Umber

Day after day the Preserver bent over the books he’d retrieved from Urik, cataloging the nature and extent of damage and the time required for each repair. Absorbed in private thoughts the Avangion hovered tirelessly nearby, providing light more steady than any lantern’s, speaking only to remind the Preserver to eat and to sleep. The work went slowly, for the Preserver was often distracted by a phrase here or a paragraph there, until a tome of ancient history diverted him so completely that he gave up the reconstruction effort and retreated with the volume to a more comfortable chair.He didn’t notice the Avangion follow. He didn’t notice the light level remaining strangely constant in the room as night turned into day turned into night again. He turned the pages of the damaged book and damaged it still further with underlining, crossings through, notes scribbled in the corners. Why save it, the Avangion finally asked, if you mean to blot it out entirely?

“It’s wrong,” the Preserver muttered. “It’s all wrong. Gods before the Elements, but the names are all wrong. Planes other than the Inner, but no one knows what they were. A single moon torn in two, but no one knows who did it, or how, or why.” He threw the book across the room. “No one knows anything anymore.”

I was thinking that the author sounded remarkably well-educated. Elven?

The Preserver retrieved the book and examined the flyleaf. “From shortly before they turned completely feral. Never liked elves. Didn’t like them when they had pretensions to grandeur, don’t like them now that they’re common liars and thieves. This one wasn’t a liar, though.” He stared down at the book in his hands, angry and mournful. “Just ignorant.”

Perhaps it’s just as well, the Avangion’s thoughts were a light breeze in the Preserver’s mind, if mortals don’t know how the moon was sundered. They might lose the courage to struggle.

“The mortals have lost all manner of things,” the Preserver said bitterly. “History, curiosity, decency. But the damned instinct to self-preservation just keeps rolling on and on in the face of all evidence that they’d be better off laying down and dying as soon as they were born.”

So it was for me, once upon a time. So it has always been, for them. A span of days is given to live and to strive, and then life and strivings cease. They are accustomed if not resigned to finitude: whether their one life ceases or life everywhere matters not to them. This world has changed only for you. The Avangion’s light bobbed up and down in an intricate, playful pattern. Feel free to revel in your singularity.

“If you were still corporeal…” The Preserver clenched a considerable fist, but both he and the Avangion knew he didn’t mean it.

You watch Barunus striving to uncover Camelok. The Preserver grunted in reply. Well?

“Well what?”

I was waiting for the inevitable ‘more fool he.’

“I don’t think for an instant that he’s going to excavate Utopia. But at least he’s excavating history, and that’s something. You’ve been spying on him yourself, of late.”

Only to observe Skarp’s offspring. You should be more interested in them than you are. Preserver.

The Preserver dropped the product of his own vandalism on his worktable. “Let me know if they’re still alive in a year – hells, let me know if they’re alive in six months – and maybe I’ll contemplate sharing some insignificant fraction of your interest. I’m just a carnal being, after all. I can only give my tiny attention to so many matters at once. I can’t be bothered to look in on someone fool enough to jump into poisoned water after a dwarf child snatched by venomous watersnakes.”

They killed the snakes. They saved the child. They met Barunus.

“Who according to you refused to let their would-be bard in because she was rash enough to steal a tattoo from a House Resherek courier without understanding what it was.”

They have met Preserver Mahlanda as well. They saved her life.

The Preserver’s eyes glittered with interest, but he assumed an uncurious pose. “Peripatetic little creatures. From the unfortunate outskirts of Urik to Barunus to Tyr. Kalak has stepped up production on his ziggurat, hasn’t he? Rumor is the nobles and merchants are barely safe on the streets, let alone desert paupers. I’m surprised they weren’t tossed into the slave pits the moment they showed up at the gate.”

The bard posed as a Resherek courier, fleeing Urik, accosted by elves, stopping to resupply.

“Well they aren’t wholly stupid,” the Preserver admitted grudgingly. “Without some kind of story a lot of awkward questions might have been asked: why they were so badly dressed, why a Resherek courier wasn’t heading directly to the House to deliver her message. I’m still not convinced that will save them though – in fact,” he gave the Avangion a wicked smile, “I’d be willing to make a small wager that this will be one of the shorter dramas you watch unfold.”

The thoughts in his mind were impish and impudent. First metamorphosis?

“I said a small wager. Not a death warrant.”

There was a quick flutter of something like wingtips; it might have been a trick of the light, or not. I’m still alive.

“You always were cocky and not overly bright.”

A tinkling laughter resonated in the large room. I think I would win. Do you remember the flower once known as the rose?

“You’re going to feed me some tripe about beauty and thorns, aren’t you? I’d like to point out that humans still cut their stems, stuck them in water, and tossed them out with the rest of the trash when they withered.”

The bushes generally survived.

The Preserver threw himself back into a chair. “Are you going to keep quoting old Oerth clichés at me until I let you tell me about the misadventures of Skarp’s brood?”

Quite possibly.

“Fine,” he sighed in aggrieved resignation, “it’s not as if I have anything of lasting value to do. What is your fascination with them anyway?”

A story: When they arrived in Tyr, they first went to the Shadow Square to barter with the elves for armor and weapons.

“Reasonable enough if you’re trying to pose as a courier and her guard. Not the stuff of legend.”

Two richly garbed elves made sport with a half-breed beggar in the streets.

“No surprise there,” the Preserver grunted. “In the old days half-elves mostly made their way in the human community. But while there are creatures answering to that physical description walking the land today, most of them don’t deserve the name. The dying sun has made cockroaches and lizards of us all.”

And yet they intervened. The telepath and the egoist counseled against it –

“Ah, not all roses, then.”

 – for the sake of the larger mission, not from lack of sympathy. The others exercised more subtlety than perhaps they initially intended, but they did intervene. The elves were timid kittens, not hunting lions, and left their prey behind.

“All right, so they’re kind to beggars. That won’t keep them out of the slave pits.” A thought occurred to him. “Where did they get the money for armor and weapons at black market prices? Since you find them so appealing, I’m assuming they didn’t take to rolling drunks in the alleys.”

Barunus gave them ten pieces of gold.

The Preserver’s eyes widened. “Ten gold? For – ” the widened eyes narrowed. “What’s this mission you say the egoist and the telepath didn’t want disrupted? Barunus didn’t send a pack of desert whelps into Tyr to keep Kalak from finishing that ziggurat, did he? They’d be lucky to be swept into the anonymity of the slave pits. If the sorcerer-king’s Templars noticed them at it…they may kill Preservers and would-be Avangions quietly to keep from making them martyrs, but it’s always worthwhile to make conspicuous and bloody examples of peasants who don’t know their place.”

A few dozen Jura Dai toil in Tyr’s slave pits. Barunus wants them released.

“What love would a dwarf have for the Jura Dai? Unless,” he mused, “he pursues a different goal and doesn’t want to tell a group of strangers. What is his interest in the elves?”

He wouldn’t say. Proof, perhaps, that he merely desires their freedom.

“Not necessarily.”

You have a suspicious nature.

“Millennia of practice, Esteemed Refulgence. If I were truly cynical, I’d assess the strategic likelihood of anything short of an army extricating ‘a few dozen’ of anything from Tyr’s slave pits and say what he really wants is to get his new little friends killed. But I haven’t said that yet, have I? I will say that his ten gold is beginning to look like a mere pittance – the most risk-free route out of the slave pits is bribing an overseer, after all.”

Was bribing an overseer, the Avangion corrected him. Astrological projections drive Kalak’s timetable: for the magic he means to make, the ziggurat must be finished in a matter of weeks. Bribe-takers have been meeting – unpleasant – ends.

“That’s a quick way to dry up greased palms. I’ve been to Tyr. If you couldn’t buy  someone’s way out of the pits, I’m not sure what you’d do.”

They looked for someone more important and more clever than an overseer.

“A short list, unless – they didn’t try to deal with a merchant house, did they? You’d think they would have learned. And what could they possibly have to – ” he paused. “The tattoo. You said it was a snake? And that it occasionally moved on the bard’s body.” The pattern of light bounced in something like a nod. “Interesting. Who did they try to peddle it to?”

They found Resherek’s most ruthless competitor.

“House Crucix?” Another bright nod. “Sell out the dealer in slaves, espionage and assassination to the dealer in slaves, drugs and poisons. A charming choice. What did he have for them?”

Information. How to get into the slave pits and out again.

“That would be a trick. And what clever suggestion did he offer?”

Become a slave. Become an overseer. Gather the Jura Dai. Find a reason to be out in the city.

Something in the Avangion’s tone caught the Preserver’s attention. “A reason?”

A fire, perhaps. Such things have been known to happen. Their kineticist is fond of flames. Slaves are always sent out to quell them.

“Getting in the slave pits is easy. That’s an awfully long run of good luck to get back out again, though.”

They are strong.

“Not for long, under those conditions.”

The merchant also offered support. Bribes to an overseer for extra food, extra water. Keep them strong. Get them noticed.

“Maybe.” The Preserver sounded doubtful. “But the only way to get a promotion is to get noticed by a Templar. And the only way to get noticed by a Templar – in a way you want to get noticed – is by getting more work out of a crew. And not by coddling and coaxing – that marks you as the kind of person ripe for planning a rebellion. The more brutal you are, the faster you’ll rise through the ranks – but I thought you were fond of your roses’ tender mercies.”

Not all needed to enter. The bard refused to go. The fighter and the scout refused the way of brutality. The kineticist must be free for the fire.

“Leaving your pragmatic telepath and egoist. And have they soared to the top of the tiny slave hierarchy?”

Not yet. But they have been noticed, by both Templar and slaves. Brutal to their companions during the day, but feeding them at night. Removing annoyances to both overseers and slaves, for there are always those who will exercise what small  power they can against those who are weaker still. Creeping through the darkness after whispers, for there are always those who will sell out their neighbors for the taste of a crust of bread.

“And if this doesn’t pan out the way they expect they’ll be stuck there for what remains of a short, unhappy life.”

Not necessarily. Before information they spoke with Crucix of bribery. One, or two, he said, possibly, although it would be difficult. The option still remains.

“But the tattoo doesn’t. Or do they have something else to barter away that you haven’t told me about?”

Barter is unnecessary where allegiance exists.

“Allegiance?” the Preserver scoffed. “The Houses swear allegiance only within themselves, and only then because they watch each other like rocs.”

Crucix brought a psion to verify the tattoo’s provenance and receive it from the bard. Greedy for its secrets, he instructed the psion to activate it.

The Preserver chuckled. “Let me guess – it had a passphrase, and nobody knew what it was. Fools. The girl must have taken it from a dead body, or she couldn’t have taken it at all. Did they expect her to know the code? The snake grew fully animate, I presume. And what did it do?”

Turned to the merchant and said, ‘Obey.’ It might have said more, but their warrior woman struck down the psion and silenced the tattoo. Because the binding was unfinished, the merchant imprinted on her. He will do whatever she asks.

“Where’s the tattoo now?”

The bard took it back. It appears to recognize her as a kind of master, or companion.

“I don’t think I envy her that. But the merchant…maybe I will take an early interest in the doings of these youths of yours.”

They have asked Mahlanda to find someone to break the link between the merchant and their friend.

The Preserver stared at him in disbelief. “You’re telling me they have a Crucix trader  at their beck and call and they’re looking to release him from the domination? Do they understand what they have?”

Something that does not belong to them.

“A font of information nearly as precious as a spring. Someone to keep them informed on the schemes of the Houses. Someone to teach them to read. And they’re going to throw it away? They’re fools.”

Some might call them holy fools. The kind that are too few these days.

“Bah.” The Preserver waved a claw in a dismissive gesture. “The kank doesn’t crawl out of its carapace and expose its tender body to the sun to show it doesn’t fear it.”

Honesty and loyalty have won them Mahlanda’s attention. Would you dismiss the favor of a Preserver?

“I’m not lazy about my magic,” the Preserver scowled. “That doesn’t make me sympathetic to the bleeding heart causes that occupy your time, or hers. I suppose she was off on some fool’s errand, and that’s why they had to save her.”

Templars followed her into the Inix Rest Inn, where Barunus had sent Skarp’s descendants in search of allies. Their bard used the authority of House Resherek to chase the authorities away from their table, and the innkeeper spirited them away to a private room.

“Another piece in that movement?”

The –

The Preserver clapped his hands over his ears in an excessively dramatic gesture. “How many times do I have to tell you I don’t want to know the name?”

They’d be pleased to have your assistance.

”No they wouldn’t,” he said gruffly.

Even if you told them you were a demon, they wouldn’t know what it meant anymore. In some respects ignorance, the light burst momentarily into glowing wings that spanned nearly the entire hundred foot length of the Preserver’s home before collapsing again, is blissfully liberating.

“Stop showing off and get on with your story. I’d like to get back to my books before the next millennia dawns. Or darkens, as the case may be. Were the rest of Skarp’s spawn cooling their heels at Inix Rest while the telepath and the egoist clawed their way up the truncated slave pit ladder?”

The innkeeper was, he said, less forthcoming with information and aid than might usually be because he feared a spy within his ranks. They decided to aid his cause by investigating. They were suspicious of a server with overly attentive ears and laid a trap by mentioning in his hearing of a rumor that the wanted Preserver could be found at a particular house in the warrens.

“That rat-infested cesspool,” the Preserver interjected.

Rats are extinct, the Avangion reminded him.

“I was talking about the humans. Go on.”

They hid in a building nearby and waited to see if he would act on the information. He did. He and several people they did not recognize loitered for the better part of the day, then dispersed when Mahlanda did not appear. When they returned to the inn, he was entering the back kitchen. The scout followed him, only to find he had vanished. The kineticist went to warn the innkeeper. His good faith nearly cost him his life.

“Another guess,” the Preserver’s tone was sour. “The innkeeper was the rat. And the server was dead, I suppose.” He rose and began pacing the room. “Deceptions within deceptions, conspiracies imagined and genuine whispered in every shadowed doorway, poison lurking in the bottom of every glass of mead. Every reason I never returned to the Abyss given robust existence in Umber.”

Their good faith saved their lives as well. Mahlanda intervened as he prepared to strike them down. They fought him off and prevailed.

“What are they doing now?”

 I don’t know. The light danced over toward the pool of water. Shall we watch together?