Only Villains Do That

The only good thing about being shot by a bunch of crossbows is that it happens too fast for you to dwell on how much it’s going to hurt. Which, it turns out, is a lot. Fortunately for me, I immediately discovered so many new sources of pain that I didn’t even have time to properly notice.

I was toppled over the railing by the force of it, feeling impact more than penetration; with that many bolts in flight it felt less like being stabbed and more like being hit by a moving wall. Blood sprayed above me for the all too short second I descended, and I just had time to be grateful for the artifact amulet that hat prevented any of these from being lethal shots before I hit the stinking water and instantly plunged under it.

It was acrid, stinging my eyes and my numerous puncture wounds, and the force of the current instantly swept me away. I squeezed hard on the handle of my rapier; there was no prospect of swimming, not in this torrent. I was hauled off so roughly by the torrent that the sheer force of passing water kept my arms trailing in front of me, despite my attempts to correct course. Then, almost immediately, I slammed into something hard.

Even as I was swept aside and down the next channel, what little breath I had was driven from my lungs and unwise reflex made me try to gasp. I had the good fortune that my head was in the process of bobbing above the surface at that moment so I only choked on a slosh of the foul slurry of the Gutters’ refuse rather than inhaling a whole lungful of it.

The current yanked me under again; the world went dark and sound became too muffled to make sense. I could feel myself bleeding out and choking, and knew I had no option.

Heal!

Much of the pain abated, and while I knew that Healing myself with so many crossbow quarrels still in me was going to cause big problems very soon, it had been necessary to avoid immediate death. I had little time to dwell on it, as the current of the canal rammed me against something else.

I was forced down and I’m pretty sure scraped through the mud on the bottom of the canal before being ripped away again, tossed bodily out of the spray and actually bounced across the top of the next obstruction. Half-drowned and dazed from repeated impacts, with no idea which way was up, I didn’t even realize what had happened until it was far too late; by the time my hand desperately tried to grab at the object, I had already tumbled into the water on the other side and been swept who knew how many meters away.

Heal!

It was an act of desperation, because I could do literally nothing but exercise my brain at that moment, and because I remembered the last time had brought a moment of increased clarity to my oxygen-starved brain. I couldn’t Heal instead of breathing, but it temporarily abated the worst effects of drowning. And then they immediately came back, because I had still inhaled too much water and no amount of consciously knowing how dangerous it was stopped my body from instinctively trying to cough, which of course only brought in more water.

I couldn’t even get my bearings, just swept along, bashing repeatedly into obstructions and the sides of the canal, confused and unaware of which direction was up. I cast Heal whenever I could focus on it, but those episodes were becoming fewer and farther between. I’d been right; Healing while drowning was basically waterboarding myself, and I was soon too wracked by reflexive convulsions to focus on anything at all.

Something hard impacted me yet again and somehow I was hurtled completely free of the water, tumbling through blessed air, but attempting to draw a deep breath only made me choke and heave against the fluid already in my lungs. Then I landed again, back in the canal, and went under.

H-heal… The magic flickered weakly, barely responding to my will. The darkness receded from the edges of my vision but only for a second. Too much damage done. Something had changed… I was being swept along without smashing into things now. Or had I just grown completely numb to the impacts? This was definitely what drowning felt like. It was excruciating, my body injuring itself by thrashing in its own panicked inability to breathe as blackness closed in on me.

A thought pierced the gloom with surprising clarity: should’ve cast a Windburst. That might’ve thrown me clear. But I didn’t even have enough mind left to summon the magic. And then I didn’t have any more thoughts at all.

Something was pushing on my chest. Hard, repeatedly. Something pressed against my face—my mouth. Wait, was that… The person whose lips were sealed to mine exhaled forcefully, shoving air into my sodden lungs and making them involuntarily expand. Then another hard blow to the chest shoved them back in—

I wrenched myself to the side and heaved, fouled water surging out of me and spraying the ground. The ground! I was out of the water… And in a moment hopefully I’d have the mental wherewithal to be properly grateful for it. I curled up, coughing up a torrent of disgusting sludge water as somebody helpfully pummeled my back. And then, for the sake of thoroughness, violently threw up.

It took a few repetitions and several long minutes to empty everything from my lungs and stomach. But when it was over, I could breathe! Not well, I was still bruised all over and thwarted by a sharp stabbing pain when I tried to inhale, but at least the air could get in.

Heal.

That helped a lot. But not, I discovered, with the breathing… Yep. Looking down, I beheld what I had unfortunately expected: two crossbow bolts sticking out of my chest, both broken off close to the skin. Well, at least they’d missed my heart.

Someone’s hand was still resting on my shoulder.

“You know CPR,” I said aloud in surprise as my brain caught up with the last few minutes, finally lifting my head to see my rescuer.

“Sorry, who?” Her eyebrows drew together. I decided not to pursue it, peculiar as it was that that piece of knowledge existed in this backward culture.

The woman I was staring at from centimeters away was almost unfathomably gorgeous, with one of those perfectly proportioned faces that looks like someone drew it. She had gracefully pointed features, an alabaster complexion, and big eyes that were so black they looked like they had no irises. Her hair was blonde, though currently sodden with brownish canal water. And her ears were long and pointed.

“You’re an elf,” I said, very intelligently.

The elf grinned. “And you’re a pincushion!”

I looked down at myself and winced. “I have to give you that one, yeah.” Broken stubs of crossbow quarrels were sticking out of me all over. My clothes were shredded, and soaked with a vile mix of blood and fouled water. Fortunately I wasn’t given long to dwell on this state of affairs.

“Lord Seiji!”

“Boss, you doing okay?”

Raising my head to finally take in my surroundings, I discovered that we were on the bank of a river. I had to half-turn and look over my shoulder to see Gwyllthean rising up in the near distance behind me; apparently the canal had washed me entirely out of the city. And I was not alone with the mysterious elf who had apparently rescued me. Biribo hovered less than a meter away, darting back and forth in agitation, while right at hand were two of the last people I’d expected to see: Goose and Twigs.

Both looked extremely worried, for which I couldn’t blame them. There were more shapes standing around, I noted, shifting my gaze to take in the scene. A whole cluster of women stood watching, all of them pale and most blonde, though I noticed a couple had light brown hair like Twigs. In addition to the humans—there was only the one elf that I could see—it seemed they each had one of those bird-lizard-dinosaur things I had seen used as mounts. They apparently weren’t common; this was the most I’d seen in one place.

Well, why not? If they were willing to pull me out of the river and resuscitate me, these ladies were welcome to be as weird as they liked.

“Okay, first things first,” I said aloud. “I am so very grateful to everyone present that I almost don’t care what the fuck just happened. Still, for practical purposes I think I should probably ask what the fuck just happened. And is still happening.”

“You are welcome,” the elf said, grinning cheerfully. “I think mutual explanations are called for. To begin with, I am Aelthwyn Nazralind, and absolutely delighted to make your acquaintance, my Lord Mister Dark Lord, sir.”

“The pleasure is mine, and did you just say Aelthwyn?”

“No, I said Aelthwyn.” She tilted her head, like an inquisitive bird. “What was that? Erutoween? I have never heard an accent like that.”

“Okay, Naz, there’s no need to pick on him,” Twigs said reproachfully. “Look at the state the poor man is in.”

“Quite right,” said Nazralind, ducking her head and actually looking abashed. “My humble apologies, Lord Seiji.”

“Well, hey, after saving my life I figure you’re entitled to tease a little,” I acknowledged. “Speaking of which, Heal.”

She jumped in surprise as the pink light flared around her, blinking. “Oh! Wow, that tingles. Thank you, but I wasn’t injured.”

“No, but you were clearly just swimming in that river, which I can tell you from experience is just begging for some kind of infection or horrible disease if it’s not immediately addressed.”

“I take your point.” Nazralind wrinkled her nose, then grinned at me again. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we smell exciting.”

I groaned, starting to get up and discovering that that was going to be more complicated than I’d realized. I had crossbow quarrels in one thigh, both arms, and seemingly every muscle in my torso. I was no longer injured, per se, but those things had been Healed in place, which forced all the muscles in question out of place. My range of motion had been drastically cut, and doing basically anything hurt.

The news wasn’t all bad, though.

“Oh, hey,” I discovered, looking down at my hand. “I didn’t drop my sword! Thank fuck, I really like this sword. If I’d dropped an artifact in the river I would’ve been pissed. Honestly I have no idea how I held onto it.”

“Not so surprising,” said Nazralind, hopping nimbly to her feet and offering me a hand. “A drowning person will tend to grab a death grip on whatever they can. That’s how I knew you weren’t as dead as you looked when I went in there after you. You still had one hand free to hang on.”

That made me wince again, and not just from what it felt like to stand up, even with help. “I see. I, uh, sincerely apologize if I accidentally groped you.”

She tried to make a stern face at me, but that irrepressible grin broke through almost immediately. “You know, if you had that comment would be very suspicious. But no, you’ll be glad to hear it was all perfectly chaste flailing and grabbing.”

“That’s a relief.” I finally found a standing position that worked; one of my legs didn’t want to flex properly with the bolt stuck in the thigh muscle. “Ow. How did you even find me?”

“You have your familiar to thank for that,” she said.

“Biribo just appeared, right in front of us,” Twigs added. “It’s lucky we were camped this close to the river, though that’s not exactly a coincidence. It’s just a couple days till the harvest festival you told me to shoot for if we could, and our campsite… Well, you’ll understand when you see it. We were just settling in and making plans to find out what was happening in the city before moving on to North Watch, when… Poof! There he was.”

“Just, outta thin air, right in the middle of us,” Goose added. “I never knew he could do that.”

“Neither did I,” I agreed, turning a surprised look upon Biribo.

“Congratulations, boss!” he said cheerily, doing an excited loop-the-loop around me. “You just unlocked a new Wisdom perk!”

“Oh, let me guess. It’s activated by being in mortal peril.”

“Well, finding yourself in mortal peril in very specific circumstances! If you’re about to die, and there is an ally close enough to intervene, your familiar gets automatically teleported to them to call for help.Sorry, boss, I’d have warned you, but you know how it is.”

“Forewarning me would’ve made the power not unlock, I remember,” I sighed. “Fuck it, I’m too tired to be grumpy about how badly designed these Blessings are.”

“Oh, that’s bad,”Twigs whispered. I decided to forgive her, because I was also too tired to be grumpy about that.

“Good work, Biribo,” I said. “And good work, Goose and Twigs. I’m really glad to see you two again. You have excellent timing.”

“Twigs.” Nazralind shook her head. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.”

“Well…you don’t have to call me that,” Twigs said, smiling and stepping over to throw an arm around her shoulder, apparently not minding the horrible river sludge all over her. “I think I kinda prefer to keep it, though. It’s not much of a name, but I’ve gotten attached. And it has fewer bad memories than the old one.”

“I can see how that would be true,” the elf agreed, putting an arm around her in turn. “Crap, now I wonder if I should’ve changed mine.”

“Naz, you wouldn’t last an hour being called something undignified,” said one of the other women standing by, earning several chuckles from the onlookers.

“Sorry we didn’t do more,” Goose added, looking actually contrite. “Especially after leaving you alone for all this time. I wanted to go in myself, but, uh… I swim like a brick.”

“No sense in both of us drowning,” I agreed. Man, it was hard to breathe… “Ladies, once again, you have my gratitude. But, um… I’m going to need to do something about my current condition before I can do much else.” I poked at one of the shafts sticking out of my chest and winced.

“How is he even upright and talking with all those sticking out of him?” one of the nearby women asked in a tone of fascinated horror.

“I told you, Lord Seiji can cast Heal,” said Twigs. “But, um… I think this is going to be problematic.”

“You Healed yourself with those inside you, didn’t you?” Goose asked.

“Yeah, I’m well aware of the consequences,” I grimaced. “But it was that or immediate death, so I stand by my decision.”

“Yeah, right call,” she agreed, nodding. “But… I won’t lie, Lord Seiji. Fixing this is gonna be rough. Each one has to be cut out, completely. And since you’ll need to Heal each wound afterward, that means we can’t even get you properly drunk first. It’s…”

“Well, not quite how I wanted to end my day,” I wheezed, starting to sigh and then immediately regretting it. “Could be worse, though. I’m alive, thanks to you girls. So, Twigs! These are your…friends?”

“Well, yes and no,” she said, looking around. “It’s a bit of a story…”

“And with all due respect, Lord Seiji, we’re gonna want to hear just what the fuck has been going on in Gwyllthean and elsewhere,” Goose added. “And I definitely don’t think trying to cut those things loose out here on the riverbank is a good idea.”

“Being out here on the riverbank in general is making me Thaila in the glass tomb,” added another of the surrounding blondes. “I know it’s late, but this is awfully close to the city, and whoever did this to the Dark Lord is probably motivated to come make sure it took.”

“Right,” Nazralind agreed, suddenly with the decisive tone of a person accustomed to giving orders. “Good points, all. We need to take this back to camp. Lord Seiji, are you able to walk?”

I took a step and almost fell; Goose caught my shoulder, causing me to bite back a yell of pain as half the muscles in my arm and chest pulled excruciatingly against the shafts embedded in them.

“Not…quickly,” I admitted. “Or well.”

“I was afraid of that,” said the elf, nodding. “Fortunately, we have a solution. Newneh! To me.”

Nazralind clicked her tongue, and one of the horse-sized bird things paced forward. It was a little hard to tell in the moonlight, but I thought this one seemed to have brown plumage with yellow and black accents. The creature stopped next to the elf and nuzzled her shoulder with a beak that, up close, I saw was full of murderous-looking teeth. Rather than being terrified of this like a reasonable person, Nazralind slipped an arm around the thing’s neck and actually kissed the side of its face.

“There’s my girl! Good girl. Now, Newneh, this is Lord Seiji. Lord Seiji is a friend. I need you to give him a ride.”

Newneh and I stared at each other. The bird-lizard ruffled her feathers, adding significantly to her apparent size, and emitted an obviously skeptical croak.

“Yeah, I’m with the bird on this one,” I said.

Getting me onto Newneh’s back was an ordeal which required Nazralind to hold the bird steady, Goose to physically lift me up, Twigs to help position my bad leg on the other side of the saddle, and all six onlooking noblewomen to offer mocking suggestions and encouragement.

I was also informed in great detail by Nazralind that these lizard birds were called gwynneks, that they werevery intelligent and loyal companions, that they were perfect mounts much superior to horses in most respects, and so on at length. Looking around at all the surrounding women standing next to their own gwynneks and nodding along with her comments, I was suddenly reminded of my grandparents’ farm in California. Specifically, their neighbors, a really nice middle-aged lady and her three daughters who for some damn reason liked to ride their horses around to visit people.

So, I’d just discovered the Ephemera equivalent of horse girls, and in classic Ephemera fashion it involved horrible monsters instead of anything that made sense. Well, they had saved my life, and I was in no position to criticize.

“Nazralind is the only one of them I knew personally before all this,” Twigs explained as we made our way along the riverbank, passing into the darkness of a patch of khora forest. I hadn’t realized there was any this close to Gwyllthean.

“Not that anyone was interested in being the Librarian of Lastnor to her about it,” said Lady Noraene. I’d gotten all of their names and was pretty sure I wasn’t going to remember them all, but she was one of the two brunettes. “Lady Elemyn is definitely one of us! It sounds like she held up amazingly well after getting separated from Nazralind.”

“Well, I did have Goose,” Twigs said modestly. “And later, Lord Seiji. That gang was kind of a nightmare when that cretin Rocco was in charge, but Lord Seiji’s made things a great deal better in all respects.”

All of them gave me thoughtful looks, except Nazralind, who was walking alongside me leading Newneh by her bridle.

“Whoah!” I exclaimed, making Newneh turn her head to look at me, as a pale glow of light rose around Nazralind. “What’s—how are you doing that?”

Everyone stared at me.

“She’s an elf,” said one of the noblewomen whose name I had already forgotten, as if this were too obvious to be worth explaining.

“Elves…glow in the dark?” I asked.

Everyone continued to stare at me.

“Ahem.” Biribo bobbed up in front of me, causing Newneh and two other gwynneks to turn their heads to look at him, but none of them spooked. Apparently they were less skittish than horses, at least. “The rumors and legends are true, ladies. Dark Lords and Heroes are summoned from another world entirely. Sometimes Lord Seiji needs to have things explained which might seem like universal knowledge to you.”

“And there’s no need to be rude to him about it,” added Twigs.

“That’s a fair point,” agreed the woman who’d just commented. “My apologies, Lord Seiji. Sometimes I can be a real Westbridge Watchman with new people. I assure you, no personal slight is meant.”

“None taken.” Oh, right, I’d forgotten Fflyr nobles talked like this. It was gonna get tiresome very quickly, I could already tell.

“We elves are chosen of the Goddesses, so the story goes,” said Nazralind, raising her chin and smirking in a manner that deftly mimicked the stereotypical hauteur of nobles while also mocking it. I was really starting to like this particular elf. “Sanora’s children are blessed with the gift of light, while the dark elves have the gift of shadow.”

“So…you can make light at will,” I said slowly, “and the dark elves can make it dark around them?”

Nazralind shook her head. “No, they go invisible.”

“It’s a little more nuanced than that,” Biribo interjected, “but basically, yeah. Dark elves have an innate gift of stealth. And you should know, boss, that the more gifted ones have one of the few types of stealth a familiar can’t see through. You should be glad you haven’t done anything to get their attention yet.”

“Great,” I muttered. “Just what I need, more invisible enemies. Serves me right for thinking the one would be unusual.” I started to slide sideways off the unfamiliar mount, and my instinctive shift of balance to correct made me stiffen in pain and start sliding the other way. Goose immediately grabbed and steadied me, and belatedly I realized that was why she was walking so close by the gwynnek. “Thanks.”

She nodded and let go of my leg.

“And here I thought the dark elves would be your allies,” Nazralind said casually. “Children of Virya and all that. Historically they naturally flock to the Dark Lord.”

It occurred to me that I still knew almost nothing about these women. There had to be quite a story explaining why a bunch of noblewomen had turned to banditry, and yet another to explain why they were now willing to throw in with the Dark Lord. Hopefully I’d get those explanations very soon, but I couldn’t afford to be too reckless around them in the meantime.

“So I’m told,” I said, “but I am also told that they are…um, let’s say difficult.”

“Yeah, you wanna stay away from dark elves until you’re in a position to impress them and command some obedience,” Biribo agreed. “You’re actually kinda lucky you didn’t get started in one of the major Viryan civilizations, boss. More than one Dark Lord has ended up effectively the political pawn of some dark elven empire. Including the last one.”

“Great,” I sighed, then winced, then had to be steadied again by Goose.

“Really, Yomiko was under the control of Savindar?” Nazralind asked, tilting her head in that same birdlike gesture of hers. I wondered if she’d picked it up from the gwynneks. “I’d never heard that. I suppose it matches well enough with the history I know, though.”

“Yeah, there’s a lot of details that didn’t make their way into the books,” said Biribo.

“The books are written by the victors, after all,” she agreed. “So, Lord Seiji. Elemyn tells me your big plan was to recruit the prostitutes of the Gutters to your side. And it’s all set to unfold on festival night?”

“Ah, right, you two have been gone,” I wheezed, managing a smile for Goose and Twigs, both of whom turned to look up at me. “Some shit’s gone down, ladies. The short version is I’ve already done that. We’ve got over a hundred new recruits training at North Watch, and as of tonight, I have effectively destroyed Lady Gray’s organization. But then she had me shot full of quarrels and dumped in the canal, so… I guess we’re callin’ it squaresies.”

“Yeah, you cling to that hope,” Biribo muttered.

“Because I’ve been wondering,” said Nazralind, again in that casual tone that made my attention sharpen. “Did you choose this…unconventional approach because you found personal sympathy for those women? Or are you just using them for your own purposes, like everyone else has?”

Carefully, carefully. Fortunately the fact that I was currently stiff and awkward with pain and the difficulty of staying upright in the saddle did a lot to obscure any expressions or body language that might have given me away. Not that I actually had anything to hide, but this whole line of inquiry made me keenly aware that my position here was politically delicate, and surrounded by unknowns.

“Let me answer that with a question,” I said. “You ladies are all highborn; may I assume that means you’ve had the benefit of a proper education?”

“Well, the Clans aren’t generally in a hurry to educate women,” said Nazralind with an ironic grin, “but to be Fflyr is to be well-read, and highborn more so than most.”

I nodded, and immediately regretted that, but managed to finish my answer. “That’s a relief. I’m glad to be talking about this with people to whom I don’t have to explain that more than one thing can be simultaneously true.”

Nazralind cocked her head at me again, and several of the other ladies gave me considering looks. Goose, though, had to raise one hand to muffle a grin, and after a moment Nazralind nodded, seeming satisfied with that answer.

“Something tells me we have a lot of interesting conversations ahead of us, Lord Seiji,” said the elf, “but we’ve still got some unpleasant business to get out of the way first. And what good timing! Here we are.”

It hadn’t been a long ride, but considering how quickly they’d been able to reach the riverbank and find me, that made sense. The river itself was now out of sight through the surrounding khora, though I could still hear the water. Now, the khora opened out to reveal a wide area surrounded by the shells of old buildings.

This place had clearly been abandoned for many years; none of the structures were fully intact, and many had khora growing through their broken walls. Just as clearly, though, the place saw some kind of semi-regular use. What had once been a square amid these old houses was still flat and clear, which would not have happened had the khora forest been allowed to encroach as it would. Also, there were no less than three firepits that seemed permanent, being encircled by stones and chunks of akorthist, and one had a flame going with a pile of fresh reeds nearby. Several of the broken-down houses showed signs of subsequent patching, including ragged hides hung over entrances whose doors were long since gone.

“Huh,” I said aloud, peering around in the glow of Nazralind’s aura. “This…doesn’t look like any of the architecture I’ve seen so far on Dount.” The akorthist of which these buildings was all white, and they had a distinct style to them that was unlike the organic construction Fflyr preferred, or the spartan utilitarianism of North Watch. They were all rigidly straight and laid out at precise right angles, softened with curved buttresses and columns that looked way too elaborate for what appeared to have been a small village once.

“Dark elves,” Nazralind explained. “This was one of their settlements, before Fflyr Dlemathlys was founded.”

“And this is all just…right here?” I asked, again almost sliding off the gwynnek in my incredulity. “This is within easy walking distance of Gwyllthean!”

“And Gwyllthean’s the reason the site isn’t still used as a village,” she said. “A lot of its waste is dumped into that river. As we have discovered. Phew. Fortunately there is still a water source, so you and I can get properly cleaned off, but it’s just a tiny little trickle of a spring, not enough to support a whole village, now that the river’s not usable as a water supply. But while all the muck isn’t good for people or animals, it’s great for certain kinds of khora, which is why all these are growing here. They yield harvestable reagents that are very valuable, and also provide habitats for a species of shellback that has useful akornin but doesn’t do well in captivity. Also, both of those things are very poisonous, which means people stay out of here unless they’re on specific business and by the way don’t wander off or touch anything, Lord Seiji. So this stretch of forest is kept here to be hunted and gathered, but only by professionals. Fortunately for us, the seasons for that are in the spring and winter, so right now there won’t be anybody in this forest but possibly bandits.”

“I think you mean other bandits, Naz,” said Lady Ismreth with a grin.

“Right, yeah,” Nazralind grimaced. “My point is, nobody we’d need to feel bad about shooting.”

“All right, Lord Seiji, let’s get you down from there and get started,” said Goose in a tone that was both apologetic and grim, reaching up to help me out of the saddle. “This is gonna suck mightily, but we need to get those things out of you sooner rather than later.”

“Yeah,” I agreed with an anticipatory wince. Seemed like my night was going to get much better, but not until after it had gotten a whole lot worse.