by D Mickleson
“I believe it.”
Triston stared at the gate, and his heart, lifted for a moment when they passed the Guardians, sank back to a dull dread. At the base of the most distant column a rounded portal opened. In it was set a circular stone, perhaps twelve feet across. It was shaped like an enormous coin, black but carved with luminous traceries of fire in the same fashion as the Firefount. Streaks of lightning coursed from side to side before it, mimicking the fiery lines behind, and barring all escape, except that of death.
Triston noticed a small crowd gathered near the door, mostly merchants with handcarts interspersed here and there with huddled groups of acolytes and scribes. Occasionally someone would look darkly at the sealed gate and shake their head. As though bottled lightning wasn’t defense enough, a phalanx of Guardians blocked the portal, watching the frustrated spectators impassively.
Triston and Alessia edged forward to the rear of the crowd, stopping behind three gossiping scribes. Triston tried to furtively glance over his shoulder, images of the furious sergeant and his squadron of pursuing Guardians still fresh in his mind, but found no sign of pursuit.
“How long before they open the gate?” he whispered to Alessia.
“Only the Seer herself can do that, young man,” said an elderly scribe, turning and speaking in a loud voice which belied his aged appearance. “We could be here for hours for all we know. Tis a shame, for we miss our chance at revelry with the duke’s festivities so nigh at hand. I can’t think what could have alarmed Her Grace so that she should take such a step as this!” Having said his piece, he nodded grimly, then turned back to rejoin his fellows’ hushed conversation.
Triston felt a thrill of hope run through him at these words, for the way forward suddenly became clear to him. Though all he wanted was to melt into anonymity in this crowd, to wait until someone came and opened the door, he knew that would never happen now. He must act or perish.
“Go,” he mouthed into Alessia’s ear. “Go now.”
“What? But Triston, what are you—”
He looked into her eyes, touched by the concern he read there. “Thank you. You’ve saved my life. Now go.” Taking her hands, he gently but firmly pushed her from him, and she yielded to his insistence.
“Good bye,” she mouthed, letting her eyes linger on his face for a brief moment. Then she turned and hurried away, not looking back.
Triston put his right hand in his pocket and felt a second thrill pulse through him as his fingers closed on the emerald ring. Slipping the band loosely around his pinky, the only finger small enough, but leaving his hand in his pocket to avoid attracting attention, he faced the enchanted door.
As soon as the ring slipped on, he was overwhelmed once more by the bizarre sense of connection with everything around him, as though he was physically touching everything and everyone he could see.
This sensation was especially strong of things nearby. When he looked at the scribe in front of him, he was keenly aware of every woolen fiber of the man’s black habit, every weather-stained and dirt-speckled contour of his leather boots. Farther off, however, the connection faded, so that only a vague impression of cold metal reached him when his thoughts turned to the armored phalanx.
Of the electric portal, however, he could discern nothing. All else clamored for his attention, calling out to him with their presence and draining his focus, but the Golemgate stood aloof and untouchable.
Triston closed his eyes, shutting out all sensations as well as he might, and bent his will on the portal.
Suddenly he sensed it. Another will awoke nearby, fierce, angry, wild, resisting his own. He felt fear there, and a determination not to be subdued, not to be tamed. Hatred too welled up to sudden life, hatred of all things human.
Humans had trapped him long ago, had placed him here, forced him into slavery. He would not submit.
Almost Triston felt pity for this will, which he perceived with the enhanced consciousness the ring afforded came not from the portal but from the hideous statue behind him. Enslaved for centuries to serve as the Fane’s gateguard, the golem’s was a miserable fate. But Triston needed through.
The creature would have to yield.
The force of his thought struck the Golemgate like a silent battering ram, and he knew the golem’s resistance was already breaking. Soon the creature would be overpowered.
Triston’s legs were carrying him forward, his mind negotiating a way through the crowd though his eyes were closed. One more blow from this closer distance and the portal would burst open.
“The devilry! It can’t be!”
Triston’s eyes snapped open, and saw to his astonishment that he was now standing directly in front of the phalanx, his ring hand extended, a veritable flame of green blazing clear and bright in the purple light. He’d been so focused on his battle of wills with the golem, he hadn’t noticed where his feet were taking him.
“To arms, men! Draw your weapons!” yelled the foremost Guardian. But he alone heeded the words. The others stood rooted in terror at the dreaded ring which this stranger of unknown power and purpose had suddenly produced.
Triston stared, fighting the urge to run but unsure how to attack. He’d had no time to learn the ring’s secrets. No one moved, each waiting for the other to make some deadly stroke. Behind them, the frightened crowd was rushing toward the rear exit.
Suddenly, out burst the feathered-sergeant leading a stampede of Guardians. The charging groups collided, knocking many to the floor, but the sergeant kept his feet. “Seize him! Stop that boy! Seize him I say!” he bellowed above the chaos.
The rest of the phalanx drew blades, double-edges gleaming with reflected emerald. One of them stepped forward.
“Put down that ring, boy and I promise we’ll treat you well. Just lower your hand if you please,” he urged, his voice choked with terror.
Triston suddenly realized with the clarity that only a life and death decision can grant what he needed to do. The memory, only hours old though they felt like weeks, of the wizard’s imp staff and the Seer’s stunned face formed clearly in his mind.
“Sorry, I can’t do that,” he told the sweating, white-faced man before him. “You and your men might want to get out of the way.”
His will hardened, one thought filling his mind, and at once a thunderous crash rang out behind him. Diving aside, he watched from the ground as the frozen golem crashed to the checkered floor. With a wave of his hand, it hurtled toward the portal with the force of an avalanche. The phalanx broke in panicked leaps, the last man just missing a crushing death, while a lightning-torn cloud of dust burst from the portal.
What had been the portal.
Where the Golemgate once stood, a yawning chasm opened to the night sky beyond. The gentle breeze of a summer night beckoned.
Triston got up, dusting himself off and peering around. On the far side of the room, the sergeant was still standing, staring around stupidly. He wobbled once, righted himself, and then fixed blank, uncomprehending eyes on Triston. All others had fallen to their faces. Giving the stunned man no more heed, Triston turned and picked his way through the rubble and stepped out onto the courtyard.
It was not until the third shuffling step from the Golemgate that Triston realized something was wrong. Or rather, everything was right. Normal. The otherworldly power, his heightened perception, the connection with everything around him, it was all gone. He raised his right hand as he walked, and his heart sank.
The ring was gone.
He stopped and turned, staring back at the entrance to the High Fane while precious seconds passed. The rubble-strewn Golemgate seemed a gaping chasm in the gray twilight, a door leading down to a pit. He shuddered. Voices sounded inside. Someone was barking orders. Cursing his carelessness—he remembered fitting the precious thing loosely over his pinky—he gave up all thought of going back.
He pressed on. The yard was empty, whether due to the lockdown or the festival he neither knew nor cared. One minute he was
gulping greedily from a gilded bird bath, quenching such a thirst as he had never known, the next he’d reached a high, white-stone bridge. A long, graceful arch leapt across a wide river. At the far end loomed up the outer wall of Luskoll, a darker shadow against the deepening night.
Two Guardians stood before bronze posterns at the entrance to the bridge, still and silent as all else in the courtyard.
“What was that noise away by the Golemgate?” one asked as Triston stepped between them.
“Her Grace,” he said at once. “Needs help with Ash the manticore. Seems it got away. I was sent to warn the duke. She needs all hands at the gate.”
The color drained from both their faces. “Did she actually say she needs us? Us specifically?” asked the man who’d spoken first.
“No, but she needs—”
“Well, I’m staying right here then. You go warn the duke and we’ll guard the bridge in case it comes this way.”
Triston nodded and shuffled on, the white stone rising with each step. The unmistakable tang of a riverside at night wafted up from the rushing water below. Midway, he leaned over the railing and dropped the stolen key ring into the swirling depths. “Didn’t like being a porter much anyway,” he mumbled to himself.
At the Luskoll side, two more Guardians must have once been posted, but these had left their post. He caught sight of them a little way off, holding flowing mugs and slurred conversation with a gaggle of big-busted girls at a nearby flower stand.
For a while Triston wandered the crowded streets aimlessly, aware that with each step toward the heart of the city the way forward became ever more packed. He had a vague idea of find a hiding place for the night somewhere near the western gate with the hope of escaping as soon as the morning trumpet sounded the gate-opening. Then he would have to contrive a way into the nearby fort where he would probably find Alden dead—
At that moment something strange and terrible caught his attention. He had unknowingly retraced his steps of earlier that day past the minotaur’s fighting ring. The crowd gathered around the ring was at least three times as large as it had been that afternoon, and Triston had no trouble guessing the reason.
One minotaur, eight feet tall with fur like a brown bear, still raged inside the ring. The pathetic figure of a man faced him, dodging blows and trying to keep his feet.
Forcing his way to the front, ignoring angry yells and one hard punch to the back as he jostled the close-packed spectators, he found about a dozen legionnaires cheering louder than all the rest and shaking their fists at the combatants.
One combatant in particular.
“Alden,” Triston muttered under his breath, as he watched his bruised and battered friend duck a deadly swipe from a gigantic fist.
ELEVEN
A CARNIVAL TO REMEMBER
What fades soon? Awe. What lingers? Humiliation.
—Roland the Venerable, Aphorisms, 212
A moan of pain erupted from the onlookers, followed by a collective gasp. Triston looked up just in time to see Alden dodge with unbelievable speed a tree-trunk sized fist-swipe which would have taken his head clean off.
The minotaur was grunting with what appeared to be laughs of pleasure as he considered his miniscule opponent. Suddenly he lunged forward with an awkward, two-handed grab which Alden easily sidestepped.
But his fortune had run out.
At first the creature roared its vexation upon finding its massive, three-fingered palms were not smeared with a squished Alden as it had plainly expected. But anger turned to triumph when, with a thoughtless swing of its right arm, Alden was yanked to the ground right at the minotaur’s feet. It was then that Triston noticed, manacled to Alden’s left foot, a chain, the other end of which was snagged on one of the minotaur’s filthy, yellow claws.
Triston swore. “Dragon balls,” he muttered, “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
He found himself climbing onto the wooden platform, those nearby grabbing him. He kicked them off and pulled himself painfully over the ropes. The crowd roared with laughter at his intrusion, believing him to be drunk or mad.
The minotaur was shaking its arm up and down, watching in delight as Alden bounced around on the floor like a rag doll. Triston knew the only chance for Alden was in speed. He rushed to the center of the platform, drawing his sword and, with one fluid motion, striking Alden’s rattling shackles.
A flash of sparks erupted, followed by an explosion of fury from the disbelieving crowd. The minotaur turned to Triston with a bellow of rage at his sudden appearance. As it did so, Triston noticed the chain, now severed, fall from the creature’s claw and retract through a loop in its ankle brace. With a shock, he realized both combatants had been bound by the same chain, and now both were free.
“Triston, here! Toss me the sword!” Alden was on his feet, gesturing emphatically. Confused at facing two opponents, the minotaur struck out at each of them, swinging both arms with wild but deadly force. Alden rolled beneath the blow, leaping up smoothly beside Triston, who had stumbled backward gracelessly but at least managed to avoid a crushing death.
“This is no good at all,” said Alden, holding out an open palm. Triston swallowed his pride and thrust the sword hilt into his waiting hand.
“What? You can’t handle just one monster?” Triston shouted above the commotion of the crowd, which had grown to a battle pitch.
Alden raised the weapon at once, waving it menacingly at the minotaur. The creature eyed the glittering steel warily, spraying them with an outraged snort but staying well out of sword reach.
“He’s OK. They’re the problem,” he said, turning Triston by the shoulder with his free hand without taking his eyes off the minotaur. Triston’s stomach did a somersault when he saw what he meant. Alden’s erstwhile captors were not about to stand idly by while their prey got rescued. Three of the Ironwood legionnaires had already struggled onto the platform, straining against the weight of their sable armor. The rest fanned out through the crowd to cut off any possible escape.
“Hey you! Half-breed son of a hillbilly whore!” shouted the foremost soldier at Alden. “I’ll have your head mounted on my wall like a dirty minotaur before this day is out. We’ll sell your corpse to the Bloodwitches to pay your debt. At ‘im, boys!” The others joined in the taunting, but no one dared climb over the rope fence.
The minotaur stopped its angry pacing and glared at the man who’d shouted, snorting and grunting in outrage.
“Of course,” muttered Alden, looking between the minotaur and the soldier. “That’s it. Yes, the only thing to do really. No choice at all!”
“What’s that?” asked Triston, wary of the sudden glee in Alden’s voice.
“Brace yourself. Here we go!” Alden turned his back on the monster, tearing abruptly toward the line of legionnaires. The blade came up faster than the eye could follow, batting away a hastily raised sword and passing into the soft neck flesh of the man who’d taunted him.
“That’s for my mother,” he said, pulling out the bloodstained sword just in time to defend against the hasty strokes of the other two.
Triston watched as the man fell to his knees, a look of surprise on his face. Blood poured from his throat and mouth as he slumped to the ground and disappeared beneath the mob.
Then Triston remembered the beast behind him and spun around. The minotaur hadn’t moved, but instead had contented itself with watching the Meridian’s bloody death. Triston would have sworn there was something like satisfaction in its fierce eyes.
“Insult it,” shouted Alden behind him.
“What?”
“Curse its honor. Call it a name! Come on, I don’t have all day.”
A quick glance backward revealed Alden in a furious, three-way sword fight with the remaining legionnaires, while two more clumsily scrambled onto the platform.
Triston stared up at the minotaur, who was now watching him. The creature seemed a bastion of fur and muscle. Triston opened his mouth, thinking of callin
g it an overgrown cow. As if it read his thoughts, the minotaur took a threatening step forward, a fearsome scowl hardening as it considered him. The words caught in his throat.
“Hey dung heap, you stink,” he finally managed, his voice breaking. The minotaur reared its head with a roar and pounded its hoofed feet, causing the beams underfoot to tremble.
Triston groaned inwardly but plunged ahead. “That’s right fir ball, I’m talking to you. You—you’re just a big, ugly overgrown faun, aren’t you? I’d be mad too if I was that ugly.”
With startling speed, the creature lowered its colossal bullhorns and charged straight for Triston.
The ordeal in the Fane had left him weak, but all weariness vanished before the minotaur’s onslaught. Summoning his remaining strength, he dove to the left, rolling to the rope fence and leaping up with a twist.
The creature charged on, driven by its earth-shaking momentum.
Alden was waiting for him.
Tristan witnessed a sudden gleam above his friend’s head, then the rope fence was sliced asunder with a flash of silver. The Meridians cried out in sudden terror, turning awkwardly in their iron suits in a desperate attempt to get out of the way, but the outraged creature was on them too soon.
Triston saw a rolling blur at the monster’s feet—was that Alden?—then heard a sickening crash of crunching metal and squashed flesh. Two legionnaires fell in a ruined heap. Three more nearby fled for their lives. A roar of panic rose from the spectators as all turned in panicked flight.
Triston watched in horror as the minotaur, rising from the wreckage of fallen soldiers at the platform’s base, glanced around confusedly, as though only now grasping its new found freedom. It gave an exultant cry, then rushed at the backs of the scattering crowd with the force of a stampede.
“Like my handiwork?” Triston turned to see Alden’s ruddy face, blood-smeared and sweaty, grinning beside him.
“Not bad. But what about those people?”