“Bah!” Nandor scoffed, and brushed him aside. “That’s the problem with you college idiots. Too caught up on your cloud of overly-scholastic books and make-believe to know what’s really going on.” He took several bold steps into the college grounds, and then spun back on the guard. “If you had spent any time outside of these walls, you would have heard of my deeds, by now. But I bet a man like you didn’t even witness the war, nor have you even bothered to research the artifacts I’ve found in your own college libraries. And you call this a place of learning! Ha! Fools, the lot of you.”
There was a large company of eyes on Nandor by this point, and he felt each gaze like bitter drops of hatred. He was about to say more, but again, Nix interrupted him.
“Perhaps you should speak to Grandmaster Forojen and settle in a little before going off on a tangent against the college?” she whispered.
He considered her words. She was probably right.
He spun back around to face the small crowd of onlookers. “I go to see Grandmaster Forojen!” he proclaimed. “There is much that needs to be set right here indeed!”
With that, he marched off further into the college grounds. The Grandmaster’s home was near the top of the campus, by the libraries and museums. Nandor knew the path well, and even through hazy, booze-addled eyes it did not take him long to arrive.
Nix stopped him short of the building, standing in his path. She looked irritated, and out of breath from having to keep up with him. “W-w-hold up a moment—” she panted, “—just wait.”
“What? There a problem?” He darted his eyes around suspiciously. “Don’t tell me you’ve become one of them! Are you trying to stop me from seeing Forojen? The college has brainwashed you, hasn’t it?” He blared one question after another, unable to contain his rage at the prospect.
Dorin mirrored Nandor’s sudden distrust, winding up its legs so that it could loom over Nix as it questioned her. “Aha! He’s right, isn’t he, girl? I always suspected it too! She wasn’t willing to help heal you at first—did I tell you that, sir?” It glanced at him, while still keeping its body held aggressively over Nix. “She almost refused to even try to heal you!”
Nandor’s eyebrows furrowed as he received the bots words, and he became both skeptical of himself and the bot. With an abrupt realization, he wondered if they had drank more than was wise. Whatever Nix was, she was not cruel. For the bot to even suggest it hinted more at the mechanical creature’s poor inhibitions rather than Nixie’s personal wrongdoing, or so he thought through a dim mind.
Nix looked more frustrated than ever. “Dorin!” she hissed, and stomped a foot down. “You know why I was hesitant to help at first—don’t you dare go there! He doesn’t need to hear it!”
His confusion furthered, but the bot appeared unfazed.
“Perhaps he does, darling. Perhaps you should tell him what you did in that house.” It spoke back, almost threateningly.
“What I did?” Her face became scarlet red, and she no longer appeared in control of her emotions. “Don’t you mean what you did?”
“Fickle-fackel and hollypog!” Dorin replied, and turned up its head. “We both did it, dear girl. You only pretended to keep your hands clean—but I doubt they were after you cleaned up after me! There was oh so much young blood…”
“Ah!” she gasped as if struck. “H-how dare you speak of what you forced me to do!”
“I forced nothing darling—nothing!” it chirped back cheekily. “I merely put you in a position where you had to do what was best—I was left with little choice, after all.”
Nix clinched her tiny fists, and raised them up as if to strike.
But very suddenly, Nandor had enough.
His head was pounding far louder than it should have, and two people yelling about incomprehensible things was only making the headache worse. He stepped in front of them both and powerfully pushed them a safe distance away from each other.
“By the hand of a butchered yeti gnawed to pieces by my own bared teeth—stop your senseless squabbling!” he roared. His voice echoed for a moment, and then there was uncomfortable silence. Somehow, he glared at them both at the same time. “I think—and I may be a little addled, so don’t mind me if my words are a little, eh, woozy.” He held back a burp, and stumbled from the unexpected strength of it, but heroically managed to stay standing. “I-I for one—” he continued, “think that perhaps we should call it a night. And deal with whatever,” he waved a vague hand between them, “all this is, in the morning. When our heads are, hopefully, clearer.”
The girl in front of him thrust her arms down. “That was what I was going to suggest in the first place!” she said. “I only stopped you from entering Forojen’s house because I wanted to suggest it! Don’t you think speaking with the grandmaster smelling of laced lichen and whisky might make a bad impression?”
The bot tilted its head, as if the thought had never occurred to it. Being a creature who was remarkably old, but also remarkably naive among the ways of human interactions, it likely hadn’t occurred to it. “You don’t say?” It scratched its chin, then looked to Nandor with a half-raised eyebrow. “You think she’s right?”
“Of course I am!” She stomped her foot again.
Nandor smiled. “Well, technically, I suggested it first. Which makes me right.” He beamed downwards.
Nix simply tossed up her head in defeat. “Whatever… let’s just get to my dorm… I really need some sleep.”
“I say! A bit of the ‘ol shut-eye would be most welcome indeed!”
She shot a doubtful glare towards the bot. “You sleep?”
“Well, no—” Dorin confessed, as unashamed as ever. “But I’m being metaphorical. I may be made of metal and gears, but I still need to perform maintenance, from time to time. Granted, it’s not nearly as dreary and cumbersome as you humans, I don’t have to sleep for a third of the day and then eat, and wash, and brush and all that hum-drum wally-cob. But I still have to oil the cogs. Grease the joints. Polish the plates. Dust off the hat. Unclog the vents. Sharpen the saw. Calibrate the gears. Refill the steam-burners… Takes a bit of time—might as well call it rest.”
“Please—” Nandor waved a hand, gesturing for Nix to take lead. “Just find us some place.” He lifted a hand to his head, and it felt as if the weight of the world was trying to squeeze its way inside—like a glass of water suddenly freezing in a flash of cold weather, and bursting from the expanse.
“Gladly…” Nix said, and took them to her tiny home in the student housing.
***
Nandor awoke, and thankfully, his splitting headache had calmed.
He looked around. Nixie’s room was small—a one-person dorm, with no privacy. They had been forced into a tight sleeping arrangement, but it was a circumstance that they were used to. In their previous travels, they had shared his tiny tent for the better part of a month. It had been awkward at first, but he was never one to be bashful.
The human body was the human body, after all. Nothing to be ashamed of. But as he gazed at her sleeping figure entwined so close to his along the Froj-styled nest of a bed, he could not help but feel other things. He quickly shook his head clear of his thoughts, and tossed aside all of his clothes but a wolfish loincloth. The room had heated up considerably from their body heat, but also, he was considering a bath.
The mirror before the water-crank and tub showed him who he was, and he frowned at the unfamiliar figure. His beard was longer than he liked, and his hair, although wild, also had a strange softness about it. The rest of his body had changed too. Youthful, glowing, and without wear. He was no longer the same man. He had no reason to look as he looked. To heal is one thing, but to rejuvenate? Never before had he suffered a wound and awoken to a younger, stronger body. Always there was some ache or pain or terrible scar to commemorate the memory. Why was this different?
He remembered his battle against Lord Viken as clear as blue sky. The sword lodged into his spine should have been the en
d. At the least it should have made him a cripple. It did not add up. That, piled with the strange words he recalled Nix and Dorin saying from last night made his hair stand on end.
What in the great beyond happened to me?
A movement in the corner of the mirror caught his eye.
A robotic automaton leaned back in a chair behind him, watching as he examined himself. The flaming eyes the creature studied him with felt unnerving—cold, and calculated.
“Are you pleased?” it asked.
He turned from the mirror. Nix was still sound asleep in the nest. “Pleased?” he cautiously replied.
Dorin nodded, and made a slight roll with its hand. “Do you like what I’ve done with you?”
“I-I don’t understand…” He turned back to the mirror. “Do you know what happened—why I look so… so different?”
“Improved, I think you mean,” the bot nodded. “It was quite intentional, on my part. When I was piecing you back together I knew I didn’t want to waste the opportunity. Sure—I could have stopped at one or two stones, and that would have probably repaired you back to normal, but I wanted better for you. I wanted you to be stronger. Reinvigorated. Like me,” It waved at the recently installed metal plates and guards covering its formerly vulnerable core and joints. “See? We’re the same now. You helped to free me from the bonds of my mistress, I helped to free you from the mental bonds of your false prophet, and now we are both stronger. Stronger, even, than I had hoped. I’ll be the first to admit I don’t understand fully the power of everything I subjected your body to, but according to my research, it is likely you have a very, very long life ahead of you, Nandor. I did my work well.”
Slowly, he sat on the edge of the tub to steady himself. “Dorin…” he said softly, “What exactly did you do to me?”
“Oh…” the bot uttered, rolling its eyes from side to side. “A bit of this and a bit of that. It’s not really important, anymore. It is all in the past. The important thing is you are repaired, more functional than ever, and we are reunited. I think there will be no stopping us now.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“Yes,” the bot said. “I could, and I would, if you wished it. But I advise you wait a bit before asking in earnest. If all my efforts mean anything to you, give it some time. Warm up to your new self. When you find you are ready, I will explain in detail everything that transpired during your, eh, your near passing. I have nothing to hide from my friends, but the details do get a little… well, a little hard to swallow, for some.”
Nandor closed his eyes and nodded. “Okay. Jus-just tell me that you had nothing to do… you didn’t kill the family… the family in that home I woke up in.”
“Of course not sir,” it replied, no hesitation. “You already taught me the value of life. I took that lesson to heart. You might even say I, eh, I expanded on that lesson, somewhat. I would never waste a soul. Certainly not now that I know their pow—eh, their importance.”
“Good, good…” He opened his eyes as he accepted the creature’s response, and then he began to crank in warm water to fill the tub. There was a hissing noise as the crank worked, and soon steam from the bath filled the room. Nandor discarded his loincloth, and gently eased inside.
For the next half hour, he cleaned, shaved, and took comfort in drying himself on a wooly mammoth fur towel. The bot then offered him the chair, and took to a position of a barber, trimming and slicing his blond hair until it was somewhat less of a mess.
Nix awoke around then, and smiled up at him. “You look nice.” Her eyes avoided the bot.
“Indeed. I am a fine barber, if I do say so myself!” Dorin gloated, ignoring her negligent gaze.
Nandor stood from the chair, brushing fallen hair aside. “Thank you, Nix.” He shouldered on his wolf-fur cloak, and made for the door. “I’ll be waiting outside so that you can wash. Take your time. I am in no hurry this morning. If the grandmaster has waited for so long, he can wait long enough for us to feel refreshed.”
He stepped out into the hallway, and Dorin followed. He shot the bot a glance. “You don’t want to stay with Nix?”
It shrugged, “We never really got along very well, sir.”
“Oh? And why is that?”
“Just, eh, little disagreements, here and there. Personally, I believe she might be a little thick.” It tapped its metal head to indicate.
Nandor laughed as he walked. “She’s not thick, Dorin.”
“As you say, sir.”
He peered over at the bot. Clearly it disagreed, but was too polite to further the argument. They made their way outside of the student housing building, and leaned against the wall as they basked in the brisk mountain air. “What makes you so sure I’m not thick?” he asked, curious about the bots thought process.
“Pssshht…” A fresh cloud of steam released from its mouth. “I’ve lived for nearly two hundred years. I like to think I know a smart human when I see one. Besides—even if you were dense, I’d still be saddled with you. You helped to free me, after all.”
“Aha, yes. Mistress Lanorj,” Nandor recalled their first encounter through a haze of heavy nostalgia. “Whatever happened to her?”
“I ki—” It paused, and looked up at him uncertainly. “I can’t say.”
“Indeed?”
“Hopefully she rotted down where you left her.”
Nandor raised an eyebrow. There was a viciousness in the bot’s tone. Perhaps it’s deserved, he thought. Who knows what that vile woman did to her slaves? “You realize, I intentionally left her alive. Do you know why?”
It shook its head. “Not the faintest idea.”
“Because, according to The Book of Marr, even the most evil of people have a path to redemption. I was hoping that she might still find it.”
“Mammoth piss,” the bot spat a great oily glob, and it landed near their feet, sizzling the snow. “That wretched woman had no path to redemption. She did not have an ounce of kindness in her blood. More so, where is your sense of justice? Even if she could redeem herself, she did not deserve the opportunity. She deserved to die. Slowly. And painfully.”
For the first time, Nandor found himself unsure of what to say. The Book of Marr was quite clear on the matter, but he could no longer look solely on what the book said. It was a book written by a liar, after all. There was no guiding god. Perhaps, Dorin was right. “You might be right,” he offered. “Who am I to say? Certainly you would know her better than I. Without Marr’s lies to guide, or, more accurately, misguide me, I find myself siding more and more with your understanding.”
A flicker of a smile danced upon its coiled lips. “That’s why I know you’re a smart man, Nandor.” It beamed. “You are one of the few humans who can change your entire perspective when provided with evidence. It is a darling, and rare trait among your kind. I doubt if many others could be brainwashed for decades and then flip a switch so flawlessly.”
“I don’t know if I would say that my transition has been flawless…” he traced his belly where there should have been a terrible wound. “But thank you. Learning the truth of Marr has been a heavy weight on my mind, to be sure. But I don’t want to turn sour from it. I want to grow. To expand my knowledge, and understanding. To become a more balanced person—although, I admit, I do not know what that means, at this point.”
Dorin tilted its head, and appeared to ponder the issue. “It seems to me, that if you wished to become a more balanced person, it would simply be a matter of tilting the scales.”
He gave it a questioning look.
“Allow me to explain—before, you were a kindly man. Perhaps a little too kindly. You did not kill, unless you had no choice. You always looked for the best in people, you naïvely believed that you could stop a war by explaining your rational to irrational people—you were, for lack of a better term, foolhardy in your hope, and it almost got you killed.”
Nandor nodded, “So what are you proposing?”
“I’m proposing, de
ar Nandor, that you reevaluate your compassion. As I said, few humans are like you. It is rare when a person truly changes who they are. Good people are good people, bad people stay bad, and dumb people are dumb. So what’s the point in trying to change that which is unchangeable? Trying to progress that way would be rather like slamming your head against a stone wall over and over in attempt to make a pathway. Instead, disregard those who are unimportant, or cruel. Only use them to gain an edge, when necessary. And don’t be so kind. Your kindness will only be used against you—I believe you learned that, by now.”
Nandor gazed at the students walking by as the bot spoke. They pointed at him and nervously muttered as they passed. Apparently he had already made a big enough splash to warrant gossip. He looked back to Dorin. “So you’re saying I need to tip the scale more in the favor of… of what? Giving up?”
“No, no!” It quickly waved its hands. “The opposite! I’m saying that you continue your path of enlightenment, or peace, or whatever it is you think is best. But rather than use ineffectual methods as you have been, utilize whatever is necessary to achieve your goals. Don’t fight with one hand tied behind your back. Don’t hold any bars on what you are and are not willing to do. Do anything you can to achieve your goals, and only then will you be a wholly balanced person.”
He eyed the bot, was it saying what he thought it was saying? “But evil actions only beget more evil. Surely there are some things that should be held sacred?”
Dorin disagreed, “Is that an honest opinion of yours? Or merely another lie told by Marr?”
He sighed, and had no answer. Again he found himself wondering if the bot was right on all accounts. Perhaps if he had utilized Dorin’s philosophy instead of his own, he would have succeeded in stopping the war. If he had been willing to kill, to threaten, to do anything… but he had not. He had tried to negotiate. To reason with the likes of Lady Mikja and Lord Viken. It had proven to be a fatal error. Lady Mikja had betrayed his peace treaty and Lord Viken had been willing to deny and fight to the death.
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