Search for Dastardly Part 2

'Tell me more about what happened between Krotar and Dastardly,' Adrian said as he guided Renda and his horse back to the farm.

'Nothing of note. Krotar was little less than insane when Dastardly bumped into us.'

'Why would you work with such a man?' Adrian knocked on the barn again. 'Your Highness, I require use of the object I brought to you earlier today.'

The voice of the king radiated across the dim countryside.

'Of course Sir Knight. Do not try to enter yet.'

They heard a bolt slide back, and the door opened a sliver.  The king's arm protruded with a glass shard in hand. Adrian handled the glass by the smooth base on which it stood, the letters “d'Aseere” visible below his fingers. The door closed again, the bolt was replaced and the knight thought he heard a faint giggle from the other side.

Renda looked bemused by the whole process. 'I had little choice but to work with Krotar, he was my senior.'

Adrian took the shard around the wall and placed it on a shoulder-level bail of straw. His horse made snuffling noises as she happily chewed on hay behind them.

With no indications to the contrary, Renda continued. 'Besides, he seemed fine when we left Donhen. Only when we met Nius did he start acting paranoid and suspicious.'

The knight was patting the pockets on his person.

'What are you doing?'

He procured a stone with asymmetrical runes carved into it.

'This here,' he pointed to the shard of glass, upright on the straw, 'is a dark artefact. I'm sure of it. The previous owner went crazy trying to use it to look into the past. This morning I was in the plains capital; I tried to find information on it in the library. Nothing on this particular device, but from what I read, I think we can find Dastardly without too many adverse side effects.'

'It's you who's crazy,' said Renda. 'I suppose that in your hand is an ancient com-stone?'

'This is a communication stone from our old city. I've seen the shard display the speaker at the other end.'

'Yeah right, a com-stone. I don't believe you.'

'Go ahead,' said Adrian. 'We'll see.'

He stepped to the side. 'Try not to look directly at the glass. I'm eighty percent sure you won't lose your mind if we keep exposure to a minimum, but we should still be cautious.'

Renda folded her arms and gazed in his direction while Adrian pressed his thumb to an engraving on the stone. He thought of the freelancer he'd left on the steps of the palace.

'Hello?' he said. 'This is Sir Adrian Salem –'

The glass changed from subtly reflecting the environment to showing a bespectacled man. High hair, floppy cape and busybody demeanour: certainly not the freelancer.

'Goodness!' Renda stepped back. 'It works!'

'Remember not to stare at the glass!'

'What did you say?' The man had pulled the freelancer's com-stone from a pocket and pressed the rune.

'Where is Dastardly Medieval?' said the knight.

'Who did you say you were?'

'I helped the freelancer at Hox,' Adrian said. He risked a direct look. 'Is your name Waory? Do you work for the Regent?'

'I used to work for him. If you're asking after Dastardly, too bad – he's been killed.'

Adrian turned back to Renda. 'You were right.'

'I doubt they got there so quickly.' She stood beside the knight and yelled at the stone. 'How was Mr Medieval killed?'

'Quiet, sheesh!' Waory shook his head. 'I can hear you. The Land-Regent went mental and poisoned him.'

'This isn't right,' said Adrian. 'Krotar, Siy, the Regent – all not acting like themselves.'

There was a dull thrump that shuddered through them as they stood by the shard.

'Are you forgetting that a person is dead?' Renda said.

'I'm not so sure,' said Waory. Another thrump, louder this time, shook them to the bone. Out of the com-stone, Adrian thought he heard a smaller sound, like drumming from miles away. 

'Sir Knight, you had better come and see what has happened to your friend. An odd order of events may be upon us.'

There was a third thrump, somehow foreboding. The drums were getting louder.

'Did you have to put it like that?' Adrian said. 'This is getting creepy.' The knight had to raise his voice over the drums, mixing in with two more thrumps and a flash of white light across the shard.

'You're breaking up,' Waory called out. The com-stone grew hot in Adrian's hand, the next flash on the shard showing something with lots of teeth.

'If this is your fault, Dastardly...!' The knight threw the com-stone into the air as it shone bright red.

'Take cover!' he said. As they dived towards the barn wall, the com-stone burst above them, showering the field with tiny burning rocks.

Search for Dastardly

Before starting, this is just a recommendation that newcomers might want to read "In Defence of the Realm" before this one.

Plen the gnome turned his new airship northward. Winds from the coast were making it too difficult to get to Skim, and besides, his ogre friend Jowno was probably still sitting exactly where they'd parted twelve hours ago. Ogres were by no means too dumb to live, but their intelligence was on the lower end of reasons to keep one around.

The gnome checked his new course, back over the foothills of the mountains. If he had looked at the plains below, he might have made out a man in knight's armour. Instead though, Plen rummaged around in the chest strapped to the deck.

'Blast!' he said. The glass shard, a magical device if he ever had seen one, was nowhere to be found. Maybe it was for the better. After all, the last owner of this airship had gone insane after looking through the glass for too long.

***

The man on the plain continued along a road between two farms. His king's city having disappeared into the sky, Sir Adrian did not know what to expect – though the chances of the king ever ruling his subjects again were minimal.

Tell that to the nobles with all the money, he thought.

He reached the barn where the king and queen had taken up residence, hesitated, and knocked on the big wood door.

'Come in,' the king declared.

Adrian walked in on the most regal dinner he had ever seen eaten in a place that smelt of pigs.

'Take a seat, Sir Adrian,' the king proclaimed. 'Have some roast duck.'

'I'm amazed at your culinary ingenuity out here,' the knight said. He stayed standing.

'My wife did all the work,' the king said. The attempt to sound less than entirely self-absorbed was transparent.

At least he gave it a go, Adrian thought.

The queen smiled radiantly. 'I just made it up from what I could find, darling.'

Despite himself, Adrian thought about the regional farming families who would be eating boiled cabbage for five nights this week.

'What are you going to do with yourself, Sir Knight?'

'I am in service of the King, your highness.'

'No king sits here any more, Sir Adrian. My kingdom is gone. Who would live there, the only attraction having left our world for the stars?'

'There was the lentil harvest,' Adrian said, surprised at the change of sides in the conversation. 'I am sure it will come back this year as it always has. We could even commission the gnomes to start building a new city.'

'Maybe,' the king announced. 'But until my people journey back over the mountains, if they ever do, what will keep you busy?'

'I don't know, your highness.' Adrian had never been at a loose end before. 'Perhaps I will turn mercenary.'

'If I were you,' the king merely advocated, 'I would sort out my options quickly, before someone else did.'

Adrian bowed to the both of them and left the barn without another word. The sun was just touching the horizon and the evening wind was so soft it was hard to tell where it came from. To his right, northward, a road lead out to the distant foothills. Perhaps it was the road the freelancer had taken before they had met in Sponge Country.

On the edge of his vision two figures were walking towards him. One was certainly a horse, the other was harder to make out. He wandered away from the barn as the figures resolved themselves in the twilight.

The second was a woman holding the horse's harness. She wore a chilly looking one-piece, lined rather uselessly by white fur. Below that were clip-on greaves, the sort of armour that thieves wore.

'Does this animal belong to you?' she asked. The horse whinnied.

'Yes,' Adrian said, embracing the horse. 'How did you find her?'

The woman looked annoyed. 'We met going the same way.'

'Is there a problem?'

'I am afraid that we don't have much time.' The woman's voice was more clipped than her leggings, matching the no-nonsense chin and short hair. 'Am I right that you were at Hox when the... Thing climbed out?'

'Again, yes,' Adrian said. 'I am Sir Adrian, Knight of the –'

'Blah blah, I'm Renda. This horse says that you met a man called Dastardly Medieval.'

'I don't know how you know that, but yes. We barely escaped from that place.'

'Then you can help me.' Renda looked him straight in the eyes. 'Dastardly managed to royally peeve a guy called Krotar yesterday evening. I can explain the details later, but he made a deal and Dastardly didn't honour it.'

'I am sure that Mr Medieval will find ways to avoid this Krotar.'

'You don't know half of it,' Renda said. 'He is working with a very powerful, very dangerous being called Nius. In any case, you do not want to underestimate him. If Krotar and Nius have decided to track down Dastardly, then he is already dead.'