42: Riddles

As luck would have it, we all met up in Gramdorf. Kurtis and Gulgad had managed to follow our directions to Bogenhafen and then made their own way to Gramdorf as we had been forced to sink the Grey Lady. They claimed to have gone to Karak Kadrin for Gulgad’s oath. I’m not sure they could have done the journey in that time, and even if they could, I’m not sure they had the wherewithal to make it there and back again in one piece. They were not that keen to talk about it either, so I will reserve my judgement on whether the trip was actually made.

Erhardt had come to see what the delay in the arrival of the Grey Lady was about. I asked him about the boat and whether it belonged to the Grey College. He said it was just a boat, but it seemed suspicious to me that it was called the Grey Lady. That seemed to be exactly the sort of name a grey wizard would call a boat that belonged to the Grey College. Hiding in plain sight. It made me think that the Grey College had a whole network of boats and horses and other transport spanning the entire Empire, which they could call on at any moment to help them spy on anyone they desired to. Erhardt said this wasn’t true, but that is exactly what a grey wizard who knew about a secret Grey College spy network would say.

We had to make our way to Bruckthin which would be our last stop on the way to Altdorf, hopefully. I’m not saying Solvej has learned nothing about navigation and orientation in the time I have known her. I’m sure she has learned many things. I am just saying that we were still on our way to Bruckthin when night fell, with no sign of the village in sight. It got even more unnerving when a sliver of the second moon peered through the clouds. Kurtis tried to keep our spirits up by telling us that when we got to Bruckthin he had something exciting to show us. Not really sure what he was talking about, though.

We were relieved when we saw some lights flickering through the trees. But this was not Bruckthin, this was just a few caravans stopped in a clearing. We were happy enough to see them, though. This was a family of dwarf merchants. The matriarch greeted us warmly, even seeing Gulgad with us, and introduced herself as Torvi Anvilhammer. Her husband, Bjornborg was sat by the fire playing a lute, while her brother, Morse, was making the dinner. Torvi offered us some of the food. Kurtis offered to pay for it, which is what he’s like, these days, but the rest of us were a bit more gracious at accepting their hospitality.

Over some tasty suckling pig, Torvi explained that they were merchants on their way to Ubersreik but had to stop as their father was feeling ill. He was very old and soon to be joining the ancestors, she said. They also had a couple of children running about, bigyun and weeman. They had been on their way to Ubersreik to trade and to see their cousin, Gudrun, who had a shop there.

Kurtis, without thinking, told them that Gudrun was dead. I quickly changed the subject to the food, but they had noticed, and wanted to know what we knew of Gudrun. We explained that he had died heroically fighting the Raki, while Gulgad surreptitiously rubbed some mud into his Gudrun tattoo. They seemed to think that fighting Raki was a good way to go, so I think we got away with it.

Kurtis had a word with Bjornborg about his lute. He asked to look at it, and before the dwarf could stop him, Kurtis retuned it to ‘Ubersreik tuning’ and showed him how to finger chords for the new tuning. I’m not a musician, but even I know it is wrong to tune another man’s lute, so I think Kurtis was being a bit of an arse. In any case, Bjornborg was too polite to complain, but quickly retuned the instrument back to how he liked it. And at Torvi’s behest he sung us a song. It went,

‘When throwes dissolve the snawy hoard, an' float the jinglin icy-boord, then water kelpies haunt the floord by her direction, an' knighted trav'lers are allur'd to their destruction

Doer dreary darkness bathe her face in sorrow, beanie washed th' claes a those that die th'morrow unless with a soft step does creep until yer mouth is at her teat, an' claim to be her long lost brood, ye kin escape her loathsome doom.’

I’m not really sure what that was all about, but in hindsight, I get the impression that if we had been paying that the proper attention, then it could have saved us much of the trouble that would befall us over the course of the evening.

I mentioned that Kurtis was just back from Karak Kadrin as I thought that might help get the story of what had happened there from him, and although the dwarfs were interested, Kurtis was again vague and non-committal. In the end he did tell the story of his grandfather’s heroic action at that battle he keeps going on about, and Bjornborg strummed along to make it sound more dramatic. I’ve heard the story a few times now, and it’s pretty boring, but the two young dwarfs were impressed.

Gulgad seemed to think I should go and visit their grandfather, Gunnar, to see if there was anything I could do there. I‘m not really sure about dwarf patients. I’ve patched up Gulgad a few times and I helped with the dwarf wounded at the battle of Pfeildorf, and I think that from the outside they are more or less the same as humans, just a bit more so. But when it comes to their minds, I think they’re probably very different to us, so I thought I’d bring Gulgad with me, just to be on the safe side. We went into the caravan together. It was pretty dark, but it was clear the old dwarf was on the way out. Who knows how long dwarfs live to, but whatever age that is, that was the age the old dwarf was at, I reckoned.

Gunnar was not all there and was barely coherent. He was talking about hearing the music and spoke of his sister Lotte who had died too young. He seemed to think he could hear her singing, now. He wished that he could have been there for her, but I wasn’t sure what that meant. I said some prayers to Shallya, as I’ve already discovered, Shallya and Valaya are probably the same god or at least allies. This did some good, and whatever his physical ailments were, they were immediately healed, but I don’t think that I was able to help his mind. At least he was now in less physical pain.

Meanwhile Kurtis, having impressed the dwarf children, was now being harassed by them. I don’t think he likes children much (except himself), but he made an effort to talk to them. Weeman challenged him to a riddle for a penny.

‘What does man love more than life, fear more than death or mortal strife, what the poor have, rich require, and what contented men desire, what the miser spends and the spendthrift saves and all men carry to their graves?’

Kurtis said he didn’t know the answer and so handed over the penny. It was ‘nothing’, of course. I’m not sure whether Kurtis is genuinely a bit dim and didn’t know the answer or was just pretending to amuse the child. I think the former is the most likely. In any case, Weeman insisted on another riddle.

‘What always runs but never walks, often murmurs but never talks, has a bed but never sleeps, has a mouth but never eats?’

This was even easier, a river, but Kurtis didn’t get it, either, so handed over another penny. Then Weeman offered Kurtis the two pennies back if he would kiss the teat of the pig we had been eating. Or something. I wasn’t there, but I think that’s what happened. Kurtis pretended to be too dignified to perform such an act, but I’m pretty sure he has kissed far worse things for money (and for free).

Meanwhile, Morse had gone off to get some water from the river. Gunnar came out of his caravan and declared that he could hear Lotte singing. He said he was coming for her but was clearly too weak to go more than a couple of steps. Torvi wondered why Morse had been gone for so long, so Solvej said she would fetch him and asked Kurtis to come along with her.

When they got to the river they found an empty bucket lying on the bank. They drew their weapons and whispered Morse’s name into the darkness but got no reply. They did hear some faint singing which sounded like an old lullaby, and followed the song until they could see an old lady crouched on the bank, washing clothes.

They could see that this was a very old woman, and that she had strangely long breasts that she had thrown over her back to keep them out of the way of the washing. She was scrubbing at a cloth that looked like it was covered in blood.

Solvej told Kurtis that she looked a bit like the old landlady he had shagged back in Ubersreik. Kurtis shoved Solvej in retaliation, and the pair of them made enough noise that the old hag noticed them. She got to her feet agitated, and her breasts flew around wildly, and they could see that she had clawed fingers and webbed hands.

Kurtis was terrified and could barely move, while Solvej loosed an arrow which seemed to hit the hag but passed right through her ethereal body. Then the hag fought back with her claws. Solvej could see that the bloody funeral shroud the hag had been washing held an image of Gunnar the old dwarf, but then it strangely changed to Solvej’s face and then to Kurtis’.

Now Solvej was unable to move and Kurtis tried to pull her away and defend her from the hag’s claws. The hag screamed and the waters nearby bubbled as four horse heads broke the surface. Kurtis shouted for Gulgad as loudly as he could.

We heard Kurtis’ shouts and came running to help. When we got to the river we could see Solvej was being dragged down into the depths by one of the strange black water horse creatures, which I think, from fairy tales I recall, are called Kelpies. Gulgad waded into the water and smacked one of the Kelpies with his axe. Erhardt stayed on the bank with me, channelling his magical powers. Kurtis was trying to pull Solvej back towards the bank but the Kelpie was too strong for him and Solvej. I prayed to Shallya that she might give Solvej breath while she was under the water, and my prayers were answered.

Erhardt confronted the hag on the bank. The thing was insubstantial, and I think none of the rest of us would have been able to fight it, but Erhardt used his grey magic against it. I’m not an expert on magic, but it seems to me that the dark power that was driving this foul creature is not dissimilar to the sort of power that Erhardt himself uses. I’m not saying that Erhardt is definitely exactly the same as an undead evil cackling banshee, I’m just not completely ruling it out. And, of course, Erhardt was able to defeat the hag and banish it whence it came.

And when she was defeated, the hag let out a blood-curdling scream, then changed from her withered appearance to that of a beautiful young woman. And the woman was wearing a birthing dress that was covered in blood. It is certainly a terrible doom that must drive a young mother to such despair, but I think whatever lay behind this, she was now free of that despair.

I didn’t have time to think about that as the kelpies were getting the better of everyone else. The horse creatures, in their element, were snapping and gouging at us, dragging Solvej further from safety. They bit Kurtis so that he was heavily wounded. They even managed to wound Gulgad.

Gulgad was getting unusually flustered in the fight, he usually takes these things methodically, but now he was lashing out and missing the Kelpies. Perhaps he just doesn’t like water. A Kelpie had hold of Kurtis and was now dragging him towards the depths and it was all he could do to keep himself from being dragged under. Solvej had completely disappeared. I managed to grab Kurtis and say a healing prayer, which I think is all that kept him alive. We were foundering.

Then Gulgad reacted. I am not sure what he does, but I think I saw this same reaction from him at the battle of Pfeildorf. When things are against him, he seems to leave all sense of self-preservation behind, and attacks his foes with an irresistible fury. He hacked at one of the Kelpies and although, I suppose, it was made of water, he decapitated the thing and it lost all shape and dissipated, and he did the same to the next one. Then, seeing the other kelpies were now out near the middle of the river, he waded out to them, completely submerging himself, but still able to attack. He just as efficiently slew the third kelpie. We swam out to grab Solvej and drag her back in, while Erhardt destroyed the final horse thing.

We went back to the caravan, wet and bedraggled carrying the sad news that Morse must now be dead. But we consoled ourselves with the thought that we had saved the rest of this dwarf family.

I noticed that evening, that the campfire seemed to shirk from Erhardt’s presence, and increasingly over the next few days, that whenever Erhardt got near a flame or a fire, it would flicker and recoil, and sometimes even go out. Erhardt was a shadowy character before, but more in a figurative sense. Now he was becoming that literally. But they call the grey wizards shadowmancers, so I suppose we are to expect there will be more of this sort of thing to come.