Lessek's Key

by Rob Scott; Jay Gordon

  ‘Thanks, Steven,’ Mark said. ‘Do me a favour and leave him wet, okay?’

  ‘He got us here,’ Steven said firmly.

  ‘Where’s here?’ Mark asked. ‘How do we know Eldarn’s answer to the Gulag Archipelago doesn’t lie just over the next hill? We can warm up beside the fire with Al Solzhenitsyn.’

  ‘Nah, he got out,’ Steven said.

  ‘Do you know where we are?’ Mark asked Gilmour.

  The old man nodded. ‘I used to fish in this river – if we follow it north, we’ll begin to see landmarks I’ll recognise; then we can turn east to Sandcliff.’

  ‘Should we risk a fire?’ Garec asked. ‘I’m freezing.’

  ‘Not here,’ Rodler answered, ‘let’s ride further north. There’s a copse upstream where I keep a fire-pit ready to dry me out after coming through. I’ve yet to hear a patrol come by while I’m in there.’

  ‘Come here first,’ Steven said. ‘I owe you at least this much.’ He used the staff to dry Rodler’s leggings and boots.

  ‘Well, that’s a neat trick,’ he said, grinning. ‘I knew that stick was special.’ He reached out to touch it, but recoiled, wondering if it might strike him dead on the spot. Coming across the four travellers had put an unfortunate kink in his plans; agreeing to guide them into Gorsk was a desperate offer to save his life, but he was curious about Steven and the wooden staff, and he wanted very badly to pillage the library at Sandcliff Palace. Rodler decided to remain with the four strangers for a while – at least until he had a better understanding of their intentions.

  Steven and Mark turned into the car park next to the Air Force Academy Aquatics Centre just north of Colorado Springs. They had made the trip to the Colorado State Championships to support one of Mark’s swimmers, Bridget Kenyon, who was a favourite in several events. Bridget was behind them in a titanic SUV with her parents, her two younger brothers and her grandmother.

  Steven asked, ‘Why do they hold this all the way down here and not in Denver?’

  ‘The facility is state-of-the-art: an Olympic-size pool cuts down on the number of turns the kids have to make so in the end, the times are faster.’ As Mark opened the truck door, the winter air rushed inside, chilling them both.

  ‘It’s a long ride to watch one girl swim.’

  ‘Ah, but wait until you see this girl swim.’ Mark zipped up his jacket, pulled on his gloves and stepped outside. ‘You’ll agree it was worth the trip.’

  ‘All right, but you’re buying the hot dogs.’ Steven realised he had forgotten his gloves and pushed his hands deep into his pockets. ‘Let’s hurry. I’m cold.’

  ‘You’re such a wimp, Steven,’ Mark teased.

  ‘But I’m good at it – nearly world class!’

  Inside the centre they split up; Steven headed upstairs to find their seats while Mark escorted Bridget down to the pool, distracting her with inane jokes to keep her mind off the early heats. As they emerged into the pool area, a wave of voices washed over them and Mark heard someone say, ‘There’s that Kenyon girl. She’s picked to win the 200 free.’

  ‘Bridget. I think that’s her name,’ someone else replied. ‘I saw her swim at Regions. She put on a freakin’ clinic that day, I tell you.’

  ‘We may be able to take second or third, but she’s the one, over there, that’s her, she’ll take the l00 butterfly.’

  ‘That’s right. That’s right. She’s the one with the nigger coach from Idaho Springs. Oh, yeah, I hear great things about him, too. He was tough in his day.’

  Mark wheeled on the crowd, drawing an arrow. ‘Who said that?’ he shouted. The bow felt good in his hands. He had made it himself, whittling down the green branch, even killing the deer whose hide provided the crossed leather strips that made the weapon so resilient.

  ‘Hey Southie, can I come up now?’

  ‘Right, the one with the nigger coach from Idaho Springs. Oh, yeah, I hear great things about him.’

  ‘The nigger coach from Idaho Springs. I hear great things about him.’

  ‘Hey Southie, can I come up now?’

  Mark homed in on the voice. It was Rodler Varn, the Falkan drug smuggler. He was here in the stands somewhere. There, beside that guy, whatshisname, the bigot in the green Fort Collins sweatshirt. Smiling, the racist waved and offered Mark an ironic thumbs-up.

  ‘That’s just great,’ Mark said, ‘smile and wave. No one heard you, asshole, but this ought to get your attention.’ He exhaled slowly and released the bowstring.

  The man in the green sweatshirt took the arrow in the chest, just above the second L in Collins. Two more followed with muted thuds. One dotted the I; the other found its way inside the tiny hillock of the N. Garec’s coaching was paying off.

  ‘I warned you,’ Mark snapped, nocking another arrow. ‘My family has been putting up with that bullshit for generations and the appropriate thing for me to do right now is to express my outrage at your narrow-mindedness. Well, I’m expressing it this way, asshole.’ A fourth arrow pierced the man’s throat. ‘That’ll shut him up,’ Mark said with satisfaction.

  ‘Hey Southie,’ Rodler called from his seat beside the body. He reached over to finger the fletching on one of Mark’s arrows. The other parents and coaches chatted, sharing swimming gossip. No one seemed to notice that Mark Jenkins, the talented young coach from Idaho Springs, had just fired arrows into a spectator’s chest.

  ‘Southie, can I come up now?’

  ‘I’m going to kill you, asshole.’ Now Mark started loosing arrows aimlessly into the humid air of the aquatics centre; most found their way into the man in the green sweatshirt until the body tumbled off the bleachers and rolled to a stop behind the girls’ bench.

  Frustrated, Mark turned to Bridget. ‘Did you hear what they were saying about me?’

  The girl smiled up at him, her dirty-blonde tresses tied back in a utilitarian ponytail, soon to be coiled up, snakelike, and tucked inside her swimming cap. Holding two ends of the rolled towel she had draped over her shoulder, Bridget said, ‘Maybe I’ll carry your bag then, sire? Maybe carry it for you? What do you think, sire? Maybe for a copper Marek or two?’

  ‘What?’ It was noisy in the arena and he shouted over the din, ‘Bridget, I didn’t hear you.’

  Grinning to expose her teeth, two perfect rows of white, ortho-dontically sculpted masterpieces, Bridget said, ‘The water’s cold in here today, but they have warm water at the Bowman, my prince.’

  ‘I’m not a prince, Bridget,’ Mark said. ‘Go swim, will you? You need to get warmed up if the water’s cold.’

  ‘They have warm water at the Bowman, my prince,’ she repeated and moved towards the starting blocks at the end of the pool.

  Mark watched her walk away, then called after, ‘I’m not a prince.’

  Bridget turned and mouthed a few words Mark couldn’t hear. Tossing her towel onto the blue-and-white bench running the length of the pool, she climbed onto the third starting block. A large number 3 had been painted on the front of the block; Mark wondered if it were important for the swimmers to know which lane they were in during the race. He glanced down at the water and whispered, ‘I’m not a prince.’

  He saw it move, a flash of something opaque and indistinct. Was it a trick of the light? Then he saw it again, this time rushing towards the other end of the pool, and he knew what it was. He started towards Bridget Kenyon at a run, screaming, though the noise had grown so loud, he couldn’t hear his own voice.

  Bridget didn’t hear him either. She had tucked her ponytail under the rubber swimming cap and was ready to dive in for a few warm-up laps. ‘Bridget!’ Mark shouted again, ‘No! Don’t go in the water!’

  His heart stopped as the young girl dived lazily into the pool. Bridget Kenyon never hit the water.

  The almor burst through the surface and took the girl in mid-air. She was dead in an instant; as the demon carried her to the bottom of the deepest part of the pool, Mark could already see her muscular back and powerful thighs thinning to lea
ther and bone in the creature’s unholy grasp. A moment later the almor released her body and a wet sack of bones drifted to rest against the far wall beneath the three-metre diving board.

  Mark stood at the side of the pool, waiting for the almor to surface, certain that it would: it had come for him and he was ready to die if necessary, whatever it took to rid the world of this monster.

  He expected the demon to explode from the pool like a tidal wave, but instead, the almor bobbed above the surface, a nearly translucent, shapeless creature. He fired arrows into it as quickly as he could draw and release, but they passed through the demon and ended up on the bottom of the pool where they lay together: an underwater game of pick-up sticks.

  The water is cold today, but they have warm water at the Bowman, my prince. The almor’s laughter came from inside his own head. Mark thought he might pass out from the pounding reverberation.

  Panting, he managed, ‘I’m not the prince.’ He couldn’t bear to look down at what was left of Bridget’s body. ‘I’m not the prince.’

  As the almor disappeared through the filtering system and out into the Colorado Springs water supply, Mark heard its words: Not yet. That was what Bridget Kenyon had mouthed to him, he now realised.

  Not yet.

  Mark awakened and was on his feet before he realised it had been a dream. His cheeks were damp: he had been crying in his sleep. Gilmour, stirring the coals in their small campfire, leaned over and whispered, ‘Are you all right?’

  Mark rubbed his hands over his face and across the back of his neck. He felt like he was having a breakdown; his heart was racing, and he was panting and sweating now, as if he had just finished a strenuous workout. He couldn’t even see clearly. He crossed to where Steven was lying, wrapped up tightly in his coat and a blanket, and kicked his roommate firmly on the soles of his boots. ‘Wake up,’ he muttered.

  ‘What?’ Steven groaned, rolling onto his back, then his eyes adjusted to the firelight and he could see Mark standing over him. He sat bolt upright and reached for the hickory staff. ‘What is it?’ he asked urgently. ‘What’s happened?’

  Gilmour crouched beside Steven. ‘You look terrible, Mark. Are you sick?’

  ‘It was Lessek. I’m sure of it,’ he gasped, still trying to slow his breathing.

  ‘What did you see?’ Steven’s grip tightened on the wooden staff. He looked over at Rodler and Garec, but both appeared to be sleeping still.

  ‘Steven, that moment before you hacked that tramp in half, what did he say?’

  Steven’s brow furrowed. ‘I wasn’t really listening – he was so irritating, calling me sire all the time, prattling on and on about five hundred different things. I kind of tuned him out as soon as I suspected it was Nerak. I was concentrating on sniffing for any hint of tobacco on his breath.’ Steven smoothed his blanket over his legs while he thought. ‘Sorry, I can’t remember.’

  ‘Was it something about the water?’

  Steven’s eyes widened. ‘That’s it!’ he started to shout, then, lowering his voice again, he said, ‘He was talking about getting cleaned up, or getting clean clothes— no, it was a bath. He’d said something when he disappeared into the trees and I hadn’t really heard him because you and I were talking about the Bowman and whether or not they would have hot and cold running water. It was obviously a joke, but then—’ Steven paused. ‘You know what? He was talking to you. Right before I decided to use the staff, that little bastard was talking to you. He said, they have warm water at the Bowman, sire.’

  ‘Was it sire? Did he say sire? Or was it something else?’ Mark glanced over at Gilmour, who was shaking his head.

  ‘He said, my prince,’ Gilmour muttered, ‘I’m sure of it. I remember thinking exactly what you were thinking: what did he mean by that? Mark, you stopped to look up at him – that was just a breath before Steven sent him to the Northern Forest.’

  ‘I just needed to be sure I wasn’t losing my mind,’ Mark said.

  ‘Did you dream? Was it Traver’s Notch?’

  ‘Yes and no – not here, but the state swimming championships last year. You remember, Steven? Down at the Air Force Academy?’

  ‘With that girl Kenyon?’

  ‘Bridget, right,’ Mark answered. ‘I have no idea why – if it was Lessek talking to me – he chose that day. Or it may be just a bad memory sparked by our new friend over there.’ He gestured towards Rodler, who was curled in his cloak.

  ‘How was that a bad memory? I thought she swam brilliantly that day.’ Steven uncorked a wineskin and offered it round.

  ‘It wasn’t her. It was this guy from Fort Collins – I don’t remember his name, but his daughter was swimming against Bridget. When we walked in, I heard him say something rude about me. I don’t know that he meant it to be cruel, and at the time I dismissed it because I just figured he didn’t think anything of calling me a nigger.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Mark shook his head. ‘Oh, well, I did the usual thing all intellectuals do when met with that kind of situation: I frowned, acted displeased, expressed my outrage at his narrow-mindedness and blah, blah, blah, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, but I didn’t kick him in the teeth or call him a white trash asshole or anything like that.’

  ‘But you wanted to,’ Gilmour said.

  ‘Of course I wanted to,’ Mark said. ‘I always want to.’

  ‘And today, when Rodler called you a Southie and you almost filled his chest with arrows—’

  ‘I guess it woke up the fury I felt that day at the pool.’ Mark looked over at the Falkan drug smuggler again. ‘But, Gilmour, there was more to it. The girl I was coaching, she called me my prince, just like Nerak did. And there was an almor, a big mother, right in the pool, and it called me prince as well. It said, “There is warm water at the Bowman, my prince”.’

  ‘That’s it – the last thing Nerak said before I clubbed him,’ Steven added.

  Mark sighed. Everything that had been on his mind the past weeks came back in a rush – now he needed a few moments to sit by himself and sort them out. The process would go more smoothly if he could take a break from the conversation to determine if he was actually prepared to pursue this particular uncomfortable notion further, but from the look on Steven and Gilmour’s faces, he knew there was no chance of putting them on hold while he wandered about the copse arranging puzzle pieces.

  ‘What are you thinking, Mark?’ Gilmour asked.

  ‘Is it that obvious?’

  ‘I can smell the smoke,’ Steven joked, and the three men laughed softly together.

  ‘This may be nothing, but I need Garec to confirm a nasty suspicion I’m having.’ There was no going back.

  Steven nodded and poked at Garec with the hickory staff. ‘Hey, Garec, wake up,’ he whispered.

  The young Ronan rolled over, quickly lucid, and demanded, ‘Why? What’s happening?’

  ‘Lessek may be visiting again tonight,’ Mark said.

  ‘Grand,’ Garec groaned. ‘The last time he showed up we got attacked by a demon.’ He sat up and sniffed noisily. ‘What are we doing?’

  Mark said, ‘I need you to think back to your dream at Seer’s Peak.’

  ‘My dream? How can I forget? First I have to stand and watch as the most beautiful woman in Eldarn has sex with a frothing freak while a bunch of guards and soldiers wait around in case she needs assistance. Then as if that wasn’t bad enough, I get to see Rona devastated by some kind of plague and my favourite woods haunted by an army of wraiths. And afterward, for everyone’s enjoyment, I am forced to repeat my dream over and over and over again until the details become so firmly lodged in my memory that I will probably be able to recall every moment on my deathbed three hundred Twinmoons from now. That, of course, was thanks to Gilmour – so anything you need from my particular vision is well preserved right up here.’ He tapped a knuckle on the side of his head.

  Mark grinned. ‘All I need to know is if the woman that Doctor—’ He paused, tryi
ng to remember the name.

  ‘Tenner,’ Gilmour supplied.

  ‘Yes, that’s it, Doctor Tenner. The woman he chose to carry on Eldarn’s line, the woman having sex with the crazy, crippled prince, was she black?’

  ‘What do you mean, black?’

  ‘Did she have black skin? I don’t mean black, like shadow-black, but did she have dark skin, like mine?’

  Garec nodded. ‘She did. When she came in she looked like a servant – there’s no difference once we all get out of our clothes, but from what she was wearing when I first saw her, I would guess she had been a servant at Riverend Palace.’

  ‘A South Coaster?’ Mark was on eggshells.

  ‘Yes, definitely,’ Garec said. ‘What are you trying to work out? That was a long time ago, and even if they did succeed in getting that woman pregnant – well, you read Doctor Tenner’s letter: she went off to live in Randel with someone named Weslox Thervan. If Tenner died in the fire, there was no one to produce that baby as Prince or Princess of Rona.’

  ‘But that baby would have been Eldarn’s true monarch, Rona’s prince.’

  Gilmour nodded.

  ‘Mark,’ Steven said, ‘where are you going with this? Nerak might have been jerking your chain – he called you prince, but he called me sire about sixty-three times.’

  ‘But not in my dream,’ Mark said. ‘If my dreams are coming from Lessek, then it’s Lessek trying to draw my attention back to those words from Nerak, “There is warm water at the Bowman, my prince.” Did you notice that was the only thing Nerak said to me then? He asked the rest of us – once – if he could carry anything else, but apart from that, he mostly talked with you, Steven.’

  ‘So Lessek wants you to remember that comment. Why?’ Garec asked, ‘is it because you come from the South Coast?’

  ‘I don’t, Garec. My family comes from New York. Before that, we were lost in the confusion surrounding the American Civil War. No one has been able to trace back far enough to know what my origins were. Educated guesswork invariably leads to a slave ship that arrived somewhere in the American south after 1619.’