The Rise of the Wrym Lord tdw-2

by Wayne Thomas Batson

  And then there was Gwenne. Aidan had thought he’d come up with a clever plan to see her again. “See you soon!” he had said just before kissing Gwenne on the cheek and leaving The Realm. He had figured that since every Glimpse had a human twin, he’d just find Gwenne’s double, and everything would be happy ever after. Good thinking. She could be anywhere in the whole world! And I might not even recognize her since time works differently between The Realm and earth. She could be three or thirty for all I know.

  The visions he’d been having and Grampin’s diary had muddled things further. And to top it all off, Aidan’s mom-a high school math teacher-had called the math department chairman at Aidan’s new school to get Aidan bumped up to honors math. I barely scraped by with an A in general math, and she puts me in honors? At last the bus turned onto Aidan’s street. As it hissed to a stop, just inches from the curb, Aidan issued a silent plea to King Eliam for help.

  Aidan boarded the bus. Great! No open seats! He’d just about given up hope of finding a seat when he reached the back of the bus and noticed that the second to the last seat on the left was occupied by only one person. It was a very tall male student wearing a black long-sleeved T-shirt and the baggiest jeans Aidan had ever seen. He had his knees and feet up on the dark green bench seat. The boy’s hair was spiked and dark except for blue highlights on the pointy ends. He wore headphones and was completely oblivious to Aidan standing there.

  Six other kids filled the seats near Mr. Bluehair. Black seemed to be their favorite color. Some wore leather jackets. Others wore trench coats. Most wore military boots. But it was all black. The most disturbing thing to Aidan, other than the group’s black attire and various shocks of technicolored hair, was their makeup.

  The boys all wore eyeliner, eye shadow-even lipstick. Black of course. There were two girls. The one with short, spiked, white-blond hair wore fierce blush and deep purple eye shadow. She had double eyeliner that streaked back from the corners of her eyes. Cleopatra! Aidan thought. She looks like a punk version of Cleopatra. The other girl, the one with very long, very red hair, didn’t wear much makeup at all. Her wide eyes were startlingly blue.

  The bus lurched. Aidan lurched. Finally, the girl with the long red hair glanced up sideways at Aidan. She brushed a wave of red hair over one ear that was pierced more than once, and she continued to stare. Aidan felt as if he was being sized up, analyzed, measured-like he was an insect under a blue-eyed microscope. Her stare felt oddly familiar, but uncomfortable at the same time.

  At last, she reached over the seat and pushed Mr. Bluehair in the back of the head. He looked up and suddenly realized that Aidan was standing there. Without a word, he put his feet on the floor and scooted over so Aidan could sit down.

  Although he felt very much alone in the back of the bus with the trench-coat clan, Aidan knew he was not alone. Recent events had taught him that much.

  “Honors math. Great… just great!” Aidan grumbled as he left the main office. He looked down at his new schedule and wondered why his mom thought this was the best class for him. The bell rang. Now he was late for class! After bounding up a flight of stairs, he finally found the honors math classroom. Aidan eased open the door and tentatively walked in. The teacher had her back turned and was writing on the chalkboard.

  “Uh, excuse me, Mrs…, um-” Aidan looked down at the schedule. “Mrs. Van Der Ick?”

  “That’s VanDerEyck,” said the teacher as she turned. “It’s Dutch. Like eye with a ‘k’ at the end. VanDerEyck. And who are you?”

  “I’m Aidan. Aidan Thomas.”

  “You aren’t on my class list.”

  “I… I’m a new add.”

  “I see,” said Mrs. VanDerEyck. She picked up a chart. “Thomas. That will put you in the seat behind Ms. Reed. We’ll have to move Ms. Timmons, Mr. Young, and Ms. Zook.”

  She glanced up and three students immediately stood and moved to different desks.

  The teacher nodded and then looked back at Aidan. “Order, Mr. Thomas. Get very used to order. It is the foundational principle that makes math worth our study. Keeping my seating chart in strict alphabetical order makes it possible for me to learn your names immediately. And in much the same way, I will teach you to recognize the order of all the operations of math, and you will learn deeply and at great speed. Now, Mr. Thomas, take your seat behind Ms. Reed.”

  Aidan looked nervously about, wishing he’d been watching the students who moved. There were two empty seats now, and he wasn’t sure which student had left the seat he was now supposed to occupy.

  Finally, the slightest of waves caught his attention. To Aidan’s surprise, it was the red-haired girl from the bus. She waved again, more a ripple of fingers than a wave, but Aidan hurried over and took the seat behind her.

  “Thanks!” he whispered to her.

  “No problem,” she whispered back. “You looked a little lost.”

  “She seems kind of strict,” Aidan said.

  “Confident, I think,” she replied. “I like her.”

  And those were the last non-math-related words anyone said the rest of that class. Mrs. VanDerEyck became a hurricane of information, and it was all Aidan could do to hang on to a pencil.

  In the hall after class, Aidan felt a tap on his shoulder. “Hey, it’s Aidan, right?” It was the red-haired girl, Ms. Reed.

  “Yeah, that’s right, um-”

  “Antoinette. I’m Antoinette Reed,” she said. “You aren’t from Red Rocks Middle-that’s where I went last year. Are you from Breezewood?”

  “No, I’m from Maryland. We just moved here in July.”

  “Oh, Maryland, huh? What’s your next class?”

  “Uh, art, I think.”

  “Art? With Mr. Kurtz?”

  Aidan looked at his schedule. “Yeah, Mr. Kurtz, room 192.”

  “Me too,” said Antoinette. “I’ll walk with you.”

  Aidan wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. The thought occurred to him that Mr. Bluehair and the rest of the trench-coat clan might not like it.

  They easily found the class. Students filed in and checked the seating chart. Antoinette waltzed in and quickly found her seat. Aidan didn’t have a seat on the chart and stood there like he’d just been hit by a bus. He had, in fact-a bus named Antoinette Reed.

  Finally, Mr. Kurtz-a tall, slender man with a beak nose and big eyes-came over to Aidan.

  “Your schedule, please,” he said, drawing out each syllable ridiculously. “Yup, no doubt about it, you belong here.”

  He showed Aidan to a stool. In some ways, Aidan was relieved that it was on the other side of the room from Antoinette. In another way, he was a little disappointed.

  Aidan glanced up at her. She immediately looked away. Had she been staring at him the whole time? This is getting strange, he thought.

  5

  LIVING ART

  L ook at the book about master artists in front of you,” Mr. Kurtz directed the class. “Each book is different. Your first assignment is to select one work of art and replicate it to the very best of your ability.”

  The textbook in front of Aidan was a collection of pencil and charcoal works by English artists.

  “You may use pencil, pastille, pen and ink, or even watercolor paints, if you wish,” the art teacher continued. “Do your very best work because I will be grouping you by your level of skill. When you finish, clothespin your work to the line above your head. You may begin now.”

  Aidan looked up. And sure enough there was some sort of clothesline-pulley contraption rigged all the way around the art room. Pictures could be hung from the clothesline and then rotated around the room by a master line near Mr. Kurtz’s desk.

  Cool! Aidan thought. I wonder if Dad would let me put one in my r-

  “You ought to get started, Mr. Thomas.”

  Aidan turned three shades of red and hurriedly flipped open his book. The drawings were amazingly well done. But none of them really captured Aidan’s creative eye. He was about to
raise his hand when Mr. Kurtz broke the creative silence.

  “A student has asked if something original could be drawn rather than imitating one of the masters. The answer to that question is yes. You may always be original, but be careful not to waste time thinking of what to draw or paint. You have only one hour remaining.”

  That was a relief to Aidan. Without any hesitation he grabbed a piece of sketch paper and launched into a rendering of the Seven Fountains of Alleble. Following the frenzied movements of Aidan’s pencil, the fountains came to life. The perspective was from a castle balcony looking out over the dry seventh fountain. The other six fountains followed a gradual curl and nearly disappeared at the horizon. Aidan moistened the ends of his fingers several times and smeared the plumes of water spraying out from the center of each enormous fountain.

  Tudor cottages, castle towers, and merchant shops sprang up on both sides of the fountains. Aidan even tried to draw in the cobblestones of Alleble’s main thoroughfare.

  It is looking very good, Aidan thought. So real, in fact, that for a few moments, it brought back the vision from the night before. There stood the tall Glimpse warrior Captain Valithor, leaning, staring into the dry fountain. Another vision of that fountain flooded into Aidan’s mind, and there were Glimpse men, women, and children standing waist-deep in ugly black oil. A flaming torch arced into the night sky and plunged inevitably toward the fountain, toward the oil-

  “All right, time’s up,” Mr. Kurtz announced. Aidan came racing out of the trance. “Please hang your works of art on the gallery line. And don’t forget your autograph. An artist always signs his or her work!”

  Aidan looked down at his work and signed his name at the bottom. He picked up the sketch and was about to clothespin it to the line, when he froze.

  Beyond the last fountain in his drawing, beyond Alleble’s outer walls, two dark jagged mountain peaks stabbed up through distant clouds. Aidan knew what they were. They were the mountains of Paragory, The Prince’s Crown. Only, he did not remember drawing them into the scene.

  “Mr. Thomas, please hang up your work,” chided Mr. Kurtz.

  Aidan did as he was told. Mr. Kurtz gave a yank on the master line, and the art show began. Swaying from the gallery, the artwork of thirty students cruised clockwise around the room. From time to time, Mr. Kurtz commented or criticized some of the works, but he kept the line moving.

  “Hmmm, there’s a fine piece of work,” he said. “And that one is very nice. Oh, someone needs to work on color choice. There’s a good still life. Oh, dear, now I wasn’t aware that Van Gogh did stick figures, but I guess we all must begin somewhere.”

  But then, Mr. Kurtz actually did stop the rotating gallery. He let the master line fall from his hands, and he stood gazing at a picture. From Aidan’s place in the room, all he could see was a lot of black and red ink.

  “Now, this is interesting,” Mr. Kurtz remarked. “The use of red draws the reader into the center. Brilliant, really. Now many of my students try to create something spooky or sinister, but they simply cannot pull it off. One child tried to draw a haunted castle, but it looked for all the world like Snow White and the seven dwarfs might come marching right along.”

  Laughter rippled through the art room. “But this,” Mr. Kurtz continued. “This is positively chilling.” The art teacher seemed to shudder involuntarily, and then he pulled on the main line to continue the art show.

  The red-and-black work of art drew stares from the rest of the class as it sailed around the room. As it came closer to Aidan, he began to feel very cold. The scene showed dark, twisted leafless trees in the foreground and towering black mountains in the back. In the center of the image was a huge set of doors opening from the bony roots of the largest mountain. Red light spilled out from the doors, revealing a cavern within and bathing everything in bloody light. But what captivated the eye and strangled hope from the heart was the train of unfortunate souls being led into the red cavern. Silhouetted against the surge of red were hundreds of beings, obviously bound by chains at the neck, hands, and feet. They were being drawn relentlessly into the bowels of that horrid mountain by dark figures on horseback who had swords, spears, and whips. There seemed no escape for the prisoners. And though what was waiting for them in the blood-red blaze of the cavern could not be seen, it was clearly an end too horrible for words. “The Gates of Despair…” Aidan muffled a gasp as the scene passed.

  The bell rang, and the class began to file out as the art teacher said, “Ms. Reed and Mr. Thomas, please stay after class. I wish to speak to you about your art.”

  “I’m glad you both chose to create something original,” Mr. Kurtz said. “What do you call this piece?”

  “I… I don’t know,” Antoinette Reed answered. “It came from a nightmare I’ve been having. I think I’ll call it Despair.”

  Aidan’s eyes narrowed. Does she know? And if she does, which side is she on?

  “You have named it well, Ms. Reed,” said Mr. Kurtz. “Something in my heart aches when I look at it. Very powerful work, yes. And what of yours, Mr. Thomas? Have you given it a name?”

  “The Seven Fountains of Alleble,” Aidan replied. He studied Antoinette.

  “Your work, Mr. Thomas, is equally breathtaking. There is beauty and strength. There is also, I think… mystery. For instance, why is one fountain dry and empty?”

  Aidan suddenly felt very awkward. Gwenne had told him once that he must go into his world and tell everyone he could about Alleble, but to tell a teacher he didn’t even know? “Uh, it’s a long story,” Aidan muttered, and immediately he felt ashamed for not saying more.

  “I enjoy long stories, Mr. Thomas. So another time, perhaps,” said Mr. Kurtz. “In any case, I asked you to stay after because-well, quite frankly-your artistic skills are far superior to everyone else’s in the class, and I fear what I have to teach will be a waste of your time.”

  Aidan thought, Not another schedule change! He looked at Antoinette; she looked back at him.

  “Sooooo, I have decided to create a new section,” explained Mr. Kurtz. “I’ll call it advanced art. It will be four credits, not three, and will appear on your report card as an independent study class. I’ve never done this before, but math does it all the time, so I will too.”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Kurtz,” Antoinette said, “but will we still come to your class at the same time?” Exactly what Aidan wanted to know.

  “Yes, of course. But I will set up a little area at the back table where the two of you can work without being disturbed by my prattling. This is all up to you, though. Is this something you wish to do?”

  They both nodded vigorously.

  “Done then. We’ll begin Thursday. Be thinking of a technique you would like to learn, and I will provide some resources for you. Now, let me write you each a pass so your next teacher doesn’t throw you to the wolves for being late.”

  Mr. Kurtz closed the art room door. Aidan and Antoinette looked at each other.

  “Do you believe?” they blurted out simultaneously.

  “Yes!” Aidan answered.

  “Me too,” Antoinette said.

  “But, what… what do you believe?” Aidan asked. He had to be sure.

  “I believe in Alleble of The Realm,” she began. “And King Eliam the King of all Kingdoms. He is everlasting, and seeks all who would follow the true King. I believe that one day I will go to be with King Eliam in the Sacred Realm Beyond the Sun. I believe everything in The Book of Alleble.”

  “Book of Alleble?”

  “Yes,” she replied, looking confused. “The Book of Alleble. You believe in it, don’t you? Well, you must because of your drawing, The Seven Fountains. Those fountains are spoken of many times in the book. You must know.”

  “I believe everything you said, but I didn’t learn it from a book. It came from The Scrolls of Alleble. But my dad told me there was a book. Bestseller, he said.”

  “That’s right. You can find it in any bookstore. My parents gave
me mine for my seventh birthday.”

  “This is incredible, Antoinette!” Aidan said. “Finally, someone else who believes. When I saw your picture I was afraid for a minute that you served the Prince.”

  “Aidan, what a horrible thing to say! I hope you weren’t judging me. Just because my friends and I like to dress a little different doesn’t mean that we are evil!”

  Aidan wondered how she seemed to know what he was thinking. He smiled, remembering someone else who used to do that as well.

  “No, Aidan, I would never serve the Prince. I only drew the picture because I keep having nightmares about it.”

  “It’s a horrible place, Antoinette,” Aidan said with a shudder.

  “You sound as if you’ve-”

  “I’ve been there. I saw the Gates. I was nearly captured and taken inside.”

  A look of awe surged onto Antoinette’s face. “We need to talk,” she said.

  “Maybe after school?”

  “Okay,” Antoinette said.

  “I’ll clear it with Mom,” Aidan said.

  “I’ll call my mom on my cell phone to let her know where I am.”

  “Maybe you could help me with the math homework too. It’s a little over my head,” Aidan said.

  “Sure. I better run. I’ve got honors English now. See ya later.” And with that she left.

  Aidan wondered if the bus ride home would be awkward. After all, Aidan didn’t really fit in with the trench-coat clan. And he wondered what his parents would think of Antoinette. Dad’s bound to like her, he thought as he wandered down the hall toward his next class. But he wasn’t so sure about his mom.

  6

  STORIES TO TELL

  T he bus ride home wasn’t at all awkward. Mr. Bluehair even saved a seat for Antoinette and Aidan. Apparently, being Antoinette’s friend earned Aidan some points with the trench-coat clan.