Return of the Paladin

by Layton Green

  “Thank you,” she said after a moment, surprised by the acquiescence. “It will be good to see Riga again.”

  “You are not, however, to accompany Val on his mission.”

  “What? But I can—”

  “Silence!” he thundered. “I’ll brook no discussion. You defied me once already, and I’ll not return you to danger.” He turned to Val. “I’ll hold you responsible if she does not remain in Kethropi City during the journey. Yes?”

  “Understood,” Val replied. Adaira wouldn’t like it, but what could he do?

  “Do you have anyone else in mind?” he said to Val. “A majitsu won’t have enough magic for a sustained journey with the Skincloth.”

  “Zagath mentioned runes on a door inside the temple. It might be helpful to have a bibliomancer along, and I happen to know a talented one.”

  Lord Alistair steepled his fingers. “A good point. If he agrees, Dida is an acceptable companion.” He clapped once and stood. “Now, if you’ll both excuse me, I have a speech to prepare.”

  Later that night, Val met Dida and Adaira on a cobblestone street outside the entrance to The Gryphon’s Beak, a popular pub near the Guild District that catered to seasoned adventurers.

  After they exchanged greetings, Val opened the heavy oak door, releasing an aroma of wood smoke and fat drippings from the open grill built into the rear wall. Patrons congregated around high tables spread throughout the room. It was a boisterous and edgy crowd, armed to the teeth.

  Pennants, flags, and coats of arms from around the world hung above the bar in the center of the establishment. Val aimed for a table by the fireplace where a burly one-armed man sat alone, drinking a mug of foamy red ale. The tables around him were unoccupied, as if the other patrons were wary of sitting too near.

  It was the same table at which Val and Dida had met the grizzled explorer the first time, and his scarred face broke into a scowl as the three of them approached. Val smiled to himself. Rucker was as unchanging as the tide.

  As usual, the adventurer’s long gray hair was caught in a ponytail, and he wore a battered leather breastplate with a sleeve attached. A shorter sleeve covered the stump of his other arm, and a pair of serrated hunting knives hung from his hip. There was no sign of his multicolored ring, but the silver battle-axe he had taken from Myrddin’s Tomb dangled menacingly from his leather belt.

  “I don’t like the looks of this,” Rucker drawled. “Can’t an old man drink in peace?”

  None of them had seen Rucker since their return from the alternate dimension on the other side of the spirit fog. Adaira approached Rucker from behind and wrapped her arms around his neck, causing the gnarled warrior’s cheeks to flush bright red. He spluttered as she disengaged, looking as helpless as Val had ever seen him.

  “I missed you,” Adaira said.

  Rucker grunted in response, then exchanged a forearm clasp with Val and Dida that almost resulted in the shattering of Val’s ulna.

  “Take a seat, then,” he said, waving a hand at them. “Ye look like fools standing around without a beer.”

  A slim waitress came over to take their order, winking at Val when Adaira wasn’t looking. After she returned with a round of ale, Val said to Rucker, “We need your help with something.”

  “I told you before, I don’t get involved.”

  “Unless there’s a sick relative who needs your help,” Val said.

  “Bah! Are you related to me? Didn’t think so.”

  Adaira patted his hand. “We just need some advice. I promise.”

  “I trust a promise from the three of ye about as much as I trust a fox with me chickens.”

  “We’re just waiting on Synne,” Val said. “As soon as she arrives we’ll—”

  A commotion near the entrance interrupted him. Val turned to see a hulking man with a long red beard berating someone at the door, as if trying to bar them from entering. When the person tried to slip past him, Val saw a shaved head and lithe figure, and realized to his surprise it was Synne. His shock increased when he realized the identity of the bearded man: Kjeld Anarsson, First Don of Majitsu. Next to his enormous frame, Synne resembled a starving urchin.

  The cavernous establishment was very crowded. Somehow, Val had missed Kjeld on his way inside. The man was obviously drunk, and he was shoving a finger in Synne’s face.

  Val rose to intervene, but Rucker grabbed him. “Boy, that’s Kjeld Anarsson.”

  “I know who it is,” Val said in annoyance. “And that’s my majitsu he’s bullying.”

  “Better bullied than lying on the floor with yer throat ripped out.”

  As Val shrugged him off and strode towards the door, he heard Kjeld roar, “The Don you dueled was my first cousin!”

  “The girl who hung herself was my little sister,” Synne replied, thrusting her chin forward and squaring her shoulders for a fight. “And it’s your cousin’s fault she’s dead.”

  “Lying wench!” With a strangled cry, Kjeld took a swing at Synne, so fast Val could barely see it. Somehow, Synne reacted in time, and after she blocked the blow she went low for a leg sweep. As inebriated as Kjeld appeared to be, he sidestepped the maneuver, graceful as a ballerina, then caught Synne by the throat with one hand and lifted her straight in the air. Her eyes bulged at once. She managed a shortened combo kick to his midsection, but he didn’t even react to the blows. Val realized the towering majitsu was about to squeeze the life out of her, right in front of everyone. Enraged, Val summoned Spirit Fire to his fingertips, though too many people surrounded the combatants for him to use the spell. He waded through the crowd, worried he wouldn’t reach Synne in time.

  “Don Anarsson!” Adaira shouted from behind him.

  The command in her voice caused the crowd to quiet. Kjeld turned to face her, holding Synne like a rag doll. She was gasping for air and clutching at her throat.

  “Release that woman at once!”

  His eyes widening at the sight of the Chief Thaumaturge’s daughter, Kjeld snarled and tossed Synne to the side, against a wall. As she crumpled to the floor, Val extinguished his magic and rushed over to her, but she pushed him away and stood by herself, wobbly on her feet. He knew she had a bandage beneath her robes to cover her broken ribs.

  “Adaira,” Kjeld said evenly, “this woman is responsible for the death of my cousin. Honor demands I settle that score.”

  “If I am not mistaken, your cousin fought a duel according to the regulations of the Code of Majitsu—and lost. According to those same regulations, there is no outstanding honor debt. Stand down, commander.”

  With a visible effort of will, Kjeld maintained his composure and performed a half bow. “My lady,” he said tightly, and then strode towards the door. On his way out, Val saw him glare at Synne. An unspoken promise to finish the job.

  A posse of Kjeld’s supporters followed him out the door, and they disappeared into the night.

  “That’s not an enemy you wish to have,” Rucker said, when they returned to the table. Dida looked disturbed by the violent encounter. While Synne said nothing, her normally steady hands were shaking as she sat, and an ugly purple bruise had blossomed on her neck.

  “He was about to kill her,” Val snapped at Rucker.

  “He wouldn’t have killed her. Not in here.”

  “It didn’t look that way to me.”

  “I can take care of myself,” Synne said.

  Rucker snorted. “Sorry lassie, but not against that monster, you can’t. He’s too ambitious to risk his rank over an unauthorized murder. He was just blowing off steam. But don’t get in the way of that one. I’m not even sure Spirit Fire would stop him. Some say he’s as powerful as an elder mage, and no one disputes he’s as nasty as a cornered wererat.”

  “Powerful men think they can get away with anything,” Adaira said. “It’s despicable. He’s three times your size,” she said to Synne, “and your superior as well.”

  The majitsu didn’t respond, and Val could tell by her darkened brow t
hat Adaira’s words had only angered her more. Synne was as proud as anyone he had ever known, and the head of her beloved order had just embarrassed her in public, as well as questioned her honor.

  Eventually the conversation turned to the trip to Kethropi City. Val filled Synne and Rucker in on the details, and asked if they knew anything helpful.

  “I know nothing of such things,” Synne said to Val, “except I wish you wouldn’t go someplace I cannot accompany you.”

  Adaira leaned a little closer to Val, and he caught a stab of jealousy in her eyes.

  “I appreciate the concern, Synne,” he said. “Unfortunately, the Skincloth can only be used by a mage.”

  “I could accompany you through the portal. Stay with you until you leave for the temple.”

  “We’ll be fine,” Adaira said. “There’s no danger in Kethropi City.”

  “As you wish,” Synne murmured, with a respectful tip of her head.

  “What about you?” Val said to Rucker, unrolling the nautical chart that Zagath had provided. “Do you know anything about this?”

  The adventurer studied the vellum scroll. “I haven’t heard of this trident, but the description of a ruined temple beneath the ocean, in that part of the world, smacks of the lost civilization of Kau-Voa.”

  “Ah,” Dida said, lifting a finger in the air. “Yes, I hadn’t thought of it before.”

  “The what?” Val asked.

  Dida assumed a scholarly air. “Kau-Voa is rumored to be an ancient civilization that existed long ago, deep in prehistory. Perhaps during the Calaverian Age.”

  “That sounds like the myth of Atlantis.”

  “I’m unfamiliar with that legend.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  Dida sniffed. “The kethropi are notoriously bad historians. I have no doubt that significant historical sites exist within the boundaries of their kingdom, unknown to the outside world. If this lost temple really is a remnant of the Kau-Voa, the chance to study it firsthand would be extraordinary!”

  As Dida made notes in a journal, Val continued to probe, but neither the bibliomancer nor Rucker had anything else of value to add. Almost no humans had visited any part of the Kethropi Kingdom, since the water-breathing requirement made it a tad difficult.

  Disappointed by the lack of knowledge, Val sat lost in his thoughts until the conversation turned to the recent state of war declared by the Congregation. Rucker slammed his mug on the table in disgust.

  “Isn’t the Realm territory enough for that father of yours?” Rucker said to Adaira.

  “Threats have been made by the Mayan Kingdom,” she said stiffly. “He cannot project weakness to our enemies.”

  “Weakness? The Congregation?” Rucker guffawed. “The Battle Mages are formidable, but they’re hardly a threat to storm the walls of New Victoria.” He wagged a finger. “My guess is this pretext of squashing the so-called revolution is a way to whet the public’s appetite for war. He wants the Mayan Kingdom for himself, and the bigger prizes further south. It’s bad business, pushing into a neighbor’s homestead,” he said, with a shake of his head. “Bad business.”

  “Dean Groft is bad business,” Val said. “He’s with the Revolution, and that should be enough to scare anyone.”

  “Aye. ’Tis true. But still—and no offense to all of ye—a government with no check on its power worries me even more.”

  “It’s getting late,” Val said, as he drained his mug. “We should rest before our journey.”

  Rucker folded his arms as they stood to leave. He looked at each of them in turn, but his eyes rested longest on Val. “Ye watch yourself now, lad,” he said. “In Kethropi Kingdom, as well as right here in New Victoria.”

  -22-

  “Did the Nephili have a religion?” Will asked suddenly, as he stared at the outline of the seamless door to the storehouse. He and the others were standing at the top of the enclosed obsidian stairway they had found by walking through a secret entrance in an abandoned section of the city.

  “What an odd question,” Skara said. “I’ve no idea. Why do you ask?”

  “I don’t really know. Maybe just looking for insight into their nature.”

  “I think they were the religion.”

  Mateo was standing next to Yasmina, holding the urumi blade in his hand. “If we can open the door, should we expect a guardian inside?”

  “I’ve no doubt the storehouse was once protected by something I’ve no wish to face,” Skara said. She had looped the corded glow stone around her neck, and was holding her cudgel in one hand, the bladed cane in her other. “The question is whether the guardian survived the plague and the passage of millennia.”

  “Say your prayers to fallen gods,” Will said, locking his wrists as he held Zariduke at arm’s length.

  As soon as the ensorcelled blade struck the door, a dull green light outlined the surface of the portal. Instead of a clean swipe, or encountering the natural resistance of stone, Zariduke instead bit deeply into the substance of the door, as if cutting into a force field. Arms straining with the effort, he grunted and thrust harder, afraid the sword would get stuck if he lost momentum. Mateo offered to help but Will shook his head and put all of his strength behind the effort, shoving the blade forward millimeters at a time until it finally broke through and the door dissolved into motes of green light.

  “I have no idea what kind of magic that was,” Will said, panting from the effort, “but it wasn’t normal.”

  In disbelief, Skara stepped carefully through the open space where the door used to be. “At last,” she breathed. “The storehouse is open.”

  Bartu followed behind her, both scimitars in hand, as everyone entered a circular chamber the size of a small pond. Like much of the architecture in the city, the surface of the floor was made of smooth black stone with no visible seams. Spaced throughout the chamber were slender pillars of the same onyx hue, bending to connect the floor to the walls like the curve on a 3-D graph, or disappearing into the darkness above their heads to support an unseen ceiling. These pillars were of varying sizes; some as thin as a finger, some as thick as a light pole. Most incredible of all was the pool of thick gray energy seething in the center of the chamber. The storehouse gave Will the impression of being inside a giant, three-dimensional wheel with a hot tub of dirty water serving as the hub.

  As he and the others carefully approached the basin, which resembled a viscous bank of thunderclouds caught in the center of the floor, he looked down and realized the dirty mass of energy was swirling torpidly in random patterns, as if confused.

  “Over here!” Dalen called out. “Look at this!”

  Everyone turned, astonished to find the illusionist in a corner of the room, waving his hand through a portion of the wall. After getting everyone’s attention, he stepped all the way through and called back for them to follow.

  Will entered last, passing through the illusion into a corridor that curved away into the darkness. On the left side of the passage was a succession of pronged silver stands as tall as Yasmina. They were empty except for the four closest to the illusory doorway. Cradled atop each of these stands was a single disc-shaped object glowing with the same greenish tint as the door to the storehouse.

  “Sephyr Wafers,” Skara said in a reverent voice, reaching up to grab one of the plate-size discs. “Just as the journal said.”

  “You sure you want to do that?” Will asked.

  She ignored him and plucked one off its stand, cradling it in her hands. Everyone tensed as Skara turned it over. It bore no markings of any kind. “It doesn’t weigh very much.”

  As she carefully placed the wafer in her backpack, Will wanted to scratch an itch that had formed from studying the design of the storehouse. He reached up to take one of the wafers and returned to the main chamber, followed by Mateo, who watched as Will knelt in front of the basin, careful not to touch the surface.

  Will wasn’t sure what he planned to do, perhaps just see if the wafer or the
pool reacted to the proximity of the other. Yet when he held the green disc above the surface, it dissolved to dust in his hands. It happened too fast for him to react, other than to watch in shock as the cloud of powder disintegrated into the pool, followed by a crackling sound that caused sparks of colored energy to dance within the basin. The gray mass began to stir faster, and an emerald flame shot along a grid of previously invisible lines throughout the floor of the chamber. The flames leapt onto the connecting pillars in the room, flowing into them and causing them to glow. Neither Will nor Mateo was standing on one of the lines on the floor, though Mateo had been grasping one of the pillars with his metallic hand. He jerked away but seemed to suffer no damage.

  A scream came from inside the secret chamber Dalen had found. Skara Brae stumbled into the main room holding her arm out in front of her. Her leather shirt was burnt through near her left triceps, the skin blistered and raw. She was holding a wafer wrapped partly in a cloth in her other hand. The others followed her out but appeared unharmed. Bartu had retrieved Skara’s cudgel.

  “What happened?” Will asked.

  “I was leaning against the wall when I got a shock—Bartu! Your hand!”

  Everyone turned to regard the warrior, who was staring down at his left hand, the fingers of which had been burnt to white bone underneath. His palm was a pulpy mass of bloody flesh that made Will wince.

  “I’ll get the healing salve,” Skara said. “You didn’t even cry out!”

  As if just realizing he was in pain, Bartu howled and bent over his hand. The adrenaline of the situation must have caused a delayed reaction.

  Will noticed the colored sparks in the basin glowing brighter at the same time he heard a hum from overhead, followed by a gathering of white light in the darkness directly above the basin. “Get back!” he cried, just before the light coalesced into a beam that shot downward, curving towards Will like a heat-seeking missile. Without thinking, he raised the sword in defense instead of his shield, which was still strapped to his back. Zariduke caught the beam and absorbed it, though the impact moved him back a step.