by A J Callen
Marcus gulped down a cup of wine. “But what of us, Mister Byrch? Will we still have luck on our side, God willing, to see me crowned King before the first snow?” He rose and walked out of the hall. Jack called after his brother.
“Marcus, where are you going? Dowrick said there is to be a special entertainment for this evening.”
“Let him be, son,” Lord Baerston Mor ventured as he sat at the table. “He has every right to be embarrassed by my actions. You all have.”
“No, Father,” Niall bit into an apple. “I agree with Mister Byrch. You should have punched the very pudding out of him!”
“That wouldn’t be fair, Niall. I’ve already made enough of a mess for the poor servants to clean. Besides, how on earth would they ever scrub the Tiberion stench out of the floorboards and wipe his brains from the curtain fabric? It is Kardian silk, no less!”
Everyone laughed and the protectors fell into a jovial mood once more. Simon enjoyed his first Frangipane Tart in a long time, unable to imagine such an indulgent delight under the yoke of the Pumbertons or, indeed, any slave owner.
Simon licked his fingers as he savored the tart’s sweetness, yet for all the merriment and goodwill in Farrhaven’s Great Hall, there also rumbled a hideous undercurrent, a disquieting premonition of misfortune he couldn’t ignore, lying just beyond the high stone walls of the first real home he had ever known.
Chapter 6
A Survivor’s Secret
Menacing voices called Niclas Delcarden’s name in the searing wind, lamenting cries ringing bitter against his ear while cold, gnarled hands clawed toward him from darkest oblivion, the yellow fingernails trying to gouge at his skin.
Unable to move, he stared up at the ceiling in the charred and desolate Great Hall, a place familiar yet one he wished he could forget. He did not wish to set eyes on it anymore; it sent a chill through his bones. Blood pumped between his ears, his chest aching as though a great weight was pressing down and crushing his lungs, making it impossible to breathe.
He gasped and the blackened marble tiles shattered, revealing a celestial window onto the universe of all creation, the black abyss roiling as thunderous waves, the stars sinking below the depths. His head spun, all sense of direction gone as it had before on the ship. Captain… Where are you? his very soul called out.
A cavernous corridor opened before him, winding forever into the distance. It was the only way out. He leaped to his feet and ran with no idea of where he was going, except that it must be as far away from there as possible. A blinding flash of red light engulfed him and he fell back, dropping like a stone down the abyss.
Delcarden had no sense at all of how long he had been falling, descending into ever deeper and colder depths amidst a swirling, spectral panorama of bloody war and slaughter until… Deafening laughter reverberated all around, yet no faces could he see, the slithering voices speaking in a tongue he could not understand… until a woman hissed gently in his ear.
“Why did you forsake me, my love, when I offered you everything?”
The tip of a serpentine tail slid between his legs, smoothly gliding over his groin, gently arousing him, seducing his body to want more and more until… the huge coils wrapped around his chest, squeezing and suffocating the very life from his lungs.
“Do you think she can save you now? Call to her and show the King where she hides herself away.” The coils lifted him high into the air and flung him across the expanse, sending him crashing to the barren earth. Breathless and beaten, he clutched his bleeding side and groped his way along the slimy rocks.
With every foot he crawled, what remained of his courage leeched through his bones into the ashes. He cowered, shivering in the foul, freezing darkness.
“How does it feel, my love?” a female voice enquired.
He turned toward the familiar voice, spoken by full, sweet lips he had once enjoyed kissing, though it was another lifetime ago.
“How does it feel to be betrayed while your final breath slips away and know that soon you will be the last of your kind?” The monstrous head of something that should have been dead lunged for him, its ravenous, reeking mouth of twisted fangs opening wider to devour him whole.
Niclas Delcarden yelled and sat bolt upright in bed, gasping, drenched in the sweat of his abhorrent fever dream. His eyes, bleary and lacking focus, searched frantically around the room for something or someone familiar.
“Lord Delcarden? It’s Trumak. Do you know me?”
Niclas squinted at the older brown-skinned man standing over him with a damp wash cloth. “Trumak?” Niclas looked around at the furnishings and tapestries of his opulent bedchamber, confirming that each thing was as it should be and that the thing he’d seen had only been a nightmare.
Trumak offered him a cup of water. “In God’s name, your Lordship, this is the joyous day we prayed for. I will send a messenger to the Council at once.”
Niclas gulped the water. “How did I get here?”
“Some island fisherman witnessed the sinking and spotted you clinging to the wreckage for dear life. Do you remember that?”
Niclas closed his eyes and nodded. “Captain Grenfall and the others?”
“Lost with the ship, my lord, all gone to their watery grave, I am sad to say. And by the fishermen’s accounts, we are no closer to understanding the reason why.”
Terrifying recollections of Kardi assaulted Niclas’s thoughts. The cold, desolate sickness returned and his heart pumped so hard and fast that it pained his bruised ribs. Tarsilla, Euriel. All of it true. The Choldath are coming. We must prepare…
Niclas tried to stand but immediately fell back into his bed, shivering and shaking.
“My lord, pray, what are you doing?” Trumak pulled a down-filled blanket to Niclas’s neck. “You can barely breathe, let alone walk. You must stay in bed while I send for the Council physician.”
“If I sleep now, I fear I will never wake again. I must convene the entire Council. Our lives verily depend upon it.”
“Whatever information you have for the Council can surely wait, my good lord, for if you were to do so now it might well be the last report you ever deliver.”
A sudden fit of sharp coughing wracked Niclas’s chest. Each breath was a painful labor and his entire being felt scraped and hollow to the bone. Niclas’s teeth chattered and he wanted nothing more than replenishing warmth and sleep.
Trumak was right, he decided. There was no point in trying to raise himself. He hung his head and closed his heavy eyes. How could he keep his vow if he had not the strength to lift himself up from his bed, instead lying like a day-old infant?
“This will help you recover, my lord.” Trumak reached for a small, dark blue apothecary’s bottle on the walnut bedside table. He pulled the cork stopper free and offered the bottle to Niclas. “It is used by the Holy Seer’s monks to return vigor to those for whom death seemed but certain. I have administered this daily to you for over a week.”
Niclas grasped the bottle in his shaky fingers. “What is it? It has not administered a great deal of vigor—not as yet—but I will concede I am grateful to it, nevertheless.”
“It is the tincture of the Eelamassi plant, my lord. It is powerful and I must have your promise that you will stop its use once you are fully recovered. I have heard it can quite overpower a man, should he become dependent upon it to see him through his troubles.”
“As you say then, Trumak.” As the elixir’s soothing warmth spread through Niclas’s body and mind he leaned back on the sweaty, damp pillows. Niclas shivered as though standing naked to the elements, feeling the claws of his night adrift scraping at his throat once more. Trumak stepped closer, now looming over him and peering down.
“Do not fight the effect, my lord. It must be allowed to reveal if it is to heal.”
Minutes or hours passed, Niclas could not say which as the soothing but peculiar effects of the elixir worked their way through his fractured thoughts, coalescing everything into a single
image of what he must do. Niclas cursed himself for his present weakness yet he had not the strength to even speak words that would make sense; so great was his fear lest he might reveal what he should not. I must get a message to Count Borodin, I must…
His head swayed and he leaned over the side of the bed as though he might be ill, but after a few more moments the queasiness passed. Niclas rolled over onto his side. The threat and urgency no longer lingered at the edges of his awareness, their menacing images replaced now by the radiant likeness of Juliana Caerhope.
“Are you feeling better, my lord?”
Niclas stared up at the cracked blue tiles in the vaulted ceiling, feeling lighter, no longer burdened by any of his prior cares in the world.
How long ago had it been now since he had been carefree enough to pause and watch the treetops stirring with the whisper of a sea breeze? His memories sped headlong with his heart, but without pain this time.
He saw himself again rushing through the woodlands near the seaside, the low, rolling hills crossed by a sparkling stream flowing down to the Rhobinian Sea.
They had arranged to meet in secret on a secluded bank overlooking the cool, clear water. Niclas feared Juliana would change her mind, or worse, that her father had discovered their deception. Joy overwhelmed him when he parted the tall grass. Her warm brown eyes flecked with gold seemed to sparkle on the surface of the rippling mirror.
Juliana smiled and looked away, her long auburn hair tied back and pinned, gleaming with deep, gorgeous red shadows under the swaying willow. “Pray tell, my lord. What are you thinking?”
“That you are the most captivating and enchanting woman I have ever known.”
She blushed. “I beg you—stop. Do you always trifle with a young woman’s affections thus?”
He kissed her hand. “I would never do that to you, my fairest Juliana, and that is why I must beg you to understand.”
She embraced him, kissing him long and passionately on the lips, unconcerned that they might be discovered at any moment by others enjoying a summer walk along the beach.
“I love you, Niclas, and know you feel the same. We don’t have to hide it from my father and the Council any longer. I will be a good wife to you and we will know the joy of children. Please, my love, don’t be afraid. You don’t have to be alone anymore.”
The burning sincerity in her eyes overwhelmed Niclas with guilt, forcing him to turn away, for as soft and soothing as Juliana was, how could she ever quiet the screams of his dying parents or understand the loss of his younger brother, Wuldric, who still haunted him like a vengeful spirit?
Niclas drew himself headlong out of the aching memory with a deep, painful breath and turned away from Trumak, hiding the shame and guilt that strained his weary face. Only moments before, the images of Juliana had renewed him with purpose.
A few mere heartbeats later, the violent and bloody memories of Tarsilla’s monstrous transformation assailed him once more, extinguishing the light of hope and love that had been in Juliana’s eyes. Trumak placed hand on his shoulder. “Your Lordship, are you taken ill?”
Niclas pressed his hands over his face. They will come and black out the sun, yet the sky will remain ablaze. All the world and its people will be their inferno and burn undiminished… for eternity.
He turned back and faced his trusted steward. “I must regain my strength as quickly as possible.” He grasped Trumak’s green tunic. “I need to present my report and the Council must vote to support reinforcing the battlements.”
Niclas lowered his gaze and ground his teeth as though he could have crushed an almond in its shell. “Will more of this medicine help return my strength?”
Trumak glanced at the vial and raised a thick, gray eyebrow. “The elixir takes time, my lord, and its dosage should not be increased. Before returning to Council business it would be best if you dealt with your private matters first. You have several letters awaiting your response including a special sealed message from one Count Borodin of Salak.”
Niclas sat up in bed and almost toppled over from the sudden dizziness. “It was delivered here, not to the Triumvirate chambers in the city?”
“Yes, my lord, it was brought here by hand, though all documents under seal should have been delivered thus; the courier was under strict instructions to place it in your own hand alone, and if not, in mine as per your instructions given on Kardi to the same Count Borodin. I trust all that is true and still holds, my lord?”
Niclas nodded. “Did the messenger give his name?”
“Uray. Do you know him?”
Niclas exhaled with relief, the strain not as tight in his chest as before. “Uray is a most trustworthy young man.”
“Unfortunately, he returned without good tidings concerning your situation. We will make certain the Council sends the joyous news to all our allies.”
“I must ask you, Trumak. Say, did you venture to open the message? I will not be angry but there is much we must speak of if you did.”
“Why would I have done such a thing, my lord, when I knew you would soon awake and read it yourself?”
“Allow me to recover my strength and wits. We will speak more of it then.”
Trumak picked up the vial from the table. “There is much talk of strange events outside the walls of Avidene. The Council awaits an urgent report from Farrhaven concerning a recent incident. Many say it is dark and sinister forces at work but they will say the same thing if blight destroys their crops or a pox carries away their child.”
Niclas reflected on his vow to Euriel. “The world we knew is not as it appears, old friend, and its secrets are a deadly burden to all who carry them.”
Trumak opened the dark, stained wardrobe. He brushed off the shoulders of Niclas’s royal blue Council jacket with his deft fingers. “What happened on Kardi, my lord? There are rumors of a conspiracy between Lady Omarosa and the Barons of Varza to overthrow Governor Zonaras?”
“A conspiracy, true, though the enemy we may still face is greater than the mere rapacious greed of men.”
“There are words whispered that I have not heard since you were a child. If you must speak them before the Council, I only caution you not to cast fear into the other nobles. Their soldiers will take rash action against any freeman or slave who follows the old ways and blame them for any misfortune. My people, the Eldorah, will suffer greatly if this comes to pass.”
Guilt strained at Niclas’s temples. “I will choose my words carefully, Trumak, for there are many I must indeed protect. I will not allow fear to rule men’s hearts or hatred their souls.”
Trumak bowed. “Then your Lordship knows only the grace of kindness. When you are fully recovered, I will make certain you give your noble peers a royal feast to honor the Rites of Succession. They will understand the wisdom of your words and help you guide the Council to make the best decision for our Kingdom and its people.”
“Thank you, old friend. Then I shall be indebted. I always profit equally from your honesty and your manners. I know there are many who would prefer to see High Priest Worlaw in my stead, and his allies will require more to reach a compromise than having their noble bellies filled at the finest banquet in all the Kingdom.”
Trumak’s mouth hardened into a straight line. “His Eminence is very persuasive and his popularity growing. He rouses a passion for power and glory in common men, yet, I fear it is often people like me who will bear the wrath of their creed.”
“The High Priest wishes to see our new King crowned as much as you and I. He holds sway over important nobles but does not rule the entire Council. We will choose what is in the best interests of Miradora and deliver that to our people, until the most rightful and honorable ruler should sit upon the throne.”
“And I pray that joyous day comes hastily to us, my lord.” Trumak threw open the heavily-embroidered drapes, letting the last gleaming rays of daylight into the shadowy room. “But first, you need to breathe fresh, clean air.”
Though the
sun was low on the horizon, Niclas had to squint to see out of the open window. “Trumak?”
“My lord?”
“Have you seen a hawk or any large bird of prey circling the grounds lately?”
Trumak paused, considerably perplexed by the question. “No, my lord. Only the usual motley crows and ravens. Why do you ask?”
Niclas lowered his gaze. “Forgive me. My thoughts are still cloudy. On Kardi, I was told by someone that it was a good omen for the future—though now I’m not certain. Perhaps I merely dream to see them, pinning my hopes upon the merest of illusions.”
“I have also heard similar talk of circling birds and the winds of change… by the Holy Seer during temple service,” Trumak said as he looked up into the fading heavens. “Though the sky be empty of glad portents, we must still have faith that we will rise to greet the new dawn. I will send a message at once to Lord Maydestone. Lady Juliana will be greatly relieved to know you are alive and well.”
The clouds gathered again around the disappearing sun, its final rays smothered and consumed by the invading night.
“I’m not so sure of that, old friend.” Niclas rolled back over onto his side. The brief, tender intimacy shared with Juliana before leaving for Kardi was gone; haunted by past tragedy and fearing he would not find the full measure of her approval, he had chosen to accept Count Borodin’s request—thus providing the convenient excuse for ending their secretive courtship. There remained on his side a fondness still, and perhaps, if he was totally truthful in his heart, love was not too strong a word. However, any longing to rekindle their desire had no place in the uncertain, perilous days ahead.
“You must rest, my lord. In the morning, you will see the new day with more hopeful eyes.” Trumak blew out the bedside candle and padded from the bedchamber, locking the door behind him. Niclas stared up at the dark ceiling, wanting nothing more than to sleep… to sleep without a veritable plague of dreams and to awake, strength returned to his hallowed bones and the hard clarity of his dangerous purpose having conquered all weakness and doubt.He glanced at the closed door, shivering, as though expecting some unspeakable thing to break through at any moment. Trumak is right. To rise without conviction is to choose to be something less than a sworn defender of the realm… and something far diminished from a man.