by K. C. Herbel
“NO!” cried Billy, forgetting himself and running forward.
Gaelyn screamed, “Kathryn!” and charged.
The assassin readied himself for the prince’s attack.
Suddenly, Billy tripped and smacked his jaw on the floor. He blinked, fighting to remain conscious. He looked beside him and saw Gwyn, the princess’ maid, her pale face staring vacantly from a dark pool of blood. Billy rolled away quickly and came face to face with Arlyn, who was also dead. Billy sprang to his feet and away from the corpses.
Steel clashed on steel as the prince and the murderer engaged in combat. Gaelyn’s opponent thrust and chopped at him with his long blade. Each time, Gaelyn just managed to parry the weapon away with his dagger. It appeared to Billy that Gaelyn was outclassed, if only because of the killer’s superior reach. Unless help came soon, Gaelyn would lose the fight.
“Guards! Alarm!” shouted Billy as he looked for an opening to help the prince.
The assassin missed Gaelyn again, and the prince closed on him. Before the murderer could bring his sword down, Prince Gaelyn grabbed his wrist and countered with a dagger thrust. The man dodged the attack with the skill of a dancer and caught the prince’s weapon hand.
As the combatants wrestled, Billy advanced to Princess Kathryn. “Guards!” he shouted as he arrived by her side.
Billy knelt beside his princess, who lay facedown on the floor. He scooped one hand under her and used the other to cradle her head. He had to use his own weight to turn her over but slipped on the slick stone floor and wound up sitting with the princess in his lap. Billy’s heart froze when he saw her face, with mouth and eyes open wide in astonishment. Her blood flowed warm onto him like fresh milk. He put his hands over the wounds, trying to staunch the flow, but there was nothing he could do. Kathryn was dead.
Billy’s entire being shook with outrage, and he scooted away from the princess. “Murderer!” he shouted at the dark man and charged him.
Prince Gaelyn and the killer were still locked together when Billy tackled the assassin. Billy’s momentum carried the three of them out onto the balcony. The prince tripped at the doorway, and they all fell.
The murderer’s sword arm was trapped under Prince Gaelyn as they splashed down on the wet balcony. The prince struck at his opponent’s heart with his dagger, just inches from Billy’s eyes. The killer deftly blocked the deadly blow with his arm but was not so lucky when the prince quickly drew the weapon towards his face. The prince’s blade slashed down the length of the assassin’s forearm and crossed his palm.
“Ayeee!” exclaimed the killer, dropping his sword and rolling away.
Prince Gaelyn lunged again at his retreating enemy but only managed to cut open the back of his shirt. In the blink of an eye, the murderer leapt to his feet and faced the still prone prince with a thin black knife in his hand.
Billy stared at the edged weapon that seemed to appear magically in the assassin’s grip. A single raindrop landed on the blade and hung there as if stuck.
“Poison!” Billy muttered.
Instantly the killer dove at Gaelyn. The prince managed to get his feet and hands out to catch his assailant and fling him over his head to the opposite side of the balcony. The man landed on a chair and shattered it but again rolled into a crouched fighting stance. Billy, now on his feet, marveled at the assassin’s agility.
Quickly the killer turned the knife in his hand so that the blade was under and parallel to his wrist. Prince Gaelyn grabbed the assassin’s sword and kicked up to a fighting stance. The murderer’s eyes flashed an expression of surprise and then narrowed as he gazed down the length of his own sword in the hand of his enemy.
The assassin changed his stance, holding his left hand out in front of him. Billy could see that the wound on his palm cut deep. What remained of the killer’s sleeve was soaked in blood. The hand wielding the poisoned weapon, he held low.
The prince charged into the murderer, swinging the long curved blade as well as his own dagger. The first swings forced the assassin back. Then suddenly he thrust at the prince—his attack timed perfectly to slip between Gaelyn’s whirling blades. Gaelyn jumped back, narrowly avoiding the dark blade. However, as the killer drew the knife back in, it kissed the prince’s cheek.
“Blast!” exclaimed Gaelyn.
The prince redoubled his attack, and his opponent retreated by leaping on to the balustrade. Gaelyn slashed at the killer’s legs, but then his swings slowed abruptly. He was weakening fast. Again and again the man in black leapt away from the sword, like a child jumping rope. Gaelyn stumbled and shook his head. The assassin began to straighten confidently.
Without warning, Gaelyn slashed out and up. The blade bit into the already injured hand, turning the long cut into a cross in the middle of his palm. The man cried out in pain, and Gaelyn advanced to finish him.
As Gaelyn thrust forward, to drive the murderer over the edge, the man suddenly flipped over the prince’s head and landed behind him on the balcony. Gaelyn slammed into the balustrade. Instantly, the assassin turned and drove his weapon into Gaelyn’s unprotected back.
Gaelyn spun around to faced the killer. He dragged one foot forward, staring the man in the eyes. A thin strand of blood drooled from his mouth, and he dropped to his knees. His weapons dangled harmlessly in his hands and then fell from his grip. His eyes meandered for a moment before focusing on Billy. “Run for your li . . .” he wheezed then fell facedown on the wet balcony.
Billy turned and ran for the door. “Guards!” he screamed. “Alarm!” Before he could make another sound, he felt a sharp pain in the back of his head, and he slipped into unconsciousness.
* * *
Billy opened his eyes. Darkness was all around him. The floor he lay on was hard and cold. His head felt like a well-used anvil. The smell of wet, moldy straw and filth filled his nose. He blinked and held his hand up before his face, but still all he could see was the darkest black.
At that moment he became aware of something heavy around his wrist that cut into his flesh. Billy fumbled in the darkness and found that his hands, waist, and feet were all chained together. Billy also found that if he straightened his legs, his hands were pulled to his waist. Then he tried to stand but bumped his head on the ceiling of his little cell.
“Ow!” he exclaimed as the blow to his head intensified his headache. “Stupid roof is too low!”
“You’re lucky you can stand,” stated a low, raspy voice from the darkness.
Billy spun around to face the voice but only managed to become tangled in his chains and have the wind knocked out of him as he was thrown to the floor.
“Not wise,” croaked the voice.
Billy coughed as he strained to catch his breath. After a moment, his breath returned, and he sat up. Billy squinted, trying to somehow pierce the inky darkness. Finally he gave up and asked, “Who are you?”
“I? . . . I? . . . I’m nobody,” said the voice.
“Where am I?” asked Billy.
“Nowhere,” answered the voice.
“No!” insisted Billy. “Where am I?”
“The last place you ever wanted to be.”
“Which is?”
“Hell.”
“Hell?” repeated Billy.
“Aye,” said the stranger from the dark. “The darkest, deepest pit in that infernal kingdom.”
“Am I dead?” asked Billy most earnestly.
“I hope not!” answered his cellmate. “The dead are terribly boring, just lie there, rotting away, smelling up the place . . . But with my luck, you probably are.”
“I was in Castle Orgulous . . .” said Billy.
“And you still are,” added his companion.
“But I thought ya said . . . Where exactly are we?”
“This is an oubliette,” stated the voice.
“A what?”
“An oubliette!” said the stranger, sounding perturbed. “It’s where they put you if they want to forget you—or was it if they want you
to forget them? I can’t remember anymore.”
“I’m Billy.”
Billy waited for his new acquaintance to introduce himself, but silence was his only answer.
“I’m Billy, the king’s musician. And you are . . . ?” prodded Billy.
“Didn’t I tell you already? I’m nobody.”
“Everybody’s somebody,” stated Billy.
“Not me. I’m nobody,” said Billy’s companion. “And if you’re smart, you’ll be nobody too.”
“Well . . . nobody . . .” started Billy. “Nobody who?”
“Nobody to be trifled with, boy!” hissed the voice venomously.
Billy suddenly felt menace behind the man’s words. Without warning, he imagined hands around his throat.
“I didn’t get here by playing the wrong note, musician!” spat the man.
Billy’s cellmate fell silent, and Billy moved away from him until he came to a wall. For a moment, Billy thought he could see someone sitting across from him, but then the image dissolved, and he decided it was only his imagination. The man still said nothing, and so Billy waited.
At last, Billy’s patience ran out, and he asked, “Can ya ever see anything in this darkness?”
“No,” answered the man, his voice croaking calmly. “Not unless they were to let you out . . . and then the Dark One brings light to stab your eyes like fire!”
“How long have you been in here?” asked Billy.
“Years . . . decades . . . What does it matter in an eternity.”
“What did ya do to be put here?”
“My crimes are so vile that you would burn in hell just to hear them, boy!” spat the stranger. “I am a beast, a monster, a fouler, more loathsome criminal than you could ever imagine!”
Billy and the man again fell silent. Billy was afraid to say anything. His cellmate was obviously a raving lunatic, and by his own admission a murderer or worse, if there was something worse.
When Billy thought he might never hear it again, the faceless voice of his cellmate spoke, nearly scaring him out of his skin. “Why are you here, boy?” he asked.
Billy calmed himself down and thought about the question. He couldn’t think of anything that would have him thrown into the dungeon. The last thing he remembered was . . .
“The prince . . .” Billy whispered. His head was filled with images of Gaelyn’s and Kathryn’s death.
“What?” asked the voice.
“I don’t know,” said Billy.
“Don’t know what?”
“I don’t know why I’m here,” answered Billy.
“Me neither.”
“What?”
“I don’t know why I’m here either.”
“But-but-but your crimes . . .” stammered Billy.
“What crimes?” asked the man.
“You said you had committed foul, monstrous deeds!”
“I did?” said the man. “Oh yes, I did.”
“Well? . . .”
“Well, I couldn’t remember . . . so I made it up.”
“Made it up?” spouted Billy.
“I must have done somethin’ to be here. I though it sounded pretty good, didn’t you?”
“Made it up?”
“Shhhh,” hushed the man. “Someone’s comin’.”
“I didn’t hear anything,” said Billy.
“Shhhh!”
Billy listened carefully and heard keys rattling in a faraway lock, then the creak of a door followed by footsteps. Next he heard three muffled voices. Ergyfel’s was among them.
“I just don’t understand why you’re here, Magister,” said one man.
“I wish to see the prisoner,” said Ergyfel. “That is all you need to know. Is he awake yet, jailer?”
“Last time I checked, he was still out,” answered the third man.
“Open it,” commanded Ergyfel. “I wish to see him.”
There was another rattle as someone fiddled with a latch above. A small hatch opened in the ceiling, and a shaft of light struck Billy in the eyes. It was only the light of torches, but to Billy it was as painful as staring into the sun.
Billy tuned away from the light. By squinting, his eyes were able to make out a dirty, wretched, emaciated man with grey scraggly hair and a beard, cowering in the corner. A shadow blotted out most of the light, and Billy looked to the hatch. A man stood over the small hole, looking down at him. All Billy could see was his silhouette.
“Leave us,” said Ergyfel.
“What, milord?”
“You’re half blind now. Are you half deaf as well? I said, leave us . . . before I take your other eye!”
Billy heard the two men walk away. Ergyfel waited until they had closed the distant door before he spoke.
“How do you like your new accommodations, elf?”
“Why am I here, Ergyfel!” spat Billy.
“And what of your new roommate, eh?” asked Ergyfel. “We nearly forgot he was down there. Now if we could only remember what he’s done . . . Oh well, I guess he’ll just have to stay there until he remembers.” Ergyfel laughed and stomped the floor. “You hear that, old man?”
Billy’s cellmate whimpered and curled up tighter to the wall.
“Why am I here?” repeated Billy.
“Because I wish it,” stated the King’s First Counselor.
“How long are you going to keep me here?” shouted Billy.
“Until I can decide what to do with you,” answered Ergyfel as if he were discussing where to hang a tapestry.
“Do with me?” said Billy.
“It’s not often I have to decide the fate of an assassin.”
“Assassin?” exclaimed Billy. “But I tried to stop it! You’re the one . . .”
“Oh yes, I can see you now, pleading your case before the king,” said Ergyfel condescendingly. “I’m innocent, Your Majesty. I tried to stop the killer, Your Majesty. I did!” he said, mocking Billy. “It was Ergyfel, your First Counselor, your cousin, the only one you’ll listen to . . . You’d be very convincing, I’m sure.”
“I’ll tell him everything about you!” blurted Billy.
“Save your breath. Even if you were allowed to speak, it would not matter. I’ve planned this far too well, and since the coronation fell through . . . well, I’ve had time to tidy up. You fit into my plans like a snail in its shell. No one will believe you didn’t do it—not in the face of the considerable evidence I’ve gathered against you.”
“You mean evidence you created!”
Ergyfel chuckled. “Do you know the punishment for assassins? No? Shall I give you a hint?” He leaned forward and whispered through the tiny hatch. “By the time they’re done with you, Billy, the biggest piece anyone will find won’t fill a bucket! That is what waits for you, unless . . .”
“Unless what?” asked Billy timidly.
“Unless you give me the ring.”
“My ring?”
“Yes.”
“But I can’t.”
“Then as I stated before,” said Ergyfel, rather matter-of-factly, “I will just have to pry it from your dead, little finger.”
“But I . . .”
“But nothing,” said Ergyfel. “I have all the evidence I need to have you executed now!”
Ergyfel paused, and Billy heard him pacing overhead. He looked up and saw the magister holding the hand that the ring had burned.
“However,” continued Ergyfel, “since I’d much rather have the ring sooner than later, I’m giving you a chance to get out of this alive.”
“How do I know you’ll keep your word?”
Ergyfel laughed. “Now it is you, who must trust me. Look, my little friend, give me the ring, and I’ll say you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The king will believe me. Kathryn and Gaelyn are already dead. There isn’t anything you can do or say that will bring them back, and no one—no one—will believe a story that implicates me. Why not just give it up and live with it? Live. Choose my way, and we both win. You g
et your life, and I get the ring.”
“And the kingdom,” added Billy.
“Well,” said the magister, “my uncle’s not dead yet.”
“What’s so important about this old ring?”
“I’m beginning to lose my patience, little man,” said Ergyfel.
“What’s so important?” repeated Billy.
“Nothing that would interest you,” answered Ergyfel, his tone growing angry. “Isn’t it enough that I want it?”
“But what can it do for you?”
“The question is: what can it do for you?”
“Hunh?”
“Shall I tell you, my diminutive friend,” said Ergyfel, crouching close to the small opening. He whispered as he had done before. “That ring contains the power of life and death. It can save your life.”
“How?”
Ergyfel became deadly serious. “Give it to me and you live. Keep it and you die. It’s that simple.”
Billy rolled Ergyfel’s offer over in his mind. My life for the ring? he thought. But there’s more at stake than just me, or an old ring. What’s he up to?
“Well . . . ?” said Ergyfel impatiently.
“I’m thinking!”
“You’re dying.”
Ergyfel seemed unstoppable, and if he sat on the throne, the kingdom would be ruined. Billy thought of all the people whose lives would be destroyed if this ever came to pass. He didn’t understand it, but he knew his mother’s ring was somehow a part of it. He also believed that Ergyfel would kill him in the end, no matter what he did.
Billy looked up at Ergyfel and said, “No.”
“Fool,” said the magister straightening. “You only delay the inevitable.”
Ergyfel kicked the hatch closed, and Billy heard the bolt find its home. There was a chilly finality in the way it latched.
“You’ll wish you had listened to me, elf,” said Ergyfel.
Billy felt a surge of anger. “I’ll get you Ergyfel!” he shouted. “I promise!”
Billy listened as the magister’s footsteps faded away. He fell to the floor—all the energy in his body drained away. He felt so hopeless.
“You speak in such tones to the Dark One?” asked Billy’s invisible friend.