The Black Rose

by James Bartholomeusz

  The candlelight did little to penetrate the darkness encircling the group of travelers. The matriarch retrieved a slender wooden stick and proceeded to relight some of the candles. The only other illumination was the humming glow of four language rings as the goblin began to speak.

  “I believe I already know what you seek. The Fifth Shard of the Risa Star, long since entrusted to my tribe to protect. It is our most holy relic. We will not yield it lightly.” She completed the circle and, raising the wand to her lips, blew out the flame.

  “We do not seek it lightly,” Hakim responded. “We are Apollonians: we represent an organization which aims to reunite the Risa Star to defend our worlds against the Darkness.”

  The matriarch fixed him with her gaze, piercing despite her age. “You are either familiar with our legends or have similar ones of your own. We have guarded the Shard against the Darkness far longer than your organization has sought it. Even if it is to be used for good, why should we give it up to you?”

  “That’s the message we’ve come to deliver,” Vince cut in. “There’s another organization, the Cult of Dionysus—our mirror image, if you like—that wants to obtain the Shards to create a superweapon. If they succeed, Darkness will pour into our universe like never before.”

  “And you believe this Cult is here, in the Sveta Mountains?”

  “We know it. Or they’re at least on their way. We mean no disrespect”—he eyed the guards, who had followed them inside with their spears—”but you’ve never faced anything like them before. Particularly not the two archbishops who’ve specifically been dispatched to extract the Shard from you.”

  The matriarch regarded him imperiously. “We are not savages, human. We know how to defend ourselves and that which we love.”

  “Of course, we know,” Adâ replied, bowing her head slightly, “but we still think our expertise would not go amiss. How might we convince you of our need to take the Shard?”

  “The high priest is currently praying at the Shard’s resting place at the Cave of Lights. You may converse with him on such matters when he returns. Until then”—the matriarch stood—”we will provide for you.”

  The guests got to their feet and bowed their heads, understanding themselves to be dismissed.

  The guards led them out of the tent and into the biting gale. A small crowd had accumulated outside the matriarch’s quarters, evidently curious about the visitors.

  One of the guards raised his spear and called over the wind, “These travelers are our guests until the high priest returns from prayer. Who amongst you will share your home to give them keep?”

  The response wasn’t exactly stirring. There were mutterings, and those in the front shrunk backwards as if they would be picked on just for being most visible. The guards scanned the group for a few moments. Then, finally, a solitary, thickly wrapped hand rose.

  “Many thanks, Maht. The matriarch will consider you kindly.”

  The crowd dispersed. The goblin who had volunteered was left looking slightly forlorn and more than a little intimidated, and the four tall strangers approached her. She was slight, even though enshrined in layers of clothing, with wispy dark hair that was partially beaded. She coughed a little whilst beckoning them to follow her.

  Maht led the four into one of the alleyways, moving round the circle of tents until they had lost sight of the entrance. She halted outside one of the smaller tents and hoisted the flap, ushered them inside, and folded it shut behind them.

  Maht’s dwelling was far less grand than the matriarch’s. It seemed to be a general practice that tents were lit by a circle of candles in the center of the floor, though this one was significantly smaller. Furs were piled to the left of the entrance, where a small goblin girl was curled up asleep. The goblin’s few possessions—a collection of pots, bundles of long candles, and sealed jars that seemed to make up some kind of larder—were stacked around the rest of the room.

  Maht busied herself rearranging the furs to create as much additional sleeping space as possible. “Please, make yourselves comfortable. Would you like a drink? Or something to eat?”

  Lucy nodded vigorously, and the other three seconded, though rather more politely.

  As they settled themselves upon the furs and peeled off layers of soaked clothing, the goblin scooped some snow in a tin and began to warm it over the candles. She rummaged through a few pots and handed them each a sphere the size of a baseball.

  Lucy sniffed it and bit into it hesitantly. It tasted a little like Christmas stuffing but with stronger spices. “What is this?”

  Maht looked around, surprised and slightly wary. “It’s herb bread, mixed with salted meat. We make it in the summer months and store it for the winter.”

  “It’s good,” Lucy replied, keen to make her last question seem less indignant. And it was good and surprisingly filling. She could feel the tension in her stomach easing with every mouthful.

  The others were finishing theirs with relish. Maht decanted the hot water into four metal cups and passed one to each of them. Lucy tasted it; it seemed to be some kind of thick broth.

  Vince, Adâ, and Hakim had piled their wet clothes next to the circle of candles. Lucy did the same and tried to find a comfortable position on the furs. Considering they were only inches from snow, it was considerably warm in here. She had been camping as a child, and this wasn’t so different at all.

  “Thanks for letting us stay,” Vince said as the goblin woman settled herself next to her child.

  Maht smiled slightly, before closing her eyes and pulling her daughter a little closer.

  Chapter VI

  a day off

  That week was probably the longest in Jack’s life. It didn’t take him long to decide there were places he’d much rather be than Albion. He and Lucy hadn’t been particularly impressed at being catapulted from Earth into a war zone, but at least in Thorin Salr there had been a clear plan and sense of progress: rescue Sardâr; be trained in combat and alchemy; fend off a Cult insurgency; forge a peace deal with the goblins. In Albion, they seemed to be accomplishing nothing, and there was no end in sight.

  The workweek was six days long, and it seemed only the last vestiges of preindustrial tradition kept the factory owners from illegalizing weekends. Factory days were even longer than Jack and Bál’s first had been. Having to rise before dawn, and without a chance for lunch, they were barely able to stand by the time the bell tolled for them to finish. The few hours of sleep they scraped at night were hardly sufficient to keep them awake and alert throughout the following day.

  In his time at the factory, Jack witnessed the brutality he had read about in school. There were four incidences of major accidents on the floor, in which limbs were mangled or sheared off by machinery. He tried not to look when the injured men were escorted out, leaving a thin trail of blood along their exit route, but in some cases he could not help himself. One of these was so grotesque that he had to stop working in order to bend over and retch. The threat of a nearby foreman’s baton, however, returned him to his task.

  Once, towards the end of the week, a miniature strike was started: a group of men in the next aisle put down their tools and linked arms, claiming they would not work any longer until they were paid enough to feed their families. One began passing round pamphlets, authored by an apparently notorious political figure, entitled “The Brutal Power of Capital and How We Can Break It.” The culprits were swiftly dealt with. The strikers were beaten and told that they would be paid nothing if they did not work, and the foreman began randomly searching workers for the treasonous pamphlet. More than one was clubbed until his skull bled and he had to be dragged outside.

  Ruth’s work, whilst less harrowing, was barely less arduous. She had arrived on her first day and been immediately co-opted into the scrubbing of the kitchen floor. The woman in charge of the domestic duties, Matron Flint, ran the household with military precision and efficiency. Tasks were allocated in rotation, for which a comprehensive cred
it system had been devised. Those women and girls who did not fulfill their daily credit quota, whether because of fatigue or laziness, did not have to wait long to feel the back of Matron Flint’s hand.

  On her first day, Ruth had found herself, amongst other duties, washing laundry, brushing the stairs, laying the table for supper, shining the silverware, and dusting the banisters. Though she glimpsed a few visitors to the house, at no point did she see its mistress, her employer.

  With the joint earnings of the three of them and shared rooms, they just managed to afford their accommodation cost and two meals a day, with a little left over. The Kestrel’s Quill was gratifyingly cheap, though hardly a monument to culinary achievement. Jack, seeing someone else order a meat dish, settled on a broth which, while watery and insubstantial, was at least hot. Bál seemed rather offended by the lack of roasted hog or whatever he had come to expect back in the halls of his homeland. Ruth, as a vegetarian, had to be contented with a plate of soggy potatoes, carrots, and greens.

  Jack wouldn’t have described weekends at home as good, necessarily, but they provided a welcome relief to the dirge of schooltime. By the end of the sixth day in the factory, he looked forward to a break more than he ever had in his life. He and Bál staggered back to the inn, ingested their dinner, and made their way instantly to bed, comforted by the prospect of a full night’s sleep.

  He awoke late the next morning. Patches of light swivelled over the floor and his blankets, filtered through grimy glass and the thin curtains. Ruth apparently was already up, her bed left unmade. Jack clambered to his knees and shuffled over to the basin of water, splashing his face. His eyes were almost glued shut with the various amalgamated substances they had inherited from the factory and inn. Now able to see a little better, he caught his reflection in the mirror. Upon reverting to human form from his elf disguise, his body had not lost all its new muscularity, the product of three weeks of combat training. But now he looked gaunt, his ribs protruding unpleasantly from his torso. Machine oil streaked his arms, and there was a noticeable line where his shirtsleeves had been rolled up.

  “No offence, but you haven’t got that much to be vain about at the moment.” Ruth was leaning in the now open doorway.

  Sheepishly, he grabbed his shirt and pulled it over his filthy body.

  The girl laughed a little, apologetically. “So what do you want to do today, then?”

  Doing something other than resting with his day off hadn’t occurred to him. “I don’t know. What did you have in mind?”

  “We could go exploring.”

  “Okay.” Jack was uncertain there was much to explore in this city, but it was worth a go if it allowed him to spend some time with Ruth. “What about Bál?”

  “I tried to ask him, but he’s fast asleep.”

  “And still no sign of Sardâr?”

  The girl shook her head. They hadn’t seen the elf once since their first night at The Kestrel’s Quill. Bál had insisted that Sardâr had arrived late and departed early each day from the other bedroom, but this didn’t really assuage the discomfort in Jack’s gut. The last time the elf had gone on a solitary expedition, he had fallen into a Cultist trap and endured a period of imprisonment guarded by a powerful demon. Jack didn’t know at what point they should start to worry.

  “Come on, let’s get going. It’s past midday.” Ruth led the way.

  Jack followed her out of the room. Shutting the door, he glanced back up the corridor, silently glad Bál would not be accompanying them.

  The two of them spent the day, or what remained of it, wandering around Albion. There was not, they agreed, much that they weren’t already aware of: a river, the city’s trading hub; pockets of rich houses amongst the general throng of impoverished ones; cluttered residential streets; factories; and a central commercial sector. Jack thought the buildings in this last area were, if not attractive, certainly impressive. The roads here were wider and cleaner, divided into a rational plan of white stone buildings with colonnades and steps comprising what seemed to be a variety of business headquarters, stock markets, art galleries, and upmarket theatres. Domes of cathedrals and music halls alike rose out of the smog, redeeming slightly the idea that the city hadn’t seemed entirely lost to purely economic pursuits. They found a fountain in the middle of a relatively quiet square which they settled themselves on, clutching the luxury of lunch thanks to the additional wages they had accumulated over the week.

  Jack yawned loudly. Ruth giggled.

  “What? I’m tired. Aren’t you?”

  “Yeah, I’m shattered but clearly not that much!”

  The fountain bubbled behind them, misting on their backs. It was a refreshing change to the dry heat of the factory.

  They were silent for a while, content to watch the people pass and a pair of birds winging their way about the square.

  “Missing home yet?” Ruth asked eventually.

  Jack had to think about it. He missed Lucy, certainly, and, though he’d not known them long at all, Adâ and Hakim. He missed Alex, though that worry now went back so far that it had become part of his consciousness; his absence wasn’t a fresh wound in the same way that Lucy’s was.

  He began slowly. “I think home’s probably more about people than a place. I don’t miss my orphanage or my town or even my planet, but I miss Lucy and Alex and all the rest of them…”

  “You and Alex were close, then?”

  “Yeah, we were. Best mates, I guess, for a long time.” He exhaled, gazing across the square to where a couple of children were playing. “Did you know him?”

  “Yeah, I knew Alex.” Ruth smiled distantly and, for some reason, Jack suddenly felt a little sick.

  “Were you two… ?”

  It took Ruth a moment to realize what he meant, but then her smile faded into disbelief. “No! No, not at all. We just got on well. I can see why you liked him. Actually, I’ve got my suspicions about…” She trailed off.

  “What?”

  “No,” she corrected herself, “don’t worry.”

  There was a pause, in which Jack began to tear up his lunch wrappings.

  Ruth leant a little closer and hugged him lightly around the waist. The brush of her arm on his stomach sent shivers up to his neck. “Don’t worry. I’m sure he’s doing okay.”

  Chapter VII

  tales

  They arrived back at The Kestrel’s Quill just as the sun was beginning to set. This time on a Sunday was apparently when everyone came to drink: the inn was packed, mostly with men who seemed, by their clothing, to hold similar jobs to Jack and Bál. Jack scanned the crowd, but he couldn’t see Bál or Sardâr amongst them.

  “We’ve still got some spare change, haven’t we?” Ruth asked.

  “Yeah, I think so,” Jack replied, producing a few coins from his pocket.

  “Come on. Let’s get a drink.” Ruth somehow slid her way through the crowd to the bar and called a few words to the landlady over the din. Coins were handed over, and she shortly returned with two flagons of frothy amber liquid.

  “What is this?” Jack asked, sniffing warily.

  “Not sure. I couldn’t make out what she was saying. It tastes alright, though.”

  Jack tried it. It was bitter and not particularly pleasant, but he didn’t want to make a fuss in front of Ruth, so he swallowed it in what he hoped was a nonchalant way. As soon as her back was turned, he spat as subtly as possible onto the floor, trying to clear the taste.

  They deliberated, and then squeezed into seats at a nearby table. Ruth was drinking her pint at a considerable pace, and he felt obliged to keep up with her. It fizzled up his nostrils, and he had to suppress a splutter. The more he drank, the less he liked what he was drinking. Moreover, he felt himself becoming increasingly light-headed the further the froth reached down the inside of the flagon. The liquid made him feel uncomfortably full, too, as if his insides were a churning barrel. But Ruth seemed completely unaffected, so he soldiered on as best he could.

&nb
sp; The people at the table quieted slightly, apparently all listening to a man in the center.

  “There’s rumors of strange folk around. Men in black cloaks who’re runnin’ a big business operation. Somethin’ to do with the Goodwin factory. And a woman, a temptress, who comes and goes on the cold wind and beguiles men—”

  “Ruth, I’m not feeling so good,” Jack said.

  “You’re not livin’ in the country anymore, Tommy,” another across the table called. “This is Albion. There’s no room for your farmer’s fairy stories ‘ere.”

  “Ruth, I’m really not feeling great.”

  “Where were these men seen?” Ruth asked the first man, ignoring the interrupters.

  But before she could get a reply, Jack had vomited onto the floor next to her.

  The table erupted into jeers. Jack’s head was spinning. He was aware of being pulled away from the table and guided out of the barroom and up the stairs. Ruth kicked open the door to their room and supported him onto the bed. He couldn’t find the willpower to sit up straight. In his periphery, he saw Ruth tossing the murky contents of the basin out the window before positioning it under his dripping mouth.

  For a few moments, Ruth was silent whilst Jack spat a little more into the basin. Then she broke into a laugh. “You didn’t even manage one pint!”

  “Yeah, I know,” Jack spluttered. He felt foolish and angry with himself for having put on this performance in front of Ruth, of all people.

  “Well, I suppose you must’ve lost quite a lot of body weight this week… And we haven’t been eating properly…”

  “Yeah, let’s go with that,” Jack replied, appreciative of her efforts to save some of his pride. He was more thankful still when Ruth came to sit next to him on the bed and placed an arm around him. “Do you think that guy knows anything useful about the Cult?”