Guardian

by Jon Kiln

  “I don’t understand,” she said when it became clear Linz didn’t intend to explain further. “Don’t get me wrong, Linz. I can’t tell you how much we appreciate your help before.”

  Linz flushed, shrinking down even further into himself. He had defied his uncle, chieftain of the lake tribe, by helping them escape. Myriam knew how difficult that choice must have been for him to make. She rushed on, not wishing to make him uncomfortable.

  “And we appreciate that you want to help more. But, Linz, I don’t understand. You were safe on the lake. Our troubles are none of your concern. Why did you come?”

  For a long moment, she thought he would not answer. His eyes remained locked on the stony floor. His head was pulled down on his neck, shoulders hunched, arms crossed tight. Then, at length, Linz appeared to relax. He still did not raise his eyes, but when he spoke Myriam thought she heard an echo of that confidence she had seen a moment ago.

  “I can help,” he said. “I can. I have… ways. To help. Abilities.”

  Myriam screwed up her eyes, not understanding. She was about to press him for more information when Ganry came back, crackling torch held aloft as he materialized from the shadows. “I think you’d better see this,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  “Better if you see it. Come on, all of you.”

  10

  Thinking about it now, Myriam still could not believe what Ganry had found. The discovery was simply staggering.

  The cavern, deep beneath the Berghein Valley, must have been some ancient stronghold of her ancestors. There were relics and artifacts, mostly scattered about in varying states of ruin. The prancing horse of D’Anjue was everywhere, blazoned on the walls and carved on the smallest trinkets.

  But the truly amazing part had been the mural.

  It started about a hundred feet into the chamber from the entrance. The painting was simultaneously crude and remarkable. As near as they could tell, the mural was centuries - if not millennia - old. Who had created it, they could not say. Likely it had been some long-ago D’Anjue ancestor; or perhaps artists employed by the ancient house.

  Using basic shapes and symbolism, expressed with a limited palette of crude pigments, the unknown artist had created a visual history of the D’Anjue line. The mural stretched on and on, covering the wall from the floor to a point perhaps three feet above eye-level.

  Geometric shapes linked together to form the suggestion of human figures and other, more arcane creatures. Green triangles headed sinuous lines; surely those were meant to be dragons. Here and there, one of the faded green serpents belched ochre diamonds from its triangular head. Tiny, boxy human figures faced the dragons and, in some cases, appeared to defeat them.

  “It’s a record of the dawn age,” breathed Myriam, after she had studied the mural for some time.

  “Record?” Ganry shook his head, doubtful. “It’s an illustrated mythology, princess. Nothing more than that.”

  Myriam whirled on him. “This is my heritage, Ganry. This is the history of my family.” Turning back to the mural, she moved closer to the wall to examine a minute section of the painted mural. Carved directly into the rock were several tight lines of small, cramped characters. That these were letters, or word symbols, Myriam had no doubt. But it was no language she had ever seen.

  “Can anybody read what this says?”

  One by one, the party examined the ancient runes. None could decipher them.

  “If only Barnaby were here,” said Hendon, “I’ll just bet he could have read what it says.”

  But Barnaby was dead. He had given his life helping Myriam and the others reach Castle Locke. Without his sacrifice, Duke Harald’s men might have taken the princess before she ever reached the Berghein Valley. She had mourned for him, and still felt the loss keenly. Now, here was another reminder of what had been lost. Barnaby had been wise and learned, a mysterious, forest-dwelling stranger with arcane knowledge.

  “You’re probably right,” Myriam told Hendon. She heard the beginning of a tremble in her voice, and clamped down hard on her emotions. “There’s nothing we can do about it,” she said. “I guess we’ll never know what it says.”

  That did not stop them from examining the pictoral aspect of the record, of course. Myriam had already started to think of the mural in that way: as a record. Somehow she knew, with the firmest of convictions, that this mural represented the true history of her mother’s family. The House of D’Anjue was truly ancient, far older than the young Kingdom of Palara. If these images were to be believed, they had waged war against the legendary dragons.

  “If only there was some way to reproduce the mural.” It was some time later, an hour perhaps. Myriam had followed the mural along the wall, and the others trailed in her wake. Ganry kept looking over his shoulder with mounting anxiety, but so far had held his tongue.

  “It’s much too big for us to copy it down,” he said, his tone making it clear that he would have thought the exercise useless even if there was a way to accomplish it. It was plain that the warrior didn’t believe anything about the mural. He was welcome to his opinion, as far as Myriam was concerned.

  The images had progressed, growing more sophisticated as they went. Myriam thought the mural must be the work of many artists. Sections had been added over time to keep up with events, chronicling hundreds of years of now-forgotten history as it transpired. This record was priceless, whatever Ganry thought.

  “Look at this!” Hendon had gone ahead a few moments ago when Myriam paused to examine a section of mural that seemed to depict the original construction of Castle Locke. At least, that’s what she thought it was. The painting was damaged here, the paint flaking and the rock wall itself crumbling with damp.

  The princess hurried over to where Hendon stood. As she approached, she noticed a tall, arched portal in the stone wall, a few feet further along. The doorway interrupted the mural, which continued on into the shadows well beyond the opening.

  Ignoring the arch, Myriam joined Hendon and followed his pointing finger with her eyes. This section of the mural was quite busy, with images crowded together in a seeming jumble. Myriam shook her head and blinked, then looked again. At the top, well above her head, was what appeared to be a map of the world. The right half of the map, at least, looked familiar. She had seen many maps growing up in her father’s castle.

  The Damatine Sea was drawn in wavy lines of blue. Vandemland was a swath of ochre; Palara, Ashfield, and Mirnee were short strokes of green crowded together. In the south, sharp-angled chevrons depicted the Basalt Mountains. Between the green lands of the east and the Berghein Valley was a swirling mix of green and brown cut through the middle by a wide, sinuous line of deepest blue.

  Below this was some kind of branching diagram, carved with the same runes they had seen earlier. Myriam stared at this diagram for long minutes, puzzled. She had Ganry bring the light closer so she could inspect it, standing with her head so close to the mural that her nose nearly touched the wall.

  “It’s a family tree,” said the warrior.

  “What?” Startled, Myriam turned to face Ganry. “What’s that?”

  “A family tree.” He pointed, his finger tracing the branching diagram from its narrow apex down through increasingly wide, branching lines. “I imagine it’s meant to be the House of D’Anjue.”

  “I think you’re right,” said Myriam, turning back to the branching diagram with a growing sense of wonder. She glanced to her left, then, deeper into the chamber. “This must have been painted and carved a thousand years ago,” she said. “Maybe there’s another one, updated, further along.”

  “We’ll never know,” said Ganry.

  “And why is that?”

  The muscular bodyguard pointed to the nearby arch. “There’s our exit,” he explained. “Remember? The Duchess told us, the second exit on the left. That’s the second exit on the left. We’re leaving.”

  Myriam frowned. Before she could point out that Ganry was the guard
, and she was the princess, Hendon interrupted again.

  “I think you missed the important part.” Moving up to stand at Myriam’s side, he tapped a section of the mural near the level of her waist with one finger. “Look here.”

  Myriam crouched down to get a better look. For a moment, she didn’t see what Hendon was so excited about. Then it registered, and she gasped. Mouth agape, she turned her head slowly to look up at Linz with growing astonishment.

  11

  It had been three days since Ganry dragged them out of that subterranean museum. They had emerged in a marshy fen, several miles to the north and west of the Berghein Valley. The sun sank ahead of them. Behind, an ugly red-orange glow underlit the thick, black, overhanging clouds.

  They picked their way through the bogs and swampland, not sure where they were headed. Myriam was lost in her thoughts, marveling over the revelation of the mural. With the princess so preoccupied, the party followed Ganry’s lead. He gave no thought to any ultimate destination. First thing was to get out of the swamps.

  It was slow, treacherous going. The ground sucked at their feet. Seemingly solid earth gave way to bottomless quagmire without warning. Huge serpents lay coiled in the brackish mirk, ready to seize an unwary traveler and drag him down into the mire. At night, they were forced to sleep in the branches of stunted, warped trees. There was no safe clearing, no solid ground large enough to make camp.

  But at last, they had emerged from the bogs. Their three day slog through the fens had carried the party perhaps another ten miles from Castle Locke. Navigating the swamp had been impossible, but Ganry said they had traveled further north while angling back to the east. That suited Myriam just fine. She’d had three days to consider it. She knew where they had to go.

  Lying in the shelter of a massive boulder, Myriam made up her mind. With this new determination came a calm she had not felt in weeks. With her churning thoughts settled, Myriam at last drifted off into restful dreaming and did not wake again until morning.

  The sharp, tangy scent of roasting rabbit roused her. Myriam sat up, blinking sleep from her eyes. The others were all up already, she saw. Ganry stood several paces beyond the edge of their camp, scanning the horizon slowly in every direction. Closer by, Hendon and Linz knelt by a small, crackling fire. Linz had his hand on the end of a spit hung over the flames, and he spun the skinned rabbit in slow, even turns.

  “Myriam.” Hendon noticed her first. Rising from his crouch, he came over to her with a waterskin and offered her a drink. The princess took it gratefully. The water was tepid and brackish, but she drank it down all the same. With any luck, they would find fresher water today.

  “Ganry,” she called when she had drunk her fill. The burly warrior turned from his study of the distance and strode to her with an easy, loping gait. The man truly seemed more at ease in this wilderness than he ever had at Castle Locke. Ganry was not a man to be cooped up in castle or barracks. For more than ten years had he wandered the wastes of the world, making his own way and choosing fate as he would. Myriam grinned at the thought.

  “You’re in pleasant spirits,” her bodyguard observed as he sank into an easy crouch by her side. Glancing over to the fire, he smiled and nodded to himself. “The first fresh meat we’ve had since leaving the castle. Hendon’s snares be praised.”

  “It’s not the rabbit,” said Myriam, still grinning. “I was just thinking.”

  “Thinking, princess?”

  “That you belong out here.” Ganry looked puzzled at that, and Myriam laughed. “Not here, necessarily. I just meant that you’re at home in the wilds, aren’t you?”

  “It has been a long time since I remained in any one place,” said Ganry after a lengthy hesitation. “I’ve been a wanderer. A sell-sword at times, but always a vagabond.”

  “And now you serve me.” Myriam reached out and took his hand. Her own, delicate fingers seemed tiny and fragile when wrapped around his meaty palm. His skin was warm and dry. Myriam felt a flush of affection for the warrior who had protected her through so much. “When I regain my father’s kingdom, I would see you rewarded for your service. You will never have need to sell your sword again, Ganry de Rosenthorn. But I think, perhaps, you might continue to wander just the same.”

  Ganry blinked. After a moment, he nodded with a rueful grin. “Maybe you’re right, princess,” he allowed.

  They sat like that for a moment, she holding the big man’s hand in hers as they shared a kind of warm understanding. Then, she released him and her face became serious once more. “I’ve made a decision, Ganry.”

  “Princess?”

  “My grandmother meant for us to see the mural in the cavern. You realize that, don’t you?”

  “The Duchess meant for us to escape,” countered Ganry. “She wanted you to get away before your uncle’s men stormed the keep. If they had captured you, you’d likely be dead by now and nothing would stand between Harald and the crown he covets.”

  “That is true, but there’s more.” Myriam’s tone was firm and insistent. “Ganry, I know you think those paintings were so much fantasy. You may even be right, in part. Whether dragons truly ruled these lands in the dawn age, I cannot say. But I believe the artists who painted those images meant them as a record of true events. And I believe the genealogy we found to be as true a record as any kept in the ledger-house of Castle Villeroy.”

  “Princess…”

  “No, Ganry.” Myriam’s voice was firm, with a regal and commanding tone she had learned from her mother. She knew he would not like what she had decided. She fully expected him to try and talk her out of it. But she had made up her mind, and was determined to see it through. “My grandmother said it would be the Stones of Berghein that brought about my Uncle Harald’s defeat and the revitalization of the House of D’Anjue. The stones must all be brought together.”

  Ganry looked over at Hendon, who sat in the dirt a few paces away. The young man watched them raptly, making no attempt to disguise his interest. Ganry returned his gaze to Myriam, his expression grim but not yet resigned. “The daggers,” he said. “The rings.”

  “And yet we remain fugitives in the wilderness,” said Myriam.

  “What do you expect?” Ganry’s voice had taken on a pleading tone. “Princess, merely possessing the stones can do nothing. They are not magical. There is no magic.”

  “I’m not so sure,” murmured Myriam. “It matters not.” Myriam drew a deep breath. “It’s simple, Ganry. We need to recover the other stones.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “We do not yet possess all of the Stones of Berghein,” said Myriam. “But thanks to the mural, I know where to start looking for them. We make for the Cefinon Forest, Ganry. We have to get back to the country of the Lake Men.”

  12

  The great western wastes stretched out before the horses in a seemingly limitless expanse of arid sand and rock. The earth here was baked and cracked beneath the punishment of the sweltering sun. Wisps of cloud, emaciated and thin in the dry air, hung listlessly in the bright sky. The wind, when it was not still, was searing hot and dry in the travelers’ lungs.

  Artas wiped the sweat from his brow and squinted into the distance. Then he looked back over his shoulder at the way they had come. He could tell no difference in the views.

  They had left the lush grasslands west of Castle Locke three days before, entering the vast desert of the west. Marawi still lay somewhere ahead. Artas could not have said how far. To his knowledge, none but the druids had ever reached Marawi. At least, if anyone had, they had not returned to spread the tale.

  The grasslands had given way rapidly. The horses picked their way through tufts of dry, bristly grasses. Stunted trees, thick-boled and palm-topped, had grown in profusion. Then there had been fewer. Soon, they had entered a flat gravel plain that had stretched on and on. For a day and a half they had trudged over the stony earth before it, too, gave way.

  Now they traipsed through an endless sea of sand. Du
nes rose and fell like waves all around them, their ridges seeming to ripple in the heat. Perhaps they did ripple, thought Artas. There was certainly enough grit choking the air. He and the others had taken Zander’s cue, tearing swatches of fabric from their tunics and wrapping these about the lower half of their faces.

  Zander, astride Samphire, cantered along a few paces ahead of Artas. Dristan and Ector rode out to either side, swiveling their heads continuously side to side and scanning the terrain. Artas thought that a wasted effort. What enemies could possibly await them here? What foe would brave this nightmare landscape?

  Artas lifted the waterskin that hung at his waist to his mouth. A few tepid swallows were all that was left. Feeling uneasy, the archer drank a little. He stuffed the stopper firmly into the mouth of the skin and returned it to his hip. He spurred his horse on, riding up alongside Zander. The slender man glanced over at him curiously.

  “Water’s nearly gone,” said Artas. They had all taken to speaking as little as possible in this dry wasteland. Fewer words meant less moisture lost to the wind. Zander only nodded. With one hand, he gently tapped the side of his own waterskin. It hung slack at his side, as nearly depleted as Artas’.

  They rode on in silence for a time. Artas wondered what they would do when the water ran out. It was a silly thing to wonder, he reflected. Of course they would die of thirst. In this dry heat, likely it would not take very long.

  Zander lifted an arm and pointed ahead. “Oasis,” he said.

  Squinting, Artas followed the direction of Zander’s finger. There was a dark smudge on the horizon, swirling in the heat haze. He shook his head and peered again, but the smudge grew no clearer. But as they rode on, and the minutes stretched to hours, the smudge grew into a large, dark blur and then began to take on color. There was greenery. There must be water.