The Emerald Crown Read online

  The Emerald Crown

  L J Chappell

  THE EMERALD CROWN

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright 2018 L J Chappell

  All rights reserved.

  Cover Design by Diana Buidoso

  Published by Asquith Publishing

  Contents

  Chapter One - Lanvik

  Chapter Two – A Company of Thieves

  Chapter Three – Darkfall Ness

  Chapter Four - Roles and Performances

  Chapter Five - Devotions and Entertainments

  Chapter Six - The Emerald Crown

  Chapter One

  Lanvik

  1

  He had no memory of where he was, who he was, or why he was there.

  He had no memory of any time before the dark stone prison: no memory of anything earlier than a few days before.

  He believed that he was somewhere in the Northlands, and that it was winter.

  There was a small window high in the wall above his head that let the bitter cold into the cell. It was a simple opening – a deep recess: sometimes the sun cast shadows on the opposite wall, and he could see that there were bars. Pointless bars. Even if he could have reached the recess, it was tiny. He supposed that it would have been large enough for rats to pass through, but the cell was so inhospitable that there were no rats.

  There were smells and sounds from outside. The smells were distant and stale, and the loudest noises he heard were of small numbers of people passing by: no-one talking, no-one laughing, no-one arguing. So his window didn’t open onto anywhere that life was being lived: his prison was inside a compound of some sort – perhaps a castle or a fortress. Sometimes he heard voices raised in anger or laughter but they were far away, and sometimes he heard the raucous arguing of seabirds. So he was being held near a town or a city, at most a few miles from the sea.

  He could reach the bottom of the little opening with his fingers. As well as the chill air that blew in, sometimes there was fresh snow and he could gather a thin handful together. Sucking the drops from his fingers made a refreshing change from the grey foul-tasting water in his bowl.

  A pile of damp-smelling straw in one corner served as his bed, and there were half a dozen torn and filthy blankets for warmth. He had no jacket and no boots – he couldn’t remember, but he presumed that they had been taken away from him before he was put in this place. He had thick socks, but socks on their own were not sufficient against the cold, so he wrapped the blankets around his feet during the short days: the brief clutch of daylight hours.

  When he considered all of these circumstances, he believed that he was somewhere in the Northlands; that it was winter; that he was in or near a town; and that he was close to the sea.

  But when he closed his eyes and tried to remember, he couldn’t bring to mind any maps, any names, any knowledge of places: nothing that might have narrowed it down to half a dozen named cities. All he had was a vague notion that there were “Northlands”, and he was beginning to believe that he might have invented that.

  He opened his eyes and stared down: today’s wooden bowl of slop had pieces of ice in it. He had sucked on them as if they were a delicacy, hoping that the ice was mostly water.

  He had no memory of who he was but the hands holding the bowl, his hands, were soft, as if he had never worked. And the soles of his feet were soft, without calluses, as if he had never walked far. So what had he done, in this Northland place? Was he local, or was he a traveller; a visitor; a captive in some war? He didn’t have the hands of a soldier. And when he looked at himself, he didn’t have the strength of a soldier. Soldiers were strong, surely, but he didn’t have the strength of someone who had spent hours exercising to become strong.

  So, probably not a soldier.

  There were sometimes voices outside the cell that shouted and cursed and accused, normally after banging and kicking on the thick door to startle him, to wake him, to scare him. He had heard the voices call him “wizard”.

  When he ran his palms over his head, he could feel that his hair was short, shaved. So maybe they were right and he was a mage. But if he was a mage, then where was his staff? Had they taken it away from him?

  And what of the other mages? Surely, if he was a mage, then they should come and rescue him? Unless mages didn’t like to interfere, or there were no other mages, or he had no friends or allies among the other mages. Perhaps mages simply didn’t have friends and allies, at least not among other mages. Or perhaps the other mages didn’t know where he was, didn’t know that he needed to be rescued. If that was the case then it seemed unlikely that they would be able to find him: in this dark prison cell, near the sea, somewhere in “Northlands” that might or might not exist.

  Of course, if he was a mage, then he should be able to use magecraft to escape, shouldn’t he?

  But he couldn’t remember: couldn’t remember whether he was a mage and couldn’t remember anything about magecraft. On the first day that he recalled, he hadn’t even thought of trying. On the second day, he hadn’t wanted to – hadn’t wanted to try spells, to command the walls and doors to move aside for him; hadn’t wanted to make a fool of himself. In case someone was listening.

  But how stupid was that? Why would they care what he did now?

  He was already locked up: what further sanctions were they likely to take?

  So on the third day, he had shouted and cursed and intoned and commanded the doors, the walls, even the tiny window. He had waved his hands in grand, abrupt and unnatural motions like a poor actor, and shrieked “Open!” until his throat hurt and his voice cracked.

  ‘Shut up!’ voices had shouted back at him from outside the cell, and a boot kicked the door.

  And there had been no magic.

  He stared at the heavy door. Sometimes he envisaged his fellow mages rescuing him. That door would be blasted open with fire and smoke, lightning would crash around him and the mages would apologise for taking so long.

  The small hatch at the bottom of the door opened and a little wooden bowl was pushed through. The hatch slammed shut again.

  There were two bowls a day: one in the morning and one when it was dark. Based on the things the people outside called him, and the anger they seemed to feel towards him, he hated to think what they did to each meal before passing it through. Everything about it was revolting: the taste, the texture, the smell and the appearance. But he forced himself to eat it – it was probably keeping him alive. They opened the hatch again half an hour later: if his bowl wasn’t sitting there, ready for them to pull back through, then there was no next meal.

  When he contemplated escape, his plans normally centred upon somehow trapping the hands or feet of his jailers through that tiny hatch. But the hatch only opened from the outside, and they used a stick to push the bowl through and a hooked stick to pull it back out again. Perhaps two ends of the same stick.

  Apart from the hatch and the tiny opening in the wall that was his window, the only other gap in the stonework was a small foul-smelling opening in one corner that he used as a toilet. He hoped that the narrow pipe underneath was occasionally flushed with water – it hadn’t been since he arrived.

  He had nothing hard that he could dig with – no buckle or clasp with his clothes, no spoon with his food. He had nothing hard enough to tap against the floor and the walls, to listen for echoes that might reveal a loose stone, a cavity hollowed out by some previous captive or a secret passage through to an adjacent cell.

  The only way he was going to escape was through the door, and the thick wood had proved impervious to his shoulder; the walls had similarly revealed no weaknesses. He assumed that his only reward for those efforts had been to bruise himself, but the air in the cell was so cold
that he hadn’t been brave enough to peel back his clothes and look.

  He had no memory of why he was there, but the same voices that shouted at him through the door – the voices that called him “wizard” – also called him “murderer”.

  He didn’t feel like a murderer. But he didn’t feel like a wizard either.

  Was there a particular way that a murderer felt, or thought, or acted? Or did a murderer feel just like any other person, but with the memory of having killed?

  He had no memory of how long he had already been in the dark stone cell. He could remember three days or four days: he knew when it was light and dark, so that was an easy way to count the days, but three or four was all he could remember. He could have made marks on the walls, one for each day, but he had nothing to mark the walls with so he relied on his memory instead.

  He assumed that those three or four days were how long he had been in this little cell: perhaps a little longer. It was possible that he had been here for weeks or months, but only remembered the last few days. Perhaps they had done something to him recently that made him forget, or perhaps every few days he forgot everything.

  But no, he didn’t believe that.

  His clothes were in good repair, mostly – largely intact, except for his missing boots – and they didn’t smell too bad: didn’t smell as if he’d been wearing them for weeks. Also he doubted that his jailers would keep him here for very long – they would want a swift resolution. If he really was a murderer then someone, somewhere, would be baying for blood or compensation or revenge: whatever form justice took in this part of the world. He didn’t know what they did to murderers, and he didn’t know if it would be any worse than what they did to wizards, but surely they wouldn’t take very long making their minds up. If they did, there was a good chance that he would freeze to death first.

  He lay on his bed of damp straw and considered these things. His knees were drawn up to his chest and he had wrapped his handful of blankets tightly around him. It had been dark for hours and he was trying not to shiver, trying to relax as he drifted in and out of shallow sleep.

  Without any warning, for the first time that he could remember, the door opened.

  It wasn’t forced open, wasn’t broken down or blasted inwards: there was no flash of light and no noise. It was simply unlocked and opened.

  He lay paralysed: immobile on his thin bundle of hay. That the door would open at some point, he suddenly realised, had been inevitable. He should have prepared for this moment in advance; should have planned; should have been ready to rush forward and make some kind of attempt to push past, to overcome, to escape … something. But instead he lay dazed and half asleep beside the wall furthest from the door. He straightened his legs, rolled over and started to struggle to his feet despite the numbness.

  ‘Are you the one they call the wizard?’ a voice asked him from the door. There was a dull yellow light from burning torches in the passage beyond but the inside of the cell was almost completely dark. He couldn’t make out anything more than a tall silhouette standing in the doorway.

  ‘I think so, yes.’

  ‘My name is Kiergard Slorn,’ the silhouette introduced himself, ‘and I am here to rescue you.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He stumbled towards the door, eyes blinking in the weak light and the torch-smoke.

  There were three of them waiting – Kiergard Slorn, a young woman in a headscarf, and a second man, a muscular giant with short hair.

  They put a coat over his head: ‘Let’s hide the fact you’re a mage,’ Kiergard Slorn suggested, ‘in case someone sees us.’

  Then they moved as a group through the prison, passing a number of bodies on the floor: most had their throats cut, from behind, but a few had more serious and obvious wounds. Had these people all been killed to rescue him? Was his life worth more than theirs, all of theirs? And how much would his life be worth when his rescuers discovered that he’d lost his memory?

  He assumed that they would pass other cells and other prisoners on the way out, but they didn’t. In his imagination, prisons were simply rows and rows of cells, but the first passage they followed seemed only to lead to and from his cell. After that, there was a series of wide stone corridors that displayed no evidence of locks, bars or any other security features. Perhaps this building was a fortress of some sort, and only a handful of the rooms were used for holding prisoners.

  They moved as quietly and as quickly as they could. It was dark and there were no signs that anyone else was even awake. From time to time, the girl seemed to hear something and motioned for the others to stop for a moment while she listened: there was never any sound that he could hear. The place seemed deserted, silent apart from the guttering of the torches on the walls, but they kept to the shadows when they could. There were bound to be other soldiers, other guards.

  It seemed like forever, but they had only taken two or three turns and walked for no more than a minute in total when they reached an outside door. It was secured from inside with a simple latch and a heavy wooden bar – it seemed the guards were more concerned with keeping it firm against the weather than with preventing any escape. They pulled the door shut behind them again. Then his three rescuers sheathed their blades: he hadn’t even noticed that they were carrying any.

  Unbelievably, it felt even colder outside. He hoped that it was only the light wind and the open sky high above that made it seem that way.

  They had emerged from a tall brutish keep in black stone. There was a curtain wall only a few feet in front of them, and fifteen or twenty stone steps led up from where they stood to a walkway and parapet that ran around the edge.

  ‘Can you climb up?’ the girl asked.

  He stepped forward and paused, feeling the weakness in his legs. As he hesitated, the big man scooped him off the ground with both arms and carried him up the steps like a child.

  ‘Thanks,’ he mumbled, awkwardly.

  He leaned against the parapet wall to steady himself for a moment. On the other side, there was a street far below – three or four floors down – and beyond that he could see the dense muddled buildings of a large town. Some of the grander buildings were made of dark stone, like the prison tower behind them, but mostly they were wooden. There were piles of dirty ice and snow cleared to the sides of the streets, and a few undisturbed patches on the open ground.

  The girl joined them at the top, and then the man Kiergard Slorn behind her.

  ‘This way,’ the big man said, and set off along the wall. The others followed him.

  The curtain wall jutted outwards from time to time, forming squat stubby towers, and the parapet cast a dark shadow at each sharp corner. They stopped at one of these, where a simple knotted rope ladder had been rolled up and tucked against the wall in the darkness, difficult to see.

  Slorn leaned over the wall and waved to someone in the dark streets below. His giant companion looped and tied the top of the rope around one of the merlons and then threw the loose end over the side. Far below, two shapes emerged from the shadows and ran over to secure the bottom of the rope. As one of them grabbed the end and held it steady, the girl clambered out over the top of the wall and descended gracefully, smoothly and impossibly quickly.

  The supposed mage was about to protest, to explain that he could barely feel his hands and feet, that he wouldn’t be able to hold his grip. They weren’t expecting him to, though.

  ‘Bane,’ Kiergard Slorn nodded. The big man lifted him up again, this time taking hold of the back of his legs and hoisting him over one shoulder.

  ‘Try not to move much, unless you want to fall,’ Bane warned, as he clambered onto the wall. He pulled the rope towards him and lowered himself, one-handed, over the edge. He was somehow able to reach round the mage’s legs and use his right hand as well as his left, but his descent was still slow. Because of their weight, the rope swung and jerked as they descended, even with two people holding it from below. Every few knots, the mage’s head swung into the stone wall
and he grunted with pain.

  ‘Quiet,’ Bane growled.

  It took a painful age to reach the ground. The two figures holding the rope, a man and a woman, stood aside as Bane reached the bottom and jumped down the last couple of feet. Kiergard Slorn had been waiting until they were clear, and now he started down.

  The man took hold of the bottom of the rope again, to steady it, while the woman asked: ‘This is him? This is the wizard?’ She looked him up and down.

  ‘No,’ Bane told them. ‘We couldn’t find the wizard, so we rescued someone else instead.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Of course this is him,’ Bane glowered at her.

  ‘Don’t be so grumpy,’ the man with the rope chuckled. ‘I’m Garran, by the way. And this is Thawn.’

  Kiergard Slorn jumped down beside them. ‘Why are you chattering?’ he asked. ‘We should get away from here, quickly. The rope’s fixed at the top, so we can’t retrieve it. They will discover it soon.’

  ‘Right,’ Garran said. ‘This way, then.’ He led them between a couple of houses and along an alleyway. ‘Do you have a name, wizard?’ he asked.

  ‘Sorry, I don’t know… I’ve lost my memory.’

  ‘Oh, that’s useful,’ Kiergard Slorn said, drily.

  Garran and Thawn led the others for two blocks through the narrow streets to a dirty courtyard at the back of a tavern. Under a dark cloth in one corner, held down with stones and smelling of stale beer, was a neat stack of clothing and weapons.

  As the others strapped on more clothes than they had worn for the rescue, plus a surprising number of daggers, knives and other blades, Thawn passed him a small sack and said: ‘Here, wizard: these are for you.’ She looked him up and down. ‘Some of them should fit, just about.’

  He emptied the sack on the wet and dirty cobblestones: it was full of clothes – not clean and not fancy, but thick clothes that would be warm. And boots. The boots were a little loose, but he tore up some strips of fabric and stuffed them inside until they fitted snugly. After that, the others helped him dress, pulling long, loose clothes over his head in layers. He didn’t know how tall they’d guessed he might be, but most of them stopped at his ankles.