The Violet Keystone

by Garth Nix

  "Yes, it's all quite simple," growled Ebbitt. "Find Sharrakor, stop him from undoing the Forgetting and raising an army of tens of thousands of Aenirans, get the other half of the Violet Keystone back, return to the Castle, restore the Veil, settle the war with the Icecarls, free the Underfolk--"

  "Yes!" interrupted Crow.

  "As I was saying, free the Underfolk, and… I've lost my locomotor of thought."

  "The Storm Shepherds!" interrupted Crow again, pointing at the sky. "At least, I hope that's what they are."

  Tal and Milla turned together and held out their arms. Two huge figures of cloud swooped down and embraced them so vigorously they would have fallen over again if they hadn't been almost crushed in puffy arms. Odris cried as well, rain pouring out in streams from the side of her head, making Ebbitt's cat give a strange yipping cry and jump aside.

  "We almost died!" sobbed Odris. "And we ended up back at Hrigga Hill and it tried to eat us!"

  "I want to give your shadow back," said Adras.

  "It hurt too much."

  "Yes," said Tal, pushing Adras's arms aside and stepping back. "I think it is time we undid the binding between us. We should go into the next fight as we mean to go on. Without Spiritshadows or bound companions."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  "I will be sorry to see the old cat go." Ebbitt sighed. "But I see your point."

  "Oh, I didn't mean your--" Tal started to say.

  "We've had one rule for some and a different rule for others for too long," said Ebbitt. He leaned over and rubbed his green cat under the chin. It purred and shifted its head so he would scratch the best spots. "Got to set an example for you young folk, don't I? Now, how do we go about it?"

  "Um, I don't know," said Tal. "I thought you might."

  "Not on the curriculum." Ebbitt sighed again. "Finding and binding, that was it."

  "I know," said Malen quietly. "You use a variation of the Prayer to Asteyr to bind them in the first place. I can see it in the Aenirans. I can undo the binding between Tal, Milla, and the Storm Shepherds. I don't know about yours, Ebbitt. The… cat… was unwilling originally and the binding is very old and strong."

  "Do it, then," said Milla. She would get her own shadow back! It was a step toward being a normal Icecarl again, a step she never thought she would be able to take. Yet at the same time, she had become used to Odris, and the Storm Shepherd had been a good and helpful companion. If a trifle annoying at times.

  "Stand in a line," ordered Malen tentatively. "Next to one another."

  They all shuffled into a line, Ebbitt still scratching the neck of his cat. Tal noticed that there were the beginnings of tears in the old man's eyes, but he didn't say anything. He was sad himself. All his life he had wanted a powerful Spiritshadow, to help him gain a high place in the Castle. But all that was gone. If they survived, they would live in new times, and there was no place for Aeniran--or human--slaves.

  Malen began to chant as they stood silently in front of her. The words were familiar, many of them from what Tal now knew was the Prayer to Asteyr, but with a different cadence and rhythm. He felt the words resonate deep inside his bones, sending a shivery, feverish feeling through every part of his body.

  The chant grew faster and stronger, and Malen began to stamp around in a circle, punctuating every ten words or so with a heavier stomp, sending dust flying.

  Slowly, in answer to the words, shadows began to creep out of the three Aeniran creatures. Human shadows, which flowed slowly across the stones toward the feet of their original casters.

  Malen shouted the last word and came to a sudden stop. Tal felt his shadow reconnect, and the connection he had with Adras was totally severed. For a moment, he felt thick in the head, as if he had a cold. Then he realized that the sense of the wind and the weather that came from Adras was gone.

  Tal turned to Adras, and Milla to Odris.

  "Well, that's that," said Tal in a small voice. "Thank you for everything you've done for me, Adras."

  "I thank you, too, Odris," said Milla. "I hope you bear no ill will for the times I have been hard with you. Farewell."

  "Farewell?" asked Odris. "We aren't going anywhere without you. Certainly not back to our old life at Hrigga Hill. Far too boring."

  "We're going to come and watch you fight Sharrakor," said Adras. "We'll even help if we can, though he is the Overlord and all that."

  "The Overlord?" asked Tal. His mind was only half on the conversation, as he was watching Ebbitt kneel down by his cat and bare his neck, as if inviting it to bite him or something. Milla had seen it, too, and was already moving across, ready to intervene.

  "Sure," said Adras. "The King or whatever. Odris said."

  "What?" asked Tal, tensing as the green cat leaned forward and opened its mouth, revealing teeth as white as its claws, but much larger. Would it kill Ebbitt for enslaving it for so long? Milla took another step closer, the Talon extending.

  "That's why we had to obey back in the Dark World," said Odris. "Sharrakor holds the oaths of most Aenirans from the old times, including our parents. But we don't have to obey him in everything. At least, I don't think so."

  The cat licked Ebbitt's face, making him splutter and almost fall over, and jumped away, a green flash speeding through the ruins.

  "That's what my shadowguard did," said Tal. "He was with me for sixty years," said Ebbitt.

  He sighed and accepted Milla's help to get up. "Well, we had best be getting on, children."

  "Where?" asked Tal. "Where will Sharrakor be? And how does he undo the Forgetting?"

  No one answered him. It was clear from the looks on the faces of humans and Storm Shepherds alike that no one knew the answer to his questions.

  "I don't know," said Milla. "But I do know someone we can ask."

  "Who?"

  "Zicka the Kurshken," said Milla. "At Kurshken Corner. Wherever that is."

  "Kurshken Corner?" said Odris. "I know how to get there, provided it hasn't moved lately. Assuming this is Rorn, which I guess it must be."

  "Rorn?" asked Tal.

  "Rorn?" echoed Ebbitt.

  Milla and Crow looked at their shocked expressions.

  "Rorn is forbidden to the Chosen," explained Tal. "Though I don't know why. We were taught never to go there… come here."

  "The penalty is death," said Ebbitt. "I always wanted to take a look myself. This must be it. I know Rorn was a ruined city, heavily staked."

  "Staked?" asked Crow.

  "Staked through with Sunstone stakes," said Ebbitt. "Like the Chosen Enclave. To stop it from moving around. If we see some of those, then it must be Rorn. I wonder whose city it was and who lived here."

  "Sharrakor, of course," said Odris. "Even

  I

  know that. It was the capital, before the Forgetting. All Sharrakor's people lived here before they got killed in the war. He's the only one left."

  "This was a city of dragons?" asked Milla.

  "No, silly," said Odris. "Sharrakor isn't a dragon all the time. He's a doubleganger, or maybe a tripleganger. A shaper. He can turn into two or three different things, big like the dragon, or small like a mind-drill. The really bad ones that climb into your brain. That's what the shapers used to do a lot. That's one of the ways they ruled everyone else in the old times."

  "Why didn't you tell us this before?" exclaimed Tal. "It would have been useful to know that Sharrakor could become a… a shadow mind-drill… back in the Castle."

  "You never asked," said Odris primly. "And I never heard you mention Sharrakor at all, so it's your fault, not mine. And Adras didn't know because he never paid any attention to my lessons."

  "Never!" announced Adras proudly. "Too boring."

  Tal sighed. If only he had taken Odris with him instead of Adras when they met the Empress and the Light Vizier. If only he had taken Odris with him full stop. But that was an old and familiar feeling by now. Adras was Adras, as Ebbitt was Ebbitt. They both had their advantages, he supposed.
r />   "Let's assume this is Rorn," said Milla, bringing them all back on track. "How far is Kurshken Corner, Odris?"

  "Half a day's flight, maybe less," Odris replied with a shrug. "If it hasn't moved."

  "Three or four days' walk," mused Milla. "Too long. Is there some way we can all fly?"

  "I could carry Tal and someone else," declared Adras. He flexed the muscle in his puffy arms. "I am the strongest!"

  "I can only carry Milla," said Odris. "We could leave Ebbitt or Crow behind. Or Malen."

  "No," said Crow. "It is my fight, too. The Freefolk should be represented."

  "We can't leave anyone behind," said Tal. He was thinking as he spoke. Perhaps there was a way to use the Storm Shepherds more effectively. "Ebbitt, what if we made a boat of light and sort of…

  crossed it with a Hand of Light. If we could keep it going, it could lift us up and Adras and Odris could push or pull it."

  A little of Ebbitt's usual spark returned to his eyes. This was the sort of thing he liked. A crazy idea that most Chosen would refuse to even think about.

  "You have half of the Violet Keystone, which is very powerful," he mused. "If we bond the mesh with Violet, and weave it Green… Blue traces… yes, yes… What are you waiting for? There's not time to stand around! You start on a backbone of Violet and I'll do the planking in Green with Yellow perhaps…"

  Tal smiled. It was a little forced, but still a smile. Then he began to focus on his Sunstone. He and Ebbitt would build a flying boat of light, propelled by Storm Shepherds, to take them to Kurshken Corner and beyond.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Kurshken Corner looked very odd from the air. It was a huge flooded field filled with giant leafy balls of yellow vegetation, a lot like vastly overgrown sprouts, outsized versions of the ones the Underfolk grew in their subterranean greenhouses. Most of the sprouts were the size of a Chosen family's greeting room, but some were much larger. They were clearly inhabited, as Kurshken could be seen coming and going between the different plants, skipping through the shallow water or racing along the many raised levees that crisscrossed the field.

  Not that Tal had much time to look. Their flying boat, modeled on Asteyr's Orskir, required constant attention to stay both airborne and together. It was drawn by the two Storm Shepherds pulling on blue traces, but the actual lifting came from a variation of the Hand of Light spell, and Tal or Ebbitt had to keep it going with constant infusions of power from their Sunstones. Crow and Milla had each helped them from time to time, but were not practiced enough to take over completely.

  With varying levels of power, the boat flew along at an erratic speed, depending on the Storm Shepherds' way with the winds and their own endurance. There were sometimes quite alarming variations in altitude as the various Sunstone-wielders changed shifts and combinations. The only person who wasn't worried was Malen, who had fallen asleep. The unbinding of the Aenirans had taken its toll and she had not been able to stay awake, much as she wanted to see the strange territory they flew over and the Aeniran denizens they encountered in the air or spotted on the ground.

  The arrival of the flying boat at Kurshken Corner was greeted by the Kurshken with some alarm. There was some alarm on board as well, as the boat lurched and bobbed down to a heavy, skidding landing in a vacant area next to one of the levees. As soon as they were safely down, Tal and Ebbitt made sure Malen was awake and everyone was standing up, then they let the boat of light fade away. The Storm Shepherds, relieved of the blue traces, flitted back to float above the rest of their party.

  Before everyone could climb out of the ankle-deep water to the levee, they were surrounded by scores of knee-high green lizards, each of them bearing a bow with a nocked arrow. The arrows had bright blue heads and looked highly poisonous.

  "Peace!" called out Milla. "We are friends of Quorr Quorr Quorr Quorr Ahhtorn Sezicka!"

  Tal shut his mouth. He'd been about to blurt out the short form "Zicka," which was all he could remember of their friend's name.

  The name relieved the tension somewhat. The Kurshken lowered their bows but did not, Tal noticed, return their arrows to the quivers on their scaly backs. In the rear ranks, he saw several lizards turn and dash away, skipping across the water without actually going through it.

  One lizard, who had two huge ivory teeth bound into the shoulders of his woven-grass harness, approached and bowed.

  "I am Quorr Quorr Quorr Quorr Quorr Jak-Quorr Jareskk Yazeqicka," the lizard announced, his voice deeper than anyone who had not met a Kurshken before would suspect. "You may call me

  Yazeq. Four of you I suspect I know from my triple-sister's second-clutch fifth-birthing's report--you know him as Zicka. You I think are Milla, and Tal, and the Storm Shepherds Odris and Adras."

  Everyone bowed in return, Adras nearly colliding with Tal's head. Milla confirmed their names, and introduced Ebbitt, Malen, and Crow.

  "Come," said Yazeq, with a particular glance at Ebbitt. "You must be tired. You may rest in our guest roro, or as you may wish to call it, roroqqolleckechahen."

  "I'll say roro," Ebbitt replied weakly. Tal took his arm and looked down at his great-uncle with concern. Since his Spiritshadow had left, Ebbitt seemed older and more tired. The--admittedly rather lunatic--spark in his eyes had dimmed, and he looked pale, the Aeniran glow absent from his face. Maintaining the flying boat had also taken far more out of him, Tal saw, than Ebbitt would admit. Tal felt bad about it, for he had taken his great-uncle's power, skill, and endurance for granted.

  "Are you all right, Ebbitt?" asked Milla.

  "I am weary," said Ebbitt. "Very weary indeed. It comes from having to do more than my share of the work, but perhaps Tal will be less lazy in the future."

  Tal scowled, but only because it was clear Ebbitt's heart wasn't in the insult. His great-uncle really was tired.

  The roro turned out to be one of the huge sprout vegetables. The outer, living leaves concealed a solid husk, which was hollow and had been outfitted most comfortably with rugs and carpets woven from various natural fibers. As it was a guest roro, there were also a number of wooden chairs of different sizes, and drinking horns that varied in length from finger-sized to one as long as Tal's arm.

  As they settled down on chairs, on rugs, or in the air and accepted suitably sized drinking horns filled with a sweet juice or sap, the leaves parted to admit another, Kurshken. Though all Kurshken looked remarkably similar, something about this one made him instantly known to Tal and Milla.

  "Zicka!"

  "Indeed," said the lizard. "Welcome to Kurshken Corner, that in our tongue we call--"

  Ebbitt interrupted with a fit of sudden coughing. Tal would have been concerned if he hadn't seen the faint glint in his great-uncle's eyes.

  "I had not looked to see you so soon," continued Zicka as he sat down and accepted a drink. "But I

  am glad to see you escaped the Waspwyrm. Did you manage to return the Codex to its rightful place?"

  "Sort of," replied Tal, sharing a glance with Milla. "But we have a bigger problem now, one that we hope you can help us with."

  Speaking quickly, taking it in turns with Milla and ignoring the occasional interjections from Adras, Odris, and Ebbitt, Tal told Zicka and Yazeq about the situation in the Castle and how they had followed Sharrakor back to Aenir to stop him from undoing the Forgetting.

  "So you see we must kill Sharrakor soon," finished Milla as Tal paused. "We cannot allow him to free every Aeniran and lead them back to our world. We hope you can tell us where he is, or will be."

  Zicka and Yazeq looked at each other and spoke in a rapid tumble of words that all seemed to run together.

  "This is disturbing news," said Zicka. "We had thought Sharrakor--or Skerrako as he was sometimes called by your ancestors--was still imprisoned beneath the ruins of Rorn."

  "Imprisoned?" asked Tal. "How?"

  "He was bound into a single shape by Asteyr, who died in the doing of it, then was overcome by Danir, Susir, and Grettir," said Kursh
ken. "They did not wish to slay him, for he was an honorable enemy in their thinking. They bound him in chains of ethren, the golden metal, far beneath the ruins of his city. Someone must have released him, though I am surprised that even a shaper could live so long."

  "The Empress and her brother, I guess," said Tal, shaking his head. "Looking for some power to help them overcome the Emperor Mercur."

  "He will not be as strong as he was so long ago," continued Zicka. "Which is as well for all of us who would remain free. Sharrakor will not forget that we aided Asteyr and her daughters, and Ramellan, too, for that matter. And he will have many to help him, if he undoes the Forgetting and frees them from their bounds."

  "So where will he undo the Forgetting?" asked Milla.

  "There is only one place," replied Zicka. "The Old Khamsoul. It usually inhabits the deserts a day or so south of here, but I will find out where it was last seen."

  He called out in the complex language, and a slightly smaller lizard popped its head in. There was a quick exchange, then the other lizard withdrew.

  "The Old Khamsoul is possibly the most ancient entity on Aenir," said Zicka. "It knows all secrets, all names. Sharrakor will need the names of all those bound by the Forgetting in order to release them. The names, and a source of power."

  "What power?" asked Milla.

  "The Violet Keystone will do," replied Yazeq. "Or the half of it."

  "So we have to find out where the Old Khamsoul is," said Tal. "Then go there and stop Sharrakor."

  "Go there and kill him," said Milla. "Danir should have killed him long ago."

  "There is a difficulty you should know," said Zicka. "A most grievous difficulty, I fear." Everyone looked at the little lizard.

  "Sharrakor will be actually inside the Old Khamsoul."

  "Inside?" asked Crow. "What do you mean in--"

  "The Old Khamsoul," explained Zicka, "is a whirlwind. A whirlwind of dust and spinning stones."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  "A whirlwind?" Tal shook his head. "Great."

  "The whirlwind may not be part of the Old Khamsoul, but merely some form of protective layer," said Yazeq. "There is a pillar of stone at the center of the whirlwind, and some argue that this is in fact the Old Khamsoul. But no one knows for sure.