“I should have left when I had the chance,” grunted Emethius to himself on one especially cold winter night. The chill air had awakened the wound in his back, causing spasms to gallop up and down his spine whenever he tried to lay flat. Sleep wasn’t an option, not with pain like this, so he spent the better part of the night stooped over in an old rocking chair nursing a glass of wine.
“Wouldn’t be this damn cold in Henna Lu,” he muttered as he downed the last of the wine. Of course, if he went home there would be other unpleasantries to deal with.
He stared at the frost-covered window and contemplated whether or not he should open a second bottle, when there came a noise from the street. It was a soft scratching, like a shovel clearing a lane through the snow. Were it not the middle of the night, Emethius wouldn’t have given it a second thought. He exchanged the empty wine glass for his sword.
The scraping sounded again, this time just beyond his front window.
No one should be creeping beneath my windowpane, especially not at this time of night. Emethius silently drew his sword from its sheath. The wood in the hearth had reduced to glowing embers; if someone peeked through the window, Emethius would go unseen, and if an intruder came through the door, they would likely head for Emethius’s bed, thus exposing the would-be attacker’s back to Emethius’s blade. Such assurance did little to ease his nerves.
Emethius gathered his blanket about himself and stared long and hard at the door, waiting for the noise to return. Screech. It sounded like the claws of a cat grating against the doorjamb. His eyes focused like a hawk on the handle. The locking bar was in place, but he knew a swift kick was all it would take to break down the door. A flash of shadow suddenly darkened the crack beneath his door.
That was simply too much. Emethius was a trained soldier. He wasn’t about to wait for someone to come barging through his door.
Emethius jumped from his chair, and rushed to the door. He was certain he would catch the culprit in the act, and he poised his sword ready to thrust. But when he threw open the door, he was greeted by swirling snow and an empty street.
Row houses formed an urban canyon for more than a hundred paces in either direction; Emethius doubted anyone could have fled with enough speed to slip from view. Curious, thought Emethius. He stepped out onto his landing to make sure he wasn’t missing anything and immediately caught his toe. There was a hollow thud, and he fell sideways into the snowbank that had grown beside his stoop.
Discontent, freezing, and now covered in snow, Emethius rose and brushed himself off. He eyed the object that had tripped him. A small rosewood box had been deposited upon his top step. A piece of parchment was nailed to the lid. It read:
“The Wayward Prince weeps for your sins. I watch you in his stead.”
Emethius mouthed the words, and as he did a crippling anxiety washed over him. The Wayward Prince. His hairs bristled from gooseflesh, and he was suddenly seized by the unshakable sensation he was being watched.
As he retreated back into his home an even more unsettling realization came to mind. The snow in the street was smooth and un-trodden. Whoever had brought him this message had not left a single track.
• • •
At first light, Emethius ventured out into the snow-covered streets and made for Malrich’s house. The lieutenant of the Red Company lived with his family in a small two room house near the waterfront.
Emethius gave the door a single hard knock and waited. He knew it would take Malrich several minutes to respond. Malrich was a proud man, and Emethius had little doubt that he would want to get his household in order before answering the door for an unannounced visitor.
On the far side of the door, bottles clanged and a broom swooshed. When Malrich finally opened the door there was sweat on his brow. “Emethius, what an honor!” he exclaimed. Malrich’s eyes were black-rimmed, and his breath smelled of drink. Emethius noted several empty bottles near a toppled brazier. Malrich gestured for Emethius to enter. “What’s possessed you to visit my home on such a gloomy cold morning?”
“Breakfast, of course,” said Emethius with a smile. He held up a sack filled with rolls and cheese. “I’ve brought a treat.”
Malrich accepted the food graciously, and gestured for Emethius to take a seat. It was a simple home, about as much as a man of Malrich’s paygrade could afford. There was an open parlor in the front and a private bedroom in the back. Malrich began to busy himself, pouring drinks, setting out plates, and throwing a fresh log on the smoldering remains of a fire. Lively flames soon rose within the hearth.
Emethius dared a glance into the back room. The door was slightly ajar. Through the crack Emethius spied a women huddled under a fur blanket sitting in a wicker rocking chair. Her skin was stretched taut over the ridges of her cheekbones and the sunken hollows of her eyes. Her face was covered in scabs, and she was nearly bald save for a few patches near the base of her crown. She fidgeted endlessly with a scorched leather sandal, turning it over again and again in her hands. Her fingers were rubbed raw from the repetition. An elderly woman sat beside her, slowly feeding her drops of water from a sponge.
“How is she, Mal?” asked Emethius, looking away from the tragic sight. Malrich’s wife had shown the first symptoms of the Blackheart three years earlier. Her deterioration had been slow but steady.
“She’s worse than she's ever been, and better than she will ever be.” He sighed wearily. “Ali’s mind is fading, but despite outward appearances she is still physically strong. We can’t risk leaving her alone — she might hurt herself. But don’t worry about that right now, my mother-in-law knows what she’s doing.” He motioned to the elderly woman currently tending to Ali. Malrich smiled, acting as if this were all perfectly normal, and placed a stool in front of the table. “Please, have a seat.”
“It’s good to hear that Ali still has the strength to fight the affliction,” said Emethius, not knowing what else to say. He plopped down on the stool and laid the rosewood box upon the table.
“What’s this?” asked Malrich, eyeing the box shrewdly. The sigil of the Tiber Brotherhood was inlaid in the rosewood cover.
Emethius opened the lid, revealing a bound collection of parchments encased by a leather cover.
Malrich read the first page and his eyes flared wide. “This is Herald Carrick’s journal. How did you come upon this?”
Emethius explained all that had transpired the night before. Malrich was flabbergasted.
“Why would someone want you to have this?”
“I’m not entirely certain,” said Emethius with a shrug. “I couldn’t sleep after my late night visit, so I spent the waning hours of darkness reading through the journal. Much of it is rambling concerning the Blackheart. There is a list of possible cures: worm stomach, dragon marrow, elk tears, immersion in freezing water, or better yet, fire.” He couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of the remedies. “They seem more likely to kill you than to help.” Malrich didn’t seem to find it nearly as funny.
Emethius awkwardly cleared his throat. “But look here, this is what really caught my attention.” From the center of the book, Emethius produced a piece of folded parchment. He laid it out upon the table, revealing a hand-drawn map of Eremel. The crag of Mount Calaban was drawn at its center, from which radiated a series of circles. Calculations and underlined numbers were scribbled next to the names of major cities and towns. A hundred and five next to Etro. Fifty-seven beside Burrowick. Two hundred and twenty-three next to Caore. Emethius detected no pattern in the numbers save that they seemed somewhat proportional to each location’s population. There were a few lines of poetry written beside Mount Calaban in a wavering hand.
Deep in the mountain
In hollow roots underground
In the fastness of Calaban
The Shadow is bound
“What do you make of all this?” asked Emethius, after allowing Malrich a moment to look over everything.
“This is a bunch of rebel doctrine,�
�� said Malrich, thumbing through the pages. “Maybe it’s a trap. Someone probably took this off of Herald Carrick’s corpse at Imel Katan. My guess — someone gave you this journal with the intent of ratting you out. Next thing you know, a pack of soldiers will show up at your door, accusing you of serving the rebel cause. This is all the evidence it would take for a tribunal to find you guilty.”
At first, Emethius had come to the same conclusion. He had almost thrown the wooden box, contents and all, into the fire once he discovered it belonged to Herald Carrick. But the message nailed to the top of the box read like a riddle. The Wayward Prince weeps for your sins. Emethius picked his words carefully. “Do you know the Legend of the Wayward Prince?”
“I was never one to pay much attention in school,” said Malrich. He rummaged through the bag of food, producing rolls and a wedge of cheese.
“The Legend of the Wayward Prince is an old and sad tale,” explained Emethius. “But the fact that this letter carries its name causes me to wonder. The legend concerns the eldest son of High Lord Leair. Prince Kein was the lad’s name. He foolishly chased a Cul raiding party into the Great Northern Ador. Kein’s host was ambushed, and he became separated from his men. Although his body was never found, most assumed the prince was killed. High Lord Leair even erected a great mausoleum in his honor.”
“I’ve seen the mausoleum,” said Malrich, handing Emethius a roll stuffed with cheese. He began to prepare one for himself. “It’s down there near the east harbor. Covered in carvings of roses and the Calabanesi. It’s empty, huh?”
“Not exactly,” said Emethius. “A hundred seasons came and went. On the eve of the fall harvest a haggard beggar suddenly appeared in the fields of Sirote, a small village located on the south shore of Lake Virta. The town folk tended to the beggar as best they could, but try as they might, they couldn’t fully heal the man. It was as if there was a poison in his blood.
“In his few moments of lucidity, the beggar recounted a terrible tale. He claimed to be Prince Kein, and that he was held captive in the Great Northern Ador by a group of warriors that called themselves the Pirem Lu. The gods ordered the Perim Lu in all matters, and in exchange for their obedience, the Perim Lu were granted unnatural and godlike powers. The Perim Lu claimed dominion over the Northern Ador, and none who saw them ever escaped, save Prince Kein, who managed to gain his freedom by throwing himself into a river during a flood. The tale was one of the last sensible things the man ever said. Within a matter of days Kein grew wretched, and his mind was lost.”
“The Blackheart?” Malrich raised his eyebrow dubiously.
“Perhaps,” said Emethius, with a shrug. “Herald Carrick made such a claim in his journal.” Emethius opened a dogeared page in the journal and pointed out a line of beautifully written script. “Carrick believed that Prince Kein, or whoever it was that emerged from the forest, was the first person to ever be afflicted by the Blackheart. His sources seem solid. The Tiber Brother responsible for providing care for the beggar took very meticulous notes. The man’s symptoms were nearly identical to the Blackheart. The disease seemed to progress less quickly back then, and the beggar lived for many years under the care of this Tiber Brother. The townspeople of Sirote came to refer to the beggar as the Wayward Prince.”
“Was the beggar actually Prince Kein?” asked Malrich
Emethius shrugged. “When word finally reached High Lord Leair that his son might still be alive, he sent a court steward to Sirote to investigate. The steward was convinced the beggar actually was Prince Kein, and even tried to bring him home to Mayal so that High Lord Leair could make the final judgment. Unfortunately, the beggar died on the journey. By the time they reached the Court of Bariil the body was beyond recognition. Even so, High Lord Leair took the steward at his word, and entombed the beggar’s body in Prince Kein’s mausoleum.”
“So, Meriatis and Kein are alike?” asked Malrich. “Each of them was doomed to madness by the gods.”
“I don’t know.” Emethius threw his arms up in exasperation. “I would have never made the connection between Meriatis and Kein had I not received this message. I want to know who placed this package on my doorstep, and I want to know their purpose. I have a feeling that whoever is behind this, they’re not done sneaking around my stoop.”
“What would you have me do?” asked Malrich, clearly reading Emethius’s intent.
“I would never ask you to abandon Ali...”
“You would never ask me to abandon Ali,” Malrich agreed. “But you need a second set of eyes.” He glanced into the back bedroom. Malrich’s mother-in-law was feeding Ali a few grains of rice at a time. “Come night, Ali’s old mum is a better caregiver than I am anyway. I won’t be missed.” Malrich rapped an empty wine bottle with his knuckle. “When do we begin?”
• • •
Emethius and Malrich approached the first few nights of their stakeout with stern military professionalism, each taking two hour shifts until dawn. The few false alarms they encountered resulted in the discovery of a small mouse and a startled drunk. When the fourth night came, Malrich brought two bottles of rum to liven things up. He offered one to Emethius.
“I haven’t the stomach for the hard stuff anymore,” said Emethius, gesturing to his now healed wound.
“Fair enough,” replied Malrich, taking a swig straight from the bottle. “I guess my stomach will just have to do the work of two this evening.” He earnestly went about the task of drinking both bottles, and probably would have finished the job had he not passed out toward the end of his second watch.
Emethius let Malrich sleep — as drunk as he was, Malrich wasn’t really a viable watchman anyway. Besides, it would soon be dawn. Emethius’s heart fell a little. He was so certain the culprit would return. His eyes began to feel heavy, and he found himself counting quietly to himself. There was a rhythm to it, a quiet tapping. Tap, tap, tippy, tap. His eyes snapped open, his mind roused to sudden wakefulness.
The tapping was coming from outside.
He held his breath and listened.
There it was again. That telltale tap, tap, tapping. He suddenly remembered now, he had heard it the night before. It sounded like a dog’s nails grating against a stone floor. But the streets were lined in snow. No one walking the streets would make such a sound. It was almost as if...
He shoved Malrich so hard that the drunk oaf fell over in his chair and landed on the floor. He rose with a huff. “What do you think you’re doing? No need to rough up a lad just because he fell asleep on the job.”
Emethius placed a finger to his lips and pointed toward the rafters. Malrich’s eyes grew wide. Someone, or something, was on the roof.
The tapping continued, stopping from time to time, as if the culprit had a moment of caution, before moving again. They followed the noise as it went from ceiling to wall, and then began to draw eerily near Emethius’s front door.
Emethius slowly set his hand over the door latch. He mouthed the words, “Three. Two. One.”
He hurled open the door, and for a moment his eyes were locked only inches apart from two silvery spheres. There was a hiss, and then a flurry of movement as the culprit scrambled back up the wall. If Emethius had time to make sense of what he was seeing, he would have likely let the culprit escape, but he was acting on impulse, and he reached out and grabbed a hold of whatever he could. His fingers latched around cold scaly flesh. With his revulsion overpowered by curiosity, he thrust his weight around, like a man throwing a hammer in competition, and hurled the intruder into the far corner of the room.
Malrich slammed the door shut and barred the exit with his body. “What in the name of everything holy is that thing?” he blurted, recoiling in a mixture of shock and horror.
The intruder lay against the far wall in a tangled heap of tattered cloth. It kicked and flailed, righting itself, and spun around, flashing a row of jagged pearly teeth.
Emethius’s first instinct was to run for the door, his hackles rising from the pro
spect of being locked in a room with whatever this creature was. Malrich, on the other hand, moved toward the beast with the type of fearless swagger one only possessed when drunk beyond reason.
“It’s a giant fucking chicken!” yelled Malrich with a mixture of surprise and glee as he grabbed for the creature’s neck. The beast hissed in response, and ran full speed toward Malrich, ramming its snout into the hapless drunk’s chest. Malrich fell on his rump and the creature leapt over him. It scratched frantically at the locked door, turning over the knob with its tiny clawed hands. Still lying on the floor, Malrich lunged after the beast and managed to grab the creature’s foot. The beast spun around and chomped down on Malrich’s wrist, drawing blood. “Knock the bastard out,” yelled Malrich, as the creature sprang across the room, making for the window.
Emethius darted after the beast, but he was half-a-second too slow. Desperate to escape, the creature jumped headfirst into the window. The glass shattered, but the creature didn’t quite make it through the window frame. Its legs floundered miserably in the air, the creature’s torso hanging half in and half out of the apartment.
Using all his strength, Emethius grabbed the creature’s tail, and with a twist of his body threw the beast across the room. It struck the wall snout first. The creature regained its feet and managed a few wobbly steps before Malrich brought Herald Carrick’s journal crashing down on its head.
For a moment the two stood bent over in exhaustion trying to regain their breath.
“You didn’t kill it, did you?” asked Emethius.
Malrich shrugged. “I don’t even know if you can kill that thing.”
The two cautiously approached the downed beast. Emethius used his foot to pull aside the tattered piece of fabric the creature wore knotted around its neck like a cape. Malrich was right; the creature actually did resemble a large bird, albeit a plucked one. Small tufts of feather-like scales hung awry all over its body, pulled loose in the scuffle. From the tip of its tail to the point of its beaked snout, the creature was almost as long as Emethius was tall. It didn’t weigh much — not more than a couple stones. In truth, the creature was not much more than taut scaly skin stretched over a scrawny frame of muscle, sinew, and bone.
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