Wandering Lark

by Laura J Underwood

  He stayed hunkered in the crenelations for a time, watching the movements of the guards, testing the wind with his senses. Then he crawled onto the walkway and across the flagstones of the roof, staying low like a serpent. On the far side, he reached a wall where there were high thin windows. One quick glance back and forth to assure him that all was well and he began to crawl up the wall again.

  The windows were awfully narrow, and a tiny part of him almost panicked when he started to thrust his entire body through the slit. Too small, too small, he thought. But his body did not share his opinion. Well, it is just a dream, he told himself. He slithered through the gap and into a dark room that was on a higher level than the outer space he had crossed. There he crouched on the floor to make certain he was not seen then slowly, he rose to his height. He felt thinner and taller for some reason, and his body now took on the appearance of shadows as he glanced about the room.

  Though there was no light, he could see that he was in a circular chamber, and his eyes picked up the pattern of the floor beneath his feet. He could see glyphs in great abundance, all surrounding a central space wherein a trunk sat. He carefully walked the edge of the markings, noticing that some of them felt hostile even from here.

  This is not a place I want to be, he thought. I should not be here at all...

  But it’s just a dream. Remember? Alaric tried not to frown because that last thought he was certain had not been his own. Still, it was just a dream...wasn’t it? He certainly didn’t seem to have any control of what he was doing at the moment.

  Like now.

  He turned and crawled up the wall.

  What am I going to do now?

  His head twisted around at what seemed like an impossible angle. Then he glanced upward at the dome of the ceiling where a painting not unlike the one in the great hall decorated the marble. To his amazement, he started to crawl up that dome as he had crawled up the wall.

  Why am I not falling?

  He reached the very center of the dome, dangling on all fours like a fly, looking down at the chest below. Then he fell and he thought he was going to be hurt when his body flipped over gracefully. He somersaulted and landed on his feet beside the chest.

  He was inside the markings now. Carefully, he walked around the chest, studying the intricate knotwork carvings in the white wood. As far as he could tell, there was no keyhole, no handle, not even a hinge. Yet his hand seemed to know what to do. He reached down and followed one of the patterns with his fingers. Touching certain markings in a particular order caused the lid to rise.

  And then he reached into the depths of the chest and drew out a fold of black velvet. Pulling the edges back, his eyes perceived the crystal dagger Talena had almost used on King Culann.

  Alaric felt himself smile.

  “Now, my revenge will be complete,” he heard himself whisper.

  He drew the crystal dagger out of the velvet and laid it at his feet. Then he folded the velvet and returned it to the chest, and touching several of the patterns again, he watched the lid close. He took up the dagger and pressed it flat against his chest. It became like liquid and adhered there as though it were part of him.

  Crawling up on top of the chest, he sprang for the ceiling, and to his surprise, as soon as his hands touched it, he was able to hold on and not fall. From there, he crawled back down the dome to the wall and slipped through one of the narrow windows. He waited just long enough for the guards to pass before he slithered across the roof and between the crenelations and down the wall to his own balcony.

  Stepping back inside, he crossed over to the bed. There he crawled under the cover. The moisture of the dagger was soaking into him. He could feel its weight inside his chest just under the skin as he lay there looking up at the roof.

  Then closing his eyes, he thought, What a strange dream, and sank into a deeper sleep.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  Talena had walked the chamber a hundred times seeking a way out, and except for that door and those high windows, there was nothing she could use. She tried willing keys and swords and daggers to appear in her hands. Tried willing the windows to drop to easy reach. She even tried willing herself to clamber up the slick surface of the wall. But no matter how much she tried, all she could do was call food and chamberpots and bedding and chairs. And wine. At least she could conjure a good Synalian wine.

  Weary of waiting for that mysterious voice to return, she curled up in her pallet to sleep.

  How long she had slept was not something she could figure out, but there was suddenly the awareness of not being along. With a gasp, she reached for a weapon that was not there, and whipped into an upright position.

  There was a woman sitting in the chair in the center of the room. She was watching Talena with eyes as pale as crystals.

  “I told you I would return when the others were asleep,” she whispered. Her long white hair played about her shoulders like water and wind were capturing it. And there was something of a sparkle to her. Scales?

  Talena blinked. “Who are you?”

  “I am called She Who Sits at the Center of All Things,” the woman replied.

  With a sigh, Talena leaned back against the wall. “What do you want? How did you get in here? Why are you here?”

  “So many questions,” the woman said and smiled. “Look for the answers in yourself, child.”

  “I’m not a child,” Talena said and sprang to her feet. And realized that this woman was quite tall. And that her robes almost resembled the wings of dragons the way they shimmered and shifted in the trails of moonlight seeping down from above. “And I do not like riddles...”

  The woman arched one eyebrow. Fine and thin and white it was, like all the rest of her.

  “Yet you are a riddle, my child,” she said. “Your two bloods war in you. You hear the heart of Ymir, and you would pretend that you cannot... You would avenge those who brought you into this world, yet you would deny the heritage they left within you.”

  Talena sank back down on the pallet. “What do you want?”

  “I want you to remember,” the woman said. “For if you remember, then the door will open, and you will be free.”

  Talena frowned. “Free from what? Free from this prison? Free from this land...”

  “This land is in your blood,” the woman said. “Why deny it?”

  “Because where I come from, the Temple Patriarchs will burn you for being from this land,” Talena said. “They will break into your house and steal you away and leave your children to hide in the corners until your husband comes and...”

  The white-skinned woman suddenly looked very sad. “Yes, I know what they did to your mother,” she said. “And I know that in your heart, you hate them and want to destroy them all for taking her life, then killing your father when he came to avenge her. But revenge is never the answer. Knowledge is real power. To know. To remember. If you truly wish to help your people, then you must remember first. And you must accept and become what you are. What you have always been.”

  “How?” Talena said. “Desura tried to do so, and look what happened to her. They took her and turned her into a monster. Now she finds others like herself and tells the Temple where they are and...”

  The woman closed her eyes and drew a circle in the air with one hand. A silvered glass appeared, larger than the one Talena had carried on her person.

  “But in her last moments, she remembered,” the woman said.

  “Her last moments?” Talena drew off the pallet and crossed the chamber to stand before the suspended circle of the mirror. She saw Desura at her scrying stone...saw her bleeding into the water. “No,” Talena said softly. “What is wrong with her...?”

  The white woman did not answer. Instead, her eyes stayed closed as the scene played out. Desura taken to her bed. The Lord Patriarch coming to her side...the fire that consumed him and Desura’s life when she spoke a single word... A word that Talena had given her when she heard Lark use it.

  Talena shra
nk back from the mirror.

  The white woman gently brushed the silvered glass circle out of existence. When she opened her pale eyes, a tear was forming on one of her opalescent cheeks.

  “I am sorry,” she said softly.

  “I killed her...”

  “No,” the white woman said. “She made her sacrifice. She has shifted and saved a piece of the Balance by doing so...”

  “What are you?” Talena snapped. She rushed at the woman in white, swinging fists, but before she could arrive, the eldritch creature vanished like smoke.

  Talena sank to the floor. No, no, no! It could not be true! Desura could not be dead...

  And yet, even as she thought that, Talena knew that it had to be true.

  She crawled back onto the pallet and cried herself to sleep, grieving for the cousin she had loved and hated, because that cousin had sacrificed her live doing what Talena had sworn to do.

  Alaric awoke feeling stiff. Horns, he felt like he had actually been crawling around on the walls like he had in his dream. He rolled over on his back with a moan and started to throw back his blankets...

  Where are my clothes?

  He sat up, rubbing sleep from his eyes. His clothes were laid across the foot of the enormous bed and as he stared at them, he had no clue as to how they had gotten there. He certainly didn’t remember removing them.

  “Vagner?” he called.

  The demon was slumped in the corner, and at his name, he awoke with a snort and glanced back and forth. Alaric rubbed his own head and waited for the demon to realize there was no danger present.

  “I thought demons didn’t sleep,” Alaric said.

  “No, never, not as a rule,” Vagner said then looked around again. “I was asleep, wasn’t I?”

  “Yes, you were,” Alaric said.

  “Sorry,” Vagner said. “I don’t think anyone bothered us, though.”

  Alaric rubbed his chest. His breastbone felt bigger than he remembered.

  “Just what did I do last night?” he asked.

  “Besides wear yourself out trying to find Talena?”

  Alaric frowned. “After,” he said.

  Vagner shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. I remember nothing past you lying down to sleep.”

  “So you have no idea how my clothes got off me and down there?”

  “Am I supposed to?” the demon asked, looking uncertain.

  “Well, it would help me if you did,” Alaric said. He rubbed his breastbone again. It felt thicker at the point between his breasts. Longer too. He looked down, trying to see if he had injured himself in some fashion. Didn’t he put something there in his dream?

  Like a dagger.

  He would have said something aloud, but there was a general bustling at his door. Someone knocked loudly. Alaric snatched up his clothes, pulled the blankets to his chin and said, “Yes?”

  The doors fell open, and in marched King Culann.

  “Ah, good, you’re up,” the king said. “I hope you slept well...”

  Alaric nodded. “Thank you,” he said as he peered back towards the door. He saw no sign of an entourage following the king. That was unusual, a king unaccompanied by at least a man-at-arms. Then again, in this land, many things were clearly unusual. “Is there...something I can do for your majesty?”

  “Well, you can get dressed and come to breakfast, and then you can accompany me on my morning ride.”

  “Your morning ride?” Alaric repeated. “Well, of course, but I do not have a horse, as I am sure you have been told...” He glanced at Vagner. “Not at any more at any rate.”

  “I have horses aplenty,” King Culann said. “I can mount you on something as genteel as butter or something as wild as lightning. The choice is yours. I’ll meet you down in the great hall. This early, my queen and her company will still be abed. She is not much of a morning person.” He winked conspiratorially.

  Alaric wanted to say “Neither am I,” but decided it might not be taken in the right spirit.

  “Very well. I shall get dressed and be down quickly.”

  “Good lad,” King Culann said and started for the door.

  Lad? Alaric mused. And then remembered how old the king claimed to be and kept his thoughts to himself.

  King Culann hurried out of the chamber. Alaric rose from his bed, still rubbing his chest, and pulled on his clothes.

  “No lightning,” he said and he and Vagner headed for the door. “But nothing so gentle as butter.”

  “I never thought butter was all that gentle,” the demon said as he followed.

  Alaric laughed. At least, in spite of last night’s weird dreams, his sense of humor was still intact.

  Fenelon would be pleased to know that.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  They crossed the ford and reached the village of Warrenvale half a day earlier than they expected. Partly because Fenelon, once he got his wind back insisted on pushing the pace. Gareth started to think his son was doing this just to annoy him. But he kept that to himself. Fenelon was always a strong walker once he got going. For all his city ways, he was a natural out in the wild. Of that, Gareth could be certain.

  Warrenvale was aptly named, for the township was laid out in an irregular warren of streets, many running in a circle around other roads leading to a central point like a rabbit’s grazing area. It made for haphazard construction as well. There were places where the houses were so close together, no man could ride mounted, but had to trek single file on foot, and woe be if he met a man going to other way.

  Hobbler found them an inn whose painted sign revealed a leaning mountain and the name Wall Brace, so called because it sat against a cliff that loomed over it at an angle.

  “Are we sure that’s not going to fall on us in the night?” Fenelon asked.

  Gareth looked at the overhang and wondered if Fenelon was right.

  “It’s perfectly safe,” Hobbler said.

  “So long as you don’t snore?” Fenelon teased the Dvergar.

  Hobbler rolled his eyes towards Gareth. “Does he know any jests that have nothing to do with me or my height?”

  “Ignore him,” Gareth said. “As long as there is a nice bed and a way to the pass, I don’t care.”

  “Well, the way to the pass is through here,” Hobbler said. “Or at least to the Blackbone Caverns. Wall Brace’s cellar is the entrance.”

  “Why?” Fenelon asked.

  “It’s the Dvergar way of doing things,” Hobbler said. “You start with a hole in the ground that you mine, and as time passes, you build housing and accommodations on top of it. The inn becomes a protective door to the hole in the ground.”

  “But not every inn and tavern we’ve encountered in these mountains has been built that way.”

  Hobbler shook his head. “That’s because not every tavern and inn starts as a hole in the wall. Though some of them become that any way.”

  Fenelon chuckled.

  “Well, let’s get inside and find out what the toll is,” Gareth said.

  “The toll?” Fenelon said.

  “Oh, aye, there’s always a toll,” Gareth said. “You don’t just go walking into a hole in the ground without the proper toll...”

  “There is no other way into this Blackbone Cavern, then?” Fenelon asked.

  Gareth shrugged. “Possibly, but do you really want to waste more time wandering around in the mountains trying to find one? Sometimes, even the Dvergar don’t know where they all are.”

  “No, but we come close to knowing that,” Hobbler said. “But no, there is no other way. The Blackbone Caverns is full of coal, and in turn, it was once harvested of diamonds.”

  “Coal?” Fenelon said.

  “It’s an oily black rock that actually burns if you set it on fire,” Gareth said. “Makes some pretty nasty smoke. The Dvergar sometimes use it for fuel in their fireplaces.”

  “Every Dvergar worth his salt knows that where you find coal, you find diamonds,” Hobbler said.

  “You’ll
see for yourself once we get inside,” Gareth said.

  “I can hardly wait,” Fenelon said in a voice that meant otherwise.

  Hobbler headed into the Wall Brace, holding the door for Gareth and Fenelon. They had to duck under a low lintel that was not designed even for men of normal height, and inside, the ceiling was not much better. Gareth was craning his neck at an angle as he followed Hobbler towards the bar.

  The master of this house was an ancient white-haired Dvergar with one eye and no teeth. Battle scars marked every inch of his heavily muscled arms. Behind him on the wall were a shield and an axe, and on the shield was the ancient symbol that Gareth recognized as the Haxon rune for thorn. Thurisaz...Thunor’s rune. The Dvergar was clearly a follower of the Hammer God of the ancient Haxons. He cleaned his cups by spitting into them and then wiping them with the hem of his apron. Gareth grinned when he saw Fenelon blanch.

  “Don’t worry,” Gareth whispered. “The taste of the ale alone would kill any nastiness the landlord leaves behind.”

  Fenelon sighed.

  “Hoi, Great Grandfather,” Hobbler said as he approached the bar. “What’s the going rate to enter the Blackbones these days?”

  The landlord sniffed and wiped his nose with his apron, revealing that several of his fingers were missing on one hand. “Depends,” he said. “Who’s for the caverns?”

  “My friends and I, of course,” Hobbler said and gestured to Gareth and Fenelon. “They heard there were diamonds in there, and wanted a look.”

  The landlord chuckled and shook his head. “Long legs and their greed,” he sputtered. “The going rate is a gold sgillinn for each head over the height of the door they stand next to.”

  “Well, that means I go in for free, but my guess will be that it will cost each of these men the price of two heads each,” Hobbler said cheerfully.

  Fenelon started to protest, but Gareth took his arms and frowned in a manner he hoped would convey that Hobbler needed to handle this part of the transaction.