by Dulcie » Sat Mar 02, 2013 5:22 am
"You are late." The man said as he watched the carriage arrive at the edge of Golben, where the small tent city that had been during the hot months of summer, now an abandoned waste of snow and ice. "I do not tolerate lateness." The candlelight from the lantern that he held flickered over Berdini's face as he looked at the men who had been sent to deliver his mirrors.
The men stammered their apologies, talking non-sense about a broken wheel in the town, and a trunk that hadn't be secured properly. It wasn't their fault, no, no, not their fault at all. The Councilor simply watched and listened impatiently.
"You are lucky that I am a kind and generous man. You've just confessed to losing half of my shipment, but none the less it seems that the fault was not your own. I shall be paying in full, however your lateness results in a lack of assistance. I've had to let my own people go home to return to their wives and children you see. And now there is no one left to help me to carry the mirrors into the pit." He referred to the giant crater that was Golben, motioning a hand towards a ladder where another lantern rested.
"The mirrors are for a project I'm working on for the Governor. It will be an incredible artistic attraction, bound to be just the thing that will bring people to Myrkenwood from all over. But I can't carry them down myself. A bad back I'm afraid. But since I'm paying you in full, despite your terribly inefficent job at bringing me my shipment, I can assume that you will help carry them down for me."
The men seemed relieved that they would still be paid in full for their delivery. It wasn't turning out to be such a bad day after all, they had lost nearly half the mirrors and yet they'd still receive the same very generous payment. Their eyes turned to the ladder that led to the pit. It seemed to be deep, but the ladder looked stable enough and they nodded their agreement. A few hours worth of work and they would suffer no loss in profit at all. A good honest day's labor.
The Councilor held the lantern for the men as they carried the mirrors down into the pit, taking multiple trips to carry them down safely. It was a strange place, this pit that the man insisted would be a place of art and beauty, already cluttered with a strange assortment of grotesque sculptures, strange metal pieces and now a stack of mirrors piled away in one area. They had only begun to comment to one another about the strangeness of it when they heard the scrape of the ladder being pulled up from the edge of the pit. They ran to where it had been, screaming and hollering up at the man above, pleading for the return of the ladder.
Amidst the screams the Councilor turned over to his servants that had appeared in the darkness, a pair dragging the ladder away, far far away, while he spoke to another in that strange foreign language. The dark skinned man nodded and moved to the carriage. The horses were set loose, and the carriage toppled precariously close to the pit. An accident, an unfortunate accident it had all been. Men come to deliver the mirrors, only to have broken their wheel so close to the giant pit. Surely they never survived the fall. it was such a shame that the ladder had been pulled up months ago to keep vagrants from setting up homes in the pit. A horrible tragedy indeed.
The Councilor approached the pit and called down to the men.
"I told you that I do not tolerate lateness." He turned on his heel then, gone back into the night, perhaps to return to the warm arms of his lover.