L.E.Y. 3252

Riposte.

Pulse racing, I hurried into my foyer, clicked the door shut and turned the key. I hurried into my study, a forgotten sanctuary for affairs of politics and business. I frowned at my fingers as I sat. The thick coating of dust that came away at my touch spoke to a recent lack of attention to such matters.

No matter, I told myself, and swept my sleeve across the leather writing pad. Its sacrifice to the detritus of my life cut an arc of dark clarity into the gray sediment of neglect and opened a window into my past. I knew such windows of clarity could induce melancholia, but I was pleased beyond words to be holding another. It had taken a very long time to win Pertuli's wager. The accomplishment of finally holding Tyella's letter in my trembling fingers was like distilled euphoria.

I reached for the new bottle on a dust-free cart near my chair. Only after unstoppering and pouring a glass of sparkling golden faewine did I realize what I was doing, and I cringed. I had been trying to wean myself off hard drink for the better part of two weeks, and finding it more of a challenge than expected.

The thirst was unbearable. My mouth watered just holding the dark amber bottle, the honeyed scent of its contents wafting out and around me in a seductive embrace. Just as I could smell the wine's alluring fragrance, I imagined that I could taste it, too. I sighed, feeling phantom effervescence play over my tongue and my throat longed for the anticipated warmth.

Was it possible that I was addicted? Although I had never heard of a tilwen made slave to the habit of alcohol, it wasn't physically impossible. In theory.

I liked to think I was above such flaws. I had been disciplined, once; drilling daily, maintaining peak physical fitness, and responsible for the military readiness of more than a thousand of the king's Wandeers. My uniform was always clean and brushed, my skill at arms the pride of Dollif's military machine, and my social graces unmatched.

I glared across the study at my captain's coat, caked in dust and lanced by straight pins where it had been hung on a tailor's form for repair perhaps five Flowerings since? Seven? How long had it been since I had worn it as a part of my daily duties? A decade or more, I guessed. Another melancholy window.

Decades of sinking into the very dregs of the Amber City's vices had virtually ruined me. I found myself entirely dependent on a brittle piece of parchment to show me the way out.

Another proud benchmark for the First Wandeer.

I frowned at the enchanted wine in my hands, took a quick nip and put the empty glass on my desk. I sighed in pleasure as the liquid burned down my throat. Mmm. Small steps.

Slowly, I reopened the thin parchment, yellow and brittle with age. I was very careful. Rolled and properly preserved in a dry climate, the sheepskin would have lasted indefinitely, but folded and stuffed irreverently into that contraption 'Tuli called a desk? I was lucky the letter didn't crumble at my touch.

I read, my eyes brushed over the words to caress my favorite parts the way sensitive fingers love fine silk. Each word scourged me with sorrow, but I had waited so long to see them—longed for her for so long—that they were a balm, too, burning into my wounds as they healed. Not so different from faewine on a parched throat, I observed.

"...Pertuli,

"Tonight you mentioned how distracted I have been but I could not tell you of my resolve. Not while Kor was in the room.

"Pardon my silliness—I have been so emotional—even as I put pen to parchment, part of me screams that I should dash it into the fire. A river of strange thoughts plague me, running ceaselessly through my mind and threatening to sweep me away."

So she hadn't merely left. She had thought about it deeply, torn apart by her feelings. Why could she not have stayed? For someone so decisive, she wrote as if her wits deserted her. Her aside for Pertuli was logical, given his delicate ego, but then this:

"As for Koray, he is the rock on which I break. I can't even explain what I mean. He is unlike you and I—so headstrong, quiet, and hard to decipher. When I'm with him, the storm of mixed up thoughts and feelings overwhelms me. My heart races. I can't think, and it scares me. His feelings are like the mysteries of the deep. I know he admires me, but enough? Too much? How can I say everything he is to me? I just can't decide..."

Decide? I thought, confused. Decide what? My own head spun. Could she have doubted me? I, who loved her more deeply than any tilwenor could? I, who had searched my soul and cursed my very nature in pursuing her? Why had she left? My vision blurred, so my heart read on.

"....You are my dearest companions, and I hate that I have been the cause of a growing rift...I will leave Dragoskala. I am blessed among tilwenna to have been accepted into your bond ... but I couldn't live in peace ...

"...Don't think me a coward... I trust you to understand my reasons ... Kor would try to stop me ... unacceptable between friends who I wish only happiness and peace.

"This is for the best... I have resolved to shed no tears for what is past.

"Please tell Kor I love him, but that I ask him not to follow me—a clean break is better..."

I closed my eyes, and it was a long time before I could be confident of seeing clearly. Did my jealousy drive her away?

It was typical that her relationship with Pertuli was articulated precisely, but ours was a chaotic, mysterious thing. Reaching forward a hundred years, she couldn't say how she felt any more than I had been able to, then.

Now, I had the clarity of hindsight. I knew how I felt, and as easily as she had stolen my heart, she had robbed me of the chance to tell her.

Recent events were a blur of hazy experiences and alcoholic dazes. Pertuli claimed that my withdrawal from society had aged me. I couldn't say. All I knew was that just before I woke and immediately after sleep took me each day, it was her face that I saw.

She was my everything.

"....maybe West, to a city ... in need of another sword...."

'Maybe West,' I read again, searching her words for hidden meaning. It wasn't much to go on, but there weren't many large cities to the west, and only a large or capital city would find itself in regular need of adventurers. Could I have read her inflection wrong? "Maybe West. Maybe West?" I tried, aloud. Was there a difference? Could she have been sarcastic? Misleading?

"Please tell Kor I love him, but that I ask him not to follow me..."

Wait, I thought, seizing on sudden inspiration. She didn't say she didn't want me to follow. She told Pertuli, a biased messenger at best, to ask me not to follow. It was an entirely different imperative.

I jumped up, folding the letter and grabbing at my uniform. In my haste I forgot that it was harpooned to the tailor's form. The whole arrangement fell in a thunderous clatter to the dark wood floor. I stared at the mess in shock. A habit roused after long disuse; another dimly lit window into my past. My hands shook in time with my pulse as I tried to calm myself and think clearly. Small steps.

Another coat, then.

I dashed across to my wardrobe, working sums in my head—prices for horses and provisions as I knew them, a percentage for inflation, and an allowance for a small number of guards. I considered the distances and my chances for advances from the Crown Bank. Admittedly not good, but I will need seven hundred scales, minimum, for mounts and equipment. Nine hundreds would be better, for pocket money, but surely that would be stretching my credit.

I pushed through the clothes there until I found a suit that wasn't ripped, stained (much), or horribly wrinkled. I threw on the coat, caught up my sword belt and decided to dress on the run.

A knock on the door drew me up just as I was reaching for the handle. I mastered my surprise, tucked Tyella's parchment into the coat pocket near my heart and opened the door.

"H'lo Lord Riposte!" a cheerfully panting imp greeted me, waving a letter. "Urgent message from Baronet Divon."

"Who?" I asked, taking the missive.

"He's a minor noble with a house in the city and a small estate—"

"Yes, yes, I remember," I wore a frown as I broke the seal and scanning the short letter, and it deepened as my eyes moved down the page.

"Is everything alright Rip?" the boy huffed. Familiarity was something that had to be trained out of young tilwen over time if they were to get by in human society.

"Of course," I lied, donning my best attempt at a smile like a mask. "One more thing to do, is all."

The baronet, who I barely recalled owing fifteen hundred scales from a series of increasingly disastrous card games, had decided that two years was long enough to wait, and that he would like to see the money paid that very day. He 'understood' that it was short notice, but given his patience over the last twenty-four months he felt it was perfectly within his rights to ask.

Of all days, why today?

"Is there a response?" The imp asked, bouncing on the balls of his feet, and eager to be away. I guessed there was another page somewhere with a wager against how long the round trip would take.

"I suppose," I answered. What other response could there be? "My compliments, and I will do myself the honor of calling on his lordship upon the third bell of evening."

"Got it!" the boy said, already running off down the hallway.

Suddenly the seven hundred scales for my expedition were an impossible, insurmountable, sum once added to the baronet's fifteen hundred.

Tyella.

I had to try. Fortunately, I knew a guy.

"You have my sincere apologies, Lord Clasicant," Bithzok Durmakson, a dwarven officer of accounts, assured me in hushed tones of embarrassment. Even cloistered in one of the bank's many confidential alcoves, passersby may have been within hearing if our voices raised unnecessarily. He slid thick fingers along the last several entries in my ledger, illustrating the bad news with unfortunate finality. "No new deposits in almost two years, and the interest bearing principle in your account has dipped far too low for me to authorize any notes in excess of three hundred scales without a sale of bonds."

"You're sure?" I cringed. "Please check again. The proceeds from my silk shipment eighteen months ago surely—"

"Forty eight hundred scales, my lord," he agreed, punctuating the figure crisply with a poke at the last positive entry in my ledger. His flawless figures were round and tidy, not unlike the small fellow himself. "But you have spent nearly 94 percent of that deposit since then, leaving your account three hundred scales until your next annuity."

Bithzok was a friendly acquaintance of mine who had been helping me with my accounts since retiring from the Wandeers to pursue his love of shiny yellow metal. Working for the Crown Bank gave him the opportunity to count, organize and grow mountains of the stuff for his clients.

"I see," I said, deflating. Without liquor, and living at the Ill'Enniniess Hall, I could live off three hundred scales almost indefinitely. With the money I owed Sir Divon, however, I was in real trouble.

"Listen Rip," Bithzok confided, catching my left shoulder in his broad, bony hand. "I know it seems bleak, but this is the first time in a while you've seemed willing to hear what I have to say. Might I test your patience with a bit of advice?"

"Of course," I allowed, glaring at the ledger as if I could burn away the debits on my account.

"Your position is not terrible," he lied. "Most of your creditors have cashed out your debt in recent years, so aside from Sir Divon, you really don't owe more than a few thousand, and most of that to personal friends. I wouldn't advise borrowing any more from them, but why not ask Sir Divon for another two weeks?" When my face pursed unhappily, he asked, "Your expedition to Antondeak is due to return this month, is it not?"

"If all goes well, it may," I confirmed. The last time I had checked my correspondence from Andondeak was nearly eight months gone, but I didn't say so.

"The prices of Lundoran spice are quite high this season," he said, as if this would solve my problems. "Pay the baronet then, turn the remaining proceeds into silk caravans staggered by a month or two, and bide your time. With careful husbandry, your fortune will return."

"I would sooner cut off my ears than tell Divon I don't have the money," I groused. "It would also falsify the polite pretense that I was oblivious of the loan's due date. What's my alternative?"

Bithzok breathed deeply, rolled slate gray eyes and exhaled in a whoosh that blew his long, salted mustache away from his face. "I wouldn't recommend it as it would disrupt your annuity, but you might sell some bonds to pay the current debt, and reinvest once your expedition returns... however—"

"Do it," I said, cutting him off and ignoring the accusations of folly in Bithzok's eyes.

I wasn't usually so impulsive. I liked to look for the logical, fully realized solution; the winning stroke. But broke was broke, and Ella had a century's head start.

"Rip, my friend, please reconsider," Bithzok groaned. "Your bonds have been invested since before I had whiskers! You will lose a fortune in potential prof—"

"How quickly can I have the notes?" I pushed, interrupting again. Like pulling a bandage from a dry wound.