by Jason Kenyon
‘Not again,’ Tharanor said.
‘We’re not hopping between worlds this time, so we shouldn’t let her slip away!’ Archimegadon said. ‘We can use a magical binding on her – perhaps that will stop her talking with her demons, or summoning more, if she has that ability. Er, we did keep the spares of those, yes?’
‘She is welcome to have mine,’ Ithalna said, tugging at her magic shackle.
‘Don’t worry yourself, princess, we brought more than one shackle,’ Mellara said. ‘What do you think we should do, Anji?’
‘I knew Valia when she was normal,’ Anjilo replied. ‘She was kinda nice, if a little grumpy. But what she did seems pretty bad. I’m not sure if we have the time to try turning her into a good person again.’
‘Exactly!’ Tharanor said. ‘We should execute her fast before she can cause us any more problems.’
‘More… problems?’ Archimegadon asked slowly. ‘Hmmm, but think about it. Valia could potentially help us solve some.’
‘Do tell,’ Obdo said, raising his pint glass to take a swig.
‘You and Neurion should be the best positioned to understand what I mean,’ Archimegadon said.
Obdo was so lost in staring at Archimegadon that he forgot to stop raising his pint glass, and he managed to pour the entire drink down his front. After spluttering and shaking himself off, he slammed his pint glass back on the table, causing a few people nearby to glance over.
‘No, Sir Mage!’ Obdo said. ‘No way.’
‘It makes sense to me,’ Archimegadon said. ‘Malthanes killed her brother, yes? And she already has a grudge against the Paladin Order anyway. Why don’t we enlist her to assist us with her demons? As though the seven of us could really defeat the Shield of Lut’yis and the Syrakh! But with Valia and her demons on our side, we could turn the struggle in our favour.’
‘No, absolutely not!’ Tharanor said. ‘That’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever said, and that’s in some heavy competition. Valia is a psychopath! She’ll kill the Shield and us both!’
‘She’s spared us all on several occasions,’ Archimegadon said.
‘I only recall her doing that at Stornis Hold,’ Tharanor said.
Archimegadon realised that perhaps now was not the time to let the others know that he’d spoken to Valia more than once. ‘Ah, well, when we returned to Valanthas from the Sideslip, she left us all on the side of the Central Way, didn’t you say? When we were all in a daze. She even had enough time to leave a note for me. So she must have spared us then as well.’
‘Redemption is higher in the eyes of the Light than execution,’ Anjilo said. ‘Lack of time aside, I do want to believe in her.’
‘You don’t understand,’ Tharanor said. ‘Everything bad that’s happened in Ferrina was because of what she did. She used the Clerics, and she even used Marr I’ll bet. And why, exactly? Out of spite? I won’t support any action short of killing her.’
‘She did help you out at the hold,’ Archimegadon said.
‘She locked me up and stole my sword.’
‘Better locked up than killed, I daresay.’
‘You are not thinking straight,’ Tharanor said. ‘Just because you feel guilty that you made her go bad.’
Archimegadon froze. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘That’s what you said in the past,’ Tharanor replied. ‘That you and the others treated her like junk, so she turned evil.’
‘I mean, it was a possible factor, but I’d hardly say…’
‘You also spent more time with Marr than the rest of us,’ Tharanor went on. ‘You never cared about Valia before that, but suddenly you begin wanting to help her redeem herself? I don’t buy it. I think some of Marr’s magic might have got to you.’
‘Now look here, Tharanor,’ Archimegadon said, his eyes blazing.
‘Uh, guys,’ Anjilo said, but she went unnoticed.
Ithalna smiled and leaned back, enjoying the show.
‘Look at what?’ Tharanor asked. ‘Come on, I’m waiting.’
‘If you think for one moment that I don’t care about our group, then you are sorely mistaken,’ Archimegadon said. ‘But we have quite a hefty stack of odds against us, as we are now. We don’t know where the Shield’s base is, and we’re horribly out-numbered as well. I see no issue with taking advantage of a potential ally.’
‘You’re crazy,’ Tharanor said. ‘She has to die.’
‘Listen…’
‘I’m tired of listening to you,’ Tharanor said. ‘All that ever did was let Valia escape! Everything that’s happened since is your fault!’
‘Perhaps if you bloody listened to me, Yuriath wouldn’t have died!’ Archimegadon returned.
The entire group fell silent.
Archimegadon regretted it almost before he’d said it, but he hadn’t stopped himself in time. He became uncomfortably aware of the eyes of not only his shocked companions, but also a fair few of the other people in the Battle’s Reward. Tharanor’s eyes looked close to bursting out of his head.
Then he stood up.
‘Alright, go and recruit her, then,’ Tharanor said. ‘Do what you will.’
‘Tharanor,’ Mellara said, but he simply walked away from the table.
‘Well,’ Obdo said. ‘That was awkward.’
‘I’m sorry I said it,’ Archimegadon said, folding his arms, ‘but it’s still true.’
‘There’s no point throwing blame around,’ Mellara said.
‘I’m not throwing blame around!’ Archimegadon said. ‘I was trying to come up with ideas, he was the one accusing me of things.’
‘Archie’s right, sorta, though yeah, throwing the same back isn’t the best way to deal with it,’ Anjilo said.
Archimegadon felt drained of all his previous energy. He hadn’t intended to say that at all, and had only really half-meant it. It was true that Tharanor had managed to provoke Valia into executing her hostage back during the Marr crisis, but was there really any point in dragging up that subject or using it as a weapon?
‘Anji, could you and Neurion go talk to Tharanor?’ Mellara asked.
‘Uh, sure, but why us?’ Anjilo asked.
‘You’re the most level-headed of us,’ Mellara replied. ‘You paladins are pure of heart, yeah?’
‘Guess so!’ Anjilo said. ‘What are you guys gonna do?’
Mellara looked over at Archimegadon, who was still glaring off to one side silently. ‘I don’t like it, but I think the old man may have a point. We’re going to go visit Valia.’
‘Are you sure this is wise?’ Neurion asked.
‘I’m not sure, no,’ Mellara said. ‘But it could turn things in our favour at least. It’s worth a try.’
‘Good luck with that,’ Anjilo said. ‘Be careful, yeah?’
Mellara grinned back. ‘Valia’s the one who should be worried, with me around.’ She then frowned, and looked off in the direction where Tharanor had gone. ‘Oh, and can you check with Tharanor about my bet? I didn’t catch who the winners were.’
Anjilo swallowed hard. ‘Uh, well. About that.’
‘What?’
‘Astara kinda… she went out in the first round,’ Anjilo replied. ‘She didn’t even hit the target. It was the worst shot of the day.’
‘Mellara bet on the wrong archer?’ Obdo asked, chuckling. ‘So much for knowing your craft.’
‘She missed entirely?’ Mellara asked, tugging at her ponytail.
‘Yeah, sorry,’ Anjilo replied. ‘I was afraid to mention it.’
‘I… but… I don’t understand.’ Mellara sighed. ‘Three relorans. This day sure took a dive.’ She elbowed Archimegadon. ‘Come on, let’s get going.’
Archimegadon followed quietly, deciding not to touch on the subject of bad archery.
Chapter Thirty-One: The Fallen Knight
The sky was beginning to grow dark as Archimegadon arrived at the tall boarding house where Mellara claimed Valia was staying. It was not too far away from where the group had met up
after the tournament, and there were still quite a few gatherings of people around the tourney grounds as various participants had lingered to show off to their fans.
Mellara watched them jealously from behind her borrowed goggles, before turning back to the door where Valia had disappeared.
‘This is it,’ she said. ‘Hopefully she’s still here.’
Ithalna and Obdo had followed along. Archimegadon hadn’t been sure about bringing Ithalna, given that she had similar cause to kill Valia, but the Cleric had insisted that she was interested in recruiting Valia instead. After all, she pointed out, Valia had saved them a lot of effort in breaking their friends free of Stornis Hold, and it would be lovely to put in so little work to stop Salestis as well.
Mellara turned to Ithalna and gave her a long look, though the effect was largely lost while she wore the goggles. ‘Alright, princess, I’m going to regret this, but you’ve behaved well so far. I think we’ve reached the point where we can trust you, and if it does turn out that Valia has a hive of demons in here, I’d like you at our side.’
‘You mean you would like me to save you all if there is trouble,’ Ithalna said. As Mellara opened her mouth for a sharp response, Ithalna held up her hands. ‘I am teasing, Miss Nightshot. I am grateful for the gesture. I promise you that I shall continue to lend you all my assistance.’
‘Hmph, right.’ Mellara grabbed the key from her pocket and stepped around Ithalna, who remained still with her hands clasped behind her back. A moment later there was a slight clink, and the magic shackle came open.
‘My goodness, but that is a relief,’ Ithalna said.
She smiled radiantly, and almost looked to Archimegadon like a different person. Indeed, he recalled her in the old days, when he’d thought she was just a cook, and felt a strange stirring at the thought of things changing.
Mellara punched Ithalna’s shoulder gently. ‘Don’t make me regret it, okay?’
‘This is all I have wanted for quite a few weeks,’ Ithalna replied. ‘I am not about to make you change your mind.’
‘Good.’ Mellara gave her right arm a shake. ‘Still not quite back to normal,’ she said. ‘Should be good for a fight if it’s needed anyway.’
Mellara gave the door a check, and it creaked open in a suitably dramatic fashion. Archimegadon felt a flush of guilt as he waited for Mellara to go first, and decided to be fair and take that position himself. He made his mind up slightly too late, and nearly bumbled into Mellara, who tilted her head at him.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I was going to go first,’ Archimegadon replied.
‘Today really is a day for revelations,’ Mellara said. ‘Okay, Archie, but I’ll be right behind.’
They crept inside the boarding house, and after Obdo closed the door quietly behind them, they were swallowed in darkness. It was a brief moment, though, as Ithalna quickly lit a floating ball of flame, and gave Archimegadon a superior smirk.
‘There, Master Forseld – much better this way, yes?’
‘I was going to light one too,’ Archimegadon lied.
The interior of this building was dismal and deserted, and Archimegadon noted that it wasn’t in particularly much better condition than the Cleric tunnels in the royal palace. A few doors led off from the entrance hall, and Mellara peeked into each, finding them to be deserted. They advanced up the stairway, and Obdo managed to make every step creak loudly, until Mellara simply gave up sneaking and sighed with total impatience.
It was a couple more floors until they found the place they were looking for, and they managed to upset a couple of random people who also lived there. Mellara, already irritated by her lost bet and Obdo’s inability to walk quietly up stairs, frightened these people back into their rooms with worrying ease.
Valia’s door was not locked, and her room was only vaguely lit by a few candles that almost went out when the door stirred the air. Archimegadon stepped inside and beheld his old team-mate and enemy, and he raised an eyebrow.
Mellara had been right about the drinking. Valia was doing her best impression of Tharanor, it seemed, and was sitting at a table facing the door, surrounded by wine bottles. A couple of the bottles were already empty, and Valia had started on a third. She held a delicate glass in her left hand, and Archimegadon was surprised that it had survived undamaged.
As for Valia herself, she was a mess. There had always been a certain wildness to her appearance, but even by her usual standards her hair was tangled and twisted in various directions. Her cheeks tended to blush easily, a source of constant frustration for her, and right now they had gone almost as crimson as her unusual irises, as had her nose. On noticing the companions enter, her dark eyes rose to glare at them, before dropping back to consider the nearest wine bottle.
‘Good grief, Valia, you are… erm…’ Archimegadon scratched his hair.
‘Old man?’ Valia asked, and Archimegadon quite clearly heard her usually-eloquent voice had lost its sharp edge. ‘What do you want? What are you doing here? How did you find me?’
‘Slow down there, miss,’ Obdo said. ‘We came to… uh… check up on you.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Valia said. ‘You don’t care about me. None of you do.’
‘We are not the best of friends, I will admit,’ Archimegadon said. ‘However, we’re not here as your enemies.’
Behind Archimegadon, Ithalna quietly seated herself on a spare chair that was gathering dust in the corner. Mellara simply leaned back against the wall and distracted herself with one of her daggers, inspecting the edges closely.
‘Not what you said before,’ Valia said. ‘You weren’t interested.’
‘Erm, well, times have changed,’ Archimegadon said, wanting to move on from the subject of their earlier secret conversations fast. ‘As I understand it, you were eager to ally with us against Salestis.’
‘Salestis.’ Valia spat at the floor. ‘Her. Malthanes. I’ll kill them both.’
‘Is that why you are here?’ Archimegadon asked. He wasn’t sure if he should touch on the subject of Valia’s brother, and was fast remembering how unpleasant it was to talk to Valia these days. It felt like the wrong thing could easily just turn the situation into a crisis without any effort on his part.
‘Came here to deal with the Shield,’ Valia replied. ‘Was just getting supplies yesterday. But then…’
An expression of pain crossed Valia’s face, and for the first time ever Archimegadon found himself really pitying her. Then he threw his thoughts back to Ferrina, and tried to remember not to overdo it, just as Tharanor had suggested he was doing. Whether he wanted to recruit Valia or not, he still couldn’t just forgive the awful things she had done.
Still, he wasn’t about to ignore her pain, though he had no idea how to discuss it safely with her. He decided to avoid doing the speaking himself.
‘Erm… did you want to talk about it?’ he asked.
Valia looked up at him, and in spite of her crimson eyes and defiant set to her expression, she still seemed vulnerable right now. Her hand shook, and she grabbed the wine bottle and poured herself a glass.
‘So you heard.’ She downed the wine glass in one. ‘My brother, Ardon. I hadn’t considered it. I didn’t even think that they’d go for him. All this time they were chasing me, and I thought I was so smart…’
Archimegadon watched her and nodded slowly, not daring to say anything.
‘It’s so strange,’ Valia said. ‘Just, I forgot the most obvious thing. I even went and visited him just a couple of weeks back. And I didn’t even think to…’
‘You couldn’t have expected them to go for him,’ Mellara said.
Archimegadon glanced at her in surprise; he hadn’t thought Mellara would care one bit. Still, there was genuine sympathy in her expression, so maybe he was wrong. Possibly, she felt some strange sense of kinship with her Sideslip sister, since they both shared the mark of that dark realm.
‘Course I could,’ Valia said. ‘And he was
n’t my only brother. I don’t even know where Torrell is to warn him. What if they go after him next? What if they already have him?’
‘I doubt they know where he is either,’ Mellara replied.
‘Maybe.’ Valia sighed. ‘I thought I was smarter than them.’
‘You are,’ Archimegadon said. ‘You took Stornis Hold from them.’
‘Salestis doesn’t even care. She’s happy and smiling with her tournament.’ Valia poured herself another glass. ‘And Torrell, when he finds out... he’s going to despise me. I’ll lose them both.’
Archimegadon tried to think of something to say, with little success.
‘Look at you all,’ Valia said, peering up with narrowed eyes. ‘All of you friends. How nice it must be.’
Given the current situations with Neurion and Tharanor, Archimegadon wasn’t too sure if Valia was entirely accurate there, but he decided that it wasn’t the best choice to correct her.
‘I don’t have anyone,’ Valia said, staring at her reflection in the red wine. ‘I’ve never had anyone. It’s never been my thing. When Bartell came to me outside Aldrack… after you beat Sen… I just thought… it seemed right… to change things. I hated you for how much the people of Aldrack loved you.’
Archimegadon flinched as Valia’s eyes turned on him, focused for the first time since the companions had arrived.
‘It felt so good when Marr made me his knight,’ Valia went on. ‘I loved the attention. Loved it. I was more important than you. More important than Sordath. Better than anyone else in Valanthas.’ Valia laughed, and it was so genuinely happy that it terrified Archimegadon. ‘And it was all wrong. But I ignored it, because it felt so glorious. And I wanted revenge.’
‘On me?’ Archimegadon asked.
‘No,’ Valia replied. ‘Getting the better of you did have its attractions, but I just wanted to spite the world. I hate what it’s like. There’s no place for me here.’
‘That isn’t true,’ Archimegadon said.
‘Course it is,’ Valia said. ‘I don’t get on with anyone. I don’t like anyone. Nobody cares about me. If I die tonight, more people will be happy than sad.’