B.T.V. -- Session 09 Prologue: The Embers & the Glowing

“There’s the Hawk girl I told you about. See her hands? I told you her hands were beautiful.”

“Her hands aren’t what I’m looking at.”

“You’re really a specimen, siz’Acuna, you know?”


A ruder retort didn't have the chance to come from siz’Acuna’s mouth. It was pre-empted by the arrival of the lecturer. He arrived like a storm that was on the verge of dissipating. His lecturer’s jacket threw off library dust with each step. His collar length hair was mussed and his hair ribbon was wilted not stiffly creased as it should be. His eyelids flickered just perceptibly, as though he had a minor illness. One of his shoes squelched as though he’d stepped in a puddle not long before. The draegeran parents who paid for the lecturer’s time allowed for his poor physical presentation. This was not a class for learning deportment and etiquette. This class was about the history of Adrilankha. There was no better lecturer than Gries ffir’Hanatagge. He reached the lectern with seven more steps.

‘SquELch, ____, squelCH, ____, sQUELch,____, Squelch.’

He spoke with a voice that was like ink drops being dripped into slowly swirling water, a thin wispy thing that drew attention through its flowing, changing nature. His voice moved sinuously to his listeners ears, getting their attention despite the usual rustling and voices and despite Gries not raising his own.

“I seek to inform while providing more than facts. I leave that for the drier collegians. With apologies to the minstrels' art, I try to bring life to history, by getting to the reality of times gone. There is drama in the book if you can only breathe life into the word. Welcome to the lectures of the thirtieth hour.”

A whisper to the person beside, an excited nudge of an elbow into ribs, even a few scattered claps of approval; the students were ready to willingly forgo youthful energy and be still.

“I am gratified to see many here. The thirtieth hour is long and late. Later than any other. The late hour is meant for resolutions: Will the scorned find revenge? Will the creature destroy the villagers? What will the jewels sell for? Can the advocate find the evidence to prove the crime wasn’t committed?”

The lecture room had fallen still. Gries’s words began to fill the room with an atmosphere that drew the students’ minds together on to a shared plane, where his voice was the only master. ffir’Hanatagge’s historical decanting was beginning.




“Look far down from the hills to the west. The sombre clouds line up before us. We pull the silken cord that parts the skies to reveal a city. A city that looks to rival the greatest cities ever known. They have place names that have seeped into the blood we share: Tanelorn, Lanhkmar, Londra, Sainted Ark, Samarkand... Adrilankha.”

Gries paused to adjust his jacket’s collar. He stood it up at the back and set the pointed tips of it forward to cup his cheeks. He made a point to tightly button his jacket’s cuffs. “The air cuts. We descend. The air is colder than it should be on an evening like this. Men and women wrap up tight against the chill. The guardsmen are permitted their silk scarves as they provide warmth, while the 'specials' cinch their indigos to keep out the worst. The taverns, are doing well. All but one are busy — a cold night means good business — The Coalfires And Red-Hot Pokers has just closed. The manager Wourde has handed the keys to Trean who begins his team's early morning shift. The tavern has been shuttered on the advice of an easterner. He claims that trouble is coming and proves his earnestness by giving one hundred orbs over to compensate for the loss of trade. History is coming to Colleridge.”



Involuntary murmurs, all positive, emanated from the rapt audience. Only a few still mustered a studied nonchalance toward the lecturer’s words. Two Chreotha males, a Dzur female and two Dragons a brother and sister. The rest were eyes wide, brows arched, chins propped; minds focused on Gries.



“A cold night, in the reign of Zerika the Fourth, made more chilling by the deeds that would be done before the Furnace was stoked for the next day’s start.

The Coalfires is all but silent. Only one set of footsteps fall on the tavern’s floorboards. The sound is made mostly by boot heel. A strange and metallic tone is heard to accompany each step. Like the person wearing them, these long boots are not from Adrilankha. They cannot be cobbled by any in all Axildusk. These are riding boots, made for a horseman. This is a rider of horses so well-accustomed to this activity that he wears them every day. Horses are plentiful and used for transport by everyone where he is from. The noise comes from what are called by his people, spurs. I shall call him an Exveil. His parents named him Finndo.

See now, he steps to the bar. He nods to the half a face that escapes from hiding around the kitchen doorjam. This is the Teckla, Jikithonia. Finndo checks the kitchen over quickly. On his way back out, note that he tests the ladder that leads up to the Windows’ cisterns. This is an important moment in the future events of Heartbreak.

At the same time, upstairs in rooms one and two, Selador and Asher are preparing themselves for what is about to occur. The first has no need to check his blade for nicks in its edge -- the blade, Messartu. There is in any great weapon’s merest conceptualisation, a requisite sharpness that is forever. These weapons are honed by the maker’s mind, not hand and whetstone. This easterner’s preparation is primarily mental. You cannot see into his mind from our current vantage point, nor can my words bring his thoughts into view. Selador’s mind is like one slain by morganti, sealed shut behind immovable slabs, in the valley of the forever-unknown.

Next door, Asher doesn’t have the luxury of introspection. He must make sure of his readiness. His drifter’s award needs cartridges to work. He checks them to see that they are full. He adjusts his armours. You will witness that he does not wear his thigh plate nor the breast plate. The Heartbreak came before Asher had gained these belongings. The interwoven pieces he does have look intact. Smiths cannot fix these things. Asher must do whatever fixes himself. The drifter is accomplished in 'weaving' his own armour. There will be some of you awaiting this next moment: Asher adjusting his ecto-bracer. The solid piece goes on his left arm. The capability of this bracer will shine far more brightly than its dark sheen would contend.

Finndo’s footsteps accompanied by the ringing, metal tone, gain the upstairs landing and are in the upstairs hall. The sound pauses as he knocks twice and once on Asher’s doorframe. The steps continue to Selador’s entrance. Finndo knocks once more, this time twice only. By the time he is inside, Asher is close on his spurred heels, shutting the door behind. Three are joined. It is to the eldest that talk is afforded.

Finndo is filled with the wisdom of battles. To we who witness this easterner, especially to those of the more contentious of Houses, it might seem strange to acknowledge his greater grasp of certain militarisms. Finndo’s outward dress gives no signal of his deep understanding of siege craft nor his immense experience from which tens of tactics can come to him in the time another might realise the shock of a battlefield development. Again, we wish to enter this one’s mind, sift through the pages it contains, study the ledger of his learning. His mind is a treasure to we who want to gain his brand of expertise. This treasure is guarded by a triple locked chest inside a chamber filled with traps... that is to say, Finndo’s mind. Our disappointment will not be complete. He will do us a service several times this night. We will get glimpses into his skill as the draegerans come to the tavern in their might.

Like it is for us, the thirtieth hour at the tavern has gone past — -- Klaghviste what is the time? So late as that? I may be taking too much time with the preamble, yet I do not want to understate the beginnings of the Heartbreak. It may be better if we plan to reconvene next week to complete the lecture.”

A young Dzur stood and said, “I would be happy to stay back to hear it told complete.” A murmur of agreement went through the hall. Gries nodded. If he was pleased it could be noted only in the several, gentle finger taps he gave to the lectern before continuing.



"The winds of that evening are brisk adding to the coolness of the air. Let us allow these winds to lift us upward from the Coalfires. We shall move high above the city. See below us? Many blue-lit lamps have been diminished. It is late and there is no need to light the roads and lanes for the Jhereg about their work. Are there Jhereg here tonight? Su, you might say that the lamps are lowered to assist the Jhereg! Of such differences are the strengths of our people shown.

On Night's River just where it narrows, three gondolas have come together. Why do we look so far from the Coalfires? There must be a reason and there is. These gondolas do mean to make an impact on the events to come.

The winds have stirred the water into excited rows of tiny waves marshalled into ranks that crash rapidly into the sides of the boats, like soldiers intent on gaining a castle’s battlements. We can see that the draegerans in the boats know each other. Great cloaks hide most of what they wear, making easy identification difficult. They greet one another quite animatedly. There does not appear to be the nervous apprehension of a fight to commence. Their confidence can be heard in the tone they take in speaking together. One makes an offhand statement about the prices charged for Lyorn meat. Another states he’s got a meeting to assess a home’s furniture. In the red lined gondola, a female says she’s got her uncle’s birthday to go to the day after next. One in the double blue gondola tells a joke which most share a laugh over and one who says he’s heard it told about a goat instead of a creotha. The boats move slowly drifting along the river’s centre. Then at an unindicated, silent signal the gondoliers are killed. The body of one falls overboard as he dies. He’s is dragged back on to the gondola. The draegerans move their boats to the southern embankment. A culvert entrance to the sewerage system is located here. They pilot the boats skilfully enough and disappear from our view. “


Gries paused to sip at something far from clear that sat at the bottom of a tumbler. There wasn’t a sound as he continued.


“We leave the secrets of the vile sewers for another point in the city. Whisked above the roofs of Dunslough, home of the downtrodden easterners, we alight in the area of Nightmarket. We have come here to watch. From our grey tiled perch we can note the numbers leaving this area for Colleridge. Down the side roads in groups of twos and threes, men and women stroll as though they simply take in the sights. For all that these individuals have been down these same roads too many times to be interested, they manage to look captivated by the buildings’ facades. At a certain point in this irregular parade we must decide that these men are involved in something other than careful examinations of shop fronts. They are concealing everything about their purpose but not at all about their identities. All wear Jhereg colours. To be heading northward from Nightmarket is odd for these men. Perhaps they seek an advantage in approaching the tavern from this direction? This advantage’s value remains to be seen.

The sky darkens from red to deep grey, then the grey congeals becoming an airship of the schoona class. Nimble and steerable, capable of fast descents and equally sharp rises. Crewed by seven able-Orca, the other ten draegerans onboard must be passengers. The airship makes its way, into Colleridge, on to the plateau’s heights and along the ridge until the tavern is to its immediate right. The ten all stare openly at the Coalfires. There is no mistaking where their interests are focused. The airship slows momentarily, then accelerating and turning hard, it heads over the ridge’s edge and straight toward the tavern. Its speed increases, there will be a close brush between keel and roof. The ten throw climbing lines over the sides even though the drop is a mere foot and inches. They are all about a silence. The silence that comes before the clamour of close combat. This is what they look for, these ten. Fighting up-close. Spears will be useless. Great swords will be useless. This will be fighting chest-to-chest, power-at-speed, with the willingness to be hurt allowing some to deliver death.”



The lecturer motioned to a student, the one nearest the tall, thin, shuttered windows to move one shutter open. Gries held up his hand when it was about halfway open, signalling that it was enough. He noted that the Dzur was no longer lounging in his seat but was leaning forward, hands gripping the seat back in front of him. Gries smiled faintly. The Dzur wasn’t his only capture. There was not-subtle evidence all about the room of students caught up in his recounting. He knew his pauses allowed their minds to form questions and expectations. Some would be answered and those that weren’t would be talked about as hypothetical possibilities for many weeks or more. This was the true lesson of his lecture. His pauses also granted them the time to anticipate what might happen next. If correct, they would be more involved and if incorrect, they would try to listen more closely and anticipate better at the next juncture. He motioned with his hand with kindly impatience at the shutter-opening student to return to his seat as though it was the student who had halted proceedings. The Tsalmoth was too large for his seat and struggled to fit into it. Some laughter occurred easing the tension that had built through Gries’s words. The lecturer knew this was necessary and that now he could resume.



“We have the Nightmarket and Colleridge junction roads filled with groups of black garbed Jhereg. We have the culvert entered by draegeran bravos of unknown affiliation. We have the ‘Masseryne Swift’ disembarking the ten on the rooftop. Much of the work has been done. I have not mentioned the score or so archers encamped on the heights. These await a sign to begin from the man who placed them here. This man has brought these forces to bear. They have been drawn as by an artist at work on his canvas. Who is this creator with violence as his brush and this robust and sequential plot as his many paints? Let us look for him in another part of Adrilankha.


Leaving the airship behind us, we move like a flock of knellbirds between the peaks of Colleridge roofs. Ahead of us are the clock towers of YardDocks. We won’t be flying that far. Our journey sees us wheel to the right over this very building. Beneath us, I am a much younger man, hard at work on a lecture about Adron’s Disaster. We don’t have time to pay our respects to me. We fly onward. The wind against us only serves to offer us the chance to soar. We take advantage of this and find ourselves high in the skies of Brightstone. Let us not be distracted by this district’s glories of architecture and art. It is late. The sky is not the decanted blue of a Brightstone day. Night sees a clear, black sky devoid of stars. Brightstone’s lamp posts are lit as a rejoinder to the inkpot depths of the sky we fly in. Once in Axildusk’s long history, the sky was lit by stars. We might doubt this but Sethra Lavode has said it is fact. I am inclined to believe her as she might well prefer the sky’s present condition to that older one. To assure ourselves that the stars are where they belong, we can cast our gaze over our shoulders to the sea. Look deep into it and there are our stars. Ever-present at the bottom of oceanic depths. They may not be constant but they are ageless and that will have to do us for now.


Past the cathedral of the gods. The gods know what is about to happen. Their attention will be as ours and so they will be heedless of us or any entreaty we might wish upon this evening. No one will be heard tonight, even the guilty who must prove their innocence will not. Even the empress should she have reason to speak it, will find her prayer unanswered. The gods await. They attend what is to follow at the tavern of the embers and the glowing. We pass their home by, and descend to an only slightly lesser construction. More slender than some but taller than most -- the minaret of e’Kieron. We find roost at the open windows of the tower that we share with several knellbirds.

We can see into the study of Calcitrant.

The knellbirds are his.

He is a Dragonlord of standing.

His raiment is severity in violet and black.

His dark hair is swept back and cut harshly to his shoulders.

In his angularity we can objectively mark out his nobility and his place among his House.

Here is a Dragon.

In a chair opposite Calcitrant, a dead man sits. His head lolls to the left, tongue a drooling, brilliant yellow and hands clenched to his shirt-front as if they were trying to claw something out of his chest. The signs of kassciartic poisoning. The victim is Michtey, former aide to the Dragonlord.


Calcitrant takes care to close the hasp of his belted sword scabbard’s buckles, checking them all for tarnish and sure closure. Twice he slides his sword almost out. Both times he returns the sword hilt to the top of its sheath with too much force. This is the only sign we receive that this is a Dragon angered.


Calcitrant e’Kieron is rarely called upon to be angry. Things he does are usually done as he would have them done. Not this night. What he has organised fills him to rage’s limit. It is clear that he believes in what must be done but more that it is wasteful. The strength he can muster will see his desire to kill the three easterners fulfilled but at great cost.

He will lose some men. This is not a concern.

He may need to face the easterners. This is not a concern.

He will be showing his strength to the rest of Adrilankha. This is his concern and it fuels his anger.

The easterners are the cause. If they had not been ideal for his plan, he wouldn’t have hired them. If they hadn’t almost directly afterward killed a Jenoine, they would still be useful. If they had let themselves be killed by the crew he’d sent at them, all would be well. If their efforts at the soap shop had been defeated, he could have left them for dead. If they hadn't managed to uncover vil'Paqqe's truth, he could have worked it differently. None of these things had happened. This evening would be a rectification and allow a kind of return to his plan. If it went best, vil’Paqqe would remain a secret. That would be a help.


Michtey. The Teckla’s handling of events had been unforgivable. We are discomfited as Calcitrant walks to the corpse. No spirit warden will enter the minaret uninvited. No knellbird of the city will betray Calcitrant’s trust. It was just as well. He has no end to his spite for Michtey. This draw the sword clears its scabbard and more than a few seconds elapse as he stabs the body over and over again. When he tires, he stops. The body is rent ruin. The plush chair it sits in, a bloody, sodden mess. He will have the easterners and he will see them silenced forever.


His coachman knows some things about his master. He is an intelligent Tsalmoth. The evening had a quality about its fringes and his master's mood has been sullen. The coachman has readied the horseless brougham. The coach lamps gleam aqua. Calcitrant gives barely a nod as he strides into the coach and abruptly sits, setting the spring assembly to rocking back and forth. The coachman hesitates. To hide this he cracks his whip several times as if testing its functionality, although this is truly not in question. The whip is used to warn off those looking for handouts, or in defence -- there is no team needed to pull the brougham. He levers off the brake, applies some force to the foot treadles and steers the brougham out the gate. His master’s curt word tells him the Colleridge destination. They will be some thirty-four minutes in arriving. Time enough for us to fly ahead and learn what we can of the easterners’ situation.


— Time?”

The female Hawk of 'the attractive hands' said, “Nearing two-some, Master Spinner.”


Gries doffed an imaginary hat at the compliment she had paid him. It was important not to wait to re-start and he did not.



“Preparations are near complete as we rejoin the easterners. Their position is precarious. Still, of these three there is something difficult to assess. These easterners are skilled. How skilled? This evening will tell Adrilankha the answer.

The eldest is Finndo. He leads their talk.

“I am set. Selador you are readied most of the time save when sleeping. Asher, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Asher smiles at the placement of the description. He has seen many ghosts. His knowledge of ghosts is deep. His knowledge of draegerans and what they are capable of is as deep. Little wonder he looks as he does to Finndo's eye.

Finndo smiles too, “They will try to overwhelm us. First our resolve. I take them to be emplaced upon the heights. What bowmen they have will be there. Setting fire to the place is unlikely. The tavern is owned and to burn it to the ground would be most costly. Besides, they will want to identify us and know we are dead. Fires have a way of obscuring facts. They will bring arrows and bolts like rain and hail, to defeat our minds if not... our hearts.

The tavern poses some challenge to an oncoming assault. We will be reliant on this. We need to ignore some basic logic in our defence. This goes against all teaching. We will not stand together. You will have to trust my experience as a man of Amber's gifted in this regard. Each of us will need to deal with a single threat. We cannot expect help. The city stands with and for its masters. Draegerans stick to their own when it comes to men like us.

One of us needs to keep an eye on the heights. One of us must keep an eye on the two entrances on the ground floor. The last of us will need to be everywhere else as needs arise.

I suggest that Asher be the heights watcher. Yes? Good man... Cousin, you and your blade will hold the ground floor, standing against all-come. Aye, that's well... I will express my versatility through the rest of the place. They have the advantage of numbers, magic and local knowledge. We have the advantage of knowing we are in the fight of our lives, with no chance at quarter being granted. We will fight as they have not seen men fight before. When we are thoroughly spent, they will come to learn a new idea of what men are capable of achieving. Adrilankha will not soon forget what transpires here between these and us. Shout for them to come. Let them hear your welcome of death. Draegerans have no fear of it because they live so long. We will teach them that we have no fear of death because we live so briefly. What’s another year or a night to such as we three?


Clasp my hand, freed of gauntlet. And so... and so...”

The easterners shake each other’s hand, in eastern fashion, hand to the others forearm. Finndo seems larger than before his speech. Yet even as we note this we realise we are mistaken. He hasn’t grown. He is somehow changed into a greater person. It is like seeing a fork melted down and turned into a mechanical marvel. This is not a disguise removed, this is the real person showing his true depth. For us, as draegerans, it is a difficult thing to accept but this easterner is someone to note. It happens with easterners sometimes but not to this extent. His words may provide the other two with some resolve. It is obvious that Finndo of Amber is well-used to making such speeches in circumstances much like this.

The other two easterners are content to ask few questions. They clarify their parts to play. For all that, they are ready. We shall see the rising of these two and the way they work to fend against the larger number approaching them on all sides.


The hour is upon the draegerans and easterners both. The focal point of attack, the tavern. Many of the usual contributing factors in an open engagement can be discounted. This will be a fight that isn’t decided by rain or wind. It won’t be decided by economics. Nor will the fight be reduced to which side can invent some new weapon that gives that side a decided advantage. Instead, this fight will be decided by the placement of a chair, the loose floorboard and strength of character. This last factor is present in all engagements but in the battle of Heartbreak ‘Ridge, it will be seen to never have been more important.

The Coalfires and Red-Hot Pokers Tavern is closed for trade but will see visceral business conducted on the premises. The Jhereg test the silence from their southern approaches. The ten atop the tavern, locate the attic entrance. The culvert-takers come to the shaft that leads upward. The tavern rotates. It turns from social hub to battleground and shall never be looked at the same afterward. It will take a place in Adrilankhan history.”



Gries paused. For only dramatic effect he closed his notes at the lectern. He had not referred to them.

“The Orb tells me the clock is at the right. I thank you for your patience. I will describe the details of what followed next week.”


The lecturer made his alternating, squelching way out of the chamber. Iorich looked at Tsalmoth. Lyorn let out a deep breath held unwittingly long. Dragon nodded to Dzur in comradely fashion and received an unusual nod in return. The assembly broke up to go to their own places in the city, knowing they’d reconvene in this hall to leave off their House-led biases to learn more. The lecturer’s brand of decanting was a blend of magic that once cast, could not be easily refused.