By Ways Unseen

by Daniel Dydek

  Unable to see out of the tarp, the two held their breath as the wagon slowly crept to a stop, and a great wooden boom sounded as the doors to Galessern swung open. To Geoffrey’s surprise, no one questioned him or even attempted to look into the wagon; there was a guard in ornate armor who spoke a few words and pointed up the road to the right. Geoffrey continued driving past as the doors were pulled shut behind him.

  After rounding several bends, he reined the horses to a stop and leapt to the ground. “Get out!” he whispered hoarsely.

  In an instant, Sarah and Haydren squirmed free of the corpses and landed softly on the ground. Adjusting the weapons at their belts, they continued on foot up the road toward the keep.

  Much like Dubril, Galessern was not made to defend townsfolk. Every structure here was for food storage, and for defense, and the castle’s keep in which the King lived towered over everything. A road ran alongside the outer wall, and curved gradually toward this hollowed spike. The castle was eerily empty, and even the walls were unmanned.

  “Has he already begun the attack?” Haydren said quietly, trying to keep his voice from resounding throughout the castle.

  “Pladt said the soldiers would be in disarray,” Geoffrey suggested as they continued running toward the keep. The double-doors of the keep were unmanned as well, and one had been left unbarred. They pulled it open, and found themselves in a large antechamber, with a broad staircase leading to a second floor before them.

  “Why do I feel like this is a trap?” Haydren said, looking around the room. But nothing crashed down, no pits opened, and no soldiers appeared.

  “We’ve seen Quaran, Jyunta, and Haschina,” Sarah offered soberly. “Does Lasserain really need soldiers to defend his keep?”

  “Upstairs?” Haydren said, pointing. His companions nodded, and they went up the flight of stairs to the second floor. A broad hallway ran both directions, and the stairs continued up to the next floor; still no soldiers were in sight, though many doors lined the hall.

  “Most throne-rooms are at the uppermost level,” Geoffrey said. Agreeing, the companions continued up the winding staircases until they had made their way to a fifth floor. There they came to a smaller antechamber with one set of double doors, ornately carved of mahogany with black iron bands. With a deep breath, the companions drew their weapons.

  “I don’t think we’re going to catch him by surprise,” Haydren whispered. “So it actually might be to our advantage to enter slowly, so he does not catch us by surprise.”

  “Haydren, if he is in there,” Geoffrey began; Haydren turned to him. “Let me go first, okay?” Geoffrey asked. “I have the least to lose…”

  Haydren nodded slowly; Sarah gripped Geoffrey’s arm, but he turned and gently shook his head. Sarah glanced downward in acquiescence; Geoffrey moved to the door, opening it just a little and peering in. He could not see much, so he swung the door wide and stepped in.

  Inside, Guntsen sat at a little chair near the throne, a young page by his side. Guntsen smiled as the three companions entered, their weapons drawn.

  “You may go, now,” Guntsen said to the boy, tousling his hair. The boy obeyed, exiting through a side door, and Guntsen rose.

  “So, we come to it at last,” he said smugly. “I’ve waited a long time for this day.”

  “Why?” Haydren asked, his sword held low as he stepped ahead of his friends.

  Guntsen blinked several times, confused. “Because I finally get to kill you,” he said.

  “Why should you want to kill me?”

  Guntsen blinked several more times. “Are you serious? After all your arrogance, after you stole my father’s affection, you expect me to let you live?”

  “Guntsen, I didn’t do that intentionally,” Haydren said.

  “I don’t care what you intended,” Guntsen spat, swiftly pulling free his sword. “You should have known your place, and accepted it. Not try to use my father’s weakness to advance yourself above your station.”

  Guntsen advanced, and their swords rang in the halls; it was clear to Haydren that Guntsen had not gotten better over the last year.

  “How do you know what my station is?” Haydren asked, advancing on Guntsen this time and driving him back. “My father might have been a king, for all you know.”

  “Ha! As if,” Guntsen shot back as Haydren slowed his attack. “King’s sons are not so easily lost. If you were a prince, if you were anybody of importance, they would have come looking for you long ago.”

  Haydren paused briefly; Guntsen advanced, and Haydren allowed himself to be driven back slowly.

  “But I am likely from Rinc Na, Guntsen; they might not have known what happened to me.”

  “Rinc Nain! Even worse,” Guntsen said, thinking he was gaining an advantage. “As if an orphan could be of any lower status, yet you have achieved it. And what did you do with your status? Poison my father against me! You would have taken my inheritance, if you could have.”

  “Do you think Lasserain is Cariste?” Haydren said, circling to his right as Guntsen pressed on. “Yet you serve the one who destroys your own country and your own people! Why?”

  “Because I knew he could help me to kill you,” Guntsen replied, following him. “I knew enough about the Earl of Frecksshire that if you ran to him, he would not give you back to me but use you for his own purposes. The only way to make sure I killed you was to join with Lasserain.”

  Haydren stopped circling as he stared at Guntsen. “You endangered thousands of people for the sake of killing me? Are you insane?”

  Guntsen growled, and lunged forward. Haydren quickly parried and punched Guntsen in the nose. Guntsen backed up quickly, covering his face with his hand. “That’s not how you duel, you rotten orphan!” he cried. When he lowered his hand, his nose was bleeding profusely. “Use your sword, if you know how.”

  “Why should I?” Haydren said. “This sword has slain a dragon; why should it debase itself to wound someone like you?”

  Guntsen lowered his sword-point to the floor. “I’ll make you a deal,” he said. “If you can defeat me with only your blade, I’ll tell you where Lasserain is. If not, I let him find you and kill you. Fair? And they can’t help you,” he warned, pointing toward Haydren’s companions.

  Haydren shrugged and raised his sword. With a smile, Guntsen struck at the wall near him; three ropes were cut, and three chandeliers crashed to the floor, their candles snuffing out and sinking the room in darkness. As Geoffrey and Sarah shouted their disapproval and contempt, Haydren took a large step to his right, trying to adjust his eyes to the gloom. His heart launched into his throat as a flash glittered briefly in the dark, and he heard steel cutting the air near him. His sword-arm fluttered out: Aerithion found nothing but space. His eyes darting wildly, Haydren took another several steps away. His foot caught on something, and he stumbled. As he regained his footing, he saw a stitch of motion; Aerithion swept upward; steel met Bultum in a cacophony of ringing. Disengaging, Haydren backed diagonally away, catching his breath.

  “How do you like the darkness, Haydren?” came Guntsen’s voice, sliding through the shadows. “Do you still hide under your blankets?”

  Remember the Forest.

  Haydren crouched low, glancing toward the windows whose darkened panes allowed a purple glow into the room. Guntsen’s silhouette moved cautiously in front of one and waited, his head cocked, trying to listen. Haydren watched closely, drawing a long, quiet breath as his heart slid back down into his chest and beat normally. He dug into a pocket, pulling free a small coin. He tossed it so Guntsen would cross to another window; as the Earl moved quickly, so did Haydren, coming up behind him with silent footfalls. Guntsen turned, trying to listen; Haydren rose from his crouch, Aerithion swinging. With a crash shattering the silence, Guntsen’s sword was ripped from his grasp and clattered with a sound of thunder against the stone floor.

  “Haydren?” Geoffrey bellowed.

  Haydren summoned Aerithion, and the fire relit the room
as Guntsen fell with a shout and crabbed backward against the throne. Haydren kicked Guntsen’s sword over to Geoffrey, and took a few steps toward the Earl.

  “Where is Lasserain?” he asked.

  “That wasn’t fair!” Guntsen said. “You used magic!”

  “After you already fell on your backside,” Sarah retorted.

  “You don’t speak to me like that, woman!”

  Sarah shook her head and looked at Haydren. “Can we leave this pitiful being here, and go?”

  Geoffrey moved to one of the chandeliers and relit a few of the candles. As the glow spread, Haydren gazed back at the dethroned Earl.

  “Lasserain, Guntsen,” he said. “I beat you fairly.”

  Guntsen sagged against the dais. “He has a garden, at the foot of the mountain; he’s down there.”

  The fire drained from Aerithion, and Haydren sheathed the sword. “Thank you,” he said, and turned to leave.

  “Aren’t you going to kill me?” Guntsen called after him. “I would have killed you.”

  Haydren paused at the door and turned. “Guntsen, you are an Earl. There are a great many things you can do in such a position; killing me is the very least of them. After I deal with Lasserain, go back to Kelian and make it a better place.”

  Guntsen got up slowly. “They won’t take me back after I went over to Lasserain,” he said. He wiped his nose of blood, looking at his hand for a moment. “Do me a favor, Haydren, and leave me my sword.”

  Haydren turned to face him fully, then. “Of all the bad decisions that have brought you here, Guntsen, that would be the worst. Stay here; Earl Jgei is dead, and the Endolin mountains will need a ruler. If Hewolucs will not take you back, perhaps the strongholds of the south will.”

  Guntsen nodded slowly. “We shall see. Good luck, Haydren; on the fourth floor, take the third door down the left hallway. You’ll find a passage which leads you straight to Lasserain’s garden. Be careful; he is weakened from the death of Jgei, but he is still very powerful.”

  “Thank you, Guntsen,” Haydren said, bowing. “And the God be with you.”

  The three companions followed Guntsen’s instructions, and descended a spiral staircase deep into the mountain. At its base ran a long gray-stone hallway lined with torches. At the end of this was a small oaken door that opened with effort into a deep, narrow ravine with sheer rock sides that would only allow two men abreast. When they had stepped through, the door slammed shut behind them, and they could hear a bolt being thrown.

  Sarah turned and pulled on the door, but it did not move. Faintly, they heard echoing laughter from within. Sarah turned on Haydren with mild disapproval.

  “You have got to be more willing to kill people, Haydren,” she said, though her tone was not condemning.

  Haydren paused, looking at the ground. “Do I?” he said. His eyes came up to meet the sorceress’, then turned and glanced over the rock walls as they moved down the canyon. “Trying to flee Hewolucs, I killed two men; I killed another five running north when I could have passed them by; more died in a grove of trees I could have avoided; was my life worth more than theirs?”

  “They were all bad men, Haydren,” Sarah replied.

  “They were,” he said, “and now none of them have the chance of doing anything good. They’re beyond redemption, now, in the grave or whatever lies beyond it. I’m still here, and I want to make sure I make the right choices; I don’t think that means permanently canceling the choices of others around me unless absolutely necessary – even if it means my death.”

  “And what about preventing the deaths of others?”

  “Preventing death with death,” Haydren said with a sigh. “I hope there are better answers than that. For now, let’s just find a way out of here.”

  As they walked down the narrow file, the sky above them began to be streaked with orange and red as the sun set out of sight, and the shadow within the crevasse deepened. They came suddenly upon another wall at the end of the ravine; there was no way out except to climb.

  “Sarah and I will climb up,” Haydren said to Geoffrey. “And then we’ll pull you up.”

  “I hope Lasserain doesn’t suddenly appear,” Sarah said quietly as they began searching for hand- and foot-holds in the sheer rock. Slowly they climbed as the sun continued lowering overhead, and deep purple stained the clouds.

  But Haydren knew that the mage would be waiting well outside the crevasse. Lasserain had too many opportunities before to kill him, and had not. No; everything that had come before in Haydren’s life had brought him to this point. All of his trials and battles were not ends in and of themselves, but guides toward this final climb, this final battle. All his achievements had their own consequences, outside of him, and were perhaps beginnings or ends for others; but he understood, now, that completion did not come early in life – that perfection is never attained, only striven for. The man he had been in Quaran was the man he needed to be then; it was a far different man who fought the Cerberus upon the other side of the Kalen Woods. And he was yet a far different man now – who gripped and strained and pulled at hidden clefts of rock in growing darkness – than the one who had faced and slain the three-headed monster. Even in this upcoming battle with Lasserain, he would not be complete or perfect; and it could perhaps even be that this final battle would only be yet another stepping stone in his life, just one more event between who he was and who he could eventually become. One choice would not be and end, until his death – and death was not up to him to choose. A choice, instead, was bound by the moment; once it passed, it only made him who he was tomorrow. He might not be able to reverse or negate it, but he was always capable of changing the trajectory of his life by a choice the next day, and the day after, and the day after.

  With one final heave, Haydren came over the side of the crevasse; his purpose was clear in his mind, and he waited only to help Sarah over, and to lower a rope to Geoffrey and pull him out of the crack as well.

  The garden Guntsen had spoken of was true. They descended a short slope into a forest; here, gently rolling hills stretched as far as the trees allowed them to see. Firs stood with their lower reaches limbless, their blackened trunks like pillars rising from a floor of verdant green fern. Here and there thin shafts of sunlight pierced through the trees and glowed in the forest floor.

  The company walked warily along a path deeper into the woods. It did not seem possible that they would meet a man of such destruction in such a peaceful place as this. Somewhere nearby, they could hear a tinkling trickle of a stream running over rocks, and gradually it seemed the path was taking them toward it.

  The path bent, and ahead of them was a small wooden bridge seemingly fashioned out of the boughs of two trees. The stream they had heard flowed clear and pure underneath, and a pair of birds sat warbling in the branches just overhead. On the far side, sitting with his feet dangling in the stream, was the young boy whom Guntsen dismissed.

  Haydren crossed the bridge slowly; the boy’s attention wandered, sometimes to him, usually to the surrounding forest.

  “What’s your name?” Haydren asked as he approached, waving a hand to keep Sarah and Geoffrey on the other side of the stream; his glance at Geoffrey said: Yes, I remember Tagnier.

  “Westin,” the boy replied.

  “You speak Rinc Nain?”

  The boy nodded.

  “Where are you from?”

  “A village up north.” Westin bent down, inspecting something near the bank. His hand reached down, and a water skeeter shot out into the stream.

  “Why are you here?” Haydren asked, moving and sitting down beside the young boy.

  “My family was all killed,” Westin replied, going still. “Family, friends… Soldiers came one day and destroyed everything. I had to watch from hiding as they did it; my mother wasn’t the first to be killed, you know? But I saw her, with my sister. Jolet…” He trailed off, tears coursing down his face as he yet smiled. “Jolet would do anything for me. She did, too; she
helped me hide, and went back for my brother Arthrin. She didn’t make it back before they came to our house. They had all the people gathered at the edge of the village, and started going through one by one. I saw them approaching my mother, and Jolet, a countdown of death.” As he spoke, Westin’s voice grew deeper. “One by one, making their way toward my family, death by death. I thought they might wait a moment, appreciate the significance of my family because I watched. They didn’t. Two breaths: thrust, thrust, and then the next in line.”

  “Why do you tell me this?” Haydren asked.

  “You asked why I was here.” The boy’s voice had returned, no longer deep and mature, and Westin glanced around the forest. “I’m here for the same reason you are; because my family was killed.”

  “But the one who lives here killed my family,” Haydren replied. “You serve him.”

  “And you serve the ones who killed my family,” Westin said, his eyes piercing Haydren as he gazed at him steadily for the first time. “The ones who sent the soldiers; the ones calling themselves Godfrind.”

  “I don’t serve them,” Haydren said, with a slight shake of his head. “And I would guess those soldiers didn’t, either; not truly. They may have come with their name, but not with their instructions.”

  “Because you know them so well?”

  “I have met one,” Haydren said. “And I have spoken with them on occasions.”

  “Did they tell you to come here?”

  “No,” Haydren said emphatically. “I came on my own.”

  “For revenge?”

  “At first. Now, to understand.”

  “They’ve tricked you,” Westin said, a smile curling his lips into a sneer. “As they do everybody, manipulating them to their own ends.”

  “If that were true, I would be trying to kill you right now.” Haydren spread his hands. “Do you see me doing that?”

  “Weakened resolve,” Westin replied. “A month ago you wouldn’t have hesitated.”

  “I hesitated in the Forest.”

  Westin went still again, except for a quick glance at Haydren, and his boyish voice returned. “Why did you do that?”