Totentanz

Book 1 Chapter IV: Die Rache

Warning: contains arson, violence, murder, and references to human sacrifice, child molestation, rape, and misogyny.

DIE RACHE
German, "the revenge".

I will hurt you for this. I don't know how yet, but give me time. A day will come when you think yourself safe and happy, and suddenly your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth, and you'll know the debt is paid. -- G. R. R. Martin, A Clash of Kings

For years after that everything seemed to go on as normal. No one spared another thought for Karandren. No one, that is, except Teivain-ríkhorn-hrair. For over ten years she kept an eye out for any news of him. She never heard anything. He might as well have fallen off the face of the earth.

The mage was eccentric but not stupid. She knew perfectly well what the likely result would be of throwing a teenager into a foreign country with no resources. She knew her colleagues had essentially sentenced Karandren to a slow death of starvation, exposure, or illness. At best he would be forced to beg on the streets. He didn't speak a word of Miavish; how could he ever make a life for himself there?

After ten years Teivain-ríkhorn-hrair officially stepped down as a Great Mage. In her resignation message she told her former colleagues exactly what she thought of them.

Five years after her retirement, the other Great Mages elected a replacement. And who better than one of her former pupils, someone who had already proved she was a competent magician and a skilled fighter? If Diarnlan had any regrets about how she came to get her new position, she didn't show them.

Two years after that, another monster crawled out of the sea. Once again Diarnlan was the person to kill it. That was when she gained her title. Diarnlan Kergínelsdóttir essentially ceased to exist, and Guireth-melaðr-hremón took her place.

Did she ever spare Karandren a thought? Did his probable fate ever trouble her? No one was close enough to her to know. Whether it did or not, she refused to ever take a student again.

~~~~

The first year was the worst. Foreign languages with a hundred different dialects were the least of Karandren's worries. True, he'd never studied Miavish. He'd never thought he had any need to. But he had grown up hearing his father speak his hometown dialect of Avallese while his mother spoke the dialect of the scholars she had learnt from. Her relatives spoke their own native language, which was nothing at all like Avallese or any human language. In the academy Karandren quickly picked up standard Avallese. So with all that linguistic experience behind him, he had no trouble learning enough Miavish to get by.

If sometimes he learnt it far more quickly than anyone should, and if he occasionally found he knew words he had never even heard before, he shrugged and dismissed it. There was probably a good explanation for it. He just didn't care enough to find out what it was.

No, learning Miavish wasn't a problem. Finding food and shelter was. And the biggest problem of all was staying out of the clutches of the Bone-Worshippers.

The academy didn't only teach magic. It also offered courses in history, politics, geography, and many other mundane things. They were mandatory for the first year and optional from then on. Karandren opted out of them as soon as he got the chance. Now he regretted that decision immensely.

When he first landed in Miavain his mind was entirely occupied by finding somewhere to stay. He stumbled along a dirt road -- little more than a hiking trail, really -- until he saw a building in the distance.

Karandren forgot about his anger, hurt, and fear as he ran to it, hoping desperately it was a house and someone was home. Then he got close enough to see what it was and his heart fell again. It was a house, all right. But it was a house that looked like it hadn't been lived in since King Andin's time[1]. All the windows were broken, the front door hung off its hinges, and part of the roof had caved in.