by James Wyatt
“Understood,” Kri said. “We’ll make our audience as brief and as polite as possible.”
“Brief is good,” Albanon said. He stared at Splendid. “Polite is essential. Even if he says things about Moorin that are … less than complimentary.”
“He would insult the great wizard Moorin?” The pseudodragon sounded incredulous.
“Speaking from ignorance. But this is not the time and place to educate him. It’s probably best if you just stay quiet.”
Splendid huffed and settled into a more comfortable position, stretched across Albanon’s pack and shoulder. Her needle-sharp claws bit ever so slightly into his skin, making him wince and shift his shoulders so her claws had more cloak to pierce than flesh.
“Well, let’s get to the inn,” Albanon said. “Tomorrow’s a big day.”
Albanon woke before dawn from a sleep troubled by dreams of his father, and he lay awake listening to the riotous chorus of birds greeting the first light on the eastern horizon. He saw Splendid as a silhouette on the windowsill, head cocked at the unfamiliar songs. He got up and walked to the window, idly scratching the pseudodragon’s cheek and chin as he watched the sun rise and thought about his father. Before the sun set again, he’d be standing in the audience hall of his father’s manor, facing that imperious glare and a host of questions he didn’t feel prepared to answer.
Kri woke before long, rescuing him from his thoughts by launching into the bustle of getting started on their journey. They left the inn with the sun still hidden behind the eastern trees.
East of Moonstair in the world, the desolate expanse of marshy woodland and low hills called the Trollhaunt stretched for miles, strewn with ancient ruins and troll-infested caves. In the Feywild, the land was not much different, though both trees and hills stood taller. Albanon led the way southeast, along a river that shimmered with faerie light. Around midday, they found a dry spot overlooking the river and sat down to eat. Kri made a few attempts to start conversation, keeping to light topics, but Albanon kept getting lost in his own thoughts, sometimes trailing off in midsentence, and Kri soon gave up.
After eating, they left the river and struck out due east. The trees grew taller, and an increasingly dense undergrowth of thorny bushes suggested that they were approaching their destination. Albanon found it easy enough to pass through the brambles without harm, and as long as Kri stayed close at his back he didn’t have much trouble. A few times, Kri’s cloak or robe got caught on a thorn and Albanon drew farther ahead; then Kri became lodged in the thorns until Albanon doubled back and helped him free.
“The brambles know their master,” Kri observed as Albanon worked his cloak free for the third time.
“I just know how to navigate them. I walked this forest a great deal as a child.”
“The thorns recoil at your touch.”
Albanon laughed. “Nonsense. My father is the Prince of Thorns, not I.”
“Are you not his heir?”
“It’s not that simple. Nothing is here. Please try to keep that in mind when we see him.”
A few hours after leaving the river, they came to the forest’s edge. The trees gave way to a wide plain, dry and brown, choked with thorny bushes and tangled vines. To the north, the forest jutted a little farther into the plain, and Albanon could just make out the spires and halls of the Palace of Thorns among the trees. He waited to see how long it would take Kri to spot it, a game he had always enjoyed playing with visitors, even eladrin from other realms of the Feywild.
“What are we waiting for?” Kri said. “Isn’t that your father’s house?” He pointed right to it.
Albanon’s mouth fell open. “Didn’t you say you’d never been here before?”
“I haven’t. But it sure looks like a Palace of Thorns, doesn’t it?”
“It usually takes longer for visitors to spot it among the trees.”
Kri laughed. “Ioun is the god of knowledge, prophecy, and insight,” he said. “I make no claim to possess more than a fraction of her wisdom, but she does grant me eyes enough to see much of what is obscured to others.”
Albanon’s gape widened into a smile. He had much to learn from Kri, and moments like that made him all the more eager to start learning. Ioun was also the patron of sages, scholars, and students, so it seemed appropriate for him to study with one of her priests.
His smile lingered as he led Kri through the briers, but faded quickly as the shadow of his father’s house fell over them. The dread that had haunted his sleep the night before returned in full force. His steps slowed without him fully realizing it, but they still brought him to the vine-wrapped outer gate all too quickly. Thorns jutted from the vines, nearly indistinguishable from the mithral bars of the metal gate that supported them. Albanon knew that on either side of the gate, a high fence of mithral and briers extended all around the Palace of Thorns, a warning as much as a physical ward.
“How do we pass through the gate?” Kri asked.
Albanon didn’t answer, but stepped closer to the gate. Silently, the huge gate parted in the middle and opened before him, as if welcoming him home.
“I am not the Prince of Thorns,” he said, “but I am still a member of this house.”
Tall trees with prickly leaves stood like columns in two straight rows ahead, ending at another gate-the inner gate, the entrance to the Palace of Thorns. Holly branches and thorny vines twisted together in an arch over the gate, which was a door made of white wood. Again the doors swung open at Albanon’s approach, but this time two guards stood behind it, eladrin women in fine mithral chainmail, holding slender spears and staring at him with more than a hint of surprise.
“My lord Albanon,” one of the guards said in Elven. “You were not expected.”
“You will announce me to my father, please,” Albanon answered in the same language. It felt strange in his mouth, it had been so long. “As well as my companion, Kri Redshal, priest of Ioun.”
“Yes, my lord.” The guard turned briskly and walked into the palace. Not once did she look back to make sure Kri and Albanon were keeping pace, and she didn’t slow or stop until she reached the ornate door of the audience hall, made of the same white wood but carved with intricate designs of flowers and vines. Then she turned and said, “Wait here, please,” before passing through the door. It closed behind her with a definitive thud.
Albanon’s heart was pounding, making his head throb. Splendid paced from one of his shoulders to the other until he hissed at her to be still. He couldn’t form a coherent thought. Snippets of sentences chased each other through his mind, refusing to resolve into anything he might actually say to his father, the Prince of Thorns. Kri smiled reassuringly at him, and he was unable to return the gesture.
The door swung open again, and Albanon stopped breathing. The guard stood in the open doorway, spear held to the side. She didn’t look directly at him, but focused her gaze up and out as she made her formal announcement.
“Lord Albanon and Kri Redshal, you are welcome in the Palace of Thorns. His Eldritch Majesty, the Prince of Thorns, requests that you appear before him, that he might offer his welcome personally.”
With that, she stepped to the side, clearing the way for Albanon and Kri to enter, and Albanon’s eyes met his father’s.
Albanon had a fleeting impression of a predatory insect, tense and waiting, claws poised to lash out and seize its prey. His father’s features were sharp, and he leaned forward on his throne, his hands clutching the arms. The Prince of Thorns was an old man, though the signs of it were more in his bearing, his perpetual scowl, than in his physical features.
“Albanon,” said the Prince of Thorns. “Tell me, how are your studies progressing?” The old man’s face was neutral, but his disdain was clear in his voice.
Albanon decided to ignore the question as he strode forward and knelt briefly before his father’s throne. The throne was carved from the living wood of the tree that also formed part of the back wall of the chamber, adorned with
images of thorn-bearing plants.
“Father,” Albanon mumbled as he rose.
“And you have brought a mortal man into my hall. Therefore, I assume that this is not a social visit. You might as well come quickly to the point.”
Albanon bristled, but struggled to keep his face and voice from showing his anger. “A tower stands on your lands, beyond the Plain of Thorns. We seek your permission to visit this tower.”
The Prince of Thorns scoffed and waved one clawlike hand dismissively. “Ridiculous,” he said. “The Whitethorn Spire has been abandoned for generations. None of our people venture there any more.”
“With respect, father, we’d like to change that.”
“It’s sure to be infested with monsters.”
“We believe we can take care of ourselves.”
“Can you? Then your studies must be coming along very well indeed.”
“Moorin taught me much before his death, and I have had several opportunities to practice my magic in dangerous circumstances.”
“Your teacher is dead? I told you, Albanon, humans are so short-lived. If you had studied with Darellia-”
Albanon interrupted, steel in his voice. “Moorin was murdered.”
“How unfortunate.” The prince’s voice was not the least bit sympathetic, and Albanon felt Splendid stir on his shoulder, growling softly.
“Father, just grant us your permission to visit the tower and we’ll leave your hall and trouble you no more.”
“What do you seek there?” the Prince of Thorns asked. “I told you, the tower is long abandoned.”
“With all due respect, Your Eldritch Majesty,” Kri said in perfect Elven, “Sherinna’s tower is abandoned because her son refused to fulfill the duty his mother laid on him at her death.”
The Prince of Thorns sat up taller on his throne, glaring at Kri for a long moment before turning his attention back to Albanon. “I never cease to marvel at the ways of humans,” he said. “They can be taught to speak, but they cannot learn manners.”
Kri drew himself up, and Albanon could feel the power gathering around him. The air shimmered with it, and even the Prince of Thorns seemed to diminish slightly in the face of it. Kri’s voice rumbled like distant thunder in the hall. “Sherinna was the sole custodian of knowledge that might prove to be vital to the fate of the world. She intended for her heir to safeguard that knowledge after her death, but her son refused and humans took on that responsibility. Now three hundred years have come and gone, and I am the last member of the order founded to take on the burden that you refused.”
Albanon stared at Kri. The founder of the Order of Vigilance had been Albanon’s own grandmother?
The Prince of Thorns stood, and Albanon took an involuntary step back. Kri’s wrath was like a nimbus of divine power around him, but it paled in comparison to the raw fury of the Prince of Thorns. The room darkened and seemed to constrict, the thorny decorations of the throne loomed behind him, and the prince himself seemed to tower above them and at the same time to lean hungrily forward like some feral predator.
“Do not presume to lecture me about my duty, human,” he said. “I am the Prince of Thorns. My duty is to this land and the people who dwell in it. You have no claim on me.”
Kri did not recoil from the Prince of Thorns’s anger. In fact, he presumed to step forward as he tried to argue. “But the fate of the world-”
“The fate of your world is not my concern.”
Albanon swallowed. He had to try to calm both men before the argument turned into something worse. He put a hand on the priest’s shoulder. “Kri, there is no need to cast blame for what has already happened. The Order of Vigilance took up my grandmother’s burden after her death, and that is all that matters. Perhaps it was meant to happen that way-after all, isn’t it fitting that the knowledge needed to save the world should lie with the humans of the world, and not hidden away in the Feywild?”
Kri’s gaze stayed fixed on the Prince of Thorns, but he took a slow breath, and the palpable aura of anger around him diminished slightly. “No doubt Ioun saw to the preservation of that knowledge,” he said.
“And Father, whether you knew it or not, you acknowledged our family’s role in preserving that knowledge when you allowed me to study with a wizard of the order.”
The Prince of Thorns also seemed to diminish slightly, and he let his eyes stray to Albanon. “Of course I knew it, my fool of a son.”
Albanon blinked. “You did?”
A hint of a smile crossed his father’s face, and he settled back into his throne. “And so with you, the legacy of the Order of Vigilance passes once more into Sherinna’s family.”
“You intended that all along?” Albanon said. “Then what are we arguing about? Why not just grant us permission to visit the tower and be done with it?”
“You still have not told me what you seek in the Whitethorn Spire.”
Kri smiled and leaned on his staff, suddenly seeming old and harmless once more. “I believe, Majesty, that the knowledge passed down through my order is incomplete. Moorin knew more than he was able to pass on to Albanon, and his knowledge might have complemented my own. We hope to find records in Sherinna’s tower, writings or artifacts or … or anything that might help us face the threat my order was founded to combat.”
The Prince of Thorns scowled and stroked his chin. “First you blame me for shirking my duty, then you admit that your order failed in its sacred trust to preserve and transmit what Sherinna learned.”
For a moment, Albanon thought that Kri was going to erupt in wrath again, but instead the old man’s shoulders slumped. “You are correct,” he said. “I am sorry that I cast blame before admitting my own failing.”
The prince regarded Kri for a long moment, then turned his gaze to Albanon. “I cannot deny you your birthright, my son. But heed my warning-my huntmaster has reported strange creatures in the vicinity of the Whitethorn Spire. I was not speaking idly of the place being infested with monsters.” His face softened, to Albanon’s amazement. “Be careful.”
“I will, Father.” He fell to one knee again, and Kri followed suit. “Thank you.”
“I hope you find what you seek,” the Prince of Thorns said. He waved a hand to dismiss them, and Albanon and Kri stood and left the palace.
CHAPTER FIVE
Get behind me,” Shara said, and she turned to face the demons. She and her greatsword could almost completely block the passage, so a demon that tried to get past her to Uldane would pay for it in blood.
“Do you have a plan?” the halfling asked.
“Step one,” Shara grunted as her sword bit into a demon’s shoulder. “Don’t die.”
“Sounds good so far.”
Another beast pounced, sailing over the demons closest to Shara and hurtling at her face. She brought her sword up just in time for the creature to impale itself on the blade. Shara staggered back under the sudden weight and almost tripped over Uldane, and then the demon nearly wrenched the sword from her hands as it fell lifeless onto its companions. Another one took advantage of her lowered defenses to lunge in, raking her leg with its claws before she could twist her body out of its way. She yanked her sword free and smashed the pommel into the demon’s face, driving it back.
“I don’t know what step two is,” she said. Her breath was coming harder and faster, and she finally had to acknowledge the doubt nagging at her mind, questioning whether she and Uldane could get through this alive.
“I figured as much,” Uldane said. He threw a dagger past Shara’s hip to sink into a demon’s eye. The enchanted blade wrenched itself free and sailed back to Uldane’s hand, trailing pale red blood. “How about this? We make our way down the hall until we find either Quarhaun or a strong door we can put between us and these demons.”
“What if we find more demons?”
“That’s not part of the plan.”
“I like this plan. Stay close.”
Shara lunged forward and swung her swo
rd in a barrage of cuts that belied the weight of the blade, driving the demons back. Then she countered with several quick steps back-and stepped hard on Uldane’s foot. The halfling yowled and Shara stumbled, nearly dropping her sword as she flung her arms out to keep her balance. One of the demons darted in and clenched its jaws around Shara’s leg, piercing armor and skin right below her wounded knee. Shara gritted her teeth and brought her sword around to cut into the creature’s shoulder, even as Uldane slipped around her and drove his dagger into its throat. It released Shara’s leg, she found her footing, Uldane got behind her, and they were more or less in the position they’d started in. Except that blood was trickling down Shara’s calf and jolts of pain shot up her leg with every step.
“Let’s try this again,” she said. “But this time, stay a little less close.”
“Sorry,” Uldane said.
Shara gave up on the idea of driving the demons back and concentrated on keeping their teeth and claws away from her body as she and Uldane shuffled backward down the hall. Uldane kept a safe distance from her feet but still managed to throw his little blade past her to harry their foes. She focused her attention on the demons, trusting that Uldane was keeping at least one eye on the hall behind them.
A long moment later, Shara could no longer see the mouth of the tunnel in their circle of light. Four more corpses littered the hallway in her wake, and they still had not found either Quarhaun or a door. Or more demons-which was good, since their plan didn’t account for that possibility.
“How long is this hall?” Shara asked.
“I can’t see the other end,” Uldane said.
“And I can’t see where we started. So apparently it’s endless.”
“Maybe we’re already dead and this is our eternal fate,” Uldane said. “Fighting demons in an endless hallway.”
“In that case, we might need to switch places for a little while. My arms are getting tired.”
Uldane laughed. The sound made her smile, and she imagined that it made the demons pause. Uldane amazed her-his ability to find joy and humor in the worst of situations was inexplicable, sometimes infuriating, but more often than she would admit it was a comfort.