Sometimes, in the guest book of the Crooked Stoup Inn, the same signature would appear, in the same steady hand, dated a hundred years apart.
But every few decades, when the river ran low and the drowned bells of the lower city could be heard ringing on their own, a traveler would appear at the North Gate. Gray-eyed, soft-spoken, carrying no weapon but a long walking staff. They would ask for bread, listen to the news of the realm, and leave before dawn. nesdurand
So: the one who endures beyond. Or, more grimly, the one who should not remain. Sometimes, in the guest book of the Crooked
Nesdurand. It had the weight of a forgotten language — perhaps Old Corvantine, perhaps something older still. In the scholar’s dialect, nes meant “neither” or “beyond,” and durand echoed the word for endurance, or the slow hardening of stone under centuries of frost. They would ask for bread, listen to the
Nesdurand.
He whispered it aloud, and the alley seemed to hold its breath.
Some say it is a curse. Some say it is a promise. The children have a rhyme they chant when skipping stones across the black water: Nesdurand, Nesdurand, neither fire, nor sword, nor land. When the last lamp learns to stand, knock three times for Nesdurand. And somewhere, on a road that has no map, a lantern flickers — patiently, impossibly — waiting for the next time it is needed.