Firebrand

“They are false! Superstition! Abominations! At the time of judgment, your souls will be cast into the blackest pit of damnation and will cease to exist.”

The ranting continued on, but just seemed to bounce off Zachary and his fellow laborers. They were exhausted, and used the time to rest with heads bowed. Some nodded off.

::Dav.::

It came to him as a whisper in his ear. He straightened his posture and carefully looked about himself. Was he just hearing things?

::I am sitting behind you.::

He did not dare look while under the scrutiny of the guards. He did not have to, to know it was Fiori using some kind of speech-throwing trick. He gave a subtle nod to indicate he heard and understood, even as Elder Smurn railed on.

::I am trying to figure out how to free you from here. I have not been able to find a way for myself, however. Too many guards. One day I will want to know the whole story of how you came to be here.::

Zachary smiled to himself and wished he could respond. He had many questions for the minstrel, himself.

“God favors Arcosia and her descendants above all others,” Smurn exhorted.

::You may remember from your history,:: Fiori continued in Zachary’s ear, ::that this keep is Ifel Aeon. It was a seat of power of the northern lords in ancient times.::

Of course, Zachary thought. Perhaps if he had not been hit on the head so many times, he would have figured it out himself. There were ruins all over the north, but this one was prominent in Lone Forest lore.

::Grandmother has sought not only shelter for her people here, but she searches for some sort of relic . . .:: Fiori paused, sounding uncertain. ::I have heard her mention a ‘seal.’ There are old parchments in Selium that describe the keep standing sentinel over a portal to—::

“Your eternal damnation!” The edges of Smurn’s mouth were foaming. “Repent! Repent!”

Binning snored softly beside Zachary.

::—and it can’t mean anything good.::

Zachary had missed a portion of Fiori’s explanation due to Smurn’s thunderous sermon. There was enough damnation to go around, he thought bitterly.

::He’s almost done,:: Fiori said. ::Try to lie low, keep safe, for all our sakes.::

The sermon ended abruptly with Smurn looking contemptuously at the dirty, exhausted slave laborers at his feet. Having done his duty, he whirled and stalked off. The guards came forward to prod their charges back to work. Zachary glanced behind himself, but Fiori was nowhere to be seen.

“Had the strangest dream,” Binning said as they filed from the great hall to the outdoors. “A man was whispering to me.” He screwed his finger in his ear as if to clear it.

“Oh?” Zachary said carefully. “What did he say?”

Binning’s brow became furrowed. “To keep watch over you.”

“That is strange,” Zachary replied, trying to sound surprised.

Back at the dig, he noticed two of the guards watching him and whispering to one another. He did not think it boded well. He wondered if they had somehow detected Fiori talking to him. He hastened into the passage with his basket so as not to draw any additional attention. Fiori was right that his safety lay in remaining beneath notice. Whatever those guards had already seen couldn’t be helped. They hadn’t recognized him somehow, had they?

As he worked and passed by the glyph-covered walls, he forgot the guards and thought about what Fiori had said, that Grandmother sought a seal or relic of some sort, and that the keep had stood over a portal.

Think.

One of the workers stumbled and fell to her knees in front of him. He hurried to help her rise. She was one of Lorilie’s folk.

“Thank you, Dav,” she said.

“Your knees are bleeding.”

“That won’t be all if we don’t get moving.”

He went back to work and as he trudged along with his burdens, he recalled what it was about portals and this old keep that stirred his memory. There were legends about how there were Earthly passages into the hells, where dark spirits and demons dwelled, and that once, far beyond human ken, these evil entities ran rampant across the lands. In the more obscure sections of the Book of the Moon, the religious text kept by the moon priests, it was written that the gods waged war on the dark ones and rounded them up. It fell to Westrion to confine them for all time. Guardians were appointed to keep watch over the prisons, ensuring the seals that blocked them remained strong. The Book of the Moon went so far as to suggest that these guardians were actually mortal avatars of Westrion, his representatives on Earth.

Zachary, down on his knee, tossed rocks into his basket and glanced over his shoulder where other workers heaved pickaxes at the blocked passage. Did it lead to the hells, or at least to one of the prisons that contained dark spirits? Or, was it all pure legend? Grandmother seemed to think there was something back there, or why else have them digging out the passage? If she thought one of these seals lay beyond, did she intend to break it to release the entities? She was a necromancer. Perhaps she believed she’d have some power over them, but if it had taken a war with the gods to subdue them, he was not sure any human, necromancer or not, could control them.

Let it be legend, he thought. Many of the stories in the Book of the Moon were, after all, metaphorical, or even pure fantasy. Even in pure fantasy, however, could be found some kernel of truth.

There was not much he could do about it at the moment, but observe. Observe and plan.

That evening after supper, he sat by himself to work on the planning part when guards burst into the building. Other prisoners scuttled out of the way.