49. [Cortland] The Open Gate (Patreon)

King Mudt returned north buoyed by his successes in Ruchet. He had anointed his chosen champions and vanquished the pretender Kayenna Vezz. The gods had chosen that vile mage on his behalf and even granted her renown that matched his own. And yet, he had dispatched her with little difficulty. Thus, King Mudt determined that the gods were fallible. They had much power, but lacked the wisdom of his sword.

Perhaps it was this good humor that stayed King Mudt’s hand when he found his armies camped in the hills south of Cruxton. A more displeased King Mudt would have had one in every ten men whipped for desertion.

“Who ordered these battalions to this position?” King Mudt screamed as he galloped into camp. “You are meant to be holding the crossing!”

The rank-and-file knew better than to provide King Mudt with an answer that would displease him. And so, the news was passed to Bello, and he delivered it to his king.

“No Orvesian would dare retreat from the north without your orders, sire,” Bello said. “But the gods forced them to turn their backs.”

King Mudt roared, but he knew the truth of Bello’s tale. Because he was a Quill, the magic of banishment lurked in his mind like a cancer. A simple ritual to have such vast impacts. All King Mudt needed to do was draw a symbol with his Ink—the pyramid of Infinzel, for example—and then speak the incantation in the language of the gods.

I have made an open road from my lands, let those unwelcome travel upon it.

The Orvesians who experienced banishment described it as a gentle shove. The gods placing hands upon their shoulders and ushering them away. They could move freely, so long as their movements carried them away from Cruxton, or Noyega, or Infinzel, or any of the other towns and cities that would banish Orvesians in the weeks to come. The gods would not let them fall and die, or starve, or be trapped or trampled—the road must be open, as the incantation described. But go, they must.

“Those lands were ours!” shrieked King Mudt. “We conquered them!”

The gods decided differently. In the weeks, months, and years ahead, much study would be made of which lands belonged to which peoples, and where the gods placed these borders. Even as conclusions were reached, so would the world change again, either through the movement of populations, the shifting of their hearts, or the power of wishes.

All of that would mean little to King Mudt, for he would be dead. But, before that, he would see decades of successful conquests peacefully unmade by symbols sketched in Ink.

--Record of the First Granting and Dawning of the Second Age

Lyus Crodd, Scribe of the Dead Kingdom of Orvesis

***

Cortland Finiron, Hammer Master of the 12th Renown, Kingdom of Infinzel, life of the party

May Twiceiron, an old woman of no renown, Kingdom of Infinzel, mother to a champion

Henry Blacksalve, Healer of the 8th Renown, Kingdom of Infinzel, wallflower

An assortment of guests from near and far

***

7 Frett, 61 AW

The pyramidal city of Infinzel, North Continent

173 days until the next Granting

Cortland could see the southern fields from his mother’s fourth level windows. The first snow had come to Infinzel just a few days before. Early, Cortland thought, although he didn’t mind the cold. These flurries were probably the result of the trolkin wish for more winter—colder, longer, and further southward. Those barbarians had a single champion who had survived the last two Grantings. Cortland suspected he would be called to change that, and soon.

But for now, he enjoyed the snow. Chimney smoke curled up from the outer districts. Further on, Cortland watched small shapes rolling and stacking balls of snow in the fields beyond the walls. Some of these snowman had already been decorated with their customary blankets of black feathers. These would melt and disappear when the weather turned, symbolic of the Orvesian retreat from Infinzel during the Final War. When the real birds migrated back to Infinzel in spring, they would use the feathers to build their nests.

“They’re building the snow crows,” Cortland told his mother.

“Ah,” she replied. “Make sure you wear gloves, if you go down to join them.”

May Twiceiron still sat at the dining room table, her empty soup bowl pushed away from her. She hunched over some bauble—a compass, if Cortland wasn’t mistaken—twisting the back off and then back on. Cortland’s mother was short and thick, her silver hair curly. Her forearms and shoulders still bulged, like she’d only stopped working in the forges yesterday and not more than ten years back. Before he died, Cortland’s father liked to joke that he only spent so much time on his fishing boat because he’d married an ugly woman. Most of the old man’s jokes were like that. Mean and stupid.

Cortland had moved his mother into these apartments after his father died. They were too much space for her, and she couldn’t be bothered to enjoy the view. The retirement dues she collected from her years in the forge didn’t come close to covering these rooms, but Cortland was a champion and so exceptions were made. She had filled the space with furniture, sculptures, and other junk that only the Gadgeteers would be interested in, most of it in some state of assembly or disassembly. May liked to keep her hands busy.

“Kids make the snow crows,” Cortland said, as he turned away from the window.

“Of course, I know that,” May replied. She glanced up at him. “You’re dressed too fancily to play, anyhow.”

Cortland brushed a hand over his finely fitted jacket and grimaced. He was, indeed, dressed in a way that made him deeply uncomfortable. The jacket, slacks, a buttoned shirt that seemed slippery enough for a woman. No hammer. Everything felt either too short or too tight, although the tailor, who had come on King Cizco’s own recommendation, assured him this was definitely not the case. He was supposed to wear a thin little scarf around his neck but that, at least, Cortland had chucked in his garbage.

“I have the banquet,” Cortland said. “I told you.”

Once a year, on the anniversary of the Orvesian retreat from the walls and the reopening of the roads into Infinzel, King Cizco hosted a reception for outsiders. Any could enter the pyramidal city and make a request of the king. Over the years, this had evolved into the time when their closest neighbors turned up to beg Infinzel’s support in the next Granting.

Cortland had made sure to eat dinner with his mother so that he could arrive fashionably late.

The usual suspects—Fornon and Cruxton—would of course be in attendance tonight. But, Cortland had heard there were more exotic guests this year. The representatives from the Magelab had conveniently arrived that afternoon. And he’d heard breathless soldiers around the Garrison gossiping that some rare Crucifalian beauty had arrived without a husband to hold her leash.

Cortland pulled at the underarm of his jacket. He had already sweated through the fabric.

“I never liked all those twats turning up here with their hands out,” his mother said. “Where were they when the Orvesians had us by the necks?”

“That’s the nature of things,” Cortland said.

 “Listen to my smart boy.” She snorted. “You just let Ben do the talking.”

Cortland paused. “Of course.”

“A noble of the Tuarez family eating dinner at our table,” his mother continued, shaking her head. “And your father sitting there with his hands in his lap, stinking like fish guts. Do you remember that night?”

“I remember it.”

“When will he be back?”

Cortland wasn’t sure if she meant his father or Ben Tuarez. The answer was the same for both--they would never be back—but Cortland had stopped insisting that his mother grasp these facts.

“I’ll find out,” he told her.

***

Infinzel’s grand hall was on the second tier—a vast, open space that saw little use except during Wish Day celebrations and the yearly Open Gate Banquet. In the years of siege, the room had been converted to a hospital. Cortland could almost imagine the graystone floors lined with cots, medics performing triage as stone dust shook down on them from the vaulted ceilings, the impacts of Orvesian catapults thundering above. A dark thought, but he wondered if he might have preferred that environment to this one, where every noble in the pyramidal city and their striving merchant and banker counterparts had descended to mingle with representatives of other cities. Attendees at the Open Gate were nominally there to curry favor with Infinzel’s ageless king, but the banquet had become a popular place for other, lesser deals to be made.

Soft light from rune-work lanterns lit the room. A band played music that seemed intended to sync with the muffled throbbing from Infinzel’s foundries and blend into the background. The proper dancing had not yet begun. Guests gathered around glass windows in the room’s floor that looked down upon the Troldep River and the Underbridge below. On duty guards from the Garrison patrolled the edges of the room.

Cortland entered via a side door for servants rather than the ornamental staircase of heated stone that the outsider guests took such pleasure in climbing before making their grand entrances. It was the same doorway he took every year—the closest one to the interior staircases—and that predictability meant Henry Blacksalve knew exactly where to wait for him.

“Looking sharp,” Henry said, leaning against the wall next to where Cortland entered.

“Shut up.”

Cortland eyed the healer. He wore a suit of his own, although his was white shot through with gray, and had a high collar on one side that partly hid Henry’s sallow face. It was an outfit that invoked the traditional attire of an Infinzel combat medic. The garment looked rumpled and Cortland got the sense that Henry hadn’t gotten it cleaned since he wore it last year.

Henry held out a flask. “You’ve got catching up to do.”

“None for me,” Cortland said. “Thanks.”

The healer raised his eyebrows. “Seriously? You’ll never make it through one of these sober.”

“I want to keep my wits about me this year.”

Cortland scanned the room. There were bars and tables of refreshments arranged at the corners of the sparsely populated dance floor. At the nearest bar, Cortland spotted Carina Goldstone and Issa Firstdot-Tuarez. Both young women wore gowns, a sight Cortland wasn’t accustomed to. Issa’s dress was a shimmering silver, sleeveless, showing off her muscled arms and shoulders. Carina, meanwhile, wore black, high-necked and flowing, with only a panel cut across her chest to showcase her Ink. A young man—Cortland recognized him as Issa’s brother Benton—said something to the women and they both laughed.

“You think if you’d been paying more attention and kept a clearer mind, you would have seen Arris coming?” Henry asked. “Allow me to put you off that notion, Cortland. Madness isn’t predictable. No one could’ve seen that coming.”

From the bar, Carina spotted Cortland. She raised a champagne glass to him. He nodded back.

“I’m not so sure about that,” Cortland said.

Cortland picked out Vitt Secondson-Salvado standing amidst a pack of his half-brothers and cousins and similarly aged nephews. All the young, eligible Salvado offspring wore boxy gray-and-purple formal wear with jagged lapels and epaulets. Even the ones who hadn’t pledged to the Garrison—nobles who did nothing with their time but wait for occasions like this—had disguised themselves as officers. Vitt stood at their center, taller than most, a brilliant crimson streak in his short black hair. The hunter looked aloof, showing little interest in the women who flitted around the edges of the group.

“So many gods damned Salvados,” Henry muttered. “Amazed they don’t get confused once it gets late and end up fucking each other.”

Cortland glanced at the healer. “Be careful tonight, Henry.”

Henry swished the liquid in his flask around. “I’ll leave early if I sense my mouth running away from me.”

“Do that,” Cortland agreed.

The hammer master set out to find his king. Cortland thought he spotted Cizco only to realize that it was Herman Firstson-Salvado. The current heir to Infinzel—whatever purpose that served considering their king was ageless—entertained a large group of dignitaries with some animated anecdote. Herman looked like a softer version of the king; he was handsome if a bit pudgier, but with the same long, light-brown hair that he kept pinned back in the same style as Cizco. Herman was in his mid-forties and looked like King Cizco might if he ever deigned to age a decade. Cortland wondered how many of the foreigners surrounding Herman thought they were actually talking to the king.

As Cortland watched, Herman held up a finger to pause his story and coughed loudly into his shoulder. Some of the guests peeled away at that point. King Cizco never showed signs of even a tickle in his throat.

Cortland turned toward the front of the room. There was no throne in the banquet hall, no raised dais for the king to sit upon—there had been, before Cortland’s time, but Cizco’s brother had been the last to rest upon it. Cizco’s crusade against formality and resistance to the airs of his station had seen those trappings removed. Even so, the king tended to gravitate toward where his brother had once presided.

Sure enough. As Cortland lumbered through the room—drawing polite nods but little interest—he caught sight of King Cizco. The man wore a more casually cut suit than Cortland’s own, one that made him seem almost underdressed compared to these others. He stood in the company of two representatives from the Magelab. An invisible bubble had formed around the three of them, a pocket of space—no doubt magically created and meant to discourage interruptions and prevent eavesdropping. Several people hovered unobtrusively at the edge of this zone, pretending not to notice or care how the arcane force repulsed them.

Cortland recognized the Magelab delegation from Grantings past, although he’d had little reason to interact with them. The first was Sevda Tau, a proper archmage, rail thin like all of her sort, and old in ways her light blue dyed hair couldn’t hide. She wore a gown that made Cortland squint as his mind struggled to grapple with it—was the dress actually made of clouds or did the fabric simply give the illusion of an afternoon sky? For a moment, he considered using [Assess] on the woman just to take the measure of her power, but he didn’t want to cause offense.

The candle standing next to Sevda and Cizco appeared as uncomfortable in his finery as Cortland felt in his own. Samus Bind looked like he’d just rolled out of bed—hair tousled, dark stubble across his weathered face, hooded eyes. In the culture of Magelab, the candles mostly served as disposable bodyguards for the archmages and provided the Magelab what many considered to be an unfair advantage at the Grantings—they sent four mages marked with tomes and four candles to watch over them. That meant the Magelab had eight champions aligned in purpose, although it was mostly the candles who took any risks.

Samus, however, was different. Apparently, the archmages trusted him to adjudicate internal disputes. Cortland wasn’t sure what that actually meant. He’d brought the topic up with Carina as they awaited the Magelab’s arrival, but the logician had proved surprisingly closed-mouthed when it came to the politics of the mages.

“Good to see you again, hammer master.”

Cortland started a bit, his hand dropping to his hip where his hammer should’ve been. A dark-haired man, tall and well-muscled, with a face that looked to have withstood frequent punching, stood next to Cortland. He wore a suit that didn’t fit him—a loan, possibly. Cortland narrowed his eyes. The guy looked familiar, but Cortland couldn’t quite place him. Some merchant that had tried to wheedle an endorsement out of the hammer master? He didn’t look the type…

“Watts Stonework,” the man reminded him, unoffended that Cortland had forgotten him. “You did some groundskeeping outside my bar.”

“Guydemion’s man,” Cortland said, smiling. He remembered liking the bouncer from Soldier’s Rest. “Sorry. Lot of faces floating about. Didn’t expect to see yours.”

“Didn’t expect to show it,” Watts replied, peering around. “Not really my sort of function.”

“No,” Cortland agreed. “Mine neither.”

“You look the part well enough.”

Cortland scratched the stubble on the back of his head. Getting a compliment from a fellow knuckle-dragger like Watts wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement, but Cortland appreciated it nonetheless.

“What brings you, then?” Cortland asked.

Watts jerked his chin toward the king. “Same as everyone. Got a request.”

Cortland wondered at that, but before he could ask any follow-up question, a murmur went through the crowd.

Heads turned and conversations stopped. Cortland twisted toward the disruption and understood immediately.

“Hell,” Watts muttered, his voice gone scratchy.

Striding across the dance floor was one of the most radiant women Cortland had ever seen. Her blonde hair seemed to glow like the flourish of some overly romantic painter, her green eyes flashing. There was a perfection to her that almost hurt.

A Crucifalian.

Cortland did not lust for women the way some of his fellows did, but he could not entirely fault how the pack of Salvado bachelors, Vitt included, leered at the Crucifalian as she made her entrance. Oddly, Cortland felt a pang of jealousy—not for the attention the Crucifalian received, but because she wore a full suit of gleaming armor and had a huge gods damned sword strapped to her back. Cortland envied the woman’s gear.

As she neared, Cortland noted her Ink. Not the squashed bug outline of the Silver Lake given to Crucifalians, but the round shield of the Ministry of Sulk. Wait—Cortland knew of this woman, but he heard she’d been killed, or crippled.

All eyes were truly upon Sara Free as she reached the edge of the privacy bubble enacted by Cizco and his guests from the Magelab. She leaned forward for a moment, pressing her weight against the barrier. Cortland thought he saw both Cizco and Sevda take steps backward, as if their power were being tested.

But then, Sara simply unclipped a pouch from her belt and upended it onto the open floor. Dirt, Cortland thought at first, but quickly realized it was ashes.

“The dead of Ambergran,” Sara spoke with a voice that carried like thunder, “have a request for the King of Infinzel.”