Michael Mathias - Kings, Queens, Heroes, and Fools

The next man to be interrogated had been waiting right outside the door under guard and heard the cries of the man before him. When he came in he was terrified and ready to talk, but to Mikahl’s disappointment he knew less than the first man. His yelling and screaming however, sounded far more agonized and convincing than the first man’s had. The third man named a prisoner who knew the details before Mikahl had even finished the first question. Maxrell Tyne was the name, and he was one of Dreg’s captains.

Maxrell Tyne was frank with Mikahl. He was loyal to the coin, not to Dreg, or any other man.

“You’ll never spend another copper if you don’t tell me everything you know about the man who carried that sword.” Mikahl’s gaze left no room for argument. “You’ll not leave this room.”

Maxrell didn’t disappoint. He told Mikahl everything. “The man with the gold took a boat with a mercenary named Grommen. They are headed to Southport to search for the man’s wife and niece. The man said he found the sword on a body at Summer’s Day. I heard him myself.”

Mikahl was ecstatic. It had to be Lord Gregory. The Lion Lord hadn’t left his sword at Summer’s Day, he had taken it into the mountains. He asked Maxrell for the name the man had given, and when he heard the answer, he was sure beyond all doubt that Lord Alvin Gregory was alive and well, and seeking Lady Trella and Lord Ellrich’s little daughter, Lady Zasha.

Mikahl happily corrected his thought. Zasha wasn’t so little any more. She was a beautiful young lady. He hoped that she and Lady Trella had survived the madness. “You could recognize this Grommen?” he asked.

Maxrell Tyne nodded. Mikahl then made his prisoner an offer that couldn’t be refused.

Mikahl told General Spyra most of his newest plan and the man laughed a deep laugh of joyous mirth. General Spyra was unbelievably happy about his part in the things to come. When he and forty five of his best men rode back into Dreen wearing blue cloaks no one would suspect a thing. The gates to the city would open right up for them. King Broderick would think that his soldiers were home from their treachery, at least until General Spyra took him into custody. After that happened, General Spyra would become the acting ruler of Valleya. He could send for his new wife, Lady Mandary, and she could come live like a queen until Mikahl finished what he was going to do. She would love him for it, he was certain.

Hyden couldn’t say which smelled worse, the cavern they were in, or the dwarf. Oarly was still drunk from the previous night’s feasting. Brady was as well, but Oarly had apparently bathed in spirits of some sort. He smelled like a monastery’s brew barn-like fermenting fruit and yeast. The cavern, on the other hand, smelled of brine and rot. Something had died down in the passageway and Hyden could tell by the sickly sweet odor that the death had been relatively recent.

Hyden’s head was pounding, more from the heady smoke the bonfires had bellowed out late last night, than from the few goblets of ale he drank. He didn’t know what green plant it was that the painted Ja Jebba sorcerers had thrown on the fire, but its smoke had been uplifting, to say the least. It still amused him that Captain Trant called the Ja Jebba village sorcerers ‘juju wizards.’ Their language fit his mocking description well. Every other word they spoke sounded like “ju”, “ja”, or “jo”. Their almond skin and wickedly painted faces made them seem to turn into fantastical things as the pungent smoke took effect on the people gathered around the fires. Their honey-skinned half-naked women had, as Captain Trant promised, known exactly what parts of their bodies to gyrate and exactly how to gyrate them. The only negative aspect of the whole experience was the fact that no one in the group had been allowed to sleep off the haze of the evening.

Before dawn broke the horizon, Phen was raring to go. As soon as they landed on the island, the eager young mage purchased a map of the tombs. He discounted it entirely. It showed the same caverns that the sailors he’d questioned had visited. He knew there was no teasure in them. While the others drooled and drank and floated on the smoky high, Phen was busy. He bribed a native who worked at the inn they were staying at, and learned of an ancient tribesman whose daughter sold love potions, charmed trinkets, and curses. He had to buy a sackful of useless crud to learn what he wanted, but after spending enough coins and teaching the woman a minor spell of finding, she let him speak to her father. The old man had cackled with delight when his daughter told him that Phen was searching for the real tombs of the Jakarri.

“Who knows?” the woman translated the old man’s words to Phen. “The Jakarri have been dead for two thousand years, but there is a place on the island where you might find something very interesting.” The woman looked at her father with more than a little concern showing when he named the place. She didn’t seem to like the idea of translating its location to Phen, which made Phen all the more eager to learn it.

“The Serpent’s Eye,” she finally said with a voice full of reluctance. She showed Phen its general location on the map she’d sold him. It wasn’t labeled as such-it was just a cove on a stretch of rocky shore. “You’ll have to enter at low tide and by boat,” she told him. “The eye closes when the tide comes up. But be warned, none who have ventured there have ever returned.”

Now here they were, still reeling from the night before, hunched in a low-ceilinged cavern watching the tide close up the only way out. Deck Master Biggs had let them off and rowed out of the cavern some hours ago. Talon was outside as well. The hawkling was hunting the glade of windblown trees at the top of the rocky formation they were inside of. Hyden wanted his familiar close so that he might send him for aid if the need arose.

They had already followed one of the two passages that led away from the entrance. It terminated in an ancient pile of bones, many of them human. They were scattered about a long abandoned nest of some sort. Phen found a rusty shirt of chain mail, a broken dagger, and a chain made of fine silver with an ornate key dangling from it. In a dried out oil cloth sack, he also discovered a small journal. The pages were brittle and the wire-thread binding was ruined, but the strange text that had been expertly scribed within could still be made out. Phen carefully wrapped the old volume and put it in his pack. Then he put the silver chain over his head with a proud grin of accomplishment.

Phen was so pleased with what he found that he already agreed to return to the inn without exploring further. The others wanted to sleep off their agony, but there was a problem: the tide had already risen past the point of no return. Now they were stuck in the cavern until the tide withdrew. After coming to terms with their plight, the others agreed to explore the other passage with Phen just as soon as they had a meal and a took short nap.

They ate dried salted meat and cheese, with fresh bread Phen purchased from the inn’s cook. After they had eaten, Oarly and Brady both lay back and rested. Hyden used the time to practice a simple illumination spell that Phen had already mastered. When it was cast properly, a small fist-sized ball of yellow radiance, about as bright as an oil lantern, would appear in the caster’s hand. It would rise above his head and hover there, following him wherever he went, until he broke the spell with a gesture and a spoken word.

Hyden had managed it a few times, but more often than not, his sphere appeared too small or misshapen, and the light was some strange mixture of green and orange that barely lit his hand when it formed.