The Legend of Broken

this.

“And am I right in suspecting that you have some insight into the method of its spread, on this occasion, my lady?” Baster-kin asks.

Isadora continues her bit of playacting, praying that her fear does not bleed through it: “There are theories, of course, but there are always theories, from healers. All we can be certain of is, if that man is stricken by it, it will soon appear in many, perhaps most, houses in this neighborhood: quite possibly in this district. And from there …”

“But what of your theory?” Baster-kin asks, in considerably less pleasant or patient a tone.

Isadora urges Baster-kin farther back, into the small, dusty yard. “My lord,” she begins, “you knew my mistress Gisa and, unless I am very much mistaken, you knew her to be, whatever her private beliefs on the subjects of the spirit and religion, a healer without equal in this city.”

“You are not wrong,” Baster-kin answers. “Gisa knew her place in this kingdom, and never sought to advance herself past it, nor to betray its fundamental laws.”

“So, then,” Isadora continues, drawing a deep breath. “You would be inclined to believe suggestions that originated with her?”

“You were a wise and kind minister of her cures,” Rendulic Baster-kin says. “But I was ever aware that the cures were hers. And so, yes, I would be inclined to believe her, and now, you, above nearly every other pretender to the office of ‘healer.’ But what has any of this to do with matters in this house, and this district?”

“First”—Isadora works hard to still the tremor in her voice—“allow me to show you an extraordinary display of patriotism further from this house and these Plumpskeles …”†

“Lady Arnem!” Rendulic Baster-kin calls, as she begins to walk even further from the house, down a narrow pathway that his lordship, his eyes having grown accustomed to the darkness, can now see leads to an only slightly wider alleyway beyond. “I would rather you remember yourself, as I am sure your husband would, than to revert to the behavior and language of this—place …!”

“Why, Lord Baster-kin,” Isadora says without turning, and now smiling just a bit: for she has rattled this supremely confident man. “Do not tell me that this situation unnerves you? But come …” Then, in a supreme bit of theater, Lady Isadora holds her own arm out, to wait for the now-familiar resting perch of his lordship’s own. “Time and plague bear down upon us …”

Baster-kin obliges without answer; and as he does, Isadora’s steps become easier.

The alleyway into which Isadora leads her “guest” eventually terminates in the mighty edifice of the city’s southwest wall, which looms over everything beneath it. Confronted by the dark mass before him, the Merchant Lord pauses at the alleyway’s head, and says, “You pile mystery upon mystery, my lady — and to what end? I have already said, I would be inclined to believe you in this matter.”

“To believe is hardly to witness,” Isadora calls. “Come, my lord. You need not wait for your men — for we shall have guards enough, upon our brief journey …”

Before it can reach the great edifice near its terminus, the narrow alleyway down which the pair walk leads into that broad military path that runs about the entire base of all the walls of Broken, and is kept constantly free of any form of congestion so that the soldiers of the city may always move freely to and along that critical route to their positions. Thus, the alleyways adjoining it must be kept as dark and clear as the greater path itself. These highly secluded spots in a very questionable neighborhood, when used by persons not of the army, are places where transactions of an illegal nature take place: the buying and selling of stolen goods, unlicensed whoring, or, as ever and perhaps most common of all, robberies and murders.

How strange then, that each doorway of this particular alley leading to the imposing southwest wall of the city — a wall which is easily twice or three times as high as the largest of any of the shacks below, and still bears the clear marks of enormous, long-handled chisels and wedges — is apparently guarded, by two long lines of sentry-like men on either side of the passageway: not particularly young or healthy men, but men, most of whom are wan with age, sometimes supported by canes or crutches, yet all still possessing an essential military demeanor that cannot be manufactured; and, oddest of all — to Lord Baster-kin’s eyes, at any rate — it is the single most aged and crippled of these figures, a thin, balding wisp of a man with a crutch, who is at the head of the alley, and in apparent control of the rest. He holds a Broken short-sword in his free hand, while staring at the Merchant Lord with a peculiar smile.

Blows and wounds seem entirely possible, although it is not clear between whom — instead, however, the ancient man on the crutch sheathes his blade, and hobbles toward Isadora and Lord Baster-kin.

“Lady Arnem,” Baster-kin murmurs quietly, to Isadora’s further satisfaction, “what, in the name of all that is holy, have you led me into …?”

{ix:}

“Well, Linnet Kriksex,”† Lady Arnem says happily, before she can answer Baster-kin’s question, “so you have made good on your promise.”

“Aye, Lady Arnem!” the old soldier answers, in a voice that is as rough as a large piece of stone being dragged across a quarry floor. “We were not certain when to expect you, but I told the men that your return was promised, and that it would take place. The wife of Sentek Arnem would never offer assistance and forget the pledge, I said!”

“Well done, Kriksex,” Isadora answers. “And now allow me to present Lord Rendulic Baster-kin, master of the Merchants’ Council and first citizen of the city and kingdom of Broken.”

Kriksex takes one or two steps toward Baster-kin, who, in a rare moment of humility, rushes to meet the hobbling old fellow more than halfway between them.

“My lord,” Kriksex says before delivering a sharp salute. “Linnet Kriksex, your lordship! Pleased to be of assistance to my kingdom, once again.”

“Kriksex?”

Another voice has joined the conversation, this one Radelfer’s; and Baster-kin and Isadora turn to see the seneschal stepping forward from his guard detail. “Is it really you?”

Kriksex looks past the great Lord Baster-kin, his face going first blank, and then joyous with recognition. “Ah, Radelfer, you have truly come!” he cries out, again flailing the crutch about as he moves quickly to meet what is apparently an approaching comrade. “So the stories were all true, and you did indeed remain with the clan Baster-kin!”

The two older men embrace, although Radelfer is careful with the seeming sack of bones and scars that was once his own linnet.

“But how are you still alive, you bearded, ancient goat?” Radelfer laughs. “It was enough that you survived the campaigns we undertook as young men, but — to find you here, among all this strange business, with what appears your own small army — it seems incredible!”

“Radelfer,” Lord Baster-kin says, not sternly, but rather with the tone of one who has had enough mysteries, for one night. “Perhaps you will be good enough to explain to me just who this man, who these men, are, and what they are doing seemingly guarding a decrepit alleyway, for no apparent purpose.”

“Your pardon, my lord,” Radelfer says. “This is Linnet Kriksex, who commanded my fauste when I joined the Talons, many years ago. And a more faithful servant of the realm you would be hard-pressed to find.”

“Indeed?” Baster-kin asks, looking at Kriksex and not quite sure of the explanation. “And I suppose this is the basis for your authority over these other assembled men, Kriksex, who also look to be veterans of various campaigns?”

“These are loyal men, my lord,” Kriksex replies, “here to protect the God-King’s name and laws in this district. An able core of veterans keeps the residents in this neighborhood free of both crime and vice. But the ominous occurrence that appeared again recently, the — the riddle that I showed Lady Arnem a few nights ago —