The prophecy was a lie orchestrated by the bad guys so that you’d think you were the Chosen One and thus wind up being maneuvered into a position where you’d screw over everyone. Now you face the biggest challenge of all: getting the hell over yourself and figuring out how best to play a small part in saving the world along with everyone else.
They broke it down for me in pieces, the creation of the prophecy, the careful insertion of it into liturgy folklore and legend. They showed me how I’d been lied to, how the voice of prophecy in my head was something They put there. They told me all of this with the full intent of breaking me. I think They mostly succeeded. I was facing a being that had orchestrated a false prophecy to make sure They got all the slated “powers of good” at the same time, and I had been Their stalking goat.
Some part of me knew that my followers were probably going through a shock of horror at least as great as mine, other parts were wondering which of my followers, which of my companions had been in on the plot. I realized I couldn’t trust any of them in that moment. I couldn’t trust my mentors, I couldn’t trust my abilities (which had blown out like a candle the instant They started talking), I couldn’t even trust my parents. (The people who had raised me, anyway. I wasn’t even sure of that anymore. I had been raised with an expectation of my being special, my being “chosen.” Would someone turn their own child into a stalking goat? I wasn’t sure.)
I was angry, but not angry enough to attack in a berserk rage. I was horrified, but not horrified enough to collapse in despair. I was frozen and the voice of prophecy that had been in my head was silent and I was tired. I was so very tired.
I walked out of the Citadel, and They let me go. I was a little surprised by that, but maybe having a “Chosen One” who gives up just adds to the general miasma of horror and despair of final defeat. Maybe They were showing Their contempt; I wasn’t a danger to Them in any sense. They and their soldiers didn’t harm me, and I made sure that my followers never saw me once I left the throne room. (Another possible reason that came to me for why They let me go was that then I would be seen as a traitor. A false Chosen One instead of another victim of a false prophecy.)
What do you do when you aren’t the holy paladin meant to strike down the forces of darkness?
I abandoned my armor and livery, and stole clothes from some peasant’s washline, kept my boots. I paired my weaponry down to just a couple of knives, one at my waist and one in my boot. The voice of prophecy made the occasional comment that I ignored. It sounded part mocking, part uneasy. It didn’t know what I was going to do next any more than I did, and it also knew I wasn’t going to listen to its advice anymore.
I wasn’t sure what to do at first. I was good with horses, a skill that was at least my own, so I got temporary jobs at inns, working the stable. It didn’t pay a lot, though room and usually board was free. Cleaning stables and working with horses gave me time to think. (What I was mostly thinking was that it was pretty easy to hide, when you weren’t actually anyone in particular and no one cared. I was feeling very sorry for myself, with an additional feeling that I should have somehow known better.)
I was working at one such in when Kerrick showed up. Seeing him and his men in the courtyard gave me the strong desire to run like hell, even though I’d fought him before. (“Had he let me win that one time?” warred with “He’ll recognize me and laugh at me.”) I stayed instead, some latent bit of me that had been trained as a paladin not wanting to desert the battlefield (it was just an inn yard, not a battlefield.) I went out to help with the horses and the thing Kerrick rides that bears only the faintest resemblance to a goddamn horse, and which I knew would probably rip the average stableboy’s arm off.
I make sure that I’m the one he throws the creature’s reins to. When it makes to take a bite out of me I dodge, then give it a good hard shove like it was an ordinary snappy horse. “Don’t you dare,” I tell it sharply. It snorts and sidles, rolling its horrible not-horse eyes at me, but settles. I am very, very aware that Kerrick gives me a long look before retreating into the inn.
I take the horrible creature to one of the bigger stalls and make sure there’s an empty stall on either side. “That thing will kill any horse put in next to it,” I tell the stable master. “He’s a menace.”
“How would you know about such a demon?” the stable master inquires.
“I worked at inns further north, over the Hellmounts,” I lie. “Sorcerer-lords came in with them sometimes. They’re vicious nasty things.”
“You handled him well enough,” the stable master says.
I pulled up a sleeve showing a scar I had gotten from the horrible not-horse. “I have past experience,” I say dryly.
“Despite teeth like that, I don’t suppose it’d want a nice hot mash?” The stable master asks hopefully. The teeth in question were very sharp and very pointed.
“Meat,” I say.
The stable master sighs. “Tell the housekeeper to give you the funds for a side of mutton, we’ll see if we can charge it to the lord.”
So I went and bought the side of mutton. I’m chopping the side into smaller bits and feeding them one by one to the horrible not-horse when Kerrick comes up behind me. I freeze, expecting him to cut me down either literally or figuratively. Instead, he moves around me, carrying a bread trencher full of table scraps that he feeds to the horrible not-horse, who I learn is named “Wolf-Teeth.” I might as well not be there, which is part humiliation and part aggravation.
I pack up the remains of the mutton, and carry it to the inn’s cellar. When I get back, he’s still there, assuring the monster that it was a very good boy while he brushes it, and it leans into the strokes of the brush. I get back to work, and eventually Kerrick goes back inside the inn.
He comes up behind me a second time while I’m mucking out stalls the next morning. I’m really aware that the other two stable hands find somewhere else to be the instant he turns up. (Thanks Brin, thanks Tob. On the other hand, if they’d stayed I would probably have been more upset.) “I was surprised to find you here,” Kerrick says.
“I didn’t have a lot of possible options that wouldn’t get me killed if I were recognized as the false Chosen One,” I tell him. “No one pays a lot of attention to stable hands or servants. And I like horses.”
“You could have gone home,” Kerrick says, frowning at me.
“I could,” I said, my tone almost agreeable. “If I knew where that was. I don’t mind traveling, anyway.”
“They say you just walked out of the Citadel, like you were half-asleep,” Kerrick says. “The stories about that are going to be pretty interesting down the road.”
“I was told my entire life was a lie and I’d led thousands of people to their death,” I say. “I was told there was absolutely no one I could trust. If They’d killed me then, I’m not sure I would have cared.”
Kerrick looks almost angry at that, maybe disgusted. “I don’t believe that,” he says flatly.
“That I’d been lied to? That people died? That there was no one I could trust?”
“That you would want to die,” Kerrick says, voice sharp. “You’re too fucking strong-willed. And you’re still alive now.”
“Being strong-willed doesn’t mean anything,” I say to him. “Still being alive doesn’t mean anything. I was lied to, and people died. They let me go because that would be worse than just killing me.”
“I should kill you,” Kerrick says, looking honestly outraged. “Just for saying that. You aren’t the paladin I fought.”
I laugh a little at that. “I was never a paladin, Kerrick. I had no powers. Was that fight even real? There was a battle, but how do I know what was actually happening?” The voice of prophecy is having a mild panic in the back of my head. I didn’t actually have powers, I wasn’t actually a paladin, but Kerrick was actually a war-mage and could obliterate me if he wanted. The voice would also be obliterated, and it really didn’t want that.
“I will fucking show you how real that fight was,” Kerrick says angrily. He makes to draw his sword.
I hit him with the muck rake. I hit him a lot. He gets his sword drawn and we fight in the aisles of the stable, causing a panic among the other stable hands and the horses. I am fully aware I am going to lose my job at this inn if Kerrick doesn’t kill me first. At some point he loses the sword and I lose the tines of the muckrake, so I’m screaming at him and beating on him with the handle, completely out of my mind. His men have to drag me off of him.
I get hauled into the inn yard. I am still berserk, the soldiers holding on to me barely keeping their grip. I can hear a lot of yelling from the angry-frightened innkeeper and the stable master. “They were a soldier at one point, I was questioning them about what they’d seen of the Chosen’s Crusade, and they lost it,” Kerrick is explaining while the innkeeper is frantically disavowing your actions.
“Fuck you, Kerrick Barrod!” I shouted. “What the fuck are you playing at?”
“They may also know me from earlier campaigns of the Chosen,” Kerrick says smoothly.
“Fuck you!” I screamed at him. One of his soldiers hits me hard enough that my vision swims. I wobble to my knees, shaking, and refusing to cry.
I end up getting carried off on a pack horse as Kerrick and his men leave the inn. I am more angry than frightened about this, as well as embarrassed. I can hear Kerrick’s men talking about me. Eventually Kerrick himself comes up beside the pack horse on Wolf-Teeth. (The pack horse shies and there isn’t a lot I can do to calm the poor little mare.) “The Lord of the Red Citadel usually arranged it so you’d be going after potential future rivals or others They couldn’t trust,” Kerrick comments.
“Ask me how much I care about that,” I say. “If you’re going to kill me, get it over with.”
“I think the almost traditional statement is that if I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead,” Kerrick says. “I don’t, so I’m not.”
“What do you want then?”
“I want you to work for me,” Kerrick says.
“I’m not going to turn coat just because I’m not actually a paladin,” I say. “I won’t fight for you, and I won’t let you put me on display as your pet False-Chosen.”
“I need a new stable master,” Kerrick says.
“I don’t want to be eaten by your monsters either,” I say.
“Tur aren’t monsters,” Kerrick says. “They just aren’t from this world.”
“Yes, they’re from hell.”
“They aren’t from hell either. They’re just animals, like wolves or cats.”
“I don’t want to be eaten by ordinary animals either,” I tell him.
Kerrick snorts. “And you were getting along so well with Wolf-Teeth,” he says. “I also keep horses,” he continues. “The previous stable master wasn’t very reliable and beat on the younger stable hands. You’d be a definite improvement, since I’m the only one you’ve apparently ever beat on.”
“You turned out a stable master for beating on the hands?” I ask disbelievingly.
“Well that and drinking instead of actually managing the stable,” Kerrick says. “No one seemed to think I’d be annoyed about that for some reason. It’s my damn stable, they’re my stable hands and my damn horses. I don’t tolerate slipshod bullshit in my household.”
“I did beat on you, why are you offering me a job?” I ask. “Instead of beating on me and leaving me without a job.” Or killing me, I didn’t say.
“Knowledge of the false prophecy being false was entirely an inner circle thing you know,” Kerrick says. “To me you actually were a Chosen Paladin. Maybe I feel sorry for you.”
“Maybe you want a trophy,” I say.
Kerrick shrugs. “My territory includes a number of towns. You’ll be able to find work in any of them. You don’t have to work for me, but you can if you want.”
I end up working at inns in one of his towns. The town is tightly run and fairly clean. There’s a town guard and no one is any more wary of them than you’d expect them to be. He apparently doesn’t tax too heavily. He turns up to visit and asks me questions about how I like my job, what I think about the town, if I’ve heard anything interesting. “I’m not spying for you either, Kerrick,” I tell him.
“I wouldn’t ask you to,” Kerrick says. “I’m making conversation and seeing how you’re settling in.” His expression is entirely innocent. Or as innocent as a sorcerer-lord can be.
“We aren’t friends, Kerrick,” I say. “Your allegiance is to the Lord of the Red Citadel.”
“We aren’t enemies,” Kerrick says. “You haven’t left my territory since I brought you here.”
“One place is pretty much like any other,” I say.
“I’d drag you back, anyway. You worry me.”
“I worry you?” I laugh at that.
“Do you think I’m joking?” Kerrick says. “It was surprising to see you there, no armor, just yourself. I knew you had survived the battle, that you’d left after confronting the Lord of the Red Citadel, and I later learned that you were never a paladin, and never had holy powers. It had seemed to me that if you weren’t real and the prophecy weren’t real you should disappear entirely, but there you were. And if you were there, I knew I had to speak to you.”
“Why?” I ask, wondering what Kerrick was getting at. His words made me uncomfortable.
“It’s something I’ve wanted to do. We’ve dueled before, and fought in battles against each other. I respected you as an opponent. I’m also a bit awed by the lengths the Red Lord went to, creating Their false prophecy.”
“So I’m a curiosity you also feel pity for?” I ask.
“Not quite,” Kerrick says. “I was also taken in, as much as you. I care about losing my soldiers in battle as much as you cared about losing your followers. I could see it, and when we spoke I could see that you were full of anger and despair because of it–and I was also angry, because I was frightened by your words to me.”
“I don’t believe you were frightened,” I say.
“I was,” Kerrick says. “I remember your confidence and strength–the lack of both was a terrible thing to see.”
“It sounds like you’re making a romantic confession,” I say. “I don’t think I can stand it.”
“I’ll stop,” Kerrick says. “But it isn’t any less true.”
“Please go away,” I say, and he does.
He visits again and again, and we talk in circles. We argue and there are points of philosophy that we will never settle. I work as a stable hand, and eventually become the stable master at the inn. I take in kids and teach them the work, teach them to read, write, and figure, get them into trades wherever possible. Kerrick keeps offering me jobs on his estate, and I keep turning them down. I don’t want him to think he’s winning.
Originally posted August 23 2019 on tumblr.
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