by Lev AC Rosen
“Amazing,” he says finally. He gives it to Rorth, who studies it for a moment before handing it back.
“It looks like a spearhead to me,” he says. “But Ind knows best. He’s been studying this.”
“It looks just like the diagrams,” Ind says, and nods. “Same runes and such. If I may go get the Staff, I’ll show you how they fit together.”
“Go,” Rorth says, and Ind hurries away like a gleeful child. “And now, you,” he says to Severkin. “I promised you riches and rewards, did I not?”
“You did,” Severkin says, trying not to appear too eager.
“So what would you like?”
“A home, here in the overcity, if there is one,” Severkin says. “One where I may keep the relics of my adventures.”
“A collector, are you? Very well.” He nods at Siffon, who nods back. “And what about you, troll?”
“Well, ta call me by my name would be a nice start,” Elkana says, causing Rorth’s eyebrows to raise. “But, aside from that, I’d appreciate access. Throughout the kingdom. Not just ta be able ta study at the Tower, but also ta investigate the various closed-off locations where magical tombs are hidden, and of course, all the libraries.”
“Easy to grant, Mistress Elkana,” Rorth says. “And both of you shall be paid in gold, as well. Siffon will work out the details.”
“Siffon will pass it along to someone whose job it is to work out the details,” Siffon corrects.
Ind comes running back in, the Staff in one hand, the Spear in the other. He presents them both to Rorth, who nods. Ind then puts the two together. The Staff slips into the Spear, forming what looks to Severkin like an oversize arrow with no feathers.
“Odd,” Ind says. “I thought there would be glowing…or something to affirm I’d done it right.”
“Is there a chance you’ve done it wrong?” Rorth asks.
Ind shakes his head. “No, it’s all in the diagrams. First the Staff into the Spear and then the Spear into the Hammer—it will give way to the point. Then one simply places both hands on it and thinks what they want the giants to do, and it is done. If Your Majesty places your hands upon it and thinks only that he wishes the giants to sleep for eternity, then…they should. Or for at least another thousand years.”
Suddenly the doors to the hall burst open. Izzy comes back in, sweating and red faced.
“That was fast, even for you, Izzy.”
“She’s coming,” Izzy says, then bends over, gasping for air. “She’s coming here now.”
“Ah,” Rorth says, smirking. “Let’s prepare, then. Ind, set that thing on a fancy pillow or something. And get the diagrams so we can show her we’re ready for her contribution to our saving the world.”
Severkin and Elkana find a place to the side, out of sight, as the court busies itself to receive the dwarven guard captain. Tables and chairs are brought out, guards put in place. Siffon goes over a few files with Rorth. When the door swings open and a guard announces Elega, everyone is already at ease.
Except Elega. She is clearly annoyed with having to come here, and her gray face is lavender with frustration and possibly exertion, from the steps she had to walk up. She’s thrown on a long purple cloak that trails on the ground. As she walks into the hall she notices Severkin and glares at him. She’s accompanied by two other dwarves, both as old as she is, one with glasses, the other with an axe.
“So you got the Spear,” she says, hopping into the chair prepared for her. “Bully for you. I have the Hammer. Can we get this over with?”
“Elega,” Rorth says, sweeping down from his throne, his armor like melting gold. “I am honored to have you in my humble court.”
“I’m sure,” Elega says in a tone that makes it clear she doesn’t believe him and also doesn’t care. “And I’m honored to be here. But can we please put the giants to sleep? Up here you just see the ones that make it aboveground, that are already fully awake and fighting. I have colonies built into what we thought was stable rock that becomes unstable as the giants shift and start to wake. Every moment, I could be losing citizens.”
“Of course,” Rorth says, looking slightly ashamed. “Ind?”
Ind comes forward with the Staff and Spear on a pillow, which he lays on the table in front of Elega. Elega takes the Hammer—a sphere of metal—from a pouch at her side and puts it down. “Now, sire,” Ind says. “You take the Spear and plunge it into the Hammer. It will open itself.” Rorth takes the Spear and lifts it over the Hammer.
“Don’t try any of your gray-elf trickery with me, Rorth,” Elega says. Rorth nods and plunges the Spear down.
It skids off the sphere of the Hammer and instead buries itself in the wooden table. Everyone is silent, and the sound of the Spear vibrating in the wood seems to fill the Hall.
“You must have done it wrong,” Ind says. “Sire,” he adds quickly.
Rorth shakes his head and pulls the Spear from the table and tries driving it into the Hammer again, but more slowly. Again, the Hammer doesn’t open.
“Let me try,” Elega snorts. Rorth ignores her and tries again, but again nothing happens except for the scratching sound of metal sliding on metal. Elega grabs the spear from Rorth and slowly pushes it down into the Hammer. It slides off again.
“Something is wrong,” she says. She motions to her attendant without the axe, and he comes over and takes the Spear from her. He turns it over in his hands and stares at it, then closes his eyes and mumbles something.
“This isn’t the Spear,” he says. “Or the Staff.” Everyone is silent. He stares at the Hammer on the table. “And that’s not the Hammer. They’re cunning replacements, but the magic from them is…just an illusion. Magic to make something look magical. Cheap spells anyone could do.” Severkin feels the eyes in the room shift toward him, and he feels his armor grow warm.
“We didn’t know,” he says. “We didn’t even know what they looked like until we found them. And neither of us was there when they found the Hammer.” He can hear his voice growing higher as he says this. There are no easy exits. The windows are all several feet off the ground, and then he’s not sure he could bring Elkana with him.
“That’s true,” Siffon says. “We were careful not to give him descriptions of the items, as we weren’t sure if he was trustworthy.”
“Is this some trick?” Rorth demands, turning on Elega. “Did you conspire with him and that other gray elf who brought these things back?”
“I told you, I want the giants asleep more than you do. If I had the artifacts, I would just use them! This is no trick.”
“Severkin,” Siffon says, advancing toward him. “How did you know what the Staff was?”
“The necromancer who had it—she was using it to control a dead giant. I inferred,” Severkin says, crossing his arms.
“Although,” Elkana adds, “it was Reunne who picked it up and said it was the Staff.” Severkin glares at Elkana, who won’t meet his gaze.
“And how did you know what the Spear was?” Rorth asks.
“Reunne had drawn it before…,” Severkin confesses. He can see what’s happening. He’s not sure how to fight it, though.
“They look just like in the diagrams,” Ind says. “He brought the right things back! We’re just not using them correctly.”
The room is silent a moment, and Elega sighs.
“Reunne,” she says.
“What?” Rorth asks.
“The gray elf I sent to retrieve the objects…Her family is descended from the original makers of them. She probably knew what they looked like before she found them.”
“So?” Severkin asks.
“I thought it made sense,” Elega says. “And I like Reunne—she’s very winning. Observant, manipulative, clever.”
“Trustworthy?” Siffon asks.
Elega shrugs. “Is anybody in this damned city trustworthy?”
“So you think she replaced all the objects with fakes?” Rorth asks. “To what end?”
�
�I don’t know,” Elega says, shaking her head. The wrinkles in her face seem to slide downward as she frowns.
“No,” Severkin says. “It can’t be Reunne. Someone must have gotten to all the artifacts first—a long time ago. Replaced them with fakes.”
“Except that Helena was using the Staff,” Elkana says softly. “It worked then.” Severkin turns on Elkana, who still won’t meet his gaze. From the corner of his eye, he sees Elega whisper something in the ear of her attendant holding the axe. He quietly leaves.
“But…,” Severkin says. He doesn’t know how to finish the sentence.
“I’m sorry,” Elkana says, laying a hand on his shoulder. “I know ye came ta think of her as family.”
“She’s being framed,” Severkin says in a voice only Elkana can hear. “I don’t know how, but this is a setup. I’ll go find her. I’m sure she’ll have some insight into how this happened. I bet it was Efem, somehow, something to do with her father.”
“She’s probably long gone by now,” Elega says to Rorth. “But we’ll find her. You can look, too, if you wish. In the meantime, I’m going back to the undercity. We’ll have to look into new ways of stopping the giants.”
“This is your fault, Elega,” Rorth says, pointing a golden-armored finger at her.
“Maybe so,” Elega says, her head nodding up and down. “But I’ll fix it.”
Rorth begins yelling at her, and Elega stands there taking it, but Severkin doesn’t pay attention to what they’re saying.
“I need to go find her,” he says to Elkana.
“I’ll come,” Elkana says.
They head for the exit, where Siffon stops him with a light touch on the shoulder.
“If you find her, and she has them, bring them to us. We’ll give you both everything we promised,” she says. Severkin nods.
They walk back through the city quickly, and down the hall stairs. They pass the dwarf with the axe, whom Severkin smiles at. They’ll find Reunne first. They’ll ask her what’s going on. Nothing beyond that will happen until they’ve talked. There must be an explanation.
Severkin and Elkana are silent as they run down the steps, careful not to slip on the spiraling rainbow. In the undercity, Severkin heads to where he remembers Reunne’s house being. The city is a maze, and dwarves cross the streets to avoid them, but he relies on his instincts, and he knows he’s close when he starts seeing other gray elves, their heads down, their eyes on the ground. Shadows pulse around them, some with dwarves in them, others just alive with their own darkness. It takes a while, but he finds the house again, the courtyard with the fountain.
He pulls the gate open quietly and stands in the courtyard, listening to the water splashing like a hundred whispers in the dark. Then he goes forward and knocks on the door. There’s no answer.
“Should we wait?” Severkin asks Elkana. She raises her eyebrows at him.
“Pick the lock,” she says. “If ye want to prove she’s innocent, then ye pick the lock and find the evidence.”
Severkin nods, then quickly picks the lock and opens the door. Inside, the fire is roaring, the air smells of incense.
“Reunne?” he calls out. There’s no answer.
“She was just here, if she’s gone,” Elkana says. They search the house—upstairs and down, where the memory wall is. There’s no sign of her. “Do that thing ye do,” Elkana tells Severkin. “Where you find clues. Maybe ye’ll find out where she went.”
Severkin nods and closes his eyes. When he opens them again, the house is different. He looks upstairs and down and notices things he didn’t see before; on the memory wall, there are carvings of a snake cut in two, and a hawk, broken-winged. He finds old journals about the creation of the Hammer, Staff, and Spear and how to use them. And in the room downstairs, next to the memory wall, he finds an incense burner, cold, with fingerprints on it. He pulls it down.
The memory wall swings back, revealing a wide chamber beyond. In the center of the chamber stands Reunne, waiting. On a stone table behind her are the Spear, the Staff, and the Hammer, already assembled, forming an orb with a crown.
“I was just deciding what to do with the giants when I heard you call my name,” she says. Her voice is different—smoother, less like the wrinkled-paper sound of an older woman and more like scented oil. “So what do you think I should do? Destroy the dwarves first? Or the elves?”
“Neither,” Elkana says. Severkin nods.
“Why not just put the giants to sleep, like we wanted?” Severkin asks. “Wasn’t that the plan?”
“Oh, that’s their plan,” Reunne says, walking toward them. “Rorth and Elega. Gray elves and dwarves. I had a different plan. Get rid of them all.” She’s close to them now, and Severkin can see Elkana taking a defensive pose, her hands lighting up. But Severkin can’t believe it.
“Why?” Severkin asks.
“Really?” Reunne asks. “You’ve walked down here. You’ve seen the way dwarves stare at us—can you be so shocked I want them gone? And the gray elves above…Well, maybe they’re kind to you. But not to us undercity elves. We’re called traitors, glared at and avoided as much as we are in the undercity.”
“So…you’ll kill them?” Severkin asks.
“Yes,” Reunne says. “Destroy Wellhall. Start from scratch. No old prejudices. And I’ll be leading the charge. After I stop the giants.”
“After ye use them ta destroy Wellhall,” Elkana says. “Very nice.”
Reunne shrugs. She’s standing right in front of Severkin now, and he feels cold, frozen. He knows he should be angry, but he feels the opposite of that. Or something so far away from anger that there’s no comparison. It’s separation. Out-of-body. And then he feels the knife go into his gut. He clutches his stomach and looks down, watching with wonder as his hands turn red with something like spilled watercolor.
“Mother,” he says.
“Mother?” Reunne says. “That whole family bit usually works on you outlander orphans, but you really took it to a new level. Mother,” she laughs. Her laugh is strangely beautiful, which Severkin knows is an odd thing to think at this moment. It echoes and separates, like a duet. There’s a low rumble to it, like drums, and then a higher melody, like a flute. And then the laugh ends with a crackle as Elkana hurls lightning at Reunne. Severkin stumbles backward, watching Reunne easily dodge Elkana’s magic.
Severkin takes out his swords and feels them like hot coals in his hands. This is really happening. She just stabbed him. He has to kill her.
Reunne has her spear out already, though, and has leapt across the room, planting it firmly in Elkana’s side, so Elkana collapses in a heap. Then she turns on Severkin, a smile on her face. Behind her, Elkana is struggling to get up, her hands blazing. Reunne leaps at Severkin, but he throws his swords up, blocking her spear.
“You kept some swords from Helena’s trinket collection, did you?” Reunne asks. “Naughty boy. Mother is going to have to punish you.” Reunne kicks out, their weapons still locked, and Severkin tries to spin out of the way, but the wound in his side flares with pain and he falters backward. Reunne kicks out at him and he falls to the ground. Behind Reunne, Elkana is standing again, using her staff like a cane, and she throws fire at Reunne, hitting her in the back. Reunne cries out, her voice a tear of thunder, then turns on Elkana and, with a wide swing from her spear, decapitates her.
Severkin stands, his body aching, and lifts his swords up, ready to charge Reunne. Reunne smiles. The air smells of burning skin and cloying incense. Reunne charges, and Severkin charges, too, but just as he sees an opening and stabs for Reunne’s chest, she leaps over him and lands behind him. He starts to spin, but he can feel the spear tip go into his body, cutting through muscle and ribs like they were cheap plaster. The blade tip emerges from his chest, slightly off-center, red-slicked. He stares down at it and feels the swords drop from his hands.
Reunne pulls the spear out, and Severkin collapses. She doesn’t even say anything, just walks back toward the sto
ne table with the artifacts as Severkin’s vision fades to black. It’s a peculiar sensation, dying. The pouring out of blood from pierced organs. Like deflating. Like melting. He can’t see Reunne anymore, but he can sense her body at the table, leaning over the objects. The last thing he hears is her humming something—a familiar folk melody. He tries to remember where else he’s heard it, but can’t, and then he dies.
NICK IS distracted from the GAME OVER screen by the buzzing of his phone on his bed. He blinks, for what may be the first time in an hour or maybe just a few seconds. He’s not sure how long it’s been since Severkin died. He turns around and picks up his phone. He has a text message from Nat.
U ok?
Yes
he texts back. “Okay” is actually fairly accurate. Not good, not bad. Not really anything. He feels as though he should be experiencing the prick of ragebrew—should be hurling his game console out the window and crying, but instead, he feels okay. Rubbery. Plastic. Dense and unfeeling. Okay.
Want 2 tlk?
Nat texts.
No
Nick stares at his phone and gets up. He goes to his desk, where his homework is set up, waiting to be completed. He thinks of the hard facts within them, and the hard facts that have been surrounding him for so long without his seeing them, like ice, or bricks, being stacked one by one, closing in like an igloo, and he’s never even realized.
Still on for gamescon tmrw right?
Nat asks.
Yes
Nick texts.
Excited 4 it!
he adds as an afterthought. And he is. Somewhere in the back of him, he is. But now he’s okay, and he’s going to do his homework.
When he finishes, the sun is three-quarters of the way down the horizon. His stomach rumbles, which is odd, because he doesn’t feel hungry. But he knows he should eat. So he goes downstairs. Dad is at the stove. He’s making grilled cheese, butter on both sides, and it’s not even burned. He slips the sandwich off the frying pan and onto a plate. He picks it up and turns to see Nick, and Nick sees for the first time that his father has been giving him PityFace for months, maybe years, maybe his whole life.