The Lost Kingdom

by Matthew J. Kirby

“It is symbolic. We preserved the last of the water in a bottle. There have been rare times, very rare, where we have poured it into the chalice and allowed someone to drink from it.”

  Mr. Kinnersley chewed on his lower lip. “You’ve granted them eternal life.”

  “It is not something we do lightly.” Madoc went to Andrew. It seemed that Myrddin had slowed the bleeding from his chest. “I have a question they must answer first, and they have to want immortality without doubt.”

  “Who wouldn’t want it?” Mr. Kinnersley asked.

  Madoc regarded him. “I, for one, do not want it. And you would be wise to consider why you wish for it.”

  His voice carried a burden of sadness, and it made me wonder about the cost of living forever. The pain, the loss, and the grief of life that would never end. “Is the water why you don’t have children?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “No child has been born since we drank it. Except one. There was a woman among us who was already with child when we found the spring. When that child was born, she was most precious to us. We raised her, assuming she would have our immortality. But in the end, she merely lived a long, long life. And that life was all she wanted. Though I offered it to her many times, she never drank from the chalice. Your people knew her as Madame Montour.”

  Jane touched her neck. “Andrew’s mother.”

  Madoc smiled. “To protect us, she never told anyone where she came from. Not even her own son. But she left him hints and clues, and I think she always hoped he would somehow find his way home.”

  “Just now,” I said, “you offered him the water, and he accepted. Would it save him?”

  “It would have,” Madoc said.

  “Could it have saved Phineas?” Mr. Faries asked.

  “No.” Myrddin used a rag to wipe Andrew’s blood from his hands. “We tried, but it was too late for your companion. Everything has a limit, even the healing power of the water.”

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to ask my next question. “Is it too late for Andrew?”

  “What is the point of that question?” Myrddin threw the rag to the floor. “The water is gone.”

  “What if we can get it back?” I asked.

  “What makes you think there is anything to get back?” Mr. Kinnersley sounded impatient. “Francis will have drunk it all by now, surely.”

  “No, he won’t.” Mr. Colden’s smile was half-smirk. “I know Francis, and he’ll conserve every single drop.”

  I watched Myrddin lay a bandage over Andrew’s chest. What time we had to save him was slipping away. Every moment had worth. “If the water can heal Andrew,” I said, “we need to get it back. And we need to hurry.”

  Mr. Kinnersley frowned. “What do you think, Cadwallader?”

  Mr. Colden shook his head. “I defer to John.”

  I faced my father, my posture defiant. He had threatened to leave Andrew for dead once before, and I expected him to do the same again. Especially now that I knew where his anger came from. The reason for his hatred of the Indians had deep and tangled roots.

  “I think …” He was talking to everyone, but he looked right at me. “I agree with Billy.”

  Though neither of us moved, his words closed some of the distance between us.

  “If you’re going after him,” Madoc said, “then I’m coming with you.”

  Mr. Faries took a few steps toward the door. “He must have stolen it during the battle. Which means he has been on foot only a matter of hours. If we can find his trail, we can easily catch him. My apologies, Ebenezer, but Francis is an old man, after all.”

  Madoc took up his sword. “Not anymore.”

  Out on the village green, we discussed which direction to search. Everyone agreed Mr. Godfrey would not be heading west, deeper into the frontier, nor south, along the retreat of Marin’s forces. That left north and east, and between the two, my father decided that east seemed more likely, as north would take Mr. Godfrey closer to the French forts at Kaskaskia and Saint Louis.

  “I think I’ll wait here,” Mr. Kinnersley said. “You were right about old men, Mr. Faries. I’ll only slow you down, and Andrew doesn’t have the time to spare.”

  My father looked at Mr. Faries’s arm in its sling. “You should stay as well.”

  Mr. Faries frowned but nodded. “Find him, John.”

  “We will.”

  Mr. Colden shifted on his feet. He looked at Jane. “John, I —”

  “Stay, Cadwallader. Stay with your daughter.”

  Mr. Colden nodded.

  So my father, Madoc, and I set off at a run down the same road out of the village that had brought us in, then climbed back up the mountain. Though I had no idea what signs to look for, it did not take long for my father to spot evidence of Mr. Godfrey’s passing.

  “He’s choosing speed over secrecy and keeping to the trails.”

  “How do you know?” Madoc asked.

  “The plants tell me all I need. And they never lie.”

  We raced along, moving quickly through the forest, scattering birds from the trees. My father led the way, and I came next, followed by Madoc.

  My father called over his shoulder. “How long until the water takes effect?”

  “He’ll feel younger right away,” Madoc said. “But the full transformation takes days.”

  “Not Godfrey,” my father said. “Andrew.”

  “Oh.” Madoc paused. “Once he drinks the water, he will heal quickly.”

  We covered what I guessed to be several miles. My father still found regular signs of Mr. Godfrey. We knew we were on his trail. But we had no idea how far ahead he might be. After an hour or more of running, my father called a brief halt to rest.

  I breathed hard and spat. A slight pain jabbed my chest.

  “I thought we’d have overtaken him by now,” my father said.

  “What is your plan when we find him?” Madoc adjusted the sword on his belt. “I know what I would do, but he is your man.”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  We rested a few moments longer and set off again. The pain in my chest stabbed deeper, making it difficult to breathe. But the thought of Andrew silenced any thoughts I had of stopping. We ran several more miles, and the sun began its evening descent at our backs, lighting up the forest before us. It reminded me of being up in Mr. Faries’s cannon, the bronze shields behind me.

  Not long after that, my father slowed and stopped. He glanced back at me and Madoc, his finger to his lips, and we crept forward silently to the edge of a bluff.

  Down below, at the bottom of a steep incline, spread a field of incognitum bones. Acres and acres of jumbled skeletons rested together. Their ribs and tusks jutted upward in all directions, the single, empty eye cavities in their skulls staring endlessly.

  “My god,” my father whispered.

  “I haven’t been here in many years,” Madoc said. “We found the bones before we saw the living animals, so we called them cewri. Giants.”

  “What happened here?” my father asked.

  “Whatever it was, it happened long before my people came.” Madoc leaned out. “I think something drove the herd off the edge and they fell to their deaths. But sometimes the living cewri come here. They use their long snouts to gently move and touch the bones. Sometimes, they stay for days. They know what this place is.”

  Movement caught my eye. There was something down there.

  “Father, look!”

  It was Mr. Godfrey, crossing the bone field.

  “Quickly!” My father charged right over the bluff, down the hill.

  Madoc and I looked at each other, and then we both followed him.

  I took the slope half sliding, half running. Mr. Godfrey saw us coming down and increased his pace, but he seemed to be having a difficult time picking his way over the skeletons.

  We hit the bottom of the hill and continued after him.

  “Stop, Francis!” my father yelled. “It’s no use running!”

  “I’ll c
ircle around him.” Madoc split off from us to the right.

  “Let me go, John!” Mr. Godfrey said. “You don’t understand!”

  The three of us moved more quickly than he did. The bones slipped, rolled, and cracked under my feet. I grabbed hold of them to steady myself, their white surfaces smooth in my hand. And as we drew closer, I saw that Mr. Godfrey did look younger. His hair wasn’t as gray, and his wrinkles not as deep. But he wasn’t quite young, yet.

  “You don’t understand, Francis!” my father said. “We need that water for healing! Andrew will die!”

  “I’m sorry, John!” Mr. Godfrey kept going, clawing his way forward, his movements frantic.

  Madoc had almost made it around him. Just a few more feet and he would cut him off.

  “Francis!” my father shouted.

  “No, John! No! I won’t — !”

  Madoc’s sword rang as he pulled it free of its scabbard. “Halt, old man.”

  Mr. Godfrey stopped. “Old man.” He was panting, and laughing, or crying. I couldn’t tell which. “Old man.”

  “It will go hard for you, Francis.” My father stretched out his hand. “Unless you give me the bottle.”

  “No!”

  “Mr. Godfrey!” I stepped toward him. “Andrew is hurt. I know you don’t want him to die.”

  “Of course not!” He looked skyward. “But there isn’t another way, Billy. I’ve searched, and there isn’t. I’m dying!”

  “Of course you are,” my father said. “So are we all.”

  “No, John. I am dying.”

  “I don’t understand,” my father said. “How could you do this, Francis? After all we’ve done together, I thought I knew what manner of man you were.”

  “Oh, you know me very well.” He pulled the pack off his back. “A monk, a magician, and a madman, isn’t that what you said?”

  What? My father had used those words to describe …

  “Kelpius?” My father’s footing slipped, but he caught himself.

  Mr. Godfrey opened the pack and pulled out the bottle. It caught the fading sunlight, and I could see its contents sloshing inside. Mr. Faries had been right. He hadn’t drunk it all yet.

  “I had the philosopher’s stone!” Mr. Godfrey stared at the bottle in his hand. “I’ve lived countless lives, under countless names, until one of my half-wit followers decided to throw my possessions into the river! He threw away the philosopher’s stone!”

  So the stories about him were true.

  “Without it,” Mr. Godfrey said. “I began to age. I began to die!”

  “That was why you came on the expedition,” my father said.

  “Yes.” He looked up from the bottle. “The Fountain of Youth.”

  “Enough of this!” Madoc raised his sword. “Let me strike this madman down.”

  Mr. Godfrey raised the bottle over his head. “Strike me and you shatter any hope that Andrew has!”

  Madoc lowered his sword.

  “Francis.” My father calmed his voice to a conversational tone. “Be rational. You already drank the water. You don’t need it any longer.”

  “Oh, but I do. I can’t take any more risks!”

  “Mr. Godfrey, please!” I shouted.

  “I’m sorry, Billy.” He turned back to my father. “Why do you care about that Indian, anyway, John? I thought you hated him.”

  My father fell silent. I had wondered the same thing — why was he doing this for Andrew? — and I waited for his answer. “To err is human, Francis.”

  “Pope was a hack!” Mr. Godfrey laughed. “And his translations were abominable. Do not quote him to me, sir.”

  But I’d heard my father say it. Perhaps he had listened to me, after all, as we stood upon the green.

  “Answer me this, madman,” Madoc said. “It is a question I ask of everyone before they are allowed to drink from the chalice.”

  Mr. Godfrey waited.

  “Do you seek immortality because you fear death, or because you want life?”

  The question appeared simple on its surface. But it grew deeper by looking at it, and it seemed to penetrate Mr. Godfrey’s thoughts. In that moment of distraction, my father lunged at him, grasping for the bottle.

  “No!” Mr. Godfrey wrestled him for it.

  And suddenly the bottle flew from their hands.

  It tumbled through the air.

  I ran and dove for it, my arms and hands and fingers stretched as far as they could. I caught the bottle before it hit the ground, but I went down, and my shoulder slammed into an incognitum skull.

  “The bottle!” My father let go of Mr. Godfrey and rushed toward me.

  “I have it!” I held it to my chest. “It’s safe.”

  “The madman flees!” Madoc said.

  Mr. Godfrey scrambled away from us over the bone field.

  I got to my feet, careful of the bottle, and handed it over to my father.

  “Do we pursue him?” Madoc asked.

  My father watched him for a moment. “No. No, we have what we came for.”

  “Are you certain? My sword still thirsts.”

  “Can it ever be quenched?” my father asked.

  Madoc looked down at the blade in his hands. Something flashed in his eyes, some recognition, and then they softened. “How easily it is lost,” he whispered.

  Mr. Godfrey reached the edge of the forest and turned back to look at us. In spite of what he had done, I was sad for him. His madness —

  Suddenly, the bear-wolf erupted from the trees behind him, and an instant later had Mr. Godfrey’s neck in its jaws. It lifted him into the air and shook him violently, his legs and arms flying wildly, and then it dropped his limp and lifeless body to the ground. Broken stubs of arrows jutted from the bear-wolf’s neck and side. It was the same beast, and it must have been mad with pain and fear. We watched, motionless, as it sniffed what was left of Mr. Godfrey and then lifted its head toward us.

  It roared.

  “Run!” my father shouted.

  We tore across the field toward the forest, tripping and stumbling, chips and splinters of bone flying behind us. My father and I raced shoulder to shoulder. But fear burned in my body, a familiar fire, and by degrees, I pulled ahead of him.

  I glanced back. He was running hard, grimacing. And behind him came the bear-wolf. It was gaining on him fast.

  I could not beat my father to the trees. I could not leave him behind.

  I slowed my feet, and the distance between us vanished. And then my father was beside me again, shouting, “Go, Billy! Leave me and go!”

  But I stayed with him.

  Madoc reached the trees ahead of us. He spun around, gripping his sword with both hands extended before him, shouting a battle cry. “Dewch â’ch brwydr i mi, cythraul!”

  We were almost there.

  But then what would we do? The trees offered no safety, no escape.

  The bear-wolf roared. It jolted me, close enough to feel on the back of my neck. I lost track of my footing, tripped over a tusk, and crashed off to the side into a pile of bones. The bear-wolf slid to a stop. I rolled up onto my knees to face it as it turned back toward me.

  “Billy!” my father shouted.

  The beast’s breath rattled. I could hear a gurgling sound deep in its chest from where I knelt. And it swayed on its long legs, the fur around its wounds matted with blood. It was dying. And padding closer to me with its teeth and its claws. I had no weapon. I couldn’t run. It was over. With that awareness came calm assurance.

  I bowed my head, my hands in my lap. I thought back to my animal dream, the one in which I had lived and died several times over. “It’s all right.” I spoke to it calmly, but also to myself. “I don’t hate you. I am what I am, and you are what you are. And though we are different, we are connected.”

  Its front paws stepped into my view, directly before me, the size of wine casks. Its head had to be right above mine. Was it looking at me? Smelling me? What was it waiting for? I barely breathed, but I
raised my head and looked into its rich brown eyes. It stared back into mine.

  “For Annwyn!” Madoc cried.

  He came from the side and rammed the bear-wolf hard, driving the entire length of his sword up into its chest, just behind its front legs. A heart wound. The bear-wolf staggered sideways. It lifted its head and moaned, then huffed and tottered.

  “Get out of the way, Billy!” my father shouted.

  Madoc grabbed my arm and pulled me up and away as the bear-wolf collapsed onto the bones. Its chest rose twice more, then stilled.

  My father rushed up, his mouth agape. Then he threw his arms around me in a hug.

  I just stood there. In my mind, I saw the memory of the bear-wolf shaking Mr. Godfrey’s body, breaking it. That could have been me. It could have done that to me. A trembling started in my legs and moved up through my chest, into my arms. I realized I was crying.

  My father hugged me tighter.

  I lifted my arms and hugged him back.

  Back at Annwyn, in Madoc’s hall, we all stood around Andrew as Myrddin emptied the contents of the bottle into his mouth. Every last drop. Andrew choked and swallowed it down, and within a matter of moments, the rictus of pain faded from his face.

  “It is working,” Myrddin said.

  Sighs of relief turned to tears and laughter.

  Madoc crossed the hall and collapsed onto his throne. “That a man should live to see such times.” He shook his head. “Cannons that shoot light and men who stare down bear-wolves.”

  He had called me a man.

  My father went before him. “The fires destroyed most of your crops. I would like to offer the aid of the Philosophical Society in helping you replant and rebuild.”

  Madoc said nothing.

  “We can begin work right away,” my father said.

  “When I sailed from my country,” Madoc said, “all those years ago, I did so to find peace. My father had just died. Four of my brothers fought for his throne, and I did not want to be drawn into their wars. Even so, it took us hundreds of years to find the peace we sought in this land, and if we had not been immortal, we never would have. And I see now how fragile a thing it is.” He stood. “I appreciate your offer of assistance, John Bartram. But we will not rebuild. The French will only return.”