Sicilian Defense

by Andrey Vasilyev

  The brief walk gave me a chance to think about how I’d been planning on interrogating everyone at the office to see who had suggested going to the club first. It would have been a good idea to strike while the iron was hot, but I just didn’t have the time… I needed to make a beeline out of the city, as the group looking for me would see that I wasn’t on the boat, think about it, and ask the crew what happened. Then they’d hear all the details of how I’d died heroically in defense of my friends—they might even see a few tears roll down some cheeks. And then… Well, I didn’t know what they’d do then. If they decided to head into the caves, all I could say was good luck. Those guys weren’t me, and they didn’t have my damn luck, so they wouldn’t just get off with an ass-beating. I figured the drogters would let them have it—ah-h! I rubbed my butt mindlessly as I thought back to the whole experience. It didn’t hurt; it was just tactile memory kicking in—eleven of those beasts had laid into me as hard as they could, after all. But anyway, if the Shields and Favorites didn’t check the caves… What does it matter? They’d be searching the city either way. And so I had to get out of there and start looking for the hermit. Actually…

  I pulled up my map and checked to see if there was a red spot showing how close the quest goal was. There were actually two of them: one was nearby, presumably the Great Underground with Max Fain and the 1500 gold I was owed, while the second was farther off—if not incredibly far. It was pale, as well. I guess that means old Ort is above ground.

  The chance I’d taken telling Jeremiah and his sweet tooth about the steamboat was a good move, even if I hadn’t really thought it would work, I mused. But it had. I gave myself a mental pat on the back, and then followed that up with a mental lollipop my ingenuity had earned me. The only part left to wonder was whether Jeremiah’s clan was the Favorites or the Shields. I decided not to tell anyone until I’d had time to narrow things down—there's a time and place for everything, and there's a good chance just blabbing everything will get you in trouble. Nobody will respect you, either.

  The mission wasn’t that big—just a two-story building, and a bit rickety at that. Brother Yur didn’t appear to have forwarded the local knights much in the way of finances. I decided to needle him a little when I next saw him, make him sweat. Who am I kidding? He’s not the kind of guy to sweat…

  I walked up the stairs, pushed open the creaky door without knocking, and found myself in a small room that smelled like dust and weapon oil.

  “Good afternoon. What can the Tearful Goddess Order do for you?” A fairly young knight walked over to meet me, though he was wearing less than the usual finery. While a sword was strapped to his waist, he had a leather jacket and matching pants on. He was young, as I mentioned, though he’d seen combat: the crimson, still-fresh scar on his left cheek made that clear. Besides that, he was a knight’s knight. He was tall, his shoulders were broad, his jaw was square, he had blue eyes… He was more poster boy than knight. If Krolina were here…

  “Good afternoon. There’s nothing, really,” I replied, giving him what I thought was a charming smile. “I just wanted to check in and hear the latest gossip. I’m an old friend of the order.”

  The knight peered closer at me and snapped to attention.

  “Thane Hagen, it is my privilege to welcome you to our mission.”

  “Wait, are you a servant or something?” His reaction surprised me. The order and I were close, but to the point of a knight standing at attention in front of me?

  “We received a circular about you yesterday, actually, signed by Great Master Leo von Aikhenvald. All knights of the order, and even grandmasters and members of the chapter are under instructions to provide you absolutely any assistance you may require.” The knight finished rattling off his speech, blinked a few times, and continued. “We’re even supposed to take your side in conflicts with local authorities! I’ve never seen anything like that.”

  “Hm,” I said with a cough. It was a day of discoveries and mysteries. Why did they decide to go that far? “Do you still have the scroll? Can I take a look at it? I mean, if that’s okay…”

  “Yes, of course, that’s fine,” the knight barked. He walked over to a desk, dug around in it, and handed me a parchment.

  I read through it to find that the knight had been right on the money: I was guaranteed any assistance I might desire, regardless of casualties or even death on the part of the order or among enemy ranks. The only limitation was that I could have nothing to do with sorcery and the forces of Evil in thought or deed, and I could not ask for the order’s help undermining society or revolting against the lawful government. It had been written in Leeba, in the chapter’s castle, by Brother Yur himself. Ah-h, Brother Yur! I realized why everything cost so little and sounded so harsh. And he’d thrown in a little of his trademark irony, as well, talking about how they wouldn’t help me against the lawful government. He wrote that about me… Anyway, things like that were worth more than money, so I decided the brightest mind in the order and I were even. He’d calculated everything out the same way he always did. I wonder if Queen Anna is behind this, too, as a means of payment that doesn’t involve appointing me head of her guard—that post has probably been filled by Bran already. Either way, it was a coup for me.

  “What’s your name, my brave knight?”

  “Jack Rinko, Thane,” the knight replied, coming to attention again.

  “Let’s dispense with all that—I’m not your boss, and I’m not even part of your order.” Sure, my self-esteem was having the time of its life, but I’m too democratic for all that.

  “I don’t know…” The knight glanced apprehensively over at the scroll. “From what I can tell, the great master and the head treasurer himself hold you in high regard, and that’s… Well, I’m… It’s just that…”

  The knight stroked his scar, presumably without even realizing it.

  “Where’d you get that?” I asked, gesturing toward the scar. “A duel or a battle?”

  “In Leeba,” he replied glumly. “I made a fool of myself there, and if it hadn’t been for Grandmaster von Richter, it would have been even worse. After that, they sent me here. I’m just glad they didn’t kick me out of the order altogether.”

  It occurred to me that Gunther had mentioned something about an incident in the chapter during our travels across the North. Maybe that’s what he’s talking about? After taking a few seconds to think about it, I decided not to pursue that topic any further. What was the point of dragging him back through lousy memories?

  “Okay, don’t worry about it,” I said, trying to lift his spirits. “You have to crack a few eggs to make an omelet. So do you serve here by yourself?”

  “Not at all, Thane, there are three of us,” Jack said as he snapped back to attention. “Junior Master Jean de la Jacque is in charge of the mission.”

  “Where is he?” I asked, looking around. “Upstairs?”

  “Not at all,” Rinko rattled off. “He went to the wharf with Master Sergeant Trum to meet the boat. There was a shipment coming in for the mission.”

  “Wait, what? But you said you got the circular about me yesterday.”

  “Precisely,” Jack responded.

  “But the shipment came today? I don’t get it.” The mail gets there itself, but cargo has to go by water? They weren’t players, so they couldn’t use the mailboxes. It would have been much more logical to have letters and circulars come with everything else.

  “The mail is the mail, Thane,” the knight explained, “and shipments are shipments.”

  “Oh, that makes sense then,” I replied with a nod. “Much better.”

  I decided to forget it, figuring that the developers just hadn’t really thought it through. Still, it was strange.

  Half an hour later, an older, mustachioed gentleman with an enormous package on his back walked into the mission, armor jangling.

  “Rinko, where are you?” he boomed. “Come take this, you lazy bum.”

  I had to assume
that was the master sergeant just by the way he acted like he owned the place. Sergeants are all like that.

  “Good afternoon, my good man,” the master sergeant said when he noticed me. I was drinking some wine Jack had been nice enough to bring me. “You need something from the order?”

  “I do,” I replied, getting up. “Hagen, Thane of the Western Reaches. And who are you? I assume you’re Junior Master Jean de la Jacque?”

  You need to let sergeants know right off the bat that you’re a force to be reckoned with, otherwise they’ll put you to work and make your life miserable. And that goes double when he isn’t your sergeant…

  “No, no, I’m the master sergeant,” he said with a gesture that looked like he was swatting away a fly. “Wait a second, by thunder, you aren’t the warrior we got that paper about this morning, are you? The one we’re supposed to help in any way we can?”

  “Yes, that’s him,” Rinko whispered loudly.

  My old man always said that fate is like a seesaw. One second you’re up, the next you’re down, and the third you’re flung off so hard that someone has to go around collecting your bones. Two hours before, I’d been embarrassingly served up to receive a thorough ass-kicking, and now there I was with my self-esteem shooting off the scale, shattering the glass, and rocketing up into the sky. And if fate is like a zebra’s stripes, that meant I had something very unpleasant coming my way…

  “So should I head over to the tavern to get the lieutenant?” the master sergeant asked, all in a bustle. “We need him for this, right?”

  “I’m sorry, where is he?” I said. “Weren’t you together?”

  “Oh, he wouldn’t drink in the same tavern as me,” the master sergeant laughed, almost loud enough to blow out my eardrums. “You can’t have that. But it’s okay, I wouldn’t drink that fizzy crap he likes, anyway. I hiccup when I drink it, and my nose itches. And he, in turn, doesn’t drink beer—it’s not the swill for him. Plus, it’s rough when he does drink it: he goes so far that he starts telling all these stories about what a great warrior he is, and how he’s up for a post in Aegan soon.

  “He eats frogs, too,” Jack chimed in. “They’re incredibly delicious, he says, and he tried to get me to eat them three times.”

  The master sergeant’s whole body grimaced, and he was about to spit when he remembered that I was there and thought better of it.

  So he’s an alcoholic, a frog-eater, and a chatterbox. No, that’s definitely not the kind of person I want to be talking to. The master sergeant, on the other hand, seemed perfect.

  “You’ve been here a while, Master Sergeant?”

  “Yes, more than five years,” Trum replied, sitting down in a chair next to the one I’d been sitting in. “I guess it has been a while.”

  “Well, you have a good face, and I can tell that you’re an old fighter, so would you mind hearing me out? There’s one thing de la Jacque doesn’t need to know about, especially if, like you said, he’s not good at holding his tongue.”

  “Only if it won’t harm the order.” The master sergeant’s face hardened slightly. “Neither its reputation nor what makes it what it is.”

  “Never,” I assured him. “Hurting the order is the last thing I want to do, or anyone else, really—except maybe myself.”

  “But then why…” Jack started, though the master sergeant stopped him.

  “Jack Rinko, is the shipment for the order already in the storage room?”

  “Not by a long shot, Master Sergeant,” Jack answered sadly before starting to puff as he dragged the package across the floor.

  “So what can we do to help, Thane?” The warrior brushed his mustache back with his palm.

  “Master Sergeant, I’d like to make sure your lieutenant doesn’t hear about our conversation,” I replied, deciding to be crystal clear on that account. People were going to come looking for me, and I didn’t want to get tripped up on a detail that little. Checking to make sure I was right about the conclusions I made was one thing; dragging that whole pack of hunting dogs around me was quite another.

  “Don’t worry,” the master sergeant said as he pulled a pipe and tobacco out of a pouch on his belt. “That old bag will pull himself back here drunk at around midnight, and then he’ll be fast asleep until noon tomorrow. He won’t hear anything.”

  “Why does the order keep someone like that around?” I asked in surprise.

  “His father was a great man,” the master sergeant explained, tamping the tobacco down with his thumb. “Romuald de la Jacque was a marvelous warrior and an excellent person who fell in battle with a horde of vampires near Truat. He was protecting a village the vampire lord had decided to annihilate for some reason or other. It was a great deed and a glorious death, the kind you can only dream about. Sadly, his son didn’t take after him. I mean, he’s a good fighter, and he’s no coward, but he’s a braggart and a drunk. He talks too much, too…”

  The master sergeant lit his pipe and continued.

  “Then there’s the fact that he gets into trouble. In the chapter, they let him go and let him go until he had one too many drinking binges end in a fight—then they sent him here to a provincial mission like they do with people like him. They sent the kid here, too. He messed up in Leeba, so what can you do? The difference between them, of course, being that the kid’s only here for a little while to get back on track; de la Jacque is on permanent assignment.”

  There wasn’t anything to find fault with there.

  “Then that’s all the more reason why my visit needs to stay between us,” I said to the master sergeant. “The problem is that some people might drop by asking about me, and they can’t know where I went or that I was even here at all.”

  “Well, if they’re enemies, maybe…?” The master sergeant dropped a hand to the pommel of the sword hanging on his belt.

  “No, it’s not that they’re enemies; more annoying fellow travelers,” I replied with a crooked smile. “There’s no point getting into a fight—not yet, at least.”

  “Whatever you say,” the master sergeant said from a cloud of smoke. “So what did you want to know?”

  I exhaled deeply.

  “Master Sergeant, you’ve been here a while, so you probably know the area pretty well, right?”

  “Sure,” he answered, taking another puff. “I’ve been all around these parts on hunts and all the rest.”

  “Excellent.” I scootched closer to him. “Have you heard of a hermit living around here in the Sumaki Mountains? His name is Ort Ashen.”

  The master sergeant looked at me from under his eyebrows, clenching the pipe in his teeth. Then he answered.

  “I’ve heard of him, and I’ve even seen him. His cave isn’t far from here—maybe three or four hours walking from the city. But believe me, Thane, if there’s any way you can avoid going to see him, then I’d steer you away from a visit to that…mm…person. Nothing good can come of it. Better just send those fellow travelers of yours over to him, especially if you want to get rid of them.”

  “What’s the problem?” I asked, my head bowed.

  “It’s a bad place, and he’s a bad fellow. When he does something for you, sooner or later his help turns sour. Let him heal one wound, and watch two more open up. Ask for his help with the rain, and the locusts will come and eat everything that grows. You get what I mean.”

  I nodded—I did, in fact, get it.

  “So I’m telling you, just forget him. Let’s go grab some beer instead—the boat came in today, so it’s nice and fresh.”

  I spread my arms.

  “I can’t, Master Sergeant. I just can’t. That Ort is the only person who can help me.”

  “Ah, well,” the master sergeant sighed. “Then what can you do? Rinko, get over here!”

  Jack, who had obviously been listening to the whole thing, appeared in front of us.

  “Okay, so you’ve been eavesdropping—I don’t have any doubt about that,” the master sergeant barked. “Do you know where the h
ermit lives? I showed you his cave once.”

  “Yes, sir, Master Sergeant,” Rinko answered. “I remember how to get there, and I can take Master Hagen there, and you won’t hear a word about it from me—I was out gathering herbs.”

  “He isn’t a complete fool,” the master sergeant boasted to me. “We’ll make something of him yet. If you see anyone from our top brass, put in a good word for the kid. There’s no point in him rotting away here or getting some provincial girl pregnant.”

  “Sure,” I agreed. “If I happen across Gunther or Brother Yur–”

  “Ah, so you’re friends with that sly dog?” The master sergeant perked up. “How’s he doing?”

  “Smart, sly, stingy,” I said, giving him Brother Yur’s qualities that had most stood out to me. “And still stuttering.”

  The master sergeant smiled knowingly.

  “Yeah, that night, the one he started stuttering after, was crazy. He talked fine before that.”

  “What happened?” I asked, perking up. The topic was a curious one.

  “The one when young Gaynor, the Count of Eidenberg, got into a quarrel with him and they became enemies forever. Back then Vitold and the girl…” The master sergeant was just getting going, but he waved his hand suddenly. “It’s a long story, and it’s already late. I’ll tell you another time. Rinko, you aren’t in your armor yet?”

  ***

  Ten minutes later, we were ready to leave the mission. The master sergeant was telling Jack, who was listening attentively, how to get where we were going for the third time, and I had poked my head out of the door to look around cautiously. The street was empty. Most of the fun appeared to be happening on the market square, as I could hear music coming from that direction as well as the shouts of the townspeople and the crew of the Great Underground. I was getting out just in time: the Favorites and Shields would soon be bothering the crew until they got the whole story, and by then I’d have disappeared into the mountains. Come find me then. The only thing I needed to hide was who I was going to see. Everything else would come later once I’d had the chance to chat with Ort. Regardless, I didn’t need the underground river anymore, and so I could put the city in my rearview mirror for good. Incidentally, I did realize that they could find out I’d been there—I’d forgotten about the guard I’d told my name to at the city entrance. That didn’t matter, though, as Jack walked out the door with his sergeant, ready to go.