by Steve Vera
“Translate, Amanda,” Donovan said through a mouthful of fruit. He was already picking through the bowl, looking for the next victim. She wasn’t even sure why he was here; he’d been so adamant about having his own quarters.
“Uh, sure,” she said and obeyed immediately. Whatever he was on, she liked it. He seemed...cheerful? Buoyant?
“I thought old people were supposed to be wise,” Donovan said after her translation, settling on a handful of grapes the size of eggs. “If you’re underestimating me at this juncture, Druid, you’d better pray to whatever god you worship we never cross swords.” He chucked the pear-core into the mouth of a green dragon head sitting at the base of the counter and crammed a grape into his already full mouth and bit down. The pear-core poofed into ash once inside the dragon’s jaws. One thing was for certain; Nu’romians had some handy magic.
“Then how’d you do it?” Amanda asked, not wanting to ruin the mood.
“Same way I always do, Amanda.” He paused and narrowed his eyes at her. They shifted from cobalt to powder. “How good are you at giving massages?”
“Uh, pretty good, I guess. I think. Why?” she said and glanced over at Dwensolt. It was just the two of them. Everyone else was at the counsel, though Pyrk was around here someplace.
“Because I want one,” he said and stuffed another grape into his mouth. She could hear it pop. “Ten minutes before sunset, be in my room, Amanda. Don’t be late.”
At that, he walked out the back of the living room, through the double doors and out into the sunshine.
* * *
Gavin remembered reading somewhere that there were people that actually feared public speaking more than death. He’d never been able to wrap his brain around that one.
Until now.
Walking down that long corridor of marble pillars and fluted columns, the click of the Sorcerer’s staff echoing in the vast space within the arches above, Gavin realized he had the butterflies.
It comes down to this.
In one conversation Gavin would have to break through a wall of skepticism, admit catastrophic failure, face the ones who were responsible for not only starting the whole war in the first place but were also responsible for the death of his nation, enlist their help, as well as all of their enemies, and then save the world. During the Olympics.
How the hell did I get here again?
His heart felt like a caged animal, ramming the inside of his ribs; each boom sent a shudder through his vision.
At the end of the corridor was a gigantic double mahogany door blocked by two crisp and gleaming Centurions standing at a position of attention, spears crossed in a steel X in front of the doors.
They were professional enough not to widen their eyes at the approach of four extinct Knights of the Shard, but the sudden clenching of their bodies, the tightening of their fingers around the hafts of their spears while simultaneously saluting the Senator gave them away nonetheless.
“A hail to the Caesar,” they said in synchronization, bringing their free fist to the left pectoral muscle of their breastplate and then extending into the air perpendicular to their bodies, eerily similar to a flat version of a Nazi from Antiquity. At the end of the salute their hands double-gripped the shafts to their spears and they both set the butts in front of them so that the Senator could pass, though they did not open the door. Instead, the Centurion on the right spoke.
“We were not informed you would be bringing company to this assembly, Senator Merevus. Who are your companions?” The question was delivered with respectful courtesy, but there was a professional glint to them.
“A fair question, Centurion,” the senator said with a smile. “These four Shardyn are my guests and are here on my invitation. They wish to speak with the assembly.”
Both Centurions studied the four of them.
“I assure you, there is no danger, Centurions,” Roland said with a knowing nod. He was no longer adorned in the simple white robes he’d been wearing when he’d greeted them at the Senator’s door, but a rich, snowy, embroidered thing, with a deep hood and runes spun of gold and silver on the cuffs and down the middle. With the exception of his thumbs, each finger was adorned with a ring of different metal—copper, brass, silver, gold, iron, steel, bronze and platinum (Gavin hadn’t slept through all of his classes during the Academy), and on each ring were different stones and jewels symbolizing who knew what. He looked very official.
Their spears uncrossed. “You may pass.”
If Gavin hadn’t known better he’d have said that the Senator was amused by their struggle of retaining composure, like Buckingham Castle guards about to crack up. But they didn’t. Nu’romian Centurions were professionals.
They opened the door.
Inside was even worse than Gavin had feared.
The hall was vast and opulent, constructed in a manner as to both showcase exquisite engineering as well as function as a practical place of business. Arranged in a horseshoe of gilded seats were the delegates, ambassadors and representatives of all the major civilized races of the world. Above them on a lofty podium was the Caesar. Flanking his podium were two other pedestals set several feet lower but elevated from the rest of the horseshoe—the Senator’s seats. One was occupied, the other vacant.
All conversation halted as they strode boldly into the center of the hall, their footsteps echoing through the grand chamber. The first set of eyes to lock with Gavin’s were the steel gray ones of a Wizard of Vambrace, set in a thin, angular and hard-looking face. His scarlet, embroidered robes only seemed to enhance the sneering gasp as inconceivable recognition spread across his features.
“Senator Merevus,” the Caesar called down from his podium with a narrow-eyed frown. He was a pudgy man, though his ceremonial toga hid most of his bulk, and there was an imperious note to his words. “You are late and have squandered the precious time of those assembled. I trust you have a valid explanation?” His eyes traveled to Merevus’s six companions. His frown deepened.
From above, better than any planetarium could ever hope to project, was a ceiling of a spiral galaxy expanding above them in colors known only to celestial bodies—ethereally vivid magenta and a nebula of turquoise, purple and every other color of the light spectrum. Its luminance cast the curious stares, questioning murmurs and vitriolic glowers directed at them in surreal light.
Where there was a Wizard of Vambrace there would also be a Knight of Vambrace, and now was no different. Sitting to the Wizard’s left was a large, broad-shouldered tank in red-steel plate mail. The haughty glare he flung at them was typical of their ilk, snuffing whatever faint, preposterous hope Gavin may have harbored that perhaps things had changed.
In addition, Gavin picked out two D’worves—a Moor D’worf and a Crag D’worf—a Nu’romian General in full ceremonial armor, a delegate from the powerful Merchant’s Guild with a green sash tied around his waist and some others, though one seat in particular captured Gavin’s attention. The one crafted in the unmistakably elegant, flowing and graceful beauty of the Elverai.
The one that was empty. His shoulders sagged.
If any would have listened it would have been the Elverai.
“You dare contaminate this counsel by the presence of Magi masquerading blasphemously as Shardyn?” the Wizard of Vambrace demanded while standing once he recovered his wits. Spit flew out of his mouth as he stabbed his ringed forefinger at the six of them. “All Magi have been outlawed on pain of death.”
“You are out of order, Vambrace. We are in Nu’rome,” the Caesar said. “All are welcome in this city and that is the law.” He had not raised his voice but there was authority there, despite its nasally quality. The Caesar followed his words by staring down at the Wizard from his elevated caramel-swirled marble podium. On it was a throne and two additional chairs, each filled the only two Ten-ring Sorcerers in th
e land, clad in their finest ceremonial robes. “I would hear the Senator’s explanation.”
“Thank you, Caesar,” Merevus said with a formal bow that did not go below his neck. “I have indeed news of import, greater I dare say than the usual business of the Olympics.”
The Moor D’worf scowled. Anything that interfered with the fortunes to be made at the Olympics was frowned heavily on.
“These four Knights of the Shard that you presently gaze upon are not merely the last of their kind...they are of the famed Seven Apprentices.”
The gold and purple flames burning atop the sconces set at precise intervals around the hall flickered as if the room itself had gasped.
“This is preposterous,” the Moor D’worf said, standing to his full four and half feet. “The Seven Apprentices perished more than a century ago if the fairytales hold true. What sort of enchantment have you fallen prey to Senator Merevus?”
“I assure you this is no illusion,” Roland said evenly. “They are as they say. If you would, Sur Stavengre, it is safe to show them your runes.”
Gavin held up his right hand, as did the other three, and felt the seed of light that pooled in the center of his palm zip through the glyphs in his hand. A couple of mouths actually dropped open.
“How can such a thing be possible?” the other Nu’romian Senator asked from above. He was a thin man with a large head that looked as if it had never held hair. His eyes, however, were alert and penetrating. He leaned forward with interest.
“You have the floor,” Merevus said to Gavin and then started across the marble floor with Roland, ascended the five stairs and took his place, Roland on his side, at the empty seat slightly below and to the right flank of Caesar Tiberius Au’nauthiatu.
Gavin took a deep, calming breath, banished his thundering heart to the bowels of his conscious and spoke. “When we last left Theia a hundred and thirty-seven years ago, the world was on fire,” he began in the calm, low voice of a narrator recanting the concentration camps of World War II—neutral yet grave. “The Armies of the Sky raged against the Armies of the Underworld and the survival of civilization hung in the balance...may I presume that all here are familiar with this account?”
“Of course, Shardyn,” the Caesar said with a wave of his hand and indicated him to continue.
Gavin didn’t, though. Instead he waited and gathered their attention. He’d been rehearsing what he was going to say this moment ever since they’d returned, had half a dozen prepared speeches, but under those venomous, wonder-filled, disbelieving, fascinated stares he threw them all away.
Flowery wasn’t going to work with these guys.
With a nod, more to himself than anything, Gavin forced himself look into the eyes of each and every one of them. Whatever their personal feelings for Gavin that moment, whether hatred, resentment, disbelief or awe, one thing was the same among them—the need for knowledge and truth.
Even if only to twist it.
“Those stories, Councilman, that you heard from your mothers and read in the text-scrolls of whatever institution of higher learning you attended are nothing more than that—” his voice was low, calm and utterly certain, “—stories. That is not how the War of the Drynn ended.”
Somebody coughed.
“How then did it end, Shardyn?” the Caesar asked. He could see the gears in their heads turning, trying in vain to anticipate his words. Bombs away...
“It didn’t.”
There was a momentary flutter in the air, even the planetarium above seemed to flicker and then...the inevitable clamor.
“That is preposterous—”
“You lie—”
“Impossible—”
“What do you call the last century—”
Gavin waited until they were done, which took more than a half a minute, and continued. “Whether you believe my words or not is irrelevant, for it is the truth. Asmodeous the Pale escaped, and we followed.”
“So where, Sur Stavengre Kul Annototh, have you been for the last hundred and thirty-seven years?” the Vambracian Wizard asked. Gavin locked stares with a man who represented everything ugly about humanity, the enemy of his people, the very ones who’d killed his father and countless other innocents. Images of the Druid’s Pool rose behind his eyes.
One thing at a time, Gavin, one thing at a time... When this is all over, that’s when the reckoning will come. The man’s gaze was strong but brittle and cracked under the force of Gavin’s ill-concealed fury, and within those fissures, a glimmer of uncertainty. “Earth.”
This time there was no outcry. Just stunned silence.
“The realm of no magic?” Caesar asked.
“The same.”
Gavin glanced up at Senator Merevus. Deadpan pokerface. “And you have proof of this?”
“Beyond my oath?” Gavin asked.
“The oath of a Magi has less worth than a squirt of cow piss,” the Knight of Vambrace snapped. “Of course beyond your oath.” His eyes dared Gavin to protest. He’d walked right into that one.
“You are out of order, Vambrace,” Caesar said harshly. “Do so again and you will be dismissed.”
The knight’s arms tightened but his smugness remained. Gavin was damned if he responded and damned if he didn’t.
Plan B. “You’re on, Skip. Watch out for flying tomatoes.”
“Roger that,” Skip said with impressive calm. All of his clothes had been cleaned and mended perfectly by the best of Nu’rome’s tailors. Only a slice of apple pie would have looked more American. He walked up beside Gavin, looked up to the Caesar and then he cleared his throat. “My name is Everett Walkins, Chief of Police, Rolling Creek, Montana, United States of America, Earth.” Skip pulled back his shoulders. “I am an enforcer of laws.”
Hooded, suspicious and curious eyes bored into him.
“Just because you spew strange words and don garish garb does not make you from Earth, peasant,” the Wizard said.
“True,” Skip said with an amicable shrug. “But this right here can’t be faked.” He took off the white-gold chain and locket housing the splinter of Deos’s spur and held it up. “Catch.”
The chain and locket arched perfectly toward the Wizard and then stopped, changed direction and then flew to the Caesar, who then snatched it out of the air.
“You will direct these matters to me, Everett. I am the Caesar of Nu’rome.”
“A thousand apologies, Mister Caesar,” Skip said, holding up his hands. “I’m new here. Just take a look.”
“See that it does not happen again.” The Caesar then opened the locket and studied what was inside. “What is it?” he finally asked. “How does a bone prove that you are from Earth?”
“That is no bone, Caesar,” Gavin said. “It is a fragment of the spur of Asmodeous the Pale. There is none other like it.”
Chapter 38
“You rang?” Amanda asked.
It wasn’t until the door clicked behind her that Donovan looked up. He wasn’t wearing his sunglasses. “Come here,” he said.
“Is everything okay?” she asked. It was dim in his room. The only light came from the magnificent view of the harbor just outside his windows and the sun setting over the water. Other than the pile of books, scrolls, pen-quills and ink jars on his desk, his room looked untouched. And then she saw the wine bottles. The empty wine bottles.
“I thought we were beyond me repeating myself, Amanda.” His words weren’t quite as crisp as they normally were, but softer, more blunted.
“Sorry,” she said, holding up her hands. “In what way can I be of assistance, Donovan?”
Once she got close to him she realized three striking things. First, he was only wearing a robe. She could see the muscles of his chest, the greenish metal buried in it as well as the top two abdominal muscl
es of his stomach. Second, he didn’t look very good. His face was shiny, swollen and pale. Third, she could smell the wine on his breath from way back here. And he wanted her to give him a massage?
This is not good situation.
“I didn’t know you drank,” she said carefully.
“I don’t, Amanda Kasey, but today is a special day.”
“Why is today special?”
He smiled, but this smile was unlike any she’d seen on him. It was...real. Unguarded. But still dangerous somehow. “You had your chance, Amanda Kasey. I would have told you too.”
“Normally you make sense, Donovan, but not right now. Why in God’s name did you run off and join the Olympics, anyway? The Drynn are coming, you know that. It doesn’t make sense.”
“That’s because you lack vision, Amanda Kasey. Pick up that vial beside the quill.”
“The ink?”
“The other one, you idiot.”
Oh. This one. “What about it?”
“Open it.”
She obeyed with a cautious shrug and was punished by an acrid, herby fume that burned her nasal passages like a whiff of wasabi. “Yuck. What is this stuff and why am I holding it?”
Donovan answered by pushing his chair away from the desk. “I want you to rub it on me.”
* * *
“So you failed?” The Moor D’worf had a name, Forges Ironhand, and Gavin liked him about as much as he liked hemorrhoids.
“Yes,” Gavin said immediately. It had taken long enough, but between the return of the Shardyn, Skip and his fragment and three living Cavaliers, finally they were getting somewhere. Even if it was to point blame.
“What would you have us do?” Merevus asked from his podium.
“We must mobilize your armies at once, send word to each of your respective kingdoms and rally every able-bodied warrior, soldier and knight. Even in the first war Nu’rome never fell, has never fallen. Of all your splendors and honors, that is the grandest, no? It will be the perfect staging ground—”