Chapter Eighty-Five

Demons Below and Demons Within

The clouds returned to the bright Draendican sky. The sun was a dull spot above the sheet of white and the grounds had grown cold and tense as a brittle wind moved through the valley.

A hard silence had fallen over the encampment after the news spread.

There were two kinds of people who’d heard it: The first kind- those who had no idea what to say. They were the ones who knew him. And then there were ones who knew exactly what to say. They were the ones who knew him as a sword and a scruffy shirt. The former sat in deep silence. The latter bickered beneath their breath, discussing how they’d always known something of his character was ‘off’. How it made sense, after all he was orphaned, with no means, no stability, and the ability to become shadow. A thief through and through. A stolen sword. It was so obvious, they’d say.

At least until someone who knew Oliver, asked them a hard question, like “So, you were letting him get away with it? You knew he was putting everyone in danger? What else do you know that you’re conveniently not telling anyone until its public knowledge?” and suddenly all the talkers had a little less to say.

Past the forum, the Arena sat in the distance, unused and quiet, much like the rest of the fortress. But beneath it, something heavy and dark lingered.

Legacies of Fort Guardian called it the Murk. It probably had a real name some time ago, but for decades it had been empty, until Amekot decided it needed filling.

The Murk was a descending shaft, spiralling down into the depths of Fort Guardian’s foundations like a corkscrew. On every side, instead of curving walls lay dark-barred cells, filled with more shadow than any sunless place had a natural right to have.

Walking down steadily into the black, guided only by flickering torchlight were twelve iron-clad Legacies. At their lead were Sidney and Flinn, both glassy-eyed and devastated as they led a shackled boy further along into the darkness.

Oliver said nothing, trudging with his hands and feet clinking in their manacles, not so much as looking up from the floor, silent as the grave.

As they walked, a deep, croaking laugh echoed out from a nearby cell to their right and nearly all the guards besides Sidney and Flinn jolted.

Sidney’s dark eyes were almost black in the dark of the room as she said, “Harden up and keep moving.”

A pair of dark, thick, furry fingers wrapped around the bars and the voice rumbled mockingly, “That boy must’ve done something terrible to be down here with us.”

One of the guardsmen stopped at the sound of the creature’s voice. He was younger than Flinn by a handful of cycles and his grip on his spear was too tight. The light flickered and the shape of the creature clamped onto the bars was outlined for an instant. It was towering body of muscle and pale green fur. Atop a short neck sat its wide-set jaw of smiling teeth and a large, flat nose. Its head was thick and round, covered in the same sickly hair, with a pair of beady black eyes.

“Back away from the bars, Troll,” the young man spat, lifting his spear.

Sidney turned, nearly twenty feet away already with the others and shouted, “It’s in a cell, what more do you want, Dylan? Just come on.”

Dylan shook his head and stepped closer to the beast, calling with less conviction than a politician on trial, “This thing needs to show respect!”

The beast leant its head against the bars and snarled with laughter, forcing a wretched cough from the boy’s lungs as the smell of its breath hit him. He looked up to see the monster, at least two feet taller and several feet broader, smiling down at him with its teeth bared.

“I said back!”

Dylan thrust his spear at the monster’s hands only for it to grab the spear and rip it out of the young man’s hold. And before the boy could run, its other enormous hand leapt out and snatched him by the throat.

The herd of Legacies bolted, clambering for their weapons, shouting as the beast brought its face within inches of the boy, crushing him against the bars.

All around them, Shanii voices barked and roared goadingly. Some muttered in Fiend Speak while others shrieked and bellowed until the entire Murk was an orchestra of horror.

The Legacies shouted and snarled back. Arcancies lit up in the dark. Sidney stepped forward without hesitation and roared, “Everyone shut up!” and slammed her quarterstaff into the cage-bars, sending a thrum through the air, followed by a thick silence.

Flinn had both his hands on his bladed spear, levelled at the Troll. Unlike the others, he was silent as lightning before its thunder. He waited for any indication to run the beast’s skull through its eye socket.

The Troll looked deep into Dylan’s strangled face and snarled like a grizzly bear. “Would you prefer I ripped your throat out, or I gutted you with your own toothpick?” it laughed as it waved his stolen spear.

Sidney stepped to the boy’s side as though he was being accosted by a small dog and frowned. “Release him, Enta.”

The Troll glanced at her and then to her quarterstaff. “That won’t even bruise me.”

Sidney’s face didn’t change. “Release him and throw down the spear, or I’ll call the Shadiirageous.”

The Troll looked at her squarely, as though the boy wasn’t present at all.

Dylan’s face was beginning to turn purple. But suddenly the Troll huffed and shoved him away. Then the creature pitched the spear to the ground in an endless clatter. The beast muttered dark things in Fiend Speak and wandered back into the thick of the dark.

Sidney let out a stiff breath.

The boy picked up his spear and rubbed his neck, asking, “Shadii-what?”

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Sidney waved her squadron sharply down the tunnel and turned back to the young man. “Shadiirageous is their name for Jack. And for that stunt you’re on wall-duty for the rest of the day. If it happens again, I’ll open the fuckin’ cell door and throw you inside.”

The Legacy didn’t have a chance to respond as she turned and fell back in line with others, heading deeper into the Murk.

Finally, the floor began to level out and one cage was divided from the others, jutting out in the centre of the passage, up against the dead-end wall, unlike the others which were all up against the sides of the descending tunnel.

Flinn stepped over to the iron door on the face of the cell and pulled it open with a rattling clang! He looked dejectedly to Oliver, who wouldn’t so much as meet his eye. “Are you goin’ to say anything? Years, Oliver. I’ve known you since you were fifteen…”

Sidney rolled her eyes and grabbed Oliver by his arm, shoving him inside. Although she made quite a show of it, the push was gentle. “We’re not allowed to talk to him.”

Oliver looked up to Flinn and though his mouth stayed shut, his eyes seemed on the verge of something desperate, only to fall back to his feet once more.

With bitter and heartache, the spearman pushed the key in and twisted it with an echoing wrench of its lock. For a moment, Flinn stayed staring at Oliver while the manacled boy slid to the floor, but before long, dark distant screeches chattered from the neighbouring cells..

“Should we leave a watch down here with him?”

Sidney looked at the sandy-haired boy and felt her heart flicker with a hot anger as she shook her head. She stood there for a moment and finally said, “Jacobs.”

Oliver didn’t look up, instead merely huddling his knees to his chest.

Sidney felt her breaths growing unsteady and she bit down on the anger and turned away, leading her troops back up the dark slope.

Flinn knelt down with a torch in his hand, and after listening for a long moment, he heard Sidney and her troops fall out of earshot. He held the torch up and the light fell on Oliver’s face.

“It’s you and me. No one else is here. Can you just… Just- how could…” Flinn stammered, feeling the words thicken in his throat. “Just fucking talk to me.”

Oliver glanced up and the light caressed his eyes. Usually bright, like hazelnuts, they were now foggy and faraway and the swordsman merely set his head on his knees and shivered in the dark and cold of the Murk, listening to the echoing footsteps as Flinn walked away, breathing heavy.

*****

Amekot led the rest of the company from his office down the Archangel wing before realising Carter needed to be at his post and dismissed him with little preamble.

James saw his travel-pack and a look of confusion swamped his eyes, but Amekot towed them all along before he could ask any questions.

They headed up the spiralling stair and made their way to the third floor of the keep, coming to an ornate wooden door, like any of the others, marked with a name in golden script. This one was Shaa.

Michael read the name and frowned. Shaa was a lesser Gargan Creator, one of hundreds he’d never read about. There were storybooks dedicated to them, but unless you knew exactly where to look, they were just arduous, forgettable names. Or at least he used to think so.

Michael glanced to Aroha and mouthed the Gargan name in question with a frown in his eyes.

Aroha took a moment to answer and finally said, “Sincerity, I think.”

Michael wished he’d never asked.

Amekot pushed through the door and was immediately met with a dozen unhappy Legacies all clearly awoken some time before. The sour-faced woman, Kresta, held aloft a violently blue spell in the pages of a book.

She stood before a neatly folded bed, facing the panel on the wall concealing a wardrobe. “At your ready,” she said, pulling a swirling ball of light no bigger than a grape from the glowing words of the book.

Amekot waved impatiently and she pushed the magical orb into the closed panel, sending a violent shudder of light around the cupboard’s edge.

On another day Michael might’ve cared. But he was looking at the careful folds in Oliver’s bed. Everything was brushed so neatly.

Everyone in room grimaced as the spell ate away at the protective aura around the cabinet, sending a cobweb of fractures through the shimmering light and leaving the fragments to fall away like dead, autumn leaves.

Amekot pushed passed Kresta, ripped open the cupboard, and a dark smile rolled onto his face as he reached in a pulled out a handful of tightly-rolled documents.

“Priority Archive scrolls,” he said, smugly and began collecting up the papers. “For those of you with remaining doubt.” He then turned to find the Michael and the others standing silent, and all those in bed sitting up and staring at the empty bunk.

Amekot huffed and shook his head. “Are you all so heartbroken that you can’t be glad of ridding our home of a treasonous wretch?”

Nichole stood angrily, barking, “Would you just shu-” but she caught herself.

The chamber was silent. Even Amekot blinked. After a moment, his surprise hardened. “Go on. I’d love to hear you defend this.”

Nichole was staring into the floorboards. The anger that pitched and yawed in her chest was so heavy she couldn’t see straight. But the snide venom in his voice pulled her back to the world. Nichole looked squarely into Amekot’s face. “Defend this? No. I won’t defend this-”

Amekot smiled nastily. “Good, I’m glad you found your sense at last, Miss-”

Her voice erupted, blowing through his sentence. “-I swear to the gods, if you interrupt me again, Fortmaster, I’ll set you on fire while you sleep!” she spat.

If the room was quiet before, it was a tomb now.

Aroha looked at Nichole in horror as Amekot blinked, utterly in shock. “Nicky.”

Nichole’s eyes were shaking with furious tears. She didn’t look away from Amekot. “Oliver might be a traitor. But this. You.” She huffed, disgusted. “You are a vicious, cruel, bitter man.”

The room sat, stunned. Amekot said nothing. Michael looked at Nichole and hardly recognised her.

Nichole sniffled and nodded. “Congratulations on closing your investigation, Fortmaster.” She turned and left and Aroha walked after her.

James watched them leave and felt his eyes swelling. “What’s going to happen to him?”

Amekot stowed the sensitive information in a leather bag on his shoulder and gathered his wits for a moment. After a moment, he cleared his throat. “Treason has only one punishment. Execution. Does it matter?”

James, Michael, and Rose, all stared blankly as many of Oliver’s dorm-mates fell into a wounded quiet. They all felt the weight of the words, each realising that about an hour before, they would’ve never believed it’d be something said about Oliver.

Amekot scowled as he slung the bag over his shoulder and said, “He sold you all out. You do realise that? He stole documents and likely intended on giving them to Nikereus! He deserves to hang.”

When no one spoke, Amekot stomped to the door and Kresta followed him sharply.

Before he could vanish, Rose asked sternly, “Where in the Murk, Hillborn?”

Kresta stopped and growled, “This is your Fortmaster, and you will treat him as such!”

Amekot glowed at the mention of his title but his gaze fell coldly on Rose, who casually ignored the flustered old woman. “Why do you care?”

Rose stepped toward the man, feeling the eyes of everyone in the room on her. “Because I want to talk to him. I want to know why he decided that we weren’t worth it. I want him to look me in the face and tell me.” Rose felt the anger boiling in her chest and her hands shaking until she tightened them into fists. “I want to hear it from him.”

Amekot’s scowl drifted into a dark smile and he shrugged. “No.”

The room was thick with tension as Rose’s own face darkened, without even the curtesy of a false smile. “No? What makes you think I’m asking your permission? Or did you forget that those horseshit words the emperor stuck on the front of your name don’t mean a goddamn thing anymore?”

Rose pushed passed him and walked out in silence.