by D. W. Vogel
“She did. Although I have no idea how you two are supposed to help me find my sister.”
Chapter 26: The Princess Prophecy
Emerald cautiously pushed one of the flat-topped chests closed. When it didn’t react, she plopped on top of it, legs dangling over the sides, and pulled off her hat. Treffen closed another chest, and he and Gawain shared it, an audience of two for the princess’s story.
“So my sister disappeared,” she began. “And nobody knows where she went.”
“I heard,” Treffen said. “The whole Glade was devastated when it happened.” Emerald frowned a little at the interruption. She always liked to tell her stories uninterrupted.
“She went out into the garden one morning and just . . . poof. Gone. Everybody in the Castle freaked out. My dad went ballistic when she wasn’t home by dinnertime because Amethyst never missed dessert.”
The torch threw long shadows around the room, making the statues along the walls look alive.
“So we waited a couple of days because my dad wasn’t letting anybody out of his sight. Kept muttering about the prophecy, like that made any difference.”
“What prophecy?”
Emerald scowled at Gawain.
“The prophecy that everybody thinks is going to come true because we’re five sisters. Five royal sisters.” She sighed at Gawain’s blank stare. “Don’t you know anything? The Goddess’s final song?
‘When I am needed, you will find me in five souls of royal blood.
United, they will once again cast away the darkness.’”
Gawain scoffed. “That’s a fairy tale.”
“It came straight from the Goddess, so it’s hardly a fairy tale.” Emerald shook her head, dislodging a stray feather from her hair. “But a lot of people believe it refers to me and my sisters. Amethyst did. She felt the pressure of it from the moment she was born. I told her it was silly, and it hardly mattered anyway. If the Goddess wants to use us to help rid Crystalia of evil, she’s barsting well going to do it, isn’t she? So no reason to worry about it, is there? But Amethyst really believed it. Believes it,” she amended herself, falling silent.
“So how did you get here?” Treffen prompted.
“Well, it was clear that nobody else had a clue what to do. My father started calling in everybody he could think of . . . sorcerers, dwarves, . . . anybody he thought might have some idea where Amethyst could have gone. Or who could have taken her.”
“She’s been kidnapped?” Gawain jumped to his feet, hand on his sword.
Emerald looked at him as if he were a puppy who’d just pooped in the castle. “Well of course she’s been kidnapped. She’d never leave on her own.” A sigh made her shoulders drop. “Amethyst’s not like me. She’s not brave, and she’s sure not spunky enough to run off into the woods alone.” She shook her head. “Nope, she’s been taken. And there’s not that many people who’d have the guts to do it.”
“The Forgotten King,” Treffen murmured.
“Yeah, he’s one,” Emerald agreed. “But there are plenty of other minions of the Dark Consul who’d love to make sure the prophecy can’t come true. For months and months, I looked everywhere I could think of, but I wasn’t making any headway. So, I eventually figured I’d be smart about it.” She looked at Treffen. “I went to your house.”
“To the Deeproot Glade?”
“No,” she smiled. “To the Lunar fortress. Your parents said to say hi.”
“No they didn’t.”
Emerald looked at her feet. “Well, your mom did.”
Treffen started to say that the home of the Lunar Elves hadn’t been his home for years, and frankly, never really was a home to him. But Emerald was on a roll.
“I figured I’d be scientific about it. There’s an elf up there . . . Saros, do you know him?”
“Who doesn’t?” Treffen remembered Saros. A wizened old elf, he had spent years away from the fortress studying with the dwarves. He was always trying to combine the complex gears and mechanical workings of the dwarven technology with the deep magic of Crystalia’s native species. Sometimes the creations he dreamed up were helpful, like the machine that told where underground water might be found when someone wanted to dig a new well. Sometimes they were spectacularly useless, like a little glowing orb that projected stars on the wall of a dark room, which would have been helpful to the elven astronomers if they had been the correct constellations of Crystalia. They weren’t. Other times they were spectacular failures that left Saros with no eyebrows and the nickname, “Old Scorchy-Face.”
“So the last time I was up at the fortress, he showed me what he was working on.” She twisted a green ringlet in her finger. “It was a machine for finding lost things. If you had a piece of something that was lost, you could put it into the machine, and it would point to where the thing was. Saros thought it would be really helpful for old people who were always losing stuff.”
Gawain grunted. “How do you lose something but still have a piece of it?”
Emerald rolled her eyes. “That’s what I said. But he was really excited about it. So when Amethyst went missing, I figured I’d see if it really worked. I got some of her hair out of her hairbrush and took it up to the fortress. Took it to Saros so then I’d have a little compass that would point right to her. All I had to do was follow the arrow.”
The sound of marching feet drummed through the closed door to the treasure room. Emerald paused in her story. Treffen whipped a small pouch from his pack and sprinkled a handful of green powder on the torch, which extinguished without a hiss. Never know when you might need lakeweed. They dove behind the chests and piles of treasure as the footsteps got closer.
Chapter 27: Nameless in the Dark
They waited, holding their breath, as the footsteps sounded louder and louder.
They’re right outside.
The marching feet didn’t pause at their closed door but continued down the hall. Nobody in the room breathed until the echoes died away.
“Are they gone?” Gawain whispered.
Emerald shrugged, and Treffen nodded. “But we’re not going out there for a while.”
Gawain seems calmer now, Treffen thought. A bit of color had returned to his face, and his eyes didn’t look so haunted. Emerald’s particular brand of sunshine seemed to be having a positive effect on the cursed Knight.
They huddled in the back of the room. Treffen felt around for an ornate silver candelabra he’d seen and lit one of the candles. They crowded together on the floor to stay in its tiny glow.
“So the machine didn’t work?” Gawain said.
“No, it didn’t.” Emerald’s face was usually smiling, often about some joke she’d made or some trick she’d played. In the soft candlelight, Treffen could see the pain in her expression.
“Maybe it was broken.”
She shrugged again, only one shoulder this time. “We tried it a bunch of times. I put my hair in, and the thing could find me a mile away through solid stone walls. I’d brought some of dad’s fingernail clippings, and the stupid arrow pointed straight to Crystalia Castle. But when we put in Amethyst’s hair, it just spun in circles.”
Oh, no. “Maybe she’s just . . . too far away.”
“Maybe.”
Or maybe she’s dead. He didn’t have to say what they were all thinking.
Emerald pulled herself together with a shake of her head. “Even if she were dead, it should point to where her body was. It just didn’t work. So after days and days of trying, I gave up on the Lunar Elves. I figured there was only one other place I could go where there might be someone who actually knew anything, and I wasn’t even sure if the Druids would let me ask.”
At Gawain’s blank look, Treffen explained. “The Deeproot Tree speaks through the Branchborn Elves. No human has ever been permitted to request her aid directly.” He turned back to Emerald. “But they let you ask?”
She shook her head. “Not me. But they a
sked on my behalf, which is pretty much the same thing, I guess. And when they came back, they told me a stupid riddle.”
Treffen smiled. “That sounds like the Deeproot Tree. What did she say?”
Emerald’s eyes rolled up to the ceiling as she remembered the words.
“Daylight fades toward midnight. The Silver Bear holds the key. The Grafted Gem will hold the door. The Son of Moon will make the sacrifice. The Nameless in the Dark must be freed.”
Chills raced down Treffen’s spine. He already knew some of those words from his own time with the Deeproot Tree. Daylight fades toward midnight couldn’t be good. And . . . the Nameless in the Dark must be freed?
“So I figured you were here,” Emerald said. “There’s only one thing I know of in all Crystalia that could be called ‘the Nameless in the Dark.’”
“But . . . freed? We won’t free him. We can’t. The magic has bound him for centuries. And no matter what the Deeproot Tree says, there’s no way he ‘must be freed.’ He’s a monster and he’s imprisoned here for a reason.”
Gawain’s face had gone slack.
“Hey, Gawain?” Treffen waved a hand in front of the Knight’s face. “Buddy? Stick with us here.”
His eyes focused for a moment. “Sorry. It’s just . . . he’s so close. It’s like he’s under my skin, squirming around inside me like some kind of worm.”
Emerald’s face got the “puppy poop on the carpet” look again. She turned to Treffen. “What’s he talking about?”
“It’s some kind of curse,” Treffen explained. “He’s a Questing Knight. They’re the ones who revolted against the Forgotten King. Gawain says . . . says he feels the king’s pull. Like he wants him back.”
“It’s worse than that,” Gawain said, his voice flat. “It’s like . . . did you ever have a nightmare where you did something really horrible? Something unforgivable like murdering someone? And not just that, but you know you can’t undo it, and everyone’s going to find out, and you’ve just ruined not just your life but everybody’s lives all around you, and no matter how sorry you are, you can never take it back?”
It was the longest speech the Knight had ever given.
“Um . . . not really,” Emerald said.
“Well, it’s like that, anyway.” Gawain stared into the candle flame. “It’s like guilt and regret and sorrow, and you wish you could wake up, but you can’t because it’s real, and it’s here, and it’s going to take me.”
“Hey now,” Treffen soothed. “We’re going to get you out of here. Look, we came here to find Emerald, and here she is.”
“Right,” she said. “I shot a bunch of the Forgotten King’s troops on my way in here, and I’ll do it again on the way out. We’re going to get through this. And then maybe . . . one of my father’s doctors could, um, take a look at you.” She didn’t say what kind of doctors, but Treffen knew she meant the kind that just asked you questions about your childhood and sat back and listened while you poured out what made you do the bad things you did.
They stood up and crept toward the door.
Chapter 28: Escape
Treffen pressed his ear against the wood.
Nothing.
He waited there for several long minutes, listening for the slightest sound that would indicate an enemy waiting in ambush outside. Years of practice under Master Birch’s stern tutelage had taught him the value of patience. A Glimmerdusk Ranger could tell with eyes closed which hollow tree housed a colony of lava ants. The best Rangers could shoot an arrow into foot-deep snow and hit a scurrying frost mouse from beneath the frozen crust. Treffen didn’t kid himself that he was the best. Not yet. But after this, I’ll at least have some campfire stories to tell. He swallowed hard. If there is an “after this.”
Emerald was stock-still, watching him. Only the silent grinding of her jaw betrayed her impatience. Master Birch had taught her, too, but Emerald’s style was to just blast all the hollow trees with her rifle and see which one the ants ran out of. Same effect, different methods. She tapped her fingernails against the butt of her rifle.
“All clear?”
Treffen nodded.
They gathered their belongings. Gawain pulled the helmet over his head, and Emerald rammed her hat down over the tops of her ears. Treffen had his machete and a few arrows but had lost his bow in the battle. I’m going to be a big help if we run into trouble.
Emerald paused near one of the chests.
Treffen spoke before she could ask. “I wouldn’t.”
She frowned. “What about just this?”
A string of beads lay in a dusty corner, half tucked under the edge of a moldy tapestry. She pulled it out and blew the dust off, coughing and rubbing her eyes when it poofed up in her face.
“Shame you don’t have any . . . I don’t know . . . goggles for that kind of thing.” Treffen felt a burst of patriotism when he said it; if King Jasper were here, he’d have said it first.
Emerald rolled her eyes and held out the bracelet, and Treffen took a look.
“Definitely elvish. Look at the quality.” The beads alternated between small seashells, likely from the Mistmourn Coast, and tiny glass beads. No two beads were shaped alike, and each had a little red seed inside it. “Look, those seeds are from the Swamp Statue Shrub.” An ambush predator, the Shrub was known for its ability to remain rock still in any condition, leading unwary prey to assume it was just a plant. By the time the passing creature realized its mistake, the Shrub had pounced and secured its lunch. Treffen continued, “Swamp Statue seeds help old people with shaky hands.” And were notoriously dangerous to procure. This bracelet was worth any three of the coin-filled chests in the room.
“Nice.” Emerald tied the bracelet around her right wrist. “Feels good. Maybe it’ll help me shoot better.”
Gawain had lapsed back into his customary silence. Treffen had been unnerved by the Knight’s temper earlier, but now his silence was almost worse.
“You doing all right?”
A grunt in return.
“We’re getting out of here. Just hang on.”
Treffen made one more listen at the door before he was satisfied. He eased the door open.
Darkness in both directions.
“Hand me the torch.”
Emerald did, and Treffen relit it. It sparked to life with a puff of green smoke. They eased out into the corridor.
His connection to the Deeproot Tree told him which way he was facing, but not which hallway led out. Emerald, though lacking the elves’ bond to the Tree, had always been better with remembering directions. She led them confidently down the hall.
When they got to a T-junction, she hesitated and then turned right. At the next intersection, they turned left.
How many miles of tunnels are down here? As a prison for a tool of evil, it made sense for the place to be a confusing warren of hallways and dead ends. But this was Lordship Downs, once a thriving, beautiful palace, second in grandeur only to Crystalia Castle. What had all these tunnels been used for when the place was full of happy humans instead of twisted chimeras?
They turned a corner, and the walls opened into a large room. Rusted chains hung from the walls. Dry skeletons had slipped through their manacles as the flesh decayed, leaving thin white bones behind. They lay in heaps under each set of chains. In the center of the room, a long, flat table with restraints at its corners showed stains that Treffen didn’t look too closely at. Another table held rusted tools. Treffen didn’t look too closely at those, either.
“Dungeon,” Emerald said unnecessarily.
At a glance, all the bones looked human. “Hasn’t been used since the curse,” Treffen said, reassured that the room wasn’t currently occupied by anything other than dust and mold.
They exited quickly and continued down the hallway.
With a sharp exclamation, Emerald pulled up short, flinging her arm out to the side to prevent Treffen from passing her. “Stop,” she hissed.
“Look.”
He did, peering into the darkness. Emerald was looking at the floor, and Treffen did the same. It looked like all the rest of the floors here. Slimy stone with crumbling mortar. But Emerald clearly saw something. He looked closer. The mortar was crumbling in a very regular pattern. A grid of round holes between the stones, each about a foot apart, to be exact.
“Who’s got something heavy?”
They both looked at Gawain.
“Helmet.” Treffen held out his hand.
The Knight removed it, clearly mystified.
Treffen knelt on the floor. “Be ready to run. I don’t know how far this goes.” In the dim torchlight he couldn’t see to the end of the grid of holes in the floor.
He rolled the helmet across the floor.
Iron spikes shot up through the holes, flinging Gawain’s helmet into the air. The spikes were as tall as Emerald without her hat on, and they stood like deadly quills, vibrating in the damp darkness. Gawain’s helmet crashed down on the far side of the wall of spikes, and Treffen was relieved to see that no more erupted from the place where it landed.
With a metal groan, the spikes began to retract into the floor.
“All right, we should have about five seconds to get across here while the mechanism resets.” Emerald looked back at Gawain. “Can you make it in that time?”
He grunted assent.
When the spikes were almost hidden, the party sprang forward. Emerald and Treffen hopped nimbly over the retreating iron points, but armored Gawain clanked heavily between them. The field of spikes was fifteen feet long and the whole width of the hallway.
Treffen watched helplessly as his companion crossed the deadly floor. Three seconds. “Hurry, hurry,” he whispered. Two seconds. One. Just as Gawain’s foot cleared the final point, they sprang up again right behind him, whooshing past his armored backside.
Thank the Goddess. But too noisy.
Treffen grabbed Gawain’s helmet and tossed it back to the Knight.
They continued down the hall to another intersection, turned the corner, and ran straight into a wall of sword-wielding Billmen.
