by Steven Drake
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“NO!” Darien cried. “I can’t let her get away.” Darien suddenly found himself sitting up in camp.
“Bad dream?” someone said.
At first Darien did not recognize the voice, delirious as he was, but as the dream faded and his conscious mind returned, he remembered where he was. “Yes,” Darien said. “I am sorry if I disturbed you, Rana. I have many such nightmares.”
“Yes, you obviously do. You’ve been ranting in your sleep for the past two hours or so.”
“I suppose I should apologize for whatever I said. My dreams can be quite… intense. I can’t imagine what I might be saying.”
“I couldn’t understand most of it. Most of it sounded more like muffled screams than words,” Rana said, looking away and shuddering slightly. “I have never heard anyone make such noises in dreams. Whatever you were remembering must have been very painful. There were a few times when I could understand some of what you were saying. You would be calm for a while, speaking to someone named Kirin, then more struggling and screaming again. There was one thing that I thought was particularly interesting ‘Give us the vial and your kingdom will be spared.’ You said it during the times you weren’t screaming or squirming about. Tell me, do you remember what the dream was about?”
“It was about a mission I was sent on years ago; I can’t remember when. Kirin, Kirin the Hollow Eye, and myself were sent to retrieve a magical artifact from the King of Geruda. It was that vial, the one you carry!” Darien exclaimed in sudden recognition. “I had forgotten about it. Seeing that vial must have triggered that memory. I knew I had seen it before. You were the girl, the one holding the vial. You are the last surviving member of the royal family of Geruda. That’s how you knew about me. No wonder you were trying to kill me. What you witnessed… you were only a child…” Darien buried his face in his hands.
“Does it hurt?” Rana strode over and looked down at the man who had caused her such grief. “I hope so. I have lived with that memory burned into me for over ten years, and you forgot it like it was just another ordinary day of murder and death.” He started to speak, but was interrupted. “Spare me your apologies. All I want to know is this. When you said ‘Give us the vial and your kingdom will be spared’, what did you mean? I know you didn’t say that to me. Did you say it to my father, King Rodrick?”
“Yes,” Darien said as he shook his head in an attempt to dispel the lingering effects of the nightmare. “The Master ordered me to deliver a message to King Rodrick. The king was to deliver the vial to the Demon King in person. If he did as he was asked, I was to return with him and the vial without further action. If he refused, I was under orders to raze the city to the ground, and either kill or capture every man, woman, and child in the city.”
“I see,” Rana said. “There were several thousand people in the city, and he might have saved them all, along with his own family, his children.” The half-elf did not respond, and how could he? What could he say that would matter? “How did your master find out about the vial in the first place? Was it my brother, Marcus?”
“Yes,” Darien said. “I remember it now, Marcus told the Demon King about the vial, and in exchange, he was to be installed as king once the Demon King held the vial and Rodrick was dead.”
“You didn’t know about the vial’s power?”
“No, The Master had no reason to tell me. The Master commanded me to deliver the message to Rodrick to turn over the vial, and if he refused, to retrieve the vial myself, and that is all. I swear to it.” Rana did not respond, and instead turned into the darkness.
Finally, after what seemed an interminable silence, she spoke. “I have no illusions about my father. I am old enough now to understand what sort of man he was. He was an arrogant, petty, and small-minded man. He must have realized Marcus was the one who told the Demon King about the vial, and he probably guessed why. My father never paid very much attention to his younger children, nor even to my mother. He only ever seemed to care about his oldest son, Rodney. My father was ever a prideful man. To see his favorite son passed over in favor of Marcus would have been a grievous blow. Still, I had no idea his pride extended so far that he would condemn his own people to death for the sake of it. I must ask you, what happened to Marcus? He was not in the city when it was destroyed.”
“My memory is not entirely trustworthy, but I seem to recall that when he was no longer useful, the Demon King had him executed,” Darien said. “The Master used him, as he uses everyone.”
“Yes, that makes sense,” the golden-haired took a few steps away and sighed deeply before continuing. “Marcus always had more heart than he had wisdom. You know, my father never took any interest in my sisters and me. He treated us like property, political pieces to marry off to some nobleman or neighboring prince so that he might expand his political influence. Marcus became like a father to my sisters and I. He played games with us and read us stories about heroes and faeries and dragons. I loved him very much. He cared too much about us, and too much about his people. He never agreed with my father, and they often quarreled. The last few months before it happened, I knew something was bothering Marcus. He kept talking about how my father was ruining the kingdom, how people were starving while we enriched ourselves, and how everything would be different if only his father would listen to him. I never realized he had become so desperate that he would make a bargain with the Demon King.” The woman paused and looked up at the clear blue sky.
“I must ask, how did you escape? The city was surrounded. There were soldiers everywhere. How did you slip past? Did Maya help you then as well?”
“Yes,” Rana said. “When the Demon King’s armies were approaching the city, my mother took me and my sisters to a particular fountain in the palace. She performed a ritual, like the one you saw earlier, to summon a faerie, and Maya appeared. That was the first time I saw her, yet she didn’t seem at all surprised, like she was expecting to be summoned. She immediately knew who I was, who my mother was, and what was going on.”
“But how did she manage to get you out of the city? It seemed that you just vanished, and why did she only help you, and not the rest of your family?”
“I was the only one young enough.”
“Young enough for what?”
“In order to get me away, Maya had to take me… into the water with her,” Rana stammered nervously
“Into the water? What does that mean?”
“You saw how she rose out of that pool of water,” Rana explained. “Well, the faeries can hide in the water that way. Their bodies disappear into the water, and they are able to travel that way. Maya was able to take me outside the city with her, but only me. She said something about my soul being the only one pure enough. I didn’t know what it meant.”
“Incredible!” I’ve never heard of magic that powerful. No wonder the Master wanted the vial so badly, but one thing still confuses me. Why did she wait until I was almost upon you to do this?”
“I’ve begun to wonder that myself. My mother wanted Maya to get me to safety immediately, but she said that there was yet hope for the city. After the attack began, Rodney gathered us up and tried to organize a defense for us, even though he must have known it was hopeless. Whatever his faults, he fought so fiercely for us. It wasn’t until he fell that I truly knew there was no hope, and I ran to the fountain as fast as I could. I wonder now whether she knew what would happen from the beginning. Did she know you commanded that army? Did she need me to see you, so that you would be the one I would hate so much and pursue to the ends of Terrallien?”
“It does seem an astounding coincidence.” Darien rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “And those coincidences have been mounting ever since I met Jerris in Kantu. Who can say what she knew herself? I suspect a greater hand than hers is at work here.”
“If she did know, then she made me watch my family die, just so that we would encounter each other. I cannot imagine her committing such an act of cruelty. She saved my life,
and has been with me ever since. She has been my only real friend since that day.” Rana sighed as she tilted her head back and shut her eyes.
“Well, if she spoke truly, then it really didn’t matter,” Darien said. “There was no way to save any of them from the very beginning. You would have been the only survivor no matter what happened.”
“Didn’t matter? You would think that, wouldn’t you? Oh why am I even telling you any of this?” Rana said. “As if you could ever understand what it’s like to lose your family, to watch them fall dead before your eyes.”
In his heart, Darien cringed at these words, so painful was the memory they stirred. In truth, he knew exactly how Rana felt, but he said nothing, and pushed the memory aside. He dared not linger on it, for he feared that nightmare even in waking.
“You should sleep now,” Darien said. “I’ll watch until nightfall. I couldn’t sleep if I wanted to anyway.”
“Good night then,” Rana said. “I suppose I should thank you for telling me this. It changes nothing, but still, it is good to know the truth of it.”
Chapter 22: Tethered by Fate
The remainder of the day passed slowly as the Executioner kept watch. A short and troubled sleep had done little to ease the fatigue that the weary half-elf now felt. A chill wind blew out of the north again, and as the afternoon wore on, clouds slowly rolled in from the northwest. The dark sky threatened rain on the next night’s journey.
It was, however, only the weather that seemed threatening. Neither the goblins nor the howls of the warrogs could be heard. This should have troubled the Executioner, for he knew the ways of goblins, and it was unusual for goblins to abandon a search so easily, but in the weary unease that followed his dreams, the Executioner was uncharacteristically inattentive to such details.
The revelations of the dream had shaken him. He had done to Rana the same thing that had been done to him so long ago, and it affected him more deeply than he thought possible. He regarded guilt, much as he regarded fear, love, hate, and all the other useless emotions that imposed themselves unbidden upon his usual calm demeanor. It was something to be ignored, something to be pushed aside, useless flotsam cluttering his thinking. Nevertheless, he felt it, as he had never felt it when he served the Demon King. He had never stopped to consider his actions then, so why now, when the deeds were long since done? His own feelings confused him. He had always realized that his acts had surely made him many enemies, but he had never confronted one directly. He had hidden his true identity, and run far away from his former life. Living that way, it was easy to push aside the past, but now, for the first time, he was forced to truly confront the consequences of his actions, and as Rana had observed, it did hurt.
Alone with his thoughts, Darien found the Craglands especially desolate to him that day. The land appeared empty even of beasts. The only thing that momentarily broke the dull tedium of Darien’s vigil was a crow, which lit atop one of the pine trees, then flew away the moment he turned to look at it.
The weary watcher waited until well after the sun had set, and all light had faded from the western sky, before he finally woke his two companions. This time, he prevailed upon Rana to once again summon the fairy Maya, though this availed the travelers very little. The young woman had been correct, after all. Maya disappeared into the water for over an hour to learn what she could from her sisters, and when she returned, she had little to offer. She could discover nothing of any paths through these particular hills, nor exactly where the goblins were searching, only a vague direction, somewhere north. Maya did warn that no river or stream lead out of the swamp, and that if they continued south around the marsh and followed the path of the water, they would eventually come to the faerie sanctuary.
Despite his frustration with the lack of clear direction and the wasted hour, Darien decided the best course would be to follow the faerie’s advice as nearly as possible. That meant following the line of hills around the marshland, a difficult path, but one which at least provided some cover from detection.
A drizzling misty rain began just after they set out, and fell continuously through the night, chilling the travelers just as the fog of the previous night’s march. The hilly terrain proved less difficult than the treacherous swamp. Here, at least, the footing was good enough to allow the travelers to ride their horses, easing their weary feet as they followed the edge of the marsh, keeping to the lower slopes of the hills. When they reached the southern hills, they turned south, searching for a path through to the other side. As the night wore on, they made their way up into the hills, keeping as straight a path as possible. For several hours, they climbed steadily, cutting a winding path to avoid the steepest slopes, and by the time the dawn’s first light shone pale in the eastern sky, they had passed the high point of the ridge, and were heading steadily downward on the southern slopes. With dawn near, they found a rocky outcropping and rested beneath it during the day, preparing for another night’s march.
Darien stood watch while his two charges slept. After the nightmare the previous day, he had no desire to sleep, yet the strain of the journey was taking its toll. Though used to living simply, this was as far as he had traveled for many years. More than this, he had cast more spells in the past few days than the preceding several months, and lack of practice had weakened his prior endurance. The spells had sapped his energies far faster than they would have when he served in the Order of the Shade. The mental stress of the pursuit and constant worry added still more to the fatigue he now felt. The physical, mental, and magical stresses had worn upon him, and for the first time since his early youth, he felt weak, and dangerously so. More than anything, he dreaded facing Avirosa in his current state, and he feared he could not prevail without the power of the Demon Sword.
As the weary half-elf’s mind dwelt upon this and other worries, his awareness drifted, and his eyelids grew heavy. Even the strongest of men have moments of failure, and although the Executioner may once have been among those, he was not now, and as the sun climbed high into the sky of the Craglands, his will finally gave way, and he drifted into unconsciousness.
He was awakened by Jerris some unknown time later. The lad’s concerned, almost frightened, face shocked him quickly awake once again. The drizzling rain had passed, night had fallen again, and the great moon was high in the sky. An irritated Rana glowered at him from under her steel helmet a few yards away, outside the shelter of the rock outcropping.
“What happened?” the golden haired woman accused.
“I fell asleep, obviously.”
“Obviously… You might have woken one of us so someone could watch.”
“What would you like me to do?” the Executioner grew frustrated, and his voice turned cold and sharp, biting like steel, without a shred of emotion. “Would you like me to be angry, or did you want an apology? Would the useless gesture make you feel better? We’re all rested now and nothing has happened. I’m better able to defend myself dead asleep than Jerris is wide awake, probably you as well. You would be wise to check your anger and your pride. You may be useful in battle, but you are not my equal. Do not forget how our first confrontation ended. You’re still at my mercy, and I’m in no mood to argue the point.”
A tense moment followed. Rana’s hand drifted to Jerris’ sword, which she still carried at her waist. The solemn Executioner made no move, staring coldly, straight into angry blue eyes. The steel clad lady did not flinch, and for a long moment, they were frozen in place, each waiting for the other to make some move. It appeared that they would once again do battle.
“Stop it. Please,” Jerris pleaded with his quiet childlike voice. “This isn’t going to help. He didn’t mean to fall asleep, and he’s right, it’s done with, and nothing happened. Just let it go, Rana. You can’t pick a fight over everything.”
“Fine, apologize for your protector if you like. He favors you only because you share his elven blood, but he has no regard for anyone but himself. He uses his power to get his way, just li
ke his Master. He’s no different, and one day he’ll get what he deserves.”
Nothing more was said, and the three travelers began to make their way southward. The lands ahead sloped away from them, and in the moonlight, it was possible to see many miles into the distance. Though the moonlight showed no color, it was apparent that the lands ahead were somewhat more hospitable than those behind. More trees, tall scraggly pines and low fir trees, grew in clusters in the sheltered places between the rocky hills. The dark lines of river canyons snaked among tall bluffs and mesas ahead. One particular canyon, larger and longer than others, ran directly across their path, surely the path of a river. Darien reckoned the valley no more than two days distant at their current pace, and perhaps considerably less if they could make it down off the ridge well before dawn.