by K. C. Julius
But Grinner refused to wrestle. He spent the rest of the day rolled up in his filthy cloak, only rousing himself when their dinner was pushed through the door. Even then, he slurped his gruel without comment, and when his bowl was empty, he set it down and turned away.
“Don’t be like that, Grinner,” Fynn pleaded to the å Livåri’s rigid back. “I’m counting on you to help me.”
“It’s naught t’ do wit’ me,” Grinner muttered.
Fynn crawled around so he could see his friend’s face. “You can have the rest of my dinner,” he said, holding out his bowl. “I think it’s best I don’t fill my stomach beforehand.”
Grinner stared stubbornly past him.
Fynn saw he’d have to try another tack, even if it was risky. “Imagine that you had a chance to find out what happened to Petra. Wouldn’t you seize it?”
“I know what happened t’ her,” Grinner said flatly. “Crennin took ’er.”
Fynn sank back on his heels. “I’m sorry. But what if you didn’t know… wouldn’t you want to?”
Grinner shrugged. “I s’pose,” he said, his voice tight in his throat.
“All right, then. It’s the same for me. I have to know what’s happened to my father and brother. Can you understand?” He waited until Grinner met his eyes. “It’ll be well, you’ll see. And maybe, just maybe, while I’m dreaming, I’ll find a way for us to get out of this gods-forsaken gaol as well.”
Grinner grunted, then reached for Fynn’s bowl. “Just so long as it ain’t boots first.”
* * *
The mushroom cap tasted, not unpleasantly, of warm earth, and a hint of heat lingered on Fynn’s tongue after he swallowed it. Lying on the rushes, he listened to his heart thundering in his ears.
I have to hold Father in my thoughts, no matter what. After I find him, I can try for Jered as well.
“Did ye do it?” Grinner whispered from the darkness.
“Yes.”
Fynn heard his rueful sigh. For no reason, it struck him as funny, and he laughed.
“That were fast,” Grinner muttered. “Yer already feelin’ it?”
“I don’t think so.” Fynn’s heart was still pumping hard, but he put that down to the fact he might have just caused his own death.
Don’t let your thoughts go there.
He rolled on his side to face his friend. “Tell me about Dveld… while I’m waiting. What was it like?”
The rushes rustled as Grinner shifted toward him as well. “Dveld were… it were the best and the worst o’ worlds. That first time in the forest, Petra and me, we chewed just a leaf apiece. I recollect the sound o’ Petra’s laugh, like a bell struck after years o’ silence. I felt warm all over, like I could jus’ curl up an’ sleep, but I were too… happy. We set by a little creek watchin’ and listenin’ t’ the water runnin’ o’er the stones. It seemed hours passed, and still the sun were hangin’ high in the sky. I weren’t hungry no more, an’ I dinna care ’bout nuthin’—not even that bitch Margred. ’Twere like light runnin’ through me veins, fillin’ me belly an’ the forest all wit’ golden honey.”
A coughing fit took him, and Fynn reached over blindly to pat his back. When his friend could speak again, his voice was hollow. “Then we fell, an’ fell hard.”
A shiver ran up Fynn’s spine. “What do you mean, you fell?”
“When the crennin begun t’ wear off, ’twere like all the light were sucked from the woods, and it growed dark, the darkest o’ dark. Petra started in cryin’, and ’tweren’t nothin’ I could do t’ comfort ’er. A great black hole were gnawin’ at me insides, a hunger tha’ pained me somethin’ terrible, like an evil wind burrowin’ in me gut, settin’ up a howlin’ in me head and clawin’ at me belly. We didn’t know it then, but ’twere the beginnin’ o’ the end fer anythin’ good fer us.”
The desolation in Grinner’s voice made Fynn wish he hadn’t started the conversation. Was this the fate that awaited him?
As if reading his thought, Grinner said, “It shouldna be like tha’ wit’ the mushroom. Margred chewed ’em from time t’ time, wit’ one o’ ’er blowsy slut friends. They always talked bosh about seein’ things’ what weren’t there, but the mushrooms didna take hold o’ them like the crennin done.”
Fynn opened his eyes as wide as he could. “Seeing things? You mean, like haunts?”
“Nah… more like rainbows an’ lights trailin’ off their fingers… just ravin’ claptrap, were all.”
Fynn lifted his hand and waved it in the dark. He didn’t see anything, and didn’t feel different than usual, except for maybe a slight heaviness in his arms and legs. He lay listening to his breath, and despite his long-held resolve not to, he longed for his mother. If the bloodteeth killed him, maybe he’d meet her again, in some afterlife, and feel once more the soft brush of her lips on his brow. Perhaps, since she wasn’t a Helgrin, she too had been barred from Cloud Mountain. He could almost smell the jasmine scent she’d favored, and hear her low, musical voice calling to him.
A sharp elbow dug into his side. “Ye still here?”
“Ummm,” Fynn murmured, reluctant to shift his mind back to the cheerless cell.
“I be ’ere waitin’ fer ye, when ye get back,” Grinner said quietly.
Fynn smiled, but he couldn’t think of a reply. Trying to form words somehow seemed too hard. It doesn’t matter, he thought, although about what he couldn’t say. The heaviness in his limbs had been replaced by a floaty, light feeling, as though he’d slipped from his body into the air. There was something, though—something he was meant to do. He forced himself to concentrate, sifting through the fogginess, and finding again the words he needed, he repeated them over and over in his mind.
Father. Let me dream of my father.
* * *
He was still lying in the dark. The mushrooms hadn’t worked. I must have eaten too small a portion, he thought. His stomach churned, and he rolled up to a sitting position—only to realize the floor beneath him was bare of rushes. Reaching blindly in a circle around himself, he could find no trace of the dry grasses that covered the floor of the cell.
“Grinner?”
His own voice echoed back to him.
His hand fell on a wooden box, and searching it with his fingers, he discovered its lid was slightly askew. He slid it open and felt the objects inside. A stone. A cold, flat piece of metal. It took him a moment longer to identify a stub of candle. And finally, a twist of cloth.
A tinderbox.
With trembling fingers, he made a net of his tunic and put the metal, stone, and cloth into it. Carefully, he stood the candle upright on the tinderbox. It took him three strikes of the metal on the flint to get a spark, and another two to connect it with the char cloth. When the candle was lit, he raised it above his head and looked around.
He sat in a windowless room under a low vaulted ceiling. Thick columns formed a wide aisle down the center of the chamber, and all around him, cold stone faces gazed down on him from high pedestals. Fynn rose to examine the statues, touching his candle to the sconces lining the stone wall as he passed under their glittering eyes.
If they were gods and goddesses, they were not those of the Helgrins. The first was a female with a great hawk perched on her shoulder, her sapphire eyes so exactly like his dead mother’s, they forced a cry from him. The next stood in a sculpted fire, his feet twined by sinuous serpents, his ruby eyes glowing, a raised torch in his fist. There followed a goddess with a gentle expression, a wreath of leaves crowning her flowing tresses—then another, this one with emeralds for eyes and the tail of a fish, a pearly conch shell hanging from her slender, scaled waist.
The last statue was of a god who clearly reigned supreme over the others, for he was nearly twice their size. In one of his massive hands he clutched a huge iron club, and in the other outstretched palm rested a golden orb. His
diamond eyes glittered like cold stars.
Tall arched doors rose behind each of the statues, all of them sealed except for the one behind the final colossus. It stood slightly ajar—a clear invitation for Fynn to pass through.
What brought Aetheor Yarl to this eerie place? Fynn wondered.
He sensed the answer must lie on the other side of that door.
He pushed against it, expecting to meet resistance, but it swung open easily, revealing a smaller chamber with no other exits. Fynn lit the sconces by the door, then looked around.
Inlaid into the floor was a mosaic of a wolfish beast with talons and a long, knotted tail. The same creature was embossed on stone boxes set into recesses along the walls.
Fynn’s knees buckled as the realization of where he was—and why—struck home.
This was a tomb.
There could be only one reason why his dream-cast had brought him to this place. In one of these stone coffins, Aetheor, Yarl of Helgrinia, must lie.
Fynn’s beloved father was dead.
He threw back his head and let loose a howl of grief. For how long he wept, only the gods knew, but once his tears were spent, he ground the heels of his hands into his eyes and got to his feet once more. He hadn’t forgotten the uncertain outcome of Old Snorri’s quest. The taleweaver had woken from his dream too soon and was doomed to spend the rest of his days in an agony of doubt, wondering whether or not he’d succeeded in sending his father to Cloud Mountain. Fynn knew his own dream could come to end at any moment, condemning him to the same fate. He’d already failed his father in so many ways, and would not squander this last chance to earn redemption. If his father’s bones lay in this strange place, he would gather them and see that they received the proper rituals.
Grimly, Fynn approached the first of the recessed boxes and read the name and dates etched in the stone.
Gundauld 02-59 AA
He continued to circle the vault, his heart in his throat, stopping at each tomb in turn. Several repeated the same given names, but with a later date. All the surnames were the same. This was no Helgrin resting place.
Dread crept into Fynn’s bones. He must have cast the dream wrongly—for how would his father’s remains have ended up here?
When at last he reached the final tomb, he saw that the etching on it was recent, dated a moon after Restaria had been attacked. It was made of a darker stone than the others, and its smooth surface reflected the candle’s light. The sigil on this vault was different, too. Not only was it much smaller, it was incomplete, ending abruptly at the creature’s waist. Fynn reached up to touch the wolfish face, and. his breath caught in his throat.
With trembling fingers, he drew the pendant from around his neck and held it up to the dark stone.
Where it completed, perfectly, the other half of the sigil.
In nameless horror, Fynn tried to pull his hand away, but it was held to the stone by some dark force.
“Where is my father?” he cried, struggling to free himself. “I beg you! Show me!”
In answer, the etching on the tomb blazed alight, seared by red fire. Fynn fought to wrench his fingers away, but to no avail, as he was forced to accept the terrible truth.
He now knew, in all certainty, the reason his mother had made Teca bring him to Drinnglennin, why she had insisted he wear the broken pendant, and why he could never, no matter his prowess in battle, become the greatest of Helgrin warriors.
Because his father was not Aetheor Yarl.
His father, the man from whose seed Fynn had sprung, was buried here in this very tomb.
The name etched above the sigil was Urlion Konigur.
Chapter 14
Maura
Doesn’t his throat slit like any other?
Maura had tried to forget that chilling conversation between Roth and his mother, and for a time, she had almost succeeded. Roth’s impeccable behavior toward her made it seem impossible that he had ever said such a thing; he treated her with gallantry, affording her every courtesy and showering her with lavish gifts and honeyed words. On the day of his investiture as High King, which she’d witnessed seated beside her future mother-in-law, she felt her heart swell with pride and affection for the young and dashing new sovereign.
But his words could never truly be forgotten. Slowly but surely, she found herself re-examining her perception of Roth, and as she paid closer attention, a different side of his nature began to emerge. It started with little things that revealed a heartlessness in contrast to the gentle knight she’d thought him to be.
For instance, when the Nelvors took up residence in the castle, Roth immediately dismissed the household who’d served the Konigurs for generations, turning them out without recompense and replacing them with servants brought in from Nelvorboth. When Maura expressed her concerns for the displaced folk, Roth dismissed them out of hand, saying it was customary for the new sovereign to bring in his own people, so as to surround himself with those he could fully trust.
After that, he set about “retiring” a number of elderly nobles from court. Although he assured Maura it was their wish to return to their own realms, she’d overheard some of his courtiers laughingly congratulating him on weeding out the “fusty goats.”
Then there were the evening meals. When Urlion was High King, they were decorous if rather dull, but under Roth they had evolved, at least for Maura, into a coarse trial to be endured. The accompanying entertainments were now raucous and in increasingly questionable taste. There were no longer recitations from the classics, for Urlion’s old bard had been one of those loyal servants who was dismissed, and no one was brought in to replace him. Bawdy songs rather than ballads were now heard by the diners, and a horrid fool reeled between the tables making lewd comments and lascivious gestures. Copious amounts of mead, wine, and ale were consumed, and it was becoming a common occurrence to see one’s supper companion face down on his trencher, dead drunk.
Maura took to excusing herself as soon as the last course was cleared. She had a legitimate reason, for her headaches had returned, and for once she was glad to be able to plead them as grounds. But even though she avoided the worst of the evenings’ antics, she couldn’t ignore the whispered reports of what went on in her absence. Indeed, given how loudly Sir Lawton boasted of their late-night revelries in the city, it was impossible to pretend ignorance.
Yet despite all the frenetic merriment, Roth seemed less and less content. Maura initially put his growing moodiness and occasional outbursts of temper down to the strain of his new, demanding role. But she couldn’t help wondering if he’d always had this hard, restless edge, and he was simply no longer bothering to hide it from her.
She hoped to speak frankly with him about her concerns for his well-being on the royal progression from Drinnkastel to Nelvorboth, as he’d decided to continue the celebration of his coronation there. And though Maura wouldn’t be able to take part in most of the festivities—she was still wearing mourning weeds—she looked forward to having him alone on the journey so that they could talk.
But her hopes were dashed when he handed her up into the carriage and she found that Grindasa and Lawton were already occupying it. She didn’t care to broach such delicate topics in their presence, and even her attempts to engage Roth in casual conversation were unsuccessful. He seemed distracted—indeed uninterested—in anything she had to say.
Things were no better at Nelvor Castle. Roth set off with a hunting party early the first day, leaving Maura to fend for herself. She spent much of the time walking through the famed gardens, trying to sort out her feelings. In addition to her frequent headaches, she was now plagued by loneliness, and she had begun to long for Ilyria’s presence, as she had in the first months of their separation, as well as for Leif’s easy companionship.
It was on the second day of their stay in Nelvorboth that she chanced to overhear a terse exchange between
Roth and the intimidating Lord Vetch from behind one of the grounds’ many pavilions.
“Explain to me how this was allowed to happen,” Roth said. His voice, though low, still managed to convey his outrage.
Lord Vetch launched into an explanation about a boy who’d been taken in the raid on Helgrinia. It had to be the same boy Grindasa mentioned, Maura realized. The boy who spoke fluent Drinn.
Doesn’t his throat slit like any other?
“Maura?”
Maura spun to see Grindasa approaching, and she lifted her skirts to hurry the queen’s way. The last thing she needed was for Grindasa to learn she’d been eavesdropping on her son. But as she and the queen drifted back toward the palace, Maura wished she could have heard the end of the conversation between Roth and his commander.
The next morning at breakfast, she was alone with Grindasa when the queen let fall the incredible news: Master Morgan had been declared an enemy of the Crown.
“Surely there’s been a mistake!” Maura protested. “Master Morgan has served the Einhorn Throne for years, and he was a trusted, lifelong friend to my uncle.”
Grindasa gave her a scathing look. “Which proves that all wizards are oath-breaking vermin! Morgan was the last one to see my poor Urlion alive. He was observed leaving the king’s chamber and to me it’s clear as a summer’s sky: the wizard took his life. I would think you would want this kingslayer brought to justice every bit as much as my son and I do.” The queen raised her kerchief to her dark-lined eyes and dabbed at invisible tears. Then she tilted her head as if a thought had just occurred to her. “But then, it was Morgan who brought you and your odd friend to Drinnkastel, wasn’t it? The one who looked a bit… well, I did wonder if his blood was tainted. I thought he might be part Lurker.”
Maura was rendered speechless by the queen’s condemnation of wizards and å Livåri in just a few venomous breaths. Was Grindasa also hinting that she knew something about Maura’s own antecedents? And if not, what would the queen do if she ever learned that her future grandchildren would carry that blood, mingled with that of a dragon?
