"But the eldritch spirit behind the Extinguished had no such patience. Yuldor, the Night's Savior, forced his way into his servant and took the battle into his own hands. With complete disregard for his warlock, he channeled his god-given power against Erlodan."
Bran fell silent, looking down at the ground as if thinking. He felt Garin's gaze on him, avid and curious.
"And?" the youth demanded. "What happened then?"
Looking back at his captive audience, Bran grinned. Few things gave him as much pleasure as hooking a hapless listener on their curiosity. He pointed up the hill to the castle, hidden at the moment by trees.
"That. The castle was marred, broken, dashed to pieces. Erlodan's high tower, which could see to the far reaches of his lands, was completely obliterated. Neither contestant survived, the life of the devil's servant weighed a fair cost for Erlodan's destruction, and all of Erlodan's staff and guests were killed as well."
"Huh." Garin looked up the hill. "No wonder you don't want to go up there. Is it haunted by ghosts, or ghouls maybe?"
Bran shook his head. "No ghosts or ghouls. But the Ruins of Erlodan deserve their reputation nevertheless. Yuldor's touch still lingers there, a hint of the East's evils, waiting to seize a hapless wanderer to turn to his cause. A single turn of the day in those ruins could corrupt the best of men or women into willing servants of the Night."
Garin shuddered. "Why must we go there at all?"
Bran's smile had slipped away, and he looked at the elven mage, who had finished whatever he'd been doing and now sat, listening to the story from afar, a small, knowing smile curling his lips.
He stood. "I'm sure our guide will inform us when he wishes to. Now, where was that fire?"
Garin startled and leaped to his feet. Looking between the men, both of whom were idle, his mouth started to open. A moment later, though, he seemed to think better of what he'd been about to say and bent to strike up a flame.
Bran grinned at Aelyn, but knew the humor was lost on him as the mage stared stonily back. As he turned away and bent to gather kindling, the smile slipped off his face.
"What do you want, you knife-eared marsh monkey?" he muttered as he picked up small branches. "Why would you risk us entering that evil place?"
But he already knew. There could be only one answer when a king and his immortal enemies were involved.
A Touch of Night
Garin wearily shouldered his pack as he followed the older men up the hill.
He'd barely slept a wink the night before. Howls had sounded somewhere in the forest — coyotes, probably, but he'd imagined them to be a pack of wolves, circling and hunting them. Worse still, when twigs and leaves had rustled in the dark, he'd opened his eyes and thought he'd glimpsed the shapes of men. How long he'd stared wide-eyed into the darkness after that, he couldn't say.
But it was the thoughts of what lay ahead in the Ruins of Erlodan that sent the deepest shivers through him.
Garin shook his head as he huffed behind the men. Young he might be, but they set a grueling pace, and he found himself hard-pressed to keep up. But he'd be damned if he let himself fall behind in a place like this.
Yuldor himself had cursed the derelict castle and broken apart the stones, and if Bran's story was to be believed, the Night's evil lingered there still. By visiting such a place, the Puppeteer could seize Garin for his own to make him dance to his malevolent designs.
He forced a grin. As if he believed such childish tales.
Garin had visited no more villages than he could count, but he knew a thing or two about devils. Monsters wandered down into the East Marsh from the Fringes — he'd even seen one or two himself: a runty harpy, a four-foot-tall, womanish bird who screeched at them until a hunter put it down; and a crag boar, nine feet long with tusks that could gore three men each at a thrust. The boar had taken much longer to kill.
There were monsters, and now he'd seen there was magic. But Garin wasn't so naive as to believe devils and demons existed, plotting their domination of the Westreach from their fortresses deep within the mountainous East.
"Keep up, Garin!"
At Bran's call, he looked up and found he'd fallen behind. Clenching his jaw, he pushed his leaden legs faster.
The men had stopped by the time he caught up, standing just above a treeless crest. Taking the last switchback, Garin turned the corner and stopped in his tracks, breathing heavily as he stared above him.
Erlodan's castle was in ruins, but it was undeniably a castle, and far grander than anything he'd ever seen. He'd considered the inn in one of the neighboring villages tall at three stories high, but even the shortest of the ruined, black walls reached four times the inn's height. The citadel was as large as all of Hunt's Hollow — larger, maybe. Garin couldn't imagine the wealth one must possess to fund building such a thing. More coins than had ever passed through his hometown, he knew that much, or any of the towns he'd been to.
He found Bran looking over at him from the corner of his eye. "Grand, isn't it?"
Garin found his jaw hanging open and snapped it shut. "Doesn't blow me away," he said casually.
Bran grinned, but the smile seemed strained. "Listen, Garin. Aelyn and I are going to enter the ruins, but I think you should stay here. You'll be safer."
It shamed him to admit, but a shiver of fear went through him at the thought of staying there alone. "You don't have to worry about me," he said quickly. "I won't be a bother. I just want to see more of the ruins you've told me so much about."
On Bran's other side, Aelyn's mouth tightened.
Bran glanced at the mage, then sighed. "I suppose we'll be able to keep an eye on you this way. Very well. But no falling behind."
Garin nodded. "I'll keep up."
"If that's settled," Aelyn said impatiently. He pulled out something from beneath his collar, and Garin peered closer. It glinted faintly in the morning light, dull gray metal that had never seen polish, and scrawled along its face were red lines in shapes like a script. The lines seemed strangely familiar, though Garin was sure he'd never seen the symbols before. He found Aelyn's gaze intently on him and quickly looked away.
"What's that?" he asked, not meeting the mage's eyes.
It was Bran who answered. "A glyph ward. Our friend here was kind enough to provide us all protection from the East's corruption. Or… wait, there's only one."
The mage's expression grew sourer still. "I'm the only one who would be of any real danger if I were turned. The Named has no use for mere men like you two."
Bran clutched a hand to his chest. "Ah! Is there any wound so dire as insignificance to a man's pride?"
Garin smiled, but it was a weak, limp thing, like a fish pulled from a river already dead.
"The Named?" he asked, as much to distract himself as out of curiosity.
"What the elves call our devil friend," Bran said, dropping his maudlin act. "Whose name, by the way, you shouldn't say here."
"You mean Yul—"
Garin found his arm in Aelyn's hard grip. "Silence!" he hissed. "Or do you wish to bring him down upon us?"
Stunned, he stared back at the mage. "Could saying his name do that?"
Bran moved forward and extricated him from the elf's grasp. "Mind your binding, Aelyn. No harm to the youth, or you'll experience it in equal measures."
The elf hissed, then turned and stalked away.
Bran nodded after him. "Come on, then. We'd best stick close to him. No matter what the puffed up cock thinks, the Prince of Devils has a use for anyone who wanders into his grasp. Best not take any chances."
Head spinning, Garin found he could do nothing but nod.
As they passed under yet another broken archway, Bran pretended to watch his footing and glanced back at Garin. As promised, the youth was sticking close to his and the mage's heels. He put a brave face on, but from his wide eyes and slightly parted mouth, Bran knew that the Ruins of Erlodan had worked its cold fingers far under his skin.
And little
wonder why. Bran felt it himself: how the shadows clung like cobwebs when they passed through them; how every precariously positioned boulder seemed poised to crush them; how eyes seemed to watch them from under collapsed floors and walls, then disappear the moment he turned toward them.
Something lingered in these ruins, that was clear enough. And Bran had been around the Night's corruption enough times to know it for what it was.
He leaned close to Aelyn beside him. "What exactly am I supposed to be looking for?"
"All out of clever quips, are you?" the elf mocked him. "No more knowing smiles tucked away? Perhaps this place has you frightened as well as the boy."
"If it doesn't scare you, I can't think what does."
Aelyn gave him a thin smile and said nothing.
"But since you didn't answer my question, I'm guessing you don't know yourself."
The mage was silent a moment longer. "Perhaps not. But you and I both know we'll recognize it when we find it."
"How, precisely? A foul, sulfuric stench? Our enemies are unsavory, but I imagine they still bathe." Bran paused as if thinking for a moment. "Though I can't exactly picture those bastards in a bath."
"Must you always play the fool?"
"You say that as if I have a choice."
Bran, who had kept his gaze warily about them despite his easy manner, turned back to check on Garin.
And found no one behind them.
He spun and stared into the long shadows cast by the morning sun. But in no dim corner could he find the boy.
Despite his better judgment, he took a deep breath and yelled at the top of his voice. "Garin! Garin!"
"Quiet!" Aelyn hissed. "You'll rouse things better left undisturbed!"
Bran ignored him. "Garin, you damned fool! Where are you?"
Garin stared, slack-jawed, at the object on the pedestal.
Even in the dimly lit chamber, the necklace seemed to sparkle. Gold chain; black gems; an intricate pattern of interwoven snakes holding it together. He might have seen all the towns in the East Marsh, but he'd never seen anything — no horse, no distant mountain peak, no steaming piece of meat — that was half as beautiful as this necklace.
He began to reach for it, then hesitated. How he'd arrived in the chamber, he suddenly couldn't recall. He'd been following Bran and the mage, and then…
He blinked into the darkness. Nothing. He couldn't remember when he'd turned aside.
Yet here he was.
Glancing behind him, he saw the faint glow of distant light, and a faint breeze tickled his skin. Outside — it wasn't far away.
He found his eyes wandering again to the stone pedestal. How odd, that a pendant would be waiting here for him. How very right. After all, how could it be waiting for anyone else?
Again, he reached for it, and again, he stopped, fingers inches from the necklace.
He puffed up his cheeks and blew out the air slowly. It cost him all of his resolve not to move his hand forward to grasp the pendant. But why should he stop? It ought to be his — he'd found it. These ruins belonged to no one anymore. The necklace was his. His. He ought to take it.
His fingers stretched closer, closer.
But a bell seemed to be ringing frantically in the back of his mind like the ringer was having a fit. There was some reason not to take it — if only he could remember it. But he felt as if he were a man clawing his way through a misty field, unable to see in any direction around him. Memory, thought even, hardly seemed worth the bother.
Seeing as he couldn't remember why he ought not to, why not take it?
He closed the distance between the chain and his fingers and lifted it from the stone.
It weighed almost nothing. Garin held it before his eyes, letting it sway slowly back and forth, the pendant the only thing he had eyes for. The gems were black, but there was a molten light hidden in them. He peered closer, closer, trying to see what set it aflame.
Put it on.
Garin slipped the chain over his neck and sighed. A good thought to wear it, a very good thought. He was already feeling warm from the top of his head to the tips of his toes, a pleasant sensation amongst the cold ruins.
Hide it, Listener.
An even better thought. What if someone saw it? They'd see how beautiful it was. They'd want it for themselves. Garin tucked it inside his collar, as quickly as if someone were sneaking up on him while he took a leak.
Once it was secured under his shirt and pressed warm against his chest, he breathed another sigh. Safe at last.
"Garin! Damn you, lad, I told you to stay close!"
Garin blinked. Bran. He'd told Bran he'd stay close. But somehow, he'd lost track of him.
"In here!" he called, voice cracking, but he didn't even care. Relief flooded over him, though he hadn't known he'd been frightened. "I'm in here!"
Bran ran for the doorway from which the youth's voice had echoed. As soon as he reached it, Garin himself stepped out. Bran seized him by the shoulders, shaking him before he knew what he was doing.
"I told you to stay close!" he roared.
Garin was stiff in his hands, eyes wide, but his mouth was hard-set. "I went to take a leak. Is that not allowed?"
Bran had spouted enough foolish lines not to be put off. "I don't tell you to do much, Garin. But when I tell you to do something, I mean for you to do it. Didn't I warn you? Didn't I tell you to stay close?"
The youth's mouth was twisting into a sneer. "You think you can protect me. But you can't. You're a failed chicken farmer — what could you ever do against what lurks here?" Garin snorted disdainfully. "If anything does."
His anger drained away as suddenly as it had come, and Bran released him, staring. Never in the years that he'd known the boy had he seen him in such a foul temper.
But never had Bran allowed him to see his rage, either.
"I'm sorry, lad," he said softly. "I shouldn't have done that."
Garin just walked around him to face Aelyn. "Are you going to yell at me too, elf?"
The mage had stood silently behind them, and Bran turned guiltily back toward him. He'd expected to see smugness in his expression, but Aelyn looked thoughtful.
"Did you find anything in there, boy?" he asked.
Garin's mouth set harder. "I'm not a boy," he said, though the statement was undermined by his voice cracking. Clearing it, he continued, angrier than before, "I've had my fifteenth yearsday. I'm a man, the same as you."
Aelyn seemed not to hear him as he walked around him toward the shadowed entrance.
"Don't step in his piss," Bran offered weakly.
The mage ignored him, too, as he was lost to the shadows within.
Bran glanced back at the youth, then jerked his head. "Guess we'd best follow him."
"And I'd best obey you, hadn't I?" Garin said sarcastically.
But when Bran turned into the doorway, he heard the youth following.
Garin stared at the back of Bran's head as they reentered the chamber. The mage had a light dancing at the end of his fingertips, a pure white light that shone so brightly the whole room was illuminated. Peeling his eyes away and trying — and failing — to stifle his anger, Garin looked around and saw the place for the first time.
The chamber was larger than he'd expected. When just the glow of the black-gemmed necklace had illuminated it, he'd felt like the walls and ceiling pressed in close on him. Now he saw the roof was domed and rose three times his height, and the walls stretched to either side, the space empty up to them, only a thick layer of dust that rose to make beams of the light as they walked. Garin stared at the walls and the intricate etchings on them. Under the fey light, the shapes seemed to gather a glow, the pale green of fresh moss. They were like the runes on Aelyn's glyph ward, but sharper somehow, so sharp it seemed they could cut his eyes by staring at them too long.
The mage stood over the pedestal, glaring down at it like he was reading a book. Like a moth drawn to a flame, Garin found himself drawing closer.
Garin's breath caught in his throat, and he stumbled to a halt, frozen like a hare before a fox, not daring to move lest he act on the mad thought.
"Something was here," Aelyn muttered.
Bran had wandered over from examining the walls to peer at the pedestal. "Amazed as I am to say it, but you're right. The dust has been disturbed."
"You can see its shape," the elf continued, ignoring Bran's comment. "A medallion, it looks to me. Or a pendant."
As if by some hidden cue, both men turned to look at him.
Stop them. Kill them, if you must.
Blood filled his mouth — he'd bitten his tongue. His hands clenched in fists at his side, and he wasn't sure if it was to stop himself from acting on the inclination or to throw himself at them.
"Garin," Bran said, voice calm as if he were speaking to a spooked horse, "did you see what was here?"
"No." The word burst from him, sore tongue eager to spout the lie.
"Boy," Aelyn said sharply, "don't lie to us. Fell magic has preserved this place for a purpose. What did you take?"
Garin found himself backing away so that he bumped into the wall. "Nothing! I told you that! What has gotten into you two? You're acting like I'm a thief!"
The men exchanged a look, then both began slowly advancing.
Flee, Listener!
Garin bolted.
The mage shouted something, and Garin cried out as the pendant burned against his chest. But despite the mage's spell, he continued forward unimpeded.
Then something rammed into him and carried him to the floor. Garin wheezed, then coughed as dust choked him.
"Got him," he heard Bran say over him, his voice hoarse as well.
"The necklace!" the elf hissed.
Hands grappled with the collar of Garin's tunic, and he squirmed and struck back with an elbow. Bran grunted but pressed him harder into the dust. Garin was coughing, writhing, cursing, then the heat of the necklace slipped from his skin, and all of the fight suddenly drained from him.
A King's Bargain Page 5