Within the Hollow Crown (29 page)

Chapter 81: Fighting Time

“I have to go,” Jareld said, the following morning.

Michael had been standing watch, and was looking forward to a good night of sleep. He had not expected the historian to make this announcement.

“I’m sorry?” Michael said.

“I have to go. I can’t wait here. The map doesn’t go much further, and I came down here to get to the end of that map.”

“Jareld,” Michael said, “It’s too dangerous for to you go off alone.”

“This whole thing has been too dangerous,” Jareld said. “I don’t know what made us think we could come here and do this.”

“No. I won’t let you. You’re going off to die. You’re giving up. Don’t let your friend’s death be in vain.”

Jareld sighed. He knew, deep in his mind, that he was trying to lose. He didn’t care about the prize anymore. He just wanted the game to be over.

The door behind them opened. Jareld expected to see Corthos come out. He had been getting progressively better over the last few days, and Jareld had anticipated him being back on his feet by now.

But instead, it was Lady Vye, her arm in a sling.

“Good morning, boys,” she said.

“How are you feeling?” Michael asked.

“I won’t be running any marathons anytime soon,” she said. “But I could play a game of chess without passing out.”

“Have you been able to…” Michael asked.

“No,” Vye said, holding up her crippled hand. “I still can’t use any magic. I just don’t like lying around all day.”

“Well,” Michael said, “Jareld’s right. We can’t wait here much longer. If you can walk, I think we have to consider moving on.”

“What about Corthos?” Jareld said.

“He’s already started packing,” Vye said.

Chapter 82: The Lost King

Corthos and Vye were both a bit weak, and the company needed to rest often. Michael and Jareld took turns supporting one or the other while they ambled down the corridors of the Castle Zenith. Flopson would wander ahead and scout out each subsequent hallway, then return with a report. Finally, they came to a stairwell and descended all the way down to the first floor.

“That’s it,” Michael said, when they cleared the landing. “That’s the tapestry.”

Jareld recognized it right away. A famous piece commissioned by the original residents of the Castle Zenith. With the corner torn off. The corner that Gabriel had stolen. The clue that had led them here. And suddenly, Jareld knew exactly where he was. He was standing twenty paces from the Dragon’s chamber.

“Well,” Jareld said, consulting his map, “Down this hallway is the chamber where the sword is presumably hidden. And the main corridor here,” Jareld indicated the wide passage before them, “Is where Devesant is.”

“I can’t believe we’re so close to the Dragon,” Michael said. “We’re in no shape to go that way.”

“I don’t think there is a shape we could be in,” Vye said.

“True,” Michael said. “But I have to try.”

“We should wait,” Vye said. “I’ll get better with some rest. Corthos is recovering, slowly but surely.”

“I can’t wait any longer. She’s been in there, a captive, almost four days now. We have to press forward.”

Michael took a couple of steps down the hall, waving the torch before him. The light barely made a dent in the vast space. The regal décor of the Castle Zenith seemed untouched by the ages, and appeared far too peaceful to prepare anyone for the famous Great Wyrm that waited in the Grand Hall.

“Your Grace,” Jareld said, coming up behind the Count, “Listen for a moment.”

“What is it, Jareld?”

Jareld invited the Count a little further down the hall, out of earshot of the others.

“We don’t stand a chance. You want to go fight Devesant, you’re going to lose, and we’re all going to die.”

“But…?”

“But, just down that hall is the Saintskeep.”

“So?”

“It might be helpful to have it, in a fight against the Dragon.”

“It didn’t help the King,” Michael said, “And I wouldn’t dare use it, as I’m not the King. Hell, there is no King. The Royal Family was all killed. But we’ve placed Emily Rone in charge.”

“Actually, there hasn’t been a King for over a hundred years. When King James II died, the line of Kings died.”

“But King John succeeded him.”

“He was an illegitimate son of the Queen’s. Prince Andrew would have had to take the throne.”

Michael looked back at the others, to make sure none of them had heard.

“Who else knows about this?” Michael said.

“Corthos knows, though I doubt he cares.”

“That is extremely dangerous information. I wouldn’t go telling everybody about it.”

“Sir Dorn, the last Knight of the League of the Owl, hid the sword so that only the rightful heir could reclaim it. And what better chance than now.”

“What are you talking about?” Michael asked, exasperated.

“You.”

Michael leaned his head in, his eyes asking the question for him.

“It must be you.”

Michael frowned in order to ask the question a second time.

“Count Michael Deliem, son of Count Alexander Deliem, son of Count Roger Deliem, son of the Countess Marianne Deliem. She had earned the title by marrying Count Gregory Deliem, but they never had children. The Deliem’s continued when Marianne married Lord Raymond Rone, son of Andrew Rone.”

“Wait,” Michael said, “Are you telling me you know my heritage better than I do?”

“I’m a very good scholar,” Jareld said.

“And that my great grandmother was married to the son of the second Prince of King James II?”

“Technically, the first Prince. Andrew had only one son, and Raymond had your grandfather. That’s the line of Kings, right there. It’s been hidden in plain sight for a century.”

“When did you figure this out?”

“Remember when I stumbled into the room, during the fight?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I had been trying to figure it out ever since I read Sir Dorn’s reports. I knew there must be someone, somewhere, who had descended from the Kings. When I saw you there, it hit me like a ton of bricks. You’re the oldest son in a line of oldest sons. You’re the King.”

Michael’s jaw dropped to save him the trouble of saying something in awe.

“So, what does this have to do with finding the Saintskeep?” he managed, after a moment.

“Well, I can’t get it without your help,” Jareld said, “So I was hoping you’d help me before you and your friends tossed yourselves in front of a Dragon’s fire.”

Michael narrowed his eyes.

“Come on,” Jareld said, “It’s just down this hall.”

Chapter
83: The Last Tactic

The forces under Duke Avonshire’s charge fell quickly. Once again, the Turin suffered almost no losses, while the Rone were destroyed completely. It took the Turin only a day to defeat them, and then they were ready to move south.

Emily Rone was no tactician, but even with such expert help as Landos was able to provide, there was little she could do. Upon hearing of Avonshire’s demise, she tried to reposition everyone, in order to better defend the countryside. But it all seemed hopeless.

By the end of the second day, the troops under Lord Endior were engaged with the enemy. By just playing the numbers, it didn’t look like they would last the night.

Landos received a message to that effect as the sun set in Hartstone. He went immediately to the War Room.

“Your Majesty,” Landos said, “This isn’t going to work.”

“What do you mean, Lieutenant?”

“We can’t engage the enemy piecemeal. We have to throw everything at him at once.”

“It sounds like that will end it all the faster.”

“It’s also our only chance. Each of our units is outmatched if they stand alone.”

“What do you recommend?”

“Have everyone converge,” Landos said, pointing to the map, “here.”

Hartstone, the capital. Their best fortification. Right where they stood.

“How do you suggest we get the enemy to meet us here?”

“Send a message to Endior. Have them call a retreat now. They’ll get here with the enemy on their tails.”

Emily considered this for a moment. She never wanted to have anything to do with military matters. She had assumed her life would be a horrible trial of producing children for Timothy Brimford. Now it was all about keeping the last fighting army of the Kingdom alive.

“Sounds like you have a plan,” Emily said. “Good luck.”

Chapter
84: The Writing on the Wall

The Castle Zenith had been meticulously designed. Besides the Grand Hall, which would have been quite grand if anyone had ever used it for a party, there was the Banquet Hall, the Blue Room, and the Apple Room, which should have been next to some apple orchards, but obviously, there were some real estate issues at the moment.

There were also thirty noble quarters, one hundred servant quarters, and ten state quarters, for out of town guests. Three stables and two kitchens. Six stairwells. And one coatroom.

Neither Sir Dorn nor Master Jareld could have known the original purpose of the room they entered (in their respective centuries) but it was the coatroom. Because the room had never been used, it seemed to be just a long stretch of empty space.

Flopson and Corthos rested outside the door, but Michael and Vye stepped into the room behind Jareld. Jareld checked the map, and then checked the room. He was right where he should have been. He was at the X.

He waved the torch back and forth, checking each section of the room. It wasn’t until he got to the end of the room that he found what he was looking for.

Someone had inscribed something on the wall.

“Thor, take a look--” Jareld said, before catching himself. The inscription was that of a family tree. At first, Jareld couldn’t make sense of it, but then he saw where it started:

J II

The top member of the tree was written in a little square. As was the tradition in family trees in Atinlay, men were in squares, women in triangles. This was meant to represent James II. From J II, lines indicated his five children. J in a square, M in a triangle, A in a square, O in a triangle, and L in a square. John, Meredith, Andrew, Olivia, and Lawrence. But then Jareld noticed that all the lines connecting the children to James II were solid, except for John’s, which was dashed.

Jareld pressed his hand against the tree, dragging his hand down Andrew’s line. When his hand reached Andrew’s square, the stone pressed into the wall slightly.

Jareld jumped back. He had triggered something. Clearly, Andrew’s name on the wall was a button. He looked around. Nothing had changed.

“Your Grace?” Jareld called.

“Yes?”

“Anything happen down there?”

“No.”

“Never mind, then.”

Jareld looked back at the tree. The complex inscription followed John’s children, and also Andrew’s children, for five generations. Something wasn’t sitting well with Jareld.

Jareld dragged his hand down Andrew’s line to the square R, indicating his son, Raymond. The square also pressed in, making a subtle click. Jareld dragged his finger down to the next R, indicating Rog
er, then to the A, indicating Alexander, and then to an M, indicating Michael.

When the M clicked, a small space in the floor opened up.

Jareld held the torch over the space. It was too dark to see, but clearly there was room under the floor. Suddenly, Jareld thought he knew why Sir Dorn had taken so long to return from the Caves. He would have had to build this contraption.

But that wasn’t what bothered Jareld. What bothered Jareld was the fact that the contraption had recorded the history of the line of Kings up to the present date, when they should have ended four generations earlier. How did Dorn inscribe the unborn names?

Jareld looked back at the family tree for a moment. The engravings looked old, but there it was, in plain sight. Michael Deliem, born only twenty-eight years earlier, on the wall.

Jareld looked closer. There was something else, at the bottom of the family tree. A dashed line eme
rging from Michael. The line led to a square, but there was no letter in it.

A dashed line…

“What is it?” Michael said from behind Jareld.

Jareld was startled, but for once in his life, he hid it well.

“I found this chamber,” Jareld said. “I think I have to go down.”

“You shouldn’t go alone,” Michael said.

“Actually, I’m convinced you have to go with me. Based on what I’ve read, Sir Dorn’s primary concern was to make sure that only a descendent of the King could retrieve the sword.”

“Did you come all this way hoping to run into such a person?” Michael said.

“When we started the journey,” Jareld said, “When Thor and I set out, we didn’t know that was how it was going to go. Also, I didn’t think I would live to get this far.”

“Well,” Michael said, “Shall we?”

Vye held a rope while Michael and then Jareld lowered themselves into the pit. A moment later, Corthos also lowered himself in.

“Aye, matey,” he said, clutching his side, “You come to the X on the map, and ya dunnot invite me?”

“Sorry,” Jareld said. “How thoughtless.”

“Nay, all is forgiven. Let us find a treasure.”

The chamber was only a few meters wide, but turned a corner and became a small passageway. The three of them went cautiously down.

The passageway they were in was actually built with the castle. It was a secret tunnel that would allow the King’s mistress to escape to the coat room, retrieve her belongings, and leave quietly. When the Castle had been commissioned, the King had insisted on such a tunnel.

But some modifications had been made. The trap door was never supposed to be opened from the coat room; that would have presented a security risk. Also, it wasn’t supposed to lead to the Blue Room.

Jareld, Michael, and Corthos emerged in the room so named for the conspicuous overuse of the color blue. Banners, carpets, painted tiles, and furniture adorned the room in a tasteful yet overwhelming example of monochromaticism. They, in fact, had entered from a secret door behind a large painting of an evening sky.

Again, however, some modifications had been made. In the center of the room, instead of the antique tea table that the designers had planned on, there was a sarcophagus.

Jareld went up to the tomb. He held the torch up to it:

Sir Martin: 435 – 471

“What’s wrong, Jareld?” Michael asked.

“This shouldn’t be here,” Jareld said.

Knights, even those who served the King, never received such ornate burials. A sarcophagus? Kind of presumptuous. Jareld knew there must be more to it.

He swept a layer of dust off the cover. Someone had carved instructions. In Atinlay. And there was a keyhole.

“We dunnot have a key,” Corthos said.

“Not sure it would have helped,” Michael pointed out. Jareld was standing on a small pile of bones and keys. Others had tried this before. And had apparently paid the price.

Jareld scanned the text. It was the poem. Again. And again, with one word misspelled. It should have said, “green.” But instead, the word meant, “the color of blood.” The color of blood...

“It wouldn’t have helped,” Jareld concluded. “No key will open this lock.”

“Then we’ve come all this way for naught,” Corthos said, crestfallen.

“Not quite. This is more than a tomb. I think Sir Martin was buried with the Saintskeep. I think it’s under this cover stone. But we don’t need a key. We need the blood of the Kings.”

Michael circled the warrior’s tomb. Thoughts racing through his head. Mysteries, riddles, half-remembered dreams.

“All of this,” Michael said, “Was to protect the Saintskeep from falling into the wrong hands? For a sword forged by Rone the Great?”

“Actually, it wasn’t forged by Rone,” Jareld said. “It’s much older than that.”

“I thought I remember...”

“I discovered it in my first year at Seneca,” Jareld muttered. “Turns out he was just bragging about forging the sword. To help his legend.”

“So who did forge it?”

“Nobody knows. I researched it for years. There are stories about the sword on other continents, in other eras. A hundred legends attribute it to a hundred different dragons, kings, and gods. But it’s also supposed to have great powers. They say it gives you command. That Rone the Great wouldn’t have been so Great without it.”

“But for right now...” Michael started.

“We need the blood of the King. The oldest living son, in a line of first sons, descending from Prince Andrew.”

“Me?”

Jareld nodded. Michael took a deep breath. He didn’t want a sword. He didn’t want to be the lost descendent of the Kings. He wanted Sarah.

“You have to try,” Jareld said. “Don’t you find it strange? The bloodlines. The serendipity of you being here, against all odds. Somebody set this all in motion before we knew we were pawns in this game.”

“Alright, stand back guys,” Michael said. He stepped up to Sir Martin’s burial site. Held his hand over the lock and drew his knife. He gripped the blade and slid his palm along the sharp edge. Blood dribbled from his fist, falling into the keyhole.

For a second nothing happened. Silence and stillness filled the air. But then, the floor rumbled, and the cover split in two, and the halves opened to either side.

Inside rested the skeleton of Sir Martin. Still in his League of the Owl garb, though it was torn and frayed. Beside his body were two items. The first was a crown. It wasn’t a gaudy headpiece for formal affairs, Jareld knew. It was a battle helm designed for the King. The sort of thing you don when you have to rescue the Queen from the Great Wyrm Devesant.

The second item was a sword. The Saintskeep. Jareld knew it by every picture ever drawn, by every description in every journal he’d ever read about the item. But even if he didn’t know all of those things, he would have known it from its pure majesty. It was something that could not be seen, nor heard, nor explained. Only the three of them, in that room, truly knew what the sword was.

“Congratulations,” Jareld said.

“Jareld,” Michael said, “I can’t be the King.”

“Sorry, Your Majesty. I can’t do anything about that.”

“Don’t call me that. Even if it’s true, I haven’t been coronated yet. We’d need to get the Counts together again. And go through a whole process...”

“Your Majesty,” Jareld said, “We just proved, rather conclusively, that you are the King. The first true King in more than a century. The Counts cannot confer the title of King. It is a right.”

“Even so,” Michael said, “I cannot be coronated. We would need a ship’s captain.”

“Well then,” Corthos said, “Looks like I didn’t come all this way for nothing.”

---

Michael, Jareld, and Corthos rejoined Vye and Flopson in the main corridor. There, they performed the first, official coronation since King James II had been crowned, more than one hundred and forty years ago.

Michael was crowned, with instruction from Jareld, as His Royal Majesty, King Michael Rone IV. Flopson carried the crown to Corthos, who placed it on Michael’s head. Vye and Jareld were witnesses. Jareld drafted formal papers and had everyone sign them. Though the Kingdom of Rone wouldn’t know it, in the deep, dark Caves, they had reacquired a King.

But as soon as the ceremony was over, Michael turned his attention to matters of a more personal nature.

“Well,” Michael said, “It seems history has a morbid sense of humor. My wife, Sarah, has just unwittingly become the Queen, and she is in the capture of the dragon Devesant. I must get her back. Will you come with me?”

“You can’t go,” Jareld said, quickly adding, “Your Majesty.”

“Why not, Master Jareld,” Michael threw it back in his face.

“You’re the King. The Kingdom is in trouble. You can help.”

“I won’t go back without her.”

“That’s very noble of you,” Jareld said, “But it’s too great a risk.”

“Let me put it this way,” Michael said, “I’m going to turn around in a moment, march up that hall, and challenge Devesant for the return of my wife. Anyone who wants to follow me should stay close behind. Anyone who wants to stop me is going to have to tackle and restrain me.”

Michael was as good as his word, turning on his heel and marching towards the Dragon. Vye didn’t hesitate for a beat. Flopson stayed close to Vye. Corthos and Jareld looked at one another.

“Mehthinks,” Corthos said, “That he is gonna need all the help he can get.”

Corthos drew his sword and followed. Jareld looked down at the sword on his belt. The sword it took two hands for him to lift. The sword that was still caked in the blood of Gerard.

“Come on,” Corthos called over his shoulder, halfway down the hall already, “Ya only live once.”

“True,” Jareld said, taking a few tepid paces forward. “But you also only die once.”