“Trials? What trials?” Quinn asked, but received no answer. “Where’s Abbott?”
The guard’s escorted Abbott down a burrowing tunnel that branched off in many different directions. A root system, he assumed, or perhaps what was left of an animal's den. On both sides, two enormously statured guards shouldered him. They were fashioned by heavy and seemingly impenetrable peels of bark that seemed to branch from their skin. Their faces held shaggy blue-green beards, these were male guards. The exact lichen he would have expected to grow from a tree’s exterior. They were moving trees, although short in comparison to their less-lively brothers. And each bore a walking stick that doubled as a spear on one end.
“What is this place? What are you going to do with me?”
The guards failed to reply and left Abbott’s head swimming for answers.
After burrowing through the tunnel system, they entered a hall. Talking dimmed, and whispers spread like fire. His eyes wandered from face to face, sorting through the crowd of walking trees, until his eyes came upon Quinn. The look on her face was not comforting. She was concerned.
“There you are,” she said, relieved. “I’ve been the center of attention for long enough. Now they can whisper of you.”
“What are we doing here?” Abbott asked. Hundreds of eyes shifted on him.
“To be put on trial, it would so seem. They think we’re scouting for some kind of secret invasion. Paranoid if you ask me. It’s been hundreds of moons since anyone’s attempted that madness. And we’re not foolish enough to be the first. Let me do all the talking, alright? Dryads have short tempers and speak in riddles.”
Abbott nodded to Quinn’s request. He observed families, with what he believed to be, women and children, men and young boys whose faces turned in fear at the sight of his ivory skin. He was unlike them.
“They mean to kill us!”
“They’re assassins sent by the King himself!” another alleged.
“Why can’t we lock him and be done with it?” cried a voice amongst the crowd.
“Yeah!” the dryads agreed.
A door echoed from the eastern part of the hall behind where the large chair sat. As the door swung open, in walked their judge. This dryad's toska was the largest of them all. She wore a gown sown of decomposing ivy and leaves. Enormously plump, she waddled like a bush with an oval set of sunken eyes the same hue as a river. But most notably of all, she had a birthmark that canvased the right side of her face. The flesh of contrasting wood.
“Silence to all in my hall!” she cried as her bottom joined the chair. “I, Brina, Warden of the Dryads, Watcher of these Woods, and Protector of Mornia, demand that no other speak unless otherwise spoken to.”
The gossip and humor died like a summer night. The hall was still.
“Since we’ve established that, we can proceed with our inquiry. Introduce yourselves.”
Quinn and Abbott turned to each other. Were introductions necessary in a trial with criminal implications unknown to them?
“Not both at once,” her blue eyes narrowed.
“I…I am Quinn, of no house, and he is Abbott, of… also no house.”
“Why is it Quinn of No House and Abbott of No House, that you’ve decided to enter the Forest of Mornia without proper payment? Am I to assume you mean to cause us harm? Just before your arrival, we’ve had to dispel a party gathering in our lands. Am I to assume you are spies for this party? Be truthful and your lives shall be spared.”
Eldrich, positioned in the first row, nodded his head in disagreement.
“I— forgot?” Quinn’s jaw clenched.
Laughter spread over the hall. Brina joined for a moment and then gave the order for silence again. “You have forgotten the rules?” she questioned. “Passage through requires a toll. That is how it has always been— since this forest was created.”
“Okay, I haven’t forgotten—”
“Then you should know that broken rules are a crime to be punished?”
“Yes, but—“
“Spies!” she sneered. “Terrible ones at that.”
“We’re running from something,” Quinn finished as her eyes found the courage to look into Brina’s.
“And from whom would you be running?”
“The people she’s been stealing from,” Eldritch said.
Brina’s eyes sharpened on Quinn.
“If I may,” Abbott said, trying to avoiding looking at her birthmark. “Men killed her father and captured mine. We only meant to acquire a guide to lead us to them. We had no intention of skipping payment for passing through your lands. But I’m sure you can understand the dire position we are in. I apologize for the harm and strain we may have caused.”
The warden considered the apology for a few moments. “Tell me, Abbott of No House, where do you intend on locating this person? Is it not common knowledge to navigate in these lands on one's own skill?”
Quinn’s lips tightened. Her eyes glared.
“I was never taught,” he confessed in a lie, the opposite of what he wanted to do. Lies were bad.
“I do not believe you,” the warden said, sturring from her chair. The guards all took a step forward. “I have the knowledge to understand your traveling companion here is a liar, what’s not to say you aren’t in league with the same lies she feeds? Only spies of the enemy carry such vagueness in questioning. It’s as if you’ve been rehearsing this for some time. Tell me, is this your first time being captured? All men soon enough answer to their crimes. Here I was, thinking you’d come confessing and beg for mercy, but instead, you fill my head of these falsehoods.” Brina ran her sausage-like fingers over her barked brow. “You offer me no choice. Spies or not, the risk is too great to turn you loose. Whatever your true purpose is, will die with you both.”
“Miss, if I may?” Eldritch stepped forward, attempting to sweeten the sentencing. “I have a testimony to be heard.”
The little man’s voice angered Quinn’s ear canals.
“The girl there has confessed to killing her father.” The crowd shrieked in horror. “ Mere moments before the trial. I suggest a crueler punishment for her crimes. The boy most likely assisted her in the killing.”
Quinn’s bloodshot eyes reddened. “Liar!”
But it did not make any difference what she said, Brina was obliged to side with Eldritch. A twisted sort of grin spun from his face when seeing Quinn’s anger. “She’s been out of control for too long. Perhaps that is why she killed her father. A harsher punishment is deserving.”
Eldritch bowed and stepped back down into the crowd.
“I will accept the testimony as truth,” the warden announced. “Are there any more that wish to be heard before I expel of these two?”
“Have you not been listening to us?” a vein popped out from Abbott’s neck. "We're innocent!"
“How dare you!” Brina said, insulted.
But he did not stop there. “We’re wasting time! My father will die if you don’t free us! The Vail is plotting against all of you! If we are not set free, the sky will burn with fire, and a lost evil will burn you all out where you hide. We are the only ones to stop this from happening!”
“The Vail?” a member of the crowd said.
“What if he’s telling the truth?”
“Silence! You’re a fat rotten liar!” Brina’s round neck looked like it was ready to burst with sap. Her toska rippled, and thorns grew from it. “She’s put you up to this, hasn’t she? A little murderer— both of you!”
“We never hurt anyone! The Vail killed her father, and they have mine!” Abbott yelled. “The Weeping Woman will kill every one of you in this room.”
“Rubbish!” Eldritch sprouted, but the mere mention of the Weeping Woman put most of the dryads on ease. They had not heard mention of the name in what felt like hundreds of seasons.
“And have you any proof?” one of the dryads asked, out of turn.
Abbott pulled the stone from his pocket. “This is a Guardian and
she told me so herself!”
“Take them away!” the warden commanded. “I’ve had enough of this folly.”
“Wait!” Abbott said as the guards closed in. “There’s a prophecy that we’re a part of. Killing us will only put yourself in mortal danger.”
“Nonsense,” Eldritch yelled.
The warden said, “tell me, what does this prophecy say?”
Quinn sighed. Her head lowered to the floor.
“When the skies burn with fire and the tower weeps, a sudden death shall set in motion an age of misfortune— the rise of a lost evil, if not for you, who can cause a world of light amidst the darkness.”
The dryads in the room shrieked in terror.
“And who told you this prophecy?”
“This stone!” He held the stone in the palm of his hand.
“So be it. I, Brina, Warden of the Forest, Watcher of the Woods, and Protector of Mornia hereby, sentence you both to death for a false confession, avoiding land tolls, and the murder of another. I appoint Eldritch to carry forward this sentence. Have you any last words to share with us before the punishment is carried forward?”
Quinn clenched her fists in rage. You wretched little, was what she wanted to say, as she always did but instead, Quinn bound like a lioness towards her throne. If she was going to die, she would do so without a struggle.
She was not a coward.
18
A raven drifted beyond the spiraling towers of the grim Spine Mountains due west. Over a valley of charcoal and a graveyard of decayed stone remanence that suffocated the plant-life, the cursed bird soared with a burning message. The boy had escaped, and her men had failed her. Bloodshed would spill for the severity of this mistake.
The oily bird tee-heed in delight. Blood.
On the far side of the mountains basking under a blood moon was Unduk Validur, the stronghold of the Vail, the domicile of Lilith, the keep of the Weeping Woman. Of obsidian and iron, Unduk Validur was a wasteland of a thousand moons built by the stone mammoths of old. Three hundred perished over the course of its construction, and those remaining were slain when its ruler assumed power. The tower’s secret was to die with their builders. But that was only the beginning.
Lilith slaughtered all living creatures west of the mountains to prevent any future rebellions. A necessary sacrifice in her eyes.
The fortress's dark outline jutted out from the dead landscape as a reminder to those who had fallen. A turret strained high into the sky like a jet black crystal with harsh cursed lines that protruded like razors down the edge. The obelisk was accompanied by two lower turrets that stood guard on each side. Side by side they formed the three arrows of the moon— the Vailïc sigil, the mark of death, and call sign of evil.
Each winter the stronghold’s territory expanded further north and south. The acquisition of the northern and southern territories made it nearly impossible to siege by land or by the sea. No campaign could take the fortress, nor would anyone dare. Evil and vile things fell there.
Lilith, an exiled witch during the time of Soren, disappeared over the changing of the new moons. In the first lunar cycle of Evinar, her attempt to enslave and chain all those who did not pledge loyalty faltered. Zane and his army of followers thwarted her plans. At the Battle of the Dawnburrow Crossing, her power was all but extinguished, her legion disbanded, and her life nearly lost. With the spirit that dwelled in the hilt of his legendary broadsword, Zane restored the Kingdom of Evinar to order.
Lilith was beaten.
Magic of long ago, the Guardians were man’s protector from evil, created by Soren after his departure to the Far Country. Three lunar cycles had elapsed since then, and each one added thirst for vengeance to Lilith’s palate. She had bided her time until fate was reluctantly on her side.
A cloaked company on horseback carved through the wasteland. Their undead stallions cantered at paces unnatural to man. The riders entered an evaporated swampland smelling of wood rot and musty smoke. Every timber forest they crossed was nothing but ashes and stumps. The horses' hooves crashed through branches as dry as bone and through opaque sludge. The iron gates of the stronghold were near. Once they rounded the Deadwoods, Validur would reveal itself.
Edmund’s bound body hung limply, brushing against the scorched earth from the time they entered the gates of Unduk Validur. His pale cheekbones and coarse grey hair were darker and the lines on his forehead deepened with agony. The features that his son once knew, were unrecognizable. A milk-white cloud over his eyes. He was a slave, a prisoner, and a deadman. But what of my son? He was in mortal danger. He was the one who would have to figure it out on his own. Edmund recognized this place. He had fought here once long ago, but things were different. Unduk Validur’s influence had spread tenfold and this time, tripled the ranks of its legion. What chance would anyone have?
“Und vahid ken?” queried a sentry in Vailïc, the native tongue. What shall we do with him? This sentry’s appearance was hideous. A tortured mixture the height of a man with the complexion of an onyx troll— a squash shaped nose with large fanged teeth that sat on the outside of his lower lip like daggers.
“We’ve orders to take him to the Weeping Woman immediately,” Remus said briskly in the common tongue of man. He pointed his gloved finger towards the middling tower up in the sky. There was candlelight coming from a slit in its many openings.
“Hid grok ne vok!” the sentry barked, his foul brown saliva splashing from his tongue. No one is to disturb her!
With efficiency, Remus snatched Quinn’s blade from his companion’s belt and placed it on the sentry’s throat. “Our orders supersede yours!”
The sentry gasped as the vein in his neck pumped uncontrollably. His red eyes widened, “Ver oko,” he said. As you say.
A grin ran across Remus’s face as he sheathed the blade back to where it came. “Take those beasts to the stable.” The stallions nickered in protest. “And don’t feed them. Lashings instead.”
“Varea.” Right away. The sentry summoned another to see the orders through.
With Edmund still bound, they walked the trek through Unduk Validur’s courtyard. They climbed the sixty-six stepped stone staircase to the chamber of the centering spire, where the Weeping Woman was brooding through her spyglass. The stars of the north were in motion southwest.
The woman smirked happily.
The broadsword was on the move.
There was a beating at the door.
“You dare interrupt me!” screeched the woman as she hurled towards the door. Remus stood in the opening, Edmund to his left and his partner in the background. At the same instance, an oiled blackbird screeched from the balcony.
“We’ve brought you something.”
Lilith’s eyes narrowed. They looked like amethyst gems set in pale snow. “So I’ve been told."
The crow chuckled.
Edmund limped inside, not without the guidance of Remus’s helper, and slumped to the floor in agony. The pain from the illness poisoning his insides had weakened him considerably.
“We— we have hurried here as quickly as we could,” Remus said, strolling past the desk posed in the turrets epicenter. A collection of parchment scrolls crumbling away from age and a quill with black ink spread over the hard surface. The candlewicks flickered with each passing of the wind in the turret’s balcony. “The Lord of Darkness travels with us.”
Lilith scoffed. “The Lord has uprooted my plans. You daft imbeciles. You’ve failed to bring me what I have so trusted you to complete. If the Lord were true, then you would have arrived here in hand with the boy as I instructed you!” Lilith twisted her spyglass in her palms, turning her knuckles white.
Remus flinched. “But we haven’t returned empty-handed.”
“Empty-handed,” Lilith muttered the words to ease her infuriated mind, but it did not calm her temper. She needed the boy. He’s what prevented her scheme. How could her most prestigious follower fail her in such a time of need? The boy was naive i
n Woolbury and ripe for a clean killing.
Her spyglass fell to the floor. Her bony fingers streamed through her long fluid-like hair, ensuring it was painstakingly kept. Her eyes dazzled with something much more than color alone, and her fair skin lent evidence to the winter surrounding her heart.
She was a beauty long since forgotten.
“We have his—“
“Be silent!” she cried. Her cheeks cracked beneath her eyes like spiderwebs of fire and emanated down the rigid cords of her neck. Her nostrils flared. Milky tears exited her enflamed ducts. The failure enraged her. Her spy brought her the news days ago, but the sound of hearing it again ignited her. “Fools you are! Have you any idea how important he is? In all of this?”
“No, my Lady—“
“Queen,” she corrected her fury worsening.
“Queen, you, you don't tell us,” said the second man who trembled under the stress of her words.
Remus’s eyes flared in a warning.
“You are incoherent of the simplest of tasks,” Lilith spat. “Why do I keep you in existence?” She picked up a knife of seven inches and slowly paced to where the men stood. After a breath, her eyes returned to their normal waxy state. “You don’t want to make me disappointed again do you, Remus? You do remember what happened last time when you failed to bring me that dragon’s blood?”
Remus clutched his left breast in remembrance. It still throbbed from where she drove the spike into his chest. “Please, no my Queen,” he said, avoiding eye contact.
“You know what will happen to you if you fail me again?” asked Lilith. She gently slid the edgeless side of the knife across his necks and kissed their wet cheeks.
Remus’s mouth dried in fear. “I won’t fail you again, my Queen."
Lilith came to Remus’s ear, “Kill the boy, and you shall have— whatever you like. Perhaps what Unduk Validur needs is a King to rule by my side. By bedroom, the chamber feels vacant at night. See to it that you don’t fail me again.”
“I will not disappoint you,” Remus said within an instance. “You have my word.”
The Shadow of Our Stars: The Tales of Evinar Page 13