The Empty Palace - Rowan Erlking (guided reading books .TXT) 📗

the way.

Neiel and Elon exchanged looks, following Tabor and Beten. Jotham went soon after, followed by the rest of the group, sneaking in a crouch below the bushes among a maze of bushes.

Looking left and then right and all around into the shadows, the men crept from bush to tree to pillar to column until they passed through the covered entrance that opened into the outside hall. The doors were unlocked. They always were.

In the old days, the palace locked the doors at night and often in the day. In those same days, guards stood at every corner and in every gateway. But looking about, Jotham knew those days had long been gone. There was nothing of value to guard anyway—unless one counted the paintings in the king’s hall, a hall in the palace that was so creepy with the staring eyes of departed rulers following wherever you stepped that no one liked to walk through it even in the daytime. Or perhaps the silk curtains and jewel studded chandeliers in the dining hall, the ballroom, and every other large passageway, all of them so high one needed a tall ladder just to dust them. Or possibly the library full of priceless texts so large and ancient that the servants didn’t even dare dust them in case they crumbled. Or maybe the treasure chamber—but that door was locked and sealed, the entrance buried by an enormous stone monolith in the far northern garden, a stone that some said was enchanted. Actually, the palace seemed to guard itself. Some said it was ghosts that truly watched the palace, but Jotham suspected the treasure was counted and numbered by the High Chancellor, and if even a crumb were out of place he would spot it and skin the perpetrator. Despite that, it was simply easy to walk inside. They just didn’t dare touch anything while there.

The path to the ballroom was Tabor’s real purpose. It was a long winding passage with multiple doors and intersections that cut straight through the entire complex to the other side. Jotham knew that Tabor just wanted to make Beten squirm. And Beten did. He was looking left and right at the shadows underneath the tapestries, inside archways, and from beyond curtains. The high stained glass windows shining moonlight against the far wall cast an eerie color of blue. At one time it might have been considered peaceful, but now it was seen as ghostly. Everyone held their breaths as they continued through, all of them looking up and around, though Tabor acted as if nothing frightened him.

Gibeon turned with a look back at Jotham and winked one eye, then he righted and lengthened his stride so that he was walking right behind Tabor. His steps were as silent as the dust that had gathered on the high sills, muted. And with one long arm, he reached out and placed one hand on Tabor’s shoulder.

Tabor jumped with a shout, springing back.

So did Beten, turning around and staring at Tabor who was now clutching his chest and panting.

The men burst out laughing, their voices echoing in the empty halls. Gibeon cackled as he backed away from the both of them.

“Stop that!” Tabor whipped back around, marching ahead again. “You’ll let people know we’re here.”

“What people?” Beten asked, pulling his arms into himself and looking to the shadowed doorways.

Elon was about to answer, but Berath beat him to it.
“Ghosts.”

Jotham rolled his eyes. They were baiting him. It was the same shtick they used with everyone. Moladah Kimner was the one that played him when it was his first time in the palace. He and Jether Lebath (Gibeon’s ‘elder brother’ in the same way Elon and Neiel were brothers) had dragged him along when they were barely in their teens during one of Moladah’s visits to the village. They had tried to drag Jennam along too, but Jennam kicked such a fearful fit (practically hyperventilating when they got to the hole in the wall) that they left him behind. Of course, that was years ago. Today Jennam would not have kicked a fit. He would have said what he had said at his window that evening: that it was a waste of time, and childish to boot.

Beten was not easily goaded either. He gave Berath a dry look. “Ghosts? I’d be more afraid of the High Chancellor finding us here. I heard he sleeps in the king’s chambers.”

“He doesn’t,” Jotham cut in, walking past them to the large iron gilded door at the end of the hall. Turning, he lifted the shined brass latch and pushed on the door. “The High Chancellor stays in his old quarters. I think he is afraid of the king’s ghost strangling him in the night if he ever lie on his bed.”

“Why would the king do that? Dead or alive?” Sarid followed after him, ducking back into the shadows as if someone might be watching.

Beten rushed to be with them, anything to get away from Tabor. He suspected the purpose of the game in bringing him there. It was to embarrass him and then, give them reason to laugh at him. Only after that he would be accepted.

Jotham shrugged, leading the way into the next passage. There were in fact six passages they had to pass through in order to get to the ballroom. Coming from that far garden, it was a long ordeal. If they had come from the summer garden, it would have been a hop and a dance from the ballroom to the open area outside. They were divided only by a large set of doors with iron hinges.

“I was merely thinking that the High Chancellor is too high strung to change his ways. Besides, I don’t think my father would approve of him moving into the king’s chambers. The High Chancellor is only interim ruler until the prince returns. I think your fathers along with mine would throw him out of rule if he even set foot in the king’s chambers.”

Eventually they came to the last door. Tabor rushed ahead of the rest to open that. Waiting for the others to follow, he reached out for Beten and pushed him right in.

Everyone stayed back.

Taking a breath, Beten walked further into the room. The only light was from the doorway.

Each step he took echoed. With each echo bouncing off the ceiling with much repetition, he could feel how large the ballroom really was. It was like hearing the sea with the waves rushing over and back again. A distant drip-drip-drip from a tiny spot somewhere beyond the far wall ticked in his ears. The scuff of his fellows’ boots as they stood there disturbed the silence only once. Tabor’s voice echoed hollowly into the room as he spoke—too grave for him.

“You can hear it. The water. It comes from the dried up fountain in the summer garden just beyond that wall.”

Beten turned, looking back at them. “I can.”

“But the fountain hasn’t run for over twenty years. Not since the day the queen died. It just dried up,” Tabor said.

The dripping was consistent, still distant and ethereal, like the sound of the wind blowing through the cracks in the far doors. Beten felt his throat go dry just thinking about it.

“It is the spirit of the queen, waiting to catch her murderer. All she needs is an opportunity to find him.”

The doors slammed shut. Immediately engulfed in the darkness, Beten’s heart raced. He backed towards the door.

“This is not funny!”

A wet hand touched the back of his neck.

Howling, Beten probably jumped so high he could have landed in the chandelier and stolen a few of the precious stones in it—though no one really saw since it was pitch black.

But someone laughed and another lit a match, setting it to one of the lamps near the door.

“Not funny!” Beten snapped again. His hand was at his chest. He was panting, leaning over on his knees.
Everyone else was laughing. Neiel and Elon were bent over, clutching their stomachs. Allon smothered his laughs with his hand, smirking mostly. But the others were in full choruses with their laughter, though Tabor’s took on his usual mocking tone.

Tabor flung the door open again while Gibeon slapped Beten on the back with his damp hand.

“Are you done yet, laughing at my expense?” Beten’s voice was getting bitter.

Jotham decided that was enough of that and he calmed his laughter to snickers again, crossing over the broad floor to the brass handles of the garden door. Tugging on the lock, he sighed. That was perhaps the only door that had been locked, and possibly it would remain so for a long while yet.

“Don’t be such a sour face,” Gibeon said. “You proved you are a man. And tomorrow, you will stand as a man at the trials with the rest of us.”

“With one boy.” Tabor snorted.

Jotham turned around. “No. All men.”

“A coward is not a man.” Tabor turned and walked back to the door. “That loser is terrified of the empty palace. Now let’s go. I hate to linger.”

A snort came from Allon. Everyone looked at him. The man followed Tabor, but he shook his head as he passed by. Yet he didn’t say anything.

Crossing the wide floor, Jotham passed Tabor also but with a glare that said he’d slap him silly if he spoke another word.

Tabor clapped his mouth closed as if obeying. Already he stared back at Jotham, suddenly the tamed ox once more. That was how he was really. So full of bluster and yet Tabor was not a fighting man, not with him anyway. If Jotham rated bravery and cowardice among his peers, he would have put Tabor somewhere around the bottom. Beten was just above Tabor. The rest of the seventeen candidates he did not know well enough to rank.


Sneaking out was often as enjoyable as sneaking in. It was strange how they always saw more servants on the way out than in anyway. Perhaps it was because the noise stirred the servants up. Or maybe it was that their eyes had adjusted to the dim light in the palace halls and it was easier to see them going about. But by the time they had reached the outer wall of the gardens to squeeze out the hole to get into the open countryside again, they had seen around six of them, two of which gave them dirty looks and shouted for them to get out. No threats to call guards. But then, perhaps the servants knew the only guards available were their fathers and would only laugh at their boyish games.

Gibeon waved good bye to Allon before parting with Jotham back down the road. The others rode in their groups as they had come, excluding Beten who traveled with Berath back to their part of the village where they were both staying in an inn. Tabor had ridden on ahead anyway, though Beten had no desire to return with him and was glad he had gone early.

“I think Beten handled it well,” Gibeon said as soon as they were back on the road.

Nodding, Jotham sighed. “Yes. Better than some. Remember when Remnon Billis started to cry? That was pathetic. I wonder why Beten waited this long to go?”
Shrugging, Gibeon said, gazing over