by RG Long
“Barkeep!” Gorplin asked. “Another ale.”
“I heard you say those were your last coins,” the lanky man said as he looked down at Gorplin disdainfully.
“She’s payin’,” he said as he nodded at Silverwolf.
The assassin scoffed but reached into her pockets all the same.
“You owe me, stumpy,” she said.
“Pretty sure I saved your life once,” he said in reply.
“Pretty sure I could end yours in a heartbeat.”
A few more coins clanged on the table, and the barkeep sniffed. He went out and returned in just a few moments with overflowing cups.
“You’re right,” he said as he set out three more drinks.
“Come again?” Gorplin asked. He didn’t remember saying anything other than Silverwolf was buying this round.
“Darc is a human nation. And we’re only concerned about ourselves. Don’t get involved much in the wars of the rest of the continent. Just try to keep to ourselves and survive. There’s been word of way too much war over to the east and west. Most of the council just wants to stay out of it. Can’t say I don’t blame them. We’ve got all we need.”
Gorplin considered this as I took another drink.
“So is the council the ones in charge of Darc?” he asked.
The barkeep shook his head and pointed up to a statue above the shelves of liquor. It was a stone man with a crown on his head. It looked like there was some type of stonework depicted at his feet.
“Our king rules us from a faraway tower. In Larin. Been the king for about two-hundred years or more.”
Gorplin spat out his drink.
“What’s that?” he said. “I thought you said Darc was a human nation? How come you’ve got an elf for a king?”
“He’s not an elf,” the barkeep said. “He’s a human. Granted long life because of the peace we experience here in Darc. And he’s not going to go messing with it anytime soon. This, I know for sure.”
The barkeep took away their empty mugs and began to clean them, seemingly quite finished giving them information. Gorplin looked between Silverwolf and Felecia. Both of them had raised eyebrows.
Darc didn’t seem threatening from the view inside the pub. But if they were going to ask for help or push the nation outside of what they were comfortable doing, they may find an unfriendly welcome here.
Especially with their king.
20: Sailors
Even though this city had the appearance of once being a major port of Darc, the docks that they had here were not very busy. Wisym remembered exploring all the different port cities they had been in in the various countries of Gillia. None seemed as lazy as this.
“You’re sure you only see more than one, maybe two ships a month?” she asked one of the Skrilx who was taking barrels from one end of the dock to the other. He was not moving quickly. And he seemed quite content to take all the time he needed.
“One or two a month,” he repeated. “Don’t need many more than that. Don’t really need that many. Darc gets all it needs from itself.”
Wisym looked at Holve, who had a sour expression on his face. Trotta just shrugged her shoulders.
“Even Ladis traded amongst itself,” she said. “Most of the ships would move up and down the coast. It was all within the same kingdom, but certainly more than two a month.”
Holve looked like he was going to inquire further, but the feline stopped walking sooner than they had expected. The Skrilx set the barrel down on the dock and looked at the three of them.
“Any other questions?” he said as he glared at them.
Wisym already knew what answer he preferred.
“No, but thank you.”
Three of them move past the Skrilx who was watching them leave and not rushing off to go get another barrel.
Wisym looked around and surveyed the area. It was the same as when they had come to a half-hour ago. Lazy and slow-moving. And of all the people who are on the dock, though it was no more than twenty, half of them were Scruggs.
“Do you think they are here because they want to be?” Trotta asked.
“You mean, are they slaves?” Holve asked, looking over at a pair of them who sat looking out over the horizon, a pile of crates at their backs and no concern of working on their faces. “I doubt it. That only happened up north in Rerial if I’m to believe the stories. No doubt these are just a few who remained after the Skrilx were removed from the continent.”
“Removed?” Wisym asked as they walked to a small group of sailors who were sitting behind a medium-sized boat that was tied to the dock.
“Removed in the same way that Androlion wanted to remove all of the elves and dwarves off of Ruyn. There was a genocide here that doesn’t get a lot of talking books. Chief Rark told me about it.”
“But because the country of Darc is so removed from everything and self-sufficient, they didn’t need to worry about it?” Wisym asked. She was unsure. Her entire nation had fled the goblin army that had come to attack them. They mostly still lived in the north of Ruyn, even though they were from the south. The last she had heard, some had migrated back down to their ancestral homes. But others have chosen to stay in Beaton. But that had been nearly a year ago at least.
“A displaced people are an odd commodity,” she said out loud.
“Ya want to run that by me again?” Trotta asked her from the side.
Wisym shook her head.
“I wonder if the Skrilx want to be here or if they just feel like they are just here because they can be. There are several living on that island. Why not go there? Why stay here next to humans?”
“Maybe they were born here?” Trotta said. “I got the impression that some of them, the Skrilx I mean, had lived on the continent even though that genocide happened. Maybe home isn’t where other people look like you are but rather where you feel like you belong?”
Holve shrugged his shoulders.
“Home is not a term I’ve used for a long time,” he said.
Before Wisym could ask him about that further, Holve was waving at the sailors who were around the boat.
“Hello there!” he said. “What brings you to dark? And where are you from?”
The sailors all looked at one another before they turned their attention back to Holve.
“Who’s asking?” a man with a red bandanna tied around his head asked.
Holve held up his hands.
“Just a friendly question,” he said. Wisym could hear the defensiveness in the sailor’s voice. “We’re strangers in Darc and may need a ride out of here towards Rerial.”
A big beefy sailor without a shirt on chuckled as he looked at Holve.
“You don’t want to go where we’re goin’, old-timer.”
The other sailors laughed.
“Ya goin’ someplace dangerous?” Trotta asked.
“You don’t go to the Dark Lands because you want to, little lady,” the red bandanna man said again.” You go because you’ve been ordered there.”
“Or because the King in the High Tower pays well!” the shirtless man said.
“Here here!” said some of the sailors! “To the High Towered King!”
Wisym got the impression their loyalty was not based on love, but solely on coin. She’d get to that later.
“The Dark Lands?” Wisym asked. “Where is that?”
“Galin,” Holve supplied. “What reason would you have to go there?”
“So the old-timer knows a thing or two!” the red bandanna man said. “Yeah, it’s Galin. We’re waiting to take another shipment back. Get paid handsomely to do it too. The King in the High Tower has people he needs to be taken there for those willing to risk the journey and get the coins they need to buy company and drink for months at a time. But as I said, you don’t want to go where we’re going. And we’re not cutting anyone else in on this deal either.”
“What’s on Galin?” Trotta asked. Wisym could hear the inquisitiveness in her voice and knew t
hat the sailors were going to treat them to a story. Most sailors loved to talk and hear themselves speak.
“I don’t call it the Dark Lands because you go there for fun or to see the sights,” the bandanna man said. “The whole continent is a dry, dusty black. Nothing grows there, ‘cept for in Cruth.”
“Cruth?” Wisym asked.
“The only kingdom in Galin worth talking about. And the whole country is one big prison.”
“Only the worst criminals go there,” the shirtless man said. “Get sent there from all over Gillia. People you don’t ever want to see again. Political enemies. Blackthorns who are stupid enough to get caught. Speakers who do, uh, unnatural things.”
Wisym had seen her fair share of all of these but had never heard of Galin or those who sent people there to a prison country. Maybe it was something only those in Darc knew of? She doubted it. Gilia was a wide world, and there must be plenty she didn’t know about it. Apparently, Cruth in Galin was one of those things.
“The whole continent is mountainous and inhospitable. Just a few small cities along the coast for sailors to stop at in resupply. Nobody’s been inside the mountains.”
“Nobody’s been back from the mountains you mean,” the red bandanna man’s head.
“Cause that’s where the goblins and Wrents live,” the shirtless man said.
“And the lizards,” the bandana man said.
“Wrents? Goblins? Veiled Ones?” Wisym said. “All on one continent?”
“I told you it’s not a place you want to go,” the shirtless man said.
The men chuckled.
“And who are you transporting to Galin?” Holve asked the man with the red bandana.
The sailor looked like he would enjoy nothing more than telling Holve who they were taking. But instead, he folded his arms and smiled.
“It’s not worth my retirement home to tell you that,” he said with a leer. “That’s a part of the job. They give us the prisoners, and we don’t ask questions. Nor do we tell anybody who’s going where.”
“They get them sorted out when I get to the keep,” the shirtless man said again. “Nobody comes out of that keep.”
“Why does the King in the Tower send people there?” Wisym asked, trying to change the conversation.
The shirtless man laughed.
“Didn’t I say? Cause he never wants to see them again. He knows who he wants around and who he doesn’t. People who cause trouble. Speakers who try to enter his tower. Gang members who try to say they’ve got a hold of Darc. He don’t want none of that. Only his enemies sail for Galin.”
“And you’ll end up in the keep if you keep running your mouth,” the man with the red bandana said, looking at his sailing companion.
He seemed to realize he had said too much.
“You’re right,” Holve said. “We don’t want any trouble and are definitely not sailing for Galin. Thanks. And safe travels.”
As the three of them turned around, Wisym turned to see the three men talking among themselves. From inside their small boat, she swore she saw a feeble blue light glow and then disappear.
“Have you heard of Galin?” she asked Holve.
“I’m familiar with it,” he said.
Holve wasn’t usually one for conversation when he didn’t want to be, so Wisym didn’t press the issue.
“Skrilx who work the docks that aren’t very busy. A king in a tower who sends off his criminals to a continent to be imprisoned and surrounded by goblins and Wrents and lizards. Darc seems like a place I don’t want to spend too much time in,” Trotta said.
Wisym agreed.
“No, it does not.”
21: A Glimmer
Laserie stumbled out of the dark forest with Paula at her side. The trek through the forest had been as dangerous coming back as it had been going through the first time. Slowly, she watched as the men and Skrilx who had accompanied them through the forest come out from the darkness. It was like they were walking from midnight to midday. Each came into focus slowly as they walked into the light.
It was like they were reborn.
After about twenty people had come out from the forest, the last Skrilx came out from the rear and nodded his head. That was it — the last one.
The Skrilx had been true to their word. All they had done was lead them down the path. They had not tried to save a single man or woman from the plague that lurked within.
The darkness had claimed most of Paula’s delegation.
“I see now the severity of the threat you speak of,” the senator said with a breathless voice. “How did you make it through that first time without someone to guide you?”
“Someone did guide me,” Laserie said, looking back at Acred.
The brown-haired Skrilx held his spear up as he looked up to the tower beyond.
“Your elf companions will not take the news of their comrades passing well,” he said.
Laserie agreed.
With the elders of her tower forbidding her from going on a quest to save their kindred, what would they think when they heard that they had already passed on? And what would they think of this human delegation that was coming out with her to ask for help? If the elves did not want to help their own, how could they be convinced to help other nations?
Laserie shook her head.
“It’s only half a day’s journey from here,” she said. “After that, we will arrive at our tower.”
No one spoke much in between the forest in the tower. Laserie assumed that Paula and the others were sorting through their visions that they had seen. The plague had tried to trap them all.
Laserie felt a type of kindred with Paula even though she did not say it out loud. The dark woman had called for her parents while they were in the forest. The elf had come out of the visions much faster this time, having recognized what they were. She looked around at the others who were either succumbing to the plague or fighting it off. Paula had been speaking in a jumbled voice beside her. Clearly, however, the elf heard the woman talking to someone she called her mother and father. The same type of call that Laserie had made to her own supposed family.
Screams and wails of the others who had given in to the plague reverberated in Laserie’s mind. She doubted she would ever be able to remove the sound from her memory.
But, as she thought of it, she was given more resolve. The plague made no distinction between human and elf. It wanted to kill them all. To infect every living being that walked within its presence.
The dark silver-haired Skrilx had said that the plague had once been a much more powerful force. It was now contained within this forest by an ancient power.
Laserie wondered how something so powerful and evil could be so close to her tower without elves ever studying it or speaking of it to their own. Such thoughts filled her mind as they came to the doors of the tower.
There were no words that she could offer the company that she had not already said. The elves within may help. But more than likely, they would not. She had already explained this and felt like any further commentary on the matter would be useless. She looked at Paula, who returned her gaze with a determined expression. The woman nodded, and Laserie committed to the berating she was going to receive from the elders once they climbed the stairs of the tower.
Laserie went to open the door with one hand but found them moving before she touched them.
The sight that greeted her was not a welcome one. The elders of the tower stood behind several guards of the elves. Each of them held a silver bow in their hands and pulled back on their arrows.
“No human or Skrilx has ever entered this tower,” Laserie heard a voice say in her head. Looking over at Paula and seeing the expression on her face, she knew that she had heard the voice as well.
“Nor shall one ever upon pain of death.”
Laserie felt like shrinking back. It was as if the elders already knew of her failure. It was as if they already knew that her quest which had been unsanctioned and unblesse
d, had produced the results they had foreseen.
She looked down at the floor, ashamed.
Paula, however, stood up straight and puffed out her chest.
“I am Paula Dyerton, senator for the nation of Severn. I come on behalf of the governor of our nation, requesting aid from the elves of LeGrove.”
Laserie could feel Paula‘s eyes on her as if she was expecting her to say something here. Perhaps to explain that they had met at the other tower and had come here together through the forest. Even though the woman was looking at her, Laserie felt with even more force the displeasure of her elders. She continued to stare down at the floor.
Paula’s voice rang out again.
“I am sorry to inform you of the passing of your kindred in the tower to the west,” she said with what Lesire understood to be true remorse.
“We know if they’re passing,” the elder said.
Laserie looked up at this with a gasp.
“It was foretold in the stars. There are only now two towers of elves with life in them. It will not be long before we pass into the darkness of eternity from this continent.”
Laserie was shocked. Had the elders known the other tower was empty when she had left? Had they known her quest was doomed to fail before she even left? Why didn’t they tell her? Why didn’t they share their wisdom?
She stumbled over her words, trying to form what her mind was thinking.
Paula spoke before she could come up with any response.
“Then you know of how desperate our time is,” she said. “Do you know of the great need we are in?”
“We also know it is futile to resist what is coming. A darkness none of us will be able to withstand.”
“Wait,” Laserie said. She finally felt like she had found her voice.
“You saw what is coming? You knew of the downfall of the elves in the other tower? Why did you not tell us? We could’ve saved them the plague! We could’ve done something! They didn’t have to die from that terrible disease! If we had known we could have gone to their aid!”