The Soul Gaunts had held him and hurt him badly. His maimed hand was still proof of that. They had tortured and killed his cousin and tormented him and the human Luke. Just being near this one was enough to make him break out in a cold sweat.
A cold sweat, he thought, and almost started laughing. What other kind could there be around them?
On every other occasion, he sat with his eyes closed, trying to block out the sensations from the Soul Gaunt. It always sensed his fear and came nearer the bars, making that annoying chuckling sound and whispering to him of what it had done to Florian and would do to him.
The most he could do before today was a soft glow on the wick of the candle, which went out and smoked weakly as soon as he opened his eyes. He tried and tried until his head was splitting and his nerves were shot. Still, he never conjured a flame.
It was infuriating. And nerve-wracking. And now, with Melanie’s words, even more worrisome. If he couldn’t even do this…
The Soul Gaunt let loose with a loud hiss, startling Thaddeus into opening his eyes. It was right there, right against the bars, ignoring the sparks that popped whenever it got too close to them. The glowing green eyes from inside the hood were fixed on Thaddeus, and it was laughing.
It was hanging there, locked in a cage, unable to free itself, yet it was laughing at him!
These damn things! He wished they never came to the Greenweald. That Jamshir had more sense than to try to ally himself with the monstrous creatures. That Subtle Hemlock had…what? He still wasn’t sure what game they were playing.
Whatever it was, it resulted in nothing but pain and suffering, for Thaddeus and those he loved. And it took his House away.
He glared at the nauseating thing that gibbered and hissed in its cage. The fear that was always present ebbed away and the Soul Gaunt stopped capering, and simply hovered in the air, still watching him.
They wanted flame? They needed to see him light a candle in the presence of this horrible creature?
He kept his eyes focused on the Soul Gaunt and he dropped the candle. Scrambling to his feet, he thrust his hands down to his sides, fists clenched.
A candle? A candle was nothing.
The Soul Gaunts robe started to smoke, and it whirled in the air, screeching. Moments later it burst into flame.
Thaddeus unclenched his fists and watched it burn, the foul thing wailing as it died. It wasn’t until it was gone that he noticed Melanie standing next to him, staring into the cage.
“Was that good enough?” he asked, his voice rough.
“Yeah,” she said, still staring at the charred heap on the floor. “I think you passed.”
Chapter 4
The journey to the cave was much different from the last time Solomon came this way. No Soul Gaunts haunted his steps and there was no battle to get to. Solomon’s friends weren’t in mortal danger and it was a much more pleasant walk through the Greenweald, although he did find that he missed Daisy’s company.
“Maybe I’ll see if she wants to visit for a while,” he thought, then realized how selfish that was.
Daisy, for all her valor, never truly fit in with the Greenweald. At least not the way she was supposed to. Hunting Hounds were fierce, vicious hunters, taken from the Master of the Hounds and used for a single purpose. When that purpose was done, they returned to their master or they died. Regardless, they were not pets who liked to have their bellies rubbed and begged for scraps of food.
No, Daisy was better off with Luke and Lacy, off in that other world, being nothing more than a loved and spoiled dog. But Solomon had to admit he missed her.
And besides, he was going away again, and he didn’t know for how long. The water spirit had promised to take him to Celia, even though the way was hard. From there, he would be on his own, left to search a whole new world to find her.
But he trusted in his abilities. If she was there he would find her, and find the way home again.
But first, he needed to return to the Guardian, and give Justice back into his keeping. He wouldn’t need it where he was going. If the dangers there were so great that the sword was the only thing that could defeat them, then Celia would be gone, and his quest would be in vain. If that were the case, he believed the water spirit would have told him.
No, wherever he was going, it wouldn’t be that bad, and he’d face it with a normal sword in hand, if he even needed that.
Through the trunks of the trees a cave mouth appeared, leading into a hillside. From here it didn’t seem like much, but appearances could be deceiving, and the Guardian loved putting that to the test.
A few moments more of walking and Solomon stepped into the coolness of the cave, expecting to continue, facing whatever obstacles the Guardian put in his way. They wouldn’t be severe. He wouldn’t have to battle the giant being like the last time. Not to give something into his keeping.
Still, the Guardian never made anything easy for anybody. Not even if you weren’t trying to take something away.
In this case, he was being tricky. The cave ended a few steps inside the entrance. Solomon didn’t even need to make a torch; the light from outside was plenty.
Illusion? Last time it was a fiery chasm. This time, maybe it was a solid rock wall.
Unfortunately, with the Guardian’s illusions there was only one way to tell. And any cheating would make it seem every bit as real.
He sighed, put his hands by his sides, and keeping his eyes open, walked forward purposely. Only to run smack into a solid wall.
“Ouch, dammit!” Solomon didn’t curse very often, but a bruised nose would do the trick.
He wiped the tears that sprang unbidden to his eyes away and regarded the cave. Okay, not illusion, although he guessed that the other walls could be. But he didn’t feel like risking another collision just to prove it.
No, there was another answer, he was sure.
He looked around. The cave was totally empty, without even a single stone sitting on the sandy floor.
Wait. Why was the floor sandy? Most caves, unless they were near the sea he would assume, had rocky or dirt floors, not sand.
Which meant that the answer was under the sand. Somewhere.
He sighed.
The cave wasn’t large, unless you were searching for something; with no idea what it was, under a floor of sand that was who knew how deep.
And he didn’t have a shovel. Why would he?
Solomon dropped to his knees and bent forward. He started pushing the sand aside, going down a good six inches before his fingers found solid rock. And like sand did, more of it spilled into the hole he dug than stayed out.
If this was going to work, he needed to find a way to actually remove the sand. It wouldn’t surprise him in the least if he needed to uncover the whole floor to find the answer.
♦ ♦ ♦
Hours later, Solomon was filthy. He was caked in sweat and sand clung to his bare torso. After the first several trips outside with sand leaking between his cupped hands, he found a better way. Not perfect, but better.
He stripped his shirt off and used it to fashion a makeshift sandbag. It wasn’t ideal, and still leaked sand as he carried it away, but it worked well enough.
“You owe me a shirt!” he said aloud, sure that the Guardian, wherever he was, was watching and enjoying his labors immensely.
Now, he stood panting, pack slung over one shoulder, and surveyed the floor, swept clean of all but a few wisps of fine sand. He was right; a message was carved into the rock that ran around the edge near the walls of the cave, and curled in on itself, meandering across the floor.
It was nonsense, most of it, but Solomon began to pick out words hidden in the strings of random letters.
To advance further, you must go back. Or maybe forward. Perhaps even sideways. The wise man knows which. The fool knows nothing. Or is that the other way around? Hello, Solomon.
“You’re a pain in the behind, you know that?” Solomon called out.
There w
as laughter and then a section of the cave wall, the very one he walked into earlier, slid aside, revealing a passage leading under the hill, and a large, shaggy form filling it.
“Serves you right for stabbing my foot last time,” the Guardian said.
He was huge, nearly ten feet tall, and covered in shaggy brown hair. His eyes were bright and sparkled above a large nose and mouth, out of which two dull fangs jutted upward. His arms were almost long enough to reach the floor, a fact helped by his short, bandy legs.
“I didn’t stab you,” Solomon said. “You did that to yourself, if I recall.”
“Hmmf.” The Guardian moved to the side to let Solomon enter the passage. “We’ll agree to disagree on that one. Why are you here?”
The Guardian began walking down the passage, torches lighting the way every few feet.
“To fulfill the promise I made last time,” Solomon said.
The Guardian stopped and turned back to him. He started to speak, then looked past Solomon and pressed a spot in the wall next to him. The entrance slid closed.
“Really?” the Guardian said. “You would give it up? Again?”
“Yes. I have no need of it where I’m going. And you were right, it’s too dangerous to be in the world.”
“Will I need to take it from you? Or can you give it over freely?”
“Here,” Solomon said, beginning to unbuckle Justice from his belt. “I don’t need it.”
He spoke casually, but in truth, this was harder than he expected it to be. The sword called to him, telling him that together they could rule it all, no one could stand against him, that if the Guardian tried to take it, Solomon should cut him down.
With a grimace he shut the thoughts out. They were exactly why he didn’t want the sword with him. If someone hurt Celia, and he had Justice in hand, there was nothing that would stop him from burning the world to the ground.
“No, no,” the Guardian said, turning his back and moving on. “You keep it until we’re back to the storeroom.”
Solomon took his hand off the sword, letting the feelings it inspired drift away into nothingness.
“That wasn’t much of a challenge, you know. To get in here, I mean,” he said to the large, hairy back in front of him.
“No? Then why are you all sweaty and sandy? Seemed like a lot of effort to me.”
“Sure, but anyone could have done it.”
“Maybe so. But the question is, would anyone have done it? Or would they simply have given up?”
“Why would someone do that? If they came here looking for you, then why would they stop before they found you?”
“The fact that you even ask that is what makes you who you are, Solomon. And is why I believe you when you say that you will return Justice here without me having to take it from you.”
They reached the end of the tunnel and the Guardian shoved a heavy wooden door. It creaked as it opened into a room filled with treasure, lit by a glowing stone set into the ceiling. Coins, gems, jewelry, plates, cups and weapons of every type. It was here that the Guardian kept items of value for safekeeping, either for someone, or to keep them from someone.
He swept his arm across his body, indicating that Solomon should go first.
“Now,” the Guardian said, when they were both in the room, “Justice can go right there.” He pointed to a blank spot on the wall, the same place it had leaned when Solomon came for it a few short weeks ago.
Solomon nodded and walked to the area, unbuckling his sword belt. He took Justice, still sheathed, and set it against the wall. For a moment, his fingers lingered against the hilt, a small taste of that indescribable feeling of power flowing into him.
Then he took his hand away, stood, and turned smiling back to the Guardian.
“You’re the only one,” the giant said. “The only one to give it up willingly. And you’ve done it not once, but twice now. How?”
Solomon shrugged. “It doesn’t mean that much to me.”
Really, he was downplaying it. It meant a great deal to him. Just not as much as other things.
“Oh,” he said, “I almost forgot.” He set his pack down, took out the lantern, and looked at it sadly. “Did you know what it would do?”
The Guardian shrugged. “Not really. I knew it would help, that it was linked to your sword somehow. As for how it worked, or what it would cost Jediah? No, that I didn’t know.”
Solomon carefully set it down.
“Well,” he said, “with that, I’m off.”
“Take care of yourself, Solomon,” the Guardian said. “There are things in the worlds beyond the Greenweald that can test even you.”
“You sound like you know something.”
“I know a great many things, my friend. But what you’ll face? No, that I don’t. Still, be mindful of your surroundings, and look for friends in strange places. Sometimes, that’s where the best ones are hiding.”
Solomon smiled, and reached up to pat the Guardian’s shoulder as he passed.
Chapter 5
Shireen felt like screaming. Solomon had been gone for less than a day, and already she was tired of being Head of House. Leading was different when Towering Oaks was in the midst of a crisis, with an army at the gates and living nightmares coming near. Then, it had been a matter of stepping up because someone needed to.
But this? This was bureaucracy at its worst. The desk was snowed under in paperwork, and shuffling through it, trying to make sense of it all, was illuminating. Mostly what it revealed was how little of it Solomon had been paying attention to.
Accelerated training schedules to try to rebuild their numbers quickly. Promotions for acts of valor on the field of battle. Requisitions for supplies from other Houses, or from outside the Greenweald. All of it apparently ran across this desk and needed to be signed off on by the Head.
How had Jediah done it all?
She dropped her head into her hands and closed her eyes.
“That bad?”
She looked up and almost smiled as Orlando sat down across from her. “Yes,” she replied. “It’s that bad. I don’t think Solomon even looked at most of this stuff.” She pushed a few papers around despondently. “Although, maybe I’m being too hard on him. I don’t even know where to begin, and he probably felt the same. Honestly, I don’t know how Jediah did it.”
“He had help,” Orlando said. His tone was matter-of-fact as he picked up a requisition form and read it over.
Shireen stared at him. She loved him, but there were times she was ready to kill him. He thought he was hiding it, but she knew perfectly well that he knew Solomon was leaving that morning and didn’t say a word to her about it. She assumed Solomon had asked to break the news to her himself.
And now this.
“What do you mean, ‘he had help’?” she asked, her voice quiet.
Orlando looked up from the form. “He had help. An assistant. You knew that, right?”
“No. I didn’t. Who was it?”
“Samuel. He worked for Jediah for years.”
Shireen rubbed her eyes. “And where is Samuel now?”
Orlando shrugged. “No idea. He wasn’t killed in the fighting, but where he’s been since then, I don’t know.”
She pursed her lips and glared at her lover. After a moment, he got up and headed for the door. “I have an idea,” he said, on the way out. “I’ll go see if I can find him.”
“You do that,” she muttered and turned back to trying to make sense of the mountain of papers.
♦ ♦ ♦
A while later there was a knock at the door.
“Come in,” Shireen growled. Her head was killing her and her eyes ached from searching for dates on the papers, to try to put things in order.
A man entered, tall and thin, dressed in the gray that denoted House Towering Oaks. His dark hair was cut short, but it had been done quickly so that it was almost ragged. His eyes were shadowed and there was the stubble of a day-old beard on his face.
As he entered, he looked around the room, avoiding her, until he stood in front of the desk. His eyes flickered to hers, then back to the desk, and finally, back around the room again. It wasn’t until Shireen saw the wet shine in those eyes that she realized what was going on.
“You must be Samuel,” she said gently.
The man nodded, bit his lip and still didn’t say anything.
“This is your first time back in this office, since….”
Samuel nodded again, his eyes finding hers.
“I understand. It’s hard for all of us. I’ll tell you what. I need a break from this. I think I’ll go get a cup of tea or something. You stay here, take some time.”
She stood and moved around the desk, placing her hand on his shoulder.
“When I get back, let’s talk. I need help, and I understand you’re the man for the job.”
Again, Samuel nodded, and shot a grateful look at her as she left her office.
“See?” Orlando said, joining her in the hallway. “This is why Solomon wanted you in charge.”
“What are you talking about?”
“What you did in there. You knew what the problem was and how to deal with it. You may not think you’re good at that sort of thing, but you really are.”
Shireen didn’t reply. But she did slip her arm through Orlando’s and allowed him to escort her to the mess hall.
♦ ♦ ♦
Later, when she returned to her office, Samuel had cleaned off her desk, leaving one tidy pile of papers in the middle of it.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I took the liberty of arranging things,” Samuel said. “Those items are the ones that need your personal signature as Head of House. A few promotions and commendations, and a requisition for steel.”
“What about the rest?”
“The rest can be signed by your delegate. For Lord Jediah, that was me. If you wish, I can fill the same function for you.”
Shireen remembered very well how smoothly the House ran under Jediah. It seemed that this man had a lot to do with that.
Solomon's Journey Page 3
