Tangled Engagements (The Memory Stones Series Book 4)

by Jeffrey Quyle

  “Go on in,” the granitine interrupted his woolgathering. He opened the door to leave the parlor, and found that he was in an office, a sparsely decorated space with a desk and a table and chairs, without much else.

  “We apologize, but the caravans haven’t brought enough furniture for us to furnish every room yet, and since you weren’t here, we didn’t focus on your needs, until now,” his stony companion explained.

  “I won’t be here very long. There’s no reason to worry,” Theus dismissed the creature’s worry. He looked at the door that led out of the office. “There’s more?” he asked.

  “This is the third greatest suite, after the queen’s and the steward’s,” the granitine replied. “The queen insisted that you be given a set of rooms close to hers; she resides at the end of the hall, the next door down.”

  Theus listened as he also opened the next door, and finally found the spacious bedroom that was his, with a bathing room evident through another door.

  “All of this is mine?” Theus asked in wonder. He thought back to the small farmhouse where his parents and he and all his siblings had lived; it had been half the size of the suite he now possessed. Even the barn had been smaller than the palace rooms given to him.

  “Yes, my lord. This is all yours. And now, would you care to receive visitors?” his guide asked.

  “I’d be happy to,” Theus replied jovially. “Can you go find any?”

  “You have one waiting for you to return to the palace, my lord,” the granitine surprised him be replying.

  “There is really a visitor?” Theus asked with a frown. “Let me go splash water on my face and I’ll see them. Where shall I see them?” he asked.

  “You may receive Prince Holco in any room, although the office seems most appropriate,” replied the servant, as he scuttled away. “I shall return shortly,” it added as it shot through the door, and then it was gone.

  “Holco, it's good to see you,” Theus spoke a moment later as the pair sat down at the table in the sparsely furnished office. “Have you had time to look around?”

  “I've seen a bit and wandered a bit,” the visiting prince replied. “I went looking for your sister's court, but I found she doesn't seem to have one,” he said with bemusement.

  “Thera's got her hands full trying to establish a kingdom,” Theus offered apologetically. “Even with Vanline as her steward, I'm sure she has much to do. And,” he offered, “we're not used to being royalty. She may not know she's supposed to have a court!”

  “There's no need to apologize,” Holco answered. “Some kingdoms that have courts aren't very well ruled,” he observed ruefully. “So maybe she's found a better way to be a monarch,” he gave a gentle laugh.

  “Besides her steward, does she have anyone helping her?” The prince asked in a casual tone.

  “Well, there's my mother, of course,” Theus offered. “My brothers and sisters probably try to help, but they're so young,” his voice trailed off, and he shrugged.

  “I see,” Holco said thoughtfully.

  “I've been absent for several weeks,” Theus clarified. “So, I don’t really know what is what.”

  “Oh, and she has the granitines as well, of course.”

  “Having been around a court most of my life, I think your sister would benefit from one simple thing,” Holco leaned forward as he spoke confidently.

  “What's that?” Theus asked with interest, expecting that the lifelong member of the Stoke royal family would offer something insightful and useful.

  “A ball!” Holco offered enthusiastically. “It would be a wonderful way to entertain and introduce these visitors and newcomers such as myself. And I'm sure it would be good for her as well. If she's been working so hard, she surely needs to have at least one evening when she can just relax and dance and enjoy herself as a woman, without all the worries of governance. Don't you think?” Holco spoke earnestly.

  The idea seemed odd to Theus, who had expected some governing insight that Thera might be able to adopt.

  “She's not exactly a woman,” he protested. “She's really just a girl.”

  “She looks like a woman,” Holco disagreed. “Perhaps you're too close to her to see who she is.”

  Theus slowly nodded his head. “Perhaps you're right.”

  “Enough of that,” Holco ended the conversation. “Now tell me, where is the armory?”

  It was a question Theus hadn't considered, but it immediately sparked his interest, and the pair left his suite in search of a place to practice blades.

  Gem, one of Theus's original granitine guides, was waiting outside his door. “I'm here to help you,” she explained. “Rocky thought that you should have assistance, now that you've returned home.”

  “We're looking for the armory,” Theus told her. “Can you direct us to one?”

  “Better than that, I will lead you to the palace armory. My lord steward Vanline insisted that it be furnished immediately,” Gem replied, then began moving down the hallway.

  Minutes later, following a straightforward journey, they arrived at a sparsely furnished room, and began brandishing the wooden practice swords. Forgon and Amelia soon found them, and Montuse discovered them minutes later.

  “Vanline will need to increase his supply of practice equipment,” Theus observed as two pairs of practicing partners used half of the equipment available.

  They took turns practicing with one another and giving lessons to Amelia, until a granitine summoned them to dinner, and they all hurried away to cleanse themselves.

  Later, they sat at the table with Thera and Allise and Vanline, as well as a few other residents of Limber.

  “Go on, make your proposal,” Holco urged Theus as the conversation and meal progressed.

  “What proposal is that?” Theus asked in confusion.

  “The ball you discussed with me this afternoon,” Holco replied. “My lady,” he turned to Allise, “did you know that you raised such a social creature? He made the rounds in Stoke regularly with,” the prince momentarily faltered, “with Forgon, didn’t he?” Holco asked the Great Forks nobleman, as he tried to avoid mentioning Coriae.

  “Theus was a dancer?” Allise asked with a raised eyebrow. “I wouldn't have guessed that. Did you practice your steps with the goat in the barn growing up on the farm?” She asked her son, raising gentle laughter from everyone including Theus.

  “I think a ball sounds like a marvelous idea,” Thera spoke with enthusiasm. “Vanline, do we have the items needed to hold one?”

  “I can't vouch for our supply of musicians,” he replied, “but we have plenty of everything else.”

  “We can be your musicians,” a granitine spoke up. “If we may have some instruction in the modern ways of music. We often served at the festivities of the old kingdom.”

  “I'll teach you tunes,” both Amelia and Holco offered, then looked at each other and grinned. After the meal, Theus walked his mother back to her quarters.

  “You're a different person from the boy who left our farm,” she said gently as they stood at her door. “Are you happy?” She asked. “I feel like I don’t know you anymore, except that I know the boy at the core of your soul, that good young man I raised.”

  “A part of me is happy,” he reflected. “I'm happy our family is together and in a wonderful situation,” he told her. “And I'll be happy when lord Limber heals me, and I'll be happier when I complete the last mission he will send me on.”

  “What healing do you need? I thought that you were the greatest healer in the world, from what people say,” Allise asked.

  “Let's enter my room,” she said, and they went in to take seats in her parlor.

  “I received this wound,” Theus removed his shirt, displaying the dark wound surrounded by the sparkling red line.

  “What is this?” His mother asked in fascination, as her fingers gently touched his shoulder.

  “It's an infection of evil,” he spoke with rising emphasis. He thought for a momen
t, then lifted the pendant off his chest and over his head. As he did, the red line in his flesh faded, and the blackness began to expand with astonishing speed, spreading outward across his chest and down his arm and torso.

  He felt a tightening in his chest, and he quickly dropped the pendant back onto his bare skin. The ruby lit up, and the protective red line sprang into place, then compressed the blackness back into its contained field.

  “Oh Theus, my son,” Allise moaned sympathetically. “That is frightening. Does it hurt? You say that Limber will heal it?”

  “It hurts my soul more than my flesh,” Theus replied. He pulled his shirt back over his head. “Limber promised he'll heal it in four days’ time.”

  “With a god ready to cure you, I hope you have no worries,” Allise smiled. “And is there a woman who holds your heart?”

  Theus let silence come between them as he considered the question, and his best, truthful answer.

  “There is one, but I hope that in time I'll find a safer pair of hands,” he said, and he felt his eyes water.

  “I should go. It's been a long day. I'm so glad to be with you again,” Theus said as he stood. He bent and kissed her.

  “Go and get some rest, and remember that I love you,” Allise said with affectionate concern. “You and your sister have become quite a pair; it's enough to fill a mother's heart with pride, and worry. I'll see you tomorrow.”

  Theus smiled, then left and went down the hall to his own room. He slept soundly, without memorable dreams, until he was abruptly awakened the following morning.

  “Roust out of bed, you sleepy marshal,” Vanline stood beside his bed.

  “What are you doing?” Theus asked in confusion, as he sat up.

  “I've been waiting for weeks for some challenging opposition in the armory,” Vanline answered matter-of-factly. “Now that you're here, you’re going to make up for all the practice I've missed with both you and Eiren gone.”

  “The granitines rubbed salt in the wound by telling me that you had a whole roomful of people playing in my armory without me yesterday. And speaking of wounds, what in the name of Limber is that on your shoulder?” he asked.

  “Even you couldn't train me well enough to avoid every thrust,” Theus answered grimly. “This is a reminder of that.”

  The pair went to the armory where they began a vigorous practice session, only to be joined by Forgon a half hour later.

  “You're the teacher Theus always praises so highly?” Forgon asked when it was his turn to stand up against the steward.

  “Don't tell him that,” Theus chided his friend. “It'll go to his head.”

  The trio fenced for another hour, then went about their ways. Theus spent the day visiting the Southsand soldiers who had changed their allegiances, and questioned them about Southsand, wanting to be prepared for his eventual return to fight Donal.

  That night he and Thera sat together to listen to one another tell their stories of all that had happened in their lives.

  “Maybe,” Thera tried to ease her brother's broken heart after listening to him tell of his anguished relationship with Coriae, “maybe she just loved you too much to admit that she had made a mistake with the other man. Maybe she wanted to break that engagement but didn't know how.

  “At least you've gotten out into the world and met someone to love,” she lamented. “I've gone from our farm straight to this palace without a chance to meet someone. How will I ever have an opportunity to learn about loving someone?”

  “Limber must have a plan for you,” Theus tried to console his sister.

  “We're going to hold that ball you suggested and I hardly know how to dance,” she continued to take advantage of Theus's status as the only person she could complain to, the only sibling and friend who understood her circumstances.

  “Well,” Theus wanted to protest that the ball hadn't been his idea, that Holco had projected his own proposal onto Theus. The thought of Holco spurred an impromptu idea.

  “Let's ask Holco to give you some dancing lessons,” he blurted.

  “Dancing lessons?” Thera sputtered disdainfully. They were both silent for a moment.

  “Would he do that? Is he a good dancer?” She asked cautiously.

  “Coriae said he was. She said he danced better than me,” Theus recollected his former love's teasing comments when he had been shy about stepping onto the dance floor.

  “Would you ask him for me?” She asked after further silent consideration.

  “I will,” Theus agreed. “And I'll let you know.”

  The next morning Holco was in the armory practicing with the others, when Theus raised the notion of him providing dancing instruction to the young queen.

  “I'll have to go freshen up first,” he immediately replied, dropping the point of his practice blade in the middle of his bout with Theus.

  Theus jabbed him in the chest, ending the match.

  “Okay,” he said disdainfully, “now I'll go freshen.”

  Theus left Vanline and Alamice and Forgon in the armory, so that he could lead Holco to the young queen to discover his sister's availability for dancing lessons.

  “Not right now!” She blushed as she stood surrounded by city residents and granitines, ready for a walking inspection of the city’s housing. “Tell him after lunch,” she spoke in a low, barely audible voice.

  Theus conveyed the message before joining the Southsand soldiers once again, as they took a long hike through the mountainous terrain around the city to learn how to defend it.

  The following day, another caravan full of supplies arrived, as did another score of migrants from the Jewel Hills.

  “We've been sending our own settlers from the Jewel Hills back to the Hills to recruit more settlers,” Vanline explained, proud of the strategy that was producing more residents for Limber.

  “And your queen has decided that the palace ball will be held in two more days,” he informed Theus. “She apparently wants more time to practice,” he gave a smirk that Theus couldn't decipher.

  And the day after that, Theus went to Limber's temple to receive his healing treatment.

  Chapter 9

  Theus rose early and practiced sword work in the armory in the morning on the day he was promised to be healed. Afterwards, he dressed in the finest clothes he could persuade the palace's tailor to provide, and he walked alone to Limber's temple in the heart of the city. A few worshippers were present saying morning prayers, so Theus sat quietly in a side chapel, hoping that the sanctuary would empty out for his healing procedure. He intuitively knew that his healing would be an intensely personal experience, one he didn’t need to share.

  Come to the chapel on the lower level, in the back of the temple, Limber's voice whispered to him. And bring a candle.

  Theus obeyed, borrowing a candle from the starstruck priest who was on duty, and awed by the unexpected appearance of Limber’s chosen favorite. He walked through the same empty corridor in which he had battled the black magicians when he had first visited the city; then he descended a dark and narrow stairwell to reach the crypt below the temple. Several minutes of walking to explore the unfinished space underneath the vast temple structure required a stroll among a forest of pillars, until he came to an iron-bound, dark wooden door.

  Enter, Limber welcomed him.

  Close the door, and throw the bolt, the god directed Theus.

  Now, light the candles in the sconces, and then the candles on the altar, Limber continued to instruct Theus.

  Very good, Limber encouraged his follower.

  This will be a painful ritual, but I have faith that you will survive, he warned.

  “Survive?” Theus meant to remain silent, but the word squeaked out of his mouth.

  The evil within you is deadly, and powerful, and well-entrenched in your body and soul, Limber explained. After long debate, I have concluded that I must use the powers of my own origins to defeat it, for Donal was wielding powers given to him by his terrible god.
/>
  Can you steel yourself for this ordeal? He asked Theus

  “If you believe this is the way for me to be healed and freed, then I am ready,” Theus agreed; he would not believe it was possible to even consider questioning his god any longer.

  Behind the altar, there is a large plate on the ground, and a pit beneath the plate. Go around to the plate; move it aside to reveal the pit, Limber began.

  Surprised, Theus circled the simple stone altar, and confirmed the plate sat recessed in the floor. Details were indistinct in the dim candlelight. He fumbled as his hands ran over the plate, looking to gain purchase so that he could move it. He found handholds carved into it, handholds that were far larger than any human hand would need, and he recollected the size of Limber, when he had been resurrected by the return of worshippers; the plate was something intended for Limber himself to move.

  Theus's trust in his god's judgment momentarily trembled. He blanched at the thought of going through a ritual intended for the god himself to use.

  Without giving voice to his concerns, Theus wrenched the plate, making it shudder noisily as it slid inches to the side. He abandoned the thought of lifting the massive artifact, then placed his feet against the plate's edge, braced his back against altar, and steadily slid it inch by inch away from the dark pit below.

  Theus could not discern any details about the pit as he stared at its inky blackness.

  Now, open the back of the altar and remove the two crystals, Limber directed.

  Theus spun around to examine the stone structure. The altar did have small doors, their presence also virtually hidden by the dim light in the chamber.

  Theus, there will be crystals inside the altar, crystals of many colors. Take out the yellow and red ones, Limber gave more directions.