Will Power

SCENE XIII Stranger Still

So the battle was won, and many more goblins fell to our horsemen as they fled into the woods. I say “our,” but I felt like a part of the victory only inasmuch as I was not on the losing side. You might expect that I would be hailed as a hero for playing so instrumental a part in the triumph, showered with honors and wealth, given the keys to the city’s extravagant larder (I couldn’t believe the king and his cohorts ate the tasteless muck we’d been fed so far), and surrounded by beautiful court ladies all anxious to touch my greatness. As you will have realized by now, I am not one to let minor scruples stand in the way of serious reward, and I was more than ready to sit back and wait for my golden goblet to be filled without pausing to explain that my actions were more self-preservatory than heroic, more accident than valor. I didn’t get the option.

The soldiers who relieved me at the walls were delighted to see the monster fall, but an odd hush came over them when they saw me clinging to the shattered parapets. Sorrail gave me a long silent look and then led the charge on the goblins, his face troubled.

The news of my actions spread round the troops quickly for a while and then, though I wasn’t sure when the change took place, there was a conspicuous lack of interest in my doings. By the afternoon the news was dead and I wandered alone through the marketplace where many soldiers were marching back to their garrisons amidst cheers and applause from the townsfolk. I was ignored. I caught some soldiers talking to each other about how Sorrail had led a unit of crack guardsmen from the king’s palace to pull the stone ramparts down on the invading monster, as if it had been planned that way from the outset. I thought this a bit much, and said so.

“That’s not the way I heard it,” I cut in. “I was under the impression that Sorrail was on the other side of the city and that the monster hadn’t even been seen until one of the Outsiders. .”

“You mean, one like you?” said one of the privates with something akin to contempt.

“Very like me, actually,” I replied, curtly. “Yes.”

“Oh, yes,” said the other, a tall young man with mocking eyes. “I heard that, too. You met the black fiend and wrestled it to death by yourself.”

“Of course not,” I began. “But. .”

“Of course not,” said the young man coldly, “that’s what I thought.”

They turned on their heels and walked away, smiling grimly to each other.

As I was considering this, Garnet and Renthrette appeared.

“Can you believe I’m not even getting credit for this?” I demanded.

“For what?” said Garnet.

“My brave defense of the city!” I said. “Who do you think dumped ten tons of quarried stone on that goblin wall-crusher? Who do you think stalled the enemy as they boiled around the walls and leveled their hellish champion moments before victory was assuredly theirs?”

“Sorrail,” said Renthrette, with a shrug that suggested she thought I was joking around and found it only mildly amusing at best.

“No, I’m serious. It was me. Sorrail was with you lot at the front.”

“Only for a short time,” said Garnet. “Then he led his men to encounter the horned beast at the breach.”

“But it was dead by then!” I protested. “I killed it.”

“No, Will,” said Renthrette. “You didn’t. You know you didn’t.”

She said it almost kindly. I stared at her.

“I’m sure you tried to help. . ” she began.

“Oh, right,” I said. “I tried to help but failed because I am-you know-incompetent and degenerate. And then Sorrail-who is a hero, virtuous and mighty-showed up to save the day. All hail Sorrail!”

Garnet scowled and looked at the floor.

“Must you always try to belittle whatever you are too unworthy to look upon, Will?”

That little mouthful of acid came from Renthrette’s slim lips. Her eyes held mine and I stood there speechless. She went on. “Sorrail is a man of virtue and valor. I think the very least you could do is give him credit for his victories instead of trying to poach them like some petty thief. But maybe that’s all you are. A petty thief. I thought you were past all that. In the future, if you’re going to lie, at least try to choose something remotely plausible.”

I was too amazed to speak and stood there spellbound as they turned and stalked away as if poles had been jammed up their rears. This made no sense. Not that bit about poles up their rears. That made all the sense in the world. But this erasing me from the story of the battle wasn’t just irritating, it was odd. Bloody odd, in fact, and I was going to get to the bottom of it.

I would begin with Aliana in the library. She had seen everything and would vouch for me, so I would salvage a little dignity yet, if only from Renthrette and Garnet. I must admit that this Sorrail character was really beginning to wind me up as well. If I could take him down a peg or two, so much the better. And if I could prove my account of things, that would help: the virtuous and heroic Sorrail taking credit for winning a battle at which he wasn’t present? Oh, yes, that would make him fall in the estimation of a certain streak of blond misery; fall like a ton of rocks had been dropped on his head.

But not yet. I didn’t want to think about the battle right now because it just made me mad, and I figured I needed a level head to prove Sorrail the duplicitous fiction-monger he clearly was. I decided to take a walk and take in the sights of the city properly.

I wandered in the direction of the library, aiming to leave the bustle of the marketplace behind me. On the way out, I spotted a weaponsmith’s. The place reminded me of Orgos, so I went inside, wondering if Sorrail or Garnet had put that raiding party together yet. It would have been delayed by the attack on the city, no doubt, and I found myself impatient and baffled by how long it was taking to mount the rescue attempt. I wondered if something was being done in secret, that I was being kept in the dark about it on purpose. I wouldn’t put it past Sorrail-maybe even past Garnet and Renthrette-to assume I wasn’t sufficiently trustworthy to be let in on their plans. Well, that was fine, so long as they actually did something and so long as it actually worked and quickly. If I didn’t have to be involved in the actual crawling about in goblin caves, so much the better.

The weaponsmith’s was full of the usual bits and pieces, but it quickly became apparent that its wares could be divided into two groups: the old stuff, which was elegant but unadorned, beautifully simple, and looked like it would be around for centuries; and the new stuff, which was often tricked out with gold and jewels but looked flimsy and poorly made by comparison. Orgos would have been very unimpressed. The new stuff, the shopkeeper assured me, was all the rage in the city. I didn’t doubt it.

I was about to leave when I caught sight of one of those huge two-handed swords such as I had seen over the fireplace at the Refuge Inn. I remarked on this and the shopkeeper, a tall man in late middle age, replied, “Similar, perhaps, sir, but this is a special piece.”

“Really?” I said. “How so?”

“It has been in our family many generations,” replied the shopkeeper. “My great-grandfather bore it when Phasdreille was besieged by a vast goblin horde which crossed the river to sack the White City.”

I had hardly been listening, but something made me stop and turn to him. He carried on his tale. “He rode with a cavalry force raised in the borderlands, and they met the goblin ranks as they lay outside the great city. The horsemen caught the goblins unawares and routed them, though many tall and fair soldiers fell in the battle. My great-grandfather survived, but he was killed shortly afterward, and that was the last time he wielded this mighty sword. With it he struck down many dozens of goblins, cleaving a path through their ranks until he came upon their chieftain: a huge brute dressed in red and black, great ugly spikes on his helm and a weapon like a vast cleaver in his massive claws. My ancestor faced the beast and, after many blows were struck on both sides, felled him, cleaving his skull in twain. But the goblin was wearing an iron collar and the great sword was notched, as you can see.”

And sure enough, the blade was damaged, a v-shaped piece of the steel edge knocked out. I looked from it to the shopkeeper and back, confused.

“A diamond was taken from the dead goblin,” said the shopkeeper, “and it was set into the pommel here.”

I stared at it, then at him. Could this be the same sword I had seen at the inn? Could it be a popular local tale that everyone claimed, or was it just a ruse designed to drive up the price of the merchandise? Probably, but since I felt abused, I left and walked away from the marketplace, feeling slightly disoriented for reasons I couldn’t pinpoint.

Quickly, the streets became quiet. The city was so clean, so carefully laid out, so beautifully carved, so crisp of corner, so graceful of curve, that if I hadn’t just seen thousands of people cheering their conquering heroes (sic) I would begin to wonder if anyone actually lived here at all. It felt like a model made by some huge entity as a home for storybook heroes, incredibly detailed but ultimately lifeless. I paced its impeccable marble streets and saw no more than a handful of citizens, all quietly going about their business, ignoring me as was-apparently-the law of the land.

Then I saw the gate. It was curiously ornate and gilded. I stepped through, and found a very different world on the other side. The streets here were, if anything, brighter and cleaner than the rest, but there the similarity ended. Where the walls of plain, elegant houses had been before, vast windows of polished glass now stretched, each pane opening onto a different display of gowns, jewelry, fabric, sweetmeats, trinkets, silverware, glass, feathered hats, candles, mirrors, carpets, handkerchiefs, cosmetics, perfumes-in short, everything I could have imagined (and many things I couldn’t). It was all for sale. The street rolled seemingly for miles and it was lined with sparkling, dazzling, painstakingly laid out, mouth-wateringly luxuriant shops. In front of each window was a group of people peering in, their eyes flashing with desire, from whom rose a hum of chatter, like the emanation of a bee swarm at a rhododendron bush, each insect buzzing happily to itself as it moved from blossom to blossom sipping the heady nectar. Each was dressed in elaborately ornate finery such as the courtiers had been wearing. So startling was the array of colors, so bright and vivid their hues, that for a moment I had to shade my eyes. It was glorious!

And bizarre. It was, after all, only hours since the city had been under attack from a massive goblin army. Now the great and the good were out shopping as if nothing had happened. And what shopping!

I moved among them, a thrill passing through me as I brushed between their stiffened silk skirts, their padded shoulders with golden epaulettes, their lace shirtfronts, ruffs, and cuffs, their sheer stockings and jeweled slippers. It was breathtakingly excessive, like rolling in money. It was as if the entire population of the town had spent the evening planning how to wear all their worldly assets. They had succeeded, too. If the purpose was to announce your value, I couldn’t see how it could be done better, short of taking your annual income in silver, melting it down and making it into a hat. It looked like some of them had done that, too.

At one corner a line had formed, and at its head a small crowd of sophisticates were watching with interest, making delighted observations to their partners as people they knew appeared in the line. I squeezed through the wall of satin and cambric to get a better view, and saw two small tables of wrought iron set outside the store front. At each sat a young couple, dressed as lavishly as everyone else and studiously ignoring the crowd which eyed them appreciatively from behind a single rope barrier some fifteen feet away. They seemed to be drinking from tall glasses of clear fluid, possibly water. I was bewildered. Then a man emerged from the shop and a hush you might call expectant fell on the spectators. He bowed to one of the couples and produced a velvet purse with a drawstring. He emptied this into the glass carafe on the table and the liquid glittered suddenly. The crowd sighed with pleasure and the couple, smiling at each other and continuing to act as if they were quite alone, poured and sipped. The crowd applauded politely.

“What did he put in the drink?” I asked of an elderly gentleman in a powdered wig. He peered at me through spectacles perched on the end of his nose with amused scorn.

“Gold,” he said. “Obviously.”

My mouth fell open. “Now that’s what I call stylish,” I said. Judging by the discreetly worded sign over the door, they brought their own gold to be ground on the premises.

“Would you care to sample some?”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to pass,” I said. He apparently thought this predictable. Another disdainfully minuscule smile twitched his thin lips.

“Quite,” he remarked, turning away.

In other circumstances, this might have irritated me, but the place was so awash with color and splendor and, well, money, that I couldn’t muster the appropriate indignation. On my right someone was selling ruby-studded hat pins and was making a fortune despite the fact that no one seemed to wear hats. Next to him was a jeweler selling delicate little cloisonné coats of arms filled with garnets, sapphires, and emeralds. It seemed that the buyers ordered them in advance according to the emblem of their house and then wore them on their collars. Another sold decorative badges shaped like flowers, made out of gold and silver wire and set with pearls like spots of dew. On the other side of the street, courtly lords and ladies gathered to watch portraits being painted of their acquaintances, who were dressed regally in fur and heavy gold chains. The jeweler next door was making a mint selling to those who would then have their pictures painted. I had never seen so many diamonds in my life: trays and trays of them in every size, cut, and carat you could imagine.

“Mined in the mountains not ten miles from here,” said the jeweler, handing me a little magnifying lens and a velvet-lined box full of stones the size of buttons. “Cut expressly to the most discerning taste of our most demanding customer. Name the tincture, carat, purity and my staff can deliver what you want to the smallest detail.”

“What I can pay for, more like,” I said, giving him what was supposed to be a matey we’re-all-men-of-the-world kind of grin.

“Indeed,” he said, his obsequiousness curdling a little about the edges.

I wondered vaguely about buying something for Renthrette, but I couldn’t afford even the diamonds you needed the magnifier just to see. I walked away, thinking derisively about Sorrail, who seemed to have bunches of the things lying around and could thus throw necklaces and pendants at her when she stepped into the palace. I remembered getting her a silver chain back in Graycoast and wondered if she still had it. Probably not.

Parked close by was a pair of wagons painted cream, ornamented with a purple trim, and hung with brass and gold fittings. Beside the wagons stood a stall where two men, one dressed in a full, velvet cloak, the other in a buff leather jerkin, sold scented soaps.

“The finest way to cleanse the softest skin,” announced the man in the cloak in a high, nasal drawl. “Release the delicate fragrance of rose petals and jasmine as you bathe. Suffuse yourself with the aroma of luxury as you rinse the cares of the day from your hands. The highest quality natural ingredients made by the best perfumiers. . ”

A cluster of women in taffeta conferred and began opening their purses. Soon they were sniffing admiringly and discussing how these were all the latest colors and featured a new range of shapes. A glance down the street, however, showed me that these two were only a small part of a convoy of such wagons all offering slightly different variations on the same theme, each proprietor attesting to their delicate perfumes, soft bubbles, and a dozen other qualities which left my head spinning. For someone whose approach to soap had been a reluctant encounter with a block of carbolic once a month, this was all pretty strange. But, as Garnet had told me, people here were pretty keen on soap.

Straight in front of me was a trim little stall where a trim little lady was selling trim little chocolate birds with what looked like real feathers in the tail. At first I was merely intrigued, but the elegant crowd who had already purchased her wares and now stood with rhapsodic looks on their faces and little poems of praise on their lips could not be ignored.

“How much?” I drooled.

“One silver piece,” said the girl, with a doubtful look at my attire.

I paused, temporarily stunned. “A piece of silver?” I asked. “For a chocolate pigeon the size of a wren?”

“Vermilion hedge sparrows,” she remarked with dry condescension. “Very rare. There are cheaper ones available from other vendors, but they are of inferior quality.”

“They are indeed,” agreed a lady to my left, who was daintily nibbling on a tiny area of wing tip. She was swathed in courtly, ultramarine satin fringed with lace and studded all over with pearls. Over her heart was a gilt-edged miniature of the king, which she wore as a broach. “Therahlia’s were quite the thing last month, but these are so much finer,” she said, then added amiably, “There is simply no one at her stall these days. It is thought that she will have to leave the market within the week! Ah, well, supply and demand, you know. Look at the detailing around the little creature’s eyes! Superlative.”

“Madame has exquisite taste,” remarked the vendor. “These are specially handcrafted for the more discerning palate. Of course, if yours. .” she began, turning to me.

“I’ll take two,” I said, fishing in my pocket.

“How very extravagant,” said the courtly lady, catching me off guard with an admiring look that was almost erotic.

“I like the finer things in life,” I managed.

“Indeed you do, sir,” said the vendor, all trace of contempt evaporating like spit in a hot pan.

“Aren’t you one of those Outsiders?” the lady asked, now sidling close to me provocatively and giving me a disarmingly direct look. She was a radiant creature with a sultry gaze that belied her pale skin. Large diamonds hung from her earlobes and her hair was gathered up to expose them.

“Well,” I began, nonchalantly biting the head off one of my delicacies. I chewed for no more than a second and then it hit me. “Oh my God!” I spluttered, spitting feathers and chocolate onto the pavement. “What the hell is this?”

“Sparrows dipped in chocolate,” she answered. “I thought you were familiar. .”

“Real sparrows?”

“Naturally,” inserted the vendor indignantly. “Did you expect some kind of substitute?”

“Oh, God,” I repeated, spitting again, and trying to suck up the bits of dried bone and tissue already halfway to my gut.

“Really!” said the courtly lady, backing away from me rapidly, “your behavior is really quite inappropriate.”

“Inappropriate?!” I spluttered between coughs that left dribblings of brown phlegm down my tunic. “Inappropriate? You give me chocolate-covered real dead birds and you think that vomiting them back at you is inappropriate? That is the single nastiest thing that has ever been passed off as food! God, I think I have a teeny piece of beak stuck in my tooth. What the hell are you people thinking?”

“My first instinct,” said the vendor to the lady, “was that he lacked the refinement to appreciate sweetmeats of this quality. . ”

“Mine, too,” agreed the other, whose eyes had frozen over as if caught in a blizzard. “I don’t know why they allow these people in.”

And with that, she stalked pointedly away, though I was too busy hacking up bits of dirt-colored sparrow to take notice of her or the others who were looking me up and down with their noses wrinkled in distaste.

It’s funny how one’s enthusiasm for shopping can be dampened by a mouthful of chocolate-covered bird. The stores, whose excesses had formerly seemed so fresh and sparklingly inviting, a sumptuous feast for the eyes, a glorious display of wealth and good taste, were now merely excesses: grotesque and ridiculous. I traded my second sparrow for a thumbnail-sized tart with what looked like wafer-thin slicings of strawberry on the top. It was a beautiful little thing assembled with the skill of a goldsmith and the eye of a painter, and it tasted of absolutely nothing. I would have thrown it away but it had gone down in one swallow. Odd, really. The way everyone else was nibbling on them and extolling the “simply darling” subtleties of flavor, I began to wonder if I’d gotten a bad one. Maybe I hadn’t paid enough.

“If you could take a piece of the sky,” I remarked to the girl who had sold it to me, “and turn it into something edible, this is what it would taste like.”

“They are wonderfully light, aren’t they, sir,” she agreed warmly. “Like a piece of the sky: a charming conceit! You have a most ready wit and a shrewd palate, sir.”

“No,” I said, “you misunderstand me. I don’t mean it as a compliment.”

She gave me a blank look.

“I mean,” I persisted with overly slow clarity, “they have no flavor or texture. They have nothing that would make any sane person want to eat them, let alone spend a vast amount of money on them. I cannot say they taste like soap or excrement or chocolates stuffed with bits of bird, because they do not taste at all. They are a culinary vacuum and I have already wasted more words on them than they could ever deserve. You ought to sell something with a bit of bite. Try this, for example.”

I produced a small piece of the blue cheese I had found in the woodland cave, wrapped in a thin leather cloth. “This is perhaps a bit bold for this place, but give it a try. This is a cheese with real character, a cheese to sample between sips of a dusty red wine, a cheese of boldness, sharp, but still warm, tangy but. .”

I trailed off. As I pushed the cheese under her nose, her face had blanched first with distaste, then swelled to revulsion, and wound up in something oddly like fear. Her eyes flashed from the morsel of cheese to my face. I cannot imagine what she saw there, but it seemed to fill her with dread. She backed away, staring at me with her hand over her mouth, then began to run, sobbing as she fled.

Passersby eyed me with hostile curiosity. What had I done? I tried to shrug and smile reassuringly at the faces turned toward me, but this-not surprisingly-didn’t help. Maybe I still had chocolate sparrow bits on my shirt.

I made for the library. At least there I wouldn’t feel like some absurd fish flopping about on the floor. There I could lose myself in a good book or six. Even a bad one would be better than trying to blend in with these people. It had been an odd day. But as I have learned to remind myself, things can always get worse.