The Familiars: Secrets of the Crown

by Adam Jay Epstein

  Aldwyn pinched himself to make sure he was awake because what he was seeing felt very much like a bizarre nightmare.

  “Where are we?” asked Gilbert, who looked absolutely terrified.

  “I don’t know,” answered Skylar, which made Gilbert look even more terrified. If not even Skylar knew where they were, then what was this place?

  “Stalagmos,” said Aldwyn.

  The two other familiars turned to him, clearly surprised that he knew something that Skylar didn’t.

  “I recognise those robed figures from the sewer markets of Bridgetower,” he explained. “They’re the tongueless cave shamans. They sell deadly concoctions and nefarious tools of the trade for assassins and bounty hunters like Grimslade. Olfax tracking snouts, spring-loaded soul suckers, arsenic arrows. I even had a run-in with a shadow hound once.”

  The three turned their attention to the vats of steaming magma below. Floating inside them were evil-looking contraptions with sharp edges and animal parts.

  “This must be where they brew their dark magic,” said Aldwyn. “Rumour around the back alleys was that they were drained of their humanity a long time ago.”

  “Mine faster,” commanded one of the tongueless shamans, striking an albino dwarf with a whip that crackled with black energy. “And take only the obsidian!”

  The voice gave Aldwyn the creeps – it hissed and snarled like a snake with its tail cut off. Although it also sounded a bit like Gilbert croaking in his sleep.

  “Obsidian,” whispered Skylar. “That’s the component used to raise the dead.” She looked to the cart and spotted the symbol of a double hex burnt into the wooden frame. “They must be working for Paksahara. This is what she needs to bring forth the Dead Army.”

  “She must be smuggling shipments of obsidian across the border into Vastia,” said Aldwyn. “That’s what Urbaugh and his men stumbled upon.”

  “There’s enough in that cart alone to raise a thousand zombie soldiers,” said Skylar. “Who knows how many tons she’s collected already?”

  “Let’s just follow the paw prints and get out of here,” suggested Gilbert.

  Aldwyn, too, wanted to leave this terrible place behind, but when he looked down again into the cavern, he saw his father’s purple paw prints go straight through the mine, past the gundabeast and beneath a pair of pointy stalactites that hung above the sole exit on the other side.

  “Don’t even say it,” said Gilbert. “I can tell by the look on your face that we have to go through that exit.”

  “Afraid so,” said Aldwyn.

  “And how do you propose we do that?” asked Skylar.

  “We blend in,” replied Aldwyn, gesturing to several long black robes hanging on hooks near the cauldrons.

  They sneaked down the tunnel, staying low to the ground, until they reached the spare robes.

  “Fly into the hood,” instructed Aldwyn. “We’ll take the feet.”

  But Skylar didn’t need instructions. She knew just what to do. The blue jay soared inside one of the cloaks and flapped her wings, letting the hood drape over her. The effect was successful; it appeared as if a man was inside. Aldwyn and Gilbert crawled under the bottom, and together they began to move.

  Aldwyn couldn’t really see where they were going; he only hoped that Skylar could.

  “I can’t see where I’m going,” whispered Skylar down to the others.

  Aldwyn had no choice but to peek an eye out and guide her. “Straight, straight, a little to the left. Stop, stop, stop!”

  Another cave shaman was approaching, and if Skylar flapped her wings one more time, they’d walk right into him. Luckily she halted just in time.

  “We’re behind schedule,” groaned the shaman. “Tell the miners on the ridge there will be no rest until the full moon. Have I made myself clear?”

  The familiars remained silent.

  “Gilbert,” whispered Aldwyn, “let out a croak.”

  “Why?” asked Gilbert.

  “Because you sound like them when you’re snoring.”

  “Is there a problem?” asked the shaman harshly.

  “Ngrrugh,” snorted Gilbert, letting out a sound that was indeed not so different from how the tongueless dark magicians communicated.

  “Very well, then,” said the shaman, continuing along.

  The three animals let out a collective sigh, and Skylar resumed her flapping. They moved among the other cloaked figures without getting a second glance. The exit was approaching.

  Aldwyn, back on the lookout, was momentarily distracted by an albino dwarf hurrying past, pushing a mine cart.

  “Skylar, left,” Aldwyn directed her. “No, no, right!” he corrected as the dwarf rolled by.

  Skylar managed to reverse course, but Gilbert had already committed to Aldwyn’s initial direction. He got tangled in the bottom of the robe, pulling them all to the ground. With a thud, they hit something. Aldwyn pushed the cloth fabric off his head to see that they had knocked a small cauldron to the ground. Black smoke was pouring out from it. Gilbert freed himself from the tangle and found himself face to face with a smoky creature forming just inches from his nose.

  Oh no, Aldwyn thought. He recognised this as the ghostly mist of a shadow hound, born from the very pot they had just tipped over.

  Skylar freed herself from the robe last, and all three familiars witnessed the beast assuming its final shape. But this was no ordinary shadow hound. It was much, much… smaller. In fact, it looked more like a puppy.

  The tiny hound of darkness immediately began licking Gilbert’s face.

  “Get off me!” said Gilbert, recoiling from the smoky slobber.

  Fortunately, nobody had spotted the cauldron incident, and before they could be discovered, the familiars dived between a wash basin filled with ore and a smelting pot cooking limestone into molten rock to figure out their next move. An albino dwarf came by and picked up a poker, stoking the flames and coming frighteningly close to where the animals were hiding.

  Meanwhile, the shadow pup was trying to get Gilbert to play with him, biting down on his flower-bud backpack and tugging at it.

  “Would you stop it?” whispered Gilbert.

  The puppy let out a yip, causing the albino dwarf to turn in their direction. Gilbert immediately threw a webbed hand over the shadow pup’s mouth. Everyone remained still and silent, except for the hound, who wagged its shadowy tail in the air, happy that Gilbert was finally paying attention to it and completely oblivious to the tension in the air.

  After a moment, the dwarf dropped the red-tipped poker to the ground and moved on to tend to the other vats, but not before scooping up the fallen robe.

  Once the coast was clear, the familiars relaxed. Now there was only the matter of escaping with their lives still intact. Then why was Skylar eyeing a nugget of fallen obsidian just out of talon’s reach? thought Aldwyn. He knew of her desire to revive her deceased sister, but now did not seem the time to be collecting components. She flitted out from behind their cover and scooped up the black rock before returning with it.

  “What about what Feynam said?” asked Aldwyn. “About there being consequences?”

  “That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” replied Skylar as she shoved the obsidian deep into her satchel.

  Suddenly, there was a loud bang as the gundabeast lurched forward. Across the room, in the ore-loading zone, the massive creature from the Beyond lunged at a passing dwarf pushing a wheelbarrow that was filled to the brim with obsidian.

  “Keep back from the beast,” snarled one of the shamans. “It’s overworked and irritable.”

  The dwarf hurried away, keeping his distance from the three-eyed creature. Aldwyn took a measure of the distance they still had to travel to the exit. He was quite certain that even at their fastest sprint, they would never make it there without being caught. His mind was racing. Luckily, it was precisely in situations like this when Aldwyn shone brightest – with his back against the wall and the odds stacked against him.
He was still a scrappy alley cat at heart, and his greatest asset remained his street wisdom; only now he had a new trick in his arsenal – telekinesis.

  His eyes landed on the discarded poker, its tip still burning. Then he looked to the gundabeast, which was snorting disgruntledly through its nose.

  “Just follow my lead,” said Aldwyn to his companions.

  He focused all of his mental energy on the metal poker and flung it through the air. Its glowing end landed squarely on the beast’s exposed hind side, sending the creature into an instant fit.

  “Arrrrrrrr!” roared the monster, kicking its massive front legs into the air.

  “Run!” shouted Aldwyn.

  He sprinted out from behind the vats and made a dash for the exit. Skylar and Gilbert raced behind him. The gundabeast was thrashing angrily now. It lifted the cart attached to its back up over its head and tossed it across the room. Albino dwarves began scattering in a panic, while some of the cave shamans tried to maintain control. The flung cart toppled the vats of boiling liquid, sending a flood of red magma pouring in every direction.

  The familiars’ progress towards the cave’s exit stalled when a fast-flowing rivulet of red-hot metal snaked past them. Skylar flew over it, but Aldwyn and Gilbert had to take a detour, heading back to the centre of the room they were trying so desperately to escape from.

  “This was your plan?” shouted Skylar over the mayhem.

  “It played out much more smoothly in my head,” replied Aldwyn.

  To make matters even worse, magma wasn’t the only thing that spilled from the cauldrons; half-finished creatures the shamans had been conjuring up with their black magic took shape all over the cave as well.

  A pair of crocodile skulls began chomping towards Aldwyn and Gilbert. Lockjaws, thought Aldwyn, familiar with the deadliest traps the sewer markets had to offer. He knew well enough not to get a leg caught between those teeth, for once the jaws clamped down, they’d never let go.

  One was closing in on Gilbert, opening wide. The tree frog hopped quickly, diving between the legs of a fleeing cave shaman. The lockjaw attacked, its teeth snapping shut not on Gilbert, but the shaman’s leg. The shaman dropped to his knees, screaming in pain. The other croc skull was still pursuing Aldwyn, who found his escape cut off by another stream of red-hot lava. But just as the lockjaw bounded forward, its skeletal mouth agape, one of the gundabeast’s tree-trunk-sized hooves stomped it to the ground, turning the bones to dust. Aldwyn decided this was the first and only time that a close-up of the crashing foot of a gundabeast would be a welcome sight. He wondered briefly if the creature had suddenly become an ally, but the fist thrusting towards him made it clear that the border monster wasn’t picking sides, just attacking indiscriminately.

  The familiars were not far from the exit now. Though roundabout and potentially deadly in other ways, Aldwyn’s plan had succeeded in creating enough of a distraction to make their presence in Stalagmos a mere afterthought to the chaos the stampeding gundabeast had wrought. The trio had a clear path to the opening until a shadow hound, menacing and ferocious, emerged from the darkness surrounding it. While Skylar remained safely above the fray, the canine apparition was stalking towards cat and frog, preparing to pounce.

  “Nice demon doggy,” said Aldwyn, trying to calm the vicious phantom.

  The shadow hound didn’t seem amused.

  Just then, an albino dwarf sailed overhead, flung by the gundabeast. His metal helmet went crashing into the cave wall, and the small, pale miner landed on the floor with a thud, pickax gripped in gloved hand. It gave Aldwyn an idea.

  He pulled the axe out of the dwarf’s hand telekinetically and launched it through the air. Higher, higher… spinning towards the pointy stalactites hanging above them – coated with the same bio-luminescent mould covering the cave walls. And with all his mental might, Aldwyn guided the sharpened metal edge into one of the rocky protuberances. It sliced the stalactite clean off the ceiling, sending the limestone dagger straight down. The gleaming tip impaled the shadow hound, vaporising it instantly, but it wasn’t the sharpened point, it was the lightness with which it was glowing that killed the beast.

  With the path cleared, the familiars ran out of the darkness of the cave and into the darkness of the night. The clouds in the sky kept most of the moonlight hidden, but stray glimmers of white illuminated the deep valley of chiselled rock they found themselves in. Whatever vegetation had been here had long been blasted away; only blackened stumps rose from the valley floor, witnesses to the shamans’ sinister arts. The cliffs, too, were cratered with holes, presumably where the albino dwarves had searched for rare stones and minerals like obsidian.

  “Paksahara’s not going to be happy when her obsidian doesn’t arrive,” said Aldwyn.

  “If she wanted to kill us before, I’d hate to think how she’s going to feel about us now,” added Gilbert.

  “It was just a single cartload we destroyed,” said Skylar. “I’m sure many have already been delivered, and many more will.”

  Aldwyn picked up the glowing paw-print trail of his father, and the trio began to climb the rocky embankment towards the exit of the quarry. Once they reached the top, they saw long windswept plains before them. They eased into a quiet stretch of their journey.

  Aldwyn occasionally thought he heard the rustling of gravel behind him. He had the growing sense they were being followed. But every time he turned round, there was no one there.

  It was still dark when Aldwyn’s eyes opened with a start. Skylar and Gilbert were curled up next to each other, and although Skylar wouldn’t have admitted it, nobody could argue with the warmth of a tree frog’s belly on a cold night in the Beyond. But Aldwyn’s ears, trained to hear the tiniest sound even while he was asleep, had picked up what he was convinced had been quietly approaching footsteps.

  Aldwyn sat up to find that it was still just the three of them here in the middle of this windswept plain north of Stalagmos. He remained very still, hearing only his heartbeat and Gilbert’s snoring. Then, as quietly as he could, he rose to his feet and moved through the grass, in the direction from which he thought he’d heard the footsteps.

  With all the excitement they had faced in Stalagmos, Aldwyn had had little time to ponder the mysterious cat who seemed to be both real and a spirit at the same time. Whatever, whoever it was, had saved them from a crushing death courtesy of Paksahara’s woodpeckers, and more than likely, the echo beast as well. If it was a cat from Maidenmere, why had it not shown itself? And if it was a cat from the Tomorrowlife, how was it able to cross over to this world to aid them? Either way, it was possible this cat was merely a few feet away, lurking in the tall weeds, just out of Aldwyn’s sight.

  Just then, he felt something on his back. Aldwyn barely had time to think. How had he been crept up on? Clearly, he had let himself get too distracted.

  “Aldwyn—”

  He spun round to find Gilbert.

  “Gilbert.” Aldwyn sighed. “Why are you sneaking up on me like that?”

  “I called your name,” said Gilbert. “What are you doing out here?”

  “I think someone’s following us,” said Aldwyn.

  A loud rustling in the grass, which Aldwyn was certain hadn’t been caused by a gust of wind, seemed to confirm his suspicion. Gilbert jumped behind Aldwyn.

  “Did you hear that?” he croaked.

  Aldwyn put a paw up to Gilbert’s lips and mouthed, “Shhhh.”

  Suddenly, bounding out from the tall grass, was a four-legged figure – the shadow pup from Stalagmos. He immediately leaped atop Gilbert and began licking him feverishly.

  “What?!” exclaimed Gilbert, pushing him away. “You again? Stop it!”

  Aldwyn let out a relieved breath, but inside he was disappointed. This definitely was not the mysterious stranger responsible for helping them.

  “Get off me,” croaked Gilbert. “That tickles.”

  The shadow pup bounded playfully back and forth.

  “Why
won’t he leave me alone?” asked Gilbert.

  “He must think you’re his mum,” replied Aldwyn.

  Gilbert tried to reason with the smoke hound. “I am a frog,” he explained. “You are a puff of black smoke shaped like a dog. We are not related.”

  The puppy responded with another lick of Gilbert’s face.

  “Aldwyn, Gilbert,” Skylar’s voice called from behind them.

  “Over here,” said Aldwyn.

  The blue jay flew over to find them in the grass.

  “We should probably get moving,” she said, and then she also spotted the frisky shadow pup. “What’s he doing here?”

  “He followed us,” said Gilbert. “I certainly didn’t invite him.”

  Just then, the first beams of the sun crept up from behind the horizon. As they hit the plains, the baby hound darted into the shade of a nearby bush, whimpering miserably.

  The familiars tried to ignore the pup’s pitiful noises and got ready to depart, but then the puppy, which was still cowering beneath the shrub’s cover, let out a loud yelp.