City of Ruin

SIXTEEN

The main island of Folke certainly wasn't how Randur remembered it. There should have been carts full of something or other trawling back and forth through the day, farmland communities trading with one another, people travelling between villages, but instead there was nothing.

In between the open vistas was the familiar sight of forests, providing some shelter from the elements – abies or betula trees – but there was now something that suggested the people who worked the land were seldom here any longer, either having died from the cold or moved on to more temperate regions.

And Randur himself had changed since he'd left here for Villjamur. He'd grown used to throwing sweet lines of chat at the women in the Imperial Residence, the soft sheets and subtle lighting and gold-trimmed furnishings. Warmth and good food and decadent surroundings. It had very nearly corrupted him, turned him into something he despised and, if he was honest, it was difficult for him to now cope with the harshness of life on the road: finding his own food, trying desperately not to allow water to seep into his boots.

Eir, on the other hand, had blossomed in the absence of her former power. It was as if the strictures of Villjamur had stopped her from feeling truly free. She dressed more like a boy these days, which was ironic considering the comments Randur used to get from others about dressing like a girl. She'd become tougher and more resilient. The realities of life out here had very quickly shaved away the accoutrements of her former wealthy existence. She had developed the ability to fight and showed it with confidence.

The enforced celibacy of being out on the road was not for him. Rika had already killed the mood more than once when he thought he'd stolen a rare moment alone with Eir. The Empress would have wandered off on some solitary contemplation, braving the cold like a she-bear – even when you meditate, you can tune the cold out, she would declare – and then he'd lie down in some shelter, Eir in his arms, groping under her clothing, feeling the warmth and… Then Rika would step back into view, after her soliloquy to the heavens, and his arms would snap back to his side.

A man can only take so much.

The territory of Folke was a collection of three islands, comprising one major land mass, and two sparse little outcrops in the sea to the south, Folke Mikill and Folke Smar. Apparently communities of banshees lived on one of those islands, the only group of them outside of Villjamur, and people said they lived deliberately alone, away from other human or rumel, so they could remain in peace, since on their own they would not have to announce so many deaths. But how could a group of women survive so long without producing children to keep the line going, without it dying out? Randur had often fantasized about what it would be like to be the only male there…

Eir nudged him in the ribs, as if telepathically channelling his thoughts. From behind him, on horseback, she pointed across the line of forest towards a collection of rooftops appearing in the distance.

They were travelling along the western shore. To their left the sea, choppy again today, met with a murky grey horizon; to their right extended a forest, arcing gently towards a low range of hills. Having not seen a soul for days, this promise of human contact was mildly unsettling, a sudden reminder that they weren't the only people around.

'Drekka,' Randur muttered through his smile of recognition. 'Gets its name from the old word for drink. Used to be considered a bit of a party town. I've been there once or twice, though not from this route.'

'Can we stay somewhere here for the night?' Eir asked.

'I would've thought so,' Randur replied. 'Agricultural town, mainly, but does a bit of trade doubling as a port. A few travellers pass through, but I'm not sure how things are with the Freeze.'

*

It was a town where dreams lay down to die. Places like this didn't much like change, their nature going against the fundamental laws of development or decay. The further you went from the largest towns, notably Ule, the further you moved from anything approaching cosmopolitan. In Randur's memory he'd only been there a few times, all during his late teens; there had been super-strength local vodka, and local women who were not shy in the least. Each time he had visited he'd sworn never to return. But there was always a girl, wasn't there, some reason to make that extra effort, to ride across the island in search of sensual fulfilment.

The cultural centre lay just where two straight thoroughfares met. Here, the taverns conducted a roaring trade, serving up equal measures of gambling and debauchery. A haven for card sharps to work their route around the various settlements. He wondered vaguely if rooms would be available at the Bitches Brew inn, one of the quieter places in the town, just off the main street.

An iren to one side sold mainly farming equipment, where a few men shambled around checking out the wares. The former dust road running between the buildings was now muddied snow. The buildings themselves were a mix of dark stone and even darker wood, at the most three floors high, but always well spaced out because there was plenty of room. Smoke dribbled upwards from most of the chimneys and, amid a sea of thatched and slate roofing, the wooden spire of a Jorsalir church poked tentatively above the townscape.

They rode into town, tied up their horses, and started hunting for accommodation.

*

Cheap lunches were being served at the Bitches Brew, a dreary place with four solid woodstoves and walls littered with old farming equipment now relegated to the status of decoration: sieves, forks, bushels, crooks, potato dibbers. Three men sat in companionable silence over to one side, while two old women played cards right next to the bar. Randur approached the landlord, a slender man in his fifties with a scar across the top of his head. He regarded Randur with startlingly blue eyes.

'Afternoon,' Randur greeted him, while Rika and Eir remained motionless by the door. 'Me and the girls are passing through and need a room for the night. You got any?'

'Might have. You got coin?'

'Enough.'

'You got a room then, lad. So what you lot drinking?'

Half-turning to Eir and Rika, he said, 'I'll have half an ale and the girls-'

'Kapp Brimir!' It was a high-pitched voice, and certainly not a happy one. Randur shot the room a furtive glance. Who knew his real name?

'Kapp! I know it's you.' A girl burst out from the kitchen, a brunette with big eyes and a big scowl. She marched right up to him then slapped him across the face.

'Ow!' he spluttered.

'You think you can just walk off and leave me after that one night we had? You promised you'd take me with you to Villjamur. You and all your lines – it was just to get into bed with me, wasn't it? You boys just want to have your fun and vanish into the night. Ha! Well I'm not having any of that.'

Randur backed off slightly, palmed the air to calm her down. This performance wasn't exactly not attracting too much attention. 'I… I-'

Another slap, this time on the other cheek, nearly knocking him over, a cloud of flour following the arc of her hand.

'I bet you can't even remember my name.'

This was true.

And just how the hell was he supposed to recall every girl he'd slept with? No, concentrate. He glanced back towards Eir, who stood glaring at him with her arms folded, before looking away.

Bugger… Randur, this is not looking good.

Back to face the girl – what was her name? 'I meant to tell you… I was called off on an emergency. My sword skills were urgently required.'

'And yet still the lies pour forth from his rancid mouth!' She reached out again towards him.

As Randur flinched, closing his eyes, she tipped the ale he had ordered over his head before marching off to the kitchen. He peered sheepishly around the bar, the liquid dripping off his face.

'Hope you're going to pay for that drink, lad,' the landlord grunted. 'Isn't a charity I'm running here. That'll be a hundred Drakar.'

*

The room contained four small beds, two on either side of the room. A dreary brown carpet was peeling away from the floor, and save for half a dozen unlit candles, there wasn't much else. A far cry from the glamour of the Imperial Residence that he was used to, but he reminded himself that this was better than camping outdoors.

While he stared out of the window, across a back garden filled with barrels, Rika remarked, 'She called you Kapp?'

'You what?' he replied.

'Kapp? I thought your name was Randur Estevu. So which one is it?'

'My name is not really Randur.' He glanced to Eir, who already knew the story. With a thin smile, she nodded, a gesture that said, Go on.

'You've been rather coy about your past so far,' Rika said. 'With good reason, it seems.'

He'd been careful not to show himself as more than a simple island boy who came fresh to the city. There was no need for Rika to have known, no need to make things complicated, but now was the time to relieve himself of his lies.

'I came into Villjamur with papers stolen from a dead man. The real Randur was a young man the same age as me, and when he was found murdered at the docks my dodgy uncle from Y'iren managed to get hold of the documents allowing this Randur into Villjamur. Kapp was my true name, but I took his identity, became Randur. I had plans to fulfil. I wanted to speak to the great cultists of the city – I needed their help in saving my mother's life. But that's another story, one I'm not going to repeat now. Was this deception such a bad thing?'

Details about his sleeping with dozens of rich women then stealing their jewellery to fund these great cultists would, perhaps, be better left unsaid right now.

'So, there you have it. I'm really called Kapp,' he declared, resignedly. 'But Randur or Kapp, I still saved your arse.'

Rika was looking out of the window, as snow began to fill the grey afternoon skies. 'That is true, and your motives were pure – even if your actions weren't quite what I would approve of. Kapp, you say? A better name, I think. Randur does sound a little sleazy.'

'What, that's it?' Randur asked. 'No big lectures on morality, on what a fool I've been and that my sorry rear is going to burn in some hell realm for a thousand years?'

Rika laughed then, for the first time, and he couldn't decide if he had been thoroughly stupid in something he'd said. 'That's just it, Kapp. My religion isn't all that complicated at times. Your motivation was a positive one. How else can we judge someone?'

'I thought you had, like, a million rules about what we're not supposed to do.'

'There are some in place, admittedly, but they're to aid our spiritual practice, not pass judgement. Yes, there are some priests who have interpreted aspects of our belief in what I consider a negative way, but really all we are – any of us – is the sum of our actions. Do I really come across as so… condemnatory?'

'Just a little… you know, preachy,' he muttered. Then, 'No offence, lady.'

'I suppose I've been through a lot, returning to Villjamur and then… leaving again so abruptly. We have all been through quite an ordeal.'

'Whatever,' Randur said, forgetting, as he often did, the importance of the woman before him. In truth Rika couldn't have had it easy – she'd been torn from her spiritual retreat to be thrust into the seat of power controlling millions of lives across the Jamur Empire, only to be manipulated by councillors close to her and falsely charged with plotting the destruction of thousands of her own citizens.

'Look, we can either sit and be miserable, or cheer up,' he continued. 'I'm going downstairs to get some food. Who's with me?'

Both girls stood up immediately.

*

They took precaution with their disguises, Rika and Eir slouching affectively as girls of royal birth could manage, in the rear of tharkened tavern. Randur's narrow sword was always ready by his side. Cards flipping, a glass being settled back on a table, a ticking clock: these were the only sounds for much of the afternoon. Things pickep a little come the evening, they way they always did, people witittle money coming to spend it, wasting their daily wage on socianvestments that could barely show useful returns.

Young women came in now and then, displaying different looks and levels of attractiveness. They would sit at the bar waiting to be bought drinks, and men inevitably approached, older, rough agricultural types, some like the cliche he'd imagined, yet some surprisingly well spoken. And he wondered, again and again: Is this all there is for these people?

His life had changed so completely. Doing something now seemed to matter.

The three of them made relaxed and innocent conversation, the kind that could occur anywhere at all, anywhere in time. Eir had found a niche for herself in teasing Randur lightly, while Rika asked him about his upbringing here on Folke. For one of the most loftily placed people he had ever known, she certainly showed a deep interest in other people.

In that dark corner they all became closer.

Then under the light of the lanterns throughout the rest of the tavern, a man came shambling inside, wrapped in a wax-covered cape and wearing ridiculously colourful breeches. He even had a frilly black shirt that would have been at home in Randur's own wardrobe. Although naturally slender, he carried the paunch of a man whose drinking habit had finally caught up with him, protruding under a grubby complexion, with a broad jaw smothered in greying stubble.

It couldn't be.

'Drink, by thunder, sir!' the man called out across the bar, before wiping his nose on his sleeve. 'How's a man to quench his thirst in such a Bohr-forsaken hellhole.'

This much was obvious: it wouldn't be this man's first drink of the day. He swayed as he reached hesitantly in his pockets for some coins, then slapped them on the counter. He leaned forwards, slowly counted three, then shoved them over. 'Lager – a pint thereof, barman.'

'You're back, then,' the landlord grunted. 'Didn't think this place was good enough for you, after all that crap you warbled last night. What was it you said? As welcoming as a nun's cunt, I believe.'

'I spout such rubbish most nights, sir, unless you'd forgotten.'

Noticing his reaction, Eir nudged Randur in the ribs. 'What is it?'

'I think I know him,' Randur mumbled. He stood up, brushing his hair back behind his ears. Randur called out a name across the bar room.

'Munio Porthamis.'

The man was about to take his first sip, then paused. An expression slid across his face, something that suggested he was not at ease being known as anything other than the drunken stranger. Was there comfort to be found in the anonymous role he had carved for himself?

He continued with his drink, choosing to ignore the interruption.

Randur strutted over to the man's side, ignoring any glances from others in the room. To hell with keeping a low profile. 'Munio Porthamis. So, this is the glory you aspired to, is it? This what all the money was intended for?'

'Don't know who you mean, stranger.' The man resolutely faced the bar.

Randur could see the old rapier carried by his side still, beneath the man's thick cloak. 'Rule one of Vitassi,' Randur said. '"One perceives everything and nothing, and that way one can identify everyone and everything in the world." '

A deep intake of breath and the figure glanced sideways at Randur. His thick, dirty thumbs rubbed the tankard. Munio's eyes could not belie his identity. The old man's soul was still in there, still as sharp as ever. 'I know you, kid?'

Randur drew his sword slowly, in a non-threatening manner, aware of the numerous sets of eyes fixed on him now that the metal caught the light of the lanterns. A hush descended. Randur used the tip of his sword to tap on Munio's old rapier, still resting in its sheath, the ornate gold trimmings on the hilt looking more degraded than he remembered. 'I think we should talk with these.'

'I speak a fine language with it,' Munio muttered. 'Too fine a tongue for anyone to barter with.'

'I suspect I can correct your grammar, these days,' Randur replied.

Munio slid back his stool, flipped his cloak to the ground, and in a heartbeat his sword was in his hand. There was nothing about his manner that betrayed his earlier lack of coordination.

'Randur!' Eir cried, and he turned back to her briefly: 'It's all right, really.'

The two men began to circle slowly, leaning back and forth to judge each other, and he remembered exactly how Munio would react: a flash of blade striking down to his left. The rest of the ritual, Randur knew by heart. He countered, parried, then worked a series of moves to drive the old man back towards the bar. For a moment, Munio smiled.

His sword clattered to the floor, and the older man moved away to pick up his drink.

After three thick gulps, he said, 'By thunder, Kapp Brimir, you've grown. And you still haven't cut your hair.'

'You've grown yourself,' Randur replied, indicating Munio's stomach. He wasn't sure how he felt to see his old teacher like this, already drunk in a bar in the middle of nowhere.

A place where dreams lay down to die…

'I can still fight, even in my state,' Munio stated.

'What, pissed?'

'Indeed, yes, some say I fight better like this. But I see you're still wearing those ridiculous fancy outfits.' He indicated Randur's black shirt with wide sleeves, his tight breeches and heeled boots of polished, Villjamur-branded leather.

'I'm not as well-heeled as I would like.' Randur smiled, leaning on the bar beside him. 'And where do you think I learned to dress in such a way? Always dress like you don't know how to fight, you advised me. That way it's easier to slap them around the room.'

'I did say that.' Munio rubbed his chin. 'Full of nonsense back then, wasn't I?'

'You want to join us?' Randur indicated with his chin where Eir and Rika sat at the corner table.

'Is one woman not enough, Kapp Brimir? You were always more interested in chasing after the girls, if I remember.'

'Not all the time. I stayed around for your lessons.'

'Only because I forced you. I tell you that you've a gift, and you ignore me. I clip you round the ear, and you stay and listen. Simple, really.'

From the age of four until fourteen, Randur attended the private lessons given by Munio Porthamis. Because of his unusual skills, his mother never had to pay – and she could never afford to. In that plain room overlooking the river, on a bare wooden floor they would spend hours working through postures and manoeuvres and techniques. Blisters came and went. Two days a week at first, then more, in between learning the dance variations. Until one night, for evening training, Munio never turned up, and a letter arrived the week after, declaring that, due to an inheritance from his uncle, he would no longer be available to teach. Randur had never forgotten sitting on that wooden floor staring out of the window at the sky, wondering how someone could abandon him just for money.

'Come, I'll accept your invitation. But I warn you I'm not much company these days.' Munio straightened up, put a palm on each of Randur's cheeks. 'Let me look at you. Still a handsome lad, though you look as though you need feeding. And get your hair cut, boy. How's anyone supposed to fight wearing long black locks like that?'

*

Randur gave his two companions false introductions. Later, as Munias up buying another bottle of wine, he apologized to the girls, bue didn't think Munio paid much attention to the political climate of Villjamur, which seemed to allay their concerns.

'You might be something important in a great city like that,' Randur said, 'but the Council Atrium is so far removed from these people that they can't fathom any of the decisions affecting their lives. Policies get formulated and accepted elsewhere – out here issues are so local.'

'You would say, then,' Rika asked, 'that these people distrust a central government?'

'How can anyone in Villjamur understand the needs of someone living out here? That's why Munio won't even know who you are.'

The old swordmaster returned, 'I'll admit these wines aren't as good as my own cellar, but they'll do. Besides, on your third bottle, you can barely taste that much anyway.' He put down a bottle of red and after a moment's consideration, in which the conversation happened in glances, he filled their glasses. 'My boy Kapp tells me you're city girls from Villjamur. So how did two Jokull lovelies end up this far from home?'

'We need to visit someone in Villiren,' Rika declared.

'My dear lady,' Munio said, 'it has been too long, too long, since I have heard such a pleasantly spoken woman as yourself. In my day, I would work with many a landowner, and there would nearly always be some well-spoken lady present. Many took a shine to me. Back then.'

Rika glanced at Randur. 'He taught you more than just swordfight-ing, I see.'

'Vitassi', Munio observed, 'is not merely swordfighting. It is a way of life. Now, ladies, Kapp, are you staying in this absolute dive of a tavern?'

'We are,' Eir said.

'This is no place for such refined women as yourselves. Come, I have a small manse less than an hour away. We will go there instead and there will be splendours the likes of which you have never seen!'

I seriously doubt that, Randur thought.

*

'It is, admittedly, in a state that needs a little attention.' Munio paced the main hall, lighting coloured lanterns on the tables and sideboards. From gloom to glow to gaudy, they could soon see everything. The exterior was as grand as any small-estate residence, but the design not as pleasing as it might have been. This was no military fortification, that much was certain, but no raiding army could want much from it. There was something of the classical in its symmetry, although no pillars, no nature-inspired flourishes in the stonework.

'I'm not sure how old it is,' Munio whispered, 'but when I bought it I had it refurbished. Many Villiren-branded weaves make up those carpets and tapestries. Wall hangings to rival anything you'd see in Villjamur. But I have neglected to keep things clean.' He leaned towards Rika, a look of optimism in his gaze. 'It is such a chore when one lives on one's own. I have, unfortunately, no wife or servants to assist me.'

Perhaps there had once been sumptuous decoration in this double-cube room. Tapestries were now saturated with mould, and the carpet's pattern suffocated under dust. Paintings were smeared with smoke, the unknown faces within having faded to ghostly apparitions. Ornaments that Randur couldn't identify, silver-coloured and clunky, sat gauchely on the mantelpiece and on the side tables, as if they had been collected by whim. Most of the furniture was made from the same dark wood, quercus, and everything needed a good polish. Leather chairs were arranged neatly enough by the fireplace, at which Munio was now working to introduce some warmth into the room.

'I have several bedrooms upstairs,' Munio offered optimistically. 'I do hope you think it suitable to stay.'

'I'm sure we will,' Rika agreed. 'Very kind of you to invite us.' She turned to Eir and Randur questioningly.

'Yes, it is,' Eir replied. 'Thank you.'

What does the old bugger want? Randur wondered. It's not like him to be so altruistic.

*

In the middle of the night Randur lay awake, on a bed in the centre of the 'suite' they occupied, an uncared-for corner of the manse. Eir huddled next to Rika in a double cot near the window, through which nothing but darkness could be seen, no distant lights to suggest a town or a village. Wind raked constantly against the glass. A candle glowed in one corner.

Sleep didn't come. His mind continuously sifted through his memories, contorting them into obscure forms and references. He grunted a laugh: his old sword tutor, a ruined drunk. How things had changed. Munio was no longer someone who bullied him, who pushed him around.

With a glance at the girls, Randur rose to his feet and left the room. Cautiously, he shuffled downstairs in the pitch-black, one hand against the wall for navigation. Because the rest of the manse was so dark, a glow from one of the rooms was immediately obvious.

Randur nudged the door further, the hinges groaning. There, next to one of the leather settees, stood Munio, and he was sobbing.

'What's wrong?' Randur headed over to the old man, his words muted by the vastness of the decaying room.

'Oh, Kapp.' The silhouette of his swordmaster shambled towards him, past the light of the one candle that was left burning. 'Kapp…'

He could smell the alcohol even from this distance, his sense of smell being pretty much all he had to go on. Randur approached and paused before him. 'Why the hell are you crying?'

'I wasn't,' he blubbered.

'Yes, you were, I could hear you.'

Silence, then Munio shuffled back to his chair, and collapsed into it with a grunt. 'Join me, won't you?'

Randur searched for the best way there, now and then kicking against tables or footstools by accident. He located the settee only by bumping into the arms of it with his thigh, then he sat down beside Munio, though some distance from the alcoholic fumes. 'You've been drinking all night long?'

A contemplative sigh. 'Indeed I have, young man.'

'Why on earth have you become like this?' Randur said. 'You'd once have clipped me round the ear just for hinting at such a lack of discipline. What the hell's happened to you?'

'I came here and I was rich. I had no need for anything any more. I no longer even had to try.'

'So you just gave up then,' Randur said. 'Just like that.'

'You have never found yourself in a position where so much money comes into your possession in one go,' Munio mumbled. 'It ruined me – quite simple, really. I have no excuses.'

'When I saw you in the bar, I wanted to hit you at first.'

'You would have been well within your rights to do so. Nothing more than I deserve.'

'How could you just abandon your students?' Randur demanded, annoyed and yet sympathetic to Munio's resigned attitude to his failure.

'I taught you all I could. You no longer required my services – not in the end.' Then, 'So, this Rika lady,' Munio continued, his tone spuriously optimistic. 'Is she wedded? Some strapping lad waiting for her? You think a gentleman of my age stands any chance with such a refined individual?'

'No, it's not that,' Randur sighed. 'She's not really, uh, in the market for that kind of thing.' Being here in the manse, Randur felt he could trust the old man a little more. So he decided to reveal a little about who the girls really were.

Munio merely gaped at him for a long moment. 'Empress?'

'Well, not any more. But shush now.' Randur glanced around sheepishly. He whispered a few more of the basic details. 'So that is why you can't hope to get together with someone like her.'

'Destined to be alone. Oh, my life is such a mess…'

'Why not talk more about it?' Randur offered.

'Talk! You can tell that a woman raised you. Talk, indeed, as if talk could make me better. Whatever happened to just shutting up and getting on with life? You want to talk, let me tell you this: I once was something, Kapp. And moments of my life are now only memories – if even that. I'm nothing. You will be one day, a nothing just like me. You're filled with the hopeless optimism that blesses youth, but which then taunts middle age. We will all of us fade, like this world of ours will. Cultures come and go, and nothing remains of them. So what else is there to do but drink?'

'Don't be so bloody miserable,' Randur snapped at him. 'People are dying in this world for less that you have – I've seen them pleading outside the gates of Villjamur, no food or opportunities. Refugees crammed up against the wall, pressing into it almost, fading in the ice. And here you are, wasting your life and money and talent because you're running away from the real world. By the look of it, you've been running away from it ever since you could afford to pay for this drinking habit of yours.' Randur stood up. 'I'm going back to bed. Company's better up there.'