The Fifth Dawn

by Cory Herndon

  “Slobad know where we are. Goblins don’t faint,” Slobad said. “Big, wide tree. No spikes, no terraces. Prison, huh?”

  “Nothing gets past you, Slobad.” Glissa patted herself down and found her scabbard and travel pouches empty. Only her mother’s ring remained. “Did you see where they took our things?”

  “Nope, stuff’s gone,” Slobad said. “Had that firetube since Slobad was a goblet, too.”

  “This isn’t good. You only end up in the Tree if you’re accused of a capital crime,” Glissa said.

  “Oh, good,” Slobad said. “What!” He leaped to his feet. “That mean execution, huh? Huh?” The goblin started to pace, growing agitated.

  “Slobad,” she said, but didn’t seem to catch the goblin’s attention. He was now hopping up and down in front of the cell’s sole window, trying to get a look outside and muttering something about building a pair of wings.

  “Slobad!” Glissa shouted.

  “What?” the goblin cried, unable to hide the panic in his voice. “Stupid elves gonna kill Slobad’s only friend!”

  “No, they’re not. And thanks, I think.”

  “Yeah, how come, huh?” Slobad said.

  “For one thing, I’m innocent. I didn’t kill my fam—my parents,” Glissa replied haltingly. “No matter what Lyese says.”

  “But this always happen to Slobad!” the goblin exploded, stamping his foot on the tanglewood floor. The sound rang through the floor and reverberated off of the walls in every direction. “Always Slobad get a friend, or someone nice to Slobad, or Slobad find a pet, and they always die! The curse, huh? Remember?” The goblin fell to the floor on his knees, pounding at the wall with one rusty, iron-plated fist.

  Glissa crawled over to her friend and put one arm around his shoulder. Slobad leaned close and whispered, “Hey, look what I just found, huh?”

  In his palm, Slobad held three thin pieces of jagged metal, no thicker than a leonin hair. The inside of the tree had splintered under the goblin’s persistent wall pounding, and now he had a set of crude lock picks. Glissa saw Slobad’s hand fuss near the belt around his waist as he tucked the tools out of sight.

  “Course, door’s got no lock Slobad can see,” he said.

  “It’s enchanted with heavy countermagic,” Glissa said. “This is the Prison Tree.”

  Slobad patted his belt. “But they take us out in shackles, huh?”

  “Good thinking,” she grinned.

  “So, Prison Tree, huh? Nice name,” Slobad said.

  “Elves can be pretty literal sometimes,” Glissa said. “The Tree of Tales? It’s a tree with tales inscribed on it. Anyway, there are other safeguards to prevent someone from using magic in the tribunal court, so you might be our only chance if things go bad.”

  “Elves too complicated,” Slobad said. “Goblins never do trials. Someone does wrong, toss ’em in the furnace and move on.”

  “Doesn’t sound very pleasant,” Glissa said.

  “That why Slobad left,” the goblin said.

  The next few days passed in with alternating periods of dullness and boredom broken by conversation; on the third day the conversations quickly became arguments. In an effort to reign in the irritation, they taught each other simple games to pass the time. No one had given them a clue when to expect a trial.

  The elf girl did her best to keep her uncertainty and the darkness from driving her into depression, but it wasn’t easy. She’d thought her homecoming would be a cause for celebration, or at least a few friendly greetings. Yet Glissa hadn’t seen any others of her kind since she and Slobad had been locked up. A loaf of nanyan bread and a pitcher of water materialized twice a day, providing enough nourishment to keep them alive. The other amenities were simple and changed regularly via remote spells, though there was no way for either of them to bathe. Glissa didn’t envy the noses of the Chosen when the time did come for her to stand trial.

  The Chosen. That reminded her again of Lyese. Her sister had changed so much in such a short time. She could only imagine what Lyese’s life had been like since she left, since the night the younger elf girl had dressed up in her finest clothes to impress Kane at dinner. The night their parents had been slaughtered by Memnarch’s levelers. The night Lyese believed Glissa had betrayed them.

  Something about it all was a little too convenient.

  “Lyese,” Glissa said aloud one morning, the dawn of their seventh day in captivity. “She’s the key.”

  “Wha—?” Slobad yelped, waking with a start. Glissa had learned over the last week that Slobad was a very light sleeper, something he claimed was one of the main reasons he was still alive.

  “My … my sister. I think she might be under someone’s control,” Glissa said. “What she said, it just doesn’t make sense. She can’t think I … I killed them.”

  “Yeah? Why not?” Slobad asked. He still sounded groggy from sleep. Glissa felt her way across the floor, and sat beside him. “Seem to remember crazy elf saying something like that, once.”

  “It was still fresh. That was guilt. But I know who kept me from saving them, and I know now who sent the levelers. It wasn’t me. I didn’t kill my parents, I know that,” she whispered. Glissa didn’t think there were any scrying spells on them at the moment, but better safe than sorry. “It must be the trolls. Strang is dead, but he must have had an ally in Tel-Jilad.”

  “No trolls left, huh?” Slobad was right. Kaldra had seen to that. But maybe one or two bad eggs had stayed behind in the nest when Drooge had led his people to fight at Glissa’s side.

  “No trolls we liked,” Glissa said. “I’m telling you, someone’s controlling her, or feeding her lies.”

  “Maybe, maybe not, huh? Look, sister elf home when levelers attack, huh? Glissa, not. Now Glissa alive, parents dead. Sister elf’s young, huh? Of course she’s blaming you.” Slobad said bluntly.

  Glissa felt like she’d been socked in the gut by a golem. Could it really be that simple? Had she gotten so used to every single event or problem in her life relating to some sinister secret that she’d missed the obvious, seeing conspiracies where there was just her own neglect?

  “But she’s my sister. How could she think that?” Glissa asked.

  “Elves still people, huh? Just like goblins, leonin, even humans. And when people get hurt, want explanation, huh? Want someone to blame,” Slobad said.

  “She holds me responsible because I couldn’t stop the levelers from killing mother and father,” Glissa whispered. “For being alive while they’re not.”

  “Or she’s blaming herself, huh? Taking it out on you?” Slobad asked. “Might run in family, huh?”

  “Maybe,” Glissa said. She was beginning to feel a little sick. She’d lived the last few weeks with one goal: to make Memnarch pay for her family’s deaths. If Glissa had believed in gods anymore, she would have prayed for a chance to speak to her sister alone before the trial. She wondered if it would do any good.

  “Sometimes,” Slobad said gently and placed a hand on Glissa’s shoulder, “People take so much time figuring out tricky answers, forget to look for simple ones, huh?”

  “Where’d you hear that?” Glissa asked.

  “Bosh. And experience,” Slobad said and sighed. “I miss Bosh. No offense. Bosh always have something wise to say, huh? Once he started talking.”

  “I miss him too,” Glissa said. The towering metal man, ancient beyond Glissa’s imagination, had sacrificed his newfound life as a flesh and blood creature to give his friends a slim chance of survival. “I miss them all.”

  Bruenna took one last walk around the courtyard before turning in, a habit she’d fallen into over the last week. The overtures from the vedalken had been welcomed by the elders of her people, weary after weeks of fighting the vedalken artifact creatures. Representative Orland claimed that the vedalken wanted to free the humans, live alongside them—and so far, some surprising changes had been made in Lumengrid. The humans were paid for their work in vedalken coinage, and te
chnically the word slave had been abolished. Humans still didn’t have many rights, but they were theoretically on the road to more freedom.

  So why couldn’t Bruenna bring herself to trust Orland and the vedalken?

  The problem, she decided while gazing out over the Quicksilver Sea in the dim green light of the new moon, was that even if the vedalken claimed they were embracing freedom and some kind of self-rule they were still at heart religious fanatics. They still served Memnarch. Pontifex was dead, maybe Memnarch too. The green moon had come, yet here Bruenna was, alive. Surely if Glissa had failed the Neurok mage would have seen evidence of Memnarch’s ascension by now. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to believe the god of the vedalken was truly gone.

  Even if Memnarch was dead, and Bruenna’s world faced a future free of the ancient creature’s “guardianship,” how long before another Pontifex rose to power? What would her people do if their vedalken “friends” called on the Neurok to help hunt down Glissa? What would Bruenna do?

  She didn’t think she had it in her to turn on her Viridian friend. But Bruenna hoped she’d never have to make that choice.

  The mage danced back from the viscous silver of the sea, which had been restless of late. The new moon had thrown the tide patterns into an uproar. She hadn’t been around when the first four moons erupted from the surface, but she imagined that each time a new satellite had come forth, the same thing had happened—the sea went crazy. At the moment, the new green moon hung low behind Lumengrid, the only light in the night sky. The scattered light of the city cast strange shadows on the quicksilver water and gave the illusion of monstrous swimming creatures.

  They were almost upon her before Bruenna realized that she wasn’t looking at any illusion. Dark shapes moved just below the surface, creating shallow wakes that belied their location. The lights of the city were still there, but now they camouflaged…what?

  Bruenna backed away from the waves to get a better look at the mysterious sea creatures just as the shoreline erupted in a spray of silver foam. She found herself staring back at hundreds of red, glowing eyes.

  Bruenna stumbled on a piece of driftmetal as she turned and ran back to her village, shouting at the top of her lungs.

  “To arms! To arms! Levelers on the beach!”

  IN THE COURT OF THE BLIND …

  They received no warning before the day of the trial. Slobad had just torn open the day’s nayan loaf and was about to hand half of it to Glissa when they both simply stopped being inside the cell.

  They stood in shackles on a large, broad platform that offered a view of the whole of Viridia, dominated by the massive shadow of Tel-Jilad, the Tree of Tales. Glissa was struck again by how empty the village looked, but still there was a small crowd.

  “Okay, this might be bad,” the elf girl whispered.

  “Why’s that, huh?” Slobad hissed, his eyes bugging.

  “Because the trial is going to be public.” Glissa formed her clawed hands into fists. “And I’ve never, ever, seen that happen before. In fact, I can’t remember the last time anyone stood trial under threat of execution.”

  “So? That good, huh? Means elves don’t like to kill each other, right?” Slobad asked hopefully.

  “No, it just means that they’re really serious this time. They really expect me to hang, and they want everyone in the village to watch.”

  “I don’t like your home very much, Glissa.”

  “It feels less and less like home all the time.”

  “Hey, cheer up. Manacles,” Slobad said, waggling his eye brows with the exact opposite of subtlety. Slobad could pick the locks on a set of manacles. Glissa had no doubt about that at all. But how were they going to escape standing on an open terrace in the middle of the village? Still, she silently wished him luck.

  Glissa felt she had run out of options. She had to prove her innocence, for Lyese’s sake if not her own. The crash of a gong signaled that the judges had assembled, and they called the trial to order.

  “Okay,” Glissa said, “judges. Silver-hair’s got to be Lendano. He’s one of the oldest elves in the Tangle. I don’t think he’ll fall for any tricks. You know Yulyn, and … I’m not sure. I don’t recognize her. She’s no elf. That looks like one of the Sylvok druids.”

  “Sylvok?” Slobad asked. “Looks pretty elfy to Slobad.”

  “They’re human. But Viridia hasn’t had high-level contact with the Sylvok in years. They keep to their part of the Tangle, and so do we.” She grimaced. “They’ve always given me the creeps.”

  The gong sounded a second time, followed by a familiar, gravelly voice that reverberated in the natural amphitheater. Glissa brightened a bit at the faint sound of metal scraping metal. Slobad was wasting no time working on his bindings. She hoped he could be subtle enough to do them some good.

  “Who accuses this Viridian elf?” Yulyn bellowed. “Step forward, and face the accused.”

  Yulyn referred to a piece of parchment and called Banryk to testify. Glissa heard heavy footsteps approaching her from behind, and a needle-sharp spear tip pressed into her shoulder, right behind her heart. She smelled sour, fermented gelfruit oil—a simple, abundant intoxicant the Viridians brewed called nush—as he leaned in close to her ear.

  “Quiet,” Banryk whispered. “Or I skewer you, then cut up the goblin while you’re bleeding out.”

  Glissa seethed. At least they hadn’t seen Slobad fumbling with his manacles. She was sure that would have created a little stir.

  “We will have order,” Yulyn said. “Who accuses this woman?”

  “I do,” Lyese said, stepping to the witness platform.

  “Of what crime do you accuse this Viridian elf?” asked the Sylvok judge. Her voice was soft, almost elven, but her humanity was unmistakable. Her green robes glittered like sheets of jade.

  The human’s presence was baffling. How bad had things gotten in the last few weeks, Glissa wondered, if the Viridians had to rely on human elders to judge her? Had her people and the Sylvok formed some kind of hasty alliance in the face of the leveler threat?

  “Murder. This Viridian killed my parents,” Lyese continued.

  “Did you see this act?” Yulyn asked. “How was the crime committed?”

  “I had gone for a walk,” Lyese said, her voice strong, clear and tinged with bitterness. “To pick moon’s breath flowers. I was only gone for an hour.” Lyese’s voice trembled slightly, but she held her composure.

  “And when you returned?” Yulyn asked.

  “There was blood everywhere,” Lyese continued without faltering. “The levelers—”

  Glissa heard a gasps from the crowd at the mention of the hated constructs.

  “The levelers had my mother and father, and were cutting them to pieces.”

  “Where was the accused?” the Sylvok asked, “Surely she, too, was … attacking them?”

  “I didn’t see her at first. I tried to fight the levelers, but there were too many. And,” Lyese added, “I was too weak then. They took my eye, but I escaped with my life.”

  “I’m confused,” the Sylvok woman continued. “When did you see the accused attack your parents? It sounds to me like she was lucky the levelers didn’t find her.” Glissa could hardly believe her pointed ears. This human was defending her against her own people.

  “I saw her when she came back to my home, and led them away!” Lyese shouted, her composure breaking at last.

  “Lyese, I wasn’t leading them,” Glissa said, “I didn’t know—”

  “The accused will have the opportunity to speak in her defense when she is called,” Yulyn interrupted. “There will be no further outbursts, or this tribunal will immediately find the accused guilty. Is that understood?”

  Glissa nodded. She wanted to scream.

  “Very well,” Yulyn said. “The witness may continue.”

  “I got out of the house, but I couldn’t just leave. I didn’t know what else to do,” Lyese said. “I saw Glissa head in, and when she came out
the levelers were following her. And she had my mother’s ring.”

  The ring. Glissa’s last piece of her mother, which she’d recovered at the grisly scene. And it was still on her finger, a damning piece of evidence.

  “Does the accused still have this ring? Do you see it?”

  “Not from here. Her hands are tied,” Lyese said.

  “Banryk,” Yulyn ordered, “Bring the accused to the witness platform and unlock her manacles.”

  “What?” the thuggish guard blurted.

  “We must see her hand, Banryk,” Yulyn said. “We can’t do that if it’s tied behind her back. Don’t make me ask you again.”

  Banryk seized Glissa’s bound wrists in one meaty hand. He yanked upward roughly, wrenching the elf girl’s shoulders and sending her half-stumbling forward. Banryk jerked back on her wrist before she could fall, but though this helped her keep her footing it sent more pain through her hyperextended shoulders. “Forward, prisoner,” he growled.

  She felt a key slip into the locks on her manacles, and the metal bands slipped off. Banryk still held one wrist in his hand, and he leaned in again for another nush-scented whisper. “Try something. Please.”

  “Present your hand for inspection,” Yulyn called. Glissa raised her free hand, the one on which she wore her dead mother’s ring.

  “Yes, that’s it,” Lyese said, and Glissa could hear one last, faint hope die in her sister’s heart. “That’s my mother’s ring. How could you, Glissa? It’s just a ring! Why?”

  “The witness will not address the accused!” Yulyn bellowed, raising his voice for the first time. “We will keep order in—”

  “Yulyn,” said Lendano, his gentle, musical voice sounding out of place in this grim court. “This is ridiculous. Such a trial, in such a time of trials. Our numbers are now few. We have had to strike alliances with the humans just to protect ourselves. It is obvious to me that this girl did not command the levelers. No one commands the levelers. They are a force of nature.” Glissa felt an unexpected surge of hope. “Glissa?” Lendano asked, turning to her. “What do you have to say for yourself?”