Barden itself was no proof. Sown from a god’s knuckle; the creation of a human power Dante someday hoped to match; a mystery from before the memory of man. Each seemed equally likely and equally impossible.
The woods gave way to plains and they stopped in a town for a day for fresh food and a soft bed and rum for Blays’ flask. The plains gave way to hills and for two days they rode in a sun so warm they were able to shed their cloaks. The following afternoon a bitter wind blew in a storm of hail and Dante raised his hood and heard it pocking from his cowl. Icy white pebbles bounced on the trail, dashing into quickly-melted splinters. Blays laughed, turned up his face to the light stings of the changed weather. Dante followed suit and took a hailstone to the eye.
He could build a Barden some day. He knew it in his bones. He knew it the way he knew water would feel wet or that he could pick up a stone and throw it. At times he felt he could plunge both hands into the pale shell of reality and strip it away like sand. It wasn’t arrogance. It wasn’t destiny. It simply was. If he could stay alive—he tried to tally, briefly, how many had died in the last few months (most of them faceless; a few, like Larrimore, never to be equaled again), but at last it would be a guess, and he wouldn’t do the dead the final dishonor of lumping them into a single number, as if, in the end, all that mattered were the quantity—if he could stay alive where so many others hadn’t, he knew he would one day peer into those powers behind the hills and the streams, and where he looked, the shadows would move.
Snow infiltrated the high hills surrounding the Dundens. The horses plodded on. They lit fires by night, cooked the rabbits Dante killed with a simple flash of nether each dusk. He prodded up the meat-flecked skeletons and set them out on watch while they slept under the burning eyes of the stars and whatever gods might call them home. They passed refugees and tradesmen and vagabonds on the roads, but by night his rabbit-guard stood sentry and was not disturbed.
The hills banked down to the roaring mountain-fed river and they followed its narrow gorge through the mountains. The snow was wet and heavy, but no more than a couple inches deep. The river flowed down to meet the wide calm waters of the Chanset and they descended into bony trees studded with the green buds of fresh growth. The horses churned the mud of the thaw and the wind-tossed rain showers.
Perhaps Blays had it right. Let the world turn on its own for a while. It had done so before they were born and it would do so after they were gone. For whatever ills it caused, the ambition of the men within it was no less natural then the nether itself. Whatever it was that drove them to do harm was the same need that compelled them to build sky-scratching cathedrals and castle walls twice as thick as a man was tall, to tramp down the roads that spoked through a thousand miles of farmland and wilderness, to gather in villages and towns and cities in the planet-hugging reach of conquest and commerce; the same need that made them grow mile on mile of wind-ruffled wheat, that made men fill libraries with books and books with words, that made them fill their lungs with air and their stomachs with beer; that peopled a poor woman’s home with bright-eyed, soot-streaked children who would one day travel from one coast to another, or launch across the shuddering waves far from sight of land, or die before they knew what surrounded them, or rob an ancient temple in the dead of night and pry its secrets from the rubbly stone.
Trees thrust up around Dante, blotting out the sun. Grass sighed at his ankles and thighs whenever he stepped off the road. Hundreds of pounds of horse rose and fell beneath him. Crows spat at each other in the boughs and were chased away by nattering squirrels. In the undergrowth, mice and rabbits and wolves stirred ankle-deep leaves. Spooked deer caught the boys’ scent and crashed away through the brambles. And above them, by day or by night, the wind breathed in the trees. If there had ever been gods in this place, they’d been driven out by the crush of their own creations a long time ago. Arawn, he knew, had not been at the Tree. The Cycle of Arawn had led him through unknown years of man’s knowledge. He had thought it would show him its very roots. Instead, in following it to its end, to the endless snowfield beneath the White Tree where he believed he would find a god—an order and a meaning and a hold on this world—he had found himself simply trapped among mad people doing mad things, had killed one friend and been betrayed by another, one more mote in a blind storm of ash, alone except for Blays, vulnerable except the wrath he’d found in the nether. His silence deepened. Possibly, that was enough.
After weeks of travel the smoke of Whetton mingled with the dusky sky. Red clouds piled up to the west. The road forked, one branch east toward town, another to the south and Bressel. Dante led his horse east.
“Where are you going?” Blays said, jerking his head at the other path.
“Whetton.”
“We’re only a couple days out from Bressel.”
“There’s no hurry,” Dante said. “I want to see what’s become of the city.”
Blays bit the skin around his thumbnail. “What if they recognize what’s become of us? You do remember our last visit? The local hospitality of rope and high branches?”
“Last time we were here you looked like a rag wrapped around a stick,” Dante said. “Look at you now in your fancy clothes, your hair cut straight.”
Blays eyed him. “There were an awful lot of people in that field. Thousands, if I recall.”
“If anyone gives us any trouble,” Dante said, nudging his horse forward, “we’ll just point them at our badges. They’ll be in no rush to invite more trouble from the north. If that doesn’t do it, we’ll tell them about how, at great personal risk, we saved their stupid town from war.”
“This will end badly,” Blays declared, then rallied to catch up.
They headed down the road where months ago thousands of citizens had fled fire and battle. Today a shepherd was driving his flock to market and the pair skirted around the grungy blobs of walking wool. The outskirts of the city were hewn in fresh blond wood, offset here and there by the charred-out husks of what remained. The streets were thick with sodden ash and charcoal. The rap of hammers smacked on all sides. Masons and carpenters shouted from scaffolds wrapped around the sharp corners of damaged temples and half-constructed manors, squeezing out a few last minutes of work in the waning daylight. Men and women hurried home from market or the docks, or left the quiet warmth of their hearths for the clamor and company of a public house. Blays’ mouth twitched at the signs above the pubs, the painted heads of stags or owls or an anchor tilted on its side.
“Pint?” Dante said, gazing down the street.
“As long as we’re here,” Blays grinned. They found a public stable and parted with some silver as their horses were led away to be groomed and fed. Blays elbowed Dante in the ribs and raced ahead through the damp chill of the early night. A fat turtle was printed above the doors of the first place he chose.
Blays flagged down a servant and they were brought mugs and ale. Dante drank slowly, pleasantly surprised to find he liked the taste. Perhaps he was getting older. When Blays wandered off to the latrine, Dante made a round of the room, holding a few brief conversations with any man or woman who looked at home.
“Drink up,” he said when Blays got back.
“Suddenly there’s a hurry again?”
“I have a terrible urge to go see if the inn where they arrested you was burnt down.”
“If it hasn’t, mind if we finish the job?”
“Let’s see where the night takes us,” Dante said. Blays drained his ale and they hit the street again. The laughter of men echoed through the alleys. They wandered the city, half-remembering streets they’d last seen half a year ago, their direction sense aided by a couple pints apiece. Dante kept an eye out for the boys who’d helped them then—he couldn’t remember their names—but didn’t see either. Probably, they hadn’t made it through the upheaval; they’d had nothing to protect them even in times of peace. But they had had their wits. Maybe they lived yet, hiding under the docks, peering down from the roofs on th
e men who owned the streets, waiting to descend till they could take a piece for themselves.
Finally Dante and Blays came to the corner near the north end of town where they’d slept a single night. The building was gone, torn down, replaced by a few tents and a small shack. Blays spat on the dirt.
“Too bad buildings don’t have tombstones,” he said, giving the grounds the finger. “I have a sudden urge to urinate.”
Dante peered down the street, knowing the pub the man in the Fat Turtle had directed him to had to be near. Blays finished his business and Dante headed down a cross street. Just when he thought he’d gone too far his eyes seized on the image of a four-fingered hand painted above a pub door.
“This looks as good as any,” Dante said, swinging through the door. He glanced through the room, then sighed and took a seat. After an hour and two pints for him and four for Blays he was ready to try their luck somewhere else. Blays was rambling on about how they should try to get arrested again just to see if the watch had the guts when the door banged open.
“Be right back,” Dante said, threading past tables and outstretched legs to intercept the man who’d just entered. He stood behind the brown-bearded figure and tapped him on the shoulder. “Time to meet your maker, you villain.”
Robert Hobble turned and punched blindly for Dante’s head. Dante sidestepped the blow, then jumped forward and grabbed the man’s collar. Robert screwed up his face, eyes leaping between Dante’s.
“Lyle’s soiled drawers,” he said with beer-thick breath. “You made it? Did you really do it?”
“It’s done.” Dante heard bootsteps behind him. He stepped aside.
“No thanks to you, you cowardly son of a bitch,” Blays said. He brushed past Dante to face the old friend Dante’d been hunting since they stepped foot in Whetton.
“You’ll understand some day, you filth-mouthed pup,” Robert said, lips and eyes creased with a smile. He staggered forward and crushed Blays up in a hug. Blays’ chin rested on the man’s shoulder and he gave Dante a strange, knowing look he’d remember years after Blays had gone but would never be able to understand. At times he thought he saw gratitude in that look, but at others it could have been betrayal. Sometimes he saw nothing in it but a confusion so faint it was barely there at all, like the face of a man who’s forgotten how it had ever felt to be young.
Robert unclinched, laughing and clapping his hands. “This calls for a round. Many rounds. Rounds until they get the picture and roll the keg right up to our table.”
Dante hunted down a servant and let her know she had some lively stepping in her future. When he returned to the table Robert was already yammering on at Blays.
“So much has happened, boys,” he said, draping one hand over the back of a chair and pointing at them with the other. “Came back and the place was a battlefield. I rallied a few of the fellows I knew to help retake the town and what do you know, they made me a captain!” He flicked a tri-colored badge on his chest. “How long are you here? Got time to hear a few of my stories before you start boring me with your own?”
“I think I know how all of yours start,” Blays said. “‘There I was, rum-soaked as the bottom of the barrel, when all of a sudden—’”
“It’s like you were there!” Robert said, reaching across the table and giving him a knock on the shoulder.
“We’ll be here for a while,” Dante said. “For the moment there’s nothing more.”
They settled in to the warm smoke of the hearth, the earthy smell of simmering stew, the stinging taste of bitter ale. Around them men came and went and argued and joked. Dante bent down to his pack and made sure the book was still there. He was a young man in a strange world. Some day he would take his place among the black, but for now the book was his. Just as much, Robert would be there whenever he took the time to find him; for Blays, he couldn’t imagine what could drive them apart. Dante leaned back on the solid wood of his chair, listening to the raucous calls of the crowd, to Robert’s beery words and Blays’ guarded laughter. His ears soared with the sounds of all those who still lived.
The White Tree is the first book in the Cycle of Arawn. Book Two, The Great Rift, can be found here.
The final book in the trilogy, The Black Star, will be available in January 2014. To make sure you hear about it, sign up for Ed’s mailing list here: http://eepurl.com/oTR6j
About the Author
Ed wrote his first story at age seven: Godzilla fan fiction with the serial numbers filed off. He’s been hooked on writing ever since.
A graduate of NYU’s fiction program, his short stories have appeared in a couple dozen magazines online and in print. His novels include the post-apocalyptic Breakers series and the epic fantasy trilogy The Cycle of Arawn. He’s been writing full-time since 2011.
When he’s not writing about the end of the world, he likes to watch the Seattle Mariners, which more or less amounts to the same thing.
THE DARK CITADEL
MICHAEL WALLACE
Kindle Edition Copyright © 2011 by Michael Wallace
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, businesses, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any similarity to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and should be recognized as such.
Cover Art by Glendon Haddix
PROLOGUE
Surfeyn could no longer protect his master from thieves and vipers. Since his wife’s death, the high khalif had consulted with every manner of witch, fortune teller, wizard, and astrologer in the Eastern Khalifates. One evening, when waves began to crash over the seawall at dusk and a great storm gathered over the ocean, Surfeyn watched helplessly as the khalif turned his worried attention to their advice.
“There will be wights,” a blind hag with no eyes said as she crawled on her belly to the Iron Throne. “The Harvester will come to hunt them. You need runes or they will get into the castle. Let me help you, great one.”
“Only the catacombs will keep you safe,” said a wizard. “We will hide your passage and they will never find you.”
“No, he must consult an oracle,” said another.
Surfeyn stood next to the throne. “Send them away, Master,” he whispered. “I will draw tight the shutters and heap extra wood onto the fire. You’ll sleep quietly and there will be nothing in the morning except a few broken branches in the garden and maybe a seawall to repair.”
Khalif Ahmaad Faal gripped the throne until his hands turned white. “Typhoon season has passed. This is not the turning of the weather, this is something unnatural. I’ll need other advice tonight, old friend.”
Cragyn approached the throne. “I know what must be done, Master.” He had a cunning look on his face and Surfeyn met his gaze, knowing the wizard would do something to turn this to his advantage, and knowing he was helpless to stop it.
Sheets of rain pounded against the shutters of the throne room, divided by a clap of thunder. “There are shadows entering the city, Master,” Cragyn continued. “The hag is right. I can see them, they are cloaked in the storm. Veyrians shiver in their beds. From the hovels on Knacker’s Row to the manors outside the palace, they sense the wights entering the city.”
“No storm can penetrate these walls,” Surfeyn said. “And we are protected from wights. Unless someone lets them in, they’ll never get past the gates. Master, you don’t need new runes or incantations. The old ones are more than enough.”
“What does a slave know?” Cragyn asked. “Listen to me, Great One, I know what you must do to protect yourself.”
“What is that, Wizard?” the khalif asked.
“Drink this.” A glass goblet appeared in his hands. Blue liquid sloshed, slow and lazy, like something molten.
Before Surfeyn could protest, the wizard had lifted the goblet to Ahmaad’s lips. The khalif drank, sputtered, then drank some more. A smile passed over the wizard’s face.
“That wi
ll protect you, master. Now, leave these wretches and follow me. I’ve prepared chambers below the palace. No wight shall find you there.”
Surfeyn started to follow, but Cragyn held up a hand. The slave couldn’t move, his feet felt stiff, his limbs like stone. He opened his mouth to warn the khalif, but his tongue wouldn’t obey.
“No, do not restrain him,” the khalif said. “I would have my servant at my side. Tonight, especially.”
“As you wish, master.”
Together, the three of them left the throne room. The other wizards and astrologers voiced their protest, but a glaze had come over the khalif’s features, and he ignored them.
Barely forty years weighed on the khalif’s shoulders, but palsy and white hair made him look like a man twice his age. He supported his weight with a bronze staff. Some nights, he woke screaming like a child, his bedding soaked with sour sweat. When Surfeyn rushed to his side, the khalif would lie trembling in his guard’s arms for hours before he could sleep again.
They found their way into the bowels of the Grand Palace. Hundreds of years old, the palace squatted atop the volcanic rock that rose from the center of Veyre. Some said King Toth himself had built the palace, after his senses had fled. Indeed, only a madman could have built such a jumble of rooms, alleyways and staircases. And in the palace underbelly, tunnels and secret apartments wormed deep into the rock.
The upper palace had apartments for several hundred to live comfortably. Some khalifs and khalifas kept rooms for nobles, to keep their scheming under watchful eye, but during the last few years, Ahmaad Faal had forced the nobles into their own family manors. He kept the palace emptied of all but his slaves and advisers. The khalif’s vizier ordered unused wings and passageways walled off, while in other corners, Cragyn practiced his dark arts.
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