by Mok, DK
“I’m sorry; I didn’t know,” said Qara.
“He’s alive, isn’t he?” said Falon. “The strategists call it a ‘trust-building exercise’.”
“I don’t think it worked,” said Qara evenly, guiding Seris towards her horse.
“She could easily have killed you,” said Falon. “She didn’t.”
“What if she had?” snapped Seris.
“Then she’d have been arrested and the streets would be safer. Think of it as a bonding experience between you and your future travelling companion.”
“I think the only bonding that occurred was between me and the tree,” muttered Seris as Qara helped him onto her horse.
“Curious how none of the other challengers came back,” said Falon.
A memory suddenly fell into place, and Qara pulled the rumpled scroll from her belt. She unrolled the parchment and stared at the back, her gaze drawn to the bloody markings. She held it up to the fading light and saw the pattern emerge.
“I think she drew a map of where she left them,” said Qara quietly.
Falon gave a humourless smile as he circled his horse back into the forest.
“The last challenge wasn’t wit, Qara. It was conscience.”
There was no crowd the following day. The tournament was over, and no one really cared about pedantic details like who won.
Seris and Elhan waited outside the supervisor’s tent, the green and silver fabric stirring in the afternoon breeze. Seris stared rigidly ahead, doing his best to ignore the looks Elhan kept flicking his way.
“You’re not still angry about the tree thing, are you?” said Elhan.
Seris pressed his lips together, pretending he hadn’t heard her. He felt that his rope burns spoke for themselves.
Qara pushed aside the tent flap, her manner perfunctory.
“Prince Falon will see you now.”
Inside the roomy tent, Falon sat behind a broad desk. Several sheets of parchment lay neatly beside his folded hands. Qara stopped Elhan about fifteen feet from the desk, and indicated that Seris should continue forward. Elhan glanced at Qara with slightly narrowed eyes but made no protest.
“Congratulations, Elhan, winner of the Talgaran Tournament,” said Falon. “Your quest is to retrieve Prince Valamon, alive and unharmed. You will be accompanied by Seris, cleric of Eliantora.”
Falon handed a crisp sheet of parchment to Seris, the royal seal stamped beneath lines of handsome calligraphy.
“This will grant you unimpeded passage through Talgaran lands. This does not exempt you from the law. This does not exempt you from taxes and tolls. This does not entitle you to a discount on taxes and tolls. This document states that you are on official business and that all reasonable cooperation should be given to you. Good luck. That will be all.”
There was a moment of silence, and Seris had the surreal sensation of falling backwards off a cliff. He was really going on this quest. He was really going to travel with the Kali-Adelsa. He still wasn’t even sure what the Kali-Adelsa was, aside from psychotic and very, very fast.
“Prince Falon.” Elhan’s voice was like the purr of a very large, undead cat. “I was really hoping I’d get to meet your father.”
Falon raised cold, unreadable eyes to Elhan.
“But you’ll do,” said Elhan.
By the time Qara’s blade flashed from its scabbard, Elhan had already closed the gap to Falon, her broadsword inches from his chest. He remained calmly seated and perfectly still. Elhan let the moment hang, like a man at the gallows. Then, with an unpleasant smile, Elhan dropped the sword on Falon’s desk with a clang.
“A gift for King Delmar,” she said.
Qara took a single, meaningful step towards Elhan. Her sword was still drawn, her voice dangerously soft.
“The prince said that will be all.”
Elhan shrugged, tossing a smile to Falon as she sauntered from the tent. Seris shot Qara an uncertain look before following Elhan outside.
In the silent tent, Qara waited several moments before sheathing her sword. Falon stared at the bent battle sword on his desk, his expression stony.
“Your Highness?” said Qara.
“Do you recognise this sword, Corwen?”
Falon only ever used her estate title when things were going wrong. Qara leaned in and inspected the weapon.
“The crest is Harvil, isn’t it?” Then she realised. “Not—”
“This was Goron’s sword,” said Falon quietly.
Sir Goron.
Qara hadn’t thought of him for some time now, and a rush of guilt ached in her chest. Goron had been one of the king’s most trusted senior knights and a man of gentle honour. When he had failed to return from assignment over a year ago, there’d been considerable grief in the noble houses. However, the king had made it clear that neither Sir Goron nor his mission were to be spoken of.
“Do you know what Sir Goron was doing?” asked Qara.
Falon looked grimly at the twisted weapon.
“He was sent to kill the Kali-Adelsa.”
Seris stepped out of the tent, and found himself surrounded by four castle guards. He resisted the urge to point to Elhan and say, “She did it!”
“Cleric of Eliantora, Queen Nalan requests your presence,” said the senior guard.
“Can I come?” said Elhan, who was loitering near the tent in a rather unsettling manner.
The guard gave her a cool glare.
“You’re not permitted in the castle.”
Elhan’s eyes narrowed briefly, then she shrugged.
“I’ll come find you when I’m ready to leave.” She gave Seris a sinister smile. “Be ready.”
Elhan drifted into the late-afternoon bustle, and the guards ushered Seris beneath the massive portcullis into the castle grounds. Things had settled down since Seris had been here last, and the sense of impending doom had been replaced by an air of quiet denial.
They escorted Seris through narrow corridors and up steeply winding stairs, finally reaching the Queen’s Solar in the tower keep. The senior guard paused just inside the doorway.
“Your Majesty, presenting Seris, cleric of Eliantora.”
The guard bowed gracefully from the room, closing the door gently.
The large, airy chamber was like a fragment from another world. Tall, arched windows lined one wall, laced with swirls of gold filigree and paned with pale, frosted glass. No one had seen such windows in Talgaran before, and some said the queen had come from a land built of glass and daylight. Others said she liked to look upon a world she couldn’t touch. Others still said it was a damned good idea for keeping out the bugs.
A carved desk stood to one side, near several amaranthine velvet lounges. Delicately embroidered tapestries adorned the walls, and the faint scent of apricots and tea infused the air.
Queen Nalan stood by a window, bathed in the deep amber light of day’s end. Her skin was light olive, her dark hair swept up in intricate loops, adorned with silver clasps.
She turned vivid brown eyes towards Seris, and he bowed deeply.
“Your Majesty wished to see me?”
“You’ve been entrusted with the task of recovering Prince Valamon,” said Queen Nalan.
“I’ll do all in my power to return him safely to you.”
Queen Nalan was silent for a moment, looking out through one of the open windows, the pane of glass pushed out on a hinge. After a pause, she moved to the desk and gently lifted an object wrapped in oilskin.
“This appeared outside the castle gates this morning.” She handed the package to Seris. “It tangs of sorcery.”
Seris unwrapped the parcel and drew out a thin cotton nightshirt streaked with blood.
“It’s Valamon’s,” said Queen Nalan.
A sheaf of parchment had been tucked into the folds of the bloodied shirt.
Take down the flag over Algaris Castle by nightfall, for the life of your firstborn son.
The queen’s face was a mask of composure. Be
hind her, the sun was setting in a wash of red and gold.
“What will you do?” said Seris.
“The Talgaran banner will fly until the castle itself falls.”
“Even for your son?”
“I have another son,” said Queen Nalan.
Seris resisted the urge to do a double-take, and then resisted the urge to slap Queen Nalan across the face. Nonetheless, she caught his expression.
“It is not the duty of the king to be the heart of a nation. That falls to the artisans and the clerics. The king’s duty is to be the sword and the shield, the provider and the protector. It is the king’s duty to do what the heart cannot.”
Queen Nalan gently took the shirt back from Seris.
“It does not mean the king does not have a heart,” she said. “Only that he cannot follow it.”
Seris watched as the last edge of the sun dipped behind the hills. Queen Nalan’s expression softened slightly as she looked at the shirt in her hands.
“He’s my son,” she said quietly.
Seris couldn’t tell if it was affection or disappointment in her voice, or perhaps a touch of both. A terrible fatigue seemed to sweep over the queen, her powder unable to hide the hollows in her face.
“Is there anything else I can do for Your Majesty?” said Seris gently.
Queen Nalan turned away, staring steadily at the flickering stars.
“Just find Valamon.”
Seris was lost in sombre thoughts as the guards escorted him back through the castle. Like most people, there were times he envied the royal family—for example, when trying to bathe in a bucket of cold water, or while haggling over a malformed sweet potato. However, one thing he valued in his own humble life was the emotional simplicity. There were no morally grey “common good” decisions to be made. No loved ones to be sacrificed for the pride of the empire. Sacrifice was something you made, not something you did to other people.
It was at this point that Seris noticed they weren’t heading back the way they’d come, and the castle exit didn’t seem to be getting any closer. He did, however, recognise the door the guards had stopped at.
“Prince Falon would like to see you,” said the guard.
Seris did not return the feeling.
There was something about Falon that made him nervous. Admittedly, a lot of things made Seris nervous. It came with having to avoid anything Eliantora considered a cardinal transgression, including eating things shaped like butterflies and standing on one leg for more than forty-five seconds.
However, Seris had the uneasy feeling that beneath Falon’s cool detachment lay something dangerous waiting to erupt. When it came to sacrificing people for the common good, Seris had no doubt that Falon was his mother’s son.
Seris found Falon alone in the study, sitting on the edge of his desk, leafing through a leather-bound tome. Falon looked up as Seris entered, and waited until the door closed behind him.
“Lord Qara mentioned you had some questions,” said Falon.
Seris wondered why Lord Qara wasn’t here to answer them.
“The Kali-Adelsa.”
Falon gave Seris a measured look, full of rapid judgements.
“If you got out more, you’d know the story.”
“Humour me.”
Falon placed the book beside him on the table.
“So story has it,” said Falon with a thin smile, “there was once a girl, just a child, who was cursed by the powerful sorcerer Olrios. This girl roamed the land, wreaking havoc wherever she went, and she became known as the Kali-Adelsa. The Accursed One.”
“Cursed in what way?”
The lamplight seemed to flicker.
“Olrios’s words were this.” Falon’s voice grew soft and deep as he recited the verse:
In blood is mortal bargain struck,
Trade love and trust for strength and luck.
No peace you’ll know while on this path
’Til curse is broken by the heart.
A veil of shadows seemed to skitter over the walls, as though a residue of sorcery remained in the mere words.
“A bit twee, isn’t it?” said Seris finally.
Falon shrugged. “You know sorcerers.”
“The last bit doesn’t even rhyme.”
“I think people being cursed don’t pay much attention to that.”
Seris traced the words in his mind.
“What exactly does it mean?”
“Olrios wasn’t very specific with his curses. Half the time, you couldn’t tell if he was cursing or cussing.”
“Why did he curse her?”
“Who knows why sorcerers do anything?” said Falon. “Half the time, it’s because of some childhood trauma, half the time, it’s because they can, and almost all the time, it’s because they’re mad as a runaway pudding. I trust we’re done with your questions?”
Falon’s tone vaguely suggested there was only one correct answer. Unfortunately, Seris was not in a compliant mood.
“Are you really sending that—I mean, her, after your brother?”
To Seris, it seemed akin to sending a rabid wolfhound to fetch a newborn baby.
“I’m glad you brought that up.” Falon rose to his feet with an expression that Seris found deeply unnerving. “You see, Seris, we need to have a common understanding.”
Seris suddenly had a feeling he knew why Qara wasn’t here, and that it was related to why she hadn’t known about the instructions on the scroll.
“What kind of…understanding?”
“You’ve seen what she can do,” said Falon. “You know what she’s capable of.”
Seris tried not the think of ruptured organs and trails of blood.
“You can’t have someone like that just running around. Who not only could kill the king but might one day try, just because she feels like it.”
Seris noticed that the battered broadsword from earlier now rested on Falon’s desk, a polishing cloth beside it.
“What are you asking me to do?” said Seris, not particularly wanting to know.
“Without the curse, Elhan is just another peasant girl with a temper.”
“You want me to break the curse?” said Seris carefully—bad things happened when cryptic instructions weren’t clarified.
“That’s the preferred solution, but there are others. I think you know what’s at stake.”
Seris wasn’t sure whether or not to take this as a threat, and he suspected that was intentional. Falon traced a hand along the bent blade of the broadsword, his attention already moving on from Seris.
“In some ways, she’s as much a victim as those who die around her,” said Falon. “I’ll tell Lord Qara you said goodbye.”
Before Seris had a chance to ask anything further or protest that he’d rather say goodbye to Qara personally, he found himself firmly escorted out by the guards.
They left him outside the castle gates, standing beneath a deepening twilight. Seris looked up at familiar constellations and wondered how long he’d be gone, or whether he’d make it back at all. He had a feeling that Falon had already rewritten the census to show only two clerics of Eliantora remaining. Which reminded him that he had some goodbyes to make.
They had come for his shirt that morning. Valamon had woken to the sound of Amoriel and Barrat arguing in low voices outside his cell. When they eventually turned their attention to him, they’d demanded he hand over his shirt. He’d remained hunched in the far corner of the cell until Amoriel snapped, “Just send one of his fingers instead,” at which point he’d sent his balled-up shirt flying through the bars.
However, as Valamon crouched on the freezing floor later that evening, he decided that if they came for his trousers, he’d make a stand—finger or no finger. Not that there was much room in the cell to stand, let alone fight. The cell was roughly the size of a bed, with a patch of damp straw in one corner and a bucket in the other. Iron bars ran down the front of the cell, and a heavy lock secured the small gate.
&
nbsp; The cell was shallow enough for someone at the bars to poke him with a staff, which Amoriel had done for the first three days. Thankfully, she’d tired of that.
However, what concerned Valamon the most was that there didn’t seem to be any other prisoners in the dungeons—at least, not on this level. Pressing against the bars, he could see empty cells lining the corridor, doors rusted shut, floors layered with dust. Although Valamon was grateful for the privacy, he was less enthusiastic about the fact that the gaoler seemed to occasionally forget that there was anyone down here. No one had brought him any food for the past two days, and he was starting to wonder whether anyone was going to.
Valamon pondered whether he could waste away enough to slip through the bars without actually starving to death, and he placed his head experimentally against the pitted bars. However, this line of thought was interrupted when the door at the end of the corridor grated open and several sets of footsteps marched down the hall. Long shadows flickered in the torchlight, and Valamon rose stiffly to his feet as Lord Haska appeared, flanked by Amoriel and Barrat.
Barrat tossed a tattered grey shirt through the bars. It looked as though it had been ripped from the back of a beggar who no longer needed it on account of being dead. Valamon slid it over his head warily, aware that his visitors were probably not here to tell him this was all some big misunderstanding.
“Did you want to make him sing, or dance, or swallow swords?” said Amoriel. “I’m sure you have a long list, Lord Haska.”
Haska looked at Valamon with eyes that burned with barely repressed violence.
“Some privacy,” said Haska, her voice even.
“Is that a good idea, Lord Haska?” Barrat’s tone suggested this was only phrased as a question out of courtesy.
“He’s harmless,” said Haska.
“That’s not what I meant.”
Haska’s eye may have twitched.
“I won’t forget myself, General.”
Amoriel and Barrat exchanged a look as they left, and the iron door swung shut behind them. Haska took a step towards the bars, the undulating torchlight intensifying the grimace of her half-mask.
