Chapter 2: "The Intermediary Problem"

The incident at Crab-Tooth Ridge occurred on a Thursday. I note this only because it disrupts my statistical model regarding Tuesdays, though I would argue the disaster properly originated on the preceding Tuesday when Thrain decided to pursue it. I will adjust my methodology accordingly.

For context: Crab-Tooth Ridge is a coastal settlement fourteen miles east of Rust Harbor, named after the limestone formation above it that does, in fact, resemble a crab's tooth, though I found no crab of corresponding scale when I checked the local natural history records. The settlement functions as a secondary port for goods the primary port prefers not to formally acknowledge. It has eight permanent structures, a population of approximately sixty on quiet days, and until this past Thursday, a moderately functional relationship with the Rust Syndicate's southern operations.

Had. Past tense. I am noting from after.

Thrain's reasoning, as I understood it after the fact — and I understood it before the fact, which is why I began this volume four days prior — proceeded as follows: Meredith Voss claimed a payment had been made. The payment had allegedly passed through an intermediary named Gorven Slate. Thrain had never agreed to third-party settlement. Therefore, in Thrain's architectural understanding of honor and debt, the payment did not exist. The debt remained. The insult remained. Everything that had transpired at The Broken Oar — three dead dock workers, one scarred captain, one demolished tavern — was, by this logic, correct.

What Thrain required was not money. He required a confession. Gorven Slate, presented in public, admitting that no valid payment had occurred, would collapse the entire legal apparatus Voss had constructed. This was the plan. I transcribed it in my notebook under the heading Plans I Have Heard Before.

I have filled many notebooks with that heading.

We arrived at Crab-Tooth Ridge at midday. The smell was salt, low tide, and something being rendered nearby that I chose not to investigate. A fishing settlement with aspirations of commerce and the infrastructure of neither.

Thrain stopped at the ridge's edge and looked down at the scatter of buildings.

—There, he said.

I looked. I saw a crab-boat provisioning yard, a shed of ambiguous purpose, and a tavern that appeared to have been named The Provisioner at some point before the sign lost half its letters.

—Could you specify which structure? I asked. For the record.

He was already walking down the slope.

I noted the time: the second hour past noon. I noted also that Thrain had not eaten since morning and that his flask had been refilled with a local spirit of unknown composition at our last stop. These are the categories of data a careful researcher learns to track.

The man seated at the back of The Provisioner was either Gorven Slate or someone performing the function of Gorven Slate with professional competence. He was a human of middle years, unremarkable in every quantifiable respect — medium height, medium coloring, the sort of face that eyewitnesses later describe as a face. He had two associates at the table. Two more stood near the door. I counted them as I entered. I always count.

Thrain walked to the table and stopped.

The man looked up. He did not look surprised. This was the first datum I found interesting.

—Thrain Splitbeard, he said. His voice carried the particular flatness of someone reading from a prepared text.

—Gorven Slate, Thrain replied. It was not a greeting. It was a classification.

—I've been expecting you.

—Then you know why.

A brief silence. I took out my notebook.

—For the record, I said from three feet behind Thrain's left shoulder, at what point did you become aware that Thrain would seek you out? Before or after the incident at The Broken Oar?

The man who was perhaps Gorven Slate looked at me. He had the expression of someone who had not been briefed on the gnome.

—The payment was processed, he said, returning to Thrain. Three years ago. I have documentation.

—The payment was not made to me, Thrain said.

—A valid third-party settlement under maritime commercial law, paragraph—

—I don't recognize maritime commercial law.

This was accurate. I have records of Thrain not recognizing maritime commercial law, common law, guild statute, two separate city charters, and on one occasion, gravity.

Slate placed a document on the table. I leaned forward to look at it. It bore the Rust Syndicate seal, a date corresponding to three years prior, and a signature I could not immediately verify. The amount was fourteen marks and six in silver standard.

—Fourteen marks and six in silver standard, I noted aloud. The original debt was fourteen marks. Could you clarify the additional six?

—Administrative fee, one of the associates said.

—Interesting, I said, and wrote administrative fee with two question marks.

Thrain did not look at the document. He looked at Slate.

—Say it to my face. Say the payment was delivered to my hand.

—It was delivered through the agreed channel—

—Say it.

The two men near the door had shifted. Not dramatically. Professionally. I noted the repositioning. I noted also that the other three patrons of The Provisioner had quietly placed themselves closer to exits.

—This is a legitimate settlement, Slate said. His tone had changed. Still flat, but now carrying the flatness of someone who has been told what to say if a dwarf starts making demands about saying things to his face. —The Rust Syndicate considers the matter closed.

—The matter, Thrain said, is not closed.

He reached across the table and inverted Slate's cup.

The water spread slowly across the document.

One of the associates stood up.

The fight was brief by Thrain's standards. This is not a compliment. Brief, in this context, means one table destroyed, one associate unconscious against the wall by means I did not see clearly because I had stepped behind the bar, and Gorven Slate — or the man performing that function — on the floor with Thrain's boot at his collar.

—Say it, Thrain said.

—For methodological purposes, I called from behind the bar, could you please answer before he loses consciousness? My records on this point are incomplete.

—The payment, Slate said from the floor, was deposited. Into a Syndicate holding account. In your name.

Thrain paused.

This was new.

—In my name, Thrain repeated.

—Registered to Thrain Splitbeard, formerly of Kethrand. Three years ago. Fourteen marks six. The account is held at the Syndicate's Kethrand Folly affiliate. You never claimed it. That is not the Syndicate's failure.

Silence.

I wrote: in his name. I underlined it. I drew a small box around it and wrote: verify. Then I wrote: this is worse.

The second problem arrived approximately ninety seconds later, which is when I discovered that the man I had not seen leave had returned with four additional individuals who wore the particular expression of people employed not to have expressions.

The Rust Syndicate's response to Thrain's presence in Crab-Tooth Ridge was not, I wish to note, personal. This is an important distinction. It was not that they hated Thrain. They had a contractual framework that a dwarf was publicly attempting to unmake, and they could not allow that precedent. The four individuals made this clear in the way institutional entities make things clear: without anger, without names, and with the particular efficiency of people following a procedure.

—You are asked to leave Crab-Tooth Ridge, one of them said.

—I'm not done, Thrain said.

—You are asked, the man repeated, with the emphasis placed precisely, to leave.

—What is your operational designation? I asked, pencil ready.

He did not answer. They rarely do. I logged it as designation unknown, function apparent.

The one nearest me placed a hand on the bar.

—You as well, he said.

—I'm a chronicler. I'm not party to the—

—You as well.

I noted: non-combatant status not acknowledged. Added to the formal complaint I have been drafting for nineteen months to a body I have not yet identified.

Thrain made his decision in the way he makes all decisions: before the sentence requesting it had finished.

His hammer came off his back. The nearest operative went through the door of The Provisioner. Not metaphorically. Structurally. The door had been closed. It was no longer a door in the functional sense.

What followed I am recording under the heading Sequence of Events for Which I Bear No Responsibility.

Casualties: one operative with a dislocated shoulder, one with a broken wrist, one who ran and fell on the ridge path and is presumably still being located. The fourth stood his ground and lasted approximately eight seconds. I recorded the duration.

—How would you quantify that as a tactical outcome? I asked, as Thrain stood in what had until recently been the doorway.

He grunted.

—Because from a Syndicate perspective, I continued, following him out, you have now assaulted their personnel in a second location, made their intermediary's testimony public, and demonstrated that the account in your name exists—which you have not claimed—leaving the debt technically unpaid due to your own inaction, not theirs. I am asking because I want to understand where the honor logic resolves.

He stopped at the top of the ridge path. Below, three Crab-Tooth Ridge residents were watching from safe distances. Slate had not reappeared. The door of The Provisioner was a collection of planks.

—The account isn't mine, Thrain said.

—It is registered in your name.

—I didn't agree to it.

—You did not disagree with it at the time because you were not informed of it.

—Then it isn't mine.

I noted: internally consistent. Also: catastrophic.

Official register, Chapter 2. Location: Crab-Tooth Ridge. Status: hostile. Duration of hostility: permanent, effective immediately. Casualties: four Syndicate operatives of varying incapacity. One individual confirmed as Gorven Slate, status unknown, location post-incident unconfirmed, which is, I note, precisely the condition the Syndicate required to maintain the ambiguity of the debt. The payment exists. The payment is in an account Thrain refuses to acknowledge. The debt is therefore simultaneously paid and unpaid, which is not a paradox but a legal instrument, and I have noted the distinction in the margin. The Rust Syndicate's retaliation, when it comes, will not be a matter of wounded pride. It will be procedural. They cannot allow a dwarf to establish that their financial claims are contestable by physical confrontation. Thrain has now established exactly that precedent, twice, in two locations. The Syndicate operates in twelve ports along this coast. I have listed them in order of likelihood. Thrain considered the outcome satisfactory. I noted his expression. It was the expression of a man who has proven his point. I did not record whether the point needed proving. That is not my methodology. I only record what the point cost.

Crab-Tooth Ridge: fourteen marks, one shed, one door, and the last clean answer to the question of what Gorven Slate is.

I have begun volume 25.