Chapter 16: Scorched Sand Chapter 18: River of Regrets
Chapter 17: Ruled by Madness
We approached Castle Renais three days later. As soon as we passed into Renais from Jehanna, the difference became apparent. We could see destroyed villages, some of them still burning, in the distance. Only the ones beside the road were intact, and those housed a sullen, dispirited people who only reluctantly put us up for each night. The fields were abandoned; heaven knew how these people would survive through the winter. Several times, we saw unruly bands of unkempt men, probably brigands, but they always shied away from our large, well-armed group. We did have some run-ins with revenants and baels, mauthe doogs and even mogalls, though. And although the sun shone, there was an air of gloom over the land. Perhaps it was all in my head, but I suspected not.
As we crossed a hill into the valley in which Castle Renais lay, the desolation was just as apparent. The castle town was paved with broken glass, and hardly a face showed at a shattered window in curiosity at our army, or to see the famed, and previously applauded Silver Knight, or at least the Prince and Princess of Renais, not to mention the other royalty. The roads stank.
At last we were through the town and in the mile-long open ground between town and castle. Forests lined the eastern side; nearly two months before? – I lost count, so I was not certain – Seth, Franz and I had ridden in haste through the western side of the valley to escape from the late Valter and his cronies.
The castle was in sad state, with its windows also missing, the white stones blackened by weather and perhaps wanton fire, the flags ragged and drooping at their staffs. The portcullis was sagging in the gate; apparently one of the chains was missing or broken. I shuddered to think what the interior might look like.
Ephraim spoke first. “What has happened to our home? How did it come to be so ruined? So desolate?” His voice was high-pitched with shock and sadness.
Seth, riding always behind us two, answered indirectly as best he could. “Spies have told me that the traitor Orson has taken up rule of Renais. He makes no move to govern; he does nothing to check the progress of brigands and monsters roaming… He sits alone in the King’s former bedchambers. No one is allowed to enter… he takes no meals…”
“What could he be doing?” I murmered.
Seth still heard me. “The spies had no insight into his behaviour…”
“I realize, in retrospect, that he’d been acting rather odd for a while,” said Ephraim, his voice in his normal low tenor. “His wife died about six months back – do you remember that? I suspect the turmoil was too much for his mind to bear.”
“Let’s go home,” I said, steeling myself and mastering my fear at last.
“Yes. We’re going to the castle, Eirika,” answered my brother.
We charged in, through the familiar corridors. Our army divided into groups, each led by a Renatian knight. Ephraim and Seth and I, of course, were in one group, along with Myrrh, whose draconic form was hugely startling every time she deemed it necessary to flame an enemy into ash, Saleh, Ewan, Cormag, Duessel, and Knoll. Kyle had the Raustenians and Jehannians, and Forde had the Frelians, and Franz guided the youngest soldiers – Amelia, Ross and Garcia, Lute, Artur, Neimi, and Colm.
“Oh!” Seth startled me. “Look!”
“What is it?” I asked, springing to him. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” he answered, amused, I think, at my worry. “The man I just killed is wearing my helmet and carrying my shield. Dented, but not irrepairably.”
“Oh, that’s right, you left the castle without them.” The paladin dismounted and stooped to pick up the equipment. “I had gotten used to seeing you without them.”
In front of the throne, where I had left my dear father so long ago telling me – begging me – to escape to Frelia, Orson sat astride his horse.
“Orson!” I called to him. I had not seen him since he led us into Renvall. Somehow, he had escaped before we did back then. “Why did you betray us?” I already knew, of course, but I wanted to hear what he had to say.
“Princess Eirika,” he greeted me listlessly. “If anyone could understand how I feel, it might be you. For the one I love… I betrayed everything… My king… Everything…” He caught sight of the knight behind me. “Seth. …So you’ve come, have you?”
“Sir Orson,” replied Seth, riding forward to challenge him.
“You’re an impressive knight, Seth. Always dutiful, ready to sacrifice even your life for king and country… Without even a moment’s pause… I – could not do that. It’s an unrewarding life… For Monica, I left it.”
“That life you speak of,” Seth said with some emotion, “it is my charge. My duty. It is my hope. Sir Orson… I do not wish to fight you, but… prepare yourself.”
Again, again Seth was battling with sword against lance! Why had he not taken the horseslayer at the least? Oh, he had given it to Franz. What was that he was holding, then? A Zanbato? I breathed easier.
Orson kept switching weapons, between spear and silver sword. Seth decided, to my relief, that the Zanbato was not working as well as he had hoped and took up his silver lance. The battle of paladins was brutal. I was shuddering in fear as the horses, Altha and Ron, circled each other, their riders stabbing and swiping at each other. Saleh hovered nearby with a staff, but Seth specifically asked not to be helped unless he was defeated. Orson was still a knight, and he would fight him as such.
Tana landed beside me and gave me a hug of encouragement. Orson, at that moment, fell off his horse, and I flinched. Seth also dismounted, and Forde hurried to take Altha’s reins. On foot now, with swords, Orson’s silver against Seth’s steel. A hero-class snuck up on me and Tana and I both stabbed him with swords. I guessed I had to watch my back also.
Somehow, Orson ran himself on the point of Seth’s sword. From the way the Silver Knight jerked away, it was clear that that had been unintentional.
We all froze.
“Monica…” sighed the dying man, with a smile on his face. It was eerie.
After a moment, Seth turned to Ephraim and me and bowed, showing no sign of his weariness or pain. It wouldn’t be physical pain to bother him; Saleh had already used his staff. “Prince Ephraim, Princess Eirika, the castle has been secured.”
“Let’s see what Orson was doing in my father’s bedroom,” Ephraim said.
As we entered the uncleaned room, a strange smell met my nose. It smelled almost like… revenants?
A woman with greenish-grey skin and dark hair that had lost all of its healthy, shimmering lustre ran in eagerly, but stopped at the sight of us. “Darling…”
“What?!” the three of us exclaimed at once – we all recognized Monica, supposed to have been in her grave for six months.
“…That’s… horrible…” Ephraim gasped.
“Darling. Darling. Darling… darling… darling… darling…” chanted Monica’s corpse, monotonously. Her face still showed some emotion – it was disappointment now. Her voice was had been so gay when she was alive. It was still light and pretty, but it was somehow flat.
“So this is what he was doing,” said Seth.
“Eirika, you don’t have to look anymore,” Ephraim said, guiding me out of the room – which I was vastly willing to leave, accompanied by a repetition of “Darling… darling… darling…” And it was poor Monica’s birthday, too! She was dressed in forest green satin, bejeweled the way she had been before… I leaned against the wall.
My brother and fiancé came out after a moment. They, too, looked rather ill. Ephraim shook himself. “Let’s go find that Sacred Stone.”
Seth led us back to the throne room. “Your father said to me: ‘Raise the twins’ bracelets in the hall of kings. Then the hiding place of the Sacred Stone will be revealed.'”
“So, over our heads, right?”
“Let’s give it a try, Eirika.”
“Ready when you are, Ephraim.”
I lifted my left arm, and Ephraim his right. The bracelets flashed with a sudden bright light. I blinked reflexively.
The throne of my father slowly slid to the right, revealing a dark stairway. No, not all dark…
“Come on, Eirika,” my brother said softly. I followed him down the stairs, and Seth followed discreetly.
We found ourselves in a small, arching room of white stone. At the back of the room was a small alcove, with a huge, red-hafted lance on one side of it and a long, gleaming golden sword on the other. But it was the thing in the alcove that fused our attention to itself. A small sphere, no larger than a clenched fist, translucent and radiating a clear, white light. Of course it was the Sacred Stone.
Ephraim approached it reverently and picked it up. “This is what we have come to find.” The smile he turned on me was not his usual cocky grin, but a true smile of hope, of determination to see this through. I rested my hand on top of the Stone so it was secure between our grasps.
Our bracelets flashed again. “What?” I blurted, startled. They flashed again, and again, pulsing ever quicker. I caught sight of Ephraim’s astonished green eyes before it became too bright for me to see.
When I could see again, after a couple seconds for the purple spots to fade from my vision, I saw… I saw…
“Aureola!” I cried. Ephraim put the Stone in a little soft satchel that looked to be of Franz’ workmanship. I threw my arms around the neck of my mare.
“Lila!” Ephraim cried beside me, also embracing his stallion. “I thought you were dead, boy. We got separated in the swamps… but you found your way home.”
Seth had been doing something in the back of the room, and now he came forward and knelt to us. “Here, Prince Ephraim, is the Sacred Twin Lance of Renais. Please take it.”
“Sigmund, the Flame Lance,” Ephraim acknowledged, taking the red-hafted lance firmly.
“And the Sacred Twin Sword of Renais, Princess Eirika.”
“Sieglinde, the Thunder Blade. The ancient weapons of our ancestors… containing such power as… and yet we need them for peace to triumph in this dark time.”
Innes and L’Arachel were waiting for us to emerge again in the hall. “Is that the Sacred Stone?” asked L’Arachel. “Wow! It truly is spectacular. Well, our course is, to me at least, clear. I must lead you to Rausten.”
A corner of Innes’ mouth turned up. “Not till tomorrow, I hope.”
“Naturally.”
“Thank you, L’Arachel,” I said gratefully. With two stones, we would surely defeat Lyon’s Dark Stone.
I was hunched in a corner of the throne room, thinking about the day’s events, when Tana found me. “Come on,” I croaked to her. “Let’s go and see what my room looks like. I don’t like the way Father’s is…”
“What’s the matter?”
“Oh… Monica’s corpse had been brought back to life. That’s why Orson betrayed us.” I hurried along with my friend, up the familiar stairs. They were bereft of their familiar warm red carpet, though.
My room was cold and cheerless. A freezing draft blew through the window. I shivered and took some wood from the destroyed door to my study and tried to block the holes. It helped some. Tana pushed furniture around and tried to make my torn bedclothes neat on my battered bed. I put the rest of the wood in the fireplace and tried to light it with the matches still miraculously on the mantle.
No luck.
I put my head out of the door. “Ewan!” The boy from Jehanna stopped.
“Yes, Princess?”
I smiled at his use of the title. It sounded funny, spoken in his casual, chirpy way. “I need you to light a quick fire. In here.”
With the fire going and a bucket of water warming, and two sponges nearby for the dirty floor, I talked animatedly with Tana, recovering some of my normal cheer. When we finished with the floor, I felt much better.
“Now, all we need are two beds and sheets for same, and we’ll be set for tonight, at least…” said the pegasus princess.
“No, we can use our sleeping bags,” I said. “I’ll go and get them.” That night was actually quite comfortable.