The Merotrose Misfortune
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The Merotrose Misfortune
PC: Vivrie Merotrose
Login: its_a_fireOnce upon a time, there was an enchanted castle that never settled but drifted across the land on great wheels of cloud. As it rolled over the moor and through the woods, the castle threw no shadow because it was made entirely of glass and of light. Nearly invisible was this castle for the glass was not melted from sand but composed of thoughtful, beautiful words. The light too had an ethereal quality: burnt from neither oil nor peat, but a light born of the magical fire that burns inside dragons.
Wherever two roads met, the castle was certain to pass. All with pure hearts who looked on it could see its glimmering shape, and they loved it. But those with dark hearts could not see the castle, and they coveted it and despised the owners.
#
“Lord Ashhart, welcome to my castle!” Werner Merotrose extended his hand like an actor filling an amphitheater with motion. His audience and his stage were much smaller though, and he struck his eldest daughter in the forehead as she curtsied to their guest.
Vivrie couldn’t tell if she saw stars or an actual centipede scuttling across the floor until the insect brushed her bare foot. She yelped and hopped into their guest, bumping her nose this time on the man’s stubborn chest. Behind her, she heard the unmistakable tinkle and thump of a fairy dragon crashing. The sound of her familiar’s chewing filled the little room.
As Vivrie removed herself and brushed the man’s jacket, Lord Ashhart’s nostrils flared. He removed his wide-brimmed hat, but he tugged tighter his black leather gloves. “Mr. Merotrose, your castle uncannily resembles a cheap inn.”
“Hey now,” the innkeeper, Nancette, stirred from her stool. The setting sun still lit the grease-smeared window, but Nancette was so deep into her cups that Vivrie wasn’t an ounce surprised when the gap-toothed woman’s struggle failed to produce upward momentum.
Werner was at Nancette’s side instantly, and he caressed the woman’s jowel with one of his hairy hands to sooth her. Vivrie was nearly ill at the sight. From the alcove, her sister made a noise like a sickly rat snoring.
“He jests my dumpling,” Werner murmured. “The Merchant Lords of Hawkesbury are renowned for their dry humor.” As he emphasized the title, even the innkeeper’s mole grew wan.
“Won’t you come in, my lord?” Vivrie said as she stepped aside.
“We have spared no expense,” Werner exclaimed. “Name your poison, and we’ll find you a bottle.”
“Wine.”
Nancette pushed herself up while simultaneously shoving Werner to the floor. “My lord, we have rum in eleven varieties, ale from the moors, ale from the valley…”
“Wine,” Lord Ashhart repeated. His nostrils flared again. Vivrie began to feel sorry for the poor flaps of pallor, who couldn’t have expected this much work on an evening out.
Werner smacked Nancette’s rear. “Be a dear, Nanc, and send a boy for wine. Red. I’ll pay.”
After all the petting and flaring, Vivrie couldn’t bear that last offense. “Daddy, it’s our gold too.”
Werner’s laugh was more nervous than disarming. “Family first,” he said though Vivrie couldn’t see how the motto applied. Their father’s sayings always seemed to mean their opposite. Werner gestured for the imaginary cheap seats. This time Vivrie dodged. “You’ve not met my daughters, have you, my lord? The dove obsessing over the accounts is Vivrie. Smart as a whip.”
Lord Ashhart bowed his head. “Your scoundrel father being burdened with the intelligence of a rock, I will trust he believes herding implements are accomplished scholars.”
“Yes indeed!” Werner laughed.
Vivrie’s cheeks burned at what sounded conceivably within the realm of a compliment. “Thank you, my lord. I’m going to be a battle-wizard. Dad bought me a spellbook and everything. I’m even learning Draconic.”
“Neep!” exclaimed the butterfly-winged dragon on her shoulder.
“Neep!” Vivrie agreed.
Lord Ashhart’s dark eyebrows made an ambiguous inward slant. Silent as the grave, he turned to the next daughter. Hilda was sitting in the alcove by the pipe-yellowed windows.
Werner grinned. “This dark-haired beauty is Hilda, master of a thousand languages, translator to kings.”
“Charmed,” Lord Ashhart said before the girl could speak.
Hilda looked up from her book. It was difficult to tell who was more annoyed by the exchange, and Vivrie felt a tinge of jealousy pinch her throat. The two pairs of gloomy eyes stared across the little room as though their misery were a secret language she could never understand.
“They’re twins if you can believe it. Like night and day.” Werner laughed. He was laughing a lot, Vivrie noted. Something had gone wrong.
Lord Ashhart began to speak, but he was interrupted by the door. Nancette arrived with every cook, bartender, dishwasher, and stableboy bearing plates of prawns, oysters, and meat pies. Vivrie could only manage a third of the math before the expensive smells overwhelmed her. Even Hilda placed a thumb in her book and moved to a bench at the table. Sitting across from her sister, Vivrie kicked under the table and nodded toward Nancette, who had pulled up a stool for herself. Hilda only kicked Vivrie back and did nothing about the intruder.
Lord Ashhart sat beside Hilda. He let his hands remain in his lap while the family tore into the food. “How generous of you, Mr. Merotrose, to buy me dinner with my own gold.”
“Think of this as Lord Dunard’s gold if you like,” Werner said with his mouth half-full of prawn. “A toast, my lord, my daughters, my dumpling. A toast to the tax-evaders of Hawkesbury who finally found it within their hearts to contribute to the war effort.”
Lord Ashhart raised his glass of wine. “A toast to the alliance seems more fitting.”
Werner and the sisters drank. Lord Ashhart instead rubbed his thumb on the glass, smudging a spot of grease without quite cleaning it.
Werner raised his mug again. “Yes, a toast to the famously intractable alliance with its contradictory pacts of mutual defense and autonomy. At toast to the ages of despondent friendship between the Merchant Council of Hawkesbury and the Priest-lieges of Waterford. Centuries of heated indifference finally broken when a scoundrel managed to see the profit in the endeavor. Why, the world is probably better off that I blackmailed you, my lord. Don’t you agree?”
Lord Ashhart smiled without moving his lips, a most unsettling feat. “Quite.”
Vivrie leaned toward her father and whispered, “Daddy, you’re gloating.” Grandiosity was a worse sign than the laughter.
Werner dropped an elbow onto the table, distressing the peas atop a savory pudding, as he pointed to Lord Ashhart. “Why, because of what we accomplished here, history will remember you as the savior of Hawkesbury.”
“I wouldn’t be remembered at all if you didn’t brag about your exploits to every busty waitress from here to Port Ditton.”
“Nancette’s a good girl. Aren’t you, my dumpling?” Werner’s hand disappeared beneath the table. Vivrie gagged on a mouthful of bread. She felt tiny claws pound on her upper back.
Lord Ashhart and his passionless gaze shifted to Hilda beside him. “What are you reading?”
Without so much as a glance, Hilda turned her back on the merchant lord and poured another oyster down her throat.
Vivrie, who had finally made her tongue work again, uttered a quiet word and worked her fingers beneath the table. Caught by the spell, Nancette slid from her stool and lay beached and unconscious on the dirty floor.
At last, Lord Ashhart laughed.
#
The King of this ethereal castle had no armies, no knights. He did not become king by birthright. No, he earned his crown as the prize for a rare talent: he knew the secret to finding what people needed most - whether it was warm boots or a restorative, a silk scarf or enough seed for twenty fields. Wherever the castle stopped, the King would hold audience, and the next morning he and the castle would be gone, set out on his endless quest to fulfill the people’s every wish. And so the kingdom’s census was beyond counting. Everyone needed something, and everyone loved the King.
#
The Merotrose carriage had been painted a vibrant purple once. Vivrie picked at the flaking chips while the carriage fought for every inch on the narrow street from the lower quarter to the hill where Hawkesbury’s elite lived. She longed for the open road far from the swarming cobblestones of Hawkesbury, but she knew too it was bad luck to remain in a town after the chain of deals they’d just pulled. “Why do we have to see Lord Ashhart? I don’t think he wants to see us.”
Without looking up from her book, Hilda added, “You promised we could visit the bookseller first thing.”
“If Hilda gets a book, then I should get a new scroll.”
Werner held up an empty hand in surrender. “My princesses, all in good time. First we have to visit Lord Ashhart because he owes me money.”
“Owes us money,” Vivrie corrected. “Family first.”
“Yes, he owes us money. So we can’t leave Hawkesbury until I see him, and you know he’ll keep me waiting. If we’re going to leave before dark, we have to see him now.”
“At least give us some gold and let us shop while you wait, Daddy. Please?”
“The problem with that…”
“No, don’t even say it,” Vivrie interrupted, her skin boiling. She had half a mind to plug her ears. Finally the laughing and gloating made sense.
“I loaned him some of the money.”
“Daddy...” Vivrie’s warning tone could have ignited the carriage.
“You’ll see. His family held a council seat for generations. Debts matter with a reputation like that.” Werner spooked the horse when a new inch of road opened before them.
Vivrie snorted. Edmond crossed his tiny arms.
Werner glanced at them briefly. “You know, you sound just like your mother when you get that way.”
It was a common comparison for both girls, but sometimes their father managed to say the words without them sounding like a compliment.
Lord Ashhart’s home rose above a modest orchard with a quiet grace far less severe than Vivrie had imagined. She had already married him off to Hilda in her mind and made them both vampires. The only dwelling suitable for the couple required iron details, dead trees, and good deal more bats. Werner parked their carriage outside the yard, hidden by the stone wall. Anther sign of trouble.
“Vivrie, you’re roper.”
Vivrie groaned. “He’s not expecting us, is he?”
“Just get us inside. Silver detergent should work. Hilda, put the book down.”
“I’m listening,” she said as she turned a page.
Werner sighed. “Once we’re in, run a mistaken address and violin job. Might as well work while we wait.”
The door opened onto a balding man who was assaulting his dark suit like a burst sausage. Vivrie smiled, graciously she hoped, until she saw the man’s eyes take in the fairy dragon on her shoulder then travel south toward her bare feet. He sneered in silent judgment.
Vivre tried to hold her smile. “Good morning, sir. May I speak to Lady Ashhart?”
“The Merchant Lord is unmarried and presently not at residence.”
“Well that’s no good,” Vivrie said with all the sympathy she could cobble for the grim lord. “Single men rarely appreciate things like the lengths a butler must go to in order to motivate the staff.”
“I am cognizant of who you are, Miss Merotrose,” the butler said with such an imitation of his lord’s undertones that Vivrie wondered for a moment whether he’d been dominated (proving her vampire theory). “As a matter of fact,” the butler continued, “I am astonished that the constable has not apprehended you and your father for questioning. You see, the Merchant Lord did not return last night.”
Vivrie could do the numbers as easily: the whole inn had witnessed Lord Ashhart’s visit. The city watch wouldn’t miss that detail either.
The butler sniffed. “If your father would like to stop hiding in the bushes, you are both welcome to enter through the back door and wait in the kitchen. The messenger I dispatched to the city watch should return shortly.”
“No thank you,” Vivrie shouted, already halfway to the carriage.
Once she’d explained, she watched her father’s face turn pale as a vampire’s. “We’ll fix this,” he said. “Trust me.”
#
_Only one Queen ever won this nomad King’s heart, but that’s a story for another time. What’s important today is how she left him with two beautiful princesses. Twins, they were. As different from each other as night and day.
The youngest daughter - by only a minute, mind - she was dark of hair liker her father, but like her mother the Queen, she preferred books to people. Yet when she could be coaxed out of the castle, this princess spoke with words most eloquent in one-hundred-eleven languages and counting. Sage elves turned to listen to her advice. Barbarians laid down their axes at her entreaties. She made doors and locks open wherever she went._
#
No matter the subject Vivrie explored, her father fell back into the same muttering loop. “We can’t lose everything this time. We’re the heroes.”
They were on the opposite side of town from Nancette’s inn, and far from anywhere that the watch might know to look for them. Still, Vivre kept an eye on the shop’s customers while she tried to fill her father’s emotional well with praise and hope. Werner appeared a dark-capped mushroom the way he slumped in the rear of the tea shop, hardly inconspicuous among the pastel colors and lively chatter of the afternoon crowd.
At last Vivrie spied a familiar chin beneath a man’s wide-brimmed hat. A year seemed to pass between Hilda ordering a tea and the moment she deemed it safe to approach her family. Even then, she didn’t touch her disguise. She appeared in every motion a reedy dandy from Hawkesbury, the sort who might own the nasal voice she adopted for the part.
“The watch is in a state of confusion. They’re still prepared for trouble on the southern wall, but the commanders were called into the city center this morning. None have returned to their posts yet, and I think I know why. A report I swiped says Waterford was attacked during the night.”
“Nothing about us then.” Vivrie slouched with relief.
“Waterford?” Werner shot up. “No, no, no. The lich’s army was supposed to approach Hawkesbury first. This is all wrong.”
“The watch doesn’t know how the army of the dead got there, but multiple sources confirm it.”
“But the road and the river to Waterford pass through Hawkesbury. That was the whole plan, why the potions were most valuable here.”
“Guess the lich knew,” Hilda shrugged. The fate of the alliance towns never aroused any passion in her. Neither had the blackmail, the heist of the weapons, nor the dealing and double-crossing that brought the Waterford healing stores to Hawkesbury.
For her own part, Vivrie had been less concerned with the advancing undead than the thrill of pulling off such a complicated job. They had sold broken and defective weapons to a town’s enemy to aid the resistance. How many traveling merchant could boast that? As much as she wanted to test her magic, she preferred a quick exit and the gold to seed their next job.
Only their father found the “hero” aspect a motivating factor. He held his head in his hands and muttered. “What went wrong?
“Where’s Ashhart?” Vivrie asked her sister.
“No one’s seen him.”
The lord’s disappearance was more troubling in light of the battle at Waterford. Lord Ashhart knew the whole plan. He’d advised half of it after the blackmail began. Could he have been questioned, arrested?
“Maybe the merchant lords are meeting,” Vivrie offered. “If the commanders are.”
“Unlikely,” Hilda said. Before Vivrie could chide her for being negative, Hilda pointed to the door with her cup. “That’s Lord Dunard there, isn’t it?”
Though she knew better, Vivrie looked. The round-faced merchant lord saw her then crushed the hat in his hand. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t just the candy-mouthed bottom-dealers I was looking for.”
“Lord Dunard,” Vivrie said, loudly, calling the crowd’s attention to the noble’s presence. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”
“You owe me explanations, you feckless fleecers,” the lord hissed as he rest his knuckles on their table and leaned his face in toward Werner’s. “Merotrose, you owe me an explanation for every gold piece you and your daughters took from me. Fall short, and I’ll settle the balance with a whip.”
Werner grew pale, but he was staring past the Lord Dunard. A squad of the city watch were filing into small shop awkwardly. The crowd fell silent as they watched the guards enter with shields banging against chairs and catching on skirts. The watch pressed their backs against the wall while the captain shuffled sideways along their ranks. Following her was a familiar grim face.
“That’s him, captain,” Lord Ashhart said. “There’s the one who stole the weapons. Werner Merotrose.”
#
The King’s eldest daughter - by only a minute - was fair of complexion. Like her father, she loved people and their stories, but peasant farmers and merchants feared this princess for light and warmth were hers to command. Like her mother the Queen, the princess possessed an affinity for magic. Not only could she summon fire from the planes, but her natural beauty commanded the attention of dragons. Yes! One such dragon was her daring companion - a mighty creature, shining silver and purple in his mistress’s glow. Woe to any stranger who tried to separate them.
#
Her father and sister could not have been gone an hour, but Vivrie was certain the sun had set twice since they were taken into the captain’s office with Lord Ashhart. Vivrie disliked being separated from them. Lord Dunard, sweating and shaking beside her, did not ease the pangs of fear and loneliness. Poor Edmond occupied a sack on the other side. Bouts of hissing and clawing stretched the burlap.
“Edmond, save your strength,” she whispered. “Daddy said he’d take care of it, so we have to believe he will. Besides, you couldn’t pick my locks anyway.”
“Can you though?” Lord Dunard hissed in her ear.
Vivrie had lost the will to deny the implication. “That’s Hilda’s trick.”
“He’s the brains, she’s the stealth. Which one are you? Useless that’s what.”
Vivrie felt her skin burn. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know you’re all thieves, con-artists, swindlers.”
“We take care of each other because the world won’t. Maybe that’s not something you ever had to learn, owning so much land and all.”
“Pah, the bank owns the land. More snivelling fleecers like your family. In my father’s day…”
Lord Dunard’s history stopped and his mouth hung open. Vivrie was afraid that her anger had accidentally put him to sleep for a moment. However, following his gaze, she saw a beautiful woman in a dress like liquid gold. The woman’s arms, her neck, even her feet were hung with delicate strands of gold. Vivrie’s awe and jealousy didn’t stop at the clothing either. The way the woman’s hair had been braided and pinned left her breathless. The woman’s lips had been painted the perfect shade of rosewood. Her eyes were green gems.
Vivrie shivered in the instant the woman’s eyes met her own. She felt her life’s story slip away, her every mistake and misdeed revealed in the light of those eyes. She tucked her dirty feet under the bench.
“Crap. What’s she doing here?” Lord Dunard whispered when the lady had passed into another room.
“Who is that?”
“Lady Archambault. She owns that bank I mentioned and most of Hawkesbury by extension.”
The room relaxed, but Vivrie tried to remember the anger Lord Dunard had been fueling within her. She wished her magic was more constant, but she felt barely enough energy to light a candle. She nearly asked him to conjure more insults when a guardsman burst through a door.
“Intruders in the armory! Blevin’s dead. Dead god. They came out of nowhere, right on top of him. He didn’t even have time to reach his sword. Poor Blevin.”
The guards moved quickly. One helped the frightened man sit while the others took to arms and charged the stairs. Vivrie sat shocked until the screams began. She didn’t need Lord Dunard’s help now. Her heart was pounding. The metal manacles felt like an iron stove burning her wrists. Damn her father for this, she thought. She didn’t ask to die chained to a wall with a crybaby.
She felt her hands move freely. There were red marks on her wrists that would surely blister in a day, but she didn’t need to think about that yet. She rose and tore Edmond’s bag open. “Come on. We need to save Daddy and Hilda.”
The fairy dragon zipped toward the ceiling and screeched. The only remaining guard reached for a sword, but Edmond caught him with a blast of his breath. The guard fell face-first into a desk.
“Poor Blevin,” the man by the cellar moaned. Below, the clanks and screams of fighting and dying echoed.
Vivrie stood still and listened. She didn't owe the guards anything. They’d just as soon throw her in a cell as help her. “Rats,” she whispered as her heart made a decision.
In the armory, guards from the watch were fighting animated skeletons who outnumbered them. Edmond turned half-invisible and dove into the fray, stealing skulls and arm-bones from the enemy. The space was too tight for true fire, but Vivrie fired off every magic missile she could muster. The tide turned quickly against the undead.
There was a flash of white light. The skeletons were gone. In the excitement of the battle, Vivrie wasn’t sure whether she’d had another magical accident or if the remaining enemy had teleported away. She grinned. Either way, they’d won. They could spin this, she thought. Now the watch had to let her family go, right? It was only fair.
She felt a pair of heavy hands grab her wrists. An equally heavy voice spoke behind her. “Take her to a cell. And be sure she’s properly restrained for a spellcaster this time.”
Another member of the watch had picked up the cracked blade from a fallen skeleton. “Hey, I recognize this blacksmith’s mark.”
#
The King was fortunate to have these two daughters, because the people of his kingdom faced a grave threat: a great dragon had settled in the mountains at the edge of their land, and the beast had taken to stealing their sheep and goats. So tireless was the dragon’s appetite, so empty was the monster’s stomach, that whole herds disappeared overnight. Peasants would wake to a circle of scorched grass the hillside.
The King listened to the complaints. He stroked his left mustache. He stroked his right mustache. And he thought. He was King, yes, but he knew also that he had two things the peasants did not: he had two talented daughters.
#
The setting sun lit the bay so brightly that it seemed the water had caught fire in the west, where the prison ship was headed, away from Hawkesbury. Hilda and Vivrie were chained to the floor on one side. Their father and Lord Dunard were chained to the opposite. The crew of six sailors walked between them, working with such indifference to their cargo that they never bothered to hurl a single insult at them.
Vivrie wanted to believe that her father would jump to his feet at any minute. He always had a plan. But his head hung low. His hair looked thin and pale in the orange light.
“Dragon starboard!” shouted one of the crew.
All four prisoners sat up and peered at the sky. Vivrie could see the V-shaped wings, scalloped and rolling with waves to the point of the tail. With the sky changing colors, she found it impossible to tell the color of dragon.
“Neep?”
“I don’t think that’s your mother, Edmond,” Vivrie said while the crew leaped and shouted.
“Incoming!” someone shouted from the helm.
Vivrie’s eyes grew wide when a thin jet of fire lit the air above the ship. “It missed,” she said.
“It’s a brass,” Hilda said. “They don’t like to fight directly.”
“Oh crap,” Lord Dunard said. “That’s Lady Archambault.”
“What?” Vivrie shouted.
All around them, the sailors had taken the message. There were no emergency rafts, but they began to leap overboard anyway. Lord Dunard cried for help, but the prisoners were ignored. Whatever the dragon intended, the sailors would not spare them from it.
“Did you say that’s Lady Archambault?” Vivrie shouted over the noise of the crew and the buffet of wings when the dragon made a second warning pass.
“You didn’t know? Gods, if you go mucking about in Hawkesbury, you’d best know who runs the place. You must have done something to piss her off.”
“Nobody ever mentioned a dragon,” Vivrie shouted over the terrifying wind rising behind her. She turned her head and felt stunned by the sight of the massive brass head, the luminous green eyes, and the sharp, sharp teeth. Edmond’s claws ripped her skin as he clung to her thigh, but she couldn’t even flinch, couldn’t move at all.
“Merotrose.” The voice was ancient, like a mountain waking.
Lord Dunard flailed as he tried to sit up straight. “Lady Archambault, I promise I…”
“Silence!” the dragon roared. “Merotrose, I should have ended you the second you entered my town.”
Dad smiled thinly. “Aghazstamnyx, you look ravishing. I regret I have no wine to offer you.”
“I do not want your wine!” the dragon shouted. Vivrie could feel the heat on her skin, and she expected to feel flame any second. “The caravan heist was one thing. But this? I never suspected you capable of such treachery. Tell me why I should not end you.”
“My Lady, I had no idea you watched over Hawkesbury.”
“You try my patience, Merotrose.”
“If I had known...”
“Innocents have died. My plans disrupted. You try my patience, Merotrose. You will use my blood against me no more.”
Vivrie looked toward her father, tears in her eyes. She wanted him to say something, to trick the dragon. He could do that. He was the king of the invisible castle. If anyone could con a dragon, it was her father.
Werner smiled sadly. He was looking not at the dragon, but at his daughters. “Hilda, Vivie, my princesses. Wherever you go, I will find you always.”
“I’m scared.” It was Hilda speaking. Vivrie couldn’t make her voice work.
The air shivered and rushed toward the dragon. It was preparing to breathe. Vivrie didn’t want to die.
“Well fix this,” Werner said. “Trust me.”
#
The little fishing community said she was lucky to be alive. They said Umberlee must have a purpose for her. They demanded she pray with them before she could even sit up.
Lucky to be alive. The villagers didn’t know the half of it.
Vivrie couldn’t remember how she’d been unshackled. She couldn’t remember the fire that must have consumed the prison ship, or how she escaped untouched by flame. Even the burns on her wrists had healed. Two days she slept, the villagers said. No one knew how long she’d been lost at sea.
The villagers said she and Edmond had been found on the shore, clinging to one another like mother and child. They requested all kinds of magic from them. Once she was better, they said. She tried to tell them she wasn’t that type of mage. They didn’t understand. Most magic was so far beyond her understanding. How was she supposed to explain it to fishers?
Edmond wouldn’t say anything about the dragon, the sea. Whether and how long he’d been awake, what the dragon did to the ship, where father and Hilda were. Edmond was mute. He barely neeped at all until at last they set out on the road together.
Vivrie pointed herself north. Away from Hawkesbury. Away from the sea and the dragon. Narfell, the caravan driver said at the next town said. That seemed far enough. Even without the carriage and their supplies, it hadn’t been difficult to find the gold for the trip.
On the road, Vivrie kept remembering that stupid story about the castle that dad would tell them on the road. She missed his gloating and laughing. Calling himself a king. Painting their wagon and their wares like true enchantments.
She realized he’d never finished the story, and she cried fearing she would never know the end. The princesses would go on all kinds of quests together, using their wits and their magic to save the day. But when the Vivrie’s eyes grew heavy, the dragon still out there, waiting for her. What were princesses supposed to do about a dragon anyway?
-
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