The Redemption of Desmeres

by Joseph R. Lallo

  “She visited recently, did she not?”

  “She did.”

  “What did the two of you discuss?”

  “Very little. She… She said something about wanting to leave behind a legacy. Then I went off to bed. The next thing I remember was her waking me because my father was having one of his moments.”

  “Moments?”

  “His mind isn’t right. He’s very old and sometimes he becomes confused. This time he had me burn a letter.”

  “And what did the letter say?”

  “It was something about passing debts to Genara when he died.”

  “Debts… what manner of debts?”

  “It was from when he was a slave. Years ago.”

  Anrack drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. He stood.

  “Lem Copperwright, you shall remain in Verril. Each morning, you will meet with the city watch, and each evening you shall do the same. If you fail to meet with the watch for even a single meeting, you shall be considered a traitor to the crown and treated accordingly.”

  “What have I done!”

  “Our target is currently focused upon debts owed to a figure known as the Red Shadow. You confess to a family debt discovered at the same time your sister became associated with Desmeres. That is evidence enough to suggest that you are under his influence and cannot be trusted.”

  “But—”

  “Open your mouth again and what little freedom I have permitted you will be revoked immediately.”

  Lem nodded.

  “Good… now, if you recall anything which may help us locate your sister or her accomplice, you will tell the city watch immediately. If it proves valuable, that will be taken into consideration when the time comes to assess your guilt.”

  Anrack stood and addressed his men. “We are through here.”

  They stepped from the house and into the street, pacing toward the carriage that would carry Anrack back to his quarters.

  “Lumineblade… the man has a son with the ear of the queen. As if that wasn’t enough, he holds the life-debts of countless individuals throughout the kingdom. In the very capital! It is baffling that a single man could be allowed to amass so much potential influence. He must be stopped and the extent of his treachery must be revealed. This runs far deeper than I ever could have feared…”

  #

  “This one is called The Poisons and Potions of the Daggergale Mountains. Do I put it with the poisons pile or the potions pile?” Genara asked.

  “Potions,” Wolloff said.

  Hours of sorting, Genara had to admit, had not been as unpleasant as she’d imagined. It was one of those rare tasks where one knew precisely how much had been done and how much was left to do. As the stacks of books shifted from disorderly heaps to orderly stacks, then vanished stack by stack up the rickety steps to the tower, one got a clear feeling of accomplishment. More than that, however, it treated Genara to glimpses of the pages themselves. Authors of mystic tomes had a flair for illustration and illumination. Brilliant, vivid calligraphy covered page after page, and images depicting the symbols and effects of the spells described were rendered with incredible precision and care. It painted a picture in her mind of the sort of meticulous personalities that drifted toward wizardry. How exactly an ogre of a man like Wolloff had happened upon the role was anyone’s guess.

  The most engaging part of the experience, however, was the conversation. After a few minutes of sorting, Desmeres found a thin volume on the subject of treating burns. It reminded him of a story he ‘had heard’ about the Undermine. That was the first of what had become an unbroken string of tales. He was a fascinating storyteller. Each story was rich with details and colorful phrasing, but remained vague with regard to anything that might nail down when exactly it had occurred or the precise identities of those involved. The tales came off as spirited accounts learned second and third-hand, things he’d heard tell of and wished to share. Genara, knowing what she did of his past, knew they could only be stories of various missions of his exploits as Lain’s partner. In keeping with his unique brand of honesty, he never actually claimed otherwise.

  Wolloff, after a few yarns had been spun, joined in. Years of working with the Undermine, as well as the lengths to which he’d gone to gather the many books, provided him with a thousand stories of his own. Once the cork was pulled from that bottle, there was no closing it again. Though he lacked the elegant vocabulary and gift for turning a phrase that Desmeres had, he was not without his own narrative skill.

  “So where did you get that one, Wolloff?” she asked.

  “Drunken dwarf up north. There’s a gaggle of them in the Daggergale mountains, over toward the western edge. This one was a fat lout with a beard down to the ground, which wasn’t that far, mind you. The dwarfs have their own language. The little devils like it that way. Don’t want their hard-earned knowledge to leave the holes they live in. It took me two weeks of passing notes with an ore trader just to get a name of someone who might have a few translated editions. Turns out this one had a weakness for cider.”

  “Cider, really? I thought they had stronger tastes than that,” Desmeres said. “Every dwarf I’ve ever dealt with seemed to think the stuff we drink on the surface was weak as water.”

  “Oh, they do. But Caya’s father’s got something that’ll curl your toes.”

  “You know her father?”

  “What do you suppose got me mixed up with that madwoman in the first place?”

  “That madwoman is our queen,” Genara said.

  “And? Do you imagine having a crown on your head means you’ve got a brain in it? Do not get me started on royalty. A bunch of well-heeled buffoons who lead whole nations because their parents did, as though that’s a qualification. At any rate, don’t interrupt. I got a few barrels of triple X and hauled them to a ratty old mine. Turns out he was one of those rare dwarfs who’d had his fill of swinging a pick and worked out that he could earn his keep just scrawling words. Probably made his share of enemies back in the bowels of the mountain for doing it. Only person I’d ever met with nothing but gold teeth, by the way. … Ah. Here we are then. Wards and Sigils.”

  “You found it?” Genara said.

  “The cover is blue. Thought it was red.”

  He opened the dusty cover and leafed through the pages. Genara paced over and pulled up the second chair. The pages were rendered with the same care that was the hallmark for the spellbooks, but this one was notable in that while the mystic writing was flawless, the Varden descriptions weren’t quite right.

  “What is wrong with this writing? ‘Thi bareor roon werks best wen paird with thi poshun ov bonding.’ Should we be trusting a book with scarcely a single word spelled properly?”

  “More dwarven. I’ve seen enough of their runes to know these are properly drawn. I’ll muddle through the rest.”

  “And you believe there is something in those pages that will help you kill Epidime?”

  “Not at all,” Wolloff said. “If what I’ve heard is true, he’s a wandering soul. Souls are eternal. You can’t kill one. There are some entities that can devour a spirit, but if you’ve got one of those around, you’ve got a bigger problem than this Epidime character. Deacon seems to believe there are runes here which should make it possible to capture him. Here, this one here.”

  He tapped his finger on a page that featured an intricate rune. Rather than displaying it complete and whole, the page split it neatly in half with a gap in the middle.

  “I don’t understand how tracing a certain shape could trap a spirit.”

  “It’s very simple, lass. We’ve all got rules. Spirits have rules different from ours. Walls are as immaterial as fog to them. But magic holds sway. And these symbols evoke magic. This rune renders something impassible by spirits. It makes an object as solid to mystic beings as it is to physical ones.”

  “And you are confident that Epidime will follow this rule?”

  “This isn’t a law. It isn’t a sign ask
ing nicely not to pass through. Those sorts of things we can break if we so choose. These are hard and fast rules. You can’t breathe under water. If you step off a cliff you’ll fall to the bottom. There are ways the world works, and we can’t change them. For a spirit, this rune is just the same.”

  “But it’s just a symbol.”

  “It is a thought, in written form. Just as you and I are sharing thoughts in spoken form. Why should spells spoken aloud or conjured within the mind have any more impact than those written? All it requires is the power to make it work, and the proper medium to adhere itself to. In this case, it must be paired with a potion, the potion of bonding.”

  “This seems awfully simple,” Desmeres said doubtfully.

  “Nothing’s ever simple, lad,” Wolloff said. “Let’s look into this potion of bonding…”

  He flipped through the book and came to a massive list. Written in tiny letters, it covered two full pages and read like a recipe.

  “There. The potion of bonding. Without it, the rune’s no more powerful than a bit of wishful thinking. Looks to be a bear of a concoction, too.”

  Desmeres glanced over the page. “Powdered Lapis. Mmm… Ferryman’s Weed. Lesser Hornroot… Some very rare ingredients here. I’m familiar with most of them. I may be able to pay a visit to one of my better suppliers at the southern edge of Ravenwood for most of them… but this one here. Marten-spores. I don’t know that I’ve even seen them outside of Melorn Forest.”

  “Aye. They don’t store well. You need them fresh.”

  “I don’t suppose you have any suppliers,” Desmeres said.

  “I don’t muck with potions anymore. A few words of a spell does the same job for my purposes and doesn’t cost more than a few hours rest to recover. Assuming you don’t pick the wrong spell.”

  “Well, then. That’s the task. Gather the ingredients for the potion and prepare a batch of it.”

  “But what will you do with it then?”

  “Trap Epidime somewhere.”

  “How?”

  “One hurdle at a time, Genara. We don’t even know if we will be able to find what we need. No sense wasting our time dreaming up how we’ll use it if we aren’t even sure to have it,” He stood. “I thank you for your help and hospitality, Wolloff. I shall be off to—”

  Wolloff shoved Desmeres, knocking him back to his seat. “You aren’t going anywhere just yet, lad.”

  “This is a fairly important task.”

  “You paid me good money to fix up those legs of yours and they aren’t even half healed. I’m not letting a paying customer hobble off to fight a demon until he’s had his money’s worth, and I don’t leave a job half-done.”

  “Thank you,” Genara said. “I thought I was going to have to argue him back into his seat.”

  “I’ve suffered through worse,” Desmeres said. “And if I’m going to be mixing up one potion, there is no reason I can’t mix up a few healing potions as well.”

  “That’s fine. You can do that. After I finish patching up your legs. That’ll be tomorrow.”

  “Time is a factor,” Desmeres said.

  “I may not be the finest healer in the land, but I trained the finest healer in the land, and I won’t have you mar my reputation by limping out of here after paying me for treatment. Now you sit, you eat, and tomorrow when I’m ready to finish my work, you’ll leave here healthy. Until then, you may as well finish sorting these books with me. I don’t suppose any of you know how to cook.”

  “I can say without reservation or fear of rebuttal that you are not likely to find two people worse at cooking than the two of us,” Genara said. “If I have to eat one more bowl of boiled beans and boiled oats, I am going to lose my mind.”

  Wolloff grumbled and hefted himself from the chair. “Fine. I’ll make supper then. I’m tempted to have one of you do it for being such a nuisance, but I’d rather eat a proper meal than have you make a mess of one. Just get these books sorted, and yell out if you’ve got any questions. No sense you making a mess of that as well.”

  #

  For all of his surliness, Wolloff turned out to be a reasonable host. The meal wasn’t magnificent, but it was a hearty and filling stew. When they had eaten and the wizard gave Desmeres’s legs a check to see that they were coming along well, he offered them use of the bed in the tower.

  “I wish it was a bit warmer here,” Genara said, pulling back the covers of the bed and inspecting it. “But it’s nice to have a roof over our heads. Sleeping in the back of that cart of yours is not for me. The bed is clean as well. I suppose a healer keeps a neat house.”

  “It’s not so long ago Myranda was staying here, so I’m sure she’s got something to do with the relative livability of the tower.”

  Genara’s eyes widened. “Oh my heavens! That’s right! This is the bed she slept in, right? We’ll be sleeping in the bed a hero and noble slept in. Humbling…”

  She slid into the bed, still wearing a few layers of clothes to ward off the cold.

  Desmeres set a blanket down on the floor beside the bed. “You will sleep in her bed. I’ll be on the floor.”

  “Nonsense. It’s not the largest bed, but there is room enough for two,” she said. “And a bed is warmer with two under the covers.”

  “It will be fine.”

  “Don’t be an idiot. You’re still healing, we’ve both got a long journey ahead of us tomorrow. Who knows the next time we’ll be lucky enough to have a bed? Get up here.”

  “Genara, this isn’t a drunken evening of sob stories after which I fully expect never to see you again. We’ll have to travel together tomorrow.”

  “It’s not that kind of an invitation, Desmeres. And besides, we’ve been sharing a cart for heaven’s sake.”

  “Necessity is one thing, this is another.”

  Genara slid her feet off the bed and sat up.

  “Sit down, Desmeres.”

  “Are you going to attempt to talk me into sleeping with you?”

  “I’m going to find out why you are suddenly unwilling to sleep beside me. Now take a load off of those chewed-up legs and talk to me. Remember, it wasn’t so long ago you were paying good money to talk my ear off. Listening is part of my job.”

  “Almost as big a part as forgetting, right?”

  “Almost. Now sit.”

  He sat down.

  “Out with it. You’ve got a warm, soft bed for the night and you’re opting for the floor. There are plenty of reasons why a man might turn down having someone to help keep the bed warm, but unless I’ve read you wrong, you’re a touch more pragmatic than you are chivalrous.”

  “Can’t a man be both?”

  “A man can be a damn fool, too. Now if you’re afraid you won’t be a gentleman in bed with me, you should be, because if you aren’t, those legs of yours will be the least of your problems. I’ve dealt with my share of folks who don’t know how to treat a lady and not a single one of them would volunteer to be dealt with again. But I’m not worried about that. If you had those colors to show, you’d have shown them ages ago. So what’s left?”

  “I’m not entirely sure I have an answer that will satisfy you.”

  “Then give me an unsatisfying one, because I’m tired and that pillow is calling my name, but I won’t sleep until I get an answer.”

  He paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts. “Epidime’s probable presence behind this madness… my plan to end him… They’ve brought certain… events to mind. I’ve been thinking about Trigorah quite a bit.”

  “Thinking of what might have been?”

  “Thinking of what should have been. And what should not have been. I’ve spoken at length about the hazards of a very long life. Perhaps the greatest of them all is the certainty that there will always be time. That no matter how important something is, it can wait a day, a week, a year, a generation. The world moves quickly, but for us, the important parts have always moved very slowly. Trigorah was always supposed to be there. When she came to he
r senses, when I came to my senses, when the time was right, she was supposed to be there and so was I. But it wasn’t to be. Now she’s a memory. And the possibility of facing her killer is keeping that memory bright and vivid at the front of my mind. Epidime has to die. It is the right thing to do morally, as he’s committed the sort of crimes for which no one should be allowed to escape justice. It is the intelligent thing to do, because if I am his target then I shall not be safe until he is dealt with. But a disturbingly large part of the decision is based upon her memory. This is as much about revenge as anything else.”

  “It takes a fine woman to make someone like you do something for an unselfish reason,” Genara said.

  “You have no idea how correct you are.”

  “I’m not going to ask you any foolish questions about fidelity. Instead, I’m going to ask how exactly you feel that sleeping on the cold, hard ground is going to honor her memory.”

  “It won’t.”

  “So why do it?”

  “It seems like the right thing to do.”

  “You don’t have much experience doing the right thing, Desmeres. So allow me to explain. You offer the woman the bed. ‘How very kind, sir, but there is room enough for two.’ Now you accept the lady’s kind offer.”

  “Oh, is that how it’s done?” he said with a chuckle.

  “Yes. And for future reference, for someone in my profession it does not speak well of me when I have to convince someone to share a bed.”

  “I would hate to malign your reputation.”

  He climbed into the bed, taking care keep to the edge and give her the proper space. She immediately rendered those efforts pointless by throwing the blanket over them both and draping an arm across his chest.

  “Don’t read too deeply into this. I’m cold and you’re warm. That’s what this is about.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of suggesting otherwise.”

  “Good. Now sleep well.”

  It took some time for the chill to leave the bed, but with two bodies, several layers of clothes, and a few heavy blankets the pair were soon warmer and more comfortable than either had been since the adventure had begun. Just as she was drifting off, Genara felt a hand rest lightly atop hers.