Author's Nightmare: Chapter 138 (Patreon)

Shango POV: Day 112

Current Wealth: 233 gold 47 silver 16 copper

I’d needed the week off since finalizing my plan to take care of Byror, and I’d spent it all well. As far as rest and relaxation went, it was certainly a lot easier to make progress when one lived in an increasingly well-heated mansion than when one was sleeping in the streets, drinking from puddles and periodically waking up to avoid police officers. The company of one of the most attractive women I’d ever seen was, likewise, a fairly big upgrade over my brothers. It’s not that I didn’t love Beam and, Solitaire of course, it’s just that a man who pathologically trains himself in martial arts and a violently deranged drug fiend are about the least relaxing company one can keep in any circumstances. 

Getting married in my early twenties had never really been the plan, but then neither had getting forcibly inserted into the edgiest dark fantasy world I knew. Somehow, I was coming to like the former. 

Phelia was brilliant, and now that things had calmed down, and she’d been brought back, I’d started spending even more time with her. Just talking for the most part, because there was a damned lot to talk about. Politics, mathematics, history. As far as sheer knowledge went there were a few areas she lacked in, as someone from a world centuries less advanced than mine, but her raw intellect and wit made the discussions fascinating anyway. 

That she had sex with me pretty much daily was, I assure you, entirely unrelated to our growing fondness. I’m a perfectly classy guy you know, more interested in brains than what’s below the neck. Honest. 

Well, that morning we were in bed together and in one of those moods where getting out to face the cold air seemed nightmarishly difficult. 

Something tickled my nose, and I grunted, turning to see Phelia’s hair had somehow billowed out to splay itself up over my neck, jaw and face. It did that a lot, I’d learned. Seeming animated by some external force to end up in all the places most irritating to me whenever we shared a bed. The one time I’d complained, of course, she’d gotten pissy, but even disregarding that I didn’t feel like complaining now. 

“You’re awake.” She noted, turning to look up at me. Must have heard my breathing change. Clever as ever. 

“So are you.” I observed. “Ugh, mind lying in for a bit?”

“It’s cold.” Phelia replied, by way of agreement. 

“Always cold here.” I grumbled. I’d grown up in Nigeria and the U.S, which meant weather that was a great deal warmer than the vaguely European climate we based Redacle on. 

“I don’t know why your family lived here for so long.” I sighed. “You’ve told me about the heights of your glory days, I’d have used that fortune to move somewhere sunnier.”

“Would you now.” Phelia hummed. “Well, you’re free to move out of my giant mansion whenever you want dear.”

I smiled. 

“Perish the thought.” I replied, with false severity. “The Lord of a household can’t leave it unmanned now, can he?”

Phelia snorted. 

“The Lord of the household?”

“Yes.” I nodded with a feigned fervor. Then added, a shade more warmly. “Forever.”

She leaned in, lips inches from mine, when the door soared open as if someone had kicked it. 

In fact, someone had. A tall, wiry someone with eyes that bulged to an almost insectoid size and hands fidgeting with all the nervous energy of a crackhead three days into confinement. I shot up, and Phelia screamed as the figure grinned. 

“Relax!” He laughed, face splitting to show large, pointed teeth. “It’s me! Solitaire!”

I did relax, slightly. Phelia screamed even louder upon hearing him identified, and didn’t stop for a good few more seconds. 

“What do you want?!” I snapped, finding my head suddenly throbbing and relaxation suddenly dissolved at the intrusion. 

“We have a visitor.” He grinned, sweeping his eyes across the room and, to my genuine surprise, not ogling Phelia’s half-covered body like a slab of meat. “Thought you’d want to see them personally but if you’re busy then it’s no problem, I can handle it on my own.”

Solitaire had once lit someone’s hemline on fire for calling him a Liberal, so I actually didn’t think he could handle a social situation on his own. Not unless it devolved into a conveniently violent ambush at least. 

“I’ll come.” I sighed, climbing out of bed and wincing at the frosty greeting of morning air. “Go on ahead of me but wait a minute or two, I’ll be there.”

Solitaire nodded, and was gone with his usual spasmodic hurry. Phelia exhaled as he left. 

“He saved me you know.” She whispered, staring at the door where my brother- for everything that entailed- had just been standing. I froze, and waited, knowing she’d be going somewhere important with the thought. 

“He did.” I nodded, having figured out on my own what he’d done on the day of the capture. “How…Do you feel about that?”

Phelia swallowed. 

“I don’t know.” She admitted. “But…There’s more to him than I thought.”

That, I knew, I could agree with. 

“There is.” I nodded, back to dressing myself now. “There always has been. Beneath it all there’s more than just cleverness, even more than just that sense for other people he always has. There’s decency. Goodness, even. Kindness.”

It was just a shame he insisted on keeping it hidden away, where it was at no risk of stopping him from hurting people. I finished pulling my pants on and straightened up, planting a kiss on Phelia’s cheek and realizing how reflexive the motion had been only when it was completed.

I was out into the hall moments later, and true to my word no more than a minute or two behind Solitaire. Even so, the conversation was already ongoing when I came out into the gardens of our mansion to find both my brothers facing off with a newcomer.

The man was tall for Redacle, though by the expensive make of his clothes I guessed he was probably just an average-height noble. He was definitely not young, black haired and with a horseish, lined face that was rather too long and too thin. His whole body was thin, actually, in the same way Solitaire’s was before Beam’s training regime, though something told me he didn’t share the Scouser’s freakish, hidden strength. When he spoke his voice was more or less the exact sort I’d have expected from him, almost uncannily appropriate.

“Finally.” He exhaled, apparently relieved. “Lord Shango Belahont, I presume?”

He had the good manners to feign uncertainty as to whether there was some other tall, black man wandering around the otherwise homogeneously white region, and so I had the good manners to just reply as normal. 

“I am.” I nodded. “And you are?”

“Lord Appleberry.” He replied, missing Solitaire’s not-so-subtle dry heaving at the ridiculous,  posh Britishness of his name. “And I come to you on behalf of Swanhen.”

I sifted through my memory quickly at the mention, and found it bearing fruit with satisfying speed. Swanhen was a local settlement maybe twenty miles east, just important enough to have been among the notable names I recalled, just unimportant enough to take me a hot minute to recall it. 

“What about it?” Beam prompted. 

Appleberry swallowed before he continued. 

“My town has been assailed by orcs, fowl grey skinned savages from the North. They are near uncountable, and attacking with insane vigor. I have come to you because I heard tell of your exploits in saving the town of Rinchester from undead, and hoped your righteousness would send you to our aid as well.”

“Bullshit.” Solitaire cut in, stifling a yawn. Appleberry stared at him, but I started at Appleberry.

“Excuse me?!” The man gasped, suddenly flustered. That was what settled it for me. 

“He’s saying you’re lying, or leaving something unsaid.” I explained. “What is it?”

For one moment, he was defiant. Then it all melted out of him and he deflated into truth. 

“I’ve spoken to every noble I could reach in this entire city, and yours is the last family on that list. I’m desperate and without hope. If you turn me down, then I don’t know who I can turn to who might still be able to save Swanhen.” His voice was wavering like a hypothermic man’s by the time the speech ended, and I was actually convinced he was telling the truth. Amazingly, so was Solitaire. 

“Proceed.” He shrugged, as I looked at him. “I don’t have any contributions to make when they’re not lying or planning to kill us.”

Appleberry did not look particularly pleased, but at the very least the conversation was moving again. 

I gave the idea some thought. 

“You’re asking us to take a big risk.” I noted. “But…” Swanhen was a mining town, and a fairly big one population-wise at least. If we gained control… “Provided you promise us control over half of the town’s mines, and first rights to all their product, we’ll agree to help.”

Appleberry looked aghast.

“I will do no such thing, my family’s birthright is not on offer! I will not sell my legacy!”

“Even if it could save lives?” Solitaire asked. Appleberry’s eyes hardened. 

“Honour is worth more than life.”

Beam actually had to stop Solitaire from pouncing on him like Golumn, and I hurried to bring an end to the conversation. 

“We’ll think about it.” I promised. 

It was the most unpromising promise I could have made, and not by accident.