The Emerald Crown

by L J Chappell

  He smiled, embarrassed, and apologised: ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Here,’ Tremano brought out a tambourine. ‘We’ll practise with this.’

  ‘I’ll show you,’ Lisamel said. ‘I don’t mind. Tremano, you’ll be more useful rehearsing the others.’

  As she spoke, a distant horn sounded three long notes outside – a deep, reverberating growl, like some huge moaning creature: they could feel the noise through the wooden floor.

  ‘That will be the horn to summon the Daggerfish,’ Kiergard Slorn said. ‘Today is the first day of the sacrifices, and it must be close to high tide. Does anyone want to go and watch?’

  Lanvik considered: there was a sort of insidious appeal as well as revulsion about the idea of simply standing and observing death and pain and cruelty. ‘No,’ he decided, ‘I’d rather not. But if everyone else wants to, then I’ll come along.’

  The others were shaking their heads as well.

  ‘Right,’ Slorn seemed to agree. ‘In that case, put on warm clothes and we’ll find a place to practice for a couple of hours. If we play well enough, then perhaps we can persuade some of these good pilgrims to part with their money willingly and wittingly.’

  As the rest of the Company pulled on jackets and boots, picked up their instruments and trudged out, laughing and joking with each other, Lanvik looked out the window. The street below was already quieter than normal: a few people were hurrying north, in the direction of the Needles and the giant terraced arena that overlooked them.

  Lisamel closed the door and sat opposite him: she handed him a tambourine, showed him how to hold it properly and began to teach him how to play.

  He had thought that the tambourine would be simple – a child’s instrument – but he revised his opinion after learning how many different ways there were to strike it or to play rolls, to shake it, to stop the sound, to play quickly and slowly.

  Lisamel hummed or sang or played a little flute: she tapped out rhythms for him, and tried to explain how he should accompany her – when to accent what she was doing and when to be silent. Throughout it all they could hear occasional distant cheers and shouting from the direction of the bay, which made Lanvik wonder if they shouldn’t have attended the sacrifices after all: for the experience. When else would they get the opportunity?

  It wasn’t long before Lanvik became confused by how much there was to remember with the tambourine and forgot the basics: forgot to listen to what Lisamel was doing. Even when they took all of that away, and reduced the lesson to simply tapping out a counterpoint rhythm, he struggled.

  As he became more frustrated, he stared angrily around the room: how could he be so bad at this? They took a number of short breaks to let him calm down a little – when he was upset or angry, he played even worse.

  After an hour and a half’s ineffective practice, some of the others came back to the room. They complained that outside was far too cold to play properly, and there had been hardly anyone to play to. Apparently their audience preferred the spectacle of dumb animals being slaughtered to the more refined cultural experience that the Company had been offering.

  He and Lisamel demonstrated his progress, and everyone agreed that his performance with the tambourine was not adequate to play in public. Not nearly adequate.

  ‘Perhaps it’s a Human thing,’ Thawn suggested.

  ‘No,’ Lisamel said. ‘There are Humans who understand rhythm. I’ve seen and heard them.’

  ‘Then perhaps it’s a mage thing,’ Garran offered. ‘Is that right, mage-without-a-staff?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Lanvik admitted. ‘But I don’t think so. I think I’m just rubbish at this.’

  ‘Well,’ Kiergard Slorn said, ‘we must hope that if your magecraft returns, you have a higher level of proficiency than you do with music. Otherwise we will all be in danger every time you perform a spell.’

  4

  ‘Come, Master Tambourine-Player,’ Tremano said. ‘Let us go out into Darkfall and find something to eat. We should look around the place, in case we have to leave in a hurry tomorrow.’

  ‘I think I’ve already seen what there is to see.’

  ‘With Vrosko Din? I don’t think so.’

  ‘Hey!’ Vrosko Din protested.

  ‘I imagine you have seen many temples, and buildings – places and things?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what exotic foods have you tried? What exotic entertainments have you sampled?’

  ‘None,’ he admitted.

  ‘There are travellers from all across the Three Lands here, and they have come here with their food and drink; their stories; their customs; their music and dance. To discover what brings people to Darkfall is only half the tale: you should also discover what they bring with them.’

  Vrosko Din laughed. ‘Well said, Tremano. May I also accompany you, in order to further diminish both my arrogance and my ignorance?’

  ‘Of course you may, Master Priest. Why would I stand in the way of such a worthy cause?’

  So they went out together.

  Most of the inns, taverns and dedicated restaurants were owned and operated by enterprising local businessmen, but there were also a number of refectories that were operated by the largest religions and states. Additionally, some groups were serving food in large tents in the open spaces between buildings and meals were available inside a few of the dormitory blocks.

  The smells from such places ranged from the familiar to the revolting, and Tremano dismissed most of the available fare as “mountain food”, “Imperial tastes” or “bland and basic”. He insisted they find something more unusual and eventually suggested they eat at a building used by the black-robed followers of Zimran Secura, from the kingdoms that bordered the southern desert. The smell of the food inside was neither enticing nor repellent, but simply unfamiliar.

  ‘Why not,’ Vrosko Din shrugged.

  At night, the large downstairs hall was used for sleeping, but now the simple bed frames were stacked against the walls. Instead, there were rows of low tables, little more than a hand’s span above the ground, and thin worn cushions along the sides of them.

  The place was busy with pilgrims from the Desert Tribes, dressed in black. Children ran across the stone floor, between the tables; they were also covered in black with only their faces showing. Tremano assured the others that its apparent popularity with its intended audience ensured that the quality would be high. ‘Or, at least, not dreadful,’ he admitted.

  Dining was casual: everyone sat on the floor, on cushions, and they had to search to find four spaces together. They shared their table with two black-clad Desert pilgrims. The couple nodded at them when they sat down, but otherwise paid them almost no attention, despite how outlandish they must have seen – a Human and three Light Elves, none of them dressed in black.

  After they’d been sitting for a few minutes, a short woman brought them a jug of water and four partly-clean glasses.

  ‘What do you have?’ Lisamel asked her.

  ‘Whatever you like,’ she said. ‘We have dishes from Halea, Khand and from Issar.’

  ‘What would be good for travellers who are unfamiliar with your traditional dishes?’ Vrosko Din asked her.

  The woman nodded and recited the names of a number of dishes for them to choose from Lanvik didn’t recognise any of the names. Vrosko Din was equally unfamiliar with them: he stopped the woman a couple of times to ask: ‘And what’s that?’

  They each picked two dishes, on the basis of their names or descriptions, and then they sat and waited and watched everyone else around them.

  When the woman brought them their food, she handed each of them a thin metal spoon and an oversized fork. ‘May the Shadows of Zimran bring you shelter.’

  ‘And bring shelter to you,’ Vrosko Din replied, presumably improvising.

  ‘Thank you,’ Lisamel preferred to smile at the woman.

  A moment later, the woman returned with four differently-coloured spiced sauces in small
bowls, and left them on the table. Lanvik put a little of each on his plate. One was so hot that he risked a long draught of water from his glass after trying it; two had flavours which he decided not to mix with any food; and the fourth was orange, very pleasant and slightly addictive. He wished he’d taken more of the last, but the four bowls had been whisked away to another table by the time he tried it.

  Both of his choices had arrived at the same time, so he chose to start with the Khandese Salted Bird Soup. He couldn’t remember exactly what the other dish was called, but it comprised pieces of meat in an oily gravy and came with Issarian Dumplings. The meat could have been anything, but at least it tasted different from the salted bird, and the dumplings were pleasant enough. They had tiny crunchy bits in them that didn’t taste of anything and stuck in his teeth: perhaps sand had somehow permeated the supplies from Issar. Or perhaps they had deliberately added sand in order to make the dumplings seem more authentic: to taste the way they did back home.

  Dessert was a shared bowl of pickled fruits – some sweet and some spicy, and for the four of them, the entire meal cost a little under five Shillings.

  Back outside, snow was falling again: a thin layer had covered the causeways and pavements, leaving them icy and slippery.

  ‘Let us find some evening entertainment,’ Tremano suggested.

  ‘Where?’ Vrosko Din laughed. In the swirling snow, they could barely see more than a block in any direction. There were far fewer people outside than they normally saw.

  ‘Listen,’ Lisamel held up her palm.

  By following their ears, they travelled among the dormitories and temples and inns and found companies performing music and songs, some dancers, and some religious ceremonies. They stood and watched, applauded, sometimes gave money, and then moved on.

  Tremano and Lisamel talked easily with members of the performing troupes, simply walking up to them and introducing themselves. They joined a chorus from Tawryn for one song, to general applause.

  ‘Do you know any of them?’ Lanvik asked, as they walked. ‘These performers?’

  ‘No, but many of them are Clanbrothers and Clansisters, so they are almost like family: a second family, or a wider family – like talking to people from home.’

  ‘What Clan are you?’ he asked. ‘I’m sorry if that’s rude. Perhaps I should know, but I don’t remember.’

  ‘Our Clan …,’ Tremano told him: ‘we are named for the Sparrows – the little brown birds in the bushes and trees. We are entertainers and performers – actors, musicians, prostitutes, dancers.’

  ‘Are you happy with that?’

  ‘It’s what we know,’ Lisamel said: ‘what we’ve learned, what we’ve trained for.’

  ‘Don’t you ever want to do something else?’

  ‘Why?’ she laughed. ‘Is our playing so bad? Our singing so poor?’

  ‘No, no. Of course not. No. I … well, I just wondered.’

  ‘It works differently in different Clans,’ Vrosko Din told him. ‘I was not born into Eagle Clan, but there are some Clans that you can join as well as being born into – Eagle, Dog, Phoenix: if you have the calling, or the skill, or the passion.’

  ‘And sometimes Sparrow,’ Tremano said. ‘If you have a talent, then we will take you in: make you one of ours. If you want.’

  ‘But obviously not Lanvik,’ Lisamel laughed. ‘Not on the strength of your tambourine playing, at least.’

  ‘No,’ he agreed. He wondered if the mages had some kind of Clan system and, if so, what his role was. Or perhaps the mages were like a Clan themselves, like a wider family to each other – there weren’t many, after all. There couldn’t be, otherwise they would surely have seen one here in Darkfall.

  ‘We haven’t seen one of the Mysteries,’ Tremano interrupted his thoughts.

  ‘No,’ Vrosko Din agreed. ‘We should find one.’

  ‘Mysteries?’

  ‘Short religious plays,’ he explained. ‘During the Festival, companies of players visit Darkfall to perform pieces about the Dead God and the Four Trophies. You can see them at other times and places as well, together with whatever other dramas a company might perform, but here should be best.’

  ‘Perhaps at one of the temples?’ Lisamel suggested.

  ‘More likely in one of the taverns, I believe,’ Vrosko Din said.

  They discovered a small company performing in the dining room of a nearby inn, so they found a space at the end of a table, ordered a jug of ale and four mugs and watched.

  There were only three players, and each of them took multiple parts. The particular drama they were playing ended before the ale had even arrived, but they started a different one after a two minute break. One of them introduced it at the start: ‘The Army of the Undead.’

  It explained the wondrous properties of the Army of the Undead, who could not be killed and could not be injured, and how the Old God led the Army in a war against the Winged Demons. Although the Undead were invincible the Winged Demons were without number, so there could be no victor.

  Lanvik watched, fascinated. The story must have been familiar to everyone there, judging by how people nodded in unison at appropriate intervals, but everyone sat and listened in silence. He had no idea what the story was about, or what lesson it was supposed to impart: perhaps simply that war is futile. Or perhaps there was a broader message about conflict.

  After “The Army of the Undead” was finished, they sat through “The Old God Flies to the Heavens,” and then “The Treachery of the Vampire Brood”.

  ‘Let us find other entertainments,’ Tremano said, at the next brief interval. Their jug of ale was empty. They pulled on their jackets, left a few small coins for the players, and stepped back out into the snow.

  ‘I’m going to watch some more of these Mysteries,’ Lanvik told the others. ‘I like them.’

  ‘Do you remember the stories that they’re telling?’ Tremano asked.

  ‘No. I don’t know them.’

  ‘I’m sure you must have seen them at some time,’ Vrosko Din said. ‘Everyone in the Three Lands must know these stories, even Humans and Dragon Lords.’

  ‘We’ll look for more companies of musicians and dancers,’ Tremano said.

  ‘Yes,’ Lisamel agreed. ‘You can find your way back to the inn?’

  ‘The Devout Supplicant,’ he laughed. ‘Yes, of course. It’s on Lower Market Street, so I can ask if I get lost.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ Vrosko Din suggested, ‘if you don’t mind, of course.’

  Together, Lanvik and Vrosko Din tracked down at least ten other companies of players that evening. Once they started looking, they seemed to be everywhere.

  Each company was unique. They had between three and five players, sharing as many roles as were required. Some spoke in dialogue and some were narrated by a single voice; others expressed the words through movement, or through facial expression, or not at all. In some groups, different roles were performed in different voices or in different masks or simply by adopting different stances. Some of the dramas were in verse, most were not. Some invited their audiences to participate, with a number of apparently familiar calls and replies.

  They watched dozens of the little plays together, seeing some of them five or six times but in very different performances. It seemed that the legends were universal, but there were also slight and subtle differences between the versions they saw: aspects of the stories, as well as differences in the delivery. Lanvik found himself fascinated by how the plays were performed as well as the stories they told.

  As well as versions of the plays they had already seen, they watched “Awakening the Sleeping Army”, “The Lightning God Rises”, “The Four Races Fight”, “The First Trophy Is Gathered”, and so on. Each Mystery told one brief part of a single legend, and that legend seemed to form an endless cycle. At the end of the cycle, the Old God decided to hide the Four Trophies in the furthest corners of the world; and at the start of the cycle, the Old God overcame various diff
iculties to gather the Four Trophies from those same locations.

  There didn’t seem to be a moment when the Old God actually died and became the Dead God, though perhaps they had just not seen that play.

  Also, there seemed to be some variation regarding the Four Trophies themselves. The Emerald Crown, the Ruby Hand and the Glass Sword appeared in every version of the plays, but the fourth differed. Lanvik liked the sound of the Silver Eye. Whatever their nature, there was agreement that one Trophy had been placed at each corner of the Three Lands.

  ‘Darkfall Ness, the Eastern Shore, the Twilight Isles and the Cape of Fire,’ Vrosko Din remarked. ‘Their names sound romantic – places to spend quiet time with loved ones, perhaps – but the Mysteries tell us that each one is a hard, difficult place.’

  ‘Well, if Darkfall Ness is typical, then the Mysteries are right.’

  Midnight passed and, as the snow became heavier once again, they headed back to their lodgings.

  Bane, Ethryk and Kiergard Slorn were sitting at a table in a booth in the reception area that also served as a bar. It would have been easy to miss them, but Bane waved and called them over.

  ‘What have you been up to?’ he asked. ‘Did Lisamel and Tremano complete your education concerning Darkfall?’

  ‘We have spent all our time watching Mysteries and learning about the Old God and the Undead Army. Lanvik here finds none of the stories at all familiar, and remembers nothing of any religious beliefs that he might have once held.’

  ‘So it’s as if he’s hearing the legends for the first time?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘You have a unique viewpoint, then,’ Kiergard Slorn nodded. ‘These tales are woven so tightly into the world around us that it’s impossible to even imagine what they would seem like, encountered for the first time.’

  ‘And what do you think of them?’ Ethryk asked him. ‘Do they help explain the world around us? Or do they seem more like fanciful imaginings, or children’s tales?’

  ‘Oh, they’re just stories. They’re not anything that could really have happened, and most of them don’t even have a clear moral message – something simple for children. You know, to teach them what’s right and what’s wrong.’