Crown of Oblivion

by Julie Eshbaugh

  You are a contestant in the Race of Oblivion.

  Win the race and you and your family receive citizenship.

  Finish but fail to win, and your indenture will be extended by a minimum of three years.

  Drop out, and your indenture will be extended by a minimum of seven years.

  Your first clue is:

  Come to the lighthouse, Astrid.

  Climb to the window outside.

  Your next destination will be written on the wall, at the place where light doesn’t pass through glass.

  My mind is racing like a runaway train, and it’s veering toward panic. I breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth, and challenge myself to find just five things I can see and understand: the land I’m standing on is Lanoria, the water at my back is the Emilia Ocean, the two people standing down the beach from me hold fishing poles, the shadows circling my feet are cast by gulls, and the cloth in my hands contains a clue.

  A clue in the Race of Oblivion, which is something else I understand. And now I get it—the reason I can’t remember my name or where my home is. Because I’m in a race that starts with the purge of personal memories.

  I wish this knowledge were comforting, but it’s anything but. I’d be more comforted to know I lost my memory in just about any other way, to be honest. At least then, my lost memory would be my biggest problem. If I entered this race, then the worst is all ahead of me.

  I flip back to the line drawing on the other side of the cloth. The tower . . . it must be the lighthouse in the clue. It’s terrifying, the thought that I have no choice but to pursue this clue to this unknown lighthouse, when all I want to do is find a drink of water and go home.

  “I’m not staring just to stare,” a man shouts. It’s one of the two fishers, standing near the water not far away. “It’s definitely her. That’s why I’m looking.”

  “You’re looking because she’s a girl in a damp dress that’s clinging to her.” It’s the other fisher, who I can only guess is the first one’s wife. She’s big and broad and so is the man, and they are both red-faced from the wind. Just like the gulls, they sound like they’re arguing. “Don’t try to fool me,” she says.

  They are both staring now. I can’t help but wonder if they have water, and what It’s definitely her might mean, so I start toward them.

  “Look. Here she comes,” says the man. “You can’t deny that’s her. So sad about her father.”

  “Excuse me!” I don’t get too close, mostly because they are staring at me like I’m something to be feared. “Do you know me?”

  “We don’t know you, so much as know of you,” calls back the man. The surf is loud and the wind breaks up his words, but I catch enough to understand. “A lot of people are talking about you. On account of what happened at the Apple Carnival.”

  “What happened at the Apple Carnival?”

  At this, the woman hooks his arm and draws him back from me. “She’s in the race,” she says, tapping the base of her throat. “There’s nothing where her embed should be.”

  My hand moves to my throat, and my fingers trace a fresh scar. “Where are your embeds?” I ask. “Are you in the race, too?”

  “We’re citizens!” the woman calls back. “Satisfied our indentures years ago. Now move along. We can’t risk getting caught helping a racer.”

  “Why not?” I’ve moved closer and they’ve stopped moving back, and I’m close enough now to see the jug of water in the sand by their packs. “What could happen if you help a racer?”

  “What could happen?” She laughs, but it’s an exaggerated laugh, to show how stupid my question is. “She wants to know what could happen. Only a huge fine and maybe a little jail time for giving aid to a racer. That’s all!”

  “It’s got to be on account of her father dropping dead like that. It’s got to be,” says the man, and the hairs stand up on my arms. “That’s got to be what pushed her into the race.”

  “My father? What happened?”

  “Move along!” shouts the woman, and a wave of something dark, with a bite like cold wind, hits me in the face.

  “It’s just that I’m thirsty,” I call back, swallowing my pride because that’s what you do when your throat is burning and your mouth’s gone as dry as the sand.

  “Move along, I said!” she calls again, lifting the jug and holding it behind her. The man shakes his head and turns back to his fishing rod, but the woman never lifts her gaze from me until I’m south of them, and even then, when I throw a look back, she’s still watching me go.

  By the time the lighthouse finally comes into view, my thoughts keep switching between grief for a father I don’t remember and doubts that the fishers truly recognized me at all. My thirst doubles and then triples, so much that my legs drag, but when I see the lighthouse, I have to force myself not to sprint.

  As I come closer, I spot something so odd I think dehydration must be playing tricks on my eyes. A boy climbs the exterior of the lighthouse, looking a lot like a four-legged spider against the whitewashed bricks. He’s working his way up by finding toeholds in the places where the mortar between the bricks has crumbled away, or where the surface of the wall is uneven and little ledges jut out here and there. He does not make it look easy. He hovers about halfway between the top and the bottom of the tower, outside a solitary window framed by black shutters.

  I peer down at the map until my sun-weary eyes manage to focus on the words again. Climb to the window outside. Until now, I hadn’t realized those words were meant to be taken so literally. I squint up at the boy again, wondering what I might offer him to reveal the next clue to me.

  If I could offer the boy water, wouldn’t he be willing to share with me whatever clue he’s found? I know I would bargain for water right now.

  I circle the base of the tower, but there’s nothing. No tap, not even a puddle. A short distance inland, a line of cornstalks grows higher than my eyes, obscuring the road and everything else beyond it. Arching over this sea of green, irrigation pipes spray a fine mist into the air, but it all soaks into the soil. Not a trickle runs out from beneath the stalks.

  A road sign stands beside a driveway that cuts through the corn. One arrow points toward me: Chertsey Light. The other arrow points away: Pope’s Lake, 8 miles.

  So there’s a lake, but eight miles is a long walk.

  I turn my attention back to the boy overhead. He’s pulling himself onto a windowsill that stretches beneath the window and its black shutters. Once he’s sitting, he tugs something out of his pants pocket—his map. He flips it over to read the clue, and I turn mine in my hands and read it again, too.

  Your next destination will be written on the wall, at the place where light doesn’t pass through glass.

  The boy looks up at the wall, then swivels on the ledge and looks north. His hair is so long on top of his head that sandy brown curls fall into his face, but he brushes them away as he shades his eyes with his right hand, grasps the ledge with his left, and peers into the distance. His shoulders are broad and his legs are long. Like mine, his feet are bare. I watch him, staying out of sight, wondering if I could make it to the window—at least six stories off the ground—without falling.

  As I watch, he slides off the ledge and starts his descent, using all his strength and size to hold on, and I know I don’t have the skill to climb that wall on my own. A deal is my only hope.

  So I rehearse my speech as he eases himself down the wall. I can offer you my help. We would have an advantage if we worked as a team. Maybe he doesn’t understand the clue. Maybe it’s unclear. If he’s willing to tell me what it says, I could help him decipher it.

  He wears tan work pants and a dark tunic. As he gets closer, I begin to doubt he will accept my offer. Up close, I can see the strength in him that allowed him to make the climb. He’s got strength in the way of a person who’s worked hard for it. When he turns to look for his next toehold, loose curls hang in front of his face, giving him the appearance of someone who
can do the impossible with his eyes closed. Nothing about him says needy or desperate. His face is as composed as the surface of a quiet lake. He doesn’t even appear to be thirsty.

  I keep my eyes on him, and when his body is dangling from a height of about five feet, he lets go and drops to the sand, falling hard onto his back.

  He never makes it onto his feet.

  Six

  As soon as the boy hits the ground, three figures, a woman and two men, spring out from the deep shadow that stretches behind the lighthouse. I hadn’t even known they were there, but they’re on him in an instant. The men kneel on his shoulders to hold him down as the woman—her feet wrapped in thick-soled boots that are terrible for this heat but great for causing pain—stomps on his hand.

  His head flips back and he bares his teeth at her like a horse, thrashing so hard that sand kicks up around him. The woman’s brows tug together in her ruddy face, and she plants her other foot on his chest. He goes still, but I’d be surprised if he’s given up.

  “That was an impressive climb,” she says. Her voice is a growl. It’s the voice of a big woman, or of a small woman who’s lived a hard life. And she’s not a big woman. “What did you find marked on the wall outside the window? Tell us, and we won’t break your hand.” He remains silent except for a second hard thrash against the ground. There’s no real chance he’ll throw the men off—they’re both built like concrete pylons—but the woman slams the toe of her boot into his ribs all the same. “It would be very difficult to win the Race of Oblivion with a broken right hand. Or even worse, without an eye.” She bends over him, brushes the pile of unruly hair from his forehead, and one of her two companions smashes a fist into his left eye socket.

  The boy spits in his face.

  The man’s fist jerks back as he recoils, and he wipes his face with the back of his hand. I feel the anger rise in him, and in my mind’s eye, I see his intention to rear back and lunge for the boy’s throat.

  As his weight shifts off balance, I know this is my chance to put the boy in my debt. I have to run, but I manage to reach the man in time to seize him around the neck. He bucks as hard as a mule, but he was mid-lunge when I grabbed him, so his balance is lost. His eyes are full of shock when they meet mine before his leg buckles and he crumples to the ground, his head almost knocking against the boy’s.

  The woman tips toward me, and when she does I feel her surprise at the fact I’ve entered into the fight. I can practically smell the astonishment on her, a little like the scent of singed hair, or a rotten egg. I see her hands flying up to my face, but before she can touch me I throw my arms up and block her. The bottom of my dirty foot finds the center of her chest, leaving a sooty smudge on her tan tunic as she reels backward.

  By now the boy is struggling up from the ground. Both men have backed away, but their eyes stay on me. “Cientia,” the first man mutters. He’s a redhead, his eyes rimmed with ginger lashes, and he suddenly looks quite childlike, his eyes popping wildly. I can still see the smear of spittle on his cheek.

  Of course this is ridiculous, but if he wants to believe a few lucky moves were guided by Enchanted magic, that’s fine with me. It would matter only if he were right, and he can’t be. His gaze runs over me as if he’s trying to search out where the magic is hidden, and then his feet pedal backward before he turns and flees into the forest of corn.

  I watch him run hard after his two partners, knowing I’ve found my bargaining chip.

  The spider boy is on his feet, and from up close, he looks a lot less like a spider. He’s all angles—knees, elbows, shoulders—all the way up to his cheekbones. The only things softening the edges are the curls on top of his head that drape over his angled eyebrows. He brushes off his clothes, peering under his pushed-up sleeves at his elbows. They’re scraped, but it’s nothing too bad. He clenches and unclenches the hand the woman stomped on. “I guess I owe you my thanks,” he says. For a moment I think he will extend his hand, but if he’s contemplating it, he decides against it.

  “You’re welcome,” I chime, taking a step closer as he takes one away. “You would’ve done the same.”

  “No,” he says. He shakes his head. His eyes touch mine, and I see there’s a second soft thing about him besides his curls. His eyes are soft—a pale shade of hazel under dark lashes that curl like his hair. For a second I feel pinned by his gaze and I almost look away, but before I can, he drops his eyes to the ground. “No, I wouldn’t have.” With that, he turns and limps away, toward the narrow lane that cuts through the corn and out to the road.

  “Wait!” I say, hurrying after him. He keeps walking, forcing me to talk while matching his strides. “Didn’t I just save you? They were going to break your hand. Gouge out an eye, even. I think we need to discuss repayment. You owe me—”

  “You helped me out of your own free will,” says the boy, whirling on me. He pulls himself up to his full height and turns those soft hazel eyes hard. I wonder if he’s trying to intimidate me.

  It doesn’t matter; I won’t have it. I might be smaller than him, but I am not insignificant.

  What I did for him is not insignificant.

  His eyes search me, as if he’s assessing me. If he is, I must come up lacking. “We’re both racers. I don’t owe you my assistance and I don’t owe you my trust. I did owe you my thanks, and I gave it to you. Now I’m going. I won’t even wish you good luck, because I certainly wouldn’t mean it.” His voice is matter-of-fact. If it held even the smallest bit of irony, I’d probably think he was joking. How can he walk away after what I did for him?

  “There’s only one prize,” he continues. “Only one person wins. Look out for yourself. If you have an instinct to sacrifice for someone else, you better fight that instinct, or you’ll be the first to die.”

  He shuffles away—either the attack or the drop from the lighthouse wall has left him hurting—and my rage burns in my chest. I feel the same anger flowing back toward me from him. “I wish I knew your name,” I call at his back. “I may have forgotten everything else, but I want to remember your name. A name I will curse until I win the Crown of Oblivion.”

  To my surprise, he spins and rushes back to me. “It’s Darius,” he says, his face still possessed of that lake-water calm I saw earlier.

  “What?”

  “My name. It’s Darius. Pronounce it properly when you curse me.”

  Before I can respond, he strides away. I watch his bare feet on the pavement, wondering how far he’ll get without shoes. I wonder how far I will get, too.

  “Wait,” I call, just as he reaches the place where a curve in the road will hide him from my view. I want to let him go—I feel like a groveler calling to him one more time—but I have to ask. “How do you know your name?”

  “It’s on the map,” he calls back, without even looking over his shoulder.

  I find my map where it fell when I came to Darius’s defense, and there it is.

  Come to the lighthouse, Astrid.

  How did I miss that detail? I guess I assumed that line of the clue was a quote from a book or a poem, not a direct reference to me. “Astrid,” I say out loud, but it sounds no more familiar to my ears than Darius.

  Alone, my roiling rage begins to quiet. I circle the base of the building, scanning the exterior for a way up. Though I tried the door as soon as I arrived at the lighthouse, I try it again. Still locked.

  He did it, I tell myself. Darius made the climb. If he can do it, you can do it, too.

  I look up and notice what might be a handhold—a small, irregularly shaped brick that protrudes from the wall a foot above my head. I reach for it. I find a tiny ledge jutting out about two feet off the ground, and I wedge my toes onto that. My hand trembles and my heart pounds, but I pull myself up. I reach up with my left hand and find the next uneven brick that will give me something to grab onto.

  My muscles resist, but I climb. My shoulders tighten, my feet cramp, and when I look down, my stomach coils into a knot. But I climb.


  With each inch gained, I keep my promise and curse his name. I curse him for not helping me. I curse him for leaving a debt unpaid. But more than anything, I curse him for his warning. You’ll be the first to die.

  I reject his warning, and I will prove him wrong. He’ll see. I won’t be the first to die, and I won’t be the last. I’ll win the Crown of Oblivion, and with every step along the way, I will curse Darius’s name.

  Seven

  My whole body shakes with exhaustion when I finally stretch up and take hold of the ledge beneath the window. I’m almost there, but in this moment, the almost counts for quite a bit. Wind gusts up along the wall and ripples along my dress, but I manage to keep moving upward, until I find myself on my hands and knees on the narrow sill.

  I remain there for a long time, waiting for my heart to calm down, until I realize that the fear is getting worse instead of better. When I finally find the will to move, I drop into a sitting position and hang my legs over the side.

  Once I’m steadied, I let myself look down at the ground. A small crowd—maybe five or six people—gathers below, watching me. Racers, lying in wait for me to bring them the clue.

  I’ll need to get past them when I head back down, but I can’t worry about that now. One thing at a time.

  My eyes skim along the horizon, and I see where the lane Darius took joins up with a road, but I don’t see Darius. Instead, I see rows and rows of corn. The landscape is nearly flat, but the ground is broken into a patchwork of fields, all of which would be barren land if it weren’t for the long arms of silver pipe stretching over them, throwing wide arcs of water into the air.

  The corn hides Darius from view, along with any other racers who might be approaching from whatever places they awoke from the drug. I glance up and down the beach, but except for the crowd at my feet, I see no one.

  Out on the sea behind me, a boat floats like a toy in a tub. At first I think it’s a fishing boat, but then I realize it’s somebody’s yacht. Somebody is out on the water having fun while racers are risking their lives for the Crown of Oblivion.