Michael Mathias - The Wizard and the Warlord

Once, the giantess storyteller, Berda, had told the Skyler Clan a tale about a forest inside a castle. Hyden remembered Gerard asking, “You mean a forest inside the castle’s protective wall?”

“No,” she’d replied. “I mean a forest that is high above the ground, growing in a room in a great castle.”

The idea of it had boggled Hyden’s mind back then. He often wondered about such a forest, about where the rain and the sunlight the trees needed to grow would come from. Now, sensing an infinite largeness around him, it wasn’t so unbelievable.

“Slanted holes in the walls let steam in. It condenses on the ceiling of the cavern and then drops down like rain,” Cade explained when Hyden finally asked about it. The giant didn’t explain how the trees got sunlight, and Hyden was too busy thinking to ask.

“I just realized that this bench wasn’t made for humans,” Lieutenant Welch said, as if he’d made some great revelation.

“Who else would they be for?” Phen asked.

“For the children,” Princess Telgra grinned.

“True,” Cade said with a smile over at Oarly whose feet dangled a good foot above the floor. “My four-year- old son is at least a hand taller than Master Oarly.”

“I hope he’s not as ugly,” Phen joked.

“Or as hairy,” added Hyden.

“Bah!” Oarly grumbled, while everyone laughed. “How much longer are we going up?”

Cade peered at the passing floor, a ribbed hallway like the one they had traversed down to the Cauldron barge. The sconces holding the lamp flames along the walls here were gauntleted fists holding knife hilts. The flames rose up like short, wavering dagger blades.

“It won’t be much longer, Master Dwarf,” Cade answered.

On the next floor, toting one of Phen’s chests between them, two of the page boys went striding by in an adjacent passage. Hyden figured that somewhere nearby the ribbed hallway was another room with that unsettling portal symbol carved in its floor, and an unnatural pool of quicksilver suspended overhead.

The lift finally slowed to a halt at a floor far different from the others they had seen. They stepped off the platform onto a wide, short hallway tiled with glossy slabs of jade that were checkered with a lightly hued golden marble. The walls were covered in lavender silk, and several large, intricately carved, wooden doors were spaced down the length of the hall.

Small matching wooden tables, sporting clawed feet, sat between the doors. Each displayed a different work of sculpted art. Overhead, a chandelier of crystal and gold lit the area well.

“The distinguished guest quarters,” Cade announced regally. “There are only seven apartments. The master suite has been reserved for Princess Telgra; it’s the door at the head of the hall. The other apartments are all equipped to sleep up to three persons or couples. The first room here…” He indicated the door on the right. The carving in the door-face depicted the forging of Ironspike. Dwarves hammered the metal while elves hovered close at hand, their hands frozen in wild gestures of magical incantation. Beyond them, several giants poured melted ore into a kettle, while a lone human with terrified eyes watched it all. The scene was captivating. Hyden studied it in awe. He remembered another depiction of the same event, in stained glass high up on Queen Willa’s castle wall in Xwarda. He remembered seeing the destroyed pieces of it spread across the carnage after the battle, as if the gods had thrown a handful of jewels across the battle field.

“…all of your things,” Cade was saying as he opened the door and broke Hyden’s concentration. Inside, most of the group’s packs, their saddles, trunks, and other belongings lay spread out in neat piles.

“Across the hall, a chamber has been set up as a planning room, complete with maps and a council table.”

Its door carving showed a group of giants with long spears battling a sizable dragon. Cade didn’t open it. He told the others to pick from the four remaining rooms, then took Princess Telgra gently by the arm. He guided her to the door at the end of the chamber. On its face was a view of Afdeon they hadn’t seen. It was looking down on the city from the top of a mountain, or maybe some point higher in the sky. Cade opened the door for her and asked her what she might need.

To her great surprise, a beautiful gown made of some light material, that was the same yellow color of her eyes, had been laid out for her. The way its belted waist and layered shoulders were cut allowed for it to fit a woman with either a smaller, or larger, stature than her.

“A gift from Princess Gretta,” Cade explained. “About an hour before you’ll be escorted to the King’s Gathering Hall for the night’s festivities, two of her ladies will attend you with brushes and perfumes and such.”

“Oh thank you, Cade,” she said, so informally that it startled the giant when she hugged his waist. “Please give her my thanks.”

When the giant came back out of her room his look was perplexed. Hyden motioned for him to come into the room he had chosen for himself, Oarly, and Phen. Its door showed a sailing ship climbing a huge breaking wave during a stormy night at sea. Lightning split the sky, silhouetting the giant standing on the deck of the tossed vessel. He was trying to harpoon some undefined scaly thing which was rising up out of the ocean. The detail in the depictions mystified Hyden. He couldn’t fathom carving wood so well.

Once Cade was inside the room, Hyden shut the door. “You might take a moment to speak with the elven guardsman, Corva,” Hyden suggested. “The princess lost her memory and doesn’t seem to want to be treated as royalty. She definitely doesn’t want to be reminded of her past yet.”

“She wants to restore her memory to herself at the Leif Repline,” Phen explained. “But she doesn’t want to be influenced before then. She only learned a few days ago that she was the Queen Mother’s daughter and heir.”

“That brings up a most peculiar set of circumstances,” Cade said. “King Aldar had intended to honor her coming this evening. His daughter wants to get acquainted with her.”

“Would you tell King Aldar for me?” Hyden asked. “It would probably be better to keep our meeting private. Of course, Princess Gretta should be included. I’ve met her, and I will gladly explain to her Princess Telgra’s predicament.”

“That I can do,” said Cade thankfully. “His Majesty will be glad to avoid making our lady elf any more uncomfortable than she must already be.”

Later, standing near the entryway by the lift waiting for Cade, Jicks was complaining about not getting the apartment that Lieutenant Welch had chosen. Jicks had gotten the door with the hunting great wolves depicted on it. He admitted that this would have been his second choice, but he and Krey would rather have the door showing the great battle scene between giants and trolls. Huge clubs, spears, and thrown rocks rained down. Both sides had taken plenty of damage and the situation looked desperate. It was gripping.

“At least you didn’t get the silly tree,” one of them said.

“What about Spike?” Phen asked Hyden. It was all he could do to peel his eyes away from Telgra. Seeing her fresh and clean took his breath away.

Talon was perched proudly on Hyden’s shoulder, preening himself. The bird had arrived at their apartment’s windowsill after leaving them for a while.

“There might be great wolves in the hall tonight,” Hyden warned.

“Spike is coming with me,” Telgra said matter-of-factly. She appeared to be very nervous. “I doubt we’ll stay very long. If the wolves end up with noses full of quills, it will be their own fault.”

Corva sighed in distress. He was sure the princess was about to unintentionally shame her great station in front of the King of Giants and his family.