by J. C. Staudt
The jailer raised an eye from the ghastly totem he was in the midst of carving from a thick branch of silban wood. He watched Alynor for a moment, grunted, and returned to his work.
Draithon’s eyes were closed now. Alynor sang with the surety of an experienced mother, though her experience as a mage was the only thing that mattered. She was nearly finished with the spell when the dungeon door burst open. In strode a brawny goblin, taller than most, with beady black eyes and big pointed ears pierced with heavy stone rings. The creature stood before Alynor’s cell and gave her a toothy smile. “Hello.”
Alynor cringed back at the word, though the goblin gave no sign he meant to harm her. “H—hello,” she stammered.
“Is you surprised to hear your filthy realm-speech coming from the likes of me? We isn’t all so foreign to the ways of men that we’s can’t learn us a little of the jargon when needs be. Welcome to Hog’s Hold. They calls me Deg. Clever Deg, most often, on account of I got more smarts than all my half-brothers and half my all-brothers. Stack ‘em to the sky, none so clever as I. We isn’t much for talk round here. Not like where I growed up. I fancy meself a bit of civil discourse every now and again. Seeing as you’s my honored guest, I thought I’d pop in for a wag.”
“Do you always chat with your guests before you eat them?” Alynor asked.
Deg shrieked with laughter, revealing rows of black gums and jagged yellow teeth. “We ain’t gonna eat you, marm.”
“Then let us go. My son and I are but simple travelers, driven from our home. Starving. If we’ve caused you any trouble—a trespass upon your lands, or a disturbance to the quiet of the forests you hunt—I assure you, we meant none of it. Free us, and we shall part ways without quarrel.” Alynor wished she possessed the confidence to speak to the goblin as her husband might’ve. Were Darion here, he would’ve given Clever Deg a single, clearly-stated warning before wreaking his vengeance.
True, Alynor had been training under Sir Jalleth for nearly four years, but both Sir Jalleth and Darion had told her most mages took far longer than that to learn proficiency under duress. It was not as if she and Sir Jalleth had been able to steal off to the clearing on a daily basis, or even more than once or twice in a given week. Their sessions were few, and Alynor’s opportunities for honing and perfecting those spells she did know were far between.
“Nah. You won’t see the sun again, my pritt,” said Clever Deg. “Me and my folk ain’t gonna eat you. You’re gonna get eated all the same, though.”
Alynor’s heart lurched. “You intend to… feed us to something?”
“You won’t make much of a meal, neither. Used to be we could swipe a fat little whelp from every hovel here to the Breakspires and make a banquet feast of ‘em. Now they comes thin. Scrawny. Hardly a match for a nice meaty chicken, and harder to steal for all their squalling. There’s one thing what never goes, though, even when times is hard. The cheeks. The cheeks is always plump and sweet. Why, this little’un here’s got the plumpest-looking pair of cheeks I seen in ages.”
“Stay away from him,” Alynor said, clutching Draithon to her breast.
Deg gave her a mischievous grin. “Don’t get me crossed. I’d eat you charred black as a wet stone. But you’re meant for greater things. When you go and get yourself eated, my young ones and brothers get to stay out the teeth.”
Alynor was beginning to understand. Sacrifice us to save your own. “You have orcish blood,” she said, trying to stall for time. “I can see it in your face.”
“Might be I do,” said Deg. “The tree of my family line was warped and twisted long before I had a word in the matter.”
“You’re part orc—I’m certain of it,” Alynor assured him. “I’ve always noticed things like that. You have other blood, too. I can’t put my finger on what it is, though. Not goblin. Not orc. Something… purer.”
“Purer? Is that it?”
“Taller,” she said.
“You’s half an elf, by the look of you.”
“Not nearly half,” Alynor said. “Closer to a fraction.”
“An elf’s an elf.”
“If only our world were so simple,” Alynor said, attempting a smile.
“It is,” said Deg. “Your kind hate mine, or fear us. My kind feel the same about yours. No matter who you are, one thing’s sure. We’s all ruled by the same vulgar need.”
Alynor never expected to find such profundity, stilted as it may have been, from a goblin. Perhaps this one did in fact possess nobler blood than he knew. “We don’t have to be fearful or vile toward one another. We can choose to be ruled by our kindnesses instead. By our graces and our mercy.”
Deg laughed his shrieking laugh again. “Grace. Mercy. Ain’t no such words in the tongue of my folk. But oh, how many words we’s got for killing! For eating. For making sex. We’s the fairest of enemies, you and I. Each of us knows our sides, and can’t neither of us cross to the other without a blade in hand. Can’t be no kindness ‘twixt us but that of a swift end by whoever’s the stronger.”
“Death is a form of mercy,” Alynor tried. “Your folk may not recognize it, but it is.”
“Then consider me merciful,” Deg said, “while Shandashkaleth gnaws on your bones.”
“Who is—”
“Shandashkaleth? Ain’t none wiser; none mightier. You’ll meet her soon enough.”
“Is it really necessary that she dine on my bones? Does she not care for venison? Perhaps a rabbit and a few choice herbs might serve for a nice stew. I don’t mind cooking.”
Deg gave a grunt of laughter. “Shandashkaleth lost her taste for deer and rabbit before your mother squeezed you from her loins. She don’t fancy prey what can’t beg for its life.”
“It’s supplication she desires then, is it? Do you feel you serve her needs well?”
Deg looked her a question. “What’s that, you say?”
“Clearly you and your folk are in her thrall. Is that why she keeps you close? For the endless supply of food you lay at her feet? A tribe of leal servants to do her bidding? She must be very powerful indeed to have enslaved you without your knowing it.”
One side of Deg’s mouth lifted into a sneer. “You’ll try anything for a chance at freedom, ey? Can’t say I blame you though. Nah, we ain’t her slaves. Not since the back times.”
“The back times,” Alynor echoed, almost to herself. “She rewards you for your service, then. For bringing her what she needs. Food. Like my son and me.”
“She don’t need you. Don’t need us, neither. Shandashkaleth chose us to be her folk for the times ahead. Bad times, when all the lands is gonna go bellies-up dead.”
“I should hope nothing so drastic as that ever happens,” Alynor said.
“It will. She says so, and I believes her.”
“When shall I be granted the pleasure of meeting this… Shandashkaleth?”
Deg smiled. “Suppertime. Quiet down now; you’re gonna need all the talk you can make for her. Clever Deg ain’t the only one round here who fancies hisself a wag.”
“May I have some water? Some food, perhaps? For my baby.”
Deg turned to the jailer and grunted a series of ragged commands in his native tongue. The jailer hopped to his feet and hurried out the door. Deg followed him out, leaving the door open behind him.
Alynor snapped alert. This was her chance; the time to finish her spell and get out of here. Alynor rocked Draithon in her arms and began to speak the sigils.
She was even closer to finishing this time when Deg spun into view at the doorway and raised a hand toward her. The goblin’s voice sank to a raspy growl. Alynor knew the language of magic contained thousands of sigils, but the ones Deg was chanting now were foreign to her. Before she could speak the final sigil, her throat tightened as if a vice had clamped down over her windpipe.
“I knew you was a filthy mage-singer,” Deg said as he approached her, his arm still outstretched. “Never mind suppertime. You’re going to Shandashkaleth now.”
Roots burst through the hard ground and coiled around Alynor’s arms, dragging her down and pinning her against the floor in an instant. When the jailer returned holding a wooden cup and a slab of gray meat crawling with maggots, Deg slapped them out of his hands. The meat flopped into the dirt while the cup sprayed water end over end and clattered to rest against the far wall.
Deg yanked the keys off the jailer’s belt and opened the cell. He bent beside Alynor and restrained her with lengths of rope from a coil hanging on his belt. After gagging her with a knot of cloth, he summoned a group of goblins to carry Alynor and Draithon, then led them out of the room with torch in hand.
It was a long downward hike through the twisting cave tunnels, but Alynor foresaw their journey’s end when the air changed. The putrid stench of the goblins’ lair above had become something far more potent down here. They entered a vast open cavern where the roof soared and the floor ended abruptly in a steep cliff. The walls were pockmarked as if weathered over a thousand years. When Deg’s minions untied her and removed the gag from her mouth, Alynor found the cavern air infused with a caustic tinge which made her nostrils and throat burn with every breath.
Deg shoved her from behind, sending Alynor off the cliff to tumble down a curved embankment. She arrived at the bottom in a pile of loose gravel and sat up with the darkness of the cavern spinning around her, Deg’s torchlight wavering in shadow from high above. Draithon came down next. Alynor tried to rush up the slope to catch him, but her dizziness prevented her from reaching him in time. He was screaming now, his little arms and legs covered in scratches. Alynor dropped to her knees and scooped the boy into her arms.
“Rot with the filth,” Deg called down. The other goblins cackled and jeered.
Alynor held Draithon there and wept with him while Deg and his goblins retreated down the tunnels. The torchlight faded, leaving them in darkness.
She could feel the sting of the boy’s wounds, his confusion with the darkness and his pain, and wished there were some way she could bear it all in his stead. Regret filled her. I should’ve spent my time these last years learning the ways of the druids; to heal the sick and bind the injured. Darion would’ve had none of that, she knew. But Darion wasn’t here. He’d given up the right to choose Alynor’s path for her the moment he walked away.
Alynor’s bitterness toward her husband came not from a place of scorn, but of disbelief. She understood Darion’s decision to go to Korengad, and she knew he was no traitor to the realms. Yet ever since the day he left, she’d always believed he could’ve saved Maergath from Rudgar’s wrath without changing sides. The barbarian king had come to Dathrond for his son; Darion had delivered him. What more had Rudgar needed to stay his hand against Maergath?
Of course, Alynor hadn’t been inside Rudgar’s tent that day. She didn’t know how the meeting had transpired. But she’d gone over a hundred possibilities in her head, and she’d always arrived at the same conclusion. Either Rudgar had given Darion no choice but to turn his cloak, or Darion had wanted to.
Defying Olyvard’s command was not a decision Darion would’ve taken lightly. He’d known what it would mean for himself, his reputation, and his family. That was why Alynor hadn’t forgiven him, and why she did not believe she ever could. If this was the lair of Shandashkaleth she was standing in now, she may not need to bear the burden of her bitterness much longer.
It was too dark to see, so she cast a simple spell which produced a bead of dim, hovering light above her head. A distance off through the gloom, she glimpsed a second ledge where the floor dropped away into a deep gorge and stretched across the breadth of the cavern. There was a shapeless black mass near the center, but she saw no movement.
“What’s that?” Draithon asked, pointing up at the light. “Why are you saying those funny words?”
“Hush now, darling. Listen to me. Whatever happens now, you mustn’t be afraid. Do you understand?”
He nodded, but there was fear in his eyes.
Alynor called into the darkness, her voice ringing on the stone. “Hello? Shand—Shandashkaleth? Wherever you are, and whoever you are, I would speak with you. If you are capable of speaking.”
She waited.
There was only silence.
Then, with a hiss like steam from a boiling pot, a rush of acrid wind blew Alynor’s hair back from her eyes. Something was down there, waiting in the dark.
“Come out,” she shouted, and began to cast another spell.
Far below her, the black mass moved. Though the very stone trembled beneath her feet, Alynor continued her spell. Draithon whined and reached for her while dust sprinkled around her from the high ceiling. Alynor’s lungs sagged like anvils in her chest. Her tones veered off-pitch when she saw the shadows sway across the vast expanse below.
From the depths of that featureless darkness rose a creature so large Alynor could not at first come to grips with its size. Two pale yellow eyes gleamed in a horned reptilian head like jewels in the dark, its slender neck snaking beneath it. Then came the shoulders, tall as a castle gatehouse, rising on limbs as thick as tree trunks. As the light from Alynor’s spell washed over the beast’s arms and chest, she saw not the unbroken armor of good health, but slabs of greened flesh festering beneath a patchwork of rotting black scales. Strips of decay hung over bare muscle like rinds from half-peeled fruit.
When the dragon spread its jaws, Alynor saw the bone unhinge from the skull through stretching skinless holes where the tendons slid and buckled. In the depths of that great maw gurgled a sickly green effluence; pale liquid dripped from its fangs and steamed in puddles on the floor in front of her. With a flap of its massive veined wings, torn like the embattled sails of a seagoing vessel, Shandashkaleth filled the chasm with a stench so vile it would’ve knocked Alynor off her feet, had she been standing. Flies swarmed and were blown asunder.
“You have seen it,” the dragon said. Its voice was calm as a whisper, yet it rang louder than a bell through the cavern.
Alynor was not sure whether this was a question, so she held Draithon close and said nothing, aware that the small dim light over her head was fading.
“I can smell it on you,” said the dragon.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Alynor said with a quiver in her voice.
The dragon came close, cocking its head to study her with one piercing eye the size of a summer melon. Alynor could smell death in its flesh. The cavern’s pockmarked stone walls made sense to her now. Either this dragon was dying… or it was already dead.
Chapter 11
“We are a distance behind,” Darion told Jeebo as they ascended the mountain pass toward Fenria Town and the open fields of Orothwain. “If the worst is true and the Dathiri Pathfinders have captured Alynor near Briarcrest, I should think they brought her east down the Wildwood Road toward Laerlocke. We ought to make haste to the north once we cross the Breakspires, that we might reach Briarcrest while the news of her capture is still fresh.”
“I agree, that would be a wise course,” Jeebo said.
“Yet if you’ll permit me a fool’s hope, I’ll offer a different one.”
“I will provide whatever help I may,” Jeebo offered.
“What would you say to swinging west instead? I should like to visit my old keep again.”
“West instead of north? That would be a severe adjustment to make for a mere visit.”
Darion smiled. “I’ve something more than a visit in mind.”
“I gathered that much.”
“You’re in possession of a sharp wit, my friend.”
“Whatever wits I do or do not possess, praise be to Faranion for them.”
�
�We’re as different as can be, you and I,” said Darion. “You might save the realms and give your god the credit. I failed to save them, yet I took the credit anyway.”
“The realms have been saved on two occasions during your lifetime. If I recall, you had a hand in both.”
“Aye. One made me a hero, the other an outlaw.”
“A man can do terrible things and be changed for the better,” said Jeebo.
“I’ve done things both great and terrible, and look where it’s got me. Seems your god, or whoever else may be watching, remembers only the latter.”
“It isn’t up to the gods to offer us reward or punishment,” Jeebo said. “Only to grant us the means to face our troubles and the wisdom not to repeat ourselves.”
“What of those who shun such wisdom? Surely you’re aware that the world enjoys an abundance of liars, cheats, murderers, and thieves.”
“I am. I’ve made that list a few times myself.”
“You? A murderer?” said Darion with a chuckle. “I doubt it.”
“I have made the list. I am a ways from completing it,” Jeebo clarified.
“Let’s hope you don’t mean to do so any time soon. If murder’s your shortfall, it would seem your choices for a victim are limited at the moment.”
Jeebo laughed. “Praise be to Faranion for granting me the wisdom not to repeat my past mistakes.”
“Praise be to him for luring me into the mountains with an aspiring murderer.”
Jeebo smiled, revealing his sharp bottom canines. He was silent for a moment. “You were going to tell me about our visit to Keep Ulther.”
“Ah, yes. If that is still its name. Did I ever tell you about my time on the island of Kriia?”
“Your stories round the fire were many, but I don’t seem to recall one about the Dragon Isle.”
“Kriia is where I first learned to use my body as a weapon. Thousands of ascetics practice and study in the isolated monasteries high on the mountainsides of that snowy isle. Their masters will teach you to use your body in strange ways, so long as you bring the discipline and the conviction. I learned to ride there… not only horses, but other beasts as well.”