Ross Lawhead - A Hero's throne

The three elves exchanged glances. “What is ‘The Night’?” Filliu asked.

“You don’t know? Lhiam-Lhiat and Agrid Fiall seemed to know about it. Stowe also.”

The looks became more severe. “You saw or spoke to Lhiam-Lhiat and Fiall? Usurpers of the throne and enemies of the true prince?”

“Well, in as much as I killed them and they’re haunting me now, yes, I did.”

“Did you tell them of our movements?” the general with the shaggy red hair, whose name was Loshtagh, asked.

“No, of course not. There wasn’t time to do that, even if I wanted to.” Daniel’s words came like he was talking in a dream-virtually beyond his will. His mind was just reacting, but he couldn’t determine how. He felt thin and slightly eaten away.

Filliu sat in a campaign chair before the wide table in the centre of the room. “Daniel, when first you arrived in this land nearly a year ago, we sent an emissary to meet you and help you through this land, with as much aid as we were able to produce at the time.”

“Kay Marrey, yes, I know. And I’ve thanked you for that.”

“I did so under the advice of my holiest of counsellors, and against the advice of my canniest generals-these men you see before you. I still have faith that you will help us, but know that you have now acted counter to every omen of divination that my holy men laid before me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that your leaving and returning were predicted, but not the violence by which you left, nor the speed and condition of your return. It has caused a few of my holy men to question if the prophecies even applied to you, and not another.”

“Nothing is ever ideal,” Daniel said. “Everything is imperfect and we have to do the best with what we’ve got.”

“That is also what I believe,” the prince answered, “to an extent.”

“It is not what I believe,” Loshtagh said. “I believe that whatever is inside your contaminated soul may infect us and pervert the growth of our pure enterprise.”

Something in what the argumentative general said triggered something else in Daniel’s memory of what he had experienced in the Night. Perverted growth-contaminated soul-pure enterprise. .

Daniel came out of his reverie to see the three elves studying him, as if to diagnose his condition, and Daniel became annoyed.

“I intend to help you whether you want me to or not. It’s nice that you can be so picky over where you get your help from. I don’t usually have that luxury. I don’t have it right now. Unless I go to one of the other ‘evil princes’ and ask for their help. Why should it make a difference to me? Perhaps they can even help me get back home.”

“It’s that sort of comment that makes me question your motives and loyalty toward our cause,” said Loshtagh.

“And that sort of comment makes me question yours ,” Daniel said. “After just one night away from you. What does it matter to you what happens to me at night, so long as-”

“You weren’t gone just one night, Daniel,” Filliu said.

Daniel froze. “How long was I gone?”

“Three days-four nights in total.”

Daniel considered. “I. . don’t know about that. But, listen: something happens to me at night.” He then recounted to the three as much as he could remember of what he experienced in the Night, which was almost all of what had happened to him during the first.

Loshtagh’s scowl had deepened during Daniel’s narrative. “It is a bad business. I do not know what it all means, or the nature of the devils that torment you, but it is a bad business. A bad business.”

But at length Filliu allowed him another mission, and this was one that Daniel felt particularly passionate about-tracking down Kay Marrey and K?yle the woodburner.

And so here he was, standing in an empty room in the uppermost tower. He had followed the directions they gave him, following a certain river toward its source, which was not as easy as it sounded. There were about forty different confluences and branches of the river, and he’d had to memorise the order of which to follow and which to disregard. He soared above the water, watching how the sun sparkled on the clear surface, making it glisten like a path of diamonds, but although he recognised the beauty of the sight, he did not delight in it.

The riverbanks grew steeper and steeper, rising toward him until, after the miles and miles that he travelled, they became sheer cliff faces, laced together every so often by bridges of splendid and ornate designs. Roads now ran along the edge of the cliffs, and houses started to become more frequent. There were only a few branching tributaries, but they were very small, and anyway, Daniel was at the end of the sequence. He was nearly at his destination.

A mountain of black stone rose up before him, from which poured a waterfall, and before that was an enormous palace, more of a city, really, since it was a cluster of buildings all squeezed together and built on top of each other, but they were built across the chasm between the cliffs and before the waterfall. It hung in an arcing and domed magnificence, sparkling and cool in the spray thrown off by the waterfall. Daniel had just hovered for a time, taking the inconceivable structure in. This, apparently, was the Falling Palace.

Studying it more closely, he knew it was practically deserted. Some of the walls and facades showed signs of disrepair, and green slimy growth was coating some of the areas that were in contact with water the most.

And so he had found the highest crested tower, which seemed a good place to start his search. All the fairy tales had prisoners locked in high towers, and he was in F?rieland, after all. But materialising inside, he discovered it was mostly empty-a disused bedroom where an elfish bed, a desk and chair, and some fine drapery were quietly mouldering in the damp. He didn’t have any time to stand around and reflect on the meaning of this, or the purpose of the room, and so crossed to the door. He gave the handle a turn and found it locked. There was a keyhole, and he bent down to squint through it. He could just make out a small section of white on the other side. Fixing himself on this, he let himself drift through the keyhole and into the stairwell outside.

A handy trick, he decided, and walked down the stairs, thinking it would be easier to be more systematic if he were solid, and feeling that being bodiless probably wasn’t so healthy for him mentally. He was starting to feel extremely. . abstract.

He wandered down the tower and checked in at the rooms that he passed and found them all locked and abandoned. At the base of the staircase was an ornate bronze gate that had weathered to a pale green. He slipped through this and into an open courtyard. It seemed deserted, but there were too many dark windows and archways to be certain. He went into the cloud and drifted through it.

As he passed, he noticed a metal grate in the panelled courtyard beneath him. He took a moment to examine it and the darkness within.

A drain? Into some sort of sewer system? How complex would a sewer for a city on a bridge possibly be?

He lowered his disembodied self to inspect it further and found almost exactly what he had come to find. If the wooden stocks and bronze manacles were anything to go by, he was in a dungeon. His main worry, however, was that it, like the city, seemed deserted. If this was a dead end, then he didn’t know what he was going to do.

He materialised and walked around the room. He grew uncertain as he studied the stalls and restraints, wondering if this was indeed a jail, or just a stable, but then he found a large, wooden door on the far end of the hall that had a wide metal grill in it. There was a glowing light issuing from it and he slowly approached it. He got a sense of foreboding from the door; he didn’t know why.