The Sons of Masguard and the Mosque Hill Fortune

  The Sons of Masguard

  Volume One

  The Sons of Masguard and the Mosque Hill Fortune, Part One

  Copyright © 2011 by Vivienne Mathews

  Smashwords Edition, 2013

  Dedications

  To my husband. To my son.

  To friends I no longer know. Whether or not you are in my life, you are still in my heart and my thoughts.

  Booya and long live the GPT.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  About the Author

  Prologue

  “Fate is a callous thing. An infinite, cyclic machine that moves and ever-moves until all is swallowed or forgotten. We try to measure it, try to understand it, only to fail in fantastic fashion. Then we explain away our incompetence by pretending it is all part of some great mystery. What a lark. Give it long enough, and it will show you the truth. That our relationship with life in all its wonder is a one-sided love affair, where we press our faces to a clock and imagine it as a form of intimacy. That it is the minute hand, the hour and the second, stretching in every direction beneath our breath, crumbling mountains and turning tides. And that we are spectators, wondering at our own reflections and nothing beyond. What fools we must seem, standing with our noses to the glass while the hands revolve around us, over and over. Stubborn. Oblivious. Champions of willful ignorance, forever missing the point.

  Are we truly so helpless to alter the course of time? I’d never thought to consider it. But as I sit here writing what is likely to be my final correspondence, I’m forced to wonder whether things might have been different if only I’d traded the mystery for clarity of vision while I still had the chance. If only I’d bothered myself to step away from the glass for even one, blighted moment.

  We found it, my friend. We found it and it is NOT what it seems. It’s bigger, and the truth of it terrifies me in ways I am willing to admit to none but you. The things I have learned… the things I have seen... They would baffle and amaze the greatest of our scholars. They would put my every discovery to shame.

  They would paint fools of us all.

  Truth be told, none of that matters anymore. I didn’t see this for what it was until it was too late. There is only one way out for me now. Since I’ve neither a fox’s intuition, nor an Ancient’s soul, I can only guess at the ramifications of what I am about to do. And I know that wishing alters nothing.

  Perhaps my course has already been set.

  Perhaps the clock itself is untouchable, regardless of where I stand.

  But if I cannot change it for myself, I must at least try to change it for you, my friend. For Secora, may her Banners ever wave. And, most of all, for my son.

  My little Marshall.

  Will he ever forgive me for this?

  It is my dearest hope that I will one day be able to ask him in person.

  But should Fate will differently, please tell him…”

  Tell him…

  Masguard’s quill froze above the parchment. Tell him what? Garrulous and clever though he may have been, here at the end, the otter captain found he had nothing to say. Nothing that would matter. The boy on the other side of the world didn’t want another speech regarding duty or the fate of the Secoran kingdom. He wanted his father.

  And that was the one thing Masguard couldn’t give him.

  What a failure was he?

  He had discovered more lands than any explorer before him, met every mythical creature in the book and many besides. He had brought kingdoms to their knees and lords to his service. He had pulled the most dreadful artifacts the world had ever seen from the very brink of Oblivion itself. And for what? To disappear into the annals of history as someone who might have mattered? What was the point of his success if it prevented him from offering even that small measure of solace to the only family he had left?

  Dropping his quill, he pressed his palms to his eyes.

  Masguard the Relic Hunter. Masguard the Bold. For all his titles and accolades, he was now a long-forgotten voice. A nondescript explorer with no account for wandering and no excuse for fame. Maybe it was a strange form of justice that had him turning at last into what he had always been, deep down. Masguard the ghost.

  “The crew’s ready whenever ye are, Cap’n.”

  Masguard looked up to see a grungy marmot standing in the door of his cabin. The quartermaster’s habit of intruding unannounced had become a welcome discourtesy over the past few months. So few of his crewmembers had any remaining interest in conversation. There was too much they didn’t wish to say aloud. Too much they didn’t want to hear.

  “And Ustim?”

  “Silent as ever,” the marmot shrugged.

  “Thank you, Fender,” Masguard lifted his quill and resumed toiling over the words on the parchment. “I’ll be along shortly.”

  If Fender should have taken that as a cue to exit, he ignored it, coming instead to stand over his captain’s desk and peer down at the paper with unabashed interest.

  “Ain’t exactly how this li’l adventure o’ ours was ‘sposed te turn out, eh?” He said, his voice gruff and quiet.

  Masguard sighed, leaning back in his chair. His shoulders were slumped in something very like defeat. “I know. Believe me, I know. But if we turn back now…”

  “Dumb things will happen, Cap’n. We got that,” Fender finished for him. “Don’t make it any easier.”

  “No, I don’t suppose it does.”

  The two were silent for the longest time, staring in separate parts at a ship that was practically rotting beneath their feet. With only a skeleton crew remaining, the sound of the open sea overtook the vessel with little resistance. It creaked and moaned as the waves bullied it about, whimpering with all the strength of a fragile old woman. In a way, Masguard supposed, that’s exactly what it was.

  Don’t give up on me just yet, old girl, he thought. We’ve a few miles and one more task yet to complete.

  “There’s still the matter o’ the demon on deck.” Fender bit his pipe, expressionless.

  Masguard rolled his eyes. “Must you call him that?”

  “Jus’ saying, if I’m out te meet me doom, I’d rather not do it wi’ him o’er me shoulder, yeah? Still gives me the willies, an’ I ain’t the only one what feels that way.”

  “Fine, fine. I’ll talk to him. We have an outstanding matter to discuss anyway. Just let me finish up here and I’ll meet you on deck with the… the…” Masguard furrowed his brow and rummaged through his desk. “Where is it?”

  Fender was slow to respond and looked uncomfortable when he said, “Same place it’s been since I walked in here, Cap’n. In your hand.”

  At that, Masguard felt a chill creep up his arm. He suppressed the urge to swallow and looked accusingly to the relic in his palm.

  Of course.

  The blasted thing would be the death of him yet.

  Wincing inwardly, he whispered, “For what it’s worth, Fender… I am sorry. For all of it.”

  Again, Fender shrugged, this time a little slower, a little more deliberately. “We’re with ye, Cap’n. Always have been. Always will be.”

  Masguard could only nod in response as his Quartermaster left.

  After putting the final touches on his letter, the otter captain tucked the relic into the pocket of his burgundy coat and turned his focus to a very different item; one seated prominently on his desk.

  “Are you ready to finish what you started?” He smiled wryly as he hefted the stone carving in both hands and turned to leave his cabin. “Neither am I.”

  On deck, he made his way to the fore of the ship, avoiding eye contact with his crew wherever possible. When he arrived at the prow, he spent several long moments looking over the mist before addressing himself to the feathered mass atop the bowsprit.

  “Lovely weather today,” he said to the great bird without turning to face him. “I imagine one could almost see their own hand held before their face, if they concentrated quite enough.”

  The massive creature shifted beside him, causing the timbers beneath his talons to shiver in complaint. “I told you before, Wanderer. These mists are not of my doing. I cannot lift them, not even for you.”

  Stoic as any carving, immovable as any mountain, Ustim reminded Masguard of the monumental statues of Secora Tor. Cold stone and intimidating, representing the strength of a protected and enduring society, they lined the streets of the capitol city as a warning to all that the land beyond had survived far greater threats, and had prospered besides.

  He made a nice feature on the ship.

  It would be a shame to lose him.

  “The fog is the least of my concerns, I’m afraid.”

  The great bird shook his grey-black feathers and turned on the bowsprit, sending a tremor across the whole of the ship. Tipping his head to levy an avian eye at the artifact in Masguard’s hand, he nodded slightly in understanding.
br />   “I see.” He said simply in his accented tone.

  Setting the stone artifact on the wide rail before him, Masguard seemed not to concern himself with the possibility that the thing might fall into the sea below. Holding Ustim’s gaze, the lost explorer pulled his most cursed find from his pocket and held it in his palm, outstretched in offering toward Fender’s demon.

  “You’ve earned a final chance to do with this as you will. Consider it payment – or, repayment, as the case may be.”

  The great bird looked down at the thing with such longing that Masguard thought his heart might break.

  At length, Ustim met his eyes. “No, Wanderer. I have lived free of its grasp for far too long. No longer can I delude myself into believing that it still belongs to me, or to anyone. I must let go, whether I want to or not. Someday, you will do the same.”

  Masguard was silent for a long moment, stunned. “But…”

  “It is in your hands now. For that, I thank you. For that… I am sorry.”

  The captain scoffed before he could think better of it. In an effort to conceal his blunder, Masguard pulled the letter from his coat and a chain from around his neck. “That aside, there is one thing more I would ask of you before you leave my service. If you would do me the honor.” He added the last part belatedly.

  The creature echoed something that may have been a laugh, though it would have been difficult to say for sure.

  “These items….” Masguard began hesitantly. “It is imperative that they reach Constance Prideaux in the capitol city.”

  “An errand?” The massive bird looked offended. “You cannot do this yourself?”

  Masguard chose his tone, and his words, carefully. “No. I cannot do this. Because I’m not going back. Not yet.” And possibly not ever, he would not say aloud. “Please.” He continued at length, when Ustim made no move to comply. “It is more important to me than you can imagine. More important than anything I’ve asked you to do.”

  Maybe the creature saw the truth in his words. Maybe he was simply taking pity on a desperate father. Either way, Masguard was grateful when he relented and took the items in a massive claw.

  “I do this,” Ustim said, “And we are finished. My debt is cleared.”

  Masguard smiled humorlessly. His look was difficult to read when he agreed, “Ustim, you do this… and I promise… you’ll never see me again.”

  Slowly, deliberately, the unknowable bird straightened his spine and stretched his feathers. His colossal tone softened as he glanced back over one shoulder, saying, “That… would be regrettable.” With a forceful motion of his wings, Ustim shot from the bowsprit, leaving only a shadow and a farewell in his wake. “Hunt well, Wanderer.”

  “Yeah…” Masguard said to the space before him, where Ustim had been, knowing all too well that his words went unheard. “You too.”

  When he was sure of the silence that followed, Masguard lifted the artifact from the rail and threw it into the sea with all his might. There, it sunk like the stone that it was, drawing the mist into the sea behind it like the tail of an unnatural comet. Through sediment and current and years, the artifact would drift – at times dragging across the ocean floor as if by invisible hands. Eventually, it would come to rest in a little-known cove off the Bannered Shore, a world and a lifetime away from the explorer and his forgotten ship, never having heard Masguard’s final words.

  “Gate and Key and cursed destiny. May Fate carry you to the hands for which you were meant. I pray that you are found before it’s too late.”

  Fender watched the scene unfold with regret and no small amount of distaste, echoing quietly, as if to himself, “Better to pray that it’s never found at all.”

  Chapter One

  Twenty-Five Years Later

  It was the salt.

  The fishing from this stretch of beach was poor, at best. The low tide and lack of competition were pleasant enough, but those too could be found elsewhere. No, there was a reason the two hunters returned to this particular cove night after night to set their traps, and that reason was far from practical. Tattooed and fierce. Hardened, these two. Never daring to openly acknowledge the childish reminder of a home they’d been forced to leave too soon, when they were young and careless and didn’t know any better. Saying it aloud would have been as silly as refusing to discard a blanket after waking. But here, in this unique joining of grassland and ocean deposits, the aroma played at a memory that left them feeling all of those things; an aroma unlike that of any place they had ever been – save one. Though they went about their work in silence, they both knew it was the intensity of the smell that brought them here. The smell of balsam… and salt.

  By evening, the shore was lined with handcrafted crates of wood and cord, most of them empty, but they were used to that. When the smaller hunter hauled at the final towline and found resistance, her shoulders slumped in dismay. Grand as it may have been to assume the trap was overburdened with something marketable, she shuddered at the more likely scenario that one of the dolphin Regulators had gone snooping and gotten snagged for his efforts.

  Imagine explaining that one to Her Majesty. ‘Pardon me, milady, but I’m afraid I’ve drowned one of your officers with twine. Quite by accident, of course. So sorry.’

  For shame.

  Maybe Fate had been kind and simply placed the trap on the edge of a riptide. That would explain the pull, and it would do so without the gruesome side effects.

  She might have known better.

  Fate was never kind.

  “Something is wrong?” The other noted and came to her side.

  “I can’t be sure.” She evaded, though she felt the lie as acutely as she would a pinprick. Something was wrong. She could sense it in her very bones.

  Recognizing that he shouldn’t press the issue, the larger joined her in heaving against the line with the full of his weight. At length, the crate emerged from the surf, though seemingly more by the will of the sea than by their efforts.

  The trap was occupied, but not by any dolphin. It was a stone, one that was far too large to have entered the trap by any conventional means – one that glowed with an alluring light, as though it had devoured the dusk and now spat its remnants upon the shore. Waters that should have washed over the caged artifact instead held back, diverting their flow around the crate in an unnatural and tentative surge.

  The hunters exchanged stony glances.

  This thing – whatever it was – did not belong on their beach.

  As if to confirm their suspicions, the stone began to pulse. A quiet, rhythmic sound that the sea rose up to match. Unafraid, the delicate hunter nodded to her weathered companion and the two approached, watching the light from the object grow ever more intense until its heat was almost unbearable, but familiar in the strangest of ways.

  Like salt.

  Discarding any trace of sentiment, the large one drew a utility axe from the sheath on his leg and hacked through slat and twine until the stone fell to the shore with a wet thud.

  It rolled once and stopped at their feet.

  The two gazed upon the carvings of ocean, wind, fire, and air that made up a single face and an all-too clear expression of fury. Then the light of Fate exploded around them, completely consuming their corner of the shoreline, there in the fruitless cove.

  When finally it receded, darkness had fallen.

  And the mist had come.

  ≈

  Marshall had spent his childhood in central Vernos, staring at this very spot, waiting. It seemed strange now to be approaching it from the other side, as a visitor rather than a lonely inhabitant of the small cottage at the end of the walkway. He almost didn’t recognize the building through the fog. It had the same thatched roof and tattered shutters, but it seemed so removed from the welcoming home he remembered that he had to clear the condensation from the plaque on the gate before he could be certain. The letters did not lie – this was indeed the home of Abner Frum, the town’s Elder, a librarian and historian whose expertise was so highly coveted by the Scholars Guild that they’d held campaign after campaign in an attempt to recruit him. Fun though it was to watch them stoop and squirm, they’d no hope of snagging the curmudgeonly old brute. He was too old for agendas, as he often said, and the Guilds had them each in spades.