The Smiling Stallion Inn

by Courtney Bowen

  They passed by the graveyard with the standing stones. The trees started to thicken beyond that.

  “Well, boys, it’s just us now,” Sir Nickleby said.

  Basha and Oaka glanced at each other. “Is this going to be a long trip?” Oaka asked.

  “I think it’s a couple hundred, or maybe a thousand, miles,” Basha said.

  Oaka sighed. “Well, it’s a long way to go.”

  “And a long, long time to get there.”

  The boys started to sing, “It’s a long way to go, and a long, long time to get there; it’s a long way to go, and a long, long time to get there…” to stop themselves from crying as they rode away from their beloved Coe Baba.

  * * * *

  Sometimes, when worlds fall apart, we just keep moving on.

  Old Man paused, staring down at the parchment. He rubbed his eyes and then gazed up at the wall in his hut at the edge of town. He’d thought much about this, especially in the long hours by himself. Worlds were built over the centuries, then torn apart, and then built back up again; it just went on and on. Yet, they continued on because they knew nothing else. That was life. There wasn’t anything else for them to do.

  “Good morning, Father,” Nisa said, entering the hut.

  “Nisa, are you going?” Old Man asked, looking up.

  She nodded. “I’ve packed and said good-bye to Mother. We’ve an arrangement. She’ll keep up the pretense that I’m sick for as long as she can, and then in about a week or so, she’ll announce that I’m visiting a cousin of ours in the woods. I’ll not be missed for at least a month.”

  Old Man nodded. “You’re very well organized.”

  “I learned from the best,” Nisa said.

  “Take care of yourself, won’t you?” Old Man asked. “You’re not as immortal as I am.”

  “I know that very well, Father,” Nisa said, coming forward to kiss him goodbye.

  “‘When the children of Za and Wan set forth out into the world,’” Old Man recited, remembering the prose from The Legends of Arria, “‘leaving home forever to spread, the couple tried to restrain them, to have at least one stay, but they were eager to leave and stray.’”

  “A morbid thing to think,” Nisa said. “I remember the song ‘Twenty-nine, twenty-nine, children Za and Wan had, twenty-nine, and twenty-nine, ‘till fifteen of them left. They went up, up, they went up, up, to the sky on the mountain. They went up, up, they went up, up to the sky on the mountain…’”

  “That won’t happen, not as long as you stay safe. And you keep the others safe as well,” Old Man added.

  “I’ll do that, Father,” she said. “By the way, what would’ve happened if Basha hadn’t asked for Jawen with Tau’s Cup?”

  “He’d have asked for her, most likely, offering himself and his love, and it’s fair to say, Jawen probably would’ve accepted that. But he has a calling as well to fulfill,” Old Man said. “Though we created the possibility of the Cup in his mind and narrowed the choices he thought he had, positioning him with Iibala just when he needed to be with Jawen, he’d have decided to leave Coe Baba eventually on his own,” Old Man said. “If he’d asked for her without promising her the Cup, and she said yes, then we would’ve had more problems trying to get him to leave, but eventually he’d have done so. And then Iibala…If he’d proposed to Iibala the other night, Cup or no Cup, she most likely would’ve said yes, and they might have gone off together.”

  Nisa shook her head. “You certainly think these things through.”

  “It’s my job; I try my best.” He kissed her on the cheek.

  “Should we worry about Iibala?” Nisa asked again.

  Old Man sighed. “I told you, Iibala isn’t someone we should worry about. We should think, or at least I should think, that she might be useful.”

  “All right, Father, just as long as you’re careful,” Nisa said.

  “Now go, Nisa, and be a good girl.”

  “Good-bye, Father,” she said, picking up her bag and leaving.

  “Good-bye, Nisa,” he said, watching her go. He sighed and turned away, walking back to his desk to continue his writing.

  Part Three

  The Secret Guardian

  Chapter 14

  Coe Doomba—Many years ago

  “You ask me to believe in you, my love,

  And I do, but I believe in many things,

  And strange things are happening, so that

  I believe the world is coming to an end anyway.”

  —Love song, Kiwata

  The Servant hunched close to the floor, slinking along with anxiety trailing in its wake. Its ears quivered as it lifted its head, gazing across the expanse of the room. Nothing filled the room that seemed to stretch toward the farthest corners of infinity, except for one lone chair and its occupant, sitting among the shadows.

  That occupant was a man of sorts, discernible as such by his large human frame. But he was no longer fully human. He could still feel some sentiment of human emotion and humanity, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a monster. He wore a mask of marble and clay that obscured his horrendous face. The mask conveyed the stoic expression of a nobleman or statesman whose firm chin, aquiline nose, alabaster eyes, prominent forehead, and chiseled cheeks marked him as worthy of the laurels placed upon his head. The rest of him, visible beyond the shadows and mask, was carved skin and bone, charred, stripped, scarred, and broken beyond recognition. His name was Doomba.

  The shadows crept about him in shades of black and gray. No light was allowed within them. Even though ordinary shadows are cast by light, the shadows here were made without sunlight, and they were deeper than the darkness surrounding them.

  “Sire, a messenger has arrived to see you,” the Servant said, bowing as it lifted a front leg, its front paw shaped somewhat like a hand.

  “Who dares to disturb me?” Doomba asked. The mouth of the mask was slightly ajar, as were the holes for the nose and gaps for the ear canals and pupils. But nothing was visible from his real face except for a glimmer of light at the center of the alabaster eyes—the gap for his pupils—which allowed light in and reflected it back.

  “The messenger comes from Lord Crow,” the Servant, a gringok, said. The gringoks were among the last Servants to be made. The gringok had a small face shaped like an inverted triangle, its gray, wrinkled skin covered with sparse patches of bristly yellow fur. It could stand, slightly hunched over, for a brief period of time, though normally it walked on all fours with its back slightly humped. Its orange eyes were fashioned to filter out the shadowy images surrounding Doomba, and even the mask itself, so that it could see Doomba truly to the depths of his being. It was perhaps the only creature able to do so.

  “To see you, sire, is truly woe!” the gringoks would on occasion say.

  The shadows that surrounded Doomba occasionally took on different shapes and showed him images from faraway whenever he was so inclined to view the rest of the world. The shadows, upon mention of Lord Crow, started to change in such a way they showed him a castle, among other things.

  “Lord Crow?” The glimmer in his eyes flickered. Doomba considered Lord Crow a promising young man with wealth and intelligence who would prove to be of much use to the organization of the Followers of Doomba. “Show him in.”

  The Followers weren’t the same as Servants, who Doomba created to attend him. He’d given them life and just as easily could take that life away from them. But the Followers were humans and had chosen to follow Doomba. He understood what humans were capable of achieving on their own, so he let his Followers perform tasks without binding them to his will. He’d, on occasion, make them obey him, but it wasn’t binding. They could easily disobey him if they chose, but humans could accomplish so many more things that the Servants weren’t capable of, namely infiltrating the highest levels of power in human society. A Servant would be killed on the spot, easily recognizable as one of Doomba’s creatures, but humans couldn’t perceive deception and betrayal among their o
wn kind—until it was too late.

  As the gringok bowed its head and scampered off, moving with small pounces across the floor, Doomba remained sitting upon his stone throne. The room transformed into a private study with a roaring fireplace and bookcases full of moldy old tomes. The shadows swerved and swiveled about him, filling the room as the transformation took place.

  A few moments later, the messenger walked in and looked around. Stunned as his mind tried to come to grips with the vision of a homey private study, he was certain it was all wrong. He didn’t dare look at Doomba just yet.

  He’d spent the last twelve days traveling here through seas of marshes, craggy rock plains, and near-volcanic fields of brimstone, where water had bubbled up in stormy clouds. He’d encountered strange creatures he’d known would’ve torn him apart if they felt so inclined, but he’d avoided those dangers, and now he faced the most dangerous creature of all.

  Peering about a room that reminded him so much of home in some ways, he couldn’t believe it. He’d just walked into a dilapidated castle filled with the squalor of grotesque wealth, ill-gotten from years of violence.

  “Please, sit down,” Doomba said.

  The messenger looked to his left and saw a chair he’d not noticed before, even though he’d looked all around the room. He quickly sat down, knowing he shouldn’t try Doomba’s patience with his bewilderment. “The Tiger Prophecy…” the messenger began, looking up at Doomba’s mask.

  “The Thrallpolis?” the gringok said from behind the messenger.

  “No, the Tiger Prophecy,” the messenger said again, trying to regain his composure, “written by Wintha the Wanderer in—”

  “The Thrallpolis!” the Servant exclaimed again.

  “Quiet, gringrok!” Doomba yelled. “Go away. Continue,” he said, turning to the messenger now as the Servant left.

  The messenger could see the glimmer of light through Doomba’s mask, and he felt comforted somehow, as if all of his surroundings were somehow normal, and there was no need for alarm. “Right, well, the Tiger Prophecy is true. Lord Crow consulted with the Oracle of the Tau Valley,” the messenger said. “He asked her or him several questions about you and your future. The Oracle confirmed some of the details, that there will be a child born of shame, whose mother—”

  “Enough, enough,” Doomba said, standing up and pacing even though the messenger could swear, out of the corner of his eye, that Doomba had barely moved at all. “We’ve heard all of this before. We must decide how to act. Has Lord Crow done anything at all to stop it from happening?”

  “He has been studying the book, trying to determine the precise nature of the tiger.”

  “No, no, that won’t work at all,” Doomba said, shaking his head. “The book is just a map, a blueprint to where this will all go unless we stop it. How soon can we expect the—”

  “The timing isn’t right. The book is vague in some instances but too specific in others.” The messenger hesitated, just then realizing he’d interrupted Doomba, of all people, and that he had to come up with an explanation for what he couldn’t truly understand. “The book, it describes the life-story of this person, or multiple persons, but nothing else. It’s not like a history of the region or reign where all of this will take place in. Lord Crow says—”

  “We know it’s in Arria,” Doomba said firmly, interrupting the messenger again. “Or at least we think it’s in Arria.” Doomba sighed. “It’s bound to be in Arria, one way or another, as the Wanderer was always attached to this country. The Oracle of Tau…I don’t trust the Oracle. Tau has never been a friend of mine.”

  “What can we expect, sire?” the messenger asked as Doomba turned to him. Doomba seemed so close to being human to him right then that the messenger couldn’t believe he was actually acting familiar, if not friendly, with Doomba himself.

  “We can expect nothing more than what we’ve already been told,” Doomba said. “But I see something is stirring here. Something dangerous to our whole enterprise. I’d not be surprised if this is what will challenge me.”

  “Sire, I hope you will not think me too rude, too…abrupt to say I trust you, and I hope you will survive this.”

  “Thank you. Thank you, that’s…very comforting.” Doomba groaned. This was getting stranger and stranger to the messenger. “You will have to excuse me if I don’t seem too eager to appreciate your sentiment, but…What is your name?”

  “Cannon, sire,” the messenger said, proud to be speaking to Doomba like this.

  “Cannon, excellent name. Reasonable man, in my opinion. What have you to say about this Tiger Prophecy?”

  “The Tiger Prophecy…” Cannon hesitated, realizing that Doomba was starting to appreciate his opinion, and he had to be careful not to disappoint. “The Tiger Prophecy isn’t valid, in my opinion. I don’t see how the circumstances can permit such a thing to happen, to…What?” Cannon asked, seeing Doomba staring at him.

  “You seem to remind me of another young man who thought he knew how things went,” Doomba said, toying with an astrolabe he’d placed upon the table beside his chair that didn’t seem to exist, but did. “He had dreams, ideas of his own, I suppose, but they didn’t really last very long,” Doomba continued, mesmerizing Cannon. “He’d been a part of something very important but struck out on his own, deciding he’d make his own way, as you might say. He had a vision of what the world might be like, if things were to change, but then his dreams and ideas were dashed, you might say, and he was left on his own to fend for himself.”

  “What happened?” Cannon asked, astonished.

  “What do you think?” Doomba said, turning to him. The shadows coiled tighter about him as if poised to strike.

  “I’m sorry, sire,” Cannon said, shrinking down as he realized that Doomba had shared too much of himself to Cannon, and Cannon was a threat now.

  “Don’t be,” Doomba said soothingly as he turned toward the messenger. “You remind me of that young man, and I think you want more out of life, don’t you?”

  “Maybe,” Cannon said. He thought he saw Doomba coming toward him, yet he couldn’t move, couldn’t even turn. He was stuck here, waiting.

  “Too bad,” Doomba said, scooping up a shadow from the wall and wrapping it around Cannon. “You’ve a life, I suppose, but you’re not living it well enough.” The shadow squeezed Cannon. “I suppose I should take a bite out of it and give you the pleasure of knowing you’ve served your master.”

  Cannon couldn’t remember what happened next. He didn’t know how it might appear to anyone watching, how the shadow wrapped around him, inhaled along with Doomba, and sucked something out of Cannon, out of his mouth and nose like air, but it was something more than air. The years drained away from Cannon.

  Cannon was choking and sputtering, trying to fight the shadow. But the shadow tightened its hold and wouldn’t budge. It was made of smoke and illusion, so he couldn’t touch the shadow. Finally, he let go of his life and hoped for the best. The glimmer of light from Doomba’s eyes shone upon him, and he concentrated on that.

  After what seemed an eternity, but was probably only a few minutes, Doomba’s shadow let go of Cannon. Cannon dropped to the floor, gasping for breath. He was alive. The illusion was over.

  The throne room was just a throne room, not a plush study. Cannon looked around and saw the shadows surrounding Doomba, who was sitting alone, with just his throne and these shadows for company. Cannon slowly got up and backed out of the throne room, careful not to take his eyes off Doomba as he knew now why no one ever turned their backs on kings.

  “You forget your place,” Doomba told him. The glimmer was gone, a reflection of light, perhaps from Cannon. “Tell Lord Crow he should work faster on solving this problem, or else find us a solution that will satisfy us both. I’ll not rest until the tiger is dead—or beaten before it has a chance to rear its ugly head.”

  You’ve an ugly face, Cannon thought to himself, but he dared not voice his opinion out loud. “Yes, sir,”
Cannon said, bowing as the doors closed in front of him.

  He left Doomba’s castle. It would be many days before he’d muster the courage to look at his face, frozen into a semblance of what it looked like several years ago, when he was younger, yet there were already white hairs on his head. Cannon was stuck on the boundary between youth and old age, years taken away from him from both his past and his future. He’d not age, deteriorate any further, nor would he become younger again. He was just stuck in between for now, and it would be a while before any of that ever changed. The light in Cannon’s eyes dimmed and then grew as he got an idea, one that gave him new hope for the future.

  Chapter 15

  Mother

  “Popo, the mountain god, pleaded with Loqwa,

  God of death, for Mila the forest goddess’s life.

  “You must make it snow, Popo,” Loqwa said.

  “You must make it snow every few months…”

  —The Legends of Arria

  Arria, a land of rocky shores, myths and legends, mist and magic, mystery and music.

  Arria, a song that’s both familiar and unfamiliar. It bears you to the surface and moves you to the depths of your being as the woman stands alone at the center of the stage, singing her heart out to you for one brief, yet long moment in the middle of the chaos that’s the opera of life.

  Tides and time are passing by. I hear them singing in between worlds, a melody of sweet lullabies, promising love songs, rousing carols, and sacred hymns. Processional marches of celebration and joy, they sing ballads and liturgies for the dead.