My Royal Pain Quest (The Lakeland Knight series, #2) (14 page)

So there was another remedy. That’s good to know.

“I have means of obtaining information,” I smiled. “And not all of us have gotten through unharmed. The prince was knocked out. I used no remedy on him.”

“Ha!” Morgard plopped on a chair. “You do know stuff! So you had his memory wiped, and then?”

“Told him I was his best friend.”

“Aaaaahahahaha!” The chieftain kicked his legs in the air, roaring with laughter. “His… his… Arkus, you’re killing me! That’s brilliant, whatever you have in mind! So that’s why you weren’t at each other’s throats!”

“Precisely.” I paused, letting him catch his breath. “There is something I don’t know though, and I need your input here. Will his memory return?”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t know that myself. They usually don’t live long enough to find out, haha! My guys set the smoke up and then go pick up whoever they find knocked out or wandering empty-headed.”

“Hmm. I see.”

“Why, is that important?”

“Somewhat. I can’t tell you all the details of the scheme I’m working, but it is in my current interest to see him safely home. Alive and well.”

“Oh.” Morgard grew serious. “We might have a problem here. I wasn’t exactly planning on letting him go.”

I was afraid of that.

“May I ask why?”

“You’ll see, I’ll show you everything. It has something to do with this little thing here,” he gave a loving pat to the leather case still in his hand. “I bet you don’t know much about this one, no matter how sneaky you are.”

“You’re right about that,” I admitted. “All I know is that the prince was bringing you a mirror shard.”

“Yes. Secret knowledge, you see. I paid a fortune for it. Shall I show you right now? I can’t wait to try it…” Morgard sat clutching the case, his impatience clearly written across his face. “Ah, no, we will celebrate first! I can wait a bit more.”

He rose and gave me a clap on the shoulder.

“Don’t worry about the prince thing, I’m sure we can work something out. The League has regulations about such conflicts of interest. This is too great of a day to worry about anything! I want to celebrate! I’ll order a feast. You are invited, together with your best friend the prince, haha!”

“Thank you, Morgard, this is most generous. I don’t think I care for the menu though.”

“Now why does everyone think all we do is eat human flesh here, for breakfast, dinner, and supper? Could you eat only chicken all day, every day? No? Don’t worry, it will be what you’d call a normal meal, with a variety of dishes. Even salads. Will that suit you?”

“A salad will be all right, yes.”

Morgard was quick about getting the feast organized. He took me to the main hall—a large gloomy chamber with two long tables—where Cassandra and Kellemar had been waiting and ordered his servants to bring food. He said his cooks worked at all hours and always had something ready to go. Since the servants didn’t have to worry about table cloths, napkins, fine tableware or any other such nonsense, it took them less that fifteen minutes to have the tables covered with pots, bowls, and platters, some steaming, others not.

“Don’t eat anything that looks like meat,” I whispered to Kellemar, taking a seat across from him.

He gave me a surprised look. “Why?”

“Just do what I say. You’ll thank me later.”

I saw Cassandra taking a position behind my chair, obviously intending to serve. I wouldn’t have that.

“Morgard, I wish my manservant Archibald to join us at the table as well. Would that be a problem?”

“No problem at all,” the chieftain replied, “I don’t have strict rules here. Sometimes I dine with my servants myself when I’m bored. The thing is though, they always get spooked when I say, ‘I want you for dinner,’ hahaha!”

I smiled, out of politeness, ignoring Kellemar’s slightly raised eyebrows. Morgard caught the prince’s expression and choked with laughter again. He obviously found Kellemar’s cluelessness most amusing.

“So, Your Highness!” the chieftain went on, doing his best to look serious. “It’s a great honor to have you here. How is King Ramian these days?”

“My father is fine, thank you,” Kellemar replied. “He sends his regards.”

Morgard snorted but managed to keep himself in check.

“Does he? That’s very civil. And how was your journey here? I want to hear all about it.”

“Unfortunately, there is not much to tell. It was rather uneventful.”

Morgard picked up a turkey leg and hid his grin behind it. I gave him a displeased, I-think-you’re-having-too-much-fun look. He eased off and switched to talking about hunting, one of his favorite subjects.

“I might get to hunt some serious game this season,” he said, working hard on that turkey leg. “Perhaps you would want to join me. My men keep reporting seeing this strange beast in the valley, they even call it a monster.”

The monster, yes. That might be a card I’d have to play later.

As I sat carefully picking at my plate of salad, I thought the situation over. Despite Morgard’s assurance, I wasn’t quite certain we would be able to “work something out.” I’d better have a plan of escape ready, as soon as I could. We still missed key pieces of information, but I assumed after the meal Morgard was going to reveal the secret of the mirror shard and what he intended to do with Kellemar. Right now, I couldn’t figure out why he would possibly want to keep him here—or kill him. Vengeance? I didn’t recall Morgard having any conflicts with King Ramian. Further blackmailing? Possibly. If that was the case, I could warn the chieftain that he was walking a fine line. He couldn’t milk this cow forever. Ramian had already gone far enough, agreeing to send a valuable item
and
his son. Push him a bit more and he could snap. He had a good army and enough allies to come down here and level the place. In fact, it was rather surprising he hadn’t done that.

My thoughts were interrupted by Kellemar suddenly throwing down his fork.

“Arkus, you treacherous wicked schemer!”

“Ah, his memory’s back!” Morgard squealed in glee and burst into another fit of wild laughter.

Kellemar jumped to his feet, knocking over his chair, glaring at both of us.

“I hope you’ve enjoyed this farce,” he said through his teeth. “Now that the game is over, and my business here is done, I wish to leave this despicable place.”

“Not so fast.” Morgard grabbed a servant standing near him, pulled him closer and wiped his hands on his clothing. “Since you’re no longer in the mood to feast, let’s go see whether the mirror shard works. If Ramian sent me a fake one…”

“He did not!” Kellemar’s face burned with indignation. “He sent what you demanded, and whether it ‘works’ or not is none of our concern!”

Morgard gave a sly wink. “I bet you are curious to see though. Neither you nor your father have any idea what this mirror is.”

I could tell that Morgard was right, but Kellemar’s pride proved stronger than his curiosity.

“I don’t care to know! We’re leaving!”

“We?” Morgard asked, arching a brow.

“Yes, this snake here,” he nodded in my direction, “and I!”

“But this snake here wants to see what the shard does,” I said.

“At any rate, I’m not releasing you yet, Highness.” Morgard stood up. “Are you coming or do you want to be dragged?”

Kellemar found the sense to spare himself further humiliation.

“Fine.”

Morgard led us out of the hall, through a number of confusing corridors and down steep stairs. We stopped before a massive metal-encased door. As he pulled out a key, I guessed we were about to enter his treasury. I was probably right, but the treasures weren’t many, if any at all—just a couple of medium sized chests in a corner. The lids were closed, so I couldn’t tell. In the middle of the room stood a low table. Stepping closer, I saw a large broken mirror on it. Mirror shards, some larger, some smaller, were arranged together, the way they used to be, forming an oval shape with just one gap left. That’s where Kellemar’s shard was supposed to go—and ours, only Morgard didn’t know that yet.

“As you see, yours is the last piece that completes the puzzle,” he said, closing the door behind us. “Yes, I have gone through the trouble of collecting all fifteen of them. Spent a fortune on it, too, as I’ve already told you, Arkus. But it will be worth every penny. I’ll get a thousand percent return on investment here. Two thousand, or a million, haha! Watch this.”

He pulled the leather case out of his pocket. I braced myself for what was coming.

Morgard opened the case, took the shard and placed it in the gap. It nearly closed it, but not quite. A small, narrow gap remained—precisely in the form of the shard I had tucked away somewhere in my bag.

“What?!” The chieftain looked up, instantly furious. “It’s not the whole thing!”

Kellemar shrugged. “Well, obviously it’s not the last piece, there is another one missing. Nothing I can do about it. Can I go now?”

“No, you can’t!” Morgard leapt to him like a tiger, his true nature now evident, no more hahas. “Ramian did this on purpose! He broke a piece off and kept it! And he’ll pay for it! Dearly!”

“He did no such thing! Get your dirty hands off me!” Kellemar yelled as Morgard grabbed him.

I had to think quick here.

“Calm down, Morgard,” I said, intercepting his fist that was about to slam into the prince’s face. “I want him unharmed, remember? Ramian isn’t stupid. He has already risked enough by sending his son here. Why would he trick you this way? What would he possibly achieve by it except making you mad and getting Kellemar killed?”

Morgard considered that.

“For once, the snake speaks the truth,” the prince said, complimenting me with a glare. “My father has sent the shard he had. We have no knowledge where the other one is. Up until this moment, I had no idea the others even existed.”

“Well. Your father will have to find it. Until he does, I’m keeping you here. I suggest that you write him a letter. Sorry, Arkus.”

The prince stared at him. “But this is ridiculous! How is he supposed to find it?”

“That’s his problem, not mine.”

That was not good at all.

“Morgard, with all due respect, this might not be the best solution,” I said. “Ramian won’t have a clue where to start. You have collected fifteen, you must know it’s not an easy thing, even with the secret knowledge you possess.”

“Tell me about it,” the chieftain grunted. “But I’m at my wits end with this one. I have searched
everywhere
. I was convinced this was the last one. I am out of resources, I could use some help, and I’m using Ramian’s.”

It was then that I made a somewhat rash decision. Oh, how I regretted it later. I should have played along, pretended to agree, told Morgard I’d leave in a day or two, and then escaped with Kellemar using the berries. But I didn’t think of that. All I could see was, Morgard wouldn’t release the prince until he got the shard, and Ramian would never find it. I thought I was solving everything when I said,

“All right. Suppose
I
helped you to get this last shard. Will you let Kellemar go when you have it?”

Morgard turned to me, disbelief struggling with greed in his eyes.

“Now, I hope you are serious, Arkus. I hope you’re not trying to invent something just to get the prince out. The only way I will even consider it is if I’m holding the shard in my hand. No empty promises. No tricks.”

“Of course not. I get you the shard, you release the prince. Deal?”

He studied me. “I release him a week after I have the shard.”

This strange condition should have made me suspicious as well. Alas, it didn’t.

“Do I have your word?”

“Yes.”

I opened my bag I still carried around, found the mirror shard, took it out and handed to Morgard.

***

[Back to Table of Contents]

Morgard grabbed the shard.

“Well, Arkus, aren’t you full of surprises!” He laughed. “I should have known you’ve got something to do with it!”

“Indeed,” Kellemar hissed. “Always plotting, aren’t you?”

I shrugged. “Comes with the profession.”

“No matter.” The chieftain hurried back to the table. “
Now
you’ll get to watch a real miracle.”

He carefully placed the last piece of the mirror in its spot. The oval shape flickered, and the sixteen shards merged together. The mirror was whole.

“Aha!” Morgard cried out, elated. “Wait, that wasn’t the miracle yet!”

He rushed to the chests, opened one of them and pulled out a large golden platter. Putting in on the table next to the mirror, he held the mirror up.

“Do me a favor, Your Highness. Reach into the mirror, take the reflected platter, and pull it out.”

“I will not,” Kellemar snapped.

“Do it or I’ll break your arm.”

Morgard certainly knew how to persuade. We all watched in awe as the prince stepped closer to the mirror and slowly reached out his hand to its surface. Instead of touching it, the hand went right through. Astonishment written on his face, Kellemar closed his fingers on the reflected platter, lifted it, and took it out of the mirror, as if through an open window. Now there were two identical golden platters on the table.

Morgard beamed in triumph.

“See?! What do you say to that?”

“Most impressive,” I answered. “Now I understand why you wanted it so bad.”

I understood something else as well, or perhaps I should say guessed at that point, but I had a strong feeling my guess was correct. A bad feeling, too. Because in that case it was very unlikely that Morgard would
ever
release Kellemar.

“Does one have to be of royal blood to be able to do this?” I asked.

Morgard looked startled. “Why, yes. How did you know?”

“Just a guess. The way you insisted on him doing it gave me a hunch.”

“One can’t be too careful around you, Arkus,” the chieftain grinned. “You’re too smart.” He turned to Kellemar. “Try again.”

The prince didn’t argue this time. He reached out his hand again—but it stopped as the fingers touched the surface. The “window” wouldn’t open.

“I can’t… It’s not working.”

Against all expectations, Morgard didn’t fly into a rage.

“I thought so,” he nodded. “There are all sorts of rules and limitations on what you can pull out, how often and such. They are the strictest regarding gold.”

I figured that was a good thing. Otherwise, whoever owned the mirror would have devalued gold in no time.

“Morgard, we have an agreement, right? One week,” I reminded.

“Right, right.” He wouldn’t meet my eye. “His Highness will help me multiply as many useful things as he can for seven days. Then he can leave.”

I didn’t believe him. For now though, I chose to say nothing.

“If you think I’m going to
work
for you…” Kellemar began.

The look Morgard gave him was pure menace. “Yes?”

The prince swallowed. “You can’t expect me to pull stuff out of this thing for seven days straight.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I need to rest, eat… It’s just unrealistic.”

Morgard grinned. “I’ll spoon feed you. And you will have breaks. Now, let’s not waste time. See if you can do this one.”

He pulled out a dagger and placed it before the mirror.

“Arkus, do you want to watch or should I tell my servants to show you to your room?”

“I’ll watch for a while.”

The prince was able to duplicate the dagger twice. Morgard tried his hunting knife then, but the mirror rejected it. Apparently, it regarded daggers and knives as the same. The chieftain had servants bring vegetables and bread from the kitchen; those were reproduced three times. A live chicken was rejected, and so was a duck. A large silver chalice worked only once, just like the golden platter. It seemed that smaller and simpler items were allowed more duplications, but other than that, the mirror’s logic was hard to catch. Morgard had to work by trial and error, which he seemed content to do all day long.

I left in about an hour. A servant took Cassandra and me to our rooms. They were right next to each other, mine a large but dusty chamber, hers much smaller and dirtier. I hated for her to be in it, but she waved it off.

“No big deal. I’m probably not going to be spending much time here, anyway,” she said.

“So what do you think of this whole mess?” I asked. “It looks like I’ve goofed, haven’t I?”

“By giving him the shard? I probably would have done the same. It seemed like the only option.”

I shook my head. “I should have suspected something. Well, never mind now; we’ll have to see how things go and work with it.”

“I take it Morgard’s word doesn’t mean much?”

“Technically, he shouldn’t be able to just go back on it, the League does not allow that. But rules have been bent before. I’m sure he’ll try.”

Morgard found me some time later, after I’d taken a tour of the castle and taught his barbarians to respect my manservant by sending one of them through the wall of a shed. Not that Cassandra couldn’t stand for herself; it was the noise of her giving a lesson of her own that had attracted my attention to begin with. She was considerably smaller in stature than Morgard’s brutes, which tempted them to pick on her, as soon as she’d left my side. Cassandra’s curved blade expertly slashed the offenders’ clothes, leaving no mark on the body and nothing to cover that fact. The onlookers howled with laughter. I turned to see what the merriment was about; at first it seemed that no intervention was necessary, but then a twin brother of one of the disgraced warriors tried to sneak up on Cassandra from the back, club in hand. He was the one who ended up in the shed.

Morgard showed up just then, laughing and applauding. It turned out he watched the performance.

“Your Archibald sure doesn’t carry his blade just for decoration, haha!” he commented. “Did you train him yourself?”

“No, I was lucky to hire him already trained.”

The chieftain shooed away the remaining spectators.

“So what do you think of my place?”

“It’s bigger than mine.”

He was flattered. “Really? Bigger than
Blackriver
Castle
?”

“Not by far, but yes. Where’s my best friend? Still working?”

“He is, haha! I left a couple of guys with him. Nothing seems to go through anymore, it appears that the mirror is done for the day, but I told them to keep trying.”

“So there’s a certain number of duplications the mirror allows each day?”

“Something like that; nobody knows for sure. This was the hardest information to obtain.”

“Well, you’ll find out tomorrow.”

Morgard nodded. “I will. Can you tell me where you found that last shard? I can’t believe I had missed it. Several sources said there were fifteen.”

“Someone might have broken a larger piece in two later on.”

I saw no reason to keep the location secret, so I told him about the island. He was most amazed.

“An island in the middle of the Scorpian sea? This just makes no sense. How in the world could it get there?”

I shrugged. No good villain ever shares all the info.

“How do you like your room?” Morgard asked.

“It is good, thank you.”

“I assume you’ll visit at least for a couple days?”

I knew what he was probing for.

“I would actually like to stay for the whole week, if you don’t mind,” I answered.

He didn’t like it, I could see.

“You don’t trust me to keep my word?” he asked upfront.

You bet.
That was not what I said though.

“It’s not that. There is a circumstance you are not yet aware of.”

I played the beast card. As I expected, Morgard found it hard to believe.

“You’re telling me the creature my guys keep seeing is following Kellemar?”

“That’s right. He will haunt the place as long as the prince is here.”

The chieftain narrowed his eyes. “It doesn’t scare me, you know.”

“Oh, I’m not trying to scare you. Just relaying the facts. The beast is after Kellemar, only I can protect him, so I must stick around. And you need to know something else, Morgard: I would not recommend trying to hunt that thing. No weapon will harm it.”

“Now you’ve made me all curious.”

“I’m serious. Don’t risk your life and don’t waste your men.”

***

The week dragged on, with nothing for us to do except wandering over the castle and watching Morgard’s barbarians do their chores, quarrel, and fight. It dragged even more for Kellemar, I’m sure. Morgard worked the prince without mercy, allowing him only a few hours of sleep each night after hundreds of failed duplication attempts, when he was certain the mirror would do no more. Kellemar was placed into a room not far from ours, with two guards at his door at all times. Morgard was not comfortable with crowds of servants frequenting his treasury, so he had the prince work there. The guards also followed him everywhere on the rare occasions the prince would be permitted to leave the room. I checked on him several times, but we didn’t talk. Kellemar must have felt too humiliated.

Morgard did not heed my warning regarding the beast. One day he was gone all morning, then he came to me, pale and flustered.

“You weren’t kidding about that… that monster,” he said.

“Ah, so you have made his acquaintance.”

“Me and ten of my men. Only five survived. Three unhurt.”

“Could have been worse.”

The chieftain shook his head. “I threw a spear at that thing. It bounced off like…”

“A match?”

“Yes.”

“I told you it would.”

“What in the world is it?”

“A supernatural creature from a different realm, stuck in ours and mad about it.”

Morgard stood there, rubbing his chin, processing it. “And you say it’s after Kellemar?”

“That’s right.”

“Does that mean it might try to get in the castle?”

“He most certainly will at some point.”

I wished the beast would do it that very night, to help prove my words since Morgard seemed to think I was trying to scare him again, but he didn’t. The chieftain made no more hunting attempts, but he was not frightened enough to kick Kellemar out. His greed outweighed caution. And the greed was growing with each piece of gold he managed to reproduce.

“It looks like we might have to make a run for it,” I told Cassandra on the sixth day. “The week is nearly over, and I don’t think Morgard has changed his mind.”

“Do you have a plan?” she asked.

“We must wait out the remaining days, to give Morgard a chance to keep his word—that’s a League regulation. After that, it’s berry time.”

“Invisibility?”

“Yes, at first. I’ll go to Kellemar, give him one, then walk out and tell the guards he’s not there. When they start running around looking for him, you and I eat invisibility berries as well, pick him up and get out. We might fly, too. What do you think?”

“Good plan. You’ll need to let the prince in on it.”

“I’ll go do that right now.”

I had free access to Kellemar’s room. Somehow, Morgard did not find it necessary to restrict our communication. He probably thought his guards numerous enough to not worry about an escape. And if it wasn’t for the berries, it would have been so.

I entered the room, closing the door behind me. The prince glanced up and went back to his work. He was going through a pile of coins, mostly copper with a few silver ones. The mirror continued to reject them, but obviously Morgard had ordered him to try each one anyway.

“The week ends tomorrow,” I said, keeping my voice low.

Kellemar glanced up again, just as briefly. “He won’t let me go, you know that.”

“Most likely. We’ll have to escape.”

“How?”

“There is a way. I’ll need one thing from you. You must promise to do what I say and eat all berries I give you, without question.”

He looked uncomfortable. “Oh.”

“You have a problem with that?”

“N-no.”

“Good.”

I proceeded to share the plan. Kellemar listened, eyes down on the coins. For now, I only told him about the invisibility, leaving the flying ability out. One thing at a time. He was surprised, of course, but asked no questions.

“Is everything clear?”

He nodded. It seemed that he wanted to say something, but didn’t.