Stalking Darkness - Chapter One

[kalinara]

So in our prologue, we saw that our villains are up to nefarious purposes. That's promising. They'd ended up taking a backseat to the Lerans in Luck in the Shadows, but I have high hopes for them this time around.



So we meet our boys back in Rhiminee. The weather sounds pleasant...

Sleet-laden winds lashed in off the winter sea, racketing through the dark streets of Rhiminee like a huge, angry child. Loose shingles and roof tiles tore free and clattered down into streets and gardens. Bare trees swayed and clashed their branches like dead bones in the night. In the harbor below the citadel, vessels were tossed from their moorings to founder against the mores. In upper and lower city alike, even the brothel keepers put up their shutters early.

Or not.

But see what I mean about the prose quality? Luck in the Shadows wasn't bad, but this feels a lot more polished. Maybe it's just confidence.

Anyway, our boys are out in this weather to deliver a "damn love token" per Alec, who is a little grumpy. Per Seregil the Rhiminee Cat has a reputation to maintain. He/they were hired to put the token on the girl's pillow, so there you go. Also though, and more importantly, Seregil wants a look into her dad's paperwork since he might be trying for the Viceregent's post.

Seregil spares a moment to gloat about how no one knows the identity of the mysterious Rhiminee Cat. I'll spare you it. Heh.

Seregil does take a moment to be a concerned mentor and asks if Alec's up to this, given that he'd yanked a princess out of a fire trap a few weeks ago. He's been treated by the drysian healers (I'm still not sure if they're supposed to have magic, a.la clerics or druids, or not. I'm leaning toward yes?) but is still looking a bit tender and sore.

Alec's got his pride though and he points out that Seregil is the one with chattering teeth. Alec's northern upbringing makes him more tolerant of the cold. Seregil catches sight of the entrance to the Street of Lights (brothel distract) and jokes that they'd be warmer there. Alec's pretty uncomfortable with the idea, and Seregil notes that his solitary upbringing has made him "backward" in such matters even for a Dalnan. But Seregil does try not to tease him too much, since they're friends.

So they find their target and break in. I'm going to spare the details unless something seems particularly notable. It is fun though. They luck out because apparently it's a household custom for the nobles to take off their shoes outside of their bedrooms, so the servants can collect and clean them. There's only one daughter of the house, so they're looking for shoes that suit a girl of fifteen. That seems a bit young for a love token, in my opinion. But maybe "Lord Phyrien" is young himself.

And actually, he might be, because when Alec is sent in to do the deed, he ends up startled and dropping the ring onto the girl's face. She sees the ring first, leading to a comedic misunderstanding:

“Oh, Phyrien, you are bold!” she breathed, stealing a quick look at the sleeping woman beside her. Grasping Alec’s hand, she drew it gently but insistently under the bedclothes.

(The woman beside her, by the way, is a chaperone. Either mother or nurse. Just in case you were assuming more salaciousness.)

Anyway, if sixteen year old Alec can be mistaken for Phyrien, maybe this isn't THAT bad. Teenagers will be teenagers after all. But it's worth noting that Skalans generally sleep nude. Alec manages to mostly gracefully extract himself. He is really apologetic and nervous about what Seregil will say to that fuck up though.

Actually, Seregil is laughing his ass off. Well, after they get out of there. (His implicable silence beforehand does make Alec anxious.) Seregil takes the right note, mentor wise, saying that blunders happen sometimes, he's made them himself, and it's the recovery that mattered. Alec pulled it off, and that's what counts.

Though Seregil will apparently be quoting the girl's dialogue in falsetto for quite a while, to Alec's exasperation. (But not humiliation, Alec's too practical for that.)

So they make it back to the Cockerel Inn, which is, if you recall, Seregil's haunts when he's not playing noble himself. Alec strips out of his clothes and Seregil muses again on his apprentice's modesty...this time with a bit of an overtone:

Seregil watched with a faint smile. The boy’s considerable and, to his way of thinking, unnatural degree of modesty had lessened somewhat over the months of their acquaintance, but Alec still turned away as he stripped off his leather breeches and pulled on a long shirt. At sixteen he was very like Seregil in build: slim, lean, and fair-skinned. Seregil quickly busied himself sorting a pile of correspondence on the table as the boy turned around again.

Stop eyeing the jailbait, dude.

Anyway, they go to sleep. Then Seregil wakes up from a nightmare (him and Alec falling from the walls of Kassarie's keep last book) to find himself slumped naked in one of Nysander's sitting room chairs. Because Nysander is a dick.

There was no need to ask how he’d gotten there; the green nausea of a translocation spell cramped his belly. Pushing his long, dark hair back from his face, he scowled wretchedly up at the wizard.

“Forgive me for bringing you here so abruptly, dear boy,” said Nysander, handing him a robe and a steaming mug of tea.

Dude, I feel like if you had time to make tea, you had time to send a message to the guy before teleporting him willy-nilly. Also, recall, Seregil has that magic aversion-dyslexia, so the nausea makes sense and is predictable.

Nysander would have brought him earlier, he says, but saw that they were busy burgling someone. So I feel like you could have sent a message, dude. Anyway, he comments that Alec is looking better. Seregil agrees, though he complains about Alec's hair - he has to get him presentable in time for the Festival of Sakor. Nysander has a gift for each of them from the princess and the queen. Apparently publicly acknowledging them isn't an option...I guess that makes sense, given the whole Watcher thing after all.

So what did Seregil get?

ratitude nonetheless. That green one there is yours.”

Seregil had received such rewards before. Expecting another trinket or bit of jewelry, he opened the little bag. What he found inside reduced him to stunned silence.

It was a ring, a very familiar ring. The great, smooth ruby glowed like wine in its heavy setting of Aurenfaie silver when he held it closer to the fire.

“Illior’s Light, Nysander, this is one of the rings I took from Corruth i Glamien’s corpse,” he gasped, finding his voice at last.

You'd be forgiven for forgetting the significance. Corruth had been a distant relative of Seregil's, and at one point, some decades (centuries?) ago, he'd been the consort of a Queen. Seregil and Alec found his body. Anyway, it's a pretty meaningful gift, and the Queen hopes he'll wear it with honor among his own people one day.

That could be tricky, as I recall. But Seregil is moved. Nysander didn't summon him for gift giving purposes, however. And he decides to be pretty heavy handed about it:

Nysander sat back with a chuckle. “No. I have a task which may be of interest to you. However, there are conditions to be set forth before I explain. Agree to abide by them or I shall send you back now with all memory of this meeting expunged.”

How will you explain the gifts?

Also, dude, Seregil can be annoying, but he's pretty fiercely loyal. He agrees. Nysander even says that neither Micum or Alec can know about it. He demands Seregil's oath, and we get to see what that entails:

Shaking his head, Seregil held out his left hand, palm up, before him. “Asurit betuth dos Aura Elustri kamar sosui Seregil i Korit Solun Meringil Bokthersa. And by my honor as a Watcher, I swear also. Is that sufficient?”

“You know I would never impose such conditions on you without good reason,” the wizard chided.

“Still, it seems to be happening quite a lot these days,” Seregil retorted sourly. “Now can I ask questions?”

I do appreciate why Seregil is annoyed. So, his first question naturally is why can't he tell his friends?

“Because if you let slip the slightest detail of what I am about to tell you, I shall have to kill all of you.”

...why can't you have them swear an oath too?

But Seregil realizes that this has to do with the branded sigil on his chest. THAT's why Nysander had been a secretive dick. Now Seregil gets the story:

Seregil slouched glumly in his chair. “Same old answer, eh? And what if I say no to all this? That if you don’t tell me the whole story I want no part of it?”

Nysander shrugged. “Then as I said before, I shall remove all memory of this conversation from your mind and send you home. There are certainly others who could aid me.”

“Like Thero, I suppose?” Seregil snapped before he could stop himself.

“Oh, for—“

“Does he know the Great Secret?” The old jealousy gripped Seregil’s heart. The last thing he wanted to hear was that the young assistant wizard knew more of this than he did.

“He knows less than you,” Nysander replied, exasperated. “Now do you want the task or not?"

You know, Nysander, I said this before, but this rivalry is entirely your fault. Oh well, new book, I'll give him a chance to win me over.

So Nysander hands Seregil a piece of vellum and asks what he thinks. Seregil makes his observations: old, poorly kept at first but later carefully preserved, human or aurenfaie skin - interestingly, Seregil doesn't really react to that. He notes the stitching holes: the paper was from a book and carefully removed rather than torn. It's damaged by dampness, and by color, he thinks it was probably dipped in poison. Neutralized now. He also recognizes the writing: Asuit Old Style, from hill people north of Plenimar. He infers the author was either from there, or a linguistic scholar.

Seregil is apparently the latter: he can read it too. It's very poetic rambling by a mad prophet. He provides some quotes: "‘The golden flame is married with darkness. The Beautiful One steps forth to caress the bones of the house’ No, that’s not right. It’s ‘the bones of the world.’”

This is a nice bit, I have to say. Seregil, in Luck in the Shadows, comes across as generally more of a clever rogue archetype. Quick-witted, sure, but not terribly educated. We were told that he'd studied with Nysander, but that aspect of his personality didn't really shine through. And that does make some sense: he spent a lot of the story getting bespelled, getting framed for treason, running about trying to deal with chaos.

This scene though shows us the Seregil who is an Oreskan trained scholar and analyst, Nysander's most trusted subordinate and student. I can now appreciate Thero's side of the rivalry a little more. It would be difficult to have a tense relationship with your mentor, while seeing him so in sync with your predecessor.

Seregil then notices something odd with the accent marks - it's a cypher. And a bitch of one. Fortunately, Nysander's already cracked it with the help of his own master, ages ago. Hmph, asshole. But he figured Seregil would prefer to work with the original.

So he explains to him and us. It's probably interesting to linguists, but I'm not recapping it. It's impressive, I'm sure. The more important part is that once Nysander translates it, the writing disappears, leaving a circular design made up of calligraphic writing.

It's Konic language, but phonetically something else. Seregil identifies it as "pure Dravnian" from a tribal people who live north of Aurenen. They have a lot of sagas and legends. And, much to Seregil's delight, Nysander doesn't know what it says. He only gloats a little.

So the phrase is: Stone within ice within stone within ice. Horns of crystal beneath horns of stone." Seregil can't really tell which part is supposed to come first. But Nysander is excited anyway. And moreso, when Seregil remembers that the Dravnians build villages along the edges of ice fields. And there's a mythic place called the Horned Valley.

So the document might be a map to something the Plenimarians want very badly. Woo. Since they've sent multiple expeditions, Nysander thinks they haven't translated the precise location themselves. Suddenly our heroes are ahead in the game. It looks like Seregil will be making a little side trip. (He'll even get to play Aurenfaie wizard - with some toys from Nysander, rather than his own dubious magic.)

A bit of planning and banter ends the chapter.