Squire of War

by M. H. Johnson

  Jess smiled at her friend’s words, finding the idea of being able to jump in and out of realms of dream a wondrous gift indeed, even as Alex spoke on. “Such tales go on to say how such an adventurer will fade back into being a day or two later, pockets full of forgotten wealth and lost treasures, panicked or exhilarated, telling a tall tale of high adventure few would believe, yet he swears is the truth, only to forget his own account by the next day.”

  Alex paused, gazing quietly at his rapt friends. “As if it had all happened in a dream. Yet even if the poor tale spinner that no one took seriously has forgotten his own ravings of wondrous adventure, when he checks his pack, he will find that the treasures he discovered are as real as iron, even under the sober light of day.”

  Alex looked coolly at Jacob who shivered and glanced away, unable to meet his friend's gaze. "And sometimes, those foolish adventurers don't come back at all. For such is the nature of the Shadowrealms, those overlapping layers of memory and dream, that lay at the very crossroads of existence itself. They are memories of power and glory, fragments of time so potent that they resonate infinitely among themselves. Wrinkles in the multilayered fabric that makes up our universe. Yes. Those places can hold onto the memories of lost treasures so perfectly that prizes successfully claimed are indistinguishable from reality, once pulled free of that living dream."

  Alex caught Jess's eye, and shook his head sadly. “I know what some of you are thinking. How grand such adventures would be. But it is also true that such mini-realms are dangerous. Potentially deadly. Remember, my friends, these Shadowrealms lie upon the bleeding edge of reality, where what is real, what is memory, and what is dream become interchangeable. Uncertain. A terrible place where one misstep can leave your soul lost in some perpetual nightmare, forever. And even if you do manage to navigate your way through these mysterious realms of dream and horror, you are not alone. There are awful things that lurk within those Shadowrealms. Dark specters of living nightmare. Vile things that were once men before being warped and corrupted so horribly, trapped within realms twisted and strange. Creatures so terrible they will not only slay you, but slay all memory of you. As if your existence had been nothing more than a dream itself, to be forgotten by friends and loved ones even as you scream your last, lost forever within those nightmare realms of Shadow.”

  Alex sighed. “And that is the saddest element of all. Any souls daring to explore those twisted realms who perish in the midst of their haunted, dreamlike journeys don't just die. No. It is as if they had never been. They flicker out of existence entirely. The wives they left behind remember nothing, save that they had always chosen to be alone for some terrible reason. Their children are assumed to be bastards, and only remember being teased and ridiculed as such all their lives, even if but days before they had been safe and loved in their father’s arms. That is, if those children still exist at all.”

  Jacob grimaced, looking suddenly quite pale, and it was obvious to Jess that as much as her friend enjoyed the delightful fantasy of braving untold wonder and terror for the sake of glory, he had no real stomach for journeying into any twisted lands of nightmare. Not that Jess blamed him. She knew that underneath all pretext, Jacob was actually a very sensitive soul, and in his own way, fragile. It was a good thing he had Malek by his side, near Jess's twin in martial skill and soothing him even now, or Jess could only imagine how rough his time at Highrock would be.

  Alex nodded, as if grimly satisfied that he had quelled at least one of their number's enthusiasm for a very dangerous fantasy. Still, if the look Jess shared with Malek was anything to go by, her shieldbrother found the idea of exploring these lands of wonder and nightmare just as compelling as she did.

  "And don't forget," Alex added, "just as most people cannot even enter Regio, a fair number who just barely have the skill to do so really shouldn't. Their bodies are too fragile. They can't maintain their own sense of self. The Shadowrealm they stumble upon twists them into something horrific and monstrous. This is a subject the Arcane College has gone over with those of us in the advanced classes in some detail. Just as we need these sad brave souls who call themselves adventurers or more formally, Delvers, for some tasks, there is a terrible risk in discovering if one even has the talent to enter Regio in the first place. Unless one is without means in this life, it is not an advisable path to take. For death is at least as likely as glory, much as it is for knights leading the vanguard, deep within enemy territory.”

  Jera nodded her agreement.

  Malek, however, appeared unsatisfied with Alex’s assessment. “All that aside, though, it is a path to power for those willing to take the risk.”

  Alex clenched his eyes shut for a moment, rubbing his forehead as if the point pained him. "Fine. Let's look at it fully. Let's be fair. Some of these adventurers do tap into something. They don't seem to weaken, they don't seem to age. It's as if they become part dream themselves. And yes, some of these souls, all untrained, do seem to able to manipulate some form of power that to the unschooled eye looks like magic, but is really just fumbling with forces far stranger than anything man was ever meant to master."

  Alex’s gaze was almost imploring. “But the risks of Delving, Malek. Of dying to unseen threat or twisted foe, and fading out so completely that your friends and family lack memory of your very existence. Or even worse, what if you become so lost within those twisted realms that you risk being warped into some twisted bloodthirsty monstrosity who must in some corner of its sick mind realize the horror of what it’s become?” Alex gave an angry shake of his head. “The risks are so high, Malek, and the consequences so awful, I wouldn’t recommend any of you choose that path to power.” He took a moment to gaze meaningfully at all the members of the Circle.

  Raphael smiled. “Don’t look at me, my overprotective friend. I have no interest in Delving into lost eldritch worlds and risking my very soul. I’d much rather greet those adventurers in my father’s hall, ply them with food and drink, and have a bard record for posterity their glorious tales.” Raphael chuckled. “Just because I admire the stories doesn’t mean I want to be in them.”

  Jera and Josie nodded their agreement, and Jacob looked downright shaken, hearing of all the horrors he would risk, should he dare choose the adventurer's path.

  Alex shook his head, flashing his friends a rueful smile. “Besides, what need do we have for risking our lives as adventurers? We are already immersed within living dream, even as we speak.”

  19

  Dead silence.

  Jess felt her heart hammering as fiercely as it ever did to the clarion call of battle. A quick glanced showed her friends gazing at Alex with varying degrees of shock, or outrage.

  “Alex, you know we aren't supposed to say anything!” Jera hissed, immediately flushing as all her friends looked her way.

  Raphael flashed a strangely apologetic smile. “It's all right, Jera. Some have already put it together. The pieces to the puzzle are there, if you look closely enough.”

  Alex bowed his head. “The scion of perhaps the most brilliant trading family in all of Erovering. I am somehow not surprised to find that you understand Highrock's most closely kept secret, and why such a powerful heir would elect to spend his time studying at an academy far more renowned as a college of war than finance or trade.”

  Raphael chuckled. “The teachers here are surprisingly competent, for all that we are some distance from the Royal Academy. I suspect a few of the geniuses you have on staff are here precisely because they understand just how sacred an institution this truly is. And of course, I can write to Father for the latest treatises and tomes, however strange the delivery is, receiving packages, sometimes, the very day I send notice for them.”

  Jess frowned. “That makes no sense, Raphael. No sense at all.”

  Intent brown eyes gazed into her own. “Are you sure of that, my dear friend who I've known for so very long, it seems? Tell me, Jess, how many Circle meetings have we had this summer?”

&nb
sp; Jess swallowed, shivering as if ice cold water had been splashed down her spine.

  Malek frowned. “Bloody hells, what does that have to do with anything?”

  Raphael smiled. “Humor me, my friends.”

  Jess and Malek exchanged glances, realizing that neither of them knew for sure.

  “I have no idea,” Jess softly said.

  Raphael nodded, seemingly unsurprised, turning to Alex. “Would you like to explain, or should I?”

  Alex sighed, nodding, rubbing his eyes before locking gazes with his friends. “We've met scores of times this summer, Jess. Scores of times.”

  Jess blinked. “But that's impossible. We don't meet more than once a week!”

  Alex nodded. “True.”

  Jacob had taken on a deathly pallor, visibly shivering, even as Malek held him close, glaring at Alex.

  “Get to the point, all right, Alex?”

  “But that is my point, Malek. We have met up many dozens of times, our friendship as fierce and strong as lifelong allies, sharing whatever tidbit of news, development in our skills, or friendly bit of lore we could find. And all of it. So much of it. Just this summer.”

  Jess rubbed her head. “But that can't be right, can it? I mean, I keep a diary. Or, at least, I used to... didn't I?”

  Malek's brows furrowed. “I thought I did as well, but Eloquin made it clear that Squires had to be very careful what they put down to paper. He frowned against it, even if he didn't actually forbid it.”

  Alex smirked. “Well, I have been keeping a diary, and I can tell you this. Tight and concise as my notes are, I managed to fit my yearly observations in a separate tome for each year I have been here.”

  Malek nodded. “We've all been here about three years, right?”

  Alex raised his brow. “Isn't it weird that you even have to ask? But yes, Malek. We have. I came her during my fifteenth year. I have three tomes for my fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth year. Just this past summer I turned eighteen.”

  Jess smiled. “As did I.”

  Josie and Raphael exchanged the warmest of grins. “As did we.”

  Malek's gaze was one of growing alarm. “Let me get this straight. All of us, are of this moment, eighteen, and the summer just begun?”

  Alex's smile was almost sad. “All of us, eighteen. And this summer far from just begun.”

  Jess felt her heart skip a beat, gazing intently at Raphael. “When I first came here, I looked up to you. You were my senior, weren't you? I thought?”

  Raphael's gaze was strangely sad. “As good as I am with numbers, chasing rumors of heretofore overlooked treasures, I don't know the answer to that question. As of this moment, no. I am absolutely certain we are the same age, born only weeks or perhaps months apart.” He flashed a rueful smile. “But if you were to ask me if I remembered at one point penning a warm line about how charming I found one of my younger peers to be, so animated by tales of adventure and magic, I wouldn't deny it, for all that it feels almost like a dream.”

  Jess took a shuddering breath. “I don't believe it. I can't.” She gazed at her familiar, brilliant sapphire eyes gazing so intently back at her, her beloved cat refusing to say a word.

  “Jess. Do you remember when you first blackened your dagger?”

  Jess turned to Josie, blinking away bittersweet tears. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, I do.”

  Josie smiled wanly. “As do I. And how I held you when you sobbed your heart out to me, smelling of absinthe and laudanum, confessing things I knew shouldn't be said aloud, you knowing that I would never tell a soul. How I feared for you then, my strong, brave friend, even as you did your best to drink and laugh the horrors of war away. I feared for you even more when the girl you loved so fiercely left, never to return.”

  Jess shuddered, holding back sudden hot bitter tears threatening to flood her, regrets she had put to rest long ago. “Yes. Yes, you were there for me, and I will always, always be grateful.” She smiled to feel Malek's reassuring squeeze, chuckling ruefully. “Honestly, Josie, I could have gone a lifetime without being reminded of Rowan, long ago as that was. And the first time I blackened my dagger?” Jess shuddered. “I favored laudanum far, far more than was good for me. It almost... it almost became a problem.” Her smile turned rueful. “No matter how wild the revels, today I will take nothing stronger than wine or brandy."

  Josie smiled. “I know.”

  Malek sighed. “I miss Rowan too. She was larger than life, powerful, sensual, the way her midnight gaze would just eat you up when she smiled, the way you two carried on... I halfway thought you would both run off to southern lands and become sister wives to a powerful lord, the three of you raising a great big family together, before everything changed.”

  Jess flushed and turned away, holding back painful memories of love lost, and so very many regrets gained.

  “Jess?”

  “Yes, Alex?” She would not cry in front of her friends. It was ancient history, those first horrific missions long done.

  “How old were you when you first blackened your dagger? When you first fell in love with Rowan? Was it summer or winter?”

  “Bloody hells, Alex, enough!” Jess snapped. “You know I was eighteen!”

  Alex nodded. “Eighteen. In late summer. Exactly as it is now.”

  A moment’s breathless silence.

  “But that’s impossible,” Jess whispered. “I mean, it has to be. The things I did… all the times Malek and I blooded our blades for king and Crown… all the nights Rowan and I shared before… no. It feels like, it feels like a lifetime.”

  Jess rubbed her head, feeling strangely disoriented, slumping back into her chair.

  “No, no it hasn’t been, has it? Just… weeks. Months, maybe. Certainly, no longer than that?”

  Alex’s gaze was strangely sad. “Do you know what Eloquin’s Squires of War are called outside of Highrock? The rumor's frothing like ale everywhere in the kingdom?

  Jess grimaced, saying nothing.

  “The Huntsman's Hounds.”

  Jess trembled at those words, Alex’s gaze locked upon her own. Malek cursed, Alex ignored him. "Reaping Autumn's harvest, forever embracing the High Hunt. Slavery, banditry, oath-breaking, any hint of treachery and out of thin air Eloquin’s band of mad, merry men would wreak the most savage sort of justice. Fields littered with the headless corpses of all who crossed the king’s honor, The Huntsman's black hounds then disappearing back into the mists from which they came.”

  “Bloody hells, some things you don’t say aloud!” Malek snapped, all but growling. Alex paled.

  “Stop it, Malek!” Jera hissed. “Alex speaks the truth. All the mages know it, except mages like you, Liam, and Lucas. The three of you actually training under Eloquin, blackening your daggers, caught in the thick of it. When we try to tell you, you laugh it off like it’s nothing. I’m surprised you’re actually listening, for once.”

  Jess frowned. “But, that makes no sense. There shouldn’t be rumors like that floating around. A few whispers, maybe. But no so fast, not through all of Erovering. Eloquin’s band had only begin to blossom when Malek and I got to Highrock. Save for what Neal joked were a few training runs, we only truly began hunting in earnest when, well, when Malek and I and the rest of the third years joined in this summer!” Jess trembled. “For all that we’ve trained under Eloquin since our very first year, only this summer have we actually dared to blacken our daggers, fighting for a cause greater than ourselves, fighting to keep Erovering free of slavers, bandits, all the ne’er-do-wells Eloquin knows could destroy our land from within, if we let them.”

  Raphael nodded, warm brown eyes gazing at Jess and Malek both with pride. “And my father’s letters often contain notes of how secure our roads are for trade, now the safest of any on the continent, utterly free of the highwaymen that had once plagued our thoroughfares. Truth to tell, Jessica, slavery has been all but abolished, the king’s Justice fierce and brutal. Any remaining pockets of slavery are
relegated to shadowy dens of smugglers and ne’er do wells, like as not living on borrowed time.”

  Jess took a deep, shuddering breath. “But how can this be? We have only just begun to eradicate slavery. I know this. Just like I know I’m eighteen. I see it in the face of the girl I spy in the mirror every day. I feel it in every bone of my body. How can this possibly be? Will I fade away like a dream, my time upon Dawn spent, when I leave the school?”

  Twilight chuckled dryly at that.

  Alex slowly shook his head. “I don’t think so. I don’t think it works like that. It’s true that we are all eighteen and this just one wonderful, beautiful summer, seeming without end, even if the days get jumbled up in our head. Even if the journals we keep measure in the dozens when but a single brief summer we thought to record. And from what I understand, whether it’s student or professor, when it’s time for us to return to the world beyond our college, it’s an unavoidable call. Destiny, if you will.”

  Malek frowned. “Alex? I don’t mean to insult you, but are you sure? Absolutely sure you couldn’t be mistaken somehow?"

  Alex sighed, smiling wistfully as he turned to Jera. “That’s what we aim to find out.”

  Jess took a deep breath, overwhelmed by the revelations, almost certain Alex had to be wrong. “What do you mean?”

  Alex looked to Jera, who gave the tiniest of nods. “A few of us are going to leave the college tomorrow. I think, I can’t be certain, but I think I now have a sense of the massive enchantment in play. I would never make such a bold claim in academic circles without substantial evidence, but I’m almost certain I’ve deduced where the linchpins to the enchantment lay.”

  Malek shook his head. “Alex, if this is true, if we really are lost in summer, well, as much as part of me wants to just pack up and leave and return to life, I can see how this would be a priceless dream to the gods know how many souls. It would be madness to fool with these linchpins, whatever they are, if they can even be fooled with. You risk bringing this enchantment, maybe the school entire if something awful happens, crashing down upon us. I shudder to think how severe the backlash would be, messing with a spell that potent.”