“Rise, whelp."
Three men entered the cell, all clad in hard leather cuirasses emblazoned with the unmistakable Web of Wyrd. The personal guard of Jarl Rune, thegn of Dubh Linn.
Set stood with great effort. He had eaten nothing but meagre servings of gruel for five days and thirsted desperately for water. He hacked and wheezed, his throat parched and raw. The tallest of the guards acknowledged the dry croak with a small but full waterskin.
Set drank greedily, and greed quenched his thirst. His surroundings came into focus as he steadied himself . Slowly. Carefully. Exhaustingly.
The sky cell was not large. The sea breeze had long throttled its three walls, which were of crude, weathered stone. It was empty aside from the rusty and cockled sheepskin Set slept on. No bucket was needed for urinating or defecating, for a small hole leading to the sea itself was unequalled in its accommodation of such bodily functions, hygiene be damned.
The cell was also positioned high enough to make escape via the missing wall impossible. While waves thrashed against the bottom of the tower, the water below was home to treacherous, spiked rocks. Bodies lay strewn across them, some mutilated, some skeletal. They were left where they fell to feed the sea fowl and remain as a warning: No one, not one person, ever broke free from Jarl Rune’s prison. It was the most effective gaol in all of Éire, usually reserved for elite criminals awaiting death by beheading.
But Set was no criminal, much less an elite one. He had been caught in the tunnels beneath Dubh Linn and cornered like hounded game. For nearly a week since, he had stayed in the sky cell for longer than most men were entitled. He spent the first day in fear of the headsman’s axe, his chin folding into his chest as he heard — and felt — the crunch, the clean and certain severance of crown from neck. His head fell before him a hundred, two hundred, three hundred times, always painful, always debilitatingly final. After the three hundredth time, his nape was spared, for he had no more energy to spend on fear.
Now, as the guards opened the iron door to his cell, the clink of keys rattling around his skull like nails dropped on stone, he welcomed the blow. He relished in the thought of his execution. He relished in the thought of his death.
“Can you walk, boy?” The soldier spoke in a military manner, yet Set detected no hint of iciness in his voice — in fact, the words were imbued with a curious quality that could almost be described as warm. “Here, wrap your arm around my shoulder. Easy does it.”
Set hobbled out of the cell, supported by the man. They emerged into a narrow corridor that was dimly lit by candelabras, their flames licking the basalt walls and ceiling from intricately crafted sconces. Servants scurried in and out of recesses invisible to the untrained eye, lending credibility to rumours of the impossibly complex traboules Jarl Rune had constructed using designs gathered by foreign agents stationed across the sea.
The infamous keep of Dubh Linn was no ordinary castle. It was a labyrinth.
A sudden movement from a small window on the left side of the wall caught Set’s attention. Perched on the ledge was a large bird as black as a moonless night, busying itself with cleaning its feathers. It crowed at the guards as they walked past. The guard dismissed it with a grunt — strangely, Set thought, as if the bird were familiar to him.
The corridor wound downward at such a gradual decline that Set almost lost his footing when the group emerged into an expertly tended enclosed garden at ground level. The greenhouse teemed with varieties of flora that could not possibly have been native to Éire, while exotic birds flitted between wooden trellises adorned with climbing plants the likes of which Set had never seen. Together, the colours shimmered and undulated as if they were parts of a moving mosaic, an artistic masterpiece that not been brought to life, but developed its own impetus of consciousness that propelled it toward a new plane of existence and being. Set realised with discomfort that he felt like an intruder in this strange sphere of purity and abandon. This was not the world of which he formed a small part. It was an absolute unworld, a place that was dichotomous at its very core, a twisted and magnificent manifestation of what reality should but never truly could be.
It was beautiful. It made his blood curdle.
Set’s musings were interrupted by the guard, who met his gaze for the first time. His right eye was a pale blue, his left a milky white and slashed with a smoothly healed scar that traced a slight diagonal from the middle of his forehead to the very centre of his cheek. He wore light, evidently styled stubble and his blonde, tousled curls fell neatly onto his collarbones. In contrast to the hardness of his features, his expression was kind — gentle, even. He betrayed no signs of wanting Set dead, despite the obvious fact that the latter had just spent the guts of a week in a cell that had been specifically engineered for soon-to-be specters.
“Take a breath, boy.” The voice of the guard, steeled yet silvery. “I am Kveldulf, commander of Jarl Rune’s hersir in Dubh Linn. You ought to know that your life has been spared. I know little, if anything, of the jarl’s designs for you. But you will not die this day. Rune has ordered that you be escorted to his chambers presently, but first you must bathe and tend to the arse fluff on your chin. You will find a tub of hot water and a razor blade behind this door. I trust you are capable of shaving yourself? Or has the young pup enjoyed grooming for one moon too many?”
Set might have bristled if not for his lingering weariness. Instead he responded with a curt nod of acknowledgement before pushing the door open and stumbling into a small chamber. Steam spilled out of a tub positioned in the centre of the room. Next to it stood a small table laden with a blade, a small towel, a carafe of red wine, and a plate bearing bread and cheese.
He tore off his rags and lunged for the tantalising warmth of the tub, which enveloped him like the embrace of a cloud — soft, reassuring, smoother than the finest silks of the East. His head lulled back against the rim of the tub as his aching body soaked up the warmth it had been craving for the previous five days. More than once he had to pinch his cheeks to stay the insisting hand of deep sleep. He picked up the blade and examined it critically.
“Or has the young pup enjoyed grooming for one moon too many?” he mimicked, his face contorting into a vile grimace. “And what was that about ‘arse fluff’? The man must spend more time in front of the looking glass than a princess.”
Set grunted as he continued to stare at the blade, as if by looking at it with sufficient intensity he could will it to shave him itself. He was much less tired now. And much more annoyed.
He tore at a hunk of bread, which was heavenly and deathly stale all at once. He sampled the cheese, which was somehow both devoid of discernible taste and a little too cheesy for his liking. He drained the carafe of wine, which tasted like a weird blend of heady reds and gnat’s piss.
Taking up the razor once again, he hacked at the stray hairs protruding from his chin and almost mutilated his lower jaw in the process. So what if he had been groomed by a barber since childhood? Kveldulf didn’t know that. Had this been in the court of Emain Macha, he would have sentenced the captain to a week in the stocks.
But this was not the court of Emain Macha. It was the court of Jarl Rune, and having only evaded execution by the breadth of a hair shorter than those now floating in the water before him, there was a certain level of deference demanded of Set if he wanted to keep his head attached to his shoulders.
Still, the young warrior was not much interested in hurrying. He waited for the water to turn cold before exiting the tub and drying himself with the towel. As he eyed the pile of rags on the floor with disdain, a delicate knock rapped against the door, which was then ever so partly opened to facilitate the deposit of fresh clothes on the stone floor. Set already had his trousers on before he realised that the timing was a little too perfect.
Had someone been spying on him the whole time? Had someone heard..?
Of course somebody was watching, he thought to himself. This is the castle of Jarl Rune. Spies are part of the furniture.
Set scolded himself for his naivete, but knew that there was little point to catastrophising about what had happened and could not be changed. He pulled a sleek black jerkin with silver embroidery and buttons over his head, then slipped into the pair of newly tanned calfskin boots that had been neatly placed next to the rest of his attire. Feeling rejuvenated by the bath and meal, he drew himself to his full height and pulled his shoulders back.
And opened the door.
Kveldulf stood outside the chamber — alone. He looked Set up and down, examining him as one might study a lamb for slaughter. Set lost his recently found composure and allowed his hands to fidget. He bit down on his lip, hard, and drew his dropped gaze from the ground to some apparently interesting object visible to no one including him. Kveldulf burst out laughing, his chortle hearty and resounding.
“You don’t look half bad,” said the captain once he had recovered from his laughing fit. “Black is a good colour on you. Shame about the nicked neck.”
Set instantly and involuntarily grasped his chin, which was wet and somewhat sore. He looked at his hand and saw the small streak of red liquid on his fingertips.
“A razor like that would be unfit to shear a sheep,” he retorted, confidence surging forth from the pit of his belly. “In Emain Macha, we — “
“Yes, yes,” interjected Kveldulf, waving his hand and smiling toothily. “I’m sure the royalty of Emain Macha have all sorts of wonderful trinkets and thingamajigs. One might even suppose that there exists a razor that, if goggled at for a certain amount of time, suddenly gains an ephemeral burst of life lasting just long enough for it to shave its bearer of its own accord. We paupers of Dubh Linn have but regular blades, the kind of which a man learns to use as a boy such that he might become a man in the first place.”
The captain turned on his heel before Set could respond, which was just as well considering that Set could not for the life of him come up with an appropriate response to begin with. Kveldulf had gotten on his nerves before his bath and had outright refused to alight since. Set desperately wanted to hate him, but, to his dismay, discovered that he admired him too much to do so in earnest.
“Well, let us make haste then,” said Kveldulf. “All the people of Éire know that Jarl Rune is as patient as they come, yet it appears as if you desire to test that patience to its very limit.”
The guard’s mouth twisted into a wretched grin, his white teeth flashing in the moonlight reflected by the panes of the greenhouse. Set couldn’t tell if he wanted to laugh or find out if Kveldulf’s teeth shined equally as bright from the garden floor.
“As it happens, I dislike you less than anticipated and therefore see fit to offer a word of warning,” Kveldulf continued. “You would do well to drop the insolent act before meeting Rune. He is a generous and thoughtful man, but he is also a jarl with a reputation to uphold. Your head still remains in the right place, although you are not yet out of the dragon’s den. Now, pick your chin up and hold your shoulders as any self-respecting warrior ought to. Easy does it. Ah. There’s a good pup.”
The remainder of their journey was carried out mostly in silence. While the castle grounds positively swarmed with servants, none paid even the slightest attention to Set, although many bowed deferentially to Kveldulf as he passed. The captain took no notice of this, instead whistling a sombre tune in which each note seemed to bear its own burden of loss and lament.
Set marked how curious it was that Kveldulf smiled in spite of this melancholy. It was like he could derive some sense of holistic calm from the acknowledgement of sorrow, as if to be truly happy required one to first submit to sadness and meet it on its own terms.
The young warrior realised with annoyance that he envied Kveldulf. No soldier of Emain Macha was quite like him, and Set was unable to shake the feeling that he was worse off for it.
They soon reached a large oak door decorated with a meticulously wrought metalwork depiction of the Web of Wyrd. Kveldulf did not deign to inform Set of what — or who — lay behind it. He simply pushed the door open and ushered the young warrior inside, before slamming it behind him and consigning him to his fate.
The chamber was bare aside from a large oak desk and enough scrolls to prove to Set that he knew nothing of the world. Rune stood on a balcony that extended from the opposite end of the room, hands clasped behind his back as he gazed at the waning moon. He did not turn to greet the young warrior of Emain Macha — in fact, he seemed quite happy to pretend that Set did not exist.
Several minutes passed before Set conspicuously cleared his throat. Rune betrayed no intention of wanting to acknowledge him. He simply stood on the balcony with his head tilted toward the sky, as if it had been the prisoner Kveldulf was sent to retrieve.
“You sent for me,” Set attempted, somewhat stammering. “I was escorted here by your captain, Kveldulf. Well, I’m here now. I would be grateful to learn why.”
“I believe the term used was ‘insolent,’” Rune retorted, quick as lightning, apparently speaking to no one in particular, or perhaps the moon on which his gaze remained fixed. “Yes, ‘insolent.’ I wonder if a warrior of Emain Macha could be aware of what happens to insolent curs in Dubh Linn? They are defanged, of course. Often gelded. Sometimes killed.”
At last, Rune whirled around from the balcony and strode into the chamber. He was of imposing height and stature, with a mass of jet-black curls framing a face that appeared to have been chiseled from marble. His attire was simple yet elegant — black accented with silver, much like the clothes that had been left for Set in the bath chamber.
But Rune’s outfit contained one additional component: a black patch with an embroidered silver symbol that Set could not make out from a distance worn over his right eye.
The rumours were true, then. Jarl Rune. The One-Eyed. The Far-Seeing. The All-Knowing.
“Be seated, O Insolent One,” drawled Rune as he approached the table and promptly occupied the chair on the far side of it. “We have matters of grave importance to discuss, you and I. Oh, times are grave indeed. And all of our pups still barely teething, gnawing on wood when there is meat to be devoured. Tell me, little cur, what use we might find for termites?”
Rune filled two chalices from a carafe of wine and nonchalantly handed one to Set, who had fortunately succeeded in unearthing a shred of reason from deep within himself that urged him to remain silent at all costs.
“Could be poison,” the jarl mused before draining his chalice in one gulp. “Let’s observe. No noticeable discomfort. Vision appears to be operating without any discernible inhibitions. Complete control over motor function. It would seem I had the cook beheaded for nothing.”
Set played idly with the top of his chalice. He was unable to maintain eye contact with the jarl, who by all reasonable standards appeared to be the very manifestation of madness incarnate.
“In fact, he just botched the simplest assassination attempt in the world,” Rune added casually. “From the hint of lavender, I’d wager that he mixed up the vials. How disappointing. I just wish someone might one day be competent enough to make this whole song and dance interesting. Drink up, Set. It’s safe. As you just witnessed, I tested it myself.”
Set took a sip from his chalice as ordered. Gingerly. Sheepishly. Like the little child Rune viewed him as.
“Usually when we drink wine, we draw enough to wet our lips,” Rune said wryly. “No matter. Let’s proceed. You are here because I need you to deliver a missive to Lugh in Emain Macha. It is a task of utmost importance and it is why you have remained here for five days. If not for this letter, we would have allowed you to wander around the sewers to your heart’s content until you inevitably fell into the sewage and drowned.”
Set’s gaze did not rise from the table in front of him. He had fallen victim to a complete paralysis that rendered every instinct in him utterly ineffective.
“You learn nothing from us by skulking around in the dark like a rat,” Rune added caustically. “Here in Dubh Linn we trade in information. We recognise that to obtain one hundred secrets means to know less than you started out with. You, in your conceited arrogance, fail to appreciate the true value of knowledge. Everything you have seen here may have been specifically orchestrated for you to see it. Are you aware of that? Of course not. But even the ignorant can be messengers of limited proficiency. They can serve at least some purpose.”
Set winced. Never before had he been spoken to with such brazen disrespect, such utter disregard for who he was and where he hailed from.
But never before had he encountered anyone half as intimidating as One-Eyed Rune. He did not speak, did not make any effort to refute the insults Rune relentlessly lambasted him with. He endured the onslaught of abuse like a mutt wearing a muzzle.
“Naturally, I do not trust that you will be capable of accomplishing this task alone,” Rune continued. “You were, after all, unable to complete even the most basic of reconnaissance missions in our tunnels. I will be assigning you an escort constituted by three of our own young talents, from whom you might hope to glean some scrap of ambition and potential, and with whom you will be acquainted forthwith. They too are known for their insolence — although I have yet to see in you any signs of what my informants have suggested. Perhaps you will turn out to be yet another disappointment. Let us hope that is not the case.”
Set fidgeted with his hands, eyes locked on the table. Suddenly, as if spurred on by some ferocious instinct of unknown origin, he raised his head and stared at Rune with all of the impertinence he could muster.
It was only then that he realised what the silver embroidery on the jarl’s eyepatch depicted.
It was a dragon.
