Warsinger - Chapter Twelve

The Orlahatz, Vlachia’s grand parliament house, was built at the terminus of the river that ran all the way from the glaciers of the north through the volcanic bastion of Vulkan Keep, down a steep gorge that separated the castle road from the city, and then through the city itself. The water descended under the grand mosaic ringed Andrássy Square, and then spewed out from underneath the Orlahatz through short, wide waterfalls that raged down into a network of canals. They wound through all but three of the city’s eleven fortified districts, sometimes disappearing underground to re-emerge in other parts of the city. The canals were fresh and clean and scenic in the better parts of town, polluted and sluggish in the International District and the Tanner’s District: the former a slum where the Meewfolk of Taltos lived in squalor, the latter a clean but ghettoized industrial area occupied by the city’s Mercurions. From the air, it was obvious that the city planners had carefully considered the position and symbolism of Vlachia’s parliament. It was, quite literally, the beating heart of Taltos.

The Volod and his garrison lived in Vulkan Keep, but the Orlahatz was where hundreds of administrators toiled on the affairs of the realm. It even had its own skyship port. The port was host to a flotilla of small to medium-sized airships, their idling engines blasting the river water to either side of the docks. To my delight, I recognized one of the ships: it was the Holeany, the royal cruiser that had first bought me to Vlachia.

"God, look at us. We look like a couple of derros." Suri strode up the stairs to the grand entryway, clanking on every step. "Are they even gonna let us in?"

"Who knows? Maybe we can ask for some nicer clothes." I jogged up the stairs, half my attention still on Karalti. Even though she was five miles away, I could feel her pain like a deep, throbbing ache in my own chest. "You have some nice clothing though, don't you? In your Inventory?"

She gave me a side-long look. "I lost it all when I died, remember? Weapons, armor, dresses, pajamas, the lot."

"Oh. Right. Sorry. What’s a derro?"

“A bum. You know, someone that looks like they shouldn’t be let into the Orlahatz.”

She wasn’t far off the mark. When the snooty little butler waiting in front of the closed doors to the Public Chamber saw us, he turned white.

"Hector. Dragozin Hector, uhh, Voivode of Myszno. Do you have any clothes we could wear?" I gasped.

He wrinkled his nose. "Mm... yes, 'Your Grace'. We can fit you with something, I'm sure. Come with me."

"Thanks." I hurried after him as he started sedately off down the gold-gilt corridor. "Can we pick up the pace? I'm already late for the Volod's session-"

"Do not worry yourself, my lord. There is a reception before the crown presents the report from Ilia. You are not the last to arrive - we are still waiting on Revala."

"Who's Revala?" I asked, trotting along beside him.

He flashed me a side-long look. "Revala, the Hercynian nation? The eastern neighbour of Ilia?"

"Oh." Right: THAT Revala.

Another fifteen minutes later, we rolled up to the doors of the Scarlet Chamber, where the rulers and dignitaries of the White Sail Alliance were mingling over wine and canapes while discussing the possible end of the world. The butler had found me a basic eastern nobleman's outfit: a neat tunic black, a long heavy embroidered coat in royal blue, a red sash, loose silk pants, and boots that reminded me of tooled cowboy boots with upturned toes and bright silver toe-caps. Suri had taken one of only three dresses they had, a corseted gown roughly the size of a small circus tent and richly embroidered with gold - not that anyone would notice the gold, because the front of the bodice elevated the Girls to spectacular effect.

"I feel fucking ridiculous in this," Suri fumed. The skirt of the dress was hoop-framed, so when she accidentally rammed it against the edge of a table, the whole thing wobbled like a plate of jello. "It's pinching my waist so hard it feels like I'm gonna throw my guts up on the face of the first person I talk to here."

"I think as long as you don't puke on Ignas, we'll be fine," I said, taking her by the elbow and scanning the room for Ignas and Rutha. I was anxious to find both of them, for different reasons. The Ilian sorceress was nowhere to be seen - but there was a particularly flamboyant Dakhari man staring at the four of us, dressed like a peacock in brilliant indigo and turquoise silk. When we came properly into view and he saw Suri, he got the kind of expression most people would have gotten if they'd seen a rat scurrying away with one of the Volod's fancy crustless sandwiches. "How about that guy over there? He looks like he could use some hot corn chowder."

"Don't make laugh in this corset, or I'm going to squeeze my liver out my arsehole." Suri gripped my arm for balance as she took as deep a breath as she was able to. "This thing comes with a fatigue penalty, Hector. Name me one item of men's clothing that comes with a fatigue penalty."

"Butt plug," I blurted.

She paused. “Fair enough.”

The Volod was up the front of the hall, leaning back against a table with his arms folded as he listened to the man who was currently speaking with him. I arched my eyebrows when I recognized elements of Korean traditional dress. He was speaking softly and urgently, while Ignas listened and nodded now and then. The king of Vlachia - tall, wiry, with a face as narrow and noble as a greyhound's - glanced past him to me and minutely jerked his chin up in acknowledgement.

"I beg pardon, enlightened emissary, but I'm afraid we cannot wait for Revala any longer. We must continue this conversation after Lady Rutha has presented her evidence to the council," he said crisply. "I would be pleased to open my home to you and offer hospitality in the aftermath so we can continue?”

"We understand. This one would be delighted to accept your invitation, illustrious highness." The man - he had to be from the Jeun Empire - had a clear, pleasant voice. His Vlachian was flawless, without a trace of accent. Ignas nodded, and the Jeun man bowed deeply from the waist in the East Asian style. Then he straightened and brushed past me, lifting a fan to obscure his features. Ignas let out a tense breath, then motioned me forward.

"Give it all to the Black God," he muttered. "I'd forgotten what it was like to have to play this part of being a king. Wining and dining people when we are here to discuss an emergency, as if the violins will keep playing while Hyland runs rampant across our land. It was easier in the underworld, you know. Everyone was eager to get to business and be around each other as little as possible. We would have our meeting, eat some meat pie, then return to our lairs and brood. None of this poncing and prancing and strutting."

"Starting to have some regrets, hey?" Suri's golden eyes danced as we came to stop in front of him.

"Not a single one, my lady. And speaking of strutting, you are ravishing, as usual." He reached out his hand. Suri took it, as if to shake, only to blush when the man lifted her knuckles to his lips and planted a polite, chaste kiss on them. I was about to jokingly ask for the same treatment when he flung an arm around my shoulder and pulled me into a hug. He kissed me on the cheek, thumped my back, and let me go.

"It is good to see you both again," he said, his white-gray eyes flicking from Suri's face to mine. "Alive and well, if not changed. The tales of your success in Myszno have spanned the country. Both of you are being featured in songs and tavern gossip, and your success has enriched and cemented my authority in Taltos. I could not be more pleased with how you both handled it."

"... Songs?" I felt the muscle near my eye twitch.

"Well, of course. ‘The Black Rider’, ‘Demon Slayer Dragon Queen’, ‘The Fire and the Darkness’… all good songs, by the way. How do you think news gets around a country this size?" The Volod finally smiled, showing the edge of one gold tooth. He had several, testament to five rough years of exile in the underground world of illegal bloodsports. "At least the Jeun emissary was polite to me today. I was expecting a frosty conversation, but talks are going well even though my betrothed has since been married off. I'm glad we'll be able to salvage some kind of relationship with the Empire, but Khors' balls, they are so relentlessly, unironically formal."

"You know that guy was snubbing you, right?" I remarked, falling in beside him.

"He was?" Ignas arched an iron-gray brow.

"Well, yeah. You said he's an emissary. He's not a prince or a king or anything, is he?"

"No, nothing like that. That's Moon Juk-Song. He is a diplomat, the younger son of a provincial warlord. It's customary for Jeun nobles to place their excess children into the civil service."

"Then yeah, he was insulting you. He bowed to you like you were his dad or something. You're a king, and this is your government's home. He should have gone all the way down at the waist." I shrugged.

Igna's thin mouth twitched up in a wry smile. "That wouldn't surprise me. Ambassador Moon is the first diplomat to attend the capital in nearly five years since my brother's grab for power. They still believe Andrik's wild fantasies."

"About the Meewfolk dancer?" Suri asked.

"Indeed. Sordid nonsense." Ignas chuckled, and dropped his voice. "So, what I told Ambassador Moon just before is the truth. We cannot wait for Queen Aslan any longer. I must order the Speaker to seat these people and go fetch Rutha."

"How is she?" I asked, dropping my voice.

"Fragile." The smile faded, and Igna's pale eyes flicked down. "Come with me, Hector. My apologies, Lady Suri, but she requested that no one else but I or Hector be admitted to speak with her in private."

Suri flashed him a small, brittle smile. “I understand. Well, give her my regards.”

“I will.” I offered Suri a small round-the-waist hug, which she accepted and leaned into. 

The Volod gave a short nod, then beckoned me and swept off through the crowd, out a door, and down the wide marble hall. I followed him, stomach twisting nervously. I could hardly believe it was Rutha – the Rutha, the woman I’d met when I first incarnated in Archemi. On the one hand, I desperately wanted to see her, make sure she was okay, comfort her if she wasn’t. But on the other… I had a whole lot of questions that needed answering. Why had she given me the Spear? How much had she known about Ororgael's plan to hijack a Starborn player character to achieve his goals? After my half-remembered encounters with Violetta, I had to admit that I was worried. Violetta was a player - she could respawn, and was theoretically more psychologically resilient than any NPC could be. It was possible that Rutha was now a shadow of the vibrant, intelligent, willful woman I had met when starting out in the game. Even worse - she could be Void-touched. Insane, twisted, or worse.

We turned the corner, approaching an ornate door guarded by a pair of knights. They saluted smartly, and the Volod inclined his head to them before he rapped the wood with a knuckle, then let himself inside. I followed warily.

The parlor inside was almost as large as a San Francisco apartment, set up with multiple round tables, elegant sofas, rugs and bookshelves. The storm had broken, and the sun streamed in through a row of tall gothic windows, spilling columns of pale white light across the floor. Rutha sat beside one of those windows, staring out at the river with her hands in her lap. She rested in a luxurious wheelchair, a sleek device with a stuffed leather seat and big brass-framed wheels. My throat clotted up a little. Rutha had never been a big woman, slight and small-breasted, but now she seemed hardly bigger than a china doll. Her long ears dropped, and she was still malnourished, her cheekbones sharp enough to cut paper. The chair dwarfed her.

"Lady Rutha." Ignas gave her a courtly bow as we drew closer. "Please excuse us for your meditations once again, but I bought someone you might want to see."

Rutha slowly turned her head. When she saw me, her lips parting in a small 'o' of surprise. Then, to my great relief, her beautiful freckled face flooded with a smile. She sat up straighter, her fingers twisting in the blanket on her lap. “Hector?”

I smiled back. "Hey."

" My goodness... It really is you. I can't believe it." Her voice was still crisp and eloquent, but scratchy. She turned the chair around with a small lever. It hummed softly as it pivoted to face us. "You're looking so well. You've filled out, you look... amazing. But what happened to your teeth?"

"Close encounters with vampire-kind." I hung back out of the patch of sunlight. Even from where I was standing, I could almost hear the sizzling sound it would make when it hit my skin. It wouldn't kill me or suck my HP, but it was definitely uncomfortable.

“I never thought I’d see you again,” she said. “So many hopefuls would go to the Eyrie and never return.”

“Yeah, it was rougher than I expected. I didn’t join the Skyrdon, but I did get a dragon. Usta’s last Queen.”

Rutha's violet eyes misted, and when she spoke, her voice shook. "I heard. Believe me, Ororgael still likes to rant on about it. I’m so glad you escaped with her: you got out of that awful place just in time. The Eyrie, Ilia... my country is unrecognizable, Hector. No one should live there. No one."

The edge of a sob touched her voice. I went to her as she spread her arms and bent down to carefully, gently hug her. She felt so thin I thought she'd snap in my arms. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to stop him from hurting you."

"There’s nothing you could have done, Hector. None of us knew." She wrapped her thin arms around my waist. "You had to protect the last Queen of Ilia. And from everything I've heard from Ignas here, you're doing a bloody good job of it. Your dragon will be everything that Usta should have been, and was never allowed to become."

My eyes began to sting. Damn onions. I hesitated, then clumsily pressed a chaste kiss to her brow. Rutha broke down, burying her face against my shoulder.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I got you involved in this... this freak show," she wept. "I had no idea... I had no idea Ororgael was back, that he was LIKE this. Lord and Lady, he possessed a Starborn, Hector. I have to report on what he's been doing, but I know Ororgael. I know that poor man didn't ask for this."

"Don't feel sorry for him. Baldr was a jerk on his own merits," I said, hesitating before stroking her hair back toward her collar. When I'd met her, it had been pure white, tumbling down her back in long, lustrous waves. Now it was still short and brittle, like straw - but her roots were growing in, and they were softer and healthier. "I tried to warn him when we were sitting on the edge of Ororgael's trap. He thought I was trying to fuck him over, so he decided to try and get one up on me and walked right into it. You wouldn't believe how much shit has happened since I last saw you."

Rutha cleared her throat, then held up a hand and rolled over to one of the tables. There, she picked up a glass of water and had a shaky sip. "There... sorry. My voice isn't quite what it used to be. And I can and do believe you, Hector. I have much to discuss with everyone as well. It is probably not as uplifting as what you have to tell me."

"I dunno about that. Shit hasn't just gone down in Ilia. It's been kind of rough here, too." I glanced at Ignas, who snorted.

"Ignas told me about Andrik, in brief." Rutha nodded, settling back into her chair. "And the Void creatures... I'm afraid they aren't the only Netherthings to have crawled out from under the Caul of Souls."

"Yeah, about that..." I joined her at the table, and poured myself and Ignas a drink from the pitcher there. "You were right. The Caul is kaput."

"Oh yes, believe me, I heard all about that from Baldr." Rutha's prim British accent turned very chilly as she said his name. "Or should I say, Ororgael. The Void-ruined wreck of him, at least."

Ignas accepted the glass of water with a small nod of thanks, sniffed it out of habit, then took a sip. "Just to clarify - this Ororgael and the Starborn usurper, Baldr Hyland, are truly the same person?"

"Yes," Rutha replied. 

I held up a finger. "Technically, they were two different people, but some weird shit happened and now they're the same person. Two minds in one body."

“It’s even stranger than that.” The sorceress turned her face. "There is no… split personality, for lack of a better term. No separation between their thoughts. I knew Ororgael better than anyone, and it is him, but it’s also not him at the same time. It truly is as if two people were combined into one heartless monster."

"Then this ‘Ororgael’ was not always this way?" The Volod regarded her over the rim of his glass.

Rutha shook her head. “He was an incredibly intelligent, gentle, strong-willed man. Ambitious, yes, but never cruel. When I first met him, I was an urchin in Lys, living in a boarding house and making a living from enchanting trinkets with black market mana. He took one of them and was astounded to learn I had never formally studied magic. From that day on, we were inseparable. As student and teacher, and then as… lovers, yes. I know now there was much he was concealing from me, but he was never twisted like this. Not toward me, or within my sight. But now..."

The woman trailed off, and closed her eyes. "Well. You see the results here, I suppose."

"And Baldr?" Ignas glanced between us both. "What did he bring to the stew?"

"He was a ruthless son of a bitch when I met him," I said. "He'd kill you as soon as look at you, and he had a pretty healthy dose of contempt for anyone he thought was beneath him. But he never seemed like the kind of guy who’d torture a woman for kicks. His lieutenant Lucien, on the other hand…"

Rutha shuddered. “Lucien was responsible for most of the scars you see. They are both sick, in different ways. Can you believe Baldr made Lucien the Knight-Commander of the Eyrie? The state of the place now… you would be sickened by it, Hector.”

"Is Usta dead?" I asked.

"No. Unfortunately." Rutha swallowed, then took a longer drink. "The last I heard, she was comatose and being farmed like a battery hen. The Knights of St. Grigori are demoralized, but powerless to disobey him after he and Baldr murdered Skyr Arnaud and who-knows-else. Half the Eyrie lives in the capitol now. The other half… I have no idea where they are. Searching for you and your dragon, or perhaps a wild Queen. They’re desperate to resume breeding and training."

I looked down, brows furrowed. "Do you know what happened to Fort Palewing? Sergeant Blackwin? Skyr Tymos?"

"Only that the fort had been razed by dragonfire," Rutha said. "Something about a rebellion. It didn't last any longer than your stay in Ilia."

Shit. That was bad news. Sergeant Blackwin had never done me any wrong. Neither had the Meewfolk librarian, Jasper. Skyr Tymos had been bound by the geas that imprisoned the knights and dragons, but he’d done his best to see me to safety. Baldr and Lucien were the kind of guys who looked at people like that and thought ‘hey, free EXP!’.

“I am sorry to interrupt, but we must go to the chamber and present your testimony, lady.” Ignas said, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “Hector, go and situate yourself in the galley while I assist the lady. It would be preferable that Voivode Janos see you in my company as little as possible.”

“Why?” I asked.

“He is the scion of a very old noble Vlachian family, for one. His ancestors rode with mine when Vlachia was nothing but a savage frontier, and the Vlachians were nomadic Ghora Lords. For another, he is your nearest neighbour, and perhaps feels somewhat ambivalent about having an immortal Starborn lord on his doorstep,” Ignas replied. “You must brace for the impact Baldr’s activities will have on your kind. I expect that after today, the White Sail Alliance will be far less hospitable toward self-described ‘player characters’.”