Prisoners of the Keep

by Susan Bianculli

  “But I haven’t had any body changes!” Jason argued.

  The Under-elf shrugged. “You have said before you were not supposed to be here. Maybe that is why. Or perhaps it is because you do not have a Deity whom you worship.”

  “Or maybe it’s an after-effect of the mist gate crossing which only affected the first to pass, and it’s being helped along from constant exposure to the magic of this place,” I suggested.

  Jason raised his black eyebrows. “What constant exposure to magic?”

  I waved my hand about. “This whole world is magical. There are cups that heat themselves, Elves, Goddesses, how we were supplied at first, monsters, weird plants, and lots of things we’ve heard about but haven’t seen yet.”

  “But there’s no magic right here!” he said, pointing down at the ground.

  I waved my hand back towards the flowers we’d just escaped. “What about over there? But if you mean right here in this spot, how do you know that? Just because we can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not here. Like air, you know?”

  “But you can feel air. Wind,” he argued.

  Arghen interjected, “You can feel magic, too, when it is cast. Items that use magic do not produce a feeling unless they are meant to do so. Fresh cast spells, on the other hand, can feel like anything from a tingle to a slight shock upon your skin.”

  Ooooh. So that was what I had been feeling those times when magic had been cast on me. And, thinking back, why I hadn’t felt anything at the Morning’s Glory Inn.

  I nodded to Jason. “That’s right; I felt a tingle first when Oakalyn helped me and later when she healed me, and I felt tingles when Caelestis used her magic on me.”

  “Really? Quiris said she used magic on me, too; remember me telling you? Well, I didn’t feel anything, and don’t believe she did.”

  I heaved an explosive sigh out. “You’re wearing clothes and armor and have weapons that Quiris gave you by magic, and you doubt it happened?”

  He shrugged. “For all I know she made the stuff she gave me appear on the ground by sleight of hand.”

  Arghen’s eyebrows drew together in a frown, but as Jason had made no real insult, he did nothing.

  “Wait. Even your clothes appeared on the ground instead of on you already?” I asked.

  “Yeah. What of it? The stuff showing up could have been done by some sort of misdirection and an assistant. Are you sure anything really does happen?”

  That was weird. Most of the wearables that Caelestis had given me had appeared on me, with only some of it, like the armor, appearing on the ground. Maybe it was because Quiris was a lesser goddess and not a greater one, like Caelestis was? That had to be it.

  I tried another tack. “Well, what about what’s been happening to me? My body changes?”

  “Well, what about it?” he asked dismissively. “Maybe you just have good genes or something, or maybe its all in your head.”

  I shook my head. “Never mind. If you want to keep a closed mind, go right ahead; I can’t change that.”

  Jason finally saw Arghen frowning and changed his tone. “Hey, Arghen, it’s cool. It’s cool. I’m not disrespecting Quiris in any way; I’m just not sure about the whole magic thing.”

  “Life in this world revolves around magic to one degree or another. I suggest that you think hard on this fact and learn to accept it,” the Under-elf said flatly.

  Jason made a face and turned back to wiping down Maris again, clearly still not accepting our words. I turned to Saffron to take care of him and hoped that in time Jason would be able to get over his doubts about the overwhelming evidence that surrounded him.

  CHAPTER 19

  Several days later Jason, Arghen, and I found ourselves traveling higher into the mountains. We were likely in the area where Tirillis had said people disappeared. And since I now believed we were on a rescue mission, that meant to me that unfriendlies were lurking somewhere about and maybe spying around. It made my shoulder blades itch. About mid-afternoon we came across a beautiful meadow ledge with lush pale green grasses growing around a trickle waterfall running down the side of the mountain from somewhere up above. I was delighted, and we decided to stop early for a leisurely dinner.

  I said conversationally as we ate, “You know, I would have expected to have been attacked by now, like by a mountain lion, a bobcat, a wolf pack, or something.”

  Jason looked at me, slack jawed. “Do you wanna have a battle with a pack of predators or one of those monsters that Arghen has been teaching us about, chica?”

  “No, no, I didn’t mean it that way,” I said, waving one hand casually. “What I meant was it just seems odd that we’re having a peaceful ride into wild, untamed territory.”

  “Hmm,” Arghen mused, “I understand what you mean, Lise. The fact that we have not been attacked is rather unusual. The only similar situation I know of are the travel tunnels around the city-states of my underground homeland. They have warrior patrols whose only duties are to keep a marked area outside the direct travel routes, usually a mile or so in diameter, clear of monsters and other undesirables. Going by that example we could infer that perhaps there is something like that happening here. The larger creatures of this region may have been killed to protect some sort of area or structure.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that. What if the something that’s responsible for the absence of predators is watching us right now?” I said as I looked up over my shoulder at the deepening twilight coating the mountain behind us.

  “Then we would have already been attacked,” Arghen said reasonably. “Perhaps tomorrow we should do some scouting on foot up these cliffs that surround this area to see what we can see?”

  The Under-elf waved towards the waterfall where an ancient fall of rock next to it had solidified over the years into something that looked climbable.

  “Good idea,” I said.

  “What?” exclaimed Jason. “I have been enduring this thing you guys laughingly call ‘riding’ for quite a while, and now you want to try out rock-climbing for kicks?”

  I was about to say something I might have regretted when I noticed him shift uncomfortably and realized he was in pain.

  “Still feeling tender?” I asked him sympathetically instead.

  He nodded, tight lipped.

  “I’m sorry. I thought the numbing salves would have helped more. Arghen, isn’t there anything else we can do for him?”

  Arghen shook his head. “The only thing that will help him seems to be time.”

  “I’ll stay here. I don’t want to scramble around on the mountainside like a goat,” Jason said.

  “Okay. Arghen? Staying or going?”

  “As it was my idea in the first place, I would be going,” he said seriously.

  “Then it’s settled. Will you be okay alone, Jason?”

  “Yeah, sure. Why wouldn’t I be?” he replied somewhat sarcastically.

  The next morning, Arghen and I left Jason with the horses while we scrambled up the mountain’s side. The ancient rock fall we started out on led up to a more crumbly rock face. Pebbles and loose dirt shifted frequently under our weight, but there were lots of things to stand on and reach up to. We were careful to not commit to anything until we were sure it would support us. But still we’d had a few scares by the time I called for a break on a ledge.

  “I didn’t think we’d come so far, but I can barely see where we left Jason,” I said as I pulled out my water skin for a drink.

  Arghen scanned the area around us as he drank, and then he waved his left arm in an arc. “This whole area, for several mountains around, looks like some giant reached down and gripped the earth with his fingers many times in quick succession. Can you see what I mean, Lise?”

  I nodded agreement. “Very broken, oddly shaped ground. Yes, I can see what you mean. But I also see lots of what I think are canyons and passes which might make traveling through the mountains a little easier as a result of the ‘giant’.” I smiled at the whimsical image
and tucked a stray piece of blonde hair behind my ear. “What do you think caused it?”

  He shrugged. “Who knows? Earthquake, a volcano, magic, or perhaps some combination of those forces.”

  “Wow. I mean, I’ve read stories about magic moving mountains and stuff, but listening to you makes my fairytales feel, I dunno, more real than before.” I capped my water skin. “Shall we push on? I think I’d like to angle over to the little flat top to the left next.”

  Not long afterwards we stopped for a rest again, and Arghen peered intently off towards the right. “Look, Lise! Smoke.”

  He was right; there was a wide plume of smoke climbing steadily into the sky several mountains over. It rose until the slight mountain breeze that had sprung up fanned it into wispy tails which dissipated in the afternoon light.

  “Is it some sort of brush fire?” I asked.

  “It looks too contained for that. Let us watch and see if it changes.”

  We watched it and came to the conclusion that it came from some kind of stationary fire. As the last ragged smoke puff vanished I experienced a long shiver running down the length of my spine, and I felt a mental ‘click’ inside my head. A certainty filled me: I needed to get closer and see for myself what it was all about.

  I startled Arghen by turning to him wide-eyed and almost glowing. “I think we should go back to Jason. I just got the strangest feeling that the source of the smoke is something we need to investigate.”

  Arghen saw the expression on my face and gave me a seated bow. “If I understand the Handbook Quiris gave me when I became her Champion, you look like you have been god-touched. Let us return to Jason at once.”

  We returned to camp just before sunset.

  “What did you see?” Jason asked.

  “When we hit the top of a mountain,” I told him, “we saw some smoke to the northwest along the mountain chain. As we watched I got this big shiver down my back and a kind of mental ‘click’, I guess you could call it, which told me that we need to take a closer look at that smoke.”

  A skeptical light shone in Jason’s brown eyes. “You really mean to tell me you are going to base our travel direction on a shiver and a ‘click’?”

  The Under-elf frowned at him as I lightly replied, “I don’t see why not? Do you have a better way to choose a direction to complete Caelestis’ quest?”

  “Well, not when you put it like that.” Jason’s forehead puckered in annoyance.

  Arghen swallowed the last of his meal. “I assure you, Jason, Lise showed signs of being god-touched when she spoke to me on the mountain side.”

  Jason muttered something under his breath about me being ‘touched’ all right, but Arghen and I pretended not to hear him.

  Eventually Jason spoke up as the sun set behind the mountain tops in clouds of gorgeous reds. “So, okay, what do we do now? How are we going to get over to the source of the smoke anyway? You know how to get there?”

  I frowned. “I suppose we could continue to ride the horses and just keep taking forks in the roads and canyons that we’ve seen from up there that lead towards the north. But I guess there is no real way to be sure that the ways we we’ll take will lead us where we want to go.”

  Arghen put in unwillingly, “We could leave the mounts and travel over-mountain.”

  I was shocked. “What? Abandon Saffron? No way! He was a gift from Caelestis herself!”

  “And Stalker is my first fully trained dranth, whom Quiris restored to me before I left the Sub-realms. I do not willingly say this, Lise, but it is an option to consider.”

  Jason said, “Well, Maris is nothing special, but I would rather ride her than scramble by foot up and over the rocks.”

  I lifted one shoulder. “Well, what about this for a compromise: let’s see how close we can get on the horses to the smoke source before we try rock climbing? I really don’t want to leave Saffron, but on the other hand I really don’t want him being stolen or killed, either. Maybe we can find some cave or something we can leave them in when we get closer.”

  The next day we rode along the scrub-dotted rocky dirt road north and east a little, still debating leaving the mounts somewhere or continuing on with them. Our conversation was interrupted when we rounded a corner and saw a group of four grey-green Goblins wearing tunics with a blue wave design on them.

  I gasped. “Do you see that? That’s the symbol that those guys had on their armor the night we met, Arghen!”

  The Goblins stood beside saddled mounts at a bend of the road ahead of us. When they saw us they straightened up.

  “What’s the password, traveler?” one called out.

  “Uh oh,” said Jason.

  “They are a look-out detail,” said Arghen. “We cannot answer a password we do not know. Get ready for a fight.”

  Our silence triggered the four sentries into full battle mode. They jumped onto their saddles and whipped their mountain horses towards us, drawing and brandishing their weapons as they did.

  “At them!” yelled Arghen, and he kicked Stalker forward while leveling his war spear.

  Jason whipped a dagger at one of the Goblins and managed to knock him off his horse with a knife to the face. He then drew his sword and got Maris moving, a mixture of anxiety and eagerness on his face. I drew my saber and nervously kneed Saffron forward. As we rode at our opponents, a mixed bag of feelings rose up again in me: protectiveness for my comrades, adrenaline-fueled fierceness, and being scared. I bared my teeth in bravado and angled my sword at the one closest to me as we reached each other, ready to put the practice I’d been doing with Arghen to the test.

  My Goblin opponent swung his weapon down wildly with an overhand swing that I blocked at a slant. Without thinking, as his sword slid down mine I skimmed my saber towards his chest along his blade while pushing it away from me at the same time. Mr. Bronson, my fencing teacher, would have been proud! At the last possible instant I straightened out and without thinking ran the goblin through. The Goblin’s black eyes popped wide as my sword cut through his lungs and caught on a bone deep inside. Animation faded from his face and he fell sideways off his horse, taking my blade with him from my nerveless fingers.

  The shock of such a quick death made my adrenaline crash. I reined in hard around the little horse, which spooked and galloped a few steps away before slowing to a stop. Arghen and Jason must have had no trouble disposing their foes, because in looking around for them I found that the battle was already over. Feeling queasy, I slid off my horse and pressed my hand to my stomach. Jason, I noted absently, didn’t seem to be having any internal troubles like mine.

  “Are you all right, Lise?” asked Arghen. He dismounted to come over to me, concern on his face.

  I nodded weakly.

  A look of understanding flashed in Arghen’s amber eyes. “Ah, that is right. This was your first intentional battle; not something that unexpectedly developed into a fight or some animal we have hunted for food.”

  I gave another nod, not trusting either my voice or my stomach.

  Arghen placed both hands on my shoulders. “Do not worry, Lise. You fought well. Do not be concerned about your style. That will come later.”

  I looked up at him bewildered, and then understood—he thought I was ashamed of how I’d fought, not that I did fight.

  Caelestis’ words at our second meeting came back to me then. “You will learn, and find that it comes more naturally to you than some others. Your first lessons will not be long in coming, either.”

  I now got what Caelestis had meant. I would be involved in more killings.

  Arghen announced while I digested this, “We need to dispose of the bodies and take anything worth salvaging.”

  I blinked in surprise, distracted from my thoughts, but I didn’t say anything when I saw Jason nod in agreement. I swallowed a lump in my throat at the thought of having to deal with the corpses of those I’d just helped kill. I retrieved my saber and Jason got his knife; luckily, neither had been damaged. We raided
the sentry bodies for money, weapons, and jewelry, though I was rather half-hearted about it. I felt very peculiar about taking things from the dead, but I knew that Jason would point out that since Goblins could no longer use these things, we should. I wasn’t sure what bothered me more: Jason’s casual relationship with other people’s possessions, or that Arghen seemed to be in perfect agreement with it.

  “What do we do about the bodies themselves?” Jason asked, stuffing his loot into his saddlebags.

  “I need to perform the Rite of the Dead for them first, and then we need to hide them somehow.”

  “Rite of the Dead?” I asked curiously. “What’s that?”

  “The ritual that a Champion must do for fallen enemies to speed their souls on to the afterlife,” he replied solemnly.

  Jason snorted.

  Arghen looked at him, frowning. “You do not approve?”

  “No, I just don’t believe, that’s all. You go ahead and do what you feel you need to do; I’ll start gathering rocks together that we can hide the bodies with.”

  Jason went off, and I put a hand on Arghen’s shoulder.

  “Never mind him. Can I watch?”

  “I would welcome it.”

  Arghen pulled out a Handbook that was devoted to Quiris. He showed me how to arrange the bodies—legs straight and arms bent so the hands rested on the chest—and then covered them completely with their own cloaks. He knelt, opened the book to a particular page, and said the Rite with me standing beside him and paying close attention. I felt the familiar tingle across my skin of magic happening, and then my eyes widened and my jaw dropped as a silvery shape rose out of each body. They formed briefly into the shape of each Goblin before arrowing up and away in an untraceable direction.

  I staggered back a step and called out with excitement, “Jason! Jason! Did you see that?”

  “What, chica?” he replied, his voice coming from rather far away.