A Hero's Throne (An Ancient Earth) (33 page)

The riverbanks grew steeper and steeper, rising toward him until, after the miles and miles that he travelled, they became sheer cliff faces, laced together every so often by bridges of splendid and ornate designs. Roads now ran along the edge of the cliffs, and houses started to become more frequent. There were only a few branching tributaries, but they were very small, and anyway, Daniel was at the end of the sequence. He was nearly at his destination.

A mountain of black stone rose up before him, from which poured a waterfall, and before that was an enormous palace, more of a city, really, since it was a cluster of buildings all squeezed together and built on top of each other, but they were built across the chasm between the cliffs and before the waterfall. It hung in an arcing and domed magnificence, sparkling and cool in the spray thrown off by the waterfall. Daniel had just hovered for a time, taking the inconceivable structure in. This, apparently, was the Falling Palace.

Studying it more closely, he knew it was practically deserted. Some of the walls and façades showed signs of disrepair, and green slimy growth was coating some of the areas that were in contact with water the most.

And so he had found the highest crested tower, which seemed a good place to start his search. All the fairy tales had prisoners locked in high towers, and he was in Færieland, after all. But materialising inside, he discovered it was mostly empty—a disused bedroom where an elfish bed, a desk and chair, and some fine drapery were quietly mouldering in the damp. He didn’t have any time to stand around and reflect on the meaning of this, or the purpose of the room, and so crossed to the door. He gave the handle a turn and found it locked. There was a keyhole, and he bent down to squint through it. He could just make out a small section of white on the other side. Fixing himself on this, he let himself drift through the keyhole and into the stairwell outside.

A handy trick, he decided, and walked down the stairs, thinking it would be easier to be more systematic if he were solid, and feeling that being bodiless probably wasn’t so healthy for him mentally. He was starting to feel extremely . . . abstract.

He wandered down the tower and checked in at the rooms that he passed and found them all locked and abandoned. At the base of the staircase was an ornate bronze gate that had weathered to a pale green. He slipped through this and into an open courtyard. It seemed deserted, but there were too many dark windows and archways to be certain. He went into the cloud and drifted through it.

As he passed, he noticed a metal grate in the panelled courtyard beneath him. He took a moment to examine it and the darkness within.

A drain? Into some sort of sewer system? How complex would a sewer for a city on a bridge possibly be?

He lowered his disembodied self to inspect it further and found almost exactly what he had come to find. If the wooden stocks and bronze manacles were anything to go by, he was in a dungeon. His main worry, however, was that it, like the city, seemed deserted. If this was a dead end, then he didn’t know what he was going to do.

He materialised and walked around the room. He grew uncertain as he studied the stalls and restraints, wondering if this was indeed a jail, or just a stable, but then he found a large, wooden door on the far end of the hall that had a wide metal grill in it. There was a glowing light issuing from it and he slowly approached it. He got a sense of foreboding from the door; he didn’t know why.

A door opened and closed behind Daniel and he evaporated. It was an elf of apparently high rank, dressed in detailed finery, flanked by two bodyguards and led by an aide that held an ornate silver lantern that burned with a pale light. Daniel watched them as they approached the door he stood beside. The aide pounded a rhythm on the door and it wasn’t long before it opened.

Daniel glided in with the rest of them and nearly lost control of himself at what he saw.

It was a broad room with a high ceiling that was like some sort of hellish chemist’s. The walls were lined with shelves and cabinets upon which sat large bottles and jars filled with coloured liquids. The ceiling was decked with bundles of branches and sprigs of plants, and there was one wide wooden table in the centre of the room, and others spaced here and there where needed.

The tables at the right end of the hall were completely caked in blood, which had soaked into the wooden tops and burnished it a dark, red-tinted brown. Empty jars were stacked in the cabinets at this end, as well as large bottles of what smelled like preservative.

Looking at the bottles on the shelves, it was clear what was happening here. There were heads in jars on the middle two shelves that ran across the room. Below those were hands, and then feet on the bottom. Above the heads were different organs in smaller bottles.

All of them were neatly labelled and tidily stored. A small and bent sort of elfish apothecary puttered around at the wide wooden table before him, chopping some pale leaves with a copper knife. He raised his head at those who entered.

“My lord and prince,” he crooned, “Kione Traast, what an honour! Have you brought me anything new?”

Daniel noted the name—Kione Traast was one of Lhiam-Lhiat’s brothers.

“No, I haven’t,” the well-dressed elf replied. “I’ve come for information.”

“Ah, of course. I trust the campaign is going well?”

“It is going perfectly,” said the elf with a prickly measure of annoyance. “But would go smoother with more details on the inner workings of our enemies.”

“Of course, of course. Forgive my question, I did not mean it
as a comment,” the wizened elf said nervously as he swept what he was working on to one side and pulled up a large book with thick sheets of vellum from beneath the counter. “Who is it you are interested in seeing?”

“Are the woodburner and the rider ready yet?”

The old elf ran his finger down the page. “Woodburner and rider . . . yes, here they are. And yes, I think—yes, they should be ready. I’ll retrieve them, one moment.”

The elf prince stood imperiously as the little elf picked up a ladder made from willow wood and propped it up against the shelves behind him. Very carefully, he pulled forward two of the jars with heads in them, which were sitting side by side. Cradling each in a separate arm, he skilfully descended the ladder without the use of his hands and placed the jars before the prince.

Steeling himself, Daniel moved closer to study the faces of the preserved heads. He recognised them instantly, despite their features being warped and a little bloated, and felt sick to his feet—or what would be his feet. In fact, there was a moment of confusion where he felt that he would rematerialise just in order to be sick, or else drift away back to somewhere else entirely, but he looked away, regained focus, and remained as he was.

The heads were those of Kæyle and Kay Marrey. They had been captured and taken here, possibly tortured, certainly killed, and then chopped up and stuck into jars and pickled like onions. There was no saving either one of them now; there was no putting things right for Pettyl. For the two who had helped him the most when he first came to this world, the game was finished. And he, Daniel, could now only stare in horror at their dissected remains.

“They are among the newest additions, the coal-maker especially, but both should have reached potency. This one”—he placed a hand on Kay Marrey’s jar—“should be optimal. The other will
still affect, but he is much more recent, and so I cannot guarantee total clarity, but certain impressions will be very clear.”

He twisted the cork tops off of the jars and reached underneath the counter to produced two shallow silver dipping cups.

“I’m sure that whatever you see and experience is not for my ears—security of the state and all that—so I will now withdraw. There are quill and parchment behind you if your aide wishes to take notes. I recommend that he does, for the impressions that you will receive, although true, are also subjective, and nuances will pass from you in time.”

The elf left and, although he did not want to, Daniel watched in dread as the prince stepped forward and picked up one of the scoops. He dipped it in Kay Marrey’s jar—Daniel could see now that Kay had many scratches on his face that opened to reveal the grey, bloodless flesh below—and then raised the cup to his lips and drank it back in one gulp, apparently not queasy or phased by the idea at all.

He took a step back and his eyes rolled back in his head. “I see Mayine’s Mountain, I am standing on the north side, about two-thirds of the distance up. There is a cliff face in front of me, and what appears to be a sheer surface, but which I know to be a well-disguised entrance with many overlapping pillars—so many that I must dismount and lead my beast through them by his snout.

“I’m going to report back to the prince, the true heir to the throne—no, it is not he, it is I, I am the true ruler—” The prince seemed to struggle internally and frowned, distaste twisting his face. He was obviously channelling Kay Marrey, Daniel realised, and the way his eyes flicked upward and darted back and forth, it seemed he was seeing what Kay had seen, but the shared consciousness was obviously experiencing conflict at the concept of rightful rule.

“Sire,” said his aide, moving away from the desk and placing a
hand on the other’s arm. “These are the shadows and projections of a traitorous mind—distasteful though they may be, allow them to pass through you.”

Prince Kione Traast grunted, though remained in his dreamlike state. “I see him before me now, the snivelling bastard orphan. He greets me with sickening propriety. What a ponce, surrounded in wild squalor that he believes makes him noble and righteous. The living martyr, the unjust—”

“Sire, please.”

“There is a table before him, and upon it are splayed documents, designs, and diagrams. There is a map. It shows the places of those still traitorously loyal to the true crown of the rebel crown.”

“Reproduce the map, sire,” the aide said, pushing a quill into his hand and laying a blank sheet of parchment in front of the prince.

His eyes still staring sightlessly upward, the prince began to scribble and draw a remarkably well-detailed map of what Daniel presumed was that area of Elfland. The mountain was in the centre, and as Kione Traast continued drawing, Daniel could see the plain that he seemed to keep waking up in the middle of, and the outline of the forest that Kæyle and Pettyl lived in, and then the settlements that lay beyond that where the Fayre had been held, as long as many other details of the country. He watched as the prince completed the map and then marked the map with names and descriptors of those who were loyal to the Elves in Exile. The aide and guards stood and watched him patiently as the quill scratched upon the surface of the vellum for a good ten or fifteen minutes.

Then his hand slowed and he took a step back.

“My prince?” the aide asked. “The vision is fading. Would you like another draught?” He gestured to the jar with Marrey’s head in it.

The prince shook his head. He went over to the counter and
leaned against it. One of the guards brought him a stool. “What is it?” the prince asked, lowering himself. “What did I speak? What did I see?”

The aide spread the dictation he took and the map that Kione Traast had drawn in front of him. The prince studied them for a moment and then brushed them aside.

“Useless. We raided the mountain fortress weeks ago and captured this document, along with the others.”

The aide pursed his lips. “Well, we suspected as much. Here, try the other,” he said, holding the other silver scoop out.

The prince made a face as if it were his mother telling him to finish his strained prunes, but nonetheless grabbed the cup and dipped it into Kæyle’s jar. He took a sip and finished it off, then he just sat, staring at nothing, for about twenty minutes.

“Nothing,” he said eventually, shaking his head. “It was just music. Wordless, pointless music. Come, let us waste no more time here.”

He rose and swept out of the room, his entourage in his wake.

The door slammed and Daniel stayed, gazing morosely at the jars containing the heads of two men that he had considered friends in this strange world. There would be no rescue or escape for them.

^{_____________________}
III
^{_____________________}

Daniel awoke. Although heavily traumatised and confused, he knew exactly where he was—back in the middle of the massive plain again. Memory of the events in the Night were already scurrying away from him, leaving only scars behind them. He prodded gently at them to see if they gave anything up, but once again it was only just impressions—nothing like the violent clarity of the first time. The echo of pain and flashes of odd images,

conversations, and confrontations. Then the impressions of what had remained finally dissolved away.

He wondered how long he’d been in the Night, and what was happening here now. The events of what happened before the Night seemed like a long, long way away now, as an old man might remember a distant childhood. The vivid emotion was still real, but detached.

What was going on in Niðergeard?

Niðergeard
—that brought something back. He had seen the golden and silver riders again, he remembered. He thought that he always saw them at the end of his times in the Night. He couldn’t remember if that was the case, but somehow that fact felt right. He feared the silver rider and knew, inherently, that it was vital that he escape him and his “dreams of death.” But the silver rider was more than just death—it was pain, fear, and all the bad things of life. The golden rider was hope, security, romance, all the things worth saving. He had to keep hold of that. He remembered the picture he’d received during his first Night—him, sitting on a throne of victory, his enemies’ bones at his feet. Freya by his side, a new rule of the nation of Niðergeard—part of a New United Kingdom of the Spirit. That was clear. That was the reality he needed to strive for, to produce through his will, if such a thing were possible. He would be the king of a new country, just as Wales and Scotland were a part of Great Britain, but one that the world had never seen, unless the stories of King Arthur and the holy kings of legend were true.