Web of Eyes

by Rhett C. Bruno

  Torsten had no chance to respond before they reached the domed hollow of the Royal Crypt. From crystal caskets, all the kings watched through perfectly preserved eyes as another was brought to join them. With the royal physician hanged and no replacement set, Pi hadn’t been given the embalming treatment and his little body, pale and limp, was hard to look upon. His casket was placed in the very center beneath the shaft of light coming through an oculus.

  “His eyes, are your eyes, for all Iam’s children watch over us.” Wren recited. Even he, the mortal vessel of Iam on Pantego, spoke without his usual vim. He drew circles around Oleander’s eyes.

  Torsten could barely watch. And, if not for Oleander, he wouldn’t have. She stood silently beside her son, looking just as Liam did in his final days. Not her appearance—the servants had her looking as lovely as ever—but in her face. Cold, dejected, broken. Tears flowed freely as she placed the orepul, cleaned of as much spider blood as possible, over Pi’s still chest. Then, she leaned over and kissed his cheek, smearing her tears onto his face.

  All Torsten could do as he struggled to watch was imagine the Shesaitju army growing in the South, fueled by decades of resentment. He pictured all the conquered peoples and all their allies throughout the kingdom smelling blood in the water. Would the hidden Panping mystics recapture the minds of their people? Would the dwarves of Brotlebir refuse to open their vaults?

  Things were simple when he was hunting down Redstar, but now the full weight of being the Wearer again was almost more than he could bear. Wardric was right, he may as well have worn a crown. Queen Oleander was inconsolable, though that was preferable to her hanging doctors, handmaidens, and members of the Royal Council.

  “Oh, Vigilant Eye, we pray that you see this loyal servant to your side,” Wren said as he signaled for the boy’s body to be sealed in and prepared for his slot in the eternal wall.

  It was then, out of the corner of his eye, that Torsten noticed a shadowy figure standing in an adjoining tunnel, watching. It was the same one he and Whitney had escaped the dungeon through.

  That no good, rotten scoundrel!

  Torsten skirted his way around the gathering of the highest Lords in Yarrington who hadn’t died or fled, King’s Shieldsmen and priests. Of the Royal Council, only the Master of Husbandry showed, the Queen had apparently scared off too many others while Torsten was absent. Even Master of Coin, Yuri Darkings, the most longstanding member, had apparently fled the capital to avoid her ire.

  “How did you get down here?” he snapped as he rounded the corner. The thief was already facing the other way but stopped at the sound.

  “You guys really should work on your security.” Whitney turned and lowered his hood. His grin made Torsten’s skin crawl.

  “This is a holy ceremony. It is no place for the likes of you.”

  “It’s been more than a day, and you still haven’t called for me. I was worried.”

  “On my list of things to do as Wearer of White, rewarding you is far at the bottom.”

  “Congratulations on getting your title back, by the way.”

  “Save it.” Torsten raised his hand to the grip of his claymore. “Now leave, before I throw you back in a cell.”

  “You’ll need to make a new one. They’re all full.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You haven’t been down there? Your beloved queen was awful busy while we were gone.”

  Torsten glanced back over his shoulder. Pi was placed in the wall, and Wren was positioning gold autlas over the boy’s eyes, the embedded Eye of Iam facing outward. There was nothing to be gained by staying while all those in attendance paid final respects, as was custom.

  “It seems like ages since we met down here,” Whitney said.

  “Quiet,” Torsten said, pushing by Whitney.

  The closer to the lower dungeons he got usually meant an onslaught of silence, broken by the occasional screams for freedom or ravings of madmen. But now, it sounded like entering the barracks mess hall. Bowls clattered, conversations echoed.

  A guard lay by an open gate into the dungeons, hand in a bowl of chow, snoring.

  Torsten glowered at Whitney. “How did you?”

  “He’ll be fine. Just helped him take a long nap.”

  “I don’t even have words.”

  “What? I was worried about you.” Whitney lowered his head in feign submission.

  “It truly amazes me that you’re still alive.”

  “Iam loves me.”

  Torsten grunted in response. Then he rounded the corner and saw what the thief was talking about. The lower dungeon was overflowing. There were two to three people to every cell, and not all of them looked like vagabonds.

  There were more doctors, likely being prepared to join the others hung over the wall. There were soldiers and handmaidens, priests and cultists. People from all walks of life who might inhabit all the corners of Yarrington and the castle.

  “Guess I picked the wrong week to get locked up,” Whitney remarked. “It’s like a party.”

  Torsten ignored him.

  “Hey!” he shouted to the two more guards sitting at a table inside, half-asleep. The larger of the two nearly fell as they roused, and the other had half a complaint out of his mouth before noticing Torsten’s helmet.

  “Another new Wearer?” he questioned.

  “That’s the old one, numb-skull.” The big one nudged him.

  “Why are there so many prisoners?” Torsten asked.

  “Failed the King, the last one said.”

  “Or spoke out against his mother,” said the other.

  “It’s no wonder the streets are dead. Can’t share a proper pint anywhere these days,” said the first.

  “This is—”

  “Hey, don’t I know you?” A guard asked, pointing a stubby finger at Whitney.

  “You’re that yigging crown thief!”

  “Finally, someone remembers me,” Whitney remarked.

  “As much as I would love to see him behind bars,” Torsten said, returning the conversation to himself, “he’s no longer your concern. I want detailed reports. Why and how everyone wound up down here.”

  “That will take forever,” one guard bristled.

  “Then you’d better get started.”

  Torsten ran his fingers along the bars, looking into each cell. It had always been easy to tell who belonged behind bars. But not this time. It didn’t seem to matter who they were or where they were from, they were all lumped in together because they couldn’t save Pi. Torsten may as well have been right in there with them.

  “Torsten?” a small voice muttered.

  He whipped toward it. Inside the cell, a young girl and a few other mud-coated men and women shivered. She was the slave he’d freed from the Black Sands, whom he’d been too busy to remember until then. Abigail. She and the others were locked up because... well, there was no good reason. They delivered a message to deaf ears because he asked them too.

  “By Iam,” Torsten whispered. “Guard, open this cell right now!”

  “What! They get freed without even having to go to the Webbed Woods?” Whitney said.

  “Guard!”

  The big guard fumbled with his keys on his way over. It took him a few tries to unlock the cell door. The moment he did, Torsten barreled past and held the girl at arm’s length. She was emaciated. A long journey back plus dungeon food wasn’t a recipe for health.

  “I’m so sorry,” Torsten said. “You will all have a room in this castle for as long as you need. Your service to the Crown will not be forgotten, however little good it did.”

  “You leave me in the street with corpses, and they get a room?” Whitney said.

  Torsten’s head snapped around. He could have wrung the thief’s neck, but then a familiar cackle stole both of their attention. Torsten swept out of the cell, and down the hall. Chained in the very same cell where he’d found Whitney on that fateful day, was Redstar.

  His wrists a
nd ankles were cuffed to the ceiling and floor, stretching his limbs to make him appear like his namesake. A steel muzzle covered his mouth and nose so he couldn’t bite, a few tiny holes allowing him to breathe.

  “Remind me again how that guy is related to the gorgeous Queen?” Whitney asked. “He gives me the creeps.”

  “I think it’s time you leave,” Torsten said.

  “Me?”

  “Come to the Throne Room tomorrow, and you will have your reward.”

  “Torsten, I—”

  “I said leave!” Torsten slammed on the bars.

  It startled Whitney, making his foot slip on the slick floor, but he caught his balance. He dusted off his pants and acted like it was on purpose. “Tomorrow, Throne Room. I’ll be there. See ya, Red Moon.” He offered a lazy salute into the cell.

  Torsten watched him saunter away, not a care in the world. On the way by, he spooked the hulking guard who was busy checking on a prisoner, then vanished into the dark before he earned a cudgel to the head.

  Torsten turned back to Redstar. He couldn’t see his mouth but could tell by the way his forehead wrinkled the crimson birthmark covering half his face that he was grinning.

  “You’ll never be able to hurt that boy again now,” Torsten said. It took all his willpower not to burst through the door and snap the traitor’s neck right there and then. “Do you hear me? All your twisted games are finished.”

  Redstar laughed. “My work is already complete,” he said. The mask gave his voice an unnatural, muffled basso.

  “No, you failed. The Glass Kingdom still stands, Nesilia remains buried even with your Bliss destroyed, and your sister will watch you burn at the stake.”

  “My sister loves games more than I. Or do you think it coincidence that as she grew old enough to flower, the great King Liam grew weaker? Slowly decaying from the inside.”

  Torsten knew he was just trying to get in his head. Plant seeds of doubt about the Queen. “The only traitor in your family is you.”

  “You simple, foolish knight. Glass, Drav Cra, Black Sands, they all mean nothing. A reckoning is coming. Are you sure you’re on the right side?”

  “Whatever side destroys monsters like you is the right one. May Iam’s light never find you.”

  Redstar released a cackle so hideous it raised the hairs on the back of Torsten’s neck. “You really don’t understand anything, do you?” He looked to the floor. “I know, my Lady… they’ll see soon enough.”

  Torsten maintained eye contact with the madman until it became too uncomfortable.

  “Guard, I want two men posted right outside his cell at all times,” he said. “Ignore every word out of his mouth, and if you can’t, cut out the bastard’s tongue.”

  He then turned and headed back toward the Royal Crypt, Redstar’s laugh echoing all throughout the hall, and inside his head.

  XXXVII

  THE THIEF

  “Let’s get this over with,” Torsten said. If it was possible for him to appear more grim than usual, the death of King Pi had done it. Whitney wasn’t stupid. It meant that their entire quest was pointless. But, at least, the surly knight wore his white helm again.

  “Oh, c’mon my friend, this is a big moment!” Whitney put his hands up on Torsten’s shoulders, and the look he received made him instantly regret it. “Look, I know things aren’t looking too bright. Your kings are dead, rebel armies amass… but it’s times like these you have to celebrate the little things.”

  “Or break them in two.”

  Whitney swallowed and removed his hands. “So, yeah. Rewards.”

  He dropped to one knee and stared at Torsten’s boots—as clean as they should be now—then he glanced from side to side. The throne was empty as the Queen grieved, and there were only a few Shieldsmen with Torsten. Whitney realized he’d never been in a room like it without being in some ridiculous guise.

  All the statues and banners honoring the kingdom’s great past remained in their places. Countless heroes had kneeled on the same floor to receive the honor Whitney was about to. Even Torsten, a common-born man himself, had. Whitney couldn’t think of a more fitting, ironic end for the legend of Whitney Fierstown.

  “Stand up, you fool,” Torsten said. “You aren’t being knighted.”

  “Right,” Whitney replied, cheeks getting a little hot.

  “In the name of Iam and the Kings—and Queen—of the Glass, both past and present, I Torsten Unger, Wearer of White, stand before you. For your heroic deeds in service to the Crown, you are henceforth ennobled, Whitney…” He hesitated, then cleared his throat. “Blisslayer of Troborough. First of his name.”

  He heard Sora stifling a chuckle behind him.

  “Since the Master of Rolls is no longer with us, I have had his young apprentice draft this letter patent as proof of your estate,” Torsten continued.

  He reached back, and one of his men handed him a piece of rolled parchment. He slapped it into Whitney’s hand. Whitney went to take it, but he didn’t let go at first.

  “Try not to lose it,” he said. “There is nobody here to craft records now.” He released it.

  Any witty response died on Whitney’s tongue as the page unfurled. Below all the sloppily scrawled legal jargon was the seal of the Nothhelm family itself. Iam’s Eye set in the center of a crested helmet surrounded by an intricate floral pattern that was almost impossible to counterfeit… almost.

  Whitney knew the Shieldsman before him would never do something like that.

  He felt as if he were floating on air. For so many years he pushed to outdo himself. But now, he’d stolen the one thing that couldn’t be grasped or seen. Respect. Because all throughout Pantego, no matter where he lived, all anyone ever really cared about was who your parents were. But every great house came from somewhere, and now he was the first.

  “Now, leave the throne room, thief, and don’t come back,” Torsten said.

  “Is that any way to treat the head of a noble house?” Whitney retorted. He rolled the writ back up and tucked it into his belt.

  “Do not try my patience, Whitney.”

  “Let’s go, Whit,” Sora said. “Maybe if we look hard enough we can find a place where people are more grateful.”

  Whitney held out a hand. “One second. I believe the lady was promised fair compensation, for her loyal service to the Crown?”

  Torsten turned back.

  “Wardric?” he addressed one of the other Shieldsmen. The gray-haired knight handed him a pouch stuffed with golden coins engraved with the seal of the Glass Kingdom. Torsten dropped it in Whitney’s hand. The weight dragged his arm down.

  “Is this enough, Sora?” Whitney asked.

  “This is not a market,” Torsten snapped. “This is more than fair compensation for a woman like her.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I have other things to do, and I don’t have any more time to waste with games.”

  Whitney was thinking of some witty retort when he saw the briefest break in the knight’s stern façade. He sighed. “I really am sorry we couldn’t do anything for your king.”

  “I’m sure you are,” Torsten said. “Is that all?”

  Whitney held his tongue, then performed an exaggerated bow as he backed away. “It has been an honor and a pleasure, Sir Torsten. I don’t look forward to it again.”

  “And I hope Iam sees it in his heart to show you two mercy. There is no soul beyond hope if you but open your hearts to the light.”

  “Mine’s plenty open and hers; you said it yourself, Iam worked through her.”

  Torsten grimaced.

  Whitney slapped the coin purse into Sora’s bandaged hand. “Here you are, milady.”

  “Can we please get out of here now?” she asked.

  “Not a moment too soon. Until the Crown calls on us great heroes again!” Whitney raised his arms as he shouted, voice echoing along the towering, stone walls and vaulted, stained glass ceiling. “I’ve always wanted to
try that in one of these places,” he whispered in Sora’s ear as he turned.

  She held Torsten’s gaze for a few seconds longer, rage percolating behind her eyes, then finally turned. Torsten and his Shieldsmen did the same. Whitney glanced back at the giant man’s back before he vanished behind the empty throne.

  I’ll miss him, was his first thought. He wasn’t exactly sure why, and he knew nothing good would ever come of seeing him again, but a part of him enjoyed traveling with someone who seldom agreed with a single thing out of his mouth. It was one of the greatest challenges he’d ever faced. Even more so, was getting the stubborn knight to give in to his charms. Torsten would never admit it, but Whitney knew it’d be a long time before he forgot him.

  Guards led them out the front gates and across the castle grounds. A few others stood on ramparts, removing the corpses from the castle walls. Carts carried away piles of bodies that had already been taken down.

  They reached the street and Whitney looked from side to side. “So, where to next?” he asked, breathing in deep and immediately regretting it. Just because the bodies were leaving didn’t mean the stench had yet.

  “What’s the furthest city away from this awful place?” Sora said. “Away from the Shesaitju, and hateful knights, and murderous queens.”

  “That depends. Above or below ground?”

  “Above.” Sora nodded her head repeatedly as if she’d initially doubted herself. She smiled. “Yeah, definitely above.”

  “Shog… I did love the Dragon’s Tail. Dwarves love to gamble.”

  “What about Panping?” she asked.

  “Bringing me to meet the parents already?” Her glare gave him goosebumps. “Sorry…”

  “How about it?” she asked. “I figure, the way Torsten looks at me, it must be the most fun place in the world. Any place he dislikes must be amazing.”

  “He does despise a good time, doesn’t he?” Whitney scratched his head. “It’s a fine city. A bit too many soothsayers for my taste though. They have a way of looking through you.”