by John Marco
“Cursed,” Aral whispered. “Like me.” He picked up his tankard and drank a deep mouthful, enjoying its soothing burn. In a minute the beer was gone. Aral fished into his threadbare trousers and pulled out another coin. Slapping it down loudly on the table, he called for the barman to bring him another. The fat proprietor obliged, eager to keep his only customer drinking, and set a fresh tankard with a foaming head down in front of Aral. He took the coins and, at no extra charge, gave the young man a sympathetic look. Aral scowled at him.
“Something you want to say to me?”
The barman replied, “I’m sorry about what happened to your newborn.”
Aral looked down, ashamed to face the man. “It’s the way of the Fate.”
The barman sighed. “It’s a shame, though. She finally carried this one the whole way. To have it die so suddenly . . .”
“It’s over,” snapped Aral. He felt his face redden suddenly, not with rage but with guilt. “There’s nothing to be done about it now.”
The barman went back to work, leaving Aral sulking at the corner table. Aral watched him suspiciously. He didn’t suspect anything, did he? The idea made his heart race. And anyway it was hardly murder. More like a mercy killing, really. For farmers like Aral, having a girl child was disappointment enough, but having a blind one was unthinkable. Just another mouth to feed, and no help tending the crops. Vara, Aral’s wife, had insisted that she could be taught to clean house when she got older, but what kind of daughter was that, banging around blindly with a broom? He needed sons. Or at least daughters with open eyes.
Aral picked up his mug and found that his hand was shaking. With his other hand he tried to still it.
“Damn it,” he hissed. “Damn everything.”
He went back to drinking.
A minute later, the door of the Red Lion opened, letting in an unwelcome gust of wind. On the threshold stood two figures, one a giant, tall and wide, the other a woman, short as a child. Aral blinked at the sight of them. The woman wore a long coat of patchwork leather, colorful and dramatic. She stood barely four feet tall in her tiny shoes, and her eyes lit the room with cold radiance. The man towered over her, a great brute with a bald head and broken teeth that hung over his slack jaw in an overbite. Aral had never seen anything like him, or his miniature friend. Neither, apparently, had the barman. The sight of them made the proprietor drop a glass, sending broken shards skimming across the bar. The little woman took notice of his shock and smiled.
“Oops! Careful now,” she chirped.
She had a dazzling smile, unnaturally bright. The many colors of her coat seemed to move around her. Aral shook his head, sure that the drink had gotten to him. He suddenly felt nauseous. He pushed aside his drink, watching as the tiny woman and her beastly companion entered the inn. The giant stayed a pace behind the woman, his wide shoulders hunched, his broad back slightly curved. The little woman walked lightly toward the back of the inn, near the fire. Of all the empty tables, she chose the one next to Aral. She and her companion each pulled out chairs and sat down. The barman stared at them.
“I . . . uh. . . . Can I get you something?”
The woman looked over at Aral’s table and gave him the most disquieting grin. “We’ll have what he’s having.”
Aral’s head continued to swim, yet he could not bring himself to look away from the strangers. The woman was remarkably small, with long white hair and a peculiar face set with elfin features. Two bewitching eyes looked back at him, deep and uncannily black. As the barkeep brought them their drinks, Aral finally managed to pull his gaze free of the pair. He stared down at his drink, hoping the woman wasn’t watching, but when he lifted his head again he discovered those mocking eyes, studying him.
“What?” he asked defensively.
The woman didn’t answer. Her monstrous companion hardly stirred.
“Please,” Aral said. “Stop staring.”
But the woman didn’t stop. Instead she casually opened her patchwork coat, revealing a curious amulet around her neck. Hanging from a chain of braided gold, the amulet blinked like an monstrous eye, its ruby gemstone twinkling in the firelight. Aral stared at it, mesmerized. His nausea left him immediately, replaced by a sudden warmth. It was the drink, he told himself. Good, soothing ale.
“Yes,” said the woman. “It’s the drink.”
Aral puzzled over her statement. Had he spoken? He hadn’t thought so.
“Aral Vale,” the woman whispered. “That’s your name?”
Aral nodded. Somehow, she knew him.
“Oh, I know a great deal about you, Aral Vale,” said the little woman. Aral could barely hear her. Her words were soft, like a breeze, sounding only in his head. He wondered if the barkeep was listening. Remarkably, the woman answered his query.
“He can’t hear us,” she said. “I’m talking only to you.”
She was talking, yet she wasn’t talking. Her lips moved as if by illusion. Aral watched the amulet around her neck. It was pricelessly beautiful. It seemed to pulsate as she spoke, echoing her words. He suddenly felt giddy, completely unafraid. They were an odd looking pair, but he didn’t feel threatened by them—not the way he had when he’d first seen them. The woman had a gentle look about her and the man, if that’s what he could be called, never said a word.
“Trog doesn’t speak,” the woman explained. She continued to scrutinize him, her eyes narrowing. “You have been here a long time, Aral Vale. You were difficult to find. But then, men who are hiding are often difficult to find.”
Aral stiffened. “I’m not hiding.”
“You have a wife at home who worries over you.”
“That’s none of your business. I just want to be alone. To think.”
The little woman’s black eyes flared. “Yes. You have much to think about, don’t you?”
Aral’s puzzlement grew. He lifted his gaze from the amulet, back toward the stranger’s face. Her mute companion brooded over him, his jaw slack, his breathing raspy. Aral noticed the barkeep across the room absently cleaning glasses with a rag, pretending not to be listening.
“Who are you?” Aral whispered. “How do you know me?”
“It’s not important,” replied the woman. She sat back and closed her coat, shutting away the amulet and its radiance. Instantly, Aral grew alarmed as reality snapped back into focus. He coughed, shaking his head, sure that the ale had sickened him. The woman was no longer staring. Instead she and her companion sipped their drinks, ignoring him. The woman made small talk, chuckling convivially. Aral loosened his collar. The room was very warm and he felt flushed. He tried to relax and catch his breath.
“Barkeep,” called the woman. She banged her tankard on the table. “Another, please.”
The proprietor drew another ale and brought it to their table. As he set it down, the woman said to him, “You have a nice place here.”
“Thank you,” replied the man suspiciously.
“Koth is very nice.”
“Yes.” He shrugged. “It is nice here.”
Aral couldn’t help but overhear their strange conversation. He toyed with his drink, pretending not to care.
“Such a tragedy at the castle, though,” the woman continued. She spoke too loudly, deliberately raising her voice.
The barkeep frowned. “Tragedy? What would that be?”
“Hadn’t you heard? The castle has a new baby. One of the king’s servants gave birth just the other evening.” The woman shook her head as if it were the saddest thing in the world. “Deformed.”
“Is that right? I wouldn’t know much about the castle folk.” The barkeep laughed. “They don’t come in here much! How do you know about it?”
The woman slowly turned toward Aral. “Oh, I make it my business to know such things,” she said softly.
The barman shrugged and strode away. Aral swallowed hard under the woman’s accusing gaze.
“What are you staring at?” he demanded. His tone finally got the big man to stir
. The woman held up a hand to keep her companion down.
“No, Trog, it’s all right,” she said. Her expression lost all its prior grace, and her little mouth curled back in a snarl. “Like I said, I make it my business to know things about the children born around here. And I know what you did, Aral Vale.”
Aral could bear no more. He rose from the table, shoving back his chair so hard that it tumbled over, and headed for the door. He was eager to be away from the bizarre woman, eager to escape her incriminating gaze. Pushing open the door, the night and its cold air swallowed him instantly. He took a deep, cleansing breath, then ran down the abandoned street, fleeing the Red Lion and its freakish patrons.
Aral walked for an hour more, ignoring the chill and the lateness of the hour. A breeze blew down the avenue, sending bits of rubbish tumbling toward him, and the candles in the windows above had all been snuffed out long ago, lending the street an eerie stillness. In the distance, Akeela’s castle rose above the common housing, sending a moonlit shadow over the city. Aral considered the castle. He was sick with himself, sick with what he had done, and he thought about the words of the odd woman in the inn, and how a deformed baby had been born within the castle’s walls. An epidemic of bad luck had hit the city, apparently, and he wondered what the parents of the newborn felt. Rage? Enough to drive them to . . .
“Forget it,” he growled. It was done, and he wouldn’t torture himself about it. It was time to go home.
He rounded a corner and headed to the south side of the city, where he hoped to catch a carriage home to his farm. He was far too tired to walk the whole way again, and he had just enough money left to pay the fare. Moving quickly, he went the way most familiar to him, heading for the alley that would shorten his time. He was in a bleak part of Koth, where the buildings were close together and smelled of decay. As he reached the alley, the slime-covered walls of the structures rose up around him. He closed his collar around his throat and decided to hurry. The alley was long and narrow and spattered with garbage. The rain barrels along the gutters gurgled with filthy water from the rooftops after last night’s downpour. Aral quickened his pace, but before he took another step he saw something up ahead, a shimmering along the left-hand wall. His heart began to pound. Out of the wall, or emerging from its shadow, stepped the woman from the Red Lion. Her patchwork coat writhed around her, changing colors, mimicking the alley. She stepped out into the center of the street, facing Aral, and once again the fractured smile appeared.
“You left before we finished our conversation.”
Aral panicked. He whirled to dash away, but discovered the monstrous bald man behind him, blocking his path. The behemoth stalked toward him, his arms outstretched. Aral stumbled backward. The woman remained in front of him. Determined to push her aside, he turned and started toward her—until she opened her coat.
The amulet around her neck glowed furiously. Aral’s feet stuck to the floor, glued in place by its compelling aura. A strangling terror seized him. He tried to scream but couldn’t, and soon the big man was upon him, wrapping his massive arms around his chest and pulling him from the ground. Aral struggled but his attacker was impossibly strong, and his iron grip squeezed the air from Aral’s lungs. He lifted Aral effortlessly, hauling him toward one of the rain barrels. The little woman scurried alongside them, looking up at Aral as he squirmed.
“You shouldn’t have done it,” she said. Her face was set with sad anger. “There was no reason to kill her.”
Aral finally found his voice. “I had to!” he screamed. “Please!”
“Had to? An infant?”
“Yes! She was blind! She would have been nothing!”
“She would have been your daughter,” snapped the woman.
They had stopped near one of the rain barrels. Aral lay pinned over the giant’s shoulder, unable to break free. His terror peaked.
“Don’t do it!” he pleaded. “Don’t!”
The tiny woman sighed dolefully. “People like you make my work so much harder,” she said. “Now you will learn a lesson, Aral Vale. We are all beautiful in the eyes of God.”
With a small nod from his mistress, the giant took hold of Aral, inverting him and plunging him headfirst into the barrel. Cold water rushed down his throat; blackness enveloped him. He screamed, releasing a stream of bubbles. The giant’s viselike grip held his legs, driving him again and again against the bottom of the barrel. Aral felt his lungs exploding, then watched an image of his wife flash before him, cradling their newborn daughter.
It was the last thought he had before dying.
6
After a week of easy travel, Akeela arrived home to Koth.
The capital city of Liiria gleamed like a white diamond at his homecoming, the spring sun setting it alight with the pure glow of morning. It had been an uneventful journey for the young king and his party of Chargers, except for a minor detour forced by the swelling river Kryss. The solitude had given Akeela time to consider things, too, like his peace with Reec and his perfect new wife. For the first time Akeela could remember, his life was flawless. He missed his father, but that emptiness was ebbing fast, filled by the day-to-day burdens of kingship. Now he reveled in his title and in the sweeping changes he intended to make. He had daydreamed throughout his entire journey home, whistling while he rode with his comrade and soldier, Breck, and staring up at the stars at night, looking for Cassandra’s face. But he had never really found her in the heavens, because she was more beautiful than that, and no constellation could rival her. He was already lovestruck and he knew it, and despite Lukien’s warnings, he planned to give his love to Cassandra completely.
As Akeela approached Koth, his heralds rode forward to the castle, informing them of his arrival. He had a huge staff in Lionkeep, just as his father had before him, because Liiria had interests varied and wide, and there were always civil servants needed to attend the minutiae of government. Akeela sat up in his saddle—as tall as he could—as he entered the city. Beside him, Breck’s face shone with pride, an emotion reflected by all in their company.
“You’re a hero, my lord,” said Breck. “It took your father years before anyone called him that, and you’ve done it in mere months.” The cavalryman raised his face to the sun, now almost hidden behind the alabaster structures of Koth. “It’s good to be home.”
“Home is always the best place,” agreed Akeela.
Koth had not yet fully awakened. An hour past dawn, the city was only now rubbing sleep from its eyes. Shopkeepers began opening their doors, dragging tables of linens and other wares into the avenue, and a spring breeze sent the signs of the inns and taverns along Capital Street swinging. Early rising bankers rode in carriages from their posh homes on the west side for the money-lending south district, where the bulk of crucial commerce took place. It was the bankers who had donated the lion’s share of gold to Akeela’s gift chest. Eager to open new avenues of trade, they were among the new king’s most ardent supporters. As Akeela and his men rode into the city, he watched as the carriages and their well heeled occupants stopped to wave at him. Like all of Liiria, they had heard the news of his success in Hes and were overjoyed. Akeela smiled and nodded at them, careful not to seem too boyish. The bankers, his father had always said, couldn’t be trusted when the money dried up.
Aside from the carriages and shopkeepers, Capital Street was mostly deserted, affording Akeela’s company ample room to maneuver their armored horses and wagons. The street fingered off in all directions, leading to the affluent west side and the squalid northern districts, and, most importantly, to Chancellery Square. There, in the center of the city stood Lionkeep, Akeela’s residence. And around the royal castle, circling it like vultures, were the Chancelleries. Here the countless ministers and bureaucrats bickered and bartered and supposedly made Liirian life easier with their logjams. It was where the War Chancellery stood in a stout building of brick and black iron, and where the Chancellery of Treasure towered nearly as tall as Lionkeep itsel
f, an edifice of gold leaf and marble gargoyles. Next to the Treasury stood the House of Dukes, a five-storied fortress of quarried rock and the home of Baron Thorin Glass, the House’s minister. There, huddled around tables of oiled oak, the landowners of Liiria drank expensive wine and occasionally made important decisions. The sight of the House of Dukes soured Akeela’s good mood. Baron Glass had been his major critic since he’d ascended the throne, always opposed to the changes Akeela wanted to make.
But today, Akeela wasn’t interested in the bold baron. He kept his eyes locked on Lionkeep. The royal residence had housed his family for more than a century, and had been built when Liiria was young, carved from the continent by wars and treaties. Koth, having been the only town of real consequence, had been named capital of the new nation, and Lionkeep had been constructed shortly thereafter. For the people of Liiria, who worshipped many gods and so had no national temples, Lionkeep was something of a church, a holy relic to be revered. Unlike Reec or Marn or Liiria’s other neighbors, the Liirians were a mixed bag of peoples. When the nation was new it had attracted tradesmen and pilgrims from across the continent, promising a good life away from the wars plaguing the world. In the dreams of its founders, Liiria was to be a place of peace and opportunity.
Akeela’s mood continued to slip as he rode toward Lionkeep. His forefather kings hadn’t fulfilled the vision of the founders. For them, it wasn’t long before the good days of peace were replaced by war. Constant border skirmishes and broken treaties had turned Liiria into little more than its neighbors, one more country struggling toward the future. The thought made Akeela grit his teeth.
