Light in the Gloaming (The Gloaming Book One)

by J. B. Simmons

  Chapter 22

  THE SCALE TIPS

  “The tree of liberty must be

  refreshed from time to time,

  With the blood of patriots and tyrants.

  It is its natural manure.”

  The sky was full of amorphous clouds, the kind that Jon loved to watch. He laid on the grass of the palace grounds, looking for shapes in the soft wonderland above. A breeze rustled leaves in the trees above and played on his skin.

  As he enjoyed the dappled light, he caught sight of a large cloud splitting in two. The smaller piece of the cloud seemed to have ripped itself out, as if determined to find its own plot of sky for itself. The breakaway cloud drifted towards another, even larger cloud. The larger cloud looked like it had fingers reaching out to seize the approaching cloud. As the smaller cloud touched the edges of the larger mass, the combination was immediate. The massive fluff had engulfed the assault of the little cloud, as if the separation had never existed at all.

  Jon rose to a sitting position, assuring himself that the clouds signaled nothing. Still, he could not shake a growing anxiety. He wished Wren were around. He had hardly seen his brother since their knighting in Albemarle, and not at all since leaving Icaria. Jon thought Wren would probably rather be in their store than lying in the grass. If he were in Jon’s position now, Wren would turn his ambition to forecasting every move that Tryst and all the other players might make.

  But that was Wren. Jon could not bring himself to overthink his task today. The weather was beautiful. Just as there were divisions in the sky, divisions would soon rip through Valemidas. Rather than worrying about the others, Jon tried to focus on his own duty.

  He walked through the grounds, towards the palace’s central keep looming above him. Here there was a natural sanctuary of ancient trees within the stone walls. Something about the trees, and the soft grass underneath, helped ease Jon’s concerns. As much as the city churned, these grounds remained in balance year after year.

  As Jon stepped into the small amphitheater where the Prince and nobles would soon meet, he paused to admire the place. Wedged between the palace grounds’ towering trees and the central keep, the meeting site had witnessed much of Valemidas’ political history.

  It was a small venue for such events, a snug fit for a hundred people. The flat ground gave way to steeply sloping stone benches carved into the earth. The bowl was cut in half by the keep’s walls looming almost a hundred feet above, forming the back of the amphitheater. The bottom of the bowl was perhaps ten paces across, and in its center rose a small platform, half as tall as a man.

  Everything about the design was simple, functional. Yet the spot gained grandeur from its setting. Stuck between the walls and the trees, the semi-circle felt hidden, submerged in the ground. And usually it was ignored, except when the nobles called upon the Prince. Custom demanded that they do that no more than twice a year, but it was said the nobles never needed to call the best princes for such a formal audience.

  A few nobles had begun to gather and take their places on the lower benches. Jon made his way to the platform. Last night the nobles had joined Tryst for a feast to celebrate the victories over Icaria and the renewed allegiance of Albemarle. Jon had been there, and had tried to steady Tryst when he got heavy into the wine.

  The prince had been in a rage about his missing sister Lorien, but he had been too proud to announce that she was gone. He probably figured that her flight had something to do with Andor. Jon thought Tryst was probably right, but the prince had been keeping him too close for him to learn what Andor, Wren, and the others were planning.

  Tryst’s celebration with the nobles had fallen flat. While Tryst was declaring victory, the nobles were complaining about how Valemidas had already changed, and for the worse, since Tryst became prince. Tryst seemed to have been too lost in his anger, vanity, and drink to notice it. Even with Jon’s limited knowledge of the nobles’ politics, it was clear to him that discontent had been sown among them while Tryst was away.

  The witness accounts of Andor’s return had fueled that discontent. Some of the nobles had loved Andor and had been grieved upon his disappearance. Jon guessed they would support him now, if he were to return. Certainly the man who raised him, Sir Davosman, would.

  Jon watched the nobles as they steadily filled the amphitheater. He stood on the platform, leaning against the stone wall that rose far above him. From that perch, he could see that something was amiss. By the time most nobles had arrived, there was an eager, rebellious tone to their interactions. Jon thought of a pack of hyenas, ready to attack a wounded lion.

  The bells of the palace’s chapel began to sound midday. The chimes resonated in the amphitheater. The last bell rang and left an echo in the air. Just as the echo faded, the sound of a trumpet boomed into the bowl.

  Tryst walked in from the right. His head was lifted, proud, triumphant. He wore his usual black. Striding purposefully, he came to the front of the platform, without gifting anyone with eye contact. He jumped onto the platform and took three steps to stand in front of the lone chair. It was a simple stone block, set in the middle of the platform, with the keep’s wall serving as its back. The seat afforded a view of everyone in the amphitheater.

  Trailing behind Tryst was the rest of his Knight’s Council. Jon realized immediately that he should have walked in with them. Hopefully Tryst would not care. Jon had hardly been a knight for two months, and Tryst had many other things on his mind.

  Jon felt out of place as the nine other members of the Council, in full armor, approached in a formal line. They fanned out into positions along Tryst’s right and left. Jon went to join them as they fell into rank, becoming the knight furthest to Tryst’s left.

  While Tryst took his seat, the knights remained standing, poised for action. The nobles settled into their seats with growing unease, casting furtive glances at each other. Silence lingered and the space seemed to shrink, with everyone enclosed within this normally peaceful nook of the palace grounds.

  After another eternal minute of watching the nobles fidget, Tryst finally spoke. “This is your show, nobles. You called it, you run it. What do you want of me?” His voice dripped of contemptuous amusement. His body did the same, as he lounged back, relaxing as if he had not the faintest concern. Jon could not imagine how anyone could find comfort in the stone chair, but Tryst seemed more comfortable in his skin than anyone Jon had ever known.

  More time passed in silence. There were little movements and occasional whispers among the nobles, but nobody took action. Nobody said a word that could be heard on the platform. Jon began to feel rigid from the inaction and the rising anxiety of it all. Tryst continued to look like this was the most normal thing in the world.

  At long last the bells of the chapel rang again, followed by one last ring to announce the first hour of the afternoon. That final bell echoed in the amphitheater. Tryst sprang to his feet, and the nobles jerked up as well. All were standing as the sound of the bell faded.

  “You are due another hour here.” Tryst took a step forward. The nobles leaned backward. “Why are you wasting my time, the people’s time?” The threat in his voice was thinly veiled. As he stepped to the edge of the platform, the nobles pressed back into their seats, trembling. “Answer me. Answer for yourselves.”

  Silence again. Tryst pulled his sword out and motioned for his knights to advance.

  “You have never had an answer for the prince or the people. You are pompous leeches, sucking the life out of our great city. The people do not need you. I have heard their desires. They want order and meaning in their lives. They do not care for your histories and customs. We live for today and the future, not the past. You nobles are a dead people to them.” His voice continued to rise, in volume and in intensity.

  “This will be the last day you call upon me, the last day you can claim to have power separate from the people. They elected me prince. You are no longer necessary. Kneel and give up your titles now, or you will no
t leave here alive—”

  One of the nobles yelled out before Tryst could say another word. “A prince may never threaten the nobles!”

  The response shocked Jon and even seemed to catch Tryst off guard. “Who said that?” The prince demanded. “Men of the Lycurgus emerge!” He called out beyond the amphitheater.

  Most of the nobles stayed seated in fear, but a handful stepped forward confidently. Justus Davosman was standing in the front.

  The next few seconds splintered around Jon. Soldiers flooded into the amphitheater, charging from the grounds. They looked like men of the Lycurgus. Jon had no idea who was friend or foe, but he knew his duty: to protect the prince.

  To his right, the prince’s knights broke into fighting among themselves. He thought he saw Ulysses, who had been beside Tryst, dive at the prince and send them tumbling off the platform.

  He pulled out his sword and ran towards Tryst. Without pause he leapt off the raised platform and landed in the middle of a group of soldiers. They were advancing in phalanx—their huge shields becoming a wall that encircled the prince. Outside the ring, Jon saw others fighting for their lives. One of Tryst’s knights had crossbow bolts pinned into his torso. Around him lay the bodies of several men.

  Jon turned again and saw that Tryst had broken the line of men around him.

  “Tryst!” Jon yelled as he ran towards the Prince.

  Tryst saw him and pointed toward the exit of the amphitheater as he ran up the stairs. Jon caught up as two of Tryst’s other knights charged ahead at the next wall of shielded men.

  The first knight to reach the phalanx rolled below the wall’s protruding spears and slashed upward, throwing a few men back. Tryst, Jon, and the other knight seized the instant and carved into the gap in the shields. They had broken through this line as well, but a group of crossbowmen stood between them and escape. The phalanx continued collapsing around them. Jon focused on deflecting every assault at Tryst.

  With Tryst at his side, Jon never lost confidence that they would get out. The Prince’s black figure was everywhere, followed by the blur of his sword. Zarathus no longer shone—it was covered in blood.

  Tryst darted around the crossbowmen to try to find another way out. More and more men were surrounding them. Jon and Tryst dodged attacks and sliced their way into the onslaught.

  Just as they reached the top of the bowl, Jon thought he saw Wren. Then a shout stopped him cold.

  “I am the Prince!”

  Jon heard the voice come from behind him. The bellow filled the amphitheater. Turning, Jon saw Andor standing before the stone throne. Most of the fighting had ended.

  “Stand down, Tryst!”

  Jon knelt cautiously for his true prince, but kept his sword at the ready. The men around him had just been trying to kill him.

  Tryst stood beside Jon, staring into the bowl at Andor. He turned and looked down into Jon’s eyes and clasped his shoulder as if to say thanks for fighting at his side. He then reached up slowly and slid off the crown. His black hair fell flat, moist from the fight and no longer framed in silver. Jon thought he saw a bittersweet light flicker across Tryst’s solemn face as he fell to his knees.

  “A prince will never threaten the nobles,” Andor declared to everyone in the amphitheater. He pointed at the usurper.

  “You, Tryst, have violated their trust and your oath to serve. I have returned and stand ready to retake the throne that you stole.”

  Jon scanned the crowd. The knights loyal to Tryst seemed to have all been cut down. The other soldiers seemed to be obeying Andor. Most of the nobles had fled their seats in apparent shock and terror. Perhaps a dozen stood confidently, gazing at Andor. Six nobles had been bound by soldiers. The standing ones must have set the stage for Andor’s return, Jon thought.

  There was clearly much plotting that he had missed, just as Tryst had.

  ***

  Father Yates stood beside Andor with a look of approval. He had counseled Andor that this should not be a revolution. It was important to preserve order and tradition. An uprising or a revolt would be too much. It left a taste in peoples’ mouths. Once people had that taste, they remembered it. They could dwell on the possibility of change, if only for change’s sake.

  Between change and tradition, Father Yates had explained, tradition was the better course. He knew it was a hard lesson for a prince, but that made it all the more important.

  Andor had agreed without much debate. He seemed more ready to agree with Father Yates on many more things since his time in the Gloaming. The old priest had not hesitated in blessing this plan of Andor’s for returning to the throne. The hardest part was still to come.

  As he looked out into the amphitheater, Yates was reminded again why tradition was so vital. There were too many dead bodies here today. Sometimes people would die for the greater good, but that truth did not make it any easier for him to see the losses.

  This change had followed custom as closely as it could. It was not a coup; Tryst had forced himself to stand down by his own choices. A prince cannot be prince without the nobles, Father Yates thought somberly as he lifted his arms to announce Andor as prince, for the second time.

  Chapter 23

  DESCENT INTO DARKNESS

  “He has to live in the midst

  of the incomprehensible,

  which is detestable.

  And it has a fascination, too,

  which goes to work upon him.

  The fascination of the abomination.

  Imagine the growing regrets,

  the longing to escape,

  the powerless disgust,

  the surrender, the hate.”

  I was alone and naked except for tattered trousers, ropes tied to my arms, and honey and feathers layered over my body. It did not matter that familiar faces were staring at me. I ignored them as I stood before a gaping pit in the ground. The Gloaming.

  A guard behind me whispered in my ear that he had loosened the ropes, but that I should wait to pull my arms free. He said he was following Andor’s orders and was passing along his message: Stay alive. I will come.

  Andor always wanted to control everything, even my imprisonment. I should have known sooner that he had returned, but how could I when those I trusted turned against me? Once he showed up in Icaria, I knew my control over the Lycurgus was slipping. By then it was too late, but I still had not expected him to move so quickly.

  Many knights and soldiers must have felt the vestiges of fealty to him. Word of his return, and his survival against my blade, had fueled their disloyalty against me. The nobles should have stayed on my side, but Ramzi had ruined that while I was away from Valemidas. I had tried to act first, calling my knights to action against the nobles. Andor had set that stage against me.

  Thoughts of what I could have done better tormented me. I tried not to think of Ravien’s betrayal; it still hurt the worst. Instead, I focused on Wren, Sebastian, and the rest of them—they would die slow deaths at my hand. So would the nobles. They would pay for humiliating me, parading me around the main square covered in honey so the incited people could throw feathers and whatever else at me. Ramzi had fared worse, as only his head on a pike was given the honor and parading.

  Sycophants turned torturers, the nobles had confirmed that I was right to try to eliminate their authority. Andor feigned kindness to intervene on my behalf to stop the nobles and my humiliation before the people. I would comply with Andor’s suggestion of staying alive, but only so that I could kill him. If he had managed to escape this place, then I would too.

  That thirst for revenge gave me focus as the guard pushed me into the pit. I slid down a pitch-black tube and landed in a metal box. The floor gave way moments later and I crashed down onto a pile of rot and bones.

  The smell of death and decay hit me immediately. The light was barely more than night, like the moment when the last of the sun’s warmth retreats. I had just gotten my feet under me and the ropes off my arms when dozens of figures emerged fr
om the darkness.

  Kneeling, expectant, I wished the feathers on my back could take the form of wings. I was the fallen angel, awaiting the demons. A group of men began to circle me like feverish rats. Each one was gaunt and gray, with a ravenous look in his eyes and a wariness of everyone around him.

  The first few men came straight at me. I grabbed a bone from the pile. It was the length of my thigh and rivaled some of the others’ crude bludgeons. I picked up a second, shorter bone in my left hand, for good measure.

  Moving off the rotting mound, I spun away from the first assailant and swung the longer bone into the back of his head. I always marveled at the fanaticism of a first attacker. It took guts to be the first to die.

  Two more men closed on me. I rolled under their reckless attacks. A swiping blow to the back of one’s knees brought him down. I punched upward as I stood, smashing the shorter weapon into the other man’s head.

  By the time I had caught a breath, an instinct of fear hit me for the first time. No matter how weak they were individually, a large enough mob would swallow me. Mobs are like mindless swamps. If you force them to flow in a narrow channel, you can steer them clear of the oaks.

  In this swamp, danger was coming from every direction at once. The circling figures were closing in on me, rushing at me. At first, some of the men stood back until they saw a weakness. Now they seemed to be charging in unison.

  I moved into spinning attacks and landed many blows before anyone touched me. I swung at faces, legs, and arms. I found a flow within the dimness. Each figure became like a straw training man to me. If I moved fast enough, they were not moving. The onslaught continued and danced around the open square.

  Men kept coming relentlessly, and I felt the first tinges of fatigue. It had been many hours since my last food and drink. Each man I fought drained strength, and they came without end. I had taken out at least ten before they began to swarm over me.

  Instead of attacking, they seemed to be trying to bite and lick at me. I had thought they were trying to kill me because of who I am, but their motive was becoming clear. They were starving, and I was covered in food. My desperation swelled at the grotesqueness.