by Deck Davis
“Ethan,” panted Yart. “Thank you. I promise-”
Ethan punched him in the gut, relishing the feeling of his knuckles meeting soft flesh. “Get the hell out of here,” he said, pushing him toward the stairs. “I got to you once, and I can do it again. Remember that. And remember something else, you rich little bitch.”
Yart said nothing; he just stared.
Ethan held up the signet ring. “This is Lillian’s, isn’t it? Only one person could have stolen it from him. Breathe a word to anyone about this, and I’ll make sure they know how Bunk got it.”
“I didn’t know he had it.”
It was strange, but Ethan believed him. It was his eyes; liars could mask their words, but they couldn’t hide the look behind their eyes.
“I don’t think Lillian will see it that way,” said Ethan. “Remember what I said. I got you once, and I can do it again. Get the hell out of my sight.”
Yart scampered down the stairs. When his footsteps grew silent, Ethan slunk on the floor, leaning against the wall. Dullzewn joined him, sitting close to him. A smile curled on his lips, and he laughed.
Hearing this, laughter stirred in Ethan too, starting in his belly and rising until he couldn’t help but let it out. He held his hand toward Dullzewn, who shook it. “Thanks,” he said.
Dullzewn shrugged. “We’re even now.”
“Actually, Dullzewn, I think you still owe me one.””
Dullzewn laughed. “Call me Zewn. I always hated the Dull part of my name. Dad’s from the Gold Canyons, and Dull means something better over there.”
“Is that why you have the tribe marks?” asked Ethan.
“Yeah. You’ve heard of the canyons, then?”
“Only that you guys are always fighting each other.”
“A dozen tribes,” said Zewn, “Each one pettier than the last. My parents got sick of it, and they didn’t want me to grow up there only to be sent to fight. But it took my sister being murdered for them to finally leave. She was a hunter, and she went too far into the forests hunting a boar, and another tribe were…”
Zewn stopped talking now. Ethan put his arm around his shoulder. “Let’s talk about something else,” said Zewn.
“Why were you trying to dig out of your wall? It’s not as if they won’t notice before you get it big enough.”
“It makes me feel better. Like I’m doing something,” said Zewn. “Like I’m not helpless.”
“This isn’t a prison. If we adapt, we can earn day passes. Get promoted. Travel places.”
“It still feels like a prison to me.”
“Look, Zewn. This is going to make me sound crazy,” he said. “But a few nights ago…do you remember something happening to me?”
“You mean, when you died?”
A shock of ice hit Ethan and spread over his skin. “Do you do remember?”
“I do. And then I woke up in the woods, with Reck standing over me, talking about how he’d caught me trying to escape. They stuck me in the echo cell.”
Ethan grimaced. The echo cell was an outbuilding behind the guildhouse, near the caves where punished recruits were made to mine the green crystals. In the echo cell, the walls were made to echo the slightest sound. There were no windows, no light. The recruits were eft for hours with just their heartbeats echoing back at them.
According the other recruits, almost nobody got taken there, not even people who tried to leave the mountain. So why had they thrown Zewn into the cell?
Maybe Zewn was right. The heroes guild wasn’t a prison, exactly, but he couldn’t see a way out.
Chapter Seventeen
Ethan & Dantis
“The ember took effect; the boy adjusted to it without a hitch. He barely seems to know it’s in him.”
“You submerged him already?”
“What choice did I have? He died.”
“You could have let him die.”
“You don’t understand his potential. It…”
“I’ve made up my mind. Destroy him.”
“So impatient. Give me time to work. He’s strong, resourceful. He is the type Infirna will need soon.”
“My word is final. He is to have an accident. Not near the guild; too many accidents will raise suspicion.”
~
It didn’t take five men long to stink up such a tight space. For hours, Ethan, Bander, Lillian, Glen, and Zewn were crammed together as the wagon trundled over rocky roadways.
He’d wanted to speak to Bander about what happened to him with Yart, and how he’d woken up in bed the next day, and maybe even about his fight with Bunk, and how he’d been able to move so much quicker, how the room seemed to twist around him. He hadn’t had chance yet and now, sandwiched in the carriage, he had no hope.
Tapping his pocket, he felt the thin, metal needle he’d brought with him. Ever since staling the memory needle from the seller in Wolfpine, he wondered when to use it. He’d thought about using it on Yart, to steal a memory of that night from him, but maybe there were better uses.
He watched the scenery drift by. First the fern trees of the mountain forest where klizerds crawled over logs and prowled in packs, and then the wagon carried them away from the mountain and along the Road of Repent.
On this road, an eerie silence settled over them. Bird nests sat abandoned in trees, and the foliage lining the road were brittle and yellow. A gloomy name for a gloomy place. This isn’t where things come to repent; it’s where they come to die.
A moan drifted through his ears, and he saw spectral beams of light swirl and lap around the road. Some billowed close to the carriage and when they did, Ethan heard them whisper. Some spoke in languages he’d never heard, while others begged for forgiveness in a language he knew all too well.
“Something wrong?” said Bander.
“Just the…light. I don’t get it. Are they ghosts?”
Bander arched his eyebrow. He peered out of the window, looking around as if he couldn’t see the light.
“The road was laid over rich mana deposits,” said Lillian. “Its effects are unpredictable.”
On one side of the road there was an overturned cart, smashed in places and with splinters sticking out. Next to it, there was a corpse wearing a black robe, though its face had been devoured by carrion.
“Saim’s takings us on the scenic route,” said Glen, rolling his rune coin over his knuckles as he spoke.
Glen, the lanky recruit who was having an affair with a Wolfpine ogre’s wife, was taller than Ethan, and two years his senior in guild rank. Despite that, it surprised Ethan to learn that he was a year older than Glen.
He didn’t act like the other seniors. He wore a welcoming smile when people spoke to him, but whenever he thought they weren’t looking, his expression changed to a pensive stare. He hairstyle, swept back into a quiff, was rare in the guild. Saim, who juggled duties as the guild cook, kennel master, and barber, gave you two options; he’d shave your hair with his rusted blade, or he’d hack it short with shears. Glen looked like he’d cut his own hair and found something to groom it with.
“When did you join the guild?” Ethan asked him, all too aware of how much Lillian hated anyone talking in the wagon, and how he craved silence.
“Dad gave me a choice. I could become a bug-catcher like him, or he’d pay for either officer school in the emperor’s army, or entry to the guild. I chose the guild.”
“An officer in the army earns more,” said Ethan.
“More of them die, too,” said Bander. “Or is gold more important than your life for youngsters these days?”
“What’s good about life if you can’t enjoy it?” said Glen. “Gold buys you drinks, women, girls, ladies, buxom…”
“That’s enough,” said Bander.
Glen eyed Ethan. “What about you? There are no secrets here, we all know you’re a thief. But the thing is…I don’t get it. You don’t look like a thief, really.”
“Some would say that’s a blessing, given the nature of th
e profession,” said Ethan.
“How you wind up in the game?”
Game. That was what people who romanticized thievery called it. Ethan had too, once. When you lived that life, you saw it a different way.
“Something happened with my parents,” he said. “they were…” He paused, unsure if he even wanted to talk about it.
“Murdered,” said Lillian. “On Remembrance night, as I recall.”
Ethan stared at him. Bander knew Ethan’s history, so maybe he’d told the mage about it. Yet, there was a look in Lillian’s eyes that tugged at every suspicious cell in his brain.
He felt the memory needle in his pocket. How had the trader said it worked? That was it – you needed to get your target to think of the memory, and then jab them with the needle. They wouldn’t feel a thing, and their memory would collect in the vial on the end.
He took the needle from his pocket and palmed it. With his practiced hands, it was easy to keep it hidden. And now he just had to wait for the right time to use it.
Bander sat with his legs crossed, and his sword on his lap. While the rest of them stored their things in a luggage box hitched to the cart, Bander wouldn’t let his sword out of his sight.
Ethan understood why. When most people spoke of beauty, they meant art work by painters like Jorg Gaspen, or music composed by bards like Axel Wunder. For Ethan, Bander’s sword was art. Five feet long and carved from the blackest of metal, it emitted wafts of mist whenever Bander moved it. He couldn’t imagine what forge had formed it; a blade like that was priceless. It wasn’t just the way it looked. Bander’s sword possessed peculiar properties. First, it had a name; Artifax. But it’s second property was the strangest of all.
“I belonged to a soldier once,” said Artifax. “He was a dunce. Just bloody kill something! I used to tell him, but he was scared shitless. Not worthy of a sword like me, that boy. Lucky his daddy had more gold than brains.”
Artifax could talk. Soulgeming was a dying art after the emperor banned mages from practicing it, and few of the priceless gems existed these days. Most people who gained a soul gem did one of two things; sell it to earn a fortune or lock it in the strongest vault in the most impenetrable building. Someone had forged a soul gem into a sword and somehow, Bander had gained possession of it.
Ethan couldn’t help wondering whose soul was trapped in the gem, and how long they had been there. Did they like living in a sword? If Bander chose to, could he free them?
The carriage hit a rock, and it lurched forward. Ethan pretended to lose his balance, falling forward toward Ethen. He poked Lillian’s thigh with the memory needle, then smoothly returned it to his pocket.
“Watch yourself, boy,” said Lillian, strengthening his robe. Good – he hadn’t noticed. Now, Ethan just had to find a time to drink the fluid and watch the memory, hoping Lillian’s mind was still back on that night, the Remembrance Night that Ethan certainly would never forget.
Bander patted his sword. “Lucky to have you? Strange, I consider myself the opposite.”
“You love me really.”
“Hush now, you lunk of brass.”
“Brass? Pah. I’d cut through brass like snipping a whore’s skirt. Hey, Bander, remember the troll we killed once?”
“We? I did the killing.”
“And I suppose my sharp edge had nothing to do with it? Listen, fellas…when are we stopping? I’m thirsty for blood.”
“Can you shut that infernal thing up, for god’s sake?” said Lillian.
The mage hadn’t said much in their journey. He stared out of the carriage window, with the sunlight gleaming on his metal face and his eye gems burning red. Ethan didn’t know what Lillian was doing here. Why did a mage need to come on a dungeon raid? He wanted to ask Bander, but he hadn’t found a second alone with him yet.
Zewn sat beside Bander, squeezed against the side of the carriage by the guildmaster’s bulky frame. He tapped his feet against the floor, and Ethan noticed he wrung his hands from time to time.
Ethan had spoken with Zewn every night since they’d taught Yart a lesson. It was the most he’d chatted to anyone since leaving Dantis. Zewn was an urchin like them. He was a street thief, except with one, key, difference; he chose that life. His rich parents lived in a gabled cottage out in the eastern summer fields. They earned enough from their yak farm to buy Zewn any apprenticeship he liked, yet he’d chosen to run away from home.
When Ethan asked him why, Zewn rolled his sleeve to show a jagged scar on his forearm, like a jagged dagger. “My mother likes to drink,” was all he said.
After living on the streets of Wolfpine and stealing to get buy, he’d been caught by the guards. When he tried to escape, he broke a guard’s arm, and his reward was being put to auction, where Bander bought him.
This is where criminals end up. Here, on the loneliest road in the Fire Isles. Corpses lay on the ground at the end of the Road of Repent. They wore black robes, and burns covered the parts of their flesh untouched by rot. He recognized their garments; they were Brotherhood of Fire acolytes.
Wait – acolytes? What were they doing here, and how long had they been dead? He was surprised nobody had looted them yet. It wasn’t usual to see a corpse away from towns, and nobody would waste time digging a grave for a stranger. Better to take their valuables and move on.
“Pathetic,” said Lillian. “All their trials and their fire, do they really think they can summon their God this way? If gods exist – and mark my words, they don’t – they won’t care what these pissants do.”
“Who do they worship?”
“The Nevergods,” said Lillian. “In particular, Infirna. They think he’s sleeping, waiting for the right acolyte to summon him. Bullshit.”
Ethan didn’t care about gods. Instead, a sickening feeling filled his stomach. Was Dantis among the bodies? He leaned across Bander to see better, his chest tightening with fear.
“Watch it lad,” said Bander. “You’re in my space.”
Phew. Dantis wasn’t among the bodies. As relieved as he was, that meant his brother had made it to the lava fields. Death, or trial by fire, which was worse? Maybe they’d taken pity on him. They couldn’t sacrifice all their new acolytes to fire, could they? If they did, there’d be none left. Maybe Dantis was one of the lucky ones.
“Do you plan on telling us where this dungeon is, Bander?” asked Lillian. “Or are you keeping it secret, like the book of romantic poetry in your office you pretend isn’t yours?
Zewn laughed at this, but one glare from Bander cut him short.
“In the Barrens. Gabreel found it a few weeks ago. Says there’s a hefty amount of treasure.”
“You trust the trader?”
“He’s given us a map of the dungeon and a list of its traps. Now we’ve just got figure out where they’re placed. Besides, trading’s a cover. He’s a guild scout.”
“Why does he need a cover?” asked Glen, stretching his gangly legs as far as he could without touching Lillian across from him.
“He scouts new dungeons, lairs, and tombs for us,” said Bander. “When he finds something, he reports it back. If people knew he was a guild scout, they’d follow him until he found something interesting. Then, they’d sell its location to a different guild. If he’s a simple trader, nobody thinks to question why he travels to strange places.”
“Even if it is a new dungeon, I don’t think this warrants a guildmaster. Why did you come along?” said Lillian.
“I could ask you the same.”
Rather than reveal their motives, both men fell into a stalemate silence. Lillian was right; dungeon explorations weren’t unusual for the guild, so why did Bander need to come? Similarly, what could the guild’s mage hope to gain from travelling all the way out here? Not only that, but why had he asked Ethan and Zewn to come? Exploring a virgin dungeon was an honor, and some senior recruits waited years for the chance. He’d ask him when they were alone.
The sky was darkening as the wagon rolled to a sto
p. Bander exited first, as befit his rank, followed by Lillian and Glen. Ethan and Zewn went last.
The land around him was Barren by name, barren by nature. Was there any other forsaken place in the Fire Isles as lonely as this? Fire-colored dirt covered everything, punctuated by scatterings of rocks, bones of long-dead critters, and jagged mounds of stone rising into the air like fingers pointing at the gods. Wind blew dust around, and sparse weeds poked out from cracks in the ground. The absence of anything built by man made the smells of nature stronger; pinches of dry earth, plant-scent from the weeds. Ethan longed for the food scents of the guildhouse, the aroma of hot pies drifting from the kitchen where Saim toiled for hours to feed the hungry recruits.
Zewn picked up a rock, then dropped it with a shriek when six legs sprang out from the sides, and two claws on the tip clacked at him. Glen laughed and patted the younger recruit on the back.
“Sanclicks,” he said. “My dad’s obsessed with collecting dead bugs. He dries ‘em out and labels them. You should see his hobby room.”
He grabbed the sanclick and held it so it couldn’t bite him. He brought it near his face, where it tried to pinch his nose with its claws. He broke the claws off, snapped away its legs, then popped it into his mouth. As he crunched on it, Zewn turned pale.
“They look like rocks,” mumbled Glen, “But they’re soft. Tasty, too.”
“Enough screwing around,” said Bander. “Ethan, get the luggage off the wagon.”
Bander looked every inch the hero. Ethan was toned but slim, Glen’s lanky frame could have doubled as a signpost, and Zewn would make shrimps feel tough. Lillian’s robes masked his true figure. None of them resembled real heroes except Bander, who bulged with carefully-toned muscle. He wore a light brown coat with an overlay of leather armor on top. His shoulder braces stuck four inches above his shoulders and formed spikes. Rather than put Artifax in a sheath on his back like a normal sword, he gripped him in his hand. The sweat-bringing Barren sun glinted off Artifax’s blade.
“Move me around, damn it,” said Artifax, the green gem on his hilt glowing every time he spoke. “The sun’s getting in my fucking eyes.”
