Path of Ruin

by Tim Paulson

  “Benny! Did those horrible men throw you down here?” Giselle asked.

  Aaron gripped her shoulder. “What are you doing? We're not here to rescue anyone. Let's go!”

  “We can't leave Benny down here,” she said. “We just can't.”

  “Indeed you cannot! Our guards ran up the stairs earlier and we've heard not a peep! I believe they might have met their end at the hands of the enemy!” Benny said ever so woefully.

  Giselle moved to enter the dungeon and look for the keys but before she could there was a tug on the end of her cloak. When she looked down she saw Min, the smallest of the children she'd been asked to spirit away from the castle.

  “Yes dear?”

  “No!” Min said.

  “I'll be alright. I'll be right back. I promise,” she assured the girl, giving her a little hug. “Stay here, please.” She then separated the little fingers from her riding cloak and strode into the dungeon.

  Giselle was surprised. Once you got over the rancid smell of rot and urine, the dungeon wasn't really that bad. It turned out that most of the cells were empty save for bales of hay, torn bits of blanket and the occasional wooden bowl.

  Only two in the entire bay were occupied. One held Benny who pressed eagerly against the bars awaiting rescue while the other held a weaselman. Clad in wasted leather, its dark beady eyes flashed reflected torch light as she passed.

  “No! Giselle we shouldn't be doing this!” Aaron had followed her in.

  “I'm releasing Benny the Bard so he can escape too,” she said as she searched the guard station at the end of the cell bay. “I know Benny. He shouldn't be here!”

  “You don't know why he's here. They don't just throw people in here for no reason Giselle!” Aaron said, gesticulating wildly. It was common for him to flap his arms when he became upset, not Giselle's favorite of his many idiosyncrasies to be sure. Celia had once joked that Aaron was trying to fly away from his problems.

  “Good lord, good lord!” Benny called feverishly. “You know what they'll be sayin' about Benny when he's up an' died? They'll say he never once lied, even when he tried! So come on let me out of here you spindly little fellow. You can show your sweet maid your belly's not all yellow!” Benny sang sweetly.

  “You're not helping yourself bard!” Aaron said, jabbing a finger at the trapped man's cage.

  Giselle heard Celia snort from her spot in the passage and swallowed a chuckle of her own, not wanting to inflame Aaron further.

  A key ring hung from an old bent nail by the stairs. Giselle snatched it and hurried back to Benny's cell. As she passed the weaselman with the keys jingling and jangling she saw him move a little out of the corner of her eye. The very thought of such a creature made her skin crawl.

  It took several tries but soon she found the right key. It slipped home and turned with a satisfying click. Benny the bard danced free.

  “Hooray hooray! I'll write a song, just for today!” he sang. Sadly his usually colorful garb left much to be desired now that the dungeon had covered the bard in filth. He smelled quite bad as well but despite his poor condition the man pranced in a riot of exultation toward their secret door.

  “Please don't sing,” Aaron said with a sigh. “Just get in line with the others and be quiet.”

  Aaron then approached her. Giselle thought he planned to kiss her, perhaps to ask for forgiveness for their disagreement, but instead he took the keys.

  “You go as well,” he said.

  “What are you doing?” she said, hoping it wasn't what she expected. Then she watched, mouth agape, as her husband walked over to the weaselman's dirty cage and unlocked it.

  “There,” Aaron stated. “You're free as well. Join us in the passage if you like. It exits the castle.”

  “Thank you much kind sir,” said a low voice.

  “But... But,” she said, staring as the creature stepped from its cage, clawed hands gripping the bars to help itself out into the light. It had a diseased look to it. The mottled brown fur appeared to have been rubbed away in several places. That was bad enough but its most disconcerting feature was the long weasel-like neck that terminated in a pointy twitching snout.

  Aaron seemed to know her mind. “It's only fair,” he said.

  Liam's head appeared from the hole in the wall bringing with it the light of his blue sword. “What the hell is going on with you two! Are we leaving here or aren't we? Should I go back upstairs and kill someone?”

  “No!” Giselle, Celia and Aaron all said as one.

  “Then, let's go!” Liam said.

  “You coming?” Aaron asked the weaselman.

  He actually extended a hand to the lanky creature making Giselle shake her head in disapproval. How many stories had she told in Aaron's presence, surely hundreds! He must have heard several of the ones featuring sneaky untrustworthy weaselmen. Everyone knew about them. Sometimes it seemed Aaron went out of his way to avoid common sense.

  “I will, thank you again,” said the weasel headed creature as it shook Aaron's hand with a clawed paw. Those claws looked very pointy and painful, she thought.

  Their motley band continued down the stairs past two more levels of dungeon before they finally came to the tunnel at the end and emerged from behind a statue into the back area of the outer wall near the lower stables.

  The sound in the stables was as frenetic as it was deafening. What few goliaths remained in their bays were stomping their feet wildly against the hard granite floor causing an incredible din of crashes and cracks. Everyone covered their ears with both hands.

  Aaron pointed to a side exit and they all ran for it. He took Min in his arms while Giselle and Celia both took a child each. Liam grudgingly took two of them, though Shon the leothan boy insisted he could run faster on his own feet. When they finally made it outside they rested for only a few seconds before running again for a stand of trees that overlooked the South road.

  Just before they reached it an incredible boom from behind made them all turn around. The top of the baron's lower stables, where they had just been only moments before, had exploded. Smoke billowed up as the stone structure collapsed in on itself, filling the air with clouds of dust and debris. They ran again, taking what shelter they could among the trees.

  “I can't believe it!” Liam said. “How is this happening?

  “I know. It doesn't seem real,” Giselle said, releasing the furry paw of one of the lion children and taking hold of her brother's shoulder. When his head turned she could see the tears in his eyes.

  He reached out for her and she hugged him tightly. He was still the rambunctious little boy who'd followed her around the castle, always looking for another story or something new to climb.

  “What do we do now?” he asked.

  “We stay alive. Mother will hear of this. She'll find us.”

  “Will she avenge father?” her brother asked. This was her first confirmation of what she'd tried not to think about. Their father was gone.

  “Yes Liam, she will.”

  * * *

  Amid a grove of white parch trees abutting an outcrop of lichen speckled rock lay their camp. Henri had brought no tents for he had none. They had only two bed rolls that he'd laid around a fire that was just now beginning to catch after an hour. Though had no idea why they'd been traveling West to go East he was at least pleased their camp was ready before night fell. To his surprise Mia had helped him gather wood and sticks for the fire without a word. By contrast the horrible animated doll hadn't ceased chattering since they left the village.

  “So you say you've never heard of the Yersan Kingdom? What about the Throndu people? They ought to live near here. Do they no longer exist as well?” asked the doll as it pranced along the edge of the stones that lined the fire pit, yarn hands clasped behind its gown, yellow hair dangling haphazardly.

  How easy it would be to give a little push, just one, then poof! Gone. The doll was insanely annoying, if it continued to talk like it had been, at a certain point he w
ouldn't be responsible for what happened.

  “No, I haven't,” Henri said.

  “Fascinating. I've no idea what year this is then.” It shook its yarn head with the strangely animated face.

  “I told you...”

  “You don't understand you damned fool blacksmith,” it said, waving a yarn hand dismissively. “Your calendar is different. I need to find some common frame of reference with the one I know to make sense of it.”

  “You sure do talk a lot for something with no mouth or lungs.” Henri prayed it would take the hint.

  “And you move around a great deal for a cretin with no brain!” the tiny figure said, hands on its hips.

  Earlier Mia had laughed at the doll's pithy responses but now she sat on a section of log, staring into the gathering fire light.

  Henri narrowed his eyes and tossed a smaller log into the fire causing a shower of sparks. The doll shrieked and ran from the glowing embers muttering unintelligible curses. At this Mia smiled, if fleetingly.

  “So... So you're a soldier?” he asked her.

  She eyed him for an uncomfortably long time, her face impassive, before venturing a reply.

  “Yes.”

  “With the baron?” he asked, feeling foolish the moment it left his lips. This was why he so often preferred machines to people. Metal made sense, you controlled the temperature, the timing and everything worked in a predictable, comfortable fashion. Not so with people and double that with women.

  Mia raised her eyebrows as if to say, “Oh you noticed my uniform all by yourself did you?” but when her mouth opened she said only. “That's correct.”

  He felt like he was pushing it now. She was tolerating him but likely had no interest in further discussion. He should give up. Yet something about her, she was beautiful surely, but so mentally strong, it drove him forward despite his misgivings about her disposition.

  “So, ah... What brought you to the village?”

  “A battle.”

  “Well... right. I'd figured that. You were trying to recover your goliath's core.”

  Her eyes flashed, reflecting the dancing orange flames of the fire. “How do you know that?”

  “Once upon a time... I used to work for the Veil company.” This wasn't something he usually divulged. There wasn't any reason to hide now though, this woman knew his son's secret.

  “You're a company man then?” Her lips pressed into a line.

  “I was. Now... far from it. I've seen first hand what they do there... I... I couldn't let that happen to him,” he said, gaze drifting to the crumpled form of the boy completely covered by his blanket except for a few golden curls of hair that stuck out and shined in the firelight.

  “You don't believe he's been touched by the Devil?”

  Henri sighed, picking up another small stick and tossing it into the fire. “Before all of this I would have said no. He's a loving boy. I've never seen him use it.. whatever he has... to harm anyone. He likes to help and play, but never hurt.” He shook his head. “I was taught by some very smart people that there's no such thing as demons, witches, or sorcery, that it's all just superstition. Now I don't know what to think.”

  The raven haired woman nodded.

  “Will you return to the baron's service... when this is over I mean,” he asked her.

  “I,” she said, seeming to search her memory. She looked confused. “I don't... know. I have to protect Adem now. That's most important,” she said.

  “Ah, then we have the same mission. I suppose,” Henri said.

  Whatever Mia might have been here to do, presumably fight the empire for the Haletts, it had now been buried beneath whatever the old woman had done to her. It felt wrong to use a person like that, without their knowledge or consent. It was slavery, plain and simple.

  “Where are you from?” she asked.

  “Here actually. I was born in Valendam,” Henri said.

  “Oh... I'm sorry...”

  Henri held up a hand. “It's all right. I know I don't exactly look like I belong.”

  She looked down at the fire.

  “My father grew up in Middleburg, a Faustlander, but my mother was from Gahena. She was a slave there. My father bought her, freed her and married her. Then, when the revolts began, they moved back here and I was born shortly after. I've been here ever since.”

  “You've never been back to... Gahena?”

  “This is my home,” he said. “Sure, the people there look more like me, but I was born here, I grew up here.”

  Mia nodded. “I know how it is to be seen as different.”

  “Are you from Tiveria?”

  “Miran.”

  “Ah,” he said. It would be impolite to bring up what had happened there. Instead he placed another log on the fire and prodded it with a stick, watching as the sparks swirled upward. His thoughts were shattered by a blood curdling scream from the pile of blankets.

  Adem was awake.

  The boy thrashed, throwing the blanket toward but not quite into the fire. Henri leaped to his feet, pulling the singed blanket back while reaching for his son, hoping to calm him.

  Adem would not be calmed. He twisted and punched and kicked, shrieking at the top of his lungs every chance he got. It was the sound every parent hated most, their child in agony. The boy's eyes remained slammed shut but tears streamed from them as he screamed and fought. It was as if he were being stabbed from the inside.

  The doll was back, apparently summoned by the screams.

  “It's time, this boy must be drained and quickly!” it said. “Do you have a knife blacksmith? Hold the tip in the fire to heat it.”

  “I can't!” Henri called back as his son writhed in his hands like a bag full of angry snakes. “If I let him go I fear he'll roll into the fire.”

  Mia wasted no time. She pulled a miniature dagger from some hidden location in one of her boots and held its thin point into the flames.

  “Good. Not for too long. We're not heating the entire blade, just the surface to remove... impurities. Now hand it to the smith and don't touch the tip either of you,” the doll said.

  Henri accepted the tiny knife with one hand while he held his son down with the other. He hesitated though, not wanting to add to his son's distress by poking him with something sharp. How could this be right?

  “Do it! Anywhere, you only need to draw a little blood.”

  “I can't!” Henri said. His hands were shaking. He couldn't make them move.

  “Do it now! He's Dying! You can stop the pain. Do it!” The doll said, shaking its tiny knitted arms in a grotesque mockery of frustration.

  Henri bit his own tongue, it was all he could think to do. He tasted blood. The pain gave him focus, clarity. In that moment he had control. He pierced his sweet gentle son, in the top of his wrist, with just the barest tip of the dagger.

  Blood burst forth, running down Adem's arm in a torrent, far faster than it should given the small size of the wound. Adem's eyes flicked open and took in the sight of his own father holding a bloody knife over his arm. He saw in his son's eyes the realization that his own father had hurt him.

  Henri's heart felt as if it had been stabbed with a thousands swords.

  “I'm sorry Adem!” he said, “So sorry!”

  More tears welled in his little boy's eyes. Adem began to sob.

  “Where is the container?” asked the doll as it stepped forward. It held its arms aloft as if accepting some gift from above. “I can't absorb enough on my own.”

  Of course, thought Adem, that green stone inside the doll must be veil powered as well. His sword! Where was his sword? He looked to Mia but she was already moving.

  In only seconds the great-sword was placed next to Adem. It began to glow a brighter yellow than Henri had ever seen. Mia's two blades were added as well, a rapier and a dueling dagger. Both glowed so bright it was hard to even look at them.

  “Wow!” Henri was fascinated and horrified by the power coming from the blood of his boy.

/>   It didn't take long for the blood flow to slow and with it Adem's piteous sobs. Henri placed the boy back down on the bed roll and tore a strip from the fringe of his shirt to wrap around Adem's wound but when he wiped it the wound had already closed.

  “What happened?” he asked. Only the tiniest pink discoloration remained. He bound it anyway, just in case. Never had he seen so much blood issue from so small a point. It was all over him and Adem.

  “They heal him as quickly as they can. They hate having their essence drained so they act to stop it,” the doll said as if describing the weather.

  “It will always be this much blood?” Henri asked, doing his best to wipe off what he could.

  “Sometimes more, sometimes less. It depends on how long it's been. This was the first time so we would expect the flow to be more copious than the future, if you drain him regularly.”

  Henri shook his head. How was he to stab his own son multiple times a day? The look in Adem's eyes haunted him still. The boy had been so betrayed. His poor little Adem.

  Why did this have to happen? Why did he keep having to ask this question? First his wife, then Adem's gifts had begun to manifest, now this monstrous chore. Was this God's idea of a joke? What had he done to deserve this? What had Adem done?

  “What was that?” Mia asked.

  Henri instinctively looked to Adem but the boy had mercifully drifted back to sleep after his ordeal. Though every few seconds he would still emit a part of a sob.

  “I don't hear-” he started to say but Mia held up a hand.

  “Horrors. Get your sword!”

  “What's that? What?” asked the doll.

  Henri didn't need to be told twice. He scooped up his massive golden blade and held it up in guard position with both hands. The light it cast was incredible. All the forest around was illuminated including the many glowing eyes of the two horrors who rushed at them from the trees. They leaped at Mia who tucked into a roll before springing up and stabbing one of the beasts directly in the center of its body. A bright cone of light then exploded from the center of her veil blade. It bored an enormous circular hole in the creature. She paused, stunned, as what was left of the horror's steaming corpse collapsed in front of her.