The Dimming Sun

by Lana Nielsen

  “Wait,” Arithel stammered, both stunned and frustrated by his demeanor. “We don’t have to give up.”

  She freed herself of his grasp, and walked to the apartment directly across the hall. She knocked and was promptly greeted by a middle-aged man. The interior of his apartment was much nicer than the Northmen’s; a great damask rug covered the floor, and oil paintings of fruit and flowers adorned the walls. His bed had satin pillows with an impressive oak frame and the lantern at his nightstand was wrought from delicate gold. She wondered if he was the landlord.

  “Any reason for all that racket?” he asked.

  “We apologize,” Arithel replied in as polite a tone as she could muster. “We are looking for the two men who live across from you. They are our friends. Can you tell us where they might have gone, or if they have left at all?”

  “Oh, sure I can,” he chuckled. “They came back in the wee hours of the night, hollering at the top of their lungs.”

  “Lover’s quarrel?” quipped Fallon and rolled his eyes.

  “I don’t know about that,” said the man with a slight laugh, as he stared down at his shoes. “Anyway, shortly after their spat they left. Where they could have gone is anyone’s guess.”

  “Great lot of help that was.”

  “Polite fellow you are,” the man snapped at Fallon. “Your friends are criminals, you know. I just hope they hang in the public square. I’ve enough of that lot around here.”

  “Thank you for your aid,” Arithel said.

  “Of course, lady.” The man said and cast a disparaging look at Fallon.

  Arithel and Fallon left the building and wandered back into the slums.

  “There’s the end of that hope,” Fallon remarked.

  “Maybe we’ll get lucky.” Arithel attempted to cheer him up.

  He was most unbearable when he was in his pessimistic, melancholic moods.

  “Want to get a drink?” he asked, his eyes crinkling with a sudden spark of friendliness.

  “We may as well.”

  The two Neldorins drifted towards the nearest tavern. They were greeted with a polite nod when they walked through the doors—no trite banter. The establishment was empty and wonderfully peaceful.

  Once the bartender had replaced one pint of dark ale with another, Fallon reminisced about their childhood. These were Arithel’s favorite moments with him—engaging in unashamed, unabashed nostalgia. He was practically weepy; she figured it was more because of his disappointment with current circumstances than anything else.

  “You remember that morality play—the one where the runaway princess, Anima, meets the three great vices before she goes home. Put on by the greatest theatre troupe in Neldor, everyone said. Oh, how we had to hear about it for weeks beforehand,” Fallon said.

  “And then,” Arithel cackled a little. “Total disaster! It rained, Mrs. Harvele slapped her husband during the knight’s monologue, the lead actress fainted, and to top it off, that swarm of gulls came in and shat all over the stage.”

  Fallon was laughing so hard he started hiccupping.

  It was funny, sure, but not that funny.

  “Corinne was furious. Especially when she couldn’t meet the actors afterwards. She blamed it on Father, said he was ruling a town full of rustics and that we would never have nice things in Portreath.”

  “Anoria wept a little during the play,” Arithel said. “Ronan, too, though he’d never admit it. He’s sentimental. He pulled his hood over his face so no one would see.”

  They shared a long silence. Arithel briefly considered telling him exactly what had happened with the changeling woman. She knew he’d have answers. Perhaps there were more creatures like her, somewhere amidst the wild, remote valleys of Paden. It would be such a relief to get it off her chest…

  She took several gulps of ale.

  “How did you come to be tutored with me?” Fallon asked suddenly.

  “You don’t know?”

  Fallon shook his head. “I was so glad of company that I never questioned it—why a commoner became my closest friend.”

  “Your father went to the school and demanded to know who the best student was. Mother Cecilia offered Cedric Dalestere. Faldros said he needed a girl instead; she offered me. My father was proud when I told him, said I’d get the best education in Neldor. He was right.”

  “I don’t know about that.” Fallon grinned. “It seems we spent half our time playing, goofing off.”

  “We were lazy pupils,” Arithel admitted. “We drove Maester Pierre crazy.”

  “But we impressed when it counted. Especially in rhetoric. Our arguments and secret languages were good for something.”

  Arithel laughed: “I had forgotten about all that.”

  “Pierre liked you best, you know,” Fallon said flatly. “He thought you had the quickest mind he’d ever come across. I heard him say so to my father. He even suggested we get betrothed when my health improved. Father laughed at the idea, of course.”

  Which idea had Lord Faldros scoffed at? Arithel wondered—Fallon marrying a common girl or his health improving?

  “Don’t flatter me,” she said. “You got the better marks.”

  “Everyone in Portreath loved you,” Fallon said. “They admired you. You were so lively, so charming, always up to something exciting. You were wonderful.” He nearly choked on the word. “You could have done anything back then.”

  In fact, she had done anything she wanted—for a while. She had convinced her parents to let Ronan court her despite his lack of money and status. She had convinced the town council to allow her to thwart tradition and inherit her family’s lands before her brother. To do so, she had been required to prove her brother a fool, which had not been hard to do. She had shirked chores and avoided all semblance of duty, instead spending most of her days hunting, falconing, and painting. She had been invited to salons hosted by Fallon’s glamorous aunt, Beruthiel, allowed to hear intellectuals and philosophers speak when they passed through town. Just before Ronan had left and disgraced her, the council and Lord Faldros were considering approving her as an apprentice to the forester—a prestigious, unprecedented position for a woman, much less a common woman.

  “You have a selective memory.” Arithel laughed and looked down. “All I remember is getting scolded.”

  Fallon finished his second drink. “Perhaps. What do I know? I was in my room most of the time. Monsters must stay out of sight.”

  She turned away from him and rolled her eyes. He still had unresolved issues. He was so melodramatic. What sort of response did he wish to hear when he said things like that? He should just be grateful he was better and not dwell on the past.

  “You were never a monster,” Arithel lied, thinking of how it used to terrify her when he had coughed up great quantities of blood and black tissue. She remembered how she had winced when she caught sight of his twisted knees or his bony, curved chest. When she turned thirteen and Fallon’s illness worsened, she begged her father to let her return to the town school with Ronan and her other friends, but her father chastised her heavily for the mere suggestion, and she stayed with the Veseltes—so often it sometimes felt like she was their daughter instead of his. She supped with them, traveled around the duchy with them, even sometimes made official appearances in Fallon’s stead.

  “If you could have anything,” he asked, “anything in the world, what would it be?”

  I would be a noblewoman, a warrior, with my own holdings and men, she thought. Her name would be in a book. It was the same thing she had wanted since she was a girl: glory, fame, admiration.

  She did not want to tell Fallon that.

  “I would be back in Neldor; I would run my parent’s estate and the one in the Lost Isles. I’d have my own vineyard; I’d sell the finest wine in Linnea. And Anoria—she’d be back with me, at my side. Ronan, too.”

  Fallon was not impressed.

  “Small dreams,” he said icily.

  “What are your deepest wish
es?” she said with a laugh. “Let me guess. To serve Morden for all time…”

  Arithel was interrupted by a great crash outside, so loud and calamitous it shook the tavern. Bottles of wine and brandy fell off the rack and shattered on the floor.

  “By all the demons in all the hells!” bellowed the barkeeper, clutching his cap as he ran to the window. He knocked over a bench on his way. The barmaid followed, lifting the hem of her skirt so she wouldn’t trip. Arithel and Fallon looked at one another in confusion.

  Arithel heard screaming outside.

  “Earthquake?” she speculated. She took one last sip of her drink and pushed it aside.

  “I don’t think so,” answered Fallon.

  There was another crash, this one longer than the last. The noise sounded closer. Even the chairs they sat upon trembled. The din of people shouting outside became louder, too. A crowd moved past the restaurant. The barkeeper opened the door just a little and craned his neck to look, cursing all the while.

  “Cannons,” Fallon said, rising from his seat. He looked out the window.

  “You sure? Why would cannons be going off on a Tuesday afternoon in Belhaven?” Arithel followed him quickly, the alcohol swimming around in her head and stomach in a rather unpleasant fashion.

  “Aye, cannons. Nureenians have loads of them. They use them against the Padenites in the passes of the Shadow Mountains. They’re very effective. I can’t imagine why they’re going off here, though.”

  The barkeeper slammed the door and shook his head. The barmaid regarded Fallon’s words with great fear.

  “Er we bein’ attacked?” the barmaid asked.

  “I don’t know about us, but somebody certainly is,” he replied.

  “Mother Inara, help this city,” she said. She made the sign of Agron and dashed behind the counter with her broom. She cowered there, between barrels of ale.

  “There’s hundreds out there,” the barkeeper said. “I don’t want them makin’ a mess of the place. Get out of here, ye two. I’m closing up shop.”

  Arithel laughed incredulously. “You think we want to go out in that? Our home is in the middle quarter.”

  “Not my problem. Stick to your own taverns.” The man sneered at her and grabbed the edge of her cloak. Arithel thought he’d rip it off and steal it from her in some jealous fury, but he simply held the fabric, felt it between his thumb and fingers, before releasing it.

  “It’s fine, Arithel. We’ll make it back easily,” Fallon told her.

  Another boom went off.

  The barkeeper shooed them out the door. Fallon was right about the cannons; though they were far from whatever altercation was taking place, the smell of gunpowder was thick in the air. Arithel had smelled it once before, when King Cyril shot them off in Northglade after his son was born. Cannons were expensive outside the empire.

  “Could simply be military exercises,” Fallon suggested.

  “Held in the midst of the slums?”

  Fallon lit his pipe and walked down the alley. His casual deportment was irritating.

  Yet another deafening crash reverberated around them.

  “We can take the back way to the gate.”

  “What back way?” Arithel scoffed.

  “I don’t know. You’ve wandered alone around the shanties quite a bit. I figure you can find one. You’re always so good at navigating.” He lifted his brows.

  “We don’t need to be traipsing through the back ways of the slums. We don’t even need to be out, probably—it’s not safe. You should have made the barkeeper let us stay. You could have paid him off or threatened him. It wouldn’t have taken much.”

  “Nothing we can do about that now.”

  A pack of young men rushed past them, their bare feet almost soundless against the packed dirt streets. One of them ran into Arithel, nearly knocking her over.

  “Watch it!” she spat. They were sprinting fast, though. She doubted they heard her.

  Fallon pulled her towards a random porch stoop. Another group, this one boys, sped past. He put out his pipe. They both simply lingered there, under cover of the leaking awning.

  “We should have probably run with them,” Arithel said.

  “We could have at least asked what was going on,” Fallon replied.

  She noticed a small passage off to the side, little more than a garbage gutter between buildings.

  “Come,” she said, beckoning him to follow her. They wandered through the web of alleys in hopes of finding some way back to the middle quarter. The longer they walked, the more they encountered dead-ends and stinking open cesspits, teeming with flies, rats, and starving dogs. The cannon-fire sounded closer than before.

  Three more rounds went off; they should have been enough to quash whatever problems were afoot, but the sounds of fighting and yelling and scuffling feet suggested that the mayhem persisted.

  “Damn.” Fallon stopped walking for a second, and looked down at his boots in disgust. They were covered with mud, decaying matter and scraps of old rags. The hem of Arithel’s skirt was in worse shape, utterly soaked for several inches. She could feel the little bits of Agron knew what clinging to it along with the sticky moisture. She tried to ignore the smell.

  “What?” Arithel said, sitting on an empty barrel. It was a relief to get her feet off the filthy ground. She heard people talking through the walls of the nearest house.

  “I don’t think we’re going to succeed in avoiding whatever is out there. It’s spreading. If anything, we’re just moving closer.”

  “I know,” said Arithel. “I am sorry. I shouldn’t have gone this way.”

  “This was a stupid way to go. We’re lost.”

  “Did you have some better suggestion?”

  “You didn’t give me time to think of one. You charged ahead, as usual.”

  “You’d best be a little more grateful to me,” she said, pointing at him. “I’ve saved you and your mission twice now. Without me, Darren would never even have gone with you in the first place. You would have had to force him. I don’t understand how you could have done any of this without me. Maybe you arranged for the raiders to attack my sister and me.”

  She narrowed her eyes. The thought had crossed her mind a few times before, but she had dismissed it as paranoia. She didn’t believe it, but she knew it would offend him.

  Fallon was taken aback.

  “You need to calm down, Ari, I didn’t mean to insult you. All I meant is that this is a ridiculous situation you’ve gotten us in. Going through the sewers.” He shook his head at his surroundings. “Was a bad idea. We’ll be lucky if we don’t drown in the muck or come down with the sweating sickness by next week. It’s nothing personal. I’m not calling you stupid.”

  He emphasized the word a little too long for her liking.

  Arithel pulled the Veselte ring off her finger. She was sick of it, sick of the gold dragon staring at her. The ring was heavy, unwieldy, and often got caught on her sleeves and gloves. Fallon had ordered her to keep it safe for awhile, but he had never taken it back. She concluded that he liked seeing it on her. She would no longer give him that satisfaction.

  She shoved it into his palm. He seemed hurt and dropped it when she let it go. He searched through the debris at his feet to find it.

  “That was a gift…” He stood upright again, his voice shaking.

  “It’s an annoyance. I don’t want it.”

  Fallon swallowed. His face was blotched red. With a trembling hand, he jammed his ring onto his finger.

  “You need to remember something, Arithel.” He cleared his throat. “You owe a debt to me. You are in my charge, and I am your… your lord.”

  “You are lord of nothing out here. You are just my friend, Fallon, and you will speak to me as such and refrain from insulting me. If you cannot, I remind you that I no longer need your help, but you still very clearly need mine.”

  Fallon laughed nervously and paced about. “Lest you forget, you are at my mercy on the road. I can
do whatever I like with you. Believe me, I’ve thought about it. You’d best be glad I have enough respect and love for you to practice some restraint.”

  He thrust his fingers into her hair and pulled, forcing her to face him. She refused to look him in the eye. He grabbed her by the chin, pressing his fingers into either side of her mouth. He moved the hand that had been in her hair to her shoulder. She could not help but think of when he had touched her earrings, how the same seemingly innocent gesture had made her forget everything; she wondered if it were part of some spell. She felt the heat from his face, the anger burning beneath his skin.

  “You haven’t the strength,” she muttered.

  Fallon cursed her. She pushed his hands away. “You’ll learn some respect at last,” he said in a low voice.

  She slapped him across the face. He tried to deflect the blow but she still got him between the ear and the temple.

  She had rattled him. He looked to be in shock. He stared at her, and touched the spot where she had struck him.

  “That hurt,” he breathed in disbelief.

  She was not sure why he was surprised.

  Her wrist stung where his braces had knocked against it.

  “Let us put this row behind us. We’re like old siblings.” She laughed a bit, realizing that perhaps she had gone too far.

  Fallon seized her by the waist, lifted her off her feet, and slung her across the barrel. Her hips painfully knocked against the rim.

  “What!” she spat, looking back at him.

  He pushed her head forward and held her down.

  She had to admit he was stronger than he looked. She regretted her words.

  He kept her bent over the barrel and demanded she stop struggling.

  Arithel glanced about the alley. Thankfully, there was no one around. She wondered what he was doing—simply making a show of the strength she had insulted? Punishing her for slapping him? He surely didn’t intend to fuck her, or he would have already lifted her skirts.

  “Respect, Arithel,” he repeated.

  To her shock, he slapped her across her arse. Hard.

  “What in the hell…” she said, and managed to kick her heels back into one of his shins. He ignored it. Her face blazed with mortification as she wondered whether anyone could see or hear them.