Book 6: Chapter 24 - The Price of Kindness (RAW)

In the age of the Cataclysm, the dark elves, cousins to the First Children, were cast out to wander the scarred surface while fires of mindless ruin swept the world and their kin retreated to their hallowed halls deep underground. Thus, say the chronicles, a lingering curse took hold of them. Burned by the touch of an unkind sun, their years remain long, yet fall well short of those enjoyed by their purer kin, and that very limit ties them closer to, at least to a small degree, humankind. Though steeped in the arrogance of their race, some among them have learned to prize what is fleeting and transient rather than scorn and reject it outright.

- The Fancify Travels by Beron de Laney, 376 AC.

The elves had behaved, and now that all was said and done, I was at a loss for what to do with them. They were, unsurprisingly, sisters, Marimae and Saranea. Twins so alike, I suspected not even their own mother could tell one from the other. I surely could not, at least not without magic, and even then I doubted the difference ran any deeper than their moods. And, like all women regardless of race, those shifted like wind across water.

I needed no more hangers-on, truly. No bedwarmers either—for the time being, Estaza sufficed. They looked to me like the potential kind of mistake a young man might make when bewitched by stories of harems and the dance beneath the sheets. What those stories failed to mention was the squabbling, the jealousy, the small frictions that built into something greater, like rot blooming beneath polished wood. Domestic matters multiplied when you introduced new ingredients. Changes would happen, and not always in a way one could stomach.

Worse still, I had the distinct impression the pair would put a knife in my back if given half the chance. Perhaps they already had it halfway drawn.

But in the end, I was a man who wished to live with some scrap of a moral compass. A battered thing, perhaps, but mine all the same. And so, over a breakfast of sweetened oatcakes and silence, I offered them their freedom.

“I release you from your oaths,” I said, shrugging as if the matter meant little to me. “So long as you raise no hand against me or mine, nor harm those who ride in this company. Remember, all things considered, we have treated you well.”

Estaza glanced over her cup with a small, grateful half-smile. No doubt, she wanted them gone as much as I did.

“This is a far cry from your initial threats,” one of the twins said, voice tight with bitterness.

“My words were meant as an attempt at negotiation with the belated criple,” I replied with a sigh, noticing how they stiffened slightly.

“We could still be of use… if you kept us on,” the other began, but her sister’s sharp glance cut her short.

“We’re a day from Narilmu,” I said, leaning back. “I’ll give you gold enough to vanish, if that’s your wish. Which of you is which?”

“Marimae,” said the one on the left.

“Saranea,” the other answered, her tone sharp, her eyes harder than her sister’s. A blade kept honed.

“I don’t understand you,” Marimae said defiantly, almost as in challenge to the truth she had witnessed. “How do you do what you do? How could you move so?”

“To you, I may seem a child, but know this: I have lived longer than most in the Dream. How else could one such as I do what I can do?” I added with a smirk, unable to resist showing off.

“You’re a Sleeper of Al-Lazar… a Dervish of the Dust?” Saranea asked, her eyes widening.

I instantly regretted it, and Larynda rolled her eyes at me, tired of my need to impress. I had given the pair far too much information, and I had a feeling they would be harder to get rid of now.

“Tell us more,” Saranea pressed, the grey of her eyes glowing bright.

“Be off with you. I’ve given you your freedom—what more is there to give?”

It was Marimae who answered, her voice softer than before. “Let us stay. We can serve. We wish to serve.”

I looked between them, weighing my words like coin. “Do I seem a man in need of service? What I require, I already have. There is nothing you possess that holds value for me.”

“Please… we beg of you,” they said in unison, bowing their heads to the ground.

They dropped to their knees in unison, foreheads pressed to the sand. “Please… we beg of you.”

I turned to Larynda. “Well? What say you?”

She pulled her hair into a braid, her tone careless. “Do whatever you like, Gil.”

“That’s not much of an answer.”

“But it’s all I’ve got. I couldn’t stop you from lopping their heads off if you wanted to, so I really don’t feel it’s my place to dictate their fate.”

“There used to be a time when you were nicer,” I sighed.

So much for letting others share in the weight of decisions. Another lesson learned too late.

“And you, Estaza?” I asked, glancing toward the beautiful woman seated across from me. “Will they be useful?” I asked, resisting the urge to reach out and fix a strand of her dark blonde hair.

“I would be a fool to complain about any additional assistance,” she replied a little too stiffly.

I let out a breath. “Then it seems the yays have it. You are free to go, and—by that same token—free to stay. Just don’t come to regret it. Mine is not a household built on grace and mercy. I will have to view the pair of you akin to something like pets.”

“Yet they say you’re blessed by the Divines,” Saranea said.

Once again, I nearly confessed that I bore the blessings of not one, but three. Instead, I settled for a deliberately irritating smile and a facetious answer.

“Perhaps, perhaps not. We are all, to some degree, blessed and cursed by those who dwell upon high.”

***

The next day brought with it a test, not only of my new followers’ loyalty, but also of my own dwindling faith in the better nature of men.

The boys, Igari and Rasul, had gone missing, and with them went two of my Godmetal blades.

I still possessed the unnamed sword I had taken from the blind swordsman. It was of comparative craft, a lean and elegant thing that also doubled as a piece of art. Even so, the loss of the others stirred in me a wrath that burned hot and deep. I had known, perhaps somewhere in the marrow of me, that their fawning loyalty had been little more than performance. All of it, nothing more than a prelude to betrayal. They had sought my favor with clever words and lowered eyes. The pair of them had fallen prey to a temptation most deadly.

And there was the insult of it all.

Their intent was plain enough. In the port of Narilmu, a single blade of Saint’s Silver could buy enough to change their lives; in fact, it could probably buy them new ones. However, they had gambled, and like so many who chose to gamble against me, they had paid for their hubris had lost.

The sisters Marimae and Saranea had tracked them. Decent trackers, it turned out, or perhaps merely lucky. In truth, thinking upon it, it could not have been such a great feat. There were, after all, precious few places to hide in terrain such as this unless you could bury yourself in the sand. The Huzayfaar, those six-limbed lizards bred by the people here, moved swiftly over the sands. They were second only to the Lirkud of Nas Al-Rimal. The twins had caught the boys long before they could reach the coastal town.

By the time they were brought back to camp, wrists bound and faces sunburned and swollen with fear, my anger had cooled into something harder and more deliberate.

"Apologies to you, Gilgamesh," said Damien, bowing low as the sisters handed the boys into the unkind waiting grip of the soldiers. "I sent them to your service, believing they were of better character. They will, of course, be suitably punished."

"And what would that punishment be?" I asked, my voice calm and seemingly pensive. "A flogging? A hand?"

"No, no. Nothing so mild," Damien replied, almost lightly, though the look in his eyes was hard as flint. "They were Mercenaries in training. And there is no graver sin among us than stealing from one’s brother."

He glanced at the boys. They now stood, or rather sagged, between two guards, tied to some posts. The ropes bit into their wrists. Their mouths worked soundlessly against their gags, as if pleading or praying.

"So?" I pressed again. "What is the punishment?"

"For a crime such as this..." Damien paused, the silence heavy with judgment. "When their guilt is plain as the sun overhead, there can be only one answer. Their lives are not enough. They will be crucified and left to rot in the sand. A reminder to all who wear our colors of the oaths they swore. We are not the Adventurers' Guild, who treat betrayal as something to be forgiven. We may cross blades on the battlefield, but we do not steal from each other like this."

"Still," I said, "is that not a bit, well, extreme?"

Damien gave me a look then. Not angry. Not cold. Only tired. "It is our code. Did you not curse them yourself, Gilgamesh? I heard you wish death on their heads, and loudly. So let me ask you this—what holds more value to you? Two half-grown boys, or two exotic blades of Saint’s Silver forged by elven smiths from across the sea? But it is your choice if you would rather spare them."

I said nothing for a while, studying the dust beneath my feet.

"I see your point," I said at last. "I’ve no reason to forgive them, and they have no means to repay what they have stolen, nor the insult they have given me. If I forgive them now, it will undo much of the discipline you have worked so hard to instill in your men and will set a bad precedent. Do what you think is right."

Damien gave a slight bow and placed a hand on my shoulder, light as smoke. "Thank you, Gilgamesh. This is not a place for soft hearts or soft words."

No, I thought. It never is.

“Please, you can not allow this to happen,” one of the dark elven twins protested. “We did not track them down for this.”

“What did you think would happen to them?” Damien asked cooly, his voice still flat and bereft of all emotion. “If I let such a grave crime as this slide, there will be no end to it. It will be a hole that will eventually tear this Dragon apart. It will give the others a message that rules do not apply to them.”

“Would the pair of you take their place?” I asked them, deciding to twist the knife. “This is the law here; we can only follow and enforce it. We do not make it.”

“But you have power enough. Damien said you could forgive them,” Saranae, or at least I thought it was Saranae, retorted. 

“First, I think you overestimate my personal power,” I replied with false humility as I raised the visor of my helm and shook my head. “Damien's points are still true. Should I forgive them, then it means that the men surrounding me, surrounding you, would think it is alright to take from me. That they could harm those beneath me without consequence?”

“But…” her sister tried in support of Saranae.

“It would have been better if you had killed them, out there, on the sands. Cleaner. Crucifixion, I do not think, is a good way to meet the end.”

“You could spare them that at least!” cut in Larynda, surprisingly.

“I’ll kill you! Kill you all!” shouted one of the boys, somehow able to work his mouth free of his gag.

My mind was made up; I did not have it within me to even think about sparing someone who had tried to kill me, and another who had sworn an oath of vengeance against me.

“See… that is what the thief says. Not even an ounce of regret or remorse,” I replied, my voice cold and uncaring. “Disgraceful to the end.”

“Well, you just need something, right? Something suitably horrible and gruesome so everyone here knows not to mess with you?” my ward shot back, her voice determined.

I looked at Damien, and he just nodded and added, “As long as they die.”

Without looking at the condemned boys, Larynda raised a hand and pulled at something. The air went suddenly still, as if the desert itself had forgotten to breathe. A split‑second later, a wet, ripping hiss tore through the silence. Two crimson jets burst from the boys’ chests, drawn straight toward Larynda’s outstretched hand. The streams moved with brutal speed, less ribbons than whips, and the boys had barely time for a strangled gurgle before the sound died in their throats. Their limbs jerked once, twice, then sagged as muscle and sinew lost all strength.

The blood converged in Larynda’s palm, swelling into a dark, pulsing orb. She regarded it with clinical detachment, an apothecary weighing a measure of tincture, then flicked her wrist. The sphere collapsed into the sands with a soft hiss and was soon absorbed by the desert.

What remained of Jongshoi and Gunne dangled from the posts: skin leached of color, cheeks sunken, eyes already clouding. Flesh shrank tight over bone, leaving them brittle, desiccated husks that might crumble at the next gust of wind. It was almost amusing how their guards gave out an almost girlish shriek at Larynda’s display of magical might.

“I trust this is enough to dissuade further stealing,” Larynda finished, her green eyes flinty, daring anyone to challenge her.

I just gave her a small grin, and Damien de Savant just gave her a slow clap.