Warsinger - Chapter Sixteen

Author Note: Long chapter is long! One of my faves of the book, personally.

I didn’t calm down until I reached the Parade Ground and saw Karalti. She rested on the pad formed by her pubic bone and the base of her tail, looking down at Masha. The tiny old woman was standing on an upturned box, waving her hands like a conductor as the dragon opened and closed her wings, drew them in and rolled her wingshoulders, stretched them forward and back.

"And open them once more!" I heard Masha call out, sing-song. "There we go! How does that feel now, your Holiness?"

"It feels okay." Karalti huffed, broadcasting to me as I boiled across the plaza toward them. "My chest is still a bit achy."

"Ach, well, that will pass with time. It's important you not fly tonight, my lady. You must rest while the potion does its work." Masha turned her head as I stalked up. "Ah, if it isn't the Demon Slayer of Taltos! You look like a fly bit you on the huadiv, Tuun."

"Uhn." I went to Karalti's side and lay my hands on her scales. As soon as I did, she flinched.

"Hey, what’s wrong?" She rumbled in her throat, bending her neck down until the tip of her snout rested in my hair. "What happened? I've never felt you this... this angry before."

"Suri and I had an argument. Don't worry about it." I looked back to Masha. "Did I hear right? She can't fly until morning?" 

"No. After some trial and error and the help of a veterinarian, we discovered that three of her ventral ribs had separated from her sternum," Masha replied. "The Bonefuse potion worked splendidly, but that cartilage takes time to heal. She must rest tonight. No flying, no exertion of her wings or forearms. Definitely no magic."

"You can feed me tidbits from a pillow! Like a real Queen!" Karalti said, reaching out with her tongue to lick the back of my head. 

“Sounds good to me.” I put my forehead against her knee and breathed in deeply. Karalti had a unique, sweet smell. Like lotus flowers and ozone and earthy soil. She smelled like the jungle at night. It centered me like nothing else in the world could.

"Thanks for helping her," I said, looking back at Masha. "Sorry to ask, but I need to catch up with her about some stuff. Mind leaving us alone for a while?"

"But of course. You know where to find me if you need me, Count Tuun." Masha sketched a courtly bow, then hopped off her box and sauntered off toward the Keep.

"Something happened with Suri?" Karalti asked, once she'd left.

"Yeah." I looked around the parade ground, searching for somewhere Karalti could bed down. It was built on a leveled volcanic plateau facing a large cavern, a natural hangar where the Volod's fleet of airships rested on huge stone drydocks. "Let's walk, and see if they can make some hangar space for us."

"Us?" She rolled forward onto her feet and shook herself out.

"Yeah. I promised you I would, remember?"

"You did! But hey… Do you… want to talk about Suri?"

I shook my head, jogging to keep up with Karalti as she padded alongside me. Each of her thunderous steps counted for about five of my human ones. "Not really."

"You feel really mad, though. And worried. It's not good to bottle it up." The dragon swished her tail, holding it high and arched, like a balancing pole. "I never thought I'd see you mad at Suri. Usually it's me who's angry about something."

"She got some damn quest to go running after those wardens she wants revenge on," I said. "There's no time limit on it, but she threw a tantrum because I asked her to come to Myszno and take care of things there first. She just wanted to run off back to the fucking desert after we spent five days tracking her down. I don't get it, Tidbit."

"I dunno. Maybe she's hungry? I always want to kill stuff when I'm hungry. Maybe take her some venison?"

I sighed. Dragon logic.

"I wish I could take you hunting, or do some training with you," she continued. "You always feel so happy when we're flying or working out together."

"I'm always happy with you, even when you're hungry. Which, I have to say, has been most of the time lately."

“Yeah. Like… now.” Karalti lifted her horns, but then seemed to think of something and flattened them tight against her skull. They eased up as she looked down at me, suddenly apprehensive.

"What?"

"I don't know, but..." She trailed off, considering her words. "Well... you know I'm getting older. And you know it's almost time for my first heat?"

The thought bought color and heat to my face, despite the cold wind. "So?"

"It's possible that you're feeling irritable because… you know." She looked as embarrassed as any apex predator could. "I mean, we share all kinds of feelings with each other. I hurt a bit when you’re injured, you got an achy chest when I was in pain. Well, since I reached Level 10, sometimes I feel hot and cold, and then like I can't sit still, and then I get up to move and feel grumpy and tired and hungry. And THEN I try and sleep, but I can’t sleep, because I get, uh, ‘feelings’ and have to take care of them. Maybe you're picking up on me?"

"Uhhn.” Now she mentioned it, I had been more moody than usual. I was usually a bright and cheerful ray of sunshine, but I couldn’t deny that there had been a recent uptick in irritable horniness, nighttime brooding, and constant snacking. “But… ugh! Her fucking temper is out of control, Karalti! That's all that's bothering me right now." 

"Well... okay." Karalti heaved a rumbling sigh, put her head down, and lapsed into skeptical silence.

Getting her a space in the hanger wasn’t too hard. The Royal Engineers were more than happy to have a sacred dragon nest in one of their empty ship bays, and dragged out stacks of canvas tarpaulins so that Karalti and I had something to sleep on other than raw stone. She settled down into the makeshift bed, carefully avoiding putting pressure on her chest, and lay her chin on the floor. Her muzzle tracked me as I uncoiled my bedroll, kicking it with more force than it really needed.

"Even if nothing's making you irritable, you know Suri is gonna be more grumpy than usual for a while, right?" she asked. "Grumpy as in, ‘not rational’. I mean, she just got out of Al-Asad. She’s really upset.”

I scowled down at the bedroll. "I know, but she doesn't need to take it out on me."

"Just give her some time. I think you’ll both be okay." Karalti nudged her snout toward me. “I’m really happy you’re sleeping with me tonight, though. We should do that more often.”

I flushed, and cleared my throat. "I won't be sleeping for a while, yet." 

“You should. You’re tired and grumpy in the day time now, remember?”

“Yeah, but everyone else is awake in the day. And I have to follow up on the quest Matir gave me.”

Karalti curved one trembling wing high enough that I could slip underneath. "Then come and cuddle with me for a while before you go out to do worky things. I sleep."

As I ducked under her wing, I felt like laughing and crying and squeeing over how adorable my dragon was all at the same time. Maybe she was right, and I was hormonal. When slid down to sit on the floor against the arch of her belly, she dropped the heavy black membranes around me like a leather curtain. "You could move your bedroll under here, you know."

"I will." I soaked up the heat of her body through my back, and for the first time in several days, took a moment to relax. But only a moment. Restlessly, I opened my quests window, and reviewed the sub-quest I’d gotten after confirming The Second Drachan War.

New Sub-Quest: Know Thy Enemy

Now that you have accepted the challenge of confronting Archemi's oldest and most powerful enemies, where do you start? The library, of course. You can’t fight what you don’t understand, so your first step to victory is to gather as much information as possible on the Drachan, the Rostori, the history of the races of Archemi, and the wars that they fought when the Drachan invaded the world.

You must unlock A-Grade or higher information on the Drachan War, the Drachan [Extraterrestrial Species] and the Rostori [Extraterrestrial Species] to complete this quest. You will gain bonus EXP for collecting A-grade knowledge on the following subjects:

· Humans and Elves in Archemi (+100)

· The Meewfolk Empire (+250)

· The History of the Shalid (+100)

· The Mercurions (+50)

· The Aesari (+300)

· The Nine (+300)

· The History of Tungaant (+350)

· The Dragon Gates (+150)

· The History of Myszno (+200)

Seek information from archives, dungeons, knowledgeable NPCs, museums, universities, and other places of knowledge. The more information you have, the better your strategy will be - and in the process of researching Archemi's history, you may open up special quests that will further your cause.

Rewards: 1400 EXP, stat increases, race-specific quests, bonus skill points, bonus languages.

It was pretty much my worst nightmare, in quest form: go to a library full of paper-and-ink books and painstakingly research obscure worldbuilding subjects. No search engines, no screenreader, no five-minute VidTube summary version.

“You know, Rutha said something weird during her testimony,” I remarked to Karalti. “She said that Baldr wants to kill the Drachan too. That that’s his end game."

"Kill them? But he made a deal with them, didn't he? He keeps sending Void creatures after us, and he runs his stupid cult..."

"You know, now that I think about it, the cult thing actually supports that theory," I replied. "Do you remember when we got ambushed in Taltos and we caught that one guy? The cultist that gacked himself by slashing his neck open on your claw?"

"Yeah. That was pretty weird."

"He was saying something about being free of the Caul of Souls, and going on to live forever." I let the window hang. "I'm worried. I told Matir that's what I wanted to do. Destroy the Caul and deal with the Drachan once and for all. But after hearing that he wants to do the same thing... I dunno. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we SHOULD be preserving the Caul."

"Yeah, but if the Drachan are all dead, we don't need a Caul." Karalti began to groom her foreclaws, nibbling at them with her sharp front teeth. "If you tried to save the Caul, that’d be dumb. It’d be like trying to keep a hatchling in its shell once the egg has already started to crack. Once the cracks start, the baby is gonna come out whether we're ready or not."

"Yeah. In this case, it's not a baby, just a bunch of howling void horrors." I chuckled, steeled myself, and accepted the quest.

[You have accepted a quest: Know Thy Enemy!]

[New markers added to your maps: Vulkan Keep Library, Karhad University Archives, Royal Library of Vlachia]

"Guess I know where I'm spending the rest of the day." With a sigh, I called up a map of Vulkan Keep, checked to see where the library was, and got to my feet. "You rest up, Tidbit. Let me know if you get bored. I'll send you something to dismember."

"That'd be nice. Dismemberment is always fun, unless it happens to one of my friends. Which reminds me: I hope Vash is better soon. I want to learn how to fight like a human from him sooo bad."

“Yeah, I don’t think he’s up and running yet. Last I checked, he was still unavailable to assign to anything.” I passed my mind to check the heroes menu, but I was too annoyed and it felt like too much work – especially considering what I was about to go and do.

I left Karalti narfing away at the dead scales on her elbows and legged it for the castle proper. It was a long walk. Vulkan Keep was built into the open face of Mt. Racosul, the dormant volcano that loomed over Taltos. The main keep rested in an enormous cavern partly carved from the native rock. It was a blocky, brutal looking place, nearly invisible from the air and difficult to assault from any direction. The mountain provided shelter from above, boiling hot springs gushed from beneath it, and a deep valley loomed below. It wasn’t pretty, but if Vlachia was ever attacked, I'd rather be here than in the exposed towers of Kalla Sahasi.

Inside, Vulkan Keep was an austere cathedral of sweeping polished black halls. Furnace vents carrying hot air from the volcanic springs kept it warm and humid. Red patterned carpets muffled the echoing crack of bootheels on the stone floors, but voices carried from every corner to the Keep's great hall, where a single long carpet led to the towering black Raven Throne. I was surprised to see Ignas standing near the front of the hall, talking with the Dakhari emissary who had been at the Parliament meeting. The dark-skinned man was stroking his moustache, listening and nodding as Ignas said something in a hushed whisper and then stepped away.

"Ah, just the man I was hoping to see," he called out as I tried to sneak around them. "Count Dragozin, did you happen to meet the Honorable Pasha?"

"We had to leave early." I resigned myself to having to socialize some more, and wandered over.

"The Count and Countess of Myszno were the pair I was telling you about, Pasha," Ignas said smoothly, positioning himself to include me in the circle of conversation. "You really should consider their suggestion, you know. There's a lot to be said for earning the faith of Starborn. I credit both him and Suri for the victory against that damnable vampire." 

"I have heard the Tuun are fierce warriors. Apparently, those scholarly rumors are true: a victory against the Napathu is unusual enough to be of great merit." Pasha said. Or... the Pasha. I wasn't sure if it was his name or a title. He extended a hand. “A pleasure, Count Dragozin.”

“Same.” The Dakhari emissary’s hand was soft and moist. I jerked it limply a couple of times and gratefully let go. Up close, he smelled of perfume and some kind of strongly-scented oil that clung to the insides of my sinuses. “Though Suri is just as responsible for that victory as I am. We co-led the Myszno Defense Force against the Demon.”

"Suri? That is the name of your 'companion'?" He flashed yellowing teeth.

Standing near this guy was like getting maced in the eyes by one of those automated public toilet air-freshener dispensers. I took a step back, trying to get some distance. “Sure is. Definitely an honor to have her near the head of the table today, wasn’t it?”

"Indeed. Suri Ba'Hadir is a fine woman and a fine warrior," Ignas interjected, squeezing my shoulder warningly.

"Ba'hadir?" The Pasha got a strange expression. "That is an ancient name. Most definitely not one suited to a Shallatu."

My temper spiked, and before I realized what I was doing, I shrugged Ignas' hand off and took a step toward him. "What did you just call her?”

The nobleman blanched, and held up his hands placatingly. "Shallatu is not an insult, Count Dragozin, merely a descriptive word in my native tongue to describe someone of her born social position. To be Fireblooded like... Suri... is to be without caste. Her ancestors were shunned from society, but that is not her fault, or the fault of any individual living today. Every man and woman is born to their station in Dakhdir, and every man and woman may be reincarnated into a higher station, should they lead a virtuous life. By her acts of heroism, she shall almost surely do just that."

"It is a social custom we do not practice in Vlachia, but we respect all customs as part of the terms of the Alliance," Ignas said, glancing at me. "And by turn, we here in Vlachia are not as liberal as Hercynia. Queen Eevi, charming as she is, finds some of our customs difficult to understand."

"Yeah." I still didn't like the way Pasha was looking at me. "Well, Suri is a countess now, and there's even some people who swear she's a princess. So I guess her station depends on who you ask."

Pasha's eye twitched at 'princess'. "Indeed. Some here may consider me a mere emissary of His Radiance, but it does not reflect my station as a Pasha of the Sultir's court. Unfortunately, speaking of my liege, I must beg his Majesty's pardon and go work on my letter. His Radiance is displeased by late mail."

"Indeed he is. By all means, attend to your duties." Ignas bowed slightly, while the Pasha did a full courtly scrape and backed up while still bowed. Only when he was about ten feet away did he turn and bustle off in the direction of the guest wing.

Once he had vanished through the door and the door had closed, Ignas pinched the thin bridge of his nose and sighed.

“Sorry,” I said. “I-“

He sharply raised his hand, palm out, and I stopped talking.

“No. Do not apologize. Kings and Counts do not cringe like naughty children,” he admonished. “They say ‘I shall do better’, learn from their mistakes, and seek not to repeat them. You need to learn to control your temper if you hope to participate in court.”

I bit back the ‘sorry’ that automatically tried to come out and crossed my arms instead. "It's been a bad day. He was staring daggers at her while Rutha was speaking today. It got on my nerves."

"A bad day and one minor insult are no excuse to tip your hand to a rat like Sumay'al Aswan. The only difference between a diplomat and a spy is that the former can claim immunity if his assassins are caught in the act of murdering someone." Ignas' voice was as stern as I'd ever heard it, but after a moment, his expression flickered. "Come with me, Hector. Let us talk like princes, seated and in private."

I had the weird feeling I was about to get some kind of dad lecture as Ignas led me to the parlor where both he and his younger brother liked to host their private conversations. It was cozy and dark, with an ever-burning fireplace, fine wooden furniture, a cabinet full of liquors and a hutch for crystal. It smelled like many different kinds of old smoke: incense, cigars, and wood from the fire.

Ignas poured me a double shot of sweet plum slivovitz without asking, and eased down into his preferred armchair with two glasses: a small tumbler of a strong berry liquor called rakija, and a much larger one of clear water. I took the sofa.

"I was hoping to catch up with you anyways," Ignas said, sipping at the alcohol and then the water. "It can be difficult to stay in touch with the Voivodes of the hinterlands at the best of times, and I'm still getting a handle on the country after my coronation. Vlachia is a huge territory, and Myszno a large province."

"Sure is." I took a mouthful of slivovitz, but didn't sit back.

Ignas gazed at me over the edge of his glass. "How is it there? Really?"

I sighed. "Pretty much FUBAR, to be honest."

He cocked his head. "I'm not familiar with that expression."

"It's rude," I said. "Stands for Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition."

The king barked a laugh. "Not the rudest thing I've heard or said, I assure you. One of the Nightstalkers' best prize fighters went by the name Cuntface."

"How the hell did he end up with that name?"

Ignas gave the Vlachian shrug, a small rolling lift of the shoulders. "Someone slit his cheek from jaw to eye and the announcer blurted out that, with the tip of his tongue showing through the wound, it resembled the female anatomy. The name has stuck to this day." 

"Hah." I snorted. "Good old Cuntface."

"Anyway. Is the damage to Myszno that profound?"

"The north is alright. The east is dirt-poor, but the Demon didn't plow through it like he did the southern part," I said. "I had about thirty quests dumped on me, and they all have to be done before the harvest season. Racsa is the breadbasket of the county and there's no fucking food. Ashur - the Demon - blitzed Racsa and Bas counties right back into the stone age. Everything's screwed. The infrastructure, the farmland, the population…"

"Hmm." Ignas' brows knit.

"Besides that, I'm pretty sure Lord Soma is just biding his time in Litvy, waiting for me to fuck it all up." I slumped back against the plush leather - the same sofa where I'd accepted the quest to go to Myszno to begin with. "He wants to be Voivode. He said as much on the Prezyemi Line."

"He will never be Voivode. He was an open ally of my brother's, and that immediately disqualifies him from any position of significant authority." Ignas shook his head ruefully. "Are you on good terms with him?"

"No, and I don't plan to be. He tried to incite mutiny and challenged me to a duel," I said. "I kicked his ass and threw him in the brig for a couple days. After that, he seemed to cool off, but I don't trust him."

"Not trusting him is wise." Ignas nodded. "But you are making your decisions based off how you feel about his character. Are you always perfectly composed, perfectly wise?"

"No, but-"

"Of course you’re not. I would say you are proud, stubborn, independent but immature, hot-headed, aggressive and emotional... all qualities I know Soma to also possess. The main differences between you are that he is noble born, scholarly, and hates risk, while you are common-born, decidedly unscholarly, and highly risk-tolerant." Ignas gestured to me. "Let me pass to you some things that my father taught me, when he was training me to succeed him as Volod."

I felt my back go up as he rattled off his shit-list summary of my personality, but tried to let it slide. "Okay. Sure."

"Firstly, Hector, there is no such thing as good and bad in this world. You may loathe Count Soma and Pasha Aswan and feel they are bad people, but be assured that their mothers love them and many of their subjects with pride at their accomplishments. There is only function and dysfunction. Very stupid or proud or even very degenerate, evil people may be very capable, earning riches and accolades, while extremely intelligent or good people may not have any control over their own behavior and live sloppy and unproductive lives. To think with power - to hold power over yourself and others - you must cease thinking of them in terms of what you think is good or bad, smart or simple. You must look at what they do and what they don't do. Their actions. Do you understand?"

As tired and irritable as I was, I thought about it. "I guess."

He held up two fingers. "The second lesson he taught me is related to the first: as a person and as a ruler, you are not what you think and feel. You are what you do. Your sense of your own personality is irrelevant. Your image of yourself, as Dragozin Hector, is false. In fact, your feelings about others - even your dear Karalti - are illusory."

I bristled. "That's not true. I love Karalti more than anything."

"You do. That is how you feel about her. It is also how you act toward her, and thus, you love her. But whatever you feel about Suri, or me, or Karalti, in actuality has nothing to do with any of us." He motioned to himself. "Your perception of me is merely your projection of who I am in your own mind. I, Ignas, have thoughts and beliefs about myself you will never see, experience, or care about. And because of that, you have an image of me. As a king, as a man whose advice you are willing to listen to. An authority figure. A source of quests, perhaps. Your image of me changes from minute to minute, day to day. When I praise you, you feel fond of me. When I assess you and give you uncomfortable advice, you feel my company to be less comfortable than before. Is that not true?"

The corner of my eye twitched. “Yeah.”

"Karalti is loveable to you because of the image you hold of her in your mind and heart," Ignas continued. "But do you think the peasant woman who sees Karalti swoop down to take one of her sheep feels the same way? Or the sheep, for that matter? They likely see her as a monster, hateful and terrifying."

"I guess," I admitted.

"You have an image of Karalti as being good because Karalti has been good to you. And that is the crux of it," Ignas said. "Her actions toward you, and yours to her, have made you close. So it is with every relationship under the sky. But let us say you were a commoner with a choice between two rulers: one ruler is temperate, manages his affairs and his kingdom well, recruits wise advisors and keeps his budget balanced with minimal taxes. The other ruler is a walking circus of errors, strangling his nation through poor decision after poor decision. Do you think the common person cares what the ruler is thinking or feeling while he does these things?"

"No. He cares about feeding his family and paying the least amount of taxes he can."

"Exactly." Ignas nodded. "You can make decisions with the best intentions, but if they are poor decisions, you will not be judged for your intent. You will be judged for the outcome. Therefore, how you think and feel is irrelevant. It is always, ALWAYS, about what actions you take, or don’t take."

I nodded slowly. "When I was in the army, there was a big difference between the guys that made a big talk and the guys who just did their jobs. Half the time, the guys who thought they couldn't cope with war became the best soldiers in the unit, but the ones who thought they were hot shit put the rest of us in danger."

"Yes, indeed. And think of your officers. Did you much care if your officers were of a different color or creed to yourself if they were good at leading?"

"No." 

"But if they were terrible officers, you surely noticed and thought ill of them." Ignas spread his hands, like a magician who'd just performed a magic trick. "Some will distill this idea down to the notion of 'appearance is everything' when you hope to attain and retain personal power. To some degree, that is true - but it is more accurate to say that 'action is everything'."

I took a moment to digest that, then nodded.

[You have learned a new Advanced Skill: Statesmanship 1. View the Archemipedia article on Statesmanship for more information and skill synergies.]

"So, make your assessment of Soma again,” Ignas said. “But do not refer to his character - only his actions."

"Well... Soma's demonstrated he's a brilliant engineer, but he told me himself that he didn't like being a military commander. He nearly handed Myszno to the Demon because he kept trying to make decisions about the defense based on how he felt about the people he had to work with."

"Right. And why do you think he was so fond of my brother?"

"Soma and Andrik were hunting buddies, right?"

"Correct." Ignas nodded.

"So he was probably loyal to Andrik because they had fun together," I said.

"Andrik was a terrible hunter. He rarely caught a thing," Ignas mused. "But Soma is quite a good shot with a rifle."

"So…being around Andrik probably made Soma feel confident and capable?" I leaned forward, thinking. "And Soma often acted insecure around others, so I guess that's why he had such a positive image of Andrik. Andrik made him feel powerful."

Ignas smiled. "And that is why my brother was a degenerate person and a mediocre king, but an excellent politician."