37. [Cortland] We All Go Down Together (Patreon)

--DRAMATIS PERSONAE—

Cortland Finiron, Hammer Master of the 12th Renown, Kingdom of Infinzel, prepared for the Underneath

Carina Goldstone, Logician of the 2nd Renown, Kingdom of Infinzel, has been working toward this day

Henry Blacksalve and Vitt Secondson-Salvado, champions of Infinzel, ready to lend their support

King Cizco Salvado, Quill of Infinzel, Kingdom of Infinzel, the maker of maps

Issa Firstdot-Tuarez, Arris Stonetender, Walton Tendersword, and a half dozen other Garrison soldiers who will accompany the champions to the Underneath

23 Harvesend, 61 AW

The pyramidal city of Infinzel

217 days until the next Granting

Cortland Finiron liked to be early for these occasions. He wanted to be first into the Battle Library. Ben Tuarez had been the same way. He planned to be sitting there when the other men and women entered, and thus have the chance to appraise them. It was a last chance to weed out the ones who weren’t ready for the Underneath. He’d seen Ben send away dozens of men over the years who showed up shaky or hungover, even if it meant going shorthanded.

Despite wishing to be extra punctual, Cortland still took the stairs. As he jogged down from the residential tiers, other people cleared space for him, pressing their backs against the stone and gazing at him like they would an avalanche. A young boy reached out to touch Cortland’s hammer, but his mother quickly slapped his hand down.

The meeting was scheduled for midday. Although no sun penetrated the Underneath, there was some science that suggested the beasts in the tunnels were more sluggish in the day and more vicious once the moon had risen. Cortland didn’t put much stock in that, but it had always been the way of things. They would gather in the Battle Library, the king would show them the way, and they would depart when the sun was highest. Back in time for dinner, Ben always said.  

“Uncle Cortland!”

Issa Firstdot-Tuarez stood on the landing before him. Cortland jolted a bit, having just been thinking of her father. She looked dressed for training—her dark hair pulled back in tight braids, her muscled frame clad in an expensive suit of ward-weave chain.

Cortland forced a smile, counting off the seconds of small talk. “Issa. How are you?”

“Eight hours of sleep and a light breakfast,” she said. Cortland looked at her strangely. Those had been amongst her father’s favorite recommendations before a foray into the Underneath. Issa gestured down the steps. “Come on, then. I believe we're going to the same place.”

“You…” Cortland scowled once his mind caught up. “Carina asked you to accompany us?”

Issa started down the steps ahead of him. “Don't look that way, uncle. It's not like it's my first time under.”

Cortland pressed his lips together. Issa was a more than capable fighter. She had her father's good sense, but also his unquenchable thirst for adventure. There had been no need for her to pledge to the Garrison and she’d done it anyway. Ben had been pleased to have her follow in his footsteps, even if his wife Emelia had hated the idea. If Cortland had been charged with picking a team to accompany them to the Underneath, Issa certainly would've made his shortlist. But duty to the widow Tuarez would've kept Cortland from ever selecting her. Carina, of course, had no such reservations.

“Does your mother know?” Cortland asked as he followed Issa down.

“I'm a grown woman and a Garrison soldier,” Issa replied. “Telling her would've only initiated an argument she couldn't win. Besides, who am I to deny the request of a champion?”

“I didn't realize you and Carina had gotten friendly,” Cortland said evenly.

“I've been helping her train since you abandoned her,” Issa said.

“I didn't abandon her,” Cortland snapped.

“No? She didn't like it when I phrased it that way, either. What did she call it? A temporary cooling off period after a difference of opinion? She likened your relationship to a freshly repaired suit of armor. Too hot to wear, as yet, but stronger in the future for the work.”

Cortland snorted. “Sounds like the logician. Everything a loopy fucking metaphor.”

They continued down the steps in silence. Issa didn't speak again until they had almost reached the bottom tier. “How are you making out with my father's journals?”

“Fine,” Cortland said.

“Not very interesting, are they?”

Cortland had acquired the journals a few weeks back hoping to find some private thought that might shed some light on Ben's killer. Emelia had been planning to throw the ten leather-bound books away, so Cortland rescued them. He had expected to feel guilty reading his old friend's intimate thoughts, but the prospect had also excited him, like he might be able to visit with Ben in this way, bring him back to life through words, that kind of poetical nonsense. The actual experience proved disappointing. Ben's writing was dull and matter-of-fact, comprised mostly of to-do lists for the following days. He rarely wrote about the actual details of his life and so it was impossible to tell what Ben had accomplished on a given day except when some bit of work disappeared from a list. Outside of Cortland's first two years as a champion when his acquisition of Ink was at the front of Ben's mind, Cortland himself rarely appeared in the pages. The hammer master could not explain why this hurt his feelings.  

“I haven’t finished reading them,” Cortland said, although this was a lie. Even with his haphazard education, Cortland had made short work of the uncomplicated journals.

“You must be a slow reader, uncle,” Issa said with a laugh. “Anyway. We came across some correspondence that might interest you. Unsolicited letters he received from a young woman in Penchenne.”

“What kind of letters?”

“Threats. Apparently, father killed this girl's lover at the Granting. She did not take it well.”

“What's her name?”

“That's where it gets interesting,” Issa said. “Her name is Sylvie Aracia.”

Cortland’s eyes widened. Aracia was the family name of the Exile Queen Deidre, the only one of King Cizco’s many, many wives to leave him without a divorce. The rest of the Aracia family had fled with Deidre and her Salvado children. High House Salvado-Aracia, as the exile queen insisted on calling it, enjoyed considerable influence in Penchenne.

“Not one of Cizco’s kids…” Cortland began.

Issa shook her head. “Deidre’s niece, I believe.”

Having studied Ben’s kills on the island, Cortland was already familiar with the dead champion from Penchenne. A lowborn sword master only in his second Granting. A terrible waste, all told. The fight had happened the last time the two cities came into conflict with each other—when Penchenne had wished for the alchemical designs of Infinzel’s mineral gardens, a secret King Cizco was unwilling to part with. All four of Penchenne’s champions had been massacred that year, although not all of them by Infinzel. Merchant’s Bay and Cruxton had lent a hand, believing Penchenne intended to disrupt the balance of trade. Cortland remembered feeling like it was a foolish wish, an unnecessary provocation by the supposed masters of diplomacy. With the way the Penchennese used high born sponsors to control their champions, he supposed they didn’t value their lives in the same way as other factions.

Except, perhaps, Sylvie Aracia did.

“Did Ben ever respond?” Cortland asked.

“Doubt it,” Issa replied. “I’m not sure why he even saved them. They’re unhinged.”

Because of the name Aracia, Cortland thought. Because a noble girl making wild threats meant something.

“I’d like to see them,” Cortland said.

“Of course. I’ll bring them by tonight.”

They arrived at the Battle Library to find Carina Goldstone already seated at the round table with its detailed topographical map of Armistice. Cortland gritted his teeth at his own lateness, but of course shouldn’t have been surprised that the logician was a step ahead.

Cortland raised a bushy eyebrow at the armored Garrison cadet seated next to Carina. He was not in the habit of learning the name of every soldier who joined the Garrison, only those who reached some level of distinction. The soldier before him looked barely out of his teens—wide-eyed, with tousled brown hair, and smooth cheeks that likely didn’t need shaving. Yet, when he hurriedly stood to vacate one of the table’s five chairs, Cortland saw the young man was of towering stature, and not just in comparison to Cortland’s limited height. He reminded Cortland of a baby ox, all muscle and power, but jumping at every field mouse.

In Cortland’s estimation, there were three types of people that ended up pledged to the Garrison. The rarest were those with the innate skill and desire to one day serve Infinzel as a champion. More common were those inclined to bloody violence, adrift in a world bereft of war, who needed an outlet for their brutality. That had been Cortland until Ben took him under wing and elevated him to the first type. And finally, there were those whose physicality made them ideal for the Garrison, but whose temperaments did not. Cortland immediately identified this huge boy as part of that latter group; he would grow into a reliable and sturdy guard, best suited for uneventful supervisions of jewel exports. He was not the type you wanted watching your back in the Underneath.

“Sir, it’s an honor,” the young man said, shrinking a bit as Cortland’s eyes bore into him.

“What’s your name?” Cortland asked gruffly.

“Walton Tendersword.”

Tendersword. That meant his father had been a stone tender and his mother had served in the Garrison.

“Who’s your mother?” Cortland asked.

“Willa Tendersword, sir, retired.”

The name rang a very faint bell. A broad woman who mostly did patrol work in the outer districts.

“Huh,” Cortland said. “This your first time?”

“Second, sir,” he responded.

Cortland snorted. Issa put a hand on Walton’s forearm. “Come,” she said. “We stand over here until needed. The seats are for the champions.”

As Issa led Walton to the back wall, Cortland took his seat at the table. He pulled his chair close to Carina so they could speak in relative privacy.

“Cortland, good to see you,” Carina said. There was a breath of relief in her voice, although she didn’t look at all nervous. Her rapier was propped up against the table next to her, as well as a crossbow that made Cortland wince. She had added a bandolier of pouches to her usual light ward-weave armor. Cortland had no doubt the logician had thoroughly prepared.

“Interesting choice,” Cortland said, flicking his eyes toward Walton. “You know, we don’t want to be babysitting down there. Get some greenhorn killed.”

Carina leaned close and Cortland had to fight the urge to recoil. A vision of her bloody face leering down at him, demanding his surrender, flashed into his mind. Of course, Cortland still chewed on his humiliating defeat at the hands of a 2nd renown. The girl had outmaneuvered him. He needed to admit that and let it go. Tactics was to be her role, after all. Even understanding that, Cortland struggled with two competing urges, and they had been with him since the day he first met Carina in this very room—the desire to protect her and the instinct to snap her neck. Perhaps that was why he had been so hard on her in training, so slow to let her progress beyond ugly singles combat. He wanted to keep her on his level.

But she was more than him. The gods had chosen her because she meant something. Ben Tuarez had chosen Cortland merely because he fought like a bastard.

Carina covered her mouth as she spoke. “Does Walton Tendersword strike you as a fabulist?”

“A what?”

“A storyteller,” Carina said. “A liar.”

“Strikes me as an oaf.”

“He claims that a gargoyle spoke to him during his last foray underground.”

“What,” Cortland said flatly.

“Indeed. I thought it a report worth further investigation.” She leaned back. “I have a sense about these things sometimes.”

 As Cortland considered that strange tale, Henry Blacksalve arrived. The healer looked cleaned up—freshly bathed, his hair pulled back neatly, his ward-weave robe spotless. All the same, Cortland sniffed the air for last night’s whiskey. Even after smelling nothing but the old paper scent of the Battle Library, Cortland still activated [Assess] on his old friend, wanting to make sure that none of his Ink was prematurely faded.

Cortland felt pleased that Henry had gotten himself together for the occasion. The healer settled into a seat at the table, smiling at his fellow champions.

“Are we sure we don’t want to just do another sparring session?” Henry asked.

“Yes,” Cortland and Carina answered in unison.

The room began to fill with other Garrison soldiers. Cortland recognized most of them. They were hardy men and women, veterans all, who had plenty of experience in the Underneath but who approached the place with the doggedness of an ugly job rather than a place to hunt glory. Cortland had known men to become obsessed with the rush of the tunnels. They were the ones who died young. The stoic faces arrayed before him would make for a reliable gate team. He had no doubt Henry had a hand in selecting them. He had done well; they were mostly who Cortland would have chosen.

“Ah, Infinzel’s four champions, together at last,” Vitt Secondson-Salvado said as he sauntered into the room.

Cortland had seen little of Vitt over these last two months. He’d been fully engrossed in carousing through the outer districts, if you believed the rumors. Cortland knew that was only partially true. Vitt had been taken ill, although there was good color in his cheeks now. Perhaps he’d recovered, or else recently received treatment from Henry. Once again, Cortland checked his fellow’s Ink with [Assess].

As ever, Cortland frowned at the choices Vitt had made with his Ink. So many of his levels of renown were tied up in augmenting natural abilities that Cortland wasn’t sure Vitt actually possessed. How often did he actually train with the elegant short sword or bow that he carried? How would he fare without the Ink to bolster him? Cortland would be happy if they never found out.

Vitt ran a hand through his red-streaked black hair, eyeing Cortland. “Done with your inspection, hammerhead?”

“Happy you’re feeling better, Vitt,” Cortland said.

“Are you feeling better?” Henry asked.

“One mother is enough, Henry, thank you,” Vitt said, circling the table so he could drag his hand across the back of Carina’s chair. “Logician, I’m glad these two old men have released you from their clutches.”

Carina smiled pleasantly. “It will be good to work together at last, Secondson.”

“Yes,” Vitt replied, sitting down. “I eagerly anticipate seeing the two things you can do.”

“Oh, it’s more than that,” Carina said. She held up a finger, as if just remembering something. “You know, I saw a rat in my room the other day.”

“Did you?” Vitt replied laconically. “Perhaps you should tidy up.”

“Your cousin Orryn is fond of them, isn’t he?”

“Orryn is my nephew,” Vitt said, propping his feet up on the table.

“Ah, can’t be expected to keep all of you straight,” Carina said lightly. “Anyway, as you’re a hunter, I thought you might be able to assist me.”

Vitt tongued his upper lip. “You want me to hunt… rats?”

Carina shrugged. “Might make a nice present for Orryn, I thought.”

“Unfortunately, I have a very busy social calendar,” Vitt replied.

All this banter went straight over Cortland’s head, but he did notice when Carina suddenly tensed up—not from anything that Vitt said, but because Arris Stonetender had stalked into the room.

The elementalist looked more shriveled than when Cortland last saw her. The smell of smoke wafted off her, tiny curls even spilling from her nostrils as she breathed. Her short hair was patchy, her eyebrows missing, her thin lips badly chapped. The old ways had taken a tremendous toll on her.

Carina leaned over to him. “Did you ask her here?” she murmured.

Cortland shook his head.

Vitt waved a hand in front of his face. “Gods, Arris, I have the sudden urge to shove an apple in your mouth.”

A tremor went through the elementalist’s body—anger, Cortland thought—but she silently took a position amongst the other soldiers who would hold the gate. Cortland remembered the joy he had seen in her eyes on the day he and the king had selected Arris as champion, only to see it dashed by the gods moments later. He felt sympathy for the woman, and that kept him from speaking up. If she wanted to destroy herself, he could at least let her do it in service to Infinzel.

Moments later, King Cizco entered. Some of the Garrison soldiers made a show of bowing, including Walton Tendersword, but Cizco waved these efforts away with his usual impatience for ceremony.

“Are we all here?” he asked.

Carina exchanged a look with Cortland, then nodded. “We are ready.”

“Excellent.”

Cortland sat forward to stretch a clean sheet of parchment across the table. King Cizco knocked Vitt’s feet off the table with the back of his hand, then produced his Quill from thin air. He drew a rectangle on the parchment, and spoke in the language of the gods.

“Show me where to find the power.”