by Ember Lane
The vision began to fade. “Hold on, hold on. Are you even alive? Did you reach out from the banner?”
The dragon’s head began to turn to powder, getting drawn into the maelstrom, disintegrating, fading and then it vanished.
“I bet it's glad it picked you,” Dink said.
27
Texacolpo
The narrow way grew musty, dusty, the first webs of neglect clinging to their upturned faces.
“We’re under Texacolpo now,” Zenith whispered, his reverence clear.
Lincoln trailed his fingers along a mortar bed, the first he’d seen since they’d entered the caves and caverns. It was structured, crafted, immense blocks of chiseled stone forming a tall chamber around thirty feet square. He looked back at the tiny arched hole they’d crawled through, its iron grille long turned to rust. A set of upward steps clung to the chamber’s side, stopping at least fifty feet shy of the floor as if the builders just got fed up and abandoned them. At their top, a black shadow signaled a doorway.
“What is this place?” Lincoln asked. “Not where we are—this chamber?”
“Dungeon—and one with no way out,” Grimble grumbled.
Zenith shrugged, his expression told Lincoln that nothing could upset him, not now he was here, not now he was home. “It is a chamber of reflection. If your faith faltered, if doubt clouded your mind, you were thrown, or you jumped from those steps and landed here.” He bent and smacked the cold, stone floor, then bent farther and kissed it.
“And?” Ozmic asked. “What then?”
Zenith glanced up. “You had to figure your way out.”
Lincoln glanced around. “There’s a way?”
“Always,” Zenith replied, and he began studying the walls.
Though relieved to be out from the deep underground, Lincoln couldn’t rid himself of an ominous feeling that was percolating away in his stomach. Something felt off. Something felt wrong. The webs told him that Texacolpo was alive—or at least had some life in it, and whether it was just bugs and grubs was another thing.
He had thanked Rockraid and her troop, leaving them on the other side of the cramped tunnel they’d crawled through to break into this dungeon. Rockraid had promised to speak for Lincoln at the next meet of the deep-down dwarves, though could offer him no firm assurance, only that hers and Griselda’s opinion carried hefty sway. The shinshin had been wary of Lincoln, barely unbolting the doors of their strange huts, barely showing their tiny heads. Rockraid had told him they’d referred to him as “The one who speaks to dragons,,” and that they deemed themselves not worthy to be near him. By all accounts, the shinshin worshipped the dragon called Mandrake and no other.
Flip had his sack out and was busy rifling through it. He pulled a coil of rope out first, then a grappling hook, tying one to the other. “Let’s get out of here,” he said, jumped up and began swinging it, then launching it up to the stone steps, only for it to clatter straight back down. He threw it again, and again.
“Try for the doorway,” Grimble told the prince.
The look Flip gave him said it all.
Zenith inched his way around. “There is always a way out,” he said. “It just takes a period of reflection to work it out.”
“How long?” Ozmic asked.
“Months, years—it depends on the depth of your reflection.”
“Come on, Flip!” Ozmic cried, switching his attention away from the shaman. “I can’t wait months for my next ale!”
“I’ve been in this one before,” Zenith said. “Might be quicker.”
“Can’t come quick enough,” Grimble moaned. “My mouth’s drier than a sandworm’s ass.”
The grappling hook clattered once more, this time Flip’s tug held firm. “Got it!” he cried, and began climbing up. At about the same time, Zenith shouted the same thing and pushed a stone slab which swiveled out and created a step. Lincoln watched openmouthed as more blocks began to groan and open. The shaman started to climb the newly formed stone steps.
The dwarves trudged up behind Zenith, but Lincoln chose the rope, tying Dink to his sword’s belt and easily climbing it as if he needed no strength to do so. He wondered if it was his acrobat skill coming into play.
Running up the remaining steps, he untied the imp’s little cage and held it out in front of him. The doorway lined a web-strewn corridor that led away to either side. Dink’s light lent it a foreboding, pink glow. Lincoln’s nose twitched; he could smell fresh air, but air tainted with a musty hint, a sliver of age, and a pinch of decay.
“One of six sides, one of six corridors. The way up will be at its head,” Zenith said, but didn’t wait for an answer. He headed away, brushing the heavy webs as he went.
Lincoln waited for the others and then followed. “What kind of folks throw their own into dungeons just to reflect on bad thoughts?” he asked Flip.
“Mysticals!” Grimble cried. “You can’t beat the deeply mystical when it comes to sheer nonsense!”
Flip shrugged. “The dwarf calls it right. Can’t say it better myself.”
Reaching the end of the first corridor, they walked along the next, and Lincoln noticed a bleed of natural light coming from about halfway along. He asked Dink to extinguish hers and immediately saw a break in what he assumed was the outside wall. Fighting his way through the dead, draping webs, he drew his sword, wondering if he was likely to meet his first giant spider—every land he’d ever encountered had them…
No spiders, but yet another set of steps which vanished upward toward the source of a murky, gray-tinged light.
“Zenith?” Lincoln asked, but received nothing but shrugs for a reply as the shaman ran up. Lincoln followed, bounding up them two at a time. When he reached the last, he stopped in his tracks.
Shaped as he’d imagined the inside of a pyramid, four triangular walls sloped up to an apex, one that has a small, circular hole, much like a flue. Light dribbled down from it, clearly stifled by something outside. The slope was mirrored by another smaller flat-topped, stone platform, steps all around. Zenith stood in its middle, looking around, just staring, openmouthed.
Lincoln darted up, standing by the shaman, now seeing what he was. The base of the pyramid stretched out much farther than Lincoln had imagined, the steps they’d come up emerging from another raised platform. He instantly understood that all of the floors matched the slopes of the outside walls. But it wasn’t the floors that Zenith was staring at.
The still bodies of fallen gravelings lay in uniform lines all around. Lines of nine, each and every one, and all of them had their heads toward the center of the pyramid, all clearly dead.
“They gave up,” Zenith said, falling to his knees.
“Do we know they’re dead?” Lincoln asked.
“I sense no life in them.”
Lincoln pulled out his idonelll wrecking bar. “I’ll look,” he said. Zenith reached out, holding Lincoln’s arm, but then nodded and let go.
Flip had wandered over to the closest line of gravelings, kneeling by the nearest. He glanced up as Lincoln neared. “Looks like they came home to die,” he said.
It felt wrong, a violation, but Lincoln raised the wrecking bar, dropping it on the first graveling’s head, shattering its stone. He jumped back, nearly screaming, as a skull rolled out and nestled between Flip’s knees.
Lincoln looked around, wondering whether to carry on, but Zenith stared at him, grim-faced.
“The next,” he cried.
“They’re dead,” Lincoln shouted back.
“The next.”
Lincoln raised the bar again, bringing it down, smashing the stone to reveal another skeleton, another dead shaman. One after the next, Lincoln swung, but the prize was always the same. Tears streamed down Zenith’s tattooed face, he slumped to his knees as Lincoln came to the final row.
He smashed the first graveling head, and immediately recoiled from the rotting stench of its partly decayed corpse. Instead of a skull, a soup of foul ichor splattered
out. Flip leaped its shattered form, calling for the bar and brought it down on the next in line. Again, foul corruption splattered around as another dead shaman was revealed.
Kneeling by the next, Lincoln wiped his face, clawing at the putrid liquid dripping from his brow. “Careful with this one. The last had only just begun to decay.”
Flip teed up his swing, bringing the bar down with a thump. Cracks grazed the graveling’s head. Grimble rushed over, shoving Flip out of the way, bringing out his sack—a mallet and a chisel soon in his hands. Chipping away, he gradually revealed the head of a sleeping shaman.
Zenith ran to the dwarf’s side. “Jayden!” he cried. “Please, please let him live!” He fumbled with his belt, pulling out a vial and tipping it into the shaman’s mouth.
Nothing.
“More. Pour more!” Lincoln urged, but Zenith shook his head. “He will fight or sleep. The choice is his. Grimble, move on to the next.”
They freed seven shaman, seven who still slept, seven who swallowed Zenith’s potion, and seven who stayed still, sleeping, silent. Lincoln retreated to the raised platform in the pyramid’s center and sat. He felt emotionally exhausted and could only guess Zenith’s state. Grimble sat next to him. He brought out his pipe, primed its pot and lit it. “Bad business,” he muttered.
Lincoln followed his lead, puffing out his own smoke, letting it drift up. “So they came here to die,” he said.
“To lay down and sleep, more like—a little like you immortals do when you’ve had enough, I guess.”
Lincoln grunted. Then a movement caught his eye. A smoky wisp rose up from one of the shattered gravelings. At first he looked at his pipe, wondering if he was seeing some kind of reflection. The smoke gathered, spiraling around, growing, and forming a helix as it reached up. Lincoln dropped his pipe onto the stone, noticing Ozmic had stopped partway up the steps to their platform. More smoke, more spirals started to flow out of the gravelings, up from their skeletal remains. Ozmic backed onto the central dais.
“What kind of devilry is this?”
The wisps began to stream up like some kind of morbid dance. The temperature plunged. Lincoln stood slowly. He saw Zenith and Flip kneeling by the final graveling. A rasping scream erupted out, filling the pyramid’s shell. Then another, and more as the wisps turned to into ghostly forms, their mouths wide, raging as they began to swoop up and then down toward Lincoln and the two dwarves.
Ice filled Lincoln’s entire body as the specters dove into him. He let out an involuntary scream, the shock of the ghost passing through him too much to contain. He lifted his sword, but knew it to be futile. The ghouls ducked down, their screams digging into Lincoln’s soul. Ozmic had his hands clamped over his ears, and Grimble rolled around, screaming silently to himself. Through the fog, he thought he saw Zenith stand, Flip too, but couldn’t be sure if another stood.
One after the next, the dead shaman plunged on Lincoln, through Lincoln, and out of him. Then, as one, the phantoms stopped, stilled, and floated in file until they surrounded the platform, facing Lincoln, Grimble, and Ozmic, circling slowly, their screams turning to a dread chorus.
Though useless, Lincoln held his sword out as he spun, desperately searching out an escape. The specters held, revolving. Their screams died to a low chant, an ominous chant filled with threat as they stilled further. A gap formed revealing one set of steps, and Lincoln watched, waited, and then his heart stopped as he saw Zenith walk through them, a fallen shaman in his arms.
He laid the body at Lincoln’s feet.
“She’s alive,” Zenith said, and knelt by her.
A chorus rose up, and Lincoln tore his eyes away from the prone body and saw that the circle of ghosts had changed into ethereal representations of their former selves. Their chant grew, reaching a crescendo, and Lincoln thought he could make out a single word: “Nova!”
Dink’s light shone out brightly, bathing the sleeping shaman as she opened her eyes and sat up. Zenith fell into her arms and then pulled her to her feet. The pair approached each of the dead shaman, reaching out, bowing, and each in turn then floated up to the tip of the pyramid, their mists absorbed by its rock. As they faded, so their chant quieted, until the last one fled, and all fell silent.
A torch burst into life, its flame licking up the sloping stone. Three more lit up, and Lincoln saw the murals, the paintings adorning the vast blocks for the first time. Figures, lines of text, and bursts of color appeared to crawl around, staining every surface with its vividness. Where the lines of now shattered stone had lain, ranks of stoic statues stood, each as individual as the body it represented. In the death of their shaman, Texacolpo had come alive.
A thunderous groan sounded, drawing Lincoln’s gaze, and he saw a slither of light streak in, growing, as a vast slab in the temple’s was drawn up by some unseen mechanism. He skipped down the steps, toward it, both dwarves and Flip by his side. As the stone block rose, so it revealed a verdant forest, lush and inviting. They walked out into the day. When Lincoln did fall to his knees once more, he tipped his head up and drank in the sun.
“Zenith is distraught,” Flip said. “There are only three of them left.”
“No,” said Lincoln. “There’s more than that. My quest isn’t done. There must be more to free.”
28
Breakfast
His bed was made from the wisps of fluffy clouds, his pillow from unicorn fur. The sheet tucked under his neck was sewn using the finest spun silk that the handfed worms of the plateau-topped mountains of the Sangai, just south of Zang Zhou, could provide. At least, that’s how comfortable it felt to him after the days or nights sleeping on slabs of rock. The reality was slightly different.
“You’re awake, sleepyhead,” Dink chimed from the side of his bed.
Lincoln opened one eye, the little pink imp slowly coming into focus.
“Why haven’t you flown away?” he asked, turning over and shutting his eyes.
Lincoln had set her free the afternoon before, after they’d emerged from Texacolpo, as he’d seen no reason to keep her imprisoned. She’d buzzed around his head a while, before flying off into the trees of The Forest of Ledges, a forest whose vast shelves appeared to almost exactly mimic the underground safe haven of Cheroo—safe haven, if you discounted dragon-born twisters.
“I’ve decided I like you. We match, and you need my help,” she said, flying around and settling on the bed, right by his clamped eyes.
“Wait, hang on… You can speak normally and not just in my head?”
“I can do both. I’m an imp.”
“Neat trick,” Lincoln acknowledged, opening his eyes, admitting defeat. “So, why do I need you?”
Dink faded and vanished, then reappeared, but was a deep blue rather than pink. “I can speak in your mind and turn invisible. I can hide where you can’t, eavesdrop, hear all manner of secrets.”
Lincoln propped his heavy head on his hand, ruffling his bedhead with his other. “Because you like me?”
“And we match.”
Inwardly, Lincoln vowed to do something about the color of his boots and coat. Then he had a thought. “Can I change the color of the scarletite like you change your color?”
Dink thought about it. “The shaman probably could. He’s filled with Earth Magic, the metal’s of the earth, so he could alter it.”
“Sweet. Now, what’s our plan?”
“Hold on there,” said Dink, holding her hands up. “We don’t have a plan. This is Flip’s party, remember?”
“So, what’s his plan?”
“How would I know? You’re the one destined for great things. I’m just an imp, and a glowing one at that.”
Lincoln swung his legs off his bed, stretched and yawned. He pulled his boots on, picked up his shirt, and slipped it over his head. “Need to find me a bath.”
“There’s a stream out back.”
“That’ll do.”
His room was on the second floor, a fresh breeze blowing through its open
window. The emerald forest was thick with deciduous trees, spreading wide from sturdy trunks. Thick grass, brambles, and nettles clustered under their shade, bordering a narrow trail that crossed the front of the tavern. It had taken them a good few hours of trekking just to get there, but Flip had assured everyone that it was in the right direction, and no one, especially the dwarves had argued about a night in the tavern. Looking through his window, Lincoln saw Zenith sitting cross-legged on the grass staring up at the sky.
Nova had chosen to remain at the shaman temple, to restore it, and to free any gravelings that came there in despair. Lincoln’s revelation about his quest had given them a tiny ray of hope. Zenith, though, seemed to be soaking up the sun as if it would cleanse him.
“He can’t get enough of it,” Dink said. “He really didn’t want to travel underground, but he’d actually do anything for you.”
“What are we doing here?” Lincoln asked, ignoring her words, but digesting them at the same time.
Dink didn’t answer, and so Lincoln grabbed his coat and went off in search of the stream. He found Flip wading in its center. The prince glanced at him.
“See the imp’s paired with you—I’d be careful about that, they can get mighty jealous.”
“I’ve gotta ask, just what are we here for?”
Flip jumped up onto the stream’s bank. “Be my guest,” he said. “It’s cold, fresh, and upstream from where the tavern sluices. To answer your question, we’re here to either prevent or encourage a war, and ultimately, I feel it is going to be your choice.”
Lincoln pulled his boots off. “My choice, how?”
Flip pointed south. “Waraxion’s that way, and the Lady Amaya is their champion this year, champion in a simple contest to slay the first basilisk of the season. Do you even know what a basilisk is?”
“No, no I don’t.”
“Imagine a boar crossed with a bear, a groarg crossed with an ape, that type of thing. They emerge from the mountains this time of year and hunt for croxen. There’s a tournament held every year to kill one of the fine beasts, and that tournament is between Waraxion and Lakevale Pass—or, to put it more succinctly, two lords who can’t stand each other’s guts.”
