by Matthew Lang
“Really?”
“Well, not ‘ours’ as in my family’s,” Duin said. “But the ones at the baths were. They had straw mattresses tied on and everything, and I remember hearing someone say they were just like the ones we brought with us from the surface. Apparently the king sleeps on one of the originals.”
“Lucky him,” Adam said enviously. “I’d kill for a soft mattress right about now.”
“Well, unfortunately I don’t know of much we can use for that here,” Duin said. “The grasses will be full of bugs.”
“It’s all right,” Adam said. “I’m just missing my creature comforts.”
Duin laughed somewhat bitterly. “So am I, Adam, so am I.”
Despite being warm, dry, and safe for the first time in a very long time, neither Adam nor Duin were inclined toward passion that sleep. Instead, after installing Zoul comfortably in a nearby room, they caught a number of crabs for dinner, as well as raiding an overgrown garden for potatoes and spinach leaves large enough to use as fans if they had been more rigid. They ate better than they had for many meals, especially when Adam found some strawberries that had grown into a wild ground cover, the fruit small as his thumb but sweeter than anything he’d ever found in a supermarket. Sated and somewhat cleaner after a wash that didn’t end with them crawling back into the dirt, they were more than happy to blow out the candles, crawl onto their pallet, and sleep in the first real darkness since leaving the rainforest.
Chapter 12
ADAM WOKE to a strange sensation of stillness. For a moment, the dark and silence that surrounded him caused him to panic slightly, uncertain of where he was. Then the events of the last sleep caught up with him and he relaxed into Duin’s embrace, allowing himself the luxury of a brief sleep in. As he closed his eyes, Adam felt Duin snuggle closer, and felt Duin’s morning wood press against his behind. Experimentally, Adam clenched his ass around the hardness, feeling it twitch in response. As he continued to massage Duin’s cock, he felt Duin’s breathing change, and the arm that had been thrown around his chest tightened, pulling him back against his lover.
“What are you doing?” Duin murmured, his voice thick with sleep.
“Seducing you, I think,” Adam said. “Honestly, I just woke to you poking me—what else was I supposed to do?”
Duin’s laugh was a low rumble, and he kissed Adam gently on the back of the neck. “I do not know, but I’m not complaining. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to move much, though.”
Adam grinned and turned over, pushing Duin flat on his back. “That’s all right, I don’t think you’re going to have to,” he said, turning around on the bed so he was facing the object of his desire. “And I think I’m in for a very tasty prebreakfast snack,” he added, sliding his lips over Duin’s cock.
AFTER A pleasant start to their waking time, Adam and Duin checked in on Zoul, who wasn’t in his room. Finding the shutters opened, they peeked out into the outside world, only to see the lizard down at the bank of the nearest bog, happily tucking into what appeared to be a large dead octopus.
“Zoul!” Adam scolded.
The great lizard looked up at them, raised his crest, and chirped pointedly.
“Well, that puts us in our place,” Duin said.
“I didn’t think we were that loud,” Adam said.
“Or took that long.”
“I guess we should look at getting fed ourselves?” Adam suggested.
“Probably,” Duin said. “Do you think Zoul would share his catch?”
“I doubt it,” Adam said. “But I’d be happy raiding that vegetable patch again.”
“You go ahead with that,” Duin said. “I’ll see if I can get us some meat.”
Grinning, Adam went out and gathered more strawberries and pulled up what looked like overly large carrots, only to find them far too woody to eat. Investigating other plants, he chanced across some more potatoes, which he gathered happily, and moving farther in found oversized pea pods, which he snacked on while he picked more giant spinach leaves. By the time he had started building a fire pit out of loose rock and flagstones, and a fire from peat and deadwood, Duin was coming back, dragging a catfish longer than his arm along behind him.
“How on earth did you get that?” Adam asked, eyeing the monster.
“I used my fingers as bait,” Duin said with a grin. “Thankfully, the leather gloves we got at the waystation work quite well for fishing,” Duin said, dropping the catfish by the fire and holding up his hand, the leather somewhat torn around his fingers.
“I think I’d prefer not to know,” Adam said as Duin gutted and scaled the fish. “Do you think we should try to find somewhere to store the rest of that?”
“Well, we can see if they left anything in the kitchens,” Duin said.
“They must have left something,” Adam said. “Come on, Zoul!” he called to the crested lizard. “Let’s go find the kitchens.”
“Don’t forget a candle,” Duin said.
Adam grunted and grabbed two of the candles and a cracked dish they had found the night before for a candle holder.
The kitchens were, as Adam had suspected, down the stairs from the great hall, and Adam ducked below the flurry of wings he had come to expect as he entered, and this time Zoul appeared too full to snap at the bats that flew past. The kitchens themselves were swathed in shadows, only the dimmest glimmer of light making it through the grimy, vine-covered windows that had once looked out over the overgrown garden. From the inside, Adam was surprised to see there had once been a door leading out into the garden; although in retrospect he probably shouldn’t have been. However, it had long been overgrown outside, and now the only entrance was from the great hall. Setting the candle down on an ancient wooden bench, he looked around the kitchens. As he expected, much of the contents were missing—presumed taken when the inhabitants of Blackwater left all those years ago. Rusted hooks hung from the wooden beams overhead, pots, pans, and ladles long gone. The shelves that ran along one wall were largely bare, bar dust and cobwebs, although Adam could see a few stacks of heavy serving platters that had been left behind. The huge fireplaces were as bare as the shelves, missing even the grating and fireplace tools that would have been used to tend the fire or spit roast a whole boar—or spider, as may well have been the case.
A search of the walk-in larder was equally fruitless, turning up only a few cracked ceramic jars. However, descending into the scullery, Adam found a large copper wash pot, which would easily double as a cooking pot, and a number of clay bowls hidden in the corner which must have been overlooked, along with some ancient whittled spoons that had probably been used by servants long gone.
“Are you coming?” Adam called as he moved back toward the kitchen door, and a chirp from the distant recesses in the ceiling answered him as Zoul wound his way back down the wall and out into the outdoors, Adam being careful to pull the door shut behind him.
“Any luck?” Duin asked, looking up as Adam walked back to their campfire.
“Some,” Adam said, showing Duin the fruits of his labor. “They cleaned the place out pretty thoroughly when they left.”
“Nothing dangerous lurking inside?”
Adam shook his head. “No. The place was deserted. No large spiders, no insects really, not anything.”
“Strange,” Duin said. “I guess closing those doors up tight behind them worked better than I imagined.”
Adam heaved the copper pot onto the coals of Duin’s fire and filled it with water from one of their waterskins before helping add the catfish meat, potatoes, and other vegetables into the soup. Given time and more seasoning, it could probably have been a stew, but they were too hungry and too impatient to let it simmer. As soon as they were able, they dug into the pot with their bowls and tucked in, Adam savoring the first meal he’d been able to eat from a bowl for quite some time. Duin, in contrast, appeared to be having a bit of trouble remembering how to use cutlery other than a knife, and eventually he gave up on the
spoon entirely and grasped the bowl in both hands and raised it to his lips to drink. They polished off the entire pot of soup in short order, and after a pause to wash up and stash their belongings in their upstairs room, they decided to explore the rest of the keep, Zoul padding along behind them.
This time they headed to the far end of the great hall, where they found the stone stairs leading down into the bowels of the keep and forced the swollen wooden door open. It moved surprisingly easily, given it was bloated with moisture from years of exposure to the bat guano, and as they squeezed into the long corridor beyond, Duin laid his hand on Adam’s shoulder.
“Is it just me, or was that too easy?” he asked.
Adam turned, watching hairs sprout across Duin’s face as the candlelight from the saucer he carried shone more directly on his face. “I don’t know,” Adam said. “I’ve never actually forced a door open before. Why do you ask?”
Above them, Zoul skittered across the ceiling as Duin turned to face the door. “That door should have been stuck into its frame,” he said. “Look.” He pointed at the doorframe. “You can see the black line of the mold and the brown of the wood where they’ve torn past each other.”
Adam stepped closer and peered at the section Duin was indicating. “Well, yes, isn’t that what would happen when you push through a stuck door like we did?”
“I guess so,” Duin said. “Except we should have heard it splinter and tear. I just heard it grate a little.”
Adam paused to think about it. “Now that you mention it…. What do you think that means?”
Duin growled somewhere deep inside his chest. “It means that someone’s gone through here ahead of us.”
Adam turned and stared back down the passageway that stretched out ahead of them. “But I don’t see any footsteps in the dust.”
Duin pointed to the ceiling, where Zoul had craned his neck to stare at them, his eyes glinting in the candlelight. “You wouldn’t have if they were mounted.”
“Why not the floor?”
“Habit, maybe? In Aergon, the floor is reserved for people on foot. It makes the tunnels less crowded. I’m told there are also magics for those who want to pass without leaving tracks, although I have never seen it in person.”
“Either way, this is good news, isn’t it?” Adam asked. “It means they’re here.”
Duin wrinkled his nose. “I don’t know. Why would they have gone ahead without us?”
“Maybe they thought we didn’t make it.”
“Maybe,” Duin said doubtfully. “I think Esmeralda would have waited.”
“How do you know she didn’t?” Adam said. “Between me getting caught by the kanak and… recuperating… we came here rather late. I mean, if the others had come straight here, they’d have arrived days—I mean, sleeps—ahead of us.”
“I hope you’re right,” Duin said as they started off along the stone corridor.
“What’s the dire alternative?” Adam asked lightly.
“I’m not sure,” Duin said after a brief pause. “This just feels wrong.”
BLACKWATER KEEP had been built with a dark gray granite, and layers of grime on the stone made it look nearly as black as its name suggested. Here and there, growths of slime crept up the walls, and small formations of dirty white crystals had formed at the base of the walls.
“Those are pretty,” Duin said. “I wonder what magic made them.”
Adam looked behind him at the stairs that circled back on themselves, leading back to the great hall. “I’d say the bats did,” he said. “That’s the residue from their guano seeping through the floor into the corridor. I reckon we’re right underneath the great hall.”
Duin looked at the plain, unassuming stone arches that supported the ceiling above them. “Why would there be a corridor from the lord’s rooms under the hall?”
Adam shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe so he could raid the pantry? I think a better question is, what’s through that door?”
Duin stared at the banded wooden door that stood in the square lintel, a dim greenish glow spilling into the corridor through the crack beneath the door. “That looks like—”
“I know,” Adam said with a grin. “Shall we?”
Duin smiled and rapped on the door. “We made it!” he called out as the door swung inward on surprisingly smooth hinges.
“Hello?” Adam called into the silence.
Sharing a glance, they slowly edged inside, Adam unsheathing his broadsword and Duin warily entering with a makeshift bamboo spear held out before him. The room they entered was partially destroyed, with the far end crushed by fallen masonry. The section that remained, however, still had all the markings of an arcane study. And somehow, when all the other rooms had been stripped bare, this was remarkably well preserved, collapsed end notwithstanding. It still had a barely moth-eaten rug, bookshelves piled high with tomes and scrolls, and jars of strange dried plants and animal parts. There were bowls of copper and wood, brittle quill pens and pots of ink, and a stack of crucibles and stained mortars with their associated pestles.
What Adam could clearly see was that the room had been ransacked thoroughly. One of the Aergonite stone bowls stood on a lectern dragged into the center of the room recently enough to leave tracks on the carpet, and precious glassware had been swept onto the floor, shattering into fine shards to prick unwary feet. Books and parchments lay scattered and open on the benches in haphazard piles, and more than one jar of dried flitterfish wings or something equally unusual had been spilled, with no attempt made to clean it up.
“Look,” Duin said, nodding toward a number of clear boot prints in the thick dust on the floor. The prints showed a pointed boot, tightly fitting around the foot, and appearing to have little in the way of a sole. “Aergonite boots.”
“Xavier,” Adam said, looking around the wreckage of the room.
“Or Esmeralda,” Duin agreed. “She’d be almost as interested in this room as he would be.”
Adam shook his head. “Somehow I can’t see her being this… disrespectful, though,” he said. “I mean, this must have been Prince Fernando’s study, surely?”
Duin pointed over to the rubble at the far end of the room, where the tip of an anvil was just visible beneath the dust and dirt. “I’d say you’re probably right.”
“So the question is, what was Xavier so hell-bent on finding here?” Adam asked as he started picking through the books.
“I have no idea,” Duin replied. “What makes you think he was after a book?”
Adam shrugged. “They’re the only items that have been properly rummaged through.”
Duin sighed. “I can’t read very well, Adam.”
“Well, I’m not too bad,” Adam said. “Besides, did you have anything else planned for today?”
Duin smiled. He seemed to be getting used to Adam’s earth colloquialisms, although it was still strange to Adam that any word incorporating day or night would be colloquialism. “Surely it might be easier finding Xavier and asking what he took?”
“Maybe. I’d prefer to ask Esmeralda why she didn’t stop him ripping this place apart,” Adam said as he pulled up a chair and flipped open the closest volume.
“Maybe she couldn’t,” Duin said, then blew out the candle and hesitated before reaching for the smallest scroll he could find.
Adam stilled. “You mean maybe she didn’t make it.”
“Well… yes.”
Adam sighed and turned the blank front page of the leather-bound tome over to reveal an illuminated capital letter and the scrawl of spidery handwriting. “I don’t really want to think about that.”
Duin looked down at the scroll, and his lips moved slightly as he read some of the words. Adam caught something about “potatoes” before he put the scroll aside and regarded Adam with a level gaze. “You know, since the light bowl is here, Xavier probably isn’t too far away.”
“I know,” Adam said. “But given your hunch, I’d rather know what he’s up to first.”
Duin unrolled another scroll and put it down almost immediately, and Adam saw an illustration of an out of proportion flower before the scroll rolled itself shut. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you didn’t trust him.”
Adam shrugged. “I don’t know I do,” he said. “I don’t know if I trust any of them—except possibly Darius. He just seems to want to get the job done.”
“And the other two?”
“I don’t know. But I’m sure they have ulterior motives we don’t know about.”
“Ulterior motives?”
“They want something else they’re not telling us.”
Duin stilled. “You’re probably right,” he said, his shoulders slumping slightly.
Adam reached over and grabbed Duin’s hand in his. “Hey, I’m not going anywhere.”
Duin refused to meet his gaze. “Except home.”
Adam snorted. “Maybe. I’m yet to be convinced of that.”
When Duin pulled his hand away, Adam sighed and returned to his book.
“… for the Lady and Lord Arman of Reyes, and the aforesaid persons: bread 1 1/2 quarters, wine, 4 skins; beer, already reckonned. Kitchen. Goats from Aer Nero, 6, 1 crested haradyn and 3 lizardlings and 8 lbs of fat, 12 sv. 2 bits; alfo eggs, 20 bits; 6 dozen flitterflish, dried, 3 sv; flour, 6 bits. Bread for the kitchen, 3 bits. Marshalcy. Feed for 50 riding beasts, jerky, 3 quarters and a half…”
Adam placed the book onto the pile of discards, and then picked up another.
“… canne caufe paralysys of the flefh to sett inn withyn two candylmarcs.” Startled, Adam looked back, only to find the book was talking about diseases of the haradyn, which appeared to be a domesticated six-legged herbivorous lizard the people of Blackwater had used for eggs and meat.
Adam flipped through book after book, putting aside bestiaries and books on animal husbandry or the benefits of letting fields lie fallow or the use of peat as fertilizer. Zoul had long created a nest in the corner and gone to sleep, while Duin was slowly going through the scrolls, looking at the ones with pictures first, then reshelving them in the small square boxlike shelves that he identified as a scroll rack. For a moment, Adam wondered if he should give up the idea altogether as a lost cause—none of the books seemed particularly insightful or interesting, but then a passage caught his eye.
