Chapter 25 - Bring on meat and mead - His last night as a rookie (Training arc)

　　The healer`s hall was a hive of activity—goblin nurses wrapped in white and wearing mouth masks, bird-like beak covers that were mostly for show. It was the age-old affair that plagued most peasants` sickrooms, in the hell here below like the land above: the dried-out balms and fetid messes, the odorous drifts of fresh manure. Dung slung richly in worn-down bandages. Dead dark limbs in a corner pile.

　　There was nothing here that would aid recovery; if the people survived it was only by chance.

　　The prince looked around—Linaria should be here... the wound on her head was a cause for alarm.

　　Would they even know, these novice pretenders?

　　The Lady was worth all the blood in their veins.

　　It was a large open space, the green-lit stone scenery. Packed to the brim with the heat of old bodies, the scent of their flesh. The meaning of death. They were sprawled all around—there was no room for pretence.

　　As the prince scanned the room, he lost hope and regained it... she was sitting alone, looking sullen but still mostly unbothered. Only a pointless blue salve on her face. It would not heal and it would not harm. This was the best he could hope for.

　　She gave a faint smile when the prince approached her. It was good to see she still could when she tried.

　　The prince noticed then: these were nothing but rookies... the unevolved no ones, a throwaway lot.

　　There was a rock-coloured curtain where the room should have ended. It was clear to him then. They were being deceived.

　　No words were needed. Only curt and strong action. The two moved as one, stepping through to the veil. Wading into the next ward.

　　There was medicine here, proper gainful resources. These rotten old bastards withheld the good stuff—second-grade goblins hogging all the real treatment.

　　Some of the staff came close to a protest, but the air turned electric—the prince let them know: now is not the right time.

　　The Lady sat down, and the prince cleaned her forehead. Water was sparse, but the others could ration. He would claim what was vital; let the dregs suffer more. Boiled willow bark and a poultice of honey. It would ward off infection. Like a curtain of rock—those that have and have not.

　　The prince led her out; it had not taken long—she was tired, not timid. Two master spells in the span of a fight.

　　"Is it bad?" she then asked; "No," the prince lied. And he saw that she carried the buckler—a magestone-red gleam to the cloth of her glove. The prince had not noticed it sooner. He had eyes for only what mattered. That was enough.

　　--

　　The elite`s quarters were busy, but not like the hospice. They had status enough—the prince had prevailed. The captain was there, the sly gruesome old tricker. All of his pupils gave Cedric respect. They were covered in grime, their skin calloused from the mining. But the prince and the Lady... they, too, had endured.

　　They claimed a nice bunk now, a clean enough mattress. Waiting for Artisan—where could their friend be?

　　The prince stood to search, but the quest was misgiven... in walked the man, limping slightly, not much. He tilted his head—come with, you must see this.

　　And the prince and the Lady followed the man, his brace-encased leg.

　　"It is time, my liege and my Lady, to feast on the spoils our champion has earned." Artisan showed them the meat and the mead, both golden things in the valley of death. "Alchemists pay well for the eyes of a Leximancer... but ah, it gets better." He produced a glyph key, opened the door to the mid-ranks. There was nothing there now—beautiful sweet nothing. They closed the door, locked it. Inside they were safe. Securely shut in, as free as can be from the eyes and the restless.

　　The room was like heaven.

　　"They`ve all gone to perish," Artisan said. "A nighttime raid on the midland orchards." He smiled, held the meat and the mead. "They will not come back, not the commons or the mid-ranks... only us fools, the elites matter some. I bribed the guards; it is just like an inn now. A night to ourselves—our mouths can be free."

　　The feast was a blessing, the meat nice and tender. They did not touch the mead; they would save it for last.

　　"Why did you deign right not to tell me?" the prince asked mid-meal, his eyes locked on Artisan, not to intimidate—it was true-born curiosity. "You knew all the while that the Blackrose line reigns. So why then feign ignorance?"This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

　　"Is your mind still back there?" Artisan said; it was not an inquiry. "On the beach we were strangers—I had reasons to gauge you. There is nothing we have if our choice is not free." He took a big bite of meat, its succulence dripping... coating his mouth, his lips and his chin. "You told me your name, your right of inheritance. I did not think you a prince, not at first."

　　It made sense, or at least he did not doubt it—the prince placed great stock in the power of judgment; a man could be chained, like a slave bound to purpose. But the mind can roam free, without yoke save our own.

　　"Even old Gorkon," Artisan said... then he paused for a swig, the earthly old nectar. It was honey and water; combined they were medicine. As mead or a poultice—there are more ways than one. "The hammer and tome, he still always asks me. Fresh from the egg, the first choice I can make. The path is perdition, but I walk it my own way. It is not much—I daresay not enough. But it is far more than nothing. To deprive one of options... that is the void, the only abyss."

　　No words were spent on the dead prior moments—the day had been long, and the wounds bleakly showed.

　　They passed round the mead, taking sips or big swallows.

　　The prince needed talk, but his lips still fell silent. His brain felt besieged by an abundance of thought. He could pick out the one, but why not the other... they were interconnected, the threads and the strains of ideas in his head. All the half-answers, the facts that he ached for. Then he drank more, ever more... and the echoes were calmed.

　　"I will..." the prince at length said, slurring a tad, for the mead was divine. Artisan shushed him—the Lady was sleeping. She had been through a lot and had earned some good rest.

　　To hell with it, then. If nothing else, they had time. Two days a goblin and it seemed like forever. And another birth soon—an act of his will. Not its surrender.

　　He was drowsy and weary—the mead did its job. They slept the sleep of the dead. A long night away from the hardships of day.

　　--

　　It was dark still when the prince jarred awake, his body reacting to dreams of the dead. He spoke not their names, not the foe`s or his lover`s—they were better off there, in the recess of mind.

　　He looked at the Lady; she was not as he knew her. Though had known is better—they were not like themselves. How the hard-headed fall, both she and he also. They had been loved... no, revered when their skin was not green. Pride was his downfall, and perhaps he had earned it—the prince would admit, the thought had crossed his mind. Though he blunted its force; there was no sense in knowing. Insightful reflections were fine in the nighttime. But the truth does not shine in the bright light of the day.

　　Here he was now, sharing breath with the Lady, seeing her face; the poultice had dried. Yet wherever he looked, he saw his own damn reflection. It was all about him, about his grief alone.

　　The prince closed his eyes in the gloom and the darkness. A minor reprieve from the hurt of himself.

　　He thought back on her life, how the Lady had fought. Climbing high through her talent. She was not highborn blood, but by skill highborn-made. Slain in her prime, once high-chief of the glyphbinders. Head of the Arcanicum not ten years ago. Reports had come in from some nightly incursion. But the facts were unclear, and the matter was dropped.

　　They had not spoken much, save on formal occasions. When the kingcoffer key had grown cracked, worn down from hard use. None had an answer—not the journeymen smiths nor the court-living mages. Ah, but then came the Lady. Needing hardly a thing, just a handful of dust. The fickle blue stones he had come to detest.

　　She had once caught his eye, in the time before Gael. They had both the same way with their words and their magic. The long flowing hair in the eyes of a man.

　　But resemblance is fleeting. The prince looked at her through thin slits of his eyes. He was close then to feeling the same hurt that she must. The green skin and heart that he had just like her.

　　The prince then got up; his feet started pacing. Like his mind now his legs, he had done it again. The pain and injustice, it had no innate value. These matters meant nothing when he was not around.

　　He took the glyph key from Artisan`s hand. He needed to move, feel the hilt of his steel as he flowed through the forms. The blade had been true, his one lifelong companion. When the nights were too long, and too cold without frost.

　　With his hand on the handle of the hard-wooden door, the prince looked back... something seemed off. He glanced at himself, never too long, for he feared what it cost. Had he borrowed too much and given too little? The green-glowing locket and ring he had claimed. In the corner, the buckler and the Lady who guarded it. Her magiguard glove on the spear-beaten wood.

　　The prince paused, then walked back. Artisan stirred, shifting in the deep of his sleep, eyes darting under closed lids. His leg twisted sideways, writhing with each breath. Was there no reprieve for him then... no solace in sleep, simply more of the same? He looked old—so dreadfully old. The night was not kind to a beaten-down soul.

　　He took one last good look at the ring and the locket. The light that they gave pierced a hole in the night. But the prince took them off, both of the things he thought priceless. Did he think the same still, or had they outlived their use?

　　Let the old man have them, his own dug-up treasures. The prince felt a sigh; it rolled like a wave, crashing out from his being. He was starting to grasp: they were worth more than stats.

　　Seeing them now, the old man and the Lady... the prince got the sudden deep sense he was spared—they had told him things, brutal dark things about the goblin death. But not all things. Had they granted him the mercy of not knowing? Are there darker still truths he alone should unveil? They had given him the freedom, the prince now realised. To decline investigation, remaining dumb and dark... but perhaps not as lost as he might otherwise be.

　　Forget the arena. Let his body be restless. It was his mind now that yearned.

　　It was high time that he learned. Of these damn rookie games that were not just for show. And the hard-buried truth of these infernal boxes—oh, how the Lady had glowed when she took out her glove. The magiguard glove, it meant hope to her... so she must seek to wield it once more: Truor鷖t, shard of Ziegb鰈t. The blade that condemned her. But what the hell for?

　　Enough of not knowing.

　　The prince left the cell, glyph-locked it tight behind him. It soothed him to know they were safe.

　　In the darkness of night, the prince then made way for the scholar`s hall.

　　On myths and malice.

　　That seemed a fine place to start.

　　He would go in an egg tomorrow... but he would not go dumb and blind.