Totentanz

Book 2 Chapter IX: Überlisten

Warning: contains references to torture.

ÜBERLISTEN
German, "to outwit; to dupe"

There are all kinds of darkness, and all kinds of things can be found in them, imprisoned, banished, lost or hidden. Sometimes they escape. Sometimes they simply fall out. Sometimes they just can't take it any more. -- Terry Pratchett, Unseen Academicals

Diarnlan had been in Byuryan for all of two hours before she made an important discovery. She didn't like it. In fact she liked it even less than she'd liked Miavain. There was no immediately obvious reason for this. She puzzled over it several times as she traipsed to various tourist attractions.

Maybe it's just the capital. I'll like the rest of the country better.

It was the middle of the tourist season. There were people from every known country and a few unknown ones wandering around. She watched the groups of tourists to see what they were doing. And when she saw that many people were going on scenic train journeys -- journeys that, as far as she could tell, were just expeditions to places popular with sightseers -- she decided that she might as well go on one too.

Four hours later, watching as the train passed yet another waterfall, Diarnlan had to admit she was still bored. These waterfalls weren't even as impressive as the ones in Avallot. Why, in western Avallot there were purple waterfalls that glowed in the dark.

Saungrafn watched all of this with an air of disapproval and disappointment. If it had a body it would have been tut-tutting and shaking its head. Diarnlan felt absurdly as if she was being scolded by her mother. When she was safely in her hotel room and away from people who'd think she was mad she confronted Saungrafn about it.

"What's wrong with you?"

Saungrafn sighed and slumped against the wall. You're being an idiot.

"And what do you suggest I do instead? Go back to Miavain? To let Karandren annoy me to death?"

What about Teivain-ríkhorn-hrair? What about Erdreda?

That gave Diarnlan pause, though not quite in the way Saungrafn had wanted to. "Erdreda? That imbecile? You must be joking!"

She was your student too.

"A terrible one!"

No worse than you were as a teacher.

Diarnlan glared at the sword. It did a very good impression of glaring right back.

You left everyone to fend for themselves without even a warning. You know there will be more skrýszel.

"If I stay and fight them I'll just get killed again."

Who says you have to fight them?

That was such a ludicrous question that it left Diarnlan spluttering incoherently for an embarrassingly long time. When she recovered from the shock she gave Saungrafn a positively murderous look. "They're monsters! They destroy and kill everyone in their path! You saw that one kill me when I was here last!"

Why?

Diarnlan didn't answer out of sheer confusion. She looked around the room just to make sure she wasn't asleep and dreaming this whole conversation. Her eyes fell on an unbelievably ugly drawing of what was possibly meant to be a girl holding flowers. The artist couldn't draw to save their life and had chosen a bright red shade for the flowers and a salmon pink shade for the girl's skin. The result looked more like a pig wallowing in blood, as seen by someone who was both short-sighted and incredibly drunk.