The King in Reserve

by Michael Pryor

  'REPLACE HIM.'

  Adalon had a sense of the vast and terrible attention moving away from him. He was no longer interesting or important. The booming chorus of voices began again, drumming on his skull like clubs.

  Adalon turned in a circle and looked for some escape through the shadows. His eyes stung and he wiped them with the back of his hand, his tail twitching in frustration. Dimly, beyond the shadows, huge shapes paraded, lurching around, coming together and separating. Deep, chilling roars echoed, sometimes sounding like words, sometimes like laughter.

  Adalon took a step in a random direction, then something burst through the shadows. He leaped backwards, hissing, his thumb-claws raised even though he knew they'd be useless against such a foe.

  It was one of the A'ak stone creatures, but smaller than the others he had faced, and less crude in its construction. With ponderous steps, it came for him.

  Adalon darted to the right, then the left, but the stone creature kept coming toward him. Its arms were outstretched, but Adalon knew it was a deadly embrace.

  Adalon edged away, then cursed as his back struck a rocky wall he hadn't seen through the shifts of the mist. He slid to his left, but the stone creature thrust out an arm and blocked his way.

  Adalon pushed the stone creature in the chest, but it was like striking a cliff face. It slammed its other arm against the wall. Adalon squirmed and tried to escape the trap, but the stone monster drew itself closer. Adalon sought for a weak spot, a crack, anything. He scrabbled on its blank, rocky surface, battering at it, scratching, but he couldn't stop the monster as it slowly lowered its massive head to his. Dimly, he felt a toe claw tear away. Roaring, booming laughter rolled over him.

  The monster clamped his arms to his side. Adalon strained, but could not free himself. Its head came close enough that he could see it, horrible in its formlessness. Its blank, featureless face filled his entire vision, coming nearer and nearer. He whipped his head from side to side, then let out a strangled cry of pure horror. The monster's head cracked like an eggshell, tiny fissures spreading as fast as thought until they covered its whole surface, then it shattered and a scream rose in Adalon's throat.

  Revealed within was his own face.

  The monster stepped back. Adalon slid to the rocky floor. He felt drained, numb and horrified, but he now understood what had been happening in the Lost Castle.

  The mysterious disappearances. Hoolgar had been the first to be replaced, no doubt. When he'd been taken into the A'ak realm, his place had been taken by a lookalike. It had been this evil substitute who had helped prepare the way. Gradually, the saur in the Lost Castle were being replaced by creatures of the A'ak.

  The stone monster whose face now bore his likeness bent down and pawed at him. Adalon rolled to his feet and tried to see a way free. The shadows and mist churned, billowing and featureless, giving no clue.

  Threatened and lost in the middle of this hostile world, Adalon had a sudden moment of clarity. The Way of the Claw came to him. When in doubt, trust to your speed. It was a lesson his father had lingered over: the worth of the Clawed Ones' gift of speed. 'Sometimes,' his father said, 'it is best to run. Judging the time and the direction is the difficult part.'

  His heart sank. How could he run here? He was as good as blind. A Clawed One can run blindfolded through a forest on a moonless night, the Way of the Claw said, but Adalon had always thought it was nonsense.

  It seems as if I'm about to find out, he thought.

  His senses straining, he bounded forward. He stretched out his left hand, ready to swerve the instant he felt anything ahead.

  The booming around him grew louder. A grotesque shape, taller than the tallest Long-necked One, appeared just in front of him and he threw himself to one side. He rolled and sprang to his feet at pace. The shadows clung to him and seared his throat. Another shape emerged from the murk and Adalon hurtled past, barely avoiding the stooping horror.

  Then he was through. The shadows lifted. His throat cleared but he kept running, striving to leave the horrors of the A'ak behind. He sped through a tunnel bored through black, shining rock. It glowed with a violet light that Adalon had seen before, in the tunnel connecting the mainland with the Fiery Isles. From behind him came an uproar of angry booming, but he did not look back. He trusted to his speed.

  As he raced over the uneven surface, the air began to thicken again. His vision started to cloud and he grimly dug in, looking for the speed and stamina he needed to run so far and so fast that the A'ak would never catch him.

  So when the pit yawned ahead of him, he had little chance of stopping. Feeling like a fool, he skidded and tumbled over the edge, cursing as he went.

  Twenty

  When Adalon came to his senses, he saw the concerned face of Hoolgar looking down at him. 'Easy, Adalon, you've taken quite a tumble.'

  Adalon started to his feet and backed away, but what he saw in Hoolgar's eyes made him pause. They were full of genuine concern and worry, and the gleam in them was the shine of intelligence and compassion, not cunning. 'Hoolgar!' he cried. 'It's really you!'

  Hoolgar stood and inspected himself. 'Well, I believe so, anyway. Any imperfections are solely my responsibility, not that of the A'ak.'

  Hearing this, Adalon was doubly reassured. He ignored the pounding in his head. 'Where are we?'

  'In a prison,' Hoolgar said dryly. 'We're still on the A'ak plane, but they put us in this pit when they replaced us.'

  Adalon shook his head, then regretted it as it pounded like a drum. He saw that Hoolgar was not alone. In the confines of the large pit were two dozen saur, and he recognised most of them. The walls were rock, so smooth it shone in the light of a lantern far overhead. The pit was roughly round, about twenty yards across.

  'Bolggo!' he cried, and he reached for the Sleeto innkeeper. 'You're here too?'

  'Aye,' the burly Plated One said. 'I was taken early on. Didn't suspect a thing, and Hoolgar's replacement hit me on the head.'

  Hoolgar cleared his throat. 'They worked in the middle of the night, mostly. Two or three of the A'ak creatures would subdue a saur and take the poor unfortunate to the Foundation Room.'

  Bolggo growled. 'The stone monsters. Changed, they did. Looked like us!' He crossed his meaty arms on his chest and looked both angry and offended.

  'Simulacra,' Hoolgar said. 'Plural. Simulacrum, singular. The A'ak made copies of us.'

  Adalon snapped his claws. 'In their den of shadows?' His tail twitched. 'They tried to copy me, but I ran.'

  Hoolgar tilted his head. 'Are you sure the process was not completed? The A'ak are well used to dealing with reluctant subjects.'

  Adalon hesitated and then he shuddered as he remembered the awful way his own face appeared on the stone creature. 'It was horrible.'

  Hoolgar put an arm around Adalon's shoulders. 'As we know too well. We all had it done.'

  Sympathetic mutters came from those who were nearby. Their eyes were haunted, but they knew he had gone through the same horror as they had. He was one of them.

  'If the process was not complete,' Hoolgar said, 'the A'ak will be looking for you.'

  Adalon straightened. He was not about to give in to despair. 'I don't intend to be found. I intend to go back to Krangor.'

  'How?' Bolggo said, scratching his belly.

  'There must be some way,' Adalon said and his tail thrashed. He looked up at the sides of the pit. 'I'm sure I can climb out of here, for a start.'

  'Perhaps,' Hoolgar said. 'But what then? You'll still be stuck in this place.'

  'This place. What sort of a place is it?'

  'It's the place of A'ak exile. They were hurled from Krangor and embedded in this world. They're trapped, deep inside leagues and leagues of solid rock.'

  'It's a prison.'

  'One that they've made their own. They've managed to carve out chambers and tunnels to suit their ends, but there is no escape.'

  Adalon scratched his chin with his claw. 'Why are there no shad
ows here in this pit?'

  'The shadows surround the A'ak,' Hoolgar said. 'As part of their imprisonment, they are each wrapped in a shifting miasma. When two or three of them come together, the shadows combine, swirling about and growing until they could fill an arena.' He gave a low grunt of disapproval, deep in his throat. 'It is part of their punishment. Even when they are together, they are apart, unable to pierce the veils that surround them. Their powers are reduced, their communication is diminished.' He snorted, but it was a hard and bitter sound. 'They come by here every so often, you know. They like to boast, to see us cringe at their power.'

  Adalon was shocked. 'You cringe?'

  More mutters from those listening. Hoolgar shushed them. 'I advised that we should appear abject and defeated, to encourage the A'ak to underestimate us. It was a poor tactic, perhaps, but we do not have many resources apart from ourselves.'

  'What do they look like?' Adalon asked. 'They look monstrous beneath the shadows.'

  Hoolgar shrugged. 'I have no idea.'

  It gave Adalon pause. Their enemies were great and powerful, and the dread they inspired was all the more insistent because they remained unseen. The mind worked, trying to imagine what the A'ak looked like, conjuring up nightmares – each more horrible than the last.

  Futile imagining, Adalon thought. He tilted his head and stared up at the lip of the pit. 'Who's the tallest saur here?'

  'Tallest?' Bolggo said. 'That'd be Rulto, the Long-necked One over there. Rulto!'

  Adalon remembered Rulto. She was one of the young Sleeto saur who had been part of his small patrol defending the pass by dropping rocks on the advancing army. She looked tired, the scales on her cheeks dull and flat. She greeted Adalon with a weary wave.

  'It's time to escape,' Adalon said.

  'We've tried,' Hoolgar said flatly.

  'I see no bars overhead,' Adalon said.

  'It's too high,' Rulto said. 'Even I can't reach that far. We even tried to get someone on my shoulders, but it was no good.'

  'No handholds either,' Bolggo said. 'It's like climbing soap.'

  'A Winged One would be best,' Adalon said, 'but let's see what a Clawed One can do.'

  It took a few moments. With Hoolgar's help, all the saur were herded to one side of the pit, out of the way. Rulto stood with her hands braced against the rocky wall, her neck tucked in. Adalon went to the wall opposite. I have fifteen paces or so to build up speed, he thought. Let it be enough.

  'Be strong, Rulto!' he called. 'When you feel my foot on your shoulder, push up with all your might!'

  Hoolgar flagged back the anxious watchers. 'On the count of three, Adalon: one, two, three!'

  Adalon pushed off the wall and sprinted with all his speed. He swung his arms, drove with all the power in his legs. He crossed the pit in an instant. One long stride before he reached Rulto, he sprang. His foot landed on her shoulder, perfectly. In that split second, he felt the tension in her bunched muscles, then she grunted and pushed upward just as Adalon sprang again, hurling himself vertically.

  He uncoiled as he flew, stretching with his hands while avoiding the wall – it would only slow him down. The lip of the pit stared down at him, so far away, but getting closer.

  It was as if everything slowed, as if he were swimming through honey. He opened his mouth, and his throat gave way to a cry. It was born of effort, but it was also a sound that came from frustration, fear and loss. It became a howl.

  Adalon felt his momentum drop away. He willed himself up, but he'd reached the end of his flight. He began to fall.

  No, he thought. I will not fail!

  With desperation, he stretched even further, flinging out one hand. His spine popped and he gasped at the pain in his shoulder.

  Then, with only two claws, he touched the lip of the pit. Another cry – of triumph this time – tore from his throat. He hooked his fingers on the rim, claws biting into the stone, and they held. He swung against the side of the pit and grunted with pain, but his two claws still held.

  A moment's scrabbling, and he had more claws anchored above, then two hands. He was not about to fall, and he soon hauled himself out.

  He lay there for a moment, panting, then he poked his head over the edge. 'Make a rope,' he called down to the excited saur. 'Tear up your clothing, weave the strips together. I'll be back.'

  Adalon's aim was simple. There was a passage between the prison of the A'ak and Krangor, through which saur were snatched and their replacements put in place. Adalon needed to find that passage.

  However the A'ak opened the way between their prison and Krangor, it would involve magic, so he knew he would have to overcome his distaste for it. 'Neither bad nor good,' was how Simangee described magic in her arguing with him. 'It depends on how it's used.'

  But Adalon had never been able to forget that his mother's death had come from magic.

  In this rocky labyrinth, Adalon trusted to his speed and alertness. The tunnels were free of the shifting shadows. They were suffused with a violet glow that helped him see, but it was an unsettling, unnatural colour that made his stomach churn as he ran.

  He trailed one hand along the wall as he went, careful to scratch a mark whenever the tunnel branched. It would do no good to find an escape if he couldn't return and help Hoolgar and the others. The rock was warm, and vibrated under his claws.

  The violet tunnels curved and branched, seemingly at random. In the distance, he could hear the booming of the A'ak and steered toward it. The tunnel opened out and then he was looking down on a huge chamber full of shadows. For a moment he felt as if he were on top of the walls of High Battilon, looking down at soldiers parading far below. Then he realised he was on a balcony carved from rock, which went right around the vast space. Above him was a vast barrel-vaulted ceiling. Adalon grasped a rough stone pillar and stared, stunned, at the shifting murk below, which resounded with the booming of the A'ak.

  The clouds that followed the A'ak clogged the chamber so that it was like looking down on a fogbound sea. The shadows rolled and moved, clashing and overlapping, like the smoke of many fires joining into one churning mass.

  Suddenly, the shadows swirled and the booming grew so loud that Adalon had to clap his hands over his ears. Then, like water disappearing out of a drain, the A'ak cleared the chamber, leaving through one of several massive archways set into the wall.

  What their departure revealed made Adalon gasp, careless of who could hear him.

  Stretched out on the floor of the chamber was a huge map of Krangor in polished black stone. Dazed and lost in wonder, Adalon stared at what lay before him. It was more than a map. All of the features of the land were carved into the floor, so they stood out in relief. A gigantic Krangor lay in front of him, irregular and vast. The Skyhorn Ranges towered, dividing the continent in two. The great Astolet River was carved deep into the stone. Bays bit into the coastline, hills interrupted plains, lakes, valleys, deserts, promontories all were carved in intricate detail, every landmark in place. It was immense, daunting, impressive. From side to side, Adalon guessed it must be a good arrow's flight across and the same in width. Compared to this, the map on the floor of the A'ak ruins was a puny thing.

  Adalon could feel the arrogance in the display. To the A'ak, Krangor was a toy, something to be played with. It made him both angry and fearful.

  Then he gripped the stone rail of the balcony hard enough to hurt. It was a map, and he'd seen that the A'ak had a way with maps. The Map Room in the Lost Castle, the stone map in the ruins . . . Maps were more than mere pictures to the A'ak – they were a way of changing the world.

  The A'ak maps had power. Gormond and Targesh had been flung across the continent by one, and he'd located the Missing Kin through the magical assistance of another. Surely this majestic map must be more than a mere plaything.

  He clenched his teeth, hard. The A'ak were sending simulacra from this place to Krangor, replacing saur they manage to abduct. Could this map be the threshold, the doorway they
used?

  If this was the case, it could be a way home.

  He hissed and let go of the balcony rail. He had to get back to the others.

  When Adalon returned to the pit, the saur were waiting with tattered garments, ropes at the ready. The most nimble went first, Adalon helping up a young Clawed One. Together, they hauled up a Crested One, and with three on the top end of the rope, matters went quickly. Soon the last of the saur was being dragged up – Hoolgar.

  The old tutor staggered a little, but hurried to Adalon. 'What have you found?' he demanded.

  Quickly, Adalon explained.

  'A mighty map,' Hoolgar muttered. He nodded, sharply. 'You are right. It could be where they dispatch their duplicates to Krangor.'

  'Can we use it to get home?'

  'I hope so.' Hoolgar spread his hands. 'I hope so.'

  Adalon managed to guide the saur back to the map without mishap. Hoolgar nodded when he saw it. 'Maps are powerful, Adalon. Because they stand in place of something, they can be that thing, with the right sort of magic.' He grimaced. 'For the A'ak, making a model like this is their attempt to tame the land, to control it.'

  Adalon nodded absently. He was watching the archways. They were empty and silent, but who knew for how long?

  The crude garment ropes were enough to help the saur descend to the floor of the chamber. The map was even larger than Adalon had suspected. The Skyhorn Ranges were as tall as his shoulder. 'Where are we?'

  'Near the Fiery Isles,' Hoolgar said.

  Adalon hissed with impatience and glanced at the saur. 'It will take too long to cross the map, climbing across the mountains. We'll have to go around the edge.'

  Adalon set off at a trot. The more athletic kept up with him, but soon the line of saur had strung out. Adalon stopped at the great promontory of southeast Shuff. 'Hurry!' he called.

  Then the sound that Adalon least wanted to hear came from the distance. The A'ak. Adalon stiffened, and it came again, nearer this time.

  He snapped his claws together and ran for the rearmost of the group, a pair of kitchen saur; the chunky Horned Ones were waddling with determination but falling further behind with every step. 'Run!' Adalon shouted to the other saur he passed. 'Hoolgar, get them to the Lost Castle!'