by B J Hanlon
Edin took a drink.
As he entered the city, he received the odd curious glance from pedestrians before eventually finding his way to the outfitters as it was about to close.
The quartermaster, a man that looked like he’d crumble and break if pushed, eyed him with the vitriol of a man forced to stay late and miss dinner. He gave Edin two pairs of farmhand uniforms, light in weight and a dirt brown. To hide the mud, he assumed.
He barely even sized Edin up and pushed him out the door slamming it behind him.
Edin sighed and looked down at the brown paper wrapping and the small twine ties. He took a drink from the flask and glanced up. He was on Canal Street, though the significance meant nothing to him as there was no canal he could see.
Drinking from the flask he gazed up toward the castle. It seemed close and somewhere in there was Arianne.
Without a thought, his legs began taking him there.
He wanted to talk to her, talk her out of leaving him. What made her do it? What was the reason? She wanted to find herself? What the heck did that mean? Was she with Casitas? Sharing his bed?
The image hit him hard causing his knees to almost buckle as he moved toward the castle gates.
“Edin de Yaultan?” a guardsman said. “You’re not allowed in the castle.”
Edin stared up at the man in the sliver helm and gritted his teeth. Then he saw the face of Foristol and lowered his eyes.
“I wish to see…”
“Get out of here before I throw you in the dungeon.” Edin recognized him as one of the guards that escorted him. So much for their rapport.
He looked back up and clenched his jaw and the retort on the tip of his tongue. Edin took a left along the short walls in full view of the guards.
Around the castle square, merchants were packing up their stands, doors were closing, flames were being lit on street lamps.
Edin watched as a dog chased a cat across his path before both disappeared between two tall and colorful buildings.
After a while, he began to realize the same patter of footsteps behind him had been going on for some time. Edin glanced over his shoulder and saw a man in a black cloak. The man stopped as Edin did, but didn’t even pretend not to be following him. Edin slid a hand toward his sword before realizing it wasn’t on him.
He continued down the avenue before cutting into a smaller road and finding a lush tavern. Inside, the chatter stopped and he received curious and angry glares from the patrons. Everyone, men and women, wore brightly colored cloaks, rings with gemstones, and garish hats. The floor shined marble and the walls held brilliant paintings of men, women, the castle, the sea…
Edin moved toward the bartender. A short slender woman somewhere in middle age. She peered at him above a pair of spectacles. She was nothing like Baili.
“Can I get a whiskey?”
“You got chits?”
“Chits?”
“Money boy…”
“Yes.” Edin felt inside his tunic and pulled out his small purse. He pulled out a copper, the woman took it and shoved it in her bosom.
“Don’t be showing that around,” she whispered. “Law states you must turn over all gold, silver, or copper to the exchanger.”
“Can I get a drink?”
She poured him a double whiskey and topped off his flask. “Don’t get coin much…” she said winking. “If you need anything else…”
Edin walked to a small table in the corner and set his package next to him on the chair.
A man and two women, all in their mid- to late-twenties, were at the table next to him. As Edin sat, they must’ve decided their chairs were not comfortable and moved a few tables away.
The tavern stayed quiet; a fire roared offering the smell of wood smoke. He began to notice the place was fancier. There were velveteen couches in the corner where a group of men sat around smoking pipes, flowers hung in pots from the ceiling. The dress was nicer too, all had the capes thrown over their shoulders, red, green and two shades of blue.
A group laughed near him, it drew Edin’s attention. They were all staring at him as if he were the jester.
Only the bartender spoke with him.
Edin sipped on his whiskey and stared down at the polished wood. He followed a vein in the slab of the dead tree. It started at a knot and continued down, winding until it reached the edge. It took a circuitous route. His eyes began to blur and somehow in it, he saw the Crystalline River.
An inch from the knot, Edin pressed down. That was where Yaultan was, that was home—one he’d never see again with people who’d want to burn him on sight.
He took another sip of his whiskey. Looking up, he saw blurred figures milling about and then looked back down. His head swayed slightly. He was drunk. He’d remembered the barmaid filling his glass a few times, how many, he didn’t remember.
Edin pushed himself from the seat and staggered toward the door. Stumbling he bumped into an empty table. It squealed on the floor causing heads to turn. People whispered around him but Edin couldn’t make out anything.
Finally, he reached the door and exited. He tripped and fell. A knee scrapped the perfectly fitted flagstone.
Edin glanced around, closing one eye to try and make out definitive shapes. Then he wondered, Where am I?
He pulled out the map Fior had given him and stared down at it. There was Delrot and the other two isles. The roads in the city were almost a perfectly formed grid pattered. The ones that went through the countryside swayed and bobbed like he did.
But he didn’t know where he was on the map. Edin glanced up at the castle, even blurred, it felt imposing and strong. A place for the wealthy and powerful. A place for a princess.
He found it on the map.
If he got to the gates, he could follow the road on the map. Edin began walking toward it.
Edin cut across another large road and found himself approaching the castle from the west.
Then it caught his eye. Dark and ghostly. The tower he’d seen before in the shadow of the giant castle. It sat like an old cripple next to a giant.
Something drew him there. It was enticing, like a wink from a woman or the smell of a fresh cooked fruit pie.
Before he knew it, he was going that way, zigzagging through roads and alleys.
As he walked toward it, he got the feeling he was being watched.
Guards turned their heads in his direction, a woman moved toward the side of the road giving him nearly ten yards of space. Edin noticed it all. Others spoke in hushed whispers, certainly talking about him, not even trying to hide their disgust. It felt as if he were a dematian walking through an elven borough.
Edin approached it and met a wall much the same as the castle’s. Short, but this one was stone and mortar and covered in green spindly vines. The half-moon cast an eerie halo around the cone-shaped top.
He found the gate, wrought iron and chained. Atop it, pounded out in black metal, were words in Ulstapish that he couldn’t understand. Another sign across the front said, ‘No Trespassing by order of the Praesidium.’
He felt the urge to ignore it. Heck, no one was guarding the gate. Edin touched the cool metal and glanced back toward the dark street. It was completely empty like the ruins outside the manor or the tree in the Ghost Hollow. Edin shivered and put his hand to his flask. It comforted him like it had so many times before.
Edin gipped the iron bars. The gate was about ten feet high. He pulled but still felt little give. The urge in him began to feel more like a need. He must get inside.
He circled the wall until he found a vine thick enough to climb. He was wobbly, his grip soft, and his head wavered like a sapling in a breeze.
Sliding the brown paper package of work uniforms beneath a small shrub, he began to climb. He felt weak as he reached the top, his legs burned and he glanced down. Despite the short drop, a dizziness washed over him causing him to sway.
Edin peeked down to the other side. He could barely see anything in the shad
ow of the tower. Keep going, he thought. Not sure why. A few moments later, he swung his leg around the half foot ledge and tried wedging it in a crook of a thick vine. It held.
Lowering himself till he was hanging, Edin dropped into a raspy bush and stumbled, falling to his side with a muted crash. He stood warily and brushed himself off.
Edin looked up, ahead of him was an overgrown gravel pathway circling the tower. It reminded him of the hallway around the agora, though not made with stone. This was older, more primitive.
Edin stumbled out of the brush and followed it toward the gate. A minute later, he was standing before a tall statue of a mage in flowing robes. His head was hooded as he bent over an open tome in one hand, his staff stood tall in the other.
Gooseflesh ran over his body despite it being nearly the same temperature as the day time.
Edin circled the statue. He had a strange feeling that it would turn with him.
It didn’t.
Swallowing, he looked away toward the cracked stairs leading up toward the arched entry doors. The entrance seemed somehow familiar.
On the giant knocker hanging from both doors, there was the face of a man with wicked upturned lips and slanted evil eyes. It could’ve been a man or a god.
This place was abandoned right… But what if it wasn’t? The stories of ghosts, spirits haunting places like the elven ruins… and then there was the draugr…
Edin wished he had his sword. A draft of air whistled through the gap between the doors like a mournful bellow.
He could taste and smell the musty air from inside. Edin pressed his hands against one of the doors and pushed. It swung open noiselessly as if the hinges had been oiled. When there was a foot of room, Edin slipped inside to a foyer.
Surprisingly, there was light. Above his head, hung large black chandelier with at least a hundred tiny flames sprouting from what looked like candles. However, there were no wax drippings anywhere. Flurries of dust floated about the streaming light like bugs swarming a carcass.
Why was the light on if it were abandoned? His gooseflesh seemed to triple if that was even possible.
The foyer had three doors, one on each side and a third in front of him. The one on the right was partially open offering a small, barely lit stairwell heading up. He assumed the left was some sort of closet. Edin went forward and rested his hand on the small knob in front of him. It was nearly ice cold. He tried turning it. Locked.
Above him, he heard the wraithlike wind. At least he hoped it was the wind…
This was not a place he was meant to be, “that could be said about this whole damn island.” Edin whispered.
Edin went to the stairs and pushed the door open further looking up toward the dark stairwell before him.
The uneasy feeling stayed with him, Edin swallowed and pushed it down and held out his palm and let an ethereal ball light his path.
As he climbed, he passed small windows that offered little view. He ignored closed ratty doors on squat and squalid landings as the stairs circled the tower. Though his legs were already crying from the day’s labor, he pushed up.
The randomly spaced windows offered little light. After hundreds of stairs and with sweat gluing his clothes to his body, it ended. A wood door banded with iron strips stood before him. This door, a bit nicer than the rest, shiny and polished held the same old man’s face as the front gate.
Edin took a step forward and touched it. The wood was cold. He tried the lever handle. It wouldn’t budge.
Near the center of the door, he found a small circle in the gaping mouth of the god man. It was as if he was supposed to stick something down the throat.
After all of the climbing and the trespassing, Edin drank from the flask. He wasn’t going to be denied.
Edin pushed harder down on the lever and used his shoulder against the door. No movement.
Slowly, Edin began to notice an odor coming from beyond it, almost like a fire that had just been put out. He pictured a cozy, warm fire, one he’d share with Arianne… the woman who dismissed him like a slave as soon as she got what she wanted.
A picture formed in his mind of her… in it, he saw her chambers in Erastio’s Rise on her canopy bed tucked under the covers. Next to her was Casitas. Edin pictured her bare shoulders, the blanket pulled up covering her chest, but just barely.
Edin felt his stomach twist as fury… anger… then energy and power rose up in him. It flowed like a raging torrent through his legs and chest and into his arms.
He pressed a hand to the door and let it out.
For a moment, nothing happened… then he felt it. A concussive blast of some sort. His ears rang and his head pounded. A moment later he was off his feet and slammed backwards into the wall.
All the air poured from his chest, his head snapped back and he felt the pain in his skull. Then everything went black.
Edin opened his eyes into the darkness. From somewhere came the soft glow of moonlight. Pain pounded his brain.
“Ow…” Edin moaned and reached up for it.
Edin touched a sticky lump on the back of his head and bit his tongue to keep from screaming. He rolled over and tried sitting up. A wave of nausea poured over him and he leaned his forehead against a cold stone wall.
He had no idea how long he’d sat like that, and for a while, didn’t remember where he was.
Then he did. He looked back toward the moonlight and saw the door was gone. He grabbed the flask and took a drink. It did nothing for the pain.
Using the wall, Edin stood and stumbled into the room. Scraps of wood dotted the ground like hail from a freak storm. A large chunk that looked like a listing ship was imbedded in the side of an old wooden trunk.
Moonlight came in from a pair of balconies to his right. He looked around and could see four balconies in all, pointed he thought, in the cardinal directions. The moonlight, however, barely penetrated a few feet inside leaving the shadows of misshapen arches on the floor.
At the center sat a large object on wheels. It looked old and Edin saw a large lens at the end of a thick tube.
An observatory? He’d had a small telescope as a child in which Master Horston tried to teach him about the constellations. His lessons hadn’t really worked. Arianne’s did a bit.
‘“What do the stars have to do with life?” Edin had asked.
“Everything… nothing,” Horston answered in a cryptic fashion.’
He probably wacked Edin with a ruler afterwards but Edin had no recollection of that.
The walls were cast in shadows, too black to penetrate.
On the ground were rags, pens, disintegrating parchment. He felt the floor, wood that was spongy and rotted. The smell of mold said this was a room unused in many years.
Who was the last person here? Edin padded toward the eastern opening and saw the glowing walls of the castle a hundred or more yards away.
It took up most of the view, Edin stepped out into the night and stared. The windows were lit by unending torches and unburning candles.
It was a beautiful view, one he wished he could’ve shared.
He looked at the bright lights of the castle alone as darkened figures flittered in and out past doors and windows. He wondered where she was. Which was her window.
Edin leaned against the stone banister and began to feel something bubbling up.
Then he began to wonder if anyone had heard the blast. Edin looked down toward the street and saw naught but darkness. A moment later, he realized he didn’t care. Let them throw him in the dungeon.
Edin leaned over the banister. Below was a long drop to the courtyard. He estimated twelve stories, how long would it take to fall that far he wondered.
Why was he thinking that?
Sounds of life carried on the wind. Laughter, string instruments, a bard singing. Dephina.
There also had to be teachers down there like Horston. Guards like Grent and Foristol. Ship hands like the pirates he’d killed; soldiers like the ones at the dry docks.
So much death because of him. Now he was here, a place where his life could be peaceful but hard. It was what his mother wanted for him, but he was alone. This was no utopia for him.
Edin drank. The flask was nearly gone. Like I am, he thought.
Tears began to well in his eyes. Edin looked down again, sniffled, and wiped his nose with his sleeve. He had to fight them…
Another soft breeze blew over him, caressing him gently. Maybe it would turn into a tornado and throw him over for a quick death. But a moment later, he knew it was done with him.
The old tower creaked and moaned. He emptied the flask and then tilted it straight up and stuck his tongue out hoping to catch a drop. One landed on the tip, then it was all gone.
Edin felt all used up and stared down at the dizzying ground below him. He glanced back at the castle and again wondered what she was doing.
She doesn’t want you, no one does. The thought hit hard because it was true.
Why couldn’t he have just been born mundane. Why had his father cursed him with this… abominable talent?
He could’ve lived out his life in Yaultan, maybe married Kes, had children and raised them to be strong men and ladies. He’d let them train with the sword, he’d help them become proud nobles.
But no. “I’m the monster,” Edin whispered harshly. “I’m the one parents warn their kids of.” He didn’t need this life anymore. It wasn’t worth it.
It’s an easy fix. Edin thought.
He found himself slipping a foot on the stone banister and pushing himself up. Edin stood in the open air far above the merciful courtyard. A soft wind blew through his short hair.
Here was quiet, here was peace. The wind didn’t care, neither did the trees, the bushes, or the ground so far below. There could be no more pain, loneliness, or suffering.
“Do it,” a voice called from behind him. It sounded old, a little crackly like sparks from a smith’s hammer. The voice struck Edin at first as just a figment of his imagination.
Edin opened his eyes and saw the stars far above him.
“Pretty much the worst thing you can do to people who care about you,” the voice came again, this time, he was certain it wasn’t his own thought. “But hey, just do it. You’ll be saving Pharont a heck of a lot of trouble.”