For Clubs, the only way of communicating was to talk face-to-face or write a letter. A letter was of no use to me without someone to deliver it, so I’d resorted to shouting. When that produced no results, I gave up. What a time for my mother to decide to respect my wishes and stop bothering me. I looked at my watch. If Iris had set off back to her village right from leaving me, she’d be nearly there by now. From memory, it was about a three-hour horseback ride away. That is, if she came by horse and not by broomstick.
It was midday before anyone came into my room and that was only my manservant, Cedar, bringing me my dinner (broccoli and swamp rat again—I already regretted asking for the stuff.)
He took the empty tray that had held the roots that Doc had brought me and swapped if for another with the soup on it.
“Thank you, Cedar. Could you ask Rose to come to my room, please?”
“I don’t believe she’s in, sir. She’s in training at the moment with Wulfric. As you yourself know, we are rather short of men at the moment, so Wulfric is putting on extra training sessions for those we still have left. Apparently, a lot of the Heart soldiers are doing the training alongside them. It’s a bit suspicious if you ask me, training your enemy along with your own men.”
“The Heart men were left to die by their own kind. To hush it up, the Heart Queen had plans to kill them all the moment they set foot in Heart territory. I would imagine they’ve all defected to our side. If we are as short of men as you say we are, then I can only think of it as a good thing.”
“I beg your pardon, sir. I didn’t know all the details.” He bowed and made to open the door.
“Cedar.”
“Sir?”
“Please, can you tell Wulfric that it’s urgent that I see Rose? I’m sure he’ll let Rose out of training if he knows it’s me that wants her. Oh, and can you tell the kitchen that I don’t want any more broccoli and swamp rat soup. If they could send me something up with chocolate in it, that would be great.”
“As you wish, sir.”
He left, and I waited. Rose didn’t show up in the next ten minutes or the next hour. In fact, she didn’t appear all afternoon. The lack of visitors in the morning continued on throughout the afternoon. I ended up dozing, but every time I closed my eyes, I saw him. It seemed as time passed, he became more real. When I’d first dreamed about him, I’d shrugged it off as my imagination running away with me. But he continued to appear in my dreams, and each time, he became more real. This time I saw his face. I’d seen his face before from a distance. I knew he had a long beard that completely covered his lips, but now I could see into his eyes. He was looking right at me as though he could see right into my very soul. I tried to look away, but I couldn’t. His eyes were boring into mine. I could see the outline of his pupils. A pinprick in the violet of his irises. His eyes were bloodshot and tinged with yellow around the edges, and I knew he was something ancient. Something terrifying that had been here longer than us, longer even than the Aces who had set up Vanatus. Something about the way he looked at me made me want to scream, but no sound came out of my mouth. I couldn’t move at all, and he continued to stare. It was if he knew exactly what I was thinking, as if he could read my thoughts and saw what I saw. My head felt like it was splitting into. It burned red hot.
I tried to scream again.
“Ash?”
I sat straight up in bed and took a deep gulp of air. My brow was dripping with sweat, but the apparition was gone. I was back in my own room. My father stood in front of me.
“Do you need me to get someone?” he asked gruffly but full of concern. I knew that someone would either mean Doc or my mother. If either of them came in here, I’d not get a chance to speak with my father and swamp rat soup was a very real possibility.
“No. I’m fine. I need to tell you something.”
“So I hear.”
“When I was up near the Dragon Mountains, I saw something. It was a man, but he wasn’t a normal man.”
“Was he a Heart?”
“No, he was something different. He was otherworldly. Iris called him a corporeal apparition.”
“Iris would!” he fished around in his pocket and brought out a pipe already filled to the brim with tobacco. “You don’t mind if I partake do you?”
“No, go ahead.” I waited until he found his box of matches and lit the pipe. There was no point talking to him until he did.
“He was seven foot tall and had violet eyes, and I keep seeing him.”
“You’re telling me that you are seeing a seven-foot tall man in the castle?” He glanced to the side suspiciously. I’m not sure if it was because he believed me or if he was worried Mother would catch him smoking in my room.
“Not in the castle. In my head. He keeps looking at me. I can’t sleep without him being there.”
“That sounds like a job for a shrink, but don’t worry, Son. You’re bound to feel a bit out of whack after everything you’ve been through.”
“Father! You’re not listening. I saw him in real life up in the mountains. I’ve been dreaming about him ever since, but I definitely saw him. He was a bad spirit or something.”
“Listen, Son. I want to believe you. I believe that you believe it, but it’s well-known that people see…erm...,” he took a drag on his pipe, “strange things when they’ve been in a stressful situation.”
“I know, it’s called post-traumatic stress disorder. Iris has already mentioned it, but she doesn’t think that’s what this is, and neither do I. Something is happening up there on Dragon Mountains, and it’s nothing to do with the Hearts. Something is up there, and it’s getting stronger.”
My father looked at me but didn’t speak. Neither of us made a sound until he accidentally let his pipe turn upside down, and a lump of molten tobacco dropped on his trousers, burning a hole in them. He jumped up and flicked the offending blob from his trousers onto the floor, which is when Mother decided to make an appearance.
“Reed, why are you dancing?” She spied the pipe, which father had quickly hidden behind his back. I sighed in frustration. With Mother here, I’d never get through to Father just how important this was.
“Is that smell what I think it is? Reed! The boy is sick. You can’t smoke around him. He needs fresh air in his lungs to get better.” She marched right past my father, giving him an evil look as she did and threw my windows open wide. A gust of icy winter air blew in.
“Your advisors need you. Apparently, there has been a development along the border, and for Monsatsu’s sake, put that infernal thing out!”
“Father!” I shouted to him just before he was dragged out by my mother.
“I’ll send a scouting party out to have a look,” he said before the door closed on him.
“Great! Apart from Iris who was loopy herself, no one believed me. They all thought I was crazy. It was nicer to say I had post-traumatic stress disorder than to label me insane. At least, Father had promised to send someone out. Even if it was to placate his crazy son, at least, they’d see whatever it was, and then, everyone would have to believe me.”
Thanks to the open window, I was now freezing. Even though there was a lingering aroma of my father’s pipe, it was preferable to hypothermia. I got out of bed and strode across to the window to shut it. It was then that I realized just how easy I‘d found walking. I did a couple of laps of my room to make sure. My knees were still a bit wobbly, but the nausea was gone. I picked up the crutches that Doc had left earlier and did another couple of laps. I still felt fine. Cautiously, I opened my door and peeked out. I nearly got the shock of my life when I found Rose and Oaken there.
“Wow, that’s service. I’d not even knocked yet,” grinned my little sister. “Here, this is for you.” She thrust some chocolate into my hand.
“Come in.” They walked by me and sat in the two chairs in the room.
“Cedar came to tell me that you wanted to see me, but we were in training. I’m afraid I couldn’t get here any earlier. You don�
�t mind that Oaken came along, do you?”
Her face was pink, whether from her exertions in training, the cold winter air, or something else, I didn’t know. I noted that they were holding hands. It was actually kind of sweet in a vomit-inducing way.
“That’s fine,” I replied, standing the crutches against the wall where I’d found them. “It was actually both of you I wanted to ask about something anyway.”
“Ask away!” said Oaken in his deep voice. I liked him. He was a good buddy from training school and a good man. He made a great match for Rose. Maybe he’d tame her a little, but I doubted it.
“You were with me up in the mountains, Oaken. I saw something up there.”
I saw a look pass between them.
“You saw it too, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t see anything when we were there fighting. I was up to my ears in Hearts trying to kill me.”
“Liar! I saw that look that passed between you. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
Oaken sighed. “I’m not lying. I didn’t see anything when I was up there fighting, but I did feel something. Some unnatural force. I didn’t think about it much at the time because there were people dying all around me, but when I went back...” he looked toward Rose “When we went back, we did see something, yes.”
“An old man with a long beard?”
He looked at me oddly now. “No, nothing like that. We didn’t want to tell anyone because we thought they would worry, but right at the place where the river starts, the grass all around was scorched. Something had happened there because everywhere else was covered in snow. There was just a semi-circle of black, scorched earth. It was still warm, even though it had been snowing for hours by the time we got there. There were dead sheep and dead birds all around. We even saw the charcoaled remains of a Dragon that had come to the base of the mountain.”
“But you didn’t see anyone?”
“No,” said Rose. “I could feel it, though. Just the way Oaken describes. An unnatural force.”
“Have you been having nightmares since you came back?”
“Not nightmares as such, but I do sometimes feel like I’m being watched. It’s like there is someone in my head knowing what I’m doing.”
“You never told me that!” I watched as Oaken squeezed my sister’s hand. “I’ve been feeling that way too. Do you know what it is?”
“No, but Iris thinks she knows someone who might.”
“Iris has been to see you?”
“Yeah. I told Star about the guy I saw up there, and she got Willow to ride out to Yelpish to get her. Father said he’d send someone up to the Dragon Mountains to take a look. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what they find.”
That night the dreams haunted me more than they ever had before. It was almost as if he was waiting for me to close my eyes to burrow into my brain. In the end, I picked up my crutches and practiced walking up and down the corridor outside my room until I became so exhausted that I had no choice but to fall into bed and go straight to sleep.
24th January
I woke early despite my late night wanderings and decided to go down to the banquet room before anyone saw me to stop me. I was still using the crutches, but at least I could make it without help or without passing out this time.
It looked so very different from the last time I was there. Gone were the beds full of casualties. Gone were the healers that had worked tirelessly to save the lives of those men, myself included. Instead, there was the long, dark, wooden table running down the center of the room with the ornately carved chairs placed at either side. It was back to how it had been before the war started. It’s funny. I’d not actually thought about the war much since I’d been in battle. Many men will tell you that they can’t get the battlefield out of their minds, that it plagues them until their dying day. It was probably because I’d seen something infinitely more terrifying than men killing each other that war seemed to pale into insignificance. It wasn’t insignificant, of course. I knew my father was doing everything he could to stop the war, but with the Spade Queen still missing, the Hearts kidnapping people without charges, and the Diamonds marching through the streets, it looked like it was inevitable. It was in the air; you could almost smell it, that’s if war has a smell. It does, though. I’d smelled the acrid stench of gunpowder out there on the battlefield. I’d smelled the much worse odor of decay when our men were brought back here to die.
Right now, though, all I could smell was bacon, bacon and dragon eggs. My stomach rumbled. Weeks of eating nothing but broccoli and swamp rat soup and roots had made me feel hungrier than I realized. I sat at the large table and waited for everyone to come down.
I was expecting my mother to make a scene when she saw me up and about, but she merely pressed her hand to my forehead to check my temperature and asked me if I felt ok. When I assured her I was fine, she let me be. Breakfast was the most amazing meal I’d had in ages, mainly because I’d been eating green mushy stuff for so long, I’d almost forgotten what real food tasted like. I suspected if they’d let me eat this weeks ago, I’d have gotten better much more quickly. I heaped the scrambled dragon’s eggs onto my plate and gave myself three helpings of bacon. No one mentioned anything I’d said the day before, but I did notice that father wasn’t at the table. Sage was also conspicuously absent, but I suspected in his role as Jack of Clubs, he was expected to be at my father’s side at all times. After breakfast, when only my mother and I remained in the hall, Doc brought her tray of roots to me right there in the banquet hall. She also gave me a full checkup at my mother’s insistence. After declaring me as fit as could be expected in the current situation, she left. I was about to go and sit in the parlor, when I heard a loud bang and a lot of shouting. It came from the grand entrance. Mother jumped up and ran to see what was happening. I followed behind as quickly as my crutches and jelly legs would permit.
There, in the entrance hall below, was Iris with the strangest looking man I’d ever seen. My mother walked down the stairs to sort out the problem, while I watched from over the balcony banister.
“I’m sorry, Your Majesty, the princess here insisted I let him in,” explained Tree, our head courtier.
“It’s ok, Tree. I’ll deal with this.”
“Very well, ma’am.” He bowed again, and I watched him walk away.
“Iris, please introduce me to your friend here.” She said the word friend as though she really meant undesirable person. I could tell by the look on her face, even from up here that she was struggling not to show her distaste for the man.
He was small, even for a Club. He couldn’t have been more than three and a half feet tall, but he wore a large yellow hat on his head that gave him an extra foot in height. He had a rather peculiar air about him. He also wore a ridiculous amount of clothing, which bulged out making him appear a lot fatter than he actually was. A rather horrible looking moldy old carpetbag stood next to him on the floor.
“This is Mali, Majestic High Mage of the Yelpish tribe. He’s a master of magic, voodoo, mysticism, and witchcraft. He’s also my friend.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mr., erm, Mali,” she said in a way that made it clear that she wasn’t. She held out her hand in front of her for him to shake, but it was impossible so see exactly where his hands would come from to exit all those cloaks.
“Just Mali.” He managed to find an armhole as his hand popped out to shake Mother’s hand. “I have no need for a surname.”
“He’s kinda famous,” said Iris, giddily, to which my mother seemed entirely underwhelmed.
“I believe I’m here to see your son, Your Majesty. Iris tells me he’s seen something rather peculiar.”
My mother looked confused until Iris cleared up the matter.
“Mali is here to see Ash. Ash saw something he couldn’t explain, and Mali thinks he knows what it is.”
I decided now was the time to make my entrance. I held both crutches in one hand and used the banister to stea
dy myself down the stairs instead.
“Right then,” said my mother as I got to the bottom of the stairs. “I’ll leave you three to it. I have some important business to attend to, so if you’ll excuse me.”
The only rooms that ran off the entrance hall were huge, built to accommodate guests and dignitaries. They were also very grandly decorated. I’d have preferred to take Iris and her friend to one of the smaller sitting rooms upstairs, but I didn’t think I could manage going up the stairs again so soon after going down them. Iris pointed to a door to one of the large greeting rooms, and I followed them in. Mali ran around me as soon as I’d gotten through the door and slammed it behind me.
“It’s as I feared,” he said, coming back to my front. He peered upward into my eyes, and I fought the urge to bend down slightly so he could get a better look.
“Iris, my love, please can you make us all a cup of tea? It’s been a long journey, and I’m rather parched.”
“Yes, of course. We have raspberry tea, blueberry tea, mint tea, billoberry breakfast tea...”
“I’m rather partial to nettle and beetlebrew if you have any.”
“I’m not sure the kitchens stock that, but I’ll go and check. Ash, do you want anything?”
“Just water, please.”
When she’d gone, Mali pulled me over to the nearest chair and pushed me into it. Bringing out the oddest pair of spectacles I’ve ever seen, with hundreds of lenses all around the main lenses, he placed them on his head and peered at me again. His brown eyes appeared huge in the lenses.
Five of Clubs (War and Suits Book 4) Page 2