“Hey!” yelled Tomas with sudden venom. “Evercloud, where are you taking us?”
“What?” uttered Evercloud, turning around as he walked.
“He asked you a simple question,” added Ben. “I think you should answer him.”
“What is wrong with the two of you?” asked Evercloud.
“Ignore them, Evercloud,” said Iolana. “It’s the mists.”
“You’re right, Iolana,” said Evercloud nodding as he turned back to continue walking.
“Iolana?” began Riverpaw. “Who’s Iolana?”
“You see,” said Ben. “Evercloud has no idea what’s going on. He doesn’t even know our names.”
“We’ve been fools to follow you,” said Tomas to Evercloud. “No more.”
“Just keep walking,” shouted Iolana at everyone, but no one reacted to her at all. She waved a hand in front of Annie’s face and the woman stared straight ahead as if nothing was there.
“He’s going to lead us to our deaths,” said Riverpaw. “We should rid ourselves of his stench and throw him in a pit.”
“I don’t even know why we’re in this blasted valley,” added Annie.
“Let’s end this,” said Ben, raising his sword. Tomas agreed, taking aim at Evercloud with his bow.
“Iolana?” said Evercloud, unsure of what he should do.
“Run,” breathed Iolana.
“But it’s not real,” said Evercloud with growing doubt in his voice.
Tomas released an arrow and it grazed Evercloud’s arm, leaving a streak of blood.
“Run!!” yelled Iolana.
Evercloud grabbed his wounded arm in shock, and swallowed hard. He turned toward the uncertainty of the purple mist and began to run as fast as he could. He heard Ben give an attack command, and then, the sound of another arrow ripping through the air. Fortunately, the second arrow missed its mark completely. Evercloud’s feet pounded the dusty ground as he sucked in the cold, valley air. Suddenly, a massive force hit him in the back and sent him sprawling out upon the valley floor.
“Thought you could get away?” sneered a mist-addled Riverpaw.
Evercloud coughed hard into the dirt as he laid flat on his stomach. His body ached from the impact, and he rolled over to face his attackers. Ben stood over him, brandishing his sword. Evercloud could hear Iolana scream, slow and muted, as if it were echoing from some faraway place. Evercloud’s eyes burned as he stared at his friends standing above him. His friends, who because of the Valley of Morsus, were ready to take his life.
“We have to keep going,” uttered Evercloud almost inaudibly, his lips caked with the white dust of the barren valley.
Evercloud’s eyes focused on the mists above the heads of the travelers and he saw a small object falling down from the sky. It moved so slowly, it seemed as though it would never reach the ground. The other travelers saw Evercloud’s eyes and followed his gaze into the air. Slowly, softly and finally, a large eagle feather fell and landed directly upon Evercloud’s chest.
Chapter 19: Disobedient Friends
The sound of men breaking rocks echoed in Steven Everheart’s head. The sky over Chreos was dark and gray as he looked out from the edge of the bordering forest. Things are further along than I expected, thought Everheart. I won’t be able to work on the streets of this kingdom inconspicuously. I’ll have to find a more direct approach.
The men of Chreos had chiseled a large chasm into the earth, just outside of the Kingdom’s walls. Large men in golden armor yelled as they commanded the workers who hauled great amounts of black rock from the depths of the chasm. The sounds of yelling men, of pickaxes and of cracking whips traded places with each other seamlessly, as if they were all part of some twisted symphony. Everheart watched as the men were being driven to dig up the earth. The King must have gone mad, he guessed.
A man who had been pushing a wheelbarrow full of rock stopped working and walked, weary and black from rock dust, over to a water trough. A golden-armored soldier yelled and pointed toward the man angrily.
“You! Get back to work or I’ll have you thrown into the dungeon with the rest of your disobedient friends!”
The man did not listen to the soldier’s warning. He had been driven to his limit and needed rest and water. The soldier signaled to two other soldiers and the man at the water trough was quickly apprehended and dragged, presumably, off to the dungeons of Chreos.
Disobedient friends, thought Everheart. That sounds exactly like the sort I’m looking for.
Everheart crawled out of the forest on his stomach until he had reached cover behind a large pile of the black rock. He rubbed dust from the rocks over his arms and face so that he resembled the workingmen, and then, he wandered into view of the soldiers. He was spotted immediately.
“You!” This time there was no hesitation from the soldier, and he stomped toward Steven Everheart, intent on exercising his authority. “What do you think you are doing? Get back to work, now!”
“No,” said Everheart flatly.
“That’s it,” grumbled the soldier. “I’ve had too much of this today. Off to the dungeons!”
Four strong hands grabbed Steven Everheart from behind and yanked him off of the ground, dragging him toward the gates of Chreos.
I hope this works, thought Everheart.
As Steven Everheart was dragged through the streets of Chreos, he could not believe his eyes. The soldiers were dragging men from their homes, with their wives and children watching and crying, helplessly in the streets. One man broke free of the soldiers and knocked one of them to the ground. He spat on the breastplate of the soldier’s golden armor as he lay upon the ground, and loudly cursed the name of the King. A second soldier ran forward and thrust his sword directly through the man’s ribs. He fell to the ground, dead, right in front of his home, right in front of his family. Everheart wanted to break his hold and attack the soldier, but he knew his own end would come just as quickly. He grit his teeth and allowed himself to be dragged further through Chreos.
The soldiers dragged him past the courtyard where men were being trained for battle. A very young man, who looked as if he had barely begun puberty, struggled to lift a large broadsword. An older man gave him a smaller sword and a nod of encouragement, realizing the young man needed a weapon more suited to his stature. A soldier walked over to the two men and knocked the older man to the ground with a sneer. He forced the broadsword back into the young man’s hands and berated him for his weakness. When the young man was still unable to lift the sword, the soldier struck him and he fell to the ground. The soldier stood over the young man and laughed. This time, Steven Everheart could not hold his tongue.
“When you’re on the battlefield,” he said to the soldiers dragging him, “I hope that boy sets your tents on fire.”
The last thing Everheart remembered was the grunt of a soldier and the hilt of a sword, speeding toward his head.
•••
Everheart awoke with a headache and found that he was lying on the surface of a cold and hard rock floor. Someone was attempting to put a cup of water to his lips. Everheart struggled to focus his eyes and found a blue-eyed man holding the small cup of water.
“How many fingers am I holding up?” asked the man.
“You’re not holding up any fingers,” grunted Everheart.
“Good,” smiled the man. “They haven’t given you brain damage. Who are you, stranger?”
“Stranger?”
“Come off it now. I’ve worked in the King’s archives for about a decade. I know every person in this kingdom, whether they know it or not…and I don’t know you.”
“I’m a traveler,” said Everheart.
“You’re either an idiot or a liar. Any man within a hundred miles of Chreos knows to stay far from this kingdom. Even if you hadn’t heard the news, you’d have seen the men being worked outside of Chreos’ walls, and realized that something was amiss.”
“Why are those men digging into the earth?”
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“They are harvesting ore for the blacksmiths to make weapons. The King means to create an army, to spread and defend the word of the Holy. Are you telling me you have not heard of this?”
“No,” said Everheart. “I hadn’t. I knew that men were being enslaved here, but I did not know to what end.”
“So, why are you here? Why would you come here if you knew the danger?”
Steven Everheart slowly rose to his feet and rubbed the side of his aching head where the soldier’s sword had struck him. He refocused on his surroundings and saw men sitting against walls and huddled on the rock floor. The mood was tragic and Everheart knew he had made the right decision.
“I’m here to help you realize that you have an option.”
Laughter came almost immediately from the blue-eyed man, and he spun around, calling to the other men trapped in the dungeon. “Do you hear that, boys? We’ve got an option.” The man doubled over and slapped his knees. He gathered himself shortly after and sighed. “You’re in a dungeon, in a kingdom ruled by the most heartless and misdirected man in Ephanlarea. There are no options for anyone.” The man gave another sad and ironic laugh. “What is your name, stranger?”
“My name is Steven Everheart. Yours?”
“Eric Rivera. And thank you for the laugh, I haven’t had one in a while.”
“You said you worked in the King’s archives. How did you find yourself here?”
“Simple. I did what I was told to do for ten years, and was rewarded for my good service with the news that I was to work mining for ore. When I refused, I ended up here. I wasn’t even given the opportunity to say goodbye to my wife.”
“And the others who are here?”
“Similar stories, all of us. We have all disobeyed King Aplistia in some way. None of us are criminals. The real criminals were removed from the dungeons to be trained for the army.”
“So it’s fair to say you’d like a fresh start?” asked Everhart.
Eric shook his head at what he deemed a ridiculous question. “What is it that you want?”
Steven Everheart gathered all of the men in the dungeon together and made them listen to his story. He told the story of a boy who had been named Catch, turned into a man named Everheart. Steven conveniently left out the parts of the story that involved talking bears and men with ancient powers, but instead, focused on his own imprisonment, escape and new beginning. He told the men how he and others lived upon Gray Mountain in hope of starting a kingdom both new and just, and how he felt it was his responsibility to travel Ephanlarea to find others who needed freedom.
“I’m here to help you escape, and to offer you the same new beginning that I was given. A new beginning under a new philosophy.” Everheart pulled his shirt back and revealed his tattoo of the Everflame.
“And that is?” asked Eric.
“This is the Everflame; the symbol of my new beginning. On the mountain, we keep it burning eternally. The flame symbolizes our spirit, by which we live. I’ve spent too much time living by the will of men whose hearts are black and devoid of spirit. This tattoo is a reminder that I will never do that again. I have come here to help you free yourselves as I have freed myself. I’ll be leaving here soon, with or without you.”
“And why do you assume you can break out of Chreos so easily?”
“Because I fight for myself. Those who block my way, fight for a man they hate. Their hearts are darkened, mine is afire.”
“And you have a plan?” asked Eric.
“I’ll conjure one if I have to, but I’m willing to wager that you already have one.”
“How could you know that?”
“I’ve been a prisoner, Eric. Prisoners always have a plan. Sometimes you just need someone to motivate you.”
•••
Eric promised to lay his plan out for the men the following day. So, time passed in the dull light, and eventually the prisoners found sleep at the end of the day. Everheart found himself waking in the middle of the dark night, and thought he heard Eric’s voice speaking with another man in hushed tones. He wondered what the following day might bring, but something inside of him believed he could trust these prisoners. They had had their lives thrown into chaos for the whims of a madman. No man wished to live by the rules of another, unless it was by choice.
A meager breakfast was provided in the morning; crust of bread and water. Eric gathered the men around and told him of his plan.
“As an archivist, you become very familiar with the citizens of a kingdom. You’re writing records of their births, or filing records of their marriages, or checking records of their debts. After a while, you know everyone, whether they know that you do or not. So, when you don’t recognize a face, it becomes obvious that they don’t live in Chreos.” Eric pointed at Steven. “That’s how I knew you were a stranger.
“Now, it’s not always a remarkable event to see a strange face. In past years, many travelers came to Chreos, so it was common to see people that I didn’t know. However, there was one instance where a stranger’s face stood out to me and left an impression. It was a few years back, when I saw him purchasing pomegranates in the market on the first day of winter. I’ll never really know why he caught my attention, but he did. His face was long and angled; his demeanor was very cold, almost absent. It seemed like he had brought the winter in with him.
“Now, as an archivist, part of my personal duties were to catalogue the shipping of cognac coming in from the village of Perth, where it was distilled. That very same day that I saw the cold man, I noticed that our shipment was five bottles shorter than usual. I brought the discrepancy to the attention of my superiors and was promptly told to forget about it. So, I did, but the following year, on the first day of winter, I again saw the cold man in the market purchasing pomegranates, and again our shipment of cognac was five bottles short. I don’t know why I remembered these things, but I did. I suppose it’s in my nature. It played upon my mind the whole day. There should have been no reason for me to see a correlation between the two things, but my curiosity got the best of me.
“The next day, a young business owner in the west end of the Kingdom was found dead. Poisoned. And though death is not uncommon in Chreos, even murder, I wondered about it. I couldn’t help it. I remembered that the young business owner had recently been experiencing the looting of carpets from his store. He had filed official complaints, but nothing had come of it. It was a very strange affair, really. In fact, many people had said that the carpet seller would get drunk at nights and speak ill of the King. He would be in a tavern, raving about how he thought the King was behind the thievery of his carpets. He would say that the King did not like the fact that his carpet business was in direct competition with another seller of carpets that was a favorite of the King. The villagers tried to tell him that nothing good would come of his loose tongue, but the man would not stop. When he ended up dead, I decided to check the investment records, and surely enough, King Aplistia was an investor in the man’s competitors. I wondered at the possibility of the King being at fault for the man’s demise. It really wasn’t a shocking idea.
“So, what did these things have in common, I wondered? I went back one year in the death records, and was not surprised to see that a baker had died. The records showed suicide, but I doubted it. When I checked other records to confirm my suspicion that the King had been an investor in that man’s competitors as well, the puzzle began to piece itself together. I decided that if I saw the man buying pomegranates next year, I would follow him. So I waited, one whole year. On the first day of winter, I took leave from my job in the archives, feigning sickness, and I waited in the market for the cold man. On cue, the man arrived and purchased his pomegranates, so I followed him. He ended up at an abandoned house on the edge the Kingdom. I waited and I watched. Later in the day, a soldier delivered a package to the front steps of the house, but did not knock on the door. He merely set the package upon the steps and left. Minutes passed, and the man with the
cold face poked his head out of the door, looked over the streets, and then took the package inside. I moved around to steal a glimpse through a window and I was able to confirm my suspicion that the package was indeed the cognac that was missing from the shipment.
“At this point, I knew I had to see the thing through, so, I continued to wait. I stayed, staked out, watching that house until midnight. Finally, the man exited the house. He stunk of the cognac, but seemed to have not felt its effects. He walked straight and with purpose and I followed him through the streets of Chreos. It was only a few blocks away that he stopped in front of another house. It was dark and quiet inside, but the adornments on the outside suggested that it was occupied by at least one person. The cold man snuck inside the house, I heard a muffled scream, and then silence. The man exited the house, only moments later, and I again followed him as he ran all the way to the main courtyard. There, he walked over to the largest of the decorative fountains and turned a knob on the fountain. No one would have known it was a knob if they had not seen someone turn it. It just looked like another flourish in the design of the fountain. Once turned, a large, flat stone on the grounds of the courtyard lifted, revealing a small staircase that led underneath the courtyard. The man disappeared down that staircase, and after a moment, the stone fell back into place.
“The next day, the death was reported. Accidental drowning of a blacksmith in his bathtub, the report had said. I knew better. Again, I looked through the investment records to find that the King was the investor of a different blacksmith in that area of the Kingdom.” Eric shook his head in disappointment. “It is amazing what powerful people will do to retain that power, amazing and sickening. A few nights later, I tried the knob on the fountain for myself, and was rewarded for my curiosity with a night spent in the forest, just outside of the Kingdom. An underground escape passage was what I had found. How many of the King’s assassins had used it, I wondered.”
Everflame: The Complete Series Page 61
