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When Corinne Queen of Rebma culled Fisher and Delve to walk the Pattern and be her agents in the Thousand Worlds, it was a fateful pairing, not so much because they didn't trust Corinne as that they didn't fully trust, or respect, each other. Fisher regarded Delve as an ill-bred, short-fused grubber after comforts. For his part, Delve thought Fisher a meddling dilettante likely to be the last one to suffer from his own ill-considered actions. The question was whether a certain mutually indulgent fondness that had grown during the journey from Gleamingrose to Everway, the imperatives of their mission, and the surprising knowledge that they must, on some level, be related as bearers of the blood of Amber could bridge the chasm between their natures. The answer came in sudden blood at

The Well

Fisher and Delve Part Ways

The next morning you head out, going for one of the moonpaths.

Past the modest city wall, you find the usual farmland terrain, and that night you stay in a small roadside inn. You find that you are sharing the inn with a small family group, tinkers from the look of their wagon. They seem to be moderately prosperous (they would be, or else they'd be camping out instead of using the inn) and consist of a man and his wife, three children of early teenage years, and a grandmotherly sort with what appears to be a permanent sourpuss.

fter bedtime, you overhear a whispered, yet heated conversation between the man and the old woman, across the room. (The inn floor is where everyone sleeps) It's late at night, after everyone else is asleep.

"I made a promise, mother."

"I tell you, he's no son of yours. He's the spawn of the devil himself. The ill luck that follows us is on him, it sits on him like a black cloud. There'll be nothing but misfortune as long as he stays with us."

"Mother, I'm not going to turn the boy out. He'll end up a beggar or a thief."

"I'm not telling you to turn him out. He'd only put his ill luck on someone else, one way or another. I'm telling you to kill him."

"Mother!"

"The family you got him from weren't starving... they turned him out, and his ill luck fell on us... and if we turn him out, it'll fall on someone else. Better to kill him now."

The boy in question definitely does seem to have a dark aura around him... there's a dark power to him, a potentiality that is unmistakable.

What about a potentiality that is unmistakeable to walk the Pattern?

You haven't been told what to look for... it's possible, but you don't get the same aura from each other.

I imagine Fisher knows little about the boy's 'dark aura' but he'll keep an eye and ear open for any developments. He'll not intervene until he thinks murder is about to be committed.

The boy is about thirteen. A man in some societies, a boy in others. You haven't had enough experience in Gleamingrose to know for certain, but she's certainly treating him like a boy... and the man was, too.

The following morning, the man is not in evidence. Grandmother says, "Boy, go out and hitch up the horses." It's obvious that 'boy' is the 'orphan' they picked up.

The boy shuffles out.

Delve says, "Old woman, where is your son?"

She looks at you with a look that speaks volumes. The titles of those volumes are 'Who are You to be Butting into My Affairs', 'I'm Too Old to Have to Deal with People Like You', and 'Take a Hike'.

Delve wraps up a bit of food and stands.

"Puma," He says decisively, "the road calls."

Only the most sensitive can tell that he's relieved to have an excuse not to deal with the family. He intends the briskest of paces all morning, a speed he doubts a tinker's wagon could maintain if it tried.

With a significant look towards Delve, Fisher follows the boy out to the stables.

When you get out to the yard, the wagon is untouched, the horses still in the stable.

The boy has left fresh tracks in the mud; they're plain as day. They lead over to the stables, and then around towards the back.

Fisher follows the tracks into the stables.

Fisher's alert. He suspects he's about to intrude upon someone about to commit murder and such people are liable to be jumpy. He's also heard of such ruses designed to lead more noble spirits into ambush before now.

His sword is not drawn but the retaining thong's off. His dagger is in his left hand, hilt down, point folded up his forearm.

When Fisher peels off to follow the boy Delve sighs heavily but silently. He follows from about ten feet behind, drawing and cocking his crossbow.

You move around the corner. There's a space between the stable and the wall of the inn yard. You move down through the gap, where you see the man and the boy struggling silently. The man has the boy in a two-handed chokehold, and he's trying to overbear the youngster to the ground, but somehow the boy is resisting. The boy has his hands on the man's wrists, trying to break his grip.

Fisher coughs just loudly enough to be heard by the protagonists. "Sir?" His voice is almost apologetic. "Unless I'm much mistaken, murder is a crime in these parts."

Fisher's expecting the man to desist. If he doesn't, Fisher will put his knife to the man's throat and pull him up by the scruff of the neck, not too roughly. Once the man's in his grasp, he steps sideways to let Delve have a clear shot at man or boy.

"Are you so weak that you'd strangle a child at the whim of a hag? Surely, whatever harm he may have done you could be remedied, at the worst, by just turning him out of your family?"

Fisher's voice shades darkly into menace. "If the boy be cursed, do you really think that this would save you? If he has *real* power it would seal your doom and your family's."

"Now tell me your story, and the boy's!"

The man is distracted. The kid drops and does a clumsy backwards roll to try to dislodge the man, and flips him back over his head... where the man goes facefirst into an old well-cover, which gives way, and the man falls down the well. There is a sickening crunchy thud, and silence. From behind Fisher, and a bit to the right, a crossbow bolt flies, striking the stunned child in the left temple.

Delve puts up the crossbow and eyes Fisher evenly when he turns around.

"We need a rope. If the man didn't die on the way down, that is."

A rope is easily had from the stable, but the man at the bottom of the well is dead.

Fisher gives Delve a withering glance then steps carefully forward and looks down the well. "We will be needing a rope but I think it will keep. [Correct me if I'm wrong, Fred. Fisher will be *very* happy to be wrong.]

Then Fisher turns to the boy. Did the bolt kill him?

If not, Fisher carries him into the stables and splashes some water into his face from a horse's water bucket until he comes round. "Your name, boy?"

It certainly appears that way. He's not breathing, and there's no pulse.

Fisher's medical skills are minimal but he can do basic first aid. Fisher will do what he can until he's sure the boy is beyond redemption. Fisher will check by holding his dagger beneath the lad's nostrils and looking for any faint mist.

His skull is shattered where the bolt struck.

Delve comes up from the well without the body and gathers the rope. When he comes upon Fisher examining the boy he looks down long enough to get the idea the boy is dead. Then he turns to ready the horses.

"Toss him in the well with the man," he says with a cold fury. "Then let's be about our own business. Unless you want to explain to that crone why her son isn't with her any more."

Fisher kneels by the body for a minute, rubbing his eyes. Then he gets the rope and retrieves the body of the man, laying it by the boy and closing both their eyes.

Fisher saddles his horse only after this.

When his horse is ready, Delve finds the tinker's cart and slips an Amber Century Coin into a nook where he believes the old woman will find it before anyone else does. Then he returns to his horse and mounts up.

Fisher is ready sometime after Delve. He mounts up and rides out in silence.

As long as you get out quickly and quietly, it all goes without incident. You're back on the road.

Delve rides hard all day without a word. He shows no interest in stopping for lunch, and quits for the day only when it's clear his horse has been pushed to the limit.

He eats dinner in a hurried silence, walks to the edge of camp and vomits a solid projectile stream. He ends in dry heaves with his hands on his knees.

Fisher watches Delve in silence. He puts his own plate aside unfinished; he didn't take quite the care over the food he usually does.

By the time Delve returns, Fisher's wrapped himself in his blanket and is trying to sleep.

Delve swigs wine from a skin, swishes it around his mouth and spits into the fire. Then he sits for a long time.

At length (probably just before Fisher can actually drift off to sleep...) he speaks.

"Knights Arrogant is what I've heard them called," he says, more loudly than one would expect for the setting. "But you've probably heard that one too."

Fisher says nothing but Delve can tell he's not asleep.

[OOC: Okay, a potentially sticky situation. Two very angry males largely intent on not giving in by talking. The question is how we can save ourselves a half-dozen "Fisher says nothing. Delve says nothing either." posts if we step back a second. I vote that Fisher, with his higher Fire (volatility) and lower Earth (resistance and self-possession) breaks first. How about it, Steve? Then we can get right into it!]

[OOC: Mmm! Fair enough! Though with the recent bonuses to their stats, there's not that much in it any more. Still, you have a point. :-) How's this?]

The silence continues for perhaps a minute, Delve can see a small movement from Fisher's shoulders and realises he's clenching and unclenching his fist. Finally, Fisher roles over. Still lying down, his eyes glitter darkly in the firelight.

"Heard it before? Yes! And this kettle's heard it from better pots than you."

Delve's snort could be appreciation, derision, or some amalgam of the two.

"Difference between us," he says, "is I know what I did and I meant to do it. You people pat yourself on the back for your good intentions long after the bodies are cold in your wake. I wasn't looking to jump into what wasn't my business either."

Fisher sits up, rather abruptly. He carefully moves his sword out of his own reach and away from Delve before drawing his dagger and playing with it, prodding the damp soil in front of him. When he resumes talking, his voice is conversational. Fisher probably thinks he's doing a great job of hiding his emotions though Delve can clearly hear the tension in his voice.

"Am I to understand that you consider child murdering a virtue? Or are you trying to imply that the responsibility for the two deaths lies with me? Please consider your words carefully."

Delve shifts his weight with elaborate casualness, though it leaves him in a more balanced position than before.

"You're a brave man, Your Highness," he says. "When it comes to your body."

"I'm in no mood for posturing, Delve. The only reason I'm still here is that I've a job to do and I might need your help. But that doesn't mean I have to like riding with you, so I don't."

Gesturing with the dagger, Fisher's temper shows. "...and I will not accept any holier-than-thou shit from a child murderer. Now get to your point!"

"You might need my help!" Delve scoffs. "I'm only hoping your attention span holds out as far as Everway - it's just a matter of time until the idea of saving the Thousand Worlds starts to seem boring or inconvenient to you."

"Is that it?" Fisher seems incredulous. "You killed a boy because you were afraid he might distract me for a few minutes from a quest that could take years? You don't think a life is worth five minute's conversation?"

Fisher rises and walks to the edge of the firelight, apparently talking to himself. "We're heroes! Surely, we're meant to be above mere expediency, something more than...just killing machines." He rubs his eyes with his empty hand, as if tired. He comes to a decision and turns back to the fire, shaking his head. His voice sounds listless.

"No! I will not travel with a man who holds life so cheap; tomorrow we must go our separate ways."

"I'd like to tell you why I feel so deeply over this but, as I've tried explaining colours to a woman blind from birth, I shall pass over the moral dimensions and stick to just two points." He takes a breath.

"One: by your actions, you have made it devestatingly clear that you will remorselessly kill anyone who gets in the way of what you see as your path. You have convinced me that it's 'just a matter of time' before you decide I'm in the way and put a quarrel in my back. I may be brave but I am not a fool. This is a lesser consideration."

"A lot more importantly, I thought we had an agreement, your part of which was avoiding unnecessary bloodshed. You have broken that agreement at it's very first testing. The man's death was doom; I don't know if the lad was cursed but I was trying to warn the man that killing him was dangerous as well as wrong. His death does not surprise me but killing the boy was unnecessary. I'd have thrown him a purse of coins and sent him off by himself. Now you may bear the boy's curse and our quest may be in jeopardy because of it."

Fisher sighs and looks into Delve's eyes.

"One day your nemesis will catch you. It may surprise you to learn that I will not rejoice to hear of it but I will not stand in it's way. There can be no trust between us. Under these circumstances, I cannot work with you and you should not want to work with me."

"You should go back to Amber," ends Fisher quietly, "you belong in Amber."

Delve is quiet for a moment.

"You talk too much, Fisher," he says then, flatly. "You talk too much and understand too little. And you don't care about people either - [Fisher's hand clenches involuntarily, about where his sword hilt would be were it not lying at his feet.] - you care how you look. You want to drop into their lives for five minutes at a time and then drop out again. Only they can't drop out of their own lives. You don't even know that that man attacked the boy - you only know that, for a moment at least, the man had the upper hand. Like you're set upon by highwaymen and start winning and then someone comes along and tries to restrain you because hey, look at those poor guys. Man told his mother last night he didn't want to kill the boy. Maybe he didn't. Maybe the boy gets an earful of the conversation and decides to kill the man anyway. Comes through the stable and sees his chance. But the man starts to get the better of the fight. Do I know? No. But I know men like that. I know what their lives are like. I've been men like that. If he did decide to kill the boy after arguing against it, well, he knows what the situation is, he has his reasons. Better than you do. That's right, better than you do. And he knows he has to live with himself if he lives, live with what he's done. And he knows and I know and you should know that there are 'boys' that age who've set whole realms to weeping, and he knows and I know and you should know that when you're an itinerant peddler you spend most of your time in places where the law ain't there and don't care, and he knows and I know and you should know that there's a right to self-defense against cursed things. So I killed the boy. Because I trusted that tinker one way or the other. And he was dead because you distracted him - maybe he would have died anyway, maybe you were just the instrument of the boy's curse, but the man was dead. Which meant that if the boy lived, the old woman was as good as dead too, five minutes after we were gone. Or you'd have him tagging along with us and his doom would be ours. Maybe it is anyway now. 'Five minutes' you say. You make my point for me."

Delve has not moved during his speech. When it concludes he continues staring into what's left of the fire. He sounds quite tired.

"Perhaps I do talk too much...but please don't tell me I don't care about people." Fisher unclenches his teeth. "So you identify with the peddlar, eh?. So it's right to slay a child because an old hag has suspicions? Perhaps you read things true but I've heard old women's mutterings before and nine out of ten times she's just bitching because the hen laid one less egg or the wheel came off the cart and life's hard so she has to have a scapegoat."

"The man didn't want to kill the boy because he knew he shouldn't. If he'd had any spine he might still be alive. We neither of us know the real story and now we never will. The difference between us is that I'd have heard it while there were still people alive to tell it."

Fisher buckles on his swordbelt and hefts saddle. "I'm not going to sleep tonight so I might as well be going." He sets about saddling his horse. [I assume Delve carried his own share of the food, if not Fisher will leave plenty.]

When Fisher's ready to go, he salutes Delve. "I wish you a fair and speedy journey, Delve...kinsman. We should both be happier out of each other's company." He sounds grave but sincere. "Should you meet our fellow crewmen before I, give them my best wishes and tell them to leave word in Meander of any developments. I'm sure you will recover at least one of the items we seek. I would bid you consult with the others before acting irrevocably but you will do as you wish."

"So long, Fisher," Delve says. "you want the last word, so I make it my parting gift. I think you could survive the Tunnel if need be, but there are always traps. And worse. So be careful."

Fisher leads his horse into the darkness.

To give Fisher a head start, Delve lies down where he is. He is asleep almost immediately.

(Fisher returned to Meander and his family, where he quickly found the trail of The Edge of Light and Darkness. Delve continued to Everway, then to Stonedeep after the Pearl of Making, following clues Brand planted in the Library of All Worlds. Soon after leaving Fisher, Delve entered the Grand Tunnel between the spheres. Almost immediately, he encountered the specter of a young boy. Delve accepted the crossbow bolt the boy slipped into his hand, one bearing traces of dried blood and smeared brain. He carries it still.)

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