Wooden buildings gave way to constructions of stone and brick. Dour little buildings stood apart from each other, and cursing dwarves shoved great, wheeled machines back and forth.
“The Ice Wells,” he said by way of meaningless explanation. “The coolest part of our city. Even in the summer.”
The White Bear Mother’s hair was thick with white and her skin was spotted with age. Although her hands trembled, her movements were certain as she entered the room with a small ceremonial fire in a little brazier.
“I bring the gift of fire,” she announced.
She set it down between us. Two other Dwarves entered the room. Another old male came in bearing a pot. It was full by the way he carried it. Behind him a younger, but still middle-aged, male entered, carrying small earthen cups. They sat beside her.
“The gifts of sustenance and making are brought. The safe lodging is complete,” she said.
I wondered if White Bear Mother and Daughter were titles, or did one truly descend from the other.
Two more Dwarves came in, the last bolting the door behind him. They carried bows and arrows and took up positions in the corners behind me.
“White Bear Totem sits,” the old woman intoned, ignoring them, as broth was poured into cups. One was handed to her, another to me. “Worm Totem Sits. Snow Leopard Totem sits. Three Totems gather in judgement upon the truth.”
Her words had a formal cadence. This was a ritual or ceremony. I shifted uneasily. Rituals could be fatal for the unwary. People in rituals cared about the ritual, not who or what was before them.
She stared briefly at me.
“You are Hagrik,” she said, making it not quite a question.
I grunted.
“I’m told,” she said, “that some Hagrik are fast enough to catch arrows out of the air.”
She glanced towards the archers behind us.
“Some of them,” she finished.
A warning.
She sipped from her cup, and then the males sipped from their own. Taking the cue, I picked up the cup before me and put it to my lips. It was warm in my fingers, unbearably bitter in my mouth.
She watched me, her eyes almost amused at my expression.
“State your business, abomination,” she ordered.
The words stung.
“I bring you red greetings from the White Bear Daughter,” I said.
They froze. They must knew why I was here. Had I made a misstep in their ritual? Was there an offense?
The older male grimaced and turned pale. The White Bear mother’s expression did not change. She set down her cup.
“If you were seeking our attention, the fact that you are here should tell you that you have it,” she told me calmly. “If you have come merely to exercise cruel jokes or tell mad stories... You could die for that.”
“Kill it now,” the younger male said. But the other two weren’t listening to him. They were watching me.
“You have come here,” the old woman said. “You promise us the creature that killed the White Bear Daughter. Yet here you are alone. Not even a head in a sack. You did more for the Selk.”
I shivered. They knew about that? How much else did they know? And if they knew, why was I here?
“I have a name for you,” I said. “A name that you will already know.”
“I’m very curious,” the old woman said dryly, “as to how we could already have such a name. And if we did, why you’d have to bring it to us. You seem to be saying you intend to sell us something we already own, that’s arrogant even for an abomination. Or do you consider us fools to trifle with.”
It was a mistake to come here. They did not care what I had to tell them, they knew it already. This was a trap, and I was stumbling into it, deeper and deeper.
I found myself sweating. I resisted the urge to rock from side to side, to duck my head. They’d know these things and put arrows through me.
Instead, I waited.
She watched me, giving away nothing.
Finally she spoke.
“You considered it was worth your life, worthless as that is, to come here and tell your story. You probably won’t leave here alive, and everything I’ve heard tells me you would have known that. Tell your story.”
I cleared my throat.
“No more games.”
She smiled.
“From what I hear, you like games,” the smile vanished. “No more games. Speak.”
I began to tell the story again, as I had told it to the Selk and then the Vampires.
This time, there were frequent interruptions. The older male seemed to want to clarify things, pursuing details endlessly. The younger one seemed to argue against me with his questions. I spoke carefully and with patience, replying to every question, returning to my tale, again and again.
The old woman did not speak at all. She merely listened, watching the questioners as much as she watched me.
It went back and forth, until finally I had told the whole story.
“Faron, Prince of Men, Prince of Horsemen, it was he that killed the Mermaid for his pleasure,” I concluded. “Killed all the others for his pleasure. He will kill as he pleases until killed himself. He will not stop.”
“Why not?” the old woman asked.
I hadn’t expected this. I licked my lips.
“Because he has not stopped. Because each time, he has only diverted, but not stopped. Because it pleases him not to stop.”
She leaned back. Was there the slightest nod of affirmation. I was not sure.
Let them consider that, I thought to myself.
There was a long period of silence as they contemplated my words.
“This is it then?” the younger male said angrily. “You don’t know anything about the White Bear Daughter? You just have a bunch of stories about killings?”
“Many killings, but one killer.”
“Kobolds did it,” he insisted. “They paid for it. All you have is a story. The White Bear Daughter has nothing to do with your stories.”
“Always the same. The same each time. Many stab wounds,” I said doggedly, “small knife, two edges. Eyes gouged, tongue cut... Many killings, but one killer.”
The White Bear Mother was watching the exchange carefully.
The younger Dwarf glared at me.
“Do you hope to profit?” she asked me.
“The knowledge might be worth rewarding,” I said carefully.
They’d trust a motive that they understood. Best to be the creature they thought.
He nodded in satisfaction.
“For money then,” he said, “doesn’t matter, truth or lies, so long as you can sell it for money.”
“For money,” the older male repeated.
The old woman said nothing, she just watched.
“Before the Horsemen came,” she said finally, “only the Vampires ruled horses. It made them very powerful. Hard to deal with. Now with another race that rides and fights on horses, they are not so powerful.
“We can use the Horsemen to shift balances in our favour. The Horsemen are important to the Humans, but more so to the other kingdoms as well. Particularly our own. Do you understand this?”
I nodded.
“If we warred with the Horsemen it would be to the Vampires advantage,” the young male said.
I shrugged. I had the feeling he was speaking to the others, trying to convince them through his address to me.
“Strange that this story comes from a Hagrik, half Vampire,” he said. “There was a Hagrik, a particular Hagrik, that went among the High Vampires not so long ago, I have heard.”
I cocked my head, staring at him.
Where had he gotten that?
“Now a Hagrik, a particular Hagrik, comes to us with a story to split us from our allies and
deliver us to our enemies. Perhaps the same Hagrik? Is that not strange?”
The old woman glanced at him, and then back to me. I felt frustration churning in my guts.
“You do not believe me.”
He chuckled. It was a small sour sound.
“You would lie to us, if you could get away with it,” the old woman said. “You would lie to us for money. You’d lie to us to serve your masters, whoever they might be.”
I stiffened, sweat trickling down my back.
“But then, the Hagrik are a fickle breed,” she said, “lies, truth, all the same to your kind. You’d speak truth as easily as lies. So I can’t just say ... ‘aha, it’s an abomination, so of course it’s a lie’”
“But we can,” the younger male said.
“Hush,” she snapped, not taking her eyes off me.
“Your life is worthless, but you wouldn’t throw it away, not for money, not for masters. Something like this, a lie is your life, the price is wrong.”
She thought it over.
“You went to see the Vampires,” she said.
“Yes.”
“This is the story you told.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I wanted them to kill him.”
“Will they?”
“No.”
“They seek peace?”
“Yes.”
She stroked the whiskers of her chin, her eyes boring into me. I wanted to look away, but did not dare.
“You serve the Vampires?”
“No.”
“You serve the Selk?”
“No longer, I am discharged.”
“Your story, you went to the Selk first?”
“Yes.”
“You told them the same story.”
“Yes.”
“But they discharged you.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“My service was done.”
“They did not want revenge?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. I don’t understand them.”
I looked down then, breaking the gaze. I stared at my palms, hands opening and closing.
“I... I met the Mermaids. I spoke to the Selk. They are not like me. They are...”
I searched for the right word while she waited, “... better.”
“Do you want money?” She asked.
“Yes.”
“There is no money. We were never going to pay you, no matter what.”
I looked down.
“Yes.”
“You’re clever, that’s what I hear. Did you know you would not be paid, that there would be no money.”
“Yes.”
“But you came anyway.”
“Yes.”
“And you said you wanted money...”
“Yes.”
“That was the lie,” she said, “the lie you told to get what you wanted. The lie you told, so we would listen to your story.”
“Yes.”
“What do you really want?”
“I want...”
“Look at me,” she snapped. “Look at my eyes and tell me what you really want.”
I looked, swallowed, firmed myself.
“I want him dead.”
“Why?”
My composure shook.
“Why?
I licked my lips. Why? Why was it so important to me?
“Because he won’t stop,” I said finally. “Because it needs to stop. Because he makes suffering and death, and I do not want him to.”
I looked down at my hands.
“I believe you,” the White Bear Mother said.
The younger Dwarf’s eyes darted to the archer behind me. He gave the slightest nod. Then, with a single motion he pulled a knife from his tunic and slashed the throat of the male Dwarf sitting next to him.
I heard the snaps of arrows.
I leaped to one side, spinning, feeling the whistling of an arrow shaft through the air. Desperately, I tried to twist out of the way, the arrow caught on my leather plating, it’s speed whipping it around my body.
“Murder!” The younger Dwarf yelled, stabbing at the other. The older Dwarf held his attacker close, struggling in shock as the knife went in again and again. “Murder most foul!”
One of the archers was falling with an arrow through his chest. The other archer was stringing another. I hurled myself at him.
“Murder!” The younger Dwarf yelled again.
The smell of blood was thick in the air. From the corner of my eye, I saw him struggling with the Dwarf whose throat he’d slashed.
I leaped for the archer, with speed borne of panic, grabbing him before he could draw his bow. Lifting him, I pushed him at the other archer, hissing.
Fear increased my strength, as the archer struggled to draw the arrow in his bow I took it and pushed it up under his jaw, feeling a second’s resistance as the arrowhead pushed through bone. From the corner of my eye I saw the Snow Leopard Dwarf free himself from the dying Worm Dwarf’s embrace. As the archer gurgled and died I screamed and leaped for the Snow Leopard.
“Murder!” he screamed, swinging at me. “Murder.”
“Arrah,” I snarled.
I stepped back as he swung, letting him come forward. I grabbed his knife hand and twisted hard. I felt bones break. I jerked on it, for a second, lifting him off his feet, and then slammed him into the ground. He tried to squirm as I jumped on him with both feet, and then slammed his body again and again with great swinging blows.
“Arrah, arrah,” I grunted.
I knelt on his body, feeling the ribs loose in his torso. I picked up his head and slammed it down.
I was almost out of my head. I’d made a terrible mistake in coming here.
“Why do you kill your own people?” I hissed at him. “Why?”
He struggled for the knife, just out of his reach. I glanced at it. Bronze, two edged, not very big, a notch on one side. A poor double for the Prince’s knife.
After all, I realized suddenly, an Arukh wouldn’t have an Iron Knife. A mad Arukh comes, leaps upon Dwarves, archers shoot her down, but not before she can stab many times, with the kind of knife she’s used to kill many times before...
And then the killer would be ended, and the Prince’s secret safe, and the Dwarves would take no accounting from the Horsemen. And any who knew better would know it to be safer to accept the story that was told.
“Why do you try to hide the name of the one who kills your own people? You protect the Prince? You protect the Horsemen?”
Suddenly, I knew why.
The words of the little Gnome flashed through my mind. The Snow Leopard Totem had invested far too much in the Horsemen. They’d put all their resources into the Horsemen, and the Horsemen had used it to take the Human Kingdom.
Now the Snow Leopard Totem needed the wealth and strength of the Human kingdom to pay their debts. They’d gone too far, too deep, had risked too much. They couldn’t afford to let go, and the Horsemen knew it. Their money had made them slaves, not masters.
“Dog!” I snarled into the ear of the dying Dwarf. “Slave! Die knowing you are owned!”
I slammed his head into the wood again.
“You were sent to murder your own people here! A Dwarf was killed in the street of Joy, and Dwarves paid blood price! Do you think your Masters protect their dogs? They protect the Horse Men. You think you own the Horse Men? They own you.”
The Dwarf was dying, I could hear his death rattle as blood spread out under him.
“You hear me?” I hissed into his ear. My fist thumped his chest. “The Horsemen own you, and they own your masters. You tell each other that the humans serve you? Liars. Yo
u are slaves pretending to be free. You have made yourselves slaves. How long do you think they will let you pretend?”
I heard pounding at the door.
I glanced up, frightened, and looked around desperately.
My eyes caught the old female Dwarf of the White Bear Totem. She stared at me calmly, blinking slowly, relaxed and almost smiling.
There was an arrow shaft sticking out of the left side of her chest.
“I think you’re right,” she said. Her voice had a bubbly sound, and as she spoke, blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.
She coughed suddenly, gobs of blood spewing up. With a visible effort she controlled the spasm, and made herself breathe shallowly. It wouldn’t help for very long, I found myself thinking, the lung would fill up with blood.
“Horses... Horses are bad luck,” she whispered. “They should have known. They attach themselves to a great beast, try to make its strength their own. It just goes where it wants.”
“Much of what the Snow Leopard Totem has done lately makes... sense, when you see it like that. They are being dragged along... hoping they can take control...”
More pounding at the door, hammering.
We both glanced toward it.
“It’ll be another minute or two,” she whispered. “They’ll kill you when they find you.”
“Arrah,” I grunted, looking around nervously for a way out. The room had no windows, just a heavy scrollwork of holes in one wall that let light in. Could I cut or tear through it? And what then?
“What a strange world,” she whispered.
I picked up the bow and arrow, discarded it. I kicked the dead Snow Leopard Dwarf hard a few more times, feeling satisfying crunches as the ribs broke apart.
“I was going to teach my granddaughter scroll work this afternoon,” she said. “She’s very good. Now I’m dying with a beast. How strange. Who would think?”
I grunted irritably at her. Why didn’t she just die? It was like she was made of words not blood.
“How strange,” she whispered. Another spasm overtook her, she did not cough, but blood heaved from her mouth. The spreading red stain from the arrow covered most of her front now.
“...strange, it was a kinsman that killed me, that betrayed us, and an abomination that showed faith and spoke true... that saw truth.”
The Mermaid's Tale Page 29
