Within the Hollow Crown (13 page)

Chapter 27: …Is Dead

Jareld found a wooden box.

It was a plain, wooden box. No bigger than a knight’s shield across the top. No deeper than a hand. A small man’s hand. The engraving on the box, “RD” for Richard Dorn, was encouraging. Sir Dorn’s insignia badge for the League of the Owl was tucked away inside. This was it. This was what Jareld had set out to find.

Besides the badge, inside the box was a collection of parchment papers, wrapped in a sheep skin that had been treated with oils. If Jareld and Thor had arrived seventy-five to one hundred years earlier, the oils would have waterproofed the papers. Unfortunately, that proverbial ship had already sailed.

Jareld would not open the papers on the beach. They were too delicate; the wind would destroy them. When they were satisfied that there was nothing else to find, they packed up and went back to the boat. But the boat wasn’t much better. On deck the wind was as bad as it was on the island. Below deck, there wasn’t any room. Jareld needed a real workspace.

“We’ll head fer Palima,” Corthos said. “It be only three klicks from here, and we can resupply.”

“Sounds good,” Jareld said. Corthos went up to the wheel to turn the boat a bit eastward. They would head even further out into the ocean, where they would find the Island of Palima. It was a small island, mostly a good place for trade, and also served some really good seafood.

“Do you think,” Thor asked, once Corthos was above deck, “Do you think we ought to just open the top page?”

“I really don’t want to damage the papers.”

“What if the top page tells us where to go?”

“We’re only going a few kilos east,” Jareld said, “We’ll just turn around if we have to.”

“What if the top page says something very important?”

Jareld narrowed his eyes at Thor. Jareld had been exercising a very mature amount of restraint. Obviously he wanted to rip through the pages, but he had been trained as a Master Historian. He would be patient. He would be wise. But Thor had given voice to his Id. He couldn’t resist looking at the first page. Just the first page, mind you.

He opened the sheep skin cover. He strained his eyes in the low light, but he would not allow Thor to bring the candle closer. He leaned in. He was able to make out the first line.

He blinked. He read it again. He gasped. He looked up. He looked back. He read it a third time. The reason he was so thorough was because the first line read like so:

“The line of Kings is dead.”

Book
3

Dreams Deferred

Chapter
28: Heart Beats

Sarah couldn’t help but laugh.

She had followed Alderthorn, the Wanderer, down the winding dirt path in the woods. They did not speak. Sarah’s white gown caught the waning sunli
ght in every gap in the dense trees. They came to a clearing just as the day ended. The clearing seemed both natural and artificial, as though Alderthorn had coaxed Mother Nature into landscaping a perfect little nook for him in her abode.

What made Sarah laugh was the sight of Flopson. He was hanging upside down from a limb of a tree and juggling three balls. He threw them up, which was down for him, and kept them moving like a regular juggling trick. The sight was a little mind-bending, but to Sarah it was funny, because it was the last thing she expected to see in the middle of the woods: An upside-down jester juggling right-side-up.

“Good evening, Your Grace,” Flopson said, neatly doing a backflip off the branch, and keeping the balls in the air.

“Flopson,” Sarah said. “What’s going on?”

“Just hanging around,” Flopson said, “Sorry, bad joke.”

Sarah leaned in to Flopson. This was a serious moment:

“Do you have… the body?”

Flopson leaned in, too.

“If you’ve got the time, baby.”

Sarah glared at Flopson with as much disapproval as she could manage, considering she almost laughed again.

“We have no bodies here,” Alderthorn said, “Except the ones we each posses as our own. But I believe you will find what you are looking for just over there.”

Alderthorn directed Sarah’s attention to a log cabin. Calling it a log cabin was a generous turn of phrase. It was more like a loose association of logs. It was a log canopy. A glorified log pile with a pocket of air under it. Sarah moved to it, her instincts taking over her feet. What was this place? What awaited her there?

When she got to the
doorway
,
she found Michael: Sleeping, breathing, and alive.

She fell to his side, her hand landing on his bare chest. Right on his heart, though she hadn’t planned it that way. Sporadic beeswax candles shed an eerie light around the room, but there was also a pleasant incense.

“Michael…” she whispered, but that was all. She was experiencing something she wasn’t expecting. She was elated to see him. She thought she would feel relief. Even happiness. But she had not planned to feel such unrelenting joy.

“Michael…” she murmured again, but could think of nothing to add. She rested her head on his chest and listened to his breathing, and his heart beat.

“Michael…” she sighed...

---

“Michael,” a voice said, carried on the wind. A sweet voice. A comforting call.

Michael turned, but could not find the voice.

It occurred to him that he was walking. It was a jarring sensation, because walking isn’t something we’re used to occurring to us. Before we walk, we tend to plan to walk. After we walk, we tend to remember having walked. But few of us ever experience the disorientation of realizing, suddenly, that he was already walking.

Where was he walking from? Where was he walking to? He was in a dry, flat desert. The ground cracked from the heat, though there was no sun. Just a haze of light. A gray, featureless, cold light. It was unlike any place he could remember.

Had he been walking for days? For months? Had he died and risen again? He could not remember the last time he ate or slept, though he was neither hungry nor tired. He couldn’t remember much of anything...

“Wasn’t I supposed to be somewhere?” he said aloud, though he was the only one who could hear. “Wasn’t I supposed to be with someone?”

“Michael…”

There it was again: that sweet voice, calling his name in a whisper. It sounded like home.

And now he wasn’t in a desert. He was at the edge of the woods. The stark, forbidding trees stood close together, as though they meant to deny him access. But he could still see, flitting through the shadows, a beautiful young woman. Her dress glimmered in the light, even though it seemed no light could penetrate the forest.

“Sarah,” Michael called, the name occurring to him as he said it. She turned and smiled at him, though she kept strolling until she vanished into the deep foliage. But that smile would be enough to keep any man alive for weeks without food, shelter, or air.

“Sarah!” he called, this time in desperation. But she was gone.

“Don’t worry, my friend,” said a man, standing just behind Michael.

Michael turned to face the man, but was not startled by his presence. The man was just there, in much the same way he wasn’t there a moment ago.

“Why won’t she answer me?”

The vague man shook his head with a smirk. “The reason she cannot answer you is she is not all the way in this place. But she is doing better than most.”

“What is this place?”

“I think you know, or you have an idea. What I tell you won’t help much anyway.”

“But where do I go? I think I’m supposed to be somewhere.”

“You are. And that place is a long way off. You were running from a danger so terrible that Death followed it. But while you were running, you forgot to drop the breadcrumbs along the way. Now you cannot find your way out.”

“Where was I supposed to be?”

“I could describe it to you, I suppose, but it wouldn’t do much good. I could tell you about the sights and the sounds and the smells. But you’d only remember it as a dream anyway. You’re a big step ahead of the crowd, though. At least you know you have to go somewhere.”

“How do I find my way back?”

The man waved his hand to the woods. The trees warped and shifted, opening a narrow path in the green. A tunnel through the intertwining branches.

“This is the way,” the man said. “There are many pitfalls, and many wrong turns. But I will guide you. And, now that she knows you’re here, she’ll guide you when she can.”

“When is that?”

“When she dreams.”

Chapter 29: Nobles, Ancestors, and Loyalties

“You’ve lost!” Vye said, descending the last steps to the dungeon. Halmir turned to face her again. He could not speak, but his expression seemed to say, “Pardon me?” She demanded entrance into the cell and removed his gag.

“You’ve lost,” Vye repeated, “You came to destroy us, but you only wounded us. We’ve won. You wanted to wipe out the Royal Family, but you missed one, and one is all we need.”

Vye could see Halmir wasn’t impressed. But she wanted to gloat. She couldn’t torture or kill her prisoner, so she wanted to make him hurt.

“Upstairs, right now,” she continued, “I have the heir to the throne. Alive and well. I don’t know what you hoped to accomplish, but if you wanted to get rid of the Royal Family, you failed.”

“It is through your Nobles that you are weak.”

“It is through our loyalties that we are strong.”

“It is through your loyalties that you are destructive. Our people learned that the hard way.”

“Your people? That happened more than five hundred years ago. Those aren’t your people.”

“It’s easy to forget when you grow up on the side of the victors.”

“I didn’t grow up-- I’m not the victor. We’re not the victors. My friends, my brothers, my Nobles: They’re not the victors. The victors lived five centuries ago. We’re just people who grew up here.”

“You still drink at the table of that victory. You still live off the suffering of my ancestors.”

“The key word here is ancestors.”

“The key word is suffering. And now the key word is vengeance. And we haven’t lost. I doubt you have even slowed us down. You have just clung desperately to something you can understand.”

“We have a Prince. We only need one. He can be made a King, and quickly. And then we will be ready for anything.”

“You think you can defeat us?”

“I know we can.”

“Then I will tell you something. Something my betters don’t want you to know. The County of Maethran has been destroyed. All of their armies have been defeated. The County of Cornwile is currently under attack. After that, Eastmore, then Arwall, then Trentford, then Deliem. We march across your land unchecked.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because, I relish at the idea that you are helpless to stop us.”

Chapter
30: Really Good Salmon

Within an hour of arriving at Palima, Jareld had paid for the largest room at the inn, had cleared away all the furniture to one side of the room, and had spread the papers over the entire surface of the floor.

He had used some tweezers, and a couple of the barkeep’s more delicate kitchen tools to manipulate the papers, and made sure not to handle them overmuch. It had taken some time, but once he was set, he and Thor were silent for an hour, reading.

The tale told on the papers was amazing. It started with the kidnapping of the Queen, an event Jareld, Thor, and anyone who knew anything about history already knew. Sir Dorn described the King’s summoning of the League, and briefly told of their journey out to the Caves of Drentar:

And let me tell you, any stories you’ve heard of the Caves of Drentar do not do them justice. They are dank, dark, and dreary. You never quite get used to the foul smell, and your eyes never quite adjust to the complete darkness.

But Jareld would only allow himself to scan these passages. What he wanted to get to was the bit about the line of Kings. Dorn went on for a while about their descent to the darkest part of the caves. Several of the Knights died along the way, at the hands of various creatures.

Finally, Dorn got to the encounter with the Great Wyrm, Devesant:

The serpent was waiting for us, or else had heard us long before we got there. There was no introduction, nor any parley for the release of the Queen. He simply ambushed us, and from the start, we lost seven men.

Jareld read the account of Sir Dorn, and compared it to the account he gave to Prince John upon returning to Anuen. The stories were pretty close. The written version had more details than the dictation, confirming that this was probably written before he returned to Anuen.

The League of the Owl dwindled quickly, until only Sir Dorn, Sir Martin and the King remained. But at this point, King James emerged from the Dragon’s deeper lair, and was carrying the Queen with him.

This is when Sir Dorn lost his sword, embedding it in the Dragon’s hide. Having secured the Queen, however, they made good their escape.

Jareld sat back and took a deep breath. The Queen survived. This was something he had to digest. This was something he had to take in, slowly. He was so sure of his history. He was one assignment short of being called a Master Historian. And yet, here in his hands was a record of history that no living man knew of. The Queen lived. She had escaped from the Dragon’s lair.

Sir Dorn led the way back toward the surface. The first night, the King and Queen took camp around a corner, to allow themselves some privacy. Sir Dorn recalls, as tastefully as possible, what they did together that first night of their reunion.

The second day, they traveled along a narrow path that sloped gently uphill. It was very dark, and they were running low on torches, but Sir Dorn had very good direction sense (from his years as a navigator) and was, in fact, leading them the right way.

That night, however, Sir Dorn recalls that the King and Queen found no comfort in their marital bliss. He recalls that for the entire night, they spoke to one another. Soft whispers, but not gentle. Sir Dorn could not hear their words, but could feel their bitter tone.

In the morning (or what passed for morning two miles underground) the King confided in Sir Dorn what had happened the previous night. The Queen, riddled with guilt, had confessed that she had had an affair early in their marriage. She knew, when she got pregnant with Prince John, that it wasn’t the King’s child.

This was yet another blow to Jareld’s historical ego. King James II, the greatest King in the history of the Kingdom, was succeeded by an illegitimate child. King James should have announced this upon his return, and arranged for his second son, Andrew, to be named as his heir. He should have had the Queen executed and Prince John banished. But he loved Prince John despite his parentage, and he loved the Queen despite her disloyalty.

So he chose mercy over truth. He explained to Sir Dorn that, when he returned home, he would forget what had happened, and allow John to continue the line of Kings. The alternative would have been too hurtful.

But then fate stuck its ugly head in. That night, Sir Martin was on watch. He woke Dorn suddenly, very panicked. He was wounded. Weak. Poisoned. Dorn grabbed his sword and saw that there was a large scorpion, stinging at the King and Queen.

Dorn engaged the scorpion, which measured three feet from claw to stinger. Dorn killed it quickly, but not before suffering one quick sting in the leg. He had been poisoned, but only a very little. He didn’t know it at the time, but the poison was in such a small dose that it would take months for him to die. But there was no antidote.

He checked on the Queen. She was dead. He checked on the King. The King was still breathing, but only barely. Dorn could see that the King’s neck, which was exposed, had been hit several times by the stinger.

The King snapped awake, but he knew his death was close. His last request was that Sir Dorn not divulge the bastardly nature of Prince John. Sir Dorn swore an oath that, while John lived, none would know the secret. But Dorn himself declared that the truth was too important. The reason he had joined the League of the Owl was to enforce the law, and lying about the ascension of Kings was against the law. He made a second oath to the League of the Owl that the truth would come out, someday.

Over the next two days, he and Sir Martin devised a series of clues. Clues that they knew wouldn’t be solved too quickly. They knew it would take some time for the right person to come along and decipher them. And then Sir Martin, who had been injected with a higher dose of the venom, died. Sir Dorn buried him before returning to the mainland.

Sir Dorn finally died in Anuen, telling the untrue story of the King’s death. It was in the final pages of the document that Jareld found the answers he was originally seeking:

I confess that my actions are disproportionate to my rank. I have made decisions that I am not qualified to make. But the situation required that someone make these decisions, and I was the only one left. I have decided that the Saintskeep, the weapon reserved for the bloodline of the Kings, shall not be kept by a man if he is not the rightful heir. John and his heirs will not possess the Sword of Kings.

He described how he hid the weapon, before he ever left the Caves of Drentar, and guarded it with clever devices so that only with the truth could one find the weapon. It was not in the Dragon’s lair, as many believed. He enclosed a map to find it. It was right there, on the last sheet of paper: A clear map, with measurements, that would lead to the Saintskeep. All Jareld had to do was follow it.

Corthos burst into the room, drunk. It took both Jareld and Thor to make sure he didn’t trample over the papers.

“Maties, there be good ale in this here island!” he cried out, lying prostrate on the bed.

“What about the salmon?” Thor asked.

“Not quite as strong as the ale.”

“We’ve found what we need. We’ve found where we have to go.”

“Tonight, we shant be going anywhere. I’d sail me boat off the edge of the world.”

“Very well, tomorrow morning...” Jareld looked at the inebriated Corthos once more, “Very late tomorrow morning, we shall set sails for the Caves of Drentar.”

Corthos’ body straightened up like a spring, looking cock-eyed at the two scholars.

“It does not matter when you wake me. We shant be going to the Caves of Drentar under any circumstances. There is naught enough ale nor salmon to make me do it.”

“But that’s where we have to go,” Jareld said.

“Only the desperate and foolish go there,” Corthos said.

“But,” Jareld said, “We have a map.”

“Lemme see,” Corthos said, grasping the chart. “Why didn’t you just say you had a treasure map? I be a pirate. There is no place I won’t go if there be a treasure map.”

And with that, he flopped back on the mattress, sound asleep. Jareld and Thor retired to their own rooms, though neither got much sleep. The Line of Kings was dead...