He still felt quite light. It was as if the purple substance had entered his body, making him capable of flight. Mortugal leapt from the branch, landed very softly, and looked about.
There were a few guards about a dozen metres away, but they had thankfully missed Mortugal. Even if they had seen him, they had perhaps mistaken him for a bird or a leaf. But fear seized Mortugal’s heart anyway.
He had no idea how to get back to Olwyne. He hid behind the tree and tried to calm his mind, as his body began feeling less light, as some time had passed since his contact with the stream of purple aura. He took in a deep breath and considered what he could do.
He needed to get back to Olwyne, without her he would never be able to return to Xuhn or Corpsia or anyone at all. It would be worse than death.
Then, quite out of the blue the cat came. Mortugal heard a soft sound behind and turned to see the cat. It was big, while Mortugal was small. The cat licked its lips.
Mortugal gulped. Time seemed to freeze.
“Now what do you want?” Mortugal said to the cat as though it were a person. It was one of those times when upcoming death infused one with strange courage.
The cat made a sudden dash at him. Mortugal sprang to the other side of the tree, his heart beating like a drum. The cat leapt once more, and Mortugal again sprang to the other side of the tree trunk. For at least five times, Mortugal and the cat thus circled the trunk of the tree.
Enough! Mortugal thought, Dragons don’t get killed by cats.
Mortugal abruptly stopped. He jumped and landed a kick on the cat’s right eye, at the same moment placing his other leg on the cat’s nose to climb up its head. The cat made a sound of pain, but Mortugal proceeded to grab its ears. He pulled them, even as the cat tried to use its paws to get him off. Mortugal just moved to the back of its neck, maintaining his hold on the cat’s ears.
“Now, now,” Mortugal said, as the cat struggled to get rid of him. Mortugal patted the cat’s neck in a very tender way. Suddenly the cat ceased its struggles, as though it had accepted Mortugal as master.
Mortugal let go of the cat’s ears as a reward. He waited for a moment to see if the cat was just being sly.
“Now that’s more like it,” Mortugal said when the cat remained calm.
“Can you take me to the palace’s dungeon?” Mortugal asked the cat. The cat, obeying his command, began to move towards the main door of the castle.
Mortugal reckoned the cat was a pet of the troll king. It had mostly white fur, with patches of black, so Mortugal wasn’t easily distinguishable. Seeing the cat follow his orders, Mortugal recalled of an old time when he had commanded a bear to do something and the bear had obeyed without hesitation. Mortugal wondered if the contact with the dragon egg had somehow reignited that unique power inside him.
As they entered the palace, Mortugal would get worried whenever the cat passed close to a servant or a guard, but they never noticed him atop its back.
Finally Mortugal found himself being taken down a flight of steps, at the bottom of which was the sealed door. A feeling of great relief swept over Mortugal.
Too early.
“Wow,” the guard with Olwyne said suddenly, just as Mortugal was climbing down the cat’s back. The guard had been squatting in such a fashion that Mortugal had missed him. “I am so bored that I am seeing a little person atop that cat!"
“Huh?’ Olwyne said, and it was only now that Olwyne looked towards Mortugal. Her mouth fell open.
“Haha,” the guard chuckled, “you see the small person too?"
Olwyne immediately shut her mouth. She gasped and looked up at the ceiling as if something had occurred. The guard too looked up in confusion. Mortugal used the moment to run to a wall. The cat too sprang away up the steps.
“What?” the confused guard asked Olwyne. She however kept staring at the ceiling in fake alarm.
“Didn’t you hear that sound?” Olwyne said to the guard.
“What sound? … I didn’t, anyway,” the guard turned towards the place where the cat had been last, and his eyes widened when he didn’t see it.
“The cat’s gone,” the guard said.
Olwyne shrugged.
“Well, why should it wait here?”
“But the little person?”
“You were dreaming, Angus,” Olwyne said with a grimace.
The guard bit his lip, as though wondering if he had really dreamed Mortugal. Then the guard shook his head and smiled.
“I must quit this job before I lose my head.”
Mortugal, meanwhile, was somehow able to sneak to Olwyne and climbed up to her pocket without the guard noticing. Mortugal remained in Olwyne's pocket for the rest of the day.
The night guards arrived, relieving Olwyne and Angus of their duty. Olwyne went to check on her friend, the servant Med, but apparently he was absent that day too.
“I’ll have to visit his house,” Olwyne said to Mortugal, “maybe he’s very sick. He’s helped me a lot before.”
On the way back, Mortugal wasn’t able to speak much to Olwyne about the dragon egg. She used a public carriage for transportation and there were other people sitting beside her. But when they reached home, Mortugal couldn’t wait any longer and he spilled the beans in front of Olwyne and an anxious Xuhn, moments after Olwyne took him out of her pocket.
“A dragon egg?” Xuhn asked.
“What is a dragon?” Olwyne said.
“Creatures like me,” Mortugal said.
Xuhn let out a cough.
“Ahem, like me, he means.”
“Ah, right,” Mortugal said, biting his tongue.
“But I have never seen creatures like him in our continent,” Olwyne said.
“Because they aren’t found here,” Mortugal explained. “We— I mean they— inhabit only the old continent’s north.”
“So somebody from your continent brought the dragon egg to ours?” Olwyne asked.
“That’s what puzzles me,” Mortugal said. He glanced at Xuhn, “you think it could be Malthur?”
“It's possible.”
“Dragons are magical,” Mortugal said, remembering his time in the past with his fellow dragons, “but I don’t get why that dragon egg should be drawing the purple essence.”
“Wait, wait,” Olwyne said, “who’s this Malthur?”
Mortugal looked at Xuhn and then Olwyne. He sighed. They would have to tell her everything.
***
Chapter 33
Angus had never thought in his life that he would start to like Olwyne.
Alheya, the Elder's daughter, had totally slipped out of his mind, and Olwyne had come in strong. Angus had finally succeeded in breaking Olwyne’s non-talkative nature and had got to know her better. He had found that despite her muscles, inwardly she was a very soft person. Angus had never in his wildest dream thought that he would fall for a warrior girl with arms like canons. But boy, he had.
Olwyne’s companionship provided great relief from the otherwise boring job of guarding the sealed door. Angus reckoned he would have left the job many days ago if not for her. But there was a darker shade to Olwyne’s character that Angus had found out only very recently. She wasn’t happy with the king. She was the kind of person who led mutinies and revolts.
She had told him of all that she hated about the king’s rule. Angus nodded away as she whispered her heart out, making sure nobody visiting them might overhear. While the king’s rule most definitely hadn’t been great—with only the past year seeing the deaths of thousands in north Trolland—Angus didn’t have any hatred for the king unlike Olwyne. He had never been personally affected by the tyranny of the king. Somehow his family had gotten away with relative ease from the problems created by the reckless laws. He also wondered if Olwyne had some secret past wound.
And then one day, Olwyne said the impossible to him.
It was a bright day and he had gotten up early. He had in fact been able to reach the palace before Olwyne, and was the one to bid
bye to the night guards. Olwyne came some time later. Her shoulders were drooped and she had bags under her eyes.
“Wow,” Angus said, as she put on armour over her clothes.
“What?”
“You didn’t sleep at night?”
Olwyne glanced at him, but didn’t say anything.
“Well?” Angus said.
“Are you a good friend of mine?” Olwyne asked.
Now what question was that?
“Erm, yes, of course,” Angus answered, quite unsure.
“Suppose I tell you something, would you tell about it to everybody?”
“Well, if you want me to.”
Olwyne shook her head, exasperated with herself.
“I didn’t mean that. I mean, can you keep a secret if I tell you one?”
“Uh, yes,” Angus said, wondering what secret Olwyne was going to tell him. Surely, she wasn’t planning to assassinate the king, was she? He didn’t want to be involved in such an affair even though he liked her.
Their eyes met, and for a moment they remained staring at each other. Finally Angus had to break it. The way Olwyne looked at him, he felt like she wanted to read his mind.
“So what secret do you want to tell me?”
“I have found out what lies behind the door,” Olwyne said, dropping her voice.
“Really?” Angus asked. He looked at the solid door, unable to imagine how Olwyne could have come to know what lay behind it.
“There is a dragon egg inside.”
“A what egg?”
“A dragon egg.”
Olwyne told him about the existence of another continent far away to which the dragons—a kind of flying lizards— originally belonged, and how the king was using the egg to draw the purple aura from the great screen, so that he could become immortal. Angus listened in awe, without any idea how Olwyne knew it all.
“Can you help me Angus, as a friend?” Olwyne asked finally.
“Yes,” Angus answered with a lot of hesitation. He wasn’t sure what was coming next from Olwyne. He feared it. He didn’t want any of this.
“We are planning to kill the king before he makes himself immortal on his birthday,” Olwyne said. Angus felt like he had swallowed a bucket of icy water.
“What! You want me to kill him?” Angus said aloud.
“Shhh,” Olwyne said, fear glistening from her eyes. “You don’t have to do anything like that.”
“Then what do you want me to do?” Angus asked, and he didn’t fail to notice the shiver in his own voice. Should matters go so awry every time he liked a girl?
“It’s the dragon egg. Can you help me retrieve it?”
Angus gulped. He shook his head. No, Olwyne might be a pretty girl. But perhaps she wasn’t for him. He didn’t share her interests. He didn’t want to get the king killed. If they failed, he was sure things would become hell for him and his mother.
He shook his head again.
“I- I can’t, Olwyne,” Angus said, looking down. “My- my uncle sent me to guard this room,” he gestured at the door with a shaky hand, “not to steal whatever lies in it! I can’t do this, Olwyne. I am sorry.”
All of Olwyne’s hopes shattered. It was clear as crystal from her face. She had expected him to say ‘yes’.
“Look,” Angus said, just to give her some peace of mind, “you can retrieve the egg if you want. I won’t tell about it to anybody. I just don’t want to be a part of this.”
Olwyne nodded slowly.
“It’s okay. Thank you anyway.”
***
That night Angus didn’t go straight to his house. He went to the poorest parts of the city instead. People lived in dingy slums, with houses that resembled rat dwellings. Nobody had a smile on their face; and very often former soldiers would show up, smoking or drinking. Many of the soldiers didn’t have a limb or two, while some wore a patch of cloth over their empty eye socket.
The sights saddened Angus. He wondered if he would one day meet the same end and he shivered. He recalled what Olwyne had said.
Should the king be overthrown? The answer was a resolute “yes” in his heart. Yet there was reluctance within him. Why should he be the one who is sacrificed? There were more chances of failure than success. In the former scenario his entire family would suffer. He thought of Uncle Bonzo. The kind man had gotten him a job… for this?
His duty was to serve the king, not to be involved in a mutiny. And even if the king was overthrown, who was there to guarantee that the new ruler would be any better? Perhaps he had done right in saying “no” to Olwyne. He had seen all hope break in her eyes. She was a good woman, and he was attracted to her. But did that mean he must support her in this?
“You don’t look from around here,” a man said. Angus turned around. The light was poor, but Angus saw that the man was one of the king’s servants who sometimes visited Olwyne in the dungeon. “Wait, aren’t you the guard with Olwyne?”
Angus nodded. He was filled with so many emotions that he didn’t want to talk.
“Why have you come to this rat hole?” the man asked him.
“Just… felt like,” Angus answered.
“It sucks here, doesn’t it?”
“Why are they living such bad lives?” Angus asked.
“The king’s the reason, of course,” the servant replied, not seemingly afraid to openly criticise the king—the dark might have boosted his confidence though. “I come here every evening, just to take a look at all the negative consequences of the king’s bad decisions. You know, most of the men here were soldiers. They destroyed their bodies for the king, getting maimed in battle. Yet the king hasn’t cared to give them any help. They are useless to him now, so he has thrown them away.”
“So you are one of the rebels, eh?” Angus asked. He was pretty sure by now that the man was with Olwyne in the plot that she was organising against the king.
“Do me a favour,” the servant said with a flash of white teeth, “don’t speak that so loud.”
“If you want any help from me, I can’t give it. My hands are tied.”
“Yes, yes,” the man said with dismissive air, “Olwyne told all about you to me. You are just, let’s say, reluctant to be a part of our plot.”
“I’ll resign tomorrow,” Angus said. He had abruptly taken that decision right there in the slum. He would return to his old shop.
The man shook his head in an amused way.
“Resigning won’t help,” he said. “Not in the long run. Plus, if you resign so quickly, the king might suspect you are up to something, and then he might dispose you. Your hands are tied really, as far as your job as a guard is concerned. You cannot resign so easily once you get a job at the palace. Look at me, I have been slaving away there for ages!”
“Then I will have to stop Olwyne when she tries to steal the egg,” Angus said.
The man smiled and sighed.
“So all this hasn’t changed you, has it?” he said with a sweep of his hand at the pitiful dwellings all around.
Angus didn’t know how to reply. The man turned on his heels and left the spot. Soon he disappeared into the darkness of the alleys.
“You have a hero’s heart, my boy,” the man’s distant voice called, “let it remain a hero’s.”
Angus returned home. His mother opened the door looking quite worried, since it was much late than his usual time. She told him she had received news that a village in which some of their relatives resided had been burned by the king’s men for some trivial reason. This only made Angus think more about Olwyne and her plans to overthrow the king. And that night his mother just went on cursing the king.
“You shouldn’t say such, mother,” Angus told her over dinner. The king had suddenly changed from a good leader to a tyrant in the perspective of his mother.
His mother shook her head in utter disapproval.
“The king is a demon.”
***
“Look, that was not a good idea,” Mortugal said.
Xuhn and Mortugal sat on Olwyne’s dining table, having dinner. Olwyne had prepared fish for them, so both Xuhn and Mortugal could eat. Xuhn had been very surprised when Olwyne said that she had asked Angus—her fellow guard—if he would help her steal the dragon egg.
Angus had refused, of course. It only made matters worse. It had been almost two weeks, and they had heard no news of Corpsia and Vivek. Xuhn had prevented Mortugal from going to the castle again after the first time. It was lucky that the cat hadn’t eaten him. Such a risk couldn’t be taken again.
It was okay if the guard kept quiet as he promised, but if he didn’t then it would spell doom on all of Olwyne’s plans. After that Xuhn didn’t know if they would ever be able to find Corpsia and Vivek, or return to the old continent.
“I- I thought he had become a friend,” Olwyne said, hanging her head down over her plate, while with a spoon she played subconsciously with her food.
“Friend in two weeks?” Mortugal asked, the sarcasm in his tone obvious.
Olwyne kept staring at her food, her mind lost in thought.
“How many people are actually ready to help you in overthrowing the king?” Xuhn asked. It wasn’t the time to regret. They instead needed to focus on what could be done right.
“There are about a hundred of us rebels,” Olwyne said.
“Obviously the king has got thousands?” Mortugal said, nibbling on a large piece of fish.
“Yes, but if we can kill the king, we might be able to light the fire of rebellion in the hearts of the soldiers in the king’s army. Coups break out every now and then if rumour can be believed. Not all soldiers are loyal to the king.”
“Does the king have any heir?” Xuhn asked.
“The king doesn’t have any wife or children. He doesn’t plan on having a heir. He wants to be immortal, and rule the blasted kingdom forever.”
“Is your troll king the only king in the entire continent?” Xuhn asked. The old continent after all had many kings and kingdoms.
“There are a few in the north,” Olwyne replied, “but ruling tiny kingdoms. There were more before, but our king invaded and occupied them. The few he has left are just playthings. He regularly raids the lands of the other kings. He’s most powerful.”
The Banishment of the King Page 24