A Man of Worth

[Raelyse]

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.”
― Abraham Lincoln

[Raelyse]

The vast, dry plains of southern Alerar are unremarkable. There is wealth in the ground and towns and clans to house those who pursue it. Here, away from Ettermire and Kachuck, the region is defined by its anarchy. No pocket sags for weight of coin; the increasing material wealth of a man brings with it green jealousy and sharp blade. Established relationships offer no protection because there are none. Here, the only protection is the sun. It beats down on the ground, taxing man and beast such that only a large enough target is enough to sway a one to be covetous. No group can grow powerful enough in this badland to shape the landscape and become truly dominant.

And as such, it is unremarkable.

It is not common for visitors of worth to travel south from the capital. There is nothing obtainable in the ground that cannot be found further north and the south does not have the trade routes and the merchant economy to gain value from raw materials. But men are greedy and their greed blinds their sense.

None knew this better than Shyla, a girl of fifteen, born to a merchant family who scoured the world for opportunity. She was born on a ship, her brothers were born on ships and her father was born on a ship. She had seen the elves of Raiaera with their pride garnered from fawning men writing songs of their grace and beauty. She had seen the men of Corone with their greed and lust for life and all its spoils. And now, she had seen the dwarves, stout creatures filled with rage and impulse and no small amount of cunning.

Her father, a man so unremarkable he had no last name, had travelled the world and taken all those traits into his own personality. His pride blinded him, such that he would never turn around a bad business decision. His lust and greed drove him like a farmer drives an ox, mindlessly droving for gold and silver and gems. His impulsive nature meant he uprooted his family at the slightest sniff of opportunity. These traits had cost the family already, constant moving had drove a wedge between mother and father, a wedge that ultimately cost a girl and two brothers a mother.

Shyla was not her father though she feared her brothers, nine and eight, might someday become him. She loved to read and learn and hear stories of the world, despite her travels making her someone worth listening to, even in her tender years. She knew of Southern Alerar and its social situation, she knew of the Katuz’Veit and the Vlaakom, southern dwarf clans who hid from the sun in the mountains, digging roots of gem and metal from the ground to line their pockets. She knew of the Kel’Arkan and their cousins, the Kla’Brashom, drow who lived in the tunnels underneath the plains, clashing sword and axe with any who dare come near to them. And she knew of the Southern Axes and the Sand Spiders and the Sharp Spears, groups of men who settled and united only to fight to evict and break others apart.

Shyla knew the region was unremarkable. It was neither devoid of opportunity nor bursting with it, it was neither overly safe nor overly dangerous, it was just unremarkable. As such, she could not blame her father for coming here, it was no more a stupid decision than any other he had put the family through. Her father was not a bad man, but he was defined by his flaws.

As the road grew calm and her brothers fell asleep in the shadow of their wagon, Shyla cast her mind back to the night before. Her family were resting in the last decent bar before the wide expanse of unremarkable Southern Alerar. In exchange for lodging and meal, Shyla had volunteered to work the bar and serve the clientele for a night. For her, this was no task of menial labour, this was a chance to hear the stories and look through the eyes of other men.

Two men, as unremarkable as any, were her books that night. One was travelling from the South to Kachuck, while the other was thinking of making the opposite trip. Both were traders, neither appearing successful enough to warrant a second covetous glance.

“Did you see the Silver Prince and his Palace of Frost then? I heard he wants to dig so deep into the mountains that they’ll tip over and fall into the sea,” the inquisitive, potentially Southern-bound man asked.

“The Silver Prince?” the other man said, stifling a chuckle. “Is that what you northerners call him?”

“He has not been seen for so long that his name has fallen from memory, his deeds nothing but rumour and legend from mouths of women and children,” the other replied in between gulps of his ale and bites of his roast chicken leg. “But… you know of whom I speak?”

“Aye,” the merchant replied.

Shyla looked over at this point, stealing a glance to enrich her imagination. She had a good sense for a worthwhile story. Her piqued interest proved right when she saw wonder in the man’s eyes as he spoke. From then on, she was captivated.

“I did not see the Silver Prince, but I saw his halls," there was a brief pause as the man stopped to think, his mind racing back, chasing memory and reinvigorating senses.

"And they were magnificent.”

[Raelyse]

The clip-clopping horse hoof as beast laboured in the heat to pull carriage snapped Shyla back into the present. Her father was on the brink of leaving consciousness for the precious haven of slumber, the heat uncomfortable enough to drive mind to think of nothing else. But the girl’s mind was sharpened much more than that of her father’s; it would take more than a few brows of sweat to blunt it.

After a momentary lapse, Shyla’s mind snapped back to the pub, cold and dank compared to where she was now. She couldn’t remember the name of the place, it was unremarkable like most of the places she had been to in Alerar after all, but she could remember the sounds and the smells of it. They bookended the tales from the merchant, sparks and tinder that ignited the fire that kept her mind going. The smell of ale felt as if it were almost in her nostrils when her mind entered memory.

“After trudging through the sandy waste, I saw it,” the enlightened merchant continued. “A single peak in a wasteland of nothing, a mountain of rock so high it cut into the sky. Your horse is tired, even pulling a carriage bereft of all goods, but even the head of a beast is raised when presented upon something so magnificent after so long with nothing of interest.”

Shyla remembered looking over at that point. With an interesting story, any person could suddenly became worthy of her attention. It was as if this merchant was a play, and it had not begun until now. Mundane, unremarkable clothing gave way like a rising, plain curtain to reveal the exquisite world of fantasy within. She noticed his brown hair, neat and ordered by the standards of the rabble that lived here, pushed back behind his ears and tied back in a ponytail with a silver band to hold it. She noticed the ring that wrapped around his right thumb, a band of gold with an aquamarine embedded in it, visible to all, a brag to eyes belonging to those less prosperous. She noticed his sword, locked tight in finely crafted leather scabbard, with a red dragon emblem on its pommel, and propped up against the table as the man bit into chicken washed down with warm ale. His clothing was fine and of good make, possibly silk, much easier on the eye than the cobbled together cloth from underfed animals that the rest wore.

By contrast, the other merchant, who did nothing the entire night except field questions bereft of sense, was of no interest to her and Shyla did not even remember now a single detail of his. She almost regretted remembering him at all, taking up space in her crowded storybook full of adventure and wonder.

“But mountain is not the real wonder,” the man worth remembering had said. “As you walk closer, you will see… carved into the mountain is the hall of your so called Silver Prince. I have made the trip there to Kachuck and Ettermire and Etherea many times and heard many names for it… Palace of Frost, The Cold Spear, Lonely Light. Many men have heard tale and have spread rumour.”

The unenlightened man spoke up again, just in time for Shyla to move to serve another customer, but still within earshot. By then, the tavern’s few patrons had ordered more drink and gathered around the apparently enlightened man, eager to hear what he had to say. But the boring one who had started the conversation, much to Shyla’s disgust, had almost monopoly on the interesting one’s time, and piped up with a question before any could answer.

“His greed and desire then,” the drab man asked, even his curiosity seemingly insufficient to turn Shyla’s mind away from his stale humdrum overall facade. “Is that true?”

“No more than any man,” the interesting man replied. In Shyla’s memory, the man now knew of the interest that he held. From here, she forced the memory of the dull and the unimportant from her thoughts, thinking only of what that interesting man said. She imagined it as if she asked the questions, as if he were telling her the stories her gold-chasing father never did.

“Give a man a sword and bow and he will kill for coin. Give a man silver tongue and podium and he will charm for coin. Give a man a shovel and pick and he will dig for coin,” the man paused now, as he often did in this memory, as if the sights and sounds he was describing were locked in his mind like treasure in chest.

“The Prince you speak of has been given all of that by dwarf and drow and man and mage. He has an army to serve, an army to fight and an army to give him wealth in gems and metal and gold,” words sprouted from the man’s mouth like eloquent words in an elven bard song. “And his wealth is not hidden away in a dragon’s den or a troll’s cave; he shows it.

His halls have pillars designed by artists, with floors scrubbed to glimmer like the ocean but that’s not what makes them impressive. In the waste of sand and rock and dust and sweat, the Prince lives in the comfort only possible by ice magick.”

The thought of magick was enough to snap Shyla out of the memory, but only momentarily. She had seen an elven maiden tie her hair without raising a finger, she had seen dwarven armour rough enough to take a mountain giant’s spear yet still be light as a feather and she had seen human mages throw fire like a child throws a ball. But it was magick and magick never ceased to amuse her.

“You enter his halls drenched in sweat, covered in the dust and sand of outside, tired from your journey, your throat dry as the skin under a dwarf beard,” the man continued, his story captivating all within earshot. “But you leave it shivering, what little spit in your mouth turning to shards of ice stabbing your tongue.”

The man stood up at this point, picked up his sword and slid it under his belt. He walked towards the door as this point, a smirk gradually chipping into his face as he fiddled with the ring on his finger. He turned around briefly, disdain in his eyes and tinging his every word.

“The Prince’s halls are not for men of your stature. His is a paradise free from blemishes and muck and dregs. It is a privilege to step inside, a privilege to trade, and a privilege to see.

A privilege beyond the likes of you.”

[Raelyse]

Bump.

The carriage rocked suddenly as one of its wheels ran over a loose, large stone, shaking the whole carriage from relative comfort, Shyla from her daydream and her brothers from their light nap. Their father had never been the most skilled in bending the will of horses to his, so this was an occurrence that the children were used to by now. Despite this, it was always something she hated about her father.

Her life, despite her travels, was mundane. She witnessed men accomplish feats around her father’s mediocrity. The only thing she had to satiate herself from insanity was the tales from those she met on their journeys, teasers into a better world as if glimpsed by an adolescent boy through a peephole in a brothel. Along with the fear that her brothers would be sold for another roll of the dice, that was the only thing that kept her from sneaking off with some other merchant or knight. She knew that the world was dangerous, but not because of dangerous men, but because of stupid men ignorant to their own failings, men like her father.

Shyla closed her eyes and tried to let her mind drift. She wanted to leave the thoughts that never seemed to leave her, the thoughts of incompetent men and think of better things. Perhaps she could revisit the friendly mercenary who had given her that broken arrowhead back in Akashima, or even the tipsy gnome with the gadgets from a different world who had given her the trimmings from his roast while they happened to be in the same pub in Radasanth. She tried, but try as she might, as ever it did, the humdrum dragged her back to reality like an anchor to her doom.

Her father abruptly stopped the carriage, the whingeing of his horse the only sound amid the dry, dead air of the Alerar desert. Shyla’s eyes were still closed when she heard rough, patchwork boots land on the dust of the ground. The next thing she felt was a rush of air as her father whipped back the cloth cover of their carriage, sending sunlight and hot air rushing in. Shyla opened her eyes to see her father gazing over his wares. There was the length of the carriage between them but Shyla could see it in his eyes. She saw the delusion, the ignorance to failure, the optimistic stupidity that kept his legs moving when others would have given up.

Any merchant worth the clothing on his back would travel with goods of worth, wrapped in a transport that begged prospects to take a peek inside. This was not one of those pristinely wrapped presents. Their carriage was on the brink of falling apart, to the point where the boys seemed to be contorted around loose nails that stuck up from wood that seemed to be days away from becoming mulch. The canvas that surrounded the frame was not much better; there were odd holes that sunlight poked its way through and it really provided little to no protection of the wares within from the elements.

In truth, this traveling family were lucky the elements were not stronger. For if they were, the meagre stocks would have been wiped out and the family’s net worth ravaged. Towards the back, one of the brothers leaned against a large crate, with in there was some fruit, vegetables, and preserved meats. These were relatively precious in the Alerar desert but nothing that every other merchant would have. There was another smaller crate next to it, filled with the family’s possessions. Some clothes were inside, but every other thing of worth had been sold for an ‘irresistible opportunity to come. The only other thing inside was Shyla’s bag, a small cloth sack filled with possessions gathered over their travels, things that were thankfully of no monetary value, else they would have long been sold.

“We’re here,” the father said, beckoning his boys forward. He had long since given up talking directly to his daughter, knowing that she would either ignore him, roll her eyes or come up with some witty retort that would strip him of his self-esteem. “We’ve reached the halls of the Silver Prince.”

The boys were keen, only too eager to be free of the oven that their carriage had become over their long journey. They bounded forward, jumping off the carriage like hungry bloodhounds cut loose at the beginning of a hunt. Shyla ambled forward as her father turned around without scant recognition towards her, choosing instead to place one hand on either of his boys.

“Is that Mount Erebus, dad?” One of the boys asked, looking forward towards the lone mountain in the desert that stood roughly two miles from their current position.

Shyla peeked her head out of the carriage, though her legs still remained within it, along with her left hand, which still clung tight to her bag of possessions.

“It is,” the father replied.

This was one of those rare moments when Shyla appreciated her father, if not for his efforts or intellect then for the journey those lesser traits brought him on. She had felt this way when she heard her first Raiaeran Elf song and saw the magic literally singe the air around her. She had felt this way when she saw a Dwarven battlemaster hurl an impossibly heavy table, large enough for ten men, across a bar. And now she had seen Mount Erebus, a peak so high it seemed to touch the clouds. Around it waste, but the mountain, even though it was made up of the same sand, dirt and rock as the rest of the desert, just radiated majesty.

This was not a mundane day. This was not the humdrum of her life.

This was wonder.

[Raelyse]

Of all the tasks that Shyla’s father would choose not to give up on, talking to his daughter was the one that surely would have cost the least. In fact, it cost nothing. The girl could read emotion on her father’s face as easily as a page in any book. Not that she bothered to think about them; she simply glanced and inferred what her father wanted her to do. At the foot of Mount Erebus, a beckoning of his hand and loving eyes towards his sons told her that he would take them to explore, while an apathetic glance at Shyla told the girl to stay with the carriage.

“Why are we so far away then, Dad?” the younger son asked. Shyla could see that he wanted to move forward, to take a better look, but their father’s arm on his shoulder was provided not only love, but restraint and protection.

“…” the father stood in silence, not knowing what to say, his mind dazed and dumb and confused. Words only left his lips when both sons looked up in wonder, a few seconds later that must have seemed so much longer to him. “In… Alerar… it is customary to… wait for a few hours… to gather sand on your shoes to show the length of your journey in order to… justify the cost of your… goods. Any good merchant knows that.”

Shyla chortled just soft enough to avoid detection. She slid forward into the driver’s seat, leaning forward and petting their horse’s blonde mane. The girl wished she had a carrot to spare to reward the beast for coming on this fool’s journey. If only Father was more like this horse, the girl thought to herself. Content with what it has, always eager to do what it must and with a ceiling of low intellect to prevent dreams that ultimately lead to self-harm.

As she slinked back from the front of the carriage towards the back, she thought of the times her father’s lack of intellect, shown here in his inability to come up with fabricated response, had cost them. Her mouth curled into an almost cruel smile. She may not be rich in pocket, but at least she was always rich in amusement.

The girl’s mind decided to then take a wander around her past experiences. Happy memories, sad memories, boring stories and those that kept her ears perked and eyes wide. This was not something Shyla had done ten thousand times before. Every time she was left alone by father, brothers, responsibility and noise, her mind left her body like a snake shedding an ill-fitting skin. She was clever, cunning, bright and inquisitive and the life her father had given her just didn’t give her enough.

The breeze of hot wind that blowed through the desert became inconsequential. The stinging rays of the sun, without even a branch to provide protection, suddenly were not so obvious anymore. When Shyla’s mind wandered, the girl’s back relaxed; her feet stretched out and nothing in the world was enough to snap her back to reality.

There was no reason or pattern to how her mind entertained itself. It jumped back and forth between years, between memories and continent, shaking back and forth until it latched onto something as it reminisced. Minutes ago, she had tried, but her father had interrupted. Now that she was alone, the girl’s mind focused and remembered firstly what she was thinking of, then the memory itself.

A broken arrowhead with strange markings that she later found out to be dwarven runes. Where did she get it? A mercenary in Akashima had given it to her. A man with more weapons than fingers and more scars on his face than that. She saw his armour, dented and scratched leather, wrapped around limbs that were thicker than her torso. She saw the man smile at her after the endless ales she had given him, then dig into his pockets and pull out a piece of metal, laying it across the table of the pub that wasn’t even worth remembering.

“I got this from a nasty, white as snow half-troll in Alerar,” the mercenary said with a cheeky smile. “Didn’t even know it was there until I laid down hours after I left that sneaky bastard.”

His right arm rose at this point over his back to point at his left shoulder blade. “It was stuck in there and there wasn’t a medic or doctor for days who wasn’t mates with the boy that put it there.”

The man then turned his waist, exposing the area to the girl as he went on. “I stuck my fingers in there and pulled as hard as I could but it was stuck in there good,” he then went on to mime what he was doing, screwing his fingers as he turned his wrist. “Like an idiot, I pulled and stuck and twisted the wrong way and snapped the arrowhead clean in two.”

Then, with a grin, the mercenary took a swig of his drink. “I think the other half is still in there. Never did find out what that rune was supposed to do, you can’t read half a rune on an arrowhead, like reading a book in blimin’ Elvish for Thayne’s sake!”

Shyla opened her mouth to speak, but her words were drowned out by the mercenary. He stood up, wiped the ale that had trickled down the side of his face. This pub stood near the sea, Shyla remembered now, and as the man spoke, the setting sun shone through the windows and made the mercenary’s drink look red.

“Clement Whitestorm. A dangerous man who works for an even more dangerous man. The world is filled with dangerous men, girl. Stay away from them.”

But she never did.