by C. J. Archer
The king nodded quickly.
Brant placed the gem in the king's hand but didn't let it go entirely. "Wish for our memories to be returned first or I take it back."
"The gem is fake!" Dane snapped. "It won't work."
Brant's face went as pale as the king's. "Wh—what do you mean?"
"Didn’t you notice it doesn’t pulse?"
"Pulse?" the king muttered.
Brant stared at the gem, all the fire gone out of him. He looked like a man who'd just lost everything. "The pulse," he muttered. "I forgot…"
The king pressed the gem to his lips. "Sorcerer, grant me my wish. I wish to be made healthy again."
Nothing happened.
"I wish to be made healthy again!" he cried, only to wince in pain.
"I hid the gem," Dane told him gently. "And had this one made in its likeness."
The king clutched Dane's arm. "The real one…get it, Hammer. Please, hurry."
Dane looked to me. "How long?"
Blood saturated the king's clothes, Dane's hands, and pooled on the floor. Too much blood, and it hadn't stopped. Even if Doctor Clegg arrived before the king passed, there was nothing he could do after this amount of blood loss.
"Long enough if you need to go somewhere within the palace," I said, wanting to give him some hope.
But I knew from Dane's face that the gem wasn't in the palace. It mustn't even be within the estate, because I had no doubt he would have tried to get it.
Tears slipped down the king's cheeks. He knew it too.
Brant collapsed onto a chair and rubbed his jaw with a shaking hand.
Dane eased back and gently brushed the king's hair from his forehead. "Tell us, sire. Do the right thing now."
Balthazar joined Dane and Dane helped him to settle on the floor beside the king.
The king started to cry. "Forgive me."
Balthazar took the king's hand and smiled softly. "We forgive you. Now tell us."
"My first wish was to be a rich king." The king laughed but it made an ominous bubbling sound in his chest. "See what I did? I combined rich and king into one wish instead of two."
Brant joined us on the floor. "Who are we?"
"I am an actor, and this was my grandest performance. My stage was the most spectacular ever seen. And you, Hammer, Bal…you were my friends for a short time. Theo too." He tried to lift his head. "Where's Theo?"
"He'll be here soon," Dane said.
"Go on," Brant urged. "We were your friends…"
"Not you," the king said, his voice so weak we had to lean in to hear him better. "But I saved you, too. I saved you all. The magic…it was the only way to save your lives."
"Saved us from what?"
"A slow and painful death." The king's eyes turned glassy. He didn't have much time.
"Keep talking," Brant prompted.
The door opened and footsteps approached. Doctor Clegg knelt by the king and inspected the wound. It took him a mere moment to come to the same conclusion as me. He shook his head at the two dukes then stepped away.
Theodore took his place and clasped the king's hand. The gemstone lay on the floor now, forgotten.
"Sire," Theodore said, tears slipping down his face. "Sire, can you hear me?"
But the king didn't respond. I felt the last flutter of life leave his body. His chest sank and didn't rise again.
"He's gone," Doctor Clegg announced.
Brant sat back on his haunches, as if he hadn't quite believed that death would come. He didn't take his wide gaze off the king.
Theodore closed the king's eyes and kissed his forehead. When he drew away, the king's face was wet from his valet's tears. I took Theo's hand and we assisted one another to stand. Dane helped Balthazar, leaving only Brant kneeling beside the body.
He shook his head over and over and pushed to his feet too. With a roar of frustration, he kicked over a chair, but that wasn't enough for him. He picked it up and threw it against the wall, shattering it into pieces.
"Sergeant!" Dane gripped his shoulder and whispered something in his ear.
Brant's gaze slid to the dukes. Then he ran off, out of the garrison, passing Lord Barborough and the king's advisors as they entered. No one stopped him, not even the witnesses to the murder. The sergeant had done the dukes a favor by killing the king. Their reward was to let him go free. He was no threat to them.
The advisors gasped upon seeing the king's body and started talking all at once. Barborough stood very still, his face ashen, his throat moving with his swallows.
"What happened?" one of the ministers asked.
"A guard went mad," the Duke of Gladstow said. "He killed the king and escaped. Everyone here witnessed it."
Buxton and Lord Xavier confirmed the claim, and the advisors seemed satisfied with the explanation.
"You will find him and arrest him, Captain," said one.
"Of course," Dane said but didn't leave.
The advisors murmured among themselves again.
"There is no magical gem, is there?" the Duke of Buxton asked Balthazar. "I have no doubt that sergeant and the king both believed in its existence though."
Balthazar sat on a chair and passed a hand down his face. He didn't answer, and I doubted the duke expected one.
"The king is dead because he believed old Zemayan stories of magic," Gladstow announced to the room. "His foolishness cost him his life."
Both dukes departed, but Lady Deerhorn and her son remained. They had moved away from the others, out of earshot. Lord Xavier whispered in his mother's ear. She listened and watched, her shrewd gaze taking in the reactions of not only the advisors, dukes and Barborough, but of us as well. If she believed as the dukes did, that magic didn't exist and played no part in the king's rise and fall, she gave no indication.
Lord Barborough picked up the gem beside the king's body and glanced toward the door again. His frown deepened.
Dane put out his hand. "I'll take that."
"No," Barborough said.
Dane clasped Barborough's wrist. "Give it to me."
"Unhand me!"
No one came to his aid. Some of the advisors even left. Barborough winced as Dane's grip tightened, and he opened his fingers. The stone dropped onto Dane's palm.
Dane let him go, and Barborough rubbed his wrist down the sleeve of his limp arm. "It's not real, is it?" he asked with a smirk. "You kept the real gem from him, didn't you? You killed him."
Dane pocketed the gem. "Will you be staying much longer in Glancia, my lord? I suspect you will want to return home now there's nothing for you here."
"I may stay a while, to get the lay of the land. I'm sure the three of you will keep the palace running smoothly until a new king is appointed, and that foreign dignitaries will continue to enjoy Glancian hospitality."
"Of course," Dane said. "We servants will continue to perform our duties. It's the noblemen who might not like having a Vytill spy in their midst."
Barborough's jaw hardened. He must realize the peril of his situation now, but his desire to learn more about magic, and perhaps even the whereabouts of the real gem, might be worth the risk to stay longer. Any news of a pending battle between the two dukes would also greatly help King Phillip. As a distant cousin to King Alain, the Vytill king was in a strong position to take the Glancian throne for himself. He would want as much information about his rivals as possible.
"We'll prepare the body for a suitable burial," Balthazar said to the remaining advisors and the Deerhorns. "If you don't mind, the king should rest in peace now." It was purposely said to dismiss Lady Deerhorn, I was sure of it.
She hesitated but left with her son. Only Lord Barborough remained, and it wasn't until the door had closed that I realized it was because Dane held him by the elbow.
Dane forced Barborough to face him. "We want answers."
"I don't have answers," Barborough said.
"You know more than we do—more than you've let on so far."
Barbor
ough's gaze settled on me. "Is that Mistress Cully's opinion?"
Dane forced him to sit on a chair. "Tell us everything you know about magic. Everything you haven't told Mistress Cully."
"Or?"
"Or I'll tell the lords and ministers that Brant admitted you paid him to assassinate the king."
Barborough sucked air between his teeth then released it with a hiss. "You are ruthless, aren't you? You give me no choice, but first, tell me how you are involved in the magic and why it interests you so much."
Dane's hand curled into a fist and the muscles in his jaw bunched.
"No, Hammer," Theodore said quickly. "Enough violence. The king is gone, and it's time for some truths to be spoken." To Barborough, he said, "We have no memories of our pasts. The magic erased it somehow."
Barborough slumped back in the chair, his lips parted in a silent gasp. "No memory? None of you?"
"None of the servants can remember their pasts. The king told us he didn't either, but we came to realize that wasn't true."
"The king admitted making a wish on the gem," Balthazar said. "That's all we know. So now you tell us what you know."
Barborough picked up his limp arm and settled it across his lap. "I don't know anything for certain. Everything I know I learned in Zemaya, but there is nothing to say that their beliefs have more truth to them than any other story." He glanced at me. "I didn't lie to you about that, Mistress Cully."
"Tell us the stories," Dane said.
"The sorcerer's powers are limited to three wishes. Those wishes are bestowed upon the person who finds the device, no one else. The wishes cannot be used to grant more wishes, nor can they be used to destroy the sorcerer. Once freed, the sorcerer is beholden to the one who found the device. It seems the gem is the device."
"It would seem so," Balthazar said.
"The sorcerer cannot perform magic of its own free will, only what is asked of it through one of the wishes. So it cannot perform magic to benefit itself unless that magic fulfills a wish."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"For example, if the gem's finder asks for his enemy to fall in love then be jilted, the sorcerer can turn itself into a rich, beautiful woman and beguile the enemy, but it can't take that form simply because it wants to."
"So it cannot use the magic to destroy its own enemies," Dane said.
"Precisely."
"What happens to the unused wishes now that the king—now that Leon—is dead?" Balthazar asked.
"I don't know."
Dane removed his sword and touched the tip to Barborough's throat. "You lie."
Barborough leaned back, raising his good hand in surrender. "No! I swear to you, I don't know. It's possible no one does. This situation may never have arisen before."
Dane hesitated then sheathed his sword.
Barborough swallowed heavily. "May I ask a question?"
"Go ahead," Dane said.
"Did anything happen to you when the king died?"
Dane shook his head and looked to Theodore and Balthazar. They both shook their heads.
"I thought perhaps you might have felt something," Barborough said. "Or remembered something."
"Nothing," Dane said.
Balthazar stood over the body and stared down at the lifeless face of the king. "We're still here," he murmured. "That's something, at least."
Dane's gaze connected with mine. "It means we're real," he said. "We have real lives."
"I never doubted it." I offered a faint smile. It was all I could muster.
"Do you know where the real gem is?" Barborough asked.
"I do," Dane said.
I tried to glare at him, to tell him not to give too much away to this man, but he wasn't looking at me. He held Barborough's gaze.
"I am the only one who knows," he went on. "Understand?"
Barborough nodded. "Thank you for your honesty." He stood slowly and, when Dane didn't stop him, left.
Theodore released a heavy sigh and slumped into a chair. He bent over the table, head in his hands. Dane grasped his friend's shoulder, and I suspected Theodore wept silently.
I joined Balthazar and stared down at the face of the man I'd known as the king. He looked so young in death; so innocent and not at all like a monarch. Yet if it hadn't been for Dane and the others, throwing suspicion over him, I would never have thought of him as anything other than the king of Glancia. Had that been because his performance had been so good or because I had merely believed what I'd been told?
"He was so proud of his…performance," Balthazar said, a measure of strain in his voice. "It was just a game to him, a piece of theater." He nudged the body with his walking stick. "I feel no sympathy for him. What he did is unforgiveable. I won't mourn him."
Dane and Theodore joined us. Theodore sniffed, and his eyes were red but he no longer cried.
"He was as naive as a child," he said. "He trusted us, in the beginning. He needed us."
"But he changed." Balthazar leaned heavily on his stick. "He grew fat on the power and wealth and all the benefits both provide. He forgot about us, about where he came from."
"Wherever that is," Dane muttered.
"What do you think he meant by saving you?" I asked. "Saving you from a terrible death, he said."
"Perhaps we all had a disease," Theodore suggested. "Many of us were very thin when we first came here, and some were terribly pale."
Balthazar shrugged. "We'll never know now."
"We will," Dane said. "This isn't over. Someone, somewhere, is missing us."
"Or they already think we're dead so aren't even looking."
It seemed like the most logical explanation, but even that gave hope. We had to find places where plague ravaged the population.
"I'm not giving up," Dane said as he strode toward the door. "Not yet."
He invited the guards in. There were twenty, at least. He gave orders for the head gardener, grand equerry, grand huntsman, grand forester, menagerie keeper, and head cook to be fetched. "Inform any servants you meet on the way that the king is dead, and there will be a staff meeting in the commons tonight. All will be given an opportunity to voice their questions and concerns."
Several guards peeled away while the others filed inside. Dane asked Zeke to fetch sheets to cover the king's body.
Quentin crouched beside it and parted the fabric of the king's clothing over the wound to inspect it.
"Quentin," Theodore snapped.
Quentin stepped back to stand with me. "It looked deep."
"We can discuss the medical aspects later," I told him. "Now is not the appropriate time."
I wasn't needed anymore, but I didn't leave. I wanted to remain, not for them but for me. While I hadn't been close to the king, nor had I particularly liked him, there was something missing now that he was gone. Perhaps I was merely a Glancian without a monarch, or perhaps the king had signified something else to me that I couldn't quite explain yet.
An eerie hush fell over the staff gathered in the garrison and continued until the heads of each department arrived. It was Dane who addressed them, not Balthazar. The master of the palace had more seniority, and perhaps more authority, but he probably knew that Dane held their respect. Dane also had a stronger voice, which carried. Balthazar seemed terribly frail as he sat, leaning heavily on his walking stick.
Dane told the staff everything that had transpired, including Brant's involvement, the fake gem, and the king's final words. He answered questions but had few answers. The only question he could answer with any certainty was that he knew where the real gem was hidden, and he did not plan on telling anyone.
"Powerful people will want to get their hands on it now," he said. "I won't risk anyone else's life."
Several of the men muttered but no one outright objected to him keeping the information from them.
Zeke returned with sheets, and the king's body was wrapped in them and taken away to be stored in the cellar until burial. The heads of all the departments
left to speak with the staff under them, leaving only the guards, Balthazar and Theodore.
"Those of you on duty, continue to perform it," Dane told his men. "For now, nothing changes. I meant what I said. If we want to keep a roof over our heads, we must continue to work." Some of the men filed out, but he called Max back. "Not you. I need you to remain here while I escort Josie home."
"I don't need an escort," I said. "Besides, I don't think I'm ready to go home. I want to be here for a little longer."
"Then I have some questions to ask you."
"About the death?"
"No. On the likely reaction of the people. What can we expect from Glancians, as a whole, and the villagers in particular?"
I blinked. "Shouldn't you be worried about what the dukes will do next? Or what you ought to do to find out more about your pasts?"
"I will think about that too, but Mull has been restless lately, and I want to know if we should worry about further unrest in light of the king's death."
"Ordinary folk won't care too much," I said. "The comings and goings of kings doesn't alter their lives. Some of the troublemakers might think to take advantage of the confusion, but I don't see how they can. I don't think you'll need a stronger presence in the village because of this."
He looked relieved.
Max asked for a quiet word with Dane about sergeant duties now that Brant wasn't available, and the two of them sat in the corner to talk. Erik set down a cup in front of me.
"Thank you," I said. "I need an ale."
"It is not ale."
I sniffed the contents and sipped. It was something stronger than ale and I gratefully took another sip in the hope it would unwind my knotted nerves. The liquid burned as it went down and I pulled a face. He laughed softly.
"You're in a good mood considering the uncertainty that surrounds you now," I said.
"I am still Erik, you are still Josie. We have food, drink, shelter, friends. We will serve the next king here in the palace. It is a good life."
"I suppose."
He crossed his arms and rested them on the table. The twists of his hair fell forward, obscuring his face. "If the king says he saved us, then maybe this is better life than we had. Yes?"
