The Forever Knight

by John Marco

  “All right,” I relented. “I’m sure that you told me only I could see you, but all right. So you’re powerful. You see the future, you can make fire with your hands and little stick figures come to life. What’s it all got to do with me? Or Cricket, even.”

  “Because we’re on this mission together,” said Malator. “Wherever it leads.”

  “But you know where it leads?” asked Cricket. “You can already tell?”

  “Ha! He won’t answer that,” I laughed. “Don’t ask him a direct question, Cricket. You can stick Malator with a dagger and pull out a corkscrew.”

  Malator reared back. “Untrue!” He lowered himself to face Cricket. “You have questions for me?”

  “I have nothing but questions,” sighed Cricket. “Can you help me remember who I am? Do you know?”

  “I do not,” said Malator. “If I were your Akari I could help you, perhaps. Whatever memories are locked in your mind would be mine to share. But I belong to Lukien.”

  Cricket grumbled, “Minikin wouldn’t let me have an Akari. Why not, if she knew it would help me?”

  “An Akari can make the blind see and the crippled walk,” answered Malator. “Without an Akari these things are impossible. But you can remember without my help. Minikin knew that.”

  “But I can’t!” said Cricket. “I try and try, but I can’t remember! Just little things, little pictures of things like the waterfall. If you have magic, you can help me, Malator. Could I borrow you from Lukien? Just for a bit?”

  I tried not to laugh. “It would be nice to be rid of you for awhile, Malator.”

  “I’m not joking,” said Cricket desperately. “I’m going mad trying to remember. I need help.”

  Malator put on his serious face. “We will help you,” he said. “Lukien and I together. And you, too. We’ll find out who you are, Cricket. Before this journey is done, you’ll remember everything.”

  I nodded, but when I turned to see Cricket her face was ashen. “What is it?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “I guess I’m afraid.” She studied Malator. “Should I be afraid, Malator?”

  All I could think of was what he’d just told me-how sometimes he lies to protect me. But Malator smiled so sweetly at Cricket that it seemed no harm would ever befall her.

  “You have Lukien, and Lukien has me,” he declared. “And even death cannot stop me.”

  17

  We reached the Dovra river that first afternoon, traveling north along its bank until nightfall, where we camped and fell asleep to the sound of rushing water. All that day the landscape shifted, changing constantly from rugged hills to flowered plains. Our horses drank thirstily at the river, and I was glad to finally have a landmark to follow. The Dovra would take us nearly all the way to Diriel’s castle in the mountains of Akyre. That night as we slept by the river, I dreamed I was alone on a boat on the Dovra, being stalked in the water by Fallon’s monster. I tried and tried to outrun the thing, crashing the boat as its tentacles dragged me under.

  I awoke with a gasp. Cricket was sleeping soundly next to me. The moon was high and morning was hours away, but I did not sleep again.

  * * *

  When day finally broke I was happy to be moving again. By now Cricket had grown accustomed to Malator’s voice in her head, and she spoke to him as if he were riding next to her, asking him questions about the life he had before he died, why the Akari helped the Inhumans, and all the other mysteries that I’d spent years trying to unravel. But Malator did not make himself visible while we rode. Instead he remained inside both our heads, sharing his voice with the two of us. When I half-jokingly asked him to conjure up a horse so he could ride with us, he sniffed at the notion.

  “What if someone saw me?” he asked.

  A fair answer, I supposed.

  Nevertheless we were an odd threesome-me in my bronze armor, Cricket on her pony, and Malator, a disembodied voice popping in and out of our heads. But no one questioned us because no one saw us, even on that second day as we reached the mountains. Except for some abandoned homesteads, the road along the river was empty, a soulless highway leading, it felt, to nowhere. Though the day started out cheerfully, we all lost our smiles when we saw the black mountains.

  Akyre. The flawed jewel of the Bitter Kingdoms.

  I slowed my horse. Diriel’s castle lay in the mountains. The river would take us to him. I studied the river, shocked to see the way it forked both north and east, crashing against the rocks in a churning tangle. I had never seen the like before. Cricket guided her pony toward the bank, up to the very edge of the tumult. Her lips trembled as her mind searched for something. Then suddenly, she sighed its name.

  “The Bloody Knot.” She nodded to herself. “That’s what it’s called.”

  I’d never heard those words, nor had I ever seen Cricket recognize a place before. I rode closer. “How do you know that?”

  “I remember,” she said. “This place where the rivers meet-it’s called the Bloody Knot.” She pointed east. “Kasse is that way. And behind us is Drin. This is where they border Akyre.”

  “That’s good. You see? Coming here has helped your memory. Can you think of anything else?”

  Her lips flattened into a thin smile as she strained to remember. She closed her eyes and held her breath. “I’m trying. .”

  “You must have come here once,” I suggested. “Or someone told you about it. Your parents, maybe?”

  “Maybe.” Cricket grunted in frustration. “I can’t think of it!”

  “You will,” I said gently. “But this is good. It’s a start.”

  She nodded as she stared into the river. “The water. That’s what makes me remember. Like the waterfall.”

  “Water?”

  “Lukien, when we’re done with Diriel, you’ll take me there, won’t you? I have to see it! I know it will help me remember.”

  “I told you, Cricket, I could have taken you to Sky Falls yesterday.”

  “I know, but it’s different now. I’m really starting to remember things, see?”

  “I’m glad for that,” I told her. “Really, I am. I promise-if everything goes all right with Diriel.”

  “No! That’s not what you said! You said you’d take me to Sky Falls when we’re done. That was our deal.”

  “And I will,” I said sternly, “if I can. Don’t forget, Cricket, that you’re the one who insisted we see Diriel first. Our mission and all that. You’re the squire, and I’m the knight, remember?”

  Cricket looked contrite. “I remember.” She pointed her pony back toward the road. “We should go.”

  “You’re trying to make me feel guilty,” I said. “I won’t. Not this time. This is important to me, Cricket.”

  “I know. Come on.”

  “Damn it!” I rode up hard and cut off her pony, making her look at me. “You can’t act like this. We’re riding into the teeth of the tiger, and I can’t have a squire who just dabbles at the job. Think about the mission. Think about something besides yourself. Think about me for a change!”

  Those last words slipped out before I could stop them. Cricket looked aghast, then hurt.

  “Huh?”

  “Are you brave? Or is it just an act? If you don’t have the stomach for this job you should have told me so back in Isowon.”

  “What? No. .”

  “I told you we’d go to Sky Falls when we can. I told you I’d try. But right now I have to go to Akyre. Not just so you can get your memories back. Not just for those condemned soldiers either.”

  “Lukien, I’m sorry-”

  “Just shut up and listen,” I snapped. It was all coming out of me now, and I didn’t want to stop. “This mission, this is my chance to do something good. That’s what knights-errant are supposed to do, right? But so far all I’ve done is get my neck broken and be tricked into helping Fallon fight his monster. But this is something big. Maybe Diriel will kill us on sight. But maybe he won’t. Maybe he’ll listen, and I can make peace for a change
instead of war. Just once I want to be a diplomat instead of a soldier.”

  Cricket said nothing. I couldn’t tell if she was embarrassed or shocked. Malator was quiet too. At that moment I would have gladly left them both behind.

  “I won’t leave you here, but I won’t turn back, either,” I told Cricket. “I’m going to Akyre. Right now. If you turn back that’s your choice. But don’t tell folks I sent you away.”

  Here’s how Cricket reminded me how young she was: She didn’t cry but struggled against her tears. She didn’t argue or curse me. She just looked at me, helpless.

  “I don’t want to leave,” she said, as her voice cracked. “I want to go with you.”

  “And we can talk about Sky Falls after this is done?”

  She nodded and wiped her cheeks with her palms. This is where I usually give in to her, I thought. Where I tell her I’m sorry. But not this time.

  “Good,” I said. “Now follow me. From now on I take the lead.”

  * * *

  We rode for nearly an hour more, until the mountains cast their shade upon us. The river bent eastward but the road bade us north, so we parted with the water and drove deeper into a sparse forest of stunted trees and rubble. With Cricket following and Malator silent, I studied the mountains looming ahead of us, watching as the road wound up the granite face toward Diriel’s castle. Yet there was no town to greet us, no hint of anyone along the way, and I began to doubt we were really in Akyre at all. Until at last I saw the flag.

  My one good eye is sharper than a hawk’s. I noticed the flapping bit of green long before Cricket did. Halfway up the mountain, upon what I realized now was a turret built into the stone, waved the flag of Akyre. A squint brought the castle into relief.

  “I see it,” I announced, pointing the way. “There.”

  Cricket looked harder, finally noticing the flag. “Yeah. You think they see us?”

  “Maybe not yet, but they will.” Except for the thin trees, we were out in the open. “We don’t want to hide anyway. Make them think we’re friends.”

  I didn’t ask Cricket if the castle looked familiar, or even if she was afraid. None of that mattered now. We rode straight and steady for the castle, each step drawing us higher as the road began sloping upwards. Now I could see the pitted walls of the place bulging out from the rock, the broken ramparts crenellated like old teeth. Two watchtowers stood at either end of the castle, one oddly shorter than the other and both caked with moss. A bridge connected the main gate to the road, a narrow passage of planks and ropes spanning a lethal gorge.

  “We have to cross that?” asked Cricket.

  Even from a distance, the bridge made her blanch. I pretended not to be bothered.

  “It just looks small from here,” I said. “It has to be safe.”

  “That place is crumbling, Lukien. Look at it.”

  “They get across somehow, Cricket. If they’re not afraid of it, neither will we be.”

  Cricket gave a groan but kept on following, up and up on the serpentine road. Finally the road leveled, spitting us onto a ledge high above the whistling gorge. Ahead waited the bridge, and beyond that Diriel’s castle. Now we could clearly see figures along the walls and watchtowers, armed men, mostly, staring at us. In the courtyard-if you could call it that-women toiled in a shriveled garden, their knees bloodied from the hardscrabble earth. A dozen naked men shoveled stones from an enormous ditch, each one chained by the neck to his neighbor. A one-armed sentry with a whip watched over the prisoners. At his feet a child drank from a water-filled hole.

  One look at the place, and I knew I’d made a mistake.

  “Cricket,” I said softly. “I want you to stay close to me. Don’t wander off, don’t say a word.”

  Cricket barely nodded. I guided her toward the bridge. On the other side a man waved a burning torch, shouting of our coming. The women and prisoners looked up. Cricket and I paused at the very edge of the bridge, taking one regrettable look down. Had the road really brought us up so high?

  “Lukien, if this thing breaks. . we’ll never survive!”

  Well, you won’t, I thought.

  More soldiers gathered along the crumbling walls, but all I could hear was the wind and the wild ululation of the man with the torch. I wasn’t sure if he was warning us off or inviting us across. But none of the soldiers moved to stop us. Sure the bridge would hold our horses, I urged Zephyr onto the span, then saw a figure scramble across the courtyard. A small, bizarre-looking thing, I thought at first it was a boy, running toward the bridge. He was dressed like a nobleman in a velvet cloak that didn’t fit him properly and a chain of office around his neck. His outrageous red hair reminded me of candy, but despite his clearly aged face he was barely taller than a toddler. He grabbed the ropes on the other side of the bridge, swung onto it like a monkey and stuck his face out.

  “Who are you?” he cried.

  Cricket peered at him in shock. “What is that? A man?”

  I’d spent too long with the Inhumans to be surprised-or offended-by any aspect of the human condition. “Respect,” I cautioned. “Remember, Minikin was small.”

  “Minikin was a friend, Lukien. That one looks like a lunatic.”

  “I am Lukien,” I called back. “From Liiria. May we come ahead?”

  “From the continent?” The man bounded onto the bridge, shaking it with his bouncing. “Yes, come across! The master will be happy and pleased! Most happy and pleased! Come! Don’t be afraid!”

  “Ask him if the bridge will hold us,” said Cricket.

  “And offend him? Don’t you think that’s implied by the invitation?”

  “Fine,” said Cricket. “You first then.”

  I had thought about surviving the fall. But I really didn’t think I could, not even with Malator’s help. Still, Zephyr didn’t blink at my order, putting one hoof in front of the other as I ordered him onto the bridge. The midget at the other end waved to encourage us.

  “This bridge is over a hundred years old!” he declared.

  “He’s bragging?” quipped Cricket. Halfway across, she hurried me by bumping the butt of my horse. I urged Zephyr a little more, eager to get across. The midget sent to greet us made way, taking the reins of my mount and looking overjoyed.

  “I’m Grecht,” he said. “Lukien! Oh, I’ve heard of you. Yes I have! The Bronze Knight comes to Akyre! So lovely, lovely. .”

  His babbling made me think Cricket was right. Insane. And starved by the look of him. All bones and skin and yellow eyes. Bands of cloth kept the velvet cloak he wore from tumbling down his legs and arms. I took a breath and tasted dust. The skeletal prisoners looked my way, wondering who’d wandered into their hell, barely able to carry themselves under the weight of their shared chain. Up along the battlements, the soldiers watched without blinking. Each wore an elaborate uniform of gray and crimson, some studded with ribbon, others threadbare and torn, their faces painted a skull-like white.

  Cricket and I dismounted. The tiny man took my sleeve and pulled.

  “Master knows you’re here,” he said excitedly. “No one ever comes here from the continent!”

  “Your name is Grecht?” I asked. “What happened here, Grecht?”

  The midget acted puzzled. “I don’t take your meaning. Is something wrong?”

  “This is Akyre, isn’t it?” asked Cricket. “This is where the king lives?”

  Grecht beamed. “Emperor! This is Diriel’s palace.”

  I gestured toward the prisoners. “And those men over there?”

  “Kassens.” Grecht spit on the ground. “Slaves now.”

  Sariyah had told us Kasse had fallen to Akyre. “Are there many?”

  “All of Kasse are our slaves now!” said Grecht proudly. “Working to rebuild Akyre after what they’ve done. Do not even look at them, Sir Lukien. Why should a nobleman soil his sight with shit?” He looked at Cricket. “My pardon, young lady. Who is your companion, Sir Lukien?”

  “My name is Cricket.”
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  “Cricket?” Grecht tittered. “From Liiria as well?”

  “No,” replied Cricket.

  “But from the continent? Master craves news from the continent. He awaits! Please come.” He dragged at my sleeve. “This way, please.”

  “Our horses.”

  “Yes, yes.”

  Grecht howled to the women in the pathetic garden. A pair of them dashed forward, brushing the dirt from their tattered dresses. The older one took the reins of my horse without even a glance, but the younger one, a few years older than Cricket maybe, locked eyes with her, her mouth falling open as she studied Cricket’s shiny hair.

  “Move!” barked Grecht and gave the girl a slap.

  “Hey!” hissed Cricket. “Don’t touch her!”

  Grecht reared back. “Girl?”

  “This is my squire,” I said quickly. “Too quick to anger, but she belongs to me.” I handed Cricket’s pony to the young one from the garden. “Take care of the animals. Hay and water if you have it. Grecht, please let us see your master now.”

  Grecht pulled up his flapping sleeves. He nodded anxiously and led us through the courtyard toward the lopsided gate, hanging open on its rusted hinges. The ancient place looked every bit its age, with moss climbing up the walls and slimy water trickling down. The crooked turrets that had somehow been blasted out of the mountain’s dour face suffocated the sunlight and flaked dust onto our heads. Once past the gate, the oily interior of the castle warmed us with fiery torches. Dogs and filthy children crowded us. Grecht kicked them aside. The walls of the cavernous hall still had outlines where tapestries and paintings had once hung. Now weapons clung to the bricks, mostly morning stars and blood-stained axes.

  And there were soldiers, lining the way to the open chamber at the end of the hall. Now I knew what had spooked that refugee boy. Now I knew why Sariyah had called them soulless.

  The Legion of the Lost.

  Their dead eyes watched us as we passed, their faces smeared with paint, their fingernails pale as they clutched their pikes and flails. White hair drooped beneath their battered helmets. No breath drew from their half-alive bodies, but there was sentience in their features still, some remaining spark of humanity that kept them in this world.