by Ember Lane
“Finequill mostly. He worked out fairly early on that he could allot favorable tasks in return for the coin he insists will be needed one day.”
“Insists?”
“He doesn’t think soldiers will fight for anything else.”
Lincoln grunted. Even though he’d had this rash of idealism running through him since he’d come to the land, he secretly knew Finequill was right, and he hated that Finequill was right. Whatever ideals Joan had lived by, the world, any world, was a nasty place, and folks were more apt to lay their life down for a piece of shiny metal, rather than an ideal.
“No!” he said out loud.
“No?” Allaise questioned.
“To fight for an idea, a new way of life—that’s the challenge—to get folks to fight for that and not coin.” He glared around, wide-eyed. “That’s the challenge, and make no mistake, it is a challenge. We need Finequill—we need him badly.”
Allaise looked at him, clearly confused. “Why? I mean, I’ve known Finequill for an age, and he’s always celebrated the greedier side of life. Why do we need him?”
Lincoln laughed. “Because we need to be on our guard against the threat of greed, of gluttony, and Finequill is the ideal reminder of what we don’t want.”
Allaise rolled her eyes and grabbed his arm, and they marched toward the feasting hall. “Now that’s one strange way of looking at it. One day you’re going to have to make your mind up what you want,” she told him. “My cottages?”
“Bethe?” Lincoln inquired. “Maybe they can be our first natural cottages—like the elf’s tree village rather than the standard cottage.”
“I can search the land’s history for such a thing,” Bethe said, and then hovered away.
Allaise squeezed Lincoln’s hand. “I’m not looking forward to it—you going into that ruined castle. Where are you setting your respawn?”
“Closest place.”
“Just promise me it’s outside. I don’t want you trapped in some kind of endless loop.”
Lincoln told her about the bridge that Alexa had become stranded on, about how she’d had to fight to avoid just dying and staying in The Endings. Allaise shivered as Lincoln carried on. “She was on her own, and she still made it through. I’d never give up either—there’s always a way out. Heck, I’ll get Crags to bring down a chaos portal if I get stuck,” and the minute he’d said it, he wondered if it was possible…
They enjoyed a lazy morning, Lincoln’s first in the land, and it cemented his bond with Allaise, a bond he’d formed on his very first night in Brokenford. He pushed the guilt to the back of his mind. Allaise, Glenwyth…what would Joan think? Was it because he couldn’t bear to be alone? Was that it? He’d never seen himself as one who needed companionship. It had just never been that way, but then Joan hadn’t been a mere friend. She was Joan, and that was enough, had been enough—enough that even though extinguished, her light endured.
But, he couldn’t cling to Joan’s Creek, to Allaise, for the whole day nor the night, and so he left for Sanctuary, for Starellion, around noon, and he readied himself for the task ahead, for uncovering the secrets of Starellion.
And when they arrived atop the sleeping castle, quite the crowd had already gathered. Lincoln briefly looked along the restored battlements and inspected the beacon tower. Now clearer, the whole thing was beginning to look like a formidable defense, one that continued to confuse Lincoln. Why had it been abandoned?
“Demons,” Allaise told him. “Demons, wraiths, and whispers of necromancy. Some say that when Darwainic fell, the keep surrendered, utterly defeated and leaderless. The seven knights, the supposed Defenders of Estorelll, had suffered two defeats, and they vowed to carry out their final duty. Carrying away the body of their king, each began to flounder, to lose faith, and each made a deal with the demon, Novorum. The terms were harsh: he would gift them their dream—to see their king buried in a fitting mausoleum—in return for their eternal souls.”
“The crypt I found…”
“The very same.”
“So, what do the Seven Knights of Estorelll defend now?” Lincoln asked, and Allaise looked down at her feet.
Lincoln gulped, and hoped she was wrong.
“What happened to Darwainic’s army?”
Allaise shrugged. “It’s all just hearsay, but by all accounts the dire creatures, the goblins, the slaves of the night and their paladin—all the dregs of Ruse, tore through the castle’s innards and slaughtered everything that breathed.” She stared up at him. “That’s what they say, anyhow.”
“And this was after this…Poleyna…cracked the earth?”
“Soon after. The time it takes to move an army from Ruse to here. They pounced on her despair and ruined her land.”
“So why didn’t this Poleyna just wipe them out with her god powers?”
“She surrendered to Belved, so the tales tell, at the dragon’s mouth of Quislaine. She gave up her powers so that her children, the children of Mandrake might be spared. You’ll have to ask someone else the rest. Mine are just secondhand tales.”
Lincoln nodded, grimly. It seemed clear to him who the good and the bad were in this land. “Was this…ShadowDancer there?”
“Legend tells the young boy, Zender, struck the first blow. Legend tells that he decapitated Nathan Shoestring with one strike of his sword as soon as Poleyna renounced her powers. That was the start of the slaughter.”
“Grim,” Lincoln muttered, now wondering what was in store for him in the bowels of Starellion.
A large crowd had gathered around the stone plug, and, unexpectedly, a number of marquees had taken over a wheat field. There was a carnival-type atmosphere that contrasted with Lincoln’s now brooding mood. They walked the deserted battlements in silence, Lincoln trying to come to terms with a new responsibility he’d begun to feel.
Ever since he’d laid eyes on Poleyna, when she’d issued him his quest to clear Starellion, he’d felt drawn to her—to her smoldering, black eyes and her smoke-like face paint. She emanated power, yet he’d just been told she had none. How could that be? How could she hold such a threat of potence, yet have none? But now it was worse. He imagined her succumbing to her brother Belved and saw her mouth the words—giving up her power in exchange for a land full of people she barely knew.
And he saw the sword fall.
Lincoln’s sense that his game was ready to boil over came back with a vengeance. He marched toward the marquees. One had a bunch of trestle tables outside, and one of those had Cronis sitting at it, supping ale.
“I brought the tavern with me—it was the least I could do, seeing as I’m not allowed to use my magic during your quest.”
“The reason had crossed my mind,” Lincoln said, looking around. “But transporting a tavern just didn’t seem good enough.”
He counted half a dozen marquees in total. One clearly occupied by Griselda Irongrip, given its bulging sides and the line of dwarves outside waiting to get in. He craned his head around. Judging by the piles of earth leading away and up the road to the caves, Lincoln guessed that the excavations were nearing completion, if not done.
“Where’s Belzarra?” he asked, absently.
“By the trench with the prince—he’s finally shown up—just Swift and your party is complete.”
Making his way over, Lincoln stood beside Flip. He’d hardly even spoke to the man, choosing to spend most of that time with Alexa. Thinking about it, he’d hardly seen Flip at all, not since his long chat with Mezzerain. Mezzerain? That was another conundrum. Flip sent him a curious look. It was a mix of intrigue and mischief.
“The Builder? Tell me, Lincoln,” Flip said. “Just how do you propose to move this lump of stone?”
“Hard work done the easy way?” Lincoln asked. “Or should I just let Belzarra magic it out of the way? She isn’t shackled by the terms of the quest.”
Flip shrugged, his golden eyes glinting in the afternoon sun. “Then ask her.”
“That’s t
he trouble with magic,” Lincoln said. “It looks like the easy way out, but there’s always a hidden price. If she just made it vanish, what cost? Would her mana run out right in the middle of a fight? Or would the stone materialize elsewhere and destroy something that shouldn’t be?”
“Isn’t that the fun of it? The risk?”
“Allaise told me you were with Poleyna the day she surrendered to Belved.”
Flip’s mask of insincerity appeared to slip for just a second, before his customary grin returned, only to fade as his demeanor changed. “Not quite there, but observing from a cautionary distance. Sometimes you have to let fate play itself out.”
“And that was one of those times?”
“Unfortunately. Now, are you going to tell me how you’re going to raise this stone, or are you going to show me?”
“Show you, if we can continue our conversation later.”
Flip ran his fingers through his errant hair. “I’ll give you my undivided attention when, and only when, we get to the bottom of that shaft. I’d rather have your mind focused on the job at hand, and not on what might be.”
Lincoln pursed his lips. “Deal.”
“So?”
“Follow me.”
The bots had excavated the pit exactly as directed. A deep trench now encircled it, another radiating out from it with four tree trunks lashed together and laying in it. More, much smaller trunks had been piled close by.
Echo appeared by Lincoln. “Do you wish anything done?”
“Not at the minute. The prince and I need to do some chiseling.” Lincoln jumped into the trench, followed by Flip. “So, the plan is this. We bang a hole through the outside of the shaft, teasing away the blocks that hold the plug up. It needs to be the near same size as those trunks. Then we do the same the other side.”
“And slide the trunk through,” Flip said.
“Exactly.”
“And how does that help?”
“There are seven of us who have to complete this quest while Cronis watches. It is my belief that we seven have to shift this plug on our own. Let’s see if we can do it.”
Flip grinned from ear to ear. Took off his jacket and rolled his sleeves up. “I’m game. Crags!”
The little gnome bolted to his side. “Prince Chucky.”
“We’ve got to chisel a hole in this here wall.”
“You bang; I’ll clear,” Crags said.
“Sounds like dwarf’s work,” Griselda’s voice rang out, and she jumped down into the pit. “You're with me, handsome,” she told Lincoln.
“Well, I for one am happy to sit this part out,” Belzarra said.
“Not exactly elves work,” Jin added, finally arriving.
“Perhaps you two could make some handholds in the trunks, so we have something to push.”
“I think I can work that out,” Jin said. “I take it we’re sliding the trunks through the hole you're going to chisel out.”
“You take right.” Lincoln jumped down.
Echo gave them a mallet each and some chisels.
“A bit smaller than I’m used to,” Griselda proclaimed, but Lincoln still felt the ground shake as she set to work.
Lincoln cleared the stone as Griselda hammered, and in what seemed no time at all she had broken through into the shaft. The second she did, a beam of brilliant red light streamed out of the hole and along the trench. Griselda screamed as the light near blinded her, but rather than moan or stop, she tied a scarf of black muslin over her eyes and carried right on. Before long, she had their hole complete, and walked around and finished Flip’s off. Once done, she jumped out of the trench, and strode back to her marquee, arms aloft, to the cheers of her adoring fans.
“She’s the real deal,” said Flip, resting against the trench’s side, wiping his filthy brow. “It’s just not right. I’m not cut out for this. Matters of the mind, Lincoln, matters of the mind, that’s me, and those matters tell me that the elf and the sorceress will cheat if you’re not looking.”
“You think?”
Lincoln glanced up at Belzarra and Jin. They looked away quickly and pretended to study the bundled trunks.
“I know,” Flip assured him. “Say, how would you fancy popping into Griselda’s or Cronis’s marquee for an ale and a pipe?”
Lincoln didn’t take long to think about it. “I think Cronis’s. Griselda’s is already bulging with her adoring fans.”
“And rightly so,” Flip said, and he hopped out of the trench.
It looked strange, odd, the piercing, crimson light bleeding from both holes, filling the trench, spilling over, but by no more than a few feet. Defying what Lincoln knew to be the rules of light. It felt ominous, but like it was meant to be, but also something to deal with later.
Lincoln sat with Cronis and Allaise, his back purposely to trunk and trench.
“You know something about that light.” Lincoln stared at Cronis. The old wizard looked distinctly uncomfortable.
“I’m still wondering why I’m not supposed to interfere—especially now. That color is my color—it is the color of my first magic, long before I followed Scholl’s path.” He paused, took a sip of his ale. “The crimson mage—that was my name, my name back then. If she’s trying to tell me something, she’s succeeding.”
“What?”
Lincoln watched as Cronis seemed to flicker through a whole load of emotions—confusion being the common thread of all.
“Why not what? Why show me my old magic? What’s the relevance?”
“How often do you think of the old ways?” Flip suddenly asked. “How quick were you to discount them when you fell under Scholl’s spell first and then hers?”
“What are you saying?” Cronis barked, but more through his own discomfort.
“Is she telling you that your new magic is useless?”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Cronis grumbled. If a cloud of doom could have hung right over him, it wouldn’t have looked out of place.
“It’s a theory.” Flip, on the other hand looked to be positively relishing the situation. “She’s imprisoned by her own kind, by her brothers and sisters. Perhaps you should embrace her hints. Maybe—”
“Maybe it is futile to wield their magic against them…” Cronis postulated.
“Maybe,” Belzarra said, returning. “Maybe you need to bend your knee to Lamerell again, old man. The trunks are in position. The rolling logs underneath proved rather useful.” She sat, grabbing a mug, failing to make eye contact with Lincoln.
He didn’t ask and drained his ale, then making his way over to have a look. Sure enough, the trunk was in position with around twenty feet still sticking out.
“What’s next?” Jin asked.
Lincoln walked to the cross trench and looked along it. There was a small, square hole under the trunk. He grabbed a sturdy branch, nearly as fat as his leg, around fifteen feet long, and rolled it into the cross-trench. Ambling around the other side, he did the same.
“You on one side, me on the other. Crags in the trench on this side, Griselda on the other, and then Flip and Belzarra can pass the smaller branches down.”
Flip sighed. “Are you thinking what I think you're thinking?”
“Levers,” Lincoln told him. “Slow and steady. Crags can slide the trunks under as we lever it up. Where’s Swift?”
“Busy,” was all Flip replied, and it was enough.
Griselda was soon with them, then Belzarra and Flip. Crags wandered up last, and everyone took their positions. Lincoln slotted his branch under the lashed trunks, saw Jin had done the same, and so he shouted, “Ho!”
They both forced their levers in, pulling down as hard as they could. The trunks moved a few inches, but not enough to get a cross wedge in.
“Ho!” Lincoln shouted again, and redoubled his efforts.
The trunks groaned, their levers groaned, Lincoln’s back nearly gave way. It moved a little, just a bit, and Lincoln heard Jin shout, “Ho!” again, and so he strained wit
h all he had.
A great groaning sound, a screaming grind, Lincoln’s feet slipped in the mud. His lever bounced up, but he pulled with all his weight and finally felt his branch regain its purchase.
“Got one under,” Griselda shouted.
“Sliding another now,” Crags's voice rang out.
“Slack,” Jin shouted, and so Lincoln let the tension go, staggering back as the immense weight vanished.
They’d moved the trunk up six inches. The milling crowd gave them a smattering applause. Griselda gave Lincoln a challenging look. “You wanna swap?” she asked, an evil grin plastered all over her face.
Lincoln grabbed his lever. “Ready, Jin?” he barked, and planted its end.
“Ho!” Jin shouted.
Strain, lift, slide: they repeated it over and over until the trench was half filled with support, and they were cantilevering from farther up the field. Eventually, torches surrounded them, flickering in the gloom of the night. Lincoln lay on the mud beside the trench. Allaise brought him over a mug of ale. They’d raised the lashed trunks three feet in the air. The stone plug was now tilted at about fifteen degrees, crimson light spilled out in a fan from what looked like a grinning mouth.
“Is that enough?” Allaise asked.
“It isn’t sliding down the ramp,” he moaned.
Allaise pulled Lincoln up, and they walked around the plug. On the other side, the bots had dug out a ramp and lined it with logs; it angled down to the small river. Lincoln had calculated that the stone plug would only slide when they had it at forty-five degrees. He hadn’t reckoned on it being so hard though.
“It’s going to take all night,” he muttered.
“Are you absolutely sure that only you seven can move it?”
“Sure? No, not sure, just being cautious.”
By dawn, they had it a forty-five degrees, but it still stubbornly stayed put, teetering on the edge of the ramp. Flip was covered from head to foot in sweat and mud, as was Jin, Crags, Lincoln, and Griselda. Places had been swapped numerous times—with the exception of Belzarra. She’d stuck to passing down the branches, begrudgingly. Lincoln wondered how much higher it had to go to start sliding.
He thought he saw Belzarra wave her hand at the plug as she walked off, declaring she was indeed done for now. He was just about to call it a night himself when he heard a faint creek, then a groan, and watched in surprise as the plug began to slide down the ramp, splashing into the river. A shaft of crimson light shot up, now free of its plug, then settled like a candle’s flame just above the shaft.
