Prince of Bryanae (Bryanae Series)

by Jeffrey Getzin

  She froze and turned. There, standing like a tree in the middle of the tiny hovel, was an enormous man, wearing a heavy robe and brandishing a staff. A mage, obviously, but from where? Could he have come from … well, she couldn’t remember the name of the place she feared. But could he have come from there?

  “What are you called, elf?” The mage spoke with an air of uncontestable authority. She found her mouth working without intending to do so.

  “Willow,” she said, using the humans’ name for her.

  “Where are you from, Willow?”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but stopped. She couldn’t remember where she was from.

  The mage took a few steps towards her and she backed into the corner of the hovel. The family opened the door and fled, leaving her alone with the mage.

  “Answer me, Willow. Are you from Ignis Fatuus?”

  Ignis Fatuus … Ignis Fatuus. The name seemed familiar to her, but she didn’t know if she came from there. She looked at the mage and said nothing.

  “Answer me,” he said, taking another step towards her. She had nowhere to run. “Are you from Ignis Fatuus? Do you know what’s happened to them?”

  She remained silent. The mage transferred his staff to his left hand and grabbed her shoulder with his right.

  “Answer m—”

  NO MORE.

  Willow howled and locked her hands around his arm. She kicked at him repeatedly: in the shins, in the groin, in the knee.

  “Don’t you touch me!” she screamed, and punched him in the face. She felt a bone in her finger crack, and a wave of agony washed over her. And somewhere, far in the back of her mind, she remembered learning once that you shouldn’t punch someone in the face for precisely that reason.

  The mage fell to the floor, interposing his staff between himself and Willow, but she was no longer trying to get at him. The door to the hovel was now open and she ran through it, cradling her wounded hand next to her dowel.

  She heard a loud “thwuff!” behind her and another flash of light illuminated the night for a moment.

  It was warm outside, which was good, but the trees were unfamiliar to her. She ran down the road away from the hovel, and away from the mage she had beaten.

  * * *

  Sometime before dawn, she awoke to the sound of horses. It came from all around her, and as she climbed to her feet, dazed, horsemen rode into sight, encircling her. The horsemen were armed and wore some kind of uniforms with insignia that meant nothing to Willow.

  The leader, a handsome man with hair so short he almost seemed bald, pointed his long sword at her and barked an order. She didn’t have a clue what he had said, so she tried to run.

  Another horse rode into her path, blocking her escape. She tried another way, but that too was blocked.

  She looked around but there were no gaps between the horses. The leader smiled at her, and repeated his order.

  She shrieked and then leapt at the leader, knocking him from his horse. Her undamaged fist flailed against his body, but he was protected by some form of padding.

  The leader grabbed her head and twisted, and she had to roll off him to avoid having her neck broken. He rolled with her, and now he was on top of her. NO MORE.

  She howled and snarled like a rabid animal and her hands were everywhere, raining blows all over his body, but none seemed to have any effect except to bring shrieking agony whenever her broken hand connected with anything.

  Then the other soldiers came to his aid, and she was swiftly subdued.

  The leader said something to her and smiled once more. She spat in his face.

  * * *

  They marched her into the city, a place of strange buildings of yellow stone and thatched roofs, with dirt roads that wound between them. As she walked along these dirt roads, surrounded by her escorts of guards, the various citizenry came out to stare at her.

  She ignored them. What good would it do her to shout at them or plead for mercy? She couldn’t even speak their language.

  Ahead of her, a castle jutted up from the ground, and as she neared it, she spied a litter approaching. On it was the mage who had accosted her. His limbs were bandaged and there was a poultice on his forehead.

  He looked awfully angry, but she didn’t care.

  The mage started to call out something to her in Elvish, but just then, she was distracted by something else.

  Up the road a bit, there was what looked to be some sort of store house: two stories, with a large double gate.

  It was not the store house that interested her. No, it was the strange naked man that crawled along the road toward it. There was something very familiar about him, and for some reason, she felt that he should have been black.

  But he wasn’t black. Instead, his body was the color of the dirt road upon which he crawled. He even seemed to change hue slightly with the patches he crawled over, as though he was barely separate from the terrain. Indeed, as she watched closer, she noticed that as his hands or feet or knees made contact with the road, they seemed to blur, or lose focus, almost as though they were fusing with the ground itself.

  Regardless, the naked man who wasn’t black pressed towards the store house, and when he reached it, he paused to glance through the crowd and directly at Willow.

  There was something about his face that stirred her, touched some closed off part of her. But before she could analyze what it was, the store house seemed to … well, to suck him into itself. He was gone in moments, leaving her to wonder if she had imagined him.

  “… dungeons will loosen your tongue,” the mage was jabbering. His face occluded her view of the store house, and he leered at her.

  “You don’t scare me,” Willow said. “I’ve survived far worse than you.”

  And she had.

  Chapter 97

  Tamlevar had fought many times in his life, but never before had he fought a house. Yet, this was precisely what he was doing now.

  All around him, Willow’s memories of the house encroached on his identity and sense of self, trying to absorb him into itself. If it succeeded, Tamlevar would cease to exist.

  Obviously, that was bad.

  So Tamlevar fought the house, but it was a losing battle. He slowly was merging with one of the walls.

  What a way to go. Here lies Tamlevar, killed by a wall.

  But there was more at stake than just his own life, and only this gave him the strength to resist further. After all, he didn’t have to stave off the absorption forever, just for a while.

  Time flew by. Days passed, then years. Men entered and left the store house, not seeing Tamlevar, not perceiving the battle he fought to retain himself.

  Around him, Bryanae changed. The elf was brought to the castle, where she became the plaything of the King of Bryanae: a strange curiosity he liked to trot out before his guests on occasion.

  Eventually, the elf learned the Szun Universal, also known as the Tongue of Men and a rapport grew between her and the King. First, she was granted the ability to roam around the castle, then around the town.

  For some reason, she tried to enlist in the Bryanae army. They refused her.

  She tried again, and was refused again.

  But elves had nothing if not time, and she applied every year until at last they accepted her. She became Private Willow.

  The store house was converted into a military office. It housed a succession of officers over the years. Plans were made, wars were fought.

  Willow was a sergeant now, and had been personally chosen by the King to be his bodyguard.

  The King placed some form of a weird magical glyph on her head, just behind one of her ears.

  Bryanae continued to change. The dirt roads were gradually paved over with cobblestones. The King of Bryanae passed away and his successor took over.

  Willow was promoted to Lieutenant.

  The office that was Tamlevar caught fire. Now he fought the flames as well as the office.

  The office burned to the found
ation. It was rebuilt. Somewhere in there, Tamlevar remained.

  There were riots in the streets. Tamlevar watched as the fearsome elf Willow helped to quell them.

  Willow was promoted to Captain.

  Soon, very soon. If only he could hold on just a little bit longer.

  Chapter 98

  “Here you go, Captain,” the corporal said, unlocking the door to Willow’s new office. She pushed open the door and peered inside. Sparse, utilitarian, empty.

  Perfect.

  “This will do, Corporal,” she said.

  The corporal handed her the key to the office, saluted, and departed.

  Captain Willow entered her office and looked around. There was something oddly familiar about this place, but she couldn’t place it.

  No matter. She tossed her duffle to the floor, and then looked around for a suitable hiding place. At last, she chanced upon a loose floorboard. Just what she needed.

  She withdrew her knife from her boot and pried the board loose. It took a little jimmying, but eventually, the nail on one end slid free and she was able to use the adjacent board as a fulcrum to pry the remaining nail out.

  She removed the board and looked beneath where it had been. Between two beams into which the plank had been affixed, there was nothing but soft, dank earth with a few crawling worms. She grabbed the knife handle in both hands and dug out a small furrow, packing the earth tightly to the sides.

  Then, when she had made the hole large enough, she retrieved her duffle and fished inside until she withdrew the dowel. This she wrapped in a layer of waxed burlap, and then around that, another such layer. Then she wrapped a third layer, lit a candle, and coated the entire thing in wax until it was as air- and water-tight as she could make it.

  With great reverence, she placed this bundle into the trench she had dug in the dirt. Then she scooped the earth in her hand and buried the package until all signs of it were hidden.

  She replaced the board and then she carefully tapped the nails back into their skewed holes so that they found their places in the beams once more.

  Captain Willow stood, took a few steps away, and then surveyed her handiwork.

  Perfect. No one would ever find it unless he knew where to look, and even then, who would care for a wooden dowel except she?

  She brushed the loose dirt from her hands, then left her office to clean up and head for dinner.

  * * *

  The end game was being fought in Captain Willow’s office. Now her fate and Tamlevar’s would be decided.

  A strange murmur vibrated through the walls of the dark office, and a dim light shone as though a phosphorescent fungus had infected them. Then a soft moaning filled the empty room. Had anybody been in this room, he surely would have thought the place haunted.

  The walls secreted a resin-like substance, which pooled onto the floor. The resin oozed to the center of the room, where it combined to form an amorphous blob. Four pseudopods extended from this blob and slowly took on the shape of arms and legs. A fifth pseudopod, more of a lump, really, extended and then shaped itself into a rough facsimile of a human head.

  This … thing, this human-like blob half-crawled and half-oozed its way across the floor to the board Captain Willow had just replaced. As it did, it uttered a strange keening sound as though its very existence was an unendurable agony.

  Its soft, fingerless hands fumbled at the board, but could not get into the cracks enough to lift it. The creature wailed in a hideous display of despair and pathos. Then it made a noise that was almost a growl and it raised its “arm” and smashed down into the floor.

  The board smashed beneath the force, but the “arm” was just as badly injured: a brownish-red ichor splattered about the room, and the creature whimpered, rocking back and forth, cradling its ruined appendage.

  After a while, it seemed to recover from its grievous injury enough to start digging. It did this by lifting one of the two main pieces of the broken board and using it as a digging tool. Unfortunately for the creature, both of its “hands” were needed to do this, and it cried out on every stroke: a bubbly sob.

  At last, it struck the bundle, and it used the piece of board to pry it out onto the floor of Captain Willow’s office. Its two “arms” pressed against the waxed surface until the wax snapped, and then it unwrapped the bundle.

  The creature peeled away the innermost layer of burlap to reveal, not a wooden dowel, but a miniature elven girl who was one week away from her fifteenth birthday. The girl cowered before the creature, trying to hide beneath the waxed burlap in which she had been buried.

  The creature made a glub-glub-glub sound, then shook its “head” and seemed to concentrate its efforts. An indentation formed in its “face,” and this indentation became a mouth with a tongue.

  “Don’t be afraid, Willow,” the creature burbled, sounding almost as though it were speaking underwater. “I’ve come to take you home.”

  The tiny elven girl flinched as the creature reached toward her and it drew back.

  “I’m not going to hurt you. I’ve come to save you. But you need to trust me.” It added in what could almost have been an ironic tone in its voice, “I know I’m not much to look at, but my intentions are good.”

  It reached for her again, and though she shied at first, she permitted it to pull her free from the burlap.

  “It’s all right,” the creature said. “Everything’s going to be all right now.” Around them, the room began to dissolve, and behind the vanishing walls was not the Kingdom of Bryanae, but instead a blackness that extended as far as the eye could see.

  “Hold onto me,” the creature said, though truth be told, it was now starting to look more like a human. “Whatever you do, don’t let go of me.”

  Waeh-Loh clung to the creature, overwhelmed by everything that was happening to her. Where was she? Who was this strange creature?

  “We’re almost there. You’re doing splendidly. Just hold on for a little while longer.”

  Now the abyss itself was dissolving. She clung tightly to the blob, which was now almost human-shaped. Behind the dissolving abyss, pieces of dark stone showed through, as though part of a wall. But that made no sense. How could a wall contain an entire abyss?

  At first, she thought the creature—a man, really—was shrinking, but then she realized that the walls that surrounded her were converging. Whether they were shrinking or she was growing, it amounted to the same thing.

  Waeh-Loh held onto the man and felt solid stone beneath her body, and the man’s arms wrapped around her.

  Everything stopped, and reality seemed to have been restored. Only, it was a different reality.

  She was in a stone cell, wrapped in the arms of an unconscious black man.

  One of the walls was decorated with a lifelike representation of some bipedal reptile. Another had an opening in it that was sealed by a metal door with bars in it. A human male peered in through those bars, his eyes goggling.

  Waeh-Loh sat up and blinked. The black man stirred slowly, as though waking from a deep slumber.

  For a moment, she couldn’t remember anything: who she was, where she was, what she had been doing. Then there was what felt like an explosion in her brain, and a deluge of memories and knowledge of the last one hundred and seventy-seven years poured into her brain.

  Willow clutched at her head, trying to stop the torment. The rush of memories included recollections of terrible events long since banished from her mind. She remembered being raped by the Warlord, witnessing her father’s murder, hearing the sound of her newborn child dashed against the wall of her father’s castle.

  She felt every injury that had been inflicted on her body. She remembered the stink of the Warlord’s friends as they pawed at her. She saw the blanket of flies on her father’s mutilated horse. She heard the cries of the barbarians as they took possession of the castle.

  She remembered, she remembered! Oh, it was too much! They hurt, all these memories! She squeezed her head betw
een her hands.

  At last, the influx of memories slowed to a trickle. She remembered sitting with Pyto-Etha in a grassy meadow. She remembered the poem she had been trying to learn for her father. Here and there, minor memories arrived to complete the puzzle.

  And then she was complete. She remembered everything now. Everything she had made herself forget so many years ago.

  Willow wrapped her arms around herself and began to sob, ejecting centuries of poison. The black man—she recognized him now as Tamlevar—slowly pulled himself upright and wrapped his arms around her, too.

  “It’s all right, Willow,” he whispered, and she clung to him as she cried. He stroked her hair. “It’s all right. It’s all right.”

  He said it over and over again; that and nothing else. She had no idea how long she cried but at last she felt that she had reached the bottom of the well of her sorrow, that there was no more poison to expel. She felt as though a spike had been removed from her soul. She felt at peace.

  She pulled slightly away from Tamlevar, her face surely made ugly by all the tears and mucus and dirt.

  She sniffed and said, “You really do love me, don’t you, Tamlevar?”

  Tamlevar smiled and wiped her cheek with his forefinger.

  “Of course I do,” he said. “Why? Was I unclear on the matter?”

  BOOK FOUR

  Queen of Bryanae

  Chapter 99

  “What have I missed?” Willow said, stretching her legs. She felt as though she had been sleeping for a hundred years. She supposed that in a way, she had.

  “Oh nothing,” said Tamlevar breezily. His face was gaunt and his skin looked stretched. “We’re being thrown into the gladiatorial games tomorrow morning. I had until midnight tonight to revive you or they’d’ve put us both to death. We’ve been jailed along with that reptilian wall hanging over there. Oh yeah, and Snyde’s been down here a bunch of times asking how you were.”

  “What did you tell him?” she said, her blood running cold just thinking of Snyde.