by Ember Lane
“Don’t sugarcoat it,” Cronis grumbled.
“You asked,” Lincoln said, taking a full mug from Flip, and a blast on the prince's pipe. “But we aren’t even considering the fourth person that was in the room. Think on this—she was sent out to face us with her dire creations, and let’s say this was a play of real life—what did she do but give her life to protect them. In return, those three discounted her and fed her to the wolves of Ruse. Tell me, Cronis, does that sound like the actions of someone you’d want to emulate?”
Cronis laughed, a puff of pipe smoke drifting up his cheeks, into his scruffy, gray hair. “Emulate? Yes. I’ve said before that you all are just too nice to win a war—I told Alexa that. Evil wins you the war, the righteous just win the odd battle. So, emulate, yes, but if that scene is to be believed, worship, idolize, cherish, then no.”
“Eight lands outside these mists, and each seemed ruled by a desperado, a craver.” Belzarra walked out onto the balcony. “Hasn’t one of them got a decent bone in their body?”
“That’s why I prefer demons,” Griselda chimed in. “You know what you get with them, and that is power, raw power, raw aggression. You cross them—you die. Simple.”
“Demons, paladin, orcs, goblins, or gravelings matters not one iota,” Jin said. “You should fight for what you want, not for what you think some god wants.”
“And what do you fight for, drow?” Cronis spat, shuffling around as if his very bones ached.
“That word doesn’t insult me. A drow is an aspiration when you’ve seen how Forgarth lives. What do I fight for? For a long while it was solitude. I had my ogre cave, my own self to loathe, and the tree elves to scare. Not so much now. Now I’ve seen what a dream can do. I suppose I fight for Lincoln Hart, though I can’t believe those words have spilled from my lips. Lincoln Hart and Mandrake—I fight for those two, so I can fight for Barakdor.”
Lincoln felt the pit of his stomach drop through the flagged floor. It was too much. Did he really want folks to follow him like that? Then he took a great gulp of ale.
Of course I do—how else am I going to take over Brokenford!
He raised his mug to Jin. “Common ideals. To Mandrake!”
Jin held his gaze for a while, the elf with a dark grin on his lips. “To Mandrake!”
“To getting out of this cold, stone-laden place!” Belzarra called from the balcony. “Really, how do people live in these types of places? It’s all stone. It’s so gray and cold. Is there any more to it than mere boxes of rooms without any variation. Did they throw the masons down the shaft once they’d made that look pretty?”
“We are in the peasant quarter—in that this castle is upside down,” Cronis told her. “The usual way of things is the higher the rank, the higher the floor you occupy. That way your detritus lands on those less fortunate. Here, the fields and the work are up top—the grain stores, the mills, the smithies that needed venting. Here, the royalty lived close to the ground, the hunt, and the vale. So, your etchings are farther down. Your marvels live in the bowels of this place.”
“My marvels live where I want them,” Belzarra said. “And if you all want to sit there until the barrel runs dry, and your leaf is smoked, so be it, but you ought to know that the red light calls and shows us the way.”
Lincoln scrambled up, only just behind Swift. Joining Belzarra on the balcony, he looked over its balustrade and down onto the now clear square. A rectangle of crimson light stained the floor in one corner.
Swift shrugged. “It must be the way, seems we are following a preset path. Cronis found his faith to be folly, and so that test is now done.”
“Are you always so lacking in emotion?” Belzarra asked.
Swift glanced at her, but seemed to pay her words no heed. “Did I interpret it wrong?”
Belzarra grabbed his arm. “Lead the way, and no, I find your bluntness...” She winked at Lincoln. “I find it…enticing. Tell me,” she said, as she steered him through the room, “have you ever been a zombie?”
Lincoln patted the cold stone balustrade, letting his eyes linger on the red light, wondering what devilry it had in store for them.
“What do you think of her?” Cronis asked, now standing in the middle of the room. “You’ve seen her. Is she just duping me as well? Is she stringing me along?”
Lincoln looked at Cronis’s hand planted firmly on his breast, barring his way. He considered the question, wanting to give Cronis the answer he so sought, but also wanting to tell his truth. “I didn’t sense anything corrupt in her, no, but then I merely saw a vision. She is quite compelling, and from what I’ve seen, as good a god to follow as you could get, though her competition leaves a lot to be desired.”
Cronis nodded and turned. “We’ll talk and walk. So, what did she ask of you?”
“You know. That you were to come, but could not act. Did she skew the scene to suit her own purpose? Not a clue. She had something, I’ll tell you that.”
“That she has, that she has,” Cronis mumbled. “That small little chest you took from the mutant—the one you thought no one saw. You want to talk about it?”
“Pretty much been told not to.”
“That’s what I suspected. I just wish those quests didn’t have to be so damn strict. They bind your hands and then give you only the faintest clue. What in Lamerell’s name are you supposed to do?”
They came to the steps at the end of the corridor, and Lincoln saw that the others had forged on. He made to pick up the pace, but Cronis held him back. “Let them go forward. They want to protect you. You must have some questions for me. Isn’t this all new to you?”
Cronis appeared back to his normal self as if he had digested Scholl’s betrayal and left it behind in the room.
“A few things confuse,” Lincoln answered.
“Like? Ask away, I suffered a few dozen moons of Alexa’s incessant mind. I can take a couple of your questions.”
“What was Alexa like? When you first met her in the vale—it was a vale, wasn’t it?” It was something that intrigued Lincoln. She’d seemed so sure of herself on the ship flying out—even taking the time to make sure Pog was okay. Yet he’d sensed some…regret? Was it that? Maybe indecision? He could also tell she’d been both excited and reluctant to leave Sanctuary and Joan’s Creek, a sense that had been worrying him.
Cronis harrumphed, but didn’t answer until they were halfway across the square. “A wide-eyed child. She was determined—I’ll give her that, but the land seemed to frighten her. It was like she didn’t really get strong until she met you here.”
“I thought she’d killed a dwarven king and fought the demon Alastor.”
Chuckling, Cronis took one last puff on his pipe and tapped it out on the square’s flags, then popped it back in his cloak. “Yes, she had a habit of getting in trouble—maybe that’s why Lamerrel or Sakina, whichever, gave her the Seven Veils quest. No, she found her true self here. I think you did that.”
“Or maybe it was blowing up my mountain.”
Cronis’s stare lingered on Lincoln. “No, it was you. I think she was humbled by what you’d built here, and that strengthened her resolve to complete her quests. Anything else?”
They came to the crimson bleed. Griselda was waiting in the alleyway’s entrance. “This way—there’s a set of… You’ll see.” She turned and skipped into the glow, her eyes seemingly accustomed to it now.
As Lincoln was bathed in the warm light, he decided, apart from the mutants and Cer Wallum’s horde, apart from The Thrace and the treacherous gods, that this castle wasn’t so cursed. “There is one thing. This god of yours, this overarching god—Lamerrel—why doesn’t she act? Why does she let her land get torn apart?”
“Have you—no—you can’t have been. Had you been to Beggle you’d understand her. Beggle is a vast, terraced valley, and at its head is a black volcano called Serenity. The Beggles carved a statue of Lamerell in the shadows of Serenity. It reaches to the top of the valley's slopes—a hundre
d and fifty feet at least. Her arms outstretched, Lamerell looks over her favored subjects. At the moment, you’ll find her there, and there you’ll understand. Like the Beggle, she doesn’t interfere.”
“So that’s it?”
“Beggle is isolated. It believes that nothing can affect it. Beggles actually think that war will never come to them. Their land is a valley, it’s hard to get to it from its head, plus it’s a peninsula, like Irydia, and its coastline consists of cliffs a hundred feet high tapering to its sole port at the tip. They think they’re invincible, but all things can be conquered.”
“Sounds tenuous.”
“An apt choice of words. Beggles are strange in many ways, but you won’t find a truer race, apart from the apachalant, but they’re just plain annoying. Beggles, to sum them up, increase their vitality so their health is so huge you’d have trouble killing them by chopping their heads off, and then they craft rings that triple it and more. Yet they aren’t scared, merely cautious. They practice fighting, drilling, archery, spear, mace and more, yet I can’t recall them ever going to war. Though Shylan loves Greman, he loathes Beggles in general, so his present course must irk him greatly. And there’s one other thing you should know about Beggles. They’re dying out, if they’re not already gone. In an effort to preserve their race, their isolation, they lost the will to have children—to endure, fearing what the world would be like for them. They’re so scared of defeat, they don’t want their siblings to face it, so they gave them no chance to even see it.”
Lincoln grunted a laugh. Though he’d only known Shylan a few days, he could see him simmering away at the Beggle’s intransigence. Though he’d only known Cronis a short while, he knew the wizard relished the Beggle’s demise.
They emerged from the alleyway and onto a landing. Wide, sturdy steps led away and down to the next floor of the castle; over from them, another set fell to the landing. Lincoln walked to the step’s edge and looked up. They were in a vast stairwell—he guessed the castle’s main one.
“I wonder if that leads out—if there’s a proper entrance up there.”
Cronis ambled over. He gazed up and then down. The crimson light's downward glow bathed the stairwell below. “Today is not the day to find that out? Shall we? It must be near enough morning, surely time to get this done.”
“It feels like we’ve been in here an age,” Lincoln muttered, and walked to the stairwell’s head. “I wonder what lurks down there,” he said to no one in particular, then looked around. “Why?” he asked. “Why no cobwebs, no dust, no nothing?”
“No life, no feed, just emptiness,” Cronis’s proclamation echoed around.
“No cobwebs means no spiders,” Griselda said. “I’ll not be arguing with that.”
Lincoln trudged down the steps, glad to be by Griselda’s side. “Don’t like them?”
“Not fussed, and I wasn’t fussed on bats until I saw a mutant one with metal wings. Spiders, meh, as long as I can stamp on them—no problem. Fifteen feet high and covered in metal armor—problem.”
Lincoln looked over the stairwell’s edge and down. The light seemed to shine on, like the well had no end.
“It seems we have a fair way to go.”
Griselda peered over. “You call that a long way? Someday I’ll take you to where I broke my bones fighting goblins.”
Lincoln hoped that day would never come.
“You best enjoy the trek down,” Cronis said, from behind.
“Why’s that?”
“Because, if my memory serves, and I’ve only seen the plans, but I think this leads to the Hall of Banners. If our final encounter is to be anywhere, it is there.”
“So, get ready to meet my doom, that kind of thing?” Lincoln asked.
“I have a feeling that she’s not done with me yet…”
18
Cronis’s Enlightenment
The steps were endless, though Lincoln knew the buttress—the great mass of stone that it was from the outside—reared perhaps a hundred and fifty feet. It appeared a much greater drop down. Each floor was identical: a surrounding landing, a number of corridors angling away, and some open chambers, like shops without a frontage, where Lincoln presumed artisans had once peddled their wares. He began to feel inadequate. If he did, indeed, wake the castle, then was he enough of a soul to fill it, to organize it, to rule it? If all played out as it seemed his companions wanted it to, the task would be huge.
Boredom had already filled his mind at the mere threat of having to adjudicate the petty squabbles of his citizens. His citizens—is that what Joan would have wanted, what she’d have done had she just been given the chance? He noticed that he was trailing behind the others, the weight of the sheer enormity of the place slowing him down, and was pulled from his reverie as Jin clamped his arm around him.
“What burden weighs your shoulders down this time?” Jin asked, shoving him away and skipping a couple of steps down, then turning. “Are we not in the middle of an adventure?”
“A challenge,” Lincoln pointed out. “An adventure is questing through a land, fighting dragons, chasing down thieves, and rescuing maidens.”
Jin roared. “For you, maybe. You forget; we aren’t all immortal. For me, the dragon would fry me, the thief would knife me, and the maiden would give me the pox. Your little trick of rebirth alters your idea of danger to mere fun.” Jin pointed down at Flip. “Once you follow that one’s coattails, the two should mix nicely for you.”
“About that, do you really think I should go? Do you think this is all a test just to let me see I can trust you?”
Jin jumped to the next landing, spinning and kneeling, his head bowed. “My liege, we cannot possibly survive a month or two without you. Before you came, we still suckled our mothers' teats and gurgled our hellos.” He looked up, his face mimicking a desperado, his hands clenched in front of him. “Please don’t leave us. The fields will fall fallow, the seed barren, starvation, ruin, pestilence—”
“All right, all right, I get the point. So, I go with Flip, see the lay of the land, recruit—hopefully recruit—but who runs the place?”
“Always go with the army. Look at Merissia and her encounter with The Thrace. Does that not tell you who should lead?”
“You have the bows,” Lincoln pointed out.
“I do, but Swift has the Apachalant and the Kobane. He has more knowledge than me of the lands: Irydia, Apachalant, Kobane. I hear that scouting Tharameer is part of their initiation, so he has the Lowlands too. No, not I, if you need a captain for war, look no further than Swift. Both elves and dwarves will stand with that honorable choice.” Flip cocked his head as if to tease a further thought out. “You have your building stewards, and a ceratog, and a half-elf to thrash out your politics.” Jin wagged his finger and jumped up. “Not forgetting your chief lawman and sheriff, Pete. What better than a half-giant to hold the law in his fat fist?”
“You seem to have it all worked out.” Lincoln jumped the last step and landed right by the elf.
“We talk without you…sometimes. Besides, you still have the hardest choice to make, and that is whether to turn down Allaise when she asks to come with you.”
“Why should I turn her down?”
An evil grin spread across the elf’s cheeks. “Because she would die for you, and you can’t trust her to fate’s whim outside, and only she can truly speak for you inside. Swift should rule, hold the tiller, and we should all man the oars, but she sets the trim of the sails—your sails.”
Lincoln nodded, and they rounded the steps to come to the next set. They both stood at the top staring down. Lincoln mumbled, “Thank you,” quickly, knowing their time was together was about to end.
The other five stood halfway down, red-stained figures, stoic and unmoving in what looked like a great storm. Griselda turned and stared up, her ax in her hand, a glint of excitement in her eye. “Looks like a ship,” she shouted. “Never been on a ship!”
Lincoln crept down, unsure whether to
pull his sword or staff. Closer, he saw crimson waves breaking on the stone steps, then heard their crash and ducked their splash. Their pink froth lingered, lapping around the turned-stone bannisters, crackling like leaves crumpled underfoot, but soon sucked into the wash. He saw the ceiling roiling with jostling gray and black clouds, vast thunderheads growling, flexing, launching spears of jagged lightening across a distant canvas. The clap of thunder, the rumble of protest, and the scream of strained timbers surrounded him. He took another step.
A mast and three flapping, parchment-colored sails appeared in front of him: a mizzenmast, then a mainmast, and a foremast led away, roaring up, defiant, angling one way, then leaning the next, seemingly only held in place by shrouds of rigging. The steps morphed into a sodden poop deck, and the ship’s rolling motion nearly took Lincoln’s legs away. He saw Cronis grasping a ratline, barely keeping his footing, slipping as the quarterdeck took a soaking. Jin jumped down, as though a seasoned sailor, and circled its steersman—a grim-looking man with tattoos for skin and pillars for arms. The ship lurched down, its bowsprit plunging into the angry, crimson ocean. Rain lashed them, sea spray soaked them, and barked orders cracked across the deck.
Lincoln looked both port and starboard, and saw that the crimson was nothing but a path cutting a way through a powerful, gray swell. He looked for purchase, but found none, and saw Cronis waving him down to the quarterdeck, then down farther to main deck. He slid the wooden steps, looked around at the crouching crew and was then ushered inside, under the quarterdeck and out of the madness.
The ship’s sway jostled Lincoln down a narrow, wood corridor. It stank of tallow and seasoned oak. It stank of pipe smoke, port, and vomit. He followed Cronis to the corridor’s end.
“She’s got a sense of humor, that’s for sure,” Cronis called back.
