Return of the Paladin

by Layton Green

  Val thought about it. “You wanted to know if I had any connection to the Revolution.”

  “As always, your instincts are unfailing. I’ve had you followed from the moment you returned from Londyn. I’m curious; did Groft ever approach you about joining him?”

  “Never.”

  “There’s one thing of which I’m uncertain—how did you arrive in this world?”

  The thought of his father’s role in all of this, the lengths he went to in order to protect his sons, caused a lump to rise in Val’s throat. He thought about Lord Alistair’s question and decided to withhold Salomon’s name, not knowing what response it would elicit. “A portal our father left us. A friend of his, our godfather, helped us escape when Zedock came for us. He left us the sword and the staff but didn’t have time to tell us much else. Or maybe he didn’t know. Our father left us a journal, but Zedock stole it.”

  “You never had a chance to read it?”

  “No.”

  Lord Alistair’s face tightened in sympathy. “What an unfortunate turn of events. I can’t imagine the shock you must have experienced upon your arrival on Urfe.”

  “No. You really can’t.”

  Alistair began to pace again. “I said my proposal still stands, and I’ll go a step further. I understand family, and what your brothers mean to you. Find the Coffer, and I’ll return them to your home world unharmed.”

  Val was stunned once again. “You can do that?”

  A thin smile appeared on the Chief Thaumaturge’s lips. “Once we find them, of course. I’ve no interest in punishing them. This is not their world. They do not understand their choices.”

  Val sagged in relief. “I just want them home safe.”

  Alistair laid a hand on his arm. “I had a brother once. He died when I was young, and I was devastated.” He released Val’s arm and wagged a finger. “As long as we find your brothers before a battle erupts that they cannot win, they should be safe. Now,” he said, crossing his arms and raising his eyebrows, “what was it you were about to tell me?”

  Val’s smile was swift and wolfish. “I seem to have forgotten.”

  -3-

  After the council meeting, Mateo and Tamás tried to get Will to join them for a late dinner at the tavern. Dalen offered as well, once Will returned to the inn where they were sleeping.

  He refused them all. Not even Mala could have kept him from his vigil on the stairwell outside Caleb’s room that night. At some point, his brother had to leave for food or to relieve himself, and Will planned to corner him. As the grandfather clock down the hall ticked away, he slumped on the second-floor landing of the inn’s battered staircase, stained with time and spilled ale, the floorboards stripped of shine by the tread of adventurers past.

  Midnight came and went. Late-night guests had to maneuver around him as they returned to their rooms. Their annoyed stares turned incredulous, and then reverential, when they recognized him. Months before, Will would have questioned whether the residents of Urfe were even real people, or just figments of his imagination.

  But now, in this world where dreams came true and nightmares stalked the land, where he was an adventurer with a magic sword instead of an assistant builder struggling to pay the rent, he had never felt so alive.

  He missed home desperately, as all childhood homes are missed, but he had come to love the world from which his father hailed.

  He loved it, but he also respected it.

  Feared it.

  He stared down at the scars on his hands and forearms, badges of honor from the construction sites he used to work. Less than a year before, he had thought of the jobsite as a theater of war, the one place in all the world where he was bold and respected.

  The foolishness of that sentiment caused him to cackle out loud at his naiveté.

  Now he worried about staying alive, on a daily basis.

  There was another concern. These people—his people—thought of him as a hero. That was a title he had always dreamed of holding, but which he had never understood. No one had told him about the weight of expectation it carried, the desperate fear of failure. If Will botched this insane quest the Council was proposing, he didn’t just fail himself, he failed an entire people. So was he up to the task?

  Hell no, he thought. What kind of egotist actually thinks he’s prepared to be a hero?

  Caleb’s door banged against the wall as it flung open, causing Will to leap to his feet. His brother’s red-rimmed eyes flew wildly about the hallway, as if he had just awakened from a dream. Rushing past Will as if he hadn’t seen him, Caleb bounded down the stairway carrying a backpack and wearing the black traveling cloak with silver stitching he had pulled out of the Coffer.

  “Caleb!”

  His brother turned at the bottom of the stairs, blinking as if he had just noticed Will. “What are you doing here?”

  “What am I doing? Holding an all-night vigil in a desperate attempt to see my brother for the first time in days. What are you doing? It’s three in the morning.” He glimpsed the edge of Caleb’s black leather vambraces poking out from the sleeves of his cloak, and he noticed a new addition to his wardrobe: a leather thong necklace with Marguerite’s wedding ring attached. “Are you going somewhere?”

  To his surprise, Caleb gave a single, grim nod.

  “Um, where?”

  “I had a dream,” he said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “There’s someplace I have to go. Something I have to find.”

  “Because of a dream? What is it?”

  “I’m sorry, Will. You’ll just try to interfere.”

  As Caleb started down the stairs, Will hurried after him, catching up with him outside the inn. The two Devla sentries looked stunned by Caleb’s sudden appearance. They bowed deeply before trying to engage him, but he pushed them away and kept walking. After a moment of confusion, they ran off down a side street.

  The courtyard was dark and quiet, the glow lanterns extinguished by decree of the council in order to make the city less visible from above, in case of another attack. Will hurried forward, grabbed his brother by the shoulder, and spun him around. “This is crazy, Caleb. You can’t just leave.”

  “You’re getting ready to, aren’t you?”

  Earlier, while he was waiting outside Caleb’s door, Will had told him about the council meeting. He thought he was talking to a door, but he supposed his brother had been listening after all. “That’s different. I’ve told you everything I know. You can come with me to Prague.”

  “I have a different path now,” he said, looking right through Will. “For the first time in my life, I have purpose.”

  “Which is?” Will asked, expecting him to say he was going to drink the Barrier Coast dry, or honor Marguerite’s memory by burying her ring someplace special in the Blackwood Forest.

  Instead his brother drew up straight, the cowl of his cloak shadowing the handsome lines of his face, his six-foot-two frame looming over Will. “To kill Lord Alistair.”

  Will’s first instinct was to laugh at his brother’s joke. But then he saw the deadly glint in Caleb’s eye, the clench of his jaw, and his fists balled against his sides.

  Will rocked back on his heels. “What are you talking about?” he whispered.

  “Just what I said.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Maybe. I don’t care. Don’t you understand that I don’t care about anything anymore?” He took a step closer, his stare so intense it felt as if he were soldering two pieces of metal. “Except for revenge, my brother. I care about revenge.”

  When Will stepped closer to grip his arm, Caleb shook him off with a growl. “I don’t want your sympathy.”

  “This isn’t you. You can’t . . . you’re a pacifist, Caleb. Not a fighter or revenge seeker.”

  “I made an exception once, for Zedock. I’m going to make another one.”

  Will stared into his brother’s eyes for a long moment, hoping to see a frantic but
dying resolve, or even a touch of madness. Instead he saw calculated fury, burning with the passion of a zealot. “You’re serious.”

  “More than I’ve ever been.”

  “Then I’m coming with you.”

  “No. You weren’t in the dream, and I’m not risking your involvement. Both because I don’t want you in danger and because it might upset the balance.”

  “Upset the balance?” Will pressed his fingertips against his temples. “This dream, did it involve you fighting Lord Alistair?”

  “Among other things.”

  “Did it say, um, who won?”

  He could tell by his brother’s eyes that the outcome wasn’t desirable.

  “It’s a chance,” Caleb said. “Nothing more.”

  Will gripped his brother by the shoulders. “This is madness, Caleb. At least wait until the morning. Dreams can be so vivid at the time. We’ll have coffee and talk it out. I’ll take as long as you need. Please.”

  Caleb turned and strode away. Unable to let him go, Will hurried across the courtyard, pleading with him to wait. Caleb turned, grabbed him by the collar, and shoved him away. “You’re not coming,” he said, with a snarl. “I mean it. Don’t try to follow me, either.”

  Stunned, Will stood in the street with his hands hanging helpless at his sides. As much as he and Caleb had teased each other over the years, they had never laid a hand on one another in anger. “I can’t just let you go.”

  “You want to help me, Will?” Caleb called out as he walked. “Give me a chance to survive? Then go get the Coffer. Bring it back to me, and help me use it against Alistair.”

  Will hurried to catch up to him again. “You’re talking like it’s yours.”

  “You saw what happened.”

  “Yeah, I did. Can we talk about that?”

  “There’s nothing much to say. I didn’t even touch it. My hand got close and the lid lifted by itself. I don’t know what happened, or how, or why. Just that it did.”

  “What was inside the Coffer?”

  Before he strode off again, Caleb shrugged and said, “Nothing except this cloak. But for some weird reason I can’t explain, I feel like the Coffer is a part of me.”

  Will had never felt so helpless in his life. His brother had always been as wise as an oracle when dishing wisdom at the bar, yet hapless with his own life decisions. Principled in all the wrong situations.

  But going after Lord Alistair? A virtual god among men?

  What had Caleb seen in that dream?

  When he reached the next intersection, Caleb stopped to pound on the door of another inn. Will watched as the Brewer, a former musician from New Jersey also trapped in this world, a minstrel with the power to affect people with his music, stepped outside with sleep-filled eyes and conferred with Caleb. The two had met in the Blackwood Forest when they were imprisoned inside a fairy ring, and had grown close. Will stepped nearer and heard Caleb telling the Brewer to pack a bag and meet him at the stable.

  “He’s going, too?” Will asked, after the Brewer disappeared inside and Caleb started walking again.

  “Yes.”

  Will threw his hands up. “Why him and not me?”

  “Because he was in the dream. And because I don’t know how to cook.”

  The Brewer emerged, throwing a helpless look Will’s way before leaving with Caleb. Will tried one more time to follow, and his brother rebuffed him again. Not knowing what else to do, Will stood in shock as he watched them walk away, glad at least his brother wouldn’t be alone.

  Just before they turned down a wide boulevard, Will saw the Prophet emerge from an alley and hurry to meet Caleb, his palms held up in supplication. He was alone and wearing his traveling cloak, his intentions clear. Caleb dismissed him with a flick of his wrist.

  After watching Caleb leave, the Prophet turned his gaze on Will for a brief moment, then melted back into the shadows.

  At noon the next day, Will strode into the Red Wagon Tavern to join the council meeting. The room was full again, though Mala was nowhere to be seen.

  “Have you considered our proposal?” Tamás asked, thrusting his palms on the oak table.

  “I have.”

  “And?”

  Still devastated by Caleb’s departure, terribly frustrated he was unable to help either of his brothers, Will took a deep breath and stood at the head of the table to address the assembled elders and council members. His only consolation was that he felt the spirit of his father in the room with him. Will was sure that he, too, had been a revolutionary, and would have approved of his decision. Not only that, but getting the Coffer back might be the only way to help his brothers. If nothing happened to upset the balance of power, Will knew Val would rot in wizard prison and Lord Alistair would slaughter Caleb like a lamb, even if his brother did manage to get within a thousand miles of the Chief Thaumaturge.

  “I’ll go to Praha,” Will said, eying the assembled crowd. A cheer broke out, and he walked over to stand near Mateo. “Will you go with me, cousin?”

  Mateo jumped to his feet and embraced him in a fierce hug. “I was going to insist.”

  “An excellent choice,” Tamás said. “I figured as much. I’ve asked three mages as well, and each agreed that—”

  “I’m taking a wizard,” Will interrupted, “but not one of yours.”

  There was silence in the room.

  “After what happened with Selina, I have to have people I can trust. With my life.”

  Mateo shuffled his feet as the elders murmured amongst themselves and exchanged nervous glances.

  “Who, then?” Tamás asked.

  As if on cue, the door to the back room opened, and Dalen walked inside with a sheepish expression. “Lucka, I hope I’m not late,” the young illusionist said, looking nervous at the grim faces around the table. He turned to face Will. “You told me to wait a few minutes and then, aike, I wasn’t sure if I should knock and then I thought—”

  “It’s fine,” Will said, quieting him with a finger as he cast his gaze around the room. “I’ve decided to take Dalen as my mage.”

  Tamás looked ill at the proclamation. Merin Dragici, a wealthy trader, stood and pointed a gnarled finger at the young illusionist. “He’s not Roma, or even a full mage. We cannot leave the fate of our people to an unproven boy.”

  “He’s as old as I am,” Will said, “and in case you’ve forgotten, he was an integral part of our escape from the Darklands. Dalen is growing in power, he trains harder than anyone I’ve ever met, he’s clever, and most importantly—” Will leveled his gaze at Merin and then Tamás, “I’m not going without him.”

  Shouts filled the room, followed by a heated discussion, but Will wouldn’t budge from his position. Dalen’s face grew redder and redder, until Tamás cut everyone off. “Enough! I’ve traveled with Dalen myself, and can attest to his bravery. If Will desires him as a companion, then while I may not agree, I will accept his demand.”

  Merin continued to disagree, but Will wouldn’t relent. Unwilling to lose the support of the wielder of Zariduke, the council was forced to approve the choice.

  “And the fourth companion?” Tinea Alafair asked Will. “Who will it be?”

  “When do you want me to leave?”

  “This evening, if possible,” Tamás said. “I’m afraid there’s no time to spare.”

  Will nodded and started for the door. He had expected that answer. “I’ll return before nightfall with my fourth companion,” he said, with a confidence he did not feel. “Prepare the gateway bauble.”

  “No,” Mala repeated. She was curled into a worn armchair in her room at the inn, wearing leather pants and a scarlet blouse with a matching headscarf. “I will not accompany you on your foolish journey.”

  Will sank into a twin armchair, bitterly disappointed. He had found her packing for her own journey, the purpose of which she would not reveal. Something she needed to do alone, she said. Unfinished business from her past.

  Why wouldn’t anyone
he loved tell him where they were going?

  “We’ll fail without you,” Will said.

  “This is your expedition to lead,” she said. “Its failure or success depends on you and not me.”

  “I agree. And as the leader, I want the fiercest warrior and most knowledgeable traveler I know by my side. Someone who has been to Praha before.”

  “Capable I may be, but I’m no wizard.”

  “You killed a majitsu.”

  Her eyes moved to the corner, where the azantite-tipped cat o’ nine tails rested against the wall. A surprising range of emotions flickered in her eyes. He saw fury, satisfaction, and longing wrapped inside a distant sadness, as if she were thinking of something lost long ago. Most of all, though, he saw fear—and that both surprised and unnerved him.

  “Magelasher is a powerful weapon,” she said softly. “An artifact from a long ago age meant to combat majitsu. Not wizards, Will. Majitsu. Warriors with a touch of magic. Though a powerful item, Magelasher is a pale shadow of Zariduke.”

  “You knew it was in the pyramid somewhere, didn’t you?” Will asked in sudden understanding. “You wanted it from the start. That’s why you were so interested in the journey.”

  Her eyes lingered on the scourge. “You should accept their offer of an experienced mage. Praha is full of strange magic and powerful creatures. An extremely perilous place.”

  “I can’t be betrayed again. It almost doomed us last time. I trust Dalen, and he’s much stronger now.”

  She gave a harsh laugh, ever the pragmatist, and Will looked away. He knew that his friend, while more capable than when they had met, would still rank among the weakest of mages. In the Realm, illusionists were considered second rate wizards, more fit for a sideshow carnival than for serious magic.

  Mala had visited Praha once before. Over the next hour, she told Will everything she knew about the city. “Don’t do this, Will. Gallantry is a fool’s path. As foolish as a revolt against the Congregation. Show me a room full of people who believe a story about a hero who lived to old age, and I’ll show you a room full of fools.”