“I haven’t forgiven them,” Darius said. “I have no intention of doing so.”
“Then you must beware, for you give the Elenil power over you. You are driven by them still if they loom so large in your world.” The king clapped Darius on the back. “Words to consider as you journey to Far Seeing.” He called to one of his people, “Get this man fitted with a glider suit. He’s to be on the first gondola.”
Within twenty minutes Darius was wearing a suit with long, flexible wings that extended beneath his arms, connected to his ankles. It was uncomfortable but, he was assured, more comfortable than riding the gondola to its termination in the Ginian Sea. He was given a brief training for the glider suit and assured it would be natural enough once he was in the air. There was a hook connected to his suit, which was fastened to the gondola as he and the soldiers boarded. The captain of the gondola shouted instructions to the soldiers who were positioning the main hook.
“Prepare yourselves,” the captain said. She had a strong jawline and a fierce, determined look on her face. Then she shouted to the hook crew, “All is ready.”
“Hook in three,” one of them called back. “Three, two, one!”
The hook made the crystal ring as it clanged into place. It ascended faster even than Darius had expected, and the cable rose up behind it, the sound like a monstrous snake hissing. Then the gondola caught and jerked into the air. It swung and hit the wall with an enormous gong. Darius was knocked into the side of the gondola, not expecting the sudden jolt, and the other soldiers laughed and teased him in a good-natured way. “Normal on a first outing,” one of them said. They were rising over the Sunlit Lands, with a speed unlike any Darius had experienced before.
“We will be there in a short time,” the captain said. “Prepare yourselves.”
To Darius’s surprise, each of the soldiers took out a book and began to read. Maybe it made sense, in a hyperliterate culture, that the best way to center oneself for battle was to practice one’s little necromancies. He felt in his own pocket and pulled out the book about Vivi. Perhaps there would be some helpful information about the Elenil that Darius didn’t know, and it would keep him from thinking about everything King Ian and Mrs. Raymond had said to him. He opened to the first page and began to read.
28
NOT FAR NOW
All is not yet lost, for there are several hours until sunrise.
FROM “MALGWIN AND THE WHALE,” A TRADITIONAL ZHANIN STORY
It took them nearly an hour to calm Madeline’s mother. Night had fallen, deep and black, but Patra Koja had called for something he called marsh lights . . . pale, floating orbs that lodged in the branches of the trees above them and washed everything as if in cool moonlight. Yenil was fine. She had been, in fact, overjoyed to see Shula and Madeline and had run into their arms, sopping wet and happy. Now that they were in the Sunlit Lands, she and Shula could speak the same language without trouble, and words tumbled from her in an unending stream. Patra Koja steered the raft toward land, and they found Lin waiting for them there. Shula happily took Yenil aside once they made landfall, and the two sat on the ground talking with one another about every topic that came into their heads. Yenil made a faerie house and danced with delight when a few actual faeries dropped by to inspect it. Gilenyia remained in a deep sleep, and did not stir or wake.
Madeline’s mother, though, had panicked, asking over and over where they were, how they got here. Madeline tried to calm her, kept reminding her she was here too, that it was going to be okay, but nothing worked.
“Someone has damaged her memories,” Patra Koja said. “I see a vast space that was blockaded many years ago.”
“Can you fix it?” Madeline had put a fresh leaf of Queen’s Breath on her neck, hoping that being able to breathe better would make it easier to help her mom.
“Not knowing the way the spell is structured and what provisions may have been included, I do not wish to take the chance. There could be a punishment to be paid if it is removed, but I know not what. It is intricate work, of Elenil make, that much is certain.”
“Someone is coming,” David said. “Everyone get ready.”
The urgency in David’s voice made it clear he thought it could be an enemy. Yenil came to Madeline and settled in her arms. David and Shula moved toward the place the intruder would enter, ready to fight. Lin stood behind them, and even Madeline’s mother quieted, though her panicked gasping was still louder than Madeline would have liked.
There was a crashing in the woods, something or someone large moving toward them. It also sounded like it was dragging something. Whatever it was, it wasn’t trying to be quiet, a sign it wasn’t afraid of whatever it might come across in these dangerous woods.
Baileya emerged from the woods, coming to the edge of the swamp. She dragged a Zhanin warrior behind her, tied with vines and unconscious. Delightful Glitter Lady frolicked at her feet. “Is Jason here?” she asked, her eyes scanning the group. “I cannot find him.”
“No,” Madeline said. “We last saw him with you.”
“You are all well?” Baileya took in who was there. She recognized Yenil, but her gaze lingered on Madeline’s mother. “She has a sickness caused by magic,” she said.
“The Kakri have always seen the negative works of magic more easily than the positive,” Patra Koja said.
Baileya dropped the Zhanin warrior at Madeline’s feet. “It is easier to see for those not addicted to it,” she said. “The Zhanin are able to stop magic for a time. Madeline . . . do you desire me to wake this one up?”
Madeline reached for her mother’s hand. She was staring into the distance, breathing in and out too quickly, not responding to Madeline’s voice. “It’s worth a try.”
Baileya bent down over the fallen warrior and slapped him gently in the face. To Shula she said, “Bring me water,” and to David, “Cut him free of the vines.”
As the Zhanin began to stir, Madeline could only think what she would say to her mother if her memories returned. Madeline had to know what had happened, had to understand what had brought her to this place. “We are going to get you free of this spell,” she said, squeezing her mother’s hand.
“No,” her mother said, weeping. “No, please no.”
Jason backtracked through the woods, picking twigs out of his hair and periodically checking his scrapes and cuts. Flying through the trees was surprisingly painful when one did not have wings. Well, maybe not surprisingly painful, just painful. He couldn’t find Baileya anywhere, or the Zhanin warriors, or Delightful Glitter Lady. He had found an Elenil war party, but that had been before he got out of the tree. They passed beneath him, and he sat as silent and still as he was able. He debated doing a bird call but realized in the same moment that this would be ridiculous. Not that being ridiculous often stopped him.
“Are you lost?”
It was Remi again. She was in a tree ahead of him, her tail whipping contentedly as it hung off a branch. “You got back fast,” Jason said.
“I’m not some wingless thing who can’t make good time. Besides, Arakam was hunting south of the falls. He was easy to find.”
The dragon! Jason felt a twinge of disappointment not to have seen it. “Was it amazing?”
“Arakam? Hmph. Nothing so spectacular as a Guardian of the Wind, I’ll tell you that much. Just a great dumb beast.”
“Did he answer my question about the cost of saving Aluvorea?”
“He did, in his great dumb beast sort of way.”
“Well, go on, what did he say?”
“He talks mostly in poems and riddles, you know. But what he said was that there used to be a river that flowed around the Queen’s Island, but it has been cut off and is little more than a brackish lake now. The last queen, centuries ago, was crowned against her will, so the magic she made is double edged. The firethorns, those are hers: designed to burn down the forest and renew it. The stone flowers, also hers: a punishment for those who took her. They are pure spite and no be
nefit. She wanted to hasten the day another queen would come, because the people would want to renew the magic, to do away with what she had put in place. But a curse was also put upon the water around the island, I know not whether by the queen or someone else. Whoever is first to cross from shore to the island, whether by boat or swimming or whatever way they may come, that person must take the queen’s place and die upon the island.”
Jason put his hand on a tree trunk and leaned hard against it. The first to cross the water would die. He knew it would be something like this. He knew Madeline intended to pay that price, he had felt for so long that she was heading toward something like this. He couldn’t allow that. He needed to find her, to convince her that she didn’t need to do it. Then he thought of his new skill that had worked so well: changing the story. “What else did he say? What were his exact words?”
“Oh, just the usual prophetic poems. They’re never good poems, have you noticed? They’re too busy trying to say something. Doggerel verse, emphasis on the dog. It was something like:
The first to cross the waters, dead.
The island now their final bed.
Let all who see them cry and wail,
To see their face all still and pale.
Or words to that effect, in any case. I don’t think those were the exact words, but something like that . . . no rhythm and far too much rhyme.”
Jason winced. He should have maybe gone to the dragon himself. Not that he would have remembered the whole poem, but maybe he would have heard something in it that caught his attention. A loophole. A way out. “Think, Remi, did he say anything else?”
She licked her front paw, meditating. “Oh yes! He said that the island would protect the corpse of the dead one so she couldn’t be buried. The island likes to keep its queens. He said that is a cost too, that once someone sets off across the water, they will die, and their body will not be easily recovered.”
“Well, which is it, that the body can’t be recovered or just can’t be easily recovered?”
She thought about this. “Not easily recovered, I think. One thing was clear, though: the first to cross the waters dies.”
Darius stood on top of the gondola. It was open, and two Pastisian warriors balanced at the lip as well, holding the cables which went straight up into the sky, watching the ground. It was cold here, and the wind blew fierce and strong, but the world below was beautiful. Madeline was down there somewhere. If he rode this thing all the way to the end, he might pass over her. But he would see her soon enough. When they first rose from the east, where they had connected the gondola, they could see the great airships and dirigibles of the Pastisians setting out for war, like an armada of monstrous birds.
They had passed clear views of the Kakri territories and the terrible mountain range to their west. He had caught a glimpse of the ruins of an old city, complete with broken-down statues, or so the Pastisians told him. “We fly much closer in the airships,” they said. “But slower, too.”
Approaching noon, Darius could begin to make out the Ginian Sea in the distance, and an island hazed in mist. “What is that place?”
The Pastisians exchanged looks. “We don’t speak of it.”
“Look there,” one of them said. “The Court of Far Seeing!” The city shone in the sun, a white and gleaming promise that Darius knew had been broken far too often. The two Pastisians went below to tell the others to prepare for battle. Darius remained on top of the gondola and watched as the city drew near. This was a moment he had waited for, had worked toward, for far too long.
Shula held Yenil close, so thankful the girl had come back to her. She stroked her hair and kissed her cheek. The girl reminded her so much of Amira, especially now that they could speak again! It was a flood of words, as if a great dam had been broken and they could say all the things they had wanted to say in the time they had spent together. Yenil spoke of the faerie village in Mrs. Oliver’s back garden, and of what had been said and done at school (some of those stories made Shula furious), and of how much she loved cats and other small animals, and flowers. She did not speak of the loss of her parents, though Shula knew from experience she must think of it at times. She was, mostly, happy to be reunited with Shula and Madeline. Shula realized that her battle to keep distance between herself and Yenil had been lost . . . had likely been lost long ago. The child was in her heart, and nothing Shula did now could remove her. She felt content but also a thrill of fear.
Mrs. Oliver had mostly calmed now, since Baileya had come with the Zhanin. She still seemed frightened but in a different way. When she’d first arrived it was a panic, a driving fear that could be neither named nor reasoned away. Now Mrs. Oliver named her fear: she did not want to remember. She knew she was forgetting something, seemed to have some understanding that it was caused by magic, and she did not want it undone. Madeline and Baileya continued working to wake the Zhanin. Mrs. Oliver seemed to understand that this was connected, and she trembled at the thought.
Patra Koja came to Shula, who stood on the firmer ground near the woods. Yenil was in the nearby trees, looking for leaves and sticks to make more faerie houses. Shula kept an eye on her as she waded through the underbrush, climbed trees, and dug under bushes. Hummingbirds zipped around her, and faeries pointed out flowers, sticks, and stones they fancied. Shula had wanted to get her a little farther away from the fearful monologue of Mrs. Oliver, and David said he would patrol the woods just beyond them and make sure to warn them long before any surprises could come their way.
“She is your sister,” Patra Koja said.
Shula looked at Yenil, who was hunched over a flower, counting the petals. “She is like her, yes.”
He shook his antlered head slowly. “The Scim girl, she is more daughter than sister to you. I mean Madeline.”
Daughter? Shula examined this statement and discovered it to be true. Maybe she had missed it because of Amira, but even with her she had been more mother than sister, really. And yes, Madeline was closer than a friend. She could not imagine abandoning her, ever. Shula had been so determined not to bond with anyone else after what had happened to her family, and Madeline had come into the Sunlit Lands and destroyed that determination.
She watched Madeline, who even now was talking quietly with her mother on the raft that Patra Koja had made. Baileya had managed to wake the Zhanin and was speaking to him in low tones. “I would do anything for her,” Shula said, with pure honesty.
“Death comes in many ways,” Patra Koja said, “and so rarely with any meaning.”
Shula remembered her apartment building on fire, her friends and neighbors watching the blaze. “There is always a meaning,” she said. “Sometimes it means only that there are evil people in the world.”
“Madeline will not be healed,” Patra Koja said. “I do not see an unraveling to her curse. You know this already, I think.”
“I hope you’re wrong,” Shula said. “But she won’t accept a cure that hurts someone else. I’m not sure there’s another way.”
“There is a sort of life that comes with being the queen of Aluvorea.”
“She turns into a tree or something like that,” Shula said, skepticism dripping from her voice.
“Nothing so simple. The woods reflect her, they take on her character.”
“So she dies, but the woods remind us of her? This is no different from death, Patra Koja. Everything I see reminds me of my parents and my brother and sister. Even these woods as they are now.”
“She will die in any case,” Patra Koja reminded her. “It would be a good thing for her to choose to spend her death in a noble cause.”
“Why are you saying this to me? This is Madeline’s choice, not mine, and I will always support her decision. If you’re trying to convince someone, talk to Madeline. If she says to burn this place to the ground and take her back to Earth, I’ll do that in a moment. If she wants to find this Heartwood Crown, then I will go with her.”
Patra Koja put a green hand in
his beard of leaves and stroked it slowly. “I am saying this to you, Shula Bishara, so that when the time comes, you can help Madeline make her choice.”
“Mom?”
Mrs. Oliver’s eyes had cleared. Lin had moved away, sitting some distance from the raft. Patra Koja had wandered off after Shula and Yenil. The Zhanin had agreed to suspend magic in this area after whatever Baileya had said to him. Probably told him that Madeline was near death anyway and that this would speed things along. Madeline doubted Baileya was wrong about that. That meant, unfortunately, that the Queen’s Breath had stopped working too. Madeline had hoped otherwise, but the moment magic snuffed out, so did her breathing.
“Maddie,” her mom said. She looked at Baileya and the Zhanin. “We’re in the Sunlit Lands?” She looked at the strange swamp they were in, taking in the trees with their hanging moss, the strange plant man with the branches for antlers, the green woman, and Shula and Yenil on the shore.
Delightful Glitter Lady had wandered off somewhere, which was probably for the best. Madeline didn’t know how her mother would do seeing a rhinoceros standing nearby. Not that it would be worse than seeing a green woman and Patra Koja.
“Allison?” her mom asked, confused. “Is Allison here?”
“I don’t know . . . who that . . . is, Mom.”
Her mom’s face creased with worry. “Oh, honey. Your breathing. I’m so sorry.” A tear rolled down her cheek, but Madeline didn’t feel much sympathy for her. Not now.
“Did you . . . give me . . . to the Elenil?” Her mother reached for her, but Madeline pulled away. “Answer,” she said.
“Madeline, it . . . it wasn’t like that. There were seven of us. Your father and I. Allison. Tony. Lee. Gabrielle.” She looked down, then away. Madeline noticed that was only six names, but she didn’t say anything about it. “You don’t understand this place, Maddie. Have you . . . have you been here long?”
The Heartwood Crown Page 31
