Riddle In Stone (Book 1)

by Robert Evert

  A second guard charged at Edmund with a spear. But Norb leapt behind him and buried the blade of his ax deep in the goblin’s back, his spine and ribs snapping. The guard fell lifeless to the blood-splattered floor, his chain mail cloven asunder.

  In a far corner, the third goblin dropped his scimitar and shrieked for mercy. Norb flew at him, yelling, his gore-covered ax raised.

  “Wait!” Edmund commanded. “Norb! Hold it. Wait! We need a prisoner. Don’t kill him!”

  Norb skidded to a halt, barely able to control himself. Breathing hard, his face contorted in rage, he reluctantly lowered his ax.

  The remaining goblin fell to his knees, hands above his head. “Spare me! Spare me!”

  “Where’s Molly?” Norb demanded.

  The goblin shook. “I . . . I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “I’ll take care of this, Norb,” Edmund said. “He’s just a lesser guard. He wouldn’t know anything about the important prisoners up in the tower.”

  He motioned to the darkened passageway leading from the chamber. “Pond, you and Thorax go listen up the tunnel. Make sure nobody else is coming. Be careful. Don’t step in the blood. We can’t leave tracks.”

  “Aye! Aye!” Pond said, disappearing into the darkness with Thorax.

  Edmund returned his attention to the goblin cowering on the floor in front of him.

  You might as well kill him now. Like you said, he won’t know anything.

  Yes, but he might be able to help us anyway.

  Putting the point of his scimitar under the goblin’s quivering chin, Edmund asked, “When were the last Games?”

  The goblin trembled. “What?”

  “You heard me.” The tip of Edmund’s scimitar dug into the goblin’s bobbing throat. “When were the last Games?”

  “Three . . . three weeks ago or so. Maybe four or five. I, I don’t remember exactly. But we’re having Games for the Ithil Mereth. Lots of Games! And, and a feast! Please, don’t kill me!”

  “The Ithil Mereth?” Edmund repeated. “The elven Lunar Festival?”

  “Yes! Yes! Exactly. The elven Lunar Festival. We celebrate—”

  Norb cursed. “Who cares about damn games?”

  Edmund ignored the stable hand.

  “When is it? When is the Festival?” he asked the goblin.

  “The, the first . . . first new moon after the equinox,” the goblin said, his hands still upraised.

  That’s tomorrow night.

  We don’t have much time.

  “Please,” the goblin begged. “Give me mercy.”

  “No.” Stepping back, Edmund nodded to Norb.

  The guard screamed.

  Norb’s ax swung down.

  There was a thwack as the goblin’s head rolled at their feet, blood pouring over the floor, thick and red. Horror filled the stable hand’s eyes as he watched the goblin’s headless body twitch and thrash, trying to get up.

  “I . . . I can’t believe it,” he said. “I just killed two—”

  “Don’t think about it,” Edmund said to him. “Just think about Molly.”

  His face pale, Norb nodded.

  I should have had them bring some wine. He’ll need a drink before all this is over.

  I could use one myself . . .

  “Take your boots and stockings off,” Edmund told Norb. “Run through the blood and go get our packs.”

  “What?” Norb asked, averting his gaze from the flailing body. “Why?”

  “Just do it. We don’t have much time. And make sure you don’t leave a blood trail back to the dell. Also, untie Blake and the donkey. Spook them westward. We need them to be as far away from here as possible in a couple hours.”

  Taking off his boots, Norb ran out of the guardroom, leaving a track of bloody footprints headed outside. Edmund opened all of the crates, stole an armload of provisions, and stripped one of the guards of his clothing and weapons.

  “Pond,” Edmund said in a hoarse whisper, “is anybody coming?”

  Pond’s jovial voice floated up the tunnel. “All clear here!”

  Well, this actually went better than expected. Who would have thought Norb could actually swing an ax like that? He may be helpful after all.

  Maybe . . .

  “Okay,” Norb said, returning to the guard’s chamber carrying their three bulging backpacks. “What now?”

  “Walk around the blood,” Edmund told him. “Go up the tunnel to where Pond and Thorax are and put your boots back on. And hurry. They’ll be ch-ch-changing guards in a couple hours.”

  Norb eyed the darkened passageway doubtfully. “Where does it lead?”

  “It leads back to the goblin stronghold,” Edmund replied. “But first we have to find a defensible campsite. Tomorrow, we’ll enter the tower.”

  Still clutching the ax like he was about to bury it in somebody’s head, Norb took an uneasy breath. “Okay. Let’s go!”

  He ran into the darkness of the passageway.

  Edmund stayed a moment longer, surveying the battlefield.

  Let’s hope the goblins will think an escaped slave did this.

  If they don’t . . .

  If they don’t, we’re all dead.

  Leaving the carnage, Edmund walked toward the goblin city as if he had come home.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Edmund, Norb, and Pond stared through the shadows, down into a dimly-lit quarry not far from where they had set up their new camp. A hundred feet below, seven human slaves grunted and toiled as they broke stone with rusty picks. Edmund could smell their sweat.

  A whip cracked.

  Shrieking, one of the men arched his back, blood trickling down his spine.

  The guards jeered.

  “Get to work, you sniveling bag of shit. Or you’ll feel the kiss of my whip again!”

  Weeping, the wounded slave struggled to raise his pick over his head. He let it fall on the rock in front of him with a lifeless thud.

  Edmund was about to signal for everybody to crawl back to their campsite when another slave came into view. He was a gaunt man with a big man’s frame. The bones in his broad shoulders were evident as he labored to carry a small boulder. He dropped his load on the pile around which the other slaves were swinging their picks, teetered for a moment, and flexed his hands. As he turned, Edmund saw his battered face.

  Next to him, Pond nearly cried out.

  Edmund put his finger to his lips.

  They both stared down into the cavern, watching Turd hobble to get another rock, his shoulders bent, his left leg dragging behind him.

  I should have saved him. I should have let him join us.

  He wanted the goblins to capture you.

  He was doing what he needed to do to escape. He was trying to cause a distraction.

  He didn’t give a damn about you.

  I didn’t give a damn about him, either. He did what I would’ve done had our positions been reversed.

  A whip cracked above Turd’s head. His hobbling quickened.

  He’s lost a lot of weight.

  He looks like death. He won’t last much longer.

  That’s probably good. Death would be a relief for him.

  I should’ve helped him escape.

  He would’ve never fit down the crawlway that led to the subterranean city. He wouldn’t have escaped if he was with you.

  I didn’t know that at the time. I could have at least given him food.

  He took Pond’s sword. He threatened to kill him. Remember?

  I would have done the same thing.

  Turd lurched out of view, a look of desperation growing in his exhausted eyes.

  Edmund shook his head. It felt like his heart was shriveling.

  I always thought that I was a noble man, like the knights in the tales of old.

  Perhaps the knights of old weren’t any better.

  I should’ve done something. I should’ve helped.

  Pond and Norb were looking at him. Edmund motioned for
them to return to their campsite. Reluctantly, Norb crawled to where their supplies were hidden. The rhythmic echoes of metal hitting stone and the grunting of men trailed after them as they retreated.

  “Shouldn’t we do something?” Norb asked.

  Tearing a piece of dried pork in half, Edmund handed some to Thorax. She wolfed it down without chewing.

  “There are only two guards,” Norb went on. “We can kill them and free those men. Then we’d have eleven with us. That would improve—”

  “No,” Edmund said, eating his portion of the pork. He stared at the cavern wall, trying to get the tortured images of Turd out of his mind, trying to forget what it was like hitting solid stone for twelve hours straight.

  “But Ed, we could—”

  “No.”

  “How can you let them suffer like that? We could free them!”

  Edmund massaged his callused hands. Thorax put her head on his lap. She was covered with dirt and stank. They all did. But Edmund didn’t notice. He stroked her head lovingly.

  “You knew one of them,” Norb said, an accusation in his tone. “Didn’t you? The tall one who looked like a skeleton.”

  Edmund and Pond stared at the ground.

  “How could you just let him live like that?” Norb asked. “How could you?”

  “Life is full of hard choices,” Pond said quietly. “We could rescue them, yes. And they may or may not help us with getting up into the tower. But what about the hundreds of other slaves? We can’t rescue them all.”

  “Maybe,” Norb said. “But we can rescue them!”

  “And what about Molly?” Edmund shot back, his voice echoing in the surrounding passages. “If we start freeing slaves, don’t you think that would ruin our chances of saving her? Don’t you think the goblins would become more alert or increase the number of guards?”

  The lives of Turd and seven strangers versus Molly’s life . . .

  “Look,” Edmund said, rubbing his temples. “Let’s . . . let’s just stick to the plan. When the Games begin, we’ll try to sneak up to the high cells. If we get Molly home safe and sound, then . . . maybe we could come back and see what we could do.”

  Would you really come back to save Turd and those men?

  I’m tired of feeling like a savage.

  But would you really come back?

  I don’t know.

  “You’re right,” Norb said. “I’m sorry. It’s just . . . it’s just seeing them like that, it’s-it’s—inhumane, you know?”

  I know.

  “I wish we had brought some wine,” Norb said as if to himself. “Just a bottle or two,” he added under his breath.

  So do I . . .

  For many moments, they sat listening to metal ringing on stone. A whip cracked. A voice cried out. As the eerie echoes died in the surrounding crawlways, Norb chuckled to himself.

  “What?” Edmund asked, puzzled and angered by the stable hand’s amusement.

  “I was . . . I was just thinking,” he said. “Remember that time Mol spilled soup all over Old Man Sveltsen’s head?”

  I remember. I paid Sveltsen a gold piece not to get her fired.

  Norb chuckled again, a tense mixture of mirth, stress, and nervous guilt. “I . . . I was the one who accidentally tripped her,” he said, staring at the wall in front of him. “I never had the guts to tell her it was my fault. I meant to, you know. But I never did. I never apologized. Never . . . ”

  “You can tell her tomorrow,” Edmund said.

  Norb looked at Edmund through the deepening shadows.

  “What?” Edmund asked, not returning the stable hand’s gaze.

  “You’ve changed, Ed,” Norb said. “You aren’t the same guy who was chased screaming out of The Rogue by that storyteller.”

  “Storyteller?” Pond repeated, pulling the cork from his water skin.

  “I wasn’t screaming,” Edmund said.

  “Maybe. But you’ve changed,” Norb said. “Nobody back home would deny it.”

  I have changed.

  Yes, but the question is—have you changed for the better?

  “Get some rest,” Edmund said, still staring at the floor. “All of this will be over tomorrow night, one way or another.”

  Chapter Sixty

  Sitting in the cramped crawlway in which they had set camp, Edmund turned another page of Iliandor’s diary, the crinkling of its ancient parchment echoing around him.

  He knew the diary by heart, word for word, backwards and forwards. But this was the original that Pond had brought back from Rood and something told him that it held the answer to the riddle written in the cavern under Tol Helen. Somehow, it held the answer to everything.

  It’s just a book. It can’t help us.

  Then why would Vorn make me promise to destroy it?

  Vorn . . .

  Pains of regret stabbed at him as he pictured the legless elf dragging himself out of his wet cell, begging for Edmund to end his life.

  Perhaps there is something that I missed, some clue that wasn’t necessarily in the words used, but how they’re arranged on the page.

  He turned to the last entry of the diary, the one scrawled by Sir James of Windright as the bandits closed in around Tol Helen. Edmund re-read it yet again. He examined the beginning letters of each line and of each sentence, hoping to find some sort of code or pattern. Then he looked at the last letters of each line and sentence. But there simply wasn’t anything meaningful.

  There’s nothing here. It’s just words.

  Just words . . .

  The salvation of humanity can be found in buildings of wise men, doubly so in optimism of the learned, and in knowledge that is written on a daily basis.

  What’s found in the buildings of wise men?

  Forget about the riddle. It doesn’t matter anymore. All of this will be over by tomorrow night.

  If we can’t rescue her with force or trickery, you’ll need the answer to the riddle. It’s what the Undead King really wants.

  He wants the secret to Iliandor’s metal.

  Somehow the riddle and Iliandor’s secret metal are connected. Think! What is in the building of wise men?

  The riddle is meaningless. If we can’t rescue Molly, I’ll exchange my life for hers. I’ll rescue her one way or another. If she’s still alive . . .

  Edmund listened as yet another heavily-armed company of goblins stormed through one of the nearby tunnels, shouting obscenities as they ran. The goblins had certainly been stirred up after finding the bodies in the guardroom. If the commotion didn’t die down, Edmund didn’t think they’d be able to sneak into the tower.

  At least Kravel and Gurding haven’t been around, taunting me.

  Kravel . . .

  What? Are you going to come back to this hellhole to find Kravel and Gurding? Why stop there? Why not kill the Undead King as well? Evidently Iliandor couldn’t do that. What makes you think a stuttering librarian from an insignificant village can?

  He pet Thorax as she slept next to him. With her quick ears, no goblin was going to sneak up on them. But Edmund worried about her limited mobility. She could hop quickly for brief periods, but with her lifeless hind leg, she wouldn’t be able to keep up if they had to run. She also had to be carried every time they climbed into a crawlspace or mineshaft.

  Remember what Edith said, there’s more to Thorax than meets the eye.

  Edith’s a nut.

  She’s also a fellow magic user. Perhaps she could teach you some new spells after this is over.

  After this is over? Chances are I’ll be dead in a few hours.

  He studied his companions as they slept, especially Pond. Regret stabbed at him.

  Chances are we’ll all be dead in a few hours.

  I shouldn’t have let them come with me.

  Edmund stroked Thorax’s side. Her three functioning paws twitched as if she were chasing something in her dreams. She snarled, her upper lip rising to reveal her long white canines.

  He yawned.
>
  Get some sleep.

  I’ll sleep later.

  Edmund returned to the last pages of the diary.

  This has to have the answer. Why would they send Isa away with a book while all the others fought the bandits? Why would they all sacrifice themselves for a diary?

  It was Iliandor’s personal diary. It was destined to be a relic.

  But what about the Star? Or his sword and armor? They’d be destined to be relics as well. Why send only the book away and not everything else? What makes this so precious? It’s just a book. It doesn’t even say anything terribly interesting.

  He took the Star out of his pocket and fingered the stone.

  Was it worth it?

  Caught in Edmund’s discouraged exhale, the candle on the ledge next to him fluttered, its cream-colored wax dribbling along its side. Dark shadows bobbed around the crevices of their tight confines. Far off he could hear the ringing of metal on stone. Yawning again, Edmund rubbed his dirty forehead, wondering when the last time he had a full night’s sleep was.

  All right, think about this logically. There has to be an explanation for all of this. What exactly do I know?

  You know that they could’ve saved the Star, but elected to save the diary instead.

  Why? It doesn’t seem to say anything other than clues about the location of the cave under Tol Helen.

  So why is the cave under Tol Helen important?

  It had the riddle.

  So maybe the diary is nothing more than a map, a way of finding the riddle. Which brings me back to: what is in the buildings of wise men?

  He rested his head against the wall, tired of thinking about buildings of wise men. The phrase gave him headaches. He needed a different approach, a different way of thinking about the problem. But what that way was, he hadn’t a clue. Then, somewhere in the dim recesses of his mind, another phrase began to repeat itself like an annoying song that he wanted to forget.

  “Knowledge that is written on a daily basis,” he muttered to himself.

  Diaries are written on a daily basis.

  Edmund closed the diary and stared at it.

  This holds the answer. It has to. Why else would Vorn want me to destroy it?