Ravenwild: Book 01 - Ravenwild (70 page)

He looked up to find a Commander standing at attention over him in strict salute.

He put down his glass and offered a sloppy one in return.

“Permission to speak, Sir.”

“Granted.”

“Commander Makk, Sir. The Emperor has sent me to request your presence in the regal dining hall tonight. There is to be a feast in your honor.”

“Is there …”

He filled up with dread. Somehow he had been discovered. It was a trick to get him there. But that didn’t make any sense. The Emperor would have merely sent a squad of the Castle Guard and had him dragged in.

The commander leaned in close and in a hushed voice said, “The word on the street is that you are being promoted to the rank of General, Sir. Congratulations.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, Sir. Begging the Captain’s, er, the
General’s
pardon, Sir, but we should be going. I am instructed to escort you to your new quarters. You will be living in the house of the former General Pinck. He too is being promoted, to the rank of Minister of the Interior, and you will be replacing him as General of the northern campaign. Sir.”

The captain stood. This was too good to be true. “And what is your name, Commander?” he asked.

“Commander Makk, Sir,” he repeated.

“Well,
Captain
Makk,” he said, “You will now be my personal chief aide. Would that suit you?”

“Oh yes, Sir. Very much, Sir.”

Too drunk to walk on his own, he leaned against his escort and they left the bar. In about twenty minutes they arrived at his new home. It sat with three others in a courtyard outside the main gate of the castle proper. Like the castle, it was made entirely of stone. It was huge, measuring easily ten thousand square feet. The entire compound was enclosed by a high wall on all four sides, and its large, iron entrance-gate stood open, awaiting him. All of his servants, cooks, groundskeepers, messengers, attendants, and aides were waiting for him outside, where they applauded as he approached them. He noticed a bevy of young Troll girls off to one side, all wearing looks that told him they were more than anxious to get to know him as soon as he was ready. He shook off the help of Makk, who was so far holding him up, and walked into his new mansion under his own power, stumbling only a couple of times.

Once inside, he looked up. Vaulted ceilings soared upwards forty feet in the receiving foyer, massive wooden beams interlocking with the stone ceilings above. At the far end of the entrance hall were two sets of highly polished granite stairs that ascended majestically to a common balcony, which was bordered by a wrought iron railing. All around on the walls were murals depicting famous battle scenes he had learned of while ascending in the military rank and file.

He was quite taken aback by all of this. He had once been in the living quarters of the Emperor himself, and now knew for a fact that his new living quarters were more ostentatious than the Emperor’s own.

His new chief aide noticed his awestruck look and asked, “Did you know that the great Leopold Malance Venomisis lived here once?”

The captain shook his head, “No,” too beset with awe to speak.

“This way, Sir.”

Makk led him up the stairway to the right and down a hallway to its end where he threw open a set of large, polished, oaken doors in which were carved more battle scenes.

Captain Dumfe gasped. Silver fixtures gleamed by the light of hundreds of candles. They were everywhere he looked. They adorned the walls, the desks, and the four tables set in the corners of the room. And every kind of weapon imaginable hung from silver hooks all around him. It was almost too much.

On a large, canopied bed, which could have served as a small barge, was draped a full set of dress blues, the shoulder epaulets of which demonstrated the rank of General.

He went to the bed and sat down. Unable to sit due to his drunken state, he flopped back, closed his eyes, and groaned.

“Those,” droned Makk, “are all of the weapons carried in battle down through the years by the generals of the northern campaigns who have come before you. And these,” he pointed to a particular set, “were carried by Leopold Malance Venomisis himself. Someday yours too will hang here, Sir.”

Vladimir Dumfe, still too flabbergasted to comment, kept his mouth shut while his aide moved matters along by helping him into his new dress uniform.

“If I may, Sir, I would advise that you not eat before the feast. I am told that the Emperor likes his guests to arrive with a good appetite.”

Finally, the captain found his tongue. “And what are they serving?” he croaked.

“Oh. Sorry, Sir. I should have told you. You will be dining on the former Minister of the Interior, Uncutus Twit.

Chapter 25

Rolan Fairman, King of Ravenwild, and Singular Night, Emperor of Vultura, sat together and listened to the debates around them. It was clear that Borok would never support putting half of the Ravenwild fighting forces this deep within hostile territory with no chance of escape and no reasonable possibility of fighting their way out.

“The final decision, of course, rests with My King, but I could never agree to such a plan. It would be one thing to proceed along these lines if we had enough of these vessels, or one that had actually been tested, to transport our soldiers away from harm’s way, but you say you have only one of these things, and it has never been in the water.
And
, you say it is not even
finished
.”

“True enough,” said Saviar Murlis. “On both counts. But the builder, with whom I would entrust the lives of my own wife and children, assures me that the construction will be finished long before the troops would arrive from the eastern front of Ravenwild - weeks before. And that includes the sails, all the rigging, an anchor, and the rest of the gear. But we need to launch it to make sure that it’s functional.”

“Do you
know
it will float?” asked Borok.

“If my friend the builder says it will float, it will float.”

“And say again how many soldiers it will carry?”

“Four hundred Gnomes, sans provisions except for fresh water. Two hundred with provisions for a month.”

“So roughly half that in Humans, Elves and Dwarves.”

“That sounds about right.”

“Let me think on it for a while.”

“Now let us speak to the plan of using an overwhelming force to twist the arms of your northern clans and convince them to join us in our fight against the Trolls, or die by our swords … ”

Rolan and Singular sat with their arms folded while they crafted a workable plan.

And so it went, back and forth, for the entire morning, through the midday meal, and well into the night. Now that they had their alliance, based on an oath of trust, it came down to logistics.

It came down to planning.

“I thought you wanted to leave right away,” he said, “to rescue Jacqueline.” Orie scratched his head. “I do,” he answered. “But you said a while ago that time does not pass ‘out there’ while we’re in here. Is that true?”

“Yes. This place, and it is my understanding some other places here on Inam'Ra, were spelled centuries ago by twelve very powerful wizards in such a way that the rules of nature are …
different
than they are on the rest of our world. Maybe they conjured these places in this way so that they could meet for prolonged periods of time and solve the problems of their day without fearing that the time they were spending in deliberation would become the issue itself. I don’t know if I said that clearly enough. Let me put it this way … ”

Orie interrupted him. “I know what you’re trying to say. They could take a timeout and huddle up without the game-clock continuing to move.”

Forrester cocked his head with an inquisitive look.

“Never mind,” said Orie. “It doesn’t matter. The point is, we can take as much time as we want here, and time is not passing out there.” He gestured with a sweep of his arm.

“And it has not passed for the entire time that we have been here.”

“Correct.”

Orie stood and said, “In that case, follow me.”

Up the ladder they went, out the door of the outbuilding, and across the short span of field to Cirrhus’s house.

“We need to know more about this tell-all thing. It’s the whole ball of wax as I see it.”

They entered the house and went straight to her bedroom. Orie took a seat on a small chair beside her bed. Forrester remained standing, removing the tell-all from his pocket.

“Sit here,” he said. “Please. On the bed. Man, Forrester, you have to learn to pay better attention to the details. Let me hold the tell-all.”

Forrester sat on the bed. Orie held it up in front of him. Forrester’s image appeared as big as life. Orie grinned.

“The way I see it, this has to be a data storage device, and beyond that, it has to be voice-activated. I seriously doubt that it could be thought-activated. Maybe, but it seems a reach to me.”

“What do you mean?” asked Forrester.

Scratching his chin, Orie replied, “Tell me exactly how you used it for the very first time. Don’t leave anything out.”

“As I told you before, I found it and held it up. I was sitting on her bed, and her face all of a sudden appeared. Then it spoke to me, telling me about the location of the portal, you know, under the outbuilding. There was a picture of the property, and the outbuilding was circled, so there could be no doubt as to its location. Anyway, I went there … ”

“Wait a minute,” interrupted Orie. “Tell me this. Whenever you had occasion to visit Cirrhus before, had you ever sat on her bed?”

“Of course,” said Forrester, “Why?”

“Did you
always
sit on her bed, you know, if you happened to be in her room?”

Forrester thought about it for a moment. “You know,” he said, “Now that you mention it, I probably did. Being my size, it was the only place that I
could
sit in her room. These,” he pointed to the two chairs in front of them, “would never accommodate me.”

“Okay,” said Orie. “You say the first time you sat on her bed, her face appeared, and you did nothing except think of her. What I mean is, you didn’t
say
anything.”

Again Forrester took a few moments to think back on it. “No,” he said, “I don’t recall that I did. I can’t be entirely sure, but I don’t think I did.”

“Good,” said Orie. “Now. You say that last night, the very first time you used it on your own, you sat down on the bed and thought of her, and her face appeared. Then right after that, you were directed by a picture to the portal, and you used it to go to the Ghasten castle.”

“Well, sort of. But there was a little more to it than that.”

“Forget that for a minute. Let me ask you this. Has the picture of the property, with the outbuilding circled, appeared again since the first time you used it?”

“You’re holding it … I haven’t used it but the once.”

“No. It’s not there. Now we’re getting somewhere.”

There was a pause.

“I’m confused,” said Forrester. “Why does that matter?”