Weaving the Threads

Tomas slouched in an alley, trying to look like a sleeping bum while he watched the house across the street through slitted eyelids. As soon as he’d found the strange Harrow card with its ominous message, he’d rushed to Lancet Street, arriving hours before the stated rendezvous time so that he could stake the place out, and watch for any suspicious activity. He hoped the card’s promise of vengeance against Gaedren Lamm was genuine, but if this was some sort of trap set by Lamm’s minions, he wouldn’t walk right into it.

So far, he’d seen nothing unusual. The street was a humble residential street; nothing fancy, but certainly no slum. The house he watched was not noticeably different from any of its neighbors, save for the sign showing a fanned Harrow deck above its front door. Since he’d been watching, a number of people had walked by the house, but none had stopped. Children played a little ways down the street, and an old lady slowly swept her steps and cobbles a few doors away.

A young man walked down the street, wearing the robes of a student at the Acadamae, although they were wrinkled and stained. Tomas had seen him pass before, and he tensed with anticipation. The man passed the house, and then approached the old lady. “Excuse me,” Tomas heard him ask. “Do you know if the fortune-teller’s shop is open?”

The woman leaned on her broom. “Well, I’m not sure. I suppose so, but I haven’t seen Madame Zellara in some time. ‘Course I don’t get out much anymore, what with my rheumatism and all.” The young man thanked her, then turned back the way he’d come. He went to the house, paused for a moment, then knocked on the door. It swung open at his knock. “Hello?” Tomas heard him call, pushing the door farther open. “Madame Zellara? Are you home?” If there was an answer, Tomas couldn’t hear it, but the student went inside and shut the door behind him. Tomas stayed where he was – he was a patient hunter.

“Hello?” Natan called as the door swung open. “Madame Zellara? Are you home?” There was no answer. Taking a deep breath, he stepped inside. He found himself in a cozy chamber filled with a fragrant haze of flowers and strong spice. “Hello?” he called again. “Is anyone here?” Silence.

Natan took in the room. The aroma was coming from several sticks of incense smoldering in wall-mounted burners, each shaped to look like butterfly-winged elves. It gave the room a dreamy feel, amplified by the brocaded tapestries hanging on the walls. One showed a black-skulled beast juggling human hearts, and another a pair of angels dancing atop a snow-blasted mountain. A third tapestry on the far wall depicted a tall, hooded figure shrouded in mist, holding a flaming sword in a skeletal hand. Nat recognized them as images from the Harrow, although he didn’t know their meaning. Several brightly colored rugs covered the floor, but the room’s only furnishings were a wooden table covered by a bright green throw cloth and several elegant, tall-backed chairs.

There was a note on the table: “Thank you for coming. I had to step out for a bit, but shall return shortly. Please, have a seat while you wait. The basket under the table contains bread and drink for you.” Sure enough, there was a wicker basket beneath the table, a blue cloth covering a loaf of bread and a jug of wine.

“I guess I must be first,” Nat said to himself. He suddenly became self-conscious; he smoothed his hair, then cast Prestidigitation to clean the stains off his robes. He paused a moment, then cast the spell again, using it to warm the bread and chill the wine. No sooner had he finished than there was a knock on the door. He looked around, then realized no one else was going to answer it. Taking another deep breath, he pulled the door open.

A girl stood at the door, looking at him uncertainly. She was younger than him, a tiny thing with blond hair that hung over her eyes. “Are you Madame Zellara?” he asked, but she just shook her head. There was a long moment of silence. “The card said there would be others here like me,” she finally said, her voice barely audible. She looked up. “Are you like me?”

Nat wasn’t sure how to answer that. He suddenly became aware that they were still standing in the doorway, her outside, him in. “Maybe you should come inside,” he said “Madame Zellara isn’t here. This is her house. At least I think it’s hers. I haven’t actually met her. I’m the only one here so far. The door was unlocked – I didn’t break in or anything!” The words were coming in a nervous rush. The girl didn’t seem to notice. She walked in and sat down in one of the chairs, pulling up her knees and wrapping her arms tightly around them. She wore a rough-spun robe that was too large for her, and something under the robe banged heavily against the table as she sat down. “I’m Natan,” he continued, trying to fill the silence. “Natan Dorré. But you can call me Nat. My friends call me Nat. Not that you’re my friend. I mean, it’s not that I don’t want to be your friend, but I don’t mean to presume that you’re my friend.” His mouth was dry, and he really wanted some of that wine.

“I’m Wren,” the girl responded, not looking at him. She said nothing else, and the uncomfortable silence descended again.

Another knock broke the silence, and Nat practically ran to the door. There was another young woman there, but there couldn’t have been a bigger difference between this one and the girl huddled in the chair inside. This woman was about Nat’s age, and just as tall. She had cropped auburn hair and wore a mail shirt that hung past her knees; a longsword in a well-worn scabbard was strapped to her hip. “Erin Nelsson,” she said, pushing past Nat and taking in the room with intense green eyes. “Are you the person who’s going to tell me how to get to Gaedren Lamm?”

Nat heard Wren give a small gasp of horror. “Um, no,” he stammered. He introduced himself, and Wren, told Erin what he knew about Madame Zellara and showed her the note. She tore off a chunk of bread and ate it as he spoke. “So are you two here for Lamm, too?” she asked when he finished.

Nat fumbled for an answer, but Wren surprised him by speaking first. “Yes!” she hissed, a hatred in her voice that shocked Nat.

“Well, I suppose it depends on what you mean,” Nat stammered. “I mean, Lamm needs to be brought to justice, so if we can find proof of his crimes that we can take to the Guard, then …”

“I don’t need more proof,” Wren whispered, and Nat’s words dried up in his throat. Erin nodded in agreement. “Lamm needs to die,” she said simply.

Nat was relieved when another knock gave him an excuse to break away. He opened the door to find a very tall half-elf grinning at him. Or maybe he wasn’t all that tall, but the pointed hat on his head made him have to duck to pass through the doorway. He clapped Nat on the shoulder. “Hello friend!” he said warmly, and Nat couldn’t look away from his striking blue eyes. “Ladies!” he continued, broadening his smile as he saw Erin and Wren. Nat could have sworn that his teeth twinkled when he smiled. “It’s such a pleasure to meet you. My name’s Shadow, and I believe we may have something in common. Oh! Is that wine?” He strode to the table, poured himself a tall glass of wine, and downed it without taking a breath, then poured another. “Ahhh! Revenge is thirsty work, don’t you find?” he said with a wink. Nat actually felt a little weak in the knees, and sat down heavily in one of the chairs.

There was another knock, and Shadow opened the door, drink still in hand. A young man stood there, a wiry fellow with sandy hair, clad in black leather armor. A short sword rode on one hip and a long dagger on the other. He scanned the room warily, then looked at Shadow. “Are you the one who left me this?” he asked, holding up a Harrow card.

“No, but I suspect we both got ours from the same source,” Shadow replied, producing a Harrow card of his own with a flourish. Erin also held up a Harrow card, and Nat fished his out of his pocket to display as well. Wren just stared at the floor.

The newcomer seemed to relax. “Then I suppose we’re all here for the same reason. I’m Jax.” Nat heard Wren give another gasp of shock, and she pulled her hair further down over her eyes. Jax seemed to notice her reaction, but didn’t say anything. Everyone introduced themselves, although Wren remained silent.

“Where do you think our hostess is?” Jax asked, after he’d read the note. “It’s well past noon. She should be here by now.”

“Maybe she’s waiting for everyone to arrive,” Nat offered. Just then there was another knock. They all exchanged expectant looks. Jax opened the door, but instead of the mysterious Madame Zellara, they saw another young man. He was medium height, broad-shouldered and well-muscled, with dark hair and dark eyes. He was noticeably better dressed than the others in the room; we wore studded leather armor that was of fine craftsmanship, and the clothes beneath it were well-tailored. His sword rested in a tooled leather scabbard, and he had a longbow and a matching tooled-leather scabbard of arrows on his back.

He took in the assembled group and nodded, as if confirming that everyone was present. “Tomas Jentaine,” he said, introducing himself, and the others introduced themselves to him – except for Wren, who had become even more withdrawn. “I assume we’re all here for the same reason?” he asked when they’d finished.

“I think we all want to find Gaedren Lamm,” Nat offered.

“I don’t just want to find Lamm,” Tomas growled. “I intend to kill him.”

There were mutters of agreement from around the room, but Nat jumped in. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! You’re talking about murder! If the Guard finds out, you’ll be hung! You know that Korvosa has the death penalty, right? I’m not a murderer. I’m not a murderer! Now, if we can find proof of Lamm’s crimes, and take them to the Guard, then I’m sure that …”

“Lamm will be dead by my hand before any proof comes out,” Erin promised grimly.

Wren looked up at her with new interest. “Why do you want Lamm dead?” she asked softly. Erin just shook her head. “It’s not important.”

Nat was still trying to bring some sense to a situation that felt like it was rapidly spinning out of control. “Look, you all look like a very capable individuals. I’ve got skills of my own. I’m sure that together we could be very dangerous to Lamm, but you have to think about the consequences. If …”

“Do you have the ability to kill Lamm?” Wren interrupted. For the first time, she wasn’t whispering, and the rest of the room fell silent. “If not, you’re useless to me.”

Tomas glared at Nat. “You say you want proof? Well I can’t give you my brother’s head. Besides, for all we know, he has members of the Guard on his payroll.” Others nodded in agreement.

But Nat wasn’t giving up. “I’m sorry about whatever happened to your brother, but we have to let the system work. I’m sure if we had first-hand evidence …”

“Like when Lamm tried to kill me?” Shadow interjected, and all heads turned to him. He pulled up his shirt to reveal a puckered scar. “His half-orc henchman Giggles stuck a knife in me there. Yargin was there, too. And that was after they’d already killed a bunch of kids.”

Tomas looked at him with pity. “Did they do that to you for trying to save the children?

Shadow dropped his head. For a long moment he stared at the floor, then he raised his head and looked Tomas straight in the eye. “No. I didn’t try to save them. I was actually kind of working for Lamm at the time.”

Everyone in the room caught their breath. Tomas continued staring at Shadow. “Do you want to tell us why you were working for Lamm?” he asked, menace in his voice.

Shadow didn’t look away. “No,” he said at last. “I don’t think I do.”

No one in the room seemed to breathe. Jax let his hand slide to the hilt of his sword, expecting trouble at any minute. Tomas continued staring at Shadow, trying to judge him, and Shadow stared back, letting himself be judged. Finally Tomas turned away, facing the rest of the group. “Do any of you know anything about shiver?”

Shadow’s eyes returned to the floor. “I do,” he said, almost to himself. “I know all about shiver.”

The rest shook their heads, and Tomas continued. “Well count yourselves lucky. You don’t want to know. My brother was a shiver addict. Lamm and his people kidnapped him, used him to try to blackmail me. I tried to help him, and I failed. They cut off my brother’s head and sent it to my mother. She’s in an asylum now, and my father just stares at the walls. That’s who we’re dealing with. I want to rid Korvosa of this scourge.”

Shadow looked up again. “Now that’s something I could get behind,” he said with an evil grin.

Nat still wasn’t giving up. “Did you see Lamm kidnap your brother? Could you testify that …”

“Oh for gods’ sake!” Jax shouted. “These are not the kind of people you gather evidence on, or report to the police! They’re the kind of people you kill!”

“What do you know?” Erin asked.

Jax seemed flustered. “Well, you know … I grew up on the streets. I hear stories. You’ve heard about the alligator?” This drew blank looks from the others, except Wren, who was staring at Jax intently. “Well, that’s how he gets rid of his kids. He feeds them to an alligator. At least, that’s what I’ve heard.”

“NO!” Wren screamed, leaping to her feet and pushing Jax back against the wall. “No! You were there! I was there. You’ve seen what he does, what they do. You know! You know!” she sobbed.

Jax stared at her in horror. “Who are you?” he whispered

“Don’t you remember me, Jax? I’m Wren. I’m Wren.”

Jax was overcome with a flashback of a half-remembered little girl, clad in rags and toiling away under Lamm’s lash. But what he most remembered was the name. “You’re Wren? You’re famous! You’re one of the only two of us they ever let go!” Another string of memories flooded in, of Lamm’s gravelly voice as another victim was about to go into Gobblegut’s pit. “It doesn’t have to end like this,” Lamm would purr. “If you’re good little Lambs, you could end up like Wren and Vonnie, and we could send you off to live with some rich family.” And then there would be screaming, and blood.

Tomas stared at the two. “You were Lambs?”

“No!” Wren screamed, turning on him, and he backed away before her fury. “I’m NOT a Lamb! I killed myself to escape. I tried to kill myself. I jumped off a bridge, and they thought I was dead. But I failed, I failed. I tried to die, but I couldn’t even do that right. But I’ll never go back. Never!” She collapsed to the floor, sobbing, and the group watched in silence, unsure how to relieve such pain.

Her sobs were just subsiding when the door opened again. A middle-aged Varisian woman stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the mid-day sun. She looked at Wren, lying on the floor with tears still wet on her cheeks, and the rest of the group standing around her. She stood in silence for a long moment before she spoke. “I see the spirits have guided me well.”

She stepped into the room, and reached out her hand to Wren. After a moment’s hesitation, Wren took it, and allowed the woman to help her to her feet. She guided her to a chair, and motioned for the others to sit as well. “I am Zellara Esmeranda,” she said when they were all seated. She spoke with a thick Szarni accent.  “Thank you for coming, my friends, and for putting up with my unconventional method of contacting you. I have reason to remain hidden, you see — a vicious man would see great harm done to me if he knew I was reaching out for help. This man has done something terrible to each of you as well. I speak, of course, of Gaedren Lamm, a man whose cruelty and capacity to destroy the lives of those he touches are matched only by his gift for avoiding reprisal. You see, a year ago, his thieves stole my Harrow deck from me. It was important to me, an heirloom passed down through a dozen generations, and also my sole means of support. When Lamm’s pickpockets stole it, my son Eran tracked them down and tried to get it back from them, but Lamm's thugs caught him, murdered him, and sent his hands and head to me in a box with a note reading ‘This is what happens to those who try to steal from Gaedren Lamm.’

“I sought help from the Korvosan Guard, but they said there was little they could do, a story I suspect you all know all too well. And so I asked around. I paid bribes. I bought a new Harrow deck and consulted it for advice. And recently, I was rewarded — I found out where Lamm dwells. He can be found in an old fishery north of here, at Westpier 17, where he trains abducted children to be pickpockets and counts his stolen treasures.

“But I need your help. I cannot hope to face this man on my own, and the Guard moves so slowly that if they were willing to help, Lamm would certainly know of their coming well in advance. And even if they arrested him, what guarantee would I have he would be punished? This criminal has evaded the law for decades. But you know of these frustrations as well, for the spirits tell me that Lamm has wronged each of you, too. So there we are. It is time for him to pay. Are you with me?”

She looked around the table. Heads were nodding. “Yes!” Tomas said emphatically.

“For Jit,” Wren whispered. Shadow started at the name, and looked at Wren more closely. He leaned in close. “I’m sorry about Jit,” he said in a tone for only Wren to hear. “I was with her – at the end.”

Wren looked at him. “They brought her body to me, for preparation. When I saw her … I just couldn’t take it anymore.” The tears were flowing again, but her face was a blank mask, betraying no emotion.

Nat was looking around the room, near panic. Who were these crazy people? How had he ended up in a room full of murderers? Zellara saw his reservations. “Natan – we haven’t heard from you. If you’re not up for this, I understand. You can leave now, and no one will think less of you.”

Nat looked around the room, and he knew that wasn’t true. Every person in this room had reason to want Gaedren Lamm dead, and they would think he was a coward if he didn’t help them.

“Look, you don’t understand. I’ve been down this road before. The last time I saw Gaedren Lamm was in a courtroom. Someone was being tried for murder, a murder that one of Lamm’s men committed. The Arbiter didn’t want to hear any excuses – she saw evidence, and she acted on it. But appearances can be deceiving – the evidence wasn’t really evidence at all. It had been planted by Lamm. And so an innocent man was sentenced to hang, for a crime he didn’t commit. But in the end, the Guard figured it out, and realized they had the wrong man. So it all worked out.”

Jax had figured out Nat’s little parable. “You escaped the noose?” he asked, a note of awe in his voice.

Nat scrambled to try to find a way to keep up his story, then gave up. “By this much,” he said, holding his fingers a half-inch apart.

Zellara patted his hand. “It’s understandable that after having escaped the gallows once, you wouldn’t want to risk it again. I’m sure your mother would understand.”

Nat whipped his head around and glared at Zellara, then at her deck of Harrow cards. “What do you know about my mother? Have you been talking to her?” His voice betrayed a mixture of anger and hope.

Zellara shook her head sadly. “No, I cannot do that, but the spirits tell me how you grieve for her. But you must choose.”

Nat stared at the Harrow deck in the center of the table. “My mother was sick. She had money for a healer, but she spent it on me instead. To save me from the hangman’s noose, at least for a little while. And that little time was enough for them to discover I’d been framed, and to set me free. But it was too late for her. She gave her life to save mine, but she shouldn’t have had to. She wouldn’t have had to if it hadn’t been for Lamm. She’s dead because of him.” He looked up, and one by one locked eyes with everyone around the table. “I’m in.”