by Ember Lane
“Where you goin’?” Ozmic shouted, but Lincoln didn’t answer.
As far as he could see, hear, and taste, there was no threat here in Estorelll, just emptiness. He sensed that with every cell of his body. It was like the city was protected by its curse, and he began to understand that it had let them in, that others wouldn’t be afforded such a luxury. He had a sense of belonging—like when he’d first descended into Joan’s Creek.
He let his wandering mind forge a course for him and turned left heading back toward the cloistered square. There, he darted along under the covered walkway between the columns and the empty taverns and shops, the shadows of dusk covering his way. At the end of the columned way, at the opposite corner, he stole up a narrow, cobbled trail. It wound up and around a small hill, though he couldn’t see much as it was bordered on each side by a dry stone wall some twelve feet in height. He hesitated for a moment and let a triumphant smile creep over his expression. Now confident he knew all the city’s secrets, he quickened his pace, stealing up the road like he was up to no good.
It wound around and around, and the wall grew in stature until it must have been twenty feet high. The last of the day’s light darkened to night, and as it did, Dink’s pink light shone out.
Where are we going?
Lincoln checked his stride. He’d forgotten all about the imp. Looking behind, he saw Zenith hugging the wall as well. Hanging back, he waited for the shaman to catch up. They exchanged fast glances but no words, and Lincoln marched on.
No one in their right mind would ever design a defense like this, he told her, and her alone.
And they wouldn’t. What was the point? An attacking army could only attack the prize at the top by advancing along the road. Even if they scaled the walls, they merely found themselves on another road, winding up or winding down. Only an idiot would spend that much time and effort designing a protection like it. Or, someone tying up an army while other plans came into play.
It’s a maze with no turns, no tricks, and no traps. Designed to lure forward with only an imagined prize at its end…
An hour or so later, the road spat them out onto the dome of the hill, on which stood a modest temple. It was possibly the least impressive building in Estorelll, a mere single-story, open-walled place of worship consisting of a dozen or so columns and a simple pitched roof of red tiles. Its floor was a pretty mosaic, and Lincoln knew it would tell story though it was nothing more than a shimmer at the moment.
He walked up to it, no longer able to force a march out of his suddenly nervous legs. Zenith drew alongside him, but Lincoln’s courage had faltered. He stopped a few yards shy.
“What is it?” Zenith asked.
Lincoln took a breath. His heart pounded. His mouth became instantly dry as a bone. Sinking to his knees, he cupped his chin, scraping at his stubble.
It can’t be! He screamed in his mind.
“What?” Dink asked.
Taking a breath, he tried to calm, tried to get his thoughts straight. He knew the thinking behind the whole thing and understood its strategy. The invading army get nothing. They expend for the promise of great riches and get nothing, because they’d see nothing, nothing but a poor man’s temple. But for the besieged army, it was everything. The prayers could keep the city’s morale up all the while it hadn’t been conquered. And when the sacking was done, the looting over, one thing would still stand, a strange little temple at the top of a hill. But only one other person knew its function…
It can’t be!
He jumped up, a sudden rush of courage. It gathered within him, propelling him forward. Crossing the brief space left between the road’s end and start of the temple, Lincoln’s foot hovered on its very border, its blue tiled edge. He walked along its lip until he came to the focal point. There, he fell to his knees and truly sobbed. The pain was too much, far too much. He screamed in anguish, his wails driven to the very ends of Estorelll’s influence by the slightest of stirred winds.
“Why?” he screamed at the temple’s roof. “Why are you doing this?”
Zenith knelt beside him, muttering, praying. Dink settled on his other side.
But Lincoln was inconsolable, beyond hope. He fell prostrate onto the mosaic, crawling up its tiles, until he settled on a spot, and there he hugged the floor, his despair complete.
Eventually, he closed his eyes and slept, dreaming of times gone by, of better times before the game, before the Grav Buster, times when Joan had shone, her smile dazzling him, her heart firing his being, his essence, in the way only she could. She’d been his everything. She’d been his all, and even in death, in the very act of dying, she’d been his inspiration.
Throughout his slumbersome journey and his hectic navigation of dreams and nightmares, he held on to the beat of a quiet chant, the voice of a shaman who had pledged his days to him. During that chorus, he saw many a strange vision. Nine ships sailed, one after another, hope emblazoned on their hulls, the energy of anticipation firing their engines. A sun exploded, its spears of light enveloping a slew of tiny planets within its anger. Tired faces, drawn and bored turned to twisted faces, scheming and sly. A prize, glittery in the black of space, a new home, something to be coveted, not shared, a place to fight for, to rule and to dominate. All the while, Joan stared out, her beautiful, vibrant, compassion-filled face feathered onto the stars themselves, her essence spanning both space and time. Willing, she was willing the planet’s sun to shine and the seed, long ago planted, to shoot.
Lincoln woke, but tried to crawl back into his sleep, to hide in its safety, to lie in Joan’s arms once more—to hear and feel the soft undulation of her comforting breath. But his dreams had flown with the night, the day budding to haunt him, and he crawled back to the shaman, back to the edge of the mosaic, and he knelt there, in silence.
“Who is she?” Zenith eventually asked, looking down at the mosaic.
“Her name was Joan.”
“She must have been—”
“She was everything—my everything.”
“Joan,” Zenith whispered.
“Yes.”
“She must have been a strong woman, a figurehead, to be honored here in this sacred place.”
Lincoln turned to Zenith. “That’s just it. This is not her land, not even her world.”
But that was the problem, though he’d just said it, he knew it couldn’t be; it had to be her world. The first grains of understanding came slowly to him. This whole city had been structured around him, around telling him something—that was its sole function. To work it out, he had to work out how Joan could have imprinted her face on the temple’s floor? How?
Could she have had a hand in designing the game?
Impossible! That wasn’t her thing. That was so far away from her thing that her thing would just be a speck on the horizon. Her sole function had been keeping folks sane, sane on their way to a new world, sane enough to function once they'd arrived. Her job was…
“Morale!” Lincoln shouted. He turned to Zenith. “Don’t you see? She rarely played but she knew enough. She knew morale and praying went together. This is a clue—this whole city—this whole place. It really is one big clue as to what’s really going on.”
Zenith patted his shoulder. “Morale? Gold, a shared harvest, praying, all help a city.”
“No, you’re not getting it! You can’t get it! You just can’t understand. She’s trying to tell me something!” He sprang to his feet, marching around the mosaic’s perimeter. “Joan must have been some part of it, some part of the whole thing. She must have known she might not make it—must have known something was up. These are messages—this is a message. What did she want me to know?” He turned to Zenith. “What?”
But the shaman stared on impassively, tilting his head slightly, one way and then the next as if he was concerned for Lincoln’s sanity, for his mad, angry friend. All the while, Dink sat impassively at the foot of the mosaic, waiting for the more considered Lincoln to return.
But he was raging now, slapping his forehead with his open palm, smashing his fists into the fluted columns as he walked around the temple. “Up, up at the ceiling—she’s looking up.” He gazed at its roof in search of concealed clues.
“At the sky?” Zenith asked, half sitting, half crouching, seeming unsure whether to go to Lincoln or stay put.
“No, she needn’t have put a roof on—my design didn’t have a roof. The roof!” he cried, backing out, looking up at it. He grinned the smirk of a madman. “No roof—I never had one!”
Clambering up a column with ease, Lincoln pulled himself onto the roof. He scrambled up its brief pitch and stood on its apex, then scanning around the gold-topped city, his mouth gaping wide, his dead man’s coat glinting fierce in the morning sun.
He saw Estorelll’s battlements, its jutting harbor, the rolling morning mist that rode on the burnished sea swell. He saw the deserted markets, the regimental barracks, the parks, the abandoned universities, the residential areas, and the lord’s manors, embassies, and parade grounds. It was all as he remembered it, apart from one building.
“The wizard’s tower—it’s wrong,” he hissed in deranged triumph. “It’s at the wrong end of its enchanted park. The top of the park—it was always at the top, not the bottom, by the waterfall, not by the pond.” He looked up to the heavens, afire with the rising sun, and he mouthed, “Thank you.” And he mouthed, “Good morning, my love!” He leapt from the roof. “Come on Zenith—to the wizard’s tower!”
Dink settled on his shoulder, sitting close to his ear.
“What do you mean it’s wrong? How could you know?”
“Because I designed this whole city.”
How?
“Oh my beautiful Dink. Not here, not in this place. I designed this city in another world, at a time before this place. She’s had it mimicked so I’d know. She’s trying to tell me something, and me alone! Dink, Joan’s with me—she never left me!”
31
Zeremoth the Great!
Lincoln tore himself away from the temple, the road dragging like a chain around his leaden ankles. His tears fogged his view, but the walls kept his course steady, letting him stumble on down. They were no longer tears of sadness, nor were they tears of joy, but something in between. They were tears of regret, for what could have been, what they could have forged together. Had Joan had a hand in actually designing the game? And if so, why hadn’t she told him? What possible reason could she have for keeping that a secret?
His sadness tried to turn to anger, but he couldn’t muster that emotion where she was concerned. He could just about hold on to the strands of regret as an inert, numb feeling ran through him that threatened to turn him into an emotional leper.
She must have had her reasons, had to have. Lincoln cuffed his sodden eyes, breathed deeply, and exhaled as much of his emotions as his subconscious would let escape.
I need to be sharp! he thought.
Why? Dink asked.
“No, sharp in my mind. I have to work out what’s going on,” Lincoln said to her silently.
Joan’s given you clues—she’s let you know she’s been here—she must need to tell you something.
Lincoln stared at the imp. That much was plain to see now, but how, when, and why were not. He smiled then, and gathered his scattered mind to forge a new will. “She’s with me now,” he told the imp.
She never left you.
Her words caused him to stumble, but he quickly regained his footing. The imp was right; she had to be. Dink was part of him now; she’d been on the journey, wallowed in his sorrow, and bathed in his hope. The imp knew every one of his emotions, and now she knew the secrets he held in his heart.
“If you’re the architect of this city, what is the point of this road to nowhere?” Zenith asked, suddenly.
Lincoln gasped, trying to rally, determined to collect himself. He latched on to to his city, the city he’d designed, the city Joan had mimicked, and he buried himself in its familiarity.
“It is just that. It traps a portion of the invaders up on the top of a worthless hill. It is a flower with no pollen, a dungeon with no treasure. The bee will still delve into the bloom, and the adventurer will still sack the dungeon, but they will both get nothing. Curiosity, Zenith, kills more than just a cat.”
“And the mighty sentinels that allowed us passage into this place? What purpose do they serve?”
Lincoln shrugged then somehow managed to let slip a crazed laugh. “Hell, I don’t expect you to understand, but I saw them in the online shop and thought—they looked kick-ass, got to get me a pair of those.”
“You bought them in a shop?”
Lincoln bathed in Zenith’s confusion. “It was a very special shop.”
Zenith laughed, a deep, throaty laugh that bounced off the walls. “Do you know, Lincoln the Builder, I think I’m going to enjoy getting to know you.”
They all fell silent for a moment while their newfound friendship formed a stronger foundation, cemented their bond. The imp and the shaman had seen Lincoln at his most vulnerable, at the apex of his despair, and seen him to be honorable even through that trial, blaming no one and accepting the burden of its realization.
“So tell me, what’s different about being a shaman?” Lincoln asked, wishing to deflect any further inquiries away from Joan, needing to get his own thoughts in order first.
“As opposed to what?”
“A cleric, a monk, a priest.”
Zenith shrugged, and held his forearm out. “I get all the tattoos and the fancy haircut, downside, all the dancing, but another upside of that is it freezes some folks' bones.”
“And the little turquoise sequins all over you—don’t forget that,” Lincoln said, now chuckling, though a little insanely.
“Says the man dressed in shiny, pink metal.”
They walked on, the silence filling the road again, but this time a more comfortable quiet. It felt quite right, the three of them, Dink buzzing around. They eventually came to the columned plaza as the last of the sunrise faded to day. Lincoln strode down its side, picking up his pace, knowing they should check in with the others, but fearing this opportunity might be lost. His march turned into a run, Zenith jogging easily with him, soft boots barely making a sound on the cobbled walkway.
Ducking left, they ran along a straight road, the light narrowed by lofty dwellings on either side. They entered the beginnings of a residential quarter, a maze of streets and cul-de-sacs designed to confuse the enemy, to lead them down blind alleyways, to guide them to their deaths, and to ambush.
But it was his own maze, and he negotiated it with ease, then running through the first of his royal parks, along weed-riddled, gravel paths, through stands of fir trees, no longer ornate topiaries, through fallow flower beds begging to bloom. They came to a wall, and Lincoln stood there, turned and smiled. Dink settled on his shoulder as he leaned back, letting his body get sucked through the wall’s stone. He reached out for the shaman.
Zenith took Lincoln’s hand, his trust clearly complete and was absorbed by the wall as well. The three of them walked through the stone illusion in silence, coming out into the rear of a wooden shack. Inside, it was tumbledown, untidy, with upturned chairs and partly collapsed shelves. Its windows were wonky, and its front door part was hanging off its hinge.
“Every world needs an eccentric wizard,” Lincoln explained, “and in mine there was one called Zeremoth the Great, and this was where he lived, apart from when he had guests and then he would reluctantly go to his tower. Now Zeremoth hated that tower, but he loved his familiar, and his familiar was a frog called Mellow.” Lincoln sniggered away as he remembered. “Zeremoth liked to smoke leaf, and lots of it.”
Lincoln walked toward the front door and came out onto a planked stoop that edged a lily-covered pond. He righted a toppled chair and sat, taking out his pipe and lighting it.
“Shouldn’t we?” Zenith asked, urging him on.
Lincoln wagged a fing
er back at him and then watched Dink as she fluttered over to the deck’s balustrade and sat on its bannister. “If, as I suspect, Joan has recreated this city exactly as the other I built, this little vale will work a lot slower than the rest of the land. One hour here is a mere minute or so outside.”
“A time pocket? I’ve heard of them but thought them naught but hearsay.”
“Well, let’s hope, or we may have a fair trek to Beggle if the others grow impatient. Smoke?” Lincoln offered his burning pipe, and Zenith sat at his feet.
“Zeremoth the Great; he sounds like one for adventures.”
Lincoln clucked. “Nope, I’ve come to the conclusion that wizards are inherently lazy, else why would they always rely on others to save the world. Zeremoth had his share of faults and getting him to do anything was a chore, but I persisted, and we ventured to many lands with him and Mellow. We fought beasts, and we quested to unravel Snapdragon’s curse, and we sought to understand tinyfication and rescue the seer from the Tower of Mirrors. But whatever we did, we always ended up back here, back by this pond, and Mellow would sit on one of its lily pads while I talked about nothing with Zeremoth.”
“Did your Joan ever visit?”
Lincoln grunted a laugh. “She used to pop her head right through the wall and drag me out. Sometimes to do chores, sometimes to meet her work folks, and toward the end, sometimes she would sit there, right where you're sitting, and she’d listen to Zeremoth regaling us of tales both fantastic and unbelievable. You see Zeremoth’s land was different from this. It was young, and legends hadn’t yet been made. It was a land of quests, not war, at least not when I went there. It was too young. Dragons still filled the skies, and they were the masters. No man could gather an army, else they would swoop and end that dire train of thought.”
