Chapter 10: Part 10: The Peril of Unasked-For Gifts

One night, deep into their cups and long past anything like a reasonable hour, Oskarl and Emrick had gotten into a debate.

Outside the diamond-pained windows, the mists had once more wrapped the world outside Eldfäst in a close dim fog of unnaturally muffled silence.

It was only broken here and there by the frustrated howls of the creatures that lurked and prowled within it. They yowled and raged — the force of it making the small pieces of glass rattle and shake in their leading.

But the wards on the ancient fortresses wards were heavy and old, and built to hold against much more than this.

The sounds they made were angry and sullen as they tested the keep's defenses, and were yet again denied.

Sebastian could almost let himself pretend it was merely a winter storm rather than what really awaited on the other side of the glass. But it had only just gone Mistide — the feast was tomorrow, in fact — and the cold comfort of winter's safety would still be some weeks away yet.

But despite all that, down here in the workshop they had commandeered for the night, the fire in the small hearth warmed almost as much as the company. Not to mention the contents of the bottles Emrick had proudly brandished at them just after dinner, the last of his moonshine from the previous winter's batch.

Emrick had challenged Sebastian to a hand of tafik this evening, and Oskarl and Destan were always good for a game. So they had waited until the tables were cleared and clean in the Great Hall, hoping to find a fifth for a proper wheel.

He didn't often get a chance out on the Path for anything more complicated than the standard one-on-one. Sebastian had managed to pick up a few promising cards he thought might make his deck especially interesting this year, and he was excited to try them out.

But the first of the songs had just come out that year — not that they had known it was to be any more than that single oddity at the time.

By the time they had all raced the mistbells back to the safety of Eldfäst's thick stone walls high up in the Langra Mountain, there wasn't a Relict in the whole keep who hadn't heard the song. Even those who hadn't yet gotten a firsthand encounter were soon enough subjected to a piecemeal rendition from the more musically inclined among those who had.

The song seemed to have spread like wildfire too. Relicts purporting to have run across bards playing it from Gel-Sinde to Oraia, even nearly to the northern coast.

It had been impossible to play their game with what sounded like half the throats in the whole fucking place were singing the damn song. Their wild and raucous voices had bounced off the stone wall and high carved ceiling, increasing the noise exponentially.

Sebastian and his friends had finally given up trying. They had already lost their tentative fifth, and so let themselves be chased out by the Relicts intent on rowdily celebrating surviving another year out on the Path. But none of them had been ready to call it a night yet.

Which is how Sebastian found himself perched on the corner of a worktable, trying not to scowl at the cards in his hand and the smugly beaming face of Destan sitting across from him.

"Your turn, Baz," Destan prompted, an oh-so-helpful grin on his face as he leaned back confidently on his bench.

"I know it's my fucking turn," Sebastian grumbled, trying to act indifferent as he laid down his last scout, though with more force than he intended. "Can't rush greatness."

Not that it was a very good act. But at least he took Destan's second archer out with it, which might buy Sebastian two more rounds maybe. Three if he could just —

"It's jus — just a bit of romanta — romantic — romantaschism — ism," Emrick slurred from where he sat by the hearth in one of the small room's two stools, his feet propped up on the other. His expression was pinched with intent as he tried to sway his audience of three with his very loud — and very, very drunk — opinion. "A flight of fantashy — no, flight of fancy on — of the song's writer. He's jusht —just some bloke, right? Just trying to make a name for himself. Picked us juss for the sheer novelty."

"You aren't listening," Oskarl rumbled dejectedly in his deep bass as he jabbed a thick finger vaguely into the air to try and emphasize his point. By this time of the evening, he had elected to forgo anything so complicated as sitting on furniture and was simply lying flat on the floor instead.

Sebastian took another swig from his mug, eying him.

He looked rather comfortable, actually.

"I'm telling you — whoever wrote it probably thought they were doing us Relicts a — a favor or something," Oskarl argued. "Seems to be going to a lot of effort helping us build back up our image. Or at least, try and pull it out of the mud."

Pfft — good luck, Sebastian thought as he chewed the inside of his cheek. He carefully considered the moon phase reverse card Destan had just played, deciding against playing the vampiric minion he had been planning and wondering if it was the right time to lay down his sphinx instead…

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Emrick's big bushy eyebrows furrowed as he frowned down into the bottom of his mug, before groping blindly behind him for one of the bottles they had brought in with them. He grinned when he found it, topping his mug up before wiggling the bottle invitingly in Sebastian's direction.

Sebastian leaned over to take it from him, his fingers nearly slipping as he watched Destan lay down a —

— fucking hells —

Hati, warg queen and eater of the moon.

Sebastian dragged his eyes up to Destan's ginning face. He didn't even watch as the other Relict dropped the white pebble that tracked the moon phases onto the image of the snarling wolf painted on the card, empowering it and the two other wargs he had already put in play.

Not to mention the moon's absence would strengthen all of Destan's wraith cards, just as they would be under a new moon. Sebastian had until now been confident that lineup meant a lichmage was about to arrive from Destan's hand. Not one of the rarest cards that Sebastian had ever seen.

"Your turn again," Destan murmured softly.

Sebastian's eyes flicked down reflexively, without his permission. But he didn't need to look to know he was well and truly fucked. His weres, his leśnik, his hind — Sebastian had been counting on the full moon to bolster his forces next turn, and now —

"Fuck. I fold, you bastard," Sebastian muttered, laying the rest of his hand upright with the card faces showing.

Destan just grinned unrepentantly and leaned forward, already starting to poke through the small pile of Sebastian's cards. He stopped when he found the sphinx, glancing at the cards in his hand before picking it up to add to his own deck. "Again?"

Sebastian kissed his teeth, but —

What else was he gonna do tonight? Or the next few months at that?

"Fine, sure," Sebastian replied, already sweeping his cards up and starting to shuffle. "Picked up some others this year I might as well lose to you too before the winter's out."

"That's the spirit," Destan told him with a grin that promised far too much trouble for this time of night.

"This bard's got his work cut out for him then, if he's really seriously trying to clean all the muck off the idea of Relicts that humans are so very glad to drag it through," Emrick continued, his words echoing Sebastian's thoughts. "It would take a damn sight more than a single song to achieve that."

"Aye — and you've finally come to my point," Oskarl replied, propping himself up to catch them all with an earnest look on them all, catching each of their eyes in turn. His face screwed up then, as if he had just downed an eight-year-old potion gone well past its due. When he spoke next though, his voice was as steady as the mountain Eldfäst was built into the side of.

"The way I see it, this bard is pinning his reputation to ours now. " Oskarl said quietly, the pop and crackle of the wood in the health the only other sound to break the silence other than his words. "What I want to know is —

— why?"

 

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Author's Notes:

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