Word of Truth

by Rhett C. Bruno

  Hovom cleared his throat. “Well, we thought it might be wise to ignore saving Dockside and South Corner and transform them into a death trap. It is, as Mahraveh said, the lowest point of the city.”

  “Abandon nearly a third of Yarrington?” Sir Mulliner asked in disbelief.

  “In a sense.”

  “Turn it into a weapon,” Mahraveh clarified. “Nesilia will attack with raw power again. The buildings there are the most brittle. Hovom thought maybe we craft chains, as many as we can, and lash all the structures together, pulling with my zhulong. In the harbor, we’ll create a snare of barbed iron.”

  “I got the idea from the Shesaitju arrows,” Hovom interjected.

  “Yes, and every strand they pull on,” Mahraveh continued, “will not only work to destroy their hulls but will bring buildings crashing down upon them. We can arrange it to purposefully funnel them to strong points. If the chains are durable enough, they could even slow the wianu, and then I will make sure to capture one alone.”

  “You?” Whitney scoffed.

  “Me,” she said firmly.

  Whitney swallowed hard and stayed quiet.

  Hovom agreed. “We can’t use glaruium, but they’ll be strong. I’ll see to that.”

  “How do you expect to prepare so many chains in so short a time?” Lord Jolly asked.

  Hovom was a large man. Perhaps not Torsten’s size, but not small by any description. He turned his gaze to the floor. “I hope I was not out of line, but I already have blacksmiths throughout the city working on it.”

  Torsten eyed the man for a moment, then smiled.

  “Well done, my friend,” Torsten said. “However, this will shrink our area of defense as you hold them off. That’ll mean tighter confines. More innocents and soldiers clustered in the high city. An easier target. There are no walls between South Corner and the rest of the city.”

  “But we’ll slow them,” Mahraveh said. “I know Babrak. He’ll press an imagined advantage like a rabid boar. We can blockade routes out of Dockside, and defend choke points here, here, and here.”

  “I’m with them,” Lord Jolly said. “I took stock of our naval forces after Winde Port and Latiapur. We won’t have a chance at stopping their fleet, they’ll roll right through us. So, we can use that. Send out ships manned with a barely workable crew, merely to lose and retreat. Load the ships with oil. While the crews escape on rowboats, they can set fire to their former vessels. We’ll block the enemy with flames and iron.”

  “Dockside, too. Once the chains snare them, we’ll burn the whole district if we have to.”

  Torsten cringed at the thought of South Corner engulfed. Though he hadn’t lived there in a very long time, that would always be home. He scratched his chin.

  “Okay, so we do that,” Mulliner said. “That’s just one of her many armies.”

  Torsten stood and skirted the table toward the model. “Freydis and the Drav Cra will march from the north. If she has the savages organized—even if she doesn’t—they’ll be a mighty foe.”

  “Yarrington’s walls are tall and thick, many times that of Crowfall,” Lord Jolly said. “They won’t fall so easily.”

  “They’ll rely upon her magic to break through,” Torsten said.

  “So, we let her,” Sora said. “Make her confident enough to get in range.”

  “We’re already letting them flood Dockside,” Lord Jolly said.

  “Freydis is the key to everything. I need to kill her. She’s too strong for anyone else to take, but that’s how we draw Nesilia in. Freydis is the sister Nesilia never had, the one follower who never abandoned her, or went out on their own like Redstar. Who loved her.”

  “What about the mystic?” Torsten asked. “You say it’s her sister-goddess, Bliss?”

  Whitney blew a raspberry. “They hate each other. They’re just working together for convenience.”

  “Sounds familiar,” someone from the Council grumbled. Torsten didn’t bother to find out who.

  “He’s right,” Sora said. “If I take out Freydis, Nesilia will come for me.”

  “Hmm,” Torsten thought aloud. “Drav Cra, Shesaitju, they’re human—them we can fight if they get in. Nesilia’s demons, they might infest us all. So, I will mount our main defenses here at the Eastern Gate. I’ll make myself very visible in leading. Nesilia will think that’s our focus.”

  “So, let me get this straight,” Sir Mulliner said. “We burn Dockside and South Corner, and surrender the Northern Mason’s district—which is vitally close to the castle and Old Yarrington, I might add. Then, we put our leader on display, all to try and capture Nesilia with a magical stone?”

  “He’s smart, Torsten,” Whitney said, pointing. “Really smart guy.”

  Austun Mulliner sat back in his seat. “I just want you all to hear how insane this is.”

  “We lose in a fair fight,” Mahraveh said. “We all know that. So why fight one? We have to play to their weakness, which is that they don’t think we stand a chance.”

  Torsten returned to his seat, staring at the model the entire way.

  What would Liam do? he wondered. The unexpected, sure, but he’d trust in Iam. This plan, however, required trust in many gods and peoples.

  Maybe, Torsten hoped, that was the point of all of this.

  “One problem,” Whitney said, raising his hand.

  “What?” Torsten asked.

  “We can’t put Nesilia in this…” Whitney picked up the Brike Stone and stuffed it into his pocket, beckoning the light to return. “… Without Lucy’s Lightmancing. We have Sora, whose connection to Nesilia should let her in, but as soon as Lucindur starts, every creature in Nesilia’s army will come after them. That means grimaurs from above, goblins from below. Wolves.” He shuddered.

  “It’s true,” Lucindur said. “They’ll be drawn to me like moths to a flame.”

  Every word out of her mouth fell on Torsten’s ears like a symphony. And when she looked at him, his heart skipped a beat. Was this the ancient, forgotten power of Lightmancery? He’d seen tales written about it in tomes, but that part of Glintish history had long since vanished, back when the mystics rose to power.

  “So, Sora kills Freydis, Nesilia hopefully comes after her,” Torsten said, running the plan through his mind out loud just to make sure it wasn’t as crazy as it sounded in his head. It was, but that didn’t matter. “Then, she retreats back to the castle, and that’s where we take her. Lucindur and Sora will be safest there while entering Sigrid and Nesilia’s mind.”

  “Once Freydis is gone, I’ll send Aquira to ring the cathedral bells, and we’ll all know it’s time.”

  “What is an Aquira?” Mulliner asked.

  “A wyvern,” Sora replied.

  Mulliner exhaled through his teeth. “Of course.”

  “Hey, she may only be a wyvern, but I trained her to be sneaky,” Whitney said. “She can handle it.”

  “You trained her?” Sora said.

  Whitney crossed his arms. “Yep.”

  “Then it’s settled,” Torsten said. “We make our stand in the Throne Room and pray all the great kings of old are there with us to protect the Lightmancer.”

  “She’ll have me by her side,” Tum Tum said.

  “And me,” Whitney said.

  “And what’s left of the Serpent Guard,” Mahraveh added. “If she’s the key, we’ll need our best warriors defending her while she uses her magic.”

  “Then it should be the Shieldsmen,” Sir Mulliner attested. “You dissolved our Order, but we’re still the best in Yarrington.”

  “The best of all of them,” Torsten decided. He gazed up at the finely carved chunked of stone comprising the Shield Hall. “This castle has stood since the dawn of Iam’s Kingdom. Where better to make our last stand against her?”

  XXXVII

  The Mystic

  Since the moment she’d arrived in Yarrington—even before that, when she’d gained her first view of Mount Lister casting its shadow over the
city—Sora had one lingering thought. She knew it was silly; she hadn’t even known the man, much less cared for him, but blood was blood. A mystic knows that if they know anything.

  Walking through the Glass Castle dungeons gave her the chills. Though, it might’ve been the cold. It was freezing, as if part of the punishment endured by the prisoners was to suffer a slow death by frostbite.

  “You’ve gotta think,” Whitney whispered beside her, “if it’s this easy to sneak into the castle dungeons, it can’t be too hard sneaking out either.”

  “I still don’t understand why we are in the dungeons to begin with,” Sora said. “I thought the Royal Crypt was inside the mountain? It feels like we are going away from it.”

  “Just a figment of your imagination. Things get confusing when you’re underground.”

  Nesilia had been in Sora’s head for so long that Sora could almost imagine what the goddess would’ve said if she heard that sentence. Imagine how confusing things would be after thousands of years underground.

  Right here, Sora thought. She was buried right here, only much, much deeper.

  Sora, however, stayed quiet and trusted that Whitney was leading them the right way.

  They passed dozens of cells—most of which were now empty. Torsten had given the command for even the prisoners to be given weapons and serve in the defense, under strict watch by former Shieldsmen. He’d said anyone capable of fighting needed to fight, criminal or not. Without the aid of all, there’d be nothing left for anyone. Sora supposed he was right, but that didn’t change how scary it was that so many who’d just been locked up were now running around Yarrington with sharp blades.

  But she’d come to trust Torsten. His mind for war was keen, and she had to admit, the strategy they’d all developed sounded far better than any she’d have thought up on her own. The Shesaitju Caleef, too. Mahraveh had a collectedness to her as uncanny as her pure black skin. And at the same time, eyes that spoke of ferocity even Nesilia should fear.

  This city was in as good hands as possible.

  And Sora was thrilled she’d be the one to take down Freydis. A fire burned inside of her that had nothing to do with Elsewhere or magic. She wanted to see Nesilia and anyone who’d pledged allegiance to her, dead. She’d wrap vines around that warlock’s throat, tear out her tongue and silence her once and for all.

  A chill ran through her at the darkness of her thoughts.

  “Are you okay?” Whitney asked.

  “Mmm-hmm, fine,” she said quickly. “Just get us to the crypt. I don’t like this place.”

  “Wow, the all-powerful mystic is afraid of a few unoccupied cells.”

  “Shut up,” Sora said.

  “What do you think of Torsten’s plan?” Whitney asked.

  Sora thought about how to answer. She couldn’t even believe she’d gone from a young girl, locked up in the basement of the town witch doctor to having just been seated around a table with the Royal Council, generals, and god-queens.

  “It’s about as good as we can ask for,” Sora said.

  “I don’t like that it has to be you who goes in with Lucindur,” Whitney replied.

  “You know it has to be.”

  “I still don’t like it. And that Shieldsman? Mulgibore? What is that guy’s deal? And a greedy little dwarf as Master of Coin? It’s like they plucked the whole lot of them out of a Royal Carnival. Who’d have thought that, in that room, the most sensible would be a priest and a Shesaitju?”

  “Who’d have thought the Buried Goddess would rise again to kill all of us?” Sora said.

  “Honestly? I could’ve called it.”

  A sudden clang of metal sent Sora stumbling away from iron bars and into the stone wall behind her. A pasty hand reached through, grasping for them. Dirt caked its knuckles and fingernails, and dark liver spots dotted the length of the arm. Sora followed it in the darkness to the haggard face of a woman who had seen far better days. Gray hair, gray cheeks, brown teeth, and eyes covered by shadow.

  “I see you,” she said.

  The bars clattered again as the woman made another lunge.

  “What?” Sora said back.

  “I. See. You.” The voice was unfamiliar and cold. What followed the words was a shrill cackle that sent Sora and Whitney both skittering away from the cell. A cold shadow followed them down the hall.

  “Sheesh, what a freak,” Whitney said, shaking his whole body out like he’d just been covered in ants.

  “Did you hear her?” Sora asked.

  “Yeah? So, what?”

  “’So, what?’ So, what is that’s what Nesilia said to me in Lucindur’s vision. ‘I see you.’”

  “Yeah? Right, and just now… that woman also saw you,” Whitney said, chuckling nervously. “She’s just a batty old kook left down in the dungeons for too long, so even the soldiers didn’t want her. There’s nothing to worry about. We are safe here, for now.”

  “For now” was what Sora was worried about. How long did they have before evil armies were pounding at the city gates—Weeks? Days? Hours? No one knew exactly, and she feared none of them would be prepared, not really. Maybe they’d all faced Nesilia in some form or another, but none of them had shared a body with her. They had no idea what she was truly thinking, truly capable of.

  “Oh, look,” Whitney said, tearing her from her thoughts. He pointed up. Webs were strewn from the stone wall at the joints of the ceiling, across and through the iron bars. “Why is it that all of our dates seem to involve spiders?”

  “Date, huh?” Sora said. “Is that what this is? Not exactly traditional.”

  “Am I ever?”

  “Are you sure you know where you’re going?”

  “This isn’t my first time,” Whitney assured her. “Besides, do you have somewhere better to be than here, with me, on a romantic walk?”

  “Old crones and dark dungeons. So romantic.”

  He wasn’t wrong. Sora had learned to enjoy every moment she was given, especially those by Whitney’s side. They’d been apart for so long it still felt like a dream, him, there, next to her. At that moment, she felt his warm hand clasp hers, instantly stealing away the chill from her bones.

  He squeezed, and so did she.

  They walked the rest of the way to the Royal Crypt in silence, but it was a good silence. It might have been the longest Whitney had ever stayed quiet while being awake. Actually, he even talked in his sleep most nights, so it might have been a record all around.

  “Here we are,” he said after a time Sora didn’t want to end. “The Royal Crypt, creepiest place in the whole world.”

  They stood within a cave mouth a bit larger than a standard doorway. Beyond it, the stone went from the rough, jagged dungeon to impossibly smooth and intricately carved walls and domed ceilings. Sora didn’t bother to examine any of the etchings. Again, her focus was singular.

  “Would you mind…”

  Sora didn’t even finish her sentence before Whitney cleared his throat.

  “You know—why don’t I… uh… I’ll hang out here and keep watch. Make sure you aren’t disturbed. Are you okay to go in alone? Dead bodies… yuck.”

  Sora smiled. For such a self-centered dolt, Whitney had become quite thoughtful.

  “Sure. You stay here. I won’t be long.”

  “Right, then,” Whitney said, kissing Sora’s hand before letting it go.

  She turned back to the crypt. It was quiet, and eerie, and felt very much like she’d just walked into an infirmary, or the royal library—like they should’ve been whispering. She took a few tentative steps forward, then turned and said, “Thanks.”

  Whitney shooed her onward.

  Her heartbeat sounded like drums, drawing back a small memory of the Earthmoot celebration in Drav Cra.

  She ignored the tall statues in the crypt’s center, kings and queens who were unfamiliar to her, relics of a history that was no more. She ignored the upright glass coffins, recessed into the walls, encircling the room. Then, sh
e came to one she recognized. Pale, white skin, half her face covered in a porcelain mask—the Mad Queen, Oleander Nothhelm.

  She looked like any other Drav Cra, only infinitely more beautiful. Perhaps, this was the most beautiful woman Sora had ever seen. Then, Sora remembered the countless stories of the Queen’s cruelness and that notion melted away.

  Beside her was a small boy. Couldn’t have been older than a teenager. A mop of black hair swooped across his eyes, both covered with gold autlas, Eyes of Iam side facing out, like all the others. His skin looked wrinkled and withered.

  King Pi. Her half-brother.

  He looked even younger than she remembered him being on the only other time she’d seen him, floating atop Mount Lister, writhing under Nesilia’s control. She figured it was the goddess’ presence then that added to his looking older. Now, probably the most powerful boy who’d ever lived was dead… again. The only thing differentiating him from every other who’d come and passed was, instead of being food for worms, he was eternally memorialized in a glass casket.

  She hadn’t even noticed she’d stopped, so lost she was in her thoughts of the boy she didn’t even know.

  After a deep breath, she pressed on, still not having found what she came for. Three more steps took her to the place she’d been thinking about for days.

  All the stories told of a man covered in rippling muscle, hair dark as night, and a chin like hardened steel. She saw none of those things but could imagine them well. The corpse’s hands were clasped over a metal rod. It looked odd, and when she looked around at all the other kings, gripping swords, she wondered what it signified.

  However, even in death and frailty, King Liam Nothhelm looked every bit the conqueror he was named to be. Though she couldn’t see his eyes, covered by coins like his son, she knew them. Every time she stared into polished metal or a still pond, she saw them. Amber, not unlike the autlas now covering them. Like sunshine in darkness, she knew those eyes well, and saw them, even now, where his eyes should be, in her own reflection cast upon the face of Liam’s glass casket.