Ash and Ambition

by Ari Marmell

  He was clearly addressing the Fletcher Street Wolves, but many of the White Knife obeyed as well. Just in case.

  “Which of you is the leader?”

  One man, one of the few whose pelt was actual wolf hair, reluctantly raised a hand—only after the eyes of many of his subordinates had turned his way.

  “Good.” Nycolos nodded, then moved to loom over the man. “Only loyal members of the White Knife are going to leave this house alive today. You understand?”

  Even through his fear, the man scowled. “I don’t—”

  The Black Bear’s axe sank through flesh and into the floor. Nycolos booted the puzzled head out of his path like a child’s ball.

  “Which of you is the leader?”

  The former leader’s second—now in charge of the Fletcher Street Wolves—assured Nycolos in no uncertain terms, despite the violent quaver in his voice, that he absolutely understood what was being asked of them, and was the first to swear obedience to a somewhat stunned Samsa.

  Nycolos himself wasn’t entirely sure why he cared. He owed nothing to, and had no real affection for, the members of the White Knife. Maybe it was just that they’d offered him a roof, however unselfless their reasons, while the Wolves had tried to kill him?

  Ultimately, he supposed it didn’t matter.

  “You just got a lot bigger,” he said to Samsa. “Take your new influence—and perhaps this man’s shaggy head—to your ‘Creeping Dragons.’ Maybe you can assume the position the Fletcher Street Wolves had hoped for.”

  Samsa gazed at him in absolute awe, an attitude mirrored by almost everyone there. Nycolos basked in it, buoyed by it, felt worth something for the first time in days.

  “Join us,” Xilmos said, voice cracking. “With you, we can do anything. We might not even need the Dragons!”

  A rumble of assent circled him, skipping across the broken furniture. Samsa frowned briefly, then seemed to come to a decision. “I’ll step down.” Everyone fell silent once more. “Lead us, if that’s what it takes for you to stay. I’ve worked long and hard to command the White Knife, but I’ll follow you, gladly.”

  Somewhere, deep within his soul, Nycolos wanted to say yes. It was a lowly life among lowly creatures, even as humans went, but he had, if only from them, the respect and the fear and the prestige he was due. He could start with them, perhaps build it all up to something greater, acquire some measure of comfort…

  Only one thing stopped him, a single thought.

  I earned their awe, their reverence, so easily. So swiftly. Who else might I win over, then, with a modicum of effort?

  For the first time since the Lady Ilkya’s unwelcome diagnosis, he felt a stirring of purpose, felt as though he had an inkling of how to build a life—a human life—that, until he could locate the magics required to heal himself, to resume his proper form and place, he would find tolerable. Even worth fighting for.

  “Thank you, Samsa, but no. Keep your station. And know,” he added the lie easily, for benefit of those Fletcher Street Wolves who might harbor doubt and resentment for their new situation, “that I will watch over you when I can.

  “But I have somewhere else I have to be, and some tasks I’ve put off for far too long.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The water was hot, soothing. The heat seeped into his flesh, relaxing muscles that had grown sore and weary with constant tension, easing the pain of aches and bruises. He had enjoyed such experiences before, soaking his older body in an underground hot spring deep beneath his mountain lair. It had never occurred to him that a man made experience might come near to matching it, and he hadn’t relaxed enough in any of his prior baths to discover otherwise.

  That new relaxation, unfortunately, carried with it a number of other fresh discoveries which were, in turn, making it much harder to stay relaxed.

  It wasn’t the sickly grey tint to the water or the slight oily sheen that the various soaps and perfumes couldn’t entirely hide. No, he’d expected that. He’d not washed in weeks, had known he was filthy—a fact that nearly prevented him from being allowed back into Oztyerva by guards who initially assumed he was some greasy vagabond or, at best, a drunken gentleman in the midst of some dishonorable revelry. Nor was it the clumps of loose hair floating within that ever less cleanly pool, trimmed from his neck and cheeks by meticulous servants.

  No, it was, through no fault of their own, those servants themselves that chipped away at his composure.

  Perhaps because the experience had always before been so alien to him, and he had only viewed his humanoid body as a short-term, temporary impediment, he’d never paid much attention to the experience of being bathed by a small gaggle of strangers. Now, however, he felt the stroke of every brush, the wet heat of every cloth, and—most distractingly of all—every slip of a soap-slickened hand or finger against his own skin.

  Each such touch was a jolt of miniature lightning, nearly enough to send him leaping from the great brass tub, only getting worse as the careful scrubbing progressed to ever more sensitive spots. And the servants were thorough cleaners indeed.

  His heart pounded. His whole body tensed. His breath caught. And when he felt other, more dramatic reactions occurring below the waterline—to say nothing of the sly glances among two of the servants, suggesting they had noticed, too—the bewilderment and embarrassment became too great.

  “That’s enough!” he snarled. “You’re… Thank you for your assistance, but it’s no longer required. I’ll finish up on my own.”

  “But, Sir Nycolos—”

  “I said leave!”

  They fled, leaving him to fumble and fidget with the various brushes and oils until he felt he was probably clean enough to suffice. He actually welcomed the extra time and concentration required; it enabled him to calm himself.

  He emerged from the bathing chamber wrapped in a silken gown belted loosely at the waist. Smim awaited him, tapping spindly fingers against the back of the sofa on which he sat.

  “That, Master, is entirely what we were talking about.”

  “What do you mean?” Nycolos ran a towel over his hair and beard, then realized with a grunt that he’d have to comb them all over again.

  “The sort of behavior that you’re going to have to alter if you plan to earn back, or enhance, your respect and position in the court.”

  It was the first thing they’d talked about upon Nycolos’s return, even before calling for the filthy knight’s bath. He had explained how he’d felt when receiving the adulation of the White Knife, and how he’d realized that, if he could accomplish the same here, he might yet build a lifestyle worth having until he could find new answers to his circumstances. With enough of the nobility looking up to him, he might even obtain a fair amount of power and greater physical comforts.

  All of which began with putting himself back in the running for Crown Marshal.

  “They’re just servants, Smim,” he protested. “Not the sorts of people I need to impress.”

  “Which does not change the fact that certain expectations regarding your own demeanor are universal, Master. And servants are known to gossip.”

  Another grunt. “Fine. I’ll… better prepare myself for next time.”

  He allowed the towel that had scoured his head to fall in a heap, then moved to the table and poured himself a glass of sour cherry wine. He found he preferred such drinks to the far sweeter brandies that were so well loved in Kirresc, though both were slowly growing on him.

  “So,” he continued, raising the goblet to his lips, “where do you suggest we begin?”

  “We should probably start with your apologies, Master.”

  Nycolos froze mid-sip. When he did finally swallow, he’d forgotten the wine; he was just clearing his tongue for speech. “What. Apologies.”

  “Um… To Lord Kortlaus? Lady Mariscal? His Highness? The entire court? If you’re to repair the real Nycolos Anvarri’s friendships, regain your standing in everyone’s sight—”

  “I�
�m sure I can make it clear through my actions that my poor behavior is behind me. Once I’ve impressed them enough, they’ll have forgotten all about—”

  The goblin’s head shook so fiercely it almost unscrewed itself. “That’s not how humans work, Master. Oh, you’ll have to do all you say as well, but after the sort of offense you’ve given to—well, pardon me for saying it, but everybody—you cannot simply expect them to welcome you back, or give you a chance to prove yourself changed.”

  “So you’re saying an apology might not even work if I did offer it!”

  “It might not, no. But it remains necessary.”

  The goblet shattered against the far wall, leaving a splotch that made the stone appear to bleed. “I have never apologized to another living creature in all my life!”

  “Well, that is the sort of behavior you can get away with as a dragon, Master, but as things stand—”

  “And even if I ever were to… to apologize for my behavior to anyone, it would be to an equal. Not to a bunch of humans!”

  Smim just waited, watching.

  “What?” Nycolos finally demanded.

  “Master, if you’re to have even the slightest chance of making this work, the first thing you’re going to have to do is alter your thinking about this ‘bunch of humans.’”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning you’re going to have to treat them as though they are your equals. In pretty much every imaginable respect, save where your rank and title make an alternate case.”

  Nycolos scowled in indignant horror. “I cannot possibly be expected to maintain such… such a farce!”

  “If it’s too much to ask, Master, you can always return to those hooligans you’ve spoken of. I’ve no doubt they’d take you back in a second, and would almost assuredly never demand an apology of you for anything. If you think you could be happy with what that sort of life can offer you, I’ll start packing right away.”

  The nearest chair creaked in protest as Nycolos slumped hard into its embrace, head in his hands. “This is going to be a lot more difficult than I thought, Smim.”

  “Of that, Master, I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever.”

  ___

  “Kor—that is, my Lord Kortlaus?”

  “Sir Nycolos.”

  Nycolos had found his friend—or sort-of-friend, or ex-friend, or ostensible friend—after nearly two hours of searching. They met not in Kortlaus’s quarters, the dining hall, the chapel, or even the training fields but in a random corridor of Oztyerva where they had, by sheer chance, finally run into one another.

  Now that they stood face to face, Nycolos rather wished his search had remained fruitless.

  “It’s… I’m glad I was able to catch up with you.”

  “Oh? Well, here I am.” Then, perhaps deliberately reminding himself of his manners, the baron added, “It’s good to see you cleaned up and presentable again. Many of us were more than a little concerned.”

  “Yes, well… That’s rather what I wanted to… That is…”

  Get it together, you gibbering cretin! Nycolos snapped at himself. Just a few simple words. Not that difficult!

  His sense of pride, sulking obstinately in the corner of his soul, seemed to disagree with that assessment.

  “Kortlaus, I… Would like to apologize. For, uh, my recent behavior.”

  “All right.” Kortlaus crossed his arms, waiting.

  “Um. So, I apologize for that behavior. It was inappropriate.”

  “Yes.”

  It would have taken some form of incontinence or similar loss of bodily control to make the subsequent pause any more awkward.

  “Is that it, then?” Nycolos finally asked. “I mean, can we move past this now?”

  Still the baron’s expression didn’t so much as shift. “Is that it?”

  “I…” What the hell else did the man want?! “I suppose it is.”

  “Then no, Nycolos, I don’t believe we can move past this. If you’ll excuse me.”

  Nycolos watched his receding back disappear down the hallway, melding in amongst the other passersby. Only then did he realize that Smim had emerged from where he’d waited around the corner to stand at his side.

  “That could probably have gone better,” the knight observed wryly.

  “It almost had to have, Master. It’s rather a remarkable achievement that it went this poorly.”

  “Smim…”

  “No bloodshed, though, nor any references to incestuous or anatomically impossible ancestral relations, so I suppose an argument could be made that it wasn’t quite as bad as it might have—”

  “That will do, Smim.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  They walked, wending their way upstream through the veins of the palace. “What’s the matter with him, anyway?” Nycolos finally asked, waving his arms in exasperation and nearly striking a passing page with an armful of parchments in the process. “You said I should apologize, and I apologized.”

  “Um. By a strict definition, yes, Master, you did. But—”

  “Are you suggesting my apology was flawed somehow?”

  “It lacked… substance, Master. And sincerity. And emotion. And—”

  “So I’m to, what? Humiliate myself further? Abase myself? To them?”

  Smim cringed beneath the weight of multiple passing stares. “Please, Master, keep your voice down.” He took Nycolos’s heavy sigh as assent, and continued. “I realize that you’ve been in a dark mood, Master, and that you never expected to be forced to maintain your current shape for any length of time. But—”

  “Am I to be regaled with another of your intricate theories, Smim?” He had not been remotely taken, and certainly not convinced, with the goblin’s hypothesis regarding the link between his mental state and his unfamiliarity with the urges and influence of his human blood.

  Smim bulled ahead, his words nicking themselves and bleeding on the jagged edges of his clenched teeth. “But were you paying any attention at all to the humans around us? Surely you must have seen a few apologies on which you might model—”

  But he was already storming ahead, was Nycolos Anvarri. He remained distraught over his circumstances, though he was gaining control over that emotional maelstrom. He remained irritated that he must lower himself to treat these people as peers. And although he would have denied it, even to himself, he still flailed in the tide of human sensation and emotion and need, precisely as Smim believed.

  Thanks to his current state, he had already decided that Smim was mistaken about this, too: It was just an apology, simple and straightforward. How could he possibly need help with that? How could one do it wrong?

  No, the problem was with Kortlaus. The baron was being unreasonable. Nycolos just had to find someone more rational, someone who truly, deeply wanted to patch things up.

  Fortunately, he knew precisely where to locate such an individual. Margravine Mariscal would be overjoyed with any sort of apology from him, and to hell with Smim’s nitpicking!

  ___

  Nycolos staggered back from the door, head ringing with more than the sound of its abrupt slam. His eyes blurred, watering with the unexpected shock and pain. One of the nearby guards, stationed in the hall outside the margravine’s chambers, passed him a handkerchief to wipe away the trail of blood that trickled from his door-battered nostrils.

  “T’ank you,” he said, offering it back.

  “Keep it, sir.”

  Smim awaited him some yards down the corridor, making no effort whatsoever to hide his knowing smirk.

  “Perhaps,” Nycolos said, carefully prodding at his aching nose, “it might be wise for me to rethink my apologies. Maybe try to observe a few before making another.”

  “What a marvelous notion, Master. I couldn’t have said it better myself. Sooner,” he added with only a perfunctory effort at lowering his voice, “but not better.”

  “Are you quite through, now, Smim?”

  “At this rate, Master? I can only doubt it.”


  “You are starting to truly irritate me, you know.”

  “I’m sorry, Master. Oh, there! See! One perfectly good wild apology.”

  Muttering to himself in the language of dragons, Nycolos made for his quarters, a non-bloodstained tunic, and perhaps five or six stiff drinks.

  ___

  Days passed, very nearly another week since Nycolos’s return from his overnight sojourn into Talocsa’s seedier underbelly. In that time, he attempted no further conversations with either Kortlaus or Mariscal, save for exchanging the necessary pleasantries should he happen to pass one of them in the hall or meet them while he was on duty. Nor had he yet attended any of his Majesty’s dinners, so that—despite his newfound reputation for isolation and the fact that nobody really wanted him there—people had begun to talk.

  But he had not, in all that time, been idle.

  Nycolos tackled the basics of his responsibilities as a knight of Kirresc, standing ceremonial guard for hours at a time, overseeing the ledgers and records of the tiny parcel of land that was his, as baronet, to manage. By playing up his lingering wound and the chirurgeon’s earlier orders, he avoided any of his more arduous duties, including training and practice, anything that might give away his ignorance of things he ought to know. That, too, was beginning to wear, and he knew his excuses would not long suffice.

  For that, he was prepared—for that, and so much more. Nearly every waking hour not consumed by his official duties was spent in careful observation of Oztyerva’s men and women. He studied their combat training, despite his own lack of participation, quickly picking up the basics of the local fighting styles. He watched people’s manners, their interactions, and—wherever possible—their apologies and amends. Now that he no longer held himself above such concerns but instead immersed himself, a drowning man struggling to learn to swim, his self-education proceeded swiftly.

  And where the knowledge he wished to acquire was less overt, where stealth and sneaking were of greater use, he had Smim. For all their initial objections and lingering revulsion, the court, the aristocrats, and the servants had slowly grown accustomed to seeing the goblin in their midst, running this errand or that for his liege. Now that his mere appearance didn’t put people on their guard, Smim went to work. He lingered, he hid, and above all, he eavesdropped, absorbing all manner of gossip and semi-open secrets but with a particular ear toward the various political factions and rivalries that could be found in any and every capitol.