Skandra Tyullis (roll_the_bones) wrote in caeleste, @ 2009-01-19 11:22:00 |
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Entry tags: | aeotha easaahae, elemmírë, leironuoth, npc, skandra tyullis, the rising |
the luckiest man in the world (aeotha, leironuoth)
"No matter what happens, say nothing," Ithacles told him firmly.
"No matter what."
"I mean it."
"I know you do."
"And you're just going to do what I say?"
"Sure, why not?"
"You're a liar."
"True."
Skandra gripped Ithacles' sword in his hand, and would have admired the craftsmanship of the basket hilt, if he could see a damned thing in front of him. This staircase must be the one installed for access to the very bowels of hell. Walking without making a noise was easy. All you had to do was hold in your coughs. Behind him someone else was walking. Quiet. Too quiet for him to remember the name of the person. In the darkness you couldn't rely on anything like light to give you aid. Light would have died here. More darkness was welcome. He could make out the edges of stairs well enough. Could hear the clanking of an armed guard's gauntlets. After being so close to death he was surprised that he felt this good. Then he remembered. Laying off the tonic made him feel worse. Physically he was better. He was seeing the ghosts that followed him again. He was seeing them and hearing them and -
"You want to raise an empire, but what would you build it on?" Gershul's voice asked him from the shadows.
"What were you gonna build yours on?" Skandra laughed low. "If you take a thousand people and move to an island, it doesn't count as raising an empire. That's taking your ball and going home."
"I shouldn't expect you to understand."
"So why do you keep talking?"
It was Eiron's prison. Or was supposed to be. Skandra fully expected to be greeted by Amasa herself. Lorien kneeling on one side of the throne, Bahamut on the other, a tragic secret revealed. Ha, ha, ha. What empire was Gershul talking about? Skandra wasn't the empire-builder of the family. More and more often the ghosts were making less sense. They were talking about things Skandra didn't understand, things he didn't want to understand, or things that flat out made no sense at all. Raise an empire. That wasn't a bad idea. Only he'd been right - if you took your people and went to an island that no one else wanted, it didn't count as raising an empire. So what the hell was Gershul talking about? Raising an empire? The gods might decide what counted as raising or not raising an empire, but Skandra doubted they even know how things like that worked. They probably just looked at it, and shrugged, and let things fall as they wanted. Skandra had decided a long time ago not to put his trust in the gods. So when he rescued Aeotha and Leironuoth, he was going to get very angry if they attributed his stealth and cunning to Lorien.
Very angry.
"It has to be Leironuoth that challenges him."
"I don't fight duels anyway."
"I've seen you do it."
"Not with soldiers."
"Yes, I have."
"No, you haven't."
"Yes, I have."
"Shuddap!"
"The gods do more than you know. They cleanse. They wipe clean the world and the face of it so that a new land can be born," Shantar was chiming in now; perfect, the old man never shut up.
"What happens when mere mortals wipe it clean?" Gershul answered his.
"In that case," Shantar's voice was a rasping giggle. "Something new is introduced."
"Don't talk in riddles," Gershul snapped irritably. "Say it plain."
"Ladies," and Skandra's exasperation was clear. "Can this conversation please wait?"
"Sorry," both ghosts murmured ashamedly.
At the bottom of the stair, just before they opened up into a cavernous nothing of darkness and shade, lingered the soldier he'd heard. Nothing was uttered by the man as he stared into the inky black. Skandra peered around the gently curving corner in anticipatory dismay. A head-on rush might take the fellow, but one mistake would mean a sword through his gut. In this shape Skandra didn't want to fight an unarmed infant. Let alone a hardened soldier. Something more stealth was required. Or something a little bit more insane. Free hand went to his pocket, and came away with a pair of faded bone dice. They were sanded and carved perfectly. Light in his hand. Skandra couldn't remember why he had them. Now they were yellow with age and filth, black pips half-faded in the dimness of the stairwell but still he could see them. Had to be a fire around here somewhere, didn't there? The sword he reversed in his hand, blade pointed down, and then he squatted on the stair. Light was coming in from that cavernous black. Just one torch. Not enough to keep your eyes from growing stagnant in the dark.
They had to be here.
"Eiron will try to bait one of us. He will; he knows what challenging Leironuoth means."
"I don't."
"You will if you don't now. Just remember. Let me talk to Eiron. I'll watch over your sister. Just make sure you get them out and get them to the temple at the stroke of noon."
"There's time enough for a nap in there, I think."
"Skandra!"
"Fine, fine. When did you grow serious?"
"As soon as I grew up. I'll send someone to pick you up."
"Who?"
"You'll see."
"What are you going to do?" Gershul asked, peering over his shoulder.
"What are you going to do?" Shantar repeated, peering over his shoulder.
"Play dice."
"Now?" Gershul's turn now to be exasperated.
"Twenty on the king's ransom," Shantar replied genially.
"Don't encourage him."
"Be quiet, boy, he's luckier than a whore's genitals."
"I think," Skandra said loudly. "That you ought to both be quiet so I can concentrate on me roll! Lotta money on 'dis one!"
A sudden clank of armor as the man whirled around. Not man, elf. Anyway, he whirled around with sword in hand. A rattle as he freed the torch from its place at his side and hurtled up the stairs. Young. Too young. Skandra didn't want to kill him, did he? That was why he was doing this. Or maybe insanity was finally unhinging every door, upstairs, so that when he thought about a thing he couldn't consider it in the way a sane man did. Shaking those bone dice loudly in one hand was difficult but he managed it. Gambling in a tavern was part showmanship, part bravado, part whatever you would call it. He certainly didn't want to put on a lazy performance here and be spitted like a boar for his trouble. A casual toss. The dice came up. Six and four, the king's ransom. He smiled but said nothing at first, even though Shantar was waving his arms behind him, crowing like a bird over money that he could never touch and insulting Gershul's ability to bet or name a call of chance.
"Luck," Gershul said primly. "Does not exist."
"As an article of faith it most decidedly does," Shantar snapped. "As a part of science at work in the air, it is real indeed!"
"All right, all right," Skandra grumbled. "You can argue about the nature of fate and luck later. For now I'm putting ten on snake eyes."
"Snake eyes? After a king's ransom the probability of rolling snake eyes is decreased fifty-nine percent," Shantar objected strenuously.
"Defend that statement," Gershul howled with laughter. "You can't! Old coot, be quiet!"
"Who are you?" the guard demanded with a hand on his sword, eyes wild and panicked.
Wild eyes. He looked panicked. How would Skandra feel if he himself appeared, with red-rimmed eyes and bloody scratches on his cheek, looking like Old Grim himself dicing with the bones of fallen heroes, talking to himself as though it were the sort of thing that any man should do? He would probably laugh. And he'd probably want to dice. The soldier didn't draw his sword. Skandra's body shielded his weapon. So right now he was just a madman with a pair of dice. Pulling his collar higher, to shield his mouth, Skandra stared at the fellow with his flickering torch and his young face.
"They call me Old Cully," Skandra informed him solemnly.
"They do not," Shantar half-laughed, half-drawled, as if unsure how serious the situation was.
"They do," Skandra insisted.
"No they don't," Gershul pressed the issue.
"They do!" Skandra shrieked into the darkness.
"They do?" the guard asked quietly, a tremor in his voice.
"They do," Skandra confidently assured him.
"Oh, well," and the soldier paused for a long moment. "What do you want?"
"A game of dice," Skandra answered in a whisper.
"I don't gamble."
"You do now."
His eyes flicked back to the door, but no one was there. And he was entranced by the mystery of it, this battle-ruined man with his horrible face and his beggar's madness and his lust for games of chance. Something about it seemed mysterious and wonderful. The very best stories always started with such a tale, or a one similar to it, but this was no story. So the soldier let go of his sword, squatted down next to him. How had Old Cully come here? How had he acquired these yellowed violent dice? These were questions for another man. This young soldier would play his game of dice with this bloody stranger and then he'd get back to work, confident that work was enough of an excuse to escape an afternoon of gambling. Skandra waited for him to crouch - one stair down from Skandra's perch - before he rattled the dice in his hand again. Torch gave better light. He'd keep it when this was all over.
"You name your bet," Skandra told him with a faded smile - useless, since it was hidden behind his high collar.
"Five on the queen's bed," the soldier told him.
"Statistically sound," Shantar agreed with a nod.
"This is idiotic," Gershul reminded those assembled.
"It's not a sound bet," Skandra told him quietly, seriously, without a trace of laughter. "A queen's bed is a five and a four or a three. One of the most common rolls but you're in for double if you make it, because you can't cash out until you win on another roll."
"I can't play for long," the guard missed the point entirely.
"It's snake eyes," the Immortals said in unison as Skandra tossed the dice.
Two black pips so named because they were heartless like a snake's eyes, like a devil's shining windows into the soulless shadows of its mind. The dice didn't clatter as they had before. Their rolling seemed muted. He knew what he had to do.
"What does that-"
Surging to his feet Skandra drove his knee into the young elf's chin, shattering his jaw with the force of that one blow. Teeth exploded out of his mouth in a ruin as blood bubbled past his lips. With a shriek like madness the soldier collapsed, falling down the half-flight of stairs with twists and torques in his body that no bone could sustain. The final breaking of his neck was an awful sound. For once Skandra's stomach did not churn. Standing with sword in hand, he paused on the descent into the jail itself only long enough to snatch up the torch.
"What does that mean?"
"You called it right every time, didn't you?"
"Some people," Skandra said as he looked down upon the corpse he'd made. "Are just lucky, I guess."
Aeotha and Leironuoth. They were here, weren't they? Time to break them out. He stooped down a second time in as many minutes, searching for the keys. Keys, keys, keys.
"Yoo-hoo!" Skandra cackled into the darkness. "Time to go, children?"
Oh, yes, he was mad.