AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Thank you for reading this! This is the prologue of a new erotically-charged low-magic fantasy series, full of sex, violence, politics and intrigue: my favorite kind of story. I was going to make this into an AIF game, but it turned out to be too complicated, but the idea was too good to pass up. This particular tale takes place two years before the events of the next chapter. There isn't any sex right now, but I hope this whets your appetite for more.
Edited by Bert Fegg, something of an eccentric genius.
###
The peninsula of Zachon is a land of brooding forests, low, jagged mountains, ruined castles and a dour, serious folk. But from anywhere in this land a line of smoke was always visible, like a black tear in the sky. To follow it leads to Rotham, the city built on blood and iron and lead. Here, coal powers the city's machines in the day, filling the crooked streets with the metallic din of heavy machinery. At night, electric lamps buzz and cut islands through the gloom. Whores, murderers, rakes and thieves stalk in this artificial twilight. Blood cements itself between the stones of cobbled streets.
Lyza had returned home.
She had fled Rotham as a girl with one family name, and in amongst the mossy ruins of Arbalea she chose another. As she stepped down the plank, she wondered what her next would be.
"Dunwall," she said. That had been the last name of a kind old man she'd made friends with, his only possessions a carving knife and a sack of potatoes. He'd scrape the skin off the potatoes until they were like perfect little spirals on the ground. When he was done, he'd give her half while he had the other. They were hard and dry, but spiced by generosity; she had never had better, hungry and poor as she was.
It was a time like that the old man pointed at her rapier. "That's a fancy sword."
Lyza was sitting on the rough-hewn planking, beneath the decks, nursing the blade on her lap.
"His name is
Brass Pig
. My dad gave him to me," she replied.
He chuckled at the name, and spoke in a sing-song voice. "Ah, I see why you keep him, then," he said pulling a new potato from the sack and sinking his knife into it, "I was thinkin' you'd sell him, but you'd lose those memories, wouldn't you?"
The burlap sack was a large, lumpy thing, threadbare in parts, but it hadn't left his side the entire trip. The man had no sea legs and little strength to pull it top deck, so he had stayed in the hold. Lyza nodded at it."Your father give you those potatoes?" she asked.
The old man Dunwall laughed. "Her name is S
ack of Potatoes.
My father's farm did, but I couldn't keep a hold of that," he said sadly. He looked again the blade, his eyes tracing the intricate brass wiring around the guard. "Someone'll try to kill you for that sword."
"Let 'em try, I'm good for it," she grinned toothily, pulling
Brass Pig
just a tad from its scabbard.
The old man looked her up and down. His eyes were clouded with a gray film, but she could tell they must have once been a brilliant blue years ago. After that long and strange appraisal he closed his eyes and nodded, like he had come to some realization.
"Ah, I see, you're a virgin."
Lyza's eyes flared, and recoiled defensively. "Wot... wot... you sick old man, wot's that gotta do with anything?"
The man chuckled as he returned his attention to the potato. "You mistake me. There are two sorts of virginity in Rotham. The one sort when you're with someone you love y'see, but what I'm talking about is the second sort, the one you lose when you're with someone you hate. The innocence that flees you when you end your first life."
Lyza nodded slowly and with understanding. "Ah, I see..." she sniffed, "I'm a virgin both ways then."
That was their last conversation. The old man was dead the next morning, a smile on his face and his final potato clutched in his hand, white and skinless. They lowered him into the sea after that, potato and all. He left a last will and testament on his person, a barrister who happened to be on the ship read it declared all his earthly possessions were now Lyza's.
They gave Lyza his sack of potatoes.
Lyza could count her possessions on one hand:
Brass Pig
and his scabbard, rags, potatoes and counting beans. The beans were important, because if she encountered numbers past ten she ran out of fingers. She couldn't do letters, either, but that was normal for an orphan girl.
The sack of potatoes shifted ponderously on her shoulders as she walked onto the wharf. The passengers stood in loose lines, awaiting the attention of a customs officer with a pointy goatee that glared at her from his desk. They moved slowly, but soon she was face-to-face with the man. On his fancy blue tunic he wore a badge bearing a peacock. The peacock was a symbol of Rotham, she'd heard, and marked a person who worked for the government.
"What's your name?" he asked, a posh reservoir pen dancing in his fingers.
"Lyza Dunwall, if it pleases you."
The officer didn't say if it pleased him or not. He just bellowed, "Weapons?"
"I got one," she said.
The officer eyed the sword at her belt.
She opened her sack. "These potatoes are hard as rock. You throw these at someone's head it's bound to break a skull."
The officer did not seem amused. He gestured at the scabbard. "What's that you're wearing?"
"Oh that? Nothing but a toy sir. My daddy didn' let me have a real sword."
The officer frowned, his goatee retreating up his chin. "Could I take a look at it?"
There was no way that Lyza could refuse, and the officer reached to pull
Brass Pig
from her regardless. He held the blade to the light, and watched it ripple across the surface like water.
"Hand-forged, sturdy grip, beautiful artistry..." he remarked. He stroked the edge, and flinched when he cut skin. "Bloody sharp too. What was an urchin like you planning on doing with a weapon like this?"
Lyza smiled innocently. "Oh, it's just fer meself."
To Lyza's horror, the officer slipped
Brass Pig
into his own belt, with an ingratiating frown. "This should have been confiscated before you got on the boat."
It was as if another memory of her father had been snatched from her. Her legs tensed and fingers twitched, she was prepared to spring at him. "That was me father's blade, sir..." she said darkly.
The customs officer patted the hilt. "Your father's toy, you said it yourself. And you've grown too old for toys."
Lyza made a grab for it, but the officer drew back quickly and slapped her across the face hard, so hard she stumbled into some guards. They both gave cruel chuckles as they took her by the arms and dragged her from the harbor. "Gimmee my sword, gimmee my sword you sad cocksucker!" she shouted and cursed at the officer, but he merely stroked his goatee and moved onto the next immigrant.
The guards threw her onto the street, followed by her sack of potatoes, knocking the wind out of her.
They really are as hard as rocks
, she thought as she pushed them off her back. She wanted to sling one of them at the guards to see if they really could break a skull, but of course, they had swords and guns and she didn't.
###
The potatoes were so dry they crumbled in Lyza's mouth. It was like chewing through wall plaster, and each swallow was forced. The labor caused her jaw to ache afterward. She would sell her soul to the Darkness itself if she could get a mug of ale to wash it down with.
But in Lyza's experience neither the Darkness nor the Saints of Light answered any of her prayers. Which was odd, considering how the priests were always droning on about how the Darkness was around every corner, always hungry for souls to steal. Maybe only some sorts of darkness were special.
"Darkness, you wanna sack o' potatoes?" she tried half-heartedly. No answer.
