by Ember Lane
“This opens no ordinary lock,” he whispered, and Aezal agreed.
Lincoln dropped it into his sack and looked at Aezal. He said nothing, but they reached an accord nonetheless. Now they had a secret, one they’d decided to keep from the dwarves and more importantly, the gnome. Lincoln had niggling doubts about Crags’ loyalties. They walked back outside and into the day. Ozmic was just spluttering awake.
“Well,” he asked.
“The tomb is resealed. Lincoln closed the way and got his gift. It is up to us to conceal his stats from all others for now, until he can conceal himself.”
Ozmic’s face dropped in shock, but quickly recovered as he clearly studied Lincoln’s stats. “House Mandrake,” he said, his tone now hiding any emotion he thought about. “I suppose it tells us whose side we’re on if war comes.”
“Whose?” Lincoln asked.
Ozmic grunted and Grimble stirred. “No one's,” Ozmic eventually said. “We aren’t on Irydia’s, nor Petreyer's, nor Kobane's, nor Atremeny's. We are on no one’s side.”
“What?” asked Grimble, but Ozmic pointed at Lincoln, and Grimble then studied him.
“Or everyone,” Grimble said. “We could be on everyone’s side—the folks, the people—not the king, not Sutech Charm, not the Conbinium. We could be the house that serves the common folks—the ugly folks—that no one wants to know. Just like Lamerell did.” Grimble bowed his head, as did Ozmic.
“That sounds good to me,” Lincoln replied, and he meant it. It was like Joan was looking over him, nudging him along a path. “We shall build a sanctuary, hidden from the war, and it will be a home for all who can find it. We’ll send out rangers and guides who'll coax them there, who weed the good from the bad.”
“Aye!” the three shouted.
“Aye what?” slurred Crags.
“We’re gonna build something good,” Aezal told the gnome.
“Hmmph,” he said. “I suppose it’ll make a change.”
Lincoln sat cross-legged by the waning fire while the other three made plans for the coming night. He had much to mull over. The two dwarves got up and went off in search of wood. Crags staggered away with a promise to return with a rabbit or two. Aezal poured Lincoln a mug of wine, primed his pipe for him and then leaned back against the troll hammer.
“You’ve had a hell of a day,” he said.
“Is it just one? Just one day since I woke up in Digberts' cave? Seems like a week. Seems like a month.”
“Be dark soon. You can sleep, and I’ll watch over you.”
“I think that Digberts' crew have gone for good.”
“Ha!” Aezal exclaimed. “Gnomes, never trust them. There, rule number one in this land—never trust a gnome. They proclaim that they have no control over the chaos portal, but I’m telling you this, they’re lying.”
“How do you know?”
“Say gnome three times, and the gnomes appear. Tell me, Lincoln, how could they do that if they have no control over the portal.”
“The universe?”
“Ha!” Aezal spat again. “The universe isn’t listening to me nor you. Trust me, there’s more to Digberts’ crew than the random band of hooligans he portrays. Crags, now take Crags, why would he agree to be exiled away from the group?”
“It looked like he was pushed.”
Aezal shook his head, tensed, but then instantly relaxed. He kicked his feet out in front of him and took a puff on his pipe. “Just talking about them gets me wound tighter than an arbiter’s purse. Crags is a beacon, that’s what I reckon, and when Digberts wants to find you again, he just looks up Crags’ position on some gnome map, and boom! The portal will open and they’ll spill through like a plague of rats.”
Lincoln shrugged. “They didn’t seem all bad. I mean, at first, heaved in and out of the cave...well, it annoyed the hell out of me, but they were…were…exciting?”
Aezal let out another vast puff of smoke. “Exciting? I’ve heard them called many things, but exciting, no, never that. Maybe you are the one to start the House of Mandrake and unite us all.” He patted Lincoln on the knee. “And that’s where we should start.”
“Mandrake?”
“Lamerell: Lamerell is the land. Lore—ancient lore—hatched before Ruse, before these new gods. The lore spoke of Lamerell. She was the earth’s mother, and from her, the land was born. It is said she fashioned the races—humans, giants, elves, dwarves, basilisk, ceratog, croxen, beggle and more, but I think not. I think it was just her way to let the land get on with hatching its own sons and daughters.”
“Where is she now? What of her lore?”
“Destroyed by the ancients, you see their remnants everywhere. There is the bridge to nowhere at Castle Zybond. The Gilden Lode that radiates from Shyantium. The Gates of Striker Bay—a feat that no civilization in this land could fashion. Slaughtower—a monolith that reaches for the sky and defies logic. Countless structures that just can’t be explained. It is said that Lamerell despised the advancement and set a dragon called Mandrake loose to crisp the land back to a time of magic, of stories, and of laughter. That is why Mandrake predates all. That is why Mandrake is the center of this land.”
Lincoln accepted his words, likening Lamerell’s actions to those that should have happened back on earth, on his earth, on Joan’s earth. Someone like Lamerell should have put a stop to it all before it got so out of hand, before it had destroyed the planet.
“Then I’m happy to be Mandrake. Do I get the dragon?”
Aezal laughed. “Anyone who has ever seen such a beast knows that no one gets a dragon. One of the first rules of Lamerell’s law is that even the all-powerful should be vulnerable, else what’s the point?”
“Everything’s a balance,” Lincoln said, as much to himself as to Aezal. “So, how do I conceal this piece of information?”
“Simple, really,” Aezal replied. “You need the skill, Concealment. I should have thought of it back in Brokenford. Spillwhistle has some particularly disgusting elixirs that can advance that skill. Let me see.” Aezal scratched his stubbly chin. “I’ll try and study your stats, and you try and block me. Think of it like…putting a sheet over your board—something like that.”
Lincoln visualized his stats in his mind.
Then he tried to put an imaginary blanket over them, just as Aezal had instructed, but his friend’s piercing eyes just stared straight through it. He thought about other ways, trying to push the list to the back of his mind, but Aezal just pulled it back. He tried blacking it out, but Aezal just flipped the script to white. Lincoln took a breath and then imagined his stats blurring and running into one another.
Congratulations! You have opened the skill Concealment. You have concealment level 1.
All of a sudden, the blurred writing started to fade, and slowly became transparent. “There,” Lincoln said. “Bet you can’t see it now.”
But Aezal narrowed his eyes, pulling back the script, cleaning it up, scribing the words where none had been. Lincoln fought back, taking the letters and trying to pull them away from Aezal. At first, it looked like he was succeeding, the words hiding within the recesses of his brain, but Aezal just focused in and plucked them back out.
Congratulations! You have leveled up the skill Concealment. You have concealment level 2.
“And that is enough for one sitting,” Aezal announced, and Lincoln felt the man’s mind withdraw.
Lincoln suddenly realized he was drenched in sweat. His head pounded away as if his brain had been bruised by the encounter. Aezal got up and sauntered over to Ozmic’s wagon, grabbing a water bottle.
“Drink that,” he said, tossing it over. “We need to get that concealment up to eight or nine. At those levels, only the best will strip you bare—it’s not a skill with thousands of tiers.”
“We can carry on,” Lincoln gasped, having taken a huge slurp of the water.
Aezal shook his head. “No, no we can’t. My perception is much higher than your concealment. I could just g
o in and take your information; but to teach you, you must resist, and I must control my probing. Too hard, and I could destroy your mind; too soft, and you learn nothing. No, I need to stop for my own sake.”
He sat back down next to Lincoln. “It is dusk, the day has been a long one. Plus, you have died today.”
Lincoln’s eyes grew heavy. His mind was exhausted. Aezal was right; he knew that, but he wanted to learn everything. Sleep...sleep could wait until he’d made his settlement. It could wait until he’d created his sanctuary. Now he could see it in his mind’s eye. He could visualize it as his eyelids closed, and his breathing became shallower. His head sagged, and he felt the water bottle pried from his fingers.
He saw her face, his Joan, smiling out from a mountain, and Lincoln recognized it for what it was, the mountain depicted on his map. From it, two high, red ridges reached out and around, enshrouding a circular vale filled with all the shades of nature. A river ran through its center, filling a lake and feeding a waterfall at the vale’s end. His vision withdrew, and he saw the surrounding land, and it was blazing, afire, scorched. Over the mountain—a part of a mountain—Joan was smiling out.
“Joan’s Creek,” he murmured, and Aezal grunted.
“Joan’s Creek,” Lincoln repeated, waking after his brief doze, and he shuffled up against the troll hammer. “The name,” he said, yawning. “It’ll be called Joan’s Creek.”
10
The Last Inn
The landlady of Hunter’s Lodge was an evil-looking woman. She had a round and hearty face and a cheerful set to her mouth that held her toothy smile. With more chins than the rest of them put together, she had a homey look of one who would take great delight in kneading dough to bake you bread, or cook you a hearty pie. Rosy cheeks hung down like ripples on a pond, and her hair was parted in the middle with bunches over her ears, making her look the type that would warm your bed with a pan of hot coals. Usually, with those kinds of features gracing an old lady’s face, evil would be the last word you’d associate her with, but this particular lady had the deadpan eyes of a mass murderer which messed up all the good work the rest of her face did.
Lincoln, Aezal, Grimble, Ozmic, and Crags hugged a dark corner of her empty bar. They’d been on the road for two weeks, and without the promise of a bed upstairs, each one of them would have fled the pub there and then. Her unreadable eyes scanned over them again, no doubt a passing sweep to make sure they’d eaten their broth.
“She’s looking again,” Aezal whispered, hunching farther over the table. “I’m telling you, those soulless eyes are scraping the light from my heart.”
Her name was Morag Cullhaven, and she was the proud owner of the tavern called Hunter’s Lodge. She was also the hamlet’s blacksmith. By her account, Morag owned all five of the dwellings that made up the little hamlet of Thickwick. By her account, she was also Thickwick’s sole resident. So far, she’d shown them no reason to think her anything other than a lonely, old woman.
But there was something about her…
“Have you seen out back, behind the stable?” Ozmic asked.
“What about it?” Aezal asked, uneasily.
“Three rectangular patches of turned mud,” Ozmic muttered, menacingly.
“Graves,” Grimble whispered, nodding intently.
Lincoln screwed his face up. “Really? Why does she have to be a serial killer?”
“A what?” asked Crags.
“A killer…a murderer, why does she have to be one of those? Can’t she just be the woman that was left behind when everyone else sought their fame and fortune in the city?” Lincoln took a sip of his ale, wishing he could glance over his shoulder at the woman.
“We’re stuck now,” Ozmic pointed out. “Cart’s stabled for the night, and she’s locked everything bar the front door.”
Aezal leaned even farther over the table.
“So we’re trapped,” he hissed. “Trapped with this devil woman.”
“Look,” said Lincoln. “There’s five of us and one of her. What’s the matter with you all? Grimble, Ozmic, you’ve both been through here before, surely. Has it always been like this?”
“Been a while,” Grimble muttered. “Last time…” he lowered his voice until each of them could only just hear it. “Last time…it was a thriving little hamlet!” he said through gritted teeth.
Lincoln took a deep breath. “I shall go up, order some more ales and ask her what happened. That is what I shall do. And you watch, it will all be fine.”
The screech of Lincoln’s stool sliding back rang out, and he stood and walked up to the counter.
“Uh-hum,” he said, clearing his throat. “If I may…errm, Morag, if you’d kindly…”
Morag looked up from doing an in-depth study of the counter. Her lifeless eyes eventually met his. “Yes, dear,” she said, forcing a smile back on her face.
Lincoln thought he’d seen a hint of something behind the veil of insanity that was her guise. Was it fear and not madness? He couldn’t be sure. These folks lived with fear all the time. Aezal had told him that this far along the trail, bandits ruled the verges and shadows, and king’s men galloped by, eyes front. Could she be scared of them? He tried a reassuring smile.
“Four and a half more ales, please,” he beamed.
“Half for the gnome? Sensible.”
Was it fear? Fear or sorrow? Lincoln couldn’t tell. It was like she regretted something, something that was coming. Oh no! It was true. She was going to kill them all. He glanced around at the table, widened his eyes in fear to signal her ill intent to his companions. The broth, he thought, had she poisoned the broth? He checked his health—fine, full—but was it death over a certain time? Would their health fade hourly while they slept in the beds that they’d so sought out?
“Tell me,” Lincoln asked as Morag poured the ale, ill-concealed fear spilled into his trembling words. “Is there anyone else residing in the hamlet…anyone…anyone at all? I know you said you own all the buildings, but, anyone?”
“All dead,” she said, with a certain finality. “The…the pox. One by one they dropped down dead.” Her eyes glanced down, breaking away from his, telling Lincoln her words were lies. She’d killed them all and shoveled the lot of them six feet under. He’d no doubt about that now. Her eyes finally rose and met his. “They’re just out back if you want to see,” she said, flicking her head back, but then stopping abruptly like she’d been caught in some kind of act. “Out back, all but one of ‘em,” she said again.
“Except you,” Lincoln pointed out.
Morag sighed. “You’re a bit dim, ain’t you? They’re all out back except one. And yeah, except me. I was spared. Almost like I was needed for something.”
Insane, Lincoln thought, clearly insane. Probably driven mad by watching her little community drop dead one at a time. Shame, he thought.
“I wish we could stay more than one night,” Lincoln told her. “Keep you company.” Even as the words spilled out, he wondered why he was saying them. He didn’t even want to stay that night, let alone another.
She slid the ales to him. “One night, let’s hope. It’s…” she made to say, but a glance toward Aezal and company, and her words stopped in their tracks.
“No. How long have you been on yer own?” Lincoln asked, curious how she could have fallen into insanity so fast.
“Only a day since the last one breathed his final breath. He’s the one out front…” She started twitching again. Tossing her chin over her shoulder.
“The twitching? Did that start about then?”
Morag started blinking and crimping her cheeks up and down, jerking her head to one side. “You’re a bloody fool.”
“I’m sorry?” Lincoln said, gathering the mug’s handles together. He decided that if she was going to be rude, he wouldn’t pry any longer. “Are you trying to tell me something?”
Jerking suddenly, Morag stiffened, she stood bolt upright. “What’s the big man’s story?” Her eyes almost burst
into life for a second as they settled on Aezal. “I could use me a strong man.” Her pale tongue licked along her cracked lips, but her manner betrayed forced words.
“Story,” repeated Lincoln. “What’s his story.” He tried to smile, but his lips weren’t brave enough, and so he scooped up the first of the ales and skulked back to their table. About to return for the rest, he was surprised to see Morag already around the counter and bringing them to the table.
“So,” she said. “Where you boys headed?”
“Erm,” said all five, and they each proceeded to look at their toes.
“West,” Ozmic eventually managed.
“Ain’t much west but trunks ‘n rock, moss ‘n tangle, not much else apart from that. North and east yer’ve got Merrivale. How you gonna get a cart full of wine west?”
“We were hoping to sell in here, in Thickwick, but it don’t seem—”
“Oh, I think that’s the last of your worries,” she declared, but her eyes constantly jerked toward the window. “Bad out there,” she muttered, lingered for a moment, then turned and scampered back to the bar.
“She’s a strange one,” Ozmic whispered.
“I’m sleeping with my sword unsheathed,” Aezal said.
“Easy, big man,” said Crags, with a smirk on his face.
“Seems to despise the rain,” Lincoln muttered, absently. “And she’s got this twitch, like someone’s looking over her shoulder.”
“That’s her victims haunting her,” Crags said ominously, and silence fell around the table.
Lincoln looked around to see that Morag had vanished out of the back. “There’s something odd about this place.”
