Queen of Thorns Read online

  Now," said the boss.

  By the time I realized Caladrel had stood, he'd unleashed three or four arrows. One jutted from the chest of a vermlek, blood spurting through its hollow shaft.

  Oparal charged the demons. Her sword struck quick as lightning and blazed twice as bright. Two demons came up behind her, black energy surrounding their hands as they reached for her. The boss riffled a scroll, and two gray bolts of magic struck each vermlek in the face. They howled and clutched their eyes as Oparal whipped her sword around and opened their bellies. Bloody worms as thick as my arm poured out of the wounds. Below each thick head, the worms split into four long tails, the tails further tipped with nests of countless tiny tentacles. The abandoned elf bodies slumped to the ground.

  The boss tucked his expended scroll back into his bandolier. I stayed close in case one of the worms went for him. Arni did the same, barking as a worm shot quick as a snake past Oparal. The hound jumped in front of the boss, but the demon didn't go for the count.

  It raised a dripping tail and pointed straight at me. In the squealing tongue of demons, it called out to its wormy buddies. Their heads swiveled in my direction...

  The Pathfinder Tales Library

  Novels

  Prince of Wolves by Dave Gross

  Winter Witch by Elaine Cunningham

  Plague of Shadows by Howard Andrew Jones

  The Worldwound Gambit by Robin D. Laws

  Master of Devils by Dave Gross

  Death's Heretic by James L. Sutter

  Song of the Serpent by Hugh Mattews

  City of the Fallen Sky by Tim Pratt

  Nightglass by Liane Merciel

  Blood of the City by Robin D. Laws

  Queen of Thorns by Dave Gross

  Called to Darkness by Richard Lee Byers

  Journals

  The Compass Stone: The Collected Journals of Eando Kline edited by James L. Sutter

  Hell's Pawns by Dave Gross

  Dark Tapestry by Elaine Cunnningham

  Prodigal Sons edited by James L. Sutter

  Plague of Light by Robin D. Laws

  Guilty Blood by F. Wesley Schneider

  Husks by Dave Gross

  Short Stories

  "The Lost Pathfinder" by Dave Gross

  "Certainty" by Liane Merciel

  "The Swamp Warden" by Amber E. Scott

  "Noble Sacrifice" by Richard Ford

  "Blood Crimes" by J. C. Hay

  "The Secret of the Rose and Glove by Kevin Andrew Murphy

  "Lord of Penance" by Richard Lee Byers

  "Guns of Alkenstar" by Ed Greenwod

  "The Ghosts of Broken Blades" by Monte Cook

  "The Walkers from the Crypt" by Howard Andrew Jones

  "A Lesson in Taxonomy" by Dave Gross

  "The Illusionist" by Elaine Cunningham

  "Two Pieces of Tarnished Silver by Erik Mona

  "The Ironroot Deception" by Robin D. Laws

  "Plow and Sword" by Robert E. Vardeman

  "A Passage to Absalom" by Dave Gross

  "The Seventh Execution" by Amber E. Scott

  "The Box" by Bill Ward

  "Blood and Money by Steven Savile

  "Faithful Servants" by James L. Sutter

  "Fingers of Death—No, Doom!" by Lucien Soulban

  "The Perfumer's Apprentice" by Kevin Andrew Murphy

  "Krunzle the Quick" by Hugh Matthews

  "Mother Bears" by Wendy N. Wagner

  "Hell or High Water" by Ari Marmell

  Queen of Thorns © 2012 Paizo Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews.

  Paizo Publishing, LLC, the Paizo golem logo, Pathfinder, and Planet Stories are registered trademarks of Paizo Publishing, LLC; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Pathfinder Campaign Setting, and Pathfinder Tales are trademarks of Paizo Publishing, LLC.

  Cover art by Mathias Kollros.

  Cover design by Andrew Vallas.

  Map by Robert Lazzaretti.

  Paizo Publishing, LLC

  7120 185th Ave NE, Ste 120

  Redmond, WA 98052

  paizo.com

  ISBN 978-1-60125-463-4 (mass market paperback)

  ISBN 978-1-60125-464-1 (ebook)

  Publisher’s Cataloging-In-Publication Data

  (Prepared by The Donohue Group, Inc.)

  Gross, Dave.

  Queen of thorns / Dave Gross.

  p. ; cm. — (Pathfinder tales)

  Set in the world of the role-playing game, Pathfinder.

  Issued also as an ebook.

  ISBN: 978-1-60125-463-4

  1. Elves—Fiction. 2. Imaginary places—Fiction. 3. Good and evil—Fiction. 4. Fantasy fiction. 5. Adventure stories. I. Title. II. Title: Pathfinder adventure path. III. Series: Pathfinder tales library.

  PS3607.R67 Q84 2012

  813/.6

  First printing October 2012.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  For Erik Mona and James Sutter, with thanks for inviting me to play in the sandbox.

  Chapter One

  The Midsummer Masquerade

  Varian

  The slap lifted Radovan off his feet and knocked the mask from his face. He crashed through a table, scattering morsels of candied fruit across the dance floor. The music stopped, and every elf in the plaza turned to watch.

  Arnisant growled. I touched the wolfhound's shoulder and felt his muscles tense. He wanted the sign to defend Radovan. I showed him my palm. Stay.

  Radovan shook his head, stunned by the blow. He blinked up at his attacker.

  She removed her badger mask to glower down at him. Rather than the delicate features common among elven women, she had a countenance that would not have seemed out of place among the Egorian war monuments. Her prominent jaw conveyed physical power.

  Radovan pinched a lemon confection off of his precious new jacket. Wincing at the stain on the red leather, he popped the sweet into his mouth. Chewing with that lopsided grin he calls his little smile, he said, "It was just a suggestion, sweetheart."

  She scoffed at him and shook her head in disbelief before stomping off.

  As she passed, the other celebrants laughed, not even bothering to cover their mouths with discreet hands. They stood in cliques unrestrained by age or gender, their splendid costumes blurring their sexual identities in a manner that would have proved scandalous in Cheliax. To my eyes they appeared more like children than the nobility of an ancient race. As they watched the badger-masked woman go, they whispered the word "Forlorn"—their term for elves raised outside of proper elven communities, among the shorter-lived races.

  The mockery dissipated once she vanished beyond the hedge, where the glow of bonfires indicated common folk performing the Ritual of Stardust. Having lived nearly a century as a half-breed among humans, I felt a pang of sympathy for this Forlorn elf.

  The division of my own parentage had brought me to Kyonin. My mother raised me in the grand old city of Egorian, now the seat of power in Imperial Cheliax. The only material connection to my absent father arrived on my sixteenth birthday, an elven carriage of rare and lustrous red wood. There was no other vehicle like it in all of Cheliax—and then catastrophe dashed it to flinders. I had come to Kyonin hoping to locate the original craftsman and restore the Red Carriage to some semblance of its original state.

  Before melancholy, my old acquaintance, could embrace me, the minstrels revived the music. Among the petal-lanterns floating abov
e our heads, sprites resumed their moth-chasing.

  Radovan grinned at the woman's retreat, careful not to reveal his big smile. For that, I was grateful. I had no wish for our hosts to mistake him for a demon after taking pains to explain that his fiendish ancestry was rooted in Hell, not the Abyss. For all I knew and could prove, my claim was true.

  I crooked a finger. Radovan fetched his wolf mask, brushed off a few more crumbs, and sauntered over.

  He practices that saunter. I am certain of it.

  Radovan held up a hand. "Couldn't help it, boss. She was all kinds of winsome."

  Again I regretted my efforts to expand my bodyguard's vocabulary. Each morning I wrote four uncommon words in Taldane, the common tongue. The challenge was for him to employ each term in conversation before day's end. I rewarded each success by teaching him the same terms in Varisian and Tien, languages of which he had picked up only a smattering. The exercises began as a means of passing the time while we awaited transport back to Absalom, but Radovan insisted on continuing.

  "'Winsome' is hardly the term I would choose." I removed my domino mask to reveal my displeasure. "She nearly decapitated you with that slap."

  "What can I say?" Radovan rubbed his jaw. "You winsome, you lose some."

  Our vocabulary exercises had inspired Radovan to indulge in that most vulgar form of wordplay. My disapproval only encouraged him to produce more and worse puns, so I pretended not to notice. "You do not appreciate the honor we have received. Outsiders are seldom welcomed to Iadara, much less to the Midsummer Masquerade."

  "All I said—"

  "And I note you have been slapped quite often since our return."

  "I may get slapped a lot," he said, "but I get kissed a lot, too."

  I waved away his boast. A servant mistook my gesture as a call for another drink. Before I could stop her, she moved to a "tree" composed of a thousand grape vines that some druid had coaxed into a new configuration. Beneath the supple bark, a pulmonary motion of this wine-tree absorbed and crushed its own fruits, fermenting the juice until sparkling wine splashed into an alabaster basin cradled in the tree's bole.

  Nearby, a lichen-faced troll sat bound in chains of gold. At a sign from the servant, a minstrel leaned near the troll's elephantine ear and sang a quiet lament. The brute snuffled and eked out a thumb-sized tear. The crystalline drop grew as it trickled down, expanding to form a tiny goblet. The servant plucked the vessel from the troll's beard and filled it from the fountain.

  Absorbed by the strange sight, I missed something Radovan said. He repeated himself. "You know what I mean when I say I get kissed a lot?"

  I accepted the wine and turned to Radovan. "I apprehend your vulgar insinuation. So will anyone else who overhears you. They may not often speak Taldane, but you will not find an elf here who does not understand our language. The queen herself may appear tonight. Kindly restrict your lascivious propositions to the help."

  Radovan shrugged and put on a dejected face.

  I allowed him to sulk as I nosed the wine. The bouquet reminded me of a delicate white from one of my western estates. At first sip, the wine seemed frail, yet the flavor grew strong as I took it on my tongue. I savored the ripe fruit before letting it trickle down my throat.

  "How do you find our midsummer wine?" asked the servant.

  Surprised that she should address me directly and without my accustomed honorific, I appraised the elven woman. Unlike the noble guests, she went unmasked. Her leaf-green eyes returned my gaze without deference. Her attitude verged on the insolent. She spoke again before I could admonish her.

  "But you haven't come to Iadara for the wine, have you?" She dimpled a smile, not entirely unappealing. Her features were not homely, exactly, but thin and angular in the manner of some fey creatures. Her long ears drooped slightly, giving her the air of a dishrag wrung out too often.

  "What do you know of my purpose?"

  "It isn't often a half-human comes to the court of the Viridian Crown," she said. "And you, a Chelish lord with a hell-touched henchman. You are all the gossip in the kitchens."

  "Kitchen gossip? About me?" That was too far by half. "Why, you brassy little—"

  "Look!" She pointed south, beyond the trees dividing the plaza from the river. "Here comes Prince Amarandlon."

  My vision is not as keen as an elf's, but I can see as well on a cloudless night as a human can by day. The slivered moon provided little light, so I could not detect what this insolent maid meant to indicate until a star winked out, followed by another. A black shape glided across the river, where the reflected starlight revealed a gigantic owl.

  Behind the great bird's head, an elf stood tall in stirrups. A rack of antlers rose from his closed helm. His cloak rippled as he directed his mount to skim just above the river. With the slightest correction to navigate the hedges, he brought the owl over the plaza and dropped lightly to the floor. The owl beat its wings once and soared away.

  A masked elf tossed Amarandlon a bow of silvered birch. Nearby, a pack of hounds sat awaiting instruction.

  Amarandlon raised the bow above his head. A woman screamed, and the dancers stirred like sheep at the scent of a wolf. I touched the hilt of my sword, but the servant placed her hand on mine. "No," she said. "Observe."

  Bristling, I watched as Amarandlon drew the bowstring. A sparkling arrow materialized in place. He let it fly, striking a goose-masked woman. The arrow exploded into a glittering cloud. The woman writhed inside the silvery dust. Her arms elongated and feathered as she raised them above her head. An instant later, she honked and beat her wings, transformed into the very image of her disguise—yet still I could perceive her true form within the illusion, an elf within the bird.

  The man who provided Amarandlon his bow signaled a hound. The dog dashed toward the goose, which flapped onto a table and scattered a platter of cheya dumplings. Snatching one in her mouth-beak, the goose-woman gulped down the enchanted morsel. In an instant she glowed pale blue and began to float above the table. She flailed her arm-wings, honking in alarm as she rose uncontrollably higher.

  The other guests scattered, but I realized their screams were full of delight, not terror. They laughed at the first victim even as they sought shelter from the hunter.

  Amarandlon stalked his prey, shooting every few steps. Each elf struck by the ephemeral arrows became the creature whose mask he or she wore: deer, skunk, duck, ferret, salamander, or bear. Through each illusion I perceived the elf's original form.

  After their transformation, the "prey" attempted escape through guile or by enduring the unpredictable effects of the cheya dumplings. Some dumplings transformed the eaters into nightingales or caused them to vanish—yet again I could perceive the faint outline of their otherwise invisible figures, even as the pursuing hounds paused, momentarily confused, before picking up the scent trail.

  Other dumplings caused the eater's screams to appear as ribbons of colored light. One inflated its subject like a balloon, causing both his elven and hedgehog forms to sprawl helplessly on the floor until one of the hounds nosed his body. The first touch of the dog's snout dispelled both magic and the mask, leaving the elf to loll on his back, gripping his arms in uncontrollable laughter.

  Arnisant whined deep in his chest. He glanced up, craving permission to join the game. I offered none.

  Beside me, I felt the servant watching my reaction. What did it matter if she saw my disappointment in her people? They were childish and cruel to their own kind, as evidenced by their mockery of the Forlorn woman. Yet they seemed oblivious to the effects of their behavior.

  I hated them a little, for they made me feel old. They were as mercurial as the gnomes and fey creatures they allowed to reside with them. Certainly they lacked the grim demeanor of the elves who refused my first petition for entry.

  After an unwelcome return to Absalom, I journeyed to the port of Greengold, which served as a diplomatic and trade buffer with the surrounding human nations. There, despite my substantial cred
entials and the physical proof of the carriage I wished repaired, the clerk remained deaf to my request to pass into the interior of Kyonin. That was until he received a reply to his request for more information about "this half-breed landowner from the Infernal Empire." As he read the response, on which I spied the royal seal, I witnessed a transformation as profound as any caused by Amarandlon's arrows.

  After a few hours punctuated with unctuous apologies, we departed Greengold in the company of an honor guard. We rode through the western reaches of the Fierani Forest until we reached Omesta, where gnomes had built a city in the trees above the once-abandoned elven homes. There our escorts insisted we leave the Red Carriage once more in storage.

  From Omesta we traveled by skiff along the Endowhar River, disembarking among the shining spires of Iadara. Servants led us to chambers reserved for diplomats and left us in peace except to deliver meals, fresh clothing, and invitations to bathe, worship, or wander where we would.

  Radovan visited the baths daily. Since his misfortunes in Tian Xia, he had become fastidious about his personal hygiene. He was especially fixated on a toothbrush acquired in Goka, which he employed with a mixture of seashells and soda ash. Doubtless he wished to make himself as appealing as possible as he resumed his pursuit of voluptuous pleasures.

  After a modest offering at a shrine to the Tender of Dreams, I explored the elven capital. A thin gray mist obscured much of the city, foiling my curiosity. It was no natural fog, for I could see that the river sparkled clear in the sunlight. The haze hung upon the silver towers like a veil, stirred but never dispelled by the summer breeze. Even where the vapor thinned to reveal a hint of the inner chambers through crystalline walls, green vines preserved the occupants' modesty.

  Or perhaps their secrets.

  I could see more of my present surroundings after sunset than I could of the city in daylight. The highborn elves held their Midsummer Masquerade in a plaza surrounded by lush arbors and weathered statues of elves who had died ages before the founding of Cheliax.

  Servants had covered the stone plaza with a wooden dance floor. Rather than the trapezoids of parquet, the inlaid woodwork depicted wild undergrowth. Its roots and vines entwined, only to part ways until each tendril found another entanglement in the next panel. There was a pattern to be discerned, one incomprehensible to the negligent eye. Some quality of the work gnawed at my memory, as if I had seen it somewhere—