Donna Johnson

         For seven years since its fall, the city of Montinora lingered as the barren remains of a castle and an armory, a temple and an artisans' village, all of which the forest had reclaimed since the deciding battle against invaders was lost.

         Alsophos Bradek, the former Grand Inquisitor and leader of the Council, braced his weight on a cane and watched a distant pack of whistling swans, graceful white specks against the dark-gray rubble, fly by. They shadowed ruins of castle ramparts, bastions, towers, and bridges awash in cold red sunlight. The curtain wall was down, the granary burned, and the Great Hall smashed to bits. He'd expected this decayed wasteland, but it wasn't all he found. The city-in-the-caldera sprouted peasant huts and fields all around the perimeter; remnants of life had returned to dwell among the rubble, and Montinora's defeat appeared forgotten.

         In neighboring towns, traders and soldiers told stories of continued battles and of broken bodies rotting in unholy heaps across a landscape forever shrouded in mist. A toothless old woman selling kettles in nearby Barleon, the city he now called home, scoffed at these tales and shook a gnarled finger in Alsophos's face. "Nonsense. That's where I live. It's a thriving village," she'd said. "Artisans, herders, and farmers call it home. If you don't believe me, go see for yourself. In fact, you'll find something worth seeing. The name of the city's betrayer is scrawled across the Keep door in blood."

         She refused to speak the name, but Alsophos had to know. He'd tried many ways to gather information and found only gossip filled with stories of ghosts and curses. "Deserted," most had said, even the caravan of traders who had dropped him on the slope on their way over the ridge; men who would return to the same place to meet him at nightfall...if he survived. They would not enter the cursed city. Alsophos needed to look his past in the eye, and the old woman turned out to be right.

         He faced the Council Keep, the only edifice still shadowing the moss-tinged cobblestone walkways. He read the door and wrinkled his nose, but it wasn't blood he smelled. It was dung. Even from a distance, he saw that his own name, Bradek, was clumped in feces and baked into the aged wood. In truth, he smelled the fresh waste permeating the air. Dry cattle dung stoked cooking fires near every hut, and the smoke, like his memories, whipped around the shattered castle stones, stinging his eyes and lodging in his throat.

         "Got any bread, sir? Water? A flagon or a flask?"

         Startled, Alsophos turned to see one sorry excuse for a beggar boy. He'd always believed people had to take responsibility for their condition. If they wouldn't choose accountability, they should have it thrust upon them. But this scrawny specimen was no more than twelve, no older than his own son when Alsophos let the belligerent run-away escape his grasp. He didn't pursue him and saw him no more.

         He should have made his son stay in the city and helped him grow into a man, and he knew it. He'd let his only child go because he couldn't bear to see that face, the accusing reflection of his dead wife, every day. She died because you weren't there, the boy had said. You were never there. Now that son was likely dead like his mother, all because Alsophos had loved his city and taken critical time away from family to safeguard it. Talk about responsibility.

         "I have nothing to spare with me," he croaked. "Are beggars no longer cast out?"

         Wide-eyed, the child stepped back. He folded his hands into the ragged arms of his tunic and hugged himself. "Begging your pardon, sir, but those were the dark days, before the war. We have no gates now."

         "The dark days? Those were the days when the Council kept order." His Council, his thoughts echoed. He had led the men who made the laws and fed the populace, who kept the over-crowded streets clean and attackers at bay. Until seven years ago when something went dreadfully wrong.

         The boy stared at the ground. "Times have changed, sir. We must forgive and forget."

         He hadn't meant to, but the lunacy of this exchange made Alsophos chuckle. Like a madman. Not only did the child reek of the gutter, but he also had no grasp of history. Was he a half-wit? He felt his jowls bounce and knew that shame reddened them. He sobered when the boy withdrew further.

         "What do you mean?" Alsophos demanded.

         "We Montinorans govern ourselves without oppression now. This is paradise." It sounded like an anthem the boy was taught to recite.

         Alsophos imagined he heard rats and roaches scurrying through the dry grass and discarded wood around them and felt his skin crawl. He waved at the name on the door. "And the Betrayer? How did you come to name him thus?"

         The boy flinched away from the word. "The leader of the forces that razed the city placed the Betrayer's name there for all to remember and loathe."

         "But this man did nothing. He didn't call the guard away from the gates and let the invaders take them."

         Soulful eyes filled the boy's sunken face. "True, he did nothing. His was a crime of omission."

         "How so?"

         "He left. When others needed him, he always fled."

         A shudder trekked up Alsophos's spine. He coughed and spat. It was the most absurd thing he'd ever heard. Of course he'd left. Everyone with any sense got out as fast as they could when the gates came down. He was falsely accused, and this hopeful trip had lapsed into a nightmare. He sighed. "Get on, boy!"

         The boy didn't go. He followed at a safe distance. "Name's Corwen, sir."

         Pretending he didn't hear the chatty child as he continued to talk, Alsophos hobbled through the unkempt courtyard. He steeled his nerves and approached the Keep door.

         "Wouldn't go in there!"

         "And why not?" Alsophos turned and glared over his spectacles and down his hooked nose at Corwen. "What riffraff have taken up residence?"

         "Only the voices, sir. The screams of the dead and betrayed will drive you mad."

         "And then what?" he demanded.

         "I'll show you." Corwen motioned for Alsophos, and curiosity drove him to follow. Come to think of it, the name was ringing a bell. Hadn't a fellow councilman named his son Corwen? The boy skirted the building and whipped around the corner. A silent throng waited there, all gazing upward. Alsophos was among them before their presence registered. Had they just appeared? Fine hairs rose on his arms as he and his guide passed through the group. For no obvious reason, a horrid stench wafted over them, and Alsophos barricaded both nose and mouth against it with a cupped hand.

         "Death awaits those who venture inside. See for yourself, sir, what happens to men who go there." 

         Alsophos grunted. The smell of death did indeed out-stink the fallen city's sewage drains, but something about it was wrong. He followed the crowd's gaze up to what had been his favorite oak tree, the one just below his office window. A body lodged there, likely impaled, evidently discarded from an upper window. The stench claimed it had been rotting for days. If that smell were truly as old as it should be, he would have experienced it already, over the dung. Wrong, indeed.

         Speculation among the spectators swelled: suicide, or murder by ghost? Ridiculous.

         Above, tattered shutters fanned, and harried men called down to others inching up the tree and fending off buzzards with hoes. All the while, Alsophos watched the fog close in.

         The hunchback beside Alsophos worked a new shoe. He turned and smiled. "You ‘spose he's been dead awhile?" The yellow-toothed cobbler's hot breath frothed in the cooling air, lending him the look of a belching dragon.

         "How would I know?" Alsophos felt like he watched an event that had played itself out long before. In fact, he remembered when. A colleague was murdered this same way. The man's own son pushed him from an upper window, and Alsophos had found the body. He would never forget how Steffen began his reign as military councilor. No, the murder couldn't be proved, not even then, but Alsophos knew the truth.

         The graying cobbler nodded. "Not your problem, is it? I say it's a sign."

         "Of what?" he asked.

         "The Betrayer will return. Too much curiosity over those upper offices, too much pondering why the Council Keep survived the battle, too many screams coming from that dungeon. He'll have to answer for his crimes." With that, the man returned his attention to the shoe and wandered away from the scene.

         "Move along!" A Keep guard emerged from the settling fog and spurred the crowd back with the flat of his sword blade. When Alsophos turned, the man pushed against him. "Nothing to see here."

         He stumbled, head down, and continued back the way he had come, steering Corwen in front of him. Not one of these townspeople looked familiar. "How do I get inside?"

         "Haven't you seen enough? Don't you understand it's cursed?"

         Alsophos cleared his throat and stopped a good distance apart from the rest of the crowd. He had one bargaining chip, and it should be intact, given the strength of the magic that sealed it. "I know where there is food, preserved and well-hidden." Corwen narrowed his gaze, but Alsophos pressed on. "Lots of it."

         "How would you know where to look? An army occupied this Keep for two years following the battle."

         The last time Alsophos had been there, his office was in order. A warm fire and books and scrolls squirreled away for safekeeping. "Never mind how. I was prepared for everything. Get me inside, and you can have the food."

         Corwen's face fell, but his hollow gaze never flickered. "As you wish, but you won't like what you find."

         So far, Alsophos had hated everything he'd found, an unfit legacy for a once-great city. He set his jaw and swung his bum leg with purpose, following the boy back to the front door. Corwen pointed to it much like a criminal would a guillotine.

         "No one will stop you."

         Alsophos didn't care if they tried. Looking around, he watched the villagers dredge about their mundane work. Some led cattle through the streets while others clicked to horses pulling hay-laden wagons. The people's motions looked surreal; no one spared him a glance. They went on about their business, in slow motion, like winter weighed upon them. He faced the door and pushed.

         "It's locked." He turned to tell the boy what he thought of this prank and found no one there. No one at all, not even the working villagers. "That's enough of this!" he called. When he swung back to the door, ready to bang his fists against it and demand he be admitted, it gaped wide, a forbidding maw of darkness.

         "Anyone here?" he called.

         Just as the boy had said, an echo, like a host of hysterical voices, answered. As the cacophony died back, he discerned two distinct words not his own: "Help me!"

         Alsophos's skin burned to life, then chilled. A shiver crept over him, raising the fine hairs coating his arms. "Is anyone there?" he called, afraid to step inside.

         "...there?" came the reply.

         Just an echo. He sighed.

         "Please!"

         He couldn't hold his ground. He stepped over the threshold, drawn by his need to know. The darkness enfolded him, and his mind raced for escape. Someone was inside, and the voice came from the dungeons, the place he'd spent seven years purging from his memory. Everyone he'd questioned and deemed unworthy went there, discarded like brittle pieces of overused parchment or quills with broken nibs.

         "Can anyone hear me?" the strained voice croaked.

         Alsophos dared not answer. His sharp breaths drew in layers of dust he couldn't see.

         A scraping commenced, then the clank of iron on iron. Someone was trapped in the dungeon, and the sounds that had always been veiled escaped up into the hall above. Alsophos bit his lip. Was this a criminal?

         "Please! If you can hear me..."

         He made his way along the wall to the circular staircase. Out of breath, he climbed down the stone stairs, ashamed of his last victory behind these walls. He had sent a fellow councilor to the dungeon just before the invasion.

         "Change is coming," Steffen had said. "Change must come, and you must embrace it if you would be Montinora's proper king."

         "Order will prevail," the new king muttered.

         Alsophos agreed. He spewed many arguments and reasons why Steffen spoke treason.

         With reluctance, the king decreed that Steffen would spend only one night in the dungeon, to remind him who set policy. Don't you even think of leaving me, Bradek! Steffen then turned to begging when Alsophos ordered the guard to lock his cage.

         That night, twisted invaders with incredible strength came to the gates. Minions of chaos, the king had called them. Wild beast-men controlled by wizards fought alongside battle-hardened warriors from the steppes. The king ordered his court and the council to flee because he feared a drawn-out siege. Someone called the guards to stand down, and the gates fell, undefended. Alsophos grabbed what he could and left, just like the others. He had forgotten the dungeon. The prisoners. Steffen. Montinora fell before first light.

         Another step. Alsophos couldn't let this be his fault. Steffen was probably, after all, the betrayer himself; the man who ordered the guard to stand down and allow the city to be overrun. Steffen controlled the military. He had killed his own father for the position. Surely he had taken revenge upon the king. Yes, that would be his legacy.

         Steffen had a son. Alsophos staggered. Yes, and the boy's name was Corwen. When he tried to turn around, he bumped a shield on the steps, and it clattered to the stone floor. He winced, sweat rolling off his brow and sliding down the crease of his jowls. He was too old for this. Too far gone to turn back.

         "I know you're there! Please, help me!"

         Something in the voice's demanding edge was familiar. Alsophos couldn't reply until he saw this man, saw that he was tangible and not ephemeral like the ghost village bustling about outside. He swung around the wall and faced the row of bars. He would have given anything for more light, but his eyes adjusted just enough to catch movement. Alsophos stretched his next steps, pushing his toes out ahead to feel for discarded weaponry that might make noise. Nothing blocked his passage.

         "It's you, isn't it, Grand Inquisitor Bradek?"

         He froze, every muscle washed in ice.

         "He said you'd come back one day, just to be sure he was dead."

         Alsophos tried to breathe. He wanted air more than he ever thought possible.

         "Are you afraid to face the truth?"

         His wet skin flushed hot. He still couldn't step around and face the cell where he was sure Steffen stood. He could see his arms, skeleton thin, and he didn't want to see more. "How?" Alsophos whispered. "How did you survive for seven years?"

         "Survive? Is that what you call it? I've always thought I lingered, hovered, or maybe haunted. I merely exist, old man." After a pause, the voice, still familiar but not so much like Steffen's, lowered. "Face me. I've a message to deliver."

         Alsophos pivoted on one foot and faced the bars. He forced back the acid rising in his throat and squinted, looking for the face of a man he once knew. Torchlight blazed to life on the wall behind him. What he saw stole his breath, the dank smell assailing him.

         There were only remains. Meat long gone left behind scarred bones. Prisoners must have devoured each other to survive. Water dripped into puddles where grooves had worn in the floor. Madness may have driven them to pace. Tattered fabrics left bare threads, and a sliver of decaying rope dangled from the bars. Teeth scattered here; a finger bone there. "Oh, Steffen," he said. "I killed you, didn't I? I never meant it."

         Twenty years of disagreement paled before the thought. It could have been him instead.

         "Steffen?" The ambient voice said. "No, no, I am the Betrayer, and the one betrayed."

         Alsophos might have sworn there was movement in those reflective puddles, but he prayed it was only a trick of his overwrought mind. "That isn't possible. It's my name on the door." His burning skin bristled, and he backed away.

         "It is my name too. I came here seven years ago to bring down the Keep. I wanted revenge. I wanted the Council destroyed."

         "I don't understand. What did we do to you?"

         "My father cared more for his city than for me. I wanted to make him see me, the one man who could bring down the defenses of Montinora, but I found him gone. In a rage, I razed his beloved city. I found his enemy in the dungeon, pleading for his life. I took him into confidence because we shared a need. But he tricked me, escaped my grasp, and named me Betrayer of Montinora, cursing and condemning me to be forever imprisoned by those I'd killed. Their ghosts permeate the city. Yes, I died here, after long weeks of agony. Now, I must stay and do my penance until I take back my true name."

         Slow horror dawned on Alsophos. "No. You can't be..." Still, he couldn't turn and flee. Was this specter a reflection of his own lost blood? The name clogged his throat and croaked out without his willing it. "Andorin?"

         "Yes, Father." The bones reassembled, mist and smoke made skin, and tattered cloth knitted and shrouded the emaciated form.

         "Andorin..." The son he hadn't seen in many years. He was here, standing before him, like a larger version of the sad child Alsophos had neglected. The man's eyes were hollow with grief. "My son."

         "I am glad you have come, Father."

         Alsophos looked around for the key to let his son out, stared at the lock and willed it to open. He wanted to hold his son, to whisk him away from this horrid place. They were both changed men. Alsophos would make it up to him. He gripped the bars and scarcely noticed how they morphed before his eyes. How the light shifted. How the puddles welled up behind him, out of sight. He reached through the bars toward his son, but Andorin stepped away.

         "It's too late for redemption," he said. "But not for revenge."

         Only then did Alsophos see the cage he had sprung for himself. This time, his son turned and walked away, disappearing into the darkness. Corwen had been right. Madness waited here. Rats and bugs. The smell of decay. The slow, steady drip of water. The dim light gripped in the jaws of eternity.

         "No! Don't leave me!" His plea echoed, unanswered, and never stopped.

 

 

Copyright 2006, Donna Johnson

Donna Johnson works with the University of Arkansas libraries and enjoys gardening, editing, contributing to local newsletters and gathering patients' end-of-life stories from hospice staff and volunteers. She recently sold poems to Poesia and Bleeding Quill and a flash story to Flash Me Mag. 

 

 

Cover: "Viking Funeral"

Copyright 2006, Karl Eschenbach

Karl Eschenbach was born in 1950, right in the middle of the last century. He was raised in a military family and traveled throughout the United States. He survived college in the 60's and 70's, and is now a grandfather in Albuquerque, NM.

 

He has had 15 illustrations, 15 short stories, two essays and one poem published.