The King in Reserve

by Michael Pryor

  Gormond and Targesh were like statues by his side, but their agony was plain in their eyes.

  Only Simangee was able to move. Eyes still shut, she lifted her arms. 'The Way of the Crest rejects the A'ak,' she said in a whisper that wove its way through the howling A'ak chorus, settling gently on Adalon's ears, offering a moment's relief from agony.

  Simangee flinched, as if she'd been struck, but then straightened and began to hum. Adalon had heard her do this many, many times. Her great, curving crest was full of resonating chambers and she used it as a fine musical instrument. Each Crested One's crest was different, an individual marvel attuned to them alone.

  Simangee's tune was simple at first, a series of soothing notes which deflected the A'ak chorus. Adalon gasped as the pain eased a little. He could move again. He took Gormond's arm. 'Hurry,' he shouted.

  Targesh seized the young king's other arm and together they half-carried him through the maze of stone pipes. Simangee went with them, singing each step of the way, keeping the evil voice of the A'ak organ from them. Adalon could feel it battering at them, but its brute power was deflected by the changing nature of Simangee's song. It was delicate; it wove and curled, impossible to resist and yet hard to grasp. Adalon felt it brushing him with butterfly wings.

  They stumbled through the stone pipes, crashing against them and reeling on, desperate to be free of the power that was now roaring as if angered by their defiance. The wind was a gale in their face, threatening to fling them off their feet at any moment.

  Targesh lowered his head and forged on like a battering ram. Adalon guided them until, with great relief, he saw another arch ahead. With a final surge they burst out of the domain of the deadly pipes and staggered into a huge cave.

  Adalon let go of Gormond and the young king slumped down on the uneven rock. Adalon looked for Simangee. She stood at the arch, looking back at the A'ak wind pipes. She swayed a little, then her song changed. For an instant, the A'ak noise vanished. When it began again, it was different. Simangee's song ran underneath it, subtly picking up on its tones and grating notes and strengthening them. Adalon clapped his hands to his ears as the awful sound increased until he felt it in his bones.

  In the middle of this dreadful symphony, Simangee spread her arms wide. She lifted them slowly and brought them together over her head, claws touching lightly.

  The A'ak noise rose until it was a scream of hatred and anger. Then Simangee's hands curled into fists and the pipes shattered.

  Each of the hundreds of wind pipes burst into pieces, like an earthenware pot dropped on stone. Adalon kept his hands over his ears to protect them from the tortured sound as the wind pipes died. Simangee rocked slightly on her feet for a moment, then turned and made her way back to her friends.

  She looked at Adalon. 'The Way of the Crest says that harmony is important,' she said. 'The A'ak tried to pervert that, using music that was wrong in every way imaginable.' She almost sobbed. 'We must stop them from coming back, for the sake of all Krangor.'

  Sixteen

  Adalon lifted his lantern high, but its light couldn't hope to illuminate the vastness that surrounded them. Shadows shifted and swirled on a forest of stalactites hanging from the distant ceiling. Gems and sparkling minerals glinted like stars.

  The cavern was an enormous arena – impossibly, dauntingly huge. Adalon's head whirled and he felt dizzy, so he tried to focus on details that were close and real. The floor, for instance, wasn't worked by tools. It was rippled, small waves frozen for all time.

  He turned to either side of the cavern entrance. The walls were colourful: bands of white, green and deep red rock, seamed dark and light. Marble?

  'Ah!' Gormond said. For once, words seemed to fail him. He stared, blinking.

  'The land has beauty beneath the surface, too,' Simangee said. Her voice was low, respectful.

  Adalon took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Indeed, the cavern had a strange loveliness. 'It feels familiar,' he said, then he blinked. Their voices turned to whispery echoes that chased each other around sparkling rockfalls and pillars of stone streaked with silver and gold.

  'You feel it too?' Simangee said. 'This is a place of power. Just like the Foundation Room at the roots of the Lost Castle.' She frowned. 'It has been touched by the A'ak. This was not a happy place.'

  Adalon nodded and his gaze roamed over a formation of boulders in the distance to his right, each larger than a cottage. He felt the place had the same flavour as the chamber beneath his family home, the castle at High Battilon, the place where he had promised to stop Queen Tayesha's mad plans. It reminded him of his vow.

  'I feel it,' he agreed. 'But what does it mean?'

  'The A'ak were no fools,' Simangee said. 'They sought to dominate the land. They wanted to harness its power. To do so, they needed to come close to it.'

  Gormond was backing away. 'It's so big,' he whispered, and was brought up short when his back bumped into the rocky wall. He looked behind him. 'Well I never . . . What's this?'

  Adalon was relieved to hear curiosity rather than fear in the young king's voice. He joined him and lifted the lantern to examine what Gormond had found.

  It was a black rectangle, two handspans or so tall, and half that in width, set in the rough stone wall next to the arch through which they had entered. The rectangle was flat and highly polished, reflecting the light of the lantern.

  'That's A'ak script,' Simangee said over Adalon's shoulder. She edged past him and peered closer. Then she gripped his arm, hard. 'Adalon, underneath the A'ak script, that's old Shuff writing. Hoolgar made me learn it last year.'

  'That's very interesting, but –'

  Simangee slapped his leg with her tail. 'It's more than interesting, it could be the answer to the mystery of the ages. If the Shuff script is a translation of the A'ak script, it could help us decipher their language.'

  Adalon's eyes opened wide. He thought of the A'ak books and inscriptions that had been gathered in the thousands of years since the A'ak were banished. The disc could open a treasure trove of knowledge. It could produce a vital weapon in their war against Queen Tayesha.

  He ran his finger over the rectangle and smiled. He slipped his dagger free. 'Here. Let me see what I can do. Hold the lantern please, Sim.'

  With care, Adalon placed the tip of the dagger in the crack where the rectangle was set into the rock wall. He pressed, to see if he could prise it out, but was startled when the dagger sank up to its hilt. Before he could do anything, the rectangle popped out of the wall.

  With a yelp, he danced backward so it wouldn't fall on his feet. He lurched against Simangee, who had been leaning in close. Together, they stumbled, tangling limbs and nearly falling over before Gormond steadied them.

  'The rectangle,' Simangee gasped. 'Oh.'

  A rectangle no longer, the black stone lay in three pieces on the floor. Adalon held out both hands. 'Sorry, Sim.'

  Without a word, she knelt and gathered the pieces. She handed them to Adalon. 'This time, keep them safe.'

  The stone was as thick as his thumb, with an unsettling greasy feel that made him wipe his hands after he'd stowed the pieces in his pouch. 'Where's Targesh?' he asked.

  'Over there,' Gormond said. 'Alone in the darkness he stands.'

  It took Adalon a moment, but he finally made out Targesh in the middle of the immense cavern. 'Targesh!'

  'Here!'

  They hurried to where the Horned One was standing. In the light of the tiny lantern, it took Adalon a moment to see what his friend was looking at.

  Unlike the rest of the floor, this circular area had been worked. It was a smooth disc set into the rock of the floor. Highly polished black stone flecked with grey caught the lantern light. It was a good thirty or forty paces across. At first, Adalon could see nothing but the grain of the rock, then gradually he saw that the surface of the polished area was covered with lines. Etched in the black stone, dark against the darkness like storm clouds in a midnight sky, the lines c
overed the disc from rim to rim, in patterns, swirls and loops of dizzying complexity.

  'A'ak,' Targesh said, when he saw the look of realisation on Adalon's face.

  'It's a map,' Simangee said. 'Adalon, it's the same as the great chart of Krangor in the Room of Dreams in the Lost Castle.'

  Adalon stared. The lines seemed to squirm about until he was staring at the outline of the mighty continent of Krangor, sailing across the endless sea. Virriftinar to Chulnagh, Shuff to Bondorborar, all stretched out in front of him. He rubbed his eyes and all was still, and he wondered if he'd imagined the movement of the lines – but the shape of Krangor was now plain and clear, of that there was no doubt.

  Simangee stepped onto the disc. Startled, Adalon went to drag her back, but when nothing happened he subsided. 'Here we are,' she said, 'in the north of Thraag. We have to cross Tayesha's lands before we're safe in the Hidden Valley.'

  'Is this where we are?' Gormond said, joining her and pointing. 'This star?'

  Simangee nodded. 'I'd say so.'

  Adalon hissed and walked around the perimeter of the disk. 'Then the Lost Castle has one too.'

  'More,' Targesh said. 'See?'

  The dark stars were scattered across the map, high in mountains, in the middle of deserts, resting on seashores.

  And Adalon then recalled the master map in the Lost Castle. Stunned, he didn't trust himself to look. 'Tell me,' he said. 'Are the stars connected to each other? See if you can find any lines.'

  Simangee stared at him for a moment, then bent and peered at the map, hands on her knees. 'What are you talking about –' she began, then she blinked. She dropped onto all fours and swept a sleeve over the surface of the map. 'I thought they were just scratches,' she said. Her face was close to the map. She crawled slowly, nodding. She grinned and sat on her haunches. 'You're right, Adalon. Whatever gave you that idea?'

  'The master map, the one in the Room of Dreams. It's the same.'

  'Does Knobblond have a star?' Gormond asked, bustling to where Simangee was sitting.

  'There's one in Muhna,' Adalon said. 'And one in the west. See? Right against the mountains.'

  Gormond scratched his cheek. 'I don't think so. Too close to Ustung's Chasm. It's so deep that it's only in summer that the noonday sun strikes the bottom, you know.' The young king walked across the map and bent over. His head bobbed. 'You could be right. It could be a blemish, though.'

  Before anyone could move, Gormond leaned over to brush away the offending mark. As soon as his fingertips touched the star, Gormond vanished.

  Immediately, Adalon rose onto his toes, hissing. 'Simangee! What happened? Magic?'

  Simangee, too, was on her feet. She leaned from one side to the other, questing. 'Yes. A surge of power.'

  'Is he dead?'

  'No. Gone. Gone somewhere.'

  'Why? How?'

  'He touched that star,' Targesh said.

  'But you touched one and didn't disappear,' Adalon said to Simangee.

  'No. I was careful not to.'

  'Stay here,' Adalon said, but Targesh was closer. The Horned One held up a hand. 'No,' Adalon said, but Targesh strode across the map, touched Gormond's star with one foot, and vanished.

  Adalon cursed and raced around the circumference of the map, unwilling to step onto Krangor. He reached the western shore but leaped backwards, hissing, when Targesh reappeared. He was holding Gormond by the back of the neck, but the Plated One didn't look upset at all. Instead, he was grinning widely and brandishing a branch that was heavy with purple berries.

  'Stoneseed!' Gormond said as Targesh dragged him off the map face. 'Stoneseed!'

  Adalon clicked his claws together. His tail thrashed. He wanted to berate Gormond, to chastise him for putting himself in danger.

  Simangee put a hand on his shoulder. 'Stoneseed is only found on the rocky cliffs in the west of Knobblond,' she said.

  'That's right,' Gormond said. 'I've been home!'

  Seventeen

  Wargrach liked dungeons. In a dungeon, there was no comfort, no refinement, none of the softness that modern saur wanted. No, in a dungeon a saur was reduced to the basic needs: food, water, a place to sleep. And survival. Wargrach liked the way that a dungeon made a saur think very hard about survival.

  He sat, propped on his tail, in one of the cells in the depths of High Battilon. He admired the ancient saur who sat cross-legged on the cold stone and glared back at him. The saur was gaunt, a Billed One with skin that sagged at his neck and arms. He didn't look at all uncomfortable, despite the cold and the fact that he was naked apart from a linen breech cloth wrapped around his loins.

  The ancient saur cleared his throat. It sounded like a landslide. 'You've been staring at me for an hour,' he said. 'I can wait another hour, or however long you like, but I don't think you can. You're cold and your knees are aching. They'll give way soon.'

  Wargrach didn't move a muscle, but he knew the old saur was right. 'Help me and you may live,' he said. It was a favourite opening of his and it rarely failed.

  The old saur shrugged. 'You drag me from my home in the lovely Harchgrond Swamp and you expect me to help you?'

  'Help me and you may live,' Wargrach repeated.

  The ancient saur gave a snort of impatience. 'Tell me what you want. If it's interesting enough, I may help you.'

  Wargrach was intrigued. This ancient saur had managed to unsettle him more than anyone had in years. It was refreshing. 'I want to speak to the A'ak.'

  The ancient saur laughed, but it was a wicked, cold sound. 'At last. I was thinking I'd expire before someone asked me that. Wargrach, you are a lucky, lucky saur.'

  'Lucky?'

  'You've found the only saur in all Krangor who can do what you've asked.'

  Wargrach ground his teeth together. He was not used to being spoken to like this. The old saur did not seem to be afraid of death or pain, two of Wargrach's most useful tools.

  'I am the sole representative of the A'ak on Krangor,' the old saur said, 'as I'm sure you guessed.'

  Wargrach rumbled in his throat but did not answer.

  'I am the last of my family line, the last Mollitor. Stretching back to the dawn of time, my forefathers have waited, huddled in that wretched ruin, for the return of the great Masters.' He clapped his hands together. 'Finally, the A'ak are coming and it is up to me to speed their return.'

  'Mollitor – if that is your name – I'm sure you remember me.'

  'Of course. You have something of the A'ak in you, Wargrach. They would like your cruelty.'

  Wargrach felt that his future was in the balance. He could turn and walk away from this old fool. A word to his guards and Mollitor would never be seen again.

  And yet Wargrach felt that the return of the A'ak was close at hand. Krangor was tense, much like the air before a mighty thunderstorm.

  'I am willing to work with the A'ak,' Wargrach said finally. 'It has been a long time since they've walked the lands of Krangor. They will need an ally, one who is strong and knows what needs to be done to rule.'

  Mollitor hissed, his eyes dancing red. 'Wonderful! Wonderful! The A'ak will be pleased!'

  'You will speak to them?'

  'It's not as easy as that, Wargrach. You must be patient. The A'ak will only speak to me when they are ready.'

  Wargrach narrowed his eyes. 'What proof do I have that you indeed speak to the A'ak?'

  'I don't simply speak to the A'ak. I visit their plane of imprisonment and – if I'm fortunate – I'm granted an audience with them.'

  Wargrach was dumbfounded. 'You've seen the A'ak?'

  'It doesn't work like that. The plane that holds the A'ak is not like ours. It's full of shadows and twisting mists. The A'ak are used to the place, but we creatures of Krangor stumble blindly, our vision muddled and blurred. They speak, I listen to voices that boom and slur, then I am allowed to go.' He pointed a skinny claw at Wargrach. 'You want proof? I'll take you to meet them.'

  Wargrach could not refuse. 'When
?'

  'Now.'

  Mollitor stood in one fluid motion, the action of a much younger saur. Wargrach was sure the old saur's hands had been empty, but suddenly he was holding a small leather bag. He pulled the drawstring, opening it, and poured black sand on the floor of the cell. 'This was granite, bones of the land. I've reduced it with A'ak magic. It is dead.'

  Wargrach's skin began to crawl, but he said nothing.

  Mollitor scuffed at the black sand with one clawed foot. He muttered while he made patterns that looked random to Wargrach's eye, but when the sand was arranged in a way that satisfied the old saur he moved to the centre of it. 'Give me your hand.'

  Wargrach limped forward. He eyed the black sand. 'Go on,' Mollitor said. 'Join us.'

  Wargrach growled, but stepped onto the sand pattern and gripped the old saur's hand.

  Time lost all meaning. It may have been an age, it may have been a mere moment, but Wargrach staggered when he came back to the High Battilon dungeon, flung from the prison plane. He gasped and tried to clear searing muck from his lungs. Nightmare visions lurched through his memory and he pushed them aside, concentrating on breathing. Bent double, his eye watered as he sought for Mollitor.

  The old saur stood, chuckling. 'I suppose I'm used to it.'

  'The A'ak.' Wargrach stifled a coughing spasm. He stood as straight as he could, striving for dignity. 'Where were they?' he grated.

  'You couldn't see them? They saw you. They said you'd be useful.'

  Wargrach bit back a hot reply. 'I am happy to work with the A'ak,' he said.

  'The A'ak have chosen you, Wargrach. You have no choice.'

  Wargrach seethed. He longed to lunge at the old saur and take his throat between his teeth. Instead, he rocked back on his tail and thought of the best way to use this development to his advantage. 'I am honoured,' he said while he gripped his rage tightly.