In one smooth motion, Aereon stood, bowed politely, and reached out to shake Tyrell’s hand. He was a head taller than the captain, with broad shoulders that seemed disproportionate to his otherwise thin figure. Aereon was pale with cheeks and hands that looked reddened and chapped from a cold wind. His steel blue eyes were set deeply above a very long nose, and his thick disheveled hair was a black so dark it could’ve gotten lost in shadows.
Tyrell shook hands with Aereon, taken aback by how cold the man’s grip was. “My pleasure, Mr. Aereon. From where do you hail?”
“From here and there,” Aeron stated, but upon observing Tyrell’s dark gaze, he continued. “But I’ve known the queen all of her existence.”
“Really? She’s never mentioned you,” Tyrell said, instantly wary as he examined the man. Aereon moved with such incredible grace it was as though he had known how to walk a thousand years before anyone else figured it out. Tyrell instinctively knew he was very dangerous.
“Tyrell?” Victoria’s voice came from the doorway. “Did you call for me?”
Before Tyrell could stop her, the princess entered the throne room. She walked to them, regarding Aereon with open curiosity. Aereon almost glided across the floor to greet Victoria, taking her hand and bowing deeply before kissing it. The longer Aereon held Victoria’s hand, the more concerned she appeared to become.
“I am Aereon, and I am at your service. You must be Queen Isabelle’s lovely daughter, Princess Victoria, and you are lovely indeed.” His voice was filled with seedy intent, and Victoria yanked her hand from his. Aereon leered into her eyes, and the princess met his gaze straight on with an ice cold glare. “You are very...interesting,” he acknowledged as he continued to leer at her.
“So, to what do we owe the...pleasure?” Tyrell interrupted.
Victoria shivered as Aereon slowly dragged his eyes from her to face Tyrell. “I am here to offer my unique and complete services as principal advisor to Her Majesty Queen Isabelle.” As he spoke his hands were in constant motion, artfully swooping to communicate as much as his words. It was almost enough to distract everyone, but Tyrell wasn’t fooled and saw the calculation behind Aereon’s eyes.
“While I’m certain the queen appreciates all...information...provided by her subjects, you will need to do so through proper channels. I’m certain the guards can lead you exactly where you need to go,” Tyrell suggested bluntly, hopeful that concluding this conversation would possibly conclude the man’s visit. He waved the nearest guards over to Aereon.
The queen immediately raised her hand to halt the guards’ advance. “That’s enough, Tyrell,” the queen said. “Aereon has given me the information we’ve been seeking.”
“Oh?” replied the Captain Guard in disbelief, his eyebrows raised high into his forehead.
The queen stood slowly, regally, sure of herself now as if everything were back to normal. Her change in demeanor surprised Tyrell. Just an hour ago, she’d been overly anxious, seeming uncomfortable in her own skin. Yet here she was without the fidgeting, royally confident of her place, and apparently at peace.
“I was right all along. It’s a conspiracy. Those magic-wielding fools have been creating an army of monsters.” Isabelle descended the throne dais and approached Tyrell and Victoria. “All that time wasted, but now we can put a stop to it. Every single magic wielder outside of the castle must either be imprisoned or hunted.”
Victoria paled, her hand resting on the bodice of her dress as if trying to keep her heart from leaping out. “But, Mother,” she said, the words hesitant. “What proof could this stranger have possibly brought you that would warrant this harsh judgment?”
Victoria gasped as Isabelle’s eyes met hers, her expression horrified. She brought her hand to her mouth to stifle a cry of alarm. Tyrell leaned in close to Isabelle. In the distraction of Aereon’s appearance, he had completely missed it. The false eye no longer mimicked the queen’s real one. A tempest now swirled within it—gray clouds in mists of white. The colors and textures inside the glass looked like a slowly brewing storm, spinning around a pitch black center.
“Thanks to Aereon, I now see everything.”
29
Ivan hadn’t returned by morning, and they resigned themselves to a search. After hours of looking, Hector discovered what may have been a trail, but the signs were faint due to the rain the night before.
“Mr. Crazy is probably halfway back to Unsel, to advise Isabelle they should ready the guillotines,” Angst huffed to Hector, trying to catch his breath as they trudged beside a winding creek. Wet mud and clay stuck to their boots, weighing down their feet and tiring Angst. “This is really a waste of time.”
“What you did yesterday was awful. The man obviously needs help,” Hector reproached. “Do you really hate him that much, or are you only willing to be a hero for attractive young princesses?”
“It’s not just him, it’s what he represents,” Angst responded, ignoring the slight. “The man is made of pure hate and bigotry, just like the establishment he represents.”
Hector stopped to scrape some of the mud from his boots onto a nearby tree stump. “Are we talking about the same establishment you’ve wanted to be a part of all your life? Isn’t this whole trip about you becoming a knight?”
Clearly Hector wanted to preach rather than discuss, but Angst tried to explain anyway. “It was. Well, it is. I do want to be a knight, but the difference is what I would do as a knight and who I would represent.”
Hector set down one foot and rinsed off the remaining mud in the creek. “How much are you willing to sacrifice for this obsession, Angst? These are your friends. They aren’t soldiers or adventurers. Dallow is right. Someone’s going to get killed. Who are you willing to sacrifice first? Tarness? Rose? Me?”
“Probably you,” Angst said with a wink before his voice became serious. “I’m not going to let anyone die. If anyone gets killed for my stupidity, it will be—”
“You both need to see this,” Tarness yelled from the campsite.
Hector probably wasn’t finished admonishing, which made the timing perfect, in Angst’s opinion. After staring each other down for several seconds, they returned to the campsite. Several yards past the camp, they found Dallow, Rose, and Tarness watching Scar circle the black obelisk, his tail wagging rapidly.
“Did you see this last night?” Rose asked Angst accusingly.
“Sure, right after you stomped off.” Angst sat on the nearby stone to catch his breath.
“Weren’t you going to tell us?” asked Dallow, his tone similar to Rose’s.
“I was going to say something after we had given up looking for Ivan. I didn’t consider it an emergency.”
“It would have been nice to know,” Dallow continued to dig.
“Did you want to know how many times I got up to pee last night too?” Angst retorted.
“That’s enough,” Hector interrupted. “So we’ve found another obelisk. What do we do about it?”
“We follow it,” said Angst logically as he stood. He moved behind the obelisk to better gauge the direction it pointed, the chiseled words ‘Gressmore Towers’ always facing him.
“Follow what?” asked Dallow, exasperated. The last of his patience seemed to have fled with Ivan.
“The path,” Angst replied.
“You aren’t going Ivan on us, are you?” Tarness asked. “Unless I’m missing something, I see no path.”
“I think there’s always been a path, and I might know how to find it,” Angst said, allowing himself the tiniest bit of enthusiasm. “Everyone gather your gear. Come on.” Without giving anyone the chance to question or argue further, Angst walked back to camp to grab his own satchel. His friends reluctantly followed with heavy sighs and wary looks.
They stood around for several minutes after shuffling about with purpose, quietly adjusting themselves and their packs, but mostly, they were waiting.
“Are we done looking for Ivan?” Tarness asked.
&nbs
p; “I’m not a tracker, and everything has been washed out.” Hector rubbed his scar. “It looked like he was headed west toward Unsel.”
“In other words, we’re done looking for Ivan,” Angst answered firmly. He looked at everyone, giving them the merest of breaths to disagree, but nobody did.
“All right, Angst, what about us? I hope we’re going to Unsel too,” Dallow said in a tired voice, flicking blond bangs from his face.
“Scar, come here, boy,” Angst called. The small lab happily obliged, wagging his tail and sniffing Angst’s hand. Angst whispered to him, “If you really are the guide, now’s the time. Show us where we need to go, Scar.” The dog sat, happily oblivious to anything Angst had said. Scar’s tongue lolled out the side of his open mouth, a bit of drool dripping to the ground.
Angst sensed the eyes of his friends boring into his back with impatience, and his cheeks flushed with embarrassment and frustration. His stomach quivered with anxious discomfort, and he squeezed his eyes shut. He was so tired of arguing and constantly having to prove himself. But here they were, in the middle of nowhere, with only a crappy signpost that was less than vague. They deserved more, he deserved more, but nothing ‘deserved’ came without earning it, so he tried something. Angst willed Scar to lead them. Just like he would reach for minerals to manipulate them, he mentally reached for Gressmore Towers and concentrated on that thought with all his might. For the briefest of moments, Chryslaenor’s song stopped.
“Angst, your sword!” Tarness said, pointing at the now-familiar glow.
Angst opened his eyes to see Scar take off into the woods, in the same direction the obelisk pointed. Without a word, he followed. His friends stood motionless for several moments, looking at each other. Shrugging, Hector fell in line too, with everyone else trailing behind him.
They soon crossed the road that lead to Ravenhill and continued into the woods, though there was no clear path. For hours, they clambered over fallen logs and through muddy creeks. The terrain was exhausting, but they were all too tired to complain. Eventually, they reached a new road, freshly cut, and uniformly straight.
“This is unnaturally convenient,” Dallow observed.
“Are you the one seeing conspiracies now?” Angst snapped at him. “You can’t have it both ways, Dallow. Either the puzzle fits together or there is no puzzle.”
Dallow had nothing further to say, out loud anyway, and his friends remained quiet as they reluctantly moved from rough forest to comfortable path.
They hiked for two days before approaching the crest of a tall hill. At the top of the hill, they had a magnificent view of tundra, stretching empty and desolate forever into the horizon. There was no sign of anything else. No animals, no Gressmore Towers, not even the Vex’kvette. The weight of this revelation forced Angst to his knees, squeezing him dry of energy and hope.
“I could have sworn, for a minute, that the sword...and the dog...” He let the words trail off as his knees sank into the moist hilltop.
Hector patted his shoulder once but said nothing as the others looked for dry spots to sit.
After several moments, Tarness finally spoke. “I guess this is it? Angst?”
“I guess,” Angst replied bleakly. Scar barked and ran down the hill into the large expanse. “Now what?” Angst muttered. He shouted for the dog to return. “Come on, Scar.” The young pup continued barking and running away from them.
“I’ll get him then we can start heading back,” Angst said in a low, defeated voice.
He made his way down the hill slowly, trying not to slip in the mud. Angst could barely discern Scar in the distance, and hadn’t really been concerned until shadows rolled in like a storm. It didn’t make sense. There were already clouds everywhere, and they didn’t seem threatening. How could this area be darker than the rest? He looked up.
“By the Dark Vivek,” he muttered before running back to his friends as quickly as he could.
When he finally arrived, they all looked at him like he had wasted enough of their time.
“Come on, you’ve...got...to see,” Angst gasped, having left his breath far behind.
“What’s going on, Angst?” Hector asked, concern on his craggy face. “Where’s the mutt?”
“Now,” he said, still huffing. “Come with me.”
It would be easier to show than explain, and Angst was far too winded to do both. He impatiently turned to work his way down the hill, back to the darker shadows. When the others caught up, there was nearly an audible thud as their jaws collectively dropped. Somehow invisible at a distance, hundreds of black stone towers now loomed over them. The square base of every tower seemed to have grown from the very ground, reaching high into the sky, like fingers trying to grab clouds. Each one was large enough to contain a house.
They stopped at the periphery of the towers, silently attempting to absorb the awesome size and grandeur of the objects. The square pillars stood like rows of soldiers, towering over dry tundra in a military-precise line. Angst ran his fingers along the cold, smooth face of one pillar, and then into a vertical groove the size of his hand. These grooves appeared every few feet and seemed to be carved all the way up the stone face, similar to the obelisks yet much larger.
“So...are we here? Is this Gressmore Towers?” Angst asked, breaking the stunned silence.
Hector shook his head in disbelief and scratched the scar along his chin thoughtfully. “I’ve been all over the world, and I’ve never seen, nor heard, of anything like this.”
“How does something like this just...appear?” asked Rose in stunned disbelief.
Everyone looked at Dallow, who was lost in trance, his eyes glowing as he reviewed his internal catalog. It took much longer than normal. When Dallow’s eyes eventually cleared, his face was starkly pale and he swayed with exhaustion, as if he had just finished running to Unsel and back. “I can remember only a few obscure references to black towers in poems, but those are from our oldest books. Some of which I can barely decipher.”
“Any mention of danger, or monsters that eat nice people?” Tarness asked, only half-joking.
“None, fortunately. I can’t remember reading anything that describes these columns or why they are here. It’s like a forgotten myth come to life. The next thing you know we’ll be seeing flying unicorns and fire-breathing dragons.” Dallow laughed until realizing he was the only one. “Don’t any of you read fantasy?”
“Who has time to read?” Rose answered, shaking her head. She looked haggard, her tone less than enthusiastic. “Do any of these towers have an entrance? I’m cold.”
They spread out, circling some of the nearby towers in search of a door or maybe some stairs.
After some time, Dallow called out. “I found Scar, and he may have located an entrance.”
They joined Dallow near the center of all the towers. He faced a pillar much larger than the others. It had no doors or other signs indicating an entrance, only a handprint surrounded by symbols carved deep into the stone.
“I don’t recognize those markings. Do you know what they mean?” Angst asked Dallow.
“It’s written in Acratic, a dead language,” replied Dallow distractedly as he tried to translate them. “They say, ‘Push to enter,’ but I don’t see any sign of a door.”
Chryslaenor’s song grew louder in the back of Angst’s mind, as if in anticipation. Angst felt that the sword wanted him to do something, but was unable to translate the constant stream of music to something more recognizable, like words. Scar sat next to him, wagging his tail patiently. Angst approached the writing. He pushed on the wall, and to nobody’s surprise, it didn’t budge.
“Open?” he asked, and was again rewarded with nothing.
Rose laughed and rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you put your hand there?” she suggested flatly, indicating the hand carved into the stone.
Angst reached out and touched the etchings. “Huh. Well, the hand is about the same size as mine.” He placed his hand inside the one carved i
nto the pillar. When nothing happened, he pushed gently. Finally, he leaned against it with all his weight. For a split second, it glowed, and Angst fell forward through the stone. Surprised by the sudden lack of wall, Angst tripped and dropped to his chest, landing on the floor of a dimly-lit room.
Angst crawled around to face the entrance, and reached out to find a wall. There seemed to be no obvious place to push his way through again. Just as he stood, Angst was pleasantly surprised to find Rose tripping through the entrance and landing right in his arms.
“Excuse me, ma’am. I am a married man,” Angst drawled.
She rolled her eyes and shoved herself away, only to get bumped from behind by Dallow. The three quickly made room as Tarness came stumbling in. Hector followed, passing through the wall gracefully, a tail-wagging bundle of puppy in his arms. They all scoffed and rolled their eyes at his smooth entrance.
“What?” Hector asked defensively. “You didn’t have to push, just touch and wait.”
“All that’s in here is a hallway,” Angst reported.
“Figure that out all on your own, genius?” Rose asked tartly.
“You can go back to Unsel if you’re going to be like that,” Angst snapped.
“Why, do you need to send a love note back to your princess girlfriend?” she said sharply.
Angst glared at her and was going to say something incredibly clever when Hector interrupted. “Kids, that’s enough. Let’s go.”
They walked along a corridor illuminated by gently glowing orbs that hovered several feet from the ground, each small enough to rest in the palm of his hand.
“These things are incredible,” said Dallow, poking at one with his finger. It rocked back and forth like a pendulum before returning to its original position.
“Is it magic?” asked Rose.
“Yes, but different than our magic. It had to be made with a spell, a sort of combination of magic and words,” Dallow replied, respect in his voice.
Angst Box Set 1 Page 22