The Final Storm (16 page)
“You see, our scouts reported that Queen Illaria and her kin had sought refuge within the walls of Alleble. There should not be even a single brave left in that part of The Realm.”
Aidan felt like his blood had turned to ice water. He had no idea what to say.
“No, you were not pursued by Yewland’s Braves, were you, Blarrak?” Kearn said, his eyes glinting red. “A convenient story—but not especially intelligent. I know what you did.”
A
idan gripped Blarrak’s barbed spear so tightly that his knuckles cracked. His other hand drifted slowly to the hilt of Fury. His stomach was tied in knots.
“I guess your game all too easily,” Kearn continued. “You never liked Galdoth much, did you? And this was a perfect opportunity to do something about it. You had Galdoth unarmed, at your mercy. With him out of the way, more gold for all of you. Greedy scoundrels!”
“We did no such thing,” Drang said. “Though it is true none of us liked Galdoth very much . . . we did not do him in. We found many prints near the old tree. The bowhawkers left a company of braves behind . . . or maybe more. Perhaps Queen Illaria sent back a company to search the old tree.”
Kearn stared at Aidan, and then backed slowly away. “Say what you wish,” Kearn said at last. “But with a few creative twists of my own, I can use your lame excuse for a story to persuade Paragor to spare your miserable hides.” And with that, Kearn turned and walked swiftly out of the main cavern.
Aidan sighed. Kearn had been far too close for comfort. But in those moments while Kearn had been so close, Aidan had seen the book he carried. He was almost certain it was Antoinette’s
Book of Alleble
.
She must be here,
he thought.
Drang and the other dragon riders headed to a dining hall through a descending tunnel on the left of the cavern. Aidan hung back. At the first bend in the tunnel, he left them and ran back to the horrific cavern just inside the Gate of Despair.
The activity level in the cavern had increased markedly: Dragons were being saddled; the catapults and wagons were being wheeled out; and soldiers were arming themselves at the racks of weapons.
Drang had said that Kearn kept his pet in one of the towers. Trying not to be conspicuous, Aidan began making his way around the perimeter to the back of the cavern, searching for an opening that led upward. The first two clearly went down. The next one had a very tall arched entrance. The path beyond went neither up nor down, but rather straight in.
While he pondered where to go next, a strange warm breeze wafted out from the depths of the passage.
Could the tunnel open up somewhere else, perhaps even outside?
Aidan placed his hand on his sword’s handle, and warily made his way into the tunnel.
The passage was lit with torches, but the light was weak and flickered with the breeze. The terrain continued to be flat, though here and there Aidan’s boots crunched down on something brittle that snapped or splattered in small dark pools. “Oh, man!” Aidan exclaimed when he turned a corner. The odor was far stronger here. “If I survive this, I won’t be able to smell anything for a month!” he said as he made a feeble attempt to bury his nose and mouth in the crook of his elbow.
Aidan pressed on, until at last he came to a place where the path widened into a large room. Though the light from the torches was almost useless here, he could see about a half-dozen barred cells on either side of the passage. Beyond the cells, Aidan noted that the path split. The fork to the left was very narrow and looked to slope upward. The fork to the right had an enormous jagged appearance, but Aidan could not see well enough to tell what direction the other path took.
Aidan approached the first cell cautiously. It turned out to be empty. Just a small stool and an old tunic, tattered and stained. The next two cells were empty as well.
“Please, no!” came a raspy voice from behind. Aidan spun around and saw a pale withered arm flailing from a cell across the room. “Leave us be!”
“What?” Aidan exclaimed. “What did you say?”
Suddenly, a pale face appeared between the bars. It was a Glimpse with a long white beard and sunken eyes. “Please do not take me!” he said, and his eyes glinted green.
“I’m not taking you anywhere!” Aidan explained, realizing there were other cells nearby and all were filled with prisoners.
“Let us starve!” said the prisoner. “But please do not take us to—” He never finished the sentence, for there was a sudden noise from the other side of the room. Soldiers were coming. Their torches lit the way ahead of them, and they appeared from one branch of the path that Aidan hadn’t realized was forked. Aidan barely made it to a pocket of shadows near where he had come in.
“How many?” asked one of the Paragor Knights, gesturing to the cells.
“All of them,” replied another.
“All of them?” asked the first. “Are you sure?”
“There is no mistake,” replied the other. “By order of the master: The firstborn must be given all, for he has much work to do.”
The first knight turned to his men. “Open the cells. Get the lot of them!”
Aidan watched as systematically the Paragor Knights went from cell to cell, dragging out the frail Glimpses from each one. The prisoners shrieked and scratched, but they were far too weak to offer much resistance. Soon all the cells were empty, and the Paragor Knights rushed off with their captives down the fork.
Though he knew he probably shouldn’t, Aidan left his hiding place and followed them.
A
ntoinette sat in the center of her shadowy cell. The gray light from her small window wasn’t much, but it gave her enough light to fiddle with her ring.
He called this a riddle ring,
she remembered, thinking of the craftsman in Edge who had given it to her.
More than meets the eye, he said.
She could see the dozens of interlocking gold and silver bands, but she couldn’t find the point where they unwound.
She looked again at the keyhole on the shackles that held her ankle chains to the cell floor. More determined than ever, she went back to tugging at the ring.
If I could just get this
. . . she gritted her teeth and twisted the blue onyx. Suddenly there was an audible click. The onyx came loose, and a silver band of metal sprang free.
“Yes!” she exclaimed, but before she could unravel the rest of the ring, she heard footsteps in the hall. The chamber door swung inward and Kearn appeared. Antoinette hid the ring behind her.
He entered the chamber without a word and placed a long bundle upon the stool near the corner. Then he turned and looked at Antoinette. There was something strange about his demeanor. He did not bear his usual confident sneer. He stood with his head slightly downcast and his shoulders hunched. His hair was unkempt and his cloak was draped unevenly on his shoulders. Kearn looked worn out, withered, defeated.
“Kearn?” Antoinette whispered gently.
“I have just come from speaking with my master,” Kearn said almost inaudibly. “The attack in Ludgeon is under way. We begin the march to Alleble in two hours’ time. In a few days our forces will be arrayed before the walls of your city . . .”
“But?” Keeping the ring behind her, Antoinette stood to see Kearn’s eyes. Kearn looked past her to the window.
“You will be left here under heavy guard until after King Eliam has fallen and Alleble is secure. Then you will be summoned.” Kearn’s voice trailed off again, and he turned away.
“He plans to kill me, doesn’t he?” Antoinette asked him.
Kearn did not turn around. “Turn you or kill you. Yes, that is his plan.”
“I will never turn to him,” Antoinette said. “I follow King Eliam and none other.”
Kearn spun around and, with anger burning in his eyes, flew to the bars of Antoinette’s cell. “Then you will die, you willful, stubborn wretch! Do you not see how futile your allegiance is? The power is ours now!”
“I already told you.” Antoinette stretched her chains to their limit and stood face-to-face with Kearn at the bars. “Power is not all there is!”
Kearn grumbled and flung his hands in the air. “Wake up, Antoinette! Power is the way of things. It is mirrored in nature—predators and prey. The strong devour the weak. The strong take from the weak! And I for one would rather be doing the taking!”
“That is because . . . ,” Antoinette whispered, talking more to herself than to Kearn as her ideas crystallized. “Of course. You covet power because . . . because you’re afraid.”
“Me? Afraid?” Kearn laughed scornfully. “Pray tell then, what does Kearn, the left hand of Paragor, fear?”
“You said it yourself, just now,” Antoinette said. “You’re afraid if you don’t have the power, if you don’t do the taking, that someone else will take everything that matters away from you!”
“Ridiculous!”
Antoinette threw aside all caution and said, “If it’s so ridiculous, then why do you care if I die?”
“What do you mean? I do not care—” Kearn’s mouth snapped shut. He crouched low and clutched his head with both hands as if to keep his mind from exploding. At last, he looked up and quietly said, “When I first saw you, I wanted nothing more than to drive my sword through your heart and rid The Realm of yet another weak enemy. In Baen-Edge I tried to kill you, but you defied me and lived on. You challenged my swordcraft, and for that I grew to respect your skill, but there was something else. There is something inside of you . . . something that I long for, but for the life of me, I do not know what it is. I only know that now I cannot bear the thought of losing you.”
Kearn buried his head in his hands and seemed to shake. “I feel . . . I feel like I plummeted in my sleep to the bottom of a black lake,” came his voice, thin and half choked. “I awakened but could not tell the direction to swim for the surface. But suddenly, there was a glimmer of light, and I knew where to go. But the light wavers now and threatens to go out. I am left alone, in the depths . . .”
“Look at me, Kearn,” Antoinette said. He lifted his head a little. “What if I told you that I know a power beyond the sword? Beyond conquering armies? Beyond crowns and thrones?” She had his full attention now.
“With this power,” she continued, “you can step forward when others shrink back. You can face obstacles, knowing that if you fall you will be caught. You can let go of the fears that race around in your mind . . . and simply rest in the knowledge that you will be taken care of. But most of all, Kearn, with this power . . . you will never be alone.”
Kearn stood and looked at her. “All of my life I have been taught to take what I want. To force my will upon others. To mold things in the image I would have them be. Lord Rucifel, my father, showed me!”
Rucifel?
Antoinette’s mind raced.
“And I have succeeded!” he exclaimed. “And not because of my father’s position. He gave me nothing but bruises if I dared prevail upon his name. By the sweat of my brow and the blood of others, I have clawed to a magnificent peak! I have riches—more than I could ever spend in ten lifetimes. I have power—great physical strength and the ability to command legions! And next to the Prince and my father, there is no one in Paragory who is so well known as I. But now that I have these things, I find it maddeningly not enough! The peak I have reached is actually a precipice, and I stand at the edge.”
“But you don’t have to go over that edge,” Antoinette said, her voice pleading. “There is another way. Will you see it?”
Kearn’s familiar sneer appeared again. He put both his hands high on the bars of Antoinette’s cell and leaned forward. “This other way you speak of . . . by that you mean renounce my allegiance to Paragor? You mean bend the knee to King Eliam on the very eve of his defeat? Antoinette, you must know that I cannot. I would lose everything.”
“Maybe that’s just what you need to do.”
“What?”
“Maybe,” Antoinette repeated, “maybe you need to abandon all those things that you thought would satisfy you—the gold, the respect, the power. Cast them aside. They have not fulfilled you the way you thought they would, right?”
Kearn’s hands fell to his sides. His eyes glinted red, but weakly.
Antoinette continued. “When you throw yourself on the mercy of King Eliam, you will finally let go of the fear you have only managed by your own power. You will finally see that power is not in controlling . . . but in letting go.”
Kearn’s face was a mess of emotions. He walked over to the stool and picked up the bundle he had laid there when he entered the cell. When he again stood before Antoinette, he looked utterly defeated and hopeless.
“There will be no mercy for me,” Kearn said. “If I brought myself before King Eliam’s throne he would know my crimes against Alleble, and he would have me executed. And he should! For I have ever been his mortal enemy, and I have slain with my own hands hundreds of his followers. And I have led many, many more into the places of torment within this fortress. No, there will be no mercy for me.”
“Now you’re being the stubborn one,” Antoinette accused. “Yes, King Eliam knows of your deeds, but as to the consequence, you leave that to him.”