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Chapter 98 (now with poll!)
🕑 Added 2020-09-07 19:05:28 +0000 UTC[I've decided to start doing polls for how good you find each chapter. Weigh in once you've finished reading it!]
Tehlmar Esmae stepped into the tavern located on the east side of Wroetin and looked for an empty seat. The current inhabitants of this half-filled saloon looked up from their drinks for a moment, their eyes taking in his small, fully-cloaked form, before going back to their own problems. Glancing around, he found a small table off to the side near the right wall, not so close to the center that he’d be surrounded on all sides by xenophobic natives, but not so tucked into a corner that nobody would notice him. Truly, it was the perfect place for the first step of his plan.
Sitting down upon the rough wooden chair with a weary plop and a groan, he leaned back and let his body rest for a moment. The journey from the northwest shore of Otharia to the nation’s quaint southeastern capital—‘quaint’ being perhaps the most charitable word he could use for this podunk town—had taken a lot out of him. It would have been far easier on his tired body if he had given himself more time to rest and not pushed his pace so heavily, but Tehlmar had found the worry in his heart far harder to deal with than the fatigue in his muscles and bones. After so many decades living the hard lives he’d lived, a little tiredness almost felt normal.
A boy, perhaps fourteen, came up to him to take his order. Clearly the proprietor’s son pressed into service by his parent, Tehlmar forgave the kid for his sullen expression.
“Are you here for a drink, a meal, or both, miss?” the kid asked.
“Both, and make it your best brew,” Tehlmar responded, putting down a golden coin on the table. He’d filled his pockets by pocketing a few coins from those that looked like they could afford the loss as he’d wandered the streets earlier, looking for the best place to start his plan. “I’ve had what goes for cheap swill around here. Even my standards aren’t that low.”
The boy looked at him oddly, perhaps because Tehlmar’s voice hadn’t sounded as he expected, but he took the coin all the same and made his way back towards the bartender to place the order.
Tehlmar completely understood the boy’s assumption. His features concealed in a large cloak that he’d swiped on his second morning in Otharia, the boy had little to go on but his height. Still, Tehlmar couldn’t help but bristle at it. He hated being shorter than humans. He always got the impression that humans were looking down at him in more ways than just physically. And he wasn’t even short for an elf!
It was his many years as Jaquet, he knew, that brought about this feeling. All those years as the tallest, largest man in the room, his voice and laugh booming over the din... he’d hated it at first. He’d wanted to transform into somebody dashing and inspiring, not a large, boorish, ugly, overweight oaf. Yet despite his wishes, that was what he’d been ordered to become.
But he’d come to love it. Jaquet’s physical abilities, especially with his powerful Feeling-enhanced strength and speed, made him a juggernaut on the battlefield. What’s more, he’d realized over time that being somewhat ugly wasn’t always a bad thing. People seemed to treat you differently when you weren’t a looker. And the drinking! Oh, could he hold down his drink!
But those times were gone now, and he was back to his life as the much shorter—and dare he say more handsome—Tehlmar. This life where a large mug was enough to make his world start to wobble, where stupid humans assumed he was a petite woman. Well, they wouldn’t assume for much longer.
The boy returned several moments later with a flagon of frothing liquid, as well as a small loaf of bread and what appeared to be some sort of pot pie.
“Thanks, kid,” Tehlmar said, pulling the hood back to reveal his elven features to the room. Picking up the flagon, he took a large gulp and set it back down on the table with a loud thump. It tasted better than he’d expected from a place like this. “Hmmm! Not bad!”
The room fell silent. Tehlmar glanced at the boy to find that he’d gone stiff with fright, his wide eyes glued to Tehlmar’s long, pointed ears. The other patrons were all staring at him as well, shock and apprehension apparent on their faces. Several of them started to whisper fervently to each other, and one even left the establishment altogether.
“What, you yokels have never seen an elf before?” he called out with a smile as he leaned back, broke off a piece of bread, and shoved it in his mouth.
One decent meal and two more flagons of drink later, Tehlmar stumbled out into the evening streets in a jolly mood, his elven self exposed for all the city to see. He reveled in the stares and the chatter that follow him as he made his way around, looking for an inn through his mildly blurred vision. Step one had gone just about as splendidly as he could have hoped.
Oddly enough, this country was the only place he could be himself. As a former member of the Masked Battalion, he knew that there were no Masks here in Otharia. Drayhadans who were able to become Masks were very few, and those that survived the years of grueling training fewer still. The Battalion had far too few agents to waste any on a nation as irrelevant as Otharia had been for centuries. Then, once this new regime had popped up, the border had closed off to the point where Masks wouldn’t have been able to get in if they even wanted to—a fact that he could testify to, like it or not. Tehlmar had even checked the agent assignments not long before he’d died. No agents had been tasked with infiltrating Otharia. The only Drayhadan here was the Many residing within the city’s central fortress. That meant he didn’t have to hide. Which was good, because the point of this whole exercise was to be found.
One of the benefits of a long journey on your own is that you have lots of time to think about things, meaning Tehlmar had plenty of opportunities to ponder just why his meeting with Arlette had gone so poorly. There had been a lot of reasons, he’d concluded in the end, and many of them, like the fact that he’d left her in Kutrad, had been things that couldn’t have been undone. But there had also been some mistakes he’d made that day, ones he could avoid this time.
The biggest mistake was simply the way they’d met: suddenly and in the heat of battle. Her emotions had surely already been going full blast. Though at the time he’d thought his timely arrival would prove heroic and endearing in her eyes, it seemed that it had caused her severe emotional whiplash instead. He didn’t need to make the same mistake twice, especially since he was supposed to be dead now.
At this point, Jaquet knew enough to make some fairly educated guesses about Arlette’s whereabouts. Her boarding the Otharian’s flying craft spoke volumes. After several days of interacting with the locals, he’d come to understand that not just anybody got to ride that massive flying craft. You had to have connections.
Tehlmar could guess what Arlette’s connection was: that worthless woman Sofie. Somehow, that stupid, naive creature had managed to carve out a role here. It seemed she gave lessons—mandatory lessons—to the children of Otharia using the country’s Many network. He couldn’t think of a more efficient way to bring about the downfall of a nation than to have an entire generation have their thoughts poisoned by her absurd notions.
If somebody as hopeless as Sofie could find a role with this regime, then Arlette surely had as well. Something having to do with security, if he had to guess. It wasn’t like they needed to hire mercenaries to guard gates here.
Sofie lived inside that domineering fortress that towered over the rest of the city from its location in the city center. Arlette likely did as well. That meant there was a very large wall guarded by deathbeasts between him and her, and as mentioned before, he’d already decided against just showing up at her doorstep unannounced. So if he couldn’t go in, he’d get her to come out.
As the only elf in the country, word of his presence would spread around the city quickly. The regime would notice and investigate. All he had to do was show up at a bar, have a few drinks, be a public presence, and then repeat it the next day and the day after that. Soon enough, either Arlette or some other authority would appear before him. Or they’d just kill him. He found the odds of that to be very slim, however. They’d never find out how he got across the border if they did that.
Yes, this go around, he would give her time. He would let her hear about an elf frequenting the watering holes of Wroetin, a city without elves. He would put out the word that he was looking for a “Letty” and let her connect the dots herself. Then, when she was ready, she’d make her move. Or she wouldn’t, which would tell him a lot.
Spying an inn that looked acceptable, Tehlmar swayed through the open door and approached the innkeeper with a smile and a shiny coin. Tomorrow would be interesting, perhaps even momentous! He could just feel it.
* * *
“You’re supposed to be dead,” the voice said behind him, a sudden hush falling over the dirty tavern’s denizens.
Tehlmar froze mid-gulp, twisting the stein just in time to prevent the rest of the alcohol—a much worse beverage than the bar he’d visited the day before—from spilling down his front. Those words, or something to that effect, were the words he’d been waiting for for the last two days. But the voice that spoke them wasn’t Arlette.
The room shifting subtly as he moved, a buzzed—okay, more than buzzed—Tehlmar spun around on his stool to face the unknown voice. There, behind him, stood a man with brownish-red hair, green eyes, and most importantly, long pointed ears.
The sight caused Tehlmar to choke on the last of his drink sliding down his throat, bringing about an involuntary coughing fit. The man let him cough, and Tehlmar used that time to glance at the dual blades in the man’s hands. He quickly recognized them as Chinkari knives, one of the more advanced weapon options for Masks who’d undone their transformation—not as advanced as his blood weaponry, of course, but only a chosen few were privileged enough to learn those techniques.
A Mask? What was a Mask doing here?! And why one who’d lost their disguise? Masks that couldn’t maintain their false identity any longer were always recalled to Drayhadal! Wrong! This was all wrong!
“How’re you here?! You shouldn’t be here!” Tehlmar demanded in shock, his words slurring a tad.
“You’re not the one who should be asking that, dead man.”
“Dead man? Me? You must be mistaking me for somebody else, friend. We’ve never met before.”
Tehlmar’s deflections seemed to have little effect on the stern elf, who just smirked with some sort of amusement that Tehlmar didn’t understand.
“You may have never seen me before, at least not in this form, but I’ve seen you. We even spoke, don’t you remember? When you asked my unit to track down that human woman in Crirada? How could I forget the face of a prince, especially one who asked me for a favor?”
Tehlmar’s blood ran cold, his foggy memory able to cobble together enough for him to grasp what the other elf was getting at. This... this was disastrous!
“Look, friend, I don’t want any trouble, alright? I’m just a man who wants to live free, you know?” he said, hoping that he could still talk his way out of this. He normally wasn’t one to beg, but... “Surely you understand what it’s like. I paid my time, I served for decades all over the continent. So maybe you could just forget you ever saw me, right? I’m dead, after all. You and I can just leave it at that and go our separate ways. It would be better for both of us.”
“I already reported your presence to Command,” the other man informed him, his tone uncompromising. “I’m to take you back to the homeland, and they will deal with you from there.”
The news made him die inside. After all that work to be free of that blasted institution, why did there have to be a random non-incognito Mask in Wroetin of all places? And somehow he was here through some other reason than a mission? What a bunch of crock! Tehlmar had thought he was finally safe, only for his cover to be destroyed in only a few days. Well... he wasn’t going to give up now.
“I’d rather die again than go back to that place,” Tehlmar told him, meaning every word.
“So be it,” came the response. “I, at least, still care about our duty.”
Tehlmar lurched wildly to his right as the new elf launched himself forward, his blades flashing towards Tehlmar’s unprotected abdomen. Despite his attempts at avoidance, the tip of one still managed to leave a long, thin, shallow cut across his belly as he tumbled to the floor, his stool also upending beside him. Almost without looking, he lashed out with a leg, his foot managing to strike his opponent’s strangely hard gut as he fell. The blow knocked the other elf backward, sending him stumbling back into a table full of Otharians.
Tehlmar staggered to his feet as chaos broke out within the seedy establishment. The Otharian promptly took a swing at Tehlmar’s opponent as others seated around the table rose to their feet to join in. Others around the bar also stood to enter the fray. As Tehlmar barely ducked beneath an oncoming tankard, he took in the full scale of the mess he’d stepped into and gulped.
The patrons of this tavern were, like most Otharians in his experience so far, not very happy with his presence. He had been able to feel the mix of fear and hostility since the moment he’d walked in. It had built over time as he’d lingered here, fueled by his presence and the further consumption of alcohol, but had never crystallized into action because to attack him would lead to consequences from the new regime—or so he assumed; it was the only reason he could come up with for why nobody had tried anything yet. As much as these people feared him, they feared their new ruler more.
But now, they had an excuse, an incitement even, to crack his skull. The initial strikes had sundered the dam, except instead of people going at each other like in normal bar fights, everybody focused on him and the other Elseling in the room. Even in his inebriated state, he could feel the drunken menace surrounding him.
Oh, and this other elf was still going to try to kill him as well.
Blood leaked out from Tehlmar’s torso wound into two thin strings which punched into his palms, opening up cuts in where he preferred them. Crimson life spewed forth, forming a small liquid sphere around each of his hands. Were he drunker, they would have formed into blades, but thankfully he was still present enough to realize that stabbing a bunch of natives wouldn’t go over well with the authorities or with Arlette.
But the elf... well that was another story. Tehlmar was just defending himself, after all.
Two Otharians stood between him and the Mask. Creating two long tendrils from his palms, he wrapped them around the legs of his toppled stool and whipped it around to club one of them over the head. A moment later, the other elf toppled the second Otharian with a stab to the thigh.
Seeing that his enemy’s guard was open, Tehlmar struck, pulling the blood tendrils in and turning them into twin spikes that thrust towards his target’s heart. Alas, just before he felt the soft resistance that came with piercing flesh, a heavy shoulder slammed into his side, sending him tumbling wildly beneath and into a nearby table. The combination of the surprise, the force of the blow, and the impact against the hard wood was enough to cause the blood spikes to lose cohesion, sending the blood splattering against the floor.
In one moment, Tehlmar lost a good amount of his usable blood. The lost blood could not be recovered now that it had lost its connection with him, as it was no longer part of his body to control. The amount of time he could manage to fight had just shrunk greatly. Realizing this, he decided that perhaps the best option would be to get out of this place. He could kill the other elf later when he was recovered and not drunk.
Crawling beneath the table and emerging from the other side into a frenzy of bodies and limbs. Using his small stature, he stumbled and bumped his way towards the exit, throwing fists when he needed to and scrambling between legs when all else failed. The remaining usable blood showed its utility as he wrapped ropes around legs and caused several Otharians to trip, causing a chain reaction that sent enough people to the floor that he finally saw daylight—literally—and rushed for the door.
The sound of hollow footfalls behind him made him look behind him just in time to see the other elf launch himself knives-first off the nearest table right at Tehlmar. Tehlmar twisted his upper body around and managed to get a blood shield between him and the blades just before they hit. The flying elf rammed into him and the pair tumbled through the doorway, a twisted mass of grunting limbs, thrashing limbs.
Tehlmar and his opponent rolled into the street as they wrestled for control while a multitude of onlookers watched. Eventually, they came to rest with Tehlmar flat on his back and the Mask elf atop him, his two blades pointed just finger-widths away from Tehlmar’s chest. Tehlmar, for his part, had managed to get two small shields out to stop the knives just in time, but it was taking all of the blood he had left. Any more would start to get dangerous.
But he had to. The other elf was physically strong, stronger than he was, and Tehlmar couldn’t hold the blades off for too long. A small blade of blood formed from the cut on his belly and shot upward, striking his adversary’s chest... only to hit something hard and bounce off. Armor beneath his clothes. So that’s why Tehlmar’s initial kick had hurt his foot.
The elf smiled victoriously.
A collection of familiar whooping cries answered before Tehlmar could, drawing a smile across his face. The sounds of metal feet pounding on stone could be heard nearby from three, maybe four directions, and before the other elf could pull away, a small army of deathbeasts converged on the two of them.
“Still want to go through with this?” Tehlmar inquired as the man atop him looked around at the multitude of machines surrounding them.
An Otharian in a uniform stepped into view, a grim look on his face.
The elf spat on Tehlmar’s face and climbed off him. “Traitor,” he growled.
Tehlmar let out a sigh of relief as the last of his blood flowed back into his body. But too much had been lost. The world was already fading.
Tehlmar didn’t even bother to get up. He just looked at the scowling Otharian peacekeeper, told him “please don’t put me in the same cell as him”, and passed out.
* * *
Tehlmar stared absentmindedly at the blank grey walls on the sides of the small cell, his mind trying to cope with just how quickly his plans had fallen apart. Just the night before, Tehlmar had been filled with anticipation for his future. Now, everything he’d managed to set up for himself was gone, shattered by absurd, once-in-a-millennia circumstances. Now the Masked Battalion knew he’d deserted. That meant Pyria likely knew as well, and if not, she would soon enough. His freedom was essentially over. The Battalion would hunt him across the continent and beyond the moment the Otharians kicked him out of the country, assuming the powers that be here didn’t just kill him outright.
Even killing the other elf wouldn’t accomplish much at this point other than making him feel better. Not that he could do so right now anyway. Even if he were at full strength, which he very much was not, the other elf was locked up in a different cell far away from him. They’d put the other guy in a cell closest to the dungeon door and him in the cell farthest from the door, creating enough distance between them that Tehlmar couldn’t even clearly hear the other elf, let alone talk to him or kill him with blood shenanigans. He took a small amount of solace in the fact that the Otharians had been accommodating enough at least to listen to his request and separate the two of them, but that was the only glimmer of light in the vast darkness that was his current humor.
The cell around him matched his mood. The only light came from the hall outside the cell, the glow dim and dreary. The cell itself was equally dismal. Other than the bowl protruding from the side wall to his right, there wasn’t much to write home about. It reminded him of other dungeons, actually, only with metal instead of stone.
Given Lord Ferros’s mechanical wizardry, he’d expected something a little more impressive. Instead, the configuration was largely the same as elsewhere. He sat chained to the back wall by shackles around his arms and legs, looking out through the thick bars to the hallway beyond. Other than the toilet, the only other major difference was the metal rope that held him to the back wall instead of the normal chains. Thicker than two fingers, the rope possessed the immense strength and durability of tucrenyx but somehow had a flexibility that he’d never seen in metal before. He didn’t really understand how they bent as they did without breaking, but it didn’t matter in the end; they still served the same purpose as the chains elsewhere, just like the tucrenyx shackles at the end of the ropes, which clamped tightly to his limbs and kept him from using his ability.
Another similarity was that there was no real passage of time. With no windows, and now even torches that needed to be regularly replaced, he had no realistic idea of how long he’d been down here. All he knew was that it had been much longer than he’d hoped. He’d told the woman who’d interrogated him when he’d been first locked away that he knew Arlette, and she’d recognized the name. But nobody had come to see him.
Tehlmar shook his head. She’d come, for sure. He couldn’t let himself sink into depression now!
Starting to hum a jaunty tune, one that may or may not have been horribly off-key depending on who you asked, he diverted his thinking towards sunnier topics. He imagined himself shoving the entire Casm clan one at a time into a massive pile of garoph dung and felt a hint of a smile creep onto his lips. Those haughty bastards deserved a good beating, especially that Prince Fatoro. He imagined meeting that sniveling fop alone in a dark alley somewhere. Oh, the things he’d do to that arrogant prick. First, he’d start with the knees so he couldn’t escape, then he’d start breaking fingers...
A new sound came to his ears as he envisioned his glorious, cathartic revenge, the sound of an Otharian metal door opening. The doors here didn’t swing open, they slid into a wall, ceiling, or floor. The speed and silence with which they did this slightly unnerved Tehlmar if he had to be honest. Especially the huge, thick doors like the ones at the entrance to this dungeon. Nothing that heavy had the right to move so quietly.
Soon after, he picked up the sound of footsteps, slowly coming closer. Was this it? Continuing to hum his pleasant tune to himself, he put on a face of steady confidence and prepped his preplanned opening line. He wanted to appear confident and unperturbed; the last thing he needed was to seem desperate. She wouldn’t want desperate Tehlmar, even though that was how he really felt inside.
A figure came to a stop outside his cell. Though the lighting wasn’t great, he would recognize Arlette Demirt’s figure anywhere. Arlette stared in at him and he grinned back. Her eyes went wide and she froze, staring at him for a few moments. Tehlmar just kept grinning. She rubbed her eyes in disbelief and looked again, and Tehlmar’s grin widened.
“Hey there, Letty!” he chuckled. “We really need to stop meeting like this. It’s bad for my health!”
Arlette blinked. “But... you...” She shook her head, her eyes lighting up with anger. “Who are you?!”
Now it was Tehlmar’s turn to blink. “What are you talking about? It’s me, Tehlmar!”
“You’re not Tehlmar,” she replied, turning to press something out in the hall that he couldn’t see.
Suddenly, the ropes connected to the shackles on his arms and legs went taut, pulling Tehlmar forcefully back against the wall until he hung pressed against the cold metal, spread-eagle off the ground. “H-hey! What are-”
“I watched that bastard die. I visited his corpse,” Arlette told him as the cell door slid silently open and she stepped through it. “I don’t know who you really are or why you’re pretending to be a dead man, but you’re going to tell me everything.”
“Wait a moment, Letty, just calm down! It’s really me, I swear!”
She snorted in a mix of fury and amusement as she slowly drew closer. “Yeah? Prove it.”
“Prove it?!” This wasn’t going how he’d hoped at all! “Letty, come on now! What, do you think I’m a Mask taking on the form of a dead man? A dead man who was hailed as a hero and given a public funeral? What’s the logic in it? The point is not to stick out!”
“Perhaps,” she replied, “but then why would one of you pose as a mercenary named ‘Jaquet’ in a middling mercenary band and spend years doing guard duty and bandit hunting? What’s the logic in that, huh? What valuable intelligence could that ever uncover? No, I’m not going to try to understand why you creeps do what you do.” A knife appeared in her left hand. “Better start talking, I’m almost out of patience.”
“Okay, okay, uhhh...” His mind scrambled to come up with something that would convince her, but he found himself coming up empty in the heat of the moment. “We first met at the Gold Tail Inn in Nevin, when I bumped into you on the stairs and you said-”
“I’ve told that story dozens of times. Anybody who knows me would know it and could have told you.” The knife crept upward, slowly moving towards his throat.
“Ah, right... umm... What about that one time outside Agosa when we got in a fight with an entire tavern because that one guy grabbed your ass and I punched his lights out? You didn’t tell anybody about that, did you?”
“We had to spend part of the band’s funds to bail us out, of course I did. I complained to everybody in the band. And with the Eterians’ love of record-keeping, there’s surely records of that time left in Agosa that a well-connected spy organization could find.” The knife went to his throat. “Maybe you are him after all. You have the slow-wittedness down pat. Last chance.”
Why did his mind have to go blank now of all times? She wouldn’t actually kill him, could she? What about interrogating and all that?
“Uh... uh... You talk in your sleep?”
“...I talk in my sleep? Is that the best you could come up with? Well, do go on! What do I say?”
“I dunno, lots of stuff. Ummm, calling out to your parents, stuff about me, stuff about food, somebody named ‘Peko’, all sorts of-”
Arlette stiffened at his words. “How do you know that name?!” she hissed.
Tehlmar paused, confused. “What, Peko? Don’t ask me, you’re the one that used to mumble it. ‘Peko, where are you?’ ‘Where did you go, Peko?’ Stuff like that. You’ve always been so prickly about your past so I just never asked.”
Arlette stepped back, seemingly rattled from some realization. “You’re... it’s really you! It’s...” Suddenly, her face contorted with fury, only this time the anger in her eyes struck him as far deeper and more personal than that of a few moments before. “You manipulative son of a bitch!”
Tehlmar let out a pained wheeze as Arlette drove a fist into his abdomen once, twice, a third time. The cut across his belly, now mostly healed, broke open and blood began to slowly drip down onto his pants.
“Faking your own fucking death?! What, did you figure that if you made it look like you’d died that I’d forgive you or something?! What in the world made you think that playing with my feelings like that would be a good idea, huh?! Stars above, to think I actually felt a hint of grief over your sorry ass!”
“Letty, please stop, it’s not like that!” he implored her, but she kept punching anyway.
“How could you do that to me?! Do you have any idea what it felt like to read that letter after I thought you were dead?! I should fucking lock you up in here for the rest of eternity for that alone!”
“Letter? Wait, hold on, what letter?” Tehlmar inquired, as he desperately gasped for breath. He hadn’t asked anybody to give her any letters. In fact, he’d only written a single letter since heading out for war and... Tehlmar paled as he put two and two together. “...he gave you the letter. Ohhhhhhh, that fucker. I’m going to rip his limbs off.”
“What are you going on about?” she snarled, her fist finally pausing their assault on his poor diaphragm.
“I... you weren’t... supposed to get that...” Tehlmar admitted, looking off to the side to avoid meeting her scalding gaze.
“I ‘wasn’t supposed to get that’?! You mean the fucking MARRIAGE PROPOSAL?!”
“Look, I... I thought I wanted to tell you my true thoughts, you know? But it became too much and I wasn’t happy with how it came out so I told my ‘assistant’ to burn it all. That was probably his way of getting revenge against me for treating him like crap.”
“Then why even fake your death at all? Why put me through all of this? Did you even consider how I would feel?!”
“Letty, I’m trying to tell you! I didn’t fake anything! I actually died!”
Arlette frowned at him, her brow furrowing. “But then... how are you...”
Tehlmar shrugged, or the closest he could given his bindings. “What can I say? I got better.”
“Tehlmar, don’t fucking play games with me right now,” Arlette growled.
“I’m can’t tell you, sorry,” he informed her. He’d promised the Chos he wouldn’t reveal the secret to his revival. The knowledge of their superweapon was limited to Stragma and a small number of Drayhadans, and Akhustal didn’t want it spreading far and wide.
“Why, is this another of your stupid Masked Battalion secrets?”
If he could have crossed his arms, he would have. “I can neither confirm nor deny anything about this.”
“You!” Her hands balled back into fists.
“What? Why do you even care, anyway?” he asked.
Arlette faltered, her angry scowl shifting into something more mournful. “...Pari’s dead.”
“...oh, I see.” Gazing upon Arlette’s sorrowful visage, that was all he could manage. Pari Clansnarl, much like Sofie, had just shown up one day and become a member of their little group. However, unlike the Earth girl, the little tyke had actually carried her weight and more, providing them with odd by usable weapons and helping them escape danger. He’d grown to like the tiny child.
“Look, Tehlmar, Sofie’s crumbling into pieces and everybody’s miserable and I... I miss her. Please, if there’s any way to bring her back...” Arlette pleaded.
Tehlmar’s thoughts warred within his head. On the one hand, he’d sworn an oath to the woman who’d somehow turned into his greatest friend and ally. Sure, their bond was based largely on their mutual dislike of his sister and the Chos’s admiration for the man he’d once been, but he couldn’t deny that she’d done him multiple incredible, life-changing favors. He owed her an immense debt.
On the other hand, the woman he loved was grieving, and it made him feel like he was going to fall to pieces. He’d seen her once like this before, after Zrukhora. The sudden loss of their mercenary comrades had gutted her, and as he’d looked on, unable to help her with anything more than empty words, he’d never felt so powerless. But this time, he could do something. All he had to do was break his oath and throw what little of his honor he had remaining out the window.
It wasn’t worth it. He wanted to make her happy, but he hadn’t come all the way here and thrown away his whole life just to make her feel better one time. He wanted his own happiness too, one linked to hers for a lifetime, not just for a moment. But what if he could get what he wanted by giving her what she wanted? Yes, he’d break an oath for that.
“Alright, I’ll tell you,” he said, drawing a start of surprise from his interrogator. “But I want a date first. One date and then I’ll tell you everything.”
Her face swiftly darkened. “A date?”
“Yeah, one of those things Sofie used to talk about. A romantic night out on the town, just you and me. Dinner, dancing, all of it. I want one shot. Just one. But it has to be real. You have to give me an honest chance.”
Even in the dim light, he could see Arlette’s face flush with fury. “You... you unbelievably selfish, boorish, asinine piece of shit! How could you even think of holding her life hostage like that?!”
“Oh come on, Letty, give me a break! It’s not like I’m saying you have to accept me if you want the kid back. All I’m asking is for an evening of your time, just you and me with no interruptions. Are you saying that Pari is not worth even a single evening? You still owe me a drink, I might add.”
“It’s... it’s not about that, you boneheaded puddle of puke!” she fumed.
“Well, that’s my offer,” he stubbornly replied. “A very generous one, I might add.”
“You... you...!” Arlette’s fists were trembling, and Tehlmar braced himself for a second, more brutal beating. But instead, she turned her back on him and stormed out without saying another word, the sliding door locking into place with quiet finality.
“Uh, Letty? Could you let me down please?” he called after her. A moment later, the metal ropes went slack, dumping him rudely on his rear. He let out a sigh as he leaned back against the cold metal and listened to her footsteps fade away until they were gone.
“Well, that could have gone better,” he muttered to himself. He settled down to wait. Man, he was hungry.
* * *
Tehlmar perked up as his ears caught the sound of the dungeon door opening again. He hadn’t expected her to return so soon—just a few hours, according to his internal clock. Putting on a bright, confident smile, he called out to her as she approached.
“Back so soon? I’m glad you-”
The figure that arrived at the door wasn’t Arlette.
“-oh, it’s you. What do you want?”
For the second time, the metal ropes slid into the wall, smacking his backside against the wall. The cell door slid away and Sofie stepped inside, her body swaying slightly with each step. Tehlmar recognized the movements from decades of experience: she was drunk, though not heavily. A bottle hung from her left hand, gripped loosely by the neck. Tehlmar found it strange; Sofie had never been much of a drinker during their time together. And a bottle of beer? Glass-bottled alcohol was expensive outside of Otharia, a luxury reserved for the richest of the rich. He could only imagine its cost here. How had she of all people gotten her hands on some?
“Tell me how to save her,” she said, her voice low and threatening.
“I’ve made my conditions quite clear,” he stated.
“I’m not asking. Tell me how to save Pari. Now.”
“Or what?” he sneered.
Sofie stepped closer, close enough for Tehlmar to get his first good look at her. He was shocked at what he saw. Was this really the same girl he’d spent more than a season interacting with? Her body had thinned considerably from the last he’d seen her, and the last he’d seen her had been in a dungeon after days of brutal travel and malnourishment. Massive black bags beneath her eyes stood out against her pallid, sunken face. Arlette hadn’t been kidding when she’d said that Sofie was breaking down over Pari’s death. It was enough to almost make him feel sorry for her. Almost.
“Remember that time you lifted me off the ground by my neck and strangled me, told me you’d kill me if got in your way, then threw me into a cart?”
Tehlmar thought back to the many days they’d spent together but he came up blank. “Can’t say I do,” he replied casually.
“Well, I remember. I remember very clearly,” Sofie told him. With a quick swing, she slammed the glass bottle against the nearby wall, shattering it and spilling shards all over the floor. Her hand still grasping the neck, she lifted the remaining third to her eye level and inspected the sharp-looking jagged edge that remained. “I remember all the terrible ways you treated me back then. Looking at you now, all those memories give me the urge to use this bottle to slice off your manhood. Not that much would be lost, I’m sure.” She stepped closer, leaning in and holding the improvised knife out for him to see. “Or you can tell me how to bring my sister back. Your choice.”
Looking into Sofie’s desperate—no, unhinged—gaze while tied to a wall and helpless, most people might have cracked under the pressure. Not Tehlmar. He knew the woman standing before him, and he didn’t believe a word of it.
“Go ahead,” he told her.
Sofie paused. “I’m serious! I’ll do it!” she insisted.
“No, you won’t. You’re the softest person I’ve ever known. You don’t have it in you to do what needs to be done, and you never have.”
“Shut up! I’m not some naive girl anymore! I’ve survived just as much as the rest of you!” She put the edge of the broken bottle by his crotch.
“Yeah?” Tehlmar thrust out his groin as best he could from his hanging position. “Make sure you stab downward and a bit inward from the above the base of the penis, or it’s going to take you a while and get quite messy.”
Sofie blanched, her breath beginning to quicken.
“Blood all over the place, you know? Just dripping and squirting everywhere, all over you, me, this wonderful cell... Have to slice as much of it off in the first stab as you can.”
The hand holding the broken bottle trembled as it hovered above his privates. Sofie’s breathing continued to increase, her breaths getting shallower with every word he spoke.
“But I do hope you have something to cauterize it all after you’re done, or I’ll be taking my secret to the grave for the second time. Shame you don’t seem to have any torches around. Those work great, just hold it up and smell the burning flesh get all nice and crispy. Mmmm, smells great!”
With a loud “HURK!”, Sofie’s whole body spasmed and she doubled over and fell to her hands and knees, whereupon she proceeded to empty the contents of her stomach onto the floor below him.
“Hey, come on! Now I’m gonna fall into your puke!” he protested as her heaves slowly transitioned into dry sobs. “Fucking lightweight, can’t even hold down your drink...”
“Why?! Why can’t you just have a heart?” she asked through a cascade of tears.
“Because I came here with a purpose, and I’m not going to just give away the only thing I have to work with just to be nice,” he responded. “And because I don’t like you. You’re a coward, Sofie. You’re soft and weak and stupidly naive. You don’t belong in this world, and you don’t belong anywhere near Arlette where all you can do is put her in danger. I knew it from the moment I saw you, and nothing you’ve done has shown otherwise.”
The girl hung her head but didn’t say anything. A few silent moments later, she swayed to her feet, turned away from him, and headed for the exit, never once meeting his eyes.
“You don’t deserve her,” she told him just before she left the cell.
Tehlmar let out a somber laugh. “I don’t. But love doesn’t care about who deserves what, does it?”
The only reply that came was the soft click of the door sliding closed, followed by the distant sound of the Earthling leaving the dungeon.
Several moments later, Tehlmar realized that nobody was left to let him down. The room stank of alcohol and vomit.
“Well this just keeps getting better and better,” he mumbled to himself.
Comments
Erdos
Thanks
Caanbo
Is was just shot but good
