Paul Kuliniewicz

[Editor's note: Chapter 20 of my 2008 NaNoWriMo entry.]

Roland shuffled forward in line, absently drumming his fingers on the empty plate he held in his hands. It had occured to him as he left the lower dungeon, for what was technically the second time that day, that he wasn’t going to get very far in whatever he was going to do on an empty stomach. He had settled on eating at the knights’ mess hall on the ground floor of the keep, for no particular reason other than that it seemed like the most convenient option.

Roland took another half step as the line briefly lurched forward. As luck would have it, he apparently arrived near the end of the lunch rush, and despite having been in line for a good ten minutes still hadn’t received his food. Looking around, his impatience seemed to be shared by the knights in front of and behind him, though fortunately given Roland’s status as a paladin, they left a small gap immediately around Roland, preventing him from being jostled.

Roland felt full of nervous energy, wanting desperately to do something productive but having no idea what that something was. Dalton was certainly going to be of no help, and Roland couldn’t shake the suspicion that he’d gladly throw Roland in the cell next to Anna if given half a chance. Seeking further guidance from his superiors was also out; like with the priest he had spoken to the previous day, he’d probably just be told to let the whole thing go and resume his usual duties. And technically, they were probably right to say that; Roland was starting to overstay his welcome in Blackstone as it was.

The next half step forward finally brought Roland to the head of the line. He held out his plate and received a slab of what might’ve been halfway decent beef if it hadn’t been warmed over for the past hour and a scoop of green beans which stretched the definition of “green.” The empty pot suggested the cooks had run out of gravy already. Roland bitterly mused that even when it came to lunch, he couldn’t get a break from what was set in front of him.

Roland took his plate and walked over to one of the long tables where countless knights where finishing their meals and engaging in boisterous conversation with one another. He set his plate down in a relatively deserted section of one table, though he could still hear half a dozen people talking around him over the general din. Roland sat in front of it and began half-heartedly chewing his meal.

“… the old coot’s going to do if he gets to Doomhammer anyway,” he suddenly heard a voice somewhere nearby say. The mention of Doomhammer snapped his mind to attention, and he quickly looked around to see who was talking. The speaker appeared to be sitting on the opposite side of the table, two seats to Roland’s right, speaking to the person across from him.

“Pardon me, soldier,” Roland interrupted, leaning over to be heard over the noice. “What did you just say?”

“Sir!” the knight said, quickly straightening himself in his seat. “I said that I do not know what, um, Lord Arundel is planning on doing in Doomhammer, sir. If you thought I said something different, sir–”

“Don’t worry about it,” Roland tried to say reassuringly as he shifted to occupy the empty seat to his right. “Why do you say Lord Arundel is planning to go to Doomhammer?”

“That’s what we were talking about, sir,” replied the knight now next to Roland. “If you ask me, you’d have to crazy to — I mean, sir, one would be unwise to go there without a good reason these days. Not that it is my place to question the actions of the Vice Governor of Blackstone, of course, sir.”

“‘These days’?” Roland asked. “What’s happening in Doomhammer?”

The first knight looked at Roland quizzically. “You have not heard, sir?”

“I am afraid not. I have been traveling lately in areas where news does not reach quickly, and I have been occupied with… other matters since I have arrived here.”

“Well, sir,” the first knight began, leaning forward slightly as he spoke, “it began about six weeks or so ago.”

“After the fire?” Roland asked.

“Yes, sir, maybe a month or so after the fire. We started to hear stories that miners found a new vein of something in the mountains west of there. They were calling it something like Fracto… Fracti…”

“Fractilicite ore?” Roland guessed.

“That’s it!” the second knight said, snapping his fingers. “You’ve heard of it? If I may say so, sir, you don’t look much like the miner type.”

“I’m not,” Roland replied, “but part of our training requires us to be knowledgeable of many things.”

In particular, Roland knew, fractilicite was included in the alloy used to make the Order’s weapons, in particular the swords carried by paladins. Some of the Order’s scholars believed that pure fractilicite was somehow essential to channeling and harnessing the Lady Yssindria’s power to smite evil. Roland had no idea how that was supposed to work, but at the very least it didn’t seem to hurt.

“Anyway,” the first knight continued, “once the stories started making the rounds about the discovery, we started getting put through twice as many drills as normal. Pretty soon we started hearing what we all suspected by then: the Lanties were itching for a fight over it, and we’re going to give them one.”

Roland nodded. The only known deposit of fractilicite ore, as far as Roland was aware, at least, was near Castle Telerand itself. If Lantaria knew what the Order used it for, it would make sense that they would want their own supply to use for themselves. Of course, it would be useless since the Lady Yssindria was hardly going to lend her blessings to a bunch of heathens, but that wouldn’t stop them from trying. But given that Telerand categorically refused to trade fractilicite with Lantaria, even during the occasional period where relations between them had thawed, it wasn’t too surprising that Telerand wasn’t going to just let Lantaria seize it.

“Makes sense, I suppose,” Roland said, opting not to elaborate.

“I’d bet the Lanties don’t care about the mine at all; they just want an excuse to invade Doomhammer,” the second knight said. “They’ve been itching for an reason ever since the treaty.”

“Doesn’t matter to me either way,” the first knight added, pounding his fist into his empty hand. “I say, bring it on.”

“If you’re so eager to fight them, what are the two of you doing here?” Roland asked. “Shouldn’t you be out on the front lines?”

“No such luck,” the first knight replied. “They’ve ordered a regiment from here to fortify a couple towns near Doomhammer, but we’re stuck here on defense.”

“So, where does Lord Arundel come into all this?” Roland asked.

“Here’s where it gets a little weird,” the second knight said, lowering his voice and leaning in towards Roland. “A couple days ago I’m walking back from the Commander’s office, after having tried to convince him to send the two of us up the front. Anyway, I’m walking back, and a man in a hooded cloak stops me in the hall where there’s no one else around.”

“I’m telling you, there’s no way it was Lord Arundel,” the first knight interjected.

“And I’m telling you, I’d recognize that unibrow anywhere. Anyway, I pretend to not recognize who he is, because he’s obviously trying to hide his identity, and the last thing I need is for the Vice Governor to start coming down on me. Long story short, he tells me that he and a few of his associates are heading to Doomhammer, and asks if I ‘knew’ anyone who would be willing to ‘escort’ them there and back. Offered to pay pretty well for it, too.”

“And what did you tell him?” Roland asked.

“I told him no. I’m not an idiot. I’ve got my orders to stay here and guard the castle in case anything happens. Everyone knows it won’t, but orders are orders. Besides, even the groups that did get sent out are under strict orders not to cross into the DMZ around Doomhammer without explicit orders to do so. Believe me, the last thing I need is to get drummed out of here and go back to shoveling manure in the fields. No thank you.”

“So you think Lord Arundel has nothing better to do than to trick you into a dishonorable discharge?” the first knight jeered.

“Hey, I don’t pretend to know what nobles do with their time all day. Maybe he gets bored. I don’t know. But maybe he really wanted to go.”

“And like I was saying before you joined us, sir,” the first knight said, gesturing toward Roland, “what would he do if he got there anyway?”

“You’d have to ask him,” the second knight replied.

“Thank you for your time, both of you,” Roland said as he rose from the table, lifting his half-eaten lunch. “That does actually clear things up for me.”

“Yes, sir,” the two replied in unison.

Roland walked to the shelf near the kitchen door and carefully placed his plate on top of a teetering pile. He then turned and, nodding quickly to the two knights he had been speaking with, exited the mess hall.

It was a strange story, Roland thought, but it at least did shed a little light on why relations between Telerand and Lantaria had suddenly taken a turn for the worse, and why Dalton seemed convinced that the end was near if he didn’t do something first. Roland wondered whether he would be willing to let Lantaria get their own fractilicite mine without a fight, if the choice were up to him; even though he knew the material would be useless on its own, would he be willing to risk the kingdom on that belief? To be honest with himself, he was far from an expert in mineralogy and metallurgy; maybe the fractilicite alone would be enough.

He then immediately chided himself for so readily questioning the teachings of the Order. He couldn’t let what Dalton said the night before get to him.

Still, even though Roland had a little more information about what was going on, it wasn’t anything he could act on, and it certainly wasn’t going to help him find Derek or free Anna. But as he walked through the streets of Blackstone in the afternoon sun, an idea began formulating itself in the back of his mind.

Chapter word count: 1,719 (according to wc)
Total word count: 36,473 / 50,000 (72.946% complete)

[Editor's note: Chapter 19 of my 2008 NaNoWriMo entry.]

Roland passed the guards stationed at the entrace to the dungeon. They showed no reaction to him at all, other than the ones standing immediately in front of the doorway stepping aside as he approached, and stepping back into place once he was through. Their presence there reminded Roland of the orders Dalton had given them. It was probably fortunate that Dalton had said to use lethal force specifically against anyone trying to enter, not anyone who merely tried to pass through. From the looks of their faces, Roland guessed they were the type to take their orders seriously.

Being underground, Roland had no idea what time it now was. Roland could feel the fatigue creeping back into his body, but decided to ignore it for the time being. Instead of climbing the stairs, he descended to the bottom level, which turned out to be another two flights down.

Roland exited the stairwell to find two knights standing in front of a solid iron gate set in the stone wall. Unlike the guards on the main dungeon floor, these were dressed in full armor. The design was similar to that of a paladin’s suit of armor, but with minimal decorative embellishments and colored the standard silver.

“Halt! Who goes there?” the knight on the left said, his voice taking on a metallic echo from his lowered visor.

Roland quickly straightened himself and replied in his most official-sounding voice, “Sir Roland, paladin third class of the Order of Yssindria. I come to see the prisoner Anna. Sir Dalton has told me she is being held here.”

Roland stood motionless while the knight studied him. Finally, the guard said, “You may pass. Do not approach the prisoner’s cell within the boundary marked on the floor. Speak to the guards on the other side when you wish to exit.”

The other knight began turning a crank, and the heavy iron gate slowly began sliding to the side, groaning slightly. As it opened, Roland saw two additional guards, also wearing suits of armor, standing just inside the gate, facing the other direction.

Dalton was clearly taking every precaution with Anna. On the main dungeon floor, Roland had been able to move about freely with no problem. Here, however, the guards were carefully controlling access to the interior, though for whatever reason he was still being permitted to enter. Presumably Dalton was still holding out some hope that Roland might be able to get some critical bit of information out of Anna.

Once the gate was fully opened, the guards motioned Roland through. As soon as he was passed, he heard the gate groaning again, presumably as it shut behind him. Roland proceeded down a narrow hallway, only about one and a half people wide and which curved back and forth. Shadows danced on the walls and floor around Roland as he passed one torch set in the wall after another.

The passageway eventually opened up into a small chamber, with a single cell on the opposite wall. A line made of some kind of white powder stretched in front of the cell, about two arm lengths from the row of iron bars. As Roland exited the passageway into the chamber, he saw on the periphery of his vision two more guards, again in full armor, standing in the corners of the room opposite the cell.

The walls of the cell, along with the floor and ceiling, were made of almost perfectly rectangular stones, with only minute gaps between them. The iron bars separating the cell from the rest of the chamber looked much like those on the main floor, put packed more closely together and with horizontal bars running across for good measure. Inside the cell, the only furnishings were a squat wooden bucket in one corner, which Roland quickly realized it was wisest not to focus too carefully on, and an raised stone slab apparently meant to serve as a bed.

On that bed, Roland saw Anna curled up, using her hands as a pillow. Roland mused that she looked oddly peaceful as she slept, in contrast to the brutal surroundings. He stood there watching her for a few minutes, too reluctant to wake her from what was probably her only respite from her imprisonment. If he was going to speak with her, Roland would need to return later. Besides, seeing Anna sleeping was reminding his body that sleep sounded like a good idea too.

Silently, Roland turned and walked through the winding passage back to the iron gate.

“I am ready to leave,” he said to the guards. “I will return when Anna — the prisoner is awake.”

One of the guards knocked on the gate, leaned towards it, and lifted the visor on the helmet. “‘Spoiled holiday,’” he shouted through it, and in a few seconds, the gate began sliding open.

Roland exited the dungeon, climbed the stairs back to ground level, left the keep, and began his walk back to his quarters, growing more tired with each step. When he arrived, he flopped down onto his bed, not bothering to change first, just as the first light of sunrise began shining through the room’s window.

Roland closed his eyes and tried to sleep, struggling to push the events of the last couple hours out of his mind as best he could. As he finally drifted asleep, his last thought was hoping the priest was right about problems being easier after a good night’s rest.

—-

Roland returned to the bottom floor of the dungeon after he woke around noon. The procedure was much the same as before, the only difference being a slightly different voice spoken by the guard, suggesting there had been a shift change at some point after he had left.

When he entered the chamber holding Anna’s cell, Roland saw her lying on her back on the stone slab, staring at the ceiling. She didn’t seem to react to Roland’s entrance.

“Hi, Anna,” Roland said softly.

Anna leaned her head back slightly to look at Roland, then returned to her original position, saying nothing.

“How are you holding up?” he asked.

“Never been better,” she replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

Roland sighed, and struggled to think of something to say. He finally settled on, “Is there anything I can do?”

“Do you mean to help me, or are you capable of doing anything in general?” she replied, rolling onto her stomach and lifting her head to look at Roland. “Not that it matters; my answer’s going to be the same either way.”

“Look, I know things haven’t exactly been going well–”

“Oh, really? I hadn’t noticed,” Anna interrupted. “Though come to think of it, your goons did burst into my room in the middle of the night and grill me for hours before throwing me down here to rot.”

“They weren’t my goons,” Roland said. “I had nothing to do with any of this.”

“But that’s the problem, isn’t it? You haven’t had anything to do with anything that’s happened since you brought us here. It’s all been what’s-his-name running everything. Seems like the only person with less authority around here than you is me.”

“Look, I’ve been doing everything I can. It’s just been a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. And last night isn’t going to make it any easier.”

“Yeah, it certainly cut down on my options a bit. But apparently it hasn’t worked out nearly so badly for you; they’re still letting you run around the place. Lucky you.”

Roland saw that Anna was hardly going to stop criticizing his recent lack of performance, so he tried changing the subject to something that might be a little more productive. “Do you have any idea what happened with Derek last night?”

“So what’s-his-name sent you down here to interrogate me now?”

“Is there something he needs to know? Things are… a lot more serious than you might be aware.”

“That’s a shame. I’ve told him everything I’m going to tell him.”

“He says you haven’t told him anything.”

“Exactly. So I guess we’re done here, then.” Anna sat up on the slab and turned to face the far wall, her back to Roland.

“OK, I know you’re upset and frustrated with me. And really, you have every right to be. Things have just gone from bad to worse ever since I brought you here. I wish I could tell you that I’m going to get you out of here, and that we’ll track down your brother again, but I can’t, because I don’t know how I’m going to do that, if it’s even possible.”

Anna didn’t respond.

“But like it or not,” Roland continued, “I’m the closest thing to a friend you’ve got around here. And maybe I haven’t been able to do much lately to inspire a lot of faith in me, but the only thing I can give you right now is a promise, and that’ll have to be enough for now. I’m not going to give up. I’m going to do everything I can to not let you down. And I’m not going to just turn around and desert you, no matter how bleak things might look. None of what’s happened is my fault, but that doesn’t mean it’s still not my responsibility to set things right. And at the end of the day, that’s what we paladins are here for. We are the light when all else is darkness. We are the hope when all hope is lost. And whether or not you believe any of that, it’s true.”

Roland couldn’t tell if his clumsy attempt to raise Anna’s spirits had any effect, as she sat silent and motionless in her cell, looking away.

“You may have turned your back on me, but I’m not going to turn my back on you,” he finished. It was cheesy, and literally false since he’d have to turn around to exit the chamber anyway, but it would have to do until he could return with better news.

Chapter word count: 1,678 (according to wc)
Total word count: 34,754 / 50,000 (69.508% complete)

[Editor's note: Chapter 18 of my 2008 NaNoWriMo entry.]

“What I am about to tell you,” Dalton began, speaking slowly and deliberately, “is not to leave this room under any circumstances. You are not to repeat anything that we discuss here to anybody. If you do, you will be spending the rest of your life in a cell much less comfortable than these, and that’s if I happen to be feeling charitable. Do I make myself clear?”

Roland nodded.

“Body language isn’t going to cut it. I need your explicit verbal agreement before we proceed.”

Roland swallowed uncomfortably. He was hardly planning to go against his word, but Dalton’s degree of caution, if not outright paranoia, indicated that whatever Dalton was going to tell him, he thought it was very serious indeed. “I agree not to speak of this with anybody,” he reluctantly said, not knowing just what he was getting himself into.

“Good. Under better circumstances, I would have been content to leave you out of this entirely, but it seems you’ve managed to work your way into this far deeper than you realize, and fate has not seen fit to give me much time. But it seems now you need to know just what it is that’s at stake if we can’t regain control over the boy.”

Roland watched Dalton as he slowly paced back and forth, wishing he would get on with whatever he was going to say.

“You are no doubt aware,” Dalton continued, “of the increasingly strained relations between ourselves and Lantaria.”

“I am,” Roland said.

“And it would probably not surprise you to learn that the Lantarians are preparing for a war with us that they increasingly see to be inevitable.”

“Correct.”

“But you are probably not aware that we have reason to believe that Lantarian agents have been infiltrating the smuggling networks that have grown to reach most parts of the kingdom. We believe Lantaria has been able to place its agents in nearly every single village in the kingdom.”

“To what end?”

“We believe it is to strike at us quickly and decisively if, or more likely when, war is declared. Their goal would be to deal the kingdom a fatal blow before our armies ever engage one another on the battlefield, forcing us to focus on maintaining order and stability behind our borders instead of battling the external threat.”

“What sort of attacks would they be planning?”

“We have not yet been able to get conclusive evidence on that. However, many of us believe that the Doomhammer incident may have been meant as a warning to us of what they are capable of.”

“You think Doomhammer was arson?” Roland asked, dumbfounded.

“We were hesitant at first to attribute it to Lantaria. However, the information you provided us upon arrival here as helped to bolster the case. We now know, thanks to you, that there was activity in the black market there when the fire started. More importantly, though, there was also the fire the night you met Anna, and we know she was tracing the connections of the smuggling network trying to find her brother. That fire may have been started to destroy evidence, thinking Anna was somehow working for us. It could also have been a second warning to us, that they are also capable of striking against villages that are indisputably in our control.”

“That’s it?” Roland asked skeptically. “It sounds to me like a lot of guesswork trying to link together two events that might have just been coincidences.”

“That’s precisely what we’d expect if their agents are as skilled as we believe they are,” Dalton countered. “If they made it too clear they were behind the indicidents, we’d be able to accuse them of it openly, which would let us shift the balance of power in our favor. They need to let us have just enough evidence so that we suspect them, but not enough to call them out on it.”

Roland shook his head. “Even if you’re right about all this, I don’t see what any of it has to do with what happened here.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Dalton replied. “The boy is powerful, and he has spent extended time with elements associated with the smuggling network, in particular with the one called Mattias. The kid was vulnerable and impressionable; he must’ve been turned to their side while he was being held at Helioth. He would be a valuable asset to them, and since he was acting alone when he escaped, he obviously wants to return to them of his own accord.”

“That doesn’t make sense, though. The way Mattias talked, it sounded like he didn’t much care for us or the Lantarians. Why would he be working for them?”

“And admit to a paladin serving the kingdom of Telerand that he’s secretly plotting the downfall of our kingdom?” Dalton asked, incredulous. “Please. You youself said you couldn’t trust what he said. You’re going to take him at his word now?”

Roland had to agree there was at least some logic to what Dalton was saying, but it still didn’t seem quite right. “So you believe that Derek will be pressed into service into Lantaria’s armies, and you’re trying to get him back so that won’t happen?”

“No, not at all! You’re not listening to what I’m saying. They’re not going to want to use him against our knights.”

“Why not?”

“Because they don’t want to fight our knights at all! Everyone knows our armies are about equally matched, so what is going to happen when they fight each other? Lots of bloodshed, lots of death, and no gains by either side. One individual isn’t going to change that, and putting a kid on the battlefield is just giving your enemy an easy target. Even your Order understood that, back before they lost their stomach for recruiting orphans.”

Roland kept silent.

“Armies clashing on the battlefield is all well and good if you’re trying to tell an epic story, but as an actual strategy it’s terrible unless you have an overwhelming advantage, which we don’t, and neither do they. That’s what everyone did back before the Demon War, and what was the result? Nothing! Kingdoms would fight, exhaust their resources with nothing to show for it except a pile of corpses, agree to a truce, and do it all over again in a year or two. It didn’t work then, and it certainly won’t work now.”

Roland noticed that Dalton’s speech was growing more and more emphatic as he went on.

“So what do you do instead?” Dalton continued. “Attack behind their lines, while their forces are off expecting to fight you directly! Wreck their economy, burn down their villages, and soon the peasants will revolt, demanding the king put a stop to it. And left with the choice of accepting the enemy’s demands or trying to fight both an advancing army and a revolution, what you do think he’s going to do?”

“What makes you so sure this is what’s going to happen?” Roland countered. “All you have is a handful of rumors and a couple coincidences!”

“Because it’s exactly what we’re going to do to them!” Dalton shouted.

Roland and Dalton stared at each other, silent.

“We’ve been working our people into Lantaria’s underground economy for a year now,” Dalton continued, his voice once again relatively calm. “The King doesn’t want to lose half his army fighting over Doomhammer, so we gave him a way to defeat Lantaria if they ever try to press the issue. We’d be naive to assume they aren’t smart enough to figure out the strategy we’re using themselves.”

“Who’s ‘we’?” Roland asked. “The Order would never stand for that, and I doubt the Royal Knights would either.”

“Which is why I’m not with either. The King established the Advance Guard a few years ago to handle these sorts of issues. The Knights here are merely providing me assistance with the less sensitive aspects of my job here.”

“I’ve never heard of any ‘Advance Guard.’”

“Yes, that’s the idea. And you still wouldn’t, if you didn’t need to understand how the future of the kingdom could be at stake if we don’t get Derek back, or at the very least know for certain precisely what he is capable of doing to us.”

Roland took a couple steps back. “You can’t expect me to stand for this. It goes against every ideal the Order is founded on!”

“And is it any wonder why the last time your Order did anything besides ministering shrines was during the Demon War? You are all very noble and idealistic, and I respect that, but the fact of the matter is, the world is neither noble nor idealistic. How many times have you actually led an army to fight evil on the battlefield like you were trained to do? The Order was always really about being the symbol of good leading the way, but with nothing to lead, all that’s left is the symbol. That still has its place, but it’s no longer on the front lines, because ‘the front lines’ today is more a metaphor than anything else.”

Roland fixed his eyes on Dalton. As terrible as what he was saying was, the worst of it was that part of Roland recognized it to be true. The only official duty he could remember ever having in the Order was to go on recruiting trips. Maybe the chronic lack of recruits was a sign that Dalton’s perspective had somehow become rooted in the general consciousness. Maybe the Order really was on the way to being obsolete.

“Where’s Anna?” Roland finally asked, wanting to think about something, anything, less distressing.

“She’s stopped even pretending to be cooperative ever since her brother’s escape. No doubt she knows how he did it, but she refuses to speak to us. We’ve had her moved down to the bottom level until she changes her mind, or in case her brother tries to come and rescue her. I believe we’re done here,” Dalton added as an afterthought.

Roland stood for a few moments, then silently turned and began walking back down the hall towards the entrance.

“If you do still want to help,” Dalton called after him, “you can try talking some sense into the girl. And remember our little agreement.”

Chapter word count: 1,720 (according to wc)
Total word count: 33,076 / 50,000 (66.152% complete)

[Editor's note: Chapter 17 of my 2008 NaNoWriMo entry.]

Roland awoke to the sound of someone pounding on the door. A look out the window suggested it was still in the middle of the night, and Roland’s body agreed. He groggily rolled out of bed, pulled on the cloak slung over a nearby chair, and stumbled towards the door. Blinking a few times to help focus his vision, he unbolted and opened the door, revealing two knights standing there, more alert than anyone had a right to be at this time of night.

“Sir Roland,” one of the knights announced, “we have orders to bring you to Sir Dalton.”

“What for?” Roland asked, rubbing one of his eyes.

“You will find that out when you meet Sir Dalton,” the other knight replied. In other words, Roland suspected, they had no idea either.

“Can it wait until morning?”

“We are to bring you before Sir Dalton immediately.”

“Can I at least get properly dressed first?”

The knights looked at each other briefly, before the first one replied, “Make it quick.”

Roland shut the door and let out a heavy sigh. As he hurriedly got dressed, the corner of his mind that wasn’t trying to fall back asleep wondered what was going on. He doubted that Dalton had had a sudden change of heart about Derek, and even if he had, he would have had no reason not to at least wait until morning. More worrisome, sending two knights to deliver the message instead of one seemed a little excessive.

Whatever was going on, Roland knew he would find out soon enough. Mostly awake now due to the flurry of activity, Roland opened the door and saw the two knights standing there, in the same positions as before.

“I’m ready,” Roland said.

“Follow us.”

The two knights led Roland through the dark, empty streets of Blackstone, heading directly towards the castle keep. Once inside, they led him not up to Dalton’s office, but down two flights of stairs to the entrance of the castle dungeon. Dalton was pacing back and forth in front of the doors into the dungeon when Roland and his escorts arrived. The knights brought Roland up to Dalton, then took a couple steps back to stand behind Roland as Dalton turned to face him.

“Tell me everything you know about the boy Derek,” Dalton ordered, “no matter how insignificant.”

“I believe I told you everything I know about him when we spoke earlier,” Roland replied.

“Then tell me again.”

“May I ask first what is so urgent?”

“No.”

Roland knew something was definitely going on, but it looked like the only way he might have a chance to find out what was to go along with Dalton’s request. “OK. Derek is Anna’s younger brother. He was abducted by Mattias during the Doomhammer fire months ago, and was taken to Castle Helioth. Anna tracked down where he had been taken, and I assisted her in rescuing him. I then brought the two of them here.” Part of Roland wanted to add, “where he was then imprisoned again against his or his sister’s will,” but he saw this was a very bad time to raise that issue again.

“I’m well aware of the sequence of events that brought him here,” Dalton replied dismissively. “But what do you know about the boy himself?”

Roland thought for a moment. “Not very much. He seems fairly quiet. Keeps to himself. He’s polite, almost to a fault. Never complains about anything. I was only around him for a week, though.”

“You had said his sister had some minor magical abilities. Does he?”

“I… think so?” Roland replied, hesitantly.

“What are they?”

“I do not know. I never saw him do anything while we were traveling through the forest to get here. If Anna or Mattias hadn’t said anything about it, I probably wouldn’t have suspected he had any to begin with.”

“What did they tell you about his abilities?”

“Not much.”

“Humor me.”

Roland closed his eyes, focusing on remembering the few times it had come up in conversation. “Anna always tried to change the subject whenever it came up. The only thing I can recall specifically is that she said something about him being unlucky, somehow, but she didn’t elaborate. She never did explain what she meant by that. And I think Mattias knew even less than I did. He was guessing that Derek had some kind of magic, but I don’t think he ever saw Derek do anything either. He did say something about Derek maybe being confused or scared about whatever it was, but I think he was just guessing based on Derek’s demeanor.”

Dalton leaned forward, scrutinizing Roland’s face. “And that is everything you know? You’re not forgetting anything or leaving anything out, no matter how insignificant?”

“No.” Roland wondered if Dalton was honestly trying to get more information out of him, or if Dalton was just testing him somehow.

“Then perhaps this might jog your memory. Guards! Follow me.”

Dalton turned and passed through the entrance to the dungeon. The pair of knights behind Roland nudged him forward, and kept close behind as Roland followed Dalton in. They walked past empty cell after empty cell, until they rounded the corner to where Derek was being held.

Roland immediately noticed that the door to Derek’s cell was lying on the floor of the hallway. The edges of the door, especially around the hinges and lock, were bent wildly out of shape, as though struck with great force. Roland’s attention then turned to the splatters of blood on the walls and floor of the hallway. As he slowly walked forward, surveying the scene, his foot slid briefly on some pebbles strewn about the floor. Roland guessed they were from a couple gouges in the stone wall opposite the row of cells.

“I suppose now you understand why I saw the need to keep the boy here instead of letting him go,” Dalton said matter-of-factly.

“What happened here?” Roland asked, trying to come to grips with what he was seeing.

“My men,” Dalton replied, motioning towards a few people in the hallway and in the cell, moving carefully and carrying small notebooks, “are working on figuring that out as we speak. But here’s what we do know for sure. I have six knights in the morgue right now, and four others being treated for severe injuries. Blunt trauma. And, in addition to the damage you can see, the boy is nowhere to be found.”

“So someone broke into the dungeon, came here, busted Derek out of his cell, then fought their way back out?” Roland guessed.

“That was our first guess,” Dalton replied, “but it doesn’t make sense. If someone wanted to silence the boy, it would be easier to just kill him here. Taking him with them would only slow them down and make it more difficult to escape. So the boy must be more valuable than even we had initially thought.”

Roland frowned. “That’s not a terribly convincing argument.”

“It doesn’t have to be; the evidence supports it. Look at where the door of the cell used to be, and tell me what you notice.”

Roland cautiously stepped forward towards the cell. Iron bars ran from floor to ceiling, forming three of the four walls of the cell. The bars along the sides of the door were bent out of shape, as though someone had smashed the lock and beaten the door off its hinges. But something about the damage seemed a little off….

“The damage to the door came from inside the cell?” Roland guessed. “The bars are all bent outwards, towards the hall. If someone on the outside tried to break the door down, the bars would be bent inward.”

“Exactly,” Dalton said. “Plus, the door itself is lying in the hallway, not the cell, so it must have fallen outward. Additionally, the guards outside the keep who witnessed the escape only reported someone exiting the keep, not entering it. The guards in the dungeon itself who might have witnessed what happened are all dead or unconscious. So I turn to you, good Sir Roland, to ask: how is it that a timid young boy, devoid of weapons or outside help, manages to break out of a cell and fight his way through nearly a dozen trained guards?”

“I… I have no idea,” was all Roland could say.

“I do,” Dalton said. “It’s clear to me that the boy is far more dangerous than he appears. Whatever magical abilities he has, it is something far greater than the little parlor tricks you’ve told me about. You had wanted me to let him go free? It seems that my mistake was not having thrown him into a maximum security cell under twenty-four-hour guard!”

“Surely you’re not somehow suggesting I had something to do with this?” Roland asked.

Dalton turned his back to Roland. “No, of course not. The only thing I can accuse you of right now is having bought in to his innocent-boy act. Something which, unfortunately, it seems we all are guilty of. But that is not why I summoned you here tonight,” he continued, turning back to face Roland. “I need to know if there is anything, anything at all, that you know which might tell us how the boy was able to do this, or where he might have gone, or what else he might be planning on doing. The safety of this castle, maybe even of this kingdom, is at stake.”

“You honestly think Derek may have some kind of ulterior motive? He’s still just a boy.”

“A boy who killed six men!” Dalton shouted, pounding his fist in the air against an invisible table. “Maybe ten, depending on whether the survivors are able to recover. Someone capable of that is capable of anything. I don’t care how young he is.”

“Even if he has killed them,” Roland said, raising his voice, “that doesn’t mean he’s evil! He’s been traumatized by everything he’s gone through: losing his parents, being kidnapped, imprisoned, and just when things start looking up for him, imprisoned again, with no hope of ever being free. He finally lashed out when he could no longer bear it. I’m not defending what he may have done here, but he needs our help, not an army treating him like an enemy to the throne! You say you should’ve treated him even more harshly? For all we know, that might be what set him off in the first place!”

Dalton glared at Roland, breathing heavily. Finally, he shouted, “Everyone, leave us. That is an order! Guards, secure the entrance. Lethal force is authorized against anyone who tries to get in until I tell you otherwise. Understood?”

The guards and investigators hurriedly made their way past Dalton and Roland, down the hall and out of view. Dalton stood there, silently, until the sound of the entrace to the dungeon being shut and barred echoed down the now-empty hallway.

“Well then, good Sir Roland, allow me to explain why I think otherwise.”

Chapter word count: 1,847 (according to wc)
Total word count: 31,356 / 50,000 (62.712% complete)

[Editor's note: Chapter 16 of my 2008 NaNoWriMo entry.]

Roland slowly paced through the streets of Blackstone, lost in thought. The promise he had made to Anna weighed heavy in his heart. He felt himself bound to honor it, not merely from an obligation to follow through on a promise but because he felt at least in part responsible for Derek’s current condition, trapped beneath Castle Blackstone, the only person by his side powerless to help him.

Yet he himself felt powerless in this situation as well. Dalton clearly was not going to be swayed easily, if such a thing were even possible, and Roland doubted he would be granted a second opportunity to try in any event. But what else could Roland do?

The irony of the situation cast a heavy shadow on Roland’s heart. In the ruins of Castle Helioth, the very heart of the old evil that had nearly consumed every kingdom, Roland had had little difficulty securing Derek’s freedom. But here, where the kingdom of Telerand held firm control, Roland could do nothing to help him. Roland’s position in the Order gave him all the power he needed to smite evil wherever it lay, but gave him nothing to persuade a bureaucrat.

The setting did little to cheer him up. In every direction, the outer walls of Castle Blackstone loomed over the humble buildings of the town protected within them, blocking all view of the horizon. While those walls were obviously there for the town’s protection, from this angle they looked more like a cage, trapping him metaphorically in the same way that the dungeon walls trapped Derek literally.

As soon as the image had entered his mind, Roland shoved it aside and silently cursed himself for ever having imagined it in the first place. He reminded himself that though he may be lost, he was not powerless. He was still free to act; Derek was not. A true paladin would never give up just because things looked bleak; that was precisely the time when a paladin’s action was most urgently needed. And if Anna had lost her faith in Roland’s ability, that only meant that he must redouble his efforts to be the hope for those for whom all hope was lost.

The path was surely there, even if Roland could not see it. And if he could not see it, then he would need to consult someone who could.

—-

After searching the streets of Blackstone systematically, Roland finally found the Shrine of Yssindria, on the opposite side of town as the building which housed the Order’s sleeping quarters. He had difficulty recognizing it at first; having grown accustomed to the standard building design, he had almost overlooked the emblem of the Order on the curved wall of the building.

Roland entered the building, and stopped just inside the door, wondering if he had been mistaken after all. The room he found himself in was circular. The floors sloped slightly downwards towards the center, where upon a dais stood an alter shaped like a ring with a notch cut out of it. Wooden pews arced around the center of the room, with aisles radiating out from the center like spokes in a wagon wheel. Roland had never seen an altar without a statue of Yssindria standing behind it, and certainly not one where a priest was apparently supposed to stand within the altar itself. Yet this was indeed a shrine to Yssindria, as the images of scenes from the holy books that were engraved around the stone wall attested.

Roland slowly walked around the perimeter of the room until he reached a door on the opposite side of the entrance. Since it was the only other door set along the wall, Roland guessed that this led to the back chamber of the shrine. Roland knocked lightly on the door.

“The next services won’t be held until tomorrow morn–” a voice said from behind the door as it swung slightly inward, stopping once the head of someone wearing the usual vestments of a shrine acolyte poked through the crack. “Oh, my apologies, sir. I had thought you might be another villager asking about the schedule. Is there something I can help you with, sir?”

“Is the head priest in?” Roland asked.

“I believe so, sir. May I assume you wish to speak with him?”

“That is correct,” Roland nodded.

“What shall I tell him you wish to speak with him regarding?”

“I seek his advice on… some matters of pressing concern to me,” Roland replied, not wishing to burden the acolyte with his problems.

“Very well, sir, I shall tell him. Please, take a seat while I let him know a paladin is here to see him.” The door shut.

Roland turned around and began walking down the aisle facing the door. He suddenly found himself unsure of the protocol for approaching the altar. He had been trained to kneel before it to show his respect and obedience to the Lady, but since in this case there was nothing behind the altar other than additional pews, it didn’t seem as though there was anything to pay his respects to. Roland decided to take the middle road, stopping at the third arc from the front, bowing his head briefly, then silently sliding into the pew.

Roland allowed himself to once again become lost in thought about his current situation as he sat and waited for the acolyte to return.

“I never much cared for the layout of this shrine,” a voice next to Roland said softly, snapping Roland out of his thoughts. He turned to see a man dressed in the white and gold clerical vestments of the Order standing in the aisle, looking towards the altar. “But our sculptors could never figure out how to design a statue that looked right from all angles,” the man continued, idly stroking his graying beard. “Besides, putting one in the middle wouldn’t leave much room to move around between it and the altar, so I suppose it’s all for the best.”

“Then why design a shrine in this manner, if I may be so bold to ask?” Roland asked hesitantly.

“You’d have to ask the people who made it. It was originally used to worship one heathen god or another back in the old days, before the Order had ever set foot in Blackstone. And since the castle walls don’t offer much room to expand the town, we had to make do with what we were given when we moved in. Such is life. May I?” The man gestured slightly towards the pew in which Roland sat.

“Of course,” Roland said, sliding back to make room for the head priest.

“I hope you don’t mind if we speak out here, sir…?”

“Roland.”

“Sir Roland. I do have my office in the back if you prefer, but I must warn you the only view available out my window is of the latrine,” he smiled.

Roland shook his head. “Here is fine, your holiness.”

“Please, call me Jonathan. We are all equals in the eyes of the Lady, after all. Now, my assistant tells me there is something that weighs heavily on your mind. What is it that concerns you, Sir Roland?”

Roland explained everything that had happened since he had first met Anna during the fire at the Iron Flagon. Jonathan listened attentively, watching Roland as he spoke and nodding attentively at times, but keeping silent until Roland had finished.

“That is quite a tale,” Jonathan said once Roland became silent. “You have done well in the service of the Lady under difficult circumstances these past few weeks.”

“Even though I have been negligent in my official duties of late?” Roland interjected.

“I do not think anyone will blame you for helping someone in desperate need. Ultimately, the rules for those of us in the Order are to help us help those in need. The Lady will understand if they must be bent now and again if circumstances warrant.”

“Thank you, your holiness, but that is not my true concern. I fear my efforts have ultimately not helped Derek at all, merely changed the identity of his captors. The boy should be with his sister, rebuilding what is left of their family. He does not belong in a dungeon. Yet I do not see what I can do to fix that that I have not already tried to do, and failed.”

“And you wish to do more for him.”

“I wish to complete what I originally set out to do, yes.”

Jonathan leaned his back against the pew and closed his eyes in thought for a few moments. He then said, “There once was a wagon who worked in a farmer’s field. The wagon carried the farmer’s seed as he planted his crop. The wagon carried the farmer’s manure as he fertilized his field. But the wagon also carried the wheat as it was harvested by the field hands. And as the wagon sat unused in the barn that winter, it regretted not being able to have helped the wheat during the harvest.” Jonathan paused, then added, “You, Sir Roland, are that wagon.”

“I am afraid I do not understand,” Roland said.

Jonathan quickly shook his head. “No, I suppose not. Please forgive me, but my congregation here tends to relate to farming metaphors better than to stories from the holy books. The purpose of the wagon is not to help the crop, but to help feed the farmer’s family. Without it, the farmer could do nothing, but not all of the farmer’s work requires the wagon. The wagon does not understand why the wheat must be harvested, and does not see the wheat being milled and turned into food for the farmer’s family. Instead of seeing how he has helped the farmer, the wagon agonizes over what he has done.”

Roland again looked at Jonathan blankly.

“The wagon is you. The task continues, but your role in it is complete. The matter with the boy and his sister is now in the Knights’ hands, as it should be. You should be proud of what you have done for them, and ready yourself for the next job to be assigned to you. You should return to Telerand to receive your next assignment.”

Roland thought of Jonathan’s parable, and finally asked, “So Derek is the wheat?”

Jonathan nodded.

“But the wheat gets ground up in your story. And eaten. So you’re saying that Derek will be sacrificed for the greater good.”

“I… All parables are imperfect, and fall apart if you inspect them too closely,” Jonathan explained. “With more time perhaps I could have come up with a better one, but I did the best I could within the constraints I have. Just as you have done your best with the constraints you have been given. You must accept that and be willing to move on from there. Do you understand?”

“I think I understand,” Roland replied. “I’m just not sure I agree.”

“I suggest you sleep on it. All problems are lighter after a good night’s rest. And if not, I shall still be here.”

Chapter word count: 1,857 (according to wc)
Total word count: 29,509 / 50,000 (59.018% complete)

[Editor's note: Chapter 15 of my 2008 NaNoWriMo entry.]

Roland walked through the narrow hallway in the keep of Castle Blackstone, counting the doorways on the right-hand wall as he walked past. The clerk on the first floor had given him directions to the room that Anna had been assigned to during her stay at the castle, and Roland wanted to check how she and Derek were holding up.

As he made his way forward, Roland wondered if the keep had been designed specifically to confuse any invaders who breached the outer walls of the castle. The directions Roland had been given involved a long series of turns down corridors, none of which were clearly labeled. For some reason Roland had needed to climb five flights of stairs, navigate a series of hallways, then go back down two flights of stairs in a completely different stairwell, followed by another series of hallways, to reach this point. Roland had difficulty believing that there wasn’t a more direct way to Anna’s room, but he wasn’t about to get himself lost trying to find it. As undignified as it may be for a paladin to fall for some clerk’s prank, getting lost in one of the kingdom’s own castles was even worse.

Roland finally reached the eleventh door on the right-hand wall, which, assuming he had followed the directions correctly, brought him to Anna’s room. The number 476 carved into the stone next to the door confirmed it. He knocked lightly on the door and waited for a response. Receiving none, he tried knocking again, louder this time. Still no response.

“Anna?” he called, cupping his hands between his mouth and the door. Hearing nothing, he then placed his hand on the door’s handle and nudged the door slightly inward, just enough to feel the door stop against the locking mechanism.

Guessing that she was not in her room, Roland carefully reversed his twisting path through the castle until he reassuringly found himself back in the lobby of the Royal Knights’ barracks within the keep.

“Yes, sir?” the clerk looked up from his counter as Roland strode up. “Is there anything else I can do for you today?”

“Perhaps,” Roland replied. “There was no answer at the door. Do you know if they are in?”

The clerk shook his head. “No, sir. Sir Dalton has asked for her to have unescored access to the barracks, so we are not tracking her movements in and out.”

“So then I suppose you don’t know when they will return?”

“No, sir.” After a pause, he added, “They, sir?”

“Yes, ‘they.’ The girl Anna and her brother Derek.”

“One moment, please, sir, as I check.” The clerk’s head disappeared beneath the counter, and Roland heard the sound of papers being shuffled. “Here we are, sir,” the clerk called as his head reappeared, “Sir Dalton has assigned separate accomodations for the one called Derek.”

“Hmm,” Roland replied. “She may be with him, then. Can you direct me there?”

“Certainly, sir.”

—-

“It’s about time you showed up!” Anna shouted at Roland as he turned the corner. “What kind of sick joke is this?”

The outburst confirmed the fear that had been first formed within Roland when he had descended to the second basement level of the keep, grew when he passed a pair of armed guards, and surged as he passed prison cell after prison cell. As Roland approached, he saw that Derek was sitting on the bed inside the cell immediately opposite Anna.

“I certainly hope you can explain yourself,” Anna said, glaring at Roland.

“I… This…” Roland stammered.

“No, go ahead, I’ll wait,” Anna said. “The two of us have all the time in the world down here.”

“I have no idea what’s going on here,” Roland finally managed to get out.

“No? Then allow me to explain,” Anna continued, livid. “First, you ‘rescued’ my brother from some eccentric but otherwise harmless weirdo. Then you drag us through the forest for a week, rationing our food until there was almost none left, I might add. Finally you bring us to this place, tell us you’re going to take care of everything, and then disappear. Next thing I know, my brother is thrown into a dungeon, and some guy pretending to be a knight, after grilling me for two hours about everything I’ve been through since Doomhammer, warns me against leaving the castle. Does that about cover it?” she asked, turning to Derek.

Derek continued staring at the floor of his cell, silent.

“All I asked Dalton was to give the two of you accomodations until the two of you could get back on your feet,” Roland said quietly.

“Maybe you should’ve been more specific,” Anna replied. She strode up to him. “Well, why don’t you go tell ‘Dalton’ that I’m on my feet now, and Derek will be too once he’s allowed to walk anywhere. But for some reason I don’t think that’s going to be enough for him.”

Roland stood there, silent, trying to think of something appropriate to say. He wanted to say something to calm Anna down, but as far as Roland could tell, she had every right to be angry. He wasn’t sure he could even make the argument that despite being imprisoned, Derek was still better off here than he was in Castle Helioth.

“I’ll speak with Dalton about this,” Roland finally said.

“I’m sure you will,” Anna spat.

Roland looked into Anna’s eyes and said, slowly, deliberately, “I promise, I will see to it that Derek is freed.”

“Once you do, you’ll know where to find me.”

—-

“Ah, hello again, Roland,” Dalton greeted, extending his hand across the desk. “A pleasure to see you again.”

“Dalton,” Roland replied, returning a prefuctory shake before returning to the chair in front of Dalton’s desk.

“So, Roland,” Dalton said, settling himself down into his chair, “what is it I can do for you? You know, normally I don’t take guests on such short notice, but my aid told me you say this is of the utmost importance.”

“It’s about Derek.”

“Hmm, I figured as much,” Dalton replied, leaning back and resting his hands together in his lap. “I assume you’ve learned of the regrettable action we’ve needed to take?”

“You’ve imprisoned him in the dungeon,” Roland said, deliberately keeping his voice level.

“As I said, regrettable. However, technically, we have not imprisoned him. We have merely taken him into protective custody.”

“In the dungeon.”

“Yes, in the dungeon. But it was a necessary action, I assure you, to ensure his own safety.”

“From what, exactly?”

“Why, from the criminals who may be seeking to silence him for the assitance he has given, and hopefully will continue to give, us.”

“How so?” Roland asked, suspicious.

“As you yourself explained when we spoke earlier, the boy’s captors are active in the kingdom’s black market, smuggling contraband in and our of our villages and, yes, even some of our castles. It is very likely that the boy came into direct contact with the various local criminals involved in the black market, as he was taken along what we assume to be the smuggling routes linking Doomhammer to Castle Helioth and all points between. All this means that the boy can give us specific information about who is involved, when they meet, where they meet, and what they do when they meet. This information is essential for our operations to disrupt their activities and apprehend those involved.”

“Pardon my confusion here, but isn’t it the role of the town guards to deal with criminal activity in the villages? Why are the knights involved?”

“In the old days, yes,” Dalton explained. “But that was when criminal activity was confined to individual villages, when it was purely a local problem. But as I said, these smuggling networks operate across much of the kingdom. It’s no longer a local problem, nor one that each town’s own forces can adequately address. That is where the Royal Knights come in; we have both the resources and the jurisdiction to intervene in affairs that affect the kingdom as a whole.”

“But Derek has done nothing wrong,” Roland protested, steering the conversation back to the task at hand.

“He has done nothing wrong to us,” Dalton emphasized. “And if that were the only concern, I would have no problem letting him go free. But criminals do not play by our rules, and they certainly don’t play by yours. Nor can I assume that some of them won’t figure out where we’re getting our information on them once we start cleaning them out of our villages. After all, criminals are just as good at passing information amongst themselves as they are keeping it from us. As tragic as Derek’s circumstances are, having him available to us has been a godsend; it’s the biggest break we’ve had in the issue in quite a while. There are probably many out there who would do anything they can to stop him from helping us.”

“And Derek is helping you freely?” Roland asked.

“Yes, though I admit there have been difficulties getting him to offer information. But my associates are skilled at what they do.”

“How so?” Roland asked, warily.

Dalton held up his hands. “We are not monsters, if that’s what you’re thinking of. But you cannot treat children as though there are merely young adults. He’s too young to understand the rationale for being kept in protective custody, and his sister is too emotionally wound up over his prior captivity to see the reality of the current situation, which is why we’ve needed to act without her consent.”

“And how long will you find it necessary to keep him here.”

“No longer than we have to. But it will take at least several weeks to fully act on the information we now have. Plus, there is the concern that someone may act against him out of revenge rather than to merely stop him from continuing to assist us. So, realistically, if I had to give you a figure, I might say, a year, perhaps? Maybe less?”

“I see.”

“Roland,” Dalton said, rising from his chair. “I understand how you may feel you have a personal involvement in this manner, after what you’ve done for the boy in Castle Helioth. I respect that. However, I’d like to remind you that this matter is now in the hands of the Royal Knights, and I’ve only discussed this much of it with you as a courtesy. While I’m appreciative of all you’ve done so far, I must ask that you leave the rest up to us.”

Roland took the hint and rose from his seat.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have other matters that demand my attention. Please ask the guard outside to show you out.”

Chapter word count: 1,799 (according to wc)
Total word count: 27,652 / 50,000 (55.304% complete)

[Editor's note: Chapter 14 of my 2008 NaNoWriMo entry.]

That night, Roland got some much-needed sleep in a proper, clean, well-maintained bed for what felt like the first time in months. While the Order’s facilities in Blackstone were hardly luxury, they felt close enough to Roland after weeks of travel followed by about a week of having no bed at all.

Now that the entire situation with Anna and Derek and Castle Helioth was officially handed off to the Royal Knights, Roland could finally focus his attention back on his original assignment. The detour to Blackstone had put Roland far behind schedule and well off his planned route to pass through the villages in the northwestern portion of the kingdom before returning to Castle Telerand and the Order’s headquarters there. But even sticking to the roads, the trip from Blackstone to the next village on his list would take another week at best, and Roland was hardly looking forward to pushing himself that hard to resume what would probably continue to be a futile task.

The other option was to simply write the entire thing off as a loss, return to Castle Telerand, and explain in his report to his superiors what had happened. Roland pulled the map from his pack and held it in front of him as he lay in bed. The journey from Blackstone to headquarters would take around ten days or so, and if he left now he would arrive a few days before he was due.

Roland was reluctant to set out immediately, a feeling he was only partly able to attribute to not yet wanting to get out of bed. A corner of his mind was still preoccupied with the encounter with Mattias, and Roland feared such thoughts would continue to nag at him unless he could prove to himself that there was nothing to worry about. He also still felt the need to make sure Anna and Derek were going to be able to settle in to their new life after their ordeal, and it would be impossible to tell until at least a couple days had passed in Blackstone.

Satisfied that he had adequate justification to delay his departure from Blackstone for at least another couple days, Roland rolled onto his side and went back to sleep.

—-

That afternoon, Roland found himself standing in front of a long, low stone building. Large windows were spaced regularly in the walls, though the glare from the sun made it impossible to see inside. A pair of stone pillars stood on either side of the entrance, but aside from that, little attention had been paid to decorating the building’s exterior. At first Roland hadn’t even been sure this was the building he was looking for, but it was the only one within the castle’s walls that matched the description he had been given.

Roland shrugged and stepped through the entrance, deciding there was only one way to be sure. He entered a small lobby, with a second set of doors leading into what Roland assumed would be the main section of the building. He stepped up to them and was about to reach for the handle when a voice behind him cried out, “Halt!”

Roland instinctively froze, turning to see a guard walking away from a desk at the side of the lobby. “Pardon?” Roland asked politely, unsure of the reason for being stopped.

“All patrons entering the library are subject to search for prohibited items,” the guard explained, “by order of the Royal Archivist. No exceptions.”

“A paladin is to keep his sword by his side at all times,” Roland responded. “Surely you do not believe I am going to go in there and–”

“It’s not the sword I’m worried about, sir. Now, if you would please remove your pack so I can search it.”

Roland reluctantly handed it over to the guard, who set it down on the desk and began rummaging through it. In hindsight, bringing his pack with him was completely unnecessary, but he had done it out of habit from his constant traveling of late.

The guard removed an unlit torch and pouch of flint stones from the pack, and with a look of smug satisfaction, said, “Incindiary devices are prohibited from being taken into the library. You may reclaim them when you depart.” The guard handed Roland his slightly lighter pack.

“Will that be all?” Roland asked, slinging the pack over his shoulder.

The guard nodded. “Thank you for your cooperation,” he said, returning to his desk.

Roland rolled his eyes and grasped the door handle, swinging the door open and stepping through into the library itself.

Roland froze after taking a single step. The room was nearly as bright as it was outside. Sunlight streamed in from every window and, as Roland saw as he looked upwards, from the countless windows that nearly covered the ceiling. The light reflected off the dust suspended in the air, revealing the outline of each individual beam. As he traced their path through the air, he saw that some of them fell on mirrors mounted to the pillars supporting the roof; these mirrors reflected the light down the narrow aisles between rows and rows of wooden shelves, each one crammed with all manner of books. Only now, once the initial shock of seeing the room wore off, did Roland notice the dozen tables immediate in front of him, with a few scholarly-looking men seated at them and staring at thick tomes opened before them.

“It’s an impressive sight, isn’t it?” a voice called softly from Roland’s right.

Roland turned to see a man standing behind a desk next to the door.

“It’s easy to tell first-time visitors to our library; they get that exact look on your face,” the man continued.

“It’s… certainly something,” Roland agreed.

“My grandfather designed it way back in the day. All the sunlight means we don’t have to have torches or anything set up to light everything up, which means we don’t have to worry about the whole place burning down some day. My grandfather didn’t keep this place running even through the Demon War just to see it all go up in smoke just because some careless visitor dropped his torch. Of course, it means we need a full staff of people just to keep all the windows and everything clean, but it’s worth it.”

“I see,” Roland said, absently.

“I’m the head librarian, by the way, in case you hadn’t figured that out,” the man added. “Is there something I can help you find?”

The question returned Roland’s mind to the purpose behind his visit. “Maybe. This might be something of an odd request, but do you have anything that dates back to the Demon War?”

“You’ll need to be more specific than that, I’m afraid; we have records all the way back to the founding of this very castle.”

“I’m looking for books or documents or something that might’ve come from Castle Helioth.”

“Oh? Oh!” the librarian’s eyes lit up. “We do have a few items in the special collection that might be what you’re looking for. Follow me.”

The librarian reach behind the desk for a ring of keys. He then led Roland to a locked door at the far end of the library, and opened it to reveal a small, darker, but still surprisingly bright, room.

“This is where we protect the historical artifacts that are too rare or valuable to leave in the open collection,” the librarian explained, as he led Roland through shelves. Unlike the ones he saw before, these shelves contained various valuable and not-so-valuable items along with a smaller number of bound volumes. “It’s rare for someone to ask for something we have here. Most of the time, we just get servants sent by one lord or another to look up some decree or deed or something. Ah, here we go: Helioth artifacts, Demon War period, shelf one of one.”

Roland looked at the shelf before them. Upon it sat half the hilt of a sword, a scrap of black fabric from what might have been a uniform, and a small leather-bound volume.

“It’s not much, but the valuable-looking spoils were probably sent off to Castle Telerand to be displayed as trophies,” the librarian sighed. “I’ll be over by the entrance in case you need anything. Let me know when you’re ready to be let out.” The librarian bowed slightly, squeezed past Roland, and walked back the way they came.

Slowly, Roland reached up and picked up the book. He carefully opened the front cover and saw, written in large letters on the first page:

Folzyej Gaguoghn Zaekvec
Sicopi Cnbui

Roland wasn’t about to try to wrap his tongue around those words, but their presence here suggested the journal Mattias had shown might not have solely been the product of a delusional mind. Roland turned another couple pages and his eyes fell on another passage:

14 Esgoc, 4 Zasoed

Cocydk ocbupwc meelaq. Vogwyv vuxomcy hajxexyr bizabu gapeetovh qaqbbal. Leujnoajehw ojguhivux cibxic qygt’c hjaj gag ka jjusoky muiz gvuj. Hajzloqvetw jujenbd nuxn kokc xuul’x gefxtoqw nagv. Cohh iz mqagcispu bicxuut xykz oqq vogwyv kva teina? Vuux zebkvaj dkehu.

Roland couldn’t read it either, but the handwriting looked shaky, as though the author was uncertain of what he was doing. It was almost as though the author had only recently learned to write, but the lettering wasn’t quite that rough. Many words were scratched out and re-written, and even though Roland had no idea what it said, he had a hunch that several words were misspelled.

Roland gingerly leafed through the book, seeing page after page written in a similar style. There was a sudden shift beginning with one page about two-thirds of the way through, with the passage:

23 Duqcycbik, 4 Fivueg

Didhydj! Nujhun og ebla bi hiuq efx djyki sobudcca et haru ngijmk ca yfcneufda at guxrkodaq geln gwuln. Blek dokc huhu poovvouqojx ngy bukaibqv baohtuc cidg yejuaj efx nydj ikjih-qkaju.

Ngod ots avwik juqiqb didhydjix ojguhivu qkywogubyatx bi coevqw ngy tetuc whabyqk duv mufov ewiuq iz khnugeny.

The writing suddenly became much cleaner, as though produced by a master scribe. Roland still couldn’t read it at all, though. He continued paging through the book until he came upon the final passage, after which came only blank pages:

1 Zily, 6 Fivueg

Y oh uzefxivyff vu bukaibqv. Zab jutbuut vajkvx vin ngy vogwyv ac cnu guxrkodaq geln gwuln bi ginofug hajkgic iz ngy gagnq va ha nej kjyjk iryby xuu yf ngy qokccu cumjehy, xbogyovh wuxbihuag iz pubvcix ciff jidk. Ngybu ux vi etsoqonoaj kvog geln tlotwy, jag gifu U sodqarybux u xey ni qyjqack kva lexuh ajqi ob lok myuf dugv.

E divqcesy vwoc bluka imelobyuk uju kai qyzcotocn ca qatcjic cij ecl mev kva lijn mided im vokpg, tag dnyqv ob yj tib gagcn vwi xbbouq ab uczabk ni tejn cnu powoq et cnu zukgv slutu. E kgikc mayw sikoiguh xekdg afug cnu coxb vogwyv, ec ivky aeb iz dejyakoba, bec O ra tib efnotysocy efy hneffa.

Roland carefully returned the book to its shelf. He had no idea how to even begin to interpret the passages contained within, but it did tell him one thing. Mattias had indeed found something in the ruins of Castle Helioth, and if he did have a way to read what Roland could only assume was some kind of dark writings, he could become very dangerous indeed.

Chapter word count: 1,909 (according to wc)
Total word count: 25,853 / 50,000 (51.706% complete)

[Editor's note: Chapter 13 of my 2008 NaNoWriMo entry.]

“Please step right in, sir, and take a seat. He’ll be in to speak with you shortly.”

The guard gestured towards the open doorway. Roland nodded in response and stepped through, entering a small gray room. “A seat” was accurate; a single wooden chair sat in front of the long wooden desk that dominated the room. A much more comfortable-looking padded leather chair stood behind the desk, Roland guessed that that one wasn’t the one being offered to him.

The door slammed shut behind him, and now the only light entering the room came through a series of narrow slits in the stone wall. The openings were much wider on the inner part of the wall than the outer. Though Roland knew little about archery — such matters were typically left to castle guards — he did recognize the basic design, allowing bowmen to fire out through the openings at almost any angle while making it exceedingly difficult for return fire to pass the other way.

Seeing little else to do, Roland sat down in the chair and surveyed the rest of the room, which didn’t take long. The left wall, opposite the windows, had a row of hooks mounted along the top for hanging tapestries, though none of them were currently in use. Along the far wall, behind the desk and to either side of the other door into the room, stood a pair of heavy wooden cabinets with locks on the front. Given the side of the desk, Roland guessed it too had storage compartments on the other side, probably also locked.

Roland briefly mused about a bureaucrat occupying the office, alternating his duties between shuffling papers and firing arrows at attacking armies outside the windows. Of course, office space was probably not the original purpose of the room. But whatever the intentions the designers of Castle Blackstone had for the room, the Royal Knights of the Kingdom of Telerand had other uses for it. Assuming the original designers had given it much thought to begin with; for a castle named Blackstone, there was surprisingly little actual black stone to be found in its construction.

Having looked at everything to be seen in the room, Roland fixed his eyes on the far door, through which he assumed his interviewer would eventually pass, and let his thoughts turn to his journey from the past week.

He had managed to lead Anna and her brother through the forests outside Castle Helioth. The ordeal had reminded Roland of how much his survival skills had atrophied since he had gone through the Order’s training program. He had come across little that looked even remotely edible as they passed through the trees, save for some mushrooms, and Roland remembered just enough about mycology to know he had no idea how to distinguish the edible ones from the poisonous ones. As a result, the three of them survived on the dried foods he had packed before leaving Derinham.

Between the challenges navigating beneath the forest canopy with few landmarks to orient around, the slowly but steadily diminishing food supply, the continued lack of signs of being pursued, and Anna’s frequent protests about not wanting to wind up dying lost in the woods, Roland had finally acquiesced, and the three emerged from the forests near the road between the village of Fairgold’s Bluffs and Castle Blackstone. In retrospect, Roland thought, at least his navigation skills hadn’t been too bad.

The three had spent the night at an inn along the road. Though he had taken a separate room next to Anna’s, he spent most of the night watching the hall for any signs of trouble. He was relieved when they finally made it to the castle, as now Roland would finally have a chance to rest and not have to keep constant vigil over Anna and her brother.

As he thought of the previous week, Roland considered how Anna’s brother Derek had said little, and hadn’t complained at all about what must have been a difficult journey for him. Roland had tried to engage him in conversation a few times, and while he was polite almost to a fault and seemingly appreciative of the rescue, and definitely happy to be reunited with his sister, he spoke little about his time at Castle Helioth, and to listen to him had hardly even minded his captivity there. Roland had been concerned that his behavior might be covering some kind of trauma, but Anna had insisted that this was simply how her brother had always behaved.

Roland briefly wondered whether Mattias might have been right about what he had said about Derek, that whatever power he had, it confused him or scared him, or both. Roland had tried a couple times along to journey to ask Anna about it, but each time she had quickly changed the subject, and Roland hadn’t pushed her on it.

Roland’s thoughts snapped back to the present as the door on the far side of the room swung inward, and a man passed through, clutching a small stack of papers. He closed the door silently behind him and stepped behind the desk.

“Ah, you must be Roland, paladin third class of the Order of Yssindria,” the man said, glancing down at the papers as he said Roland’s official rank. He stretched his hand over the desk towards Roland. “Welcome to Castle Blackstone.”

“Thank you,” Roland replied, lifting himself from his seat to shake the man’s hand before they both sat down in unison.

“I have been told you have an urgent matter you wish to discuss with the Royal Knights, correct?” the man began.

“Yes, but,” Roland hesitated, eyeing the man behind the desk. He was not dressed in the usual garb of a knight. If anything, the man’s clothes reminded Roland more of a merchant than anything. “I’m sorry, sir, but I had been told I was going to be speaking with one of the knights overseeing this region, and….”

The man smiled knowingly. “Yes, ordinarily that would be the case, but given the current circumstances, I’m sure you understand how most of the knights are rather tied up with other duties at the moment.”

“Sir?”

The man flipped through the papers he had brought, until hitting upon something that caught his notice. “Ah, right, sorry, you’ve been a bit out of the loop while you’ve been out on your latest mission. I suppose you’ll have ample time to get caught up on current events, but suffice it to say for now that I’ve been brought in as a sort of independent consultant to fill a few desks while the knights are off doing more pressing things. You can call me Dalton, by the way, no ’sir’ necessary. Now, do you have any other questions for me before we get started?”

“Just one, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.”

“Shouldn’t the two I brought with me be here too to speak with you?”

“All in good time, Sir Roland. It’s more beneficial at this stage to interview each of you separately about what you know, so that people are more confortable telling their side of things, especially if there’s a disagreement or discrepancy in your stories.”

“You think one of us might by lying?” Roland asked.

“Not at all,” Dalton quickly replied, “but each of you surely experienced different things during the incident at Castle Helioth. It’s my job here to listen to the three different accounts, put them all together into a unified picture of what happened, and recommend to the Knights what action they need to take. Getting unfiltered testimony from each of you is essential for the process to work. Trust me, it’s what I’ve been trained to do, and it’s why I’ve been assigned to work this issue on the Knights’ behalf.”

Roland nodded in acceptance.

“Good. Now, why don’t we begin at the beginning.”

Roland related the tale: how he had met Anna, how he had learned about her brother’s captivity, how they traveled to Castle Helioth, how they got separated, how he fought Mattias, what Mattias had told him of Derek’s kidnapping and his ultimate plans, and how the three of them had escaped the castle and made their way to Blackstone. All the while, Dalton sat at the desk, nodding silently and writing something on the papers he had brought with him.

“It’s certainly quite a story,” Dalton remaked once Roland had finished. “You did the right thing bringing this to our attention. Now if you don’t mind, I have some follow-up questions before I let you go and bring in the next person for their account.”

“Not at all.”

“Good. Let’s start with the basics. How many men do you believe are at Helioth?”

Roland thought, replaying events again in his mind and counting the number of people he encountered. “It’s hard to say. There was Mattias himself, of course. And there was one standard guard over Derek, presumably the whole time, so that’s two. And at least one to kidnap Anna, so three. At least three. Probably more, but that’s all I saw.”

“I understand. Now, think carefully. Tell me everything Mattias told you about his connections to the black market.”

Roland tried to remember. “Not very much, other than that he was involved in it somehow.”

“Did he mention any specific villages? Any numbers? Routes? Goods? Any details you can remember would help us greatly.”

“Well,” Roland replied slowly, “he did say he was in Doomhammer the day of the fire. Something to do with establishing connections there.”

“I see,” Dalton replied, writing a bit more quickly than before. “Did he say who he was meeting with? Or what the outcome of those negotiations might have been? Anything else that happened?”

“Um… no. Just that he was there, and that he fled the town as the fire spread, taking Derek with him.”

“Mmm,” Dalton frowned. “Any other villages he had dealings with in the black market or in criminal syndicates? Anything like that.”

Roland shook his head. “Not that he said explicitly. But if I had to speculate–”

“Please do.”

“If I had to speculate, he at least has to have some kind of contacts in the towns between Doomhammer and Helioth, since that’s how he must’ve had to travel. And Anna managed to track him, or rather track Derek, through word of mouth back along that path.”

“Did she tell you how?”

“Not really, no. I know she at least worked sometimes at a tavern, and as an, um, street performer, but I don’t know if that had anything to do with it. I was never around when she was collecting information.”

“Well, I’m sure she’ll be able to fill in those details for us. Anyway, I believe that will be all the questions I have for now, but I ask that you keep yourself available for a follow-up session. Did you have any plans to leave Blackstone anytime soon?”

“Um, no,” Roland replied, feeling a little confused. “Did you want to ask about Mattias’s plans to start his own war against the kingdom? Um, sort of?”

Dalton smiled and shook his head. “Delusions of grandeur or the ravings of a madman, no doubt. It’s hardly anything to worry about. You didn’t see anything there that suggested he actually had the ability to do such a thing, did you?”

“No,” Roland admitted. “But what about his magical abilities?”

“We’ve dealt with other criminals that were good at hiding. He won’t pose a problem.”

“But I saw how he–”

“It was dark,” Dalton interrupted. “You said so yourself. It was hard to get a good look at him. I understand that. But you shouldn’t put too much stock in tales like that. Criminals love to spread stories about themselves; it helps keeps their victims from putting up too much resistance.”

“I suppose,” Roland said, unsure. “But I do have one request before I go.”

“Yes?”

“Anna and Derek have been through a lot, and they don’t really have anywhere else to go. Would it be too much trouble for the Knights to give them someplace to stay while they’re here, at least before they can get back on their feet?”

Roland thought that Dalton, for a moment, looked slightly taken aback, but quickly regained his composure. “Oh, no problem at all. In fact, I was going to insist. I’m here to do whatever I can to help, after all.”

“Thank you.”

“And thank you, Sir Roland, for you assistance in this matter,” Dalton said, standing up. “We’ll be in touch.”

Chapter word count: 2,098 (according to wc)
Total word count: 23,944 / 50,000 (47.888% complete)

[Editor's note: Chapter 12 of my 2008 NaNoWriMo entry.]

Roland stepped into the doorway of the room. Inside, he saw Anna bent down on one knee, hugging a young boy he assumed to be Derek. Looking around, the room indeed didn’t look so much like a prison cell as it did a makeshift bedroom. A bed, with a missing leg propped up by a couple of stones, stood in the far corner of the room. Several upended crates, some with clothes slung over them, made up the rest of the room’s furnishings. An old wooden bucket and a man standing guard just inside the doorway completed the scene.

“You see,” Mattias beamed, “completely safe and unharmed.”

Roland grunted. “It’s hardly an appropriate place to raise a child.”

“Well, I never said it was a long-term solution. And to be fair, this is one of the few rooms that hardly leaks at all when it rains. Besides, it’s not as though he weren’t free to roam about within reason.”

“You have him under guard!” Roland protested.

“Surely you aren’t suggesting I let a boy run around, unsupervised, in a bunch of dark, decaying ruins,” Mattias protested. “He’s more of a babysitter than anything.”

“And if he wants to leave?”

“I’d encourage it, in fact, now that she’s here to watch over him. Don’t get me wrong, he seems like an OK kid to me, and he did help out a bit with exploring a few of the less-dangerous areas, but taking care of him has been slowing us down, even if he does mostly keep out of trouble.”

Roland turned to look at Mattias. “If you’re really so concerned about the boy’s welfare, why did you bring him here of all places?” he finally said, exasperated.

“Hmm. Well, I suppose I never did you give a straight answer to your question back there of what I’m doing here, did I?”

“No, you didn’t.” Roland glanced at Anna and Derek, neither of whom seemed to have noticed their presence at the doorway to the room yet.

“OK, it’s like this. Have you ever wondered why Telerand and Lantaria have been at each others’ throats ever since the end of the Demon War.”

“No,” Roland signed, chiding himself for having expected Mattias to actually give a straightforward answer to a question.

“Or, more to the point, why they weren’t at each others’ throats during the Demon War?”

Roland stared at Mattias, making it clear the answer was obvious.

“Exactly! They faced a common threat, and had just enough sense to put aside their petty squabbles long enough to fight it off.”

“The disputes between Telerand and Lantaria are hardly petty,” Roland protested. “If only the Lantarians would listen to reason and–”

“Please,” Mattias said dismissively, raising his voice. “Tantrums about on which side of Doomhammer a line on a map should be drawn when the two kingdoms are too large to manage the territory they conquered in the Demon War as it is? Or the ever-popular argument of whether those of us with magical abilities should be forcibly conscripted into the king’s armies or merely shunned from society? You’re right, they’re not petty, they’re asinine. And the two sides seem to be increasingly eager to go to war to prove who’s right. And if you think Doomhammer was devastated by a fire, imagine what’ll happen when two armies start fighting each other in towns all along the border.”

Mattias paused, taking a few slow, deliberate breaths before continuing.

“Sorry, but even if I did think once side or the other was undeniably in the right, no offense, and even if a war was going to settle it instead of triggering a cycle of revenge like the ‘good old days’ before the Demon King, the damage done still wouldn’t be worth it. Now tell me, good Sir Roland, if you had a chance to prevent all that from happening, wouldn’t you take it?”

“I’m listening.”

“History has shown that the only thing that will make Telerand and Lantaria be civil to each other — or at least start leaving each other alone — is if they’re too busy fighting some common threat. Therefore, what they need is a common threat.”

Roland worried that he was starting to see where this was going.

“Legends are notoriously unreliable, but here, I should be able to dig up enough information, no pun intended, to learn what the so-called Demon King actually did, and more to the point, how he actually managed to accomplish it. And armed with that knowledge–”

“You’re going to start a second Demon War?” Roland exclaimed. “You’re mad!”

“Frustrated with the status quo, actually,” Mattias corrected. “And no, I’m not actually going to start a new Demon War; that’s probably the only thing worse than the inevitable war we’re lurching towards now. No, I’m going to make the powers that rule this land think I’m starting a new Demon War.”

Words failed Roland. Except one. “How?”

“That,” Mattias admitted, “I haven’t quite figured out yet. Maybe some kind of phony magical doomsday device that both kingdoms will somehow need to work together to stop from being activated? Mind you, this is a long-term goal here. I’m talking years, not days. Whatever it ends up being, it’ll have to be something that looks like it poses an existential threat to everyone yet will keep the actual bloodshed to a minimum.”

“A minimum?”

“Well, ideally that minimum would be zero, but I’m not naive enough to think that nothing will go wrong. Really, the whole destroy-or-conquer-the-world thing is intended to fail, so something has to go wrong, right?”

“I’ve heard enough,” Roland said, raising his sword. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you right now and make sure your foul plans never succeed.”

“I’ll give you several,” Mattias replied, seemingly unintimidated. “If you really intended to kill me, you’ve had ample opportunity to do it, so you’re clearly just posturing now. Second, you don’t think I could actually pull such a crazy-sounding plan off. Third, we’re really on the same side, you and I, trying to save as many lives as possible. Fourth, deep down, you know I’m right about the coming war, and just don’t want to admit it. Shall I continue?”

Roland reluctantly lowered his sword and returned it to its sheath. “Don’t misunderstand me, I just don’t want to traumatize the boy by spilling your blood in front of him.”

Mattias smiled. “Whatever you say; I’ll just have to make sure I personally escort the three of you safely back the way you came, then, won’t I? Speaking of which,” he continued, turning to Anna and Derek, “I believe the two of you ought to start heading back before it gets too dark out. A place like this is no place to raise a young boy, after all.”

Mattias led the three back through the series of narrow halls. Anna followed behind, holding Derek’s hand firmly as he walked beside her. Roland stayed at the rear, keeping one hand on the hilt of the sword, ready if Mattias or any of his men should try anything.

“Well, here we are,” Mattias said when they had reached an opening in the outer wall, different than the one Roland and Anna had originally entered through. “Do be careful out there; the two of you have been through so much already. And Roland,” he added, “having a set of eyes and ears in your Order would help me out a lot. Don’t, I know what you’re going to say, but my offer still stands should you reconsider. I’m sure you’ll figure out a way to get a message to me if you do. And with that, I bid you good day.”

Roland let Anna, still clutching Derek’s hand, lead the way as they walked away from Castle Helioth. Roland certainly wasn’t going to take his eyes off of them until they had put a good long distance between themselves and Mattias’s henchmen.

“Don’t say anything, just keep walking straight,” he said.

And they did, down one hill, up another, and then back down. Roland occasionally chanced a quick look behind them, waiting until they were double the distance it took to be out of sight of the castle before he said anything else.

“If we head south from here, we should come to a forest,” he finally said. “We should go that way.”

“But Derinham is up ahead this way,” Anna said, pointing forward with her free hand.

Roland shook his head. “It’s not safe there. You learned yourself it’s a waypoint in the castle’s supply lines. We can’t risk Mattias’s men finding us there. Or out here, in the open. We’ll be harder to track in the forest.”

“Are we being followed?” Anna asked, her voice hushed.

“Maybe. I don’t see anyone, but Mattias’s men know this area a lot better than we do.”

“Hang on,” Anna said, her voice back at its normal volume, “why would they be following us anyway? That guy, what was his name?”

“Mattias.”

“Right. He let us go.”

“He’s up to something. He has to be. Normal people don’t live in ruins, normal people don’t abduct children, and normal people definitely don’t fight you and then let you go as if nothing happened.”

“He seemed OK to me. Well, relatively.”

“You didn’t spend much time talking to him, did you?”

“No. Why? What did he say?”

“Don’t worry about it.” He doubted Anna would believe him. Really, he didn’t believe it himself. But whatever Mattias really was up to in there, Roland was sure it was trouble, and it had to be stopped. But he wasn’t going to be able to stop it himself, especially not with two people that needed protection.

Anna threw up her hands in resignation. “Fine, we’ll go to the forest then. Come along, Derek.” She turned to head south, and Roland followed. “So if we aren’t going back to Derinham, where are we going?”

“Someplace where you’ll be safe,” Roland replied. “And someplace where they’ll be able to take care of Mattias, no matter what he tries.”

Chapter word count: 1,687 (according to wc)
Total word count: 21,846 / 50,000 (43.692% complete)

[Editor's note: Chapter 11 of my 2008 NaNoWriMo entry.]

Roland stared at Mattias in disbelief. Only minutes ago, he had been fighting for his life against the man before him. Now Mattias was offering a handshake and grinning, seemingly oblivious to the glowing sword Roland held poised to strike him down at a moment’s notice.

“Roland,” he replied warily, opting not to extend his hand in return. “How about you explain to me why you consider kidnapping a defenseless young boy to be saving the world.”

“OK, two points there,” Mattias explained. “First, the kid really doesn’t have anything to do with the whole ’saving the world’ business. And second, I didn’t kidnap him; I rescued him from Doomhammer when the place was on the verge of burning up. Or burning down. It’s hard to tell which it is when you’re in the middle of it.”

Roland saw this was going to be a long and painful interrogation. “Normally when you rescue someone, you don’t carry then off halfway across the kingdom and lock them away in a dungeon somewhere, hiding them away from the only family they have left.”

“Ah, yes, I can see how one might get that impression. I suppose it is partly my fault for letting those kinds of preconceptions get the better of you,” he chuckled. “It was all for his own protection, I assure you.”

“Really.”

“I suppose a little background might shed some light on the situation. I was in Doomhammer the day of the fire, trying to establish some… connections with the locals, shall we say. But that part’s not important. When the fire started spreading uncontrollably, we got out of there as fast as we could. Along the way, though, we came across a boy standing in the street by himself, crying his eyes out. Everyone else was too busy running around to notice, and I could hardly leave him there when the entire city was about to go up, so I did the only reasonable thing and brought him with us.”

“And locked him away in a dungeon.”

“Technically, these are ruins, not a dungeon. I suppose there were dungeons around here at some point. I mean, what kind of castle doesn’t, after all? And he’s hardly ‘locked away’ at all; he’s free to leave whenever he wants. Well, almost whenever; I’m hardly going to let him wander off alone. It isn’t safe.”

Roland gave Mattias a pointed look.

“Right, sorry. Why I brought him here. Those ‘connections’ I mentioned? They’re sort of the… black market variety. And since I assume someone as respectable as yourself doesn’t have much dealings with them, I should explain that one of the commodities that sometimes get traded on the black market are… well, I don’t see any nice way to put this, so I’ll just come right out and say it: orphans.”

Roland sharpened the point.

“Now don’t get the wrong idea,” Mattias quickly added, raising his hands defensively, “I stay clear of that bit. I stick to dealing in goods that aren’t getting to where they need to go, because of taxes or shortages or whatever. But you see why I could hardly go around asking, ‘anybody lose a child?’ And when I started getting word through my chains of contacts that a young woman was snooping around asking about a kid who matched his description, and their description of the woman matched what the kid said his sister looked like, well, I decided to let events run their course. I figured anyone just looking to scam a kid off of me would give up long before they got here. And hey, it all worked out, didn’t it? They probably had their tearful reunion right around the time you were slamming me into the floor.”

“If that’s so, why don’t you take me to them,” Roland said, his voice making it clear it wasn’t a so much a request as an order.

“Not at all,” Mattias replied, picking one of the torches up off the ground. “Follow me.”

Mattias began leading Roland through a series of passageways. Roland kept his sword drawn and at the ready, not sure if Mattias was being sincere or just leading him into another trap. As a nice side effect, though, the sword cast its own light on the passages around them.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” Mattias began.

“I mind,” Roland interrupted.

Mattias continued anyway. “How do you make your sword glow like that?”

“The blessings of the Lady Yssindria, divine protector of this kingdom, imbue it with the power to smite evil.”

“Yes yes, I’ve heard the story before, but that’s not what I asked. How do you make it do that? It obviously can’t detect evil; it’s a piece of metal with a handle stuck on one end. And even if it could, since I’m not actually evil, that wouldn’t work anyway. Furthermore, since you think I am in fact evil, it must be something you’re doing to it. Is it some kind of magic, perhaps?”

“Hardly,” Roland spat. “The Order does not stoop to such trickery.”

“If you say so.” Mattias waved his hand dismissively. “But swords don’t glow of their own accord, naturally. Here, if it isn’t magic, then I should be able to make it glow too. Do you mind if I give it a try?”

“Try it and you’re dead,” Roland warned.

“Look, I’m not trying to trick you. Anymore, at least. How about this: have you ever tried to smite something that wasn’t evil?”

“Why would I do such a thing?”

“I’m just wondering if it’s somehow responding to your desire to smite something. Besides, anyone who’s ever studied philosophy knows how difficult it is to precisely define ‘evil’ anyway, so I doubt a piece of metal would somehow be able to make the distinction even if it could somehow try.”

Roland didn’t reply, hoping the silence would shut Mattias up. It didn’t work.

“But if it is magic,” Mattias continued after a brief pause, “well, that would be interesting. Tell me, have you ever studied the different theories of magical abilities?”

Roland tried again.

“Well, once you get past the part about it being passed through heredity, all the explanations floating around start to diverge. One of the more fanciful ones is that, long ago, a divine being of great power split himself into pieces and hid himself within countless mortals. There’s dozens of entertaining stories about why that might have happened, but that’s not relevant here. The theory goes, all those bloodlines manifest themselves as magical abilities, and they’re all trying to reunite with each other to resurrect that original being. I’m… not entirely sure I want to visualize how that would work. But I have it, and I think the boy does, which means his sister probably does too, and if you have it as well, well, the fact that fate seems to have brought us all together way out here does make you think, doesn’t it?”

“What power does the boy h