by Bryant Reil
There was a bustle in the corridor, and Sophrosyne peeked out the door before closing it. “Ukko’s guards have returned. I didn’t see Kyla.”
“You stay here, okay, buddy?” Aspen cooed. The little man didn’t seem to understand.
“What’s his name?” she asked Sophrosyne.
“Huh? Oh. Alonquis. Everyone seems to be heading back to the wedding chamber.”
Aspen began walking for the chamber as well, but Eunoe pulled her back. “What are you doing?”
“Well, we should see what’s going on.”
Eunoe clicked her tongue. “They might…we might be guilty by association.”
Sophrosyne stepped forward as well. “Maybe, but I don’t see Kyla. I need to find out what’s going on.”
Aspen pulled away and walked down the corridor to the large double-doors. As she approached the chamber she heard a lot of yelling and the clatter of tables and footsteps, but just as she got to the door, there was a loud boom, followed by Duke Ukko’s voice.
“Silence! Be seated. The wedding has not been cancelled. Calam, you will marry my daughter.”
“She has accused me of treason!”
“The elf Kyla will be brought to answer for her accusations. Her actions should not create a schism between our houses.”
“I want the elf brought to me!” Calam roared. “Why did you oafs let her go?”
“You made them forget Kyla?” Aspen whispered to Sophrosyne.
“Calam’s guards, yes.”
“Oh. Good.”
An unknown voice, Aspen guessed a guard, responded. “Sir, we don’t understand. None of us recall such a girl.”
“Kyla Nim! The bridesmaid!”
There was a nervous chatter, and some more shouting from Calam, before Ukko’s voice boomed.
“There is magic at play, but my guards have pursued her. She jumped from the city, and they will return with her remains, or if she survived by some means, she will be brought to you alive and you may do as you see fit. As soon as Aura returns, the wedding will continue.”
“No!” Aspen squeaked. “Why?”
“Stability,” Eunoe explained. “Aura marries to join houses. Keeps them strong against other houses that would challenge the Duke’s authority. Marriage is a business, not a romance.”
Aspen’s heart sank a bit. She loved the concepts of love and romance and happily ever after. Eunoe never believed in it, and as usual, she was proving to be correct.
***
“Well? Where is she?”
Marik made a show of pacing the woods and looking confused. “I don’t know.” He drew his sword and held it at the ready.
“No need for that.” Anh-Bul placed a hand on Marik’s wrist and pressed it downward. “If there’s some kind of threat, I can handle it.”
“No doubt,” Marik agreed. “But it helps me feel prepared, just in case.”
It occurred to Marik that the flaw in his plan was that Anh-Bul was now watchful of some sort of threat.
“I’m sure it’s fine,” he assured Anh-Bul. “Perhaps wandered to have a look at the woods. You know how sprites like to flit about.”
“Right. Well, I shan’t rush her. I’ve finished most of my daily tasks, anyway. We could sit on this rock over here.”
Daily tasks? Anh-Bul’s week could be accomplished in an hour. The Department heads did the bulk of the work, and Marik did most of what was left over.
The rock was covered in moss and lichen, and Marik chose to remain standing.
Anh-Bul made himself comfortable. “She didn’t say what she wanted, did she?”
“No, and I felt it would be rude to inquire.”
“Yes. Yes. I know all of them, you know. King Oberon, Queen Titania, Aethelwyne. You might say I’m a regular at the Royal Court.”
Marik began to pace around the stone on which Anh-Bul sat. He would have to be quick, and precise. Anh-Bul only needed an instant to petrify him. Marik felt himself a daring sort, but he was sweating, and his heart pounding.
“Have you met the King and Queen?” Anh-Bul asked. He didn’t wait for an answer. “You haven’t seen power until you’ve met King Oberon. It radiates from him.”
Marik wanted to tell him that he knew the god of darkness and goddess of night, if only to shut him up. But he needed to be patient. He didn’t mind Anh-Bul, for all his ignorance and bluster. He had always been a good employer if flattery was forthcoming.
Would his petrifying gaze still work once he was dead? And was the magic in his eyes, or in his face?
Anh-Bul rattled on. “Queen Titania’s another sort. Capable enough, of course. No criticism from me. But she lacks the power of the King.”
“Perhaps she is simply better at keeping it hidden?” Marik suggested. He raised the point of his sword as he passed behind Anh-Bul but lowered it again as Anh-Bul turned to look over his shoulder.
“Hidden? Why would anyone hide their power? Especially a Queen. Necessary to illustrate your strength. Of course, perhaps this is why there’s so much dissent in the world right now. Not enough force. Perhaps this is why Aethelwyne is looking for me? A gorgon is a formidable ally, and I am the only one besides Ambassador Kan-il Qua allowed in the Royal Court.”
This was an interesting point. Why would Aethelwyne want Anh-Bul replaced? He would be easy to control. More so than Elial. Though Elial was undeniably more competent. Marik raised his sword again as he passed behind Anh-Bul, but one of the snakes twitched and startled him.
“I suppose they might be looking for a new Minister of Education, but why approach me so informally? Perhaps she simply needs my advice. I do advise the King and Queen on many matters, you know.”
Yes, and Marik knew he himself was one of those matters.
Anh-Bul began rocking nervously. “I wonder where she is? I hope she didn’t get called back to the Palace on business. Would you mind going back to the office and preparing a message?”
“No problem.”
It had to be now. Marik lined up the sword with the base of Anh-Bul’s skull. It had to be powerful, precise, and quick.
Marik thrust the blade as hard as he could, and tried to twist it, though it was cleanly embedded. The snakes hissed frantically as Anh-Bul slumped forward, the hilt sliding from Marik’s sweaty hand as the blade stubbornly remained. The snakes’ hissing slowed and finally stopped as they fell limp.
Did Marik have a sack? Anh-Bul’s shirt would serve for now. He cut it off with his hunting knife, careful to keep his eyes averted from the head lest it roll and reveal the gorgon’s face. Then the messy work began. Pulling the sword from the skull proved challenging, and then the slow process of hacking off the gorgon’s head with the slim blade.
Anh-Bul’s blood had a greenish tint and smelled of copper. It was now all over Marik’s hands and clothes. He would have to wait until nightfall to return to campus. No matter: he needed some time to bury the body.
He looked up as he grabbed the severed head, limp snakes drooping between his fingers.
Was that a squirrel on the branch overhead?
Marik pointed Anh-Bul’s face upward. It was a long shot, but worth a try.
He couldn’t contain his howl of laughter as a small stone squirrel hit the ground with a thud.
Chapter Thirty
Devil’s Bastion
Kyla sat tightly against Herleif’s back, her arms latched around his waist. She shifted to try and find relief from the soreness in her bottom. The horse, Nether, wasn’t nearly so soft to sit on as Eunoe’s tiger, Castor.
They took the first entrance underground they could find. Herleif said they were heading for Devil’s Bastion, and they would wait there for Sophrosyne. Kyla had no money with her, so hoped he might spring for a place to stay, as she wasn’t in the mood to sleep on a cold rock in her bridesmaid’s dress. She sighed. She was a fugitive now. Hopefully Titania could protect her from Duke Ukko. Only, as soon as Kyla told Titania about Sophrosyne, she’d probably be arrested anyway.
She didn’t want to think about her grim future right now. Luckily, her sore bottom kept her from thinking too much about anything for very long.
After what seemed a lifetime the gates of Devil’s Bastion loomed ahead. They were hewn from stone that lined the entrance and reached higher than any tree in Aspengrove. Unlike the Digan’s domain, with its square cuts and simple stonework, the walls here were decorated with carved demonic faces sticking out tongues that twisted from the walls. Hands reached from behind long-fanged beasts and skulls that might have terrified Kyla had she not been so enraptured by their fine craftsmanship. She placed a hand on one of the cold, smooth figures as Nether walked past: it was a relief of a woman, contorted and screaming as her eyes and hands reached up to an unseen hope as her lower body was devoured by beasts.
“Stop,” she ordered Herleif. “I want to walk the rest of the way.”
The gray elf pulled back on Nether’s reins. “Very well. We need to walk her through the gates anyway.”
Kyla swung her right leg over the rear of the horse and slid off on her stomach. She rubbed her bandaged finger, feeling it pulsate as the pain burned, and then her bottom, which was now the worse of the two pains.
Herleif led the way, keeping a close lead on Nether, and pushed Kyla back when she tried to walk ahead to speak with the guards.
“Let me talk.”
Kyla nodded and let Herleif walk ahead.
The guard on the right held a tall polearm with a twisted axe-blade affixed the top. The metal was black and flickered in the torchlight that lit the corridor. He wore a helmet with holes drilled for his horns, which were black and long and twisted in a loop. The tips were capped in silver and pointed forward. His uniform was black with silver trim and spiked at the elbows and shoulders. He didn’t look at Kyla, though she was staring him up and down. Rather he spoke directly to Herleif.
“Visitors need to be tagged before entering.”
“Tagged?” Kyla whispered at Herleif.
He gestured for her to shush. “Just here to meet a friend. I can wait at the gates.”
“You get tagged, or you leave, or I gut you. Choose quickly.”
Sulfur assaulted Kyla’s nose, and she realized it was the demon’s breath.
Herleif grabbed her by the hand and pulled her forward. She looked at the guard to see his mouth stuck open. The other guard and passers-by were likewise frozen.
“Never had to be tagged before,” Herleif grumbled. “Something’s not right. We’d better find a place to hide until Sophrosyne shows up.”
“What does it mean to be tagged?”
“Means they know where you are at all times.”
“Would they turn me over to Duke Ukko?”
“Don’t know. Won’t risk it. Devil’s Bastion’s never tagged anyone. World’s getting harder and harder to navigate, with everyone getting all paranoid.”
Kyla looked back at the frozen guard. “It doesn’t seem to slow you down.”
“No, but now we have to avoid any guards in the city. They’ll know we snuck in. Trust me, you don’t want to go to prison here. Means death, usually.”
Herleif patted Nether on the snout, checked that her saddle and bags were firmly tied, and turned her around. She trotted back the way they had come.
“What are you doing?” Kyla asked.
“She can’t come where we’re going. She’ll find her way home. Come on.” Herleif dragged her into a narrow fissure in the wall. Kyla had to turn sideways to squeeze through. The floor was wet, and squishy in places, and smelled of something fouler than the guard’s sulfurous breath.
“Oh, Herleif,” she moaned. “Is this a sewer?”
“Sort of. Feeds down that drain there. Some sort of beasts live below that feed on demon offal. So I’ve heard. It opens into a service area down this tunnel.”
The tunnel was dark, though Herleif didn’t seem troubled and forged ahead. Kyla was grateful she had stuffed the light orb in her purse. She pulled it out and tapped it on.
Herleif grumbled. “Oh yeah. You arboreals can’t see in the dark.”
The stench was sickening, and her dress couldn’t stretch up to cover her nose and mouth, so she bent her arm over her face to try and block some of the smell. The stones beneath her feet were cold and moist and slick, and she tried not to think about what was making them so. There was, at least, a few inches of ledge on either side of the flow of offal, so she could straddle the narrow channel and not wade in it.
The stonework here was plain. There were sconces for torches but none of them lit. It looked, in fact, like they hadn’t been used for many years, and a few had rusted away.
The tunnel opened into a square chamber, with a chained metal gate on one side. A round hole low in the wall poured into the channel, but thankfully the rest of the room was bare, and clean, though the stench still clung to the air.
“Sit,” Herleif said as he spread a blanket on the ground. “Wait for Sophrosyne.”
“How’s she going to find us in here?”
Herleif shrugged. “Don’t know. She always seems to find me when she needs me.”
“Yeah, she does seem to do that. Don’t you have any friends around here? Could we stay at someone’s house?”
“I know a few people, but they won’t risk protecting us should guards come knocking.”
Kyla wrinkled her nose and looked up at the black stone ceiling, perhaps twenty feet overhead and only catching hints of illumination. “Why would she meet us here? I mean, how did she even know we’d be close to here when I jumped? How did she know I would jump? Can she see the future?”
“Who knows? She is a goddess.”
“And you know all about that? That she’s Nyx. Do you know about Erebus?”
“No more than you do.”
Kyla fell silent. Herleif’s tone implied he didn’t know much, and didn’t expect she did, either. Should Kyla trust him? She had no reason to. Perhaps a change of topic.
“Um…so do you have a family?”
Herleif stared at her.
Kyla squirmed. “Oh, I don’t mean to get personal. It’s just who knows how long we’re going to be waiting?”
“I don’t, and I don’t wish to talk about it.”
“Oh.” Kyla looked down at her feet, kicked at the ground, and looked back up at Herleif. She could read no sadness, or anger, or any expression at all on him. “I have a mom and dad and little brother. That’s about it. My grandparents – my dad’s parents – they died when I was little, and they had no other children. I don’t know about my mom’s family. She never talks about them, except that she hasn’t seen them since she was twelve. But my dad, maybe you already know, he was murdered by bandits. Not the ones we saw when you drove me to Equinox. I don’t think so. It was on a different road.”
Kyla paused, thinking perhaps it was Herleif’s turn to speak. For a moment he said nothing, but perhaps, wondering at her silence, posed a question.
“Do you wish we had killed them?”
Kyla looked down again, and again kicked at the ground, and looked back up at Herleif. “Yes. Maybe. Sometimes I think that we should have. I thought so, before. Maybe not now. They didn’t do it. I don’t think it was them.”
“But they may have killed someone else’s father.”
A surge rose up Kyla’s spine and she pressed back her shoulder blades. “Maybe. But we don’t know.”
“Would you kill someone’s father, to save your own?”
“Apparently not. I stopped you from killing the bandits, didn’t I?”
“I remember. Just wondering if you regret it.”
“Of course not.” She didn’t realize until she said it, but she felt she would do the same thing should it happen again. “Look, it’s hard to say for sure, but I don’t think I could.”
“You don’t want to hunt them down? The ones who killed your father? Revenge? Doesn’t it scream at you?”
Herleif’s face was determined, and almost desperate, and Ky
la felt his comments were emerging from a deep darkness. Kyla stepped back and softened her tone.
“Someone you love was killed. Is that it? Was it bandits?”
Herleif whipped his head to meet her eyes. They were ringed with red, and his teeth grit together and lips drawn apart. “You asked about my family? Dead. That’s what.”
Kyla found herself creeping back to the wall, and almost stepped in the stream of running sewage along the wall. But he stopped, and glared at her, and seemed waiting for her to speak, so she did.
“Did you get revenge?”
“Yes.”
Kyla could see the mix of feelings in Herleif’s face. Anger, hate, regret.
“Oh. So…I mean, this might be a stupid question, so why did you become a coachman?”
“Sophrosyne told me to get you safe to Equinox. I got you safe. Now she wants me to keep you safe again. Why, I wonder? But I don’t ask.”
There was an uncomfortable pause as no one spoke, though Kyla could see Herleif’s expression had softened. There was a glisten in his eye, and he turned away and wiped his sleeve across his face, and then seemed embarrassed that he had done so. Kyla crouched next to him and put an arm over his shoulder. Her father had been a sensitive man, and she had seen him cry many times, in particular at his mother’s funeral. Her father’s sadness poured out smoothly, like water from a crystal pitcher. Herleif was more like an old clay vase, old and cracked and bursting from the water inside.
She sensed, perhaps, she was bursting, too.
Kyla’s nightmare ended as she opened her eyes to Sophrosyne looking down at her. Evil or not, the goddess of night was a welcome distraction from the pained memories of Kyla’s father that kept trying to claw their way to the surface of her mind.
She inhaled too deeply as she sat up, giving herself a hearty taste of the foul air, mixed sickly with the scent of moonflowers. She was on Herleif’s blanket in the same square room. Sophrosyne stood over her, with a wild-haired Zen standing a short distance behind. He carried Kyla’s glider under his arm.
Sophrosyne grabbed Kyla by the hand and pulled her to her feet. “We need to move.”
