by Nick Harrow
“It’s just a job,” he said. “And it’s only money. I’m not sure why this is such a problem for you.”
There was nothing to say to that. People who think money is worthless are often in the business of taking it from someone else. Trying to explain to Lexios why I wasn’t willing to cough up my hard-earned coins to a king who lived on the other side of Soketra was an exercise in futility.
I changed the subject, intent on showing Lexios that we weren’t going to be a pushover for him. If he thought I could conjure walls in record time, maybe he’d have second thoughts about trying to storm the oasis.
“The wall went up fast.” I nodded toward one of the towers, and the guards who manned the ballista there saluted me with crisp precision. “We still have a few modifications to make, but it’s more than a match for siege engines even now.”
“You think so?” Lexios pointed at the top of the nearest section of wall. “It seems a bit thin in the center there. A well-placed shot from a trebuchet would breach it.”
“Easy enough to fix.” The Tablet of Conquest appeared before me and the details of the oasis scrolled past.
<<<>>>>
The Tablet of Conquest
First Settlement
The Kahtsinka Oasis (2nd-Level Settlement)
Current Status: Weak
Improvements
Martial: 1
Defenses: 2
Agrarian: 2
Education: 1
Religion: 1
Mercantile: 2
Build Points Invested: 9
Build Points Available: 1
Current Build Point Cost: 2,000 gold pieces
Maximum Build Points: 4
Build Points to Next Settlement Level: 5
<<<>>>
I did my best not to show surprise at the sudden jump in price from five hundred gold pieces to two thousand gold pieces per build point. If the cost kept popping up like that, I’d need a lot more than a couple tons of iron and some craftsmen to fix my budget problems.
I went ahead and purchased a defensive upgrade with my leftover build point. I needed five more build points in the bank to pull off one of my plans, but I should be able to buy those after the dwarves and I got to work later in the day. The walls didn’t immediately increase in size, but a ghostly outline of what they would soon look like shimmered in the air above the perimeter.
“Why do you insist on fighting me?” Lexios asked abruptly. “You can build walls to the sky, and you might even fend off my army when it arrives a few days hence. But Selician will send more men, more weapons, more magic when word of my defeat reaches him. There is no way for you to win this war, even if you destroy me. Surely you can see that this single village cannot hold out against the might of the Kingdom of Kyth.”
“You’ll never understand.” We’d reached the military training ground by that point, and I leaned against the fence that surrounded it. My soldiers, clad all in black chain bolstered with plate pauldrons and greaves, marched in perfect formation across the yard. “And I’ll never bend the knee to some far-off king.”
“But why? You are far from the throne. Selician has no interest in your day-to-day lives; you’ll scarcely notice his rule. Pay your taxes, pledge allegiance to the kingdom, and go about your business. Your misguided struggle for meaningless freedom will cost you coin and lives and gain you nothing.”
“That’s how it always starts. A man shows up and demands you give him some of what’s yours. You do it to make him go away. But then he comes back with friends and they want their cut from your table, too. Before you know it, some man in a faraway place who’s never done anything for you or given anything to you bleeds you dry. That’s not a road I’m going to lead my people down.”
“Selician will destroy you.”
“He’ll try.” I spread my arms to encompass the breadth of the city. “And I’ll create more defenders. I’ll build higher walls. Every battle will make me smarter, and Selician poorer. I’ll make it so expensive for him to keep sending armies here he’ll have no choice but to give up on his dream of bringing me to heel.”
“That will never happen.” Lexios nodded approvingly at my troops as they completed another drill. “It isn’t about the money for Selician, either. It’s about obedience. Loyalty. He can’t afford to have anyone rebel against him. It is too dangerous.”
The soldiers snapped to attention and threw me a formal salute. They sheathed their weapons and fell into parade rest with their eyes locked on Lexios. Their sergeants formed up in line a few feet away from us, crossed their arms behind their backs, and waited for my command.
“If he wants total dominance over Soketra, he can give up on that idea right now. I won’t swear obedience to another man. I’ve earned what I have, and no one will take it without a fight. But Selician has another option: go away.
“All I want is to live in peace with my people. As long as no one intrudes on my domain, I don’t give a shit what they do. Your king can have everything else, but he can’t have the oasis. Go home, Lexios. Tell your king what I’ve said.”
“You really don’t understand.” Lexios seemed perplexed by my belligerent refusal to bow down to his master. “Soketra is a splinter that floats on a sea of horrors. We are ants upon that splinter. So long as we all follow the same leader and no one upsets our equilibrium, then we’re safe from what lies below.”
Lexios’s eyes took on a strange, serene look as he spoke. There was something odd about his suddenly stiff mannerisms and the way he didn’t focus on the soldiers in front of him.
“And, what?” I asked. “Me and the ants who follow me are going to tip over the splinter so the fish can eat us all? Fuck your metaphor. I built a raft for my people, and we’re going to be fine even if a storm comes. If your situation is so precarious that my very existence threatens Selician, then you’ve got bigger problems than a guy who won’t pay his taxes.”
The tax collector said nothing for long moments. A wind I couldn’t feel ruffled the white hairs on his head, and his cloak swirled around his body like an inky cloud. He shuddered, and when he turned to face me his eyes shone like mirrored disco balls in the early morning sun.
“You’re a brave man, Mr. Knight.” The words spilled out of Lexios’s mouth in a stilted stutter.
The sound of my name from the tax collector’s lips made my spine go rigid, and my khopesh appeared in my hand unbidden. I hadn’t incarnated, but it had been a near thing. There was something horrible about the man before me, something loathsome and degenerate that lurked just beneath the surface.
“How the fuck do you know my name?” I snarled.
“I know many things.” A trickle of blood ran from the corner of the tax collector’s mouth. Whoever pulled his strings was clumsy, and he’d bitten his tongue. “I know of your struggles. And I know that there is a danger coming that your mortal mind cannot begin to comprehend.”
“You’d be surprised, asshole,” I said. “But if you’re so goddamnned smart, why don’t you tell me what you know, and I’ll decide whether it’s worth my time to listen to you.”
A laugh that belonged nowhere near a mortal mouth rang out.
“That is not how this works, Clay.” Lexios’s eyes twinkled with malicious merriment as a shudder ran through my body at the sound of my name. “But I have been known to share knowledge with my allies. Pay me what is owed, and my servants will escort you back to the Kingdom of Kyth. I believe you’ll find a conversation with me to be most interesting.”
Rathokhetra roared at the suggestion that we’d bow to this asshole, and I felt the same. Selician could have had the answers to every question I’d ever asked, but I wasn’t about to play his game to find out. That was a different kind of noose he wanted me to put around my neck, and I didn’t feel suicidal.
“Nah. I’ve got a better idea.” I leaned in so close to him that our noses were less than an inch apart. His mirrored eyes burned into mine like the light from an eclipse, but I did not
look away. “I’ll kick your tax collector’s ass. I’ll tear your army to shreds and feed them to the jackals. Then I’m coming to wherever the hell you are, and I’ll pull the walls down around your ears. Before I’m done with you, you’ll be happy to tell me everything you know. And if I like the song you sing, well, maybe I’ll let you live out the rest of your miserable days as a pet in my dungeon.”
“Perhaps I’ve underestimated you, Mr. Knight. I suppose we will see. I offer you this one, final chance to bend the knee and accept me as your liege lord.”
A cloud scudded across the sky and blotted out the pink rays of the morning sun. A cold wind gusted off the lake at the oasis’s heart, and the smell of carrion rose into the air.
“I don’t bend.”
“Then you will break.”
Lexios blinked, stifled a yawn with the back of his left hand, and blinked again. He seemed startled that I was so close to him and embarrassed that he hadn’t been at the wheel of his own body for a few minutes. He stepped back from me and pinched the bridge of his nose, then offered me a weak smile.
“I see you are not convinced by my master’s argument. That is a pity.”
“I’d offer you brunch, but I don’t think either one of us wants that.” I headed back toward the east gate and Lexios fell into step beside me. “Go back to your camp. We have nothing further to discuss.”
“That is unfortunate. Thank you for resisting the urge to murder me while I was undefended.”
“Whatever your king has told you, whatever you believe in your withered little heart, I’m not a monster.” I banished my khopesh with a flourish and showed Lexios my empty hands. Away from the formality of my audience chamber, Lexios seemed like a much more reasonable guy. Maybe he would come to his senses before we drenched the oasis in blood. “Unless you force me to become one.”
We walked in silence the rest of the way to the gate. Lexios’s brows were furrowed in concentration, and he kept his hands clasped behind his back under his cloak. He was preoccupied by something and didn’t even bother to peer at the city’s defenses as we walked.
When we reached the gate, he even offered me a polite bow.
“It is a pity we cannot be allies. I suppose the next time we see one another will be on opposite sides of the battle lines.”
“Only if you want it to end like that.” I shrugged. “I’d be a lot happier if we never saw one another again.”
Lexios shook his head after a moment’s consideration and spared me a thin, sad smile.
“I warned you before, Rathokhetra. My army is superior to yours in every way. Your defenses are reasonable, but my weapons are more than a match for stone walls. King Selician does more than merely hold the horrors of the worlds beyond Soketra at bay. He commands them. I do not wish for you, or your people, to suffer the pain the weapons he has equipped me with can inflict. Accept this final, merciful chance to bow before my master.”
“Big talk, little man.” I’d run out of patience with Lexios and his mysterious boss. Sure, he knew my name. So did the orc who worked for the Inkolanas. Big fucking deal. “Sleep well, Lexios. I’m not concerned about the tricks your boss sent with you. I’ve got plenty of tricks myself.”
“Then I suppose we shall see whose tricks are bigger.” Lexios bowed again, smirked at his little joke, and walked away.
Chapter 16 – Secrets
WITH LEXIOS OUT OF my hair, at least for the moment, I could’ve teleported straight back to City Hall and touched base with Nephket. Instead, I took the long way around the city and tried to get my thoughts in order before I returned to my guardians. Lexios had given me a lot to think about, and I needed to settle my brain before I could brief the ladies on our next steps.
It was hard to tell how much of what Selician had laid on me was true and how much was the deranged bullshit of an overpowered asshole with delusions of grandeur. I’d heard the term splinter world more than once now, but I still didn’t really understand what it meant. I filed it away in the same brain box with flat-earth conspiracies and vowed to dig into that little mystery more when there wasn’t an army on its way to kick my shit in.
Because even if everything Selician said was true, what did it really matter? All the facts would remain the same, no matter what nonsense the king spouted.
I wouldn’t pay taxes to some asshole I’d never met. Lexios wouldn’t get out of my face until he’d collected what the King of Kyth said I owed. And I was most definitely going to kill the tax collector because no one came into my territory, threatened my people, and lived to brag about it.
“Fuck it.” I shoved everything Selician said to the back of my brain where old Rathokhetra could chew on it. Maybe he’d come up with something useful while I walked and pondered something more pleasant, like how hot Delsinia was.
It was breakfast time when I returned to City Hall. The aroma of fresh-cooked bacon, those little donut holes Izel liked, and a bunch of other delicious food I couldn’t eat wafted down the stairs and up my disincarnated nose. The enticing smells gave me phantom hunger pangs, which were a welcome distraction from all the troubles that currently resided in my head.
“Hello!” Izel piped up when I reached the dining room. Someone had braided the little girl’s hair into an ornate pile on top of her head, and her cheeks glistened with smears of bacon grease and a dab of what looked like blueberry jam. “The food is so good!”
“Glad you’re digging it.” I took my seat at the head of the table, and Nephket reached out to take my right hand.
“How was your meeting?” My familiar’s tone was light and pleasant, with an underlying stiffness that told me she was still unhappy about the risks I’d taken. But the danger of a real fight with her had receded, at least for the moment.
Kezakazek and Izel focused on the plates in front of them. It was clear from Nephket’s tone that this was a serious discussion, one that she probably would’ve preferred to have in private, but she was too nice to ask everyone to leave the table.
“About like you’d expect,” I said. “Lexios still wants me to pay taxes and bend over for King Selician. I’m not going to give him what he wants. We’ll try to kill each other.”
“I suppose it could be worse. Anunaset’s scouts say the Kyth troops are still two days away. They’ll need at least a day to rest after such a long, hard trip. That gives us three days to prepare for their attack. My guess is he’ll come at us hard four days from now, probably in the early morning.” Nephket released my hand and turned her attention back to her food. She speared a sausage with her fork and bit off its end.
“And we’ll need every minute of it.” I took a deep breath of the breakfast I couldn’t eat and leaned back in my chair. “Kez, how close are you to figuring out our little plan?”
“Close!” The dark elf brightened, and I don’t know if it was because she was pleased to talk about her research or just happy Mommy and Daddy hadn’t gone for one another’s throats. “It’s perfectly feasible, but it will be dangerous. We can’t be certain what you’ll run into on the middle hop. Could be nothing. Could be a mess.”
“Then we shouldn’t do it.” Nephket took another bite of her sausage. “The most important thing in this battle will be conservation of numbers. Every move we make has to count, and we can’t take risks that will reduce our strength.”
“We can send Delsinia.” The drow dredged a corner of toast through the runny yolk of her fried egg. “That will keep her away from the fight and might even get her to do something useful.”
“Agreed.” Nephket finished her sausage with a decisive snap of her jaws.
“Did I miss something?” There’d been some friction between Kez and Del, and Nephket was overprotective of me by nature, but the open hostility toward another guardian seemed way over the top. “Delsinia is one of us. Why would I send her off on the most dangerous mission of the whole plan? We’ll need her here. Fighting with us.”
The wahket and the drow exchanged glances and pursed the
ir lips.
“It’s just...” Kezakazek chewed on her yolk-soaked toast and considered her next words carefully. Finally, she shrugged and dove into her argument. “She’s not like us.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” The entire conversation pissed me off, and it took most of my willpower not to snap at the drow. “We’re all different. That’s what makes us so strong together.”
“It’s not what she is, it’s what she was.” Nephket’s fork clattered onto her plate. She left it where it lay.
“Because she used to be Rathokhetra’s girlfriend?” This was ridiculous. Nephket couldn’t possibly be jealous about a relationship that had ended hundreds of years before either of us was even born. Well, at least I hadn’t been born yet.
“Because she used to be a dungeon lord, Clay.” Nephket sighed and her hands clenched into fists on either side of her plate. “I’m not jealous of her or any of your guardians. But I am afraid of Delsinia and what she might do, given the chance.”
“She’s sworn to me,” I said. “I spent the ka to bind her. She couldn’t betray me if she tried. We saved her, Neph. She’s happy here for the first time in hundreds of years. Why do the two of you suddenly believe she wants to ram a knife up my ass?”
“It’s not like that.” Kezakazek’s voice was tight and stressed. “I like Delsinia. I think she is an asset to us. She fills a stealth role that the rest of us can’t. But Nephket is right. The soultaker was a dungeon lord. No one in the history of ever has gone from master to slave and been content with the change.”
I closed my eyes for a moment and focused on my phantom breaths. Of all the problems I was prepared for, this one had blindsided me. I’d never imagined that any of my guardians would dislike one another, much less fear one of their kind. And yet, that’s where we were. It was clear that Neph and Kez would both be happier if Delsinia was gone.
“This is all a moot point.” I reached out and took Kez’s left hand and Neph’s right. “Maybe Delsinia does have an ambition to be a dungeon lord again, but it doesn’t matter. She’s sworn to me. She can’t betray us.”
