by Ben Wolf
The solution presented itself sooner than he’d expected, but only barely in time. As he advanced, he found another door, this time cracked open, that led to a large storage room of sorts.
Inside, Calum discovered a dozen sets of long-sleeved wool shirts and trousers hanging on hooks from the wall. Around them, a variety of familiar tools leaned against the walls and sat on shelves, including shovels, pickaxes, shears, and hatchets. He leaned his sword in the corner between a couple of the shovels, still within reach if he needed it.
He quickly tugged off his boots and snagged a set of clothes from the hooks. All of them were varying shades of green, and some looked to be more faded than others. All the clothes seemed well worn and had an abundance of scratches, tears, and holes up and down the fabric.
The green trousers went on first, and he hurried to slide his boots back on. He donned the thick shirt next and reached for his sword again, but as he did, the door latch clicked, and the door swung open.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Calum had expected to find a batch of soldiers standing there, but upon seeing a cluster of unarmed men and women dressed in gray under-layers of clothing, he grabbed a shovel instead so as not to alarm them.
One of the women, short, middle-aged, and wearing tan trousers instead of green like everyone else’s, stepped inside. She had close-cropped red hair and scrutinized him with tentative brown eyes. “Who’re you?”
By that point, the others had entered and claimed their work attire, and Calum could see that one set of clothing remained apart from the one he’d requisitioned for himself. As such, everyone else was staring at him while they shed their boots and put on their own sets of clothes.
The red-haired woman cleared her throat and leaned her head forward.
“I’m—” Calum hesitated. “I’m new.”
It was the best he could come up with on the spot—neutral and succinct enough that it hid his true identity in obscurity, yet hopefully still enough to satisfy the small woman’s inquiry.
“Obviously,” she intoned with a roll of her eyes. “You’re Barkul’s replacement. You got a name? Come on, then. Spit it out.”
Calum gulped down his fear. “Cal—” He paused. “Cal. Just Cal.”
The woman looked him up and down again, tsking and shaking her head. “Scrawny young thing like you probably never did a day of hard labor in his life. At least you’re punctual.”
If you only knew. Calum bit his tongue to keep from saying it aloud.
“Well, Cal,” she said. “I’m Ursula, the Head Gardener. You work for me now.”
Calum nodded and didn’t say anything.
Ursula eyed him again. “You touched in the head or something?”
Calum shook his head. “No, Ma’am. Just ready to work.”
If she was buying his disguise, maybe any soldiers they passed along the way would take him for one of the workers, too.
“Not without an apron, you’re not.” She nodded toward a rack from which all the other workers were now claiming brown leather aprons for themselves.
“Of course. Sorry.” Calum gave her a slight bow and immediately felt stupid for it. As far as he knew, it wasn’t customary or anything like that, so it probably seemed weird to her that he’d done it at all.
He pushed his reservations aside, set his shovel down, grabbed an apron for himself, and put it on. It had loops and pockets on the front, and he noticed some of the other workers stuffing the pockets with leather gloves, smaller tools like clippers, and fist-sized bags of seed. Calum mimicked their actions.
As Calum finished, the other workers each grabbed either a shovel or a pickax. He figured he was all set and reached for his shovel until Ursula singled him out yet again.
“You ever use a pickax before?” she asked. “Or are your twiggy arms too weak to heft one?”
Calum bit back the truth yet again. Instead, he replied, “I’ve used them a time or two.”
“You’re gonna use one again today. Put that shovel back,” she ordered. “Grab a pickax and follow me. And don’t wander off.”
Calum obeyed. He hated to leave his stolen sword tucked away in the corner, but if this helped him blend in, then he stood a far better chance of escaping. He could just follow at the back of the line and slip away when he got a chance.
The other workers didn’t say a word to him, and none of them followed Ursula out of the storage room. Instead, they waited for him to go first. So he followed her, and the others followed him, like a trail of brown-and-green ducklings waddling after their mother.
So much for lingering near the back and slipping away.
Ursula deftly maneuvered them through the network of halls. Wherever she was taking them, she knew her way there as if she’d walked there a thousand times, and she probably had.
With each step, Calum glanced around, trying to make sense of their path, looking for distinct points of reference. After awhile, they started to pass by narrow windows, and sunlight streamed into the halls in long vertical strips. Whenever Calum tried to look out, he only saw flashes of the city beyond.
Along the way, they passed dozens of people, each of them clad in different color combinations, but all of them essentially wore the same type of outfit as Calum and the other workers in green, and all of them wore aprons.
All of them except for the soldiers.
Soldiers clad in the same silver armor as they’d worn during the battle that morning appeared at the end of the hall and jogged toward the group of workers. The hall was reasonably wide, but Ursula flattened herself against the wall nonetheless, and she yanked Calum against the wall next to her.
He complied, and he debated whether or not he should keep his head up or put his chin down. If he dared to stare at the soldiers as they passed, would one of them recognize him? If he put his chin down, would that look suspicious?
In the end, his indecision meant his head was still up as the soldiers plodded past the group. Despite the urgency etched onto their faces, none of them so much as gave him a second glance, let alone stopped for a closer look at him. They just kept jogging, determined to find him, yet too oblivious to realize they’d already passed him by.
“C’mon,” Ursula muttered. “Don’t know what that’s about, but it doesn’t change our mandate. We still got a job to do.”
Several halls and corridors later, Ursula led them through a large opening into what appeared to be an enormous courtyard overloaded with trees, bushes, and plants, most of which Calum had never even seen before. An array of vibrant colors punctuated the lush greenery in the form of flowers and fruit.
A solitary fountain carved from the same white stone glistened in the sunlight. In the center stood a single white spire surrounded by a short circular wall, and the water spouting from the top of the spire also fanned out in a circle and landed just short of the interior wall.
More impressive than the fountain, though, was the sprawling bed of red roses that lined the back wall of the garden. Immaculate red petals crowned the stems of countless hundreds of pristine flowers, vibrant and stark against the rocky gray cliff face that loomed high above the perimeter walls of white stone.
Wherever Calum was, there was no chance for escape that way. The natural wall created by the cliff face of the mountain had seen to that.
As Calum took in the beautiful foliage around him, he searched the garden for another way to escape, but he found none. A network of gray stone paths lined with well-manicured plants branched throughout the garden, truncating at the tall white walls that outlined the courtyard’s perimeter. Thanks to the robust flora that filled the garden, he couldn’t even see where they all went.
Above those walls, a layer of paneled glass or something like it covered the entire garden in a dome-like structure. The glass was mostly clear, although it seemed to have a bluish tint to it at certain points. In any case, it would keep Windgales from getting in or out just as easily as the white walls would do the same where Calum was concerned.<
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“Spread out. Tend to the plants,” Ursula ordered. “Draw water from the fountain, and for the love of peonies, do not prune the plants back too far.”
To Calum’s surprise, a third of his fellow workers left their feet and drifted over to some of the taller bushes and trees and began pruning them without the aid of ladders. They were Windgales—Wisps, specifically, as they did not wear capes.
He found the sight confusing at first, as most Windgales lived in Western Kanarah, although he had indeed encountered a handful of them here on the eastern side as well. Upon further reflection, he supposed it wasn’t that unusual after all.
More pressing for Calum was a question that had pervaded his mind ever since those soldiers had taken him into the tunnel below this building: what was this place?
Given all he’d encountered so far, he guessed it might’ve been some rich person’s home, or perhaps a military barracks of some sort. But if it were the latter, why would they maintain such a verdant garden on the property? Sure, it was beautiful, but it seemed like an awful waste of space.
Perhaps it was some sort of public venue, like a place within Solace for visitors to come and enjoy. Perhaps they held private events here, like weddings or parties.
The more Calum thought about it, the more the possibilities seemed both endless and narrow at the same time. He imagined the views of the stars at night, under that glass dome, were probably phenomenal.
Part of him longed to share such an experience with Lilly. How wonderful would it be if—
“You.” Ursula’s voice snapped Calum back into real time. “Come with me. Time to start digging.”
He considered turning and making a run for it instead. After all, what would she do? He doubted she’d bother to run after him.
But Calum didn’t run. Maybe it was part of his old self reemerging, wanting to comply, put his head down, and work like he’d done for Burtis back at the quarry. Or maybe it was a misplaced sense of loyalty to Ursula, who had indirectly and unknowingly kept him alive and relatively safe for longer than he’d anticipated.
Whatever the case, he hefted the pickax over his shoulder and followed her down one of the main paths without putting up a fuss.
As he walked along, Calum noticed a tall, powerfully built man standing on a path running parallel to his. A variety of flowering bushes and long-leafed plants and the occasional tree separated the two paths in a strip of vegetation about ten feet wide.
The man wore a simple white tunic and trousers. He had a rich bronze skin tone, a dark beard, and he wore a white crown atop his head that reminded Calum of Lumen’s, only not shiny. He strolled through the garden at a leisurely pace with his arms behind his back, as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
When the man looked over, his vibrant green eyes locked onto Calum.
A flood of emotion threatened to overwhelm Calum. Elation, fear, rage, shock, sorrow, anticipation, loathing. All of them at once.
And in that moment, Calum realized the truth of his situation.
After the battle, he’d been taken directly to Valkendell—the King’s fortress in Solace.
And this man was the King himself.
Calum didn’t know how he knew it, except that he sensed a sort of power—a presence like when he’d first encountered Lumen, like when he’d first laid eyes on Matthios and later with the Gemstone Imperator.
Calum gulped down the bile rising in his throat and tried to quell his emotional response. Should he look away? Should he keep staring to show he wasn’t afraid? Should he run?
Ursula still led him onward, and Calum still followed, but how could he continue to do so now, upon realizing his whereabouts and upon seeing the King?
The King looked away first, as if disinterested—or rather, simply more interested in the plants of the garden around him instead. Then he continued strolling down a perpendicular path, facing away from Calum entirely.
Calum glanced backward and up through the glass dome to see a spike of glistening white stone rising into the sky. He hadn’t seen it when he’d first surveyed the garden because he’d been facing away from it, but now that he’d progressed along the path, he could see up its side clearly.
He was definitely at the fortress. And he’d definitely found the King in the garden.
And the King was both unarmed and unguarded.
Calum had a weapon. Calum had the advantage of surprise. Calum had a chance to end this war once and for all.
All he had to do was kill the King, here and now, in this garden.
Calum’s grip tightened on the handle of his pickax, and his jaw clenched as he took his first step toward the King.
He headed straight through the green space separating the two paths with total disregard. His boots stomped colorful flowers and verdant leaves, crushing them with abandon.
By the time his feet hit the gray stone of the King’s path, Calum had left a swath of modest destruction in his wake, but he didn’t care. They were just plants.
And he had a King to kill.
Ursula shouted something behind him, a lament for the damage he’d just done to the garden and a call for him to come back and face her wrath, but he ignored her.
As he closed the distance between them, Calum glanced side-to-side to double-check that no guards or anyone else could possibly interfere. It didn’t matter what they did to him after the King was dead. They could tear him apart for all he cared; as long as he ended this war and freed Kanarah forever, he would gladly suffer any fate.
With ten paces to go, Calum quickened his pace and raised the pickax over his head.
But at five paces, he tripped.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Calum stumbled, and then he fell.
He landed within three feet of the King’s boots with a huff. The impact jarred his aching left shoulder, but somehow, he’d managed to hold onto his pickax.
When Calum glanced back, a thick greenish-purple vine receded into the brush lining the path.
On its own.
No one else was around to lash the vine at him to trip him up. The vine seemed to have done it of its own free will.
What irked Calum is that he’d been so focused on his target that he hadn’t seen it snake out to trip him in the first place. It was a foolish mistake Magnus would’ve used as a teachable moment during their training, and it was a blunder Axel would’ve constantly reminded Calum of for weeks afterward.
But here in the King’s very own garden, it was more than either of those things.
It was a fatal mistake.
When Calum looked up, he found the King’s vibrant green eyes staring down at him as they had before, when they’d seen each other across the green space. The same swell of emotions cascaded throughout his body, but this time the darker emotions—fear, rage, sorrow, and loathing—took the forefront.
He’d come within striking distance of ending the war and freeing Kanarah, and he’d still failed. He wasn’t strong enough. Smart enough. Cunning enough.
He wasn’t… enough.
Despite the obvious attempt on his life, the King did not regard Calum with anger or even surprise. Instead, he looked down upon Calum with pity.
Pity? Pity?
The thought of it incensed Calum. This man—this King of all of Kanarah, the vermin responsible for the suffering of countless people across the land, the man whose soldiers had killed Calum’s parents—now looked down on him with pity?
An explosion of fury burst within Calum’s chest, flinging him up to his feet as fast as lightning. He re-gripped the pickax and swung it at the King, who hadn’t moved, even when Calum had risen to his feet.
A tree branch kept the strike from ever reaching the King. It swung at Calum from his right side and intercepted the blow with a loud clack. When the tree branch recoiled, it dropped a handful of leaves and a pair of bright-yellow lemons on the path.
The King’s green-eyed gaze never moved away from Calum’s.
Calum couldn’t
understand it. How was this possible?
He hauled the pickax back for another attack. This time, an orange pumpkin the size of a warrior’s shield collided with his knees from the left, not only interrupting his swing but also knocking him down to the stone path once again. The pumpkin broke into chunks, and its sloppy seeds and membranes splattered across the path and Calum’s lower half.
What is going on?
All the while, the King stared at him dispassionately, aside from the pity in his eyes.
Before Calum could even try to stand, the hiss of leaves dancing on the wind drew his attention to his right. He turned to find a grainy cloud billowing into his face from a trio of pale blue mushrooms. He tried to recoil, but he’d already breathed some of the dust into his lungs, and he couldn’t help but cough.
No other plants tried to intervene, so Calum started to rise to his feet again. As he did, he realized his legs weren’t cooperating. And then his arms stopped cooperating, too. They weren’t lifting him.
He could still feel his limbs, so he knew he wasn’t paralyzed, but he couldn’t make them do what he wanted them to do. Next, his fingers refused to function, and he could no longer grip the pickax. It clanked to the stone path, as useless as Calum felt.
When Calum blinked, his eyes threatened to stay shut. No—they actively tried to, as if he hadn’t slept in days. Fatigue swept throughout his body, making his limbs even heavier and harder to move. The malaise spread to his head, and he squinted to keep his eyes open.
He looked up at the King again, who still hadn’t moved and still stared down at him.
Those vibrant green eyes still pitied Calum, and he couldn’t stand it.
But neither could he do anything about it.
He’d failed again. That was the last thought that flowed through Calum’s mind as he succumbed.
Then Calum fell asleep on the path at the King’s feet.