by Aaron Pogue
“The justicar,” Corin whispered.
“Fires take her. Yes. You chose right in coming here. There is no shame in running from a foe you cannot conquer.”
Corin blinked. “Avery said that.”
“A husband talks,” she said in answer. “I know some of your principles. There’s more honor in them than some people think. Certainly more than this justicar has shown.”
Corin frowned, considering. He’d taken the druid at his word that these refugees were all the friends and family of people from Taurb, but it stood to reason that if word had gotten out, there would be others. And certainly the wife of a man caught up in Jessamine’s purge would have reason to want to flee.
But Corin couldn’t let the Nimble Fingers get caught up in this. They were already paying too high a price, and if he meant to use his position in the Wildlands as bait to lure Jessamine, then associating the Nimble Fingers with the refugees could prove disastrous for them.
“Please,” he said, worry gnawing at his spine, “don’t tell anyone there is a member of the organization among the refugees. Will you protect my secret?”
She laughed and patted his back warmly. “Oh, it’s no secret. You know how rumors spread among your brothers. Half the people in this camp are Nimble Fingers. I’m surprised that you don’t recognize them.” She nodded to herself in sudden understanding. “Oh. But you do come from a long way off.”
“Aye,” Corin said, falling back into his native Ithalian. And then he fall back onto the ground, staring up at the sky. “Fortune favor! What have I begun?”
Just as Jeff said, it took the refugees three days to reach the permanent camp, though Corin suspected he could have done it all in two, without the burden of such a large contingent. As it was, he felt the slow pace like a weight around his neck. He itched to spur his horse ahead, to leave them all behind and rush to his destination.
But that would not have served him at all. Even if he’d been able to pry useful directions from the druid, he didn’t dare charge the farmboy’s camp unexpected. If he came in disguise, they might well cut him down as a Godlander spy. And if he came in person, Sera might do far worse.
So he clung to his thin glamour and fought against his own impatience. He ate well for the first time since he’d left his cabin, and he found time for idle conversations. He sought out Jeff at every opportunity, if only for some company. Alas, the druid could not tell him much more than they’d already discussed. He had sent out requests for information on the missing dwarf, and he checked his tablet again every time Corin asked, but there was no news. Ben Strunk had disappeared.
Corin asked for details concerning Jessamine—some clue to her weakness that he might exploit—but the druids knew little more of justicars than did anyone else in Hurope. Their powers were mysterious—some strange convergence of Faerie and manling magics that only the druids and their gods could wholly understand.
That left them little to discuss, as all serious strategy would depend on Corin’s conversation with Auric. More than once he considered searching for some chance to draw the farmboy aside for a quiet conversation, but there were a thousand problems with that plan. The first that occurred to Corin was a sincere doubt that Auric could tell a straight-faced lie. The boy wore pure-hearted honesty like a second skin.
But a more practical concern overwhelmed even that one. Auric was never alone. He always had a swarm of refugees around him, asking for advice, offering assistance, or just listening to his conversations with the others. Corin joined in on that, and he was startled to discover how much organization was truly going on.
Jeff had told him there were hundreds of refugees, but Corin hadn’t really considered the full significance of that until now. Hundreds of civilians camping three days’ journey into Spinola’s lowlands? It was madness. Finding food and water for so many would be a challenge anywhere, but arranging shelter for them in such a hostile place as this? They could scarcely have found tents enough to house them, let alone the soldiers to protect them from raids by manticores or savages or both.
He grew more concerned about that with each passing day. How much would these refugees impede his plans? Jeff had said he’d wrestled with the same question, and Corin knew he’d run aground against the same difficulty too. Auric would not abandon them. He would not turn them away. He was a hero, not a statesman.
Corin heaved a weary sigh when he considered that. For all his generous heart, Auric lacked the ability to make the most difficult choices. No ship’s captain lasted long with that naïveté, but a farmboy could preserve it, and so could an adventurer. If anything could wreck this venture, it would be Auric’s tender heart.
More than once, Corin caught himself hoping for a manticore raid to resolve the problem. Then he remembered how many among the refugees were Nimble Fingers—how many of them were only here because of him—and the shame cut deep. Perhaps he needed more of Auric’s heart.
For three days he wrestled with these things, constantly anxious for and dreading their arrival at the permanent camp. He rode always near the front of the contingent, eyes straining for the stain of a hundred tents sprawled along the bank of some muddy stream. Then late in the afternoon on the third day, no more than an hour after they had stopped for lunch, Corin crested a wide, tall hill, and looked down into a sprawling valley.
A river half a mile wide meandered down below, and nestled in a gentle bend of that river stood the ruins of an ancient city. Smoke rose in lazy tendrils from a hundred points within those ruins—cookfires and forgefires alike, from the things Corin had overheard. But this was nothing like he had expected. Everyone had called this place “the camp.” Everyone had spoken of the hardships here. But there were soaring towers still intact. The ruins had a wall four paces high that ran unbroken around three sides, and a river deep enough to drown a horse protecting the fourth.
This was not a camp. This was a fortress.
“Gods’ blood,” Corin breathed, staring down at it.
Jeff was there beside him. Corin didn’t know when he’d arrived, but now the druid clapped him on the back. “I told you. We’ve brought civilization to the Wildlands.”
“It’s true,” Corin said, looking down into the future. “And next, we’ll bring a war.”
The first thing Corin did when he reached the city was find his lodgings. A friendly woman with tired eyes sent him to a vast, completely empty room within what might have been a cathedral to a pagan god. There was room to spare for anyone who wanted it, but almost nothing in the way of furnishings. She offered him a bedroll, a tin plate, and a battered pewter cup. Meals were available at the bells; and shares of beets and barley, at the storehouse.
He barely registered that information. As soon as she had finished talking, he bowed his head in thanks, then followed her directions to the room she’d promised. There he spread out his bedroll in the farthest corner and stretched out on his back, with the handle of a blade beneath each hand. The war would have to wait. He needed sleep.
He’d left his sickbed to ride day and night from Aerome to the Dividing Line, and he’d joined up with the refugees just at the start of a full day’s march. Since then he’d had two nights’ sleep, but they’d been nights beset with the anxiety of discovery and the constant nagging reminders that he was stretched up, unconscious, and exposed within the untamed wilderness of savage Spinola. And of course there’d been the rocks. He’d never found a comfortable position, no matter how he’d squirmed.
No, he’d found no rest beneath the stars. He’d been a city boy before he went to sea, and years of sleeping on a deck had done nothing to prepare him for a night stretched out on barren dirt.
He would have shuddered to think of it, but he never had the chance. No sooner had his head settled on the thin, hard pillow than his mind shut off. His breathing settled into a slow, steady pattern, and muscles he’d held tense for days gradually relaxed. Within half a heartbeat, he fell into the quiet, restful sleep of men long dead.
And then the setting changed. A forgefire heat seemed to hang in the air, and the taste of ash soured his tongue, but in the next room over, he could hear Aemilia quietly at work. She was a scribe in old Gesoelig, and a prestigious customer had come to request a small favor.
Ephitel. Corin groaned, deep within the dream, and now Corin and Aemilia stood side by side at Oberon’s throne. Outside, the city was burning. Innocent men and women died as Ephitel and his regiment marched upon the Oberon’s stronghold.
Within the bower, the ancient, tired king of this world slumped in his throne, strain creasing his forehead and knotting hard the muscles of his shoulders. His hands clenched into fist, and perspiration beaded on his face. Somewhere behind them, Jeff’s voice rose up in excitement. “It’s working! A moment more. Good lord, it’s working!”
The throne room rang out like a struck bell. The very world around them groaned, straining hard; and then, with a flash of light like a mighty thunderbolt, the world changed. A distant, impossible stone ceiling blotted out the sky, and the air around them echoed with the vastness of a stone cavern. Oberon’s city had found its tomb.
And on the throne, the great king slumped. That final act of mercy had cost him more than strength. He would never again leave his living throne. But for the moment, his people were safe. He drew a weak, rattling breath, and Corin squeezed Aemilia’s hand in his.
Then the king opened his bloodshot eyes and fixed them on Corin. Something like a smile tugged at his lips, showing teeth more fitting to a fox’s grin than to any man’s. “It is done,” he wheezed, “but who is left to face the traitor?”
Corin started forward, but Aemilia didn’t budge. He looked back at her, and she was beautiful, but the taste of ash still stained his tongue. She looked beautiful upon her bier. The thought rose up from somewhere else, some other awareness, and it awoke a flare of searing anger in his chest. He released his grip on her hand and turned away to throw himself before the king.
“I will face him!” he cried.
“It is no easy task. You will falter.”
“Perhaps, but I will not fall! I will not forget! I will not rest until he has paid!”
Oberon looked Corin up and down with sad eyes. “Can I depend on you?”
“I swear it.”
“I am spent,” the old god said. “I can serve my people no more. But if I begged one final wish, it would be this: destroy the traitor Ephitel.”
“Aye!” Corin shouted. “I swear upon the blood of gods, I will grant you vengeance.”
The words rang out until they filled the vastness of the cavern. The throne room faded away, and with it the other inhabitants, but the echoes of his promise yet remained. They swelled around him, and everything else dissolved into perfect blackness. Still his oath resonated in the air. It hammered at him. It pounded him into nothing, and he became just another crying voice within the dead god’s tomb.
When he woke sometime later, it was sudden and complete. For all his deep fatigue, his instinct for survival ran still deeper. Footsteps, soft and careful, nonetheless rasped on the bare floor and echoed in the vastness of the room. Corin’s position gave him time to recognize the sound, to wake and react.
In an instant he was on his feet, dagger in his right hand and knife in his left, ready to throw. Halfway across the room, Princess Sera stopped abruptly, though she did not let her flash of fear show in her expression. Instead, she raised her chin and looked down her nose at Corin.
“Master pirate,” she said in icy greeting.
He looked down at himself, but he needn’t have. The thin, distorting haze of the glamour still shrouded his eyes. Irritated, he met the lady’s gaze.
“The druid?”
“He was worried when you didn’t wake. He is in conference now with Auric. I didn’t wait for them to find a resolution.”
Corin frowned. “How long have I slept?”
“Two days now, and going on a third.”
“Oh. Well. I rode hard to join you here.”
“Clearly.” She straightened her shoulders and aimed a pointedlook at the knife still poised to throw. “Is that really necessary?”
He considered it. “I don’t know. What do you intend here?”
She rolled her eyes. “I intend to talk with you. Frankly, I hope I can convince you to leave this place before the gentlemen are finished discussing you.”
Corin sighed and put away his blades. “I’m sorry, Highness, but Fortune’s brought me here. We all have our roles to play.”
She shook her head. “For all I’ve disavowed their base morality, I was still raised a Vestossi, so I know better. Men choose the roles they’ll play, Corin, whatever politics or powers they blame afterward. Gods preserve us, I know you’ve chosen yours.”
“You couldn’t be more wrong.” Corin’s voice rang cold in his ears, almost hostile, but he couldn’t find the warmth to temper it. “Gods and governors have dictated my life since I was abandoned as a babe on the streets of Aepoli. I survive, Princess. That’s as much control as I have ever had. I survive. Even now, even as I wage a war against the man who killed the woman I love, that’s a destiny laid out for me by a god who died a thousand years before I first drew breath.”
“You do not have to take that path,” she said, her voice surprisingly gentle now. “I’ve told you that since the day we first met. I know more of your story than you will let yourself believe. I was born to be a Vestossi princess, Corin Hugh. Consider that dark destiny. And I do not blame my family or Ephitel or druids or my dear Auric or even you, Corin, for sending me to live in fear and poverty in the ruins of a pagan civilization. I do not blame the forces set against me, because they are the forces I chose to escape from. They are the forces I chose to battle. This is my destiny, Corin, but only because I chose a difficult happiness over a perfectly pleasant evil.”
Corin sucked a deep breath and shook his head. “What would you have me do? There is no pleasantness for me. Not on either side of the coin. I war with Ephitel and die, or else I run and hide and still I die. I’ve tried both, Princess.”
“Call me ‘princess’ one more time, and I will start to call you ‘subject.’ Do you understand?”
He smirked, but he bowed his head in acquiescence.
“In answer to your question . . . I don’t know. I don’t know what you should do. Perhaps you should chase freedom on the open seas. No gods can claim you there, and if ever there was a soul wild enough to escape the storms and shoals, it’s yours.”
He nodded. “I was an exceptional pirate.”
“I have no doubts,” she said. “Go back to that.”
“I cannot. I cannot forget the things I know.”
“Then it is personal,” she said. “And though I find it foolish, that is the inherent nature of another’s personal obsession. But I would beg you to keep the matter personal. Do not embroil all these people in your desperate war.”
“My war is with the gods,” Corin answered quietly. “Behind me and before me, there are gods. There is no one who will not be caught up in this.” The echo of his oath—of that terrible dream—still rang in his memory. He nodded in acceptance of it. “I am not the instigator, Sera. I am not the agent. I am just the messenger. The creator of this world ripped me out of time to set me on this path. And whether he intended it or not, this is the simple truth: Ephitel dies, or else the world dies. I’m here to offer you the chance to choose a side.”
She winced. “You cannot remain committed to such a misguided plan. After everything you’ve seen?”
He nodded, never releasing her gaze. “I am the harbinger of doom. You have only seen the hundredth part of the chaos I will bring.”
She retreated
half a step, then threw a glance over her shoulder as if searching for reinforcements. She wet her lips and reluctantly met his eyes again. “But . . . consider all these people.”
“When I went to the ancient elves to ask their aid, they said the same. They refused to cast more manling lives upon the fire. But I will tolerate this world no more. Oberon has shown me what he wants this world to be. And Ephitel has shown me what he intends.” Corin closed his eyes, and a vision of Aemilia lying broken on the floor smashed free of his memory and nearly staggered him. He merely nodded.
“I have been running. I have been running from the truth and fighting for my life, but your husband offered me a place of refuge. I have had time to rest and to consider all the things I’ve seen.”
She shook her head in quiet denial and whispered, “No.”
He took a step toward her. “I tried so hard to forget everything they showed me. Both of them.” He touched the pocket of his cloak that held the precious book of memories he’d stolen from Oberon’s dream. He still had never found the courage to read it, though Aemilia had. It had made her fall in love with him.
He blinked back the tears that formed at that. He wouldn’t let them fall. He straightened his back and marched on to meet the princess.
“Oberon vested in me the power to conquer Ephitel, and—whether he intended it or not—he gave me too the power to end this miserable dream.”
“That is impossible.”
“No,” Corin said. “That is an alternative solution. Ephitel dies, or the world dies. Either way, the problem’s solved.”
He stood face to face with her now in the center of the enormous room, and somehow he seemed to fill the space. He felt like he could flex his shoulders and rip apart the stone ceiling a hundred feet above him, like he could stretch out his arms and push down the distant walls.
“You would never do that,” Sera said, desperate to believe it.
“I am tired of their games. I am tired of their destinies. I am tired of their politics and ploys. They have hunted me across their precious nations and into the darkest godless corners of this world. They have stabbed at everyone I’ve ever cared about because I had the audacity to despise them.”
