Death After Death PLUS 321-323

Ch. 321 - A New City

The shouting and acrimony vanished almost as soon as the drinking started, which amused Simon greatly. If these people could just get this level of unity when fighting monsters and other kingdoms, they’d have it made, he decided as hostility dissipated into hospitality. 

While he knew almost nothing of the specifics, even without magic, he could see the fault lines that divided this place. Every valley and every clan worked together amongst themselves freely enough but fought fiercely with one another for resources. As the night went on, that was the most common refrain in the stories he heard pieces of. Ionar specialized in mosaics and marble statues, but here, in Charia, it was intergenerational grudges that were a work of art. 

People hated each other’s brothers and grandfathers in a long chain of intergenerational stories that went back for decades and decades, and as long as the beer and mead were flowing, they seemed happy to attack each other with jokes and insults instead of swords and knives. 

Simon didn’t need Eddek to explain any of this to him, though the boy often tried to anyway. Simon didn’t make him stop, either. If the boy wanted to believe his strange accent made him less than fluent, well, so much the better for Simon. 

The problem wasn’t with any of the clans, though, or even the king, as he saw it. It was that these mountains were hard places to live in so many ways. Not only because they were difficult to traverse, and less fertile than the neighboring plains of Brin or even the arid region of Montain to the south. Even if the mountains weren’t lousy with monsters those would have been serious issues, but the fact that an ogre could just wander out of some dark cave or that goblins might just eat your flock one night made it all that much worse. 

“I could spend a lifetime just trying to untangle all of this,” Simon sighed as he surveyed the scene half drunk himself and tried to figure out where he’d even start. 

“Well, I’m sure you have better things to do,” Eddek volunteered, reminding Simon that the young man was still there. “But if you would at least stay until I can notify my father as to what happened, and he can send more men, I would appreciate it.”

“I plan to,” Simon answered. “I may well stay longer than that. I’ve never been here before, and I’d love to take some time to explore the city.”

“Well, my father will see that you’re well rewarded, and—” Eddek started to say before Simon cut him off. 

“I don’t need coin,” Simon declared, well aware that the Eddek clan would have a hard time affording even a modest sum; whatever problems they had would only be made worse by losing a dozen retainers and two wagons already. “All I want is knowledge. So, instead of worrying about how much your dad will be able to pay me, why don’t you pay me in that, instead, huh? Maybe stop holding so much back because you think it will reflect poorly on your people.”

“But I don’t know anything,” Eddek admitted. “That’s why I’m here, to read the great epics and learn sums and everything else.”

“You may not know about the world of books,” Simon agreed, “But you can read, so you can do that on your own, from anywhere in the world, if you so desire. What you know is harder to learn. You know which clans wear which colors and who hates who. You know allies from enemies at a glance. These are the things I wish to learn.”

“But why?” Eddek asked, “What does it matter if the Drizolts hate the Farrins but are friends with the Marrins? Everybody knows that stuff.”

“As with most things in life, it's who you know that matters most,” Simon explained. “The world turns on such things, and if I ever want to understand how it all fits together and why…”

His words tapered off as he realized he’d been about to say far too much. …why the world changes when you die and when you don’t? I’d really like to know why that is. He continued the thought in his own mind, but it would have been a crazy thing to say. Instead of elaborating, he took a long pull from his drinking horn before adding, “I just want to understand better, and you’re going to help me. It will be fun.”

Eddek didn’t see why Simon cared but spent a good portion of the night pointing out other clans and matching names with colors and symbols for him. Simon would never learn all of this in one night, of course, but he made for a fun guessing game. 

Eddek served another purpose, too. His mere presence kept away the worst of the trouble. He was just important enough that no one tried to pick a fight with Simon, even though he could see they wanted to, in their own way. Angry men settled for insults, combative warriors settled for boasting, and women with lust in their eyes settled for a bit of drunken flirtation before moving on and leaving him in peace. 

It was good that he spent so much time with Eddek because, in the days that followed, Simon almost didn’t see him at all. Once the festivities were done, his time was nearly monopolized by the Greldens, leaving him and Kayala to clean Eddek hall for day after day. There was a lot of damage. Part of the roof was even rotted. Simon lacked the skills to repair that properly and patched it with hot pitch, but that would need to be addressed by someone within a couple years, or the whole damn roof might cave in. 

Still, for now, it didn’t matter, and room by room, they cleaned what they could. Simon did the heavy lifting while Kayla beat rugs with brooms and swept. It was a satisfying job. After two days, they could cook meals in the nearly abandoned kitchen, and after five, it was no longer the worst place he’d ever slept outside of a goblin cave. 

“Do you really think we can do all of this?” the serving girl asked him from time to time, but Simon just shrugged. “With enough time, you can do anything. You could pick up the whole city, stone by stone, and carry it somewhere else if you lived forever.”

That made her laugh, which was fair. It was a funny image. However, more and more, that was his outlook. He could do literally anything; he just didn’t know what he should be doing exactly. He now had caches of weapons and treasure hidden around the countryside. He had the ability to make magical weapons with only a few words. The question was increasingly becoming, what should I do with all of that when the time comes? 

Much like the leaky roof, Simon didn’t have the skills to fix it right, but if he knew where the most damage was being done over the course of history. If he knew what small leaks would eventually lead to major failures, then he could patch them as best he could. 

That probably means I need to spend at least a few years in the capital of every kingdom sometime soon so that I can better chart the course of history. 

Simon already had copious notes on that subject from several lives. Most of that was dated and unreliable information that had already been edited or censored by the White Cloaks in Brin; he was going to have to read and learn more widely in places like this if he wanted to compare different versions of history in order to tease out the truth. There was an objective truth, of course, but the only place he was likely to find it was reading between the lines.

While getting the house ready for Eddek to live in and finding a cook and a stable boy who wanted to work for him was somewhat challenging, finding resources to read was fairly easy. Once Eddek started learning at his academy, he came home with more scrolls than he would probably ever be able to read.

Simon, though, had no such difficulties. He would spend whole evenings reading the things, even after he helped Eddek. He often did so in his room, in front of a silvered mirror that he would use to check his notes and record new ones in his ever-expanding web of knowledge. While Eddek often needed only enough superficial information to placate his instructors, Simon would devour the entire thing, line by line. The more boring a scroll was, the more likely that was to be true. 

Simon didn’t need to read a fifth version of an epic poem or a foundation myth when the other four already agreed on almost every detail. He was far more interested in detailed histories of lesser figures and heraldic volumes on patents and lineages. In dry, neglected volumes on obscure subjects he often found information that connected several dots into a larger pattern. 

During this period, Simon left the running of the household to Kayla, who did a good job. Her only really bad habit was constantly seeking Simon’s approval, which started to annoy Eddek. The boy obviously had a crush on her. Simon couldn’t be bothered with any of those concerns, at least not until the boy started to come home with signs of bullying. 

He attempted to hide them, which was precisely what Simon told the boy not to do, though, to his credit, he did come clean as soon as Simon said something. “It’s just some boys at school,” Eddek said. “It’s like… what did you call it? A pecking order thing.”

Simon did recall using that term when the boy was explaining the relative superiority of the clans, but the banality of it didn’t make him any less angry about the situation. He could barely remember the details of his life on Earth anymore. Hundreds of years of time in the Pit had all but drowned it. He recalled images and some people. He knew that he’d dealt with bullies in school, though, even if he couldn’t remember who they were or even what that school had looked like any longer.

“This is unacceptable,” Simon answered immediately, slamming his hand on the table hard enough to startle poor Eddek as some barely understood surge of ancient dread ran through him at the word. 

“I… I tried to fight back,” Eddek swore. “I did, but there’s not much I can do when three of them decide to ‘teach me a lesson for being disrespectful,’ now, is there?”

Is this what future Kayla meant by being awful? Simon wondered. Should I teach him how to fight well enough that they’ll leave him be?

As those thoughts and more raced through Simon’s mind, he didn’t say any of them. Instead, he simply hugged the kid, surprising both of them before he reassured him that it wasn’t his fault. 

While Simon would definitely teach Eddek to fight, in this case, it wouldn’t really help things because he knew full well the boy wouldn’t do it. If he won, then things would only escalate into a series of spiraling grudges that might make his father or even his clan’s life that much harder. Simon needed a way to stop that spiral of revenge before it started. Fortunately, he knew a way to do that, and the next day, when Eddek was at school, probably being abused, Simon did something the boy wouldn’t expect, let alone approve of. He made his way to the hall of clan Himar, the largest of the three clans whose scions were bullying his charge. 

Ch. 322 - Escalation

When Simon pounded on the thick doors of the Himar clan hall, the guards looked at him with contempt. However, when he explained his grievance, that contempt transformed into amusement. Both of those emotions vanished, though, when he got to the end of his planned speech and said, “Therefore, as is my right as a servant and honor-bound warrior to clan Eddek, I demand a trial by combat with your clan leader.”

“An outsider cannot claim these things; do not mock our laws!” yelled the first guard. 

“What? Our liege has done nothing to your ward,” scoffed the other. 

They were wrong, of course, on all counts. Simon had read a great deal of Charian law over the last few months. Indeed, though Eddek might not understand that yet, all of the stories and epics he was forced to read and memorize were all about the laws of his people in a very visceral way, and now that Simon had need, he was going to use some of those to his friend’s advantage, because while he couldn’t say for sure this was what had pushed future Kayla over the edge to violence and treachery, he thought it was likely to be the case.

Simon didn’t let them bluff him away, and once they drew weapons, he didn’t even go into their hall after they offered to let him inside to discuss it further. Any violence that happened had to be very public, or the story would be twisted against him. So, instead of thrashing either of these very capable men to prove a point, Simon instead gave them a scroll that laid out his formal challenge to them. 

“In one day, I’ll deliver that same sealed complaint to a lawgiver,” Simon explained. “Then they will see if I have a case or not. If they do, and it becomes public knowledge that you rejected it… Well, it won’t reflect quite so well on your clan, will it?”

In a combative culture with many enemies and few people, trial by combat was the cornerstone of their legal system, in much the same way trial by jury had been in the life he’d once lived. Threatening not to honor it undermined the very rule of law itself, which was exactly what Simon was counting on. He’d almost certainly still have to risk his life, but as he walked back to Eddek hall, he doubted very much that this charge would go unanswered.  

Sure enough, shortly after dinner, the reply was made in the form of a courier and a very thin scroll. He didn’t say a word beyond asking if Simon was the aggrieved party. Once that was determined, he gave the answer and left so as not to complicate things further. 

“The aggrieved party?” Eddek asked. “What’s going on?”

“I issued a formal challenge to Karl Himar,” Simon answered as he cracked the seal and started scanning the scroll. “And it would seem I have been granted an audience two days from now to discuss it further.”

“Challenge? Audience? What?” Eddek seemed almost frantic. “Why would you do that? He didn’t do anything to you?”

“Didn’t he?” Simon asked. “Didn’t he raise a son so poorly that he learned to bully those weaker than himself in packs instead of defending them as the stories teach?”

“But that’s not… Bullying isn’t against the law! It’s normal! Besides, they’re one of the strongest clans in the kingdom. They have any number of champions that would crush a sellsword like you.”

Sellsword. That stung a little, but only a little. It showed one of the boy’s critical flaws. He believed what he was told. Simon told him he was a mercenary, and even if he acted nothing like a mercenary, he still must be a mercenary. 

“They can certainly try,” Simon answered. They absolutely would, of course, if not for a few tricks up his sleeve. Simon was a man of many talents, but he was only good with a sword. He wasn’t truly great with one; that only came from a lifetime of intense focus, and most of his lives lately had been focused on anything but. Fortunately, that was where the magic came in. 

“It might not even come to combat.” he continued. “They may yet see reason.”

It would, though. This would absolutely end in blood. Not in death, perhaps, but in maiming, at the very least. These ritualistic legal duals to determine who was right and wrong in any given scenario had many rules. Combatants could yield at any time, of course, but they almost never did; it was too dishonorable. Instead, combat went on until someone couldn’t go on. Sometimes, that meant death, but other times, well, Simon would try to spare whoever his opponent was if he could. 

That wasn’t because he was getting sentimental or pacifistic, of course. It wasn’t even that he was concerned that more bodies would cloud the sight he was trying to cultivate once more. It was because it would invite further challenges. While according to the laws, fighting itself was an honorable act that could not be the basis for further challenges, in reality, the largest clans had any number of workarounds that usually involved the kin of the dead man. It was one of the key weaknesses of their strange legal system as far as he was concerned. 

Simon was no expert, of course, but it was a theme he’d seen play out in stories over and over, and he aimed to avoid it now. Unfortunately, none of those explanations sufficed for Eddek, or Kayla for that matter. The boy worried that this would blow back on his family in some horrible way, and the girl worried that Simon might die. Both of those were possibilities, of course, but he planned to thread that needle as neatly as he could.

For the next two days, Simon spent more time in the courtyard practicing his form than he had in years, but it all came back to him easily enough. It was just like riding a car or whatever that expression was. When the time came, and he returned to the other clan’s hall with Eddek, he was a touch less confident than he’d been before, but he wouldn’t have admitted it. They were committed now. 

When they arrived, he was met mostly with outrage and bluster by Karl and his men, but Simon ignored that; it was practically the Charian equivalent of a handshake. Normally, it would have been harder to shake off threats about disemboweling him and feeding his remains to goats, but since a neutral arbiter of the crown had been invited, he knew it wouldn’t come to violence. That’s the way these things went. 

Simon had Eddek state the events as they’d discussed them. The Karl’s boy insisted it was a lie, but Eddek still had the bruises to prove something had happened, so the Arbiter intoned, “The boy’s marks bear out his grievance, and I hear no lie in his words. The case may proceed.”

That part interested Simon, but he still hadn’t made up his mind either way. The stories said that arbiters could literally hear lies, and sometimes Simon thought it was like an auditory version of the sight, but he had no way of knowing for sure. He’d never experienced it himself. 

The duel wouldn’t happen today, though. The duel would happen on the next public feast day. If armed combat replaced trial by jury, then it also replaced pay-per-view. Many cultures used hangings and beheadings as grim public entertainment, but in Simon’s experience, only this one scheduled them in advance and sold tickets for people to watch. 

“Are you sure there is no other way you can be satisfied in this, outlander?” the Karl asked toward the end, breaking Simon from his reverie. “If my son did what you accuse him of, then surely there can be another recompense. Perhaps compensation and even an apology?”

Simon had already considered this moment enough to know that it was a trap. Still, he kept himself from smiling. “If he accepts lesser restitution, then the event never happened in the eyes of the law,” Simon answered. “I want it on record that in the hours that my charge spent beyond my protection every day, he was attacked for the crime of being a child of a lesser clan. The only honorable thing I can do for failing him in those moments is by putting my life on the line in this one.”

The Karl protested that was an unreasonable stance, but Simon continued. “And if I accepted a judgment that it never happened, then there would be no reason that it would ever stop happening, would it?”

As Simon spoke, he noticed the Arbiter staring at him with an unnerving intensity, but he did his best to ignore it. He made sure that everything he’d planned to say in this moment was true, just in case, but still, he did not expect to be judged like this.

More raging and gnashing of teeth followed, but if Simon would not accept an alternative, then nothing could stop what was about to happen, not even his death. In the event someone assassinated him between now and the day of the fight, the law presumed the challenge was behind it, and barring extraordinary evidence, they were presumed to be guilty. It was the only way to make sure all the violence stayed on the challenging field where it belonged. 

So, the next few days passed by perfectly peacefully as Simon made his preparations and prepared for the feast of Throlven. His wasn’t the first fight of the day, either. It was the third. Killing each other over trivialities might be a lot less bloody than full-blown clan wars, but Simon was sure that thousands still died in these trials every year. 

In each case, the charge was read aloud to a solemn audience that erupted into jeers as soon as steel rang against steel. ‘Borven Jol feels that his clan’s honor was slighted when a woman from Clan Gruval eloped with a servant rather than honoring her arranged marriage. Clan Gruval claims they are not responsible for the disappearance since the servant in question worked for clan Borven.’ 

‘Faldon Bar was sold eight fertile mares by Clan Kolden, but not one of them ever reproduced in the three years he had them on his farm. Clan Kolden disputes the charge.’

Both matters, while important, seemed much too trivial for bloodshed in Simon’s eyes, but the participants certainly disagreed. My challenge is the most trivial of all of them, he acknowledged. Blood wasn’t the right way to resolve this, of course, but the right way didn’t exist in this society, and Simon had no other options. He’d already saved Eddek from the owlbears and seen him safely to Adonan. All of that should have been enough, but the ghosts of the future that may yet be demanded he do even more. The problems here weren’t as violent and obvious as Mount Karkosia’s eruption, but he would still stop it no matter how many lives it took. 

Ch. 323 - Seeking Justice

At the start of each battle, after they announced the grievance and the parties involved, they would announce who the champions of this just cause were. It was a script as full of theatre as any movie he’d ever seen. That pattern changed when they announced him only as ‘Simon, a clanless outlander.’

That brought a number of boos from the normally quiet crowd, but it made him grin. His challenger had been addressed as ‘Himar Rolven, Axe Champion, and troll slayer,’ and previous announcements had been similarly illustrious. He was just an outlander, which amused him more than it should have. 

While it hadn’t been the case for everyone, this warrior looked nearly as impressive as his name. He was a large man in a chainmail hauberk that nearly concealed his muscular nature, and he wielded a large, two-handed, single-headed axe casually in one hand. It was long enough that it almost entirely canceled out Simon’s reach advantage. Swung with both hands, it might even be strong enough to shatter a normal shield or sword. Simon’s weapons, though, wouldn’t have those difficulties. 

When the pronouncements ended, the two of them strode toward each other toward the center of the large stone circle that had been made with white cobblestones amidst a sea of black and gray stones. The circle was uneven and stained with the blood of the previous matches, but it was still well-delineated. It was only about twenty feet across, and until this was over, it was their whole world.

The axe man didn’t salute him or offer him any words as most of the other combatants exchanged. Given that this was as much ceremony as it was bloodshed, it was important all the appropriate steps be taken. One of the two men would almost certainly die, after all.

That apparently didn’t matter where outlanders were concerned, though, and Himar approached Simon stone-faced before lashing out with a lightning-quick swipe of his weapon. It was done at maximum reach, and there was very little power behind it. It was a pretty dishonorable tactic, but the moment Simon had seen his opponent's dead eyes, he’d been expecting something like it, and he smoothly ducked it, even as he charged forward underneath the weapon and slammed the bigger man back with his shield. 

His opponent was staggered, but only for a moment. Then he brought the haft of his axe down in time to block the blow. Simon made no effort to activate the runes that would cut through it with his thumb. That would stand out too much this soon. Instead, he stepped back and raised his shield and his sword and adjusted his grip so that his pointer finger activated the lesser strength runes hidden in the weapon. 

This time, the runes were slender and well-made. This fight would probably only shave a few months off his life, but it would be worth it because until he switched his grip, he’d have two or even three times the strength that he usually did, which made it impossible for the axe wielder’s fiercest attacks to do much more than make his blade waver as he parried them.

While his first blow had been quick and showy, the ones that followed were savage. At first, they were one-handed, but when he found he couldn’t get inside Simon’s guard, he switched to two-handed. No matter how much the warrior’s biceps swelled, though, or how hard their weapons clashed, Simon’s defense held. 

“I’ll bet you weren’t expecting that were you?” Simon growled through clenched teeth as he acted like this was hard for him. “I bet you just power right through on the battlefield.”

His opponent didn’t answer him. He continued his assault as Simon peppered him with more taunts than counterstrikes. It was only after almost two minutes of that before Simon began to lash out in a serious way. 

This was a more complicated dance because Simon wanted to make him bleed but not cut him down, and chainmail made that much more difficult. As Simon alternated between attack and defense, he had to not only time his strikes but change his grip constantly. 

If he activated the force runes when he parried, he’d slice his opponent's axe in two in a way that everyone would notice, and if he struck the man’s chainmail with strength, he’d break bones instead of slice through, which wasn’t what he wanted. Simon wanted to make this look like a hard-fought match, which meant that half the time when he lashed out at the man’s chainmail, he did not damage at all, and half the time he sliced right through a few rings, scoring a shallow blow that would heal well.

Simon did his best to avoid the man’s vitals as the crowd cheered, and both fighters began to tire. The axe wielder still hadn’t scored a blow against Simon, thanks to his magical defenses, but there was always a chance he would, and any one of them would be fatal. 

Simon was more afraid of the onlookers than the man facing him, though. He was basically cheating, and he didn’t feel especially good about that. While he didn’t think that anyone would know unless he screwed up, he had no idea if anyone here had a way of detecting magic. If they could, he was basically signing his own death warrant with the way he was using runes so flagrantly. 

He certainly couldn’t with his sight. He could see someone’s aura and make guesses about who they were and what they’d done, but objects weren’t people, and they didn’t have intentions. They only connected to those who did. 

While he could have killed Himar any time he wanted, he waited. That wasn’t because he wanted to shame or embarrass the man, though; he just wanted to find the right moment to counterattack in a way that would bring victory without killing him in the process. In the end, he waited for the bloody man to swing and whiff empty air after blood loss had exhausted him. Then, Simon charged under the wild swing and hammered his shield against the man’s face before putting his shoulder into it and driving him from the circle. 

Simon’s opponent saw what he was trying to do, and at the last moment, he tried to cling on to Simon to avoid being driven out. Grappling would have been a fine idea, and Simon didn’t blame him for trying. It probably still would have gotten him gutted, but it wasn’t a bad choice. Unfortunately, given that he held onto a shield and not a limb, it was the easiest thing in the world for Simon to drop his shield and let him fall away onto the dark cobbles, out of bounds. 

Himar protested that. “Treachery! Coward!” he cried out, but the fact that he was too weak to rise again said it all as far as Simon was concerned. He’d been bled to the point that he’d be bed-bound for days, but eventually, he’d make a full recovery, which would neatly avoid any generational grudges from taking hold. Besides, he was fairly certain that all the hate would be directed at him because he was an outlander.  

In that final moment, the crowd should have roared at the upset in triumph or outrage, but he was met with only silence. No one was happy to see him win. While he understood that, it still annoyed him. “My cause is just!” Simon yelled, raising his sword high as if that somehow proved he was in the right. 

The arbiter that ran the proceedings nodded but wasted little time between pronouncing Simons's victory and announcing the next trial by arms. Still, the crowd’s dismissal meant nothing. By the terms of the complaint, Karl Himar now owed Eddek a public apology for failing to raise his son right. Such an act would have been shameful enough that part of him was tempted to force the man to do exactly that, but he knew that was not the right answer here. All he’d won today was a bargaining chip, and he would trade that in for something more valuable when he next met the man. 

That was born out a few days later when he met with the Karl in his own hall for a simple dinner, and the man glowered at him from across the table. “I can’t believe a stripling like you bested an oak like Himar Rolven!” the man roared. “His arms are twice as thick as yours! And his weapon—”

“Now, now, insult me all you like, but leave my sword out of it,” Simon said with a smile. “Now that your strongest champion is recuperating, who knows what other grudges could come to light.”

“I need no champion,” the Karl remarked, taking a large swig from his drinking horn. “I merely need to mount the head of the man who’s heaped this indignity onto my plate on the wall, right there. You see it? After I’ve apologized to your master, that’s where I shall put your severed head, and I promise you, he will enjoy it far more than Erben Eddek shall enjoy my words.”

“Well, now that I’ve won my justice for all to see, I was considering amending the terms of my victory slightly, in your favor, of course,” Simon added, pretending to be slightly cowed by the man’s threat. Once the, Karl had probably been a great warrior, but he was at least ten years past his prime.

“I’m listening,”  the man rumbled. 

“My concern here is not shame or honor. It’s like you said, I’m an outsider and a sellsword,” Simon explained. “My priority is my master’s safety for the duration of my employment. Perhaps you can help me with that, and we can put aside the public apology.”

The Karl had been prepared to be outraged, but the reasonableness of Simon’s proposal gave him pause, and after a moment of silence to contemplate it, they began to discuss it in earnest. Eventually, Simon agreed to forgo the apology or any other compensation entirely for a single concession: that the bully himself would be Eddek’s bodyguard during school hours. Not only was the Karl’s son not to lay a finger on him, but he was to protect the boy from others. 

“You didn’t have to nearly kill a man to get me to do that much,” the Karl protested, but Simon disagreed. 

“If I would have demanded this of you as an outlander, it might have helped for a day or two, but it would have made it worse in the long run,” Simon answered with a shake of his head. “Now your son defends not just my charge but your clan's honor, and I expect he cares about the latter much more than the former.”

The Karl considered those words and then nodded slowly. “Aye, I suppose that might be true. Even if he doesn’t, though, his fear of me will keep him in line.”

Simon nodded at that. The man still might try to have him killed one day, but for now, this was enough.