Ring and Innocence
It's for the best Sauron didn't get ahold of this one
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“What’s this one?” said Anne, pointing to one of the rings the shopkeeper laid out. It had a faint blue sheen to it which suggested it was magical.
“That one increases your wisdom.”
“Oh, interesting.”
“It does make you a little cranky, unfortunately.”
Anne thought about some of the older gentlemen from her home village.
“That makes sense,” she said.
Terrance rolled his eyes.
“Come on, Anne. I bought the last ring of magic resistance. There’s nothing else here that’s going to help us with our quest.”
“In a second, Terry. What about that one?”
“That is a Ring of Innocence.”
“Innocence?”
“That’s right.”
“But… okay, so what does it do?”
The shopkeeper gave her a blank look.
“Uh. Exactly what it says on the tin, ma’am.”
Anne looked thoughtful for a long while, staring at it.
“How much?”
Terrance boggled.
“You aren’t seriously thinking of buying that?”
“It’ll be useful!”
“How in the world will that be useful?”
“How much?” she repeated.
“Twenty gold.” said the shopkeeper blandly.
“Ha! You’re out of your mind. Come on, Anne.”
Terrance turned to leave, and stopped mid-stride as he heard the sound of gold coins being counted out on the counter.
“There’s no… Anne, that’s most of your money!”
“It’ll pay for itself!”
“In what way will it… you’ve lost your mind too.”
She picked up the ring and put it on. Then she smiled, and fixed him with her expression.
“I’ll show you soon.”
He grumbled quietly to himself as they stepped out of the shop.
“Now that you’re done wasting your money, perhaps we could get back on the trail of the person who murdered Lord Arim.”
“Absolutely. I say we track down a member of the Bearskin gang and interrogate him.”
Terrance rolled his eyes.
“As I said the last time you suggested that, if we do that we’re going to either have to kill him—which is going to cause us a lot of trouble with the guards if we get caught—or we’re going to have to leave him alive after interrogating him, which will get us in trouble with the guards and the Bearskin gang.
“Ah,” said Anne, tapping her nose, “But now I have the Ring of Innocence.”
He blinked at her.
“And?…”
***
It had been easy enough to find and knock out a member of the Bearskin gang without him noticing them. They were everywhere in town. They took him to an abandoned and collapsed house at the edge of town. The hearth was still intact enough to light. Anne had been very happy about that.
Anne had insisted on going into the room alone.
“We don’t have two rings,” she explained.
The man’s screams had been… haunting. Eventually he had relayed everything to Anne in raspy whispers, in between soft burbling sounds. Terrance, somewhat shocked, retreated some distance into the road. He was—he was looking out for people coming up the road, that was it. He almost hoped someone would come up the road, though he wasn’t sure why.
The door to the cabin opened. The man crawled out, leaving a trail of blood behind him. Anne sauntered out a few moments later, a smile of pure innocence on her face.
The man saw Terrance, and crawled desperately in his direction.
“Please…help…” he said.
“My gods,” said Terrance, looking him over, “what happened?”
He looked confused.
“I was… it was horrible…”
Anne walked over to him and kicked him over onto his back. He wailed weakly. But when he opened his eyes and looked at her, it was like he’d forgotten about it completely.
“Someone came! Please… help…” he repeated, looking at her, “…someone… did…” his brow creased as if he was struggling to remember, “…something.”
“It took longer than I expected,” said Anne, “Because he kept forgetting he was being interrogated. But once he got to a certain level of pain and exhaustion he stopped being able to keep secrets. I know quite a lot about the Bearskins now.”
She held up a scrap of parchment with scribbled notes. Terrance skimmed it. Anne had been thorough. There were safehouses, gold stashes, and other things he barely understood.
“My gods, Anne, what happened?”
She looked at him blankly, without a trace of remorse.
“I interrogated him.”
The man on the ground frowned and looked affronted.
“What? No… no. I don’t… I don’t… know who did this. But I’m… certain it wasn’t… you! It was… well, I don’t know who,” his expression was a mixture of terror and confusion, as he grappled with the hole in his memories.
She grinned broadly.
“Isn’t that handy? No trouble with the Bearskins. Anyway, come on.”
Terrance followed, uncertainly.
***
It turned out that the leader of the Bearskins was actually secretly Lord Garrett Ranislav of House Ranin. He was at court that evening. Anne had Terrence hide around the corner and walked up to the guards at the entrance of the castle without a care in the world. Casually, she stabbed one with a dagger. It wasn’t a killing blow, just a flesh wound. He immediately looked at Anne, and some part of his brain erased the possibility that she was involved. He looked around at the only other person present, the other guard.
“Oi, did you see that, miss?” he said, “This blighter stabbed me!”
“I did not! It was… it was… I dunno who it was.”
“Well it’s just you, me, and this innocent young lady here, traitor.”
“What did you call me?”
“What you are! Come here, you bloody coward.”
The two men devolved into fighting. They completely ignored Anne and Terrance as they entered the front door.
As they walked through the castle, Terrance started to ask questions. Nobody else seemed to be able to imagine that Anne was guilty of anything. Why wasn’t he affected?
And then it hit him. The ring of magic resistance. It was the only thing keeping his memory intact. He wondered if Anne had thought of it too.
As they approached the great hall, the Steward stepped into their path.
“What are you doing here?” he said, looking at Terrance and ignoring Anne entirely.
“Uh. We’re here for the party.”
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” said Anne, “I’m afraid that I forgot to bring our invitations to the party. That’s my fault.”
The man’s expression almost immediately changed as if something had grabbed his brain and twisted.
“What? Oh, miss, no, you’ve done nothing wrong at all! I can’t imagine the invitation being of any importance whatsoever. I’m so sorry for interrupting you and…” his brain stumbled a little bit as he looked at Terrance, and he finished the sentence somewhat uncertainly, “and… er… and your friend.”
“Excellent,” said Anne, and swept past him. Terrance jogged to keep up.
They opened the doors to a room lit with chandeliers. A small orchestra was playing music on the sidelines. People were dancing. A song was just finishing.
Anne barely broke her stride. She walked right onto the dance floor and up to Lord Ranislav.
He turned around in surprise when she tapped his shoulder.
“Oh, hello…” he began. That was all the further he got before Anne beheaded him.
The lady he had been dancing with was coated in blood as Lord Ranislav’s body crumpled in front of her.
“Oh my gods!” she said, staring right through Anne, “someone has killed Garrett!”
Anne, also covered in blood, calmly grabbed a clean part of the lady’s gown to wipe her sword as she collapsed on the floor crying. Then she resheathed it, picked up the head off the floor, and as an afterthought, untied the money pouch from Lord Ranislav’s body and took that too. Absolutely nobody in the room stopped her. She walked back out of the room holding both.
Terrance stood shell shocked for a moment before following her out.
Everybody was in too much of a panic to take much notice of them. The strolled right out of the palace, attention slipping off of Anne, and Anne easily making excuses for Terrance in the rare instances it was necessary.
“Where are we going?” he eventually said, when they were back outside the castle walls, “The king is the one who offered the bounty.”
“Yes, but he was close with Lord Ranislav, and would never believe he was responsible.”
They stopped, and she put down the head as she tied the money pouch she’d stolen to her belt.
A city guard approached out of the mist. She picked up the head she’d been carrying.
The man gestured.
“Halt, you two.”
Anne stared at him blankly. He drew closer. He looked at Terrance.
“Been some trouble up at the castle. Looks like you are coming from that direction. You see anything?”
Anne shrugged, still holding the severed head.
“I’m afraid we haven’t seen anything, no, sir.”
His face went blank as he looked at her.
“I… no, I can’t imagine you would’ve. Silly of me to ask, dunno what I was thinking. This gent been with you all evening?”
“Yup. Making wild love in public and practicing witchcraft, as is our custom. Really, it’s been a pretty normal night apart from murdering lord Ranislav here,” she held up the head, “And his horse. And who knows, I might just kill you if you keep bothering us,” she said flatly.
Terrance turned to her, eyes the size of saucers.
“Hah. Very funny!” the guard said, “I can’t imagine a fair maiden like you would take a single step out of place. Sorry to bother you, just procedure. On you get.”
Terrance looked back over his shoulder bemused as the man walked on.
“Are you insane?”
She shrugged.
“He didn’t think much of it, did he?”
He shuddered. “So where are we taking that head, exactly?”
“You’ll see.”
***
Where they were going turned out to be the gang hideout of the Wolfblood. Just as lord Ranislav had been patronizing the Bearskins, Lord Arim had been patronizing the rival Wolfblood gang. That was why the Bearskins had been keen to kill him.
It wasn’t actually much of a secret where they Wolfblood gathered, so “hideout” was probably too strong a word. When they approached the man at the outer gate, he sneered.
“What do you want?”
“I’ve killed Lord Ranislav,” she said, holding up the head.
The man stared past it and laughed.
“You? Don’t make me laugh. There’s no way you’ve ever hurt anyone.”
Anna rolled her eyes, and shoved the head of Ranislav into Terrance’s hands.
“Ah. My mistake. What I mean is, I’m here…” she said, “…with the man who killed Lord Ranislav. You know him, right?”
The man looked at the head in Terrance’s hands as if seeing it for the first time, and his eyes widened. He looked side to side. Then he knocked on the door. He whispered to the man urgently.
Terrance could just hear them.
“Lady says this man killed Ranislav.”
“There’s no way that’s the real Ranislav.”
“Look at that lady and tell me she’s a liar.”
There was a silence from behind the door.
“No, you’re right, there’s no way she would tell a lie. Damn.”
Some bolts opened and they were lead inside. They were sat down at a table in a dark room. There were rich carpets and tapestries on all sides that, Terrance couldn’t help but notice, would very effectively muffle any screams.
On the other side of the table sat a bald, fat man, in well made clothing that was slightly too small for him. His exposed flesh was covered in scars. He looked them over as they sat down.
“People tell me you’ve got the head of lord Ranislav.”
Terrance plopped it on the table.
“There it is. In the flesh, so to speak,” said Anne.
The man stared at it. He had not gotten to his position by accident.
“I believe you,” he said, as if he himself was surprised to say it, “But I think I want something a little bit more—official.”
Just then, a man came into the room, panting.
“Boss, the town criers just rallied people in the square. You’ll never believe this, but someone has killed Lord… Rani...” he trailed off as he realized that there was a very familiar head on the table.
The Boss sat stock still for a long moment. Finally he spoke.
“Alright. Okay. So we’ve checked your bona fides. So here’s my question. What do you want?”
Anne smiled.
“This is a pretty expensive operation, yeah? And you’ve lost the patronage of Lord Arim?”
She pulled out the gold bag she’d taken from Lord Ranislav and pushed it across the table.
“Suppose we helped provide something to make up the gap, and in return—you did a few favors for us?”
The man stared at the bag of gold.
“What’s to stop us just killing you and taking the gold?”
Anne smirked.
“Well, first of all, this man killed Lord Ranislav in front of the entire court, in the castle, and got away. Do you really fancy your odds?”
Various men with blades around the room hesitated with their hands on their weapons.
“And second,” she continued, “If you don’t kill us, there’s more where that came from.”
There was a tense silence, and then the man spat in his hand and held it out.
Anne did the same.
“You’ve got a deal,” he said, “For now.”
***
Over the course of the next several weeks, the city-state fell into chaos as lords and civic officials met unpleasant ends, fueled by money from the various Bearskin safe-houses and drop spots. At first, the regent turned a blind eye. The people who fell were mostly known to be people who were waiting in the wings to make trouble if ever he showed signs of weakness.
Then all of his heirs died. All at once. On the same day. This he did not turn a blind eye to. The regent barricaded the castle and refused to come out. The guard was mobilized and rapidly became brutal. The streets were otherwise deserted most of the day apart from the patrols.
Anne was not personally present for much of this. She had decided to go on a separate quest into the forest.
Thanks to the ring, she was technically—very technically— pure of heart, and that gave her a rare opportunity. She wanted a unicorn.
Finding a unicorn was not actually a great feat. People had to actively go out of their way not to find them, and given how violent they were to most people, they certainly did. The area of the forest that was their territory was relatively well demarcated. Anne walked in past all the warning signs. Terrance was not insane enough to follow.
Three days later, she came out of the forest on top of her new unicorn. It sparkled in silver and white. As long as she was near it, it was very gentle. At all other times, it was a menace. It proved too dangerous to keep in the small stable the Wolfbloods had. So mostly she let it roam freely on the streets, and would whistle for it when she needed it. It ranged freely, terrorizing the town, and absolutely savaging anyone who wasn’t Anne, goring them on its horn, or trampling them underfoot.
But since most of the people on the street were the guard at this point, and the guard had lost all favor with the people since the regent had begun suppressing the city by force, this actually was received somewhat positively. People would shrink from their doors when the hoofbeats went by, but they would secretly hope to hear the screams of the guards as the creature chased them. Within the confines of the town Anne and her unicorn quickly became a minor legend.
Meanwhile, not all the lords the Wolfbloods had targeted had died. Well, not right away. Some, Anne had had brought back to their hideout. She’d learned a great deal from them. None of the Wolfbloods knew what did it. Their minds wouldn’t let them even juxtapose her with the idea of the horrible things they saw in the aftermath, and it left only the possibility that the lords had done it to themselves. Why? Nobody knew. Perhaps it was some curse that had befallen the aristocracy of their city. Some horrible compulsion to self-harm.
Anne began to get called “The Pure Lady”. Nobody knew why she talked to the doomed lords. They supposed that perhaps she was trying to fix the curse, but nobody could say.
Soon, Anne knew secrets. Many important secrets. Blackmail. Embezzlement. Infidelity. A thousand secret crimes in high places. And it was quick that she started to use them.
Dispatching letters by way of the Wolfbloods, and using the new moniker they had given her, she began to establish contact with the remaining, embattled lords. Telling them what she knew, and who she’d tell.
Some resisted. They sent assassins. A few even made it past the Wolfbloods. But the moment any of them saw Anne, they immediately decided that she was the last person in the world who might send threatening letters. All of them returned unsuccessful, or died. Sometimes she made good on her threats and let the consequences play out. Sometimes she turned the ones who caved against the ones who didn’t. They, in turn, leveraged resources she’d never have had access to. Men died by poison and stealthy daggers in the dark and mysterious and suspiciously timed accidents.
Every so often she’d deal with something herself, going out in her signature white dresses, which would return stained red with blood. Innocent meetings would devolve into slaughters, and Anne would simply walk out amidst the confusion. But she let others handle situations that called for killing hardened men who wouldn’t hesitate to shed the blood of the “innocent”.
Bit by bit her influence grew, until one day, she knew it was time. All the pieces were in place.
And so it was, on that day, that The Pure Lady arrived on the back of her unicorn at the front door of the palace and asked for a meeting with the regent. By now it was as much of an occasion as if the elven or dwarven nobility had arrived. The regent made time.
During that meeting, he was mysteriously and tragically assassinated. With the obvious heirs and major political rivals already gone, there was a moment of great confusion. Quite without anyone realizing, everyone obvious who had been waiting in the wings to take the regent’s place was gone. Now there was a regent shaped hole in the world nobody knew how to fill.
And then—something very strange happened. Rather than jostle among themselves, as expected, the remaining lords suggested an alternative. Why not let The Pure Lady take the throne? From outside, nobody could work out where this suggestion had come from, but she had the support of the people, and she unaccountably had the support of the lords who were still alive. Who else was there to consult?
Of course, she graciously accepted.
***
The coronation was beautiful. The new flag of the city-state was revealed—white with a gold ring in the center. But the most surprising news to Terrance was that he would be honored at the ceremony. He had mostly been staying out of Anne’s way as things were spiraling, and she had likewise been content to ignore him. Ignore him, but not forget him. Every so often large sacks of gold would arrive earmarked for him. He knew she was thinking about him.
He put that gold to good use and dressed up for the event, which was mostly formal and boring, but tinged with surreality because, of course, he knew Anne, and he was the only person who saw her for what she was.
At last, she donned the crown, and sat gracefully on the throne. She decreed that she was ready to perform her first act. She called Terrance to approach the throne. He did so, and knelt. She walked up to him with a sword in her hand.
He watched her wearily as she tapped him on each shoulder with it.
“I dub thee sir Terrance… what is your last name, Terrance?”
“Worthington.”
“Really? Oh, well, Sir Terrance Worthington. I have only one small request.”
“Yes, my lady?”
He felt the sword suddenly at his throat.
“I need loyalty from my men, Sir Worthington. Why don’t you reach down, slowly, and remove that pesky ring of magic resistance?”
Terrance’s eyes widened.
“So you knew.”
“Of course I knew. And now it’s time for you to stop knowing, Terrance. Go on. Think how nice it will be. You will be rich, happy, knee deep in women, oh yes, why not? Or I can kill you, right now, and nobody, nobody at all, Terrance, will know who did it.”
Terrance smiled. He started to bring his hands together at his chest as if reaching for the ring—and then suddenly rolled backwards, bringing his throat out of striking range. He righted himself from his somersault and charged her. In an instant he was on top of her.
“You have fought too many foes who didn’t fight back, ‘my lady’,” he said, as he pried the sword from her hands. He got his hands firmly around its grip.
In one movement, as the guards rushed forward, he struck off the hand that had the Ring of Innocence on it.
Anne recoiled in shock, blood covering her dress. She looked down at the stump, and at her severed hand.
He expected her to ask “What have you done?”. And that was almost what she said.
A look of sickness and horror spread over her face. She looked at Terrance.
“What have I done?” she whispered hoarsely. And it was at that moment that Terrance realized, he truly was the only one who hadn’t been under the ring’s spell. Its very first victim was standing, bleeding and remorseful in front of him, as the guards closed in on both of them from all sides.
Nice!