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Alas, it didn’t, nor could I drag myself any closer to the end I wished to embrace. I was only a boy, after all, one who had both witnessed the destruction of his world and exacted vengeance on the man who had brought it about. I didn’t want death, but a rebirth, a second life I would eventually find on the river feeding the sea, the Oure.
Acclimating to this world of kingdoms and borders was difficult at first. The plains of my youth were nothing but a wide expanse of unruly land, governed only by old traditions and those who loosely enforced them. As I quickly learned, I would have to adjust to the ways of the western kingdoms if I meant to start over.
It took several years for me to slowly build a life for myself. I thieved, marauded, kidnapped, blackmailed, did everything else imaginable, and was jailed more times than I could ever remember, but no prison was able to hold me for long. I went by so many names that the guards never quite knew just who they had captured.
My aliases changed depending on where I was, and I switched them so frequently that I started to lose sense of my true self. Perhaps that was a good thing, giving me the time I needed to ignore my past while my soul mended itself. Once I was ready, something I’d started to realize, an opportunity to live a legitimate life presented itself.
It was in a prison in Teuvinna, ironically, that I was put on the path to where I am today. I say that because I am certain that I have done more ill against the dukes and leaders of that city than any other. The jailor, unlike his superiors, had a good understanding of who I was and offered to free me on the condition that I spend a year working for his brother, a bargemen whose trade had suffered greatly from frequent raids along the Oure. I accepted, and he secured my release. To this day, I am uncertain how he managed to free me, but little matter.
To understand why that deal took place, you have to appreciate what the rivers were like then. Whereas now the dukes are reaching out and taking greater jurisdiction over the countryside among the many hills and forests of the Northern Kingdom, back then most areas beyond the borders of the city-states were lawless wildernesses.
The jailor’s brother had been running into a lot of trouble with thieves in the night and marauders in the daylight, so it made sense to hire a person like me for security, though he was taking a great risk that I wouldn’t run. That thought never crossed my mind, however, because I enjoyed the prospect of figuring out how to stop thieving and raiding since I was damn good at both myself.
After my year was up, I stayed on with the bargeman, having developed with him what could almost be called a friendship, almost because I never gave him my real name, and I think that to call someone friend, you have to be willing to share at least that. Nevertheless, we were close enough that when he died, he left it to me to take over his barge for him since his brother was also dead.
I enjoyed the simple life on the river. It wasn’t that I felt incapable of more, but I went through a phase during which I actually thought I could have a somewhat normal life, and even wanted it. Hopes of finding a wife even went through my head, but it wasn’t meant to be.
Return to the Wilderness
Because I had gained some repute for keeping cargo safe and completely accounted for (most smalltime traders tended to be at least a little dishonest), I was periodically approached with opportunities to transport more than just goods. Sometimes people needed to get up or down the river without anyone knowing, and I was more than happy to be the one paid to make it happen.
More often, these were suspicious characters, spies and the like, but every once in a while, the person in question would be a politician. Those were my favorites, not just because they paid the best, but because of the secrets I was able to leech from them. Whereas spies tended to keep to themselves, politicians by their very nature were typically blabbermouths, though I had to learn to decipher the garbage from the truth. What I heard always intrigued me, almost like stories yet to be finished.
I once had the opportunity to transport the mayor of Teuvinna, the duke’s nephew, to a secret meeting in the forest west of Harvenbak. Things went smoothly, but on the journey back, I came across some information I’d rather not have, the details of a plot I immediately recognized as so traitorous and toxic that any and all who had knowledge of it could potentially be in grave danger.
Despite the extraordinarily high toll he paid, double what we had agreed to, I regretted taking him onboard and was glad to be rid of him.
A week later, another suspicious character approached me needing a ride from Teuvinna all the way upstream to Bayfell. I accepted as I generally did, only this man seemed to be more interested in me than in getting back to the place he called home.
Once we were beyond the borders of Teuvinna, he asked me of the duke’s nephew. I remained indifferent to such questions as I always was, but he persisted, reassuring me that I was in no danger. Despite this, I withstood all of his pressure, replying that I would not be good at what I did if I could not keep a secret. I still remember his response, which was that someone good at doing what I did would know which secrets to keep and which to sell.
We spoke several times during the journey south. Each time he tried to be even more persuasive, making it that much harder to resist his charm, yet I stood firm, and good thing. The whole time I had supposed him to be an agent of Bayfell, but I would later learn that he was actually working for Teuvinna, sent to see if I could be trusted. Had I at any point divulged anything to him, I would have found myself at the bottom of the river.
What he had said about selling secrets, however, caused something within me to stir, the thrill of evasion and of almost being caught. Deep down, I sensed that this spy was not
who he pretended to be, and that tempted me more than anything else to tell him what I’d heard. I wanted him to react so that I could, which would begin the game of shadows. I missed the life of deception, and though I resisted it then, I knew I had to get back into it.
I sold the barge and everything else, taking my fortune to the eastern wildernesses of Walthorn and purchasing land and a cabin away from watchful eyes. There, I devoted myself to mastering falconry, something that I had been dabbling in ever since I began on the river.
Once I was well established, I started to build the life I was really interested in. With all the money and time in the world, there was no need for meaningless pilfering. I wanted to sneak my way into the political vein of the Northern Kingdom, to learn more of its secrets and observe and manipulate its destiny from the darkness.
There was, however, one thing I could not do anymore, be a chameleon and change names. I had to have aliases, of course, but I wanted there to be something real behind them. Not my name, which I left in the plains, but one to claim as my own. I settled on Karsa, my father’s name.
The Final Brick
A man once told me that a life of dishonesty is one spent building a prison a single brick at a time. Only when we complete the structure do we realize that we are stuck on the inside. I now see that in the fading night of my existence.
I did get the opportunity to witness the fate of the kingdom, or rather see what its destiny is likely to be, but I will ultimately play no role in any of it. It is great men who shape the world. I should have remained content with something simpler.
To be brief, my years as Karsa have been spent restlessly performing the dirty work of the dukes, both directly and through their agents, but I was only a pawn in a game that has been going on since well before I was born, one whose conclusion seems to be nearing on the horizon.
That is not to say that I have lived a miserable, unrewarding life. It is only here at the end that I see the bleakness for what it is. My years as a spy were everything I wanted them to be, and there was much to take joy in, particularly from my falcons. I, too, found a kinship with them, something that brought me closer to the memory of my father. One in particular, Elsu, quickly became my favorite. He was quite young when I found him, lost in the wilderness, abandoned and orphaned. My best years have been spent with him by my side.
Unfortunately, each step I have taken in his training has pushed me further down an inescapable path, one that has reached its final bend. It seems that when you’ve been around as long as I have, you find that some people want you dead if only because you are a weapon that could someday be used against them, even if they are at the same time using you to accomplish their purposes.
I should have seen this treachery coming, that the very people who sent me to this wilderness lake town would be sending me to my death, but it doesn’t matter anymore. What matters now that I can see the end is that I am about to be free. It is not the kind of freedom I ever planned on, but perhaps with all that I have done, it is right that this is how I make the final journey home.
Faint traces of light begin to paint the sky in oranges and reds as I finish reading, my mind troubled instead of relieved. We were stripped of all our belongings when we were captured, meaning the journal had to have been written completely in advance. Karsa knew that we would be captured and yet left me completely in the dark all the way up to his death.
