Kethril

by Carroll, John H.

The king laughed softly. “Well said. I will check on you again next week.” With that, he left. The door was sealed and Tathan was alone.

  He sat down on the chair and considered his fate. There was no way he was going to sit in a prison for any length of time, but it would be difficult to break out. He rubbed his hand along his left thigh where his sword was. Luckily, the guards hadn’t known that Lightdrinker could turn into a tattoo. He could cut through the door with it and slaughter the guards on his way out, but didn’t want to do that since they had treated him well and he was already in enough trouble with Liselle. It would have been nice to keep the ring of invisibility.

  There was also Anilyia to consider. He wasn’t willing to leave her alone unless she was mad at him. He had told her about his past and she seemed alright with it, but being called a famed seducer of women was probably going to complicate things. He pushed against a few stones in the walls and put his ear against them to listen for anything at all. Everything was solid.

  Tathan’s hair had grown down past his shoulder blades over the past couple of months. Tathan thought for sure that they would have searched it before putting him in the cell. He pulled a stick out of the wavy black mess. It wasn’t just any stick, but a magical one Mother Tree of the Willden had given him for investigating the Rojuun.

  After going to the door to make certain no one was coming, he activated it. A green light at the tip illuminated dark areas. It would also find hidden things. He knew it wouldn’t help him in the cell, but there was always the hope a nine hundred year old castle would have passages that would lead to the princess’s chambers or secret ways out of the castle.

  His jaw dropped when he saw a space behind the wall by the straw bed. Occasionally, something unbelievably lucky would happen to Tathan that would never happen to anyone else. Tathan never relied on that luck or even trusted it, but it was there nonetheless. He took one look through the cell door again and when he was sure no one was coming, he began looking for how to access the secret passage.

  The light showed three rods leading to a stone set near the ceiling. It was too much to hope that it would work. Tathan grabbed the chair and stood upon it to reach the stone. He pushed it hard and a section of the wall opened. It jerked and stuttered a few times with a slight grinding, but nothing too loud. Tathan dashed to the cell door and looked to see if anyone had heard. It was quiet from the direction of the guardroom.

  He put the chair back by the table so as not to give a clue where the switch was, and then straightened up the disturbed straw. He went to the secret passage and took a few tentative steps inside. The air was musty and stale, but breathable.

  When the door began to close on its own, Tathan jumped back into the cell. He desperately wanted to leave, but decided it would be best to wait until night. Extracting the princess during the day would be much more difficult.

  ***

  Lunch and dinner were served with little fanfare. Tathan forced himself to remain calm and eat slowly. It would help digestion and give the guards time to settle in for the night.

  After finishing dinner, he set the chair next to the wall and pushed the trigger stone. He went through the same process of putting the chair back against the table and fixing the straw before stepping inside. When the door began to close again, he jumped further into the passage to get out of its way. The wall shut and sealed itself.

  Tathan examined his surroundings. The stones were damp and moss covered indicating that no one had set foot there in centuries. It took little mental effort to make his sword reappear and draw it. Tathan held the stick in his left hand to light the way. Less than a minute later, he came across another passage to the right

  The decision of which way to go was a difficult one to make. He could only see about twenty feet in either direction and not very well. His belongings had remained on the table in the guardroom when he was taken to the cell, so he didn’t know where they would be. He did remember an iron door to his right when he was stripping in the guardroom though. Tathan decided to try the passage to the right in the hopes that he would be able to find his equipment even though it was doubtful he could be that lucky.

  While walking, he kept his eyes on the walls, floor and ceiling to look for any sort of traps. Tathan realized that if the secret door still functioned, there would be a good chance that a trap would work too. The side passage extended about three hundred feet before stopping at another passage parallel to the first.

  Tathan turned to the right again after looking each way for at least a minute. It was never good to rush into unknown territory. The new passage was the same as the rest. The air quality wasn’t the best so he took shallow breaths.

  Counting paces was vital in thievery and he had been doing so ever since leaving the grand court the day before. When he had taken enough steps to be at approximately the same distance as the guardroom, the light of his stick revealed another secret door on the right wall. It would be across from where the iron door was in the guardroom. There was no way anybody could ever be so lucky and Tathan didn’t trust it. When things like that happened, it usually meant the universe was going to get even later on.

  The mechanism to open the door was the same height as the last one. Many of the rogues Tathan had known were short and could fit into tiny spaces. Tathan’s height worked against him in some cases, but he always had the last laugh when it came to reaching things. He put his hand on the stone that would open the door, extinguished the green light and waited. A minute went by before his eyes adjusted to the darkness.

  At first the door didn’t look like it was going to work and Tathan knew his luck had run out. But with a couple of jerks, it pushed through the moss on the floor til it was open half as far as the last one. Tathan stood at the opening with his sword forward, ready to attack anyone in the room.

  There was just a tiny crack of light around the edges of the iron door across the room to see by. Even though he was sure that no one was in the room, Tathan held still until he was certain no one would enter.

  Green light shone in the room after he said the trigger word to activate the stick. An old table was in front of the secret entrance and he ducked under it to get inside just as the door started to jerk closed. It was a small, square storage room used to keep prisoner belongings. Finding his things was easy because they were the only belongings there.

  The jacket softly glowed in the stick’s light. Mother Tree hadn’t told them at the time, but the light also showed when something was magical. The glow was always the same dim light no matter how powerful, but the knowledge that something was magical was useful to a thief. The one magical item that didn’t glow was Lightdrinker. The sword was more powerful than the stick and even if it hadn’t been, it ate light and wasn’t about to lose any by glowing.

  Even though he was worried about someone coming in, Tathan took the time to strip and put on his own clothes. If he did get into a fight, the jacket would help keep him from getting hurt. Before putting on the shoes, he used the prison shirt to wipe moss off the bottoms of his feet. An unlocked box held all his jewelry and he put that back on. He would use the ring of invisibility the first time it was necessary. A brief search of the pockets showed that nothing had been disturbed. It was extraordinary that guards would leave all of his personal effects. He wondered what the king had told them to keep them in line.

  Tathan re-buckled the sword belt around his waist and picked the stick up off the table. Looking at the floor, he saw his footprints. Another set of footprints led from the iron door to the table and back, but the rest of it was dusty. Tathan got the impression that this jail hadn’t been used in decades. There was no way short of magic to cover his tracks so he did the next best thing and spent the next three minutes making tracks everywhere. He swept dust off the tables and floors with his prison shirt and pants to further help obscure things. By the time he was finished, there was no telling who had been where.

  The light revealed the trigger stone near the ceiling. He pushed
it and ducked under the table and back into the secret passage, bringing his prison clothes with him. Tathan paused to decide which way to go. Finding the princess would be difficult because he didn’t know where she would be. His best guess was that she would be in one of the newer sections of the castle.

  He decided to continue up the passage. The guards had brought him from that direction and the newer sections of the castle would be that way. The green light of Tathan’s magical stick disappeared down the dark, moss-filled passage.

  Chapter 16

  Anilyia woke when a hand covered her mouth and weight pressed against her body, pinning her to the bed. Panic flooded her heart. A sinister voice close to her ear said, “Don’t make a sound, Princess.” Sheets were pulled back and she was dragged from the bed.

  She bit the fingers over her mouth and kicked out. Her self-defense training as a princess hadn’t helped her the first time, but Tathan had taught her a few extra tricks along the way. “Ow!” the man whose hand she bit exclaimed. She took a breath to scream, but someone rammed a cloth into her mouth. More hands grabbed her and held her tight. Anilyia tried to struggle but she couldn’t overcome the strength of her kidnappers.

  A hand slapped her cheek hard, leaving spots in her vision. Dim light from a few candles around the room glistened in a masked man’s cruel eyes as he grabbed her chin. “This can go bad, or this can go worse, your decision,” he threatened in a raspy voice.

  She stared at him, wide-eyed in fear. Neither of those was a good option and she hoped someone would show up to give her a third. The man stepped back and raised his hand to slap her again. One of the men holding her grabbed the back of her neck to prevent her from ducking the blow.

  The man about to slap her jerked forward and the tip of a sword appeared through the front of his chest before pulling out, leaving the man to fall backwards.

  Anilyia saw that a masked man had fallen just inside the entrance to the sitting room of the suite. A dark stain underneath his body indicated blood. Another kidnapper looked to see what had happened to his boss. Then he literally lost his head.

  It flew off his neck to hit the wall behind, knocking over one of the lit candles. The candle might have caught something on fire had it not been doused with spurting blood from the neck of the body that fell right after. Anilyia tried to scream, but the cloth in her mouth muffled it.

  A knifepoint was at her neck. “I don’t know what’s happening, but I’ll kill her,” one of the men said in a voice pitched high with fear. Anilyia froze. The edge was cutting and she could feel blood trickling down her neck.

  Then it was pulled away from her neck and the man grunted. He fell with a gurgling sigh, blood pouring from a wound in his ribs. Anilyia stumbled and fell on his body as the other man released her and ran hard to the door. The runner only got a few steps before tripping and clutching at his left leg. When he saw his cut hamstring, he began screaming. The scream turned into a gurgle when a long gash appeared along the front of his neck. The man’s eyes widened through the eye slits of the mask before he died.

  Anilyia moved back to the bed in abject terror, waiting for the invisible death she was certain would come. Then Tathan appeared, wiping blood from his sword on the body of the leader. Anilyia screamed in surprise, only to realize that the cloth was still in her mouth, muffling the sound. After taking it out, she inhaled to scream properly.

  Tathan dashed over and covered Anilyia’s mouth. She glared at him for muting her. He took the hand away. “I know you want to scream, but if you do, the guards will come and take me back to jail.”

  “No. They won’t. You are now my bodyguard and if the king tries to send you back to jail, I’ll use every ounce of power at my command to make him suffer.” Anilyia put a finger in front of his face. “Don’t. You. Move.” She punctuated each word by poking him in the nose.

  Tathan stood still as Anilyia took the deepest breath of her life and emitted a piercing sound that battered the eardrums. Tathan put hands over his ears in direct violation of the order not to move.

  When she was finished, Anilyia huffed in anger. Her fists were balled at her side and she ground her teeth in anger. From now on, she was in charge. Tathan would do what she wanted. King Cranwer would do what she wanted. Everyone else would do what she wanted. The only flaw in her plan was that she wasn’t sure what she wanted, but decided to make it up as she went.

  Just when Anilyia thought she was going to have to scream again, two guards came rushing into her room with their swords drawn. They saw the bodies, they saw the princess in her blood-covered nightgown and they saw Tathan who still had his ears covered. It was obvious that assessing the situation was well above their pay grade, so they stood there stupidly, waiting for someone to give them a command.

  “You’re a bit late, don’t you think?” Anilyia shooed them off. “Well? Go on. Get more guards, preferably high ranking ones.” The looked at each other, at the bodies, at Tathan, at the princess, finally at each other again before turning and running out to get more guards . . . preferably high ranking ones.

  A minute later, they returned with high-ranking guards in the form of the captain of the Royal Guard and two of his lieutenants. A wizard showed up in addition to a few other guards, making it too crowded to move within the room.

  The captain waved everyone out. “Give me some room, you idiots!” All the idiots except for the wizard, the two lieutenants and a tough looking sergeant moved into the sitting room. The wizard spoke a few words, made some gestures and lit all the candles in the chandelier and the rest of the room with the exception of the one soaked in blood. The captain put his hands on his hips, looked at Tathan and the princess and asked, “What in the . . .” he remembered he was in the presence of a princess, “. . . world happened here?”

  Anilyia waved her hand at the dead bodies. “These men dragged me from my bed, gagged me with a nasty cloth and slapped me in the face.” She pointed at Tathan. “This man killed them and rescued me. That’s what happened.”

  The captain looked at the dead bodies, looked at Tathan, looked at the wizard who shrugged in response, looked at the lieutenants who didn’t even rank high enough to shrug and then looked at the princess. “The king is on his way.”

  “I thought he might be,” Anilyia responded dryly.

  They stood there in uncomfortable silence, glancing at anything other than the princess. After a moment, the captain turned his gaze to Tathan. “Aren’t you supposed to be in jail?”

  Anilyia answered before Tathan could. “And he still rescued me when your men should have. I can’t wait to hear how you explain that to your king.” The captain’s eyes flashed in anger, but that anger died instantly when he saw the fury in the eyes of the princess. He looked down at his feet in shame.

  “Let me in!” a booming voice rang out. King Cranwer appeared at the doorway. His royal cloak covered a blue nightrobe, his crown was still turned to the side and the scepters were, as ever, in his hands. Stepping over the first dead body, he moved between the captain and wizard. All the men saluted him. “Captain, why are there dead bodies in Princess Anilyia’s chambers?” he asked with a smile that didn’t hide the gravity behind his eyes.

  The captain opened his mouth to answer, but no sound came out. Anilyia spoke for him. “These men dragged me out of bed, gagged me with a putrid cloth and slapped me when I struggled. Then Tathan killed them, rescuing me yet again.” She stepped over the nearest body and directly in front of the king. “I’m not happy with you.”

  King Cranwer gulped audibly.

  “I don’t know how your men managed to let these . . . kidnappers into my room, but if anything had happened to me it would have sent my father into a rage. Are you aware of how vindictive he is?”

  “Yes. His reputation is well known,” the king admitted. He didn’t look happy with the way he was being spoken to.

  Anilyia didn’t think it wise to threaten him any more than the subtle hint she had just lain at his feet. She switch
ed tactics to keep him off guard. “I like you and your daughters. You’ve all been wonderful to me.”

  The king’s head jerked back in surprise. “We . . . we like you too, very much so.” He frowned in suspicion. King Cranwer might be a touch crazy -all kings were- but he wasn’t a fool.

  “I’m leaving now and I’m taking Tathan of the Shadows with me,” Anilyia declared. “I don’t care why you arrested him or how he escaped, but he’s obviously the only one capable of keeping me safe.” She gestured to the dead bodies.

  The king looked at the bodies and nodded. He narrowed his eyes when his gaze crossed the captain’s, who took a turn at gulping audibly.

  Anilyia spoke once more. “I’m going to Chirelle’s suite to take a bath and clean the blood off of me.” She held her arms out to show the spatter across her face, arms and nightgown. “I want my things packed and horses readied for Tathan and I. Before leaving, I want to be informed of whatever your men find out about my attackers so that I know who my enemy is this time.” She drew herself up to full height and said. “As Princess of Mayncal, I demand these things.” Anilyia lowered her chin and placed a hand on the king’s arm. “As a friend, I ask them of you.”

  She knew how to use her power, position and beauty to its full advantage and King Cranwer didn’t stand a chance. “Of course. I give you my apologies and make no excuses for the negligence of my guard. I’ll not delay you any further.” He turned to Tathan. “I owe you a debt of gratitude and give you full pardon for the killing of the Prophet of Telemooo. It will be unpopular, but I’ll deal with it.” He held up a hand. “I must ask, did you kill any guards in your escape?”

  “I did not, Your Majesty,” Tathan answered.

  “Thank you for that. I also pardon you for any other crimes you may have committed in my kingdom thus far, may I never find out what they be. I ask that you never come back to my kingdom though.”