by D Mickleson
Deeply moved, Triston scanned the minute spectators in the Firefount’s unearthly light. He cared not at all for the duke’s self-flattering statue, but the great mind and power who guided its progress with such skill filled him with wonder.
His keen eyes found a raised platform at the very heart of the square. The plump duke, dressed richly in purple furs lined with gold stripes, sat surrounded by a few chosen guests and a squadron of armed men. Triston smiled despite his weariness as he contemplated the man, knowing he was probably fuming at the absence of Her Grace.
And there he was, Azerban, a tiny figure standing out from all the rest, staff raised in hand, guiding the floating mass with confident finesse.
“All right, let’s go,” said Alden, placing a hand on his shoulder. “We don’t have time to watch the whole thing. Now’s our chance to get away.”
Triston nodded, looking away reluctantly. “I guess we didn’t need the rope after all.”
“Not yet, but I’m almost certain there’ll be a closed grate where the watercourse passes through the city wall. We’ll still be well below the level of the parapet, but I’m hoping we’ll be high enough by then to loop a rope-end over the battlements so we can climb over.” He saw Triston’s unease and gave his shoulder a squeeze. “Come on, Slendrake. We’ll make it yet.”
He turned to go on, but paused as though struck by an idea. “By the way, I wasn’t joking back there about the skin scrap. I suppose you’ll be wanting this back.” He reached into his tunic and withdrew the sheepskin.
Triston took it with a suspicious frown, holding its frayed form up in the moonlight. “Very funny prank,” he said dully as he looked down at the dirty, and completely blank, sides.
“What? That’s impossible. I swear there was writing there.” Alden grabbed at the parchment, but Triston yanked it away.
“Trist, no, I swear.” Triston glared disbelievingly, and now Alden grew angry in turn. “I said I swear. Would I lie about something from your father, something that important?”
Triston’s shoulders slumped. He knew the idea of a bequest from father to son would seem sacred to Alden. The fact that his own father had abandoned him and his mother before he was born was always a touchy subject for Alden. “No, you wouldn’t,” he said. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to think, but there’s no time now. Let’s just go.”
Alden shook his head, looking down at the sheepskin as though it had betrayed him. “Yeah, OK,” he said with a shrug. “Follow my lead. We need to be careful on this thing or—”
At that moment there came another roar from the crowd, but this time the commotion was quite different. The shouts and cries were filled with panic. Something was very wrong.
Triston saw Alden’s eyes widen, and following the line of his gaze, felt his heart leap into his throat. Down by the Firefount all was upheaval and confusion. Armored men, Guardians, the Duke’s Squad and legionnaires thrown together in the chaos were chasing a great, shaggy brute here and there in the firelight. The minotaur ran for its life before the hunters, bellowing above the cries of all the rest in fear and outrage.
Watching in shocked silence, they saw Duke Gubrius leap up, waving his arms wildly and gesturing toward his statue. His fears were not misplaced. The graven image began to sway ominously as the wizard’s concentration waned. Triston breathed a sigh of relief as the statue appeared to right itself.
The relief was short-lived. The minotaur, running mad in its bestial rage, had swung back around, making once more for the Firefount and the empty pedestal, his band of armed pursuers close behind. People were running every which way, wailing with desperation to escape the stampeding brute.
Suddenly a hellish form swept out of the night sky, flapping vast, bat-like wings and shaking a shadowy mane, darker than the night.
Everyone froze. The soldiers, the duke, even the minotaur; all stared up in vain disbelief as the Seer’s monster circled its nightmare descent, the luminous scorpion tale lashing the sky like a flaming whip. Then, panic personified ten thousand times over, the spectators rushed for every exit.
Soon there rose up above every wail and cry an awful braying. Looking, Triston spotted a plume of smoke rising near the duke’s platform. A haycart had caught fire with a donkey still hitched-up at the front. The terrified beast was frothing at the mouth and stamping its feet as it cried out, now lifting its eyes to the manticore, now craning its neck toward the blazing cart.
The strain was too much. Leaping forward with a kick in the air, it began running pell-mell around the duke’s stand, braying and kicking out at anything and nothing. Seeing an obvious target, the manticore plunged, sinking long claws into the poor beast’s flesh. Then, beating its wings like storm-tossed sails, the hellion lifted the donkey off the ground.
They rose together, predator and prey, but the blazing cart remained, a fiery anchor binding them to the earth.
From out of the cart there suddenly burst a spray of sparks, first red, then blue, then green. Rockets exploded in every direction, showering the square with a torrent of light and color. One struck the nearby stand with a burst of gold, missing Gubrius by inches. Another soared over Triston and Alden’s heads, blooming into a sea-blue flower just above the city wall. A third struck the manticore, piercing its flesh and exploding in streaks of crimson.
With a thunderous roar the monster let loose the donkey, by now mercifully unconscious, where it crashed to the ground, the cart blazing like a fallen comet right at the wizard’s feet.
Azerban toppled backward. The manticore, howling like a wounded dog, flew off, vanishing into the darkness like the memory of a bad dream.
And down came the statue.
By good fortune the heart of the square was clear of people—all but the duke and the wizard having run for their lives—but the outer perimeter of the square was still packed with a pressing throng. Triston heard a deafening cataclysm of dust and flying marble.
He watched slack-jawed as the noble image came crashing down, smiting the earth feet first, wavering one way, then another, before finally smashing into the Firefount in an eruption of flaming ruin.
Silence fell. The crowd appeared unharmed, though most had fallen to the ground. Fires burned here and there. The minotaur was nowhere to be seen.
“Well, I’d say we’ve overstayed our welcome. Do you think we should be going?” Remarkably, Alden was grinning. Triston felt like he might vomit over the side of the emperor’s trading house. “Huh. What do you know? It’s firescript.”
“What, the statue? It was firescript. Nothing but rubble now.”
“No, your dad’s parchment. See, the letter’s are back.” Triston held up the sheepskin, blinking at it uncomprehendingly. “Told you so,” Alden went on. “We can see them now because there’s fire burning everywhere. What’s it say?”
“Too faint,” answered Triston mechanically. He felt nothing, neither joy nor fear nor wonder. He just wanted to find somewhere to sleep. “We’ll have to read by firelight later. Let’s go.”
“Sure. Hey, there’s a map on the other side too. I know that place. It’s not too far from Wyrmskull.”
A final glance at the square below showed Triston the wizard struggling to his feet. Beside him, Gubrius had fallen to his knees. His shoulders shook as though he were sobbing.
TWELVE
THE GATHERING STORM
On the morrow I sup dragon heart from a golden platter.
—Willbrand Dragonslayer, 192
Listen!
From dusty bones let words of truth be known
To flesh and blood of him who stole my own
If guilty heir would trample hallowed way
Know the door is shut both night and day
Ye Fates!
My bones lie next to his who took my life,
We’re doomed to share in death what brought our strife
Though now our tomb is home to bones and mold
Yet lives within a trove worth more than gold
Think well!
If you would gain far more than Willbrand sought
Whose worth exceeds all treasures finely wrought
Just name the deadly sin we both concede
Awakened dragon’s fire and slayer’s deed
Triston snorted in disgust, adding a soft curse under his breath for good measure. The reflection staring up at him from the muddy broth was beginning to quiver. Within the crumpled tin pot a low hissing escaped, mingling a melancholy note with the merry crackle of the fire below. The stew would soon reach a boil.
And then he’d have to eat it.
He prodded his impromptu brew with the short stick he’d found to serve as a stirring spoon, feeling his stomach churn even more vigorously than the contents of the pot. Was that hunger, or revulsion?
Lucky, he’d said the previous night, as he and Alden stumbled footsore into this abandoned camp. Lucky to find a tin pot just lying there by the remains of a long dead fire, ready to serve a new master. By morning’s light, so he told himself, he’d whip up a hearty meal of camas bulb stew and assorted herbs, whatever the forest could provide, and drive away the gnawing hunger in his gut. Now the only luck he saw in the affair was that his stomach was empty, or its contents would surely be joining those of the pot.
And where had Alden got to? Triston had woken at the crack of dawn, the blessed forgetfulness of sleep driven off by the aching emptiness in his belly. But when he’d gone to the fern bed where Alden had crashed in a weary heap the night before, planning to kick him until he got up and helped gather the camas bulbs, he found only a depression in the brush.
That was hours ago. He looked up at the eastern sky where dazzling rays were already slanting through the leafy canopy, bathing the shadows of trees in dappled pools of gold. The morning was passing and his friend was nowhere in sight.
Of one thing Triston was sure, however: wherever Alden had gone, he’d be back. He had rarely seen his friend so enthusiastic about anything—not even when he’d returned victorious from the King’s tourney in Leviathan riding his new won steed—as when Triston read aloud the strange words on his father’s parchment. When he heard “trove worth more than gold,” Alden’s eyes had flared up, reflecting the firelight with an eager glint.
This was the third day since their escape from Luskoll. Horseless, and obliged to wander off-road through the wild for fear of pursuit, the return journey was taking much longer. And yet all that way Alden’s talk had returned again and again to what they might find at the place marked on Trinian’s map. Footsore and increasingly famished, they had finally reached the last westward slopes of the Catspines the previous day, and were now entering familiar lands.
Familiar lands. Triston found himself gently lifting the aged vellum from its hiding place beneath his tunic where it hung pressed close against his heart. He winced slightly as he unrolled the vellum. His injured arm had avoided infection and would heal nicely, but many days would pass before he would be free of the pain.
The map, as he expected, was blank and, apart from its age, entirely unremarkable. Except—it was odd—now that he knew what the hide was, he felt different as he looked at it. As though it was looking back at him.
Lowering the vellum and tilting its ragged flank toward the fire, he watched as a tongue of flame leapt to the hide. At once the light formed itself into letters and lines, glowing with an unearthly purple hue. Its royal luster seemed out of place in this rustic setting, more fitting for someplace high and far away like a sorcerer’s tower or a king’s palace.
But the image which burned there was neither strange nor far away. It was deeply familiar: a hill adorned with a village, a narrow land between wood and mountains. And there, at the southern base of Magog’s Rise, at the very brink of the Wildwood, a tiny symbol of a dragon, small but lifelike, shining blood-red.
They would reach that point before the day was out.
A low rumble and steady hiss brought his mind unpleasantly back to his immediate surroundings. Reluctantly taking his eyes off his father’s map, Triston watched the contents of his makeshift stew froth and bubble in a kind of macabre aquatic dance. If only he’d been able to find some camas bulbs or wild leeks, he thought with an inward groan, pretending not to hear the angry growl in his stomach. No, he’d have to eat it; he wouldn’t face another day with this gnawing hunger. But—he looked again into the pot—perhaps he’d let it stew a bit longer, just to be on the safe side.
Trying not to think about what he’d soon be forcing down his gullet, he carefully rolled the vellum back up, stowing it away against his skin and looking up into the branches above. Leaves fluttered in the gentle breeze on swaying limbs, passing along whispered messages, the secrets of the woodlands, in their unintelligible tongue.
But the trees had no messages for him, no answers to the questions which jostled for attention in his mind, the same questions he’d borne like a weight ever since their disastrous escape from Luskoll. They came to him now, unbidden and unwanted, but unavoidable.
What was the meaning of the riddling words? How much had the Seer really known, and, far more troubling, what does the emperor know? That he knows something was beyond doubt or he would not have sent an imperial agent snooping around Wyrmskull.
Would the Lord of Meridia, whose armies had conquered the earth, abandon his quest for a Relic of Power simply because Chief Gorbald had sent his servant Sarconius packing? Triston didn’t think so.
And what about his father? Had Trinian really possessed such a Relic in the first place? If so, where was it now? If the Seer really killed him, how is it she failed to find the Relic?
The haunting words of mad Arloon, half-heeded at the time, echoed in his mind.
Trinian’s last request.
If his father, suspecting danger, hid the Relic from the Seer and bid Arloon to pass on the skin-map when his son came of age, doesn’t that mean the map will lead to the Relic’s hiding place?
A thrill ran down Triston’s spine at the thought. A thrill of awe, and dread. A Relic of Power! But if this precious heirloom were to come to him, what should he do with it? An internal voice answered at once.
Fight to keep it from the emperor.
But the emperor’s men were everywhere. What hope did he have of resisting such a foe?
“Don’t move a muscle.”
The unseen voice was extremely close, right at Triston’s back. Instinct taking over, he leapt up and spun around, simultaneously pulling at his sword. It stuck in the scabbard. Triston took a hasty step backward, pulled futilely at the hilt. Tripping over something, he fell on his backside with a pain-filled oath.
Billowing clouds erupted at his feet. Lifting his head to face his assailant, he took in the man’s shocked grin, at the same time realizing the thing he’d tripped over was the stew he’d labored over for the last two hours.
“Hey Ald,” he said pleasantly, wiping his right boot against a mossy rock, leaving a trail of stew-gunk and hot ash.
Alden stepped forward and helped him up with a proffered hand. He was trying hard to suppress a grin and not quite succeeding.
Triston pursed his lips. “So, what? You were watching me from the trees, is that it? Then you thought it’d be neat to sneak up on me?”
Alden cocked his head to one side, considering this, then nodded. “Yeah, I guess that about sums it up. Didn’t think you’d scare like a startled cat.”
“Didn’t think you liked watching guys from the shadows.”
Alden pulled a wry face, then stooped to inspect the spilled contents of Triston’s morning efforts.
“Hmmm,” he mused, as though contemplating a hard-to-solve problem. “Curd-thistles. Interesting choice. A smelly weed generally infused into tea, in very small doses mind, by graybeards with indigestion, but otherwise avoided like sour milk. Speaking of which,” he waved a hand over the steaming spillage and crinkled his nose, “did an especially flatulent ogre pass through here or—ah! You found some dung beetles.”
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nbsp; He grabbed a stick and began poking through the spillage, holding his nose with his free hand. “Those should add a nice crunch to the mix and—no way.” He stood up and looked at Triston as though gravely offended. “Are you serious?”
Triston gazed in silence at the smoking mass of flesh to which Alden referred. Despite his hunger, intense relief washed over him, a feeling which he immediately concealed with a nonchalant shrug.
“Actually rat meat can be very sustaining,” he said, not meeting Alden’s eyes. “And in desperate circumstances, it’s perfectly acceptable—if it’s a choice between life and death, to, to . . . .” He couldn’t bring himself to say eat.
Alden’s eyebrows couldn’t have gone any higher if Triston had suddenly announced he was moving to Leviathan to take up life as court jester to King Stentor.
“Of course,” he said. Casting around, he walked over to a mossy log and sat himself. “But in all seriousness, let’s not pretend you were ever going to eat that.”
At that moment, Triston’s empty stomach churned and gurgled audibly.
He sat down on the log, staring at the ashes of his little fire. “I’m so tired of being hungry.” Abruptly he rounded on his friend. “Where’ve you been? Maybe together we could have caught a squirrel or something.”
Alden slapped a hand to his forehead. “A squirrel! Why didn’t I think of that?” He then opened a leather satchel he’d been wearing at his side, withdrew a large loaf of honey bread, three enormous pieces of salted pork, and two apples. Carefully examining the dried meat, he chose the biggest piece, bit off an absurdly large portion, and began to chew with exaggerated relish.
“Better yet,” he said after swallowing and smacking his lips, “we could have captured a whole family of squirrels.” He rubbed his fingers over his chin stubble musingly. “We could have trained them to do tricks and started a traveling show. Think of the lost possibilities!”
