by Tim Paulson
Instead she turned to an exercise she'd learned long ago from her mother, something she taught to the children for when they heard an unexpected noise and felt themselves inundated by fear. It was the unknown we feared the most, the faceless potential horrors lurking in our future. So when one was faced with the unknown, the best course was to imagine the best possible outcome.
The brushing clicking noises. That could be a group of cuddly puppies carrying rings of wooden measuring spoons stolen from a kitchen... populated by demons.
No, no, try again.
Perhaps a child dragging a favorite wooden toy? That was better. Or maybe bones, the bones of a skeleton animated by demonic witchery, come to tear her to pieces.
Her breathing was totally out of control now. In all her life Giselle had encountered few real dangers, only stories. Stories about monsters and evil witches and random acts of cruelty by capricious lurking devils. Now, even dead, she found herself wholly unable to cope.
She wanted to cry, to release the unending tension that was tearing her apart as the clicking and clacking got closer and closer, as it drew so near that it must be right outside the open door. Was that movement she saw? Was it some hideous spindly monstrous spider come to spin her up in a web and eat her at its leisure?
What appeared from around the corner was more shocking than all her worst thoughts put together, a nightmare creature, cobbled together by some devil to torture her. Its head was a long skull with with little deer like horns and glowing dots for eyes that shone like torch flies out of pitch black sockets. Below it hung a slew of horrific appendages, some sharp and jagged like an insect's leg only gigantic, while others were supple and sinuous like black writhing snakes.
It was too much for her to even process. Never had she imagined such a thing in all her life.
She screamed.
Chapter 20
“Every country has a chassis they fancy as the most feared on the battlefield. But among goliaths, the clydesdale's talent for hauling vast stores of provisions matters far, far more and the Willenders know it.”
-Garan McCullogh, Arden goltech, from a letter to Prince William the Fourth, 1617
What had the baroness meant when she said the door could be seen with veil? Veil spectacles?
Mia reached into her breast pocket where she usually kept her goggles but found it empty. Of course, Vex had stolen them, likely to hide his true form, probably other things as well.
She would have to search the room. Except the baroness had said not to touch anything! How was she supposed to search without touching anything?
The baroness would be no help. She was currently bent over in the chair snoring softly. Luckily the room was quite small. It wasn't hard to see there was a simple wooden box on a lower shelf in between a rolled scroll of expensive looking vellum and a cup filled to the top with large gold coins.
Mia hated this kind of thing. Give her an entire army to fight over puzzles, anything but puzzles.
She held her breath and opened the box.
Nothing exploded or bit her, or anything else. The box contained two pairs of green veil spectacles. She took one and put them on.
Immediately the door became obvious. Golden lines traced a door in the stone. Exactly what she needed.
Before she went to the door, she turned back to the shelf, just in case there was something else of use. There was. On the top shelf was a container of veil powder. Through the goggles it glowed a faint gold in the low light.
Though it might be trapped, she decided it was worth it and took a healthy pinch which she sprinkled on the stone Harald had made for her. The dull writing on the stone began to glow again. Hopefully its obscuring effect would help her move about the castle.
She placed the stone in her waist pocket and went to stand in front of the glowing door. To one side was a triangle, also glowing. Mia touched the triangle, it seemed like the appropriate thing to do. As soon as she did the stone of the door recessed and slid to one side with only the slightest sound.
Beyond lay what would likely have been a pitch dark stairwell that descended into an endless abyss, were it not for the veil spectacles. They revealed faint glowing writing along the inner surface of the passage. The writing said that the stairs up led to the upper chambers, the lord and lady's chambers and the children's chambers. The stairs down were labeled the baron's study, the garden, and the lower halls. The lower halls were where she needed to go.
At the threshold Mia paused to look back on the sleeping baroness, worried about leaving her. Miraculously her face already looked smoother, younger and her skin more colorful. If the sorcery worked this way, how old was she really?
Mia knew well the dangers of asking a lady her age, let alone one with such power, but she resolved to risk it later. Now she would let the baroness sleep.
There was a job to do.
As she descended the stone stairs, curved from hundreds of years of use Mia touched the stone in her pocket, making sure it was still there. Harald had told her not to speak while she used it, but he'd also said it only worked on those who didn't know her.
She'd been living at this castle for several years and there were many who knew her by sight, but few who knew her well. If simple recognition was enough, Mia might be in for some problems. As she approached a door in the wall, this time a normal looking one with a lever beside it and an unlit torch, she pulled up the hood on her cloak to block as much of her face as she could and pulled the lever.
The door swung open.
Mia emerged into the back room of one of the dining areas of the lower halls. There was but one way out of the room and as she peered around the corner she saw that it led through an entire dining hall of company soldiers taking their noon time meal.
Mia had no choice. It was either go forward and accomplish her mission, or go back and wander around in the dark for who knows how long. She put one hand on the pommel of her rapier, the other she closed tightly around the glowing stone in her pocket and stepped out.
The table in front of her was overflowing with meats, breads, cheeses and pies. The soldiers drank from goblets of wine and ale and laughed uproariously. None turned to look at her as she entered from the other room. No one seemed to notice.
Emboldened, Mia made her way along the edge of the table toward the far door. When she'd passed them all and made it through, she gasped, realizing only then that she'd been holding her breath the entire time.
Down the hall and around a corner she went. Then down a short stair and through another longer hall. Mia passed a few attendants, all of whom paid her no mind. Surely the stone was doing its job but it helped that so few servants bothered to look up from their own feet.
This was the habit common among servants Mia had seen in her travels. Typically they feared catching the eye of a lord or lady having a particularly bad day. This had been largely absent in house Halett but the climate appeared to have changed.
At last she arrived at the baron's upper stables. Surprisingly Mia hadn't even been forced to kill anyone. Harald's stone had worked. As she strode past the threshold the scent of veil powder and grease filled her nose and she was reminded of her last time with Zeus. It had ended so terribly, stabbed in the back, cut apart. Now poor Zeus lived inside Adem, killing him a bit every day. A sad end for a good goliath.
Mia looked up to the vast cathedral ceiling above, twice as high as the lower stables, a staggering height. So high that vision dimmed with the vast distance. The upper stables had been built right into the back of the old castle at the center of the keep. Here were housed the largest of the baron's goliaths. Mountains of steel and stone, more than twice the size of her Zeus. The damage they could endure and produce was nothing short of legendary.
Aside from Pyrolia with their vast plundered gold, few countries had the resources to field goliaths of such size. Yet house Halett, with the wealth they'd gathered over the past two decades from steel and lumber, had purchased four from the Veil company's titan
division in Ardenton. Marian was one of them, the baron's own. Unlike the others, she'd been painted with the likeness of a roaring lioness on the side of her head.
Mia saw her immediately. The goliath had been confined to her stable and was clearly not very happy about it. Divots of stone had been chipped from the top of her walls and door some sixty feet up. The ground around was littered with debris. Saw horses of hastily assembled wood had been set up around the stable with bright orange warnings painted across on them.
As she ascended the stone stairs, stepping over dislodged hunks of broken stone as she went, Mia remembered the first time she'd seen Marian. It had been a cool day in early spring. The grasses had only just begun peeking through the leaf litter from the previous autumn and the trees had only the barest haze of newly formed leaf buds. Though the air was still cool it had that spring moisture to it that hinted of things to come.
Mia had finished the baron's goliath knight corps training regimen and been given the title of stenridder, stone knight, when her entire class had been called to train at the top of a hill on the far side of the javelin range. Deiter, their usual goliath instructor, a hard man with a short temper and a penchant for foul language, had brought them up without a word and left them there.
Moments later a steady pounding tremor in the ground announced the approach of a goliath, a titanic one. Marian arrived from the North. The snow capped peaks of the Devil's saw mountain behind had silhouetted the titan goliath's sharp angular head, with its lioness paint scheme, as it strode to the top of the hill and took a knee to allow her knight, Baron Marcus Halett, to exit.
He'd spoken to them, given some speech about how proud he was to have them as members of the corps, that they were part of a new style of paid standing army that transcended the old feudal arrangements, but Mia remembered little of it. What left an indelible impression in her memory was what had happened next, when the baron returned to Marian and took her through the combat course at the end of the range.
Mia had watched in awe. Not so much at Marian's enormous size as her incredible grace. The baron and his goliath had moved like one, in a way that seemed impossible. It had convinced her that the rumors she'd heard were true. There truly were secrets to be had from him. It was unfortunate he was in chains, possibly dead. It seemed suspicious Christine hadn't suggested a rescue despite her reassurance that Marcus was alive.
If he was dead Mia would never learn his secrets and there was no point to staying and taking part in this fool's errand to assault the Veil company. Many times she'd silently promised herself that when she had the baron's knowledge she'd leave this place and return to Miran, Hidal, or Lontano, where it was warm, where she didn't stick out like a sore thumb.
That felt wrong though.
Mia hated to admit it, but what kept her was Henri and Adem. Even now she found herself worrying about them. Had Vex's curse ever fully worn off? Had it changed her? Christine said she'd removed it and Mia definitely felt different, or thought she did, but was she? Why did she keep thinking about them?
Maybe it had to do with... Veronica. Just the name summoned feelings, tears brimmed at the corners of her eyes. No! She wouldn't let herself think about that. Why was it all returning now after being gone for so long? Mia pushed the pain away, back down into the depths.
Mia could leave. She could use the magic stone in her pocket to melt into the crowds and head South but instead she would stay. Yes. She would stay and fight... and why not? Why not expand her circle outward, just a little. The greatest warriors in Giselle's tales fought for a noble cause did they not? What was more noble than taking care of those she cared about? Like Veronica.
It was time to stop stalling and actually do something. She'd come to gather Marian for the assault on the Veil company and she would do so. Goliaths were not known to take to new riders easily and Marian had a reputation for being finicky. Mia paused and picked up two large cubes of veil powder. They would be an offering. She hoped it would be enough.
She slipped past a saw horse that blocked the way to Marian's stall and ascended the stairs. Soon Mia emerged into the lighted upper reaches of the vaulted bay building. The goliath she saw there was much changed from that glorious spring day on the hill.
Marian looked battered. The goliath's head was chipped in several places as were her massive hands and forearms, while her shoulders slumped, arms listless, as if she'd lost the will to live. Seeing her like this made Mia seethe. What had they done to her?
Far below to her right Mia saw it. An old ballista had been pulled from storage and set up. It had piles of steel bolts next to it. It was clear the soldiers who'd taken the castle had been firing at her, torturing her, probably because one of them wanted to be her knight and was rejected. However it appeared Marian had finally won out. The ballista had been snapped in two by a chunk of rock tossed from above.
Mia would have to be careful.
Here in the feeding area she was exposed and it was clear Marian was not in the best mood. She knew from experience that even large goliaths could move fast. If Marian chose she could render Mia into a fine flesh colored paste with one swipe of a steel reinforced hand.
There was also the fact that the goliath was obviously starving. The blue glow in Marian's eyes was so faint as to be almost invisible. After they'd tried to ride her and finished toying with her, the company men must have decided to deny her veil powder until she became immobile, then they'd simply remove her core and replace it with a different veil demon, a more pliable one.
“Marian,” Mia whispered.
Was that movement? A subtle twist of the head?
“Marian I-” she started to say but she had to drop down four stairs and duck as the goliath turned and slammed a steel fist into exactly where she'd been standing.
The entire stable shuddered with the impact as pieces of broken rock rained down on her from above.
“Please Marian! I need your help! The baron's family needs your help!” she called from inside the stairs.
There was another slam from above and another rain of rock fragments.
Mia shook her head, sighing.
“Marian, I know you're expecting Marcus. I don't know where he is. I fear he may be dead. I... I hope not. Truly. He was a good man. A just man. There are precious few of those,” she said, waiting for the slam.
It didn't come.
Mia pushed the two cubes up to where Marian would see them.
“Please, take these. Recover some of your strength,” she said above and then waited, listening.
Then she heard it. The sound of oiled metal, of stone against stone, a goliath moving. Marian was taking the powder cubes.
Then everything went dark as a black hood was pulled over her head. She tried to pull a dagger but strong hands grabbed her arms from both sides.
* * *
The skull headed creature's eyes seemed to flicker as it jumped up suddenly and back pedaled into the wall opposite Giselle's door. It hit with a solid crack as its hard skull smacked into the black undulating wall.
The creature, as monstrous as it appeared, then fretted about in the hall, seemingly unsure as to what it ought to do. It tried to go one way, but then turned and went back the other while its many varied appendages flailed about it like a pile of upset serpents whose tails had been tied together.
The whole scene was so comical that before she knew it the vast majority of Giselle's fear had melted away in favor of mounting curiosity. Had she actually scared it?
Still, when it had finally gathered itself enough to scoot back in the direction it had come from in the first place, she found she couldn't muster the courage to follow it. Instead Giselle stood there panting for a few moments before exploding with nervous laughter.
She laughed longer than she expected she would, wiping tears from her eyes. The utter absurdity of it all. Dead but not dead, seeing the most terrifying thing ever and scaring it off with a shriek. If this was the worst the afterlife had to offer, she'
d be just fine, she thought, with a wry smile.
Then the sound of footsteps echoed down the hall.
“Giselle?” It was Aaron! Seconds later he ran into the room. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“I'm so glad to see you!” she said. This time her feet found their will to move as they propelled her into his arms like a cannon shot.
“Me too darling!” He said, crushing her in his arms.
“Glad to see you're awake... darling,” Celia said from the doorway, rolling her eyes.
“Celia? You're dead too?” Giselle said, honestly surprised. Celia had always seemed to have nine lives.
“I'm sorry, what?” Aaron said.
“You're not dead Giselle and neither are we,” Celia said in a flat, mocking tone while she inspected her nails which appeared to now be painted pure black, much like the very tight clothing Giselle could see under the girl's cloak. Where had she gotten that?
Then it dawned on her what Celia had said.
“I'm not dead? You're not dead!?” She said, beaming at her husband. “Hooray!” She held him and bounced for joy several times before slowing down. “Wait... What happened then?”
“That creepy bard tried to kill you. He shot you and was about to do God knows what else when your mother and I showed up,” Celia said.
Benny. It turned her stomach to think about him leering at her, grinning. “I remember Benny. Thank you for saving me.”
“You ought to thank your mother. The baroness is a witch,” Celia said. She looked bored, like this was old news that she just couldn't be bothered to explain.
“My mother is a what?”
“No, you ought to thank Pioter. He might have given his life to save you and the children. Your mother said he ran off before she could help him with his wounds,” Aaron said.
She hugged him and kissed him. “Oh, yes! I feel terrible about misjudging him. All the stories about weaselmen said they're thieves and you should never trust them. I thought I was just being prudent.”