Published at 3rd of October 2023 12:04 pm

Chapter 4.17 In Which the Dark Lord's Good Mood is Spoiled

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There’s just something about knowing things other people don’t.

Not like the fact that I’m secretly an uber-powerful Dark Lord walking discreetly among the populace; that kind of secret is a burden, carrying as it does the risk of being swarmed to death by every armed force on the planet if the wrong people found out. But hiking through the woods in a group of people who all believe us all to be alone and out of our element surrounded by enemies, while I have not only my hidden powers but discreet support teams moving into position ahead of us and a familiar to neutralize the prospect of the ambush we were all supposed to be afraid of?

Well, I don’t mind admitting it, this was fun. I shamelessly savored the pure, innocent smugness of it. I don’t often get to experience that, being that I’m such a terrible liar. Oh, sure, I can present a front as well as anybody, especially once I slipped into performance mode, but that’s just showtime. Lying is another matter. You have to remember what you’ve told to whom (which I simply cannot be arsed to do), and above all you have to conceal your true thoughts and feelings. Lying by omission is the best I can manage, otherwise I can really only pull it off when I have a role to play; without some specific mask to pull over my face, everything I’m thinking has a tendency to come spilling out of my mouth.

Back home people used to accuse me of being unable to read the atmosphere, because it never occurred to them that I could read it just fine and didn’t give a shit. God, I’d been so looking forward to going back to California… And now I was here. Fucking weeb goddesses.

“I’m impressed, Sister Dhinell,” I commented less than an hour into the forest. “You’re keeping up very well.”

The priestess shot me a scowl. “What, you expected me to falter a few minutes in?”

“Kinda,” I admitted. “Being in the clergy seems like an indoorsy career path; I guess I underestimated you. Pretty silly in hindsight, considering we met at the King’s Guild.”

“Oh, so you do remember that now.”

“It’s coming back to me. Anyway, good job! Glad to have companions I can rely on. Let me know if you need anything.”

She squinted suspiciously at me, meeting nothing but a bland smile in return. After a moment, she grunted and turned her attention back forward, and I allowed my smile to widen. That was the moment when pushing on with a bit more deliberate kindness could have started mending the rift, so of course I shut up.

Openly snipping at the others would just set Rhydion on my ass, so I didn’t. There was really no need, when nothing would unsettle and annoy Dhinell like me being actually nice. Now she’d be miffed at being denied an excuse to unsheath her own claws, and waiting for the other shoe to fall. And just like that, I had something to occupy me while we hiked. I did not much care for Sister Dhinell; she had all the built-in arrogance and casual cruelty of the highborn with none of the actual rank or power to justify it. Plus, her stated role in this campaign was as a spellcaster, and thus she was rendered superfluous by my presence. As far as I was concerned, Dhinell was officially here to be my emotional chew toy when I got bored.

“You’re not doing badly yourself, my lord,” Harker commented dryly from the front of the procession, where he was walking with Rhydion. “Much of what people assume about priestesses is also fair to apply to aristocrats. Don’t hesitate to sing out if you need a break.”

I wasn’t quite so hypocritical as to be annoyed at having my own little game turned against me. On the contrary, I had to grin. So far I kind of liked Harker. He was standoffish and borderline rude at times, but witty and clearly an observer of people. My kind of guy.

“Oh, I just like to save up all my whining and moaning for later,” I said airily, “and let it out all at once when I have time to sit down and relax. Right, Aster?”

“I believe the reasoning is that if he can’t properly relax, no one else should either,” she said, deadpan. Attagirl; my routine wouldn’t be half as funny without my reliable straight man.

“Well, that might be now, depending on what our peerless leader decides.” Harker came to a stop, peering around, and the rest of us straggled to a halt around him. We were in a small clearing where the surrounding khora seemed to have choked out any competition, but I personally wouldn’t have chosen this as a campsite. There was no flat ground, the forest floor sloping precipitously to our left toward a stream we could hear but not see, and the footing was made all the more treacherous by the knee-high prickly bushes which concealed the ground. “This is it. The beastfolk don’t have fixed borders or anything, but anybody who ventures into the forest often knows the approximates, and we’re at one of my landmarks. Til now we’ve been hiking through the fringes the squirrels don’t consider properly theirs. Any farther in and we start risking encountering their scouts. Much farther and we’ll be on turf they feel…proprietary about.”

“Surely you’re not proposing to stop now,” Dhinell said scornfully. “We’ve been moving for scarcely an hour. It’s not even late afternoon!”

“I am not in charge here, Sister, and neither are you,” Harker replied in an exaggeratedly patient tone that adroitly called her out for the attitude without actually risking a confrontation. “My job is to relay facts and present options. That’s me, expert fact-relayer and option-presenter, hired to explain what’s what in the deep forest so Rhydion can decide what to do about it.”

“You indicated previously that you don’t expect a first encounter with the squirrelfolk to be immediately violent, Harker,” Rhydion himself answered.

“Correct,” Harker said, nodding. “They’re a lot more uppity if they catch a wolf or goblin rooting around, which is why those mostly stay out. We’re Fflyr, though, and they know what’ll happen if King’s Guild personnel go missing in the vicinity of their lands. Squirrels have even been known to give aid to dumbass adventurers who get hurt or lost out here. Especially with you and Rhydion both wearing Radiant Convocation colors, Sister, plus him with the fancy artifact armor.”

If anything, her scorn only deepened. “You’re suggesting these creatures understand the significance of Fflyr heraldry?”

“The beasts live in the shadow of their betters,” Harker said, his demeanor of performative patience taking on an extra layer of weariness. “Yes, they make sure to be acquainted with important symbols, both Fflyr and Shylver. I’m bringing it up now because of the timing. We make an early camp here, we can rise early and probably get to their village well before sunset. But if we press on, we’re gonna have to make camp inside what is definitely their territory. My previous opinion stands: I do not think the squirrels will attack us on sight. However, these are ambush predators, not up-front fighters like the wolves. If all the shit going on lately has changed their attitude and they do decide to get hostile, having most of us asleep when their scouts find us will play right into their strategy.”

“That would be true anywhere, or against any foe,” Rhydion murmured. “Can you opine about the likelihood that their usual patterns will have been changed by these events?”

He shook his head. “They’re the most reclusive of the beast tribes; even the lizards are happier to talk in the unlikely event you ever see one. Everything anybody knows about the squirrels comes from observing them at a distance, they don’t allow anybody a direct look at their culture. Lord Seiji’s tip about them having something to do with this so-called witch and the undead is the biggest single insight into squirrel business I’ve ever heard.”

The paladin nodded, then turned, facing his helmet deeper into the forest as he considered. We all waited with varying degrees of tension for his decree.

“We should not tarry,” he finally announced. “This task cannot be undertaken without risk, and risks must be weighed. It sounds as if the risks of pressing forward are reasonable.”

He started moving again with no more ado, Harker falling into step beside him. The scout glanced back at me with a little smile.

“Pack treating you okay, Lord Seiji?”

Okay, come on now. A joke is all about timing; you have to know when to let it go. A good bit is only ruined by running it into the ground.

“Believe me, when I start to have trouble, you’ll know,” I said in my cheeriest tone, following along with Aster at my side, her eyes already roving the surrounding shadows. Dhinell had been left behind by our initial movements but bulled ahead to put herself between Rhydion and me, as before. Aster and I exchanged a glance, forbearing comment. Trailing along with everybody else’s eyes directed away from us suited my purposes just fine.

And indeed, we were having no trouble with the heavy packs, thanks largely to the gift of goblin strength. Man I loved that; it would be well worth putting up with Zui’s general Zui-ness for that alone, never mind her other useful attributes. The best part was that it was a magical gift, not a biological augmentation of our muscles. That meant there had been none of the adjustment period I’d been worried about, no having to re-learn how to walk or crushing small objects we carelessly picked up. Aster, Nazralind and I had all adjusted instantly and still moved without difficulty, except now we were able to exercise up to about twice our normal strength, intuitively using the ability whenever and however we needed it.

At least something about this fucked-up magic system was smooth and user-friendly.

The main fly in my ointment was self-inflicted: my policy had been to present myself as close to highborn customs as possible, so as to assert the authority I required to move among them when necessary. And since their actual customs were either inscrutable to me or morally abhorrent, that mostly came down to dressing in highborn fashion.

The style of coat I wore, I had learned, was called a raddnythn, and it was almost as stupidly impractical to wear as it was to pronounce.

Like a haori, it didn’t close in the front. Instead, conspicuous consumption was displayed in a tall collar that was starched to rise above ear level (interfering with my peripheral vision), wide cuffs that were rolled back almost to the elbow, and a sloping hem that was knee-length in the front and fell to a divided tail that descended to ankle height. Also, as I had frequently had cause to lament, it didn’t have pockets. The things looked rad as hell, I was willing to admit that and I’d be lying if I denied it was a factor in my embrace of the garment. Man, though, it was a bad design for any purpose except peacocking. It was as if the point was to emphasize that noblemen would never have to actually do anything constructive, including be outdoors for any length of time during the winter, and in most cultures that would be hyperbole but knowing highborn it might well have been the literal point of the design. To survive in this weather it was augmented with gloves, a long scarf, and a kind of padded waistcoat, plus a second smaller scarf which was wound around the head and ears in a turban-like arrangement.

All this was impractical for everybody, but it posed a particular problem for me in that I didn’t have a convenient place to hide Biribo. In my Healer getup he could lurk deep in my hood, perfectly positioned to whisper tactical data into my ear as he sensed it. The raddnythn had literally no place to conceal him that wouldn’t have been an immediate giveaway. Luckily for Biribo, he still had his cozy padded nest in the pocket of Aster’s far more pragmatic, lowborn-style coat. He was undoubtedly the most comfortable of any of us, but the cost of it was that he couldn’t keep me updated on surrounding details in real time.

He could, of course, still pop out and give a warning, but wouldn’t unless something so dangerous happened that it was worth spilling all the beans in front of Rhydion and his two lackeys…which ruled out almost every situation and if he decided to pull that trigger would only mean I was a different kind of fucked.

Not ideal.

“It is ironic,” Rhydion said as we walked, “all our months of research have avoided focusing on the one topic which it turned out at the last moment was crucially relevant, and now we are going to visit the squirrels with little to no idea what to expect. I know you said information is scarce, Harker, but is there anything else you can tell us?”

“Hmmm…” Harker didn’t pause his own careful perusal of our surroundings while considering his answer. You could tell just by looking that the guy really was a practiced wilderness scout; he put each foot down carefully without sacrificing speed and never stopped scanning the shadows. “Problem isn’t that there’s no information, exactly, so much as there’s nothing…reliable. Rumors, tall tales from some guy’s cousin when he was drunk… Going in with misconceptions can be worse than goin’ in ignorant.”

“A wise observation,” Rhydion agreed. “Consider patterns among the rumors, then. You have lived and worked on Dount for years in close cooperation with others who venture into the forest. Widely-repeated stories may still be misconceptions, but they can provide valuable hints.”

“Patterns, huh,” Harker grunted. “Actually… I suppose this might be wishful thinking, considering what we’re up to, but if you step back and consider what little gets repeated about the squirrels it does suggest they tend to be, uh…charitable.”

“That’s hardly what you’ve been telling us up til now,” Dhinell huffed. “All your dire warnings about poisons and arrows out of the dark…”

“All definitely true, Sister. The squirrels are territorial and reclusive. Nah, it’s a matter of how they relate to the few people they’ve decided aren’t a threat. I mentioned them helping injured King’s Guild people, those are verified accounts.”

“Undoubtedly attempting to forestall retaliation from the Guild,” the priestess sniffed.

Harker shook his head, not bothering to look back at her. “Easier for them to let nature take its course. They haven’t attacked any Guild parties, and have such a long-established history of not doing that it wouldn’t be anybody’s first suspicion. Could just let a dumbass die in the forest; that’s what a lot of fellow adventurers would do. Nah, I think it says something that they do help. Plus, there’s a persistent pattern of stories that they’re kinder to half-breeds than most.”

Aster glanced at me and I deliberately refrained from perking up my attention in a way that would be noticed. Half-breeds, huh? Sato hadn’t mentioned the squirrel folk, but then he hadn’t exactly been in a relaxed or chatty mood. Should I have asked him?

“Half-breeds,” Dhinell scoffed. “Surely there are hardly enough of those for it to matter.”

“No half-squirrels,” said Harker. “I’ve never seen or heard of one, and there’d be no mistaking those fluffy tails. But nah, there are a handful of half-wolves and half-cats roaming around Dount. The beast tribes aren’t any more friendly toward ‘em than we are, so they tend to stick to the deep forest, either in the unclaimed reaches or the territory of whichever tribe doesn’t attack whichever kind they are on sight. I’ve talked with a few over the years. Seems the squirrels don’t tolerate outsiders poaching on their land, but they’re allowed to pass through and even trade with the squirrel tribe, so long as they keep their paws to themselves. That’s a better deal than they get on the rest of Dount.”

“Ugh, half-breeds,” Dhinell grumbled in the tone of someone who just wanted to grumble and this happened to be the topic currently dangling in front of her. “I cannot imagine how those abominations even come to exist in the first place. Disgusting.”

And this was why I did not feel bad about heckling her for my own callow amusement.

“Well, you see, Sister,” I explained in my most serious tone, “when a man and a beastwoman, or vice versa, love each other very much, or get very drunk—”

“Refrain from being any more repulsive than you can help,” she snapped. “Have you ever seen a beastman? The idea that anyone could… Some people are truly beyond the Goddess’s light.”

“At least beastfolk are intelligent,” Aster said, deadpan. “Actual zoophiles exist, you know. I hear it gets boring out on a farm.”

I had to suppress a snicker. Harker glanced back at us with a fleeting smirk of his own. Yeah, all things considered, I liked Harker.

“They tend to crop up in waves,” the scout explained in a blithe tone not unlike Aster’s, which I was starting to recognize as the distinctive cadence lowborn used when deliberately winding up the highborn with a veneer of deniability. “Beastfolk swell in numbers, and get uppity without reminders of their place, so the Clans launch a suppressive action about every ten years or so. There’s always a handful of half-breeds a year or so later.”

There was a short silence while the rest of us did the math. Rhydion’s helmet shifted slightly toward Harker as they walked.

“Wait,” Dhinell protested. “So—why? I cannot believe—”

“Point of a suppressive action isn’t to thin the numbers,” Harker said wryly. “Some of that happens incidentally, sure, but we don’t want to wipe out the beastfolk. They’re a comforting buffer between us and the dark elves. Nah, it’s about emphasizing their place. The goal’s to humiliate and demoralize. I was along on the last one into cat turf—lots of King’s Guild hirelings, but it was sponsored by Clan Yldyllich, who actually have to worry about the catfolk bordering ‘em.”

“You were,” Dhinell said in an openly distasteful tone which anyone could have warned her was just going to encourage him.

“Oh, sure,” Harker nattered on in what I can only describe as understated relish. “Confiscate valuables, set fire to some shit, smack ‘em around. You know, generally apply the Fflyr boot where it won’t be forgotten in a hurry. I dunno any of the lads who’re exactly chomping at the bit to get between a pair of furry legs, but hey, it’s what the cause calls for. And once you pummel enough compliance into ‘em that it’s not too risky to look away from their faces, well, pussy is pussy. Right, Lord Seiji?”

I no longer liked Harker.

Aster was staring ahead with the fixed expression of someone whose real thoughts would combust on contact with the oxygen if she allowed them to leak. Even Dhinell had fallen quiet, her customarily disdainful look having morphed into one of quiet but solemn fury.

“You’re a real piece of shit, aren’t you, Harker?” I answered in my calmest voice.

“Yeah, yeah.” He gave me just enough attention to smirk before returning his focus to the ongoing survey of the shadows ahead of us. “I’ve been called worse, by people who matter a lot more than you.”

Oh, I was really looking forward to the day he learned how wrong he was about the second part of that. I began at that moment to lay plans for it to be properly dramatic.

“It’s a good case in point of the topic we were discussing earlier, Lord Seiji,” Rhydion commented into the suddenly icy silence. “Hearing that, your instinctive response is obvious. But what would it change?”

“I have many apt and compelling answers to that, some of them also rather droll, but I respect a good rant when I see one shaping up so I’ll let you continue.”

“Thank you. What you’ve just heard is a description of an institutional practice—one with roots in culture itself, which would not be uprooted even by dissolving the institutions in question. What you are planning to do to Harker about it would change nothing.”

“You know what, I’ve just realized something,” I said. “What was bothering me about your whole perspective that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. You’re a big picture guy, well and good. But these aren’t intellectual exercises we’re talking about, not vast social trends without consequences for real people. If you wanna get all ivory tower about it, what purpose does any kind of justice system serve? That perspective completely forgets that victims deserve retribution.”

“And is delivering that satisfaction to victims worth perpetuating an overall system which is certain to continue creating more victims?”

“That’s an interesting and important question, well worth discussing. What it is not is an answer to the question I just asked you.”

“Perhaps you have a point,” he allowed. “A better rejoinder might be to remind you that abrupt retaliation by previously uninvolved parties is not justice. Justice is, itself, a system—not merely the mechanisms by which retribution is carried out, but an overall structure which assures those who live within it that fairness exists and will be protected. It is incompatible with violent vengeance.”

“Right, just like nobody should have to drink muddy canal water but when it’s that or die of dehydration, they boil it twice and make do. Likewise, in a system in which there is no fucking justice, vengeance is all that’s left. Doesn’t make it ideal or even right, but it makes it the only option. People just have to get by with what they can.”

“And in such a scenario, it seems to me that anyone seeking to enact retribution would have to do so with care and strategy, to avoid creating a decisive backlash. A fundamental weakness of vengeance as opposed to justice is its constant creation of cycles of violence; I refer to something different, hence my use of the word decisive. Blind retaliation risks an immediate and total reversal. Take Harker, for example.”

“Thanks, I believe I will,” I said sweetly. Harker’s head shifted slightly to one side, not quite enough to look at me over his shoulder. But I could see him listening.

“It is common enough for a man to use conversation to feel out new companions, seeking to discern their level of sympathy with his darker impulses. Common, almost habitual. Usually relatively safe—it is a practice developed for that purpose, after all. But in the presence of one unknown quantity, such a customarily safe practice may become a lethal mistake. Coming from the context of Fflyr Dlemathlys in general and the King’s Guild in particular, our Master Harker was not at all prepared for you, Lord Seiji. It would not occur to him that a person would plan and carry out a unilateral execution on a point of principle, and take the abuse of women and tribesfolk a sufficient cause, and consider the matter important enough to politely withhold action until some future date when I am no longer a mitigating presence. There are not only no people in his circle of acquaintances in which all those factors align; from a cultural framework of Dount and the King’s Guild, they tend to counter-indicate or even outright contradict one another. And so his normally safe enough testing of the waters resulted in an axe over his head which will never relent until it finds an opportunity to fall. You see my point?”

Harker had not slowed his pace or altered his body language in the slightest. Like most lowborn, this was clearly a guy well-practiced in concealing his true thoughts in the presence of dangerous individuals. He glanced back, though—just barely, turning his head just enough that I glimpsed only the sliver of one eye.

“I do indeed,” I said sweetly, smiling directly at Harker until he looked away again.

“It falls to me, then,” Rhydion continued, “to emphasize that if Harker comes to an unexpected and grisly end at some point after our business is concluded and I have left, I will hear of it. I will also know with whom to take up the matter, and take it upon myself to finish it. That will be nothing more than fair, given the other party’s stated position with regard to retribution, don’t you agree?”

“Your claim to moral authority is not helped by who and what you choose to protect, Rhydion,” I said coldly. “It’s funny how all of it comes down to nothing more than preserving the status quo.”

“Indeed, inaction as a motivation is always wrong, on that we agree. Those who consider sitting astride a fence to be some kind of high ground are morally, intellectually and strategically bankrupt. Inaction as a specific course of action is another thing entirely. There are often situations in which the correct action is to wait for the right moment. For instance: now that I am the only thing standing between Harker and your violent expressions of sympathy for the downtrodden, I have the power to withdraw that protection at any second. And I will, should there be any further abuse of this kind against beastfolk or anyone else on his part.”

There was a pause in which Rhydion shifted his helmet to look directly at Harker, who did not respond. His acknowledgment wasn’t necessary, though; we all knew he’d heard and understood.

“And now,” Rydion finally continued, “I have a muzzle on both your worst impulses. One which does not preclude the possibility of growth or redemption, nor eliminates all the good you two can still go on to do in the world—and grants me opportunity to guide you both toward that good. And all I had to do to achieve all this was sit back and let you talk.”

I hated that it was such a perfect demonstration of his point that we all walked in acquiescent silence for the next couple of minutes, but I just plain didn’t have anything to say in response. Dhinell was radiating unwarranted smugness despite having done nothing and I suspected understood little of it; she just considered Rhydion’s wins to be her own by virtue of affiliation. Aster’s placid silence irked me more. If anything, I’d have expected her to be on my side with regard to Harker.

“Seems unfair, though,” I commented after a while. “Harker’s a professional adventurer and a deep forest specialist. He’s definitely going to die suddenly and violently, one way or another. That was always true since well before I came along.”

“Indeed,” Rhydion agreed. “And had you not made such a habit of expressing your moral virtues through homicide, it would not now be your problem. Lessons are all around us, Lord Seiji, if we are open to them.”

I was really starting to hate this guy.

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