by Jack Heckel
I was still processing that Vivian had been on world for five years already when he surged to his feet and shouted, “The Dark One has returned!”
I grabbed him by the sleeve and yanked him back down into his chair where he continued to mumble, “They are all one. The Dark Queen, the Dark Lord, they are all one.”
Around us the tavern had grown ominously still. I fixed a broad smile on my face and said, “Charades. What can you do?”
There were several beats of uneasy silence and then, one by one, heads bent back over cups of drink, dice games, and cards, and slowly the noise of conversation returned. I exhaled in relief, took a deep draft of my ale, and then nearly choked to death when a voice whispered in my ear, “Smooth, handsome. What do you do for an encore, dance on the tables while singing songs about your love for Morgarr?”
Coughing and trying to regain my breath, I spun about and I found myself staring into the flashing green eyes of Valdara.
Chapter 8
GETTING THE BAND BACK TOGETHER
In other circumstances this might have been a dream come true, but those flashing green eyes were glaring at me in a way that made it clear that, if I was in a dream, I was in serious danger of not waking up. I swallowed hard and said the only thing I was capable of saying at that point. “You’re Valdara.”
“Well spotted,” she said with no hint of humor.
“Avery.”
“What?” she asked.
“A-Avery, my name is,” I stuttered. “I mean, my name is Avery.”
“Didn’t ask and don’t care,” she said. “What I want to know is what you’ve done to my friend, St. Drake?”
“N-n-nothing,” I answered as quickly as my suddenly clumsy tongue would allow.
“Why is he acting like that?” she asked, and her eyes moved over to Drake.
I glanced at him. He was staring wildly at nothing and muttering about the Dark One and lies and death and madness. My stomach sank. I turned back to answer and felt something sharp dig into my ribs. I looked down to see the gleaming point of a dagger pressed against my side.
“Answer carefully,” she added, which I can assure you was an entirely unnecessary warning.
This is probably a good time to tell you about one of the many differences between Mysterians and subworlders. Without the reality key, I could not reshape space, time, and matter at my whim, but I was still a Mysterian, which meant that the reality I was made from was a lot more potent than the reality from which Valdara was made. This meant that I was probably stronger and faster than Valdara, even though she had been training as a warrior since birth, while I hadn’t seriously exercised since Oxford when I was really into Zumba. (How else did you think an undernourished adept-student like me was able to bodily lift a grown man like Drake?) This also meant that if she stabbed me with her dagger, I would probably survive. The problem is that word—probably—which literally means “in all likelihood,” which is never a phrase you want to have associated with your own life and death.
Back in the moment, I nodded and wondered how badly things would turn out if I told her the truth. It didn’t take me long to decide that the whole truth would be fatal, so I settled on an expurgated version of the truth. “I’m trying to convince Drake to join my group.”
“What group?” she asked, looking around for any sign that anyone in the tavern knew me, which, of course, no one did.
“Well, it doesn’t exist yet, but—” I dropped my voice conspiratorially “—between you and me, I’m going to go after the Dark Queen.”
“You are planning on going after the Dark Queen?”
“Someone has to,” I heard myself say, and was surprised to find that I meant it. Vivian or no Vivian, my spell was meant to bring the people of Trelari millennia of stability and peace. That was the bargain I’d made with myself to justify the means I’d had used. If I left the world like this, then all the deceptions and chaos and death would have been for nothing. For myself, I couldn’t let that happen. As much as I’d told Drake that this quest would be his chance for redemption, it was undoubtedly mine.
Valdara must have heard something that satisfied her in my answer, because I felt the tip of the blade withdraw from my side and watched the sharpness in her eyes soften a touch. “Who are you?”
“Remember, I said ‘my name is Avery,’ but then you said you ‘didn’t ask and didn’t care’? Well, my name is still Avery.”
She rolled her eyes, but I thought I saw the barest hint of a smile steal across her face. Then she drove her knife hilt-deep into the wood of the tabletop. Remember that “in all likelihood” thing I was talking about before? It was moments like this that reminded me that improbable doesn’t mean impossible.
“Tell me why we should join your group.”
What she was offering was not lost on me, and it both terrified and excited me beyond rational thought. This was a problem, of course, because she was waiting for an answer, and despite many drunken attempts, I still hadn’t figured out how to talk when my brain was not properly engaged.
“Um . . .” I began in a not too promising start and followed that with another “Um” in the hopes that repetition might improve the effect. It didn’t. She raised an eyebrow and gave me a quizzical look.
This was a real puzzler. How do you tell someone that they should follow you into battle against a megalomaniacal sorceress who could reshape reality at her whim, because you were recently a megalomaniacal sorcerer who could reshape reality at your whim and so kind of had excellent insights into the strengths and weaknesses of omnipotent megalomaniacal types? I settled on, “I’m a wizard?”
“Congratulations,” she snorted. “Do you know how many wizards we brought on our quest against the Dark Lord?”
“Trick question,” I answered confidently. “None. Although you did have a sorceress with you, but there are some subtle differences.”
She shook her head and held up two fingers.
“That’s not possible,” I protested. “I know for a fact that only five Heroes battled the Dark Lord, and none of them was a wizard.”
“I’d be interested to know why you’re so confident about your ‘facts’ when I don’t remember you being there,” she said with such relish that I was sorely tempted to tell her right then and there that I was the Dark Lord. Fortunately, many years of very expensive education had taught me enough about the permanence of death to stay my tongue. “Besides,” she continued with a dark smile, “I never said that they made it to the final battle.”
I took this in with an open mouth and began to wonder what else about the original quest I hadn’t been paying attention to during my time as Dark Lord. I shook the thought away as irrelevant. I’d had a lot on my plate trying to rule the world and keep Morgarr’s excesses in check.
“Okay,” I rallied, “so you had some bad luck with your wizard . . . wizards last time. I’m better than they were. I know how to kill the Dark Queen.”
“How?” she asked in a mocking voice. “With the Mage Staff of the Magi, I suppose.”
A sudden anger rose up in me. She may be Valdara, but that didn’t give her the right to be rude. I leaned forward and whispered, “I know you can’t kill the Dark Queen with a painted stick and bit of glass.”
I saw her eyes widen in shock. “How . . . how can you possibly know that?”
On the verge of answering, I froze. This close I could smell her scent—a combination of leather and wood smoke that brought to mind standing atop the battlements of the Fortress of Despair the night before the final battle, looking down on the twinkling fires of the encampments of the Army of Light and smelling that same mingling of smoke and bodies. Valdara must have been down there that night. How many horrors had I put her through, and now I was proposing to do it again. The guilt that had been sneaking around my subconscious for a while emerged in all its glory. I was torn between telling Valdara to sit this one out, and the knowledge that whether I wanted her to go or stay, if the spell—my spell—w
as working it would have its own opinion on the subject, and that it would have a far greater influence over her decision. I sat back in my chair no longer certain what to do.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said flatly. “I just know. I’m not asking you to come anyway. You and Drake did your part with the Dark Lord. No one can ask for more.”
I took up my tankard and looked across its rim at her. For the first time I saw confusion and doubt in her eyes. I knew in an instant that by not trying to persuade her I had finally done something unexpected, and that without meaning to, I had said precisely what I needed to say to convince her to join me. Oddly, in that same moment I decided that I didn’t want her to come.
“Don’t . . .” I started to say, but before I could get the words out she responded quietly, “Yes. I will help you in your quest against the Dark Queen, Wizard Avery.” I could hear the surprise in her voice at what she was saying. Without a doubt the spell was active, and it had beaten both of us.
I closed my eyes and bowed my head. And that was that, the most anticlimactic beginning to a quest ever.
We sat in silence, staring at each other across the table for few minutes, during which time Drake began snoring. Eventually she said, “Now what?”
This was funny, because it was exactly what I was going to ask her. Fortunately, I had enough sense not to admit to that. Instead, I said, “Well, we have two of the original members of the group that went up against the Dark Lord. Before Drake passed—” her eyes narrowed threateningly and I amended “—fell asleep, I was asking him what he thought our chances were of tracking down the others? What do you think?”
“Not good,” she said grimly, and signaled to the barkeep for another round. “Possibly you could find the Weasel. I’ve heard she’s been floating around some of the larger cities making a general menace of herself.”
“I always wondered if the Weasel was a woman,” I murmured, trying to recall what she looked like during the final battle.
“Oh,” Valdara said, picking up a new mug. “I can’t say for sure that the Weasel was a woman, but I always assumed so. She’s far too clever to be a man.” She gave me a wink and I rolled my eyes in reply. “Anyway, the rumor is that she stole something from the Dark Queen and has gone into hiding, which means you’d only find her if she wanted to be found, and she won’t.”
I wanted to know what the Weasel might have taken in the worst way, but that was nothing more than curiosity. It wasn’t what I was here to get, because if Vivian had lost the reality key her empire would have already begun to crumble. Besides, Valdara was right, hunting for a legendary rogue who didn’t want to be found wasn’t likely to be the best use of our time.
“What about the others?” I asked
“No chance. Mystia’s in no condition, and Jarl and Feldane might as well be dead.”
“What do mean in no condition?” In answer, she made a sweeping gesture over her midsection. “What, she got fat?”
“She’s with child,” she said with a glower.
“Oooooh, right,” I said, and then stammered, “How did that . . . I mean, of course she can’t.” I stopped myself before I could do any more damage and changed the subject. “So, Jarl really is . . .” I began, before realizing that I had blundered into another sensitive topic.
“Mad?” she offered. “Yes. Jarl was never the most stable of dwarfs, but the rise of the Dark Queen and our inability to defeat her according to prophesy pushed him over the edge. He disappeared underground and hasn’t been seen since. I take it you’ve heard about the egg thing?”
I nodded. “I can understand that Jarl may be too far gone . . .”
“That’s putting it mildly,” she said, and drained the last dregs from her mug.
“Okay, but what about Feldane?” I pressed. “All Drake—”
“That’s St. Drake to you,” she corrected.
I glanced at the passed-out man and then back at her. “St. Drake. All he said was that Feldane had gone west. Surely we could track him down.”
The next round arrived and Valdara took a long drink before shaking her head in response. “You don’t understand. He didn’t just go west. He went into The West. It’s a retirement community for elves. You have to be over four hundred just to get through the gates.”
“Oh, come on, surely it can’t be that hard to break into a gated community,” I argued. “After all, you stormed the Fortress of Despair.”
Valdara shrugged. “You can try if you’d like, but I’d rather face the Dark Queen.”
That must be one hell of a homeowner’s association, I thought. “All right,” I conceded, “so we need to gather a few additional members, and presently Jarl, Feldane, Mystia, and the Weasel are out. How did you put your group together last time?”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“You know, how did the five of you—”
“Nine of us,” she corrected.
“Nine, really?”
She nodded and I reminded myself that I needed to review the early years of my time as the Dark Lord to see what the Heroes were doing, and what happened to all the extra members.
“Who was in your original group?” I asked, and patted my pockets looking for my notebook and pencil, and then grunted in disgust when I remembered that Vivian had them.
Valdara thought for a minute and said, “Well, at first it was just St. Drake and myself. We met in . . .” She trailed off.
“A bar obviously,” I said.
“Why ‘obviously’?” she asked, and her eyes grew sharp. “St. Drake was not always a drinker. He has had a very hard life.”
I held up my hands in a gesture of peace. “That’s not what I meant,” I said truthfully, and then added a white lie to forestall any other awkward questions. “I think St. Drake may have mentioned it.”
The truth was that I had simply assumed that the corrective matrix spell would repeat its original pattern, and so fully expected our adventure, including the gathering together of the group, to mirror, at least in general contours, her earlier experiences. I told her none of this, instead asking quickly, “Who was next?”
She thought for a moment. “Let’s see, next there were the dwarfs. There were two of them originally, Karl and Jarl.”
I made a note and asked, “How did you find them?”
“Oh, that was easy,” she answered. “Anywhere there’s drink, there’s a dwarf. We found them in the first tavern we stopped in.” She stood and began surveying the room. After only a few seconds she grabbed at my sleeve and pulled me to my feet. “There,” she said, pointing across the room at what looked to be a bright orange bird’s nest surrounded by a cloud of smoke and obscured behind a hand of cards and piles of coins.
“So, how do we get his attention?” I asked, certain he wouldn’t be too pleased to be interrupted, especially since he seemed to be winning.
“Last time I promised them riches and glory,” she said frankly.
“Sounds like a plan to me,” I said, rubbing my hands together. “Let’s go try it out on him.”
With a glare, she said, “Given how things turned out I’d prefer not to lie this time.”
“How did things turn out?” I asked. “Didn’t the Dark Lord have vaults full of riches?”
I knew for a fact he did, since I’d filled them myself, or rather the magic of the reality key did. Limitless riches are not that hard to come by when you have an item that can literally transform air into gold.
“Sure, we found piles of the stuff,” she said, and threw her arms wide, sloshing some of her ale onto the floor. “Some of the mounds were tall enough that Jarl was able to toboggan down them. But the next morning everything had turned to dust.”
“That . . . that must have been awkward,” I stuttered, suddenly remembering that I had designed the fortress and all the treasure to dissolve after I’d left.
“Awkward!” she shouted, and thumped her mug onto the table. “The army nearly rioted. Honestly, that was the beginning of a
ll the bad things that have happened since. The Dark Queen still uses the story as recruitment propaganda for her new army.”
I stared guiltily at the floor. There had been a good reason. I remember doing some economic simulations back in Mysterium that indicated that the release of the Dark Lord’s treasury into society all at once might trigger hyperinflation. I hadn’t considered the possibility that the Heroes might have been relying on that gold to pay their soldiers.
“This time,” she said, throwing back her shoulders, “I’m going to get them to come because it’s the right thing to do!”
“Whatever you think is best,” I said with a pessimistic shrug. I sat down and took up my tankard.
I watched as Valdara stood, straightened her weapons, and smoothed her cloak. Moments ago she had been rightly suspicious of me. Now she was proposing to actively shill on my behalf. I suspected she was being influenced by my reality matrix spell, and I suppose I should have been fascinated at the opportunity to observe it in action, but in truth I found it unsettling.
“Right. Here we go,” Valdara said, thankfully interrupting my chain of thought.
With an ease of grace that was breathtaking, she stepped from floor to chair to table so that she stood with her back to me looking out over the long room of the tavern. Once in place, she pushed back her hood, releasing her red hair from its confinement so that it blazed about her shoulders. Then, unbuckling a jeweled clasp at her throat, she threw her cloak aside with a swirl.
I leaned back to gaze up at her and found that I could barely breathe. She was a vision. From the ground up (which was the way my eyes traveled), she was wearing a pair of calf-hugging boots that laced from toe to midthigh and into which were thrust a set of silver-handled daggers. Above those was a pair of leathers followed by more leather armor covered in metal rings that hugged her body. On her back was a sword that was long enough for me to wonder how in the world she ever sat down. My only thought at the time (and, truth be told, I doubt I was thinking at all in the moment) was that if this is how she’d approached recruiting last time I couldn’t believe that she’d only gotten nine volunteers.