The White Tower (The Aldoran Chronicles: Book 1) Page 12

  The king nodded and Ayrion turned and offered a bow to the ambassadors, if not quite so formally. “Gentlemen.”

  Ayrion couldn’t help but notice the anger written on Dakaran’s face as he turned back toward the door. Retracing his steps, Ayrion wondered what type of maneuvering the king had been hoping to achieve with that uncomfortable discord. With eagerness to be gone from their political pandering, he hastened his steps to the door and left the gentry to their fire and drinks.

  Chapter 13 | Valtor

  VALTOR BUSIED HIMSELF with perusing a few of the ancient manuscripts he had uncovered in the underground tunnels below the ruins of the Forgotten City. They held key information to the power of the Old Ways, which had long been forgotten and believed destroyed during the Great Purge. The three adjoining rooms he had been assigned in the top of one of the northeast towers were uncomfortably dark and damp, having only a couple of arrow slits for natural light and no assigned staff for cleaning. The rooms were staunch with the smell of mildew, a perfect atmosphere for his unique form of herbalism.

  The space had been converted from an old storage chamber into his personal quarters following his rise in station to the prince’s chief advisor a little more than a year ago. Valtor’s strategic maneuvering was finally beginning to bear fruit. He prided himself on the masterful way he had set the pieces in motion. The outcome eventually leading him to saving the prince’s life outside a local brothel Dakaran was known to frequent.

  After having swooped in at the last moment to make a heroic rescue from a pre-arranged mugging, Valtor was awarded a place on the royal staff. From there it was easy to catch the prince’s ear, as Dakaran enjoyed nothing more than someone willing to agree with his every whim.

  So now, when he didn’t find himself spending his days wiping the prince’s nose, Valtor spent a great deal of his time overseeing the events at the White Tower while doing his best to stay out of the High King’s purview. He didn’t need Rhydan getting a whiff of what he had planned.

  It had been generations since the White Tower had received an oversight inspection from the throne. Now, it was solely autonomous and under his direct authority. Valtor was thought by many within the palace to be nothing more than a mere physicker of natural remedies, but instead of a simple apothecary, he had turned his secluded workroom into a functioning alchemy lab and den of dark relics and even darker incantations.

  Valtor lifted the large quill and dipped it in the ink. He was about to scribe a few notes regarding his latest findings when his chamber doors flew open and Prince Dakaran stomped through in a rage. “The arrogance! The audacity! Who does he think he is?” Dakaran didn’t bother shutting the doors after his grand entrance.

  Valtor’s fingers tightened around his feathered plume, nearly snapping the instrument in half. “Who do you think you are, barging in here like a spoiled child and disturbing my work?” was what Valtor wanted to say, but didn’t. “Who are we talking about?” Valtor wasn’t too worried with anyone overhearing their conversation. No one ever visited this part of the palace. But not wanting to take a chance, he walked over and closed the doors.

  “The guardian!” Dakaran said as he paced the floor. Valtor could see the prince had been at the wine again. His speech, although coherent, was dragging. “And my father . . . Well, he just peppers him with praise! Blind old fool.” The prince’s temper was at its peak. “Doesn’t he see what Ayrion’s doing, weaseling his way into power? The man can do no wrong in my father’s eyes. You’d think he was the crown prince and not me!”

  Valtor used his thumbs to massage his temples. “I can see the appeal.”

  “What was that?” Dakaran spun on his heels.

  “I said . . . I know how you feel.”

  Dakaran studied the chancellor a moment then shook his head and continued. “I want Ayrion gone.”

  Even drunk, Dakaran’s rage bled through in his eyes. This was the first time the prince had directly voiced such an aggressive action. Valtor wondered if all his hidden implications and circuitous urgings were finally taking hold.

  “And I’m sure that with the guardian out of the way, you will be there to lend aid to a certain young lady’s maid?”

  Dakaran didn’t reply. He didn’t need to. Valtor already knew the answer.

  The prince made his way over to Valtor’s mixing table and began rummaging through some of the loose papers. “I want Ayrion gone.”

  “Yes, Your Highness,” Valtor finally capitulated, “and might I ask how Your Highness would suggest that this happen?”

  Dakaran swung his blue velvet cape from his shoulders and laid it across the nearest chair. “I don’t care if you have to stick him while he’s sitting in the privy doing his morning business. Just do something.”

  After Valtor bowed in acquiescence, Dakaran moved around to the other side of the mixing table where Valtor kept shelves of supplies and artifacts needed for his incantations, and scanned the glass jars scattered haphazardly on top. The vases came in a variety of shapes and sizes and held anything from pickled human remains to deadly insects and poisonous plants. “Don’t you have something you can use in all of this . . . stuff?” he asked as he continued his inspection. “Preferably something painful.”

  “I’m sure I do.” Valtor closed the large volume he had been studying as the prince walked over to the table. “But I wouldn’t advise it, at least not at present.”

  “And why, O illustrious advisor, would you not?”

  “The last thing we need is to have an assassination of the Guardian Protector and put everyone on high alert. Suspicions would begin to fly and the High Guard would be even more vigilant than they already are, making it rather more difficult for us. Not to mention an uprising of the citizenry. You don’t want to dismiss the people’s admiration for him.” Valtor straightened a few of his papers. “Patience is not a virtue to use sparingly, my prince. Your time will come. Acting too hastily without a wise course of action will only land us in the dungeon, or worse, the chopping block.”

  “What in the name of Aldor is this?” Valtor turned to see what the prince was referring to. “What dark nightmares were these conjured from?” Dakaran was sifting through a large, leather-bound volume he had pulled from Valtor’s small library of antique tomes.

  Valtor’s breath caught in his throat when he saw what the prince was holding. It was a grimoire penned by the dark wizard, Aerodyne, himself. How did that get out here? I thought I had put that away. He quickly made his way to the prince’s side and confiscated the book. Valtor glanced at the pages the prince had been riffling through, hoping that it hadn’t been too revealing. Each one depicted sketches of strange humanlike creatures. The borders were lined with ancient runes which the prince could not have hoped to read, let alone understand. On either side of the drawing were scribbled notes indicating the creature’s name.

  “Ah, these are merely bedtime stories used to frighten naughty children, Your Highness, nothing more.” Valtor closed the book and laid it back on the shelf as though nothing were wrong before changing the subject. “Where are we with the Cylmaran Ambassador? Belkor, isn’t it?”

  Dakaran examined a ceremonial dagger on the next shelf up and then replaced it. “Yes, he has agreed to meet with us on Seventh Day after the evening meal.”

  “That’s good news. We are going to need Cylmar’s help if we ever plan on getting you your throne.”

  The prince shrugged as he lifted his cloak and threw it across his shoulders.

  “We need to make sure the ambassador understands what we are asking from Overlord Saryn,” Valtor said.

  “I’m sure it’ll all work out. You worry too much, Valtor. You’re going to give yourself a palpitation.”

  Valtor sighed as the prince left his chambers. He was beginning to wonder if he had made the wrong decision in his choice of allies. Only time would tell.

  Chapter 14 | Ferrin

  FERRIN SPAT THE REMNANTS of blood collecting between his teeth and lower lip.


  He was secured hand and foot across the wire-bound rack. Apart from a few noticeable differences—like the torch holder being fastened to the right side of the door instead of the left, and the rack being offset to one side of the entrance as opposed to the other—the interrogation rooms were exactly the same. Ferrin would have sworn the large blood stain on the floor even had a similar design to it.

  I’m still alive, he kept telling himself, a chant of hope to ward off the desperation threatening to consume him. The strong fecal smell emanating from where the previous victims had lost their bowels under the pain of the inquisitor’s cruelty overpowered the burnt pitch of the nearby torches. Cheeks had graciously spared him the wiggler during this session, probably due to the intense reaction of nearly dying during the previous one. Ferrin knew it wouldn’t be his last encounter with the rather horrific device, though.

  Not letting his disappointment of refraining from the wiggler get to him, Cheeks had instead decided to move on to Ferrin’s reaction to heat. His experiment consisted of testing the length at which he could maintain Ferrin’s hand over a torch’s flames before Ferrin either passed out from the agony or his hand melted through. With Ferrin’s unfortunate luck, he hadn’t passed out.

  After the demonstration was over, Cheeks had Rae fix the damage while he packed his tools and moved on to the next victim.

  Ferrin grimaced as two of the guards hefted his aching body from the rack. They took a moment to grab his worn tunic from where it had been tossed on the floor in readiness for Cheek’s work, and quickly pulled it over his head. His sweat-soaked red hair was plastered to his face by the time they finished.

  Flanking him on either side, they each took an arm. “Looks like they couldn’t get you to talk again,” said the guard on his left. “I told them not to bet against the smith, but would they listen? No.”

  “Give it time,” the other guard cut in. “They all talk eventually.”

  “Yeah,” Ferrin said, “I’ve got them right where I want them.”

  The guard’s laughter held an edge of pity.

  Too weak and battered to move his legs, Ferrin let his feet drag across the stone flooring of the dimly lit passageways as the Tower guards carried him toward his new accommodations. Several times he found himself shivering on an outside battlement as they moved him from one building to the next.

  “So . . .” he began, his breath coming in shallow rasps against the lingering pain in his chest. “What shall I . . . be dining on . . . this evening?” Rae’s gift of healing did wonders for the outward afflictions to the body, but did little to affect the inward soreness of fatigue and hunger. “A few hours . . . on the rack can really . . . work up a man’s appetite.”

  The light from their one torch danced across the walls as the guard in front turned his head. “You’ve got a sense of humor, smith, I’ll give you that. How long you keep it, well, that’ll be a different matter altogether.”

  From the silhouette of the torchlight, Ferrin had to admire the captain’s rather bulbous nose. It was a snout of indescribable proportions. It was an incredible work of art. The masters would have charged double to paint such a portrayal. It would have taken a rather difficult amount of work to bring it back to some form of normalcy. Why Ferrin was wasting his time dwelling on his captor’s nose was beyond him, but alas, what else did he have to think about. Nostrils. Hmm, that sounds like a good fit. He played around with the idea a moment longer before coming to an agreement. Yep, Nostrils it is.

  The higher they ascended, the more his teeth quivered. The temperature continued to drop the further they climbed. “Maybe this time I’ll get a room with a view.”

  Since his arrival, he had occupied four separate cells, each one a mirror image of the last—cold, dark, and damp. He remembered his first impression of the mountain fortress known as the White Tower—a solitary pillar of stone protruding straight out of the ground and nearly touching the sky. It was a monument to another age, an age of wonders, an age of true power, an age of magic.

  Surrounding the central pier was a vast network of crenulated walls, stone parapets, towers, and halls, each connected to the other by long open walkways. Most of which had been built right into the side of the mountain. The construct was both ancient and unnerving.

  There was an overall strength to the design that had given him the impression of dragons. He wasn’t sure why, considering the mythical creatures were just that: mythical.

  If he had not found himself so overwhelmed with fear at the time, Ferrin would have been quite impressed. The Tower held no outer defenses, for none were needed. The entire fortress was completely encased by sheer-sided cliffs with nothing more than a solitary pass leading in or out and a monolithic bridge connecting the two. There was a large garrison stationed on the outskirts, and from the number of new faces appearing each day, Ferrin guessed it was growing.

  There were many who said the White Tower was an enigma unto itself. While it feigned the removal and destruction of magic, it had in turn put that magic to other uses—dark and unspeakable. Ferrin had even heard it rumored by some of the guards that the new Arch Chancellor was a powerful sorcerer in his own right, and used his position as head of the Tower to gain an even greater control over the five kingdoms.

  Of course no one had ever been able to prove the legitimacy of that claim. However, as one of those poor unfortunates unlucky enough to claim the White Tower as his permanent place of residence, Ferrin was inclined to agree. He wondered if the High King knew about what was going on here, and if he was sanctioning it. Ferrin figured he must. He had learned long ago never to trust an aristocrat.

  Landing hard on the stone floor where the men in white had tossed him, Ferrin curled into a fetal position and silently prayed in the hope that someone up there was listening.

  “As for your meal, it will be along shortly. Hope you have a strong appetite. I heard the cooks are whipping up a special treat for tonight.”

  “That does sound delightful, gentlemen. However, could you do me the favor of informing the cooks that they forgot to remove the whiskers on the last one they served?”

  “Get some rest. You’ll need it for tomorrow.” The guards left, swinging shut the heavy door behind them. Once again Ferrin found himself alone in the dark with nothing but his memories to keep him company.

  For the uninterrupted silence of a single night’s sleep Ferrin would have happily given his right arm. His mind was beginning to crack. He could no longer tell which of the voices were real and which were byproducts of the torture. Death would have been preferable to yet another night in this place where hope had been removed and fear was a permanent state of being.

  Struggling to open his eyes, he settled with a mere squint through his left, which was only slightly less swollen than the other. Darkness encased the room, lit by the occasional appearance of the moon through a lone arrow-slit high above any reachable distance. Well, so much for the view.

  The stone walls seemed to bleed moisture, keeping the status of its occupant’s health somewhere between sick and dying. A pallet of straw had been strewn across the cold stone floor, allowing for the residents to find a small escape from the damp and thereby stave off their eventual passing long enough to complete their interrogations.

  Lifting the bulk of his torso on one thick forearm, he scanned the room. It was fairly similar to the others. He grunted at the stabbing pain in his lower chest. Broken ribs no doubt. He lifted his torn tunic and carefully prodded the rest of his upper body. “Oy! Yep, they’re broken.” The little healer had expended her magic earlier that day. By the time she had made it around to Ferrin, she only had enough left to tend to the more serious damage while leaving the injured ribs for another time.

  The room came into view as his eye adjusted to the light, or lack of it. The pungent odor produced from the combination of human waste collecting in the corner and the stink of unwashed bodies was, at first, unbearable. Now it was but a mere irritation, dulled by time
.

  “What’s your name?”

  Ferrin’s head rose with a start. His good eye darted around the room for the origin of the raspy voice. He came to rest on the far corner where a figure lay buried beneath the shadows. Struggling to focus, he managed to outline the shape of a man shackled to the far wall.

  “Ferrin,” he replied, hesitantly.

  “Ah, Ferrin.” The old man repeated his name, rolling it around in his mouth as if sampling some new exotic delicacy. “It’s a strong name,” he said, “a name that bears with it a true calling and purpose.” Ferrin cocked his head and snorted his rather obvious doubts as to the legitimacy of the man’s claim. “I see a solitary stone,” the man said, “which if removed will collapse a kingdom. I see a future that rests in balance on a single thread, tipping one way and then another, never quite revealing its outcome. Hmm, most curious indeed.”

  Ferrin strained to get a better glimpse of his cellmate. “Try seeing us a way out of here while you’re at it.” Poor fool, Ferrin mused. He’s obviously lost what little mind he had.

  “My name is Azriel de’ Torsa,” the voice said, ignoring Ferrin’s snide remark while forcing himself into a seated position. His chains clanged heavily on the stones around him, while the glint of the moon divided his upper half in its soft pale light. Ferrin grimaced at the sight of the man’s face. Withered with age, it held a gauntness that presented a clear picture as to the state of malnourishment he suffered. But it was not the skin-wrapped skull, or the scars of prolonged cuttings, or even the patches of hair that had fallen away from disease which drew Ferrin’s attention, it was the emerald reflection emanating from the old man’s eyes. They were the brightest green he’d ever seen, and for reasons unknown to Ferrin, it made him want to turn away, as if they were gazing right into his very soul.

  “I am a seer. And I have been waiting for you far longer than I care to admit.”

  Ferrin allowed the man’s statement to burrow its way into the back of his mind. “For me? What are you talking about?” His expression tightened, rather unsettled at the old man’s sudden proclamation. He really has lost his mind.