“Wonderful, sir.”
“I tried to stay awake,” Grenn said as the door closed behind them. “Sieku’s not one for conversation.”
“It’s fine, you’re gonna need it.” A mechanization crawled on eight legs across a field to their left. Its body hung over the row it tended, spraying a mist at the dark soil. Sprouts had barely poked through the ground. “Time is against us—will be from this point forward.” He looked at Grenn, a certain friend in a world that had become so suddenly uncertain. “About what happened in the nether”—
Grenn watched him, his brow furrowed while he listened.
—“it’s a new master. Made o’ something different. Never seen anything like her before.”
“Her?”
Trent nodded. “The bitch could touch it—the Light, I mean. I don’t think she could use it, and it still hurt her, but she could withstand it. Infuse it with darkness and taint it.”
“Goddess. That’s—that’s fucked. What can we do?”
“I need a meeting with his Majesty, and then we move on to Karhaal. Getting there’ll be easy enough. I just hope it doesn’t take too long to get past it.”
“Karhaal.” Grenn nodded. “Yeah. And Keep’ll be fine without an emissary?”
“Sure. That little guy last night is the only one I’ve seen in months. And I don’t think she’ll be sending more here.”
“What makes you think”—
“A feeling,” Trent said. He slowed. His exchange with D’niqa played through his mind. “She asked me if I recognized her. I didn’t, before you ask, but it’s unnerving. There’s more to it, to her, and there was something else there—somethin I’m not seeing.” But what? Who? “It’s gonna get people killed.”
“You fought in the last War. To even have survived makes you—a legend. Surely others will answer Hollowman’s call. We can beat this again. Ancient Leynar, Karlians, we haven’t lost a War yet. There’s no reason to think this one’ll do us in.”
“Don’t put stock in our old achievements. They don’t matter much anymore, especially with what we already know.”
“We?” said Grenn. He stopped ten meters from the barn. “Trent, help me here. We can’t walk into Karhaal and expect them to just believe us. I know you’re part of the old guard, but”—he frowned—“Goddess, I wish I had more time.”
“Grenn, with this face”—Trent gestured to his own—“no one would accept I am who I say. That’s why I’ve got agenda past Karhaal, however murky that is right now. We’ve got to take it one serren’s nest at a time, but first, I can’t leave ‘til I get what I need”—he pointed to the barn—“out of there.”
The doors slid on well oiled tracks. “We can get your hammer on our way to Arnin,” Trent added as he stepped inside. Steel cylinders, the largest of them twenty-five meters across, served as hyperbaric and stasis chambers for his harvests. Displays on them showed several reports: temperature, oxygen density, humidity, current volume. One of the freezers read good for seventy-two more years. Trent’s mind parsed through mental checklists that no longer served him. “You have any affairs you need to tie up?”
“Personal or official?”
“Doesn’t matter.” They turned a corner toward a dead-end.
“A few things.”
“You can settle them while I’m at Arnin, then.” Trent wiped the wall at the aisle’s end. Smooth metal stretched all the way across its face. He stepped back and looked it over.
“Are you contemplating something?” asked Grenn.
“Piss off. It’s been a while since I set this up. The slot”—he opened a panel on a terminal behind them. “Ah.” A slit appeared between a red knob and a keypad, and Trent pushed the metal disc Sieku had given him into it. To his left, the metal depressurized and parted, and a door slid into the wall. He ducked into a passage that lit while he descended its stairs. Grenn followed. At the bottom, a plain door waited, unadorned. Trent pushed a button on its face to slide it away.
Inside, a cylindrical room gleamed as though lit by day, as dustless as when he’d last sealed it. In an apse to his right, a sheened suit of armor waited, pristine and enameled and covered in glyphs. A war hammer rested on pegs to his left, its head half as tall as a man. Trent said a short prayer to himself, quoting the words of their holy book: “Karli’i limi fon terrik e seti fonuh traanc, en yarm beji,” asking the Light for strength—serenity if nothing else.
He ran his thumb over a few symbols he’d inscribed into his chest piece. One rune he’d empowered for each greater demon destroyed by his own hand; the potential within those demons’ own souls had incised the armor. An ‘L’ right at the chest’s center reminded him of the night another Karlian had woken him and told him of the attack on the west coast of High Promise in Ieson. Their sister-chapter near Redater had already sustained heavy losses staving the demon invasion there. Jeom had advised them to prepare, despite their efforts, for the incursion to breach farther north. They’d fought like hell when it finally did.
“Fight like heaven,” he remembered a girl from his year had told him. A rune from the battle where she died blazed high on the plate’s left shoulder.
Regret threatened to consume him, not of his shirked duty, but of the twenty years he’d stolen for himself and of the world returning to the cusp of annihilation in that time. Those who’d died didn’t have the luxury of dodging the promise they’d made.
The gravity of what he’d done hadn’t occurred to him until years later. The War had made a different time, and by its end, the Council at Karhaal wanted the most decorated of them to fill the Grand Master’s vacancy. Karli Herself had made it so. The Grand Master didn’t wear ceremonial armor or wield a special weapon; the title only proved, for Trent at least, that he had killed more than anyone, nothing else.
He had changed, but the armor, what it meant, remained the same, untouched by time’s hard passage. Regardless of whether he felt worthy, I now must obey my Call—the words he’d said after he’d passed his trials. The answer sounded so plain now, so simple: do what others expect of him and make his peace with it later.
“Is this your hammer?” asked Grenn.
“Whose would it be if not mine?” Trent pulled on a pair of gauntlets that looked more like gloves before he stepped into a pair of leggings that folded around his thighs and calves and twisted shut.
“It’s impeccable. Looks better than mine.”
Trent hefted the chest piece from its support and turned it around to slink his arms through their holes.
Grenn watched him. “You still haven’t answered everything, Trent.”
“Ya wouldn’t have believed me until now—when I can prove it.” The chest piece unfolded onto his arms and joined the gauntlets. “You asked me who I am”—a back panel twisted into place and closed—“and if I was undercover.” From the pedestal at the room’s center, he picked up his copy of The Word of Karli and linked it to his belt. “I’m not here by duty or a sacred search. There’s nothing noble in what I’ve done. No one knows I’m here, and at that, most are probably sure I’m dead.”
The weight of Trent’s admittance hung in the air. He stopped next to his hammer and gripped its handle. When he raised it from its place, the runes on his armor and weapon lit pale blue.
He turned the weapon over and let the head drop to ground, where it landed with a forceful deng. “My name is Russell Hollowman, Grand Master of the Karlian Order and Defender of the Light on Coroth.” Trent held his hand in front of his face, his fingers straight as a blade, then he pulled them to his chest and away from himself. “And I made a vow to protect her until my dying breath.”
1
“I know I’m not on the itinerary today,” Trent said, pinching the bridge of his nose. Over the shoulder of the guard to whom he spoke, Arnin’s gate admitted its daily transit. The midwinter day had turned warm enough for sweat to bead on his brow. His hammer rested on the ground next to him.
The gate attendant had requested two guards
come out to see to the “… pumpkin farmer,” he’d said, “asking to see the king without an appointment.”
“The king’s indisposed for the course of the day,” said the senior of the two guards, a captain. She stood almost as tall as Trent and spoke with trained authority. “If you’re not on the schedule, you must come back later and-or take it up with your superior.” A bus on the street next to them sounded its horn and slotted into gear to move. Its exhaust messed with the coif of pixie-cut blonde hair on the captain’s head.
“I’ve told you as I told him”—Trent gestured to the man working gate access—“I have one superior, and She doesn’t take calls. Gives them, actually. You’re doing your jobs, I understand, but trust me that the king will see me. This can’t wait.”
The captain looked at him the way Rejin had the day before. Her eyes glowed, lined with enrichments that substituted for wearables, and she harbored a troubled look as her eyes darted around him. “And I’m telling you as he told you,” she said after half a dozen seconds. “The king has appointments scheduled all day. He’s already attending to an unanticipated arrival this morning.”
“What’s that?” Trent asked, honestly interested.
“Something about catching dragon poachers,” said the other guard. “Call themselves the Werebats or somethin”—
“It’s not important for Mr. Geno to know the specifics,” the captain said, scowling at the other guard, her voice keen. “Suffice with what we’ve already said. I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do for you.”
“Goddess alive,” said Trent. He hung his head backwards. The monoliths within the castle hung above him, and he lamented that close by, the most powerful man in the world needed to hear what others didn’t deem worthy of his ear. “There’s an easy way to settle this.” He pulled a sigil in the shape of a boar’s head off the spine of his copy of The Word of Karli. “Do this one thing for me, and if it doesn’t work, I’ll leave, no question.”
“I don’t think”—
“Take this to his Majesty”—Trent held up the sigil—“and tell him, ‘An empty twilight beckons.’” He looked at the guard from under his brow. “Can you do that?”
The captain glared at him while she considered. Her gaze flicked between Trent’s face and what he held.
“Think you can manage the words? Too complicated for ya?”
Her expression blanked. “You don’t have to be an asshole.”
When she tried to snatch the sigil from his hand, Trent held on and made sure the woman saw his face, which he kept devoid of any emotion, before he let go. “Can’t help it sometimes.”
The captain put the trinket in a pouch that hung from her shoulder. Before she turned, she said, “That armor’s rather obnoxious, by the way,” then she ducked into a postern, through which she and the other guard had arrived.
“She’s good,” said Trent.
The other guard let out a quick exhalation.
“Nice day, at least.”
“Speak for yourself.”
They stood for minutes in relative silence, save for transient tourists, who eyed Trent with relative interest, and passing cars and transport, some of which pulled into the queue in front of Arnin. Trent hoped that one of them would hold Grenn as a passenger, though he doubted the younger man would arrive any time soon. He’d hardly stopped his truck before Grenn stepped off the cabin forty-five minutes from the castle.
The young Karlian had questioned him the entire ride—no challenge, just genuine inquiry. Trent hadn’t minded, not with how ardent Grenn had become after he saw Trent’s true self through the monocle. He’d told Grenn in digest about his years in exile, how he’d started the search for his wife as Master of the Order but couldn’t handle juggling his search and his duty.
“Since Peacetime Masters rarely do any real work,” Trent had said, “I felt all right leaving. Believe me, I’ve felt remiss in that, especially after what you’ve told me of the king and the Priests.” It hadn’t been a casual vacancy, but Grenn didn’t need the details or the logic of his mind’s inner workings. Pumpkin farming had given him perfect cover and opportunity for travel. “Just told ‘em I was takin pumpkins over to Yarnle yonder or down to Befienne or wherever, and they let me go.”
Only at one point did Grenn quiet, when Trent said, “The last time I traveled was to Bohrzhan just after the Warlock uprising about five years ago.”
“I passed my trials about a year before,” said Grenn. “That was my first big assignment.”
“Huh. We might have seen each other if I’d gotten over there in time, but they wouldn’t clear travel for me until the uprising ended, despite my insistence. Goddess, I can’t even imagine—like a mini-War or something.”
Grenn nodded, chewing the inside of his cheek. “Something like that.”
Already the last twenty years almost felt like a delusion. His last connection to it, he’d sent home as soon as he stepped off its cabin.
The guard reached up to his ear. “Gods, you don’t have to yell.” His brow furrowed. “Slow down.” He waited. “Who, this guy?” The man looked at Trent. “You’re the one who kept him here. Really? His hammer too?” A moment passed. “First thing.” He lowered his hand. “Come with me,” he said to Trent, then he headed for the service entrance.
Trent picked up his hammer and followed. They ducked through a tunnel that passed through Arnin’s perimeter wall and came out the other side in the shadow of the Yarnle building.
“The king’s not at the Estates presently,” said the guard. “Dealing with the poaching matter.” They walked around the dark building to a corner, at which a plain door with no handle closed almost seamlessly into the wall. A group of reporters and photographers stood further on, their attention trained toward the main entrance. Drone cameras floated over them.
The guard pulled a flap on his gloved hand and swiped it past a black nub near the door’s right seam. A fraction of a second later, the door slid into the wall, and he stepped aside. “After you,” he said, then followed Trent inside and retook the lead. “We’ll be using a service elevator—to avoid the main floors and centrality of business.”
“Don’t want me to cause a disturbance,” Trent said. His hammer hung over his shoulder, and he stood half-a-head taller than the man who led him. “I understand.”
The elevator climbed, and while it did, Trent felt the guard’s gaze upon him. When he returned his own, the man stood face-forward until he finally said, “Wanted to be a Karlian, meself. Mum wouldn’t let me, though.”
That’s not really how it works, Trent wanted to say. “Probably a good thing,” he told the guard instead. “Heard they just got recalled.”
“Really? Is that why you’re here?”
Trent considered. “Yeah.”
“Must be somethin”—the door opened. The captain waited for them.
“Apologies for the inconvenience, Mr. Geno,” she said as Trent stepped off the elevator. “His Majesty will see you. Follow me, please.” She turned down the hallway. The other guard followed, too. “Return to your post, lieutenant.”
The lieutenant’s posture fell, but he followed her order.
Unlike Mazim, the international building’s interior looked plain, its halls a muted brown. Paintings and adornments hung on the walls and rested on pedestals through its halls—notably a brass bust of his Majesty’s however-many-greats uncle, a plaque under which read, ‘Founder of the Monarchy and Binder of Corothian Soil, King Unily, First of His Name, of House Breseway,’ and an abstract tapestry that didn’t look like anything, though keepers had kept it clean and vibrant. Trent’s feet skidded over maroon carpet in the otherwise unperturbed silence.
After two right corners, then a left, they came to a door that opened for the captain, then she stood aside. Across the hall from her, a portrait of a man with a mane of brown hair, who wore armor that looked identical to Trent’s, stood amongst a collection of shadows, his silhouette ablaze. Underneath the portrait, a long namepl
ate read: ‘Grand Master of the Karlian Order, Defender of the Light on Coroth, Russell Hollowman.’
Trent passed the captain, set his hammer on the smooth stone floor inside the room, and turned to face her. “Do you have my sigil?”
The captain shook her head. “I gave it to his Majesty as you requested, and he held onto it. I’m sure he’ll have it for you.” She raised her right hand to her ear. “He’ll be here presently.” She left Trent alone, and the door through which he’d entered shut.
A row of paintings of past monarchs hung across the room’s long wall. Below each portrait, a writer had etched an achievement, one that matched the room’s theme: The One World Room. As each monarch had added to the empire, so too read their effort in doing so.
Trent stopped in front of one where a handsome woman stared at the viewer, her mouth set into a thin line as severe as her cheekbones and the widow’s peak in her hairline. The text under her portrait read, ‘Her Majesty, Lord of Trumvist and Rokhshah, ruler of Yarnle during her reign, Queen Nadalie, Third of Her Name, first of House Breseway to claim land on the continent of Borliee.’
Behind him, a table ran the chamber’s length, two dozen chairs on either side. Here now, Trent didn’t feel as nervous as he thought he would.
The door at the room’s other end opened.
“I don’t care what they say they did,” Brech said, stopping halfway inside the door. He wore a blue button-up and pressed jeans. “Those people aren’t heroes, and the fact our guards allowed them into Arnin without official license should land them and our ‘hunters’ in jail.”
“They expect a reward, your Majesty,” a lady with a tight accent said, out of sight.
Brech raised his voice. “Those fuckers can suffice that I’m not holding them in contempt. They break the law and expect a reward for it? No one is outside of it. The Werebats are bandits, and as abhorrent as the people they caught are, we can’t honor those who take care of such matters by their own hands.”
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