THE EBONY QUEEN

--- Chapter 1

Dreams are the mind’s way of telling you that life is stranger than you think--

Anton Minestrone, chronicler of Shard

It was an evening fit for visions to walk the earth. Sitting against the wheel of the cart, I played my Vhoe. It is a rare instrument with a long neck set with seven strings. A Vhoe sounds a little like a mandolin, but deeper, more silvery and haunting. If you’re not careful while playing the strings, it will simply wail. Because of this, there are few songs written for the Vhoe. The one place it is popular is in the Creemont mountains, in the tiny country of Creel.

One of the few songs written for it is about a man rambling across a country, searching for the perfect woman. It speaks of the queen of all his dreams, and I had just reached that part when I saw her.

The cart was parked right near the edge of a tiny, still pond. It was dark with the reflection of the twilight sky, glassy and mirrored. The queen appeared in the waters, just as I had seen her before in still water, dreams and visions. She was dressed all in black, from her boots to her short, silky gloves. A silver raven clasped the mantle around her neck, which was billowing behind her and hiding whatever shape she sat on. Her hair and eyes were dark too, with gleams in them from the crown of fire which bound her brow.

Reaching out, I touched the water beside the reflection. It rippled, sending waves over the image. But the queen stayed in the water unchanging.

“Who are you? Why have you been haunting me?”

I had never met this woman, nor was she a conjuration of my mind. For the last two months she had appeared to me, silent and unexplained. I could not even know if she was real. She was like no one I had ever heard of or seen before. I was not searching for her.

The queen simply came to me.

After a moment, the image faded. With a sigh, I sat up and leaned the Vhoe against my cart. It had been a gypsy wagon at one time, before I had found it abandoned on the side of the road in a state of ruin. With patience and care, I had rebuilt it and now it was pulled by my Frizzeen stallion, Prince Demon.

Walking to his side, I ran a hand down his silky, blue-black hide. The horses of Frizzeen are small and slim, but pull far above their weight. They can even out-pull a Grulath pony, those shaggy, stout beasts known for their stolid work ethic. And a Frizzeen stallion is much faster than those hefty ponies of the Rockclad isles.

“Why is she haunting me?” I asked the horse, whom I called Dee for short, “I am not looking for a woman. Only peace.”

The horse snuffled, touching my hand with his soft muzzle, blinking his yellow eyes. He could give no other answer, so I went to the back of the cart and picked up my Vhoe, carrying it inside. The wagon was like a tiny house on wheels. Inside, a miniature wood stove was set on iron plates against the right-hand wall, with shelves and cupboards full of supplies all around it. Loops of onions hung from the roof, along with a string of garlic and one of hot peppers. Against the front wall, a cushion was strapped upright. I could lower it to sleep inside when the weather was too wet for me out of the wagon. My few tools, the rack I carefully hung the Vhoe on and the sacks of goods that were my stock in trade took up the left-hand wall.

Using billets of wood and a handful of dry shavings, I started a fire in the stove. While root crop soup was reheating in the beat, blackened pot on the fire, I sat in the open doorway looking through the gloomy woods. The trees of the Dardec forest were ancient, with twisted bark grooved as deep as my hands, gnarled branches reaching to the sky and leaves a deep, velvety green. As darkness conquered the world, tiny lights flickered in the shadowed depths between the trees. Green, yellow and starry white, these were the Will-o'-the-wisp bugs ubiquitous to this forest. They were a species of firefly, much more numerous and bright than those in other parts of the country.

When the soup boiled, I poured it into a deep tin platter and sat back at the doorstep, eating it with my one wooden spoon. Steam curled up, scented with earth and leaves. I had been traveling throughout the Dardec forest for almost a year now, trading between the tiny villages and homesteads spread out through it. The Dardec is the largest continuous forest in all of Shardland, running from the Creemont mountains in the north. From there it goes at an angle between the sea of Devotion to the east and a mix of open terrain and cities to the west, down to coastal foothills and plains that guarded the sea again to the south.

Many people become lost in the Dardec and are never seen again. Outsiders, that is, or soldiers looking to levy an unfair tax on the citizens of the woods. There were enormous wolves, black panthers and small, grumbling bears in the woods that were known to destroy any man that displeased them. I had stayed on their good side for most of my time in the forest, though there had been one or two run-ins that nearly turned out badly. The inhabitants, too, had to be handled with respect. Not because they were unnaturally cruel or fierce, but because they rightfully considered the Dardec to be their own.

But now, in the quiet, clear days of early summer, I was on my way towards the west. My stock of fancy goods from the outside world was running low: sugar, salt, fine woven stuffs and gunpowder, to name a few. Most of the sacks I had were full of the things various farmsteads and villages in the forest produced and traded. Some contained items to sell in the big cities on the outside. Potatoes, radishes and other root crops. Wool, pelts and leather. A few nicely turned wooden bowls, statuettes and other nick-knacks. Corn liquor. Nallax resin in cakes from the trees of that species which only grew in these woods and was used to make certain types of varnish and paint.

Also, my clothes were becoming ragged and my shoes worn. Though there were traveling cobblers and women who were good with the needle in the Dardec, buying those things in the larger towns was a cheaper alternative.

The next morning, I hitched Dee back up into the spokes of the little cart. I walked beside him to guide him through the towering trees and sprawling brush as we made our way west. The early morning sunlight washed down through the leaves, green and gold, touching fluttering moths and patches of wildflowers into glowing flame. As I walked, keeping us on a basic westward heading, I wondered about the queen once again. Was she real? That was the question at the core of the riddle. If she was real, was she haunting me telepathically? Or was a middleman playing with magic and my mind to make me see her?

Or she could be nothing but a lost spirit, a fragment of imagination that had become lodged in my mind. The Dardec forest was known to harbor ghosts at a few choice places. They were said to follow a man through the woods like tendrils of mist, raising ghostly hands and begging for assistance. But if the person being haunted turned back or tried to move towards them, the ghosts drifted away. Still crying for help, they would disappear into the trees.

I had not yet encountered these spirits or been near the places they were said to haunt. But I had seen many odd things before in my travels throughout the land and did not disbelieve the tales. The queen could also be a phantom of sorts, a lost spirit waiting in the woods to present herself to any traveler that passed.

Dee clopped steadily beside me and the wagon creaked as it followed, making an almost musical accompaniment to my thoughts. Even as I was sunk in daydreams, my mind registered the meadows we passed, the signs on the trail and the raven that flew over us cackling to itself. Most of my life, I had been forced to stay alert, keep on my feet and never let my guard down. These woods were the most safety and peace I had ever found, but I still had to stay awake to keep accidents at bay.

By mid-morning, the trees were thinning. The warm rays of sunlight came through them in wider streams, so I paused for a moment to take off my leather vest and flop it on the driver’s seat of the wagon. Underneath, the pale green shirt I was wearing had a few holes in the back and under the sleeve, but it was better than my only other top.

A few minutes later, the sound of hoofbeats reached my ear. Cautiously, I pulled Dee to a stop beside the path and lay a hand on the long-bladed knife that hung at my side. Someone was coming towards us at a good pace, riding a large horse, by the sound of it.

Through the trees, the horse and rider came into view. It was a big horse, a Shardland charger of deep gray, and on its back rode a figure clad in gleaming armor. As he approached, I saw he held a lance in one hand with a banner streaming from the top of it. But the visor of his helmet was up and his shield hung from the saddle rather than his other arm. The design of the shield was a red field with a left-hand bend across it in yellow, marked by a round black dot in the center. An illegitimate son then, one that had won renown by getting injured in battle. Or at least, those were the colors of his lord. The knight was not necessarily the person indicated by the words of heraldry on his shield.

Turning my face towards Dee, I stroked him gently on the neck and listened to the knight’s approach, hoping that he would simply ride past. I was nothing but a woodland trader, peacefully standing next to the road. Nothing he should deign to speak to, or bother his important self about.

But unfortunately, he was the friendly type. The knight reined his charger to a gentle stop beside me on the path, speaking up in a jolly tone, “ho, my friend! One of the gypsy folk, are you?”

I turned to look up at him, letting him see my blue eyes. “No. Only a traveler who found one of their wagon in disrepair and remade it to my own purposes.”

“Ah, I can see that now. How foolish of me. You don’t look like a gypsy at all. And is that a little Frizzeen stallion pulling your cart? Splendid. What is your name, my friend?”

My true name is almost unpronounceable in this tongue. To avoid the trouble of explaining it and correcting everyone who tried to use it, I had taken to calling myself by a name that sounded similar but was more pronounceable to Shardlins.

“They call me Gray One.”

“Very good!” The knight had a stubby, golden beard on a square chin, a broad smile and eyes crinkled by laughter. “I’m sir Trist. Now Mr. Wolf, can you tell me how to find the village of er—er, Deckle’s Flat? An uncivilized place, I hear, but one I have some business in.”

A common nickname for wolves was ‘the Gray Ones’. Hence his little joke with my handle. Deckle’s Flat was the village I had recently left, and it was one of the largest in the Dardec forest. Its inhabitants would not have liked to be told that they were backwards, or even have it hinted to them. Neither would they care to have a knight of the kingdom descending on them if his business was an arrest or proclamation of further taxation.

So I nodded. “Aye, I’ve heard of that place. Somewhere in that direction, if I’m not mistaken.”

My thumb hooked over my shoulder in a vague direction that was neither a blatant lie nor the strictest truth.

“Thank you, sir,” the knight said politely, but to my disappointment, he did not immediately move off. Instead, he sat his horse and looked around him with an expression of amusement before commenting, “lots of trees here, isn’t there? Well, my business is just a proclamation, anyway. A quick one, I hope. Our righteous king is on his last legs and wishes every sector of his realm to know it. Even this gloomy wood known by the name of a wizard that died five hundred years ago. Deckle’s Flat is the only proper place on a map, so that is where I am being sent.”

“Crim Crossing and the Shute is on the map as well, sir,” I remarked blandly.

The knight nodded uncomfortably. “Well, yes. And the Shute has about the same population as Deckle’s Flat, they say. But it is on the other side of the Gang river and, well...”

“There is no safe crossing,” I finished for him, knowing what the outsiders thought to be the truth.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Not this side of the Twick marsh to the south, anyway.” The knight shrugged, finally tired of my dry conversation. “Well, tally-ho! I must be on my way. Good luck with whatever it is you do in these parts.”

And he rode away. One of the most friendly knights I had ever spoken to, and a silly, naïve fellow if I ever met one. At least he had not questioned me too closely. As soon as he was out of sight, Dee and I continued on our way. The news that the king was dying was not new to me. I had heard it from a run-away soldier making his way into the woods about five days before. The king was not old by Shardlin standard, being in the later half of his third decade, but he was said to be pining away of a complicated mixture of disease and sorrow that his physicians could not cure. The news had little effect on me. I could not cure him, nor did I wish to hasten his path to the grave. I knew that he had no known blood heir, but had heard that he was choosing a likely young general from his army to follow him. Like most people, especially in the Dardec woods, I simply hoped that the next king would impose no new taxes or laws upon us. We mostly wanted to be left alone.

The day passed and drew to an end as I came out on the edge of the woods, facing across the long plain of Anchillies towards the distant lights of Rockyford. I could just see them gleaming through the blue dusk as I had Dee pull the wagon over under an overhanging bush and unhitched him. He rolled in the grass with pleasure, before wandering to a short distance to chop and chew it. He would not go far in the time it took me to make dinner and eat it. Before I went to bed, I would tie him to the tree. Dee would not have wandered far on his own throughout the entire night, but if wolves or something else passed by and spooked him, he would run. A horse could not help it. They were built for running to save themselves from all harm.

Dinner that night was corn cakes and smoked venison, both reheated from an earlier meal by laying them on the wood stove. The queen did not come to visit me either while I was eating or when I had rolled myself in a blanket by the cart axels later that night. But when I was just drifting off to sleep I briefly saw a circle of fire like a crown burning behind my eyes before it faded away...

---

The stream that had given Rockyford its name lay on the forest side of the town. It was a shallow, gentle creek at this point, sunlit and warm under the early summer sun. Dee splashed through it cheerfully while I rode on the cart to preserve what was left of my worn boots. Pulling into town, I kept my eyes open for trouble, but saw none. Compared to any civilization I had seen for the last ten months, Rockyford was a bustling city. Plank boardwalks had trimly dressed people parading down them. Dusty roads hosted battles between children, dogs and the prices in the market. Shingled or tiled roofs gleamed in the sun and smoke rose from dozens of chimneys.

Many buildings were made of stone mortared neatly together, though a few were built of planks hauled from the forest or even half-logs used as walls. Near the center of the city was the open-air market of Rockyford. It had cobbled streets in two directions, rather than dirt, and many wooden stalls roofed in brightly colored cloth. It was open three days of the week and I had arrived during the last of them.

The first thing to do was find a comfortable place for Dee to stay near the market, then find middlemen customers for my goods. I could have paid the small fee and opened my own stall, or even sold directly from the cart. But my goods were mixed and I preferred not to have to jolly, cajole and pander to the flood of people going by to get their custom. I gained slightly less from selling to a merchant, but it was well worth the peace of mind to me.

After Dee was stabled nearby with a measure of oats for his hard work over the last months in the forest, I began to walk around the market looking for contacts. Soon I was greeted by a fat man with brawny arms, a pear-shaped face and gingery hair.

“Gray One! You are back again this year, eh? Have any more of those goods from the Dardec?”

It was Imol, a Krashian trader who often bought a large amount of my wares. After selling the crops and wool to him, along with the corn liquor, I went on to find a vendor dealing in cookery tools, stoneware, pottery, and other such things. I was lucky that day and it didn’t take much haggling for him to buy all of my woodworks once he had seen them. The only thing left was the Nallix resin and animal hides, one of which I would have to take to the city tanners to get the best deal, while the other I would bring to the sign-painter if I could find one.

But now I had a pocketful of clinking coins. They came in every denomination from a Tin, the smallest silver piece, up to a Lily, the second-largest golden piece common in Shardland. Two Lillies made a Gold, the piece of money which was worth the most and could commonly be found anywhere in Shardland. The capitol city of Halldesh was the only place that a bigger denomination was seen. There, I had been given to understand, they had a piece called a Kingshead that was as big as the palm of my hand.

First, I wanted to be fitted for a new pair of shoes. Leaving the market, I walked down a side-street nearby and found the cobbler’s house. It was a two-story affair where the cobbler himself lived in the upper part, while he carried on his work in the lower one. A few narrow glass windows with rough bubbles in them showed a shelf lined with fancy slippers and high-heels inside. By angling my head I could see the stouter boots and clogs on the opposite wall. The cobbler was in.

He was a wizened, crabbed man with gray hair, who insisted that he be called Lathe. I had met him before on my first trip to Rockyford and was able to get away with only a small bit of his dry wit applied to my appearance, intelligence and other personal matters.

“So, someone’s been shooting at you with split arrows again, ay’?” He remarked when he saw the holes in my shirt. “And the tribe of Changa has made you run across hot coals in your shoes, it looks like. Well, take those off and let’s see if we’ve anything that will fit you.”

“I want a pair made for me, to measure,” I told him, sitting on a bench to strip my muddy boots off and wiggle the non-to-clean toes under them in the air.

“Take all day!” Lathe snapped, jerking down pieces of wood and measuring sticks from a shelf.

“I’m staying for at least two days to buy a new stock,” I returned carelessly, “I’ll pick them up tomorrow morning.”

“Leather in these over here is pretty good,” he muttered, gesturing at a pair standing against the wall nearby. “Got it from farmer Grisda. His bull died, and he sold me the hide.”

I snorted. “And here I was thinking you had got it from a flea. Just measure me, would you?”

His mouth puckered up like a closed purse and he shook a finger at me. “Your mother must have taught you with an oat straw rather than a willow rod. No manners!”

I just held out my foot and continued to wiggle the toes, waiting for him to start. Eventually, after a few more ill-mannered remarks, he got down to business. Once he had measured my feet from every possible angle, he started carving the wooden blocks into a form that came apart in halves, so that the leather could be fit over it and the boots built up, before the wood was removed.

Once he was well on his way, I took my leave, promising to return for them in the morning. My next stop was to be the tailors, which should have been on the same street for ease of clothing oneself. But it was not and I could not quite remember where it was, so I stopped a dull, thick fellow on his way to the market and asked him directions.

He stopped and turned to look at me, blinking as he attempted to comprehend the meaning of his own native language. I was about to repeat my question when a young, breathless voice answered behind me, “oh, sir! Are you looking to buy a new set of clothes?”

I turned to see a boy standing there, handsomely dressed in a maroon tunic with gold trim and black leggings. In his arms he held a bundle of what appeared to be clothes just as fine, but made of a stouter fabric.

Before I could answer, he went on, “I need to sell these, you see, and they look like they are just your size. They’re all wrong and my brother doesn’t want them.”

“No, I--”

“Oh, come, sir.” He smiled winningly, plastering on the politeness. He had a narrow, finely made face and dark hair that made his skin seem oddly light in comparison. “They would suit you fine. Come on, just try this coat. Just your size...and cheap, too.”

Before I knew what was happening, the lad was slipping the sleeve of a jacket over my arm, still insisting that it fit fine and would suit me well. His salesmanship was so good that I could not resist him and did try on the jacket, though I was shaking my head the whole time. “Look here, boy, I can’t--”

“Yes, just your style.” He had put the whole jacket on me by now and stepped back to admire the effect, hands on hips. He had dumped the other clothes at my feet. “Now, I’m giving these away cheaply for their worth. I only want--”

Suddenly, he broke off. Behind him, the sound of someone running and voices crying was getting nearer. His face paled. He looked around once and was off down a side street. Bewildered, I began taking off the jacket, calling after him, “wait, I don’t want--!”

But he was gone. A moment later, a group of figures came bustling down the street, a watchman and a fellow dressed in a bathing robe running in the lead. They came towards me so quickly that I had only got the jacket half off and was still looking around in surprise when they swarmed up around me. The man in the bathing robe snatched at the jacket sleeve, tugging at it so that I was almost pulled over. All the time he was shouting at the top of his voice, “here he is! This must be the thief! This is my jacket, officer. Just ask anyone here that knows me. And these other things, jerkin, breeches, cap, all mine!”

Finally realizing that the lad had tricked me, I tried to explain things to the watchman, “look here, sir. This boy just came up to me and began trying to sell me these things. I didn’t take them. He said--”

All the while, the man in the robe and the neighbors and friends that were following him continued to shout. They screamed that those clothes certainly belonged to him and jerked on the jacket that was still half on me. I let it slip off with an annoyed jerk, pausing before trying to continue what I was saying to the watchman. But he laid a hand on my shoulder and shouted over the noise, “that’s enough of that! No use denying it, rascal. These clothes belong to goodman Frethic and you have them in your possession! Now come with me before I have to get violent with you.”

His hand slid up my shoulder as he spoke, shaking me slightly all the time. But when I felt its touch on my neck, all the anger that had been building in me let go in a burst of rage at the unjustness of the situation.

“I didn’t steal anything!”

And with that, I drew back my other arm to give him a blow in the chest, knocking him back, forcing him to let go of me.

Well, then all demons broke loose. The cluster of neighbors, friends and robbed man began tonguing like a pack of hounds. I was grabbed from every direction, almost torn in half and generally mishandled until the watchman pulled himself together and shouted over the noise of the mob, “halt!”

Everyone stopped what they were doing, but still kept a firm grip on me, keeping me from struggling loose.

“You, scoundrel, are under arrest!” the watchman declared, pointing a finger at me like a knife. “First for thievery and then for striking a man of the watch!”

“Wait, please,” I panted, “I didn’t steal these--”

“Shut up!” The man whose clothes we were childishly bickering over gave me a shake, and the watchman enforced it with a kick to my shin. This almost started another brawl, but eventually I realized that fighting would only get me in more trouble and it would be best to sort everything out with whoever would be judging the case.

Frethic cleaned up his clothes and begged to know how I would be punished. The watchman told hit I would be submitted to a ‘fair, equal’ trail at the mayor’s house the next day and that Frethic had to be there. Meanwhile, I was led away to be locked in the city dungeon.

In the center of Rockyford was the mayor’s small castle, which had four stout walls enclosing a small grounds and the mansion. I was taken to a tower at the corner of one of these walls, the bottom of which contained a few cells in a sort of cellar beneath the tower.

I submitted to the watchman’s putting me behind iron bars in one of these cells, before asking, “will you listen to me now?”

“Of course, sirrah.” The watchman pulled a scroll from his tunic and began writing on it with a quill pen from a nearby desk. “In fact, I must ask you the preliminary questions, to be given to the mayor along with your answers before the trial. Just a moment and we will begin.”

I bowed my head against the cold iron bars and let out a frustrated breath. This wasn’t how my trip to Rocky ford had been planned. In fact, this was the very sort of thing I had been hoping to avoid for the last year in particular. In the Dardec, this sort of offical justice-making and paper-writing did not exist.

“First item!” The officer of the watch declared. The dugeonmaster was also present, a pale, scrawny young man who carried the keys of the towers. But he was leaning against the wall, picking at a scab on his elbow and hardly paid attention to the whole thing.

“Did you steal Goodman Frethic’s clothes this morning, from his house where they resided, while he was bathing in his room?”

“Denied.”

The watchman looked at me, blinking for a moment, as if he had not expected that answer. “You mean to say that you did not steal them?”

“Exactly. Charge denied.”

He frowned. “Second item. You are accused of assaulting various good citizens on the street this morning, resulting in their injury.”

“Denied.”

“What!” He looked up at me again. “You deny that you struck various citizens with violent intent?”

“I deny that I assulted them. In the general brawl after they attacked me, they may have become struck. I’m not too clear on the matter. Charge denied.”

“Very well. You can’t deny this one.” The watchman hastily scrawled my answers on the scroll before reading out, “did you or did you not attack an officer of the watch while he was attempting an arrest?”

I considered this very carefully. “Yes, I think I did. You may put that one down as ‘accepted’.”

He let out a sigh of relief. “You had me frightened there for a moment. I thought you were simply going to deny everything.”

“I’m not a liar. Even when others are.” I turned away from the bars, gong to sit o the pile of musty straw in the corner. I did not look up again as the watchman humphed and chuntered to himself while putting away the scroll and taking his leave. The youth pried himself off of the wall and sauntered over to the bars. “Did you really attack ol’ Montgumery?”

“I hit him when he shook me.”

“It’s been coming to him,” the dungeonkeeper replied in a dissipated tone, before slumping out of the room and leaving me in the semi-gloom alone.