Grim Fireside Story

Grim Fireside Story

by theflatline

He who hears music, feels his solitude peopled at once.

-Robert Browning

It was late at night when I arrived back at Gunnar’s Hold from Drakkar Lake with a bag full of Vaettir essence; but the fires were still lit, and I could still get a drink—that was all that mattered to me at that point. That was when I saw her. She saw staring, idly into the central campfire. Her platinum hair was emblazoned by the glow, giving her the appearance of an avatar; but that was all I could see of her—Norn trappings hid the rest of her. She seemed weary, lost, cold. I’d known the look on those eyes; it was one of hopelessness. I sat across from her with a cup of Junni liquor. She didn’t move. Didn’t even notice me. Aside from the two of us, the city was quiet, only the occasional Norn hooting, drunk on ale. It was well past the mooting-hour. I sipped on my drink and watched her, and was about to speak, when she pulled out a small wooden pipe and a leather pouch. I knew then,  by the way she filled the pipe, by the look of her firm, gauntlet-clad  arms,  and -let alone- the – darts on them, that she was an assassin. She lit the pipe and blew ethereal wisps of smoke; I smelled flowers, poppies, the scent of Kaineng, and Ran Musu. She took another drag, still looked at the fire, grinned and said, “Grim Mortbane. Found you at last.”

It was my instinct to reach for my scythe, but I just took another sip of my drink and nodded, “Guilty as charged. What did I do this time? Or should I ask, who wants me dead now?” She tapped the pipe against her thigh lightly and looked at me with those empty eyes again, “I’m not here to kill you. I’m here to help you. Help you find something you’ve been looking for.” Another drag, more wisps and she began to hum a tune I knew. It pierced me with chills. How the hell did she know? How could she? A knowing smile crossed her face as the tune did it’s work on me, and when it was over I set my drink on a blanket. Covered my eyes for a moment to ponder her motives. “There’s more to it than the notes you know,” I heard her say. “There’s much, much more.” A rustling noise, and when I looked up I saw her holding a trinket that gleamed in the firelight. “Do you know what this is? It’s a device for playing music. A prissy mesmer friend came upon it in the Verdant Cascades a few months ago.” She flipped it over to reveal the workings of it—intricate gears and strange wires. “Normally this kind of thing, I’d just sell off to the highest bidder at Kamadan, but when I realized it still worked, I began asking around…and your name came up every time.” With a motion she activated the device, which played the chilling song I’d just heard her hum. She stopped the music and set it down beside her to take another drag of her pipe, “Now, Mr. Mortbane, here’s the deal, you too me what you know, and I’ll tell you what I know.” She smirked as I drank more of my liquor. I should have known there’d be a catch, there always was with assassins.

I sighed, “Listen, Miss..” “Feng.” “Miss Feng, I don’t know what that relic you have in your possession is. All I know, all I know about that string of notes is that once, while I was following some Corsair toward a village in South-western Istan, something happened I can’t explain. People torn apart, turned to amber dust,  literally evaporated to that music.” I clenched my fists, “Like a plague, or a freak disaster, or ball of lightning. I’ve seen the work of gods and avatars, channeled them through my scythe for my fights, but this was, totally unhinged power, and there was nothing I could do, absolutely nothing. Whatever happened that day, whatever that power was, it spared me; it haunts me, those notes, to this day.”

I searched Feng’s face for any response, any recognition, but she was like stone, silent, mulling what I’d told her. She relit her pipe, blew a ring of smoke. I watched it frame her briefly in it’s haze, before she said, “Grim, what you saw, well, saw, and heard was no accident; it happened to me too, though…I might have fared not so well as you did.” She dropped the pipe, slid the blanket off her as she rose, revealing a compact, lithe figure. The armor was of Canthan design, dyed a gold that shimmered in the firelight. She removed a gauntlet from her left arm and walked to my side. I hesitated with each step, cautiously eying the many daggers and darts covering her armor. She smirked, “Don’t worry. Just, want to show you something.” She crouched beside me and revealed the spot on her forearm she had been covering up. It was empty, black, like ink, void of light. Not quite a tattoo, or a scar, far worse. The mark was shaped like a terrible emptiness that stretched for inches from her wrist in streaks. It swirled, almost menacingly. She covered it back up and went back to her spot by the fire.

“Consider yourself lucky you don’t have one of these,  Mr. Mortbane.” “Feng, what the hell is that?” She was coy, “A reminder? A warning? Penance? I’ve tried to find out, but it’s only made me numb to the world. If there’s one thing it has done, it’s made me a better killer.” She wrapped the blanket around her. I asked, “What do you mean?” “From what I know, this mark flows according to certain energies, voids of energy.” She lightly touched the place on her arm. I was puzzled by what she said. She went on, “What you saw must have occurred on a particularly powerful lei line. You see, I’m attuned to voids, or energy imbalances. This thing tends to go crazy when it senses an imbalance. When that happens, well, that’s my chance to..get the upper hand, in a way.” She grinned white teeth at her witticism..

“So tell me this Feng, if what happened to me and you were not accidents, what are they? What about the Gods? Wouldn’t they have some involvement in all this?” She sighed, “God, gods…this is beside gods, events concerning something Lyssa, Melandru, and the like, even they cannot touch so easily.” I was shocked at what I’d just heard. Really, greater than the gods?

Feng said, “This will be hard to explain, without an example. For instance, I know you are caring for a young Charr. For a human to do such a thing is down right unheard of. But in the moment, say, you sensed an imbalance, a kind of sway toward love rather than hate that allowed you to accept that young creature. IT, the strange phenomena that happened to us, operates in a similar way, except in a much deeper fashion.” When she mentioned Roan I couldn’t help but think of him, in Kourna, alone. I’d been gone for months and left him in a good caretaker I’d trusted, but still, she had a point about the love-hate imbalance—what if I’d hated him in that moment? What if I’d…I dispelled the thought and looked at her again. She had produced some rice wine from her satchel and poured herself a small bowl and took a sip. She knew the discomfort on my eyes, did she enjoy this, was this some game? “Feng, what do you want to tell me, just say it.” She set the the bowl down and leaned closer to the fire, “Alright, Grim. Since you asked so kindly…These events are caused by…well, there are many names for them…I call them Viden, after void. They are the lowest life, maybe the source of life itself, and responsible for a lot of strange events people confuse for ghosts. They can also cause a lot of disasters when humans are really careless with their surroundings…take a look at Kaineng Centre.”

Viden? Ghosts? Was this assassin crazy? Why was I even listening to her? So far all she’d told me were strange theories. I rose and picked up my scythe and drink. “Miss Feng. I don’t have time for games, or ghost stories, and while it is interesting we have similar stories regarding that song…I’m going to bed.” I turned to go, leaving her there, crossed-legged by the fire, drinking, when she said, “Grim, what if I told you that our meeting was supposed to happen because tonight this city would be destroyed by that very same energy?” I stopped dead in my tracks and turned toward her, “How would you know that?” She smiled and pointed to her arm, “It’s been going hay-wire all night…something isn’t right.” “Well, why didn’t you tell the Norn! Why me?!” She stared, “Really, who would believe an assassin’s warning of an attack, let alone one that can’t be really defended against my normal means? The Norn would just punt me out of the city.” She poured herself another bowl of wine and calmly took a sip. How could she be so calm, knowing what was going to happen?

She gestured for me to sit again. I reluctantly took a seat beside her, “So…what did you have in mind? How can we fight something that is, like you said, life itself?” A smile behind the bowl of wine, “We face it head on by employing moon reflected on water” She set the bowl down and looked at me, “We’ll make it seem like there is more energy nearby and divert the lei line’s surge, but timing will be critical…and we will need a ton of energy.”

I thought for a moment and remembered my Vaettir essence. I grabbed the bag. Showed her, “Vaettir are beings of energy, aren’t they? Well, I just vanquished scores of them.” I grinned. She took the bag and looked inside, wide-eyed. “Wow. With this much essence we should be able to derail the lei line temporarily. Now what I’m going to need you to do is this…” And we started planning for the inevitable.

Two hours later, dawn was skirting the vale, but the city still slept. I had spread the essence in a circle around me on rock face that was several hundred feet outside the city gates. Feng walked around me, smoking, checking her arm every so often, adjusting the circle, when it began. She dropped her pipe and tensed. I reached to grab her but she pushed me away, “No. You must maintain the circle at all costs, or else the city dies.” She leaned against a boulder and said, “It’s coming…Go!”

I began hearing the music, and prayed to Melandru, like Feng said, and felt the energy of Nature flow into me, change my body into her Avatar. The essence, attuned to the goddess by Feng’s doing, flared to life and shot a pillar of light into the sky. The music was deafening now. Through Melandru’s eye’s I saw the lei line, saw the energy approaching the city, and saw it curve toward my location. It was unlike anything I’d ever experienced—a river of liquid amber, screaming notes, and blinding force. It was beautiful, deadly. I was frozen with awe, tears in my eyes. That was when Feng grabbed me out of the circle as the river burned straight through the essence in a deafening roar. I woke up on the boulder in a daze. It was midday. Feng was nowhere in sight. In my hand however, was the music box, and a note: “Thought Roan would like this–Sylvia.”