Dawn of the Last Dragon Rider - Chapter 067 - The One Behind It (Patreon)

“There is no way by the spirits I will touch that thing!” shouted Alzama.  “You know you cannot make me do that even under the threat of an inquisitor.”

Hess sighed and nodded at Fiola, who had glanced at him.

This young clerk was adamant about not using the crystal.  The other three had gladly used it once, given their two options.

“I understand,” Fiola replied with a frown.  “Well, just so you know, your side will be recorded as it has for everyone before you. Let me introduce to you Adventurers Kaen and Hess.”

The woman glanced at both of them as they began to move toward her, holding their hands as if to shake.

“It is an honor to meet you, Sir Kaen!” the woman exclaimed as she rushed to shake his hand.

When she shook Kaen’s hand, Hess moved beside her and quickly grabbed her other arm.

“Forgive me, Miss, but the guildmaster has given us instructions, and we must obey.”

“What?!” she hissed as Kaen and Hess easily lifted the woman by her arms and carried her toward the ball.  “Put me down right now! You cannot do this!”

She began to thrash and kick, but both men were far stronger than she was, and her petty attempts at kicking them did nothing.

“Now.”

Kaen and Hess each put her hands against the crystal simultaneously.  Even though they were in fists, her fingers popped open the moment she touched the crystal, and her whole hand slid palms open, embracing the round shape.

Groans and moans came from the woman’s mouth as they set her on her feet and backed away from her.

“Please don’t!” she cried, tears streaming down her face.  “You don’t understand!”

Fiola winced as those words struck her ears.  She closed her eyes momentarily and let out a breath of air.

“Alzama, did you change the scouting reports or modify anything about them to make quests not match their true danger?”

Thrashing as best as she could, Alzama’s body shook, unable to free herself from the orb.  It flashed red, causing her to scream a horrible banshee wail.

“Answer truthfully and end the pain!” shouted Fiola.  “Stop fighting to tell the truth!”

Even though she only lasted about fifteen seconds, Kaen would have believed it had been a whole hour.  The woman's cry was one of the most soul-wrenching screams he had ever heard.

“YESSSSSSS!” she finally uttered, the ball turning clear again as she began to take huge breaths of air, her chest throbbing from the pain she had endured.

“Noted,” whispered Herb as he winced from what he was watching.

“I do not know what to ask next,” Fiola confessed as she stood there in shock.  “I would never have suspected her of this.”

Hess nodded.  He understood the predicament she was in.

“What am I missing? Why not ask her why or who?” Kaen asked.

“It doesn’t work that way.  Only yes or no questions work.  You cannot get names from a person unless you know the exact name to ask.  The inquisitors have other methods to dig deeper than this. Now, what do we ask?  We have found our culprit.”

“Have we? It’s simple,” Kaen argued.  “Does anyone else in the guild hall work with you?”

Alzama did not reply or move when Kaen asked that question.

“Is anyone else in the guild hall helping you change those numbers?” asked Fiola.

The woman’s body jerked again, and the orb took on a slight red tint, not as dark as the first time.

“It only works for the guild master’s questions,” Hess whispered.

The woman fought but not as hard or for as long before she shook her head no.

“No! No! It is just me here working on this!”

“There it is!” Kaen yelled out as his lifestone sent a jolt of thought to his brain.  “Ask her for each kingdom!”

Fiola glanced at Kaen and chuckled while the woman moaned and pleaded for Fiola not to.

“You are too good at this,” she admitted.  “I would hate to be on the receiving end of your questioning.”

“Did anyone specifically in this kingdom, the one the king who sits on the throne in Ebonmount, help you with this task of changing numbers and quests.”

The orb flashed bright red again, and the woman howled in pain.  Tears were like rivers flowing down her body, and Kaen was afraid the woman might pop out a shoulder joint from how she thrashed.

“NO!” the woman cried out.

“At least she was smart enough not to say anything else,” Kaen whispered to Hess.

“What about the Kingdom of Pensworth?”

Again, Alzama thrashed and fought against the same bright red orb until she cried out no.

“What about the Kingdom of Roccnari?”

A lighter shade of red still convinced Alzama to tell the truth and shout out no.

Fiola paused and thought for a moment.

“Did anyone from the Kingdom of Luthaelia help you change the numbers and quests?”

The orb turned blood red immediately the second Fiola mentioned the kingdom’s name.

Without pause, Hess plugged his ears and shouted to Kaen to do the same.

He was slowly lifting his fingers to his ears, and in the short time they were unprotected, Kaen felt the pain of the noise coming from Alzama.

The first time, she had howled, and he had been overwhelmed, but it paled compared to now.  Kaen remembered what Hess had said about one’s lifestone being ripped from their body flashed through his mind.  The woman looked possessed.  Unable to move from her spot, she pulled and tugged as if her hands were to be forever joined to the blood-red crystal ball for eternity.

Even with his fingers in his ears, he could hear her screaming.

As she thrashed her head, he saw that blood had replaced the clear tears streaming from her eyes, leaving rivers of red down her face.

He glanced at Fiola, who stood there, wincing from the screams but refusing to plug her ears.  Herb had one finger in one ear, and the other was forced to endure the suffering of Alzama as the orb forced her to tell the truth.

All of them grimaced in pain from what they were seeing and hearing.

Alzama would take a breath, gasping for air, and then drain her lungs again with her screams.

Kaen had lost count of how many times she had done that.

Finally, after easily a dozen times, she must have said something because the crystal became clear again, and her screaming had stopped.

“Noted, dear spirits, I have written it down,” Hess told Fiola as he watched her cover her mouth with a hand in shock.

Kaen and Hess took their fingers from their ears and heard no sounds coming from Alzama.  Blood was on the white tile of the room and on the wooden stand, yet somehow, none was on the orb.

Fiola nodded yes to both of them as they gazed at her.

“What does that mean?” Kaen asked.

“Look at her,” Hess said as he pointed at Alzama. “She is dead, still bound by the orb’s magic until Fiola lets her free.”

Kaen moved a few steps closer to the woman and saw that she was not breathing and her chest was not moving at all.  Her body was rigid, and the only blood drops that fell from her face were ones squeezed out moments ago.

“She died?”

“The magic of the orb took the answer the only way left.  It pulled the answer from her soul, killing her,” Hess whispered.  “All she had to do was be honest on her own, and she would have lived.”

Fear and horror over something powerful like this made Kaen step back from the crystal.  If he was forced to use this and they asked about Pammon, could he fight it?  Would he die to hide him?

“You have the answers you need, Fiola,” Hess called out as he tapped Kaen on the back.  “The boy and I have been here far too long, and we need to get some sleep.  You and Herb should let the other two go as they are innocent unless you expect another kingdom also to be involved.”

Fiola shook her head no.
“I doubt there is anyone else involved but that kingdom.”

“What is so bad about Luthaelia?” Kaen asked.

“That is where Stioks rules, Kaen.  That is where a man as evil as anything I know lives.”

The walk back to the inn was unpleasant.  It was dark, and the moon was well into the sky.  They had turned down the offer of a horse, both content to walk back and give thought about what had transpired.

“You ok?  You seem pretty upset.”

Hess nodded and tried to play it off with a smile.

“There are things afoot that I do not know about because I have been gone to long,” Hess admitted.  “Stioks is a horrible creature who preys on the weak and takes liberty with his power.  Many would try to stop him, but it would take a nation or a dragon rider to give him pause.  Even Elies was injured badly the last time they fought.  Neither has made a move again, but many fear Stioks will attempt it when he feels he has the strength to.  He almost won from what my sources say.”

Walking along the roads through town, with just the light orbs to provide enough light to keep from tripping, Kaen wondered about two dragons fighting each other.  They were much larger and way more powerful than he and Pammon were.  The thought of Stioks and his dragon attacking Pammon sent shivers down his spine.

“Don’t worry about it,” Hess said as he watched Kaen reacting to that news.  “For now, we worry about what we can do.  We rest up, help where we can, and fight the battles before us.”

Hess put an arm around Kaen and pulled him in close.

“I’m amazed at you and what you did tonight.  Hell, I’m amazed at what you did this past week! You are the reason we found Alzama, and you are the reason we discovered who was helping her!”

Kaen nodded but felt overwhelmed by all that was going on.  He had just begun his adventuring career, and it felt like the whole kingdom, no, the whole world was about to explode in war or worse.

“I just wanted to be an adventurer,” Kaen whispered.  “I wanted to do good and help others.  Right now, I’m wondering if any of that matters.  What if a war breaks out? All I can think about is taking my friends and running away to keep them safe!  Does that make me a coward?”

Stopping, Hess spun Kaen around and looked him in the eye.

“No, it does not!  If that day ever comes and you must choose life or death, run.  Run as fast and as far as you can until you are strong enough to come back and overcome!  You dying right now will hurt this kingdom and its people far more than a wasted life on the battlefield.  Every life has value, but some lives mean more because of what they can become.”

Hess paused and then tapped Kaen’s chest.

“Luca knew that.”

Closing his eyes and shaking his head, Kaen’s breath struggled to fill his lungs as he tried to breathe.

“That is a lot of pressure to have on one person.”

“Is it?” Hess demanded to know.  “Is that really so difficult?  What about having to raise a boy to be a man? A man he and the boy's father knew and know has great potential? The fear of screwing up and not doing justice by the promise one made.”

Popping Kaen on the head, Hess waited for him to look up at him.

“Do you think Pammon doesn’t carry that weight?” he asked quietly.  “That he doesn’t lose sleep when you are about to go on a quest?  He worries what will happen to you when you fight.  How do you think he felt when you faced down that mage in the forest?  Or how he worried when you faced those orcs, knowing you could not win.”

He cut off Kaen’s reply with his hand.

“Listen, we all carry weight.  How you carry it is what determines the kind of character and person you are.  So act in a way that brings honor to your commitment.  Like you did tonight.”

Standing there on the street, feeling the coldness of the night seep into his body, Kaen nodded.

“For now, let’s get back to the inn and rest.  Tomorrow, we need to accomplish a few things if you will be the man you want to be.”