Xern, Sir of Febla: 33 Xiven

Dhekk refused to say another word. After a million “what do you mean”s and “how so”s, he remained silent, red in the face, storming down the street.

“I didn’t cause this!” Karsarath shouted after them. He jogged a bit to catch up.

“He doesn’t have a curse—maybe that’s how we end up seeing—” Dhekk cut him off by spinning around, nearly slamming into him. Kayin managed to skid to a stop in the dirt, but Karsarath fully ran into him. Dhekk grit his teeth: “Blab everything to everyone out here, will you? Shut up.” And then he was back to storming down the street, down a side-street, then back-tracking through an alley.

At first, Kayin thought Dhekk was being paranoid, leading them on false trails so they couldn’t be followed—but then he saw him hesitate on one corner. Dhekk was…flustered.

Down this colorful street labeled Vidridian on the corners, it seemed to be mostly homes. The savory spices and charcoal burned in the air, periodically bisected by soaps staining laundry that hung out the windows of the ground floors. After about a minute of walking down this road, Dhekk paused in front of one of the houses: four stories high, with stairs up to the second story. Despite the small windows for the ground floor, there wasn’t a door to it like its immediate neighbors, a pattern followed by every other building in this district. Ground floor entrance, second story entrance, alternating one by one. This house, labeled as 870521 Vidridian, was colored in an orange gradient, darkest on the bottom, almost yellow on the top with only a petite, white window in the gable end.

“This is us,” he announced without a pleasant tone. “Come on, I’ll yell at you in there.” That didn’t quite sell it. But Dhekk turned to Kayin, gesturing to the bag. “Come on, there’s a key in there.”

“Why not just do your thing to the door knob?” Kayin asked as he slipped off the bag. “Faster, anyway.”

“Because everything here is made with multiple materials to stop people like me from just going anywhere they want. Key. Now.” He stole the bag from Kayin without much trouble, untied the bed rolls to let them fall to the street, and began to dig through the various dwindling supplies. Some herbs, the final two health potions, rope, a dagger in a sheath. At the very bottom, Dhekk pulled out a gray key, then discarded everything else on the floor. It was small, not something Kayin really noticed when digging in the bag before—not that he did that as a rule.

Karsarath, notably, remained silent while Dhekk slumped up the stairs to open the door. Kayin took his time hoisting up the bag and bed rolls, as if he could find a way to hesitate long enough to enter the house last. But it didn’t work.

Sighing, he stepped inside in front of Karsarath, his stomach in knots.

The inside of this house was nothing short of fascinating upon first glance. The table and chairs were melded with the floor, connected completely and made of the same wood as the planks. The floor just twisted itself into a set of stairs flawlessly, as well, going up and down in a spiral. No saws or hammers needed with this.

“Wow,” Kayin said breathlessly. What a genius idea, making the furniture at the same time as making the house. This house was definitely deeper than it was wide; through the hallway beside the staircase, Kayin could vaguely see counters like the ones he saw in the Castle of Yatora. A whole kitchen for just one house.

When Karsarath entered, Dhekk was quickly to slam the door behind him.

“I thought we were supposed to keep that open—?” But he ignored Kayin’s question, and immediately skipped to the promised yelling part.

“Who did you talk to?” Dhekk demanded. “In Urbana. Did you tell anyone?” Karsarath responded only by rolling eyes eyes, as if he anticipated something like this. “When you were off makin’ money, did you get excited to actually do something important, rather than just get kicked out of every city? Or is this just your curse, to ruin years of—”

“Will you shut up?” Karsarath growled. “I’ve had enough of this. You’re rude, you’re unnecessarily mean—”

“What, I’m not nice enough to you?” Dhekk mocked.

“You’re mean to Kayin!” Despite them all standing in a triangle, the person they now yelled about seemed to be nothing but part of the furniture. Being this close to the wall, he couldn’t even back out of this. “You’re supposed to help him prepare for making the world a better place, but you’re a terrible example—”

“Thanks for your unwanted opinion,” Dhekk interrupted, “but you’re dismissed. You weren’t even welcome to begin with. I thought, sure, let’s keep a pet for Kayin—” Kayin gasped— “But then your curse started to spread, and it’s not worth putting the whole world—”

“You’re seriously blaming me for your troubles?”

“You know what they say: once is coincidence, twice is—”

Kayin took a step between them with his arms out, struggling to shout over them: “What are we even yelling about?” Now they answered at once, yelling at Kayin:

“Dhekk’s treating you like trash, and you’re just going to—”

“You can’t even tell a gerrie from an edia, you stay out of this—!”

“No! Stop that!” Karsarath shoved Kayin’s hand out from in front of him so that he could step closer to Dhekk. “You can’t just abuse someone and expect them to be able to rise above—”

“You’re not part of the plan,” Dhekk spat, “you can go.”

“This is insane, you’d rather stick to your pride than accept any help! All so you can boss around some child—”

“I’m not a child.”

Dhekk ignored Kayin’s input. “What help have you been, huh? Getting us a no from Urbana? Threatening the citizens of Dorr? Or how about now that the time line is messed up, Xiven knows all about us?”

“That’s not Karsarath’s fault!”

Karsarath stepped back against the door, now turned to Kayin completely. “You see how this is insane, don’t you?” Yes! Or…no. Karsarath wasn’t in Tidesa’s instructions, and now everything was going wrong before they could even begin.

“I—I don’t have….” A choice. An option. Anything else to do but hope he’d be enough going forward, at least to make some of what people went through worth it.

“Stand up for yourself!”

“Why are you yelling at me?”

Dhekk shoved between the two of them to grab the doorknob, and thrust it open to the sour-smelling city.

“Go,” he said firmly. “You’re not happy, you’re not wanted. Go.”

Kayin shoved at his mentor’s shoulder. “Dhekk, that’s not—” But Karsarath interrupted, and physically pushed Kayin out of the way of Dhekk’s glare.

He was calm, now, but a vein still popped out of his neck as he said, “You are responsible for your own failures. You’ll see when you don’t have me to blame.”

“You don’t know a tree from a mushroom. Get out, and take your curse with you.”

The silence that followed hurt more than standing between them when they yelled at each other. As Karsarath hesitated in the doorway, he gave Kayin one last glance and said, “When you get sick of him, I’ll be around.”

Slam. The house shook from the force, and all Kayin could do was stare where Karsarath stood before.

“Dhekk….”

“No more straying from instructions. We follow Tidesa’s letter to the T.” Dhekk bent down to snatch the bag from the floor, and turned his back to Kayin as he started to grumble to himself. “People didn’t die for us to fail this early.”

The day ended without much more conversation. Dhekk kept muttering things to himself, and Kayin felt himself folding internally. He liked Karsarath. Would he come back tonight, maybe after cooling off? Talk to Dhekk and sort things out? After some time, would he understand?

Kayin sat at the dining table with Dhekk under the simple chandelier, slurping some soup that Dhekk had gathered from the market earlier when Kayin went exploring. Kayin finished his food first, and sat, holding a wooden bowl with both hands.

It was difficult to be optimistic. To not sit and dwell on how much his insides twisted and complained. He always wanted to be someone important when he was little. He wanted to make a difference. Maybe he wanted it so badly, it manifested this time line Tidesa saw, where he got a step-by-step plan on how to be important.

But when Dhekk went out, and Kayin went exploring, it just became even clearer how little he knew.

Hesitantly, Kayin asked, “Dhekk, how…um, how did you know we were going here? This house? We’re staying here a while?”

“We’re borrowing this place from a friend of Tidesa’s,” he answered curtly. “Our instructions are to get Tornah to ally and see Xiven, then we have to be in Kingsland by…I forget when. I’ll check later.” Kayin nodded, but tapped his fingers on the bowl still. “What?”

“Was, um…. Was Tidesa’s friend, the one who owned this house, a criminal?” That got Dhekk to actually look at him.

“What?”

“It might be better to show you,” Kayin decided. He rose from the chair carefully, and waited for Dhekk to indicate that he was following. “Up here.” Kayin led Dhekk up the set of stairs that led to two rooms on the third floor: one on the left, one on the right, both with two simple cots against either wall. Across from the opening of the stairs was a decorative end table with a drawer, of which only had blank parchment and charcoal inside when Kayin looked.

“First I thought it was kind of weird that this just stopped here, because I thought there was more, and then I figured it was just an attic. But look.” Kayin pointed to the floor, where the end table separated from the floor. “I thought it was cool that all the furniture was made at the same time as the ground and the walls, but this was put in after.” He knelt down, gesturing to the legs of the table. “At your place, I saw that the chair you wouldn’t let me sit in had these marks, too—” Though now that Kayin mentioned it, he cut himself off. He touched the scuffed floor, indicating that this table had been moved many times in the past. “Anyway, when I moved it, I looked up and saw that this part of the ceiling looks weird.” He pulled the table into the grooves and gestured for Dhekk to stand on top of it. Dhekk looked up first, instead.

“A hidden attic,” he recognized before climbing up. Dhekk didn’t need any help discovering the hidden latch that kept one set of planks up with the others. It was all the same color, difficult to see at a precursory glance. After Dhekk opened the trap and let the planks fall open, he grabbed the lip of the trap door, and started to pull himself up.

Kayin waited for him to get through the hole before he, himself joined. By the time he started to pull himself up, Dhekk was already laughing.

“Wow, had Ekyl been kind to Fero.”

With a grunt, Kayin pulled himself to stand beside Dhekk in this short, dim room. A tiny window to the street was all the light provided, without the candelabras lit. Directly above them was the gabled roof, leaving this space tilted and uneven above waist-height.

Along the smaller edges of the wall and roof, where Kayin had to bend over to get to them, were rows and rows of chests. Most held different kinds of fabrics, all sorts of outfits from important robes to elegant gowns and typical clothes of a farmer or soldier. Under the window was a small rack of dusty short swords and daggers.

Dhekk made his way to one of the further chests and opened it to look inside, still laughing.

Kayin cleared his throat, and decided to ask again: “Was Tidesa’s friend a criminal?”

Dhekk pulled out a massive, red pouch that jingled when he held it up.

“Oh, yeah. No one hides money like this if they get it legitimately.”

Kayin’s eyes went wide. “Um, do you think Tidesa—”

“This was left behind, Kayin. It’s for us.” Dhekk shut the trunk he pulled the money from, then sat on top of it to start sorting through the bag of coins. “At least one thing went right today.” Finding out their supposed revolution was being funded by a massive criminal? Right after alienating a friend? Yeah, sure.

The last time Kayin was expected to study this much was when everyone thought he would be the next Prince of Yatora. The discovery of the money put Dhekk into a spending mood: books on sword fighting techniques and strategy, history of Tornah politics, new clothes and hidden armor, multiple sets of shoes, and more food than Kayin had seen in a long time.

At first, upon seeing the groceries Dhekk returned with, Kayin doubted they would be able to eat all of it. Then, the very next morning, he discovered why Dhekk assumed they would be eating so much.

Mornings began before Rinesa awoke, in the crisp air of morning that threatened frost. Kayin was under no impression that Dhekk was a happy man, but perhaps he got closest to joy by barking orders every morning. Run a lap around the district. Climb that building without getting caught. Run up and down each porch stairs. More laps. Jumping exercises until his knees gave out.

“What—is—the—point?” Kayin panted one day.

“You’ll thank me later,” was always the answer. Even more baffling was how Dhekk hardly seemed to find this “training regimen” difficult. He sweat, sure, but always seemed to be able to keep going. One day, Kayin even puked before Dhekk understood that he was at his limit.

About a week into the torture, Dhekk started to add mental exercises.

“How many beds are in our house?” They started easy. Things Kayin could, eventually, answer after he sucked in more air. They got more difficult. “How far was that glade you got wrong in the forest on the way to Dorr?”

“Not a hundred feet,” Kayin choked out. Sweat dripped from him, almost free flowing, as they approached the door to their temporary home in their morning jog.

“You got a real answer?” prompted Dhekk. Kayin shook his head. “’Nother lap, then. Let’s go, up and down the stairs.” Maybe if he was a little more hydrated, Kayin would have burst into tears.

Wern, Fir of Marla: 33 Xiven

Just a few more days until this…gala.

Mornings and evenings of intense exercise, afternoons filled with studying strategy and building a profile on who Xiven might be.

Right when Kayin started to get a little used to the laps, lifting heavy things, and recalling stupid details while exhausted, his stomach grew tense, uneasy, and made it difficult to eat.

“You have to eat,” Dhekk said sternly when Kayin set his fork down.

“I’m not hungry.”

“You’re hitting a plateau. The best thing to do is keep going forward. Finish your food. You can’t lose your energy this close to the gala.” It wasn’t that much, just a bowl of fruit slices and another of mushrooms, but Kayin could easily remember when that was all he would get to eat for a day. Kayin slowly began to pick at the mushrooms, but remained slumped in his chair. Dhekk didn’t stay seated with him this morning, though, and instead excused himself to retreat to the ground floor to wash up.

One odd thing about Tornah, was that although it all smelled really terrible, was that the hygiene standards of everyone around seemed to be higher. Regular bathing—so regular, everyone had an entire pipe that led to their ground floor to fill up a bin with water, and a hole to dispense waste. Kayin soon learned that the water smelled just as bad as the air, but it was nice to get into a habit to rinse away dirt and grime gathered from the day.

Despite the distracting studying, eating more than he ever had before, and the consistent physical exhaustion, it was difficult to not begin to notice things, especially since Dhekk was trying so hard to help him build that skill, as well.

His clothes didn’t fit so nicely, even though they were new. The arms and shoulders were tighter, the legs were tighter. Just the other day, Dhekk had to pay for someone with Cigam to expand the material in all of Kayin’s clothes. It was a fascinating process to watch them use just bright light to thin the wool and cotton, but expensive, nonetheless. Not that money really mattered that much at the moment.

Kayin tried to focus on these physical differences; but, as the days ran out, it seemed like so did Dhekk’s ability to keep a mask on. While Kayin slept soundly, Dhekk didn’t. He stayed up later and later, woke up earlier. Although he let Kayin get enough rest, it was difficult not to watch him make a show of going to bed, closing the door, and waiting a few minutes until Kayin could hear him open the door again.

Dhekk was eating slower and slower as the days went on, too—but it wasn’t for lack of appetite. He’d pause, lean back, and just stare at the room around them, as if memorizing every detail.

The sound of the pipe below seizing let Kayin know that Dhekk was on his way up. In a moment of panic, he grabbed a full handful of fruit and shoved it in his mouth to try and make it look like he’d been eating this whole time—but it didn’t quite work. Dhekk just stared at him when he got to the top of the stairs.

“That help your appetite?” he asked sarcastically. Kayin couldn’t answer, just tried to keep his lips shut tightly to prevent any juice from leaking out. Dhekk grew impatient at Kayin’s lack of answer, and sighed. “I’m going to get clothes for…the gala,” he said carefully. “Start putting together all your notes for the profile of Xiven. We’ll combine yours with mine when I get back.” After Kayin nodded, Dhekk slumped his way out the open door.

Kayin had barely managed to finish chewing what was in his mouth when a shadow appeared in the doorway.

“You forgot the money?” Kayin asked as he looked up. The silhouette didn’t match Dhekk’s, though. Just as tall, leaner, with bigger hair. Kayin sprung to his feet, unable to hide his grin.

“I, um, have a gift for you,” said Karsarath with a smile. He did, indeed, hold a small box that looked to be about the size of Kayin’s arm, but Kayin only grabbed it and tossed it to the table before pulling the man into a hug.

“You’re back!” he announced happily. Karsarath leaned into the hug, but pulled away with hesitance.

“Well, no.” This made Kayin pull away to stare at him. “I’m not exactly back. I’ve—got a job that doesn’t ask Cigam questions and whatnot, somewhere else to be. But I know what’s coming, and—” He gestured to the table, where the box sat. “I want to help. I don’t know if this messes with some random time line or anything, but maybe it’ll help in a good way.” It was hard to hide his disappointment, so Kayin instead turned away to approach the gift.

“What is it?”

“I work at a metalsmith right now, selling some of her custom designs. She made this, but it made people more nervous than made them feel safe.” Karsarath gestured for Kayin to pull off the lid, so he did.

Inside the box, upon a bed of hay, was a bracer of sorts, made of a mixture of leather and metal. A small, thin casing rested on the underside. Kayin took it out to feel the details, the materials carefully.

“It’s, um, it’s pretty.” And it would work well in a battle, probably, to protect Kayin’s wrists.

“Press the button.”

“Button?” Kayin flipped the bracer upside down to take a better look at the attached metal box.

“It’s a spring-loaded knife. For in case of emergencies.” This made Kayin gasp, so he pressed the button. Shing! Right out of the bracer, parallel to where Kayin’s wrist would be, sprung a tiny, sharp dagger.

“Oooh, that’s really smart!” And he could see why regular patrons would shy away from such a thing.

“It’s hard to put back in. You have to press it down—” Kayin pointed it to the floor to push the dagger back into the box— “Like that, yes, and depress the button, which is a bit of pain. But it was a failed prototype, so my boss let me take it.” Kayin rose from shoving the blade in with the help of the floor, and began to try and strap the bracer to his right wrist.

“How is this a failed prototype?” he asked as he tightened the straps. It felt just like armor. He could hardly tell there was anything extra attached, let alone a secret weapon no one would be able to find in a pat-down.

“It’s meant to automatically load back into the sheath,” said Karsarath, “but sediment kept causing it to jam, so she settled with making it manual. It has to be regularly oiled or it risks sticking, so the upkeep makes it less desirable.” He shrugged. “No one would buy it. Their loss, our gain.” Kayin pressed the button to release the dagger, then pushed it back in with his weight against the floor again.

“This is amazing. Thank you!”

“Yeah! I hope it, uh, helps somehow.” The two now stood, facing each other, frowning.

“It’d be helpful if you actually joined us,” said Kayin.

“I’m not unconvinced Dhekk wasn’t right,” Karsarath replied in a quiet voice. “But, well, I don’t have to be directly involved to help. There’s no way I can curse you if I’m not there, right? Well—close, anyway.”

“What do you mean?” Kayin started to unstrap the bracer from his wrist to place it back in the gift box.

“The gala?” Karsarath prompted. “I assume that’s where you’re going to try to catch sight of Emperor Xiven. Kind of…you know, the obvious choice to make out if this.”

“Yeah….” Kayin closed the box and sighed. “I’ve been building a, um, a profile of him to try and figure out what he acts like, how he might react to seeing me, or me introducing myself to him. But with—with how public this is, Dhekk thinks it’s reasonable to assume something big might happen.”

Karsarath frowned at this. “I’ll be there, just not…you know, up close. But if trouble comes, I’ll jump in.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” And then, after a sad smile, he gave a short wave. “I’ll get going. Take care of yourself. Stop by The Pointy End if you need any metals shaped—for whatever reason.”

“You mean if Dhekk annoys me too much.”

“Exactly!”