TVisTV Book 4: Chapter 17 (RAW) (Patreon)

Chapter 17 - Lost to Time

I have a very strict gun control policy: if there’s a gun around, I want to be in control of it.

- Clint Eastwood.

“The man used a knife and gave him no time to yield!” Bern complained, loudly and rudely enough for all present to hear.

Duchess Adelaide turned upon him with a look that could have withered fruit on the vine. “Your man had ample time to yield,” she said, each word clipped cleanly into place. “He had declared, before witnesses, that he wished this duel to be to the death. Can anyone here gainsay that?”

Not a single one present did.

The Duchess let the silence linger for just long enough to make him a fool. “I think that you quibble like a southern courtier, Master Bern. A knife, you say, as if it is some dishonorable terror beyond the warhammer your man carried in his own hand. Your man simply mistook hope for skill in the melee, I do believe.”

For a moment, Bern looked as if he might continue his protest, but as his gaze moved between the Duchess and her granddaughter, something in his face changed. Something died there, perhaps, and something colder was born in its place. His mouth closed. His jaw tightened. His eyes lowered, not in surrender, but in the manner of a man ingraining this moment onto their very being.

It worried Seraphina not in the slightest. The young girl was more than used to bearing the enmity of others. Such was the price, after all, of success and victory. Besides, what had she to fear from a rude lout offended that another rude lout had suffered the natural consequences of insulting his betters?

Let this Bern character hold his anger and bitterness to his heart; it mattered not.

“It is good that you understand, Master Bern,” Adelaide said with calm certainty. “Collect your pay from my quartermaster. We will include something for the dead man’s family. Enough, I think to quieten his spirit.”

And with that, though they grumbled most awfully, they were dismissed almost like children, the household Knights of Carcaronne leading the hired help away with hands resting not quite idly upon their weapons.

“Well then,” Duchess Adelaide exclaimed, her voice brightening with the sudden and impressive force of noble cheer, “let me offer you all the warmth of my hall. It is not every day that one can say one’s family has produced a Unicorn rider. There will be a feast.”

The announcement was met with universal cheers, for any celebration in the North was, for the greater part, held with much food and, more importantly, a copious amount of alcohol.

She saw her opportunity almost immediately.

“Sir Frest, dear Grandmother, has performed most admirably,” Seraphina inserted in a lower voice, her gaze sliding briefly toward the former bandit. “It is only right that he be rewarded for his display of valor.”

Frest, who had still been carrying the fatigue of battle in the set of his shoulders, suddenly stood rather straighter.

“You are quite right, of course,” Adelaide replied, considering the man with the air of someone appraising a useful hound. “Though it is not as if I can grant him lands here.”

“Oh no, nothing quite so grand,” Seraphina said, leaning closer to whisper softly in her grandmother’s ear. “Perhaps one of the less-than-useful trinkets from the armory might suffice. You have spent quite enough on me already.”

The Duchess pursed her lips in thought, then acquiesced with a small nod. “Very well. Who am I to deny my granddaughter on such a fortuitous day?”

Seraphina could almost see Frest deflate at the word trinket, but one scathing look from her straightened his back once more.

“Come with me, Sir Ferdiad Frest,” she said sweetly. “It is time we found you your reward.”

“Oh, I cannot wait. This is just like something from the tales, Sera. I must see,” Desdemona squealed, following shortly after with all the bright delight of someone who was decidedly unperturbed by the recent display of violence. “Well, except the Knight in question is not quite from… well, noble stock.”

Seraphina sighed. “It does not matter whose hand holds the sword’s handle,” she stated in Frest’s defense, “only that it does what it was forged to do.”

“So silly, Sera,” the de Savant girl replied with a laugh. “Always so serious.”

***

They worked their way down toward the ancestral vaults under a western tower, passing perhaps a dozen men-at-arms and a somewhat beleaguered-looking Boris, the Duchess’s majordomo. The man was, somehow, as if in protest against nature, both fat and thin. He was old, with wispy grey hair, limbs almost like sticks, and yet in possession of a belly that truly protruded. His worried expression seemed less a mood than a permanent feature, which was perhaps unavoidable for a man responsible for the day-to-day running of a northern fortress.

Before the vault stood a thick door with heavy, studded metal bands. Boris produced a heavy ring of keys and opened it with the careful ceremony of a priest unlocking a reliquary.

The small group stepped inside.

What lay beyond could ostensibly be called an armory, though that felt rather like calling a Dragon an unusually large lizard. There was an age to the room that had gathered here over generations and simply refused to leave. The air smelled faintly of oil, dust, old leather, and metal that had once been cleaned of blood. Weapons occupied racks, walls, tables, and glass cases, all unique, all different, some beautiful, some hideous, some so plain that they ironically probably had the greatest stories to tell.

There were spears, hammers, swords, daggers, polearms, bows, blowguns, and even a field ballista displayed with the quiet absurdity of a family heirloom. Catching the eye, in one dusty corner stood a silver Magister’s staff. Pieces of armor waited upon stands or in partial heaps: full suits of plate, strange monster-hide cuirasses, helmets shaped in the guise of beasts and birds, and black lacquered armor from the Land of Streams that looked almost like the chitin of some enormous insect.

Lady Seraphina de Sarien’s family had traveled wide in the business of war and banners taken from enemies hung here and there, their colors dimmed by time but not entirely humbled. Aranthian, Imperial, Quas, Qis, The Tides, and Al-Lazar. Their tales had once been told in blood and fire, and now they gathered dust as they lay here forgotten.

The girl’s ancestors, many of them second or third sons if she had to guess, had apparently been quite sticky with their fingers and had collected a veritable fortune in artifacts from across the lands. 

But Seraphina had little interest in most of them. Powerful as some of them might be, they were not what she had eyes for. The young girl moved toward a glass case near the far wall.

Inside rested what looked, at first glance, like a crossbow without limbs, just under a meter in length, with an empty flight groove taking up perhaps two-thirds of its body. It was made from some dark, treated material that was neither wood nor metal alone, and studded along its length were small purple crystals, Zajasite attuned to Wind, or more precisely, to its more vicious aspect, the Withered Tree of Lightning.

She had no idea how to create it, nor could she remember how to make the deadly weapons of Earth, for something in the spiritual planes of this world made sure of it. But that did not mean she could not use what was already there. Seraphina smiled faintly to herself, for it was a weapon that would have rivalled, and possibly exceeded, some of the fiercest instruments of war in her old world. 

It had been a secret item in the game, unlocked only by completing an esoteric quest chain and raising relations with Carcaronne to the stratosphere. Seraphina, being Seraphina and in the privileged position of being the Duchess Adelaide’s granddaughter, had skipped all of that entirely.

She tapped the glass case. “I think this will do.”

The majordomo’s face arranged itself into the pained expression of a man watching a noble child about to make a mistake while he had to think of a polite way to dissuade them.

“Are you quite sure, Your Grace? There are many more fitting weapons for the good sir. Why, although this piece was found in the Old City of Mist, it simply does not work. We tried everything. We even had several Magisters examine the thing. It awakens, yes, but nothing really happens. We have found no use for it save that it makes for a rather delightful display item.”

“It will do, Boris,” Seraphina replied sweetly, completely undeterred. “Sir Frest will have this one.”

“I will?” Frest asked, in the tone of a man beginning to suspect that he might have been rewarded with a problem.

“You will,” Seraphina said. “And, no matter how it appears now, you will see the wisdom of this choice in time. Trust me.”

Frest looked at the strange, limbless crossbow in the glass case, then at the swords, polearms, and obviously valuable enchanted weapons displayed around the room, and gave the careful expression of a man trying very hard to show his disapproval without looking ungrateful.

Behind them, Desdemona managed to knock over a suit of battle-scarred antique armor made for a man twice her size, which crashed to the floor with a magnificent crash that broke the weighty moment.

“Oh, silly me,” she exclaimed.

“Think nothing of it, Lady de Savant,” Boris replied, hiding his exasperation with the practiced skill of a man who had served nobility for far too long.

“Very well then,” Seraphina continued, choosing not to look too closely at the collapsed. “We will take this one. What was it called again, Boris?”

Boris schooled his expression to one of patience. “This piece has no name, Your Grace. Or if it had, unfortunately, it has been lost to time.  Most believe it to be simply broken.”

“Well, we shall have to give it one once we get it working. Come along then, Frest, no need to look so glum. An artifact like this could buy you a townhouse in Aran.”

Hearing the monetary value of the reward, Frest perked up despite himself. Even if the weapon proved to be a dud, he could always sell it for a few coins. The problem was, if his mistress would approve of such an action. Which upon thinking on it for a half a second he swiftly concluded that she most certainly would not.

“Oh, and Boris,” Seraphina began.

“Yes, Your Grace,” came Boris’s dutiful reply.

“Could you kindly see to it that the smith sends us some bolts? Simple things of steel should suffice, provided they fit along here, and make sure that they have no wood nor fletchings,” she ordered, running one finger along the strange heirloom’s empty flight groove.

“I will see to it at once, Your Grace,” he answered in a voice that was almost impressively flat.

“Good. You have my thanks. A weapon as noble as this is perfect for the man who has carried my honor, don’t you think?” she asked, all sweet smiles.

Boris clasped his hands in front of him. “Quite so, Your Grace. Quite so.”

“And when you have a moment, tell the staff that I am expecting additional members of my retinue from the south later this evening. They are to be welcomed accordingly and given suitable accommodations, though nothing too fancy. It would not do to have them putting on airs.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

She turned to her Knight and declared, “Frest, I believe I am going to make you a Wizard of sorts.”

“I hope it is not too painful a process, Lady Seraphina,” he replied with his usual aplomb.