Hunt for Valamon

by Mok, DK

  His face remained friendly, but the insult crawled over his words. If he were testing her temper, he’d be disappointed. This time.

  “Your presence is appreciated,” said Haska. “Was that all, General?”

  “I understand how difficult this must be for you. So much responsibility, after so deep a loss. And while I admire your innovative—some would even say reckless—approach, the other delegates have significant reservations. Which is why I would like to offer my services in chairing this event.”

  The temperature in the room cooled slightly.

  “Your gracious offer is noted. However, I believe an innovative approach is required where conventional strategies have demonstrably failed.”

  Jaral took a step forward, the cordial pretence giving way to stern reproach.

  “More than mere pride is at stake. There’s no shame in standing aside for a steadier hand.”

  There had been a time when seeds of doubt could have taken hold, but that time had fallen to ash long ago. Jaral wasn’t wasting his time. He was wasting hers.

  “I assure you,” said Haska with a hard smile, “my hand is very steady.”

  Jaral’s displeasure was thinly veiled, but he was diplomat enough to take his leave.

  “As you wish. But leaders do not materialise from nothing, Lord Haska.”

  Most of the bruising had faded, although the cuts on his cheek were taking longer to heal. A sliver of a scab remained on his eyebrow, which Valamon suspected was going to scar. However, there was a good chance he wasn’t going to live long enough for anyone to wonder whether he’d obtained the scar in battle or during a rogue shaving accident.

  These thoughts, among others, drifted through Valamon’s mind as he did hanging sit-ups, with his feet hooked halfway up the bars of his cell. He’d seen prisoners doing something similar in the dungeons of Algaris Castle and had been told it improved your tolerance for hanging upside down, in case you got thrown into one of the more uncomfortable oubliettes. It also gave you very impressive abdominals.

  It wasn’t that Valamon had spent a great deal of time in the Talgaran prisons. In fact, he and Falon had always been forbidden from going there, for reasons of safety. Despite this, as a child, Valamon had found himself in many places that were technically off-limits. His minders had a tendency to forget that they were looking after him, or that he actually existed, which often left the young prince to roam around the castle grounds for hours on end, or until someone realised he was gone. His record was two and a half days.

  Valamon had often wandered into the kitchens, where he’d listen to the servants chatting and singing as they cooked. One of his favourite haunts had been the stables, where he’d hug the horses while they shuffled around looking embarrassed. He’d visited the prisons sometimes too, fascinated by the strange, subterranean world that bore no resemblance to life in the castle. Mostly, the guards and prisoners didn’t notice he was there, and he would stand in the shadows, watching things he didn’t understand but nonetheless gave him vicious nightmares.

  One of the important lessons, however, was survival. It had taken him too long to recover from Haska’s beating and in here, that time was critical. He was sure that Falon would’ve been back on his feet within hours, if not minutes, ready to give as good as he got. Valamon increased the speed of his sit-ups.

  It wasn’t that he was jealous of Falon, but it was hard to ignore the fact that Falon was more respected, more loved, and certainly more popular. Even Qara had preferred Falon as a playmate when they were children. Valamon remembered her and Falon charging at each other with heavy sticks, whacking each other enthusiastically and screaming delighted insults, while Valamon sat under a nearby tree, rocking quietly and thinking about the prisoners in their underground world.

  Keys rattled down the corridor, and Valamon quickly unhooked his feet, rolling quietly to the back of the cell. The march of footsteps was accompanied by a loud clunking, squeaking noise, and Valamon couldn’t imagine that this meant anything good.

  This was confirmed when a large iron cage wheeled into view. It stood just shy of five feet tall, with a circular base and arched bars, like an oversized birdcage. Five soldiers pushed it in front of Valamon’s cell, and Barrat stopped by the door.

  “General,” said Valamon.

  “Your Highness. A temporary transfer, if you would be so good as to cooperate.”

  Valamon looked at the cage and wondered whether this would involve being lowered into something quite hot.

  “May I ask what the purpose of this would be?”

  “Lord Haska has requested that you be…on display during the war council,” said Barrat.

  There was quite a lot about this statement that Valamon wasn’t comfortable with. He glanced at the five soldiers, taking careful note of their weapons.

  “I’m not expected to do anything, am I?”

  “I think Lord Haska’s instructions were for you to stand there and be mocked.” Barrat’s tone was neutral.

  Well, thought Valamon, I’m certainly good at that.

  Whereas other royals perfected things like the death-stare or the indifferent wave, Valamon had honed the ability to look as though he were listening hard to something very important, very far away, regardless of what was being said or done around him. Particularly if it involved people talking about him in a brutally honest manner as though he wasn’t in the room.

  It was humiliating, being wheeled and hauled through the corridors inside a giant cage, but Valamon’s childhood had prepared him well. He sat on the floor of the covered cage and leaned against the bars, listening carefully through the dark canvas. Up several flights of stairs, left into a corridor, through an open space. The scent of stables, the clatter of dishes, the sound of doors opening, and then the raucous noise of voices turning suddenly quiet. It occurred to Valamon that if he’d managed to escape between the dungeons and here, it would have made for a very dramatic and unpleasant unveiling for Haska.

  A chain clanked somewhere above him, and the cage swayed as it was hoisted off the floor. Valamon grabbed the bars to steady himself, and a sea of voices muttered in anticipation. He quickly smoothed his torn and bloodied clothing, flicked his fingers through his hair, chose a point towards the top left field of vision, and stared.

  The cloth was yanked from the cage, and light streamed through the bars. A cavernous, decaying hall swung into view, with iron chandeliers the size of carriages hanging from rotting timber beams. Long wooden tables had been laid end to end to form an enormous hollow square in the centre of the room.

  A diverse crowd filled the hall, jostling around the makeshift conference table. Valamon recognised some of the nationalities—the crimson-robed Belass monks, the colourfully scarved seafarers of the Erele region, the darkly armoured soldiers of the Teset Kingdom, and the sombre dignitaries of the Goethos States. Dozens more were unfamiliar, but the military flavour was unmistakeable.

  There were whoops and exclamations as the canvas fell away, and at the edge of his vision, Valamon thought he caught the briefest expression of relief on Haska’s face. However, when she spoke, she radiated pure confidence.

  “I give you His Royal Highness, Crown Prince Valamon.”

  The hall roared with calls and whistles, clapping and shouts. Some delegates rose to their feet, shaking their fists and brandishing weapons. Others thumped on the tables in a thunderous ruckus, screaming barely coherent things across the room.

  “Thank you,” said Haska above the noise. “I think we’ve made our feelings clear.”

  The yelling died down, and Haska waited for silence.

  “Can we spit at him?” called a lone voice.

  Haska turned coolly towards a delegation wearing furry helmets.

  “No spitting. We’re civilised people here.”

  Hence the man in the cage, thought Valamon, keeping his eyes locked on a distant point.

  “Can we throw things at him?” called another voice. “Just little things?”
>
  “He’s not here to entertain you,” said Haska. “He’s here to illustrate a point.”

  She rested her fingers on the table.

  “Delmar is a weak man protected by a formidable army.” Haska’s voice carried clearly through the hall. “And when the heart is feeble, the limbs lack power. Strike at the heart, and the body falls.”

  “Charming rhetoric,” drawled a voice, and Valamon recognised the speaker as General Jaral of the Goethos States. “But action is far more complicated. One cannot simply assassinate a king and expect an empire to fall. Victory must be comprehensive, devastating, effective, memorable.” Jaral paused, sweeping his gaze across the delegates. “I think we learned that from the Talgaran Army.”

  His eyes stopped on Haska, and the energy in the room swirled around two sudden poles. Haska waved a hand towards the guards.

  “If you could escort the prince back to his cell, I don’t think he needs to hear our discussions, does he?”

  Just before the canvas fell, Valamon skimmed his gaze across the hall. He already knew everything he needed.

  The sound of ruffling parchments hung delicately in the air, the scent of old manuscripts mingling with the afternoon light. Few people visited the third floor of the library, specialising as it did in academically unfashionable topics such as necrotic parasites and the unnatural sciences. Sitting beside a tall window, Seris could almost imagine he was back in Algaris, whiling away the hours in peaceful study. Several leather-bound tomes lay open on his desk, and he referred to them occasionally as he leafed through a pile of fragile scrolls.

  There was little mention of Olrios in the historical records, only that he was a powerful sorcerer, known for his frequent acts of eccentricity, occasional benevolence, and rare, dramatic rancour. After the Tide, he’d been bound to the Talgaran Empire, along with many of his peers. However, the records implied that some unspeakable event had then occurred, after which Olrios vanished into the borderlands and, some speculated, beyond the empire. There were no references to him after that.

  Seris had found only three scrolls that mentioned the Kali-Adelsa, all of which had been shelved incorrectly. This made him wonder if there had once been a section of the library which for some reason no longer existed.

  The first scroll was an anthology of people’s encounters with the Kali-Adelsa, almost all of which ended with the line “And he/she never (insert description of normal bodily activity) again…”

  The second scroll was a tragic poem chronicling the fall of Olrios. It described how, in a wrath, the mighty sorcerer cursed a mere child, placing upon her a blight of such fearsome damnation that the other sorcerers shunned him, driving him from the known lands.

  The third scroll was a neatly inked discussion about the theories surrounding the Kali-Adelsa’s curse and the possibility that the curse was, in fact, far less dangerous than rumour had it. However, about two thirds down the page, the handwriting suddenly changed, turning into a messy scrawl, as though the scribe had suffered from some kind of fit. Seris read the words covering the rest of the page.

  The conjunction cannot be stopped. She will rise.

  The phrase was repeated over and over, running clean off the page.

  Seris had been hoping for something a little more illuminating, like an instructional leaflet on how to break the curse. He was certain there were more scrolls wedged elsewhere in the library, but there was no time to hunt for them. The sun was beginning its descent, and Elhan would leave without him. Seris didn’t relish the idea of the fens, and the thought of trying to navigate them on his own harboured even less appeal.

  Through the window, a flash of red caught his eye. Seris was on his feet instantly, his gaze locked on the squad of soldiers heading up the library steps. They didn’t look like they were here for the philosophy lecture. He slipped quickly down the stairs, making it only as far as the second floor before heavy footsteps thudded up the narrow staircase. He glanced desperately around the near-deserted level—there wasn’t anywhere to hide unless you were about the size and shape of a book.

  The footsteps marched closer, and Seris frantically pulled off his conspicuous robes, shoving them into his pack. He grabbed a random book and dove for a desk, falling heavily into a chair just as six Talgaran guards emerged from the stairwell. They immediately fanned out across the floor, prodding shelves and circling desks, pulling up the head of the occasional surprised student.

  A blonde guard stopped in front of Seris, who tried to look deeply absorbed in his manuscript.

  “You. What’s your name?”

  Seris looked up with as much innocence as he could muster, hoping his voice wasn’t going to come out several octaves higher than normal.

  “Beldan,” said Seris. “Is something wrong?”

  The guard studied him carefully, her eyes moving from his rumpled clothes to his smooth, uncallused hands. Seris gave a limpid blink, which he hoped made him look sweet and harmless, as opposed to slightly deranged. He could almost hear the rattle of cosmic dice.

  “We’re hunting fugitives,” said the guard. “No cause for alarm.”

  “Oh, my. What kind of fugitives?”

  “Escaped prisoners. Criminals. A rogue cleric.”

  Seris’s heart did several somersaults.

  “A cleric? Like the one upstairs?” he said.

  The guard tensed, her eyes sharp and probing.

  “Upstairs?”

  “There’s this foreigner on the fifth floor. Weaselly fellow, poor constitution, consumptive-looking. I think he might have coughed up some blood.”

  The guard considered this and decided that it matched her image of clerics near enough. She looked at Seris again, taking in his tanned skin and fit frame.

  “Squad Seven,” called the guard. “Level clear.”

  The guards poured back into the stairwell, heading upwards, where hopefully there wasn’t in fact a consumptive student with a poor constitution. Seris waited a beat, then walked calmly down the stairs and out the library entrance. He stopped suddenly on the wide marble steps, resisting the urge to duck back into the building. Squads of Talgaran Guard were sweeping through the streets, searching buildings and combing alleyways. If it was like this throughout Thalamir, Elhan was probably long gone.

  Elhan slipped through the marketplace, lifting a stick of dried meat here, a handful of preserved fruit there. They shouldn’t have come here in the first place—the trail was too fresh, the stories too close together. You needed to give people time to calm down, to doubt their memories, to become distracted by the next shocking piece of gossip. But there was poor foraging in the fens, even for Elhan.

  She paused in the shade beside a stall of mutant cutlery.

  “Fnifeadle, young lady?” The shopkeeper held up a ladle with a sharply bladed fork at one end.

  “Uh, no, thanks.” Elhan glanced over the table. “Are they all supposed to look like that?”

  “All our utensils have been carefully designed to maximise efficiency and minimise inadvertent self-harm. We’ve had some excellent new designs from Tigrath since the raids stopped.”

  “Raids?”

  “We’re a very safe city. We just, uh, get the occasional raid from Lemlock’s brigands. Mostly they just loot incoming traders, but it’s been very quiet for months now. Last time, they didn’t even try to burn down the library.”

  “Any idea why the raids have stopped?”

  “Maybe Lemlock’s getting old. And now, with all the extra soldiers in the city, we’re a great place to stay. May I recommend some highly affordable accommodation—”

  “Extra soldiers?” said Elhan sharply.

  “Isn’t it great?” The shopkeeper smiled and waved to a figure behind Elhan.

  Elhan turned to see a Talgaran guard several stalls away, waving back at the shopkeeper in slight confusion. His expression froze in horror as he caught sight of Elhan, and he fumbled urgently for his sword. It was then that Elhan noticed the emblem on his tunic, and on th
e tunics of all his approaching soldier friends—Tigrath Garrison.

  Hot damn, thought Elhan as she bolted down the street.

  It was quite easy to outrun a squad of soldiers, but it was much harder to outrun a dozen converging squads, all yelling commands and directions.

  “West alley, headed for the square!”

  “Breaking towards the main street! Cover! Cover!”

  “Head her off before the bridge!”

  “Sighted! Have you got her? Have you got her?”

  Elhan sprinted around a hairpin bend, zigzagging down a damp laneway. She swung around a corner and almost barrelled into a wall of red tunics and a very familiar cloak.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” said Albaran with a cold smile.

  Elhan wheeled back into the alley and found one end blocked by several squads of approaching soldiers. She raced the other way, took a sharp right, and found herself staring down a dead end. She spun around and stopped—several rows of soldiers blocked the exit, and about a dozen drawn arrows were poised to fire.

  She backed away as Albaran strode slowly through the soldiers, and she decided the situation had seemed much more humorous when she wasn’t actually in it. She pressed herself against the back wall, half-crouched, her eyes flickering over the forest of soldiers. Six deep, five wide. Plus Albaran, who wanted it badly, so make that an extra five. Thirty swords, twelve bows. It was a lot, but she could handle it. She’d survived this long, hadn’t she?

  Elhan swallowed a lump in her throat. Every year, there were a few more people looking for her. Every year, there were a few less places to hide. Every year, the odds got a little longer.

  “You didn’t really think you could just walk away from something like that, did you?” said Albaran. “No one is above the law, Kali-Adelsa.”

  “No prison can hold me, Captain. Step aside and no one has to die today. Obstruct me and it falls on your conscience.”

  “I wasn’t sent to capture you, Kali-Adelsa.”

  Albaran raised his hand just as a frantic clattering of hooves thundered down the alley. He turned to see a surly bay mare charging towards the soldiers, a young man with windswept hair clinging to the saddle. Albaran pointed towards the charging rider.