Fable: Edge of the World

by Christie Golden

  “You’re lucky she spared you,” one of them said. “Don’t flatter yourself into thinking that the queen will visit a traitor in prison!”

  Page said nothing, but she knew in her heart that Laylah would come. It was in her personality—Laylah needed to face someone she believed had done something so horrible to her. She would want to understand why. Laylah would come—and Page would be ready. She could convince Laylah that Reaver had played on the queen’s insecurities and fears.

  She had to.

  They marched her down the streets of Bowerstone. Page stood straight, but part of her was glad for the hooded cloak that concealed her face. She wanted desperately to inquire about Timmins, and the other members of her “underground,” as it was no doubt starting to be labeled. Who else would they arrest? Reaver seemed to have Laylah well in hand, and this purging of those who opposed, or who might even possibly oppose whatever diabolical plan he had in mind, could have no limits.

  Even as her mind raced with these thoughts, Page kept a sharp eye out for any opportunity to escape. There was none. All too soon, they arrived at Bowerstone Castle. Page looked sadly at the place where she had once been a welcome visitor as she was led around to another part of the castle, where there was an all-but-unseen door that opened onto a dank staircase.

  “And here I thought I was going to Ravenscar Keep,” she said, referring to the infamous prison where King Logan had kept prisoners he felt were particularly dangerous to him.

  “You will,” said one of the guards. “You’re just going to be held here until your sentence is publicly pronounced.”

  Page hadn’t even known these cells beneath the castle existed. As the guards led her down the stairs into a gloomy chamber with about two dozen individual cells, she tried to remind herself that she had been in worse situations. At the moment, though, she couldn’t think of any. Her only chance of escape was here, while she was held at Bowerstone, before she was transferred. Only the king had ever been able to stage a breakout at Ravenscar Keep, and she was no Hero.

  She immediately took notice of as much as possible in the few minutes it took to descend the stairs and be put in her cell. Yes, two dozen, twelve on each side down a long corridor lit with six lanterns. Someone, a man, was in one of the cells, but he lay on his cot with his back to her. There was a single door on the far side of the chamber. A guard sat at a desk, positioned so that he could see every cell and the stairs. He looked overweight and bored—two good things for her. The keys hung on a hook on the wall behind him, and he was currently sitting with his feet up on the desk. He glanced over at the newcomer, and a lascivious smile split his face.

  “Well, well,” he drawled, “if it isn’t the lovely Miss Page. I’ll enjoy getting to know you better.”

  Her anger flared. “I’d kill you before you got within three feet of me,” she snapped.

  The man’s small eyes narrowed, but the other guards laughed. “She’s got you there,” one of them said. “Besides, Queen’s orders. She’s to receive good care, not to be harmed.”

  “I wouldn’t hurt her,” Piggy Eyes complained.

  “You know what we mean,” the guard said. “You touch her, and the queen puts you in one of these lovely inn rooms.”

  “All right, all right,” Piggy Eyes muttered. He trundled over to one of the cells, fiddled with the ring of keys, and unlocked the door. Page made careful note of which key it was.

  “In you go,” Piggy Eyes grunted. As the other guards turned away, Page extended an imploring hand to one of them—the youngest, who hadn’t indulged in insulting her. She was good at reading people, and she could see the basic kindness in him.

  “Please,” she begged. “Please ask Her Majesty to come see me. We were friends once … I need to see her before I’m …” She let the words trail off. He made no answer, but she could see from the softening on his young face that her request would be delivered. That was the best she could hope for.

  The guards left, ascending the stairs. The door boomed shut after them.

  “Sorry they got you too, Page,” came a familiar voice.

  “Timmins?” Her heart sank. A cell separated them, but as they were only metal bars and not solid walls, she and Timmins could see one another. There was blood on his uniform and one eye was nearly swollen shut. A bandage had been wrapped around one hand. Page glanced over at the guard. He was watching her, his fat face ugly with dislike, but he was not forbidding them to talk.

  Fine with her. He could eavesdrop all he wanted. Neither she nor Timmins would say anything of note.

  “We’ve been set up,” Page said.

  “Of course we have,” growled Timmins. “Reaver came across me laying the cache so those poor sods in the distant hamlets could defend themselves against the darkness.”

  “I don’t even know what in the world he concocted to implicate me,” Page said. “How long have you been here?”

  “Not much longer than you,” he said.

  “How are the villagers holding up?”

  “As well as can be expected,” he said.

  “Tell me about them,” she said, sounding deeply sympathetic. “All those poor people.” As she had hoped, Piggy Eyes rolled his … well … piggy eyes. The conversation was no longer interesting him. He reached underneath his desk, retrieved a bottle, and pulled the cork out with his teeth. As he took a deep swig, Page could barely conceal a smile.

  They might get out of this after all.

  She and Timmins made small talk until the guard’s head nodded, finally thumping down on the desk. They heard soft snoring. Still, Page was cautious; it was only when she noticed a trail of drool puddling on the desk that she believed the man truly unconscious.

  “I have a plan,” she said, and told him.

  “That … depends on a lot of things going exactly right,” he said.

  “Well, yes, it does,” she admitted. “Have you got a better idea?”

  “… No.”

  “Then we’ll just have to hope.”

  To her surprise, Page actually drifted into an uneasy slumber, snapping awake when she heard a door close. She sat upright, tense and wary, wondering if it was already time for her to be transferred to the Keep.

  Instead, only Piggy Eyes and a tall, feminine figure in a cloak approached the door to her cell. The cloak’s hood hid the woman’s features, and both hands were inserted into a fur muff. The guard turned the heavy skeleton key, and the door opened with a groan.

  The woman lifted a dark hand to her face and pulled back the cloak’s fur-lined hood. Page gasped as she saw Laylah’s face, haggard and full of sorrow.

  “There you are, Your Majesty,” Piggy Eyes said obsequiously. “I’ll be right out here in case you need me.”

  “No, you will not,” said the queen. Even her voice sounded broken, but with an underlying firmness Page wasn’t used to hearing from her friend. “You will give us privacy.”

  “I can’t possibly do that!” he exclaimed. “This woman is a hardened criminal! She’s committed treason!”

  Laylah reached into the fur muff and pulled out a pistol. “I am armed,” she said. “And at this distance, even I couldn’t miss. Isn’t that right, Captain Timmins?” she added bitterly, raising her voice.

  Timmins didn’t reply, which Page thought was wise.

  “But—the only place for me to wait would be the loo,” protested Piggy Eyes.

  “Then stay in the loo until I tell you to come out,” Laylah said sharply. He bowed, muttered something, and opened the door behind his desk. He slipped inside and closed the door behind him. Page noticed he took his alcohol with him.

  Laylah turned to Page. “I had to see you for myself,” the queen said quietly. “To lay eyes on someone I trusted—someone I loved as a sister. Why did you do this, Page? What harm have I or my husband ever shown you?”

  Even though she was completely innocent, the look on Laylah’s face made Page feel guilty. “No harm, ever, Your Majesty, only love and kindness, and
that is all I have ever shown you. I swear it.”

  Laylah’s face twisted, and she threw down a stack of letters on the cot. “Even now, you lie to me! It’s all there, Page, in your own handwriting!”

  Page took the pile of letters and began to read them. “Oh, he’s good,” she murmured. “Very, very good.”

  Somehow, over the last several weeks while the king was gone, Reaver’s minions had managed to intercept letters from Page to Timmins. He had used her own phrases, so that these falsified letters would truly sound like her, but had added to them and twisted them.

  “Whoever he hired as a forger did a masterful job,” Page said. She placed the letters down with a hand that trembled. “You have indeed been betrayed, Your Majesty—but not by me. Nor by Captain Timmins. Reaver has concocted this elaborate scheme to get us both out of the way because he knows that we and we alone have the courage to speak the truth to you!”

  Something inside the queen broke. She strode up to Page and slapped her across the face, hard, but she was also sobbing.

  “Reaver has made no secret of his greed, and all his plans are sound. It’s you two who have made me doubt myself, you who have plotted against me, and even with the evidence right in front of you, you invent a story that …”

  Laylah took a deep breath, regaining composure. She gathered up the letters. “I shouldn’t have come. I won’t come again. Good-bye, Page.”

  She turned around and filled her lungs to call out for the guard. She never got the chance. Page grabbed the tankard in which her stale water was served and brought it down at the base of Laylah’s skull. The queen dropped like a stone. At that moment, Timmins started to protest, but Page silenced him with a finger to her lips. She bent and checked to make sure the queen was breathing. She was.

  “I’m so sorry,” Page said to Laylah, her heart breaking. “But I’ve got to be free if I’m to be of any help stopping the real traitor.”

  Working quickly, she stripped down to her undergarments and did the same to the queen. Page hadn’t realized how difficult it was to undress an unconscious person, who was all deadweight, but she managed. In a few moments, Page was wearing the queen’s garments, and Laylah was wearing Page’s. Page wrangled Laylah onto the cot, pulling the cloak’s hood down. While Page’s skin was much browner than Laylah’s, the hue was sufficiently similar so that no one would notice right away in the dark cell if they glimpsed a hand or a cheek. And the queen had been thoughtful enough to provide a muff … and a loaded pistol.

  “Your turn,” she said to Timmins. Page had noticed that Piggy Eyes had not locked her cell door when he admitted Laylah. He had left the key ring hanging on the hook, and Page searched until she found the one that unlocked Timmins’s door. “Fortunately, you’re still in your guard’s uniform. At this hour, if we’re glimpsed, it won’t arouse suspicion.”

  “Just one moment,” said Timmins. He stepped over to the guard’s desk. Moving the chair over to the loo door, he lodged it firmly under the knob. “That’ll keep him in there for a while.”

  “So will the booze.” Page grinned. “Come on, let’s go!”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Although he was far from his home and beloved wife, had lost good men, and had met danger at nearly every turn, the king realized that right now, in this moment, he had never been happier.

  He sat atop the broad, golden back of Percival the sand dragon, ally to Heroes, as the great beast’s wings beat steadily. At this altitude, it was cool, and the desert below did not look the least bit dangerous. He realized that the experience of looking down from above was akin to viewing the magical, three-dimensional map in the Sanctuary. But the experience of flight itself—he had found nothing to compare to this.

  After the revelation that Garth still lived, Percy had struck the stone wall of the chamber once with his powerful tail, creating a new spring of fresh, untainted water—more than enough to fill all their water gourds. “I fear I cannot help with food,” he said, “but I would venture a guess that as you continue on, you will discover that creatures other than yourselves live in the desert.”

  The king assured him that they still had plenty of supplies if they needed them. Once rested, the army would be on the move … but with somewhat emotional farewells, the king left almost immediately.

  On dragonback.

  “We’re going to win this,” he said firmly.

  “You have a crystal ball, have you?” said Percival. “I hate to burst your bubble, but every single Hero who’s ever breathed thinks he can meet every challenge that is set before him. Many of them don’t. I’ve seen it.”

  “Are you sure you’re meant to help Heroes and not talk them out of things?” asked the king.

  “That’s helping—if talking them out of things is wisdom.” This was said without an ounce of sarcasm, and while Percival’s voice was that of Jasper, he could almost hear Walter saying the words. It was wisdom, sometimes.

  “I care very much for my people,” the king began. “And I’m learning to care very much for the Samarkandian. You’ve helped hundreds of Heroes before me. You have to have seen this darkness. I fought it twice before. Please—tell me what you know.”

  “Your wish is my command,” said Percy.

  “It’s always your command,” said the king, “but I don’t want you to think of it that way.”

  “Majesty, I am bound to serve you, whether or not I like it. You are a Hero, and I am … what I am. Although I can comment on your decisions, and obviously I do, I cannot disobey them.”

  “Do you like serving me? Would you disobey if you could?”

  There was a long, long pause. The golden wings beat slowly and steadily. Finally, Percy said, “I do not know yet.”

  “Fair enough,” said the king. “At least you don’t utterly despise me.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Percy amended, but craned his long neck to give the king a wink with one blue eye. “Now, as to your request, I know a very great deal about a great many things. You’d better narrow your focus.”

  “All right,” the king said. “Tell me about the darkness in Samarkand … and how it has been defeated before.”

  And so Percy did. He still refused to define his exact nature, but revealed that he had worked to assist most of the Thousand Guardians in the Cave. In recent years, fewer of the Heroes bothered to visit the Cave to give their respects to their predecessors, and so missed out on the opportunity to have … whatever Percy was, serving them. “I’ve not been disturbed for a few centuries,” he said.

  The darkness, he said, was always changing. “Because the darkness feeds on hatred and fear, and every person’s hatred and fear is unique.” In its purest essence, it was as the king had seen it before—black, tarry fluid that had a direction and sentience all its own. And it was fond of using other sentient beings as its tools, corrupting them and using them to betray those they loved best.

  “I am familiar with that tactic,” the king said, his heart heavy.

  Sometimes it tainted living things in other ways. It would seep into soil, poisoning the roots of plants so that their fruit was deadly. It turned clean water toxic, spreading its contagion to those who foolishly drank of it.

  “We encountered that right before we met you,” the king said. “We found a kannat of water that turned many of my men into jakala. Part jackal, part human.”

  “I see you are rather more experienced than I had anticipated,” the dragon said. “That might actually give us the tiniest shred of hope.”

  “Your confidence in me is overwhelming.”

  “I’m glad you think so.” The king was starting to enjoy the banter. After so many dangers and grim events, humor was as welcome as fresh water.

  The worst manifestation of the darkness, and the hardest to defeat, Percival continued, was the nonphysical. You could fight the black goo. You could slay those who had unwillingly betrayed you. “But how do you fight your own thoughts?” asked Percy, presumably rhetorically. “It whispe
rs in your ears, in your mind … that you have failed, that all are against you. That nothing you do will ever matter. That the darkness is eternal and can never be vanquished. And most of the time, you don’t even realize that the thoughts aren’t actually coming from your own head.”

  The king felt cold. He recalled traveling with Walter in Aurora, the whispers that were barely heard, the despair and terror they inspired. He, at least, was aware of what was going on, and no matter how convincing the evil words sounded, he knew they were not his own. How, then, could anyone overcome it when they didn’t know?

  “So … understanding what’s going on. Knowledge of its methods. And hope,” the king said. “That’s what’s needed to defeat the darkness.”

  “Fireballs and bullets help also,” Percy provided.

  “They often do,” the king said.

  The trip passed quickly. The king used the aerial advantage to correct and refine Shan’s map, realizing how useful such knowledge would be in the coming battle. “You know, we can even scout out Zahadar once we get close enough,” he said. “It would be amazingly useful to be able to see where the Empress has troops gathered and what the state of the countryside is like.”

  “It would indeed,” said Percy, “if you’d like to advertise that you’re on your way and you’ve got a dragon on your side.”

  “Oh,” said the king. “I suppose you’re right.”

  They reached the monastery shortly before sunset. For most of the king’s life, Samarkand had been a place of mystery and imagination, of tales woven in rich hues and singing of marvels. Other than the Cave of a Thousand Guardians, little he had seen of the place seemed to support that notion. But now, gazing down on the several buildings that dotted the monasterial grounds, his breath caught.

  Nestled in the embrace of the eastern mountain chain, reachable on foot only by a narrow, zigzagging mountain pass, the monastery lay in a fertile green valley. He could see the silver glint of lakes and waterfalls as they caught the morning sunlight. The buildings themselves were domes, their roofs gleaming almost blindingly as if diamonds had been inlaid upon them. Small figures were milling about, tending crops, performing what appeared to be ritual exercises, or simply seated in what looked like meditation.