“If it's too much for you, say so!” he said. “We don't have to stay outside long. But I think it's important for you to get used to it.”
“Yes.” I nodded; that made a lot of sense.
Pointedly, I did not look up. The universe grew steady once more and the roar of wind in my ears lessened.
Aber started forward briskly, out of the house, into the courtyard. I followed. Sand crunched under my boots, and the air carried strange spicy scents like nothing I could identify.
“What do you think?” he asked, indicating the whole of the house and sky with a sweep of his arm.
Gulping, I lowered my eyes and concentrated on the ground at my feet. Out here, what had looked like sand turned out to be something else. The whole courtyard seethed with movement underfoot, as sand and stone shifted constantly, like a mass of crawling insects. And yet neither Aber nor I sank into the ground. We walked normally, as though we stood on solid land.
Aber, grinning like a madman, threw wide his arms.
“What do you think?” he cried again, gazing up at the sky. “Isn't it splendid? Doesn't it make your heart race and your senses quicken? Can you feel it around us?”
“You're insane!” I gasped out. “It's a nightmare!”
Chapter 13
Aber laughed at me.
“So—this is—what the Courts of Chaos—are like?”
“Just about,” he said. “In the Beyond, we're quite close… I can feel the pull of Chaos, like a current moving through the air. You should be able to sense it, too.”
I just stared at him, bewildered. “What do you mean, sense it? I don't quite understand.”
“Close your eyes.”
I did so. I felt myself swaying, and the ground seemed to slide down and away from me.
“Ignore your senses,” he said. “No sight, no sound, no smell nor touch nor taste. You should feel a slight tugging inside… as though you're standing in a river while the waters push through your body.”
I remained still, scarcely breathing. My heart beat in my chest. Air whispered through my nose and throat. That low, throaty roar of phantom winds sounded distantly in my ears.
Then, gradually, I became aware of a curious sensation… a gentle pull not so much on my body as on my spirit, as though some unknown force tried to draw me closer.
I turned with it, trying to find the direction it wanted me to go. Yes—I had it now. It was unmistakable.
I opened my eyes and pointed toward the gate.
“That way.”
Aber looked startled.
“No,” he said. “That's not right.”
“What do you mean?” I demanded. “I can feel it! It's pulling me.”
“You have it backwards.” He pointed in the opposite direction. “The pull toward the Courts of Chaos goes that way.”
I turned and stared in the direction he indicated, back toward our family's towering house. No, I was certain I didn't want to go back there. Turning, trying to find where the pull was strongest, I found myself facing the gate again. The Courts of Chaos definitely held no pull for me. Clearly this psychic tug came from something else… something in the other direction.
I told him as much.
“I don't understand,” he said, frowning. “But then, there's a lot I don't understand about you, Brother.”
Shrugging, I said, “Sorry. What you see is all there is.”
“I think not.” His eyes narrowed, studying me. “There is more to you, I think, than you even know yourself. But let's talk of other things now. Come on, I'll show you around the grounds. The gardens are nice.”
“Nice?”
“If you like rocks.”
Chuckling, he led the way, and I had a feeling he was about to play another of his famous practical jokes on me. We followed the wall to the right, away from the drilling men-at-arms. The house loomed over us, huge and windowless, oozing bright colors from every seam and joint.
A few blackened, twisted treelike plants grew from the soil, and their branches moved even though no wind blew. They seemed to sense our passage, and several times I jumped when branches whipped close to my face. Aber just ignored them and kept walking.
Rounding a corner of the house, we came into sight of the “garden”—a penned area where rocks roamed through knee-high grass at will, looking like petrified sheep. The rocks ranged from head-sized to bigger than a man, and now and again they banged into one another with loud crashing sounds. Benches set around the pen made it seem like rock-watching might be considered pleasurable here.
Aber went right up to the fence and leaned on it, staring out across the field. He seemed to recognize some of the rocks and actually began pointing out his favorites:
“That's Jasmine. And that one's Teal.”
“You've named them?” I stared at him like he'd lost his mind. He had to be playing a joke on me. Who had time for such nonsense with our family being murdered and our father gone missing?
He seemed to realize how I felt, since he sighed and shrugged and wouldn't look me in the eye.
“It's not for everyone,” he said. “You have to be sensitive to their presence to appreciate the beauty. It's like… it's like poetry!”
I rolled my eyes. “Then it must be an acquired taste,” I said. “But don't feel bad. I only have one use for poetry, and that's to help get beautiful women into my bed.”
“You're just like Locke.” Sighing again, Aber turned and walked on alongside the fence.
“No need to be insulting!” I hurried to catch up. “Or should I take that as a compliment?”
Flatly, he replied, “There's more to see ahead, around the corner.”
“Not more rocks?”
“No… fountains, Pella's flower garden, a petrified dragon.”
“A dragon!” I felt my heart quicken. They were creatures of legend. I'd heard stories of them my whole life.
“Yes, Locke killed it years ago. It took twenty mules and twice that many men to cart it back here. But it's a trophy worth keeping.”
“How did Locke kill it?”
“He showed it a medusa's head.”
Awed, my estimation of Locke went up yet another notch. I'd known my brother was an able military officer and a skilled swordsman, but I'd had no idea he'd gone adventuring.
“All right,” I said. “I have to know. How did he get a medusa's head?”
“I'm not really sure… he said something about a labyrinth and a golden fleece.”
I shrugged.
Aber went on, “Want to see what my mother looked like? There's a statue of her there, too. I'm told it's a good resemblance.”
“Sure.” Statues, at least, I could appreciate. But a dragon, even a petrified one, couldn't be missed.
My sudden enthusiasm seemed to cheer him up. As we walked, he kept gazing into the rock pen. Boulders small and large drifted in an intricate dance. He honestly seemed to enjoy them, like a falconer admiring his birds or a hunter showing off his hounds. And why shouldn't he? In Juniper he had been trapped in a house filled with squabbling siblings and a paranoid drunkard of a father, a mysterious enemy had been systematically murdering family members, and we were under siege from an army determined to slaughter us all to the last one. Here, at least for the moment, we appeared safe. He could relax and be himself.
“Hey! Look at that!” He stopped short and pointed at the two largest hump-backed rocks, which now circled each other like wolves in the center of the pen. “They're going to fight!”
“A fight?” I stopped and regarded them. “How can you tell?”
“Experience! Watch!”
Sighing, I leaned on the fence beside him. The two boulders wheeled and spun and circled in an intricate dance, drew apart, then suddenly raced towards each other faster than a man could run. When they struck with a loud crack!, rock chips and dust flew into the air. Then, as they drew apart, I noticed that the larger of the two had a crack running down its middle. It split in two, and each half moved
off in a different direction.
Aber groaned in disappointment. “They don't usually hit that hard,” he said. “One usually backs down.”
“They look dangerous,” I said.
“Not really. If you're careful. You can even ride them, if you want. It's fun.”
I shook my head. Strange as the house seemed, everything inside looked normal by comparison. A deep sense of melancholy spread through me. I longed for Ilerium or Juniper, where I knew the rules and nothing fantastic waited around each corner to jump out at me.
Deep-blue lightning flickered overhead, bright enough to draw my attention. Then bright tongues of blue light split the sky, and a growl of thunder rumbled close at hand.
“A storm?” I asked.
He hesitated, looking up. “I don't know. I've never seen anything quite like this before.”
“Maybe we'd better get inside,” I suggested. The dragon could wait; since it was petrified, it wouldn't be going anywhere. Besides, I remembered the attack on our forces in Juniper. It had started with a storm. Our enemies had directed lightning bolts down on top of us, shattering the upper floors of Juniper Castle and killing dozens of people.
“I think we'd better,” Aber said. Turning, he headed back toward the courtyard. I hurried to keep up.
Then a finger of lightning lanced down from the sky, hitting the ground twenty feet away. Sand peppered my face and hands. I threw up my arms to protect my eyes.
“Run!” Aber screamed.
I turned and found him sprawled on the ground. The force of the lightning had knocked him down. “We're being attacked! We have to get inside!”
I hurried to him. “Attacked—here?”
“Yes! Now go on, get inside!”
“Not without you.” Instead, I pulled him to his feet. Together we sprinted for the door.
More lightning flickered over head. Thunder growled in warning. One bolt lashed down at us, but it struck the rock-pen, splintering the little wooden fence. As though sensing their chance to escape, the rocks inside began to drift toward the opening.
Side by side now, we pounded past them, circling the house. The doorway came into sight.
I let Aber pull ahead, then darted to the side. My instincts and military training told me to spread out the distance between us and move unexpectedly. That would make it harder for whoever was aiming the lightning bolts to get us both. And if he did manage to strike home, better to kill just one of us.
Before I'd taken half a dozen steps, blue lightning leaped down from the heavens. It moved faster than I could react, crackling with energy, and it struck me with a blow like a hammer to the head. Surrounding me, burning across my skin, filling my eyes with a shining blue light, I reeled to the side. Everything around me looked weird and distant.
Then I sucked in a breath—and felt the flames coil and burn inside my chest.
Chapter 14
Pain-nothing but pain—pain wrapped in more pain—
I thought my lungs would burst. I couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't think. I tried to scream, but no sound came out.
—fires searing me, burning into my flesh—
Just ahead, I saw Aber starting to look back. He began to turn, but it happened so slowly, it almost seemed as though he wasn't moving at all.
Gods, the pain! Make it stop!
Aber's mouth gaped open as he shouted something to me. Crackling thunder filled my ears; I couldn't hear a word he said.
My arms, my head, my eyes.
Everything glowed from a crisp blue light that seemed to radiate away from inside me. Shadows, sharp and black, stretched dark fingers away in all directions. A sense of inevitable doom pervaded everything and everyone around me.
Pain!
My sight began to dim. I couldn't be dying here, not now… It wasn't fair—I wasn't done yet—
Dark.
Consciousness returned slowly.
A hush had fallen over everything and everyone. I had a sense of dislocation, as though I watched myself from a great distance, and yet I could see nothing but white in every direction. Detached from my body, like an observer looking through someone else's eyes, I peered into the whiteness for answers.
Though my life might be nothing more than a speck of dust on a game-board of cosmic proportions, my thoughts remained clear and sharp. I remembered the lightning. I remembered the pain, though it had vanished. An eerie calmness, like nothing I had ever felt before, began to settle over me.
A laugh, high and musical, broke the silence.
“Who's there?” I called.
A blur of white passed a hand-breadth from my eyes, then a brilliant light dazzled me. I blinked furiously and shaded my face with my hand.
That light—it moved and breathed, it ate and drank with me. Yes, it had eyes, whatever it was. But no human ever gazed out through them, these windows to the soul, so pure and perfect they made my heart ache just to be near.
“Why are you here?” the voice said. It seemed to come from below, then above, then below again.
“First, tell me where I am,” I said.
“Here, with me,” said the voice.
I licked my lips. “Am I the first one?”
Again, the laughter. “No. There have been others.”
“Where am I?”
“With your mother.”
“Then I am dead?” I licked my lips. “These are the Seven Heavens? My just reward?”
I sensed puzzlement.
“Where am I?” I asked again.
“Good-bye“ said the voice. “Good-bye“
“No!” I called. “Wait! Mother, I“
Somehow, the world shifted. Suddenly everything was different. Sounds rose—the rumble of thunder—shouts of men—
I lay facedown, my left cheek pressed into the sand. I felt it moving, crawling about like something alive.
Opening my eyes, I blinked at a sudden rush of color. Blues and browns and reds and greens blurred together like paints in a rainstorm.
My eyes did not want to focus, so I concentrated on a couple of pebbles a few inches in front of my eyes. They whirled and danced in intricate patterns. As I stared, they slowly grew sharp and distinct once more.
Not dead… that was the first and most important thing.
An acrid, unpleasant odor surrounded me, like burning flesh. I coughed a bit.
“Lord Aber?” distant voices called. “Get him up! Hurry! Inside!”
When I tried to push myself up, though, I found my arms didn't want to obey. I fumbled, didn't have the strength to continue.
What had happened?
Lightning… lightning had struck me.
Somehow, I had lived through it. I blinked again, took a deep breath, and sat up in a single motion. Coughing wracked my body.
Boots crunched on the sand in front of me. Hands seized me, lifted me, began to carry me.
“He's alive!” someone called.
I wondered—did he mean me or Aber?
It took every ounce of strength, but I raised my head and tried to see what was happening. Tears blurred my vision. I couldn't see anything much.
“Aber?” I croaked.
A dark, unmoving shape a few yards ahead might have been him.
No, he couldn't be dead. Moaning, I longed to crawl into a hole and pull the opening shut behind me. No, not Aber—my one friend here—
I began to crawl. Sharp, knifelike pains stabbed my knees and hands. My back ached terribly, and my chest burned. My eyes watered so much I could barely see, and my tears streamed onto the ground.
The dark shape ahead of me wasn't moving. If anything had happened to my brother, I didn't know what I'd do.
I had to pause to catch my breath. Spots jumped and flitted before my eyes. My ears rang.
But I was alive.
Just a few more feet and I'd reach my brother. Had he been hit, too, or had the lightning bolt jumped to him from me?
An acrid smell, like burnt flesh and clothing, suffused ever
ything. I prayed it wasn't coming from him.
Suddenly the guards who had been exercising across the yard reached me, running full tilt. Without asking, four of them picked me up and carried me toward the house at a trot.
“Aber—” My voice came out a feeble croak. “Get Aber—”
“They have him, Lord Oberon.” The voice sounded distant, as though he stood at the far end of a long tunnel.
Somehow, I managed to focus on the speaker, a young officer with close-cropped blond hair and a slightly hooked nose. He supported my left shoulder as they carried me toward the house at a trot.
“Dead?” I whispered.
His lips moved, but I couldn't hear the words this time. My hearing seemed to be cutting in and out.
Then I started coughing and couldn't stop.
“—lightning hit you, sir,” he was saying. “Jace went for the company doctor. Don't try to talk, sir. You're both safe.”
“Aber—” I said.
“Can you hear me—Lord Oberon? Lord Oberon?”
“Yes…” My voice sounded like a frog's croak. “Is Aber—is he dead?”
His voice sounded louder this time. “Alive. Don't try to talk, sir. He hit his head. He's going to need stitches, but he should be all right.”
“Thanks.”
My brother still lived—that was all I needed to know. I allowed myself to relax.
They reached the door to the house and carried me inside. I hated feeling like a cripple, but didn't have the strength to object.
The young officer and his men set me down carefully on the floor next to the wall. They all crowded inside, out of the storm, out of harm's way.
My hearing definitely seemed to be returning. I heard crashes of thunder now, though it still sounded flat and far away.
Stripping off his jacket, the young officer folded it into a makeshift pillow and slipped it under my head.
“What's your name?” I asked him.
“Captain Neole.”
I began coughing again. The smells of burnt flesh and fabric grew stronger in the close, confined space. After a minute, I realized the smells came from me.
When I turned my head, I saw that Aber now lay beside me. Blood slicked the right-hand side of his face and pooled on the floor under him. A cold panic swept through me. He wasn't moving. Maybe Neole had made a mistake—
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