Rob Scott - Lessek_s Key

‘I had trouble getting you to walk most of the time,’ Hoyt agreed.

Alen looked up from the saddle bags. ‘That is precisely why I believe Nerak wants the bark. He can refine it, or do something to control it, I’d bet my bones on that.’

‘But he already has the occupation army, the taxes and tariffs – what more could he squeeze out of Eldarn that he would need a village full of hysterical, screaming, babbling slaves?’ Hoyt still wasn’t convinced.

Alen frowned. Was it obvious only to him? ‘Nerak wants what Nerak has always wanted, my friends: supreme power, power and control over everything. He wants life and death in his hands. He wants to reign like a god over all he can see and all he can imagine. There is an awesome evil waiting out there for Nerak to open the door and when it arrives, it will bring down death and devastation, and Nerak will finally have what he wants. He will have brought about the end of all things.’ And he wants Pikan. But he cannot have her, not any more.

‘Nerak can use this bark to control the minds of the living, and he can revel in our suffering while he works to bring about the end of us all. So to answer your question: Nerak would want this because no one else in Eldarn would be hideous enough to ensnare who knows how many in the worst nightmare of their lives while they toil away at whatever reprehensible task he has dreamed up, either just for his own enjoyment, or, worse, for the eventual destruction of all we know.’

Alen kicked out their campfire. ‘We will see things between here and Welstar Palace, even inside Welstar Palace, that will stay with us for the rest of our lives, and whatever it is he is using this bark for will be one of those horrors. You can bet on it, my friends.’

Hoyt swallowed hard. ‘Now I’m feeling a bit tired.’

‘You and me both,’ Hannah said.

Alen smiled and tucked the pouch back inside his cloak. ‘Then let’s get ourselves to a nice warm inn. We’ll go wild and get comfortable beds with down pillows and soft wool blankets.’

‘And venison, with gravy – tenderloin,’ Hoyt added in a burst of enthusiasm.

‘Expensive choice, Hoyt, but you’ve had a hard day gathering firewood.’ Alen considered the immense pile of sticks and branches. ‘Venison all round then.’

That night, Hoyt fell asleep earlier than usual, though he really hadn’t suffered from any overwhelming feeling of fatigue. Churn followed his friend a short time later, carrying a flagon of wine as an aid to sleep; Hannah heard the wooden steps groan and creak in protest as the big man passed.

Alen reached for the remaining wine and started to refill Hannah’s goblet when she stopped him, protesting, ‘No thanks, Alen, I’m already getting dizzy. I’ll have some of the water, please.’

‘As you like.’ He complied, pouring from the stoneware pitcher beside Hoyt’s empty trencher. ‘But I don’t recommend the water – it’s a boring vintage, horribly similar to last year’s.’

Hannah chuckled at the reference to her world. ‘How many trips did you make across the Fold?’

‘Too many to count,’ he answered. ‘I learned so many languages on my journeys back and forth that they started to become confused in my head, all those tenses and cases jumbling together. Do you know how many ways there are to make reference to pasta in Italian?’

‘No.’ She grinned at the thought.

‘No one does, but there have to be hundreds, maybe thousands. All that oni, illi, elli, I just want it in a bowl, gods, is that too much to ask?’ He slapped the table with one hand, a little drunk himself, the first time Hannah had seen Alen like this since they had left Praga. He drank, and held the goblet against his chest as he sat back in his chair. ‘Yes, there were many wonderful journeys.’

‘Yet I see so little of our world here. Why is that?’

Alen sat forward, the long-ago lost teacher in him coming into hazy focus for a moment. ‘Oh, there used to be much more, but we have let it all fade, or we’ve forgotten how to do things properly. It’s remarkable how quickly an advanced society on the edge of greatness can disintegrate when people don’t have what they need to survive. The whole world’s focus changes, turns inwards, and progress grinds to a halt. Back then, it was industrial-age technology, that’s what we were after at the time: printing, education, public health, medicine… We had made such progress here, and our own scientists and researchers were finding ways to enrich our efforts with the magic inherent in this land. But those days, the exciting news was the industrial boom. Gods, but I would have given anything to figure out how to bring back a blast furnace.’

‘Why not just build one here?’

‘We would have, if Nerak hadn’t ruined everything. Do you know that there were metal ships in your world at the time? Imagine a navy with metal ships…’

‘I don’t have to imagine it, Alen,’ Hannah said, reaching for the water pitcher again, ‘I’ve seen it all, and you’re right: a fleet of wooden ships would be sunk in less than half an aven. The fight would be over before our modern ships had appeared over the horizon.’

Alen was hanging on her every word. ‘So it remains a wondrous place then?’

‘We have some way to go still, but all things considered, it is a remarkable place, yes. Mind you, there are drawbacks, and we’ve got our oddities too: we have to print warnings on coffee cups saying the drink’s hot! Can you imagine anything that absurd?’

Alen, a little taken aback, asked, ‘Is your coffee not served hot any more? I remember it being quite delicious that way. Tea also.’

‘Like I said,’ Hannah dismissed it with a wave of her hand, ‘some oddities and a few drawbacks.’

‘Regardless, I would love to see it again. One more trip.’ He stacked his plate neatly on top of Hoyt’s, then added Churn’s.

‘You can,’ Hannah said. ‘You should all come back with me. You’ve said yourself, time and again, that there’s nothing left for you here. Your family is gone. Why stay just to die? Is it because of Lessek? Is it really his intention that you live this long, in solitude, then just march into Welstar Palace and die?’

‘No, I’m sure there’s more, and I’m sure it has something to do with you. But after that’s done, I will rest.’

Hannah changed the subject. ‘Tell me about Nerak.’

‘Why? I was having a nice time.’ Alen glanced towards the door as three soldiers entered the tavern. They looked as if they were off duty for the evening. The former Larion Senator scowled at them. ‘Grand. And now we add these scum to the evening. This place is falling apart around us, Hannah. We should flee into the night, or at least until we find a different tavern.’

‘Right here will be fine, Alen, and as for that crew, just ignore them. All we’re doing is having a late dinner and a few drinks.’ She filled a goblet with water and pushed it across to the old man; having him falling-down drunk wouldn’t do now, not with Malakasians in the room. She would have been happy to ignore one night of revelry, but if he began making disparaging comments now, it could mean the imprisonment and torture of them both. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘have some of this.’

Alen shrugged. He was too tired to argue with her. Gripping both goblets, he asked, ‘Now, what were we talking about?’

Hannah raised a finger as if to say, wait one moment. The soldiers were heading for the bar and she wanted to listen to their conversation as they passed. She couldn’t glean much, just a few snippets. She still wasn’t familiar with the curious lilt of the Malakasian dialect; she’d never be able to fool anyone into believing she was a native.

Was in Orindale Harbour, but I hear it sank, she heard.