The Lodestone

by J. Philip Horne

  “So,” Gerlock said, “Edalwin left our camp headed to Fortress Thursday morning, four full days ago, and disappeared. I’ve got to think she made it here. But where do we start?”

  “I’ll need more information,” Derek said, “and we need to figure out how to bridge my lack of knowledge of local customs so I can ask around.”

  Gerlock looked at Derek with a furrowed brow. Fortuna raised an eyebrow and gave Derek a questioning smile.

  “Well, this is what I do,” Derek said, “and I’m good at it. But I don’t have any gear to use, and I’m supposedly dressed like a well-to-do merchant, but I don’t know how to play the part. Not to mention having my gun tucked in a bag where it won’t exactly do any good.”

  “Speaking of local customs,” Jack said, “I doubt carrying guns that don’t exist here is one of them. Anyway, I bet it wouldn’t even work.”

  “Why don’t you and I team up,” Fortuna said. “You’re the merchant, I’m the guard. We’ll walk, I’ll fill you in on what we know, and you tell me what to ask or do.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Derek said, smiling at her. “When do we start?”

  “Oh, I see no reason to wait,” Fortuna said. “Shall we?”

  “Hold on,” Gerlock said. “Meet back here by dinner, yes? I will go out with Sally. She can play—let’s see—my daughter whom I am spending time with in between guarding caravans. It will help put people at ease if they see me as a father instead of a lone man. Verdag, Jack, you hold tight here, okay? I’ll make sure food is sent down.”

  Jack didn’t like the sound of that at all. Verdag, on the other hand, had found a mug and tapped a small keg. He was enjoying a mid-morning beer and looked content to stretch the moment. Derek and Fortuna stood and walked up the stairs into the inn and disappeared through the door. Jack noticed Sally staring after them with a speculative look on her face.

  “What is it?” Jack asked.

  “Nothing that matters to twelve year old boys,” she said.

  “All right, daughter of mine,” Gerlock said, holding his hand out to Sally, “we are off to see the big city.”

  Jack found himself alone in a cellar with the dwarf, and Verdag seemed intent on polishing off the keg he had tapped. About the time Jack thought the sun was probably setting, not that he could see it in the dim cellar, a large man with a larger belly brought a tray of food down from the inn.

  “Lunch time,” he said, setting the tray down on a barrel. Jack started to ask him a question, but the man shushed him and winked. “Secrecy and all that. Best that we don’t talk.”

  With that, the man went back up the stairs and disappeared through the door. Jack tried to eat, but had little appetite. He hated sitting around in a musky cellar while the others got to explore the city and actually try to find Edalwin. It was his mess more than anyone else’s, after all. Drakin was after him. And Edalwin was his foster mom. The more Jack thought about it, the more agitated he became. Soon he was relentlessly pacing back and forth.

  “Jack!” Verdag said. “Our good innkeeper doesn’t want you to wear a trough in the floorboards. Here, this way with me. Let’s lift this trapdoor to the stable courtyard. There you go. Now out with you. Run around in circles, climb the hayloft, whatever. But stay back here and keep your head down. I’ll leave the door propped open.”

  Jack stepped out of the trap door and raised his face to feel the noontime sunlight streaming down. He felt better in moments, and started looking around. The inn stood three stories tall, built of stone on the first floor and wood above. The stable was a couple stories and of similar construction. On the right, a stone wall connected one side of the inn to the stable. On the other side of the stable, a similar wall extended forward to the side of the inn, creating an alley along the side of the inn up to the front, where a heavy gate stood between the wall on one side and the inn on the other.

  The place looked large and prosperous to Jack, in a medieval, no-flush-toilets sort of way. He was about to check out the stables when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Looking to his right, he saw a black and white cat sitting on the top of the wall.

  “Peppers?” Jack said as he walked slowly toward the wall. “Is that you, girl?”

  The wall was probably eight feet tall, and the cat sat still as Jack approached so he could get a better look at her. Jack was stunned. It had to be Peppers. The wall resembled a vertical stack of rocks mortared together, and Jack began climbing it without any further thought. It was slow going, but on his third try he got to the top. Peppers calmly waited for him, but once he got to the top and straddled the wall, she immediately scampered down the other side into a narrow ally wedged between the wall and another building.

  “What are you doing, Peppers?” Jack said. She sat down in the alley a short distance away and waited. Jack looked from the cat to the cellar doors. He should tell Verdag that he’d found Edalwin’s cat, but he didn’t want to lose sight of her, and he certainly didn’t think he should yell across the courtyard. Jack hesitated for a moment, and then clambered down into the alley.

  “Hey girl,” Jack said, walking up to Peppers. “You need a chin scratch? Hey? Where you going?”

  Just as Jack reached for her, Peppers shot off down the alley. Jack gave chase, but she stayed just out of reach. Focused on the cat, he was only vaguely aware when they crossed a bricked road and entered another alley. Peppers dodged around a corner, and then another one, and down an alley, and then into a large plaza. She jumped up onto a low stone wall around a large pool in the middle of the plaza and lapped from the water while Jack caught his breath at the alley entrance. He looked around, and his stomach dropped. He had no idea where he was.

  Important looking people, servants, soldiers, and others were walking purposefully past the fountain in both directions. Jack looked to his left and saw a bricked road leading up to magnificent gates in front of a huge palace. Peppers sat on the rim of a large pool about thirty feet across, with a towering marble statue of a man standing in the middle of it. Jack guessed he was a wizard, with a long, flowing beard and loose robes. He held a staff crosswise his body in one hand, and water flowed out of both ends of the staff to fall into the pool below. In his other hand he held up a round, smooth rock, or perhaps a globe of some sort. The statue was at least fifteen feet tall and dominated the plaza.

  While Jack looked around from the alley, two more cats ran out of the crowd and joined Peppers. He stared at them for a moment through the passing crowd, and realized they were Antony and Cleopatra. All three cats sat on the pool rim and stared at him. Jack shook his head in amazement, and cut through the people toward the pool. This time, all three cats shot off together just before he reached them, and once again Jack found himself chasing after them.

  Having seen the palace a short distance off, Jack paid much closer attention this time to the route Peppers took, and soon noticed they were gradually working their way closer to the palace walls while circling them. A few minutes later, the cats turned up a small street and headed directly for a much smaller gate through the palace walls. Three guards stood outside the gate looking at him as he approached. As he neared the guards, Jack saw that the wall was much thicker than he had realized, and the gate opened to a tunnel through the wall probably twenty feet long. He could see at least two raised portcullises in the wall, and thick grooves below them into which they could fall.

  “That’s far enough for you, boy,” the guard closest to Jack called out as he walked up to the gate. “You’ll scram if you know what’s good for you.”

  The cats all shot through the opened gate and sat down midway through the wall looking back at him. Jack didn’t know what to do. The cats clearly wanted to lead him into the palace. While he stood there frozen with indecision, an older woman walked up pushing a small wooden cart full of vegetables and headed straight through the gate.

  “A fine day to you, Gerthy,” the lead guard said. “I hope you’re planning to chop some meat to add to those vegeta
bles when you make our stew.”

  “Maybe a rat or two,” the woman said without looking back as she walked through and turned toward the left and walked out of sight on the far side of the wall.

  “You still here, boy?” the guard said, stepping toward Jack and lifting a thick wooden baton out of a loop on his belt.

  Jack’s every instinct was to run, but the cats continued to stare at him meaningfully.

  “Okay, I’ll go,” Jack said. “Please let the kitchen help know you chased away the three fine mousers they recently bought. Papa’s already taken payment, so we’ll come out okay.”

  With that he turned to go, hoping the cats would stay with him. He stole a quick glance back, and was relieved to see Peppers, Antony, and Cleopatra following him.

  “Now, hold on there, boy,” the guard called. “I’m no mind reader. If you’ve business inside, just say so, and no more sassy comments or I’ll send you on your business with a fat lip.”

  “Of course,” Jack said turning back toward the palace. The cats immediately headed back through the gate and waited for him. “Papa always says I’ve got a smart tongue that’s going to get me in trouble one day.”

  He kept his head down and walked past the guards and into the tunnel. The cats stayed just ahead of him and made a quick run across the courtyard on the other side. Jack gave chase and only partially took in what he was seeing. There was a giant wall circling around what looked like the backside of the main palace structure. Across a field to his right were stables. On his left a large wooden building crowded in near the wall. Men dressed and armored like the guards he’d just passed were dueling with wooden weapons on a paved courtyard near the buildings, while others stood around yelling comments at the combatants.

  The cats went straight toward a stairwell that went down alongside the main stone structure of the palace below ground level. At the bottom of the stairs, they nosed open an unlatched door and disappeared inside with Jack just behind them. He entered a cramped hallway with doors lining both sides. Jack glanced inside one of them and saw tiny living quarters, sparsely furnished with a bed, chair, small table, and chest. As he looked in the room, Peppers meowed loudly, and Jack set off again after the cats.

  They twisted through several halls and down a flight of stairs. Just before the stairs, a man in some kind of uniform passed him, but Jack didn’t make eye contact and was by him in a flash. At the bottom of the stairs was a small, dusty room with two closed doors. The cats all stood by a door off to the left. A path through the dust led from the stairs to that door.

  At that moment, Jack realized the light in the room was coming from the corner behind him that had been hidden by the open door at the bottom of the stairs. As he turned toward the corner, motion flickered on the edge of his vision. Something solid struck him just behind his ear, and the whole world went black.

  Chapter 18

  PLANNING

  SITTING IN THE dark, Edalwin slowly poured her will into the shackles. She could hear the comforting noise of two of her cats just outside the door to her cell, and the table scraps they’d brought her had tasted like a feast fit for kings. She wasn’t entirely sure, but suspected the water was being brought twice a day, and she had become very adept at receiving it through the small slot near the bottom of the door.

  She pictured herself as water dripping onto rock, slowly seeping into the fissures and unseen holes. It was hard work, and she had been wrestling with it for most of a day. She could sense her power slowly filling the shackles, but many hours remained, and she was feeling weak. She thought of Jack, who needed her. And poor Sally, swept along by circumstances that had nothing to do with her. Edalwin was tired, but her will was firm, and she patiently kept up the dripping, slowly soaking in, as water into rock.

  ~~~~

  Out in the city, Sally had tried to have a good time, but found it depressing to play at being Gerlock’s daughter. It only reminded her of her own mom and dad, probably tormented every hour of the day by her disappearance. It’d gotten so bad at one point during the afternoon that she had started crying, and poor Gerlock hadn’t known what to do. He was a good man, but he wasn’t her father. She reminded herself that all this was Drakin’s fault. He had to be stopped.

  Thankfully, they’d gotten some useful information. All the hints and clues they’d uncovered pointed to the amazing palace in the middle of the city. And in spite of her sorrow, she’d been fascinated by the city itself. The smells stood out the most, and precious few of them had been pleasant. If she were queen for the day, Sally had decided her first order of business would be to make everyone take a bath.

  They turned a corner, and Sally saw the sign hanging from the front of the Inn of the Singing Boar. It was, predictably, a large boar with a hoof to its chest and the other outstretched as it sang some tune. They went through the main doors, cut through the dining hall and into the kitchen. Gerlock opened the cellar door for her, and she descended the short flight of stairs.

  Something was wrong. Fortuna and Derek were both standing near Verdag, whose large head was slumped forward. She looked around as Gerlock came down the stairs, closing the door to the kitchen.

  “Where’s Jack?” Sally asked as she and Gerlock walked over to the others.

  “Gone,” Verdag wailed, lifting his head toward the ceiling to speak and then slumping forward again. Sally realized he was quietly sobbing.

  “Gone where?” Sally said as the panic rose in her throat.

  “We don’t know yet,” Fortuna said. “We got here just before you and found him like this. He’s only now getting to where he can speak.”

  “Verdag!” Sally said, stepping directly in front of him. “We don’t have time for this! Where is he?”

  Verdag lifted his head and drew a large breath. “I don’t know,” he said, in between sniffles. “After lunch he was getting a little crazy like, like a dwarf in a tree, so I sent him out to the rear courtyard. I saw him out, and went to get my mug of beer, that was all. After topping off the mug, I went back out to keep an eye on him and he was gone. The gate to the front was closed. I heard not a peep, just gone.”

  “Show us,” said Derek.

  “The courtyard?” Verdag said.

  “Anything. Let’s just start piecing it together. Speaking of which, we got some palace servants talking. There’s a lot of buzz about some crazy woman claiming to be Edalwin who sought an audience with the Council. Apparently one Councilor Transom had her escorted away under chains, and nothing more has been seen of her.”

  As they talked, Verdag led them out the trapdoor into the courtyard. He waved a hand to indicate all of it, then turned and sat down on the cellar stairs.

  “We did not get very much,” Gerlock said, “but everything points to the palace.”

  “Verdag, what else do you know?” Derek asked. “Did he run around, or go see the horses? Did he go into the kitchen for food, or go play with those cats over on the wall?”

  “He’d just eaten,” Verdag said, and then fell silent again.

  The sun was lowering, casting shadows from the neighboring building over the courtyard. Sally looked at the three cats on the wall, and then squinted and looked harder. The light was making it tough to see, but one of them stood out with black and white patches. It looked very familiar. Sally walked over to the wall and looked up. All three cats looked down on her intently.

  “These cats belong to Miss Edna!” Sally exclaimed. “Miss Edna, uh, Edalwin, had a bunch of cats. More than seven, I think. Could’ve been up to ten. I remember these. They came with us when we fled after Drakin’s attack. This black and white one, uh, Peppers, sat in my lap in the car for hours.”

  “I remember them,” Gerlock said as they all joined her. “There were eight. I remember asking her where the ninth one was, but it had been killed by Drakin’s Seeker, or so Edalwin thought.”

  “How’d you know there would be nine?” Sally asked.

  “She’s a wizard,” Fortuna answered for Gerl
ock.

  Sometimes, Sally thought, it just wasn’t worth trying to get a straight answer out of people. She reached up and called the cats, and they immediately stood. For a moment, she thought Peppers would jump down to her, but then all three cats disappeared over the wall.

  “Follow them,” Derek said, hoisting himself up the wall. “Gerlock, hand up Sally.”

  Sally was handed up like a sack of flour and set on the top of the wall while the others climbed up. She was surprised at how effortlessly the dwarf climbed up, but it was a rock wall, and dwarves seemed to know rocks. Derek jumped down into the alley on the other side and swung her down. All three cats sat a short distance down the alley staring at her. When the others climbed down, Sally stepped forward and reached her hand out to them, but they set off immediately down the alley. Peppers was in the lead, and the cats stopped at the end of the alley where it emptied onto a street.

  “I have a suspicion that they want us to follow them,” Fortuna said.

  “All right, then,” Gerlock said, “two guards with a merchant and his daughter. Verdag, we really do not need the attention a dwarf would gather. Would you be willing to stay here in case Jack comes back?”

  “Aye,” Verdag said, “It’s a sensible plan.”

  The dwarf scampered back over the wall, and Sally walked beside Derek at a stately pace toward the cats. It turned into a long hike as they twisted this way and that, and even cut across the huge plaza in front of the palace gates. She had been to the plaza earlier with Gerlock, who had told her the statue was of the wizard Arameth. They continued on, gradually circling the palace walls and closing in on them. It was now full dark, and they took care at each turn to look ahead for a time.