didn’t recognize the land around him, and he didn’t remember getting drunk last night, so…
Had he been kidnapped? Sleepwalked? He used to do that when he was a kid, but usually, that meant sleepwalking into the kitchen and opening the cupboards and throwing stuff on the floor. Nothing anything like this.
Checking his pockets, he found them empty. He also discovered that they weren’t even his clothes.
“So, you’re the one from the prophesy,” said a voice.
Hurley turned around to see a man standing there. He was wearing a thick fur coat, but not one you’d buy in a store. This was roughly made, stained with blood and dirt, and ill-fitting. The man had a gaunt face, with a birthmark on his cheek shaped like a question mark. Not exactly the kind of dude you wanted to see after sleepwalking to bumfuck nowhere.
“I…uh…do you think I could borrow your phone?”
The man laughed. “The gnomes wrote about a portal opening around here and their leader coming from it. Happens every few decades. When they see the portal open, they hurry over to it to claim their new leader, so they’ll be here soon.”
“Gnomes? Are you high, mister?”
“Think about it, boy. I grew up here. Survived in this world. I’ve walked miles. I’ve lost friends. And you get shit out of a portal and become a god damned duke? Does that seem fair?”
Hurley backed away from the man ever so slightly. Was this the man who had kidnapped him and brought him here?
“The thing is,” continued the man, “They write about their leader falling from a portal. The prophecy is very clear on that. But…they don’t write about what he looks like.”
And then Hurley saw a knife in the man’s hand, jagged and stained with blood, and glinting in the moonlight.
CHAPTER 36 – Night Shift
I felt nervous as I waited for the rest of the guys to arrive. The duke had requested that we reunite outside of Agnartis, north of the city boundaries and in a forest where none of its residents would see us.
I understood why. The duke had something to hide. Something vague and portal-based, wrapped in a skin of guilt. That something might come under scrutiny if the city residents saw a bunch of pitmen and slaves being freed. It would be a fair question, after all. What good reason could the duke have for letting us go?
As much as it would have been great to cause a stir and rub it in their gnomish faces that they couldn’t keep us as their prisoners, I agreed to subtlety. To be honest, I was just glad to get the hell out of the place.
So now, Glum Rabert and I stood in the small grove and waited. Glum Rabert looked glummer than ever before, and I couldn’t blame him. He had his hands stretched in front of him, and some rope was tied around his wrists.
“I do not know what hold you have over our duke,” he said, “but we will find a way to loosen your grip.”
I nodded at his bound hands. “Right now you couldn’t grip your own pecker.”
Rabert gave me a strange look then. A knowing look.
“Tell me,” he said, whispering as if the trees had ears. Which, in a world like this, wasn’t beyond the possible. “The duke. What did you say to make him act so?”
“You’re a nosey guy, Rabert.”
“You can tell me…”
“Ah, here’s everyone.”
I couldn’t help smiling as I saw the guys walking towards me. Tosvig, Harrien, Cleavon, Judah, Adi-Boto, Kayla. Then, behind them, was the woman. I didn’t know her, and I should have just left her. So why hadn’t I?
After all, I hadn’t bargained for Willi, the orc, the elves, nor any of the other slave or pitmen’s freedom. Not only couldn’t I trust them, but I knew I couldn’t push the duke too far by asking for too much. You can lean on a man and make him bend, but do it too much and he’ll snap. After that, you have no leverage.
Two gnome guards had escorted them from the city, and I could tell by the look on their faces they weren’t too happy to have to help free a bunch of pitmen and slaves. The guards had several bags slung over their shoulders, though they didn’t struggle under the weight. This made me smile; I was ready to be reunited with all my stuff.
“Isaac!” said Tosvig, raising his hand and pointing his thumb toward me. I pressed my thumb against his. “Good to see you, no-color.”
“Good to see you too,” I said, and it really was.
It was great to see all of them, and to be away from the pen that reeked of blood and rat corpses. To not have to worry about a god damned arena. To be here, in the outdoors again.
“Your things,” said one of the guards.
They threw our bags on the ground. “Rabert, come on,” said another.
I shook my head. “He stays with us a little while longer.”
“The duke said to bring him back.”
“You’ll get him back, just not yet. I won’t hurt Rabert unless I get a reason to, and I won’t free him until we’re far enough away. But if I see you following us, I’ll slit his throat and drink his blood.”
The guard’s eyes widened.
“Isaac…that was a cold thing to say,” said Harrien.
I stared the guards down. “He stays until I say otherwise.”
One nodded, and the other grumbled something and turned around.
“You guys get your things,” I said.
Those who had been pitmen exchanged stories with the temple workers, and everyone caught up about their experiences over the last few days while getting their things. I watched them to see how their temple labors had affected them, but they seemed fine. It hadn’t been that long, I guessed.
I approached the human woman. She was tall and rakish, which was a look I had seen in a lot of people of various races out here in the
wilds. Her blonde-brown hair was messed up in all different directions, like Medusa without the snakes. She had no forehead circle, nothing strange. Nothing to mark her as anything but what she appeared; an actual, human, woman.
It might have sounded weird after everything I’d been through, but I was a little nervous to talk to her. Not because she was a woman. If she was a normal human guy, who wasn’t a duke, I’d still have been nervous.
The feeling came from all the questions I had. Not the answers I would get, exactly, but more the lack of answers. I was a little worried that I would ask her all these questions, and she’d be as clueless as me. What would mean? If some other person came here, just like I had, and they didn’t have a reason for it all, then what?
I had to believe there was a purpose for all of this. It wasn’t all just about surviving one day to the next.
I walked over to her, rehearsing my opening line in my head.
Hey, I’M Isaac.
HEY! I’m Isaac.
Hey, I’m ISAAC!
Now I reached her, and she furrowed her brow at me.
“Hey, I’m an Isaac,” I said.
God damn it.
She laughed. “Thea.”
She held out her hand, and I stepped forward and offered my own.
Thea lunged at me, and before I could even think about reacting, I heard something dink against my stomach.
She had a knife! And she’d tried to do a stabby thing to me!
Luckily, my one-size chest piece had protected my guts.
I was about to punch her in the face, when she became a blur, moving faster than should have been possible.
Magic?
In answer, pain burned in my thigh and my legs buckled.
As I fell to my knees, she was away, her boots crunching over twigs and bracken, quickly becoming a blur in the distance.
Harrien and Cleavon rushed over to me. I looked down at my thigh and saw a hole in my trousers. Blood dribbling from the tear and began to pool around my legs.
“Where’s my knife?” said a guard.
Everything Is Worth Killing- Isaac's Tale Page 36