“Of course not, Your Majesty. I—”
“Then get on your knees before I have them cut from under you!”
The slight thump as Shreckt dropped failed to muffle the choked laughter that neither Cræosh, Gork, nor Gimmol could quite suppress.
“Now, my dears,” Queen Anne continued, all gentle smiles once more, “you've been on the road for a great while. Relax, refresh yourselves, perhaps have a bite to eat. We will talk afterward, when you have made yourselves marginally presentable. Rupert will show you to your rooms.” A simple gesture, bidding them to rise, and then her attention turned back to the next in the seemingly endless line of petitioners.
Robe—or “Rupert,” apparently—gracefully drifted down from the dais's shallow steps. “If you will follow me?” Without waiting for a response, he flowed ahead, leading them not toward the hallway from which they'd entered (and thanks be for that!), but down a smaller passage that had been partly obscured behind one of the towering columns.
Two long corridors and a wide flight of stairs with an ivory banister led them to a smaller hall lined with modest wooden doors. Several loud clicks sounded as Rupert passed them by, and several doors on either side of the hallway drifted open.
“These are your quarters,” the queen's servant told them. “Feel free to fight over them, but I assure you that each is absolutely identical to the others.”
Cræosh popped his head through the nearest doorway. Acceptable enough, in a cushy, over-luxurious, human sort of way. A hardwood wardrobe stood directly opposite a large, four-poster bed (trimmed, the orc noted with no small amount of nausea, in fluffy pink). A large brass basin sat directly across from the door, illuminated dimly by the single flaccid beam of sunlight that penetrated the drape-covered window. (Cræosh allowed himself to note that these rooms shouldn't have exterior windows—they were somewhere in the very heart of the castle—and then chose to file that fact away in the abandoned recesses of his mind, right next to the door in the carriage and the frescoes in the entry hall.)
“Is the room satisfactory?” Rupert asked from over Cræosh's shoulder.
“You might do better,” Cræosh snarled, willing his heart to cease pounding and his hand to unclench from his sword, “not to creep up on people.”
Then, more calmly, “Yeah, the room oughta do fine. Don't know why Queen Anne wanted us to come here first, though. I'd just as soon find out why we're here.”
“I believe Her Majesty felt that it might behoove you to make use of the amenities.”
Cræosh finally turned to peer blankly into the shadowed hood. “Huh?”
“I can have the servants fetch some hot water as soon as you're ready.”
“Why?”
Did Rupert actually sigh? “I see that you aren't fluent in Circumspect. Queen Anne feels that you and your associates could each do with a bath. Perhaps two or three.”
Cræosh sniffed. “If you say so. I've always thought we orcs smelled kind of earthy, myself.”
“Yes, sir. Earthy indeed. Quite fertile, even. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll have your water up in just a moment. I have to see about getting your ogre friend a larger tub.”
The squad reassembled some two hours later, smelling a great deal less like last spring's compost. (Gork and Jhurpess were also rubbed raw, where the guards had been forced to hold them down and scrub them with wire brushes.) Shreckt, however, was absent, apparently having decided that his presence was unnecessary.
They sat around a lengthy table, polishing off a feast prepared especially for them. It's worth noting, in passing, that the chef on duty retired from Queen Anne's service less than a month later. He moved out into the country to spend the rest of his life raising cabbage, and he never told a soul what he'd been asked to prepare that evening, or why he occasionally awoke screaming in the predawn hours.
“So?” Cræosh asked the room at large, picking a fatty morsel from his teeth with a sliver of broken bone. “We're here, we're full, we're even clean. So when's the bill come due?”
“Queen Anne will tell…us why we're here as soon…as she feels it appropriate. You…will simply have to…try to remain patient.” Katim snorted, then, obviously amused by her own words. “Or at least…fake it.”
Cræosh grimaced, revealing the four or five other meaty chunks that he hadn't yet dislodged from his teeth. “I’m tired of being patient!”
Gork snickered. “How would you know?”
“How indeed?” Rupert asked.
Cræosh pulled a muscle in his neck trying to spot the new arrival. “Tell me something, Rupert, are you looking to get your fucking spine broken? Stop sneaking up on me!”
The hooded head swiveled. For the tiniest instant, Cræosh thought he might have caught the barest glimpse of what lay within those ebon-hued folds. His face pale, he shrank back into his seat.
“Listen to me, orc, because I have no intention of going over this again. You are Her Majesty's honored guests, and I have shown you the courtesy due you. But I grow tired of your little threats. The next time you feel the need to make one, I suggest you be prepared to try to carry it out.
“Now,” he continued, his voice resuming its calm, modulated tones. “As you have no doubt been eagerly anticipating, Queen Anne wishes to see you again. She requests that you join her in her private gardens. If you'll kindly follow me?”
Curious despite herself, Katim fell into step beside the orc. “What did you…see?”
“Nothing,” he said softly. “I saw nothing.”
“Nothing? The hood…was empty?”
“No. No, you don't understand. I didn't just not see a face. I didn't see the inside of the robe! It was like looking into a pit, or the empty sky!”
“You realize…that what you are describing is not…possible.”
“I don't give a dragon's rectum if it's possible or not. I know what I saw, and what I saw was nothing!”
“Well, you only…caught a brief glimpse. Most probably it…was simply a trick of…the shadows.”
“Yeah. Yeah, probably.” But he remained unusually silent for long moments after.
The others were not at all restrained by the same doubts that plagued the orc. Even as they walked, Gork found himself striding beside the bugbear, mostly because it meant he didn't have to walk beside Gimmol or Fezeill.
“You as worried as I am, Jhurpess?”
“What? Why Gork worried? Something Jhurpess not know about?”
Gork could practically hear Cræosh's voice responding with There's a whole steaming shitload that Jhurpess not know about. “Look, Jhurpess, the armor in the main hall, those—those tapestries…”
“So?”
“So I’m just a little nervous about what sort of flora someone of Queen Anne's proclivities might be cultivating in her private garden.”
“Oh.”
The kobold knew he shouldn't ask, but couldn't help himself. “You do know what flora is, right?”
“Of course Jhurpess know what flora means! Jhurpess born and raised in forest!” The bugbear sounded positively indignant.
“Glad to hear it.”
“What ‘cultivating’ mean?”
The ponderous doors opened, allowing the brilliant glow of a warm summertime afternoon to radiate into the cold and gloomy hallway like…
Summer? The squad halted, gawking at the brightness beyond the beckoning doorway.
Then, shrugging in unison, they dismissed the incongruity as another of Castle Eldritch's little hiccups and stepped out into the sunshine.
Or rather, most of them did. Belrotha took one look at the gleaming sun and locked her fists on either side of the doorframe, refusing to be budged.
“Come on already!” Cræosh barked after a moment's pause. “Queen Anne's waiting, remember?”
“Me not care,” the ogre stated flatly. “Me not going out there. It not summer outside.”
“No, it's not,” Gimmol assured her, placing one hand comfortingly on her calf. “But, well, t
his isn't really outside. It—it's a magic room, like inside the carriage.”
“Not going.”
“But Belrotha…”
“No. Took me many years of schooling to learn order of seasons. Not forgetting that now. Too confusing. If me forget how seasons work, me cannot lead Itho. Planting get all muddled. Me stay here.”
“Oh, for the love of—”
Katim tapped Cræosh on the shoulder. “Let her stay…here then. She's not harming…anything. And do you really think…it's going to make that much of…a difference to her if she hears…Queen Anne's explanations?”
The orc nodded slowly. “Yeah, you have a point. You got a problem with that, Rupert?”
“I live but to serve. I have very few problems with anything.”
Without a backward glance, save one from Gimmol, the squad continued into the courtyard, the ogre peering after them suspiciously from the safety of her doorway.
The garden occupied the entirety of the castle's inner courtyard. Full, thick rosebushes lined the entryway, their fragrance overpowering. Behind them were row upon row of colorful, exotic blossoms, ranging from the merely impressive to the truly fantastic. Had any botanist, sage, or druid been present, he would have been stunned to note four varieties of flower that were actually extinct.
A few birds, late for their winter migrations, took brief respite from the cold by finding a perch somewhere in the garden. Hedges and shrubberies crossed and meshed into an impenetrable thicket of branches and thorns at the garden's edge. Other, narrower hedgerows meandered through the courtyard, transforming it into a simple but elegant maze. These had been carefully arranged to draw the eye eventually to the queen's most impressive specimens, or to one of the few fountains and sculptures.
Cræosh, for one, could not have cared less. “So where is she?”
Rupert, who looked as though he was choosing his path through the hedge-maze at random, didn't bother to slow as he answered. “Fret not, my guests. The queen spends most of her time with the more unusual plants, at the garden's farther side. We will be there soon enough.” And indeed, the dirt beneath their feet grew darker, the surrounding hedges brighter, as though this portion of the garden had been painted with a richer palette.
And there they saw the vines.
A deep, seaweed hue, they coated the far wall of the courtyard, a green and winding rash afflicting the stone. Into cracks, atop and around other nearby plants—it looked very much as if the entire wall were being consumed by some monster jellyfish.
Nor was the wall the only thing being consumed.
“I see you've met my baby,” Queen Anne's musical voice lilted at them. She glided into view. Her velvet gown had, despite the soil that coated her hands, kept itself completely dirt-free. “Ivy is the pride of my garden, aren't you my sweet?” Cræosh could have sworn that the vines shivered in response to the queen's cooing.
“And him?” the orc asked.
Queen Anne glanced briefly at the corpse. He lay entangled at the base of the wall, the ivy growing not only around but through him. The rib cage alone was home to a dozen tendrils.
“Oh, that?” Queen Anne's gaze sort of drifted past the mangled cadaver, as though she'd failed to notice it. “Ivy requires extra care. As I said, she's very special.”
“And what did he do to, uh, earn the honor of feeding your plant?”
“Do?” The queen sounded genuinely puzzled, and Cræosh decided that this, too, would have to be added to his list of Things Never to Ask about Again.
Jhurpess, too, was adding the ivy to his own mental list, a list he'd been keeping since he and Cræosh had first arrived in Timas Khoreth. An inventory of things the bugbear didn't like, it already included red gremlins, little gray sergeants, yetis, holes in floors, elven corpses, elven wizards, elven wizards’ familiars, worms, chasms, brown robes, magic carriages, and—for reasons that no one in the squad would ever have been able to fathom—woodchucks. At this rate, the bugbear might have to learn how to write, or he was quickly going to lose track of everything he hated.
“You appear,” the queen continued, focusing for the first time, “to have lost someone.”
“Lost? Oh, no, we know exactly where she oooff!!”
Cræosh gingerly rubbed his side as the troll continued for him. “Belrotha was made…uncomfortable by the change…in seasons. She chose to…remain in the hallway.”
“Oh, the poor dear. Well, I have to look in on my prize flower before I’m through for the day. Why don't you all walk along with me, and I shall explain what I require of you?”
“Prize flower?” Cræosh asked, moving well beyond Katim's reach before he again opened his mouth. “What's this one do, drink blood?”
“An intriguing idea, my dear child, but no. This flower doesn't actually do anything.”
“Then what makes it so special?” Gork asked from the back.
“This flower blossomed on the grave of a man who had been interred alive; it absorbed his very life as he slowly died.” She smiled at the looks of consternation on her soldiers’ faces. “Metaphorically, of course. But symbolism is everything in magic, and a flower such as this can have great power when used correctly in the proper spell.” Her eyes unfocused once more, as though she was staring at something just beyond the horizon. “I haven't yet found a use for it, but…”
She shook her head, causing her hair to bounce on her shoulders. “In a way, that is why you are here,” she said, coming to a sudden stop.
Cræosh jerked to a halt, barely fast enough to avoid running directly into the queen. (Wouldn't have been diplomatic.) “The flower?”
“Not the flower directly. You see, I fancy myself something of a wizard.”
Fezeill snorted—respectfully. Cræosh was going to have to ask him how he did that. “’Fancy’?” the doppelganger continued. “Your Majesty, save for King Morthûl, you're the greatest sorcerer in Kirol Syrreth.”
“You are too kind,” she said, beaming at him. “You may even be right. But whereas my husband's unusual nature allows him to draw most of his power from within, making use of ritual and components for only the greatest of spells, I, unfortunately, am bound by the limits of my frail human form. I require aid for a great many spells. Incantations, formulae, reagents. Hence, the flower.
“And hence, you. You see, I collect such items. Items of symbolic power, if you will. Even if I know of no spell for which I might use them, I keep them all the same. One never knows when one will need the proper ingredient, does one?”
“Who is ‘one’?” Jhurpess quietly inquired of the kobold beside him. Gork sighed.
Katim, as usual, figured it out first. “You wish us to…retrieve one of these items for…you.”
Queen Anne nodded. “More than one, actually. You see, my dears, war is coming. My husband is quite capable of providing for our magical defenses on his own, but it behooves us all to prepare for the worst. I, too, must stand ready to battle the wizards and magicians that march with Dororam, and thus, I must have access to my most potent magics. Unfortunately, my children, I also have responsibilities. So I cannot go and seek out the necessary items myself.”
“Okay,” Cræosh said before Katim could answer, “that's fair enough. But why not send Rupert? He seems, uh, capable.”
“I need Rupert here, Cræosh. He is the best of my servants, my majordomo; he would be sorely missed. He also considers himself something of a bodyguard, and I fear dear Rupert would take it poorly if I asked him to leave my side.
“No, I need all my people here with me, to help prepare for the trying times ahead. And thus, you. When I'd heard that my husband had ordered a Demon Squad assembled and trained, it seemed the perfect opportunity for us all. I provide you with experiences to help prepare you for the struggles to come, and you can provide me with the items I require.”
Cræosh frowned suspiciously. “What, exactly, do you mean by ‘experiences’?”
The troll sighed. “She means, orc, that…we will be
in…substantial danger while retrieving…these items.”
The queen offered them a rueful grin. “It would hardly be training otherwise. And if it were easy, anyone could do it, could they not?”
Cræosh's lip twisted, but he bit back the urge to comment. Instead, he rounded on Katim and said, “And I thought you weren't gonna call me ‘orc.’”
Katim blinked at him—and then her jaw opened as something Queen Anne had said finally penetrated. “Wait! The king…ordered the squad…assembled?”
“That is correct.”
Five more jaws dropped. Demon Squads were a big deal, never assembled on whim, but they'd all just assumed it had been a military decision, from General Falchion or one of his underlings. To learn that the Charnel King himself had ordered them assembled added a whole new dimension to their experiences; one that made the smarter members of the group very, very nervous.
“So what do we do first?” Cræosh asked finally. “Dragon scales? The breath of a ghost? Eye of newt?”
The queen laughed, her voice melodic even in mirth. “You, my dear, have been listening to too many fairy tales. No, what I require from you, to start with, are the bones of a dead wizard. And not just any apprentice will do; he has to be a true magician.”
Cræosh choked. “You want us to kill—”
Queen Anne quickly raised a hand. “I wish you to kill nothing. The bones of a mage long dead will suffice just as well as fresh ones. They might even be more appropriate for my needs.”
“Oh.” Cræosh found himself relaxing, but not much. “Still, we'd have no idea where to find—”
“You need not worry about that either. I know where to send you. I shall even undertake your transportation myself. All you need do is retrieve the bones themselves.”
It sounded simple enough, and that worried Cræosh more than all the rest of it. “Okay,” he said, his mind awhirl. “So where are we going?”
Queen Anne smiled. “Why, I’m sending you to Jureb Nahl.”
From somewhere in the back, Gork moaned.
From its headwaters south of the Sea of Tears, the swamp of Jureb Nahl stretched for scores upon scores of sodden, stagnant, stinking miles. Nobody civilized lived there, and when the goblins say “nobody civilized,” they mean it. The closest settlement, in the Grieving Mountains that bordered some of that foul marsh, was the kobold colony of Rurrahk. There, a certain Gork had been hatched and spent his childhood, and there, he'd heard the tales his grandsires told of Jureb Nahl.