Darkstone - An Evil Reborn (Book 4) (19 page)

“Fateem has her wild dreams and that’s all they will be, dreams,” Fenakyr said. His face had screwed up with displeasure. He obviously didn’t like his ward.

“They are not dreams. Vishan promised to give my search a fresh look.”

Vish didn’t promise anything, exactly, and the taunts by Fenakyr and his real daughter were anything but harmless. He wouldn’t be able to relax with his father in on the game.

What did Fenakyr have to give his father? His life? There could be other games, layers and strategies that Vishan hadn’t a clue existed. His tutors told him that politics could be inscrutable. Vish couldn’t feel more lost. He couldn’t trust anything or anyone in this castle.

He looked at his host, unable to speak or think. He felt like spluttering, but did what he could to control himself. “And the betrothal?”

Fenakyr laughed. “We’ll see if you are worth one hundred thousand dreks.” Vishan couldn’t detect a shred of the respect Fenakyr should have had towards a son of the Emperor.

For the first time in all of this fiasco, Vishan felt truly trapped, even with his thoughts of escape. He couldn’t come up with a solution at dinner. He smiled at the real Vestya and couldn’t see her in his future. If he had to marry her, he would set her aside as quickly as possible. If his father could have twelve wives, then he could have two.

“I wouldn’t mind helping Fateem with her research, Baron Fenakyr. She said your map room isn’t used. It would help pass the time. Vestya would be free to join us.”

“Free to join you? As if you have any status in my household. But go ahead. I’ll be having you watched, Prince,” Fenakyr said.

“Thank you.” He didn’t say another word until he had eaten and left the trio still eating desert in the dining room. It was all he could do to put up with smug faces and never-ending insults from the father and daughter.

“Father, you didn’t rub his nose in hard enough,” he heard Vestya say as soon as he left the dining room. 

He would leave from this madhouse. Would he have to kill Baron Fenakyr and his daughter? Was that what his father wanted? Escape might alienate the Emperor, but Vishan didn’t think he could abide any close relationship to Fenakyr.

Finding his room was no problem, even in the dark. He lit a sorcerer’s globe as he walked up the stairs. He grimaced. This morning the situation held promise. Now? It seemed that everyone was in on the joke.

He closed his door and magically locked it. Someone had moved the ropes around on his trunk during dinner, but they were unsuccessful in opening the trunk. Vish inspected the entire length of the rope and found three places where the rope had been sliced in half. He would leave the rope as it was after readjusting the knots so he’d know of they disturbed the trunk again. Vishan could always repair those cuts with power just before he escaped.

He wouldn’t wait for a wedding and he was sure Fenakyr wouldn’t let him leave the castle on his own. Running might give Fenakyr a chance to kill him with the Emperor’s blessing. But then, what would his father really think if he killed Fenakyr? Vishan wasn’t ready to go to that extreme. Flight still seemed to be the right thing to do. He could travel to Serytar and take a ship to Besseth if he had to. 

What could he do in Besseth? He could always become a mercenary. He certainly had enough military skills for that. He could be a scholar teaching royalty all about life on Zarron, especially insight into the Dakkoran Empire.

He tucked those thought away for the future. Right now he needed more information. He’d need to accumulate food and perhaps procure a horse in town that he could stable there. Stealing one of Fenakyr’s mounts would only give the man another excuse to kill him.

He tossed and turned, running through different scenarios. The only realistic one was to stay for a few more days and wait for the time to escape that felt most comfortable.

~

Ovyr brought up breakfast some time after Vishan pulled the servant’s cord.

“I’m sorry about the deception, sir. You seem a nice sort and I didn’t much like telling a prince lies. Here is breakfast. Fateem still expects you to meet her at the tenth hour in the map room. It’s at the bottom of this tower.”

“Thank you,” Vishan said. He wanted to make friends with the man, but now that he knew what he faced he still couldn’t trust anyone.

As Ovyr walked out, he said, “I’d check out your trunk and the rope. No one could figure out how to break into your things.”

At least Vishan had an encouraging word from someone. Ovyr didn’t have to say anything. He read one of his sorcery books, the one on battle mages. He learned how to throw up dirt and topple trees. Perhaps the memorial garden might be a good place to practice, the errant thought, laced with vengeance, had popped into his head. Vish tossed the thought out. Vengeance against whom? Fenakyr? The real Vestya? No, it would be better to escape without the complications of having to kill them, something he didn’t want to do.

Vish had no trouble leaving his rooms and descending to the main floor. He saw more guards and servants running around the castle. It looked like Fenakyr had permitted only the most loyal servants interact with Vishan for the first two days.

The map room had seen more active days. It smelled musty and Vishan wondered if anyone had tried to preserve the maps rolled in scroll boxes. The scroll boxes had labels. Vishan pulled one out that said Province of Hustafal.

He laid it out on the table and pursed his lips at the splotches of mold and faded lines. He looked for passes through the hills where he could make his way north to Serytar. When Fateem and Vestya walked in, he rolled up the map and put it back in its place.

The baron’s daughter still looked pinched and angry, but she dressed better and looked more presentable. Fateem looked as pretty as ever, carrying a few old books and a portfolio under her arm. Vishan helped her put books from a crate on the map table along with the ones she hand carried from her rooms.

Vestya took a chair by the large window and pulled a small book from a pocket in her dress and began to read. No greeting.

Vishan refused to respond to his betrothed’s harsh treatment.

“Good morning, ladies. Now Fateem, what do you have to show me?”

“I have this portfolio,” she untied a sheaf of papers. “So here are where the three stones are...”

Fateem went over the history of the stones that Vishan already knew, but he let her talk. She became animated and excited. Fateem certainly wasn’t faking her interest in the Warstones.

She pulled out a handwritten map. “Here are the clues to the cave.” Vishan recognized the mountains to the northwest of Hustafal.

“Let’s look at this map and compare,” he said and pulled out the old map. Fateem took her map and began to look for matches.

“I don’t think you will be able to just compare the maps to find the burial cave. You’ll want to see what the different sources have to say and look for similarities.”

Fateem didn’t want to listen and began to twist her handwritten map this way and that, but looked more frustrated the longer she did so.

“You don’t even know the scale of your handwritten map,” Vishan said, trying to keep from laughing.

“You go ahead and put her in her place,” Vestya said, giving both a vicious smile, nodding, and then returning to her book.

Vish wondered how much the woman read and how much she listened in. She had to be Fenakyr’s eyes and ears, not that the baron particularly needed any at this point.

“Perhaps rather than trying to draw a map, we could write down the descriptions of the topography...”

“Topography? What’s that?” Vestya said, showing that she didn’t ignore what they were talking about.

“The lay of the land, where all of the mountains, forests, lakes, streams, dry beds, valleys are, that kind of thing. Do it for each of the sources and try to find commonality. If everything is different, then no one knows where the cave is.”

Fateem put her mouth in a pout. She looked rather cute that way, Vishan thought, and wished that she hadn’t been part of the attempt to deceive him. Perhaps Fateem had no choice being Fenakyr’s ward... maybe.

“We can do it together. One of us can read and the other can write,” he said. That made Fateem brighten up a little.

“Perhaps we can trade off,” Fateem said. “You read first.”

Vish shrugged and pulled out a paper. He told Fateem the facts and she listed them. He didn’t really believe that the Great Emperor would be buried close by or that there was something so important as the Darkstone left at large in the world.

Their efforts went on for a few hours. Vestya yawned and then rose to put her book in her dress pocket. “I give up. You two are unbearably boring,” she said as she left the room without another word.

Fateem let out a sigh. “I thought she’d never leave. This is rather dry work, though.” She giggled.

“I’m used to dry work. Actually, I can see this is getting us somewhere. How many more accounts?”

“Two more from my notes and then there are the books.”

Vishan grimaced more than smiled. “Then we should get to it.” He’d rather do this work than pace in his room worrying about how and when to escape. It helped him keep a lid on the anger and the disappointment in his father. Shock, embarrassment and then anger, he’d gone through all three in less than a day. He refused to let the anger turn to acquiescence, but he had to give himself some time so that he didn’t act too rashly. Vish expected that was what Fenakyr desired.

He started by a nudge to his arm. “Oy, Captain!” Fateem said. “You were drifting off course. I could see it in your eyes.”

“Sorry, I thought about my predicament, thank you.”

She seemed to water a bit in the eyes. “A shameful, but rather convincing performance on all of our parts.” She looked behind to see if anyone listened in. “More than a few of us were threatened to become players, including me. It wasn’t difficult to play Vestya’s part. I wish I were her.”

“I wouldn’t feel as bad as I do now,” Vishan said, reddening a bit. They had exchanged what he perceived were true intentions. He hoped that Ovyr had been threatened rather than playing his part willingly. Vish cleared his throat. “We can talk of this later, but I think we should proceed to read and write.”

Fateem gave him a half smile. “This is my passion, truly.” She picked up one of the old books and opened it to a bookmark to find the passage she wanted to recite.

After he had written it down he began to shuffle the papers. “Are the others as good as the last one?”

Fateem furrowed her brow and closed the book. “This is a good one?”

“I can see some consistency here.” Vishan said, holding back his growing excitement.

“One more.” She pulled out another dusty tome and read.

Vishan saw a distinct pattern as he finished writing down the description.

“A valley and a guarded passage. We need to look for a ravine and a small plain with a proper overlook for the Emperor. A chink in the sky. Everything says that the cave is in the mountains. The plain can be a meadow, the guarded passage could be stone pillars, manmade or natural. A chink in the sky, again made by the pillars? Buried in the sight of his ancestors. Do we know where the Great Emperor came from?”

Fateem’s eyes brightened as she pulled out another book. “The city of the Ankenyr”

“Where is that?” Vishan said. Onkyr? The city of Onkyr? He pulled out the old map from where he sought out an escape route and remembered seeing a notation for Onkyr. He might have heard Sulm talk about it in passing once. A faded city? There it was. “Does this city still exist? Onkyr. Do you see it?”

“It was part of my father’s domain. Those are ruins today. We used to drive past it often. Do you really think…? It’s too easy.”

“Not too easy, but I’m good at puzzles, it seems,” Vishan said without boasting. “Is there an accurate map here? I know this one isn’t.”

Fateem sauntered to the scroll cases and read the tags on the maps, pulling out one.

“I think this is the latest one. My father had it commissioned before I was born. Most of these are my father’s maps.  When he died the baron seized our fief, along with me.”

“Ancient,” Vishan said.

“You think me ancient?” Fateem playfully struck his arm.

“Not you, the map.” Suddenly, Vishan enjoyed being with Fateem. He wanted to know her better, but only if she proved trustworthy and at this point he didn’t know how to perform that miracle in this castle. His suspicion spoiled the flash of joy, but he smiled back.

She unrolled the map. The improved scale made it easier to read.

“So a view of the ruins would be consistent with a burial chamber or cave in the mountains. If that is true then the site would be somewhere here.” He circled a likely area with his finger. Looking more closely at the map, he noticed the illustrations of the mountains repeated too often. “I doubt these are real, only representations of the hills. Probably nothing has the detail that we need. It would be better to explore in this vicinity.”

“That’s why no one has ever found it?” Fateem said.

“Perhaps. It would require an expedition. We’d have to spend a few weeks or more going up into the hills and looking around. How tall are the mountains?”