by M. R. Forbes
It had also been a year since they had left Elling behind, departing the city in a state of rebellion that had seen his local armies routed and an influx of families entering the capital of the province with their Cursed children, desperate to escape him. They hadn't returned to the city since they had discovered Aren's laboratory, and they hadn't heard from Robar or his network of entertainers in weeks. It had been a hard decision for Silas to stay away for so long, but he knew the only way any of them would know true freedom was to find him, and to kill him.
First, they needed to find the cure.
"How are you feeling?" Silas asked, looking Eryn over. Since they had learned from Aren's journal and notes that to use the power of the Curse was to accelerate the course of the disease, Eryn had limited herself to practicing drawing the power in and letting it go, rather than using it.
"I'm fine, Silas. You ask me every day."
"Every time I remember that you're sick."
"You read the journal. It could take years to kill me, if I don't use the power." She took another large bite of her meal.
Silas had read the journal. Eryn was trying to coat it as sweetly as the bars they were eating. "It could also take weeks. There is no sense to it."
"I'm fine."
Silas watched her face, her eyes and the set of her jaw. There was something she wasn't telling him, but he didn't want to push her. What he wanted was to find out how he kept the Mediators alive; how he prevented them from suffering from the disease. There was a part of him that felt like maybe he had known once, but it was a memory long lost and forgotten.
Almost a year. They had traveled much of the western Empire, visiting libraries both large and small in search of anything that had yet to be burned under his orders. When Silas had finally had another chance to speak with Markus, he had said he would try to get word out to those he trusted to try to spare what precious volumes they could. When they had come upon the library in the capital of Portnis and found it razed to the ground, they discovered how he would deal with that situation.
It had left them as a ship without a compass, riding from one town to the next, and speaking to the leaders of countless villages in an effort to find even the thinnest thread of information, and to convince them not to surrender their children. At the same time, they pored over Aren's writings in hopes of discovering any small scrap that could be of use. Almost a year, and they knew little more than they had when they started. On top of that, they were becoming known in the Empire. Their benefactors called them hero, his soldiers and loyalists called them the Liar and the Whore. Their title for Eryn infuriated him, but she handled it with the same strength of character as she did everything else.
Either way, it was making travel more and more difficult, and more than once Silas had wished the sisters Canae and Lanae were with them, to dress them up in the makeups and wigs and clothes, to transform them into new people that none would recognize. Instead, they often settled for heavy cloaks and shadows to hide their appearance, perfecting a stone face that dared passerby to cross them. Few wanted to accuse them of their true identities for fear of being wrong.
Almost a year, and now they found themselves in the north of Varrow, prepared to do something they had never wished to have to do.
It had been their worst and only hope since they had happened upon a reference to the place in a book containing a map of the Empire. It had been a small, unimportant map; little more than a sketch to outline different agrarian resources and how they were divided amongst the villages that dotted the less populated landscape. At first, they had believed it to be a random accident, a splotch of dried blood on the parchment sitting in an empty expanse in the south of Varrow. They had almost forgotten about it altogether, until they visited the home of the Constable of Nevingworth a few months later, and had discovered that someone had labeled a similar map, giving name to the blank space.
They had called it 'Dark'.
The word had been one clue, and the blood had been another. Silas didn't know if the same person had tried to leave a message to those willing to follow, but he was certain by now that it was the only hint they were ever going to find. It didn't please him to admit it, because once they had learned of the place they had started to ask around for its meaning. There was no written history, but not all history was written.
According to the different stories told by those who had ever heard wind of it, the Dark was a place of nightmares, of death and decay and monsters, a valley perpetually shrouded in thick clouds where the souls of the evil sang choruses of malignancy and violence. It had been created by Heden to set never-ending suffering on the damned, and none who entered could ever leave.
It was also a story, a fiction, a legend that survived only in the mouths of common folk, the farmers and shepherds, the blacksmiths and shop owners. It was a place they threatened their children with when they were misbehaving, or wished their worst enemies to go. It wasn't a physical location, or anything that could be visited, and not a single soul they had spoken to had ever been there, or knew anyone who had ever been there. Some had even sworn they had been to the spot Silas pointed to on the map, and that there was nothing there but rocks and grass and trees, like so much of the rest of the land.
Silas wasn't convinced.
He believed the Dark was real.
It was the roads that had convinced him. The Empire Road snaked to the west around the space, a hundred miles or more. On the other side was the Seafarer Road, a route that began in Varrow City and ran all the way to the Southern Seas. By itself, it would hardly raise suspicion, but Silas had studied the rest of the trade routes through the Empire. This was the only example of two larger roads headed in the same direction for such a distance, a decision that would increase costs both in manpower and materials to both maintain and patrol, with little visible gain.
There was something in the blank expanse that was supposed to be nothing more than grass and trees, and they had run out of other ideas.
CHAPTER THREE
Eryn
Eryn glanced over at Silas as they crested the small hill that lay before the northern gates to Varrow City. The palace's high towers had been visible for miles, but now they could see the entirety of the expanse, and she was curious to see how he would react.
She wasn't surprised when he stopped his horse.
It had been the same with each town they had visited. It was the memories, she knew, returning in fits and starts and always jogged by familiar places. She had no idea when he had been to Varrow City before, or how many times, but the fact that he paused told her enough. She stopped her own mount and waited while he rediscovered some missing part of his past, hoping that he wouldn't be forced to struggle through another violent realization of the person he once was.
It had been a hard journey for both of them, from the day his soldiers had killed her family, to the day they had discovered the truth of his son's, and her birth father's death. She had often wondered if she should have been more upset at Amman for the seeming cruelness of their fates, but when she looked back to the family that she had, and the family that she had fallen into, she couldn't help but to offer him her thanks instead. She had learned very quickly that the world was a harsh and unfair place, and that there were monsters lurking everywhere. The measure of a person was in their actions, not in their regrets, and Silas had shown nothing but love, resolution, and strength in the face of such adversity. Talon Rast was a murderer, but he had buried him long ago.
"We need to be cautious," he said at last, making no mention of what images had flowed into his mind once more. "Overlord Penzi is a cunning woman, and I'm certain she's been waiting for us to turn up at her gates."
"You knew her?"
His eyes vanished back into his past. "Yes. She was a Mediator once, under my command. It seems strange to me now, that I knew about the power the Mediators could control and participated in their deceptions." He looked back at her, his face tight. "She's very powerful. I'd rat
her not go into the city at all, but if there's anywhere to find accurate information about the Dark, it's inside those walls."
Eryn looked back to the city, down a gentle slope from where they stood. It had to be twice the size of Elling, and much more dense. All she could see were lines of tightly packed rooftops and wide thoroughfares, the colorful cloth of the wealthy overwhelming the neutral, earthy cloth of the masses. With two important trade routes converging into Varrow City, it was the busiest inland hub in the Empire.
"How are we going to get in?" she asked, shifting her gaze to the gates, where merchants and travelers waited in line to pay their entry taxes. Soldiers didn't have the same reluctance to challenge their identity that the gentler folk did.
He stared down at the waiting throng, and then turned his horse around. "There's another gate on the east side. It's only intended to be used by soldiers, but I think today they'll be making an exception."
"If the Overlord is so cunning, won't she be expecting you to try to get in that way?" She urged her horse to turn and follow behind him.
"Yes," he shouted back, over his shoulder. "In fact, I'm counting on it."
Eryn smiled. She should have expected he would have a plan to get inside.
###
"I'm not feeling very confident about this plan," Eryn said, from her perch on the back of a donkey. They had traded their horses for the less reliable mount three miles back, to a young couple who had come to Varrow in search of work. They'd also traded them for their clothes, leaving themselves in simple linens under ragged and patched wool cloaks.
Silas grunted as he set down a large burlap sack. They had hidden most of their supplies, including Aren's journal, beneath a tree near the road. The remainder was now disguised under fifty pounds of manure they had bought from a merchant who was carting it in to fertilize the Overlord's garden. Apparently, the numerous stables inside the walls didn't provide enough to tend to the immensity of the palace greenery.
"Birthing pains?" Silas asked, pointing at her newly rounded stomach. It was part of their makeshift disguise, a man desperate to earn any coin he could to care for his pregnant charge. Fifteen may have been young for such a situation, but wasn't unheard of, and it added to the believability. Whether they were husband and wife or father and daughter was left to the imagination of the populace. "Your belly is crooked."
Eryn looked down, seeing that the leaves she had wrapped in cloth and stuffed under the linen tunic had shifted. She wrapped her arms around it and shoved it back in place. "This is what I mean," she said.
Silas smiled and stretched his arms, thankful that the weather had remained fair. Waiting in the taxation queue in the rain would have been even less comfortable.
Unlike Elling, the city had never outgrown itself, and didn't have a second class living just outside the walls. To make up for it, priests of Amman wandered up and down the lines, asking for donations, while merchants stood to the sides with offers of food, drink, and respite, and minstrels sang and played for coin. Eryn might have been more impressed with the whole thing, if she hadn't felt so exposed.
The line shifted forward, and Silas bent down and lifted the heavy sack back up over his shoulder. He used his other hand to take hold of the donkey's reins, and ambled forward in time with the rest of the crowd. At the pace they were moving, they would reach the front just in time.
"What is that smell?"
Eryn looked back at the traveler behind them, a man in a dark wool coat and a brightly colored shirt. He had been staring at her, but now averted his eyes. He hadn't been the one who'd spoken.
"Disgusting."
She shifted around again, scanning the queue and the gathering of people around it. Whoever was complaining about their goods, they weren't making themselves known.
"Reminds me of my mother. I hated my mother."
The speaker finally appeared, stepping out of the line a few feet ahead of them and moving back. He was a smaller man, with a narrow, trimmed mustache on a plain face, his head almost bald save for a scatter of black near each of his ears. He wore faded brown leather, caked and cracked from too much time spent in the elements without proper care. A scabbard hung from his hip.
"Get that offal away from me," he said. He didn't hesitate to get right up in Silas' face.
"I'm sorry to offend you, my Lord," Silas said, bowing his head. "My poor child is unwed and pregnant, and this is all I have to barter with."
Eryn had to fight to keep herself from laughing at his subservience.
The man seemed unfazed. "Move back, peasant. I have no desire to continue being forced to take in your stench." He put a hand to the hilt of his sword, finishing the threat.
"My Lord, please," Silas said, his voice little more than a whisper. "My girl is due at any moment, and if I don't get this fertilizer to the palace, I'll have no coin to trade for her care."
Mustache looked back at Eryn, who did her best to play her part. She ran her hand across her brow, wiping away sweat and grime, and made a face that she hoped looked generally pathetic.
"Fine," he said, moving his hand from his sword to a pocket. He pulled out a small purse and found a silver coin. He leaned forward and shoved it into the pocket of Silas' pants. "This is more than you'll get for that sack. Now move back."
Silas lifted his head and stared at the man. He didn't want to move his place.
"Well?" he asked. "I've doubled your profit. Go back."
He stood his ground, still and silent, staring down at Mustache. Finally, he spoke. "Thank you, my Lord. Might I have your name, so I know who to praise to Amman for this gift?"
The man seemed surprised. "Templeton," he said. "Andreaus Templeton of Silsbury."
"Thank you, my Lord." Silas began to turn. His eyes met hers, and she could see the defiant life in them.
"You're wel-"
Silas spun back, faster than Andreaus could follow. He lifted the man from his feet by the collar of his coat, and held him close. Eryn couldn't hear what Silas said to the man, but she did see his face pale, and his head bob in acknowledgement. He made one quick glance back at Eryn, and then returned to his own place in line. Silas looked back at her once more, and this time she had to cover her mouth to hide her amusement.
The line progressed throughout the day, finding Andreaus in front of the soldiers as the sun began to touch the horizon. Eryn felt her heartbeat quicken, wondering if the man would abide by whatever Silas had told him, or if he would take the opportunity to point them out to the guards. He met Silas' gaze one more time, but then handed over the payment for entry to the city, and vanished into the throng.
"State your business in Varrow," the soldier said to Silas, once it was their turn.
"I have a sack of fertilizer to sell to the palace, my Lord." He bowed his head again.
The soldier crinkled his nose. "That you do, old man. The tax is three coppers, plus two more for the donkey."
Silas lifted his head. "Five? Since when do you charge extra for mounts?"
"Since the failed uprising in Elling forced the Empire to beef up its ranks. More soldiers means more taxes. Either pay the tax, or get out of the way."
Eryn watched Silas push himself to remain in character, but the news made her own stomach begin to churn. Failed uprising?
He put the sack on the ground and reached into his pocket, swishing his hand around in search of the copper coins. He found one and handed it to the guard.
"Hurry up, peasant," the soldier said, "or I'll send you to the back of the line."
"I'm sorry, my Lord." He continued digging.
The soldier glared at him, but didn't speak. Just then, a messenger ran through the gates and put his mouth to the man's ear. The soldier's eyes widened.
"Men, with me," he shouted to the other guards, and took off behind the messenger at a run, leaving the gate and the taxes forgotten.
Eryn hadn't heard what the messenger said, but she didn't need to. Silas had paid the young couple handsomely to w
ear their clothes and make an appearance in front of the gate that only his soldiers should have known existed, as well as showing them where to hide once they were being chased. As Silas had guessed, they hadn't needed to physically look like the two of them. The suggestion that they might have been outside the gate was enough to draw the attention of soldiers already on edge.
"Like I said. I was counting on it."
Silas picked up the sack and led the donkey through the gates. A less experienced squad would be along any moment to replace those who had left, but it had given them a chance to sneak in. With the threat of the ore mines hanging over the heads of those who were caught dodging their taxes, nobody else moved.
"Where do we go now?" Eryn asked, once they were inside. Silas led them across a crowded square to a quiet side street, and then stopped and raised his hand.
"I can help you with that."
Andreaus appeared in the mouth of an alley, and motioned for them to join him.
"We need to get you into the Heart," he said, once they were safely out of the street. "You'll be safe there."
Silas dropped the sack and opened it, waving his hand in front of his nose at the smell of the manure, and ignoring the fact the he reeked just as badly from carrying it. "I didn't enjoy putting our things in, either." He dipped his hands into the feces, pulling out their burlap-wrapped swords and Eryn's purse, which contained the marble stone and brooch she had taken from the Mediator, Lia, as well as the ring Silas had once given to his wife. That done, he wiped his hands on the inside of the burlap, though there was no way to remove the smell until he had a proper bath.
"Who are you?" Eryn asked Andreaus, confused by his newfound helpfulness.
The small man bowed. "My apologies, Eryn. I would never have been so surly if I'd known I was speaking to the Heroes of Elling. As I said, my name is Andreaus Templeton. I'm a vintner by trade, a merchant, but between you and me, I'm also a member of the rebellion."