Alexa Drey- the Gates of Striker Bay

by Ember Lane

  “Well, they don’t make a very good job of it.”

  Pog strolled around it, trailing his finger on the helix. “Perhaps it wasn’t written very clearly.”

  “How so?”

  Pog shrugged. “Who's to say they defined human correctly? Protect the humans…which ones? Humans aboard the ship, or human existence in general? What makes us so sure that the AI or AIs aren’t doing exactly what they’ve been told to. The directive given to the AI has to be interpreted by the individual AI. Perhaps Belved chose one human to look after, and that was ShadowDancer?”

  The boy had just scrambled my brain, but in a way it made sense. Perhaps that was why the whole game appeared to revolve around one man, boy, whatever. “Just play the game in front of you,” I repeated from old.

  Pog winked at me. “You’re beginning to understand."

  “Game?” Faulk suddenly butted in. “I’ll play. If this folly is a clue, then that there might be the answer.” He pointed across the gardens. “Was this Taric a bit dim? Only, that place appears far too obvious.”

  A wall of bushes rose from the scruffy shrubs and lofty lawns, towering above them and starkly contrasting with them, standing out by their rigid conformity. It was like they’d been pruned, sculpted, and then frozen in time. Each strand twisted around the other, leaves sprouting scantly. Like the helix close by, the hedgerow had a metallic look: greens, pink, and silver all glinting in the sunlight. The more I stared at it, the more foreign it looked.

  “Surely they looked there?” Faulk said, holding my sleeve.

  “Don’t bet on it.” Pog beamed. “Never bet on anything; follow your nose.” He jumped off the platform, skulking low toward the strange bushes and waved us on. A bark, a call from behind, told me the dead guard had been found. I swapped glances with Faulk, and we scrambled forward, soon at the bush’s edge, crouching behind Pog.

  “Look,” he hissed as he put his hand between two stems. The minute he did, the stems closed, narrowing the gap. “It doesn’t want to let us in.”

  Faulk motioned for us to move around. “Let’s get out of the line of sight. It curves away. We’ll work it out there.”

  I placed my finger on one of its leaves, a slight tingle of recognition flowing up it. “Wait,” I whispered. “They just want to know who Faulk is.”

  “They?” Faulk said.

  “Tell them he is the keymaster,” Pog hissed.

  “The what?” I asked, but Pog just shrugged.

  “Quite like it if I’m honest,” Faulk added.

  An arrow thudded into the tall grass, followed by shouts, calls to arms. My mana boiled instantly, ready for battle, but I couldn’t afford to call upon it, couldn’t afford to wake the combinium. More arrows peppered around us. Pog scrambled about trying to find a way through the intertwined stalks. Faulk crouched low, pressing himself into the ground.

  Grabbing two of the stems, feeding them the information they wanted, I demanded they open, but they were just dead stalks, unresponsive, static.

  “They’re on us,” Pog cried, vanishing.

  Jumping up, I pulled out my scarletite axes, crouching, ready. Faulk stood, wrecking bar across his chest. Clearly nervous, he backed away, so I stood in front, feet planted and ready.

  An archer dropped, clutching his neck, crimson spewing. Bursting forward, I yelled some unintelligible battle cry and sprang toward the first militia. He quickly crumbled under my ferocious assault, the battle-axes giving me leverage as they anchored in his flesh, seeing me pirouette off his falling body, my boots slamming into the next soldier, catching him on the neck as the axes broke free sending me into a spin, landing on my feet just in time to see a cavalryman thundering down on me.

  Sword high, sword ready, a grimace of hatred screwed his face up. He had me, no acrobatics would save me now. The pounding of hooves made the ground rumble. I looked right, left, got ready to spring up at him. The sword swept down in a silvery arc. I leaped to my left, away from the swing, but it caught me, slicing at my back, opening a rent and making my blood boil.

  The rider rounded his mount, ready to trample me, and in that split second I threw one of my axes at him. It landed with a dull thud, splitting his helmet like butter, burying itself in his brain and sending him tumbling backward.

  Pounding feet behind me told of new arrivals. I tried to sprint forward, to leap over the dead cavalryman, but it was all I could do to avoid his startled horse. It barged past me, tossing me aside like I was nothing, rearing, whinnying, and then galloping straight toward the onrushing militia and scattering them.

  Gasping, I tried to contain the pain raking my ruined back. Pog appeared by my side, forced a vial into my hand and vanished again. The scrambling militia fell to his rogue’s blade. Biting the top off the vial, I drained its contents. It dulled the pain but little else.

  Two more cavalrymen bore down on me. I sprang back, pulling my second ax from the dead man’s head, facing my new threat. My mana rose, brimming, and I could hardly contain it. I dove through the gap between them, hooves kicking dirt in my face, and as I did, I buried the axes deep in the mud, spinning me over, launching me upright, and I twisted around and faced their backs as they desperately tried to rein in their mounts.

  Throwing the scarletite axes, I fell to one knee, barely watching as they buried their heads between the cavalrymen’s shoulder blades and both fell as Faulk cried, “They’ve opened.”

  It took a moment to register, to understand, but then Pog screamed at me, pulling me from my confusion. I stumbled back, the pain whipping across my back, fuzzing my consciousness. On instinct, I retrieved my axes, turned and faced more, more cavalrymen, more militia, but then an arm snapped around my neck, pulling me back. I screamed, growled, wanting to kill them all, but the pull was relentless, and then the scene blurred, blinked, and changed. All of a sudden I was staring at the gardens outside like it was from a different place, at the militia as they poked and prodded at the metallic wall, at the cavalrymen as they rode up and down its perimeter, but it was clear they could no longer see us.

  Pog appeared and tossed me another health potion. “Not so easy when you’ve got no magic to prop up your fighting.” He still smiled even though I knew what he meant. I’d become flippant, knew I could beat most with my magic. Remove that, and I was just above militia…

  I popped the top off my water bottle and drank deeply. “What is this place?”

  “I’m going with maze—maze with a touch of mystical thrown in.” Faulk prodded the walls.

  The cavalrymen continued to ride up and down, goading the militia into charging the wall. It was like watching a spectacle through a thick window—blurred figures and muffled commands. Each time the militia ran at the wall, they just crashed into it, sliding down the invisible barrier and slumping on the ground.

  Faulk was right, the place did resemble a maze, at least the curved corridor we were in. The grunts and barks from outside faded, the figures blurring like a mixed palette of watercolors. We sat in a tight circle, Faulk’s old tool bag in the center as the walls sharpened and shut the outside away, the intertwining helix now much more defined, arcing over us like an arbor. The grass under us took on a metallic feel too, and the silence became ethereal, a magical tunnel, a magical maze. Faulk was certainly on the right track.

  A blue light suddenly pulled me from my wandering musing; it filled the space between us, lighting Pog’s mischievous face. The Stalker stone hovered between us. Its usual excitement was muted, like it was unsure, like it was uncertain of its path. Pog got up, Faulk too. I pushed myself carefully to my feet, testing my back and feeling no pain. Stalker flew away, Pog following, Faulk picking up his tool bag.

  “A few minute’s rest—better than nothing, I suppose.” He slung it over his shoulder and sauntered off into the blue haze.

  Faulk may not be much of a fighter, but he was as brave as the rest of us—perhaps braver. To go into battle with nothing but a wrecking bar must take true courage.

&nb
sp; I reached out, letting my fingers glide against the strands, across the leaves, and visions of Taric filled my vision. A young man appeared sporting an impudent smile, deep dimples, and sparkling eyes. He wore a royal-blue cape fastened around his neck with a gold braid. It flowed behind him as he sashayed along, his billowing pantaloons tight around his knees, meeting tan boots. He had a cane, a shiny, black cane with a silver tip on one end and a bulbous knot on the other. He walked with me, alongside me, glancing across as we went.

  The corridor continued turning, and the vision of Taric suddenly swapped to the inside of the maze, passing through its wall. I called Pog back, pointing to where the god had turned. As I did, the helical stems parted, and allowed us to pass through.

  Shimmering silver, blue, pink, and green leaves all swapped colors like a kaleidoscope, their hue more intense than the outside.

  “How did you know to turn?” Faulk asked, but the illusion of Taric pressed a playful finger to his lips before wagging it in my direction.

  “Just saw it,” I replied, none too convincingly, unsure why I was lying for the prancing god.

  Stalker’s blue luminescence soon dominated the metallic leaves, the path forward looking like some ice forest. Pog took the lead again, skipping away. Taric swept a hand forward, bidding me on with a low bow. He let us continue for a hundred feet before jumping ahead and standing in Pog’s way, directing him right. I shouted the same just before Pog strolled right through him.

  We went left, right, right and left, and as we did, the ambient light began to fade, the leaves emitting their own and reflecting Stalker’s glow.

  “Anything?” I asked Pog, but he shook his head.

  Taric stooped, his shoulders dropping, and he knelt, swishing his cane about. The helix parted, sweeping aside like a pair of curtains opening. Pog gasped, Faulk too, and a small wooden door appeared, around four feet high and just as wide.

  I pushed against it, but it didn’t budge. Pog tried the same, crouching and looking through its lock. Faulk rolled up his sleeves, kneeling before it, eyeing up the lock and then setting out the tools he needed.

  “Do we even know where it leads?” I asked, suddenly aware of the heavy silence. “What if it’s a trap?”

  Taric threw his head back in laughter then winked at me. He waved a flat hand out, like fifty-fifty, then laughed some more.

  “Take a seat. It’s a fiddly one,” Faulk told us, and he started his probing and prodding, picklocks scraping on rusted tumblers and pins.

  Taric walked up and down, twirling his cane.

  “I see Taric. He guided us here,” I suddenly told Pog.

  Pog nodded sagely. “Then it could be a trap.”

  “How—your thinking?”

  “Taric’s dead.” Pog shrugged as if that was enough of an explanation.

  “And…”

  “And we don’t know who his ghost works for—what deals he made before he was killed.”

  “Whose side is he on,” Faulk muttered, breathing heavily.

  “So,” I began to say then paused. Taric crouched down by Pog, his face swooping close. “So Taric is still in play?”

  Pog stared at me, his big, black irises drilling into me. “You know what Taric truly is. Answer me this: can he be killed if Valkyrie still functions? The body might die, but the mind will live on somewhere, unless they couldn’t do it, unless they hadn’t worked out how Valkyrie could function without him.”

  “Sounds spooky to me.” Faulk sat back on his haunches, one picklock carefully positioned. “I’m about there. Now’s the time to say yay or nay.”

  Taric had become quite animated, pointing at Pog, and nodding profusely.

  “Yay,” I said, shutting my eyes quickly, but unable to rinse the vision of an enthused Taric from my mind.

  The door clicked open, its thud like a full stop, ending our musing. Faulk pushed it open to reveal a circular chamber, two barred windows in one segment. The walls were uniform, gray flint, stacked with barely enough mortar to smooth out its sharp edges. Stones swirled around the floor, its pitch angled like an upturned top, and a table took up the middle of the room, low, around three feet in diameter, and upon it was a box, the shape of a cut cheese wheel. An intricate design had been carved into its top, but it appeared to be one third of something, and I couldn’t quite make out what.

  Pog produced a long stick, feeding it into the room, hand over hand, tapping at the floor and ceiling, poking it through the windows. He took his time. The light from the window dulled, pitching to amber.

  “Seems clear,” Faulk said, and he brought out a filled bag, approximately the size of two bunched fists. He untied its top, dipped his hand in, and took out a handful of bronze dust. He tossed it in, spreading it like a fan and watching intently as it settled. He then grabbed his wrecking bar, tapping it on the first cobble, then the next, and farther in. Seeming satisfied, he crouched and stepped in. We followed in his wake, able to stand straight as soon as we were through the doorway.

  We surrounded the central table, and Pog let Stalker free. The crystal hovered above the wedge-shaped box. Pog reached forward, feeling around it, looking for a clasp. Faulk reached out, pressing its top, feeling its texture.

  “I take it another of those crystals hides in here?”

  Pog nodded. “I think so, but everything tells me this is incomplete.

  Taric danced around us, faster and faster.

  The door slammed shut, and a golden lattice suddenly lit up all the walls, the ceiling, and the floor.

  I’d read about that lattice before.

  It was the one they’d used to trap Poleyna in Castle Kyrie—it was the work of the gods.

  Taric howled with laughter.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Dark Priest

  Pog gave the lattice a cursory look. “Smart move,” he said and turned his attention back to the box.

  “That it?” I asked. “We’ve just walked into a trap, and all you can say is ‘smart move’?”

  He waved my words away. Faulk approached one of the windows. “Yep, smart move. I’m guessing that ship anchored off the bluff has some rather important folks on it.”

  I darted over to the other, grabbing at its bars and getting a sharp shock for my troubles. The ship looked part afire, sunset licking at its black hull and sails. Even from our distance, I could tell it was huge—a tall ship that dwarfed Flip’s fleet. Its twin masts reached up to the stars.

  Pushing my consciousness beyond the bars, trying to see the ship’s deck, my magic was immediately repelled by the golden lattice, pushed back inside me, literally forced down my throat.

  I was truly trapped, caged like an animal.

  “What’s not smart about it?” Pog pulled me back, away from the window. “Think, Alexa, think! What’s not smart about it?”

  “They can’t touch the stone… They need us to?”

  “Close…” Pog felt around the wedge. “No catch—wax seal.” A knife appeared in his hand, and he began slicing it open. “They can’t touch the stone, you’re right, but what’s more important than that?”

  I wrung my hands together. “Aarrgh! This is so frustrating.”

  “No,” Pog said, looking up from his work. “It’s obvious, so obvious you’ve missed it. Why hide the stone?”

  “To stop us remaking the Prism of Light.” The instant I said it, I understood. “Ha, that! Oh…interesting…”

  “Exactly.” Pog held either side of the wedge.

  “Exactly what?” Faulk asked.

  “Ruse doesn’t want to destroy the prism,” I crowed.

  “And they need us to remake it because they can’t touch it.”

  “And if I had half a clue what you were talking about, I might be a little wiser,” Faulk admitted.

  Pog raised the lid. A fan of light spread out, brilliant yellow and red that soon turned to licking flame, lapping at the box’s edges.

  “Vengeance!” Stalker shouted.

  Pog slammed the li
d shut. “So we know it's here. The question is, what do we do with it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He sighed, looking at me like I was just plain dim. “Ask Taric. Tell him we won’t cooperate unless he comes clean.”

  Taric suddenly appeared right by me, leaning over my shoulder, and I sensed Pog had called it right.

  “He can hear you,” I told Pog.

  Pog cleared his throat. “You lead us here, offer up the stone we need, and in doing so, you trap us. It’s quite clear you’re an idiot, so we’re not playing.” Pog moved away from the table, sitting against the wall just by the door. Taric darted over to him, sniffing at his face.

  “Fool? He calls me a fool? You all walked into here.”

  “He thinks you’re a fool too,” I told Pog.

  Pog let Stalker fly up. “Tell him he can have the stone; use it to find the others.”

  “He knows we can’t touch it. Tell him the dancer will gut him if he doesn’t hand them all over.”

  And then it finally dawned on me what Pog was talking about.

  “They don’t know how it all works, do they? They think we have the other stones on us.” I laughed. I laughed and laughed at the stupidity of it all.

  “What do you mean?” Taric poked his nose around, peering into my face.

  Pog jumped up. “Is he there?” He pointed at the space just in front of me. “There?”

  “Kind off curled around me,” I explained.

  “Ask him what ShadowDancer has promised him.”

  “To live again,” growled Taric, his ethereal self slowly materializing.

  “Shit,” said Faulk, backing away. “You swung from the battlements of Castle Kyrie.”

  “Really?” Taric said. “You think hanging would kill me? He trapped me like this, put me in a box like that, and told me he’d only let me out if I got hold of the stones—if I trapped Mezzerain. I told him Mez would come with you, and he’d do as I say.”