by Jo Sparkes
The Dim Continent
Book 3 of The Legend of the Gamesmen
Jo Sparkes
PORTLAND, OREGON
Copyright © 2018 Jo Sparkes
All rights reserved. See notice last page.
ISBN 978-0-9853318-7- 0
Prologue
IT WAS PITCH BLACK. SCRAPING his hand against a rough post, Lump clamped his jaw tight to keep from cursing.
Any normal harbor had torches burning through the night. Providing light so sailors could find their ships on the dock, and vessels at sea knew land was nearby. But this harbor master was either ignorant or catered to those preferring to remain unseen.
Lump had known the type of work he took on when Kratchett first paid him - known and been satisfied. This sort of employment did not please all, which meant it paid more. More still if one was smart and kept his tongue between his teeth. And Lump was very smart.
At least, he’d thought so before finding himself skulking around a dark harbor on a foggy night.
Feeling his way past a pile of stacked crates, he trod out onto the wharf just as a lantern appeared on the hill.
He slipped back behind the crates.
The lantern swung gently as the bearer made his way down the street. Whoever it was moved silently - and even as the light drew close, the flame revealed no more than booted feet beneath rippling cloaks. Hard to guess it was two people.
Still, Lump knew it was Kratchett and Rain.
He’d been sent for, commanded to meet them here. No further information had been conveyed, but then he guessed they were in a rush.
He held his tongue as the pair drew even with his hiding place.
“Where is that fool?” Rain hissed. Lump had little doubt she was referring to him.
“Probably on board,” Kratchett said, in that calm voice he used when handling her. “We can trust Lump.” And Kratchett guided her up the gangplank.
Lump shifted, ready to follow, when a faint drumming grew in the distance. Horses, he realized. But they sounded slightly wrong.
The moon drifted out above the fog as hooves pounded down the cobbled street. Lump spied Kratchett and Rain at the ship’s rail before he turned to see riders leaping off mounts, racing towards them. Abandoning their steeds - including one giant beast that dwarfed the rest. The exhausted horses stood untethered and uncertain.
Men - he didn’t try to count, but more than ten - swarmed onto the ship. Leaving behind one large Thing.
One very large Thing.
Lump had a flashing impression of hair and fangs before the moon slipped mercifully back into cloud cover. He would never be sure he hadn’t dreamt the whole event.
But dream or no, he let the vessel sail away without him.
Double Click on Map to Enlarge.
1.
TRYST STOOD AT THE ARCH opening, gazing out from the council chamber to the mountain that guarded the rear Palace. Growing up he’d imagined the ragged cliff as a giant Defense Master, protecting his home. Strong and invincible - like his father, the King.
Now his own Defense Master chased information, preparing to follow the creature that had masqueraded as King Bactor. A creature from the Dim Continent, with evil intent and motives unknown. Jason sought to uncover those motives. The trail, so he said, would be easier to follow if they knew the thing’s goals.
Footsteps behind him forced him back to the present. “Majesty. King Ganny arrives in the courtyard.”
Tryst turned and nodded.
In his time away from the Palace titles had become foreign things - and now he found their conventions annoying. With his father gone, he was suddenly ‘liege’ or ‘majesty’. Being so addressed only served to remind him the man was missing and in danger.
But surely not dead. The enemy hadn’t killed Tryst when it had the chance. King Bactor must be alive.
Pushing away from the arch, he strode toward the stairs. There was still time before King Ganny would alight from his massive coach, but Tryst yearned to see him.
King Ganny was no longer King at all. He was Tryst’s grandsire.
Striding too fast for the guard at the courtyard door, Tryst had to force himself to wait without glaring at the tardy sentry. Such delays had never annoyed him before his time on the Wavering Continent.
Or perhaps he’d never been in that great a hurry.
The heavy oak portal swung wide to reveal sunshine and four coaches crowding the welcoming area. Sixteen steaming horses pawed the cobblestone while postilions yelled for assistance and servants hauled away wardrobe trunks, hat boxes, and anything else the elder King might demand to aid his comfort. Indeed, three grunting attendants wrested a throne-like chair from atop a carriage.
Tryst stepped down the entrance steps as a fifth coach rolled in, the coat of arms blazing on its massive doors. No less than eight perfectly matched black steeds stamped in harness now, nostrils flaring not at the work but at the forced stop. His grandsire’s animals could race for many miles.
A liveried servant leapt off the high-perched seat, bowed to Tryst, and yanked open the coach door with a peculiar flourish.
Silence.
And then from within a stirring, and King Ganny alighted.
Tryst was small for a Skullan; his father was considered above average. But King Ganny - in all his life Tryst never heard the name Ganny without the ‘King’ title before it - stood half a head taller than any Skullan Tryst had ever seen. He was a massive mountain of a man that age had yet to diminish.
Standing beside the elder king made Tryst feel like a perennial ten-year-old.
“Well, young Tryst, I see you’ve not yet grown to manhood.”
“I fear, Grandsire, I am now as much as I shall ever be.”
“Doubtful,” snorted the King, allowing Tryst to grasp his arm in a custom favored by those of his generation. “Now tell me what you’ve done with your father.”
“ATHAN! ATHAN! ATHAN!”
Marra looked around the Black Arena, seeing the thousands of spectators on their feet, screaming the name of the Black Tide’s leader.
“He relies too much on defending the comet tail,” Drail murmured, his eyes riveted - as were those of Wolfbur and Old Merle - on the playing field below.
“The man’s defense is most impressive,” Old Merle nodded. “But you’d do better to use your own strengths. With your accuracy, take your shots at the cone.”
“You’d do better to concentrate on defeating Trumen teams,” Wolfbur’s guttural voice cut through the cheers, “than strategizing for an opponent you will never face.”
Marra sighed, and forced herself to watch.
The Gold Harbor Arena - the greatest comet arena in all of Missea - was hosting a week of Coronation Games, and this was only day three. She’d quickly discovered that observing continual competitions of Skullan teams held far less excitement than watching Drail and the Hand of Victory play.
In truth, she’d rather be playing with her potions at the Agben School. She’d told that to Kirth, her Skullan mentor, and found herself thrust from the workroom out into the sunshine. Kirth said it was because Marra worked too long over her herbs, like a dog worrying a bone, and needed a break.
Marra thought it was because Kirth grew tired of her questions.
Marra had spent more than a year helping Drail to follow in his grandsire’s footsteps. He yearned to be the best gamesman of his generation, and prove it by defeating Skullan in the Gold Harbor Arena. Also called the Black Arena because of the odd look the pouring of obsidian stone had given it, this was the site where his gran
dsire had battled Skullan in a game legendary to both races. Drail was the first Trumen to defeat a Skullan team, as far as anyone knew, but he’d since discovered that those Skullan roaming the desert were not near the level of skill as the gamesmen here in Missea.
Marra’s Birr Elixir helped him, or so he told her. He’d named her Brista, potions maker to the Hand of Victory, after she’d brewed the recipe from her dead mistress’s book. In return Drail had rescued her from a lonely desert town and a bad man, bringing her here to the one place she could continue learning.
She desperately wanted to repay him, and hoped to discover mixtures more useful than a simple energy brew. But she couldn’t do that sitting here watching these endless comet games. She needed to keep studying at the Agben School.
“CEASE!” cried the Judge.
Marra realized she’d missed the winning shot. No need to wonder who had won - Athan’s stance on the field declared his victory as no handful of words could.
“I want to play him,” Drail insisted. “Wolfbur, how did you obtain status enough to play in the Black Arena?”
“Three years of victories were not enough,” the weathered Skullan told him. “So my team left Missea to roam the Great Continent. To play every town, every village. A year later, we returned with triumphs both real and exaggerated, and mounted a worthy challenge.”
Marra saw the soft smile on Drail’s lips. “We’ve acted the role of traveling gamesmen before.”
“Trumen on a Trumen land,” Old Merle eyed him skeptically. “How many Trumen games even exist beyond the city gates? And why should winning those impress any Skullan?”
Trumen, the smaller of the two races, were considered inferior in every way to the ruling Skullan people. Skullan stood a third larger, taller and more massive. Their king ruled the land - although the Wavering Continent, the desert home to Marra and Drail, saw little of actual Skullan reign.
“I’d like to see what lies beyond the city,” Manten grinned.
Marra thought of her study at Agben, and sighed.
When the games had finished, Marra slipped away.
The cobblestones were slick from the recent rain, but her new slippers bore the Missean sole and gripped the stone well. She hurried down the ramp to the Palace side entrance, dug out her key, and entered.
Tryst, the Skullan Prince, had given her this key. She hadn’t used it since the moon had waned, and even now hesitated to do so. There were vials in her Palace chamber however, and as glass was dear and she’d broken a flask yesterday, the least she could do was replace it.
As she passed through a Royal garden, Marra noticed the banyon tree under whose leaves she and Tryst used to sit. No one sat there now, so she sped on to her room.
Tryst had been a friend and companion, even a gamesman with Drail’s Hand of Victory. At the time none of them had known he was Skullan, let alone a prince, until he fought to claim his rightful place in the Palace. He’d gained his throne and lost his father.
Now he worked tirelessly to find King Bactor. He no longer needed their aid, and hadn’t sought them out.
Marra grasped the handle, clicked the latch, and stood on the threshold of her own private room.
It was a coveted courtyard chamber, highly sought in the Palace. The King himself had honored her with it - or perhaps it was the Terrin who had taken his place that had done so. The Terrin - a creature from the Dim Continent - was discovered just a moon ago to be posing as the King. The impostor had escaped.
Now the sun pouring through the open balcony doors danced on the glass vials, sparkling merrily. Even though she hadn’t been here in a moon, those outside doors were always flung open on sunny days and shut against the rain and the night by the servants who swept the dust from the place. In all honesty, she couldn’t fathom the extravagance of Palace ways. What was the point of cleaning a room every day when no one used it for months?
The tap of her heels against the stone floor muted as she strode across the thick blue carpet. Voices drifted in from the garden as she plucked the vials from the polished wood.
“Young Jason leads the search for your father? Why not Klangor? He’s never failed.”
“Klangor retired years ago.” Tryst’s reply held a peculiar deference, laced with a weariness Marra had never heard before. She bit her lip, realizing how Tryst must feel. Alone.
He’d finally come home after more than a year - to find himself alone yet again. It was a feeling she knew herself. Impulsively she walked out to the balcony.
“But young Jason…”
“Is the Defense Master of the realm. There is no one I trust…no one more trustworthy, Grandsire.”
Already cross the terrace, Marra halted at that last word. But her intrusion was noted by both men poised below her. Tryst - with his head shaved in the Skullan fashion - actually smiled at her. The other man did not.
The height of the balcony did not diminish the man’s stature, for he towered over Tryst. What stopped her cold was not his size but his demeanor - for few Skullan would glare at her after their own prince’s welcome.
And glare this man did. “You may go back to your cleaning, girl,” he said, and even standing below her still looked down his nose.
“Grandsire, this is Marra,” Tryst touched his grandfather’s arm. “The Brista who saved my life. Marra, may I present His Majesty, King Ganny. Skullan ruler for forty years. The father of my father.”
Marra sank into a curtsy, attempting to imitate the court ladies she had witnessed. From King Ganny’s look, she knew she had failed.
“You have our gratitude for your service to Missea,” the elder’s voice did not thaw one wit. “Now leave us.”
“Stay.” Tryst stepped forward, startling both her and his grandsire. “I’ve wanted to talk to you. Is there a way for you to sweep the Palace for any other Terrin influence?”
Staring at Tryst, she caught the same stare on King Ganny’s face, and almost laughed aloud.
“Please?”
Something in his tone released her smile. “I’ll do my best, Tryst.”
“Majesty,” King Ganny barked. “He is Majesty to you.”
Marra nodded, and fled.
Tryst watched her slip through the balcony doors. He knew that nervous withdrawal, that need of hers not to disturb anyone or anything around her.
“Trumen have grown too puffed up in themselves,” his grandsire growled.
“That Trumen risked her life to help a stranger in the desert. It was a year before she knew I was Skullan, let alone Prince.”
King Granny snorted in disbelief, and Tryst felt his fingers clench into fists. “Females,” the old king told him, “have a certain sense for self-preservation.”
Picturing his ragged appearance on the Flats of Beard, slumped by a campfire beside the victorious Drail and his gamesmen, Tryst suddenly relaxed and grinned.
“If she could sense that, then she’s the one we want scouring the place for Terrin traces.”
Clapping his grandsire’s shoulder, Tryst marched him past an interested guard.
Spying the walls of Agben in the distance, Marra sped along the third tier walkway.
Missea had almost as many avenues above the ground as on it, and while she still found it dizzying to travel high above the streets, the quickest route often stood several stories in the air. Landmarks were easier to see, distances better judged. And as the horses drawing supplies or more affluent passengers trotted only on the ground level, walkways avoided both them and their droppings.
She darted down the ramp to the shadowed doorway hidden behind a trellis of almost black vines. A ‘Wiskett Bramble’, she’d learned in class. Useless plant, so Leah said, yet it smelled potent to Marra.
The door led to a sheltered corner in the vast garden of Agben. The School of Agben studied the art of herbs, of crafting potions, balms, and elixirs. Marra had not yet completed her first year - but she’d learned more than properties of plants. She’d learned that she loved it.
To be useful.
The sun already brushed the west wall, and she smelled dinner cooking in the south kitchen. Classes would be done for the day, so she headed for the subterranean cave no student should know existed.
Kirth, an elder teacher of Agben, knelt beside a white snowdrop flower in the coldest of the cave-rooms. The Skullan woman had her back to the doorway, but Marra was not surprised when she spoke.
“Footsteps too eager to be anyone but Marra.” The elder’s breath formed a white cloud, so cold was the room. “Now what can that girl want today?”
Circling around her teacher, Marra peered down into the pale blue eyes. “Tryst - the Prince - asked me if I could sweep the Palace for…Terrin traces.”
“Indeed?” Kirth pushed herself up, taking a moment to straighten one knee. “Did he seek this help from Agben? Or from a mere student?”
“He saw me at the Palace. The thought only just occurred.” Marra bit her lip. “Can Agben help?”
Kirth raised an eyebrow. “If any are ill, we can seek to cure. Agben studies the discipline to heal, and the discipline to enhance.”
The familiar words hung in the air. Taking a deep breath, Marra asked the question that had teased her for several moons. “Is there a third discipline?”
Kirth’s eyes narrowed, but her lips only thinned.
Marra knew she tread unwelcome ground, but having started decided to continue. “Rain did so much more than that. Her mixture changed color when a particular person drew near. And something made us believe a Terrin creature was King Bactor.” Rain, a powerful Woman of Agben, had committed treason against her own race, the Skullan people.
“She garnered no such knowledge within these walls.” Kirth’s eyes were hard. “Brews of that sort are unnatural. The essence of evil. They’re forbidden.”