by Mok, DK
“Was any of that supposed to make sense?”
“Look, the number of times I’ve explained this to people who ended up running away within the next few days, never to be seen again—it’s just not worth explaining it to everyone I bump into.”
“I’m not just some yokel you bumped into. I’m the cleric of Eliantora assigned to this quest by the royal family of—”
“Until you’ve survived a week with me, you’re just some yokel.”
“When you say ‘survive’, you’re being metaphorical, right?”
“Whatever.” Elhan pushed open the door, glancing around the small, spartan room.
The walls were bare wooden planks, and the floor was crusted with things Seris didn’t want to inspect too closely. The far wall had a window with crooked wooden shutters, and a narrow bed sagged in the middle of the room.
“You can take the bed,” said Elhan. “I’m sleeping on the floor anyway. But you might not want to take your shoes off.”
“Is this another thing you’re not going to explain?”
Seris considered the aching state of his feet. Occasionally, when they forgot to take Petr’s shoes off at night, he’d invariably wake up in the morning complaining of sore feet and earthworms in his bed. However, Seris didn’t think he could tolerate having Elhan saying “I told you so” later.
As dusk rolled into night, Seris decided against taking the bed, feeling that the floor was quite possibly more hygienic. He sat on the wooden boards, a stub of candle burning on a tin plate beside him, the ransom scroll laid out on his lap. So far, all he’d really gleaned was that the kidnapper was literate.
“The only real lead we have is that sorcery was involved.” Seris rubbed his eyes tiredly. “The townsfolk say they saw a gigantic, three-headed dragon sweep over the city and gouge out an entire wall of the castle before carrying away the prince.”
“The townsfolk say a lot of things,” said Elhan flatly.
“The castle guards say it was some kind of flying demon. Either way, a sorcerer’s involved. There aren’t many around these days, and none outside the empire.”
“There’s one in Horizon’s Gate. It’s only a few days away on foot.”
The main words Seris heard were “days” and “foot” as he thought sadly about the growing community of blisters on his feet.
“You should grab some sleep.” Elhan leaned against the wall, closing her eyes.
As Seris watched her breathing slow, his mind flashed briefly to Falon’s parting instructions. Elhan was disturbed, certainly, but a grave threat to the empire? He looked at her half-curled figure propped against the planks. She didn’t even carry a sword. And the bow and arrow she’d used in the tournament had clearly been borrowed, and hopefully returned.
As Seris lay on the slightly damp floor, he decided that his priorities were finding Prince Valamon and going home.
It was probably the most alarming awakening Seris had ever experienced. Even more than the time he dozed off in Burke’s feeding pen and woke up covered in angry chickens. Although the room was still pitch-black, the fight was in full swing, and multiple pairs of boots trampled over Seris’s legs and shoulders. He realised things were really bad when he saw the glimmer of blades slicing through the bedsheets.
Hisses of “witch” and “serpent” slashed through the darkness amidst cries of “Get the stake!” and “No, we need the silver knife!” and “No, it’s supposed to be the mallet and swordfish!”, although the last speaker may have joined the wrong mob. Seris scrambled to his feet and huddled against a wall, clutching his knapsack. Things crashed and splintered in the darkness around him, and the floor thudded and cracked with bodies. For a moment, he thought that Elhan had gone, leaving him to fend for himself, even though he’d left his shoes on.
Suddenly, he felt an arm lock under his shoulder, and a fist grabbed his shirt. He was lifted off his feet, and then the world was spinning, right up until the window shutters shattered against his back, and then he was falling. A burst of memories flashed like burning portraits in his mind.
Fire. Fire and screaming as the world burned.
A man in robes, kneeling in the gutters of blood, hands on the wounded, flesh like wax.
The clatter of cartwheels in an eerie silence.
Sunlight, the scent of grass, two shadows looming like trees.
The smell of parchment, the feel of clean sheets, the taste of warm pastry.
And now, dying on the first day of his quest. That was just embarrassing.
Seris felt the night air rush past, and he glimpsed the grubby walls of the inn on his way down. There was the sensation of landing, but somehow his feet were still bobbing above the ground, and then the world was rushing past again, but this time horizontally. However, all he could think about was the burning pain across his back, as he somehow plunged into the woods, his feet still dangling in the air.
The sound of yelling and trampling followed for a while, then eventually faded into the usual nocturnal rustles and hoots. When his head stopped spinning and settled into a sharp throb, Seris realised that he was somehow being carried by the scruff of his shirt and the belt of his robe. The ground skimmed past at a disturbing speed, and his shirt was starting to slide off.
“Elhan?” Seris tried to twist around.
The pace slowed, and Seris hit the ground suddenly. He lay on the damp grass, trying to catch his breath and adjust his clothing. Elhan stood in the gloom, listening hard to the silence.
“Did you just use me to break a window?” said Seris.
“I knew you’d be good for something. Seeing as you can’t actually heal people.”
“I can heal people. I just can’t raise the dead or re-capitate people. It’d be like me putting you in front of a siege weapon and saying, ‘You’re a fighter; fight that.’”
“I’d kill the captain,” said Elhan without hesitating.
Seris had a feeling he would regret asking.
“Excuse me?”
“I’d throw a knife, slice the throat of the captain, and then yell to the soldiers manning the siege weapon, ‘Hey, your captain’s dead. Follow me or perish!’”
Seris had the distinct impression that Elhan was no longer describing a hypothetical situation. He had a vision of her standing in front of a silent catapult while soldiers muttered urgently amongst themselves.
“Have you done much of that?” said Seris. “Gathering followers?”
“Can’t stand them. You’re always getting these annoying people following you around, saying, ‘You’re so evil and awesome, I want to be evil and awesome, too.’ To which I say, ‘I’m not technically evil, and you can’t teach awesome.’”
“Technically?”
“You know.” Elhan showed no interest in elaborating.
Seris suspected it wasn’t so much a technical difference as an arbitrary one, but one which nonetheless seemed to matter. Elhan glanced around the silent trees, and then settled onto a patch of fallen pine needles. Seris shifted, feeling his back cracking in unpleasant places.
“I know it’s only been a day,” said Seris, “but I think the window thing counts for something. Not to mention that tree incident during the tournament.”
Elhan opened one eye, looking indifferently at Seris, as though trying to weigh up the effort of answering his questions versus the effort of ignoring them.
“You know about the curse,” she said finally.
It was a little like someone saying, “So you noticed my goitre.” Seris wasn’t sure whether he was supposed to offer condolences, recount a heart-warming story about someone’s extra fingers, or launch into all the potentially awkward questions he had.
“I’m not sure I understand what it means,” he said.
“Everyone hates me, and I’m good at beating people up. That’s the gist of it.”
“Surely not everyone hates you.”
Elhan rolled her eyes, as though this was exactly why she hated explaining things.
&
nbsp; “It’s a curse. Not a personality trait. People look at me, and they see something they fear and despise. Liar, thief, traitor, monster. No one can love me. No one can trust me. They can’t help it, and neither can I. But when people get scared, they accuse you of all kinds of things, half of which you didn’t even do. So, I try to keep my appearances brief and dramatic, then move on.”
“How do you go through life with everyone thinking you’re some kind of monster?”
“You become some kind of monster. And everyone’s happy.”
Seris didn’t think it sounded particularly happy.
“How do you break the curse?”
“Why would I want to break it?” said Elhan, a hint of wariness sidling into her voice.
“Well, with everyone hating you, it sounds kind of…lonely.”
“It’s not. I’ve travelled from the desert ports to the frozen cathedrals, through the tropical meridian and around the unconquered borderlands. I’ve seen things I couldn’t have imagined if I was just some random peasant. I’d probably be hoeing dirt all day, instead of going on adventures.”
“I’m just a random peasant. Adventures are things you choose to go on.”
Seris was bending the truth just a little, since this particular quest had landed on him like a horse falling from the sky. But he told himself that he’d chosen to become a cleric, which in turn had led to him going on this adventure.
“Is that why you’re on this quest?” said Seris. “For the adventure?”
There was a moment’s silence, and Seris thought he could hear a disconcerting chittering coming from Elhan in the shadows.
“Sure, adventure. And it’d really piss off Falon if I became Champion of the Realm. Pity they don’t offer the prince’s hand in marriage anymore. That’d just kill him.”
Elhan settled into the pine needles.
“Go to sleep,” she said. “It’ll be dawn soon.”
Valamon’s knees had gone numb, but he hadn’t noticed. He’d been kneeling on the granite floor for several hours now, and the casual observer might have assumed he was praying. However, his eyes were fixed intently on the cell door in front of him.
Valamon’s new cell was devoid of straw. An executive decision had been made that it posed some kind of security risk. Instead, there was a pile of grubby hessian in one corner, which Valamon wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with, unless he suddenly needed to carry a large quantity of potatoes.
Valamon didn’t really consider himself to be a problem solver, which was a significant deficiency in a potential leader. He saw himself more as a problem perceiver, which unfortunately didn’t elicit much respect among the ruling class. Advisors, sycophants, oracles, dissenters—thinkers and talkers were just people incapable of getting things done. What they respected, what they wanted, was someone who did things.
What they wanted was Falon.
Falon had always been the better swordsman, the better marksman, the better orator. He could even dance better than Valamon. People listened to Falon, particularly since there was always a chance that what he was saying involved you being “promoted” to a desolate outpost. And the soldiers respected him. There were even hushed rumours that many of the rank and file followed Falon more than they followed the king. But people didn’t talk too much; after all, Falon would be king one day.
It was during his teenage years that Valamon became aware that he wouldn’t be inheriting the throne from his father. When the nobles realised that Falon was emerging as the more conventional heir, the cloud of fretful uncertainty lifted from the castle like a breath of relief. More and more responsibilities had been shifted towards the younger brother, and there had already been talk of strategic marriages with various princesses, although for some reason, Falon had evaded any meetings so far, citing a busy schedule.
Valamon knew it wasn’t enough for a ruler to care about the empire. There were qualities a king needed to have—they had to inspire awe and respect. King Delmar’s name alone could send a shiver through a room, whereas Valamon’s main talent seemed to be fading into the background.
These thoughts, among others, drifted like a chain of smoke through Valamon’s mind as he stared at the cell door. However, his main focus was elsewhere. When locked in a small stone cell with nothing but potato sacks for company, it was possible that one might start to think that, if one stared long enough and hard enough, one could just, almost, make out the pins and tumblers in the dark chink of a dungeon keyhole.
The sound of metal scraping on stone echoed from the dungeon entrance, and Valamon scrambled stiffly to his feet. A menacing tread whispered down the passageway, and he froze in a moment of indecision—running to the back of the cell would give away his apprehension, but staying too close to the bars was probably stupid. He decided there’d be opportunities for symbolic defiance later and stood silently by the back wall.
She drifted into view like a carnivorous deer stalking prey, a pale hand running lightly across the bars of his cell.
“Hello, Prince.” Amoriel bared a row of perfect teeth.
“Lady Amoriel,” said Valamon, with the uneasy feeling that she could hear his heart racing.
“Why don’t you come closer, where I can see you?”
“I’m sure you can see me fine from five feet away, considering you spotted me from clear across the capital.”
Amoriel leaned her elbows on the bars and cocked an eyebrow.
“Do you want to know how you’re going to die?”
In general, Valamon liked surprises. A fond visit from a former tutor, a family of lizards behind a loose brick, an unexpected word of kindness. However, the last few surprises had been distinctly unpleasant, and he didn’t think this was about to change. Still, there were some things he’d prefer to find out for himself.
“Your power and allegiance aren’t bound to the empire,” said Valamon. “How is that possible?”
Amoriel looked at Valamon with lidded eyes, her expression deliberately unchanged.
“Come closer if you want an answer.”
Valamon considered this. Ignoring the part of him that was attempting to plaster itself to the back wall, he took a step forward.
“Come up to the bars,” said Amoriel. “I’m not going to do anything awful to you. Lord Haska has a monopoly on that.”
He wasn’t sure he trusted Amoriel’s attempt at an assurance, but he took a few steps closer, until he was standing a foot from the bars. He tried to look confident and impassive, something Falon excelled at, but Valamon could see Amoriel’s eyes following the bead of sweat trailing down his neck. Her arm slid between the bars and Valamon flinched.
Amoriel touched a finger beneath Valamon’s chin, turning his face slightly towards the light. Her gaze traced his features.
“You have your mother’s eyes and mouth. But the bloodline is unmistakeable.”
Valamon could almost feel the physical sensation of her gaze crawling over his face. As she studied him, something simmered in her eyes, something ancient and waiting, full of imprisoned wrath. For a moment, it seemed as though she were staring straight through him at someone else.
“We thought all of the unbound sorcerers disappeared after the Tide,” said Valamon. “It seems we were wrong.”
“They didn’t disappear. They were wiped out.”
Amoriel’s eyes flared, a flash of green fire, and she withdrew her hand. Valamon was getting the distinct impression he was even less popular here than at home. Amoriel shifted away, disinterest already wafting like a fog. Wordlessly, she began walking back towards the dungeon door.
“I’m not my father,” said Valamon.
Amoriel looked over her shoulder at him, taking in his tattered clothes and the thick cell bars.
“Clearly.”
FOUR
For some childish reason, Seris had imagined that Horizon’s Gate would have a set of giant gates. However, Horizon’s Gate was symbolically named for the bustling port from which the city sprang
. In size, it rivalled Algaris, with its own massive garrison of soldiers, and in society life it exceeded it. While the capital was the working heart of the empire, Horizon’s Gate was where the nobility went to play.
Seris had never seen so many festive banners or decorative lanterns before. Extravagant stretch carriages rolled along the wide, paved streets, glossy blue-black wood gleaming in the sunlight. Impressively dressed horses cantered over the cobbles with their impressively dressed riders, cloaks and tunics emblazoned with stately crests. Overloaded carts rattled nonstop from the docks to the crossings, and merchants hustled through markets that seemed to stretch though the entire city.
“How’re you doing, temple boy?” said Elhan, casually grabbing a random sack from the back of a passing wagon.
Seris dragged his gaze away from the skyline of turrets, and looked at Elhan disapprovingly. Elhan peered into the sack with disappointment.
“Do you want a sack of beetles?” Elhan shoved the rippling bag towards Seris.
“I’m fine,” said Seris archly. “And no, I don’t want a sack of beetles.”
Elhan shrugged, tossing them onto the roof of a passing carriage.
“Why do you do that?” said Seris.
“If I let them go, they’ll just fly all over people, and everyone will start screaming about plagues and omens, and then I’ll get run out of town again.”
“I mean, you can’t just take things, or do things, like it doesn’t matter—”
“It’s part of the deal.” Elhan dusted off her hands. “I don’t answer to anyone.”
“Maybe you just think the curse makes everyone hate you, but it’s actually because you throw sacks of beetles at people.”
“And maybe the only reason no one loves me is because I don’t love myself. Is this conversation going to lead to hugging? Because I really don’t recommend it.”
“I’d just like this conversation to lead to a reduction in behaviours that could get us arrested.”
“The law doesn’t actually apply to me,” said Elhan. “In the world, but not of it.”