by Greg Curtis
They had tied her down and punched her. In the gut. In the face. They had torn away the back of her dress and whipped her. Her fingernails had been torn out. And then they had branded her with a red-hot poker. They had done it over and over again, until the only thing she knew was pain and the smell of flesh burning. Her flesh.
It was monstrous and she hated them for it. But more than that it was pointless. However much they beat her, it could not change the fact that she couldn’t tell them what she didn’t know. Even if she'd wanted to she had no idea how to fight her grandfather.
Carrie had no idea how long she'd been here. She knew it was a number of days, but sometimes she thought it might be longer. Perhaps weeks or even months. There was no way to be sure when it was always dark. The light from the small opening at the top of the wall never faded, making her think it didn't come from the outside. Making it even more difficult, there were only brief times when she was sufficiently lucid to know that time had passed. They were the few precious hours just before the interrogators came back to begin anew, knowing that the drugs were mostly out of her system.
But they were the worst hours, ironically enough. Because it was then that she knew she was never getting out of this cell. She was a wizard related to Wilberforce Wilberton. She was guilty by association. The rest didn't matter. They were going to either kill her when they were done, or leave her here to rot.
Hearing the sound of a distant iron door being forced open on its rusting hinges, she suddenly remembered one other reason why she hated this time. These were also the hours when her one and only visitor came to torment her.
“Still alive? Still lying?” Lord Baraman's voice came from somewhere beyond her cell door.
She couldn't see him through the solid iron door; only hear his voice as it came through the bars in the window in it. Sometimes he came close enough to the window that she could just make out his face. Not today though. This time he stood back a little so that his face was hidden in shadow. Of course, with the leather gag still in her mouth, she couldn't answer him anyway. They only removed it when she had enough drugs in her body that they were sure she couldn't cast.
“Not to worry, we'll get the answers we want from you sooner or later. And then we'll kill that evil old bastard.” He paused for a moment. “And once we’ve done that we’ll kill you as well.”
He was always eager to add the last. The interrogators and the gaolers never told her what they had planned for her. Perhaps they didn't know. But Lord Baraman never failed to let her know she had no hope. He hated her, and she supposed she could understand that. But she also knew that it was unjust. Still, whoever claimed that the nobility did what was right? Not her. And strangely enough, not Edrick as she recalled. He had been of the nobility as it turned out. But she would never have guessed it. He was certainly nothing like his father.
The thing that kept occurring to her every time she had another visit from Lord Baraman, was that she didn't really know why he came. It certainly wasn't out of love for his dead son. When he came he never spoke of how much he missed Edrick Anyone else would have. Any other father. But not him. If he gave a reason for what he was doing, it was always something about the family and how her grandfather had wronged them. She suspected he meant the affront to the family name. The insult that his son having been killed by a commoner was. Then again, maybe he was upset because he’d still had hopes of marrying Edrick off, and her grandfather had stymied them. She didn't really know what drove him. But she knew he wasn't a good man. Ambitious, proud and powerful, yes. But not good.
“But maybe your end will come sooner than you think. The King's regiment has finally arrived. And they have marksmen with them. Of course, I would rather your grandfather was killed some other way. A marksman would be too quick. Wilberton deserves to be tortured before he is finally allowed to die. Still, dead is dead.” He almost snarled the last.
“And, as for you,” Lord Baraman continued, his voice sounding as if he was thinking on something immensely pleasurable, “your death won’t have to be so quick. In fact, I will make sure we take our time with you.”
Why this obsession with her she wondered? Her grandfather was mad. He couldn’t be held responsible for his actions, though she accepted he wanted to see her grandfather executed. But she had done nothing to Edrick. It seemed wrong for him to hate her so. As she thought about it some more though she decided that maybe it wasn’t about, guilt or innocence. He didn’t really care about that. This was about revenge. It mattered not to him whom he hurt so long as he hurt someone. And Carrie was the perfect scapegoat. She was the only one he could hurt.
She could have got upset about it, Carrie supposed. She could have tried to scream or shout, though the gag would have made it all but impossible. But what was the point? Edrick was dead. So many others were dead too. Torturing her wouldn’t bring any of them back. She had no idea whether the army would have any success against her grandfather, though, she doubted it. Whatever magic he had acquired, it had made him far too strong for men with guns. It was more likely that bringing the army in would simply lead to more people being killed. And in any case, even if she could have said something, he wouldn't have listened. There was nothing she could say to him.
So instead of struggling against her bonds or trying to deny his charges, she sat quietly on the damp straw, leaned against the cold stone wall and closed her eyes. Eventually the Lord would finish with his threats and go away. He always did.
For the moment she just had to do her best to ignore him as he continued making his threats. She thought though that he was right about one thing. One way or another this would be over soon enough.
Chapter Eighteen
The time had come. Edrick stood nervously in front of the standing stones, feeling the magic once again flowing through them, while listening to the chugging of his steam wagon behind him. He wasn’t certain whether this would work. Or even if the gate would still lead to Riverlandia. After all, the he had no idea if the explosion had had other effects that he wasn’t yet aware of. There was also the chance that it might fail spectacularly. Or it might work only once or only remain open for a short time. With that in mind he had packed with the thought that he might never return to Faerie.
Once Edrick was satisfied that everything was as it should be, he reached out with his magic to the stones. A heartbeat later he saw the gate appear in front of him.
A relieved smile found his face when he saw it appear, and he let go of a breath he hadn’t known he'd been holding. It had worked! Just as well as it had previously. But more than that, the gate was strong and stable. It was everything it had been before it had been destroyed. And he knew when he saw it, that he could do what he needed to. He could cross back to Riverlandia and then return to his home.
For a brief moment Edrick remained standing where he was, staring at the now working gate in awe, and wondering if he had ever seen such a beautiful sight. And that despite the fact that what he could see on the other side of the gate looked like a mess. The ground had been torn up and pulled back together to create a giant mound. Trees had fallen and were covering the forest lane leading to the gate. He could also see the bloated, half eaten bodies of a couple of horses. But it was still a beautiful sight. It was the other part of his home.
Then, before he thought about it, he stepped through the gate, and found himself standing on the other side. Then he turned around and found himself staring back at his steam engine and his home.
“Yes!” Edrick felt a sudden rush of joy and even triumph. He'd done it! He'd rebuilt a Faerie gate! No one had ever done that before. In truth no one had probably ever needed to. But then no one had ever understood how they worked. Until now! Then for good measure he let out a few more cries of happiness, letting the emotion fill him.
“Praise Sirtis.” He whispered his thanks to the Goddess of Light once a little calm had returned to him, and maybe for the first time in his life he meant the words. Because it was clear to him
that someone must have blessed him. Maybe the Goddess actually did guide her followers when they needed it most? He had never really thought she did anything until then, but this seemed too wondrous for any other explanation. He decided then and there to make an offering to her when he next came across one of her shrines.
Once he'd breathed deeply of the heady brew of success and relief, he set to work clearing the lane. There was no way that his steam wagon was going to be able to scale the mound of dirt and stone in front of him, and the path was far too narrow for him to go around it. So while it sat on the other side of the gate chugging away, he started digging out the mound of dirt and cutting up the fallen trees with his spells until he’d cleared a path through.
That done he stepped back through the gate, climbed on board his wagon and drove it through. It was simplicity itself. In fact, the hardest part was letting the gate close behind him, as he still feared that he might not be able to reopen it. But immediately he'd closed it he tried again and was relieved to see the gate open again, just as easily as before. It was working perfectly.
Satisfied he shut it down, and set off down the track.
Edrick decided that his first destination should be Miston. It had been a while since he'd been there, and no one there knew him as anything other than a customer. It was also a large enough town that it had the supplies he needed. But as well as that, it was close enough to Coldwater that if there was news from the town he would undoubtedly hear it there. And he was sure there must be some news. After all, Wilberton had brought seventeen hundred winged elves to Coldwater. That news had to have made it to the nearby towns and villages. And once it did he had no doubt that the bards would have been looking for more stories to spin. The more they knew, the more they could announce and the more coin they could earn from interested listeners.
Heading to Coldwater itself didn't seem like a good idea. Not when Wilberton was there and had already tried to kill him once. He didn't need to give him a second chance.
It wasn't a long trip to Miston – three or four leagues instead of the two to Coldwater – and he found himself driving into the town barely half an hour later, already planning his shopping. Things however, were different to how he remembered them when he arrived. Very different.
Instead of seeing the usual town guards he saw soldiers! A lot of soldiers. And they were wearing the king's colours. More worrying than the soldiers though, were the cannons. He spotted a train of them. They were all heavy looking long spouted weapons and were being pulled by steam wagons. The sort of cannons that armies used to break down walls.
Soldiers? Cannons? Had war been declared? And if so against who?
Edrick knew he had been away for some considerable time. He'd been trapped in Faerie for at least a month. But he couldn't imagine that Riverlandia had gone to war with another realm in that time. And he had no idea where they would have found an enemy to fight. Especially in the towns around the Sitwell Forest.
The Sitwell forest was a hundred and forty leagues south from the capital – Rivernia. But even as far south as it was from the capitol it was still a great many leagues north from the nearest borders of the realm. Seventy leagues at least from the southern border. And to add to his confusion, the lands to the south of Riverlandia weren't so much a realm as a wasteland filled with barbarians and dangerous creatures. Sometimes there were incursions from the wasteland by bands of brigands. But none of them had ever made it this far north and he'd never heard of military action. There really couldn't be one when the realm had no king, no cities, and no real towns; just camps of nomads that followed the great herds of deer and elk that migrated across the land. The south had no army there that could have marched this far north into Riverlandia.
“What’s with the cannons?” he asked the trader at the first stall in the farmer's market he stopped at, to purchase a sack of oats.
“Who knows?” The man grunted at him as he accepted Edrick's coin and pushed the sack across the table to him. “They're all mad. It's just one wizard after all.”
One wizard? Edrick thought about that as he lugged the sack back to his wagon. They had brought cannons to fight a wizard? Of course, the moment the trader had said it, he knew who the wizard had to be. He could only be referring to Wilberton. Who else? But why would the King send an army after him? That seemed like a serious over reaction to a single wizard who'd gone senile. And why? Because he'd attacked him? Why would he care? Or had something else happened while he'd been locked away in the Faerie realm? Another miscast spell? Praise Sirtis he hoped it wasn't more ducks!
He learned a little more when he went to the next stall and purchased a sack of flour. For a start he learned that Wilberton had apparently destroyed Coldwater and driven the people from the town.
That shocked Edrick. He knew first hand that the dotard was dangerous. But to destroy an entire town? That didn't seem likely. But if it was true, then it worried him. He liked Coldwater. It was as close to a home town as he'd had these past ten years. He had friends there. If the town had been destroyed, what had happened to them? What had happened to Carrie?
The trader insisted that it was true when he questioned him. The town had been completely destroyed Those he hadn't killed – and the vendor confidently told him that thousands had been slaughtered – had fled.
Thousands dead? Surely not. Edrick was sure that the trader was exaggerating. But he didn't doubt that something bad had happened and that a number of people had been killed. It had only been a matter of time with Wilberton's spells misfiring as they were. The thought that among those who had died might be some of his friends, was a painful one.
Had Coldwater truly been destroyed? Edrick wasn't sure he could believe it no matter how many times the trader repeated it. Surely he was embellishing his tale? At the very least a large number of people must have run away from whatever had happened. And however much damage had been done, he was certain that something of the town must still remain.
He knew Wilberton was powerful and dangerous. He'd witnessed enough of his disastrous miscasts over the years to know that. The man was also mad. He had discovered that first hand. Maybe he was just crazy enough to attack his home town? But no one could destroy an entire town. Yet even as he tried to deny what he was being told, there was one other thing that kept echoing in his thoughts. The vision of the old dotard the last time he had seen him. No matter how often he told himself he had been seeing things, his thoughts kept returning to that image he had seen of something inhuman standing in the ancient wizard's place. Had his eyes actually seen true? Surely not. It must have been the pain and the shock that had affected his vision.
Still, the stories the trader told him of the destruction didn't seem real. Dragons and giants of ice? Hurricanes and the sky falling? It had to be exaggerated. The question though was how greatly? Because he had to believe that something bad had happened. And it had to be very bad if the army was here. Just how much damage had Wilberton done? And why?
The spice merchant where he purchased some more salt, pepper and mustard, told him that the Wizards' Guild had been wiped out, leaving Edrick almost gasping. But even as the man was telling him that, the merchant at the stall next to his contradicted him and said that the wizards had simply run away and were regrouping. That they were with the army. Neither of them knew the truth Edrick realised. They were both just repeating gossip. And anyway the Guild of the Arcane wasn't based in Coldwater. But both of them agreed with the others that Coldwater had been destroyed. Maybe it was a tall story when one person said it. But when others said the same thing? Edrick was worried.
It was the Town Cryer who finally revealed the biggest piece of the puzzle though. Walking into the market twenty minutes later he announced that the King was offering a reward to anyone who could give them information leading to the capture of Wilberforce Wilberton, the wizard who had murdered Lord Ironbelly.
Lord Ironbelly was dead!
When he heard that Edrick felt his legs suddenly g
o weak. He hadn't seen his body when he'd dug his way through the forest trail. But it also explained so much. The King's Right Hand, the man who administered many of the day to day functions of the realm, had been killed? Of course the King was going to respond! King Durhan would have seen it as an affront to his rule. Everything the nobility cared about came down to honour. And the King had to be the most honourable of all. To not respond would be to look weak. But more than that, accepting of the affront. He could not allow that.
But the shocks just kept coming. And the first was that the reward should be collected from Lord Baraman who was leading the army.
His father was in charge! That seemed strange to Edrick. It was true that his father was a lord and a well-respected member of the Court. He was also an old friend of Lord Ironbelly. The two of them had regularly gone hunting and fishing together when he'd been a child. Drinking and whoring too according to the servants. But his father was no soldier. How on earth had he ended up in charge of an army?
The next shock though was worse as one of the crowd that had gathered around the Cryer shouted out that there was no point as they would never get paid. The army would likely already know how to kill him given that they’d captured the wizard's daughter.