The Mists of Erantia (Realm of Arkon Book 7)

by G. Akella

  The soldiers were hastily picking up the dropped weapons as they scrambled to form up to the right of the still mounted knight. Even the one who had been deshielded rose, healed by one of his comrades, and took his place in the ranks. I knew the fighting was over, so I changed forms, sheathed my sword, and reactivated my disguise. The fury passed, driven out by surprise. Who was this knight-commander that even these soldiers from other divisions and squads understood his commanding gestures? What could the port patrol possibly have to do with the Order? Were these even port patrolmen? And why were they so afraid? The forming-up port guards trembled like leaves in the wind just a few minutes ago. Trembled like they were about to die. Perhaps they were, but not by my hand. Nor would I save them.

  The commander turned his stern gaze to the soldiers in formation, touched a mark on his chest, then touched his shoulder. He nodded toward the port extending an open palm. Then, as a final gesture, he poked at the corpse under the hooves of his horse and casually waved his hand.

  "Yes sir, knight-commander!" The soldier Tukkard had pointed to earlier replied with relief. "We will report to the port commander, eat only bread and water for five days, and clear these corpses, sir! Do we have your permission to fulfill these orders?"

  With a light nod from the knight, the soldiers cleared the body of the dead officer from the ground within a few moments, including the severed wrist and the sword it held, and disappeared back towards the direction whence they had come.

  "Whoa," Erika muttered, envious. "I'd sure like someone like that in my party. And let's hope we're not going on bread-and-water diets, too."

  "You guys should really get a battle commander like that," Diana—still going by "Viper"—cut in with a nervous sniff. "As for the diet, well, there's no way the four of us can take that thing down, but I sure hope our new horned friend can find a common language with him."

  As the sound of the soldiers' boots began to fade into the distance, the commander on the horse gave us an expressionless look and a barely perceptible nod, then touched his monstrous horse with his heels and disappeared off towards the port.

  "Mm-hmm." I watched him go, put my pipe in my mouth, and mused. "He is a little strange, don't you think?"

  Donut looked at me, his eyes narrow. "When did you learn the law about insulting nobles and all that?"

  "When you were chasing down wenches in that tavern in Shanama. Somebody had to learn a law or two instead." I shrugged. "I found a law saying that public insult of a noble is punishable by death. And there was definitely some insult in there, right?"

  "Is that what Max told you?" Donut said bashfully. "He was just mad about me teasing him..."

  Diana poked her brother in the ribs. "The hell you talking about, 'noble'? And since when does a common rogue shift into a freaking lion?"

  Erika chimed in. "And tell us about all those bonuses, too. You guys have really, really big bonuses."

  "I..." Donut turned towards me with a tortured face.

  I decided to rescue him. "Enough questions. We're going to The Unicorn. We'll get you a room there, and you can spend the rest of the night catching up."

  "Wow, you've done pretty well for yourselves, haven't you?" Diana reacted with a snort. "The Unicorn. They charge like thirty gold a night!"

  "You're not wrong." I shrugged again. "He'll tell you about all his adventures there, and introduce you to his wife. She's pregnant. Come on, off we go." I waved my hand and led them towards the hotel.

  "Introduce us to whom?" Diana exclaimed.

  Erika clapped her hands in glee. "We're going to be aunties!"

  "Roman, you bastard," Donut mumbled into the channel. "I wanted to get some sleep tonight, you know."

  "You can catch up on sleep later. Come on, we want to get back before more trouble finds us."

  "Sure, sure." Donut gave one last sigh, and the three of them began walking after me.

  Chapter 14

  By nine o'clock the next morning, the sun had already risen over the top of the royal palace wall, caressing the marble statues of ancient Vaedarrian heroes. It was a different city during the day: streets vendors filled the square, with the guard assembling just outside the citadel walls. It had been raining just before morning, so now a thin, trembling haze was rising from the cobblestone roadway.

  "Look out!"

  A dozen mounted guards on their bay stallions galloped past us on their way to the western gate. They bore red cloaks, silver armor, and tiny wings on their helmets. Silverwings, the best cavalry in all of Karn. I still remembered them from my very first vision. I even remembered the name of their commander: Prince Calle. Hart! That seemed like forever ago.

  "What are you afraid of, tough guy? You got us out of that mess last night!"

  The sonorous voice of the huntress behind me brought me back to the present. I looked over the guards, turned around, and cast a skeptical glance at Bonbon, who was shuffling his feet gloomily. The bald man looked like he wasn't in the best of states. The hangover which was setting in was only partly to blame—the tank was nervous. Odd. He could have gone and found his wife five times by now, but he just kept hemming and hawing, postponing and procrastinating.

  He sighed. "Masyanya, have you ever heard of Schroedinger's cat?" he asked the huntress.

  "You mean where you have to open the box to find out whether the cat is dead or alive?" Donut replied for her.

  "Yeah." Bonbon looked at the alchemy shop sign for a moment, then returned his gaze to the pavement. "Well, I'm afraid to open that box, you know? Maybe if I just walk around for a few more minutes..."

  "Quit whining," Masyanya interrupted. She slipped a small flask into his hand. "Some liquid courage. Drink it all if you want. We'll pass you on to your wife drunk!"

  "Are you sure you're the same Masyanya?" Donut said, distracted by the need to pick his jaw up off the floor.

  "Buzz off, you," she snapped. "Let him drink."

  Bonbon gave Masyanya a look of intense gratitude, took the flask she handed him, sighed... and placed it in his bag.

  He shook his head. "Not now. I'll keep it as a memento of a certain ex-blonde. Listen, Masyanya, if you don't want to dye your hair, how about we just shave it off? I know this barber nearby who—"

  "Get going already, barber," she gave him a light push. "Are we close?"

  "Almost there," the bald man replied, nodding at an angular three-story building. "Just behind that workshop, fourth house on the right."

  The four of us had left from the hotel a little earlier. Donut's sisters, who had actually postponed all their questions for their brother and his wife until today to let Donut get a good night's sleep, themselves stayed behind to nap a little more. After a quick breakfast, I went down into the hall at the agreed-upon time. There, I found our friend from the day before, Knight-Commander Tukkard—in full armor sans helmet—sitting on the brown leather sofa near the entrance and carefully studying the pattern on the handle of his warhammer. The knight's horse was right by the door, munching on the nearest decorative shrub. There were spacious stables behind the hotel, and I believed it forbidden to park one's horse at the door, but it looked like neither the commander nor his horse knew about that. And the guards were certainly in no hurry to remind them.

  I greeted the paladin, and he raised his gaze slowly to meet mine, nodded ever so slightly, and returned to his hammer-gazing occupation which I had so rudely interrupted.

  "We are going out to handle an urgent matter, and then by two o'clock I will be proceeding to the Ferat Clan House, near the western gate. I might need you there with me, knight-commander, when I speak with the clan leader. Just your presence. No destruction required."

  Tukkard looked up again, then nodded again, and returned once more to studying that hammer pattern.

  Well, what did I care if he didn't want to talk to me? As long as I had some heavy artillery present to back me up. He was the Right Hand of Father Sebastian, Myrt's Hand of Justice. There were no negotiations in which he
was superfluous.

  Teetotaler had recommended that I talk to the Ferats first of all, since their leader Fenrir was a competent man. Theirs had once been a top five clan in the Realm of Arkon, and was made up primarily of humans, among them Americans, Europeans, Ukrainians, and Russians. Hopefully, I would have an easier time figuring out their clan rituals than I had with the Koreans. I wasn't about to put all of my eggs in one basket, though. I would go speak with the Azure Dragons, too. But the Ferats would be first.

  Bonbon sighed and pointed at the gate in a tall green fence. "This is the house. Anna and I paid six months on the place. There's probably only a week left now. Maybe two. But—"

  "Come on!" The huntress pushed him in the back again. "What the hell are you stopping for?"

  "Damned Schroedinger's cat." The doomed warrior shook his head and pulled the gate open.

  It wasn't locked. The four of us pushed our way through into a small, well-kept garden. A gravel path led us past flower beds and bushes to a small, one-story house hiding behind a row of fruit trees. The creak of the house's wicket gate caught the attention of a thin blonde woman. She smiled at us, friendly, about to say something—but then her gaze fell on Bonbon. Her eyes widened and she looked unsteady on her feet. Leaning against the porch railing, she covered her mouth with her hands, then ran back into the house.

  Bonbon's face fell, hard. He turned to Donut. "I... I was hoping that my child..."

  Then the door opened—and the woman stepped out again, a baby in her arms and tears in her eyes as she carefully descended the porch steps and came towards us.

  "Vlad, dear Vlad, you came back," she whispered. "You came back to us."

  Bonbon seized Donut's shoulder in a death grip. Hope and terror mingled on his face at once. He looked at us in disbelief, then back at his wife.

  "Go to her, idiot!" Masyanya hissed at him, shoving a small bouquet of pink and red flowers into his hand, having pulled them out of her bag somewhere along the way. "Sheesh, I always have to take care of everything for you guys!" She smiled. "Off wandering for half a year, and the whole time you forgot to pick up some flowers for your wife!"

  At last Bonbon came to his senses, taking the weeping woman and the baby in his arms and whispering something to them softly.

  Then he turned back. "It's a girl! A baby girl!"

  "Come on, now, boys, let's get out of here," commanded Masyanya. "Let's give them some space. He'll bring his women to The Unicorn in due time."

  She then quite literally pushed us off the lot.

  "We'll be at The Unicorn," she shouted one last time, then added under her breath, "Doesn't like blondes my ass! I'm going to give him hell for this!"

  The Ferat Clan House was a four-floor stone building with a tavern and stables built onto it, besides other stone structures of unclear purpose. It reminded me of the pavilions I had seen at some exhibitions back in life, which Max and I would "visit" just to sit in the park and drink beer together. The powerful clans lived well here. This building sat on more than two acres of Vaedarrian land. Sure, it was a few hundred feet from the city walls, but it still must have cost a pretty penny. If I remembered Teetotaler's stories correctly, Fenrir, leader of the Ferat Clan, had a barony and castle somewhere off in the Borderlands. But the level and status of his clan were likely just as much due to this four-story building in the human capital. Maybe I should get myself something like this. I could take out a mortgage from Father Sebastian and... I smirked at my own thoughts, thrust my pipe in my mouth, and reached for my firewater. Any big business negotiations deserved a nice relaxing break before them.

  After leaving the joystruck Bonbon there, I'd sent Masyanya and Donut back to their sisters while I took a leisurely stroll to the western wall. The weather was beautiful, the air fresh, so why not? I wanted to summon Gloom, but no, I dared not. I was camouflaged, but the illusion would hardly hide a huge wild boar walking the streets. He was just too big—his muzzle alone was almost as big as the chest of a regular horse. Comparing the two was like comparing a Hummer to a Volkswagen Beetle. The former would be fine on a highway, but there was no way it could navigate the narrower streets of Rome and Paris without bumping into someone and disrupting the camouflage. Meanwhile, if I were to drop the camouflage, the African-rhino-sized pig would just spawn too many questions. "Where'd you get such a cute pig?" The players would pester me to no end. "Where'd you buy him, or how'd you catch him? What is a quest What's it called?" And I didn't want to have to show off my princely title or my demonic essence quite yet. I wanted to reach the Ferat Clan leader with my camouflage still intact so that I could evaluate him without any pretense on his part interfering. I wasn't proposing a snowball fight, after all. My life may very well depend on him in the near future, and I wouldn't trust that to just anyone. There were a couple of other decent clans here in Vaedarr, if things with the Ferats went south. The lure of counties and baronies promised in exchange for Teiran's death was a large enough lure.

  A gong rang out from the western gate. It was one o'clock. All right, time to head inside. I decided not to wait for the knight-commander—might as well not show all my cards. I knocked out my piper on a nearby post, put it in my bag, and headed towards the tavern entrance. The clan house doors were open and unguarded, but a black-haired girl nicknamed Alata was stationed inside. She was a comely level 210, with twin blades on her belt, leather armor, and an expression of inconsolable boredom. After turning my eyes for a moment toward the clan crest hanging above the tavern entrance—a large letter 'F' wreathed in golden plants of some kind—I coughed to attract her attention.

  "Hi there, newbie!" She perked up and smiled at me. "Here to join the clan? If you are, well, Oatsy Rice is at a meeting right now, so you'll have to wait."

  "Oatsy... Rice?" I was stumped.

  "Our deputy recruiter, in charge of, well, recruiting people like you to the clan," she explained with a facade of patience. "Her nick is Osiris, but we all call her Oatsy behind her back. Most pretentious name in the clan, after all. Maybe in the city."

  I shook my head. "I don't actually want to join. I need to talk to Fenrir."

  "What?" The girl's eyes widened as she threw up her hands. "Straight to Fenrir?"

  "At last, some excitement!" is what she's really saying. Things must get pretty boring at the door.

  I had to hold back my smile. "That's right, Fenrir. I have some information for him."

  "What kind of information, blue-eyes? Show us your level, at least. Geez, the patch already hit, so why the hell are you in camouflage? Nobody can track down what brothels you've been frequenting nowadays. Although..." the girl's face grew mysterious as she continued in a whisper. "Are you an elven prince, here in disguise?"

  I whispered back. "Maybe. And did they put you here as punishment for talking too much?"

  Alata didn't even try to argue. "Yeah. Sometimes I cuss, and Yar's shitty rule says that we can only cuss in battle, or we get fined. Or even put on guard duty. Which is why I'm here." She sighed. "You know, I don't care. At least here I can cuss whenever I damn please. So what are you here for? You can't just see the baron without a good reason."

  "Is a level 400 raid boss a good enough reason?" I smiled.

  Teiran's level was actually closer to 600, but if I said that, she might never believe me.

  Alata's eyes suddenly turned serious. "Possibly. So where can we find him, this boss?"

  I tapped my temple. "Right here. Fenrir's the only one I'll tell."

  "So you want some money, then," the girl said, clearly disappointed. She pointed her finger right at my chest. "They're in a meeting, like I said. I'll tell them about you, but if you get any money from our baron, I get that bottle of Cavellian. Deal?"

  I smiled and held out the crystal bottle, which I had swiped from The Unicorn that morning. "I'll give it to you right now!"

  "Sheesh, 'newbie' was right," she snorted as she grabbed my gift and gave the door a yank. "Go sit at the bar. I'll go upstairs and tell
the baron you're here, and he'll call you up."

  Inside, it was a different world. It was like stepping into an air-conditioned store on a hot summer day, or stepping out of your house only to be swept up in the crowds of rush hour. The tavern's dining area was huge. A strange feeling overtook me. This place was like a combination of battalion soldier's canteen and a fine French restaurant. Before, I had no idea such a mix was possible. Rows of rectangular oak tables stretched out before me, straight out of a military mess hall, but my nose told me the food here was as good as at any five-star Parisian venue. That made sense. Anyone who raised their cooking skill over three hundred could make dishes more tempting than the fruit from the tree of good and evil. They could turn a piece of meat, a handful of spices, and a few vegetables into sustenance with almost narcotic properties. Ferat Clan certainly had one such chef, and probably at least a dozen. The bar had been outfitted as an army-style buffet, and a line of people stood queuing up for their victuals. A large clear rectangular area sat to the side, suspiciously similar to a dance floor. Dining room by day, night club by night. Of course—everyone needed some time to unwind. I found myself consumed with envy at the wisdom of Ferat Clan's leadership. The people here, torn away from their natural reality, benefited from a place to relax that was like a piece of their old world. They sat here, as if behind their computers in Moscow, in New York, in London, playing games to forget about their lives for a few moments, to escape, before returning to their regular, familiar world. Here, things were reversed, yet the same. It was brilliant. Every clan leader had to first and foremost care for their people, and here I saw how well Fenrir had done just that. Yet, even though the dining area was filled to capacity, the place was no louder than a typical village inn. There must have been some kind of silence spell cast over each table.

  "Ugh, it's lunch time," Alata reported with a sigh. "The other exit over there leads to the catacombs and the portal square. Clan members have to get permission to go out into the city, until they reach level 200. Gotta grind it out if you want that kind of freedom. All right, come on and I'll find you a seat somewhere, a spot where you can wait for the brass to finish their meeting."