by Joshua Khan
Thorn fell in step with one, a gangly boy a few years older, and a foot taller, than himself. There was something familiar about him….
“Do I know you?” he asked.
The boy frowned. “I don’t think so, m’lord.”
“Not been to the Sword Coast or anything? Herne’s Forest?”
“Not been beyond the city until an hour ago.” The boy smiled. Then he added, “Sorry, m’lord.”
“I ain’t a lord. I’m Thorn.”
“Merriq,” the boy replied as they shook hands.
“That a Djinnic name?”
“No. It’s my father’s name. He was a famous minstrel.”
It couldn’t be the same person, could it? Thorn had run across a charlatan named Merrick more than once since leaving Herne’s Forest.
“He performed for all the great houses,” the boy went on. “Danced with the twelve Solar princesses. They all fell in love with him and the duke wanted his head, so he ran away, all the way south to the Sultanate.” He smiled ruefully. “At least, that’s what he told my mother.”
It was the same Merrick!
“Then, a month after I was born, he went out, saying he needed a new string for his lute.”
“And never came back?” Thorn guessed.
“And never came back.” The boy shrugged. “My grandpa took us in. He said minstrels were like the wind.”
“Meaning they come and go as they please?”
“No.” The boy pointed at his backside. “They stink. Said if he ever showed his scrawny face here again, he’d remove his head.”
Thorn nodded. “Sounds to me we’re gonna get on just fine, Merrick.”
“You can call me Riq.”
“Rick?”
He tapped the side of his throat. “No. Riq. With a q. Use the back of your tongue.”
“All right, Riq.”
“Better.” Riq gestured up the line. “What’s the story, Thorn?”
“The usual. The nobles have made stupid plans, and it’s up to the likes of us to carry ’em out. We succeed, and we’ll be eating mangoes for the rest of our lives. We fail, and we suffer a forgotten death somewhere in those sands.” Thorn searched the skies. Still empty. “Though I have a bad feeling I’m going to come back as a zombie.”
“Some quaint Gehennish custom? The zombie thing?” Riq looked up, too. “It isn’t going to rain, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“Nah, just waiting for a friend.”
Where was Hades? He should have been back by now. Maybe he’d gotten lost.
“Hey! Peasant! Come here!”
Gabriel was up front, shouting and waving. He and K’leef had dismounted.
Riq frowned. “Is he calling for me or you?”
Thorn didn’t answer. He just handed Riq the reins and jogged over to his companions. “Can’t you manage even five minutes by yourselves?”
K’leef sat with a book open on his lap. “Look at those.” He pointed down to some animal tracks in the white sand.
Thorn spread his hand over one of the impressions to measure it. His fingers didn’t stretch far enough to span the footpad. And the distance between the forepaws and the hind-paws was over twelve feet. “It’s big. Has claws. Never a good combination.” He walked over to a flat rock and sniffed. “Yup.”
“Yup what?” K’leef continued flicking through the book.
“That sharp smell? It marked its territory.”
K’leef paused on an image and showed it to Thorn. “What do you think?”
The paw print on the page matched the one on the ground.
The artist had put a lot of detail into the picture. The teeth, the spiky tail, and the long claws. The creature looked like some big cat, but it bore a humanish face. Just with immense jaws, which were overstuffed with fangs.
“What…what is it?” said Gabriel, his voice, and legs, trembling ever so slightly.
K’leef closed his book. “A manticore.”
SEVENTEEN
“What’s that?” asked Thorn, pointing ahead. They’d traveled miles and hadn’t yet seen a manticore. But there had been other strange sights, like this one.
The western sky blazed. The horizon flared with bright colors, swirling greens and reds, and spikes of copper and gold. Thunder echoed from far, far away, but within its din Thorn heard, or thought he heard, voices. It gave him the chills.
“Wild magic,” replied K’leef. “We’re heading deep into the Shardlands, Thorn.”
It was dusk and time to camp. They found a patch of stony, flat ground within a low crater, just enough to keep them out of the wind. Gabriel’s servants spent the last hour of daylight erecting his white tent. The whole thing was over twenty feet square. He’d brought a carpet, a foldout bed, and a table with four chairs. Plus a dinner set and candelabra. Not that he invited K’leef and Thorn, much less any of the servants, to join him in eating.
Thorn shook open his blanket. It got cold at night here. He kept his eye on the gathering storm clouds. “That something we need to worry about?”
“Oh, yes,” said K’leef. “A big storm can change a lot of things: the landscape, the creatures caught in it. Sometimes the effects are only temporary; other times…” He drew a pattern on a rock. “Watch this.”
The pattern began to glow, as if the lines had cracked the rock, allowing heat to escape. Smoke emerged, and flames sprouted out of the stone, creating an instant campfire.
Thorn tried not to seem impressed. “I’ve got some powder for making hot chocolate.”
But impressed he was. He never got bored of watching sorcery. And K’leef’s brand of magic was a welcome change from Lily’s necromancy. You could only take so much of zombies and walking skeletons.
Thorn looked at his fingers. Stubby, and calloused from pulling bowstrings and heaving shovels. There was ink under his nails. He could write now—not well, but the letters were starting to make sense. He looked over at K’leef and felt a pang of…envy.
K’leef was so talented at impossible things. Thorn was just a commoner. Now he couldn’t even shoot straight, what use was he? And how could pulling a bowstring compare to wielding magic?
That’s just the way it was, no point worrying about it right now. Thorn scratched at an itch between his shoulder blades using one of his arrows. “We should have camped somewhere else. This place gives me the creeps. Those statues…”
“They can’t harm you, Thorn,” said K’leef as he rolled out his own blanket.
“That’s what they always say, right up to the moment they start moving and tear off your arms.” Thorn kicked the nearest statue. “Who are they supposed to be, anyway? Took a lot of effort to put these big things out here, in the middle of nowhere.”
“It’s the Valley of the Gods,” said K’leef. “No one comes here now.”
“What’s this one called?”
K’leef shrugged. “No one remembers. The gods died a long time ago.”
Thorn laughed. “The Six Princes hunted ’em down, right? Lily tells me the Bone Throne is made from the spine of one of these gods. Prince Shadow tore it from its back in a battle on the moon.”
K’leef made a face. “Why do you talk about the Six like that? Haven’t you got any respect? Anyway, they didn’t destroy them just to make some furniture. They did it to free humankind from fate. That’s why we’ve got free will and we can decide our own futures without the gods meddling.”
“You believe that, do you?” asked Thorn.
“Don’t you?”
He shrugged. “Grandpa says the cow don’t care why it’s being milked, just as long as the farmer has warm hands.”
K’leef frowned. “I have no idea what that means.”
A roar rolled across the desert.
Gabriel peered out of his tent. “What was that?”
K’leef looked anxious. “The manticore’s on the prowl.”
“But we’re safe here, aren’t we?” Gabriel whined. “You’ve planned for this, haven’t you?
”
Thorn interrupted. “Why did you come, Gabriel?”
Gabriel tightened the belt of his dressing robe and joined them at the campfire. He winked at K’leef. “Ah, yes, the quest.”
“Got sand in your eye?” Thorn asked.
Gabriel winked again. “The quest. Terribly quaint, isn’t it?”
K’leef seemed as bemused as Thorn. “What do you mean, Gabriel? Yes, we’re on a quest to find a phoenix. You know that.”
“Yes, yes. And when we find it and you are crowned, you are obligated to give your companions any reward they ask for. Isn’t that right?”
Thorn turned to his friend. This rule hadn’t been mentioned to him. “Oh, is it, K’leef?”
K’leef narrowed his gaze. “What do you have in mind, Gabriel?”
Gabriel waved over his shoulder. “To leave this fly-infested cauldron of a country. To go back home, and without your monstrous sister.”
K’leef grinned. “Why, don’t you like Nargis?”
“No, not in the least.” Gabriel craned his neck around. “Come on, there’s no need to keep it secret any longer. Where is it?”
“Where’s what?”
“The phoenix. You must have it hidden somewhere?”
Thorn took the boy’s arm. “Have you gone heat mad? You’re not making any sense. Or you’re making less sense than normal.”
Gabriel laughed. “Quests. So old-fashioned. Father has done hundreds of them. Always comes home victorious. But of course he would.”
Gabriel’s father, Duke Raphael Solar, was one of the greatest sorcerers of the New Kingdoms. Thorn had heard plenty of stories about him. There was the one about the Golden Hind….
“The most famous is his hunt for the Golden Hind,” said Gabriel. “They say he chased it beyond the setting sun and caught it with a rope woven from a sky maiden’s golden locks.”
Thorn frowned. “Didn’t he?”
Gabriel snorted. “Of course not. His huntsmen had caught it two weeks earlier and had it in a pen in the woods. Father put a spear through it while it was tied to a stake.”
“And the quest for the Lance of Light?”
“Bashed out by a tin smith from Argent. Father added a touch of glamour magic and that was that.”
K’leef sat down. “But he must have defeated the giant of Noland? Twenty feet tall and fought with an oak trunk bedecked with the bones of his enemies?”
Gabriel shook his head. “Five foot tall with stilts and a long cloak. All smoke and mirrors.”
Thorn laughed. “I get it. So you think this quest is like that? A setup?”
Gabriel stared at him. “Of course. No one does quests nowadays. Only children believe fairy tales like that. So where is this phoenix? It’s just that I want to head back tomorrow morning. This sand gets everywhere.” He scratched his crotch. “And I mean everywhere.”
Thorn glanced at K’leef. “Shall I tell him, or do you want to?”
K’leef, still stunned, shook his head. “You do it.”
Thorn smiled. This was going to be fun. In a pathetic way. “Gabriel, listen to me. We don’t have no phoenix. Not here, not hidden behind a rock, not stuffed in one of K’leef’s chests. The phoenix is out there, far into the Shardlands. Past the manticore, past monsters and wild magic and desert nomads who’ll cook you for breakfast. Get it? We are on our own.” He corrected himself. “On our own with fifteen servants.”
“But I can’t go into the Shardlands!” said Gabriel. “You don’t come back from the Shardlands. Everyone knows that.”
“Then we’ll be the first to do it, eh?” Thorn slapped his shoulder. “Don’t you want your dad to be proud?”
“But I’ll get eaten! I’m too important to get eaten!” He looked around wildly and grabbed a servant. “You! Start packing my things! We’re going back to Palace Djinn!”
Thorn grimaced. “You sure about that? Manticores hunt at night.”
K’leef nodded. “So do rakshasas.”
Gabriel gulped. “Rakshasas?”
“Shape-changing demons. Most live farther east, but some breeds like the desert. And to them, nothing is tastier than white meat.”
Gabriel sobbed.
Thorn sighed. “But worst of all are the…” He pondered. “The mobie-dobies.”
“Ah, yes,” said K’leef. “Twelve feet tall, fangs up to their elbows, and thirty-two eyes. Can’t escape them. The, er, mobie-dobies are terrible, hideous things.”
“Mouths right on their stomachs,” added Thorn. “So big they can swallow a man whole.”
“And only one foot,” added K’leef. “They can hop a hundred yards.”
Thorn frowned at his friend. Even an idiot wouldn’t believe something that stupid.
“Mobie-dobies?” whimpered Gabriel. “A hundred yards?”
But there were idiots and then there was Gabriel Solar.
K’leef nodded. “Land on you, and you’re paste. Ker-splat.”
Gabriel ran off screaming.
K’leef stirred some cocoa powder into the saucepan of milk heating over the fire. “Mobie-dobies? That was the best you could think of?”
They turned toward the wailing coming out of the white tent.
Thorn shrugged. “Pass the cookies.”
The sun shone through Thorn’s eyelids, but he kept them shut. He was comfortable under his blanket and wanted to chase the end of sleep just a little while longer. He didn’t appreciate the brightness, and he didn’t appreciate K’leef kicking him, either. “Get lost. I’m asleep.”
“Wake up, Thorn.”
“Urrgh.” He blinked. It was too sunny. “What’s up?”
“Looks like the work of mobie-dobies,” said K’leef.
“What?”
“Just get up.”
Thorn stood up and looked around. “Ah. Not good.”
The camp had been cleared out. The servants had taken off with the gear and the animals. A few things were scattered around, including a sleeping Gabriel. He lay snoring in a ditch. They’d stolen his bed right from under him.
Thorn put on his boots—thankfully they hadn’t taken those—and inspected the few remaining objects. This was bad. “You just get up?” he asked K’leef.
“A minute ago.”
The sun had been up about an hour, but the servants would have run off well before then. Thorn shielded his eyes as he scanned the horizon. Nothing. They were long gone.
K’leef spat, furious. “They took my books, Thorn.”
Thorn caught a glimpse of something shiny, half a mile off. “At least they left us the bathtub.”
EIGHTEEN
They found not just the bathtub, but a camel with supplies still tied to it. The servants must have lost the animal in the dark. Thorn unloaded it and checked to see what provisions they still had, while K’leef dealt with a hysterical Gabriel.
Thorn didn’t catch all of what Gabriel said, but it did include hunting the treacherous thieves to the gates of hell. Hanging them, drowning them, and putting them on the pyre. And having his executioner, Golgoth, decapitate them, just to be doubly sure.
Food and water were the priority, and Thorn was relieved to find enough to last them a couple of days, as long as they were careful. There was a box of Djinnic Delights, soft fruity candy that just melted in the mouth. He helped himself to a few while the other two shouted at each other. The sweets made him feel a lot better, and his happiness increased when he found his bow and a trio of arrows scattered on the arid ground. Despite his current shooting problems, he didn’t feel right without the weapon. With his bow slung across his back and his arrows tucked into his belt, he led the camel over to the campsite. “What’s the plan?”
Gabriel waved frantically. “Back to the palace, of course!”
K’leef pointed in the opposite direction. “We’re going that way.”
“And that direction is…?”
“Where we’ll find our phoenix.”
Thorn looked at each of them. “I dunno if i
t’s the heat that’s making me say this, but I agree with Gabbs.”
Gabriel glared at him. “How dare you give me a nickname! Or use any name at all! How many times—”
“Shut up,” snapped Thorn. “Let the grown-ups speak.”
Flabbergasted, Gabriel did indeed shut up.
K’leef smirked. “Never thought I’d witness the day you agreed with…Gabbs.”
“Me neither. But we ain’t got enough food for a garden picnic, let alone a journey into the-Six-knows-where.”
“I know where we’re going.” K’leef tapped his forehead. “They may have taken the maps, but I’ve studied them since I could open a book, Thorn. I’ve memorized the routes to the Lava Mountains. I’d planned to take the path along Red Ravine, but since we’re low on supplies, there’s a quicker way.”
“Go on. Though I know I’m not going to like it.” Thorn emptied some sand from his boot. “Grandpa has a saying: ‘Quickest way down hurts the most.’”
“I thought we’d agreed your grandpa’s an idiot,” K’leef scoffed. “There’s a shortcut to the Lava Mountains. Through the Hell Gates.”
“And they’re called the Hell Gates because…?”
“It’s across hard desert. It’s really hot and on fire—parts of it, anyway. Lots of naphtha wells.”
“Nap-what?”
“Thick, sticky oil. Catches fire easily and burns forever. Whole lakes of it out there.”
“So why not just call ’em the Hot Gates?”
“They did.” K’leef acted all casual and muttered something that, to Thorn, sounded like, “Then the demons moved in.”
“Demons?” Thorn asked.
“Demons?” Gabriel cried.
“They’re renegades from the time of the Six. Can’t be many of them left by now.” K’leef tried to laugh it off. “Come on, Thorn. You’re from Gehenna. A couple of demons wouldn’t bother the likes of you. Lily must have a dozen working in the kitchens.”
“Lily has one, an imp. Good-for-nothing, he is. Two feet tall, eats like a horse—sometimes eats an actual horse—and sleeps six days out of seven.”
“Nothing to worry about, then,” said K’leef.