The Goblets Immortal, Beth Overmyer [novels to read for beginners .txt] 📗

take someffink that ain’t yourn.” The hideous creature sniffed. “Tea ain’t the same wiffout Slaíne.”

“Oh, aye,” said the fat one mournfully. “But there would be no enjoying tea in this realm, no how.”

“Being dead does have an effect on the tasting and the eating and the drinking,” offered the shortest.

“The point is, Lord Ingledark, you owes us four favors. And you’ll repay that debt by finding the Tower and entering the Seeing Pool.”

“The Seeing Pool?” Aidan repeated.

“Yes, we reckon you know where that is.”

“That is where Meraude is,” Aidan pointed out.

The four nodded. “Oh, we know. So don’t bring no Goblets there.”

“She’ll kill me if I arrive without any Goblets.” For whatever reason, his vision began to grow fuzzy. The four elves blurred, and their anxious voices grew concerned.

“Blasted iron.”

“Ruins all good Scrying missions.”

“Oh aye.”

The pulse in Aidan’s head thrummed a painful tattoo and the world began to fade to black again. He became acutely aware that he was moving toward iron, perhaps an entire room of it, not of his own accord. Yet in this state of limbo, he could still make out the elves’ warnings not to trust Meraude, not to give her the Goblets Immortal, and so forth and so on.

The four said they were dead. That raised many questions, none of which Aidan could form into words coherent enough for the creatures to hear and comprehend. At the same time, wherever his conscious self was being moved, he was no more able to prevent it, such was the state of things. He felt the temperature shift from warm and stuffy to cold and damp. The colder it grew, the harder it was for him to hear the elves’ pleas, and the more Pulls and repulsions he felt.

Aidan attempted to move his fingers, but had no control over any part of himself. Slaíne’s Pull was not too far away, but he could not hear her, just the muffled voices of determined men. He smelled the dampness, and it clung to his skin.

“Is he still breathing?” asked a stout, cheerful voice. Dewhurst.

“Yes, milord.”

“Set him down there, and we’ll see if we can rouse him. You’ve secured the girl upstairs?”

“With difficulty,” said a thin, nasal voice that Aidan did not recognize.

The elves’ faces surged into view and Treevain shouted the last words he would hear before waking: “I held on to the maps. Lot of good they’ll do ya now….” And with that, the pain became at once more than a dull, distant throb; it bloomed into an earth-splitting headache.

“He lives,” said a snake-like voice.

Aidan felt cold iron pressing against his back, repulsing and yet restraining him. Furious, he realized he was manacled to and with the metal. Before opening his eyes and revealing that he was in fact awake, he felt the Pulls around him. There were four of them, including Dewhurst. Slaíne’s Pull, he realized, was farther away than he would have liked, yet it felt as strong as ever.

“Rouse him. I want to make sure there’s no permanent damage.” It was Dewhurst who spoke as iron exchanged hands.

A great shudder rippled through Aidan’s body. He’d never felt so many repulsions in his life. It left him feeling as though he was being pushed upward with many icy hands whilst at the same time being pulled down by them.

A wave of water hit him in the face. Sputtering and choking, he gasped for air. The room was as he had imagined it: iron walls, iron floor, but mercifully there was no iron ceiling, which would have made Aidan feel like he was being crushed more so than he already did.

“Dry him off. I don’t want him catching his death.”

Aidan resisted straining against his bonds as a foreign human Pull approached and threw a cloth over his head. For one wild moment, he believed the man meant to suffocate him, and he was prepared to Dismiss the fabric, but there was no need. The man finished absorbing the water and quickly moved away from Aidan.

The thought that he might Dismiss himself into Nothingness was cut short by Dewhurst, who must have guessed what he was planning. The stout man stepped forward – Aidan could feel his Pull, if not see him from his prone position. “I wouldn’t try anything…tricky, Ingledark. We’ve got your traveling companion trussed up nice and tight, as you must be able to tell with that remarkable extra sense of yours.” Dewhurst loomed over him, a smug look of satisfaction painting his features. He had grown old since last Aidan had taken a good look at him. The lord of the land’s brown hair had faded to a dull gray and was thinning in places, and his Pull wasn’t as substantial as it had once been, despite the added bulk of weight. Heavy bags sat under his watery blue eyes, and lines ran from his eyes to his brows and along the edges of his mouth.

“What do you want, Dewhurst?” Aidan said, keeping the venom out of his voice, for he knew it would get him nowhere. His head continued to pound as the lord spoke, his voice of such a timbre and volume it made Aidan’s pain increase doubly.

“Not yet, Ingledark. We’ll get to that soon enough.” He paused here and ran a hand down the collar of his fine linen robe. The man always had been immaculately dressed, and there were few things Aidan disrespected more than a dandy. He drew Aidan’s attention to point above him on the ceiling. “See a door, my lad? Means of escape? Comfort? No, I didn’t think so. Those aren’t the real things that you want, are they? I wonder….”

Aidan rolled his eyes. “Quit with the theatrics, old man. I fear the boards you tread will not hold your girth.”

Of all things, the man laughed an amused laugh. He leaned over Aidan, much to the captive’s discomfiture, his eyes raking in goodness knows what details. “You don’t seem to have aged much. What are you? Twenty-something?”

He looked