“Stay put. I’ll come back once I take a look,” he told the kid, not looking away until Brat nodded. He nodded his satisfaction in return then turned the handle as the kid sunk into the shadows away from the faint light.
The kitchen was clean and empty, efficiently organized. There was still a lantern flickering in the corner, but the room was otherwise dark since the sun had gone down. He didn’t doubt they left the lantern going in case the King demanded a midnight snack. He had seen the man and he looked like he was rather fond of snacking.
After a quick inspection, he doubled back, closing the lid and stacking the mess that he had knocked off earlier back on top for good measure. The kid helped, if only to get this done quicker.
He had paid good money for a rough map that would take him to the vault. There were plenty of disgruntled servants on the King’s retinue and some whose morality and silence was fairly cheap.
He grabbed an empty bucket as they reached the servant’s stairs, handing it back to Brat. The kid shot him a questioning look.
“If we run into anyone, you’re emptying chamber pots. I’d rather not kill anyone if it can be avoided,” he explained and the kid cringed as if there was some possibility they might actually have to do it. He wasn’t entirely sure whether it was the killing or the chamber pots that the kid thought to be worse.
Brat started skidding along the walls in some odd semblance of sneaking. He grabbed Brat’s shoulders and pulled them away from the wall, holding them there to be sure the kid was listening.
“That will get you caught faster than anything. If you really want to blend in, you must always act as if you belong there. Speak softly, don’t whisper, step carefully, but don’t tiptoe. You’re not aiming to be unseen, just unnoticeable. Got it?” he explained.
It was a lesson long overdue, but waiting for the kid to catch on wasn’t happening. The kid looked unsure, worrying at their lip as if they meant to argue, but nodded instead.
“You don’t think they’ll notice they haven’t seen us before?” the kid protested.
“In a palace this big, unfamiliar faces aren’t that uncommon. Stick to what I told you and don’t elaborate,” he ordered as they walked casually.
The vault wasn’t terribly far, but it would be constantly guarded. He had needed to find an entrance that was traveled enough by ordinary staff and not as heavily guarded because of it.
They didn’t pass many people, but the kid stiffened visibly every time. He could tell the kid to knock it off, but it would probably only get worse if he made Brat aware of it.
It seemed to be working well until some pompous ass (might as well have had it written on his forehead) swung around the corner nearly plowing into him.
The man adjusted his livery with indignation and swept his eyes over them shrewdly.
“I don’t recall any change in the roster. Where are you going?” the man drawled out in a self-important way that insinuated he had a whole bundle of sticks jammed up his backside.
“New hires. Just taking the kid around to empty chamber pots,” he said, bowing humbly.
The man’s narrowed eyes said he wasn’t buying it.
He reached back, snatching the bucket out of the kid’s hand and swung it right into the side of the guy’s head, knocking him out instantly. He caught the body before it fell and pulled it out of sight into the room the man had been exiting from. He tossed the bucket aside and gestured for Brat to follow once more.
Incidentally, a check of the map revealed this was the room they needed to cross through next anyway: the library.
Palace libraries all tended to have sliding bookshelves with secret passages and this one was no exception. He made his way across the vast room, counting the shelves to find the passage that led to a spot much closer to the vault.
Once he got there, he stopped and frowned, feeling along the edges and inspecting books. It was a crude map at best and didn’t do much in the way of explaining the trick to getting behind it.
Without being prompted, the kid started climbing the shelf before reaching atop the upper left side. He heard a click and the shelf swung towards him.
He raised an eyebrow at the kid as they jumped down, brushing the buildup of dust from their hands.
“You’ve done this before,” he said and Brat shrugged.
“You don’t really think there’s a bookshelf in Mom’s entertainment room because she likes to read there, do you?” the kid asked haughtily.
“Entertainment room…” he repeated with a short laugh before ducking into the passage. Brat squeezed past before he pulled the shelf shut behind them. It clicked back into place, but he knew from the beginning there was little chance they would be waltzing out the way they came in.
He hadn’t really planned an escape route at all, which was quite unlike him. Nothing about this compulsion made any sense to him, but any attempt to rectify his recklessness was overridden by something far more dominant.
The passage was riddled with cobwebs and the musty smell that announced its disuse. He could hear the skittering of whatever wretched creatures made homes here and the kid had stepped on his heels twice already from following too damned close. He saw the faint blue glow of the Flame on the walls ahead of him and turned to see Brat clasping it fearfully.
“Put that away, kid. The last thing we need is anyone seeing it,” he reminded Brat.
“You still haven’t told me what it’s for. Is it… Is it one of the Keys to the Gates of Endless Tears?” Brat asked warily.
He almost skidded to a halt, but kept walking to mask his shock.
Shit. Who told the kid about the Keys?
“The Rain Maidens, each with a Key that sent the dead back through the Gates if they slipped through…” Brat pushed on.
Yup, that would be the one… Damn, didn’t think the kid would connect the lingering dead to this so quickly.
“If that were what it is, then how come you can use it?” he asked, avoiding admitting anything.
“Because something is wrong with the balance…” the kid guessed, shivering against the sudden chill that crept over them.
He didn’t need the kid thinking that far ahead right now. It wouldn’t be long before they found a new piece of the mystery for themselves. It didn’t do any good to guess. Trying to just made his scars ache.
Brat was sharper than he had given them credit for; that had been his assumption as well. He suspected that something had happened to the Rain Maidens. A decade ago, if Orendon’s weather patterns were any indication. Death was supposed to return their Keys to the Gates. Once, that had been a fail-safe since only Rain Maidens and Gods retained their cognizance in the Gate Realm. Something had broken that rule.
Like most of the vagaries of the stories, the Gates were something more than they seemed. They were drawn like glowing portals in the old tomes, but the words on the page had told a wholly different story. It seemed absurd, but whatever the ‘Gates’ were, the King had been in such a rage over the Key not appearing that he had stolen the Gate itself.
And here they were delivering the Key on a silver platter.
All he had ever had to go on was the gut feeling that it was ‘the only way to right the wrong,’ though where he got that from he couldn’t say either.
The four guards outside of the Vault were in finer armor than the rest, but he had been ready for that. He had used smoke bombs to blind them before disabling them.
It all seemed too anticlimactic. They stood in front of the Vault doors, but he realized the kid was looking around the room, wide-eyed.
There were rough paintings on the walls and it didn’t take much to figure out what the sienna hued figures were: the eight Rain Maidens and the Rain God.
“My mom read this story to me years ago…” the kid mused.
“Your mom can read?” he asked, hating the heavy mood that was creeping in as he looked at the lock on the Vault.
“The bookshelf had actual books in it,” Brat said flatly.
“Thought you said she didn’t like to read there,” he grunted, fiddling with the lock.
“She didn’t, but she couldn’t leave me at home when I was little and couldn’t entertain until I went to sleep,” Brat explained.
He heard the kid pad over to him.
“Thought you said you were bringing me here to pick locks!” Brat scolded as he picked at the vault lock himself.
“Should I have told you that you were the key then?” he asked, with yet another grunt as the Vault clicked open.
They both backed away, neither quite sure of what to expect.
The Vault was empty, save for a worn wooden chest on a crumbling pedestal, eerie sconces on opposite walls dimly lighting the room.
The sound of metal clanged around outside the Vault now and he knew that he had been right to think it had been too easy.
“Close the vault, kid!” he hissed in one of those absurd whispers and the kid leapt to comply. He drew his short sword and jammed it into the back of the lock mechanism, briefly hearing the King’s angry shouting on the opposite side.
“H-how’re we gonna get out of here?” Brat asked.
He hoped like hell there was a good answer for that because that still wasn’t becoming any clearer.
Brat had the Flame out again, tears streaming down their cheeks, hands trembling around the dagger’s hilt.
He sighed and approached the chest.
“Hope to the Gods this wasn’t a trap,” he mumbled, hoping the kid couldn’t hear the doubt creeping in.
He approached the box and thought to open it, but a sort of rage crept over him and he spun his foot up and kicked the chest to the floor where it splintered open. Blue fire billowed out hot and relentless, consuming them both. He screamed in agony as his consciousness slipped away.
PART TWO: Do Over
He woke to the sounds of birds, the memory of excruciating pain slipping away as the soft sunlight of a hazy morning replaced the shadow over his face.
He was alone.
There was no dripping sound teasing at his memory, just the steady rush of water pouring from a faucet followed by the wrenching squeak of a spigot. There was a splashing noise and a series of girlish giggles. As the haze cleared, he realized he was in a familiar place, only fortune had changed for it.
The bathhouse.
He used his hands to walk himself into a standing position against the wall, but closed his eyes again, his cheek smooshed against the cool white marble of the walls. It was such a contrast to the hellish heat that he swore had devoured him in another place.
It must have been a dream. Had to be. He had gotten drunk at some point, maybe when he first returned to Orendon.
He might have believed that if he didn’t feel a sudden pain as another familiar object pressed into his hip.
The Flame of Arkhades…
A sigh escaped his cracked lips, wondering how much of the bits and pieces he struggled to remember were memories. So much of his life straddled what might have happened and the fever dreams, the poison that nearly dying had left behind.
He wondered now if he were here because the kid was close or if the Flame could make this place visible. Because no one could answer that, he let the useless musings fall away.
His head jerked around as the sudden splash of water against one of the buildings had startled him. An old woman was eyeing him with distaste and added a harrumph as she moved on. He looked around and saw there were other people moving around here and that didn’t seem right either.
Reaching up, he felt that the hair on his face had grown beyond the usual stubble. How long had he been out? Long enough that the hidden hub was full of life again…
Unsure of where to go, his head only lending to the confusion, he could only think of numbing away the rough edges with ale. He wasn’t thrilled with the idea of running into Brat’s mom or even the kid right now, so he made his way over to the Red Mare, supposing it was still where he left it.
The next thing to be out of place was the tailor’s shop. It was a confectioner’s shop now, the nauseating smell of sugar cloying the air as he passed. A little girl stood up on the balcony giggling at all the people that walked by.
Why the hell was it so damned sunny here?
It was Orendon, unmistakably so. Had he and the kid managed to unlock the Gate? Perhaps they had destroyed it, but he couldn’t quite conceive of that either. He winced remembering the abrupt way he had thought to ‘open’ it.
All the same, he couldn’t remember the last time Orendon wasn’t always overcast, teetering on the verge of a downpour. It wasn’t a bad resolution, but it seemed like it was missing a few steps.
The Red Mare Inn (no, Tavern; the sign was different) was cool and quiet this early. There were a few dedicated drunks already—two men way too deep in their cards, a much older man way too deep in his cups, and a trio of men that were actually hungry enough to trust whatever food this dump served in the morning.
He shrunk into the hood of his cloak as he picked a table in the back, keeping himself slumped forward even when the rustling of skirts announced the arrival of a barmaid.
“Can I get you anything?” came the deep, smooth voice of the woman who asked it.
Without looking, he could tell—young, brash, trouble. But then simpering barmaids didn’t last.
“A pint will do,” he said, holding up a finger and he heard her sashay away.
One pint became three and on the third he caught a glimpse of long crimson hair nearly swatting his face, piquing his curiosity.
He reached out and grabbed her wrist, pulling her down into his lap. He crushed her mouth with his own.
It had been quick, since she was stronger than she looked. She pushed him away and landed one solid right hook into his face, but even then he held her close, too shocked to let her go.
“Brat?” he asked in disbelief.
He was only drawing attention with her squirming to free herself and now he had clearly offended her.
She was reaching around her waist as if looking for something, frowning in confusion. He was mesmerized by how each nuance of emotion flickered over those familiar features.
“Asshole! Who kisses a woman then calls her a brat?” she asked, frustrated that whatever she sought out was absent.
It was a good point. He let her free and she nearly tumbled to the floor scrambling away, but she didn’t flee only kept her distant once she spun around to face him.
If she wasn’t Brat, who the hell was she? Had it been ten years? More, and ‘she’ just didn’t remember him? Okay, or he was sotted and making shit up. Oops.
Her lips were pursed, eyes dropping to the side of his belt, fists balling at her sides.
“Give it back. I don’t know how you did that, but that belongs to me,” she said, words clipped with fear and rage.
He reached over and detached it from his belt.
Twelve years in the past? He had been in his early twenties at that time, still skulking around Uther and Kylrith, still too timid to get too close to Rathbern. If you believed the whispers that floated around, the Rain Maidens were all wiped out then, the last Key having disappeared. Was this why he had been drawn to the Gate? Had someone wanted him to change the past? Stranger things had definitely happened up to that point…
He felt a stabbing pain in his head and held it in agony. He was trying too hard to remember again and the pain dissipated as he stopped trying.
The woman who looked like Brat (no, it’s the hair and the attitude) was frowning at him and he could have sworn she was actually concerned. He let his hood fall away, hoping that maybe it was Brat after all, that she just hadn’t seen the scars.
There was no recognition there as her eyes traced the scar splitting the left side of his face, but there was no revulsion either.
Her arms gripped her elbows as she tilted her head. She’s fascinated?
“You look lost. Give me back my dagger and I’ll see you’re tended to,” sh
e said, a wary kindness in those words. Something more he couldn’t place…
“Why would you do that?” he asked and she shrugged.
“In my nature, I guess,” she lied. A half-truth rather, but that was clearly as far as she intended to explain. “And I’m not ‘brat,’ I’m— “
“Cherry,” he blurted out.
Her eyes flashed with irritation once more.
“You’re really something, aren’t you? You always name people whatever you like?” she asked.
“Only the ones worth my time,” he said and it was completely true. Most people didn’t warrant more than a passing pronoun or a string of obscenities. Worth my time? I just met her. Flirt, pal, but don’t propose marriage, for fuck’s sake.
He held out the dagger, but her brows knitted and she didn’t take it right away.
When she finally reached out, she gripped it slowly but pulled it away with a jerk, cradling it to her chest. She studied him for a second with a small frown, deciding something.
“Follow me,” she said and swished around, heading towards the back exit.
She bent to pick up a milking stool on her way out to the area where a little pump well still sat, the stable definitely in better condition than he remembered. She placed the stool there and pointed to it.
“Sit. I’ll be back,” she commanded, hurrying back in as he complied.
Time travel… The books never mentioned that kind of magic… He didn’t have any other answers as to what this could be though.
Cherry came back through the doorway carrying a bucket in one hand, a towel in the other. She draped the towel over his shoulder and took shaving soap and a razor out of the bucket, pumping water into the bucket.
“You’re going to shave me?” he asked incredulous.
She frowned, unsure of why that surprised him.
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