“Early yet,” Garrett reasoned.
“True. No sleep today. Might as well sit.”
“And something to eat.”
He went to his father’s table, which stood exactly as he had left it. The long trestle table gleamed like gold with a fresh polish, and save for an unlit candelabra was as barren as the dry, dead earth of a desert. He sat across from Garrett, his things in an unceremonious heap on the floor. He waged war against his drowsiness, and just when he felt like he might pitch facedown into slumber, he heard footsteps clack on the floor behind him.
“Goodness!” The servant girl’s voice echoed through the hall. “Milord, you’re here!”
Startled, he stood to face the girl. He was so pleased to see a friendly face that he pushed himself away from the table and wrapped his arms around her. “Helena, so good to see you,” he relinquished his hold of her and gazed deep into her eyes.
“How’s this?” Helena trembled. “We had news that you were…that you were…”
“Dead? No, not yet anyway.”
“What are you doing here? I thought…well…we all thought you weren’t coming back.”
“We’re only home for a short while. We have to go back, sooner rather than later. Where’s Father? Has he returned?”
Helena shook her head. “Milord, you should speak with Lady Sara. She keeps all word of him secret. She’s almost certainly awake. She doesn’t sleep much these days.”
He glanced to Garrett, who remained seated. Garrett tilted his head slightly to the door at the rear of the hall. I know what I have to do, he thought when he saw Garrett’s look. I must do it alone.
And so, as the sun climbed higher and bathed the hall in golden light, he opened the door to his father’s tower. His boots fell hard upon the spiraling stairs. The look on Helena’s face had said too much. Where’s Father? Still with Jacob? Slain with Ahnwyn? Captured by Nentham?
By the time he reached the top step, he hardly moved, slowed by heartache. Gathering his wits, he knocked twice at the door.
“Come in,” a muffled voice issued from inside.
He swung the door open, peering inside as though expecting to see a ghost. When he entered, he saw a shadow silhouetted by the gentle light at the room’s far end, a shade smaller than he remembered his mother to be. “Mother?” He moved closer. “Is that you?”
He gained no answer. The tower chamber was huge, and he thought perhaps his eyes deceived him or that the figure was a sculpture of some sort. Whatever it was, it seemed to be swathed in thick robes, buried in a cloak much too large for its narrow shoulders.
“Mother, are you there?”
Within ten strides he came. The figure stared out of the window, its body still as stone. His hand moved to where Lorsmir’s sword should have been, but he remembered he had left the blade on a table far below. “Who’s there?” he growled. “Answer me.”
The figure turned about and peeled back its hood.
Rellen took one step backward.
“Hello,” said the man.
Standing before him was neither monster nor assassin. The little man’s eyes were the palest shade of green, swirled and flecked with steely grey pinpricks. At first he thought the stranger a youth, a lad no older than twelve, but the longer he gaped, the more he sensed a strange sort of omnipresence wreathing the fellow from head to toe. The little man was skinny as a sword, and the top of his head barely as high as Rellen’s chin. He might have laughed, but for the fellow’s quirksome, disarming grin. “Who are you?” he asked. “This is Father’s tower. Why are you here?”
The little man shrugged in his too-huge cloak. “I’ve been waiting for your return, Lord Gryphon. It’s good to see the stories of your death are exaggerated.”
He shut his eyes and snapped them open again. He expected to awaken as if from a dream, but the slender stranger was still there. “Where’s Mother? The guards shouldn’t have let you in.”
“She’s well,” said the little man. “She’s outside, tending to her garden. So little’s left to comfort her. Only the flowers will do.”
“All the same, you shouldn’t be here.”
The stranger smiled his quirksome smile. “I’m here because your mother allowed it. It’s no cause to be upset. I’m here to help you. It’s I alone who can do so.”
“What? You? How?”
“First, Lord Gryphon, you need sleep. After that, a good meal. When you’ve had both, we’ll speak again. I see it in your eyes. You’re very, very tired. You’ll need your wits, and soon. Sleep, I bid you, sleep. Tomorrow we’ll talk.”
He cracked his lips to argue, but decided against it. He felt the sudden urge to do nothing more than tumble into bed. His eyelids felt heavy, his feet as sluggish as Mooreye muck. In a near stupor, he retreated to the door, no longer needing to find his mother.
As he came to the chamber door, he gave one last glance over his shoulder. “Your name? What’s your name?” he managed to say through his bleariness.
“Dancmyrcephalis Anderae, but most find it easier to call me Dank.”
“Dancmyr… Dancmyr… Dank…” he repeated, wondering where in the world the diminutive man had come from. “I’ll sleep, and then you and I will sit down and sort this out. Understand?”
Dank grinned like a cat. “Yes, Lord Gryphon. Sit we shall, and talk we must.”
The Little Man
Rellen sat up in bed, more refreshed than in months.
His body felt like the first blade of grass in springtime, his mind as sharp as a sword freshly forged.
How long did I sleep? A few hours? A week?
The time of day was indeterminable. High in his tower room, the windows were shuttered, allowing only a few fickle gleams of sunlight inside. He sprang out of bed, threw open the door, and wound his way briskly down the tower stairs. He stopped just short of the door leading out into the great hall. Having slumbered so deeply, he had almost forgotten his reason for being home. Nothing good, he reminded himself. Furies. Nentham.
War.
He opened the door and entered the hall. The great room was empty save for Garrett, who feasted quietly at his father’s table.
“Whatever your highness likes, be it an hour of sleep, or a day,” Garrett greeted him.
“Funny…” He sat and began heaping food onto his plate. “Was it really that long?”
“It was,” Garrett remarked. “I had the pleasure of meeting your mother this morning. She asked much of you. I told her your sleep was much-needed.”
“Where is she? I have to talk to her.”
“Outside, enjoying the summer. She asks that I wait here with you. She said to expect a guest, someone who wants to speak with us.”
He settled into his meal, clearly laid for two. Hot stew, cold slabs of meat, buttered bread, and sugar-crisped pastries were piled high on the platters before him. He spared none of them, devouring the meal as though it was his last, speaking intelligibly only after polishing two plates clean. “Now then, you said something about a guest?” he murmured between chewing. “I assume you mean Dank.”
“Dank,” Garrett repeated. “Yes, that is the one, so said Sara.”
He swallowed a last mouthful of stew and gulped down a second goblet of water. He could not remember the last time he had been so hungry. “Odd little man, that one. I met him in Father’s tower. Green eyes like water. Complexion like a baby. Creepy, I say. He said he has something he needs to tell me. He’s not from Graehelm, I think, nor from anywhere I’ve been.”
“So long as he is no Fury,” said Garrett.
“No. Not a Fury. Can’t say where he comes from, but I know where he’s not from. I thought at first he was a spy, but there’s something about him, something in the way he talks...”
“And now he comes.” Garrett pointed to the corner of the hall.
A door Rellen had seldom seen open swung wide on rusted hinges.
From the shadowed passage the stranger known as Dank emerged.
He
watched the little man intently. Dank drifted into the hall, a flutter of winter wind, raiment streaming in his wake. He wore a fine, jade-colored cloak, its sleeves and breast embroidered with a spectacularly elaborate pattern. Dank made no sound as he walked across the room, but slid to the table like water across stone. At the table’s head, he extended his arms and beckoned for Rellen and Garrett to sit.
Rellen sat stiffly. The freshness of his waking was departed, and his body strung tight as a Furyon crossbow. “I’ve been home for a full day, but have yet to see Father.” He stared hard at Dank. “Where is he? Do you know? Where’s Mother? And just who did you say you were?”
“I’ll answer all questions,” uttered Dank. “One at a time.”
He swallowed an immense breath. He felt peeved that the little stranger was the first to greet him home. Where’re all the servants? He wanted to shout. Where’s Helena? Gryphon Keep’s empty but for you, little man.
Dank seemed to sense his discomfort. “Please don’t be alarmed, Lord Gryphon. I’ve watched over this city for a long, long time. Its safety is my concern. I’ve served your father for more than twenty years. I remember you when you were just a child, when you weren’t saddled with all the duties that haunt you now. You were so full of fire, you were, much the same as now.”
The claim stunned him. “You’ve seen me before? I never, not once, saw you before yesterday.”
Dank steepled his delicate fingers beneath his chin. “You wouldn’t have. My work for your family is Graehelm’s best-kept secret.”
“Oh?” He squirmed in his chair. “Not sure what that means. How’d you come here, so indebted to us? And from where?”
“I’m indebted to no one.” The little man arched an eyebrow. “I offer my services wherever they are most needed. If you would know, I come from the far north, beyond Graehelm, beyond Elrain, beyond even the great Cour Lake. Where I lived, every tree had a name and every dwelling’s door was open to all who would enter.”
He felt more confused by the moment. “And what exactly do you do?”
“I’m a historian…of sorts. I remember what’s forgotten to nations and kings. I’m a linguist also, specializing in the tongues of ancient times.”
“You’re an advisor then? To my father?”
“It would be fair to call me that.”
“Alright. Advisor it is.” He glanced to Garrett for help, but gained none. “So then, out with it. Why should I speak with you before I see Mother? Have you appointed yourself high master of Gryphon in Father’s absence?”
“No of course not,” Dank chuckled. “I have no interest in ruling over anyone. I’m here because your father, bless his wisdom, took me in.”
“Did he?” Rellen asked skeptically.
“He did indeed. If you’d permit it, I’d tell you why, Lord Gryphon.”
“I permit it. But stop calling me lord. I’m master of nothing yet.”
“As you say,” Dank acceded with a smile and a nod. “So then, if I might begin…”
For once, he was curious beyond words, nigh powerless to do anything but listen as Dank pooled his sleeves back on the table and began.
“Rellen Gryphon, listen close to what I’m about to tell you,” said the little man. “These things I say are truth, indisputable and undeniable. I beg you heed every word. Not many have heard this tale before.”
He nodded. Not sure why, he needed to hear whatever was about to be said.
After another breath, Dank’s smile fell flat upon his lips, his geniality forsaken for cold, dead earnestness.
“Rellen Gryphon, when your beloved Graehelm was first shaped, it was not at all as it is now. The Graeland in its infancy was a child striking out for freedom from its mother and father, a collective fighting for survival in a restless, ruined world. Other nations were born in the same era: Romaldar, Elrain, even Furyon. These lands were different, and yet all the same. Each wished to escape their father, the ancestral realm of Archithrope, father of all nations.
“The fledgling Grae were only the first to flee.
“They escaped famine, plague, and the war which threatened to lay every last man in his grave. Those were dark days, they were. The Graefolk had no choice. The great war of Archithrope was the pestilence of the day, and every soul involved was likely to die. There are few who know this tale. Your father is one among them.”
He cracked his lips to ask a question, but Dank face darkened like falling twilight, his green eyes gone grey as clouds over a stormy sea.
“Listen to me, Rellen. It’s this history that now comes back to us. The war which drove the fledgling nations of the world to come into being threatens to begin anew. There were two nations that lived long before today, two far greater than all others. They were locked in a centuries-long war, a terrible war, a world-consuming war. Their names were Tyberia and Niviliath. No one knows the true reason for their all-consuming strife, but one thing is certain; neither could win. The long, hateful years took a horror’s toll on both their people, and it was clear to all that one could never hope to destroy the other.
“And so the war thrived, never to end until every last corner of the world was infected. It claimed nearly every last life of the world, your ancestors and mine own.”
Rellen was not sure why, but he felt unsettled. “What? Why tell us this?” he asked. “A crusty old war? A pile of dead men? What’s this have to do with what happens now?”
Dank shook his head. “My young friend, hear me out. This war didn’t end as most wars do. It continued until the fires of its futility reached to the very heavens. It lasted so long that one of the nations, Tyberia, chose a new path to victory, a terrible path. After a thousand years of conflict, Tyberia searched the most malevolent reaches of its mind for a means to inflict mass tragedy upon the Niviliath. In doing so, they discovered the rarest kind of knowledge, a tool never meant for mankind to use.
“They discovered magic.”
“Magic?”
“Indeed,” said Dank. “The purest sort of evil, the very architecture of darkness and destruction. For there is no good magic, only the stuff of nightmares. With these powers, Tyberia’s lords found they could build objects capable of immeasurable annihilation…and build they did. Five woeful relics. Their cursed resurrection spanning centuries. Five objects: the Eye, the Tower, the Needle, the Pages, and the Orb. The Tyberians tapped into powers vast and terrible, and the Niviliath suffered for it.
“And so it went. Tyberia fell farther into darkness, and its name became Archithrope. Thousands of their number drank of these new powers. They became warlocks, the eaters of light, and in their baleful fury they laid millions in their graves. The Archithropian furnaces burned through every night. In those years there was no true day, only the black smoke from the Tower, the smothering clouds of the Orb, and the shadows of the slain stretching like mountains across the desolate Nivil plain. If ever we had gods, they were destroyed in those years. There was nothing the Archithropians couldn’t root out, no one they could not butcher. Those were dark days. I still wonder how anyone survived.”
Rellen believed hardly a word of it. Were Dank not so passionate, he might have laughed. “How do you know so much about this?”
Dank stared beyond him into a place no one else could see. When next he spoke, he seemed sad. “I see your mind, Rellen. I know I can say little you’ll believe. Just understand me when I say I’ve traveled far and wide, farther and wider than even you and Lord Croft. My people and I have forgotten more than the eldest of men of Grae ever knew.”
“Your people?” Rellen scrunched his face. “Are you some kind of king?”
“No, I was never a king. I mean only that there are others like me.”
“How did this war of yours end? Clearly we didn’t all die. Did Tyberia destroy Niviliath? If this history lesson is so important, why did Father teach me none of it?”
Dank sighed. “As I said, Rellen, few remember the tale, and fewer still know just how it ended. More import
ant is the present, and the similarities between the old war and the new. I’ve heard the rumors, and you’ve seen firsthand the storm welling up over Mormist. My belief is this: you face now a legion of men who wield in their arrogance the forbidden sorceries of Archithrope. The things you’ve seen are the first of what is to come if we don’t put an end to it.”
“Archithrope?” he asked. “What’s that name even mean? Is this some joke? If Marlos were here, I’d assume he put you up to this.”
Dank frowned. “Archithrope was not a what, a who, or a where. It was more a place in time, an era, a name given to the period of shadow that existed long before man or any other race. All that’s important is that Tyberia stole Archithrope’s power to further their war. And now comes my truest fear: I believe the Furyons have unearthed the old magicks. I believe one of the five objects has been rebuilt. I sense it even now, somewhere far away, throttling the underworld. If it isn’t thrown down, I can’t imagine what will happen. The Graehelm you know and love will surely be no more.”
He wanted to scoff, but beneath his skin he was shaken. He sensed Dank believed every word of what he said, and he saw dread roaming in the little man’s eyes. It can’t be true, he thought. Can it? Garrett hasn’t said a word. Does he believe this nonsense?
“Why?” he asked. “Why now? What can we do? How do we even know if any of this is true?”
Dank dared a smirk. “Just like your father: a skeptic to the end. But are you not the sworn protector of House Gryphon? Do you not carry your father’s desire to guard Graehelm against the Furyons? If you do, then know there’s but one path to victory. The thing your enemies rebuilt was designed by powers far beyond our reckoning. It must be found and destroyed, else Furyon can’t be defeated. Your enemy is empowered by this thing, Rellen. So long as it exists, you will never defeat them.”
“What are you suggesting?” He rubbed his forehead as though it pained him. “Are you saying we should abandon the war, battle our way through the Fury lines, and start digging in the dirt behind their backs?”
Dank looked at him. “I can find the Object, Lord Gryphon, I and no one else. The craft of Archithrope is known to me. I have gifts.”
Down the Dark Path (Tyrants of the Dead Book 1) Page 39