Evander and the Strangler's Quest

by Wells, L. G.

  “I … I took a walk.”

  Anguis smacked him across the face. Tears sprang to Evander's eyes.

  “Lies!” he hissed. “You took the Deathless Flame from the altar. Where did you hide it?”

  “I didn't take it! I wouldn't! I wouldn't disrespect the gods!”

  “But you would disrespect me, just as your father did, and your mother, and your brother. So where did you hide it?”

  Evander couldn't answer: his voice was trapped in his throat. Anguis seized him around the wrist and brought his left hand up to his eye-level. He looked at where the bandage was wrapped around his palm and then his eyes slid back to Evander's face.

  “How did you injure your hand?”

  “I ...”

  He didn't wait for Evander's response. Instead, he ripped the covering off the wound and stared down at it. It looked even worse than when Evander had last seen it. The skin had bubbled and boiled away, and the flesh was black around the edges with a gaping white hole in the center of it.

  “I fell,” Evander said.

  “This is no ordinary wound,” Anguis growled. “This is the wrath of the gods.”

  A sharp knock sounded on the open door, and Evander's eyes flew over Anguis' shoulder to see his mother standing on the threshold with her servant girl. The Noble Guards straightened and tilted their heads in a bow. Anguis released Evander's neck and stood to face her.

  “My Queen,” he said. “Surely this is no place for a woman of your honor.”

  The Queen ushered the servant girl forward. The young woman was trembling almost as much as Evander, and nearly toppled over as she curtsied to the King.

  “My Lady wishes to tell you, M'lord, that her son, Prince Evander, spent the day with her.” Her jaw quivered as she awaited the King's reaction, but when he stood in stunned silence, she went on. “My Lady said the Prince would be too shy to say so, as he's not supposed to spend time with her, M'lord. But My Lady thought it right to tell you.”

  Anguis' tongue darted out and ran over his lips, moistening them with saliva. His eyes were narrowed as he stared at his wife.

  “I see,” he said shortly. He gave the servant girl a look. “You may go. Now.”

  She glanced at the Queen and hurried from the room. Aeliana drew her shoulders back, further straightening her spine, and stared silently at the King.

  “You may return to your chamber, My Lady,” he said, his voice dangerously low.

  Aeliana shook her head and indicated to Evander. Anguis placed a hand on his shoulder.

  “I'm not quite done with the boy yet,” he said. “After all, he disobeyed me by seeing you. He needs to be punished. Surely you agree?”

  Aeliana gritted her teeth. All at once Evander was glad that her lack of tongue rendered her speechless, for he was certain that if she could talk, the words would be enough to earn her an equally harsh punishment. She defiantly shook her head, but Anguis only smiled at her.

  “Hocking,” he said to the guard who had spoken earlier, “please take the Queen upstairs. I see she's in need of assistance.”

  The guard stepped forward and took her by the arm, but Aeliana snatched it out of his grasp. With one last fleeting look at Evander, though, she allowed herself to be led out the door. Once she was gone, Anguis turned back to him.

  “I know you have that flame,” he said lowly, and regardless of the fact that Evander had assumed he would be thought of as too weak and inadequate to follow through with such a crime, he didn't doubt the King's words for a moment. “And if you thought that you would get away with it, know that the gods will punish you more severely than you can imagine in your next life, and that I will punish you to the same degree in this one.”

  He unclenched his hand from Evander's shoulder and took a step back, nodding to the two remaining guards to go.

  “You poor boy,” he said as he walked to the door. “Just as foolish as your brother was, and readying to meet the same fate, six years sooner than need be.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Evander found himself growing steadily more jumpy as the days wore on, and he was finally banned from handling knives and food in the kitchen because he dropped them so often. Gussalen put him to work cleaning instead, and in the hours of solidarity, his mind grew more and more imaginative of the ways that Anguis would get rid of him.

  He didn't doubt for a moment that he would.

  He had, after all, frightened his brother into hiding, and Arthfael was much braver and stronger than Evander had ever hoped to be.

  Though he had not forgotten about his next task, he was anxious to carry through with it. He knew that Anguis was watching him carefully through the eyes of his Noble Guards, and most likely a host of other servants and townsfolk, and he didn't consider himself quite clever enough to think that he could evade them for the time it would take to dig up the Deathless Flame and complete his task. He was wishfully thinking that Anguis might be called away to another kingdom on urgent duty and take his men with him, but seeing as the other kingdoms still practiced magic, it seemed unlikely.

  The Strangler came to him once more in the night.

  Evander felt him before he even opened his eyes from his blankets on the floor: the stiff, aching chill that came to the air whenever he was around, and the low vibrating that radiated around the room from his deep breaths. He opened his eyes and saw the shiny black hoofs in front of him. Slowly, he rose to a sitting position.

  “You've given up.”

  “No,” Evander said, shaking his head hurriedly. “No, I just – it's just been difficult.”

  “I offered you a simple task,” The Strangler said. “I would have given you one much easier in exchange for healing your hand. It was you who chose to take the three more challenging ones.”

  “They're not too difficult: I swear! I'll complete them – I just –” He halted and bit his lip, wondering if The Strangler didn't know how much danger he was in or simply didn't care. “What will happen to my brother if I don't finish the tasks?”

  “Nothing that hasn't already befallen him,” The Strangler said without concern. He turned away from where Evander sat huddled on the floor. “You have the next fortnight to complete your tasks. After that, I shall assume you don't care to find him after all.”

  Evander barely waited for him to depart before getting up. He pulled on his warmest clothes and retrieved his boots and the fire iron from the side of the hearth, then went to the storage room and collected a chain and hook that had been used to haul boxes in from the town. Wrapping it up and throwing it over his shoulder, he ventured out into the cold, dark morning and made his way into the forest.

  He had to double around twice before finding the A-shaped tree again, but he was pleased to see that the ground had softened since he had buried the box. Hacking away at the dirt with the fire iron, he used all of his strength to break through the earth as quickly as possible, and in the pitch black the clank of metal on metal that told him he had found the Deathless Flame.

  Heaving to box up from the hole, he felt the heat radiating from the metal and hugged it close to him to warm his frozen fingers as he walked in the direction of the River Odi. He wasn't certain how he would be able to find a key beneath the frozen surface – let alone retrieve it – as the river stretched on for hundreds of miles. He could very well be in another kingdom by the time he found it.

  He reached the river and looked left and right, wondering which direction he should begin his search. The right would take him to the ocean, whereas the left led west to the nearest kingdom. He stood in the cold for several moments before giving up on trying to rationalize his decision, and he opened the iron box and shined the Deathless Flame down through the half-solid water to begin his search.

  The water was so dark that he couldn't make out anything, let alone a small key. He edged closer to it, his feet slipping on the snowy bank, and doused the river with the heat from the flame to clear the mist of snow from the top of the ice, but still he saw noth
ing. It was too wide to see more than a few feet from the edge, and he knew that The Strangler wouldn't have planted it somewhere easy to find. He moved further and further up in for hours, shining the light as best as he could, and his feet turned raw in the cold as he searched. As the sun began to peek over the trees, he sank down to his knees beside the ice dismally. Finding the key would be impossible.

  “The gods will smite you, Prince Evander,” came jovial, singing voice, and Evander turned in relief towards Effer. She was the little white ermine again and barely showed up at all in the mountain of snow, but her green eyes glistened like emeralds from his side. He knelt down to speak to her.

  “I thought you weren't coming back,” he said.

  “I heard that you were visited by The Strangler again. You don't have much time.”

  “Where'd you hear that?”

  “The palace walls told the trees, and Vee speaks with them frequently. She told me just now.”

  A rush of wings sounded from above, and the beautiful owl soared down to perch on a branch that hung over the river. Vee cocked her head at him.

  “The sooner you complete your task, the sooner you can return the gods' flame,” she said. “Their wrath only builds over time.”

  “I know, but I have to get this key,” Evander told them, “and it's somewhere on the floor of the river, but I can't see anything and I'll never be able to find it –”

  He shut the box, trapping the Deathless Flame back inside, as hopelessness welled up inside him. It was finally dawning on him that he had been tricked. The Strangler was never going to tell him where his brother was, he had simply made the deal with him to revel in watching him fail. He had probably thought that Evander would never be able to steal the flame, and would be caught on his way out of the Temple with it, but had delighted in getting the chance to give him an even more impossible task. It was just as Effer had told him: The Strangler didn't want riches, he wanted entertainment, and seeing Evander struggle was the greatest he had had in a long while.

  “Give me the flame, Prince Evander,” Effer said.

  Evander hugged the box closer to him. Even though he knew he was doomed to fail, he wasn't ready to give up, and he couldn't allow the sprites to return the flame to the Temple yet. He would walk up and down the river until his feet bled if he needed to, just as Arthfael would do for him.

  “I have to find the key,” he said firmly.

  “I know, so give the flame to me,” Effer repeated. “You might not be able to swim in the cold, but I can.”

  “W-what?”

  He could barely believe what he was hearing, and he had to shake himself to make sure that he hadn't fallen asleep from exhaustion and slipped into an impossible dream. Effer waited for him patiently.

  Opening the box, Evander held out the flame for her. She took the single piece of black wood that it burned upon into her mouth and then scurried onto the water.

  “Break a hole for her,” Vee said, and Evander rushed forward and smacked the ice with the fire iron. It cracked open, splashing him with icy water, and Effer sprang down into it. The river glowed with Amora's red flame beneath the ice, marking where she was.

  Vee swept down from the tree and soared over the river, following the red light.

  “I have better eyes,” she called to Evander. “I'll spot it before she does.”

  Evander stared up at her and, before he could stop himself, let out a laugh. His spirit was all at once as high as she flew, and he ran alongside the river chasing both her and the light, no longer feeling cold and wretched but light and free.

  He ran up through the town, passing behind the shops that had not yet opened for the morning, and then swept along towards the expansive forest. The faster he ran, the surer he felt that soon his feet would lift off of the ground and he, too, would soar above the ground.

  Vee suddenly ducked back and swooped downwards, catching Evander off guard. He jolted to a halt, slipping as he did so, and fell into the deep snow. His injured hand struck the ground painfully and he clenched his jaw to keep from crying out in pain, but quickly stood even so to see why Vee had stopped.

  She had landed in the center of the river and pecked the ice once with her beak.

  “It's there, right below,” she said. “Break the ice quickly to let Effer out.”

  Evander dove down to the water's edge and hacked at the ice with the fire iron again, breaking it open with several harsh hits. The ermine scrambled out from the freezing water, shaking and wet, but the Deathless Flame in her mouth quickly dried her fur.

  “You should be the one to pick it up,” she said. “The Strangler gave the task to you.”

  “Effer – Vee –” he said, looking between the two sprites. “I can't thank you enough –”

  “You'll thank us when the gods' flame is restored,” Vee said. “We'll all rest more peacefully then.”

  Evander took the red fire and cautiously moved across the ice towards the center. When he reached Vee, he got down on his knees and shined the light down on the surface. He squinted his eyes and strained to see the key beneath the water, searching wildly until –

  He saw it. The metal glistened from several feet below. He felt his breath catch. He had found it. Now he only needed to reach it.

  “Be careful,” Vee said. “Don't let yourself submerge. You'll freeze before you touch the bottom.”

  “I already thought of that,” Evander said proudly, and produced the chain and hook he had taken from the storage room.

  He backed up as far as he could while still holding the Deathless Flame against the spot that Vee had marked. The fire ate away at the ice slowly but surely, and didn't crack it the way that the fire iron would have. When the flame dipped down into water, Evander slowly moved forward again and lowered the chain and hook down.

  “You have to move it more to the left,” Vee said, her sharp eyes focused on the water. “No, that's too far – back a bit and –”

  “Ah!” Evander exclaimed, swearing as the hook missed the key again. He ought to have brought a bucket to scoop it up with, or a long-handled tool. He maneuvered the hook over to the key again, unwilling to fail when he was so close.

  All at once, Vee took flight up into the trees, and Effer gave an animalistic squeal and tunneled into the snow and out of sight. Evander barely had time to turn when he spotted why: four Noble Guards were standing on the edge of the river staring at him.

  Evander dropped the Deathless Flame into the hole, praying that they hadn't seen it. He stood up and looked at them, his chest heaving up and down as he waited to hear what crime they would shout that he had committed, but they remained quiet.

  He paused, wondering if they had decided that he was simply playing a foolish children's game, when –

  Crack.

  The tallest of the guards took out his sword and plunged it into the ice. It sent a crack that sounded like thunder running into the center of the ice, right towards where Evander stood. As it broke beneath his feet, it dawned on him that they were not there to catch him in any crime: they were there to kill him.

  The ice broke before he could think to run, and his body jolted downwards and plunged into the icy water. His skin seemed to peel from his bones as he plummeted, and his whole being screamed silently as pain enveloped every part of him. As his feet hit the bottom of the river, his legs collapsed beneath him and he fell sideways, unable to move let alone stand. He sank to the bottom on his side while the Deathless Flame burned on somewhere close by. It would go on, he thought as his mind slowed from a lack of oxygen, and he would be gone before it so much as flickered …

  Something gold flickered in front of him, and he saw the ornate key that The Strangler had requested him to retrieve. He wrapped his hand around it, the frozen fingers barely able to bend, and his eyes burned with tears that couldn't fall. He had gotten it – he was just a little too late.

  Water pushed him sideways as though a current was moving past him, and a dark shadow overtook him. He
couldn't move to see what it was. Then, without warning, something clamped down over his arm, and he found himself looking into the eyes of a fate much worse than drowning.

  A huge white bear was holding his arm in its jaws.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Evander was nearly unconscious by the time it hauled him from the river, but as he drifted in and out of a dark nothingness, he was vaguely aware that he was being dragged over the forest floor like a sled skating upon the snow. He could only see the pearly underside of the huge beast, and its low, snarling breaths filled the air as it trudged onward.

  It must have been taking him to its den, he thought wearily as his eyes rolled up into his head, finally ready to give way to full unconsciousness. Maybe it was going to share him with its cubs – though it would be disappointed, as he was so underfed that they wouldn't get much meat off of him at all.

  The bear paused and Evander felt its teeth unclench from his arm, and he sank down further into the thick snow. His entire form was stiff as though paralyzed. A part of him hoped that he was: then he wouldn't feel anything when it began to feed off of him.

  “We have to get him back to the palace.”

  Evander twitched towards the sound. It was light, like the jingling of bells at the Festival of the Eyes. He knew that sound too well.

  His eyes parted just slightly, and a crack of white cut across his otherwise blinded vision. The white bear was staring down at him.

  “I can't carry him there without every armed man shooting at me to make the King a new rug,” the bear said, and Evander, shocked with his own relief, let out a laugh: it was Scence. His laugh quickly turned to a coughing fit, though, and his sides ached as he heaved against the cold.

  “If we don't get him warm, he'll die,” came Vee's voice.

  “We'll warm him the best we can in the meantime. Maybe at night we can bring him, but not now. Effer, bring the flame closer.”

  A warm sensation came over Evander's chest, and he knew that the Deathless Flame was floating over his chest, held by the ermine, but could barely see it. It was glowing white.