Crown of Oblivion

by Julie Eshbaugh

  He turns and walks away, but then he stops and calls my name, and I can’t help but hurry over to him.

  “The closer you get to winning the race, the more anxious the Authority will be to arrest you. Do you know why?”

  “I . . .” This is something I hadn’t really thought about. “Why does the Enchanted Authority pursue anyone? Because I’ve broken the law—”

  “Trust me, there are plenty of lawbreakers in Lanoria, but you’ve broken a law that represents the whole of Lanorian order—the law against Outsider magic—and they can’t let you get away with that.” He smiles at me, and I can tell he thinks he’s pretty clever. “But here’s their conundrum. . . . If you win, you’ll be a citizen. You can’t be charged with using Enchanted magic if you have the same rights as the Enchanteds. The closer you come to winning this race, the more the Authority will ratchet up their efforts to arrest you before you win—”

  “If I win—”

  “Correct. If you win.”

  He turns and starts to walk away again, but now it’s my turn to call his name. “Where will you go after you leave here? I’ll look for you once the race is done.”

  “Why?” he asks. His tone is as rough as new sandpaper. I wish he wouldn’t throw so much guilt at me. Walking away is hard enough, but honestly, his guilt is making me want to run. “You’ll be a citizen,” he calls. “You’ll have all the rights of the Enchanted, and you’ll fall in step with them, just like your friends, those traitors of the Third Way.”

  “What?” I understand if he’s feeling betrayed by me, but why drag the Third Way into this? “Why do you call them traitors? They live in peace. You were living among them—”

  “Among them, but not as one of them. Their compound is a perfect place to hide, and they have resources the OLA lacks. But the Outsiders who have joined them—how do they live with themselves? How do they look in the mirror? They know their own people are oppressed and slaughtered every day, and yet they mix with their oppressors. Some of them even sleep with them.” He pauses and spits on the ground. “How could any Outsider aspire to coexist with the butchers of their own people?” he asks, and then waits, as if that’s a question I’m supposed to answer.

  But I can’t. I just stare at him in silence, my own admiration for the people of the Third Way suddenly challenged. Could he be right? “But the Enchanted who live with the Third Way are different—”

  “If I told you monsters could be tamed, would you want to live with monsters? Even a tame monster is still a monster.”

  I don’t know how to respond to this, so I say, “So that’s it? You won’t tell me a thing about who I am?”

  “I’ll tell you every detail if you don’t finish the race—”

  “I’m going, Jayden. I have to. I might not remember the girl I was when I entered this race, but I know I can’t let that girl down.” Then, after giving him a few moments to change his mind and tell me more about my past, I say, “Thanks for your help.”

  “Thanks for yours, too,” he says. And then he walks away.

  I need to go. Other racers may be well on their way to the Amaranthine Forest, but I can’t move until Jayden completely disappears from my view.

  Twenty-Six

  I allow myself one minute to sweep my eyes over the center page of the atlas—the page that shows a map of the whole continent of Lanoria—and locate the Amaranthine Forest. A logging road connects it to the north gate of Falling Leaf, but a hike through the woods will be more direct, and more discreet.

  The trees grow close and thick, and the ground is shaded by a dense canopy. I don’t hike long before the foliage is already changing, and I realize the Amaranthine Forest’s name is its literal description. Trees with all-green foliage are already in the minority; most of the trees around me now have some purple in their leaves. The farther north I walk, the greater the number of one particular variety, a tree with dark purple leaves that turn blue as the season changes them, so that after a while, I’m tramping across leaf litter that resembles the sea. There are other varieties too, one with shades of raspberry and another with lavender, and every now and then I notice a standard green tree, which by contrast looks shocking and odd.

  Eventually I come to a high chain-link fence, but there’s an open gate where it crosses the road. Right beyond the gate sits a trio of buildings made of purple wood, and above the gate the words Native Flora Research Station are carved into a simple wooden sign. Before stepping out from under cover I search the road, but if the Authority is coming, it isn’t here yet. I hurry up to the closest door. Two small signs hang right beside the knob. The first is written by hand on a sheet of paper: No Racers Inside! The second, printed on cloth and hung like a banner, says: To find the truth you seek, you must see the forest through the eyes of a bird.

  Though the first sign makes me want to march right into the building and let everyone inside know how much I resent being treated like an unwelcome indigent, the second sign is certainly a clue. I have to keep moving, so I shrug off the insult.

  I’m still standing on the path looking up at the door when it swings toward me and a man walks out. He has a mop of white hair on top of a square head, and he needs a shave. When his eyes fall on me he gives a little grunt, and for a moment, I think he’s going to retreat back into the building. But then he shuffles down the three short steps and asks if I’m a racer.

  “I am,” I say, in a voice that makes it sound as if being a racer is the thing I’m most proud of in life.

  “Well, then I might as well tell you that there is a nest in one of the rafters that overhangs the bridge. It’s a falcon’s nest, but the birds have already left it for the season. Anyway, it might help you with this clue.”

  I don’t quite know how to respond, since the last thing I expected from this gruff Enchanted man was assistance, so it takes me a moment to formulate my reply. But then he pushes past me, grumbling to himself. The faster you all find the clue—or break your necks trying—the faster you will all be gone and we can get back to our work. Something like that. I can’t catch it all because he’s speaking to himself instead of me, while he walks away, no less.

  It would be impossible to miss the trestle bridge. Towering above the tops of the trees, it carries train track between two high slopes that border this wide valley. It’s one of those examples of engineering that stop your breath. It’s so massive it’s almost miraculous. As I stand in the shadow of this intricate lattice of wooden beams, my mind goes to the Village of Falling Leaf and the clear-cut forest above the dormitories for the Outsider laborers and the Enchanted taskmasters, and I wonder if that’s where all this lumber came from.

  Looking up, I spot the nest the white-haired man told me about. It’s way up at the top, in the rafters that overhang the tracks, so it won’t be easy to get to.

  My heart takes flight at the sight of that nest, but as fast as it goes up, it crashes back down. Between me and that nest, two racers are already making the climb through the beams. I half expect one to be Darius, since the first time I saw him he was climbing the lighthouse, making it look easy. He’s not one of these two, though, which doesn’t necessarily mean he’s not ahead of me. As long as he was watching the gate of Falling Leaf at dawn, he could have already been here and gone. But instead of Darius, I notice the ginger-haired racer who seems to always be one step ahead of me, and way ahead of him, almost high enough to climb up onto the track, is a racer with dark hair and gangly limbs.

  Something flutters in my chest, a flutter of hope, which infuriates me, but I can’t help myself. At least from this distance, it could be Marlon.

  I grab a beam at the foot of the trestle and throw myself into the climb. This structure is much easier to scale than the lighthouse, even with an aching shoulder, and I’m able to put distance between me and the ground quickly.

  I try to talk to myself, to tell myself not to look down, but I can’t help it. I drop my gaze all the way to the ground just as I reach the track, and my hea
rt would probably race if it hadn’t just stopped. Stopped cold, along with my lungs, at the sight of the treetops so far below me.

  But then I squeeze my eyes shut and turn my face up toward the tracks. When my breath comes back and my heart restarts, I swear I won’t look at the ground again until I’ve retrieved the clue and worked my way back down, and even then, not until I’m just a foot above the grass.

  By the time I manage to crest the top and get my shaking legs under me so I’m standing up on the track, both the Racer Who Could Be Marlon and My Ginger Nemesis are way down the line and moving farther away, toward a second nest at the other end of the bridge. It might be another falcon’s nest—I can’t be sure, because it’s too far away and the ginger-haired racer is blocking my view. So I move toward the nest I saw from the ground. It’s much closer, with the added advantage of drawing me away from the others, which, way up here, seems like the only safe choice.

  Standing on these tracks, so high in the air, is sobering, yet it makes my legs as weak as if I were drunk. I can’t help but wonder if the person who designed this year’s race is some masochist with a fear of heights, because this is the second clue we’ve had to climb for. Either that, or they are just looking for an easy way to thin the ranks of the racers, since there is no real railing up here, and it would be easy enough to catch your toe on a board and tumble to the forest floor below. With its carpet of blue leaves blown free by the wind, the ground could almost be water, but I know it wouldn’t feel like water if I were to fall.

  When I reach the nest, I find a plaque nailed to one of the posts directly beneath it, with the following inscription:

  1. Your map

  2. The lighthouse

  3. The dance hall

  4. The roadhouse

  5. The outpost

  6. The first sign in the desert

  7. The second sign in the desert

  8. The gate of Falling Leaf

  9. The Amaranthine Forest

  10. ???

  Of the Tenth there are Ten, and they are all green. But the Tenth of the Ten is burning.

  I don’t know what that means, but I can’t get out the atlas here, so I reach into my bag and pull out the pen the cleaning woman at the taskmaster dormitory gave me. With a few quick words—Ten, all green, Tenth is burning—I make a note of the clue on the palm of my left hand and get ready to climb down.

  When I shrug my bag back onto my good shoulder, I hear something. More importantly I feel something. I look up to see the ginger-haired racer stalking toward me, and I understand all at once that he is more interested in getting to me than he is interested in getting to the clue. He was up here ahead of me. Perhaps he’s already read it.

  Perhaps he’s been waiting for me.

  “Don’t do it,” I say. “This is not a good place for a fight.”

  “Oh, but it is,” he sneers, and I realize that he is willing to risk his own life to try to take mine.

  Even if I were guaranteed to beat him, I know a fight here would be a mistake. I could win and still fall. And it’s definitely not a sure win. We’ve fought twice, and we’ve each won once. No matter what he thinks, this bridge is definitely not the place for the tiebreaker. So I follow my instincts, and I turn and run.

  The wind hits me hard from behind, but he hits me harder. Before I reach the end of the bridge, his hands come down heavy on my shoulders and he throws me to the tracks.

  Rolling onto my back, I stare up at him. His eyes are wild. He even manages a smile. I can feel how pleased he is with himself. “Your satisfaction is premature,” I say, and I brace myself, anticipating a punch or a kick, but I’m shocked when I feel nothing but restraint in him.

  I get it. . . . I realize what he’s thinking, and he’s right: This battle isn’t about landing the best blow. It’s about keeping your balance. And that’s why, still safe on my back, I bring my feet up and slam them hard against his chest.

  He’s fast, though, and he catches my ankles, and I see on his face and I feel in the air how satisfied he is. This is exactly what he was hoping for—a chance to pick me up and throw me to my death. And I know he’ll do it, if I can’t break free. So as he lunges to my right and tries to drag me toward the edge, I reach left and grab hold of the track. My legs hang over on the right for just a moment, but I don’t slide after them. Instead, I pull them back up and swing them toward him, knocking his feet out from under him. With a loud grunt, he falls to the track right in front of me.

  Before he can get up, I’m on my feet. The temptation to try to beat him once and for all—to end him, the way he wants to end me—is overridden by my singular need to stay alive. So I squat down and reach between the slats that hold up the tracks, looking for a handhold that will let me drop down before he gets up, but he’s too quick.

  “Not so fast,” he says, and his voice is almost a growl. You’d think he’d be ready to quit, but he’s as relentless as a rabid dog. Before I can scramble away from his grasp, he has me by the collar of my coat and is dragging me up to my feet.

  “Come on!” he calls. I take a few steps back and give him a hard look. He’s in a half crouch, his elbows bent and his fists near his face, and I realize he’s not going to stop.

  One of us is about to die.

  Behind his back, at the other end of the bridge, I can still see the other racer—the one with dark hair that I hope could be Marlon. He’s watching this fight from a safe distance. If I’m about to be killed, I sure hope that’s really Marlon. I hope he’s still living and could still win this race.

  “Come on!” my nemesis calls out again, but I won’t give him what he wants. I make him make the first move, and for just the thinnest moment before he does, I sense it—his right foot coming at my waist, sweeping me over the side. I raise my hands and catch his ankle, and then I’m leaning into him hard and shoving him away from me with all the strength I can find.

  His eyes light up, his arms shoot out, and the wind at his back pushes all his red hair into his eyes. His feet don’t stop pedaling backward until he collides with a post and grabs hold of it.

  That’s when I notice something directly over his head, just an inch or so above his hair—a bulbous and bumpy globe that appears to be made of purple papier-mâché. A hornet’s nest. I realize what it is a moment too late, though, because while I’m still standing, staring up at it, a cloud of hornets pours out of a hole near the bottom, a cloud that moves like a billow of smoke, if a billow of smoke wanted to kill me.

  If I’m stung, it might mean nothing more than a bunch of itchy welts, or it might mean much worse if I’m allergic. Instinctively, I pull my hands up into my sleeves and turn the collar of my coat up to protect my neck, when a loud train whistle pierces the air.

  It rips my attention away from the buzzing mass around my head. At first, I tell myself it can’t be. But then the whistle comes again, and I know that the ginger-haired racer and the cloud of hornets have some new competition when it comes to who will kill me today.

  The hornets are suddenly much less frightening—I’ll have to risk their stings—as I force myself to look down and grab hold of one of the beams at my feet. Buzzing fills my ears and something pinches the back of my neck, but I block it out and swing over the side of the bridge, hooking my legs on the scaffolding below. Then I’m hanging upside down, and my ginger-haired nemesis is climbing down across from me. Hornets still buzz around my ears and crawl across my face, but it doesn’t even rattle me. Because at this very moment, a train is flying across the track, and the Racer Who Could Be Marlon is still on the bridge.

  There is nothing I can do. I’m frozen, waiting, but waiting for what? A scream? Some sound of impact?

  When the train is long gone and the trestle finally stops vibrating, I know I need to climb back up.

  The ginger-haired racer has almost reached the ground, but I can’t worry about him now. My left shoulder throbs, but I ignore it, along with the burning from the hornet stings on the back of my neck. All tha
t matters is getting to the top of the tracks in hopes that somehow the Racer Who Could Be Marlon survived.

  Pulling myself back up onto the tracks, I’m overwhelmed by the quiet. How can this be the very place I stood just a moment ago? The hornets are all gone, and only the hot scent of metal on metal is left in the wake of the train.

  I cross the bridge, staring down into the scaffolding below me, hoping I will find Marlon hanging from the support beams. But all I find is a solitary thick-soled boot.

  I know this boot. It was on the foot of the small woman with the big voice who stomped on Darius’s hand and kicked him in the ribs at the foot of the lighthouse. The racer I had seen who I’d hoped was Marlon was never Marlon at all. Relief washes over me, even as I notice blood on the tracks.

  There’s a flutter in my stomach like it’s crawling with hornets, and I glue my eyes to the tracks before I notice anything else. I’ve got to go. I can’t think about the racer who died here. I’ve got to think about the ginger-haired racer, who’s already running across the forest floor ahead of me.

  Once I’m on the ground I head downhill, kicking up blue leaves and trying to guess how far the road is, when I hear the quiet hum of idling engines. In the distance I spot the research station, and beyond its gate, two long lines of trucks being loaded with pallets of wood. I run toward them at a full sprint until I notice two Authority guards. I can only guess they’ve been sent here to look for a female racer who uses Enchanted magic. Beside them another vehicle idles, a black truck with a covered bed. The words Enchanted Authority are emblazoned on the side.

  I’m still under the cover of the trees when I come to a full stop. Something itches at the back of my mind.

  I can’t pull my eyes from the two Authority guards, and something about their broad-shouldered profiles brings to mind the sound of voices, cheers and shouts of Apples! and Hail the harvest! And then in my mind’s eye I can see Marlon, not the way he looked at the roadhouse, but the way he looked on a day that could only be a memory from before the race.