The Unchosen: Book One of The Queen Beyond

by Simon Markusson

  “But the chains shall not be of steel. Animals carry chains of steel. My son shall be chained by his shame. Molgrimin Goldenfury, you are now only Molgrimin, nameless and homeless, banished from Kast-Harnax until you break the chains that you yourself took up. Your yilval mount shall be the only one to accompany you, though Meriehse is free to return if she so desires.” He glanced at his guards. “Give this Molgrimin his sword, give him the gold he can carry, and have him out of our mountains — to be killed on sight if he ever throws away the last shreds of his honor by returning here. Now, begone, exile. Your tantrums bring me only grief.”

  The sentence fell as hard upon him as if it had been the wrath of the gods. His name had been taken from him by his father’s words, and he was broken. It was a pain more real than a severed limb. He was dragged away by the six moinguir, who now needed to be aided by four more guards to restrain him. Thalduywan gazed after him, the runemaster who still refused to show his mirth.

  I shall break ye — the thought was a lightning bolt shooting through his being. When I come back, I shall break ye. The hunger was his. As was the purpose.

  Molgrimin opened his eyes and found himself still lying on his back in the dark clearing. The sky was still swallowed by clouds, and the winds blew cold. His brow ached from having hit the tree trunk, but he discovered no blood on his person. The bear had not eaten him. A dream, he thought dimly. A bloody dream. But there was something else in the air, too, something akin to the grim nature of his dreams, something dark and nameless.

  A sound made him throw his head around, and he sighed with relief when he saw the golden form of his yilval. Meriehse came and nuzzled his cheek, encouraging him to get up. Then she backed away, tossed with her head, and neighed. A warning.

  Molgrimin had just gotten to his feet when the shrieks sounded through the forest, distant and weak, but there. It sounded like the squire.

  12

  If There Were Ghosts

  He had had this dream before. There was an immediate familiarity to it that assured Nathelion that it was not the first time that he had stood upon that mountain. An autumn landscape stretched out before him, far below, with rivers and roads and lakes. Cold winds tugged at him and teased his memory. I was here before, and there was a woman. He recalled it only dimly.

  A dark cave opened like a great maw behind him, and he felt afraid. It was as if he could feel a presence in that darkness. I must get away. I must jump. I’ll wake when I jump. You always wake up when you fall. The distance to the ground was staggering, miles and miles of empty, cold air between him and the wilderness below.

  It was strange how the dream felt so real that he hesitated. But then a new, wailing wind pushed him towards the cave, and Nathelion took a leap off the edge to plunge through the air. He screamed, spinning, now looking at the faraway ground and now at the mountains. I always wake. Yet as the fall continued, his eyes never opened to the waking world. He did not even feel as if he were about to wake up. He fell, and somehow, he felt watched, as if the still and silent mountaintops saw his desperate plunge and found it amusing. Why am I still falling? he thought. Will I reach the ground? He’d be sure to wake up. But for some reason he was beginning to dread the distance below him. It’s almost as if I’m really falling.

  The winds rushing by his ears were no milder than those that had blown on top of the cliff, and he almost thought that he could hear laughter in the relentless gales. He put his hands to his ears, but somehow, he could not escape that mocking peal.

  The ground was rushing towards him, faster and faster. The trees and the rocks grew rapidly in his view, and he could discern shapes on that stony slope at the foot of the mountain, the jagged rocks on which he would be broken. And suddenly, regret took hold of him. I have killed myself! The ground showed no mercy but sped towards him, and now he could see them, littered in bloody pools over the dirt.

  Corpses.

  Innumerable and mutilated, they lay there like torn ragdolls, figures of shredded flesh, bone, and cloth. Gods, I am joining them, I am joining them! The thoughts were crazed, and he could not even question where all these dead men had come from. He fell, and the hard rocks welcomed him to his swift death — while the laughing winds howled.

  He had had this dream before. There was an immediate familiarity to it that assured Nathelion that it was not the first time that he had stood upon that mountain. An autumn landscape stretched out before him, far below, with rivers and roads and lakes. Cold winds tugged at him and teased his memory. I was here before, and there was a woman. He recalled it only dimly.

  Fear ran through him, his heart pounding heavily in his chest with a terrible anticipation of...what? He could not say. He had to get away, but there was nowhere to go — except down.

  He looked down from the cliff and saw that his view was unbroken all the way to the distant ground at the foot of the mountain. If I jump, I’ll wake up. You always wake up when you fall. Even knowing this, he hesitated before that edge, gazing down that staggering distance. The higher, the better. I’ll be sure to wake up. The winds wailed behind him, and he leaped from the cliff. It was strange how real it felt, falling through the cold air. Why am I not waking up?

  Every time he closed his eyes and attempted to return to his body, he would open them again in the fall. The ground was rushing quickly towards him.

  The winds sounded like laughter. He couldn’t block them out. His heart was seized by a terrible fear, and his thoughts soon became hysterical. I have killed myself! he realized to his horror. By the gods, I will die!

  He soon saw in confused detail the rocky slope at the mountain’s foot, where corpses lay splattered upon cliffs and sharp stones, blood and guts discoloring the dirt where they rested eternally. No, no! Laughter was all around him, following his descent until death stole everything.

  He had had this dream before. There was an immediate familiarity to it that assured Nathelion that it was not the first time that he had stood upon that mountain. An autumn landscape stretched out before him, far below, with rivers and roads and lakes. Cold winds tugged at him and teased his memory. I was here before, and there was a woman. He recalled it only dimly.

  Fear stirred in him as he listened to the gales. Dark memories that would not fully form became whips upon his back, urging him to flee. I’ll wake up if I jump. You always wake up when you fall.

  Winds howled after him from the cavern, and he was just about to jump when spectral hands grabbed him, and a laughing voice rang in his ears. It came from the depths of the cavern. “No more, fool. I’ll have your name. You are unwelcome.”

  He tried to struggle against the icy clutches that pulled him into the echoing cavern, but his efforts were futile. “Let me go!” he screamed, his voice shrill. He was dragged into darkness. The woman.

  The winds threw him down to the ground, making him lose his breath against the rocks. When he scrambled to his feet, she was there, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, looking down at him with bright, intelligent eyes. Now the memory of her returned. There had been another dream, and she had asked him for his name then as well. Her form was so perfect that he could barely believe his imagination had created her. Somehow, he had dreamed this incomparable beauty into being. But there was anger in her eyes.

  “If I’m not welcome, then stop dragging me here!” Nathelion shouted. “I’ll turn you over my knee and spank you silly if you keep doing it.” He felt so absurdly grotesque, speaking to her like that. But it was his dream.

  “What is your name?” the woman asked, and her voice was like poetry, so harmonic and serene that he was reluctantly filled with a sense of worship. I shouldn’t have spoken to her like that. It doesn’t matter if it’s a dream. “And where is the other one?”

  “What other one?” Nathelion said. His dreams really were remarkably full of rejection. “If you’d tell me who you seek, maybe I’d know.”

  “A knight,” the woman said. “The knight.”

  “There are ma
ny knights in the realm, sweetling. Do you mean Sir Conrad?” That was the only knight he knew.

  “Who is Sir Conrad?”

  “Sir Conrad Hardae, a knight in the service of the countess—”

  “Not Hardae.”

  “Do you know the name of the knight or not?” Nathelion asked.

  “No, she won’t give the name to me,” the woman said, not bothering to explain who she was talking about. “But I know that he is a Heath. She cannot keep things away from me forever. I am stronger.” The pristine woman tilted her head at him. “Are you a Heath? Are you kin?”

  “No,” Nathelion answered at once. Heath. Wasn’t it...Sir Mavalyn Heath? Yes, the knight who had saved him from the bandits. Am I so envious of him that I dream of women looking for him? Perhaps it was a bad conscience for having stolen his ornate sword, which really did look like a family heirloom, what with its roses and all.

  “I look for he who was born under the sign of the Rose when the stars collided, and the three comets were visible in the sky. He is destined for the ascension!” There was something in the woman’s tone that made it sound rather unpleasant.

  “I’m sure he will...do that,” Nathelion said. Dreams rarely made sense. “I thin—”

  “But I see him no longer. My enemy has hidden him from me. Somehow, she has stolen him from my sight.” Her tone was marked by cold rage. “But I can sense his sword. It was forged for him after he was born and given to him as a baptism gift, consecrated in my temple. A sword to herald the greatness of his destiny. A Sword of Roses.”

  Okay, so it’s definitely about the sword. Gods, I sure make a drama out of it. He almost said something of the sort, but the woman continued. “I try to reach out to the sword, but only you appear. Why? How are you tied to it?” Her eyes narrowed. “Did you forge it?”

  I get it already. I don’t deserve the bloody sword. And yet he felt very uncomfortable with the idea of confessing his crime to that condemning judge of his mind. Will I try to escape the exceedingly frightening manifestation of my guilt?

  “Master Hurlough is dead. But I was his apprentice, and — well, I guess I can say that I had a small hand in fashioning it,” he found himself lying. “To be completely honest, Master Hurlough did come to rely on me more and more during his latter years. The Heaths wanted a marvelous sword, but one still made for combat. What could I do? All right, all right, I did most of the work. But I couldn’t have done anything at all without the teaching and inspiration of Master Hurlough.”

  The woman eyed him closely. “Aren’t you a bit young?”

  “I hear such things all the time. Do you know what I answer? Water. Lots of it and damn often. It keeps you spry and spirited through all your years. It’s like a potion.”

  The woman was silent. Strangely, Nathelion discovered that he was shaking in his boots for fear that the dream creature would see through his deceit. But she did not call him on the lie. “Then how can this be?” she mused. “I know he would never leave his sword. Somehow, he is concealed. Somehow, he is warded. This must be the wizard’s work.” She turned from him and walked a few paces, in thought. Nathelion tried not to stare at her firm behind as she moved. “While she keeps me weak, he manages to tickle me. I’ll break through his shield, though. I’ll break him. And then I’ll meet my knight.”

  “Good luck with that,” Nathelion said carefully, not wanting to trigger another outburst. “Then I guess I could just leave...”

  “You?” The woman’s icy face was adorned with a slight smile, one so beautiful and so utterly terrifying at the same time. “Of course, I don’t need you anymore. Nameless.”

  Nathelion woke up shivering, sweat covering his skin under his roughspuns. The shadows danced wildly in the camp. The fire. It burned so strangely, as if violent winds whipped the flames high.

  Even as the memories of his nightmares left him, the sense of them would not. The same dark horror seemed to rule the waking world. It’s happening again, he thought breathlessly. Just stay calm. It will pass once you awaken a bit more. Stay calm.

  He looked around the camp and found that both Timothy and Molgrimin were missing. Where did they go? How long have I been sleeping? Not long at all, judging by the darkness. The clouds lay so thick over the sky that it was as if a giant tent had been pitched around them. There would be thunder. Stay calm. Where could they be?

  Sir Conrad and Alwarul still remained, both lying wrapped in blankets not far from the fire. The strangely moving shadows climbed over them like ants. Should I wake them?

  He mustn’t seem frightened. I could ask where Molgrimin and Timothy are. Wasn’t Timothy supposed to keep watch? He thought he remembered something like that. He was still training when I went to sleep. But there was no one there now. It was as if the boy had been swallowed by the earth.

  “Sir! Sir!”

  The shouts took Nathelion aback, coming faintly from the valley beyond the trees.

  Timothy soon scrambled up the slope. “Sir!” he shouted again, breathing hard as he hurried into camp, his voice urgent and full of fright. “Sir, wake up! There’s something in the valley!”

  “Something?” Nathelion asked silently.

  The squire answered him by talking to the knight. “Ghosts, sir. You must see!”

  Sir Conrad awoke with a curse on his lips. “Ghosts? Tim, have you lost your bloody wits?” He tossed aside his blankets and fastened his sword belt quickly. “Come here!” he snapped. “Show me your bloody ghost. If I don’t see a howling specter with a good white sheet on him, you’re in some damn trouble, boy.”

  The squire led the knight away, stumbling a bit over dark roots in his hurry to show the man whatever he’d seen. Nathelion wouldn’t stay by the fire. He ran after them, leaving Alwarul alone.

  They stepped out of the forest and stopped upon the slope, gazing across that ashen valley whose hills appeared like dark islands in a great gray lake. “Where?” Sir Conrad growled.

  Timothy pointed unsteadily. “There, sir. Look!”

  They both peered down into the valley at the foot of one of the higher hills — and into its shadow. Nathelion frowned at the sight of the house, that gray cabin that seemed to scream of age and decay, wreathed in a thin white mist that lay peacefully over the grassy fields, moist and cold and silent. Was there a house there? He tried to remember having seen one, but could not. I thought the valley was unpopulated.

  “A house?” Sir Conrad asked, unimpressed. “What of it?”

  “It...it appeared, sir!” the boy answered, clearly shaken. “When I turned and looked back, it was there! But it wasn’t there before, sir. It wasn’t!”

  “What are you babbling about?” the knight asked. “You were to keep watch in the camp, not explore.”

  “I did keep watch, sir. I did!” the squire assured him. “After all of you had fallen asleep, I heard screams. Like from a little boy, I think, a child. Weeping. It all came from the valley, sounding...sounding haunted, like. I walked out here and looked about, but I couldn’t see anything. Only the mist. And every time I went back to camp — thinking I was dreaming, maybe — I would hear it again, chilling my blood. I went down into the valley — a knight protects the innocent, so I went down there! The weeping stopped when I was halfway there, and all went silent.” The squire breathed. “I didn’t dare continue then. It felt...it felt uncanny, as if there were no child there at all. I looked back to the camp and thought I’d return. But then the screams rose behind me like from all the hells, and I thought I was done for. I looked back as I ran, sir. I looked back — and all the screams came from that house!”

  Sir Conrad looked at the house in silence, as did Nathelion, reluctantly affected by the squire’s insane account. But the cabin was also quiet now, and no screams or sobs could be heard from it. Yet there was an air about it that made Nathelion’s stomach tie in a knot. It was there before. I just didn’t notice it. I hardly looked. Tim is a bloody child, getting scared of the dark.

  “Are you sugge
sting” Sir Conrad said at last, slowly, “that this is some kind of haunted house?”

  “A memory.” The answer did not come from Timothy. Nathelion hadn’t noticed Alwarul joining them, but he stood there now with a grim expression on his aged face. “A dark memory.”

  The knight was admirably sensible in his confusion. “Memory? What are you talking about, old man?”

  Alwarul’s eyes wandered to Sir Conrad, though it seemed he looked past the knight. “There are things the world will not easily release,” he said softly. “The abyss brings them back. The taint is given life with its pain, preying on all and itself.”

  “You aren’t making sense,” Sir Conrad said, suspicion entering his voice. “Do you claim to be some kind of witch?”

  Alwarul spoke in an almost detached manner. “I am a member of the Rizych. We have earned many names throughout the years. Witch, you call me. Others have said sorcerer, wizard, warlock. It matters little. But yes, I can work the lost art that many name magic.”

  Timothy stared, but Sir Conrad just barked a laugh. “Old man, do you think I have not met your kind before?” he said. “They travel along in circuses and menageries and tell your fortune for a copper. Or they visit the peasants and drive out evil spirits from the sick. It all helps precious little, of course, but there’s a bit of theater to it.”

  Alwarul did not seem to take insult. “As you would have it, sir,” the old man said calmly, turning an eye towards Tim. The squire was still staring. “Though I believe your squire has seen enough to know the truth. Before long, I’m afraid you will have to do the same. The abyss is pouring in, and when its presence grows stronger, the world will know the true horrors of the hells.”

  “The world already knows hell. Large chunks of it do,” Sir Conrad answered grimly. “And it’s not devils that do the tormenting.” The knight turned around to walk back into the camp, but Alwarul’s voice kept him there.