They say God watches us in every moment. But I think, in some moments, when some deeds are done, he turns his face away.
“What do you see, Jorg?” Miana at my side now.
“That the killing ground is clear.” I took the ring from my eye.
“Can you win, Jorg?” she asked. “Against this prince? They say he is very good.”
I felt Sageous. I smelled him, picking at the edges of my thoughts, trying to filch my secrets.
“He is very good. And I…I am very bad. Let’s see what comes of that, shall we?” I made a wall of my imagination and kept my mind from wandering forward to what would happen. My hands knew what to do—I did not need to think of it.
There is a strong-box built into the base of my throne at the Haunt. Before they set my helm in place, I knelt in front of the throne and set the heavy key into the lock-plate. I lowered the side and reached in with my right hand, slipping it into the straps of the small iron buckler within, then drawing it out. I closed my fingers around the curious grip of the object that the buckler hid, and smiled. Imagine Fexler Brews thinking I would take “no” as an answer. I left the box open and stood, stepping off the dais so that the pageboys could reach to strap my helmet on.
“Move my sword belt round, Keven,” I said.
The boy frowned and blinked. He looked like a child. I supposed he was, no older than Miana. “Sire?”
I just nodded and still frowning he unbuckled the belt and refastened it with the hilt sitting on the steel above my left hip.
Some men name their swords. I’ve always found that a strange affectation. If I had to call it something I would call it “Sharp,” but I’m no more inclined to christen it than I would my fork at dinner or the helm upon my head.
I walked from the throne-room, taking slow steps, with all eyes on me.
“Red Jorg,” Kent said in a whisper as I passed.
“Red would be good, Kent. But I fear I am darker than that.”
When I opened that box I got more back than memory.
The flames on the torches by the doorway flared as I passed, infecting me with strange passion. I felt watched by more than my court, by more than Sageous and the players who seek to move the Hundred across their board. Gog watched me. From the fire.
I looked back one time, to see Miana beside the throne.
Lord Robert fell in behind me. Captain Keppen and Rike joined us outside.
“Time to jump the falls, old man,” I told Keppen as he stepped beside me. He grinned at that, as if he knew the hour was upon us and shared my hunger for it.
I led the way through my uncle’s halls. Degran no longer haunted me from the shadows, the fact of my guilt no longer came bound in the promise of madness, but I knew my crime even so. Death waited for me on the slopes, one way or another. Death would be good enough. Death at the Prince’s hands, death on the swords of his thousands, or the death Fexler had saved me from when he anchored into Luntar’s little box those forces of necromancy and fire with their hooks sunk so deep into me and their pulls opposing.
And that reminded me. I took the empty box out one last time to toss it aside. Pandora’s own casket had hope lurking within, the last among all the ills unleashed upon us by her misguided curiosity. She might have let hope fly, but not my way. Even so, I looked into the lidless box once more, hand raised to throw it to the floor. And there, on the polished copper interior, one small stain. One last memory? Reluctant to return? I set a finger to it and the darkness of it soaked through my skin, leaving only bright copper behind.
This memory didn’t seize me, didn’t lift me from the now, but settled in as recollection while I walked the Haunt’s corridors. I remembered that last talk with Fexler, back in Grandfather’s castle. Fexler had been considering the box as I held his view-ring to it.
“Sageous?” he had mused over the buzzing of the ring.
“Sageous? That filthy dream-thief did this to me? Put madness in me?”
“Sageous has done far worse than that, Jorg. He put you in the thorns.” Fexler had paused as if remembering. “What kept you there is another matter.”
Every thorn-scar had burned at his words. “Why?” I had asked. “Why would he do that?”
“The hidden hands that move the pieces of your empire have prophecies they like to share. They like to talk of the Prince of Arrow and his Gilden future. And then they have foretelling they are less eager to spread. The hidden hands believe that two Ancraths joined together will end all their power. Will end the game.”
“Two?” I had laughed at that. “They’re safe enough then!”
“When you survived against all odds it seems some value attached to you,” Fexler had said.
And I had grown cold, knowing at the last how the players had tried to keep
