Chương 177: Arc 3 - Chapter 49

Fritz entered the room and bowed deeply.

"Greetings, Count," he said, holding himself low.

"My thanks for granting me the honour of an audience." Count Wavereach sat behind a grand desk of rich wood and watched him intently. Eventually, nearly nine seconds later, the nobleman spoke in a raspy baritone.

"Rise, Hightide." Fritz did, then met the Count's grey-eyed gaze. He didn't need his Awareness to tell that there was hatred there, a deep cold sea of anger, loss and blame. Enduring the icy accusation, he waited for the nobleman to invite him to sit in the singular, simple chair in front of the desk. The count was a slight man, his dark grey hair was thin, short and combed neatly, but cut with a scar that ran past his hairline. Dark bags hung under his eyes and his features were as severe as his tone.

Scales like steel adorned his cheekbones, jaw and neck. Again the Count merely stared silently. Fritz had to use some of his Control and Focus not to shiver. While he wasn't afraid of the nobleman, not compared to the Nightshark, the Count was still powerful and well-connected and he couldn't afford to misstep here. Not when the Refuge relied on Fritz to wrest some permissions from him.

"Come, sit," the Wavreach said, motioning to the chair. Fritz obeyed, then waited again for the man to continue. It was important that the Count felt in control, respected.

"I'm surprised you have the gall to appear before me. You know what bitter grudge lies between our Houses. The fact you presume to show your face to me after your father's failure, after he lost my son, is appalling in the most abominable manner," the Count declared.

"What possible reason could you have to accost me and my House further, Hightide?" He spat Hightide like a curse. Fritz felt a scowl creeping over his face, but he smoothed it and met the words with a stern gaze of his own. He took his time to reply, his hand slowly went for Quicksilver's hilt and found only air. He clenched his fist instead.

"If my presence offends you so, you needn't have accepted my request," Fritz replied in a steady tone that belied his actual anger. The Count's eyes narrowed.

"My apologies, Count. That was impertinent and I hope you will forgive me," Fritz amended. A strained smile stretched over the nobleman's face, it was a brittle line.

"You didn't answer my question. Why did you request an audience?"

"As was in my letter, I wish to improve some holdings in the Drowned District," Fritz stated.

"However, they are yours to do with what you will, and I wouldn't dare intervene in your interests."

"How very polite of you," He drawled disbelievingly.

"You want to 'improve' these derelict holdings?"

"Restore," Fritz corrected himself.

"The dwellings have long been overlooked and the residents there live in squalor and rot."

"And why would Hightide care about that?"

"It doesn't, I do," Fritz said.

"An act of charity, is it?" He scoffed.

"And it wouldn't have anything to do with these properties and lands previously belonging to your House? Do you suppose they will be restored to you once you're head of House Hightide."

"I don't suppose any such thing," Fritz said.

"Mine or not, I wish for those lands to be made better."

"Why?" Fritz considered his response, deciding to tell a version of the truth the Count could believe.

"When I ran away from the Guide's orphanage, I ended up in those streets. I spent many years among them, living as they do. What I saw wasn't right. The common folk toiled hard, laboured unceasingly, and yet they still had to return to flooded homes on barely full stomachs. I want them to live more dignified lives." The Count seemed sceptical of his tale, as he should, Fritz's motivations were less compassionate than he professed. The Count sneered.

"How high-minded. Did pity stain you so thoroughly while you wallowed in the gutters?"

"Perhaps. There were those who helped me during those times, though I looked little more than a beggar. And I wish to repay those debts."

"Debts?"

"Kindnesses," Fritz elaborated.

"And a good turn should be repaid. Or at least, I believe it should be."

"I see," the count said, obviously unconvinced. He drew out the silence. Again Fritz waited for the nobleman to continue, it gave him some time to glance around the room. It may have been an office or rather a study, and its luxuries were unblemished and its furniture kept finely. If there were any furnishings that had been removed, and likely sold, Fritz couldn't tell. The study's walls were lined with shelves, a great fortune of books were arrayed upon them.

Old leather-bound tomes and covers of more exotic materials abounded. Some were, scaled, some were stitched with coarse twine and some were thick slabs of stone, each could have held a Technique or secret knowledges. He nearly salivated at the sight. Fritz only let his eyes and mind wander for a moment before he brought his attention to the Count and the desk before him. Then something about how the wood was carved caught his interest.

The decoration was elegant, the long sinuous lines of twining sea snakes almost looked alive, but there, hidden in the fine scales were the hints of glyphic wards. The count coughed, and Fritz nearly startled. Silently he cursed himself for letting himself be distracted.

"My apologies, again, Count," Fritz said.

"Your apologies," the count sneered.

"Your apologies. Do you have anything to offer apart from your apologies as you eye what is mine as would a thief?" Fritz would have rankled at the accusation, and perhaps should have, but instead, he smiled wanly.

"Well, if that is all you have to offer, get out," he ordered.

"Leave and never show your face, all too much like your father's, to me ever again." Fritz hesitated, he needed a clear answer to his request before he could go.

"Do I have your permission to help those places in the Drowned District?"

"No," the count stated.

"They're entrusted to me until House Hightide has a head. And I see no such worthy one here." Fritz's smile twitched, and his face twisted darkly. He suppressed a shout, nodded once, stood, then began to turn. He remembered the bottle of liqueur in his coat's inner pocket. Although he had already been dismissed and there was little such a gift would do, Fritz returned his gaze to the Count, slid his hand into his coat and grasped the bottle's neck. Again a sneer.

"Got a dagger for me? Learn that while you were in the gutters?" He accused, placing his hand on his desk, a finger on one of the carved sea snake's fangs. Fritz shook his head and drew out the thin black bottle, he displayed it, label out.

"I found this. I'd like for you to have it." You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. The count stared, and though his body was as still as marble, the dark dripping and roiling bitterness that made up his halo rioted. Some change came over the man, his eyes flickered from surprise, to confusion, to a deep, abiding melancholy.

Like a tenement collapsing, he sagged in his chair limply and his hand fell away from what Fritz was sure was the activation glyph for the wards upon the desk. Although Fritz knew his Awareness had led him to the bottle, even he was startled by how the Count reacted. He had thought it was merely the best bribe in the market, not something that could break a man's terrible anger and shake his heavy grudge.

"How did you know? No, how could you know?" The count asked. Though he looked at Fritz, his mind and voice were far away, peering at some other time.

"I'm afraid I don't know, Count," Fritz stated honestly.

"I was in a Jastili trade tent and bought this on a hunch. A whim."

"A whim," the Count echoed, his face drooping further, seeming to age him a decade. A tremor ran down his arm, his fingers twitching minutely.

"Does it have some significance?" Fritz prodded, adding the small ring of Dusksong that seemed to strangely resonate with the dark motes around the nobleman, sparking dim stars in that bleak malaise.

"Yes. It was something I shared with my wife," the man said nostalgically, a bittersweet smile crawling onto his face.

"The countess," Fritz said, again lacing his voice with that fairy magic and watching it inflame the motes both dark and light.

"Yes, Catherine. We had this whole... ritual, I suppose you'd call it," the Count continued.

"We'd go to the theatre and see her favourite play. It was one of those horribly depressing Tenebrian ones. You know, where everyone dies or worse. It was titled 'The end of the cruellest dream.' It was truly full of despair. There is a bottle of that same liqueur featured in the play. Whoever drank of its contents were always to be the next ones who suffered some horrific misfortune. And so, while we watched, we would share a glass with each other, imitating those on stage.

It could be considered tempting fate, but we cared not. Each time it appeared again we drank, until the very end, there in the very last scene." Fritz nodded, but the Count lost in precious memories, kept up his tale.

"You would know it if you've seen it. The vengeance-mad Lord Honour, seeking blood to pay for his House's downfall, breaks into the castle of Lady Hope, also the last of her House. He searches the empty halls until he finds her in a parlour. She has two empty glasses in front of her and that black bottle. He sees that she's been crying, he had thought her a traitor, as she had thought of him." The Count's bitter smile curved slyly.

"They are both right. Each had betrayed each other's love and secrets. To the doom of all. In the end, she offers him some of the liqueur, saying that it is pregnant with poison and that the only way to atone for their folly and sins is with death. She gives a moving, desperate speech. Weeping and wailing. He, of course, is convinced. He drinks and dies. She puts her lips to her own glass, stares at the audience and smiles. Then the curtains fall." Fritz frowned.

"Catherine would always take a sip then too, even though I protested that Lady Hope never drank in the end.

'Of course she did' my wife would argue. And I would ask why she had smiled at the end then. My love would say that it was because it was finally all over and she could follow Lord Honour even in death." He paused for a moment.

"Catherine said that's what she would have done if in the same situation." The Count shook his head and looked down into his hands, "Foolish. Though that was her, a true romantic. I now understand what she meant though, if not for the slight hope my son survives and my promise to find him, I would have followed. I would have followed." A silence settled around the room.

Though Fritz couldn't have expected or even hoped for such a strong reaction to his gift, he knew he needed to act before the nobleman was released from his remembrances. He took a graceful step forward and placed the bottle on the desk and softly said, "To her memory then. I'm sorry." The count looked up with watery eyes, startled out of his recollections. Fritz affected a gentle smile and let his own eyes show understanding. It wasn't all false, he had lost family too.

Though he never had the same security or power the nobleman had. That ached. The Count had never suffered as much as Fritz had, hadn't been forced to flee into the gutters, but any frustration he felt having to coddle this man was pushed down. He could vent that bitter fury later. Wavereach searched his expression.

"I'm sorry, for all you've lost. House Hightide played a part in it and that I truly regret. But I'm not my father, merely a son, grieving his loss. Just as you do for your own son," Fritz said, letting his voice sink low in commiseration, aided by the solemn tone of Dusksong. Something in the Count's gaze changed and he nodded sorrowfully. He took the bottle and a small smile crossed his face.

"I haven't seen one of these in what seems like a century. I suppose it was my Catherine who always searched for it. You said you bought it from a Jastili merchant. Were there any more bottles?"

"That was the only of its kind there, Count," Fritz said.

"Alas," Wavereach said, staring at the label fondly. The nobleman set down the bottle, returning his attention to Fritz and collecting himself.

"You'll have to forgive my prior accusations and anger. It was misplaced. Though you have his face, you are not Tomas Hightide. I have been... ungracious and unfair."

"Not at all, Count. The fact you can even contemplate setting aside such grave grievances proves your wisdom and grace," Fritz said. The Count nodded, then coughed.

"It was a great tragedy, for both of us, I see now," he allowed.

"We have both suffered terribly from what happened all those years ago and it would be the height of irrationality to blame a mere child who had no hand in the affair." Fritz stood stoically and Wavereach straightened in his chair, contemplating.

"You may have whatever permissions you desire," the Count said.

"I'll prepare a writ. I can have it sent or you may wait."

"Many thanks," Fritz replied.

"I'll wait." He took the seat in front of him and watched as the nobleman drew up a simple document. It was only a couple of lines and stipulations. Sensible ones that protected the lands and properties from being stolen or exchanged.

"Honestly, you won't need this in a couple of months, once your appeal goes through the court," The count said.

"It's some of the land held in trust. Part of the only holdings left, I'm afraid."

"Oh?" Fritz inquired. The Count sighed.

"In truth, I have used much of my wealth trying to bring my son back from the Rain Spire. The House Hightide's properties and vault supplemented that quest. As was decreed." Fritz was glad the nobleman was looking down at the paper and couldn't see his scowl. To speak so offhandedly about the waste of his House's wealth, what was his rightful inheritance was almost too much to bear. He twisted his features into a polite smile when the Count offered him the writ.

Fritz reached to take it, but when he pulled the paper away, the nobleman kept hold of it.

"Have you a Climbing team?" Wavereach asked.

"I do," Fritz said.

"Will you be sending them into the Rain Spire?"

"We plan to Climb it in due time," Fritz said.

"We? You're going in with them?" The Count asked with some surprise. It wasn't wholly unheard of for a noble to Climb with their patronised team, however, it was a rare thing. Most of the nobility simply sent their teams in, and being the patron were due a portion of the goods and Treasures found within. The contracts and splits varied, but it wasn't uncommon for a noble to take at least a full third of the haul, two-thirds if the agreement had a predatory bent.

"Of course," Fritz said.

"I'm more a Climber than a patron."

"Will you be contracting a Guide?"

"No. I'm a Scout," Fritz said.

"I see," he said thoughtfully.

"And when will you be committing to your Climb?"

"When I have the requisite badges and my team is prepared. So some months," Fritz guessed.

"Hmm," the Count said.

"And you'll look for any sign of your father's and my son's disappearance."

"I will," Fritz said solemnly. The thought hadn't truly crossed his mind, he'd always held a more practical view of the matter. His Father was dead, just as his mother was, and nothing could bring him back. If he had been simply lost, as the Count desperately hoped, then he would have found his way back. He had been a Guide after all.

"Good... good," the Count said, finally letting go of the writ and falling into a quiet melancholic silence. Fritz tucked the paper into his coat's left inner pocket adding it to his own appeal, then hesitated. He considered pressing further.

"Count Wavereach," Fritz said.

"Yes?"

"You mentioned my head of House appeal."

"Yes, is there some problem? Is it not already due to be seen in the courts?"

"Unfortunately not. I must admit that it hasn't proceeded far due to the lack of noble witnesses willing to sign it," Fritz said.

"Yes. I can see how that would happen. What with all the political weight that may entail," he replied sadly.

"I need but one more signature and seal," Fritz ventured. Count Wavereach stared, but his eyes looked right through him. Nearly a minute later he still hadn't spoken. Fritz nearly left, thinking the man was waiting for him to realise the folly of his question. The nobleman sighed deeply.

"I will witness your appeal. Though I will not hide from you that your estate has been greatly diminished. As I said earlier, I used much in my attempts to find my son. And for a time I spent unwisely, viciously one could say, uncaring of the cost it took to get back my heir at any expense. It is regretful, though I won't apologise. It had to be done." Fritz nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He took out his appeal and handed it to the Count.

The old merfolk took it with a shaking hand, then signed and sealed it as easily as he had the previous piece of paper.

"There," he said.

"It is done."

"Thank you Count Wavereach. Your generosity has been far beyond my hopes," Fritz said. The Count sighed and handed the document back to Fritz, who took it carefully, folded it and hid it away quickly. With that, whatever business they had left was done. Wavereach reclined wearily in his plush chair and dismissed Fritz with a wave of his hand. He was only too happy to comply. He slipped out of the room and was escorted out of the manor, collecting Quicksilver and Mortal Edge when he passed through the entrance hall.

Now standing beyond the estate's walls, Fritz took a moment to reflect. He found he was shaking so he swiftly found a park to hide in. Cloaking himself in dusk, Fritz crouched behind a tree and let go of his tightly held Control. For some time he wept tears of fury. He clutched at his arms, digging his nails into the fabric of his coat. He wanted to strike something, someone, or better yet, pull free Quicksilver and slash and stab. He held back that impulse. It was not the time nor the place.

Eventually, his roiling emotions settled and he was able to think of things other than the great grudge he felt against the Count. Although the nobleman had given him everything he could ask for, Fritz couldn't help but feel he'd been robbed by him and that his inheritance was all but squandered. Still, as his anger rested, replaced with a tired, familiar ache, he found he was surprised the meeting had gone as well as it had.

It was something of a miracle that the Count's hatred had broken as easily as it had been, but on reflection, Fritz realised the nobleman was barely holding on. He had appeared weary, frail, and the truth was that he had been drowning in despair. Numb to everything except a challenge. Calm again, and having all he needed, Fritz stood and left the park, making his way to the Upper Ring where he intended to hand the appeal to his advocate, Mr. Worth.

The man had been surprised and had shaken Fritz's hand eagerly when he entered. And when Fritz left it was to the assurances that the matter of becoming the head of his House would be settled in no time at all. Which in advocate speak apparently meant about a month or two. Glad that the matter had finally been dealt with and was no longer hanging over his head, Fritz walked home. He tried to rest, but found the inaction excruciating.

Once he'd changed into some darker, tougher attire, he made his way to the yard to train the Inevitable Blade. George was there, clashing blunted blades with a man Fritz didn't know, but vaguely recollected as being one of Dayn's team. Leon, if his memory served him well. He looked like a Leon, handsome with a great mane of golden hair and a powerful build that was easily the match of George's. They both wielded swords almost their own height, and smiled and laughed after each round.

Leon seemed to have the advantage of experience and skill, but his opponent wasn't an easy man to overpower. In fact, considering that George had only been formally trained in the sword for a couple of weeks, he was performing quite well. Fritz watched them for a while before turning his attention to his own training, starting with his stance. Fritz needed all the practice he could get. And he had a siege to break.