A Bitter Brew

by Greg Curtis

  “This is a portal as large as the entire inner city. And since it draws my Mithril to it, it's an otherworldly portal.” He paused for a moment then, almost stunned by what he was saying, but knowing it was true.

  “The power to create such a portal is as Val says, godlike. Certainly no afflicted human could cast such a spell. Probably not even all of the afflicted acting in concert could do it. And I still have to wonder why anyone needs such a portal? Is the caster of this portal a giant standing a thousand feet tall? Or is he bringing others with him? An army maybe?”

  “The truth is, I don't know. But he seems likely to be unfriendly. Because logic says he also summoned all the afflicted to the city and started the war.”

  Hendrick paused, as all around him people gasped in disbelief, while others started to protest. He held up his hand to quiet them.

  “He did. It's the only thing that makes sense. As I said to Marnie before; there were only ever three possibilities. Either you did it.” He nodded at the man with the Luminite markings. “But the afflicted would never choose to come to Styrion Might willingly, and if you had chosen to come you'd at least know who brought you here. Alternatively the King could have brought you here, save that this is Styrion Might and there are no afflicted allowed in the city so he couldn't have brought you here – and why would he want to?”

  “Which left only the third possibility. That someone else did it and has been toying with you. And now, unless you want to believe that whoever built this portal is different from whoever brought you all here, you've found your third party. And that party’s got magic a thousand times more powerful than anything I've ever heard of. Mithril magic.”

  “Unfortunately I think it’s worse than that. Much worse.”

  “What brought you all to the city was some sort of portal spell. Something to draw the afflicted here from anywhere in the realm. It also had the power to confuse people’s thoughts. It's not that different to when I summon the spectral cats from their world. The magic brings them and shapes their thoughts so they obey me. The fact that you came from one part of Styrion to arrive at another however, suggests that Mithril magic was not used. It's not otherworldly. In fact it’s a variation of a basic summoning – Illuminium. It is much the same as when a summoner summons a tiger. But whoever this is, is doing more than that. He can confuse other people's thoughts as well. He confused the soldiers with mind magic. Luminite. That's why the soldiers believe the afflicted attacked first and the afflicted believe the soldiers attacked them. You've all been led a merry dance. It's the only thing that answers everyone's questions. And that isn't the act of a friend.”

  “But even if he were, a mere accident by someone with that sort of power could be devastating. Just the border effects when that portal finally snaps into place and becomes part of the world could flatten half the city. None of us will be able to stand against it. Not even all of us together.”

  “It's time to make peace and abandon the city. We need to run like all the demons of the underworlds are on our tail. Because they might be.”

  Hendrick paused for a bit before he added the last. Because he didn't want to say it. He didn't want to even think it. But in the end, it had to be said. More than that it had to be heard.

  “Styrion Might is lost. And if we don't flee we will all be lost with it.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The exodus was going as well as could be expected. Which was to say, badly.

  People were leaving in their tens of thousands. The roads out of the city were bursting with refugees. The message had been sent out that the city was about to fall, and that when it did anyone who stayed behind was likely to be killed. And if people didn't believe what they were told by the afflicted and the soldiers who had joined them, there was always the barrier itself with its booms and flashes of red light to confirm what was happening.

  But many people still refused to believe it. Too many. They said that king had been deceived by the afflicted and it was just a plot to empty out the city so they could claim it for themselves. Others that it was madness. And so they stayed. Even when soldiers were beating on their doors, ordering them out of their homes. Even when they could see the barrier flashing red more and more quickly and hear the cannon fire becoming more urgent.

  Hendrick understood their resistance. It was a hard thing to abandon your home. After all, he had risked his life for the privilege of staying in Burbage even when his house had been destroyed. But ignoring what you heard and saw didn't help any more than breathing Vitanna's mist did.

  But because of that resistance, even if they got everyone else out of the city in time, when the portal finally snapped fully into the world, Hendrick knew there would be a great many deaths. Maybe thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands. It would be a slaughter such as Styrion had never known. Not in all the centuries of recorded history of the realm. And there was nothing he could do about it. Hendrick didn't even know how long they had. He suspected the end would come when the barrier was no longer flashing but just stayed red, and the booming had reduced to one continuous roar. He thought that might happen before the day was done.

  In the meantime Hendrick was helping with the evacuation. He was spending his time filling packs with whatever supplies had been salvaged, and then handing them over to the refugees as they commenced their journey, urging them to hurry for the main gate and the Great East Road. It was a large operation. They had hundreds of people rushing through all the nearby houses to gather up food and supplies, and then bring them back to a set of tables that had been placed in the middle of the main concourse. His job was simply to stand at one of those tables and fill up the packs the gatherers had brought back and hand them to those leaving the city.

  His mother was at the barrier urging those on the other side who were still refusing to leave their homes, to run. Telling them exactly what they thought was going to happen to them when the portal was complete. And she was trying to do all that through messages she had written in paint on weather-boards It didn’t seem to be working all that well but Hendrick thought that if she persuaded just one more person to leave then it would have been worth it.

  The king was still in the inner city, ordering what soldiers he had left to forcibly remove the last of the stragglers and hold outs from their homes. But despite it being life and death, they couldn't threaten let alone harm them. Other soldiers were busy leading the horses one at a time through the sewers, and thus far the steel walkway was holding their weight. On this side of the barrier more soldiers were hitching the horses up to carts and sending them on their way loaded down with people and supplies. At least one part of the city still had soldiers left who would obey the King. Because the one thing that had become clear even if no one had said it, was that the rest of the soldiers throughout the city, battling the afflicted, hadn't been following the King's commands. They couldn't have when the barrier had completely prevented both travel and sound passing between the inner city and the rest of Styrion Might.

  But that was a mystery to be resolved, later. And if the afflicted and the soldiers eyed each other up suspiciously, they knew better than to start their hostilities again. It didn't matter if they had lost friends to one another. The only thing that mattered was getting everyone out before whatever was coming, arrived.

  Hendrick though had one other problem on his mind. Marnie.

  “So are all the princes lying little toads? Gifted with the treachery of dragons?” Marnie took another swipe at him.

  She'd been doing it all day and it had only become worse since she'd stationed herself on the same table as him for some reason. Why had she done that, he wondered? The bards' tales of the little people from the most ancient of days had mentioned that some of them had been nasty, vexatious and annoying. Brownies he thought. He was beginning to think that the tales were true and she had some brownie blood in her.

  “Or is it just you?”

  “I'm not a prince. I'm afflicted. I brew ale,” Hendrick told her
tiredly for maybe the thousandth time. He bundled up another pack of food, tied it together and handed it to the next man and his family waiting in the queue so that they could begin their journey. He had a lengthy queue waiting for him as did those at the other tables.

  But at least their operation had moved down to the third terrace, as the inner city and second terrace had now mostly been cleared of people wanting to leave. And every step they took further away from that flashing barrier was a step closer to safety he thought.

  “Yes, I keep forgetting, Your Highness. Prince of Toads!”

  Hendrick did his best to ignore her as he worked. Much as he'd been doing all day. In time he knew she would fall silent – for a while. But sooner or later she would start again. He suspected that she wasn't so much angry at him as she was at herself for being tricked.

  “King's coming!”

  A soldier suddenly yelled out the news, surprising everyone. But it was welcome news. If the King was coming then the inner city had to be empty – or as empty as they could make it. There was only so much even the King and his soldiers could do.

  “Oh good! Daddy's coming!” Marnie naturally took the opportunity to mock him once more.

  Hendrick ignored her and carried on working. There was so much to do and he simply didn't have time for her. And soon enough she fell silent again and returned to her work.

  When the King appeared on the concourse everyone stopped for a moment. Few people had ever seen the King in the flesh. And certainly not close up. That also included Hendrick. Some bowed to him. Others just stood and stared. Hendrick just carried on with his work. In the end he didn't really know the man. In fact, if it hadn't been for the fact that his face was pressed into every styne in the realm, he might not have even recognised him. He was also fairly sure his father wouldn't recognise him.

  But the King did look regal he supposed. He stood tall and straight, though his mother said that was due to concealed lifts in his boots and a back brace in his clothes. He had dressed in his best armour as if he was going off to war and was surrounded by soldiers also dressed for battle. And as he approached them he was calling out commands to others, which were immediately obeyed. He suited the role of king perfectly. As did his wives, most of whom it seemed had followed him. They were all dressed as if they were in the castle, hearing petitioners. His mother among them.

  Beside his father was a young woman Hendrick presumed to be his new wife. Sana of the House of Mirrion. She was extremely pale of skin and had flaming red hair – a striking look. But mostly what struck him was that she looked even younger than he'd imagined. She was supposed to be eighteen. She didn't look even that. She was just a small slip of a thing standing next to a grey bearded man old enough to be her grandfather. There was something very wrong with that he thought. She was young and pretty and extremely pale, but most of all she looked very out of place. Seeing her standing beside his father he couldn’t help feeling sorry for her.

  Hendrick wasn't even sure if the wedding had happened. He hadn't thought to ask. But if it hadn't then he really wanted to yell at her to run. She surely wouldn’t want to be married to a man so much older than her. Or to a King whose kingdom looked to be under attack and falling into chaos? That was bad enough. But she surely had no idea of the endless political cat fight that was the lifeblood of the royal family. Or of the political intrigues that were the Court's bread and butter. And the thousand and one pitfalls that would beset her should she step out of line. Even as he looked over at the Royal gathering, Hendrick could see his mother and several other of the King's wives standing behind them, smiling warmly while they worked out where and when to stick their knives in her back.

  Maybe that wasn't completely fair. His mother and Lady Marda were the two most deadly enemies of all the wives, and their loathing for one another knew no bounds. It was war. His mother still believed that Lady Marda had arranged for the soil of the Royal Garden to be laced with the Mithril that had afflicted him. Maybe she had – he didn't know. But they mostly settled for keeping the other wives in order and left them alone otherwise as they continued their polite war. The others were if not better women, than at least less dangerous.

  Lady Simone would pose no danger to anyone. She was only really interested in clothes and how she looked – and shoes of all things! Besides, she was smart enough to know that in a battle of wits with any of the others she would be outclassed. She also wasn't the sort to be mean. She had a kind heart and was quite motherly even to the children of the other wives.

  Lady Recina on the other hand, did have a cruel streak. But mostly it ran to unkind words and no further. Her powder was wet – it fizzled rather than burnt. He would have described her as bitter rather than malicious.

  His father's fourth wife, Lady Terrinesse, could almost be nice at times. But she was an emotional volcano, as likely to burst into wild screaming matches as into a smile. And often it seemed there was no reason for her to be either angry or sad. It was simply who she was. A frothy brew.

  As for the others, they were all younger than his mother, and for the most part, quiet. Their status in the family was too low for them to make too many problems. And Lady Marda and his mother, while they truly hated one another, were of one mind in making sure that the others didn't upset the royal household.

  The only one of the younger wives Sana would have to worry about was Lady Selmee, the ninth wife who she had just replaced. No doubt she was feeling somewhat angry about it. It was always the same. Each new wife arrived on the scene thinking that all the others were old and no longer relevant. Then they spent a few years being the King's favourite and having children, before their reign ended abruptly and it became their turn to join the ranks of the old and irrelevant. Having already been through it before, the others were more accepting of things.

  It was Lady Marda who Sana would have to be most wary of. Because it was she as First Wife – a title she clung desperately to – who more or less ran the royal household. And it was she who could make the lives of the other wives a true hell. There was a reason his mother had become so skilled in the art of political intrigue. It was a matter of survival in the royal household.

  Seeing them there Hendrick discovered that he was infinitely grateful to be out of that world. Somehow he kept forgetting that when the hardships of his life intruded. But seeing the women standing there, he suddenly remembered it only too well.

  Still, Sana – Lady Sana perhaps – had made her decision. Or her family had on her behalf – he knew almost nothing about her, save that the Mirrion family held an old and respectable name. The sort that no doubt would think it an honour to have their daughter wed the King. And many young women would dream of being in her shoes. It might be a dream based on ignorance, but it was still a dream. It was also the way things had been done in Styrion for thousands of years. Who was he to judge?

  Then things changed unexpectedly and he realised he'd been wrong about everything. Again.

  Hendrick watched as Sana took half a step backwards to stand just behind her husband. Then he saw his father suddenly gasp in shock, his face a mask of horror and pain. And like everyone else Hendrick didn't understand what was happening. Was the King ill?

  But then he saw Sana's fingers around the back of his father’s neck and watched him being lifted off the ground, his head rolling back, arms and legs dangling, and he understood. She'd attacked him, hoisting him up with one hand as though he was a puppy. But how could Sana possibly have such strength?

  Soldiers suddenly rushed for her, weapons at the ready, crying out war cries. More were levelling pistols and muskets at her. And behind them all his mother and the other wives simply stood there in shock.

  The sound of gunfire abruptly split the air causing Hendrick to jump, while smoke billowed out from at least a dozen weapons.

  But when the smoke cleared Hendrick could see Sana was still standing there, his father still helpless in her grip. Though shot, she hadn't cried out or dropped the King.
Hendrick could see the bullet holes in her dress. But he couldn't see any blood. Not a single drop of it.

  Then a ghostly beast of some sort seemed to burst from Sana’s flesh, before it opened its mouth and shrieked. A heartbeat later the sound sent him flying backward in agony, hands held over their ears as he desperately tried to muffle the scream. In fact it sent everyone on the concourse for fifty yards flying in agony.

  Hendrick was sent flying with them, screaming in torment, and unable to even hear himself over the noise. The sound was otherworldly. A shriek that crumbled rock, raised dust clouds, shattered cobbles and threatened to burst eardrums. For the longest time after he'd crashed to the cobbles Hendrick could do nothing but lie there on the ground, his hands pressed tight over his ears, praying that the sound would end.

  When it finally did though, and he was able to see straight again, he saw to his surprise that not only was Sana still alive, but that she had remained standing where she was, holding his father off the ground with just one hand. His father continued to struggle weakly in her grip, trying desperately to reach for his sword. And the ghostly creature extending from Sana's middle was looking a little more solid through his blurred vision. Some sort of horrific mixture of ghost and long necked serpent. It was a part of her somehow!