Anthology: Realms of Valor

"And the legends you've heard, they hold the Palace of Skulls to be in this part of Llyrath?"

"Yes. It's said that mad Prince Ketheryll built the great fortress in Llyrath with the heads of his enemies. That was at the time when Gwynneth and the rest of the Moonshaes were only a lot of small principalities. Ketheryll made war on all of his neighbors. They say his cruelty was surpassed only by his might." The youth shrugged. "He must have been pretty tough, since he eventually drove all the other humans from southern Gwynneth."

"All the tales claim that he was a ruthless master," Pawldo agreed. "His conquests are matters of history, though I'd always presumed his reputation for bloodshed to be exaggerated. Still, no one seems to doubt the tales of his Doomed Legion." At Stefanik's puzzled look, Pawldo added, "At least no one outside of Llyrath. The legion was made up of his lieutenants, each magically branded with the skull that was their master's symbol."

"I'd heard that each of the prince's men had sworn to give his life to protect him," Stefanik admitted, "but never anything about them being branded. It's not surprising, though, since the prince was always so interested in magic."

Pawldo laughed. "It's so ironic that the wizard Flamsterd and his spellcasting finally proved Ketheryll's undoing, since he was so taken with sorcery himself."

"Aye-the wizard and the Earthmother. The humans say the goddess exacted revenge against Ketheryll because he distressed the Balance." Stefanik nodded seriously.

"The tales I've heard all over the Moonshaes include the Earthmother," the older halfling said. "Had you heard that Ketheryll dedicated his gruesome fortress to the new moon of the summer solstice? He held a great celebration with his most loyal followers. They killed hundreds of captives in a grim arena-called the Circus Bizarre, I seem to remember-simply for the amusement of the prince and his evil band. It's said that he captured the young king and queen of a human realm and put them to death along with the rest"

"They were the first human monarchs to fly the banner of the Great Bear," Stefanik chimed in. "Imagine-they were put to death by Ketheryll, but their symbol has lived on to become the talisman of the high kings of the Ffolk. I used to believe that the king must have been taken by treachery, but now I think maybe he was captured by the Legion of the Damned."

"The Doomed Legion," Pawldo corrected.

"And it was on the moonless night of the slaughter that the curse took effect," Stefanik whispered, then glanced at the night sky.

"Yes-the spell of the wizard, coupled with the vengeful might of the Earthmother. A black fog rolled from the forest," Pawldo said, his voice a hoarse whisper, his eyes wide as he looked into the shadows around their fire. "It cloaked the gathering for a full fortnight, and for all that time Ketheryll and his legion huddled in their palace, fearing to go forth into the world. Then, on the night of the solstice, under the light of that full moon, the fog dissipated. And the Palace of Skulls was gone-Ketheryll and all his men with it," the lord mayor concluded.

"All but one!" Stefanik interjected. When Pawldo looked at him in surprised confusion, the young halfling continued. "That's the tale in Llyrath, at least. A thief named Garius, a rogue who'd traveled all across the world, was among Ketheryll's men. Garius had grown to despise his evil master- the thief appreciated wrongdoing for profit's sake, but had no taste for wanton cruelty. It's said that under the cover of the fog, he fled his master and his gruesome palace!"

"Did he escape?" inquired Pawldo, intrigued by this new version of the legend.

"No one knows for certain," Stefanik said, his voice hushed. "Everyone thinks he got away before the curse took Ketheryll, but no one saw him again. Some say he escaped the castle, but not the prince's terrible magic." He shrugged. "Most of the old folks in Llyrath Downs say Garius was transformed into something horrible as punishment for his treachery."

"Maybe that's true," Pawldo noted with a yawn. "But we won't ever find out if any of these legends are true unless we get some rest."

"Then we can talk about it more tomorrow, I guess," Stefanik said cheerily. "We'll have time, since it'll take us most of the day to get to the place where I found the dagger. But it won't be hard to find. Like I told you, it's at the fork of two streams."

"Splendid, splendid," replied Pawldo. His voice trailed off, and, despite a few persistent questions from his young companion, the lord mayor of Lowhill would make no more speculations-aloud, at any rate.

The next day they began to move through the shadowy reaches of the forest. Dark, thick trunks rose around them, leafy branches crowding the air, forming a dense canopy overhead. The verdant ceiling blocked any ray of sunlight from reaching the ground, and the two halflings rode through a dim twilight. A soft bed of moss, leaves, and pine needles covered the ground, allowing for easy travel.

Pawldo felt a confining, almost claustrophobic sense of oppression as they rode between the pillars of rough bark. He soon missed the open stretches of the moors, where even the mist seemed distant and friendly compared to these looming sentinels. The air was moist and cloying, with humidity that dampened his forehead and an overpowering scent of dirt and pine. He longed for a breath of wind-an eternal companion on the moor-and yet not a breeze stirred the trees.

Toward the middle of the day they reached the bank of a deep, cold creek. "The Birchbrook," Stefanik announced. "If we follow it upstream, we'll come to the place where I found the dagger."

Even the waterway lay within the shroud of Llyrath's canopy, for the trees on either bank were so huge and soaring that the width of the streambed could not keep their branches from mingling. Gray boulders jutted from the murky waters, the river washing around them in eerie silence.

For the rest of the afternoon the halflings made their way along the banks of the Birchbrook. The stream surged with relentless force, but it seemed unusually quiet to Pawldo. The water was deep, often collecting in dark pools after a tumbling spill down a chute or over a short drop. Yet even in these rapids the Birchbrook did not splash and froth as he would have expected. The veteran traveler found something in the stealthy stream even more unsettling than the cloaking forest.

"There!" cried Stefanik, urging his pony forward. "See where the two creeks come together?"

"Yes. Good guiding, lad," Pawldo replied, pleased.

Two smaller streams formed a Y as they merged to create the deeper, wider Birchbrook. The right branch frolicked down a stairway like progression of stone shelves. In some places, the branches overhead actually gapped slightly, allowing thin beams of sunlight to reflect brilliantly from the surface. The river's left branch seemed to Pawldo more like the Birchbrook proper-it meandered through a channel that was not as steep as the other. Though the current moved quickly, the water didn't splash with the same vitality as its neighboring stream.

"In the middle-that's where I camped. I found the dagger there," Stefanik explained.

As they approached the spot, Pawldo saw that the place between the two channels indeed seemed like a perfect camping site. The ground was flat, free of trunks and roots. Several large rocks had been gathered in a protective circle, providing a windbreak for a fire and screening any blaze from casual observation.

"We can cross the right branch," continued the young halfling. "There's a good ford there."

The two ponies waded into the stream, which splashed only to their knees, then emerged onto the flat clearing. The charred embers of an old fire huddled between several of the boulders Pawldo had seen earlier.