The Hero King by Rick Shelley

place I always went to sort things out in my head in Varay, the crypt under Castle Basil. I had two people there to talk to now, maybe three. When the apparition of the Great Earth Mother confronted me in her shrine out on the Mist, she had initially mistaken me for Vara. “Vara, have you returned at last?” she asked me. That was another bit of legend that I was going to have to have somebody check on. If there was time.
    “I think we both need a few hours alone,” I told Joy. “It’s a big change for both of us.”
    “I’ve had too many hours alone lately,” Joy said, turning away from me for a moment. She took a couple of steps away, then turned back to face me.
    “We got married, or have you forgotten that? You’ve been off on these damned quests, one after the other. I’m just someone you come to see for a few hours between adventures.” She walked off to the other side of the tower.
    “It has been like that,” I agreed, following about halfway. The word “damned” coming from her was a pretty clear danger signal. Joy rarely used anything stronger than “dam,” and she didn’t use that often. “I’m not thrilled about it either. There’s nothing I’d like better than a chance for the two of us to go off somewhere all alone together. A proper honeymoon, if nothing else.”
    “But we can’t, not yet?”
    “Not yet.” I shook my head. “If it’s at all possible, we’ll go lock ourselves away in the apartment in Chicago for a couple of days before the next round. Hey, I may not even have to go anywhere for this last part, if we ever find out what to do. It may be something as simple as performing some kind of ritual with the balls of the Great Earth Mother, some bit of conjuring that can be done right in Castle Basil.”
    Joy walked partway back to me. “Go on. Go get your brooding over with.” She didn’t sound angry, just sad. About the way I felt.
    “A couple of hours,” I said. “It shouldn’t be longer than that. I just need time to sort through everything in my head.”
    “I know.” She came the rest of the way to me. “You really cared for Pregel, didn’t you?”
    “Very much,” I said. “And I really didn’t want to get us tied down in his job this soon. I thought we’d have a few years of the simple life here first.”
    “Go on, get going. The sooner you leave, the sooner you’ll be back. I think I’ll stay up here for a while.”
    I knew I had to leave, but I hesitated. I took Joy in my arms and we hugged with something that may have been very close to desperation.
    And then I left quickly.
    Somehow, I managed to get down to the doorway to Castle Basil and out of Cayenne without running into anyone. My leaving without some sort of entourage would have shocked all of the Varayans no end. At Basil, I couldn’t escape notice for long, but only soldiers and servants saw me before I got to the stairs leading down to the crypt. That would give me the time alone I needed. Baron Kardeen would learn that I was in the castle. He always seemed to know who was around, within minutes of anyone’s arrival or departure. It wasn’t that he had magical means of discovering who came and went, it was just that he had the staff well trained, and decades of practice.
    There are a lot of stairs to cover to get down to the crypt, more than a hundred of them, about eight stories worth. The steps are wide and shallow, running back and forth in straight flights past the cellars and on down into the heart of Basil Rock itself. According to local legend (and in a place like Varay, local legends have something to say about everything) , Basil Rock is the hub of the universe, the center of all creation—all three realms of being: mortal, buffer, and fairy.
    There are no banisters along the stairway, and you can look down between the flights of stairs, all the way to the bottom. But most people stay close to the wall side of the stairs, and few care to look down.
    Going down is easy. Coming