by Nat Russo
A drunk stumbled out of a long tent next to Aelron, spilling his tankard on the muddy ground.
Aelron pulled the tent flap aside and stepped inside.
The ground under the tent was mostly dry, save for footprints, so they must have pitched it before the storms. Four rough-hewn wooden tables and benches ran parallel along the length of the tent, ending near several kegs of ale beneath the bar at the far side. Patrons sat shoulder to shoulder on the benches, eating roasted meats and drinking ale. The one exception was a bench on the far left side of the tent. Only a skinny drunk and a dwarf in patchwork robes sat at that bench.
The atmosphere was noisy, filled with laughter and song, and the smoke from a large cooking grill created a layer of haze at the ceiling of the tent that escaped through screened vents along the pitched center. Water collected in muddy pools under the vents, however, as the pelting rain gained entry. Men exited with haste through a flap in the right side of the tent, then returned at a relaxed pace. The ground near that flap was muddy. It must lead outside to a privy.
Five paces to the barkeep. That skinny drunk next to the dwarf in patchwork robes is hiding a dagger at his back. Not very well, either. I can take it easily if I need it.
Aelron made the short journey to the bar, trying to stay aware of the skinny drunk, in case he decided to leave or change positions. A portly barkeep, dressed in a dirty apron, pulled a tankard from a cupboard as Aelron stepped up to the bar.
“Two crowns for the tankard and two more for what goes in it,” the barkeep said without looking up. “Two crowns a fill thereafter, any stall. Five crowns for a meal. Doesn’t include a tankard, though.”
“Surprised all that dancing and singing is going on out there,” Aelron said. “It’s really pouring down.”
“Canopy out there is keeping ‘em dry. No one’s going to miss the harvest festival because of some rain.”
Aelron retrieved his coin pouch. Fifty Shandarian marks. That’s all his father had given him all those years ago.
“Five marks for the meal,” Aelron said, getting hungrier with every coin he counted out. “And four for a full tankard.” He slid them over to the bartender.
“You deaf?” the barkeep asked. “I said crowns. We don’t take those relics here.”
Aelron examined the coppery coins in confusion. He had no idea what a crown was.
“Come on,” Aelron said. “They must be worth something. The metal alone is—”
“Isn’t worth the shite you took this morning. Turn around and leave the way you came. Come back with Pinnacle crowns. Whether they’re yours or someone else’s, I don’t give a shriller’s bunghole.”
Why would the Pinnacle have its own currency? And why in the hells would everyone else be using it?
Aelron’s ring—the one Master Nigel had given him—clanked against the counter as he scraped the coins back into their pouch. He’d been hoping to hang on to it longer. Maybe use it to barter for a mount. But it was the only thing of value he had. And food trumped transportation.
Aelron slid the ring off his little finger and slapped it onto the counter.
“What’s this worth?” Aelron asked.
The bartender whistled. But rather than examining the ring, he stared into Aelron’s eyes, as if examining them instead.
“Where’d you get this?” the bartender asked. “You’re no ranger. Don’t have the eyes.”
“Gift.”
The bartender brought the ring to within a few inches of his face and spun it around. “This is real.”
“I know.”
“You get it off that patrol that rode through earlier?”
Aelron caught his breath. If there were rangers nearby, this may not end well.
“Didn’t know there was one,” Aelron said. “Did a ranger a favor once. He gave me a ring in return.”
A tipsy woman with long brown hair pushed Aelron aside and slammed an empty tankard on the counter, along with two silver coins. She wore a black dress that revealed more than it hid, and her acrid perfume rose above the roasting meats to stab Aelron right in the nose.
“Crowns!” The woman said. “Now give me my crowns’ worth!”
“Sounds like a gift you should keep, friend,” the barkeep said to Aelron, as he filled the woman’s tankard and took her crowns. He slid the ring back across the bar toward Aelron.
“I look like the sort who wears jewelry to you?” Aelron asked. He slid the ring back to the bartender.
The woman nudged Aelron and smiled. “You’re a handsome one. Come keep me company.” She indicated a bench near the side entrance.
He looked her up and down, and her smile grew wider.
“Like what you see?” she asked.
Probably no weapons, but I can’t tell. She’s too far gone to make use of them anyway. And not enough muscle tone for a trained fighter.
“Love every inch,” Aelron said. You win the prize tonight, madam. You picked a seat near an exit.
As she shifted her weight, a glint of light reflected off something near her armpit. Aelron took the woman’s hand and brought it up to his lips, lifting her arm to see a metal clasp on her dress.
Nothing dangerous.
“Ooh, a charmer, you are,” the woman said. She stared at his lips for a moment that lingered longer than decency allowed, then walked back to her seat.
“I’ll give you a meal and a full tankard,” the barkeep said.
“That’s all?” Aelron asked. “That ring is worth far more than that.”
“Be thankful I’m interested. Can’t sell it anywhere. I’m stuck with it once I take it.”
“I have a long road ahead. Was hoping to buy some provisions for the trip. Maybe a mount too.”
“Keep that woman’s hand near your mouth a while longer, and she’ll buy everything you need.”
Aelron considered. The money his father had given him was worthless. He could hold out, hoping to sell the ring for a higher price to another buyer, but that was a long shot. And it was doubtful anyone in Blackwood would feel different from the barkeep.
And the last thing he’d eaten was a small rodent two days ago.
“Take it,” Aelron said. “But at least give me an extra helping of mutton.”
The barkeep nodded and filled the tankard.
“You’re not going to wash that out first?” Aelron asked.
The barkeep gave Aelron an incredulous look. “It’s clean.”
“It’s been sitting out there for—” Now wasn’t the time or place.
When the barkeep finished filling it, Aelron took his dust-infused tankard of ale to a seat on the bench next to the drunk woman. The barkeep followed with a heaping plate of mutton, cabbage, and potatoes.
The woman draped a shapely leg over Aelron’s thigh and placed a hand in his lap as he ate.
Aelron stared at her exposed cleavage, trying to detect the distinctive marks of a concealed weapon.
“Interested in what I’ve got under this dress, are you?” she asked.
“More than you realize,” Aelron said.
“Play your cards right and you’ll see.”
Mention of cards reminded him of the coin he carried. He pulled it out of its pocket and stared at it. What was he doing here? His instinct had told him to go in the opposite direction, but the coin never lied. When the rangers left him, it told him to follow the path in the direction Jacobson wanted him to go. And that decision had led him here. To Blackwood.
He lifted his tankard and took a drink.
A man brushed past, in a hurry toward the exit. Either he’d been putting off a trip to the privy longer than he should have, or there was something important through the side exit. He kept looking over his shoulder, back toward the dwarf in patchwork robes, but by the time Aelron turned to get a better look at the dwarf, he was gone.
How’d he manage that? No way he could have gotten to the front exit that quickly.
“Why’d you bother arguing with the barkeep if you’ve
got that?” the woman asked.
It took Aelron a moment to realize she was talking about the coin.
“This?” Aelron asked. He rolled the coin between his fingers, making it travel from thumb to little finger and back again. “This isn’t money. It tells the future.”
The woman laughed. “And what does it have to say about me? Will I—”
Aelron pressed a finger to her lips before she could start something he’d end up regretting.
“It’s best not to ask any questions you don’t want a truthful answer to,” Aelron said.
The muffled sounds of men arguing entered the tent through the side exit.
Anger in close proximity to alcohol won’t end well.
Aelron focused on the conversation as best he could. The music and revelry made it difficult to concentrate, but the men repeated the same words several times. New archmage.
“Excuse me a moment,” Aelron said. “I need to use the privy.”
If there was a new archmage, something was very wrong.
“I’ll be here, sweetie,” the woman said, giving his thigh a firm squeeze as he stood.
The rain had slowed to a sprinkle, but the ground was a sheet of mud. The stench of human waste overpowered everything else. He turned to the left where several men relieved themselves into a trench dug in the dirt.
There was a strange sensation as he turned, like someone was watching him. He glanced around and saw no one, so he shrugged the feeling off.
“I’m telling you, now’s the time,” a voice said. It was one of the voices Aelron had heard earlier, and its source was behind the tent, hidden from view beyond the privy trench. “The new archmage is—”
“That dwarf knows more than I’m comfortable with,” another voice said. “It’s never good when he shows up.”
Aelron approached, pressing his back against the tent wall as he crept toward the trench. He pulled his hood over his head. Between the darkness of the night and the tent’s shadow, he’d be hidden once he rounded the corner.
“The new archmage is a great unknown,” the voice said. “If that dwarf knows what the master is planning—”
“The dwarf can’t know that, you fool. He’s just a necromancer.”
Aelron glanced around the corner. If his memory of such things was correct, the second man wore the robes of a Council magus; white alb with a black scapular reaching to mid-chest. But this scapular was trimmed in red. The ones Aelron remembered had no trim.
Aelron checked his cloak for the tiny scrap of Arinwool. With a Council magus involved, it may come in handy sooner than Aelron wanted. He was certain he could take the other man, if it came to a fight. But it was always best to let a magus kill themselves when possible.
That sensation again. Someone watching. Waiting in the shadow, just as he would do. But every time he checked, there was no one.
Must be nerves. It was time to act.
Aelron stepped out from the shadow toward the man speaking with the Council magus.
“I couldn’t help overhearing,” Aelron said. “New archmage, you say?”
“Take him!” the Council magus said. “No one can know I’m here!”
The other man pulled a dagger from his cloak and rushed at Aelron.
Aelron arced his fist up into the man’s throat with a single knuckle extended. The man grabbed at his neck and collapsed onto the muddy ground, unable to breathe or make a sound.
A wave of power passed over Aelron and funneled into the patch of Arinwool before reflecting outward. The Council magus must have tried to use magic against him.
Aelron knelt next to the choking man. “Don’t worry. You’ll be dead soon.” He looked toward the magus, who had collapsed on the ground. “And from the looks of those boils on your face, so will you. Though that’s on you, not me.”
The Council magus narrowed his eyes, as if about to weep. “How?”
“Arinwool. Is that spell you cast fatal?”
The magus nodded.
Aelron shrugged. “That’s the risk you take when you try to kill somebody. Sometimes they kill you back.”
A black blur moved through the shadow Aelron had emerged from, then disappeared. Aelron tried to follow the image with his eyes, but it disappeared as quickly as it appeared.
The choking man gave a final kick and grew still. Aelron grabbed the man’s dagger, then turned to the Council magus.
“Your friend’s dead,” Aelron said. “So what do you say you make it all mean something and answer my questions?”
The magus didn’t answer.
“Someday a necromancer will raise you,” Aelron said. “I’m no magus, but I think it might go better if you had fewer secrets.”
The magus squeezed his eyes shut.
“Tell me what you know about this new archmage,” Aelron said. “Perhaps I’ll light a candle for you at the next temple I pass.”
“His name is Nicolas Murray. But no one’s seen him since—” The magus coughed, and another boil formed on his forehead. “—since he killed Kagan. Many in the Council question whether he actually exists or whether the Mukhtaar Lords rule the Pinnacle in secret, fulfilling the ancient ambition of Tycon Mukhtaar.”
“Murray?” Aelron asked. “You must have misheard. Only an Ardirian can be archmage.”
The magus’s face went from pale to light green.
“Why are you so interested?” the magus asked.
“Because I’m an Ardirian.”
The magus choked and coughed up blood.
“Garrison,” the magus said.
“What?”
“Garrison. Co…commander.”
The magus went limp, his eyes devoid of life.
A mix of uncomfortable emotions spun through Aelron’s mind. If someone had killed his father, then where did that leave Aelron? Where did that leave his infant brother…the one he hadn’t seen since he was five? He’d expected to be welcomed back by his family at the Pinnacle. Now he had nowhere to turn. Maybe the Mukhtaar Lords could help? He was told one of them was his father’s Prime Warlock. But this magus seemed to think the Mukhtaar Lords had usurped the Obsidian Throne.
The more he thought about it, the more he had no idea what he was getting himself into. Only one thing was certain. He wasn’t going to let any usurper—be they Mukhtaar Lord or some stranger named Murray—go unpunished. If he had to walk from here to the Pinnacle, then so be it.
But what had the magus meant about the garrison commander? Did this commander know something about his father?
Aelron stood and walked back into the tent. Having someone to hunt didn’t mean he couldn’t finish his meal first.
Kaitlyn smiled politely as Sergeant Diggins showed her the Pinnacle gardens. Gorgeous place. Flowers she’d never seen before grew in all shapes and sizes. Their exotic scents intermingled with the saltwater breeze blowing in from the ocean. But it was getting increasingly difficult to hide the pit she felt in her stomach.
She lifted her tiny crucifix necklace off her chest and rolled it between her fingers.
Nick said he’d been gone a year. She wanted so much to believe him. He’d never lied to her before. But when he disappeared from the apartment, he reappeared a second or two later. He had to be hiding something. Or, maybe he was just mistaken.
That wasn’t fair, though. Nick had gotten pulled through that swirling thing dressed for a funeral. Two seconds later he looked like a homeless person wearing a bed sheet.
Then, he raised Mr. Landing from the dead. She’d seen it herself.
Moreover, these people knew him. At least that Tithian guy did.
And she was walking around on an alien planet!
But the truth didn’t make this any easier. This was all well and good for Nick, but he seemed to have forgotten about her Five-Year Plan. What about graduation? Grad school? She’d finished her bachelor’s in Psychology, but she wanted her master’s as well. What about planning the wedding?
And what about the nightmares she’d bee
n having that featured a decapitated head.
She wasn’t prepared to tell Nick about that yet. He’d freak out. He’d had the same dreams before that portal opened in his living room and brought him here.
Sergeant Diggins had been talking about something, and she’d missed it. Something about a rose bush that only bloomed when some goddess or other showed up.
She couldn’t do this right now. There was too much on her mind.
“Sergeant Diggins?” Kaitlyn said. “Would you mind giving me some time to myself? I know the way back.”
“Of course, my lady. If you need anything at all, there will be two guards at the door we came out of.”
Diggins bowed and set off toward the Pinnacle, though Kaitlyn wasn’t sure of the correct terminology. Some people spoke about the building as if it were the Pinnacle, and others spoke as if it were the entire island.
Not that it mattered. From what she could tell, the building covered the island.
A flash of red crossed her peripheral vision, farther down the path, and she faced it.
A woman with long red hair, in a floor-length red dress, walked along the path toward a distant hill. The woman glanced over her shoulder, and something about her face felt familiar.
Thoughts of Nick, the mystical portal, college degrees, and dreams with decapitated heads, drained away and left her with one purpose; follow the woman.
As she crested a hill, the path continued downward toward a shrine and the deep azure ocean in the distance.
Kaitlyn followed the woman, who walked a hundred yards ahead of her, down the path, past the mysterious flowerless rose bushes, toward a statue on a tall base set within an enclosure. The enclosure was concave, like the inside of a clam shell.
Kaitlyn entered the enclosure and hesitated when she saw the woman waiting for her.
The woman had the deepest blue eyes, and her smile filled Kaitlyn with a warmth that was equal parts love and pride. The woman stepped toward the front of the statue and disappeared behind the base.
As the saltwater breeze intensified, it carried a different scent with it this time. The strong scent of roses.
Kaitlyn followed in the woman’s steps, but when she rounded the corner of the statue’s base, the woman was gone.