The Gilded Empire

by Ryan W. Mueller

  Rik's chest felt tight. "So you're telling me I should desert?"

  "It's your only chance. But you won't be alone. I’m coming with you."

  Rik narrowed his eyes. "Why would you want to come with me?"

  "Because I once lived on Terra as well, and because I believe you are vital to the effort to defeat Krinir. This is the opportunity I've been seeking ever since I ended up in the Shadowed Land a hundred years ago. I came here to defeat Krinir, but I've realized now that it is not possible here in the Shadowed Land. I need to return to Luminia."

  Rik tried to take this all in. "How do I know I can trust you?"

  "I'm your only hope of getting back home. You have to trust me."

  "All right. Let's go then." It was probably the most foolish decision of Rik's life, but he didn't care. He would not sit here and do nothing when he had a chance to get home.

  Chapter 17: The Fortress

  Danica stood before a strange machine she didn't understand. It glowed a myriad of terrifying colors. With her stood two of the empire's Technomages: Renaud and Valencia. Renaud was a tall and skinny man, entirely unremarkable in appearance. Valencia was a bit shorter, and something in her dark eyes made Danica uncomfortable.

  At least she was no longer strapped to the cold bed. For the last few days, she'd been forced to practice her newfound magic. Under strict supervision, she'd formed portals that would take her across the room or to another part of the building. There were magical protections around the research building that prevented her from going any farther.

  She'd tried. They hadn't punished her, though.

  "We're ready," Renaud said. "You feel up to this?"

  She appreciated that he'd asked her, though she knew she had no choice. Feeling sick to her stomach, she nodded.

  "Good," Valencia said. "We've wasted enough time already." She flipped a switch on the machine, and the colors glowed brighter. The machine made a strange buzzing sound, and the hairs on Danica's arms stood on end.

  "You'll have to touch the machine," Renaud said patiently. He took Danica's arm gently and led her toward a strange metal appendage sticking out from the machine. When Danica closed her hand around it, she felt as if the machine's buzzing were running through her.

  "Create a portal," Valencia said.

  "Try to focus on the idea of Krinir's fortress," Renaud said.

  Danica wished she could think of another destination, but that wouldn't work. They'd know she hadn't created the right portal, and they would force her to choose the correct destination, whatever it took. Maybe Danica should have stood up to them, but her time here had destroyed whatever resistance she might have once had.

  She combined the machine's power with her own, though she wasn't sure how she was doing it. This new magic didn't feel like a natural part of her.

  A swirl of light opened up in the center of the room, and in its center was the image of a dark tower shrouded in mist. There was something terrifying about the image. She felt a sudden chill that had nothing to do with the room's temperature.

  "How do we know this is the right place?" Valencia asked.

  "I don't know," Renaud said. "We have no idea what the fortress might look like. It does look like a fortress, though, and it is clearly somewhere in the Shadowed Land."

  Valencia frowned. "That still leaves a lot of doubt."

  Danica thought for a moment that she might be able to dash past them and enter the portal. Even going to Krinir's fortress sounded better than spending more time as a prisoner. Maybe she could find a life for herself in the Shadowed Land. It was a chilling thought, but it was all she had.

  Renaud grabbed one of her arms while Valencia took the other. Together, they led Danica through the portal. It closed behind them with terrifying finality.

  Now Danica stood in a land of mist and shadows. The mist hung so thickly she couldn't see more than perhaps twenty feet, but that was enough to reveal a sight that made her shudder.

  Krinir's fortress looked as if it had been carved from the black bones of some enormous monster. Its towers were covered in spikes. It had no windows. A massive spiked gate stood ahead of them, and she could have sworn she saw blood on the spikes.

  A wall perhaps ten feet tall ran around the entire fortress, covered in the same spikes. No one could climb that wall without shredding themselves on the spikes. Danica also thought she detected some kind of energy thrumming atop the wall, maybe a magical force field of some sort. So the wall was probably just for decoration.

  She shuddered to think what kind of man, or god, would build such a thing.

  Danica's legs trembled as they stood before the gate, waiting for something to happen. How would Krinir know they'd arrived? There didn't appear to be any way to notify him. By all appearances, Krinir didn't care for company. She doubted she'd care for his company either.

  "You think it's the right place?" Renaud asked.

  Valencia hesitated. "Well, it certainly looks right."

  Danica turned to her. "So you expected his fortress to look like it belongs to the most evil being in existence? That doesn't sound like someone you should support."

  "A good leader inspires fear," Valencia said.

  "I knew a leader like that," Danica said, holding back a sudden surge of anger. "Life under him was miserable."

  Valencia glared at her, but whatever the woman was going to say was cut off by the sudden creaking of the gate as it swung open.

  Renaud glanced toward the entrance to the fortress, across a long bridge spanning a moat filled with what looked like lava. Danica had only read about lava, and she'd always wondered what the Fire Mountains must look like. Now that curiosity had turned to fear.

  "I think we've been allowed to enter," Renaud said, taking a hesitant step forward.

  Danica's chest felt tight. "Let's hope so."

  Though she dreaded the thought of meeting Krinir, she wasn't ready to die either. As long as she was alive, there was still a chance for things to improve. That was the attitude she'd always used to guide her decisions. There was no point dwelling on the negatives all the time. Berig might laugh at her for this attitude, but it served her well.

  She felt a sudden pang of loneliness and wished she could see Berig, Aric, and Lara again. In fact, she wouldn't even mind seeing Klint. He was a good man, however much he might try to hide it. They were all good people, unlike Krinir and his servants.

  Renaud seemed decent enough, but he still supported Krinir. Maybe he'd come to his senses once he saw the true nature of the man. Already, she could see hesitance in his movements. Perhaps he was having second thoughts. She prayed that was true because she didn't want to be alone. For all her life, she'd been a social person.

  Nothing happened as they crossed the bridge. Though they stood well above the lava, she could feel its heat. Sweat trickled down her face. The entrance to the fortress loomed tall and terrifying, like something out of the worst fairytales she'd heard as a child.

  At last, they stood before the entrance. The door opened as if it sensed their presence. After exchanging nervous glances, they stepped through the door.

  The place on the other side was beautiful.

  The outside was dark and foreboding, but the inside looked warm and inviting, furnished with lavish chairs and lush red carpets. Everything was accented with gold. Strange torches hung on the walls, emitting warm light. Even the air was a pleasant temperature, neither the heat of the lava nor the chill of the misty world outside.

  They walked along the hall, taking in the wondrous sights. Danica didn't let the beauty change her mind, though. She'd heard of the luxury of Warrick's palace, seen the excess of the Empire's nobles. A place might look beautiful to conceal something much uglier.

  A set of stairs led upward at the other end of the grand entrance hall. Chandeliers hung high above, bathing them in golden light.

  At the top of the stairs, a man looked down at them, dressed in black robes. He was of average height with dark hair and a
short beard. She'd seen many men who looked like him. He had to be some kind of servant sent here to greet them.

  The man walked down the stairs while Danica's party waited at the bottom.

  "Welcome to my fortress," he said. "I am Krinir. I've been expecting you."

  Chapter 18: Entering the Wastelands

  Kara had no idea how long she'd been traveling with Warrick, but she'd lose her mind if she stayed with him much longer. He wasn't cruel to her. He simply ignored her. Whenever she asked him a question, he gave useless answers. Whenever she tried to share a simple conversation, he glared at her as if she were a wasp that had stung him.

  "We're almost to the Wastelands," he said as they sat around a small campfire.

  She was surprised to hear a complete sentence out of him. "How do you know?"

  His look was distant. "I'm not entirely sure."

  They hadn't visited any settlements, hadn't seen a single soul as they traveled through the wilderness. Kara longed for the company of anyone other than Warrick. Surely he wasn't the only person who could lead her to Krinir's fortress.

  Perhaps Warrick was deliberately keeping her away from other people. But why would he care about her fate? Every time monsters had threatened them, he'd sought to protect her above all else. That wasn't necessary. He could let her die. After all the things he'd done, what was the death of one young woman?

  "We've been traveling together for at least a week now," she said, "and I still don't know why you're protecting me. Why do you care?"

  She thought she'd get another non-answer, but instead he said, "I care because of what you might mean for me. For most of my life, I've caught glimpses of you in the Webs of Fate, but it has always felt as if something were blocking those glimpses, as if somebody didn't intend for me to see them. I call these dark strands."

  "But why could I possibly be important for you?"

  "It's a mystery to me as well," Warrick said, tossing a stick onto their fire. "As I told you, the threads become very hard to decipher when I'm trying to find you in them. The same thing happens when I look back at certain periods in my past. I'm the most powerful sorcerer in the world. Nobody would deny it. I've nearly made myself into a god. So that tells me one thing."

  Kara leaned closer.

  "Only a god could keep me from reading the Webs of Fate as I wish. It can't be Lionar, so it has to be Krinir."

  Kara nodded, surprised that she was hearing him out. "And you think Krinir is blocking you from seeing my importance, too?"

  "Perhaps."

  "Why couldn't it be Lionar?"

  "It just can't. I'll leave it at that." His expression became suddenly stern, and Kara scooted away from him. She knew better than to demand more answers from him. As if noting her discomfort, he said, "I'm sorry, but there are some secrets I have to keep to myself."

  Kara could not figure out this man. One second, he glared at her as if he hated her. The next, he apologized. The more time she spent with him, the more convinced she was that none of his behavior was an act. He truly was a very conflicted man.

  "I want to know more about you," she said, fearing how he might respond. "Not your plans for the world. You. Who are you as a person?" She expected to get another terse reply, so she was surprised when he spoke at length.

  "We're going to spend a lot of time together, so we might as well know each other a little bit. Keep in mind that this is not easy for me. I don't like talking about myself." He stroked his chin, which was now covered in a stubbly beard. "If you want to know who I am, you have to know what this world took from me. My parents."

  Kara almost said she was sorry, but then she remembered that Warrick's attack on Crayden had taken her father. He deserved no sympathy from her.

  "I was eleven years old when we were in the area near the Darkness Temple. That's in the area that I turned into the Ghost Forest." His expression twitched, but he went on. "They were always fascinated by the temples, but the Darkness Temple is very unpredictable. No one built anything for miles and miles around it because things, and people, had a way of disappearing when they got too close to the temple. That's what happened to my parents.

  "So there I was. Eleven years old. An orphan. I had a natural talent for magic, so I made the journey to Sandersburg, where I became a student at the academy there. That's where I learned many of the secrets of this world, of the technology we lost, of the magic that governs everything now. I was a bit of an outcast, but I had never been happier.

  "I made three good friends in my time there: Marlon, Deron, and Cyrus. We all decided we would make the Pilgrimage to all the temples in the world. We needed magic so that we could change the world. We looked around and saw all kinds of suffering. Somebody had to change things. So I went deeper into the archives than anyone ever had. I found tales of wonder I never knew existed. Still, there were parts of the academy that were closed off to me.

  "But I found enough to know that I could change the world. I was powerful then, but not as powerful as I am now." He stopped, his look distant again. "I should stop there. You don't need to know the secrets behind my powers."

  Kara looked him in the eye. "Don't you want me to trust you?"

  "I don't care if you trust me. You have no choice."

  Great. Warrick was about to fall into one of his taciturn moods again. She should have known that he wouldn't open up for long. But it had been progress at the very least.

  They rested, then resumed their journey. The landscape all looked the same. Rocks. Skeletal trees. Mist clinging everywhere. If Kara had to look at this mist for the rest of her life, she would go insane. She felt constantly as if it were suffocating her.

  A few hours after they started walking, Warrick came to a sudden stop, holding up a hand. "I felt a change in the air. I think we've crossed into the Wastelands."

  "They don't look any different from the rest of this place."

  Warrick peered into the mist. "I think that will change."

  They walked for hours, the landscape unchanging. If anything, the mist had become thicker than ever, preventing them from seeing anything. Kara's feet ached after so much traveling, but she didn't complain. This had to be worse on Warrick, who probably hadn't traveled anywhere on foot in ages.

  No. Why was she feeling sympathy for him? He didn't deserve it.

  But when she looked at him, she saw past the tyrant who had killed so many. She saw the broken man beneath. That didn't keep her from hating him for what he'd done, but perhaps he truly believed everything he did was best for the world. Could she hate him for that?

  Lost in thought, she noticed the change in the ground too late. The rocks shifted beneath her as a hole opened. Rocks crumbled away, falling into the hole, and she grasped for anything she could cling to, but the rocks just kept crumbling.

  Warrick reached out for her hand, but her damp palm slipped out of his grip. Her stomach lurched as she fell. She looked down but couldn't see the ground beneath her. Her arms flailed in the air, but there was nothing to grab.

  To her surprise, Warrick followed her into the hole. With a quick hand gesture, he sent light shooting to the ground far below. It was a tiny pinprick in the distance.

  She was going to die.

  Warrick curled his body so that he fell faster than her, and when he reached her, he grabbed onto her arm with one hand. With the other, he did another hand gesture. She had no idea what he was doing because nothing happened, and she was too afraid to speak.

  Panic shot through her like wildfire, and she closed her eyes, waiting for the end. But then she felt a strong wind gusting from beneath her and opened her eyes to see they were now falling much more slowly. The wind beneath them swirled.

  "Hold on to me," he said. "I'll guide both of us down."

  Kara clung to him so fiercely she was probably hurting him. The whirlwind beneath them slowly dissipated, lowering them to the rocky ground, where they landed gently. Warrick stood first, then helped Kara to her feet.

  "Tha
nk you," she said. This time, she was truly grateful for what he'd done.

  "Are you all right?"

  "I-I think so."

  Warrick peered around the cave into which they'd fallen. The opening above was barely visible. They must have fallen hundreds of feet. Without Warrick's magic, she would be dead twice over. Though she hated to admit it, she needed him.

  "I can't create a whirlwind powerful enough to get us that high," he said.

  Her chest tightened. "Are you saying we're stuck down here?"

  "Not necessarily. There's a path up ahead."

  "I don't trust any cave passage here in the Shadowed Land."

  Warrick smiled faintly. "Neither do I."

  Chapter 19: The Perils of Desertion

  Rik returned to the garrison to collect his meager belongings before leaving. He felt the entire time as if people were watching him. What if Dirk suspected that Rik was deserting?

  The room was empty. It was dinner time, so the other soldiers were down in the common room, eating the bland food the army always served. Rik gathered the outfit in which he'd entered the Shadowed Land. He stuffed it in a leather bag but kept his staff and axe on his back. The army had offered him a sword, but he'd never been comfortable using one. The axe was his weapon of choice.

  He scooped a few coins into his leather sack. They were all the pay he'd earned in the Sunset Army. Then he made his way to the stairs leading down toward the common room. Thirty minutes still remained before he had to meet Mathew at the edge of the city.

  A few torches lit the stairwell, but it was still dark. When Rik reached the bottom of the spiraling stone steps, he heard voices to his right. It sounded as if the other soldiers were deep in conversation. Surely they wouldn't notice him. After all, he'd remained separate from them ever since joining the army. In truth, he'd never expected to stay long.

  He turned to his left, following the corridor that led to the exit.

  By the time he saw Dirk standing there, it was too late.