Caladon

[moonshadows]

“Miss Clarisse?” Virgil sounded more nervous than I’d heard him for a while, hands wringing as if he were trying to remove his own fingers. “Th-there’s something I have to talk to you about.”

I glanced around the docks of Caladon and saw a park not too far away. “Not here,” I said quietly.

He nodded, jerkily, and followed me to the park. The serene setting did nothing to ease him – in fact, he was looking decidedly unwell when we came to a fairly secluded spot.

“Virgil…” I took his face between my hands, concerned. “What is it?”

“This is Caladon, Miss Clarisse.” He said it as though announcing a terminal illness. “I never wanted to come back here, but I can’t leave you to face whatever comes alone and I…I don’t know if you’d be safer here with or without me.”

“This is where it happened,” I said firmly. “Where someone got hurt.”

“You…you’ll find out sooner or later,” he whispered, eyes shut, despair etched into his face. “I told you I wasn’t good enough for you.”

My hand cracked against his cheek, but the normally-shocking act of striking him only made him look at me sadly.

“Listen before you try to defend me, Vorak.”

Virgil’s voice was empty of emotion, and that frightened me.

“Before I met you, before I met Joachim, I was very different. I was a criminal, really, an evil man...there's no other way to say it. I lived my life like a dead man. I cared very little for anything at all, I lived only from moment to moment, no sense of right or wrong. I stole, or lied, or even killed with no thought for morality or consequence…and the men I associated with were the same way. My family moved to Caladon when I was younger.  My brother, Lawrence, and I were close in our early years, but the life I chose to lead as I grew older was repulsive to him, and we finally had a falling out.  At the time, I didn't care...the dead have no family, and remember not their pasts...”

No family. My eyes narrowed slightly, but I held my tongue.

“I spent a lot of time in the dark places where men gather to feed their darker sides. A lot of time…and money. I gambled with men who make a living doing so...and one night I lost more money than I had...” His voice broke and he looked away, eyes closed against things I could not see. “I was threatened physically when I couldn't pay...but what is pain to dead men? I laughed and bled and spat on them. It was only then that they threatened to kill my brother if I didn't pay. Of course, I thought it only a threat, and, really, in the end I didn't feel anything about the matter. I'd left all of that behind me...or at least that's what I thought...”

“They killed him,” I interrupted calmly. “They killed your brother, and you blame yourself.”

Anguished, he looked at me with regret bleeding from his eyes. “How can I not? I can't tell you the pain which tore open my very soul when I found Lawrence, bleeding and broken, the life gone out of him. I cursed myself, and the gods, and everything else I had forsaken, and I ran.  I ran so far and so fast that I don't remember anything until I woke up on the doorstep of the Panarii temple where Joachim took me in.”

“Virgil…” My hands cupped his cheeks again, caught the tears which crept from his eyes. I wanted to kiss those tears away. “You are not an evil man. You were not an evil man, or his death would not hurt you so.”

“But…the things I did…”

“Nothing can be judged without context,” I said firmly. “How many have we killed together since the assassin at the Panarii shrine? How many have we lied to in our search for answers? How many coins have we gotten in exchange for trinkets stolen from the dead?”

Virgil’s eyes flickered briefly towards my left hand, and the diamond ring we’d found in the dust of the Black Mountain Clan. Although we still didn’t know who it had been crafted for, or whether the intended recipient was alive or dead, he had placed it on my finger and I had accepted it. I could see the resolve of his self-loathing weaken.

 “I noticed,” I said gently, “that in your retelling you did not mention your parents. What happened to them, Virgil?”

That broke the dam inside him. He sank to his knees and I sank down beside him, cradling his head as he wept into my shoulder, and my heart wept with him. I said nothing, merely stroked his hair and laid my cheek on his head and let the storm of weeping pass. The words came slowly, in twos and threes: his father, dying suddenly in an accident, a horse spooked and a neck broken. His mother, turning to drugs that eased the pain in her heart with the slumber of sweet oblivion, dying by inches until one day she took the whole bottle and did not awaken. And the struggle of two young men trying to put their parents’ affairs in order and salvage something from the wreckage their sheltered lives had become. Lawrence had borne up better under the strain, while Virgil had walled away what pain he could and externalized what he couldn’t, seeking the dark, dangerous places of the city out of the tangled twin desires to feel something – and to feel nothing.

“I’ll understand if you want me to leave,” he said brokenly once the story had been laid bare. “I’m…I’m…”

“You’re my protector,” I said fiercely, “and my husband by the customs of my tribe, and if you are overcome with feelings of inferiority, then you may make it up to me by taking me as your wife in the eyes of the law. You will assuage your guilt by paying your respects to your brother and avenging him, and then you will look into what may remain of your estate and put that in order. You are a sometimes hoodlum, yes, but you are also a gentleman and you will not forget that, am I clear?”

Shakily, he laughed as he leaned back to regard my fierce expression. “Quite clear, Clarisse-Vorak.”

“Good.” I dried his face with a handkerchief. “Now then, what should our first order of business here be?”

“We’ll need a room for the night,” he said promptly, composure already reasserting itself. “Possibly a week. I suggest the Mushroom Inn. Mr. Bates will need to be sent a telegraph to assure him that we’ve arrived safely, and we’ll need to see what we can learn of Maxim’s Machinery.” Virgil paused, looking a bit self-conscious. “I’ll, uh, need to put word out that I’ve returned, and find out where my brother is buried.”

My eyebrows rose. “When you said you ran, you meant right then?”

“Ah…yes,” he said, coloring.

I stood, lifting him to his feet. “Then we will also need to see if you are considered a suspect in his murder.”

Virgil burst into surprisingly light-hearted laughter. “That would make things awkward, wouldn’t it? Alright, how does this sound…so distraught was I after the deaths of my parents that I fell in with a bad crowd. Fearing for my life, I fled, heading back to Tarant, where I’d grown up. Along the way I converted to the Panarii. In Tarant, I became engaged to a beautiful student of medicine and came into the employ of Gilbert Bates, who has sent me back to Caladon to investigate the rumors of a heavier-than-air flying device created by Maxim Machinery. And now I have returned, only to discover that my brother has been murdered in my absence.”

“Very authentic-sounding,” I said with dry amusement. “Almost like it actually happened.”

“Yes, well…” He grinned. “The best lies do have an element of truth in them.”

“Let us amend our order of business, then, shall we? We’ll secure a room for the week, send the telegraph to Mr. Bates, and then visit your brother’s residence and head straight for the police afterwards.”

“An excellent idea, Miss Clarisse.” Virgil straightened, shedding his self-effacing demeanor and managing to look nearly like another person entirely. He offered me his arm. “Shall we?”

Laughing, I took it. “We shall.”

 

“I’m very glad to see you, Mr. Brummond,” said Chief Inspector Henderson. “After what happened to your brother, well, I won’t lie – we feared the worst for you.”

“What…” Virgil’s voice shook just slightly. “What did happen?”

Nimble fingers flicked through a thick file before extracting a newspaper clipping. “See for yourself.”

Demurely, I clung to Virgil’s arm and read over his shoulder. Found in his apartment…nothing stolen…crime ring…

Virgil muttered a few names angrily under his breath, and the Halfling’s eyebrows raised just slightly. “You think you know who did this, then?”

“Yes,” he answered shortly, and thrust the clipping back across the desk.

“Then, Mr. Brummond, I would very much like your assistance in this matter.”

Virgil looked startled, and I saw him swallow twice to get his voice under control so that when he said “You would?”, it didn’t come out as a squeak.

“You have information about this so-called Crime Ring, Mr. Brummond. Names. Faces. Locations. With your help, we could put these people away and clean up this city.” He watched Virgil’s reactions closely. “What’s more, you have something they want – you. With your help, we can set a trap. Avenge your brother and do a good deed all in one fell swoop. I can understand if you don’t want to put yourself in that kind of danger, what with the missus and all…”

“She’s a doctor,” Virgil said firmly. “It would be best if she were there with me in case anything happens.”

Chief Inspector Henderson looked at us both for a long minute, taking our measure, and finally nodded. “Alright. Let’s start with you telling me everything you know, and then we’ll set up our ambush.”

 

Virgil held me for a long time when we returned to the Mushroom Inn. Neither of us said anything; we both knew that despite our best plans, either of us could die during the fight. Slowly, mindfully, we changed out of our noble finery and into rough and travel-stained clothing more fitting to the clientele of the Sobbing Onion’s basement. I strapped my daggers to ankle and wrist, and Virgil smiled grimly as he strapped one to his waist.

“We look too clean,” he said as we looked each other over. “I should stink of sweat and booze, and you should be disheveled.”

“Give me a minute,” I said, rummaging through my pack.

Although not drinkable, I had some flasks of various tonics that had been made using alcohol. These, I sprinkled on Virgil’s bare skin where they would emit confusing and vile odors as the heat of his body warmed them.

“Well,” he said ruefully, “that takes care of my not smelling like an unwashed lout, but we’re still too…orderly.”

Calmly, I packed the flasks back up, then grabbed fistfuls of his hair and kissed him roughly, insistently. He grunted softly, hands going to my hips where he pulled me to him, fumbling with my skirts, his own hips driving against mine to hasten the hardness growing within his stained trousers. I backed up, not so much retreating as leading, until he had me pressed against the wall, my skirt hiked up and my bodice loosened, one hand on my thigh and the other on my breast, his lips ravishing my throat. He moaned my name – Vorak – as I freed his masculinity, and then it was my turn to moan as he prevailed upon me, his larger frame pinning me in place, his thick hands alternately buried in my hair and roaming the expanses of my bared flesh. I bit his shoulder to keep from crying out as he satisfied my need, and he grunted into my hair as he finished, and for a long minute we again held each other silently.

“I belong to you, Vorak,” he breathed, arms tightening around me. Then he stepped back and straightened his clothing. “Well,” he said, grinning, “I seem to have mussed your hair a bit, and your clothes definitely look like you’ve been wearing them. A good smearing of road dust, and we’ll be all set.” The smile flickered out. “Are you really alright with this, Miss Clarisse?”

“Which part,” I asked dryly as I stuffed my bodice with bandages already soaked in healing salve augmented by poppy, “the part where I’m pretending to be your whore, where you’re pretending to be a soul-sick drunkard, or where both of us could die?”

“All of it,” he replied miserably.

“What about the part where we murder those bastards for what they did to your brother? Because I am more than alright with making them pay for hurting you like that.”

“Even though it’s my fault?”

“Virgil…” I took his face between my hands. “They didn’t take anything from your brother’s apartment. If they had simply wanted money, they could have gotten it from him. They wanted to hurt you.”

Virgil’s mouth fell comically open, but a breath later closed with a snap, and anger burned in the eyes that had been soulful just moments before. “Those dirty, lying, bastards,” he growled. “They’re going to pay for what they did to Lawrence!”

With barely-restrained fury he stomped outside and grabbed a fistful of dirt, rubbing it haphazardly on his face and clothes while I did the same, then hurried to follow as he stormed off down the street, looking every inch the degenerate.

The clientele of the Sobbing Onion went silent as Virgil slammed the door open, and watched me with silent eyes as I followed him fearfully into the back room. A skinny man trembled while a more well-dressed one watched with an oily smile, neither one making a motion to stop Virgil as he flung open a trap door and stomped down the set of stairs it revealed – nor me as I trailed, cringing, in his wake. Downstairs, Virgil charged through the small room at the bottom of the stairs and into the larger one, shouting curses and waving his dagger about. It quite neatly drowned out the sounds of several policemen charging into the establishment above. By the time I caught up, Virgil had grabbed the gun out of the dwarf’s hand and clubbed the gnome with it before shooting the human in the knee. That man passed the dwarf his sword and crawled awkwardly towards the gnome, who I could see also had a gun in his limp hand. The fourth man was a half-ogre with a hammer.

I only had a second to take in the scene and make my decision. Virgil was facing the half-ogre, though, and that made my decision for me. I charged the human, drawing one of my daggers as I did, and kicked him in the head. Whether he was out cold or only stunned didn’t matter for the moment; Virgil was shooting at the half-ogre and dodging the hammer, leaving me to face a very angry dwarf with a sword. Luckily, despite him having the advantage of reach, I was more familiar with blades and a pair of feints combined with a kick to the essentials had him temporarily out of the fight as well. That left the half-ogre, who had swatted the gun out of Virgil’s hand and was backing him up against a wall. In a moment, he would have my protector cornered. I had one shot at stopping him. Ignoring the fallen sword, I threw myself at the half-ogre armed with just a dagger – or rather, I threw myself at his feet, and hamstrung him. That unbalanced him enough that Virgil was able to throw a punch at his jaw and knock him over me and onto his back, where I swiftly pressed my dagger to his throat. The sound of a gun being cocked made us both freeze, but it was followed by a cry of “Don’t move! Police!” and I sighed in relief.

“Excellent work,” Chief Inspector Henderson said as the half-ogre was cuffed and I could sheathe my dagger again. “Not a single death. Very commendable.”

“Their records are in that chest,” Virgil said weakly as he slid down the wall to sit on the floor, and that’s when I noticed the dark patch spreading across his shirt.

“Virgil!”

Heedless of any eyes upon us, I ripped my bodice open and fumbled for the bandages with one hand while tearing recklessly at his shirt with the other. The dwarf, or maybe the gnome, had gotten a shot off. I ripped the hanging pieces of his shirt out of the way, eyes searching frantically for the wound.

“Here,” he breathed, one hand moving painfully to a spot on his abdomen.

Heart in my mouth, I shoved a fistful of salved bandages at the spot, applying pressure and waiting for the medicinal paste to take effect.

“You should be hauling Brummond away, too,” the dwarf wheezed as he was pulled to his feet. “He’s got records too, you know.”

“I know,” the Halfling said calmly.

“Hear that, Brummond? You’re gonna get what’s coming to you.”

“I’m…sorry…Miss…Clarisse…”

“Don’t you dare die, Virgil, I still need you!”

“I’m not hauling you in, Mr. Brummond.”

The dwarf made an inarticulate sound of outrage.

“Far as I’m concerned, you just served your sentence. Community service, eh? I’m sure you’re a reformed man now, learned the error of your ways and all that.” The Halfling sounded very smug indeed. “You put your life on the line to turn in these creeps, and your lady-friend here put hers on the line for you. That tells me you’re not a rotten apple. You better marry her,” he added sternly. “Devotion like that isn’t something you just trip over. I’ll leave him to you, Miss Vorak, and there’ll be a pair of guards to walk you to wherever you’re going.”

“Thank you, Inspector,” I said somewhat distractedly.

He chuckled. “Don’t want anyone mistaking you for the kind of lady that walks the streets alone at night, especially with what you’re wearing. Thanks for all your help, Mr. Brummond.”

Virgil’s face, which had been pale from pain and blood loss, gained a flush as he realized my bosom was plainly visible. “Thank you, Inspector,” he said weakly.

I listened as many pairs of feet walked around, voices discussing something in low tones. Then there was a scraping slide as they hauled the chest out.

“You saved me, Miss Clarisse,” Virgil said after a few minutes, his color looking better. “There’s no way I would have survived taking them all on at once. I would have died for my guilt, a sacrifice in my brother’s name, without doing any good at all…and I-I would have left you alone.”

Carefully, I leaned forward to kiss him. His eyes fluttered shut and some of the pain drained out of his face – no doubt from the salve at work – and I ignored the footsteps coming closer until a sturdy pilgrim’s robe was draped over my shoulders and another hand entered my field of vision to press the bandage against Virgil’s wound. Hastily, I let go and pulled the robe closed before looking to see who it was, but the older man in plain clothes kneeling beside me wasn’t anyone I knew.

“You've changed much, young Virgil...”

The older man’s scratchy, accented voice caused Virgil to gasp, eyes flying open only to fill with glad tears. “Elder Joachim!”

“Yes,” he said, head bowed slightly to me. “It is I. I must apologize...I have been so busy trying to find out who was trying to kill you and why, that I neglected to consider the fact that you might need my help in other matters. But, you are alive and so I rejoice...”

With that, the hand holding the bandage glowed and Virgil sucked his breath in sharply. After a moment, he exhaled and all the tension that had been in him vanished. I stuck my arms into the robe’s sleeves and tied the belt hastily. When Joachim lifted the wad of bandages, a single bullet sat on blood-smeared – but otherwise unmarked – skin.

“How did you know where to find us?” I asked.

Joachim smiled kindly. “I asked the Inspector to send word to the Panarii Temple should Virgil Brummond ever return to Caladon. I feared the worst, as I knew a little more about his past than you did.”

Virgil flushed at that. “I’m sorry, Miss Clarisse. I should have told you sooner.”

“Hush.” I laid a finger on his lips. “You told me, that’s what counts.”

“I didn’t want to let you down,” he continued miserably. “Either of you.”

I didn’t deign to answer that in words; the look I gave him was eloquent enough. Sheepishly, he smiled and reached for my hand, and our fingers tangled together.

“I knew from the moment I saw you that you were special somehow,” Elder Joachim said, voice warm with pride. “That you were meant for more than the life you left behind. And I see that I was right...the Living One couldn't have chosen a better companion.  You will be a powerful ally in the battle to come.”

“I don’t feel very powerful,” he protested dryly. “Especially right now. I feel like an unwashed lout who’s in dire need of a bath and a good night’s sleep.”

“Ah, but you see…young Virgil, now that you have let go of the darkness within you…” He touched Virgil’s heart lightly. “Your light will shine that much more brilliantly.”

Blushing harder, Virgil asked, “Wh-what have you been doing, Elder Joachim?”

“Well, since I left Stillwater, I've been trying to find out if the prophecies say any more about what it is you're supposed to be doing.” He looked discomfited. “Unless I've missed something, Arronax hasn't yet returned. What have you two learned?”

“The Zephyr was shot down to kill a dwarf who escaped from wherever the Black Mountain Clan were exiled to,” I said quietly. “He was trying to reach his friend Gilbert Bates in Tarant, who has the money, the influence, and the inclination to investigate the murder of his old friend, so we are acting as his agents. The Zephyr left from Caladon, and the machines that shot it down were built in Caladon, so that is the lead we’re following while he contacts a friend of his who may be willing to take us to the Isle of Despair. That’s where our sources said they were sent, although at this point I doubt it’s anything that simple.”

Joachim gave me a piercing look. “What makes you say that, Living One?”

“First, if he’d come from the Isle of Despair, and he was trying to get to Tarant, how did he come to be here in Caladon? And second…” My fingers tightened around Virgil’s, and I did not meet his eyes. “He had a matchbook from the Roseborough Inn. It didn’t seem important when I thought he was a gnome named Preston Radcliffe.”

“He shaved his beard?” Joachim looked dismayed at that. “Then whatever he came to warn his friend Bates about must have been dire indeed. But you said Roseborough…” At my nod, he looked thoughtful.

“Are you going to be traveling with us now, Elder Joachim?” Virgil asked in a small voice.

“No,” the older man said gently. “The Living One is in capable hands with you. I am no longer needed here, but I'm sure I can find something to keep me busy. It may be that I have been researching the wrong thing. I will see if I can find some other way to help you, and if I find anything, I will contact you through Bates. Good luck to both of you. May the spirit of Nasrudin be with you and guide your path.”

Joachim bowed again to me and stood, turning to leave. Looking panicked, Virgil scrambled to his feet. “Wait!”

“What is it, young Virgil?”

“I-I, that is, we…ah…” His hand tightened around mine, and I stepped closer to him. “We’ve chosen to walk the same path until death parts us,” he said quickly. “We, uh, haven’t made it official yet, but…I-I was w-wondering if…that is, uh…may we have your blessing?”

“Of course.” Joachim smiled warmly and laid one hand gently on each of our heads, lyrical elven words flowing over us. “I will see to it that it is entered in the Panarii records,” he said when he’d finished. “Virgil Brummond and Miss Clarisse Vorak. Farewell.”

“Farewell,” I replied demurely. “Thank you.”

“Farewell, Elder Joachim,” Virgil said softly beside me. Silently, we watched the old man climb the stairs and greet the two guards left to escort us. “Well, Miss Clarisse, it’s been a long day. How about we go back to the inn and get some rest?”

I glanced at the bullet lying on the floor where he’d been sitting. “Did you want to keep that as a memento?”

Virgil looked at it for a long minute. “No,” he said finally. “I may not have died, but I feel that this room is a tomb best closed and left forgotten. I don’t want to be constantly looking back at what I was.” He pulled me closer, my head tucked against his shoulder. “I’d much rather look forward, to the future I’ll share with you.”