Chapter 20 - Forgive me, Aren.
The sun was already going down behind the roofs of the western district when Sir William Grant came down off the porch and set off along the street without looking back.
Aren followed him with his eyes until the figure disappeared round the corner among the passers-by, then turned and went back into the tavern.
There were still guests sitting in the room, their voices rising with the smell of smoke to the low beams, while candles burned along the far wall.
He walked past them, went up the stairs and carefully pushed open the door of their room, where Bernard was already asleep on the bed against the opposite wall.
Aren took his boots off in the dark, lay down on top of the blanket and stared at the ceiling.
At that same time Sir Gunard, who had been ordered to follow William Grant, held two blocks back, trying to keep the right distance and stay out of sight.
The city watch uniform made him an ordinary passer-by among the few still out at that hour, in a helm dented above the ear and a green cloak over his shoulders, without the Order's badge.
I wonder what they were talking about?.. What is Sir William up to? Gunard thought.
He stayed carefully behind him, until Grant turned off into one of the side alleys, away from the lit street.
Gunard waited a few seconds and followed, keeping close to the wall.
The alley ran deeper between blank stone walls, growing darker with every step, until, round one more turn, Gunard stopped, seeing emptiness open up ahead of him and Grant gone, as though he had dropped through the ground.
Gunard quickened his pace, looking around in confusion, but nothing was moving anywhere.
A sharp crash came from behind him, tearing the silence of the alley open.
Turning round, he found a fallen board by the wall, and rats' backs already flashing away into the gap between the stones.
Gunard breathed out and faced forward again, and in the next second a sharp, hard blow landed on his face.
A moment later the old silence settled over the alley again.
Aren lay on his back in the room, staring at the ceiling and listening to Bernard's even breathing.
Sleep would not come, while his thoughts circled without stopping, returning always to the same conversation, to the same words.
"I know how to help you."
"A huge silhouette, like a stag."
"You saw it too?"
"It said your name."
"Whatever answers you're looking for, they're all waiting for you in that forest."
Turning onto his side, Aren looked for a few seconds at Bernard's dark shape where he lay facing the wall, then got up, felt for his clothes in the dark, dressed with as little noise as he could, put his boots on and went to the door, which he then closed carefully behind him, holding the handle to the last so the latch would not click in the quiet.
Aren went down the steps and crossed the room towards the door. When he was a step from it, a voice came from behind the counter.
"Is everything all right, Aren?"
Aren froze where he stood and turned slowly, finding Selma behind the counter with a tankard in her hands, wiping it with a dry cloth and watching him with calm curiosity.
"Y-yes, everything's fine. I just thought I'd get a bit of fresh air," Aren answered, an awkward smile coming with the words.
Selma nodded with a neutral face, without holding her eyes on him, and returned to her work.
Aren turned to the door and went out onto the night street, stepping down from the porch and walking on, while other words came up in his head, ones William had said before he left.
"If my word isn't enough for you to believe me… then come to the Southern Gate at midnight tonight. You'll get one more answer there."
At that time, deep in the alley where the street light did not reach, Gunard lay unconscious and bound.
Beside him, bent forward with a palm pressed to his face, sat William in the armour taken off Gunard, sweat running down his own forehead and cheeks, leaving damp tracks on the skin.
He took his palm away from his face and looked ahead of him for a long second.
"What am I doing?.." he muttered.
There was silence around him, broken only by the distant sounds of Ockhaven at night.
"What the fuck am I doing?.."
He closed his hand into a fist while his breathing stayed ragged, then looked at Gunard lying there.
"This isn't right..." he said hoarsely.
"I have to stop. I have to stop listening to them. This isn't me..."
He screwed his eyes shut while the voices pressed from inside, turning over in his head and refusing to let up, overpowering his will with every attempt to resist.
Aren meanwhile was walking down the emptied street, sunk in his own thoughts and remembering words once said to him.
"Do you really think you're a man?" came the seer's voice.
"Who are you?" answered the voice of Lieutenant Schtance.
"Aren," said the huge silhouette with the branching antlers, in an inhuman and terrifying voice.
All of it pulled his attention off the street, so that Aren lost track of how long it had been since he left the tavern, and of how far he had come.
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Looking up, he found the street opening out into a wide straight run, with the stone pillars of the Southern Gate already visible a couple of hundred paces off.
Suddenly, out of a dark alley on the right came a guarded whisper, barely audible in the night silence.
"Aren!"
Aren stopped and turned to the dark mouth of the alley on his right.
In the shadow of the alley, where hardly any of the street light penetrated, stood Sir William Grant in city watch armour, his helm under one elbow and his head down.
Aren glanced at the Southern Gate, then brought his eyes back to William, hesitated a moment and stepped into the alley all the same.
Aren came to a stop a few paces behind William Grant.
"Didn't you say to meet at the Southern Gate?" he asked.
Grant stood with his back to him, not turning round, while his fingers closed tight on the helm under his elbow.
"Yes... I just... just..."
"Sir William?.." Aren said, feeling the tension build.
The silence grew heavier with every second while Aren stood looking at Grant's motionless back.
"Forgive me... Sir William, I think I'd better g—"
"Wait!"
Aren froze, and Grant turned round, keeping his head low enough that his face was almost impossible to make out in the half-dark of the alley.
Another silence stretched between them for several moments before he raised his head, showing a face with a smile on it so unexpected that Aren had no time to work out how to react.
"Sorry," he said. "I'm just still not over what happened in the forest."
He set the helm down on a wooden crate standing by the stone wall and went towards Aren.
"You said you'd tell me something more, once we met here," Aren said.
Grant came up and stopped a pace from him with his eyes on the ground.
"Yes."
"I've got something to tell you and... to show you."
Aren raised his brows slightly, not understanding what exactly he meant to show.
"Forgive me, Aren," he said quietly.
Suddenly a sharp, precisely placed blow landed on Aren's neck, folding his legs under him while his eyes rolled back unseeing, and Grant caught him with both arms before the body could reach the ground.
That same night Lieutenant Morgiana Schtance walked down the long corridor of the castle's guest wing, carrying her uniform over the crook of her mechanical arm.
Cold came off the stone walls on both sides, while the sparse torches in bronze rings gave enough light to move by in a corridor emptied out by that late hour.
Reaching the heavy door at the end, she pushed it open with her shoulder and stepped into the hot, damp air of the baths.
She stripped completely in a separate part of the room and went on through, where several torches along the walls broke up the thick steam over the surface of a large hot pool, leaving the far corners in half-dark.
Her body looked like a perfect symbiosis of biology and technology, with her right arm and both legs replaced by mechanical-magical prosthetics, an implant of the same material standing proud along the whole length of her spine, and technical and protective plates set into her ribs.
Every mechanical part met the living tissue in a clean transition, and none of it broke the feminine, biological lines of the lieutenant's body.
Schtance paused at the threshold a moment, seeing Vector John Fray sitting in the water with his back to her, his arms braced wide on the rim.
The pause at the threshold lasted a fraction of a second, and then Schtance carried on towards the far side of the pool.
Fray did not turn round, but spoke before she could pass him.
"Tødu tardøsein ered, diørg"
[You were gone a long time today.]
Schtance stopped at the far side of the pool.
Neither Aisengardian was troubled in the least that their bodies were completely bare and open to each other.
"Ørk vigiløvakted nigrøsk-caphår virøm"
[I spent the whole day following that black-haired man,] she answered.
Stepping into the water, Schtance settled herself opposite, while Fray raised his eyes to her, his arms still braced wide on the rim.
"Kvøid skivøted?"
[And what did you find out?]
"Sølbår: postøtter ekvøridd-kasørnae, hånir øk femøna møkum infånt ambølired tøl tabøkro ‘Merry Ploughman’, ubøhvr ølldei, verøsembl, habitåkul. Postøtter, virøm adjøsluted møkum ølldei, proxønær, verøsembl. Postøtter ølldei ambølired tøl oriønøst sektøl inferiørn urbøby, øk intrøinned domøhus åv Rayna. Verøsembl, hunøla locøsted vatøspå."
[Only that straight after the knights' barracks he, the girl and the boy went to the Merry Ploughman tavern, where they appear to be living. A man then joined them, and with him they carried on to the eastern part of the lower city, where they went into the house of a certain Raina. She would seem to be the local seer.]
Fray dropped a thoughtful look into the water.
"Vatøspå… Kvøid responsøsvar ølldei recipømotted?"
[A seer… And what answers did they get?]
"Ørk ausøavlyted sølbår fragmøntum, sømen ørk kredøtro: nøllum responsøsvar. Datøfakt nigrøsk-caphår virøm durøm kvæsøk, kvøhvem hånir er. Femøna øk infånt proxønær amicøvenn-ar, verøsembl auxøhjelp hånir."
[I only managed to overhear part of it, but I believe they got none. What I did learn is that this man is trying to find out where he comes from, and the girl and the boy appear to be close friends helping him do it.]
Fray met Schtance's eyes, and a short silence hung between them.
"Dørk ducørled tødu tøl kvøid?"
[Has that led you to anything?]
Schtance did not answer at once, keeping her eyes on Fray.
"Ån nøsvi-is kampugn kvåndo ørk kværøspørred hånir: kvøhvem tødu er hånir respondøsvared: ørk sølfse nøn skivøt. Nøn comprehøforstår."
[It confirms what he said during our duel, when he answered my question. He really does know nothing about himself.]
Fray sighed slightly, tipping his head back, cracking his neck and going on looking at the ceiling.
"Ørkgo, errøfeil ån virøm-is memoriøminne. Sømen hånir kånned krøst, aktivørk magiøm, øk adaptøtilp tøl nøsvi-is stiløm... Muskuløminne? Nøn verøsann. Dørk nøn operøs ån dørk modøs."
[So there's something wrong with his memory. And yet he was able to fight, to use magic and to adapt to our style... Muscle memory? Unlikely. That isn't how it works.]
"Øk ørk decidøbestemed rectøkorrekt."
[That is what I decided as well,] Schtance answered.
"Sømen, magnøst variøbell-ar nøn æquøbalans. Ørkgo ørk kredøtro, possømulig anomøl."
[But too many variables here fail to add up, so I would venture that some kind of anomaly is possible.]
Fray lowered his head and rose out of the water, stepping onto the edge of the pool and reaching for a towel. As he began drying himself, the blue crystals deep inside the small openings in the metal sections of his implants woke to a bluish glow, and the moisture on their surfaces began to evaporate with a quiet hissing sound.
"Kvøid postøtter?"
[What happened after that?] he asked, turning to Schtance.
"Postøtter ølldei reambølired tøl tabøkro. Ørk finavsluted vigiløvaktøng."
[Then they went back to the tavern, and I ended the surveillance.]
Fray added nothing, wiped his face with the towel and went over to his things by the wall.
"Ørk vøl expectøvent novønyt"
[I will expect news tomorrow.]
The door closed softly behind him in the emptied baths, while Schtance did not move, going on sitting in the hot water with her eyes fixed on the steam above the surface.
Meanwhile in the southern district of the lower city, two guards kept watch at the tall stone doors of the Southern Gate.
The first of them had just yawned so wide that his helm slid slightly askew, while his partner straightened, catching an approaching figure at the far end of the street.
The figure in armour walked at a slow pace, bent under the weight of a body lying across its shoulders, the body's face hidden by a hood.
Both guards tensed, and the first of them took several quick steps to meet him.
"You! Stop right there!"
The figure stopped, and the guard came a step closer, taking in the armour, then the limply hanging body.
"Name yourself! And who is that on your back? What are you doing out at this hour?"
"I'm Sir William Grant," Grant answered, cutting his eyes to Aren over his shoulder. "And on my back is my old friend Torvin. Drunk out of his skull as usual, and now I'm hauling him to the shop out past the outer wall."
The guards exchanged a short look, after which the second of them spoke up.
"But there aren't any shops at the Southern Gate. They're only on the western and eastern sides."
Grant gave a short snort, hitching Aren higher.
"Yes... but going out this way cuts a good quarter of an hour off the road. And carrying this hog on my shoulders is no small job."
He glanced sideways at the limp figure behind him.
"And I'd like to get home. To my wife, to the children."
Both guards exchanged a look again, more slowly this time, and the first turned his eyes back to Grant.
"You do know we aren't opening the Southern Gate for now, after what happened in the forest?"
"Yes, I understand, brother… But look at him, the poor sod is out cold already, and I'm on duty again tomorrow. Understand me, as brothers in arms."
The first guard was quiet for a few seconds, moving his eyes from Grant to the slack figure over his shoulder and back, then turned to his partner with a short nod.
Together they took hold of the heavy doors and drew them slowly apart, and Grant stepped forward, only to stop at once and turn round.
"By the way, are those your horses?" he asked, nodding towards the small stables standing off to the side of the gate.
"Yes," the first said, throwing a look at the stables by the wall.
"I beg you, in the name of the Mother Goddess, do me one more favour," Grant began. "Let me get this idiot to his shop quickly, and I'll bring the horse straight back to you. And there's this..."
He leaned forward, letting Aren's body come down fully onto his back to free his right hand for a couple of seconds, and reached inside his armour for the pouch of coins he had taken off Gunard, then threw it to the guard straight into his palm.
"A generous reward for a small favour."
The guard caught the pouch, felt the weight, exchanged a look with his partner, and both reached for its neck.
A few moments later a horse went out through the Southern Gate at a gallop, with one rider and a body lying across the saddle behind him.
The guards, busy with the coins in their palms, did not see the rider behind their backs turn sharply aside, going off in a direction nothing like the one he had promised.