by Ember Lane
Lincoln’s courage faltered for mere seconds before he jumped, darkness consuming him—the fall endless. He smashed into water, its freezing cold squeezing his heart to a stop. Sinking, he tried to shake the mix of fear and shock from himself. The noise of the others plummeting in behind lent him a little reassurance as he was picked up by the water’s current and caressed by its ice-cold flow.
Tumbled, tossed, and buffeted against rock sides, he was consumed by the turbulence. It was midnight; it was black; it was endless, but then he saw light above—a pool of shimmering light that reminded him of escaping the clepsydra.
Lincoln swam up to it. Breaking the surface, he saw that he was in a pool at the mouth of a cave. The girl sat by its entrance, her palm facing upward. Hovering above it, a teardrop appeared to be held, frozen in time—as was the woman. A golden lattice—like a cage—surrounded them, meeting the ground at the edge of the pool. On the other side, a man sat on grass-covered earth, cross-legged, a look of satisfaction on his face, but behind him, a black-cloaked figure had an ax held high.
Griselda surfaced, and then Jin, Crags, a wounded Swift—bleeding and bloody—Flip, and Belzarra. The witch was soaked and enraged.
“What kind of dungeon is this? What kind of devilry?” She sloshed from the water, bending to inspect the frozen woman. “Another one?” She glared out of the cage.
“Three, another three,” Cronis’s voice came back at her.
The old wizard wandered in from beyond the setting, marching up to the black-clad figure with the ax. “This delightful creature is Pellevere. Do not discount her from the final reckoning. He then pointed at the other two. “These two tried to fight her and failed. The one sitting on the outside is Taric—you’ll recall that he was Mezzerain’s god. He had dreams of winning their little game, but thought he was cleverer than he truly was, and as he took Merissia out of play, so Pellevere took his head as her prize.”
“So this husk is Merissia?” Belzarra near spat.
“She is, though as yet we cannot tell if she is dead or not. The story goes that her despair was complete when she saw she’d been herded and trapped by Taric, but Taric wasn’t quite as evil as he thought he was and couldn’t bring himself to kill her. The tear above her palm grew, swallowing her, keeping her frozen in time. Some think she will awake, that her tear will keep her alive.”
“Taric was from Valkyrie?” Lincoln asked.
“He was, and though his head was separated from his neck before he’d blinked, he’d already sent instruction to Mezzerain.”
“What instruction?”
Build a portal and invade Irydia?
“You’ll have to ask him that, but from the brief conversations we had, I sensed he was paving a way rather than just following a path. Quite what the other one’s up to, I don’t know.”
“Other one?” Lincoln felt lost, like there was too much information crowding his mind.
“Never did get his name, but Mezzerain didn’t slip the mists on his own. Two of them slid under.”
“And her.” Lincoln pointed to Merissia. “Where did she fall to?”
“Sharreff. Shed no tears for her. It is her penance for making a deal with The Variant.”
With a swipe, Cronis changed the canvas, and Lincoln saw they were in a silo-like chamber. Looking up, he spied a circular hole in its ceiling, and in front of Cronis, an iron grill with a gate that opened to a room around forty-feet square with two rows of oaken tables tapering away, a trough in between them, and two hearths each side.
“Some kind of bakery?” he asked.
Cronis opened the gate, offering his hand, taking Lincoln’s and pulling him out. “No doubt,” he said, simply.
They rested there, nursing their wounds, their scrapes, and bruises. Much to Swift’s chagrin, he’d caught an arrow in the shoulder.
“Nothing but a fluke,” he muttered. “No way could one of them have hit me.”
“Thrace,” Cronis announced with glee. “Those warriors were The Thrace, fearsome folks from Northern Sharreff. The Sharreff are a curious race. One half are traders, the likes of which, the skills of which, you will rarely find. It is said that a Sharreff trader can strip you of your coin, give you nothing in return, and persuade you that you got the better of him, and wish you a good day as you go on your merry way. Of The Thrace, little is known except that they can hit a wasp with a spear at a hundred yards and leave its wings intact. So, my favored apachalant, it is likely that they can spike you.”
Swift grunted.
Griselda slammed her ax down. “I’m with Belzarra. I’m not sure I get what this has to do with us. Where’s the loot? Where’s the skill in running?”
“That I can’t answer, though you might want to look at the lessons. Merissia was Sharreff’s god, but they hunted her down—they gave her up to Taric. Maybe it tells us that all is not sitting right beyond the mists?”
“Does anybody else feel like this place is alive?” Belzarra asked. She ambled over to one of the hearths and pushed her hand out, a stream of ruby magic blasting from it. “There’s no kindling, but the rocks can give us heat…eh?” she then muttered as a pile of logs appeared in the hearth, and soon a roaring fire filled the chamber with heat.
Griselda ambled over to her, the dwarf’s laughter ringing out. “Maybe it is a dungeon after all.” She started taking her sodden clothes off. “That’s some illusion that can actually get you wet.”
“And shoot an arrow into you,” Swift added, joining them, a half-drunk health potion in his hand.
They all gathered around. Griselda, Flip, and Jin had food. Cronis fiddled in his own sack and brought out a barrel of ale. Belzarra provided the mugs and plates. Crags, as usual, contributed nothing but his cheery demeanor.
“A dungeon, any dungeon only does what’s right for it. Take this one—it isn’t done with us yet, but it clearly wants us in tip-top form for the next test, and let’s be clear, it is a test. None of us had to follow The Builder down that sinkhole.” Crags sat back, clearly pleased with his pronouncement.
“What about you?” Lincoln asked Cronis. “What happened to you?”
Cronis took a sip of his ale, peering over his mug, studying Lincoln. “I see these things in my dreams—they plague me. I do not need to live them in real life. I merely continued on the original path, while you lot trampled down the river. It took me to a hill, to a winding trail, that brought me out onto the vale. Sometimes the old ones find the easiest ways...”
Lincoln took his boots off, resting them by the hearth, then his socks. He pulled his coat out of his sack, stripped down and then sat, coat on, mug in hand, and mulled over the two scenes they had played. He had no doubt in his mind that it was, indeed, playing.
In just the last few hours the emphasis had been near solely on the fallen gods, and he wondered why. Why did the game suddenly need to furnish him with this information? It was a little like the instruction you got when you progressed from one section to a more difficult one—the point where the game began to open up and the stakes got higher.
But that’s happening without these others…
Was it some lesson on what was happening beyond the mists? Were armies falling? Were they missing the true game by being isolated? Four new gods—he’d put faces to four new gods so far—and they all looked ugly in their own way. Even Merissia—what had she done to warrant The Thrace turning on her?
“It talks to me,” Lincoln said suddenly. “The dungeon—its core—it talks to me.” As soon as Lincoln said it, he heard laughter in his mind.
There, that wasn’t too hard, was it?
15
Morlog
With his boots now dry, Lincoln was ready to go. The voice inside his mind simmered below the surface, appearing ready to chime in when it deemed it was needed. They’d all talked about it. Cronis theorized that its goal was obviously to unite them, to make them a team that could defend Sanctuary. It made sense. Griselda could rally the dwarves, Jin the elves, Swift the a
pachalants, Crags…possibly the gnomes and harpies. Belzarra could aid Cronis with the magical defense, and Flip, well...Flip was Flip was Flip, and he was spread out on a table, snoozing.
“What do you think, Crags?” Lincoln asked.
He wanted to draw the gnome farther into the group. Crags lived on its periphery, on every group’s periphery. He’d been like it when it had been Lincoln, Grimble, Ozmic, and Crags, and he’d been like it in Joan’s Creek, Sanctuary too.
“I’ve told you what I think. I think The Thief is remaking the stone Poleyna destroyed. I think part of that stone is here, somewhere. The question we have to ask is this, will we get to it before The Thief does? Is it important?” Crags shrugged. “You can only fight what’s in front of you.”
“Too true,” Flip murmured, his eyes still closed. “You bunch, you fight and gossip, then gossip some more. Scheming, now there’s the art.”
“So speaks the one who ducks in and out of legend as it suits him,” Jin added.
Flip sat up. “I like that.” He pointed at Jin. “Can I use that?” He swung his feet off the table, resting them on a chair. “Gossiping, idle chatter, banter, and whatnot merely send you a random enemy for you to fight. Scheming! Scheming gets the enemy you want in front of you. Tell me, Lincoln, do you want to fight King Muscat?”
“I’ll fight him if it means peace for Sanctuary.”
Flip jumped off his perch and began walking up and down, his hands behind his back. “Not my question. C’mon, Lincoln, be a schemer, not a warrior.”
“No.”
Flip turned. “No, no you don’t want to be a schemer, or no, you don’t want to fight Muscat?”
“I don’t want to fight Muscat—why would I want to destroy Irydia’s standing army? The only army that might be able to face Sutech Charm.”
“So, no…”
“No.”
He spun around. “No,” Flip repeated. “But I could show you the real reason why… Swift?”
“Prince.”
“A deal for you. You want Lincoln to announce himself in Brokenford, yes?”
“That was the deal I made. The Apachalant council wants everything clear. They’ll hear no talk of treason.”
“They talk treason already, but no matter. The Lord of Zybond prepares for treason, and the Port Lords pray for treason, but if I promise you Lincoln will march on Brokenford and announce himself, a few more moons later than perhaps he could, would that satisfy the Apachalant Council?”
Swift held his gaze for a moment. “Would it get the right enemy in front of him?”
Flip clicked his fingers. “He gets it! He understands.” His face dropped. “But I can’t promise that. I can promise that he won’t face the wrong enemy—you see, that’s the trouble with scheming—sometimes you get out-schemed.”
Lincoln scratched his head. “Can we just go and kill something?”
Flip roared. “Kill something, yes, yes you can. Oh this is going to be precious; this is going to be great. Kill things, celebrate, and then we’ll be on our way.”
“Eh?” said Lincoln.
Flip sauntered over to him, clapping his hands on Lincoln’s shoulders. “Scheming, Lincoln. If you’re to unite Mandrake, if you’re to face down Sutech Charm’s hordes, you’ve got to understand it on an intricate level; you have to understand its mortar and its block so that you can build on it.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that you must accompany me to the Forest of Ledges, where we shall mess with The Assassin of Petreyer. You game?”
Lincoln’s heart surged. His inner warrior roared, but was immediately quieted, its flames extinguished by the weight of his responsibilities. “But what about this place?” The words barely dripping out of his mouth.
“Built!” Cronis barked. “Built, and being built. I hate to say it, but the prince is right, and I’m sure he has a way to be where he has to be when he has to be there. You should see the land to understand it. The few hundred square miles you’ve traveled is hardly a qualification for ruling the place.”
“Uniting,” Lincoln whispered. “She asked me to unite it.”
“Then,” Belzarra said, “if she’s spoken, I suppose all else is deemed inconsequential.”
“If she’s spoken,” Crags said. “Then it should be done without question or discussion.”
“Maybe that’s what this is all about,” Griselda said. “Maybe this is all just to show you that you can trust us all to have your back.”
Cronis and Crags burst out laughing, each pointing at the other, until they both petered out with an “Oh!”
Swift walked up to Flip, standing near toe-to-toe with him. “As you wish, Prince, but he must be in Brokenford when the time dictates.”
“Naturally, and as I intend to dictate the time, that should be within my bounds. Now, shall we get on? It must be the middle of the night by now. I wonder what treasures we have in store for us?”
Lincoln couldn’t help but think his voice wasn’t being heard, but he also grasped their logic. To unite the lands, he had to know the lands. The question that needed to be asked was "Did he have the time?"
“You can only fight what’s in front of you,” he told himself, quietly.
Swift geared up, as did the rest of them, and Belzarra extinguished her fire. The room, like the last, had only one exit—a set of double doors to the side of the caged grain store. As they all filed through, Lincoln fell in next to Belzarra. A corridor opened up in front of them, and they saw the first rooms of the castle’s main body. Doors lined the way, spaced evenly indicating like-sized rooms. Flip tried the odd one, but after poking his head through and looking around he discounted each in turn.
“You have to trust in others,” Belzarra told Lincoln. “Look at when you came to my little forest. It was you who fought my beasts, and you who breeched the whirlwind. Why did you even have to come?”
“Swift asked me,” Lincoln said, knowing it sounded feeble.
“Would I not have trusted the words of an apachalant? Are they not above question?”
Lincoln saw that his sole justification was Swift’s charisma—a flimsy excuse at best. He pondered over what Finequill and Allaise had already achieved. Surely, Allaise and Griselda could work on the games, the entertainment—the dwarf was much better suited than him. Both city guides now had charge of the building; it was almost on auto, he mused. And magic, what of that? He had none, and so he had to rely on Cronis and Belzarra for that. Swift and Jin to arrange the army? That worked too. Maybe the reasons were stacking up for him. Maybe it was time.
“You know I’m right,” Belzarra said. “Good luck breaking Allaise’s heart.”
Lincoln cursed the cruel game. Cruel in so many more ways than a simple thrust of a sword.
After a few hundred yards, the corridor ended when another one cut across its path, and they were faced with a choice. Lincoln sank his mind into the rock below, but could sense nothing but an identical corridor. Swift ran up one way and soon returned telling of a stairwell at its end. He raced up the other and returned quickly again.
“This way opens up to a square; we are three levels up. My night vision showed no scenes, no visions or beasts, but you never can tell.”
“The square or a stairwell?” Cronis directed his question at Lincoln. “What does your gut tell you? Or your little friend?”
But Lincoln felt nothing, and when he tried inquiring, the Warrior was silent too.
“This way,” he said, guessing, and they headed toward the square.
Lincoln’s average night vision meant that he could just about make out the plaza, but only as a slightly lighter square than the rest of it. They were on a balcony, an open walkway that ran the length of their side, and then turned at both ends to begin forming the square below. He guessed a similar stack of balconies stretched out over the other side, but couldn’t make it out.
Flip found a set of downward steps partway along, and the party descended, the lig
ht from their lanterns casting eerie shadows. Lincoln smacked the balustrade. A familiar feeling of anticipation gathering in his stomach almost as though the scene was building for him, the actors taking their positions, the beasts sharpening their claws, picking at their fangs. He wondered what dread surprises its choreographer had in store for him.
The air began to sour, a strange tang to it, an alien smell that just shouldn’t exist in a castle. “Copper,” he muttered. “The air tastes of copper and iron.” He set off after the rest of them.
They gained the last step, and spilled onto the cobbles of the underground square. As Lincoln skipped down the last tread, a half a dozen lanterns blinked into life, bathing the plaza in a warm, amber light and confirming to Lincoln that it was just that. Four identical stacks of open walkways, gray and deserted alleyways, bathed in shadows at their ends. Dead opposite and center of the third level, a room lit up, its glow quite homely.
“Here we go,” Grizelda hissed, and unslung her ax.
Lincoln drew his sword this time, Flip nocked an arrow, Swift choosing to do the same. Crags had his short sword in hand, and a vicious-looking dagger in the other. Cronis lit his pipe, and Flip stood close by trying to snatch a whiff, a scent, probably a hint of what was to come. Belzarra coughed.
They all edged forward.
Lincoln tasted the air as well. He couldn’t shift the metallic smell out of his nose, the taste out of his mouth.
It was faint at first, but the sound was soon unmistakable—a fluttering noise, but faster, like a bee with fat wings. Lincoln edged forward, nerves kicking around in his tight stomach. Griselda was breathing fast, but she took four strides forward, then four more until she stood alone and defiant, her ax held ready, her legs braced to strike. Flip and Lincoln soon flanked her, and they held, and they waited. The air turned sour.
The buzz grew louder, but Lincoln could see nothing. A figure appeared in the lit room and stood for a while in its doorway, before stepping out. It appeared to place its hands on the balustrade, and a piercing whistle burst from its lips.