by Jaime Castle
Shall settle it all with power and sword”
“Riddles and nonsense,” Torsten said.
“How do you not feel it?” Uriah said, looking to the sky and closing his eyes. “Their union, deep in your soul like a… like a mounting storm.”
“You guys both sound insane,” Whitney said. Of course, nobody paid him any attention. He was getting used to it.
“Do not make me a party to your heathen worship of the Buried Goddess,” Torsten said. “It was Iam who guided my blade. You may have tricked us into helping you, but we are done now. We will find King Pi’s effigy, and then you will return to Yarrington and answer for your sins.”
“You cannot deny what happened here!” Uriah roared, his calm façade slipping.
It was then that Whitney realized how foolish he was for going after him.
He just called on shadows to kill a goddess, you idiot.
“Why don’t we just let him leave,” Whitney said. “I have the damn doll anyway. We can all go on our merry way.” He removed the doll he’d found in Bliss’s lair from his belt and held it up.
Torsten and Uriah grabbed it at the same time, their hands covered in Bliss’s yellow blood, so much that it soaked the poor doll’s crude face through.
“Hey!” Whitney ripped it back and patted the head before he stored it back underneath his belt. “Didn’t either of you ever learn to share?”
“Where did you find that?” Torsten asked.
“Just back there,” Whitney said. “In the big chamber he sent me into with the…you know, spider webs and dead bodies.”
“So Redstar really is dead,” Torsten said. It was not a question.
Whitney shrugged. “I suppose. There was a body holding it. Well, it used to be a body. It was really just a pile of white armor and crumbling bones. Like yours, see.” He raised his forearm to show off the gauntlets he’d taken.
Torsten’s eyes went wide. “Those are glaruium gauntlets,” he said. He clutched Whitney’s arm and pulled it close. “Where did you find these?”
“They’re yours if you want them. I figured it was the least I could do after I.. uh… damaged yours back in the ruins.”
There was silence.
“Really, that was his fault,” Whitney went on, pointing to Uriah.
“You found these in the same place as the doll?” Torsten asked.
“Yeah, being cradled right in these things like it were a baby.”
Torsten’s eyebrows rose slowly and his gaze leveled on Uriah. Whitney did the same. A smirk played at the corners of the old man’s lips. He tisked with his tongue and shook his head.
“This could have been a smooth transaction. In and out. Both our needs fulfilled. You got the orepul and I… I get what she asked of me.”
“Uriah, what is going on?”
“Watch out!” Sora suddenly sprawled in front of them with her hand raised as if to block something. When nothing happened, she glanced up with her weary eyes and said, “I felt…”
Uriah snapped his fingers. Whitney winced, then, when he looked again, Uriah was gone. Where he had just been standing, a pale, gangly looking man now stood. The left side of his face was covered by a deep red, almost crimson, birthmark with a few points stretching over his forehead and nose.
Whitney was dumbfounded. Sora froze in her place.
“It’s you,” Torsten said softly. “You son of a—” He lunged at him, but the warlock raised a hand and Torsten went stiff.
Redstar waved his arm aside and sent Torsten slamming hard into the cavern’s outer wall, his head cracking against the stone.
Whitney lifted his hands in surrender. He was no fool. Torsten hadn’t told him a thing about what Redstar looked like, but a birthmark like the one this man had made it pretty obvious. And anyone who could use magic to change their appearance like that wasn’t worth messing with.
“Hey, man. Listen, we’re friends, right? You sent me to my doom, no sweat. This really has nothing to do with me.” He nodded to the doll. “You want this? Fine, no skin off my bones.”
“I have no use for it any longer,” Redstar said. Even his voice changed. It was stronger, more dignified.
“Don’t, Whitney,” Torsten groaned as he struggled to recover. “He is behind everything. He’ll never let you leave alive.”
“Unfortunately, he’s right about that.”
Redstar raised his hand, but so did Sora. She sprung to her feet in front of Whitney and fire erupted from her newly bleeding hand. Redstar didn’t even bother moving. As the ball of fire leaped from her palm, he blew on it. The flame turned to ice mid-flight, then fell to the ground and shattered. He then reached a hand toward both Whitney and Sora and delivered them into the same fate as Torsten.
They all lay in a heap, staring at Redstar. Whitney felt a new level of fear that even Bliss didn’t instill in him. She needed a leg to throw him across the room, but Redstar didn’t even need to move.
Torsten drew himself up. “Redstar, I am here under the command of your sister, the Queen Regent. Stop this madness.”
“She’s not my ruler!” he shouted. “I came to her a year ago. Begged her to see the truth of what lived in these Woods and to help us destroy it. She treated me as a stranger—worse than a stranger. The sister who I witnessed being stolen from our home and then marched to the Glass Kingdom died in Drav Cra. Your King defiled her.”
“So, you cursed a child?” Torsten spat. “We can talk with her. Reason with her.”
“I will not waste my time with her. I have turned to another lady; one who holds real power. My goddess will return with a vengeance and it’s all thanks to you.”
“Me?” Torsten stomped forward, but Redstar flexed his hand again and shoved him back down.
“Didn’t you pay attention to anything I’ve been telling you? ‘One of the Lady and one of the Lord.’”
“We all heard your dumb song,” Whitney said.
“Only true believers of Iam and Nesilia, together, could truly vanquish Bliss and undo what she has done. And your faith was proven so predictably at the ruins. Now, Torsten, she will rise again. No longer forgotten!”
“Not on my watch,” Torsten declared. “Not in the Glass.”
“If only that were up to you. I no longer need you or these filthy little creatures you find company with.”
Behind him, two of his masked cultists appeared. One waved his hand and Whitney went flying. The other did the same to Torsten. Redstar raised his hand in Sora’s direction, and with it, she floated, pushed hard against the rock wall. She groaned in agony as her back was crushed.
“And you… little blood mage.” Redstar took a few steps forward. “I hate to see such raw talent wasted, but I cannot take any risks.”
“You’re pure evil,” she said through her teeth.
“Young lady… there is no evil—only power.” He squeezed his fist into a ball and she writhed.
“Stop!” Whitney shouted from wherever he’d landed. One of the cultists slowly walked toward him with a dagger in hand, robe sloshing through Bliss’s pooling blood.
“Redstar, let them go!” Torsten pleaded. “They are not your enemy.”
“You don’t understand, Knight. You wouldn’t understand.” He squeezed harder. “I enjoy this.”
Sora’s eyes opened wide and she looked as if she were about to burst. Whitney found his footing and charged at Redstar, ignoring the cultist. The warlock raised a bloody hand his way and paralyzed him mid-stride. Then he focused back on Sora. Her moans of pain grew louder and louder, until it was all he could hear. He wished he could look away, but Redstar held every part of him still. A soft glow began to form in her irises and then it grew brighter.
Then Sora screamed.
Blinding light and fire surged from every pore of her body. Whitney, Torsten, and the cultists bore down. The light was so bright and the heat so sweltering, Whitney had to close his eyes. When he opened them again, Redstar was lying ten meters away, his clothes smold
ering. The two cultists were charred to a crisp. Whitney rolled over and tried to stand, but his head was ringing and he fell back over. Torsten stumbled a few feet then did the same.
“Sora!” Whitney grated. The heat on the air made it hard to breathe. She lay on her back against the cavern wall, arms draped off to the side, eyelids twitching. Whitney crawled the rest of the way to her.
“Sora,” he repeated. “Are you okay?” She wasn’t moving. He grabbed her by the jaw and rolled her eyelid open, but only saw the whites of her eyes. “Sora wake up.” He dragged her down from the wall, laid her down flat and started slapping her cheek.
“Sora!”
“I...” she coughed and rolled her head. “I’m okay.”
Whitney released a mouthful of air and pulled her closed. She was too weak to speak, but that was better than dead. “That was incredible, Sora. Where did you learn to do that?”
“I didn’t...”
“He’s still breathing,” Torsten announced. He lay at Redstar’s side with his hand on the man’s throat. “Barely.”
“So, drive a sword into him and be done,” Whitney hollered.
“I can’t do that. The Queen will want him. If I bring him back, she might restore…” his voice trailed off.
“Restore?”
“Hope in the kingdom. We need to bring him alive. Show everyone that Iam remains with us.”
“Did you miss the part where she saved our necks with, what did you call it, ‘malfeasance?’”
Torsten didn’t answer.
“So, what happens when our friend wakes up and goes all drunk with power again?” Whitney asked.
“He won’t,” Sora said softly.
“How do you know?”
“His hands,” she strained at first, but her words gained strength as she spoke. “See those little cuts? He’s just like me… a lot stronger, but just like me.”
“By the looks of things, there aren’t many stronger than you,” Whitney said.
She blushed. “I got lucky.”
“There’s a word for it. You were like a powder keg.”
“I think... maybe I somehow drew on Bliss’s blood.”
“Is that possible?” Whitney asked.
She was able to shrug one shoulder. “Wetzel didn’t know everything.”
“No,” Torsten declared. “It was His light—Iam’s light—that came through her. I know it. That is why we were spared.”
“Now her powers are all fine and dandy?” Whitney said.
“We cannot say why or how he will choose to act through his vessels, but of this fact, I have no doubt. I felt him in my heart.”
“Whatever you say.” Whitney lifted Sora’s head to keep her from fainting. “So how do we keep him in check?”
“Bind his hands and legs,” she said. “Gag his mouth, too. He shouldn’t be able to perform any spells like that.”
“I don’t know if this is something we want to chance.”
Torsten was already tearing Redstar’s robes to use as makeshift bindings. “It‘s a chance we’ll have to take.”
Whitney laid Sora down and went to the knight’s side to help. A long rasp sounded as he tore more fabric. Torsten went to grab hold of Redstar’s hands but his arms froze. He started to rise into the air again.
Redstar groaned, “You will not—”
Whitney threw a strong right hook into the side of the warlock’s head. His eyes closed for good.
“Good punch,” Torsten said.
“Thanks,” Whitney said, shaking his hand.
They finished tying up Redstar, then stood.
“You’re carrying him,” Whitney said.
“There are two of us, Thief,” Torsten replied. “And we have a long road back to Yarrington.”
“Well, someone has to help her!” He pointed at Sora, who had passed out at some point while they were binding the warlock. Torsten’s gaze moved from her, then froze on the gauntlet covering Whitney’s outstretched hand.
“Ah, right.” Whitney went to remove them, but Torsten stopped him.
“I dare not wear them. I doubted his faith and I have to live with that forever.”
“He was a good actor.” Whitney rolled his shoulders. “So, that was the real Uriah I found down there?”
“Yes.” Torsten bent over and picked up Redstar’s sword—Uriah’s sword—the pommel sculpted into a lion. “The monster stole his sword and everything, all to deceive me.”
“About that. I still don’t really understand what in Elsewhere he wanted.”
“What does any heathen want? Chaos. To blot out the light in this world because there is no light in theirs.”
Whitney looked up and considered making a remark about how little light the woods had, even with the glittering eyeballs hanging all around them and reflecting the Clora’s light, but he decided against it. “Well, if it’s all right with you, I’m ready to get out of this place.”
“Yes. For too long the Webbed Woods have haunted our kingdom thanks to this madman. It’s time to leave for good.”
“Finally.” Whitney patted the Drav Cra doll in his belt. “I’ll hold onto this until we’re back, just in case you decide to go rotten.”
“I gave you my word under Iam’s Vigilant Eye.”
Again, the swinging eyeballs caught Whitney’s gaze and he stifled a gag. “Please don’t mention eyes… ever again.”
Torsten sighed. “I will stand by my promise.”
Whitney flashed him a grin. “But it’s so much more fun not to.”
XXXVIII
The Knight
YARRINGTON.
Torsten swore he’d never been so happy to see the glory of the capital in all his life. From the dark, towering trees of the Webbed Woods, to the white-stone spires and crystal spindle swirling atop the distant castle—he’d been to war in plenty of places but never had the difference been so stark. Mount Lister’s snow-dusted, flat top glistened under the bright winter sun as a backdrop to it all.
He sat atop his steed staring down upon the city from a nearby hill. It seemed more peaceful than ever. Redstar was slung over the back of his saddle, bound, gagged, and so far he hadn’t tried any tricks. Uriah’s sword was strung along the side of it, finally able to be returned to its proper place.
Whitney and Sora sat on the horse behind him, the thief finally quiet for once in his Iam-forsaken life, and Sora finally at full strength after Iam appeared through her to save them all. And because of that, Torsten was about to allow a known blood mage to enter the capital.
The world really has changed...
They’d traded for two horses at the first stable they found outside the Webbed Woods. There were few southern villages left that hadn’t already been razed by the growing Black Sands army, so stocky, southern shorthairs were the only option. Whitney hesitated to give up his stolen arrow-shaped amulet in exchange for such inferior beasts, but he eventually gave in when he realized walking was the only alternative.
Torsten couldn’t help but feel like the young man was finally starting to see the weight of their actions. How a quest, so foolish in its description, could help save the Glass Kingdom.
“You planning on sitting up here all day?” Whitney asked. “Sora can really use a bath.”
“Excuse me!” She smacked him in the back of the head.
“What? We all can. Nice, warm, castle water. A fresh rack of lamb. Rosemary potatoes.”
Torsten glanced back at him, incredulous. Then his stomach rumbled. He’d eaten nothing but the stale bread Uriah—Redstar—had given him for days.
“We’re heroes, Knight,” Whitney said, clearly protesting the look Torsten sent his way. “It’s the least we deserve. We rescued a hand-sewn damsel—dame?—in distress thwarted a warlock, and slew an evil, goddess, spider... thing.”
“Is a name of worth not enough?” Torsten questioned.
“You have met him, haven’t you?” Sora said. “Nothing is ever enough.”
“You’re le
arning,” Whitney said.
“Enough.” Torsten held out a hand and nodded toward the doll tucked into Whitney’s belt.
“I said you’d get it when we reached Yarrington.”
“This is close enough. We will be better received if it is in my hands.”
Whitney looked at Sora, who seemed too preoccupied marveling at the great city to care. He sighed and handed it over.
“It’s a creepy little thing anyway. Not to mention all the gross, spider-woman blood you got all over it.”
Torsten raised Pi’s Drav Cra effigy in front of him—the boy’s supposed soul. The thing was a wreck. Years in Queen Bliss’s lair hadn’t been kind to it. An eye was missing, and the stains of blood—both old and new—and dirt would never wash out.
That the entire kingdom could rely on something so small and worthless...
He tucked it away. “Let’s go home.”
“Your home maybe,” Whitney muttered.
Torsten spurred his horse on down the paved road into Yarrington. The farms outside were quiet, touched by winter’s frost. A few lonely, old farmers tilled the soil to keep it fresh, but naught for that, only stubborn crows disturbed the stillness. Smoke climbed from the mills and homesteads, firelight glowing through hazy windows.
Torsten always enjoyed winter. Quiet. No foreign traders to monitor, and the people were usually too cold to cause much of a stir. It made his job easier, and coming back from Liam’s war campaigns had always exhausted the King’s Shield.
It was different now, like so much else. The city may have looked peaceful on the outside, but as soon as they reached the gate Torsten knew Yarrington wasn’t the same place he’d left. The main gate into the city hadn’t been sealed in ages, yet now the tremendous, oak doors were closed and the steel portcullis lowered.
He brought his horse to a snorting halt.
“Who goes there?” A voice rained down from the stony ramparts.
“Where are the trumpets?” Whitney whispered.
“Torsten Unger!” he shouted up. “King’s Shieldsman. The Wearer of White.” It was only as the words left his lips that Torsten remembered he was lying. He’d never actually said out loud what he no longer was.
