Another Drink

The neck of the whiskey bottle clattered against the tankard's rim as Cor Delryn upended it, trying to get at every last drop. Nothing poured from the square black-labeled bottle except the faintest fumes from liquor that had long ago been drunk. "Helm's hairy arse," he muttered, peering blearily into the bottle.

With a hand palsied by drink, Cor threw the bottle to the marble floor, ignoring the sharp crash of glass as it shattered. "Terl!" he bellowed, his tongue thick from the drink stumbling over the consonants of his servant's name.

Nothing answered him except the echo of his voice on the cobweb-covered, cracked walls of the manor's spacious dining room. Or rather, what was once the dining room.

Cor sighed morosely and peered again into the bottle. Years ago, before the Calimshite (though Cor often dropped the final "e" when referring to Saerk Farrad) had taken his money, a polished dinner table, carved from the finest cherry wood and long enough to seat sixteen, had dominated this room. In the far corner by the windows had been a glass-fronted cabinet filled with delicate china that was thin as paper and edged in platinum. From the ceiling had hung a chandelier decorated with cut crystals and colored gems.

In this room there had been such elegance you would have thought a djinn lived here. Not so now; in this room that had once been the talk of Athkatla, Cor sat on a wobbly stool at a splintered and stained oaken table just large enough for two, trying not to feel dwarfed by the room's emptiness.

"Terl!" he shouted again. "Bring me another bottle! And don't tell me you can't find one or I'll give you a lesson you won't forget!" When his wayward servant failed to answer, Cor opened his mouth to shout again, then stopped as something tickled at his forebrain through the haze of alcohol. Something about his daughter, Moira, and why Terl was not here today.

Oh yes. Terl was supposed to be out looking for Cor's wasted excuse for a son, to inform him of Moira's recent death. Cor wondered what was taking Terl so long and began to fume. Didn't Anomen live at the blasted Order of the Most Wretched Heart? How long could it possibly take to find one poncing idiot in that crowd of poncing idiots?

"Never mind," Cor slurred. "Get mine own drink." He rose from the stool too hastily and fell backward, just catching himself on the slick floor. He tried to remember the color of the thick rug that had once lain across this floor, but he couldn't. Just as he couldn't quite remember what color Moira's eyes had been. Unbidden, a small throb of absent-minded sadness at his daughter's death gnawed at his heart, but Cor pushed it away to reach instead for his everlasting need for a drink. Yes, he definitely needed that drink.

Listing like a ship in the wind, Cor tottered to the liquor cabinet by the garden door, ignoring his reflection in the door's smudgy glass planes. He had stopped looking into mirrors when he stopped recognizing his own face. Years of abuse by the bottle had bloated his once-fine features, thinned his shining brown hair and given his nose and cheeks an unhealthy ruddy cast. Middle age was doing the rest, spreading wide his stomach, turning his rock-hard muscles to jelly and dulling his bright blue eyes to a lackluster gray. These days the only reflection Cor caught of himself was in the depths of his cups, and in there he looked as young and handsome as ever.

As carefully as his drunken, shaking hands could manage, Cor opened the cabinet's door and felt around inside. His fingers closed on air, making him bend to peer into the cabinet's dark interior, which was as empty as the rest of the house.

Cor felt a small surge of panic. Empty cabinet meant no drink. No drink meant no succor. No succor meant he would have to sit here and listen to his dismal thoughts as they marched across his blackened soul. But just as the terror and cold-sweats began, Cor remembered that there was yet one bottle left. Standing up so quickly he almost fell over, Cor crookedly crossed the room to the windows, which were still decorated with dusty, green velvet curtains that he swept aside with his arm. Sitting on the floor behind them was a full bottle of liquor, exactly where he had last left it in case of emergencies. Like this one.

Sighing happily in relief, Cor pulled the cork from the bottle with his teeth and spat it across the room. He took a long swallow from the bottle.

Behind him, a hesitant, familiar voice said, "Hello, Father."

The noisy gulping as Cor swallowed the whiskey almost drowned out the words, but the voice's broken quality caught his attention and lit within him a small glimmer of mean gladness that made him remember. Ah yes, he thought, pulling the bottle from his lips. THAT'S what I was waiting for. Time to put that girl's stupidity to some use. Drawing himself up as regally as he could, Cor turned to face his son.

"Well, well, well," he drawled, eying Anomen from toe to brows. Cor reluctantly had to admit that, except for his pale cheeks, the boy looked well. Anomen was dressed in shining armor, a flail of some quality at his belt. And -- Cor did a double take -- a girl in his company!

Cor managed to focus his bleary eyes on the dark-haired girl standing at Anomen's side. Well, it looks like I'll owe some people some coin. I was sure he was as light in his spurs as a tailor's apprentice. After a moment's study, Cor shook his head slightly. No, she wasn't with Anomen, that was obvious. She wasn't holding Anomen's hand or fawning over him the way a lover would in a time of crisis such as this. Instead, she was standing slightly behind him, taking in the surroundings as if readying for a fight.

Probably part of that forsaken Order that took him from me, Cor thought. He brought his gaze back to meet his son's burning and tear-filled eyes. "The prodigal son returns," he said, a mocking tone in his voice making the boy bristle. "Heir to his mother's foolishness as always. How far have you roamed, son, running away from me?"

Blood rushed to Anomen's face. "Speak not of my mother, drunkard," he growled. "You were never worthy of being her husband."

The girl at Anomen's side took a firm grip on the massive bow in her hands and divided her wary glances between the men as Cor swaggered across the room to stand before Anomen. He shoved a shaking finger into his son's face. "Don't you dare speak to me so! I was her husband, and I was your father as well. Never forget that, boy!"

Anomen slapped his hand away, and Cor was suddenly aware of his slight error. Not only had Anomen grown several inches since leaving home six years ago, but maybe he'd grown something of a man's courage as well. "Shut your mouth, Father!" Anomen said. "We've had this conversation before, and I've not the patience to listen to it again."

"You will listen to what ever I choose to tell you, Anomen." Cor hastily retreated back to the table and took another swig from the bottle, to regroup and rethink his strategy. This wasn't the little boy who had run away every time Cor raised his voice. But perhaps that didn't have to matter. There were many ways to put a dagger into someone's heart. "Respect your father, knightling. I am still the man of this family, and you will obey me!"

He fixed his cold stare on the boy and waited for him to fold, just as he had as a lad of sixteen. But Anomen didn't move, and Cor felt some of his arrogant confidence drain away beneath the anger in Anomen's eyes. Slowly, his hand groped for the bottle.

Just as Cor could stand his son's gaze no longer, Anomen looked away, flushing so deeply his face was almost purple. "Yes, Father," Anomen muttered. "I lost my temper and I apologize."

Relief so stark it was almost orgasmic flooded Cor's limbs. Hastily, he drew himself up and returned to his place before Anomen. The boy's head hung over his broad chest and his hands were twisted together, making him the very picture of abject defeat. "It took you long enough to get here," Cor said almost kindly. He could afford to be a little magnanimous to a beaten foe. "It wouldn't hurt you to come and see your father now and again."

Anomen nodded obediently, and Cor was pleased. He hasn't gone far, he can't. He'll never be more than what I decide, and I'm the one who decides. Not that bloody Order. A sudden, inexplicable shiver wracked Cor's corpulent body, breaking his thoughts. Involuntarily, his eyes darted to Anomen's girl, and he saw that her strange dark eyes had narrowed dangerously, and for a moment, he felt surge of terror like he had never felt before.

"Father, please," Anomen said, a whine threatening to overtake his voice, "where is Moira? What happened to her?"

Cor pulled his attention from the girl and snorted, forgetting his odd fear. "Idiot boy!" he said. Finally, they were on the subject Cor wanted. Now all he had to do was step carefully and it would all go as planned. It had to. It was his last chance. "Don't you know? She's dead! Killed! Murdered most foully by that Calimshite fiend!"

A small, strangled sound escaped Anomen's throat, and again his head hung over his chest. In the mirrorlike reflection of Anomen's armor, Cor saw the anguish distort his son's face. The girl moved then to finally put a hand on Anomen's shoulder, which he covered with his own. "How did this happen?" Anomen whispered.

"How do you think? It was Saerk the Calimshite." Cor pounded the butt of the bottle into his palm with each word. With each soft blow, the boy flinched. Good. "It was not enough for him to take my business; he had to take my Moira, too!"

"But why? That ... that makes no sense, I don't understand! Why?"

Cor took another drink, the sharp ring of the whiskey being slung about in the bottle piercing the empty room. He needed the liquor now to focus him, hone his senses to a fine edge. The bottle had never failed him before; it would not now, not when he needed it so. "He killed her because he could! For years I embarrassed him amongst the merchants, undercut his prices and stole his customers. When my business failed, he had a monopoly on the Calimshan shipping routes!"

Anomen opened his fool mouth to speak, but Cor cut him off. "He would not be happy until I had nothing," he said. "By the end, Moira was all that I had, and now he's taken her, too." Yes, that sounded as believable now as it did when Cor had rehearsed it right after the funeral. How lucky he was that Anomen hadn't attended. Another block of guilt stacked upon his shoulders that would be just enough to bring him crashing to Cor's level. Just where he wanted him.

"I'm sorry," the girl said, her unexpected voice startling both men. When they looked at her, she frowned and said, "I know I'm a stranger here, but I was wondering something: This is an estate, right? I mean, you have guards, don't you?"

The calf-like devotion Cor saw in the stupid boy's eyes made him want to wretch. No, his son wasn't bedding this wench, but Cor would have bet his last copper that he wanted to. He never did know a thing about women, Cor thought, not for the first. Once or twice a year, he managed to convince his son to meet him, and he always made sure it was at the Copper Coronet. The drink and the women made Cor less tense and Anomen more fidgety, both of which increased Cor's pleasure. And the nights he was able to cajole Anomen into buying a woman for an hour were even more enjoyable. The shame of it made him ripe for picking at for days.

Cor hastily waved away the girl's words before they could sink into Anomen's thick head. "The guards left months ago. I had no money to pay them with. Soon I will lose my house as well." He fixed his gaze on the boy. Time for the kill. "Saerk has taken all of it ... all of your mother's and sister's things."

"No," Anomen said softly. He looked around the empty room as if seeing it for the first time, and perhaps he was; how many years had it been since Anomen last had come home? Slowly, Anomen's back straightened, and he almost looked like the knight he had run away to become. "No," Anomen said again. " He didn't take it, Father. It was you. You lost it."

"I lost it because you abandoned your family!" Cor said quickly, and the iron that was hardening the boy's backbone melted away like butter in the sun. Cor smiled; it was easy to pull the right levers when you were the one who installed them. Anomen had been such a mother's boy, so protective of his family. That streak of familial loyalty ran so deep that Anomen had never raised a hand against him. Cor had taken care not to beat that out of him. Always cultivate weaknesses in your enemies, that was Cor's motto. That the enemy in this case had been a little boy was irrelevant. "If you hadn't run away, Moira would still be alive. You should have been here to protect her! To save her!"

Tears sprang again into Anomen's eyes. "I'm sorry. Helm help me, I'm sorry, I ... I did not know." His voice hitched, and for a moment Cor was afraid Anomen was going to start weeping. Evidently the girl did, too, because she finally took his hand in hers and whispered something to him. Probably just useless words of sympathy, but her dark head was shaking, and there was a firmness to her lips that made Cor's breath slow. She was going to ruin everything.

Cor stepped forward as if to take his son by the arm. At the last moment, he swung his meaty arm back, connecting it with the girl's chin and knocking her away from Anomen and against the wall hard enough that she bounced. To Cor's disappointment, she did not cry out.

Before Anomen could turn to look at his girl, Cor poked him in the chest hard, jamming his finger against the burnished metal." You should have been here, Anomen. Never forget that!" When Anomen's face crumpled into the proper lines of shame, Cor leaned forward and said conspiratorially, "It's too late to save Moira, but your work is not yet finished, Anomen."

"No, but ... but," Anomen blubbered, "what can be done? Moira is ..." he swallowed hard and whispered, "Moira is dead."

Cor shook his head. "She can be avenged, Anomen."

"Wait," the girl said, rubbing her chin. The look of hatred on her face made that odd shiver again run up Cor's spine, but he shook it off and spoke over her thin voice, "You must kill Saerk and his son," he said. "It's the only way that Moira's spirit can be at rest."

"Wait!" the girl said louder. Feigning an ease he did not feel, Cor stepped back to bully her into the wall, but this time she planted the heels of her small hands on his back and shoved him forward with so much force that he very nearly fell to the floor. "Anomen," she said, "This isn't a good time for this, not now. You need some time ..."

Damn her! Cor clenched his fists, then forced them to relax. He could still do this, still make anyone do whatever he wanted. "What better time would he have?" he asked her, knowing that Anomen would pick up on the disgust laden in his words. "You would keep my son from fulfilling his duty, as the gods themselves demand?"

"I don't think that's the kind of god that Anomen follows," the girl said. "If you think that, then you don't know him at all. But then, I don't guess that you do."

"Renai," Anomen said, gingerly touching her elbow, but she shook him off. "Please, don't ..."

"Anomen, I just think ... I think you should wait until you're calm before you do anything. That's all," she said. When her eyes turned from Cor to Anomen, the distrust that blazed in them like the Tears of Selune softened. In a tender voice, as if she was speaking to a child, she said, "Trust me, wonder boy. Let's not do anything rash just yet."

Some of the confusion left Anomen's face, but Cor saw new lines etched there by sorrow and turmoil that had not been there when the boy had come in. He nodded slowly, then lifted his head to look at Cor. "Father," Anomen said. "I must see Moira's remains first. It will take but a moment. Do I ... may I have that long?" In the uncertain quaver of Anomen's voice, Cor knew that he had not lost control of his son yet.

"Go then." Cor jerked his chin toward the back door that led to the area that was once the garden. "She was cleansed on the pyre and her ashes are kept in an urn by the pool. It was the place that Moira loved most of all." He tried to put a note of tragic anguish into his words, and made Anomen cringe and the girl -- Renai -- purse her lips in irritation.

"I shall be but a moment, my lady," Anomen said, then trudged out of the room toward the ruined yards, slumped under the weight of his grief.

Left alone with Renai, Cor turned to face her, relishing in the opportunity to bully this uppity wench into proper submission. Her frown stopped him cold, made him grope blindly for his bottle again. Not so much for a drink that he so badly needed now, but perhaps to use for protection in case she came forward to hurt him. And suddenly, despite the fact that she was standing there calmly with her arms folded across her chest, Cor was very certain she was going to kill him.

"You," he squeaked, then cleared his throat, "you would do well to help him. Saerk the Calimshite is a very wealthy man, and his gold shall be your reward."

Renai sniffed, a dismissive haughty sound that fanned the flames of Cor's temper. "I thought all his gold was your gold. Didn't you say that he stole it all from you?"

She moved then, sauntering arrogantly past him toward the garden door as if her entire body moved just to mock him. Cor grabbed her arm and hauled her face close to his. "What are you implying, girl?" he breathed into her face.

Her nose wrinkled and she turned her face away, but not in fear, he saw. Not fear, but disgust. Under his grip, he felt the muscles in her arm ripple, and he knew that he again had made an error. "Take your hand off my arm, or I'll take your hand off your arm," she said. Obediently, Cor's hand sprang open and he backed away before he realized what he had done. "I didn't imply anything. And I can't help what you infer. But I'll tell you this: I know what you're doing."

Cor managed to take up the bottle and cradle it to his chest, and he took another long drink, hoping the fire of the whiskey would warm the odd coldness in the pit of his stomach. "What am I doing, girl, except making sure that my son does his duty? Saerk the Calimshite is a vile man who deserves death a thousand times over for his crimes. Killing my Moira was just the latest. Vengeance must be taken."

"That may be," Renai said. "So why not bloody well do it yourself if you think it needs to be done so badly?"

"I'm an old man, and there's only so much I can do. But my son is strong, and he has a duty to his family. If you were truly his friend, if you cared for him, you would help him." Cor made himself laugh and was heartened at its genuine sound. "But then, what are you to him, I'm sure, but a little guttersnipe half-breed slut who would only lure him into the Abyss."

"Oh ouch, stop, you wound me," Renai said in a bored tone. "It's because I'm Anomen's friend that I am going to help him. I'm going to let him make up his own mind." A slow wolfish grin spread across her face. "What's the matter, old man? Afraid of what he might decide?"

A drop of sweat from his brow stung Cor's eye, making turn away from her to he could rub his eyes. When he opened them, she was gone, and the door to the gardens was slowly closing on its hinges. "I'm not afraid," he said to the door, and his voice came back to him in trembling echoes off the empty walls.

Slowly, he tottered back to the wobbly stool and sat before the table, the bottle still in his hands. As he rocked back and forth on the stool, Cor reassured himself that all was well, that Anomen was still was firmly under his thumb as ever. He didn't know what he was worried about. If the entire Order couldn't take his son away from him, then what chance did a mere woman have?

Cor pushed his fear away and instead upended the bottle over his mouth to pour the liquor into his gullet. As he swallowed, he tried to recall if there was another bottle somewhere in the house. He was going to need another drink. Yes, definitely another drink.