Interlude – Niers (1/2)

“I can’t believe it. I can’t. Is it a message? A code? Were they just bored? Or—something else?”

“Mm. I don’t know.”

“It has to be something. It can’t just be nothing. I have to know what it means.”

“You agree it means something, don’t you? Foliana? Foliana?”

The Squirrel-tribe Beastkin looked up. Foliana, leader of the Forgotten Wing Company, head of one of the Four Great Companies of Baleros, and world-famous assassin known as Three-Color Stalker, looked up. She was eating a plate of spaghetti. In a hot tub.

Foliana was a squirrel. Or rather, a squirrel with decidedly humanoid features but still evidently a squirrel. Just larger. She was of the Beastkin, the furred people of Baleros who resembled animals. Naturally, Foliana was of the Squirrel tribe. Her eyes were remarkable; the pupils were a mix of three distinct colors, bright red-pink, dreamy yellow, and clear green.

The rest of Foliana’s body was bland. In fact, so bland that she was often overlooked when people were standing right next to her. And if Foliana so chose, she could literally turn invisible. She wasn’t invisible now. She was sitting in a hot tub, her fur damp, as steam rose about her. And floating across from her in the water, staring at a miniature chess board upon which spectral chess pieces sat was Niers Astoragon. The Titan.

He was a Fraerling, a race of tiny people. He was also the second-in-command of the Forgotten Wing Company and considered to be one of, if not the greatest [Strategists] living. He floated in the hot tub, staring at the chess pieces that until recently had been moving and playing a game of chess all without his involvement.

“They played for over half a day and then just stopped. Dozens of chess games, all against themselves. At least, I think against themselves. The quality of their play was phenomenal. I can’t imagine they had an opponent of that level.”

“Mhm.”

Foliana slurped spaghetti off her plate. It was floating in a wooden bowl and she had a fork. The spaghetti had an ink-sauce that the Lizardfolk liked on top of it and there was a meatball.

If it seemed extraordinary that Foliana was eating spaghetti despite not having known of Italy or Earth for that matter, it shouldn’t have been. After all, there were only so many ways to make pasta and meatballs were meat…balls. It wasn’t exactly rocket science.

Now, if Foliana had called the dish spaghetti, that would have been a lot of coincidences. But both she and Niers knew the dish as a Dullahan favorite called Damcli Noodles. With meatballs. It was just that anyone from Earth would recognize the dish as spaghetti if they were in the room. Which they weren’t.

It was Foliana’s second bowl of spaghetti too. She slurped up more noodles as Niers stared at the chess board, waiting for his mysterious opponent to make another move. He didn’t seem to mind that Foliana was dripping ink sauce into the hot tub and the occasional noodle. Neither did she. She was eating spaghetti. Muffins were dead. Spaghetti was all.

“I just don’t understand. What do you think?”

Niers looked up hopefully. It was his and Foliana’s custom to have a hot bath after a campaign. They’d just finished a dirty series of skirmishes in one of the swampier regions of Baleros, which made the bath doubly important. Although Baleros was hot and humid, people preferred hot baths. It was a luxury and it provided several useful benefits if you had a bath Balerosian-style.

That meant the water was hot enough to scald, which meant it was hot enough to kill leeches and other parasites. And Baleros had plenty of bugs and objectionable things that liked to infest the body. So Niers and Foliana were bathing, as many did. Naked.

In Foliana’s case there wasn’t much to see due to the fur. There wasn’t much to see in Niers’ case, but that was only because he was tiny. Neither Niers nor Foliana was embarrassed or even conscious of their nudity, but it had been remarked upon. Foliana began to eat her meatball as she replied to Niers.

“I think it’s weird that none of your students want to bathe with us. Mm.”

Niers sighed. But Foliana had answered his question in her own particular way. He shrugged, letting his body sink down a bit more into the water. Fraerlings were natural floaters, given that there really wasn’t much weight for them to sink with.

“They’re nervous. Even my oldest students don’t want to share a hot tub. And I think you scare them.”

“Mm. Not all of them. Some didn’t want to join us because of the naked thing. Why?”

The tiny man shrugged.

“Other continents don’t practice mixed bathing. Or nude bathing. Or bathing at all, for that matter. It depends on the culture, but I don’t think that bathing together is a custom in Izril, Chandrar, or Terandria.”

“Weird.”

“Only to us. I’ve heard of foreigners insisting on wearing clothing into the water.”

“Why?”

Niers grinned, forgetting about the chess board for one moment.

“I think they’re afraid to see each other’s genitals. Especially Terandrians. I met a group of noblemen once who nearly fainted at the idea of seeing each other naked.”

“Why? Are they afraid of seeing something scary?”

“Or being seen, I suspect. The noblewomen were far more relaxed about the idea. They even invited me to join them.”

“Naked?”

“I suspect I was less threatening due to my size. Not that their husbands seemed to think so. Anyways, you won’t get my students to join me. Half are too afraid I’ll ask them a question they can’t answer or you’ll stab them—”

“Why?”

“—And the other half is too embarrassed. A shame; I thought Venaz would join us at least, but Minotaurs are surprisingly prudish. Not about seeing each other nude, but he refused to get in the tub with anyone of the opposite sex.”

“Mm…”

“He’s male.”

“Ah.”

Foliana nodded and slurped from her bowl of noodles. She knew who Venaz was of course. She’d met Niers’ students who attended his [Strategist] academy. And she had a very clear image of the Minotaur in her head. But the fact that he was big, muscular, and had a deep voice hadn’t helped her that much. He could have been a flat-chested female Minotaur. You never knew.

Niers realized he’d gotten sidetracked. He scowled and paddled over to his chessboard, which had floated away from him in the hot water.

“Enough about bathing. Back to the game. What do you think? About that.”

“I think it’s weird that your chessboard floats in the water. Mhm.”

The Fraerling glared up at his old friend, but with resignation. Foliana had an odd way of thinking. It was circular and she bounced from idea to idea and was surprisingly stubborn about changing lines of thought.

“Why? It’s a practical thing, to have a floating chessboard. Especially if I want to play while bathing. Like now.”

“But everything you have floats.”

That was true. Almost all of Niers’ possessions that were in any way valuable floated. His map case, his bag of holding, even his sword’s handle was made of highly buoyant wood that would allow it to float in the water. Niers grimaced.

“I’ve told you this before. Fraerlings like to make things that float. It rains in Baleros, if you hadn’t noticed. And if you’ve lost your sword or something valuable, the last thing you want to do is dive into a freshwater sea eight feet deep and try to retrieve it while fish and frogs try to swallow you whole.”

“Mm. So you don’t like ponds.”

“I’m six inches tall. Of course I don’t like ponds! Now will you tell me what you think about the game?”

“…This game?”

Niers splashed water at Foliana. She lifted her spaghetti bowl and kept eating, undeterred. After a few seconds, Niers began talking half to himself and half to Foliana.

“You don’t understand it. But you don’t play chess. I do. Dead gods, people think I invented the game. But this? Look at this!”

He waved a trembling hand at the chess board. Foliana looked into her bowl. It was empty. And the water was cooling. She decided she was done with her bath. She got out as Niers talked.

“My opponent—he—she—it—played twenty six games. All master-class games! At speed! Against themselves! Are they trying to tell me I’m not on their level? Or—was this a demonstration? Are there two players of that quality in this world? Selphid’s tits, tell me there are.”

Foliana paused in toweling herself off.

“Selphids have tits?”

Niers sighed. He rubbed at his face. He had grey and black hair and a sharp beard. And an irked expression. He looked up and glared.

“Selphids don’t have tits, Foliana. You know that. You’ve heard the expression before.”

“Mm. Yes. But how do you know that?”

Foliana waited, but she only heard a sigh.

“Pass me a towel, would you?”

The Squirrel-woman delicately picked up a tiny piece of fabric and passed it to Niers as he climbed out of the tub. She lifted his chess board up and set it on a table before doing the same to Niers. He industriously dried himself—his towel was spelled to absorb moisture and made of the highest-quality cotton grown on Baleros.

Foliana was using a much cheaper towel. She’d probably acquired it from someone else’s bathroom in the citadel. The former palace turned into living quarters for the Forgotten Wing company was their home when not on campaign.

“Selphids look like blobs. You know that. They don’t have tits. And yes, I’ve seen that first-hand.”

“Lewd. Mm. What would the children say?”

“They’re the ones that taught me that expression.”

Niers looked around for some clothes and walked across his table towards them. He walked past his bed, personal belongings, and a small library of books which had all been arranged on the table Foliana was sitting at. Eating a third bowl of spaghetti. This one was flavored with pieces of seaweed and a pink, sweet glaze sauce to cut the saltiness.

“So your mysterious opponent played a lot of games.”

“Yes.”

“And?”

Foliana saw Niers glance at his chess board as he came back, throwing on a pair of leggings and hose.

“And now someone else has a hold of it. An idiot, by the looks of things.”

Someone was moving the magical chess pieces. Only, they weren’t playing a game with them. Many pairs of hands were piling up the chess pieces on top of each other. Niers sighed.

“Someone else has the chess board. Damn! But who?”

They were making a tower out of the magical chess pieces. It had to be children. Niers stared glumly at the board as the tower fell over and then was quickly reassembled. He shook his head. Foliana looked interested for the first time.

“Looks like fun. Can I help?”

“No.”

“Mm.”

The Squirrel Beastkin didn’t look too disappointed. Because she already had a normal-sized chessboard and was piling up the chess pieces to make her own tower. Niers eyed it balefully but let it go. For now.

“I just don’t know what they were doing. They had to know I’d see what was happening. Right? Or they’d do this with another chess board. Unless they’re too poor to—no, they’d have sold the magical chessboard. This is a message. It must be. But what? It could be a code, but it was too fast for me to decipher. Or just a display of abilities? Maybe…”

Foliana paused in piling up a rook on top of her very tall tower of chess pieces.

“Mm. You should stop.”

“Stop? Stop what?”

“Pacing. And acting lovesick.”

She looked at Niers. He was indeed pacing around the magical chessboard, which was tiny compared to the duplicate he’d had made and sent across the world to his mysterious opponent. Niers stopped pacing.

“I’m not lovesick.”

“Yes you are. This is bad. Worse than the time you travelled to Terandria. Remember?”

Niers gritted his teeth and colored.

“I’d rather not.”

“It was when you thought there was a [Lady]. Mm. Who was a strategic genius. Remember?”

“Yes. Please stop talking.”

“And it turned out it was the Lord of the Dance instead?”

The Titan turned beet red and shouted.

“How was I supposed to know it was him? He never mentioned his name! And the stationary he sent me was perfumed!”

“Mhm. You were lovesick then too. You had flowers.”

Niers Astoragon had made his enemies weep. He’d broken armies with nothing more than a quill and ink and a bit of bark to write on. He’d defeated one of the King of Destruction’s Seven and fought other Great Companies. But only Foliana could make him cover his eyes in sheer embarrassment.

“It was a mistake. And this isn’t the same.”

“Really?”

For a second Niers contemplated going over to kick Foliana’s bowl of spaghetti into her lap. He looked up sharply and saw Foliana’s tri-color stare looking right back. That was the last thing many people saw. And Niers’ anger slowly subsided. Because Foliana didn’t look like she was making a joke.

“Go on.”

The Squirrel-woman nodded. She slurped down a noodle and balanced a pawn at the top of her tower, which was several times Niers’ height. The magical chessboard’s tower kept falling over due to poor structural design.

“You used to play chess with your mysterious mage friend from Wistram. You were lovesick. Or obsessed. Mm. Close enough.”

Niers scowled darkly.

“I stopped that.”

“Yes. After you found out it was half the mages in Wistram working together to play you.”

“It was fairly obvious after all the gossip started. Mages can’t keep their mouths shut. What’s your point?”

“You could have kept going. But you stopped. Because it wasn’t one person.”

“No. It wasn’t. I thought it was Archmage Feor. He played the first few games, but he’s not at my level. Not without using predictive magics and boosting his mind, I think. It could have been another of the Archmages…so what?”

“You’re lonely.”

Foliana’s words made Niers pause. Then he shook his head.

“No I’m not.”

“Yes you are.”

“I’m not, Foliana. I live in a citadel filled with people. I meet people all the time.”

“Subordinates. Other people. Not [Strategists]. Doesn’t matter. You’re lonely. No one you meet is as good as you.”