Authors: Alex Bledsoe
He held the pipe in my direction. “Do you partake of the weed?”
“No, thanks. My head’s naturally fuzzy most of the time.”
He laughed. “Without the fuzz, I might jump off that big rock out there and land splat in front of the cave.” He picked up one of the lutes and noodled idly on it. “Memories can slip up on you if you’re not careful.”
“You seem happy now.”
“What, because of Amelia? Oh, she does her part, that’s for certain. Would you believe she was considered a hideous freak in her home village? Just because she was tall. The boys made fun of her and wouldn’t be seen with her in public, although plenty of them snuck off with her in the dark. I found her crying by a lake, about to slit her wrists with her father’s sword.” He puffed some more. “She responds to kindness like a mistreated dog. And I don’t mean that the way it sounds. Once I convinced her my affection was genuine, she became the most loyal partner you can imagine. I won’t do anything to jeopardize that.”
He took another long drag from his pipe. “And she introduced me to giggleweed. Cheaper than ale, and I can grow my own stock. No fermenting needed, just a dry place to hang the leaves.”
“Good for you both, then.”
His eyes grew more unfocused. “But as bright and shiny as she is, she’s no match for the real darkness. I’ve got a lifetime of it, and if my head clears too much, it all comes back.”
It occurred to me that, given my own darkness, I might be looking at myself in thirty years. Before I could follow that thought too far, Kern said, “So how did you get mixed up with Dark Jenny?”
“Why do you call her that?”
“Because she’s afraid of the light.”
I told him the story, again leaving out the personal bits with Iris. At the last moment, I also left out that the queen was a moon priestess. I had no reason to keep it a secret, but I’d learned not to ignore those sudden cosmic hints. Kern listened with half-lidded eyes and gradually stopped playing, so that when I finished, I was afraid he’d fallen asleep. But then he said, with surprising venom for one so apparently mellow,
“Megan.”
He struck the strings so that they punctuated it with a sharp jangle.
I jumped and said, “I beg your pardon?”
“Megan Drake. She’s behind this. She’s pulling Ted Medraft’s strings. Elliot knows it, he just doesn’t like to gossip.”
“The king’s sister? I thought she was banished.”
Kern smiled. “The strings are attached to her apron, and they stretch a long way. She’s Medraft’s mother.”
“So Dread Ted is the king’s nephew?” I said, trying to sound as if I didn’t already know.
He cackled. “Yes. And Thomas Gillian may be his father, which is proof that a good man always has at least one bad decision in him. She wanted him to marry her and tried to rope him into it, but once he got to know her, he ran like the wind. A hoot, isn’t it? You need a chart just to keep track of it all.” Kern took a long draw from the giggleweed pipe, let the smoke out through his lips, and drew it into his nose.
When he made no comment for a long time, I risked asking, “Did you leave the king’s service because of all this?”
“The king knows why I left. And I know. That’s enough.”
“Was it because of the switch with the Jennys?” I pressed.
He began to pick the strings again. “No. That was even my idea. Marc knows nothing about it, and if he ever found out, he might execute us all. But it’s all his fault anyway. I warned him ahead of time that Jenny, the one you brought here that he first fell in love with, wouldn’t make a suitable queen. She gets stage fright. She gets
audience
fright. Her backbone has the consistency of a boiled noodle.”
That seemed an unduly harsh assessment of the woman I’d got to know on the ride here, but I didn’t point it out.
“Jennifer, though, she has a spine. She’ll look you in the eye and tell you what she thinks, which is what a king needs in a queen. When I learned of her existence, and of the difference in the two sisters, I met with them and Elliot and made them swear to secrecy. Elliot left to bring Jenny to the wedding and instead brought Jennifer. No one knows the truth except the four of us.”
“Are you sure?”
Kern frowned again, shook his head, and put the lute aside. “You know, you’re right. Someone has to know. Someone’s trying to provoke this into coming out. Show that Marcus is such a fool he never noticed the switch.”
“Who would gain by it?”
“I don’t think this is about monetary gain. This has the smell of personal grudge. Which leads me back to Megan Drake, the bitch. And witch.”
“Could she have arranged the poisoning at Nodlon?”
“Good God, she could arrange snow in July.”
“Because she’s a moon priestess and knows magic?”
He sat up suddenly and thrust one long, big-knuckled finger in my face. I saw the bristly white hairs growing from the creases. “Magic? Don’t tell me you believe in that nonsense?”
“I have an open mind.”
“Be careful your brains don’t fall out, then. It’s got nothing to do with magic, anyway. She’s a goddamned zealot, that’s what she is. Drake banished her religion from the kingdom, and she wouldn’t go along with it, so he banished her as well. Now she wants to bring his kingdom down to prove that her high-and-mighty moon goddess won’t take that kind of insult. She’d leave a trail of corpses from the south shore to the north if it helped her cause.”
Now I was glad I’d kept the queen’s religion to myself. I wished my source for this other information wasn’t a giggleweed-addled old man living in the middle of the woods, because suddenly a lot of things made sense. Charging the queen with murder might very well bring out her secret status as a moon priestess: in the hearing before the trial by combat, anyone of sufficient rank could ask anything. If Kern was right, Megan Drake would most certainly have someone positioned to raise the issue publicly. Even if the queen denied it, the seed would be planted, and if the king himself was shown to be married to a moon priestess, then he could not very well enforce an edict against it. Especially if it also came out that his queen wasn’t who everyone thought she was. It was a double layer of potential treason, and kingdoms had crumbled for far less.
“Everyone calls
you
a wizard,” I pointed out.
“Of course they do, because everyone is a
moron
. You know why they think I know magic? Because I understand cause and effect. And first principles. And a whole lot of other simple rules that explain pretty much everything, but that the general population is too willfully stupid to comprehend. Pay attention, really pay attention, and there aren’t many secrets.” He pointed the pipe stem at me. “Like you. You know what I know about you?”
I gestured he should tell me.
“You’re from Arentia. You were once in the military. You normally wear a beard.”
“I could see how you’d pick up all that.”
“Wait, I’m just getting warmed up. You lost the love of your life at a young age, and you feel responsible for it. You have a large sense of fairness, a real taste for violence, and a weakness for lost causes.” He grinned smugly. “How’d I do?”
I said nothing and kept my face as neutral as the sudden surge of outrage, annoyance, fright, and shame allowed. If this wasn’t magic, it was close enough.
He picked up the other lute, but did not play. “I know Megan Drake is behind this because I paid attention to her, too. And for a lot longer than I’ve known you. I know what her mind is like, and I know what’s in her heart. I don’t need magic to know that, it’s simple observation, seeing what people
do
as opposed to what they
say
. Marc takes people at their word, and that’s why he…”
Kern stopped, looked surprised at his own vehemence, and sat back in the chair. He exhaled slowly and began to play a soft, minor-key tune.
I knew I could be verbally poking a sleeping bear when I prompted, “‘Why he’ does what?”
“Nothing, man,” Kern said, his eyes closed. “I spoke out of turn. Marc and I know why Marc and I don’t talk. No one else needs to. Water under the bridge, smoke up the chimney, sands through the hourglass.”
I wanted to shake the old man until he told me, but first I’d have to escape from the chair. “That’s okay,” I said. But it wasn’t.
Before I could really pursue it, the door opened and Amelia entered again, dominating the room with both her size and her beauty. She was clad in nothing but her tattoos and the steaming water beading on her skin. Her hair was slicked back and lay in a loose braid down her spine. “We need some wine,” she said, not giving either of us a glance.
She knelt beside the wine rack, picked out a bottle, and left, but not before giving Kern a kiss that would curl a bald man’s hair. As she closed the door, she glanced at me, giggled like a child, and winked. It reminded me to close my mouth.
There was a long moment of silence.
Finally Kern shook his head and whistled appreciatively. “Wow. A man’s got to die of something, right? What were we talking about?”
This was my chance. “Marc’s judgment of people. Or lack thereof.”
Kern looked puzzled. “Really? I was talking about that?”
“You were. You said because I knew about the two Jennys, I should know everything.”
He picked up his pipe and puffed away. The room’s air looked like fog over a swamp, and I had the overwhelming urge for something baked and sweet. It took all my strength to concentrate. At last he said, “Marc was fifteen when he won the crown, you know. That’s pretty young. He was a brilliant tactician and warrior, but a man’s judgment isn’t fully formed by that age.”
“That’s true.”
“He did something wrong. And then to cover it up, he did something evil.”
“We all make mistakes.”
“No, this was no mere mistake, this was…” Kern trailed off again into his memories. I tried prompting him, but he ignored me. When he finally spoke again, it made me jump. “Say … you haven’t seen the Crystal Cave, have you?”
I shook my head.
He got to his feet, wiped the lute strings with a cloth, and gently put it aside. He extended a hand to help me out of the chair. “Come on, then. See a man’s life’s work.”
chapter
TWENTY-TWO
I leaned against the doorjamb for a moment while my head stopped spinning. I didn’t realize how fuzzed-up I’d become until it began to dissipate. The clean air outside felt like ice water in my lungs, and I sucked it in until my chest hurt. Give me good old drunkenness any day.
A cobblestone path led from the cottage to the mouth of the cave. The individual rocks were pressed deep into the ground, indicating a lot of back-and-forth traffic. In the bright morning sun I saw lots of other other bare spots and paths; the Crystal Cave must do bang-up business.
“Beautiful day, isn’t it?” Kern said with a satisfied sigh. “Come on, youngster.”
Kern’s bare feet smacked on the stones. As I followed, I looked around at the shadows within the thick forest, suddenly struck by how many places were suitable for an ambush. It seemed unlikely that Agravaine and his pals could have tracked us, though. We’d been on well-traveled roads with a wagon identical to hundreds of others on the same byways, and we’d gone hours without seeing anyone else. With no distinctive trail or witnesses, we should be completely safe. Unless they knew where to look.
“You know,” I said to Kern, “I met a boy who said you have dragons in the woods around here.”
He laughed. “Hot steam shoots up from the ground in a couple of places. Same thing that heats the spring in the cave. Makes a hell of a noise. I might’ve let on that they were dragons, though. It keeps a certain kind of person from trying to sneak in here and make mischief.”
A wooden gate blocked the cave entrance, its lock dangling from a chain. Kern opened it and called out, “Hey, girls, it’s just us!” A giggle of acknowledgment rang faintly from the depths.
Kern took a lamp from a hook, struck a flint, and lit the wick. It cast a golden glow that sparked off the wall’s quartz deposits. “I found this place when I was a boy,” he said wistfully. “I bought it as soon as I could and for four decades never told a soul. Chased two bands of squatters out of it over the years before I finally built my cottage and moved in permanently. It’s the last place I want to see when the light finally fades for good.” He closed the gate behind us and locked it.
“You have the key?” I asked. He had no apparent pockets on his tunic.
“I’m the world’s greatest wizard, I don’t need a key.” He snapped his fingers and the big lock popped open. He snapped it shut again and we headed deeper into the cave.
“When I left court,” he said as we walked, “I decided I’d create my dream here, out of rock that wouldn’t equivocate or resist when I tried to polish it.”
“Like Marcus?”
He didn’t respond.
More faint giggles and splashing reached us. The floor was relatively level, going horizontally into the rock instead of downward. The ceiling was a high arch, the stalactites safely out of range. “It’s just up ahead,” Kern said, pointing with the lamp.
A wooden partition closed off the tunnel; one end went flush to the wall, while the other left a gap you could step around. The words
YOU’VE FOUND IT! THE CRYSTAL CAVE
were painted on the wood in big, looping letters, decorated with flowers and butterflies.
He stopped. “Wait,” he whispered, and closed his eyes. I was about to ask what he’d heard when I realized he was praying. His lips barely moved, but he stood formally straight. Then he sighed, turned to me, and smiled. “Every time I come in here, I thank the spirits of the cave for their hospitality.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in magic.”
“I never said
that,
son. I said I didn’t need to use it to do the things most people consider magical.” Then he gestured that I should precede him around the barrier.
I admit, I was skeptical. I’d seen gimmicky things like this before, and they never failed to be tawdry, vaguely depressing experiences. Such as the Mermaid of Agoya, who was just an old woman with deformed feet trying to be sexy in nothing but strategically placed seashells. I stepped around the partition and stood in the darkness, waiting for Kern to bring the light.