Character Histories: The Orphans

It has been said that the government of Black Steel is the most powerful orphanage in the known world. The point is exaggerated -- many of Black Steel's top-ranking officials have living parents even now, though none of them have stayed in touch over the years -- but a disproportionate number have parents who died when they were very young, a fact that is perhaps less remarkable when you consider that four of them met and grew up together in an /actual/ orphanage.

The great orphanage of Venighas was run when Theril first arrived by the popular church of Shaer in the city. As the churches of Frei and Forseti grew in power however, they struggled for control of the beautiful building and its many parentless children, impressionable and open-minded, fertile ground for the seeds of their faiths. Political and economic maneuverings led the orphanage to change hands several times in the next few years, and with all the conflicting messages being taught from one hand-over to the next, all three churches lost the hearts over whom they were fighting -- at least in the cases of Nimlo, Theril, Dargon, and Quix. They did manage to benefit the children in between attempts to indoctrinate them however, and during one period when it held control of the orphanage for almost two full years consecutively, the church of Frei introduced the custom of bringing groups of orphans to homes it had established for elderly citizens who followed or converted to the faith. This plan was a great success, as the presence of troops of children was a delight to the church's aging parishioners, and the children loved to hear the stories that the old folks shared with them. Though the church lost control of the orphanage again some time later, the ranks of their elderly converts swelled in the meantime.

Theril and her friends were as interested in old stories as anyone, and conspired to make as many visits as they could to the home for the elderly, but the stories weren't the only draw: It was an opportunity to get out of the orphanage for a while, and to hear something other than lessons about the glory of the god of the year or the week. Theril collected friends and stories, Dargon and Quix collected tips on everything from King's Men strategy to cleaning bloodstains, and Nimlo collected opportunities for mischief, from which -- or from the blame for which -- his friends delighted in extracting him. More and more however, led as always by Theril's instincts, the group gravitated toward a certain forbidding old woman with wild hair and a habit of mumbling incoherencies. She didn't live at the home they were visiting, but they always passed her on the way, sitting on her porch and glaring at the world, and Theril liked her instantly without being able to say why, except that it was perhaps for the same reason that she had first been drawn to Dargon and Quix.

One day, they all made a daring escape -- daring because they risked never being allowed their trips to the elderly home again if they were caught -- and went right up to the old woman's porch together. The old woman glared at them, still muttering under her breath, and when it became impossible to pretend they were just going by on their way someplace else, she demanded in a croak, "What do you want?"

At once, Theril answered brightly, "We want to be friends. Didn't you ever go to make friends with someone when you were a little girl?"

The old woman scowled. "I did once, and forever regretted it." She might have intended to leave it at that, but inside of a minute, Theril had her spinning out the story, which was thrilling and heartbreaking, and before the hour was spent, she was smiling down at Theril in a way so unfamiliar to her it seemed to go against the grain of every wrinkle on her face. "You're a good child," she said to Theril. "Come inside, and I'll show you the secrets that I've shown to no one else."

Utterly fearless, surrounded by her friends and comfortably familiar with the old woman herself, Theril didn't hesitate. She and Dargon and Nimlo and Quix all helped the old woman up, put her stick into her hand, and piled into the house on her heels. She went to the hearth and told Theril to take out a certain brick, then to unlock the door of the iron box set into the brickwork behind it with the key the old woman wore around her neck. Inside was another key, old and dull, but intricate. "Go down into the cellar," the old woman told Theril. "I don't like to climb the steps anymore. There's an old iron woodbox in the corner, but no wood. It will seem to be rusted shut, but in fact it is locked. I made the lock myself, and disguised the keyhole so it looks like a hole in the rust, near the right hand corner. Bring a candle, and you will find it, because you are a clever child. Inside, you will find my treasures. When you see them, you will know. They are heavy, so bring me only the one on top." Her eyes gleamed wickedly and softly, the only way perhaps that they still could gleam at all.

Theril did as she was told, shining a candle to light the childrens' way down to the dusty cellar. Dargon and Quix looked suspiciously at the cellar door to see which way it opened and how easily it could be locked, but when Theril unlocked the woodbox and pried up the top with the help of her friends, they all saw the treasures of which the old woman had spoken: Great, heavy, leather tomes, covered in words of a language that none of the children understood. The boys carried the top book up together, as Theril led the way with the candle, and when she saw them emerge with it, and saw the expressions of awe on their faces, the old woman smiled once more. "Go ahead," she told them. "Open it up."

The book was filled with diagrams of nothing they could understand, with notes clearly, precisely recorded in a language strange to them all. The books were somehow beautiful, but in an alien way, with no jewels or precious metals or even dyes to enhance their simple letters and diagram lines. Dargon and Quix turned page after page, trying to spot a pattern and puzzle out the meaning of the strangeness. Nimlo's eyes and mind wandered around the little room to tricks he might play on his hostess. Theril was the first to look up and ask the old woman, "What does it say?"

The old woman laughed hoarsely in reply. "Here, let me show you," she said. The children brought the book to her, and she turned it back to the first page, and pointed a cracked and dirty nail at the diagram. "This is a symbol made for tradition. You don't have to worry about it. It's only a way to organize the text."

Dargon frowned, but Theril said quietly, "No; it's more than that."

"Is it, child?" The old woman looked at her carefully, as if deciding whether to still like her or not, and finally settled on asking, "Then what is it, my child?"

Theril examined it carefully once more, but finally shook her head. "I don't know. But it's not just for the words. It's important. It's an important book." Earnestly, she met the old woman's eyes.

"Ah," the old woman agreed. "There is power in tradition. Perhaps you are right. But you need not concern yourselves with the pictures. They just help to guide the eyes. Now the words..." and she read them off, and the children didn't understand them, for they were in another tongue, but the old woman's creaking voice was suddenly strong and steady, a voice of power, and the words were beautiful. And then she explained in her old, creaking voice, empty of strength once more, what each word meant in the language they shared.

They mostly didn't understand even then; the words were strange and specialized, and the old woman's explanations were beyond even Dargon and Quix. Nimlo's eyes and thoughts started wandering again, but Theril was attentive, and her bright blue, eager eyes were all the old woman needed to see. Theril asked quiet, awed questions, and asked very politely if she might please see an example of what the words meant, and when the old woman cackled and reached into the air to pluck at emptiness, and Dargon decided once and for all that she was batty, Theril straightened, and her eyes gleamed, and her smile was bright as she said, "Oh! It's magic! They're books of magic, aren't they?" The old woman stared at her, and she suddenly had all her friends' attention again; Theril was rarely wrong.

"How do you know this is magic?" the old woman sputtered, as though she were growing afraid, as if doubting her judgment of the children for the first time.

Theril was unfazed. "It's like what Elhuvin would do when she wanted to weave a spell. Only that was a long time ago, before I had to go away and find the orphanage."

Slowly, carefully, the old woman controlled her breathing. "Elhuvin is not a human name. My eyes aren't what they once were. Are you then elven children?"

"No, not real elves," Nimlo piped up. "Everyone just says 'elven blood.'"

The old woman turned her hazy eyes on him. "Ah," she said at last, with quiet satisfaction. "I see now." She smiled slowly. "So. You have elven blood, but no parents. You barely comprehend your heritage. You live here in the orphanage, where no one understands the potential of your blood. Am I right in this?"

Theril shuffled a little on her feet, but Nimlo agreed cheerfully, "That's right! I'm going to compy-rend my terry-hage someday though, all the way, and then just look out, world!"

The old woman laughed, a soft cackle. "Indeed. And how did you find your way to my porch from your orphanage?"

"It's right on the way," Nimlo answered, while Dargon and Quix did everything they could to persuade Theril to silence without drawing attention to themselves -- if the old woman was impressed by elven blood, and imagined they all had it, they had both independently come to the conclusion that it was best to let the one true child of elven blood among them do the talking. Still explaining, Nimlo said, "We go to the what's-it place all the time; that place for old people who're in love with Frei and don't have their very own houses like you have."

"The 'Love House'?" The old woman's voice betrayed a slight but sudden anger and disgust.

"Yeah, that. They're all right, the people there, as long as they're not talking about their goddess, but they don't have books like this one. They don't have any really good stuff."

"Well," the old woman said, rubbing her hands over each other. "Well, we'll have to do something about that. Run along now before you get caught. I'll keep the book out for you. There's much more to explain now since you're all of elven blood. Perhaps the orphanage can be ... persuaded ... to let you visit me instead of that Love House." She chuckled to herself a little, quietly.

Nimlo told her, "Okay; bye!" Theril thanked her with a formal courtesy, and Dargon and Quix added their thanks in the best imitation of Nimlo's voice they each could manage -- he was the only person with elven blood that either had met after all -- and they left the house together to find a good place to lie in wait and rejoin the parade of children to and from the orphanage once more when it passed. Whether thanks to their own clever ruses, their minders' lack of vigilance, or other uncertain causes, they managed to sneak back into their proper group without their absence ever being recorded.

After that, whenever the four went to visit the elderly followers of Frei, their minders always happened to be distracted or looking away when they passed the old woman's house, and they always slipped away. Sometimes they looked back, and got the impression that they saw themselves milling among the other children, though they couldn't be exactly sure -- except for Theril, who assured them the first time she saw it that there was some kind of magical spell there. Overhearing, the old woman agreed, "There is a spell, and it is my doing -- but hush about it; no one must know that magic is being done here." The children were happy to keep the secret, the more so as the old woman began to teach them to work magic themselves. She warned them never to show it in public -- "Not yet; not until you are strong" -- but it would be a long time before they were far from ready even to weave the simplest spell. Rare among human beings, and not as common as was believed even among people of elven blood, all four children were able to grasp the concepts of magical works, and eventually to weave spells. The old woman supposed it was their elven blood, knowing no better; the children never doubted their capacity. It was not until many years later that Theril came to understand how the coincidence was no coincidence at all.

When the church of Forseti took over the orphanage some time later, the visits to the "Love House" were discontinued, but other arrangements were made to fill the gap, and Theril managed to persuade the priests who ran the orphanage to let her and her friends visit their old mentor openly. She spoke of having passed her so often on the way to the Love House and feeling sorry for her; the unfairness that she never had visitors just because she didn't worship Frei; the power of Forseti to redress such wrongs; the season being propitious for such an enterprise. In the course of the orphanages many changes of ownership, Theril had learned the language of religion and of the church of Forseti in particular as ably as any foreign tongue, as skillfully as she had learned the language of her elven foster parents and the trade language of the Fire Coast, and she used her knowledge and the seeming innocence of her clean, childish beauty, perhaps as well with some small sorcerous assistance from her mentor, to great effect. She and her friends were soon granted the privilege of visiting their tutor openly, a privilege that they would not relinquish even with later changes in the orphanage's patron church, while they remained in the orphanage at all.

They studied sorcerous principles constantly, Nimlo with an apparent laziness that concealed a fiery interest, Dargon and Quix in heated competition with one another, Theril with pleasure and natural ease, and in time mastered the art of finding and weaving spell cords, and then their first, simple enchantments. Theril loved subtle magics that helped her to persuade, and to get her friends out of their inevitable bouts of trouble; Dargon and Quix prefered impressive magics, and gave Theril lots of practice trying to explain impossible things away. Nimlo liked a different kind of subtlety than Theril, and a different kind of punch than Dargon and Quix, but he soon won the other two boys over to helping him with his schemes -- for Nimlo, magic was a brilliant new means of making mischief: Creating chaos, stealing secrets, and playing ever-less-harmless tricks. As they grew surer in their abilities however, their old mentor began to give them practical tasks to accomplish as well -- supposedly, and in part actually, to improve their skills and apply them in real-world situations -- which mostly came down to stealing things that she wanted or needed from people more fortunate than she.

The children regarded this as extremely practical training; Dargon and Quix would soon be too old to continue at the orphanage, and had no intention of making a living in any of the boring ways they were taught to seek by the orphanage. As they grew into skilled young wizards, the four friends came to support one another and their teacher alike through various forms of magical larceny.

Of course it couldn't last. In the course of attempting an especially ambitious heist planned by their mentor, the four young wizards were caught. They tried to use what sorcerous power they had to extract themselves, but were in too deep for subtlety, and not nearly skilled enough for sheer power to succeed. To their credit or discredit, they shielded their mentor to the end, never admitting any connection between her and their crimes or sorcerous abilities, so when the judgment was handed down -- exile, for Venighas had no tolerance for sorcery outside the bounds of law, but could not execute them, least of all young Nimlo, for their relatively minor offenses -- they were sent away with neither the teacher nor the books from which they had learned.

Character History: Thaqz

(Pronunciation: The "Th" is pronounced as in "thanks" or Scottish "Thane," and the full name rhymes with "axe.")

Thaqz doesn't know who his parents were -- his father was nowhere around by the time he was born, and he has no memory of a mother. The tale he heard when he was growing up on the streets was that his mother had died in childbirth, and he's taken it for truth. Sometimes, when he wants to make a certain impression on someone, he'll say, "The first one I killed was my mother, before I could walk." If the stories with which he grew up can be relied upon, his mother had nothing to leave him but long-suffering friends, and his father neither knew nor cared that Thaqz existed. He was raised for a while by a disorganized chain of women, some married, mostly not, who lived in the streets of Venighas, poorer than the dirt in which they lived. One would-be mother would care for him for a while in spite of his not being her own, then hit worse times than usual, and need to cut costs somewhere, and pass him off to some other woman who also knew his mother. The city had a very well-maintained orphanage, but Thaqz never wound up there; the loose network of street livers to which his mother had belonged had a kind of code of honor that meant taking care, such as their care was, of their own. Thaqz ran away from time to time as he got older, but didn't like what he saw of the world, and got hungry, and came back again and again ... until he finally found an outsider he was willing to trust.

Glaxtiks was twelve years old when he first spotted Thaqz, not yet ten, scrounging for food in a refuge pile. There was something feral about Thaqz, especially the way he was burrowing for scraps, more animal than human, young and all but helpless. As slowly and cautiously as with a strange dog, Glaxtiks approached him, and quietly announced his presence. "Hey." Thaqz spun and backed away, sending refuse tumbling, but didn't back far. Glaxtiks kept to his poised, non-threatening stance, and said neutrally, "You're digging too deep. This pile's ten days old. Rats and bugs've eaten anything worth eating that far down."

Thaqz was listening, uncertain. "Who are you?"

"Glaxtiks," he answered, simply enough. "Take a look." He looked up near the top of the pile and found something fetid and dripping and best left undescribed. He took a broken wooden handle from lower in the pile and started digging through the mess. "You find something grown-ups don't want to even touch. Even animals maybe; most of them can't get at the insides without eating the nasty part." After a moment, he pulled out a chunk of slime-covered, moldy bread and even a piece of meat, tossing them on the ground. You'll want to wash them, maybe even cut off the outside. I don't know about the meat, but it'll probably be all right if you cut it thin and burn it through. Been a long time since I ate this stuff."

Thaqz was all attention by then. "What do you eat now?"

"What I take, or what I buy if I take somebody's money." He watched Thaqz, who mostly just looked impressed. "I'll show you. Come on."

Thaqz never went back to the women who raised him. He doesn't believed he was missed. He was simply in awe of Glaxtiks, more than two years older, and far more capable, than he. Glaxtiks shared food and warmth and shelter with the child, and most important of all, his knowledge. From awe that never entirely left him, gratitude, and respect, Thaqz developed absolute and undying loyalty. Glaxtiks had found someone he could trust enough to care for -- someone at first nearly helpless and feral, and soon deeply faithful to him. Thaqz had found a mentor, a father figure, a source of better living than he was used to, and someone who would never just pass him on to another stranger. In keeping with his own code of honor, having found someone he could finally trust, Glaxtiks would never abandon or betray him.

Thaqz learned from Glaxtiks to live on the streets, and they found ways to work better together than they could have on their own. At first, Thaqz was just a decoy in their mutual operations, but Glaxtiks taught him, and he learned, and he became more and more Glaxtiks's assistant, and then partner in crime, as they grew. The first time Thaqz saw Glaxtiks kill, he beamed with pride: His chosen mentor was capable and strong. He'd been warned not to scream if he saw blood or death, but had no need for the warning; it wasn't his way to scream. Thaqz killed a man himself, finishing a street thug Glaxtiks had hamstrung and pinned, before he was in his teens. The thug had come to take the boys' money. He enriched them instead when Glaxtiks sold the skull and a quantity of blood to an unscrupulous apothecary. As they got older, they suffered fewer attempts to steal from them; no special word got around, but anyone who looked at them could see that in spite of their youth, they were not easy prey.

Glaxtiks was careful and clever and observant, and trained Thaqz to be a skilled lookout as well, especially when they worked somewhere with no animals for Glaxtiks to watch and confirm that all was well. He chose their targets carefully, and took as few risks as he could manage, whether that meant avoiding confrontation or killing without mercy and disposing of the body. He and Thaqz were successful for years, sometimes injured, always recovering with the resilience of youth, and never caught by anyone who survived. They might have been successful longer still, but Thaqz looked at killing differently from Glaxtiks. What his mentor regarded as a sometimes-necessary means of continuing survival and freedom, Thaqz considered a pleasure and a proof of strength and skill. Out scouting one evening, he spotted what looked like easy prey for a quick take, didn't think through the situation as Glaxtiks would have, and struck. Someone spotted him from a vantage he hadn't considered; an alarm was raised; he tried to escape, but enforcers arrived on the scene, and he was caught. Unlike Glaxtiks's father, he didn't try to fight them; Glaxtiks had warned him again and again never to fight against overwhelming force. Escape if you can; surrender if you must, and wait for another opportunity to get away. Thaqz ducked and dodged, and was tackled, and let the enforcers take him to prison.

It didn't take Glaxtiks long to find out what had happened when Thaqz failed to return. He retraced Thaqz's route, kept his eyes and ears open, and asked questions where he knew they'd do him no harm and might get an answer he could use. Freeing Thaqz from prison would involve more risks than he ever liked to take, but it couldn't be helped, he believed. He made the attempt, and was caught in the act, and was thrown in a cell of his own. He took it stoically, accepting his own advice, and communicated with Thaqz in a code they had used for years: "Wait. Be patient. We will have another opportunity."

Thaqz was a child, still in his early teens, and the magistrate's horror at his bloody deed left no doubt of the outcome. He could no more order the execution of a child than he could ever allow him to return to the community. Glaxtiks was little older, and was not known to have committed any other crime than trying to break his "brother" -- as they insisted they were -- out of prison. His sentence of exile was a practical matter; it was clear that if he ever were set free again, with Thaqz on Lost Souls' Island, he would only end up stowing away on the next exiles' boat. The magistrate didn't like either sentence, but felt he had no choice. The two therefore waited in prison while other criminals with like sentences were gathered from around the city and the kingdom, waiting for the next departure for the isle.

Character Histories: Nimlo and Theril

(Pronunciation: Nimlo: The first, stressed, syllable resembles the first syllable of "nimble;" the second syllable is pronounced like the English word, "low." Theril: The "Th" is pronounced as in "thank" or Scottish "thane;" the name in full rhymes with the precious stone, "beryl.")

Theril doesn't remember her mother at all, and isn't sure that the man she knew as her father was any relation to hers. Dark of skin, with long, black hair, perfectly straight, brown eyes near to black, and sharply defined features, he shared nothing of Theril's appearance but the bright intensity of his gaze. Even in her earliest memories, Theril recalls him not as "father," but as "Dein," a diminutive of what she learned was an elven word for "teacher."

She remembers the woodland elves who were her earliest peers, and the breathtakingly beautiful elven lady who called her Dein "Alcronast," and whom he called "Elhuvin." She remembers the day when her Dein sent her to Elhuvin with an urgent message in a language Theril could not read, and told to stay with Elhuvin a while and obey her as though she herself had been Theril's Dein. She remembers the thunder in the distance not many days thereafter, sharp and clear, and Elhuvin keeping her close and the feeling in the air of great preparations being made, and power, and silence, and fear -- of speaking of these things, and Elhuvin hushing her.

The fear and tension slowly waned in the days that followed among the elves, but they weren't many before Theril started asking about her Dein. Again Elhuvin hushed her, perhaps more urgently than before, and Theril soon came to know that she would never see him again.

There was little time to mourn -- perhaps a single season -- before the rainy night when Elhuvin woke Theril from her bed, and put a newborn baby boy into her arms. The child squalled in silence, his sounds lost in a spell woven about him, and Elhuvin said that he was Nimlo, a name whose meaning Theril did not know. Elhuvin whispered, "Yu must go, and carry Nimlo with you. This forest will be safe for you no more. I will send a fox to guide you to the far edge of the woods, and then you must follow your wisdom and the high points of the land, and make your way to the city named on this map." She put a paper into Theril's hand.

She held it awkwardly with her arms around the baby, but read it and listened to Elhuvin's instructions, and understood the words that were written there, and the name to whom she was to give a second paper, sealed with wax and magic. She stood still while Elhuvin strapped a knapsack over her shoulders with all the supplies Theril would need for the first stage of her journey, and took the papers from her again and put them in the knapsack, and held tight to Nimlo the whole time. By the time Elhuvin began to lead her down by little-watched ways to the forest floor, the baby was silent without need of the spell around him.

In a night-shadowed thicket, Elhuvim bade both children a tearful goodbye, and embraced them, and kissed Nimlo on his baby brow. Her last word to Theril was, "Hurry!" before she disappeared on her way back to the home they had shared for so long. Theril watched her go, and looked to the fox with shining eyes that Elhuvin had left behind, and followed it only a little way, into a deeper and lower, more shadowy part of the thicket, before she told it to wait without knowing if it would listen, and sat down beneath the sheltering leaves of a giant fern, and set Nimlo down in her lap. She shrugged off her knapsack and carefully went through it, examining its contents and cataloging them in her mind. She didn't wonder at the time that she could see everything so clearly and know what it was, and hadn't wondered since until the Fall of Isiyes, many years later, when she saw and knew at once, with the vision of her childhood restored. At the time, she only made sure of her supplies, and asked the fox, which stood waiting, aloud but in a whisper, "How does the baby get milk?" The fox only stood and waited with its bright eyes, and Theril sighed and closed her eyes, and with her knapsack packed once more and on her back, gathered up Nimlo from her lap and followed.

Theril soon had her answer; the first time Nimlo started bawling with hunger, the spell of silence long since fallen away, and Theril sat with him in her lap once more to try to find some way to make use of what she had in her knapsack for him, the fox approached, and proved to be a vixen, and nursed the little baby patiently. Theril still remembers frowning at that. There were spells enough on the fox, certainly, but it didn't change the fact that in Nimlo's first days, he was being raised on fox's milk. For her part, Theril husbanded her food carefully, and stopped to refill her water flasks at every stream. She didn't know where the fox was leading, nor how long the journey would be.

It led her to the forest's edge, far from any habitation, and looked out from under the eaves at the wind-weathered brush that covered the hills beyond. Theril followed its eyes and frowned and sat at the edge of the woodland with Nimlo in her lap, looking over her map carefully. Towns and villages, inns and houses, were marked, and Theril chose the nearest, searched for landmarks, found two, and hesitantly placed herself and the direction she would need to travel. The fox kept looking out at the hills, and the path she had chosen appeared to be in the direction of its gaze, but the village she had chosen was still far off if she understood the map properly, and she remembered that the fox was to lead her only as far as the forest's edge. "You'd better come over and feed Nimlo," she told it. "I don't want him to get hungry."

The fox didn't respond, so Theril took Nimlo up in her arms again, approached it, and sat down right beside it, positioning Nimlo in such a way that the fox had to move at last, and did, and nursed the baby one last time. Then Theril gathered everything up once more, and holding Nimlo tight in her arms, started away from the woods. Before long, the fox slipped away into the underbrush, and was gone.

Theril carried Nimlo far over the hills, checking her course against her landmarks and her map each time she came to a crest. When Nimlo grew cranky, she bounced him about and sang to him, or rocked him to sleep, and tried with little hope to figure out what to do if he grew too hungry to be calmed by anything but milk. It was a great relief to her when she finally reached a hilltop that needed no landmarks to show where she was, as she looked down across the plains below and saw the tiny, distant rooftops of a village.

Nimlo was crying continously before she came near the village, and she approached an outlying farmhouse just to avoid drawing too much attention. The woman of the house appeared at the door while Theril was still approaching, to see what was causing all the noise. It didn't take Theril long to explain that the baby was hungry, and that was all she would say or explain until the woman agreed to feed him, stubbornly refusing to answer questions about where she had come from, or whether Nimlo -- his elven blood clearly visible in his features -- might be a changeling. "He's hungry," she kept insisting, plaintively, and the woman from the farmhouse at last let her motherly instincts overcome her fear and uncertainty.

While Nimlo was quietly nursing, the farmer's wife repeated some of her questions, and Theril answered with modestly-spoken, completely invented stories. She couldn't speak of Elhuvim or the terrible fear and urgent secrecy in which she had sent the children away, or risk leaving a clear trail to be followed by the nameless object of Elhuvim's fear. She therefore decided that Nimlo had been left on the doorstep of her imaginary parents' house, and when they saw he seemed to have elven blood, had sent Theril to return him to the people from whom he came, whom they thought would hear a child's entreaties before that of a grown man or woman. The story wasn't perfect, and Theril would have preferred one that would be more ordinary, but it was the best she could do, and simple and backward enough, she hoped, to at least hope to keep the matter to occasional gossip, and as best she could, to conceal her destination and identity.

Perhaps the farmer's wife, and her husband when he returned from the fields, felt it was irresponsible to send a child off on such a mission as Theril had invented, or perhaps they simply wanted more young children in the house than their own, and decided Theril's imaginary parents wouldn't be expecting her back for some time, and might blame the elves if she disappeared along with Nimlo. They might have supposed a child with elven blood would bring good luck enough for them to scoff at any consequences. At all events, they decided to keep the children for their own. Theril accepted this, and after carefully concealing the papers she had been given by Elhuvin, did her best to help around the house, glad to see that Nimlo was being nursed properly. Many days passed, and Theril was so cheerful in her captivity that farmer and wife relaxed their guard ... and as soon as she saw an opening, Theril took up her map and letter again, and what supplies she could gather quickly and silently, lifted Nimlo from his cradle, and hurried away into the night, not toward the nearest village, but toward another that, by her map, she hoped she could reach not too long after daybreak.

For months, she crossed the countryside, now welcoming the hospitality of a family that didn't try to hinder her departure with more than promises of welcome in their home, now spending the night with a strong, single woman who asked no questions at all and expected no explanations, now traveling for as much as a month at a time with nomads or a merchant caravan, made much of for Theril's helpfulness and childish beauty, and for the obvious signs of Nimlo's elven blood, until their paths diverged or Theril worried that she'd been among them too long, and slipped away again with Nimlo in the night. She crossed the breadth of a great Human kingdom of the Fire Coast with a helpless child to care for, and nothing but her map, her wits, her duty, her bright eyes, and her will. So at long, long last, she came to Venighas, her destination, and made her way to the place named on her map, its largest orphanage. And so she showed up on the doorstep, with Nimlo in her arms, and gave the sealed letter that Elhuvim had prepared to the man who was named above its seal, and she and Nimlo were welcomed there, and more than welcomed. Children and adults alike were awed by her appearance, her boots and cloak muddied with the soil of half the kindom, and the baby alive and healthy because of her care, though she was only seven years old, and had been traveling for the better part of a year. She was beautiful and graceful and self-possessed, seeming to many or most like a higher order of being. So she arrived, so she met Dargon and Quix.

Character Histories: Grynne and Matrix

(Pronunciation: Grynne: Just like the English word "grin." Matrix: Like the English word meaning a setting or source.)

Grynne would say he was an opportunist; others, less charitably, would just have called him a petty thief. He always kept an eye out for the unguarded prize, the distracted owner of a bulging purse, the door accidentally left ajar by someone hurrying out of the house, the handbag accidentally left behind. He hated avoidable risk even more passionately than he hated the idle rich -- idle and rich at least by his standards -- who lived in the great houses in and about his chosen home town, but loved the thrill of split-second action, of careful plans and swift execution, of reacting to the unexpected instinctively. He ran away from home at so young an age, he no longer remembers the reason; his parents might have thwarted some little whim, or he might have been bored and seeking excitement, or he might simply have struck out for himself for the thirtieth time to try and fend for himself and learn the streets, and never gotten around to returning. No doubt his parents searched for him, but by the time they knew he was gone, he was well on his way down the road, and would soon be two or three towns away.

He finally settled down in Venighas, the largest and most important city in its region of the Fire Coast, when he was still just a boy, living on and off the streets. Resilient, crafty, and adaptable, he had no trouble finding and stealing -- or buying with stolen money, or money made from the sale of stolen goods -- what he needed to eat, and scrounging places to shelter and sleep. He found the best and easiest place to "work" -- relieving the wealthy of a small portion of their riches, and providing it to the impoverished, primarily including his impoverished self -- and the tricks that would best keep him from being seen. Of these, one of the most reliable became shadowing Matrix.

Matrix got started on her career when her father, desperate for work, managed to persuade a prospective employer to visit his home. Matrix liked the sense of wealth and ease about the stranger, and displayed her interest in ways that got his attention; he said he liked her spunk, and his lecherous eyes said they liked everything about her that could be seen, only wishing they could see more. Well into her late teens, she was already used to getting whatever boys near her age could offer just by asking the right way and moving the right way as she asked, and from the way the wealthy stranger reacted to her silent encouragement, she supposed the same ploys would work on him, all the more since he seemed to have so much to give.

Of course, it wasn't that simple. Her father didn't like what he was seeing at first, but eventually came to terms with it as he landed an easy job, paying more than a fair wage, and his daughter seemed to enjoy his employer's attentions and the gifts she received. As for Matrix's mother, she was glad to be rid of the dangers of poverty, and helped teach Matrix how to keep the old lecher interested as best she could. It didn't last -- the father's employment little longer than the employer's infatuation -- but Matrix learned from the experience: What went wrong, what went her way, which of her mother's primitive suggestions worked best, and how to improve upon them. By the end, she was disgusted with the old man, but not with what she'd done. She felt that if she chose younger men, more vulnerable, trusting, and faithful -- if she avoided lechers and other scum who knew what they wanted and had a price already in mind, and worked instead on twisting otherwise scrupulous young men into a kind of faithfulness to /her/ and their secret trysts, she could gain more from each, with fewer dangers and more security. It would take more work, more planning, and greater subtlety, but she had no objection to any of that, if it would grant her the independence she desired, and the means of escaping the impoverished home and parents whom she blamed for goading her into the lecher's despicable embrace.

By the time Grynne spotted her, she was working on her own, having more or less abandoned her parents to their own devices. She had perfected ways of dressing and walking and behaving that would capture the senses and imaginations of the kinds of men she wanted without getting her into trouble with their consciences or other passers-by -- and hidden ways of defending herself from approaches of the wrong kind. She already had a few reliable "customers" and was able to get by, so she was patient, and let her potent beauty work on the next customers-to-be, working at a kind of performance art to arouse their curiosity and interest so they could tell themselves there were other reasons for their eyes to follow her than the deep, animal, instinctive ones that ensured they always did. It was this first stage of captivation, the one that seemed to affect almost everyone at least to some extent, that got Grynne's attention. He noticed her, and noticed that wherever she went, moving and behaving the way she did, eyes followed her, and heads turned, and footsteps slowed, and attention on everything but Matrix herself and her actions lapsed. Cutting purses was child's play when Matrix was working her spell; Grynne could all but steal the shirts off of young men's backs sometimes while they stared and lost track of time and space, as long as he didn't obstruct their view of her. She had honed her craft to the point where just passing by, doing her thing, was enough to break certain men's hearts.

Perhaps Grynne was still too young to be affected, or perhaps Matrix's carefully-honed act really did work most powerfully on the faithful would-be victims she preferred, but Grynne was never really interested in Matrix's allure except as it affected the people around him. Perhaps he simply recognized her traps for what they were, and saw a kindred spirit in her rather than a beauty to be pursued or an evil to be shunned. Whatever the reason, he often cheerfully followed in Matrix's wake, looking everywhere but at her, awaiting the moment when no one was in sight but Matrix herself and various men unable to turn their eyes or an iota of their attention anywhere else, so he could rob them blind, picking targets of opportunity or of course those that seemed to have the greatest wealth. It worked like a charm for a while, until Matrix herself happened to spot him in the act of stealing a purse, and narrowed her eyes dangerously. He reacted at once with swift signs for silence and friendship and pause, and she made a split-second decision and went on with what she was doing instead of alerting their mutual victim to his danger. Perhaps she too saw a kindred spirit in Grynne, or perhaps she simply decided it was better for her victim to lose his purse than to call his conscious attention to the fact -- and its consequences -- that she was dominating his gaze and his thoughts. She made her decision by instinct, and let Grynne go, and moved on.

She didn't expect him to actually track her down and meet her, or to look at her in the open, cheerful way he did, but then she didn't realize that he had been shadowing her for some time already, and that he wanted to preserve her as a reliable distraction for his victims, without risk that she would call out the next time and see him caught. She was used to men and boys offering her gifts, but it still caught her by surprise when Grynne met up with her later that day and said, "Fair's fair; the decoy's as important as the knife," and gave her a share of the money from the purse he'd cut. He was so young, it was hard to take him seriously, but he was sharp and cunning and had picked up a thorough knowledge of the streets, and Matrix liked the open, unassuming way he talked to her, without trying to show off or impress, without a hunger in his eyes ... and the things he said made sense. So a tentative working relationship began, already developing into the beginnings of a friendship. Independent as both had become by then, and willing as they both had been to leave their real families behind, they filled a void in one another's lives as they came together: He as a brilliant little brother to her, she as a clever, appreciative, street-smart older sister, like nothing and no one either had ever had before.

They worked well together for a few weeks ... then for months ... then for years ... coming up with new schemes and trying them together, relying on each other more and more. Toward the very end, Matrix began working on wealthy men who made easier but less lasting and useful prey, persuading them to tryst with her in their own homes when everyone else was away. With the help of the master of the house to ensure there would be no interruptions, and Matrix commanding his attention as only she could with intensely close contact, Grynne could go through the house with complete security, seeking the most valuable things to steal as if shopping at a store, then split the take with Matrix as he had been doing for years. It couldn't last though; one evening, a too-suspicious wife came home early with her entourage, caught Grynne in the act of theft, and caught her husband trying to conceal Matrix from her. Their marriage was destroyed in that evening, but one thing did unite husband and wife one last time: The need to squash the potential for scandal and blackmail. Unfortunately for Grynne and Matrix, they had aimed too high at the wrong moment, and their wealthy would-be victims had the necessary pull to arrange exile for them without public trial. So it was that, not long after they began to achieve the greatest success of their dubious careers, Grynne and Matrix found themselves aboard a ship bound for Lost Souls' Island. They could have blamed each other, and many would have in their places, but they were practical people, both individually and as a team, and they'd gone into "business" together with open eyes. They knew the dangers they'd be facing in exile, especially as a dangerously attractive young woman and a youth still in his teens, and having worked so well together for so long, they preferred to face those dangers together, relying on one another still more than they ever had to before.

Character History: Glaxtiks

(Pronunciation: Just the way it looks -- like the start of the word "GLAd," running into the word "AXE," running into the word "STICKS". Stress is on the first syllable.)

Glaxtiks saw his parents killed in the street by town enforcers when he wasn't yet in his teens. His father's only crimes were the Fire Coast equivalents of petty theft, grand theft, robbery, various assaults with deadly weapons, battery, murder, (he considered it to be "accidental death," not having intended for the man to bleed to death of his wounds) and (fatally) resisting arrest when he was finally run down. He had never considered himself a public menace: Just a man without a job doing what he had to do. The authorities, those of his victims who survived, and the friends and family of the deceased, might have taken a slightly different view of the matter. Glaxtiks' mother hadn't been much involved in criminal activity at all, except for reaping its limited fruits, and -- at the end -- attacking the enforcers, with intent to kill, as she saw them fighting her husband to his death. Glaxtiks knew he could do nothing, and so he stayed in the shadows and watched. Another child would have sworn vengeance, but Glaxtiks was more concerned at the time with tactical matters of survival - he had every expectation, however false, that he too would be killed if the enforcers found him, and wouldn't have liked the alternative they did intend if he found out. One of his primary sources of food and shelter was gone, and he knew he would have to work harder than ever to keep meat on his bones in the future; his parents had done little to raise him, and seemed to forget about his existence as often as not as he grew older; increasingly, for years, he'd been more or less looking after himself.

Glaxtiks knew the local gangs of thugs and young troublemakers, and steered clear of them as asiduously as he avoided the town's enforcers. He didn't like the looks of them, and he didn't like to live under anyone's authority but his own. His gutter's-eye-view of the world suggested that human life consisted of purposeless violence -- like his father's against his mother when he was drunk -- lies, cheating, betrayals, and structures of authority designed to crush the compliant for the enrichment of those at the top. Animals could be trusted, when they weren't broken and ruined by a human master -- not to be his friends by nature, but to respond to him in a fashion he understood -- but humans could not be trusted at all.

Glaxtiks was entirely unlike his father. He abhorred drunkenness and the pointless violence to which it led, but welcomed violence as a means to any end he deemed worthwhile. His father had avoided fighting anyone who could be expected to fight back, except in the last necessity -- even Glaxtiks had ceased to be a target a year or two before his father's death -- but Glaxtiks willingly did anything and everything necessary to acquire what he needed to survive. As he grew older and more capable, and started doing his larcenous "work" less often, with more dangerous and lucrative targets -- he was coming to understand that falling into habits, and continuous risk exposure, brought greater risks of getting caught than any short-term ones he might undertake head-on -- and he sometimes needed to kill in order to open an avenue of entry or escape, or to eliminate a witness, he killed without a qualm or a second thought. He was skilled and clever and lucky, and he had reliable friends: With meat as his introduction and careful work after that, he taught the stray dogs of his town's streets to take him as one of their own, and an alpha male at that. He befriended other strays as well -- cats and rodents and racoons and every other wild animal he found sneaking about the city at night -- and though they weren't as loyal as the dogs, and couldn't be trained to make useful diversions and the like, he won their trust, so they wouldn't react to his presence, and by watching their behavior, he could tell when other humans were nearby, long before his own senses could detect them -- though knowing when and where to look helped him train those senses to a fine pitch as well. Unlike his father, he was an utterly cold-blooded killer, who would refrain from murderering a man for his purse only when he thought the risk too great for the gain -- and unlike his father, he was always master of himself, and never, except in self-defense, hurt anyone he loved.

There were girls, but his feelings never lasted -- he would long for one for a while, holding her in his heart, and follow her in secret, hoping to defend her in case the need arose, but also watching her, making sure that he could trust her, always, always, learning some reason that he could not, and turning away from her forever. Still, he did not blame the objects of his brief infatuations for failing to live up to his hopes and desires; he had loved them, and if anything, to Glaxtiks, that was his fault. So there were girls he would not harm ... there were girls, and there was the child, whose story must wait for another tale.

Character Histories: Dargon and Quix

(Pronunciation: Dargon: emphasis on the first syllable, which rhymes with "bar" -- the second syllable is pronounced more or less like the word "gone". Quix: Just the way it looks. If "quick" were a noun, his name would be pronounced like its plural form.)

Dargon and Quix would never admit that their friendship and rivalry developed over a girl -- least of all over a completely platonic relationship -- and they may not even remember that it's true. They were apparently-unexceptional children lost among hundreds of others in the largest orphanage in Venighas on the Fire Coast, and had no more interest in one another than in any of the other children until the stranger showed up on the ophanage's doorstep with a baby in her arms. She was beautiful and graceful and self-possessed, younger than either of them, but seeming -- not only to Dargon and Quix but to everyone at the orphanage -- like a higher order of being, a childish heroine out of a fairy tale. No one knew whence she had come, or how, or why, and she never spoke of her journeys, but rumors swirled endlessly -- not only rumors of noble birth, but the stuff of fantasies. Her boots and cloak were muddied with the soil of half the kindom, and the baby was alive and healthy because of her care, though she was only seven years old when she came to the orphanage. She had come the long way from lands unknown without the help of any grown companion, and it was soon known throughout the orphanage that the babe she had helped along the way, still too small to walk on his own, was as much of elvenkind as human.

From the moment of her arrival, she was the most popular child in the orphanage, with no rival worthy of the name. She had a way with the adults that no one else could match, and the novelty of her appearance never wore off as she retained her independent ways of thinking and her casual, almost-unwitting leadership throughout her time with the other children. Her approval, her attention, were the chief prizes to be won in the little world in which Dargon and Quix lived, and they strove like all their peers for the twin prizes ... and earned them, again and again.

Neither could say just why it was -- she herself might have had no inkling -- but the beautiful storybook heroine whose arrival had brought new life to the drab orphanage was drawn to Dargon and Quix more than any of their playmates. She spent time with them, and smiled at them often, as though they were old friends, and as they triumphed, they turned more and more of their efforts to outrivaling each other in her eyes -- and to cementing their positions as the only significant rivals for her attention. Everything at which each excelled, the other strove to match; Quix learned to play King's Men to compete with Dargon at the game; Dargon developed his own form of wit to compete with Quix's own; they drove each other to learn to write more beautifully, to read with more expression, to dance with grace and skill. Everything of which she approved, that won more of her friendly attention, became an opportunity for each to prove that he was the best in the orphanage at the things that -- to her -- mattered most. The little part-elven child developed two staunch and clever defenders, conspiring with each other to keep his infant mischief from getting him into trouble with the other children or adults, then telling the story together to the child's first protectress, each emphasizing the things he did, proudly pointing out the ways he cleared things up or planted false evidence to point in the wrong direction or at least away from the far-from-innocent child. They went on daring raids together to sneak cookies and other treats for her or for the child when neither could devise the means of succeeding on his own. As they saw the way her eyes shone when they cooperated and described the ways they helped each other, as her smiles accompanied their signs of friendship, her quiet frowns their signs of mutual distrust, they came to work together more and more -- at first purely as a false front, then more and more out of habit and as almost second nature as they grew together and found they could depend on one another, both when working together to increase the standing of each and when competing as rivals driving one another to improve just to keep up the pace. As time passed, and the beautiful new girl became less of a novelty, the boy who came with her less of a helpless child and more simply the smallest in a group of four fast friends, the friendship between the four them grew, as -- increasingly for its own sake -- did Dargon and Quix's rivalry. As the girl who had awed them changed in their thoughts to just a close friend, a child at the orphanage on whom they could count when it mattered, they became still fiercer rivals, as the judges of their success became their surest friends and harshest critics: One another and themselves.

Thereafter, though they always stuck by the pair that had brought them together, Dargon and Quix were more in each other's thoughts than the girl who united them. Even in adolescence, though one or the other gave her long looks from time to time -- for she was very beautiful still -- and they developed an interest in girls as objects of desire and conquest, they never again competed over her. She knew them well enough that she would never have given in to their suits -- knowing half of their wish to attain her might come from showing the other up, and wishing to be loved only for herself -- and they knew her well enough to see that it was so. Besides, by that time, they had other things on their minds, especially where she and the little boy over whom she still watched were involved: Hopes and opportunities for such power as put mere mortal desires to shame.

But that is another tale, for another day.

Grat'han Language

We haven't yet described the Grat'han language in detail, but I figured I might as well post what little we have in a nice central location (i.e. here) to keep things semi-consistent. Note that ambiguity, homophones, and synonyms do muddy the waters (e.g. make it possible for us to sort of ignore this when it makes for good names and/or storytelling) but I kind of like having this around for reference.
In general, the Grat'han language is rich in sound and texture, with a non-universal tendency toward multisyllabic compound words, and toward hard consonants in male names and soft consonants in female ones. A simple "dictionary" follows -- these words are significant only in the sense that they happen to have come up in the course of the game.

English - Grat'han:

black = Thah

both (prefix to certain compound words consisting of two nouns) = T (T' when preceding a hard consonant)

bud (a plant's shoot) = Neyl

dance = Ahren

dew(drops) = Nisin

dusk jay (a kind of Grat'han bird) = Rovaru

entry = Thestrin

feather = Lacreth

fire = Reyla (sometimes spelled Reila)

gift = Felis

green = Leth

home = Mona

laughter = Alimna

point = Krendas

river = Alua

sun = Narra

tide = Arten

treasure = Anyoth

water = Sefi

weapon = Volk

Grat'han - English:

Ahren = dance

Alimna = laughter

Alua = river

Anyoth = treasure

Arten = tide

Ato = Living (things)

Felis = gift

Krendas = point

Lacreth = feather

Lamna = Searching

Leth = green

Mona = home

Narra = sun

Neyl = bud (a plant's shoot)

Nisin = dew(drops)

Reyla or Reila = fire

Rovaru = dusk jay (a kind of Grat'han bird)

Sefi = water

T or T' (prefix to certain compound words consisting of two nouns) = both

Thah = black

Thestrin = entry

Volk = weapon

Annual Calendar

The calendar used along the Fire Coast, from which most of Black Steel's founding personnel originate, is similar in principle (but not in detail) to those used by the peoples of Tolkien's Middle Earth, having 12 months of 30 days each, and five days that exist outside of any month, with an additional one for leap years. Within the Broken Sea region, this calendar (with slight variation) is the primary one used in Black Steel lands, Arasta, Ephinos, Espava, Korv, Rhedas, and the Sheradi provinces, and is recognized in Shalasia, Itheshia, Tornbring Vale, and Kolmarch. Havandia, the Sankel Badlands, the Teigarant Freelands, and the Grat'han Trade Network use lunar calendars primarily, whose details will not be described here; Korv and Kolmarch also use a Dwarven calendar the details of whose very basis is beyond the scope of this article.

Feast of the Sun's Return - The first day of the calendar year always follows the longest night of winter. It is traditionally a time of celebration in the north, where the seasons are more keenly felt. In the tropical lattitudes of Grat'ha, where the year is divided into the rainy season and dry season, this festival has little meaning; the sun never went anywhere.

Teimary - Roughly corresponding to January (but starting several days earlier), Teimary falls in the middle of the northern winter, and of the north-Grat'han dry season.

Karaban - Likewise corresponds approximately to February.

Tempest - Closest to our March, Tempest is famous for its high winds in the north, but its name is more than a little misleading in the Broken Sea region, as the Rat Pack is fond of pointing out.

Festival of Life Renewed - Generally corresponding to the Vernal Equinox, this day falls near the end of the north-Grat'han dry season, where it is celebrated by many as a last sure chance to enjoy good weather before the rains come.

Shelin - Analogous to April.

Leva - One of the most delightful months on the Fire Coast, May-like Leva marks the beginning of the north-Grat'han rainy season.

Su - Corresponds roughly to June.

Midsummer Day - The summer solstice, celebrated raucously in the north, a tradition which Telaeri has tried to bring to The Scabbard, where unfortunately it usually needs to be celebrated indoors. On leap years, (roughly one year in four) this festival is divided into the Day of Revels and the Leave-Taking (of the sun), surrounding Midsummer Night.

Zerian - July-like weather means oppressive heat, and in the case of northern Grat'ha, even more oppresive humidity and rain.

Argolan - Like August, Argolan carries weather every bit as bad as Zerian's, and often worse.

Nifoper - Similar to September.

Feast of the Harvest - Another festival whose name is more or less meaningless in the region of Grat'ha, this one falls on or near the Autumn Equinox.

Afor - The end of the north-Grat'han rainy season usually falls in the month that corresponds to our October.

Day of the Veil (between living and dead) - Corresponding more or less to America's Halloween, this is a day of remembrance and preparation for the coming winter in northern climes. At The Scabbard, it has become a massive all-day and all-night celebration, fueled in part by the fact that the rainy season comes to an end right around this time.

Noaver - Similar to November, this month is usually the first of the dry season.

Acar - The final month of the year corresponds roughly to December.

Physical Map of the Broken Sea Region

CLICK PICTURE FOR FULL-SIZE VERSION:

This is a basic physical map, with major terrain features but little in the way of detail. I hope to update the map with more precise information eventually and/or as Black Steel personnel make more discoveries. A larger-scale map, extending northwest to Eastport and the Fire Coast and beyond, and east beyond the end of the Broken Sea, will hopefully be posted sometime in the future, as well as smaller scale, detailed maps of the area surrounding The Scabbard, Thornton, and Kaiimar.

Character History: Charracks

(Pronunciation: Hard Ch, as in the Scottish "loch," and long American-English A in the first, stressed syllable; thus, roughly, "CARE-icks.")

Charracks was born to a wealthy merchant family in the town of Techlin on the Fire Coast, and found little in town to interest him as he grew into his teens. He pressed weights and trained under a local pugilist just to keep his mind off his boredom, but it always returned soon after each workout, when his muscles were finished working. He often wandered the streets out of sheer ennui, watching the people go by and wishing something sudden and violent would happen to make them interesting to him. Often, he fantasized about thieves approaching to steal from him, only to be broken under his sheer physical power as he attacked, but nothing of the kind ever happened.

One evening, lurking about the edges of town, Charracks spotted someone in a shadowy alley: An attractive young woman, several years his elder, daringly dressed, all in leather, rope, and chains. He followed her, and to his deep pleasure, found that she had led him to a place worthy not only of interest at last, but of awe and amazement: A forbidden temple, buried beneath the earth, arranged for the worship of a terrible diety whose power and deadly beauty were manifest to Charracks from the moment he entered as Vammakhel's presence seemed to descend upon him. He rejoiced in silence, and the woman who had led him there saw him, and took him aside with her to "punish" him.

She underestimated Charracks. Unlike the others of the town who worshiped at that temple, he had no desire to be bound and struck by a beautiful priestess or powerful priest. He fought the woman who led him there in spite of the wounds he inflicted in freeing himself, welcoming the pain that meant he was free. When he wrenched the whip from the hand of the priestess, he cast it aside in fury, and battered her with his fists alone, in fury that she should set herself above him and take for herself the right of punishment. When the high priest of the temple finally separated them, the priestess was barely alive. Broken and whimpering, no longer beautiful, she had to be carried away for slow, painful healing, and the blood that covered Charracks's fists was as much hers as his own. In another place, he might not have lived through the experience, but the high priest saw in Charracks the spirit of Vammakhel, and rewarded him with indoctrination into the priesthood. Charracks would not be asked to bind and strike willing supplicants however; he believed, and the high priest agreed, that was beneath him. Charracks was made the temple's enforcer, the looming threat meant to keep priests and parishioners alike in line, the man whose cold and deadly malice could cow even the lovers of pain who came to worship at that temple. Not long after his ritual indoctrination into the priesthood, the threat of Charracks's vengeance had risen to the top of the long list of reasons that those who knew of the temple's existence dared never betray its secrets.

Charracks's hands were never idle in the temple; a part of his time was spent in simple worship and his part in the rituals of the place, and a large part in simply being seen, grim and menacing, but there were sometimes also occasions to practice his torture techniques. He learned to use whips and scourges of all kinds, and eventually even some of the intricate pieces of cold equipment that filled the deepest dungeon rooms of the temple, but he also stayed in practice with his fists. There were always others better versed in the application of specialized devices, or the best ways to achieve the maximum possible level of pain without allowing the victim to lose consciousness, but Charracks was the most feared of all the priests, for to him, the purpose of the torture was secondary. Whether punishment was intended or an experience of Vammakhel's power, or even if information was to be gained, Charracks was ruthless, and interested only in inflicting pain. The high priest knew that to turn someone over to Charracks was to risk permanently disfigurment or disability for the victim, or driving the victim to madness with agony. He knew that the chance of a victim's death was greater under Charracks's hand than under any other priest's. He knew it, and still used Charracks, for the glory of Vammakhel, and for the sensation and the panic and terror that Charracks's use would bring.

No one ever found out if a parishioner broke faith after all or if the wrong person got careless and was seen by the authorities, but the town militia finally found out about the temple, and their raid emptied it completely. The fortunate managed to escape and flee, a few died fighting, and most of the parishioners were forced to leave the community. The priests, resisting arrest to inflict as much pain as they could, were mostly hanged. Charracks himself would have been among these if not for a stroke of good fortune. On the fateful night, he was sitting by his ailing mother's bed, brooding over the unworthiness of family obligations that prevented him from attending the forbidden temple to pain. Various confessors fingered him, but he had not been caught in the temple, and had no opportunity to resist arrest in its defense. When the town took custody of Charracks, he accepted it because the temple had already been taken and he knew he could not win, and his sentence was not death but exile in spite of his reputed deeds. His parents wept to learn where he had spent his time away from them, and grimly, imagining that the temple could have been safely defended if only he had been present to lead its priests and parishioners in the defense, Charracks blamed his parents for all that had gone wrong. Since the time he was taken into custody, he has never spoken to them.

Meeting in the wee hours of Leva 27

In a warm, dry, makeshift shelter in the coastal plains just outside of Kaiimar, Herring glances up at the curtain of rainwater pouring down from his shelter's eaves. The water has parted, as if to make room for something human-shaped, and he smiles and murmurs, "'Lo, Theril," as it falls into place again.
There's a smile in her voice, though Herring can't see it on her lips, as she asks, "How did you know it was me?"
He shrugs. "You breathe a certain way." And grins. "And who else would it be?" Letting his smile fade, he looks up and down the space where he supposes she must be. "You smell of blood. Is any of it ours?"
"Not a scratch on us." Her voice comes from nearer the ground than before, and a blood-soaked robe seems to materialize at Herring's feet. Theril's voice is soft and conspiratory. "This is hers. It's enchanted, but nothing dangerous, I think. As long as we don't bring it into a Wood Haven, at least." She pauses, apparently to stand, and says, "The rest of her is under wraps; I'll bring it out when it stops bleeding."
Herring nods and pokes at the robe with his boot. "All right. If it comes to life, I'll kill it for you."
"Just /kill/ it? If it comes to /life/, I want to see how it's /done/!"
"No doubt." Herring grins. "It's no good pretending to pout when I can't even see your lips doing it. Besides, if I kiss them now, I'll break your spell."
There's a rustle of movement and then a pause. Kindly, and from very close by, Theril tells him, "I almost said to go ahead; I'd rather spend the next few hours with you anyway."
Smiling up into the space where he supposes her eyes must be -- he's grown uncannily good at guessing -- he says, "Go on. They probably need you. We have days and days ahead in Wood Havens in the jungles, and who knows when you'll get to see Glaxtiks and Daryan again?"
"And Thaqz and Berlokh," she reminds him.
Herring nods. "It's a funny thing about Thaqz. I went with you into those tunnels to help you save his life, and I'd do it again, and I know he'd kill -- or even keep someone alive, of all things -- to save mine, but I don't think he or I can stand each other really."
"You haven't tried," she answers. "I think if you both let the rest of it go and just talked for a while, you'd be friends."
Leaning back, Herring muses, "Maybe so. Maybe that's what I'm afraid of. Maybe him too, for all I know." Then he smiles again. "I'm being selfish with your time, Theril. It sounds like the plan's worked so far, and I'm not about to sabotage it. You need to get back while you can still fly."
There's a motion in the air, and a wistful sigh. Theril says, "I almost kissed you goodbye."
Herring smiles and blows a kiss in her general direction. A soft smacking of lips and a wafting breath comes in reply. The thin curtain of rainwater dripping from the eaves of the shelter parts briefly, and Herring glances at the bloody robe at his feet. It remains inert, and he goes back to contemplating the rain and the night.

Character Histories: Broxte, Quazar, and Solo

Here's the first in a series on the early lives of some of the major characters in Black Steel.

(Pronunciation: Broxte: All consonants fully pronounced, o as in rock, e silent. Quazar: Roughly, KWAY-zahr. Solo: Like the English word meaning alone.)

Broxte was born in the town of Heldred on the Fire Coast (northwest of Eastport, far northwest of the Broken Sea) to a fisherman and his wife who were too busy with their work and younger children to deal with him beyond the age of six or seven, and so left him to more or less work out his upbringing for himself. It didn't go so well. He eventually fell in with a rowdy, amorphous gang of sailors' and fishermen's children in situations more or less like his own, first sticking around the edges and watching their doings with pleasure and awe, but getting increasingly involved as he grew, cheerfully going about the business of raising havoc. By his mid-teens, he and his best friend, Quazar, the son of a lady-about-the-docks by one of countless sailors, felt they were outgrowing the loose-knit gang, and like many before them, started occasionally forging off to cause havoc on their own in the little time that remained to them before they had to start fending for themselves and become sailors or fishermen like their fathers; already, they were spending many of their days helping Broxte's father with his boat and his catch, reluctantly learning the winds and the sea and his trade.

Solo dropped into their world like a comet from the sky. They never learned -- indeed, even now, no one but he knows -- his real name. He came in with a merchant ship and its noble passengers, and made an immediate impression, taking risks that none of the locals dared, showing off his swordsmanship, and insisting on carrying out most of his schemes in accordance with his nickname, Solo. He was young and independent, with time on his hands that he spent in the street, at an older age than anyone else Broxte or Quazar knew, and his swagger impressed them immensely. They didn't know to which family of merchants or noblemen he belonged, and he liked it that way, but they didn't mind; he was living the life they wished they could live, and he was better at it than they'd ever hoped to be. More nearly his peers than anyone else in town who wasn't already working, they got his attention too; he liked the way they had started to shun the rest of their childhood gang, and he liked their attention and the awe in which they held him. Increasingly, as time went on, he spent his time with the two of them, telling them stories of his easy ways with women, teaching and demonstrating the use of a blade, and getting into good-natured fights at all hours and for any reason. They eagerly listened and learned, worked on stories and tricks of their own, and sought fights they knew they could win in their own ways, all of which pleased Solo as well. His nickname became less apt as time went on and he became more and more the nucleus of a band of three.

They were down by the docks one evening, looking frankly for trouble and amusement when Quazar took offense to an ugly name and started a fight with a knot of sailors in from the north. The whole knot came pounding down on the three, and a few locals came to support them, and the fight quickly got out of hand. When the authorities finally closed in and brought the fight to an end, one of the foreign sailors was dead, by Solo's hand. Had he been killed by the foreigner, the killer would likely have been hanged, but the dead man had no friends in Heldred except his fellow sailors passing through, and Solo's family was of enough importance that he could not be executed without complexities. The story was muddled as well by Quazar and Broxte, who each claimed a role, not without justice, in the death of the sailor, all in support of their friend; in the end, all three were sent to the capital, there to be exiled to Lost Souls' Island, never to see the mainland again. Broxte's father mourned and gnashed his teeth; his mother wailed. Quazar's mother felt what she felt, but said nothing in the hearing of the authorities. What Solo's parents had to say, or who they were, or if they were present in town at the time, none but they and Solo himself have ever learned.