The Heartwood Crown

by Matt Mikalatos

  “I have never thought you incompetent, Hanali. Come in. Sit.” His eyes wandered to the sword in Darius’s hand. “That blade. What pain it brings!” With his good hand he touched the stump of his forearm. “It is not only that it took my hand, but the wound will not heal. Medicine does not hurry it. Time does not help it.” He saw the shackles on Darius’s wrists. “My soldiers nearly had you, it seems.”

  “Very nearly,” Darius said. The sword pulled so hard toward the archon that his hand had already begun to ache.

  “Perhaps the shackles will remind you of me when I am dead,” the archon said, and some life came into his face when he laughed. A shiver went through Darius. A cruel light entered the archon’s eyes. “Is the girl dead?”

  “Yes,” Hanali said.

  “Her name was Madeline,” Darius said angrily.

  The archon ignored him. “What of the boy?”

  “Still alive, so far as I know.”

  “A pity. He has a special talent for being infuriating. Though he did me little real harm, I find myself picturing his death most often.”

  Darius stepped forward with the sword. But the sight of the archon like this—weak, sick, old—stopped him. He deserved death, no question. Darius looked forward to giving it to him. At the same time, grief welled up in him. He had given up a chance to see Madeline for this, and already he knew, he just knew, that he would trade this for another thirty seconds with her. Archon Thenody could have waited, might even have succumbed to death without Darius’s help from the looks of it, and Darius had thrown away time with his beloved because his driving focus had been on bringing this one Elenil to justice. The sword urged him forward, but King Ian’s words came back to him: The sword whispers to you of justice and disguises the cost.

  “What of Nightfall?” Hanali asked.

  Darius shook himself into the moment, looked at Hanali. “What?”

  “I see the doubts in your mind, and I remind you, what of the Scim boy, Nightfall, murdered by the archon’s soldiers? Should not Thenody pay for that?”

  Thenody laughed. “I have killed my share of Scim youth, make no mistake. But that one isn’t dead.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you see his corpse?” Thenody asked. “Did you feel his pulse slow and then stop? Put your face near his lips, feel for his breath? No?”

  He hadn’t. In fact, when they had gone back to look for Nightfall’s body, it was gone. Darius had thought the Scim had come to bury him. “I saw him,” Darius said.

  “Grievous wounds can be healed,” Thenody said. “And my dear Gilenyia was nearby. She fixed him and sent him to me. He’s here somewhere, in Far Seeing, being educated. Civilized.” He looked at Hanali. “It might be entertaining for you to send him back to see his family when he is civilized. If I were archon a year from now, I would do that.”

  “You’re telling me Nightfall is alive. My whole reason in coming here,” Darius said, though that wasn’t strictly true. He had been fighting the Elenil for years, and he had every intention of lopping off the serpent’s head this time. Nightfall’s death was more catalyst than cause.

  “I can call him if you like. I know what he will say, because we have taught him to say it. ‘I misunderstood the Elenil. They only want what is good for the Scim, and have all along. We Scim squander our resources, and the Elenil want to teach us the right way. Here I get three meals a day. Here I have a bed, my own room, many changes of clothes. In the Wasted Lands I had none of those things.’ And so on and so on.”

  Darius should have been happy about this news, but instead he was increasingly furious. If he had stayed with Jason to make sure he was safe in Aluvorea, he would have found Madeline. Maybe he could have altered whatever chain of events had ended in her death. If he had gone back when Break Bones did, maybe he would have seen her. But he had not done those things. His hatred, his passion for killing the archon, had kept him from someone he loved deeply. He had not been there for her, because he had filled his heart with the archon.

  His heart was still full of the archon. He wanted nothing more than to use the sword—which was practically singing now as it stretched toward the Elenil—and end this whole thing. He was angry, furious, boiling with rage.

  He was letting this Elenil control him. The anger was good, righteous. But it let Thenody and Hanali manipulate him, shape him, use him. If he wanted control of his own life, he had to get it back from them. Would killing Thenody make him less angry? Looking at the enfeebled wretch before him, he didn’t think so. He didn’t think it would change anything. Thenody was already collapsing, falling under his own weight, and Darius pounding on him along the way would change nothing. Then he thought of Vivi, who he had killed in the midst of battle. He hadn’t known at the time that Vivi was the one who had made Madeline sick, he’d had no way of knowing that. So justice had already been served there, but it felt hollow. Hollow and useless. Madeline was still gone. His anger, his sorrow, was still here.

  He could leave all this, go to Pastisia. Work for King Ian in a society set apart for something else. But if he killed the archon, he would always be that person . . . the human who came to the Sunlit Lands and killed the archon. But did that matter? He would be a hero to some, a villain to others, but at least it would be done. And someone else would take Thenody’s place. Hanali. What then? Another assassination attempt? And on and on until someone took his place who was what? Better? Good enough? Enlightened?

  The thought of Nightfall being re-educated to think that the Elenil were his benevolent patrons made Darius sick. He vowed to himself that whatever happened in this room, he would save that kid next and return him home.

  “You want justice,” the archon said, and he sounded amused.

  “Yes,” Darius said, grim, his fingers trembling from clutching the sword so hard.

  “There is only one true justice, and that is death,” the archon said. “A hundred years in prison would mean nothing to me. My hand being cut off by that child? Oh, yes, it made me furious, and I have every intention of killing everyone involved, should I live long enough. But did it bring justice? No. Even to kill me now, Darius, is that justice? I have killed far more than one Scim. Does my one death counterbalance all those whom I have killed? Does one Elenil life pay for a thousand Scim?” He paused and looked at Hanali. “We all pay the same price in the end . . . the just as well as the wicked. Death is our punishment. So bring your sword, boy, and get your measure of justice. What do I care now, when all that is left to me is pain?”

  Darius clenched his teeth. “Maybe letting you live in pain is a better justice. I drag you from this tower, take you to Pastisia, let King Ian decide what to do with you. Or better yet, to the Scim elders. A hundred years in a cell might not be justice, but at least you’ll be miserable. Maybe you’ll even come to regret your crimes.”

  “Can the supreme ruler of a land commit crimes? I am the law, Darius, and I have been for these many years. I cannot do wrong.”

  “The prophecies are clear,” Hanali said. “A human kills the archon, and he does it with that sword, the one in your hand.”

  “I don’t care about your prophecies,” Darius said.

  “You should. You would not be here without them,” Hanali said, his face darkening. Darius could see a vindictive cruelty looming in his eyes. “Oh, yes. Why do you think I would invite your girlfriend and Jason but not you? There was a pattern. A prophetic unfolding that would bring us to this room. A single misstep could take it all another way. So I didn’t invite you, but I laid bread crumbs for you to follow. Another path. Another entrance. Do you not understand? I orchestrated Madeline’s entrance to the Sunlit Lands. I brought you here, as well. Do you think you could come here without my permission? Foolish child. I decide who stays and who leaves the Sunlit Lands.”

  No. Darius didn’t believe this. He hadn’t followed bread crumbs, he had worked hard to get here. He had scraped and searched and fought his way into this world. It couldn’t have been a
trick. It couldn’t be that Hanali had orchestrated this whole thing. Could it?

  Hanali stepped toward Darius. “The prophecies say a human holding the Sword of Tears will strike the archon down and that I will be archon next, in his place. We are here, Darius, to fulfill that prophecy.”

  The archon laughed, rocking in his bed, holding the stump of his arm. “After all your scheming, the boy doesn’t have the stomach to kill me. How long have you been building this plan, Hanali? Twenty years? Forty? Only to have it all fall apart when you were so close.”

  “I could kill you myself,” Hanali said, his voice menacing.

  “You are too true to the Elenil way of life,” Thenody said, dismissing him. “You would plot and scheme and organize a coup, yes. Convince a human to take my life, I believe it. But you, as an Elenil, to take the sword in your own hand and strike me down? Not in a thousand millennia.”

  Hanali growled at Darius. “Kill him, Darius, or have done. What are you waiting for?”

  Darius trembled. He had wanted this for so long, but the way Hanali pushed him, the way the archon encouraged it . . . It might be justice, maybe. It might ease his fury, he wasn’t sure. But there was no doubt they would be controlling him. It fit Hanali’s plan too well. “Why me?” Darius asked. “Tell me why it has to be me.”

  “You are the Black Skull,” Hanali said. “When the other Elenil hear that I fought you, trying to keep the archon safe, my ascendance to archon is all but guaranteed.”

  “You’re going to try to capture me. Or kill me. Show them that you were on the archon’s side.”

  “He won’t capture you,” the archon said. “He cannot risk your story being told. Exile or death. If that is not his plan, I am disappointed indeed in my imminent replacement.”

  “I thought to send you home with Madeline and Jason,” Hanali said. “If Madeline had done things the way she was supposed to all those weeks ago, I would have sent you all back, and she would have been able to breathe again. You would have lived happily ever after. But she came up with a new plan and made me fall back on this contingency. But I swear to you on my father’s name, I will not harm you.”

  Darius knew he was lying, could feel it like an electric shock moving with startling speed through the soles of his feet and into his face. The jolt went into his hand, and with a cry, he dropped the sword. He stared at it where it had fallen, horrified. He knew he could not pick it up again, not in this room. What good could it do? Had killing Vivi changed anything? Had it accomplished justice for Madeline? Yes, maybe, in a way. But it had not made things better. It had not healed Madeline. It had not made Darius happy, or even satisfied. Now Hanali was using his anger, his grief, as a weapon to control him. But Darius would not allow himself to be controlled by Hanali, or the archon, or anyone.

  Hanali stared at the sword, a look of genuine disappointment on his face. The archon was laughing, laughing, laughing. “Would that you had grown such a backbone before murdering my father,” Hanali said.

  The archon still laughed, and made as if to clap his hands, and laughed at that as well. “Oh Hanali, how delightful. It is as if you dropped a viper into my chambers, hoping to murder me, but the viper slithered free to kill members of your own household. You’ve fallen into your own trap.”

  “Yes,” Hanali said, his voice cold. “It is a common problem with traps.” He bent to scoop up the sword. Darius was shocked to see that the sword allowed it. “I fear the same has happened to you, Archon Thenody. I hope you know that for these many years I have served you faithfully. This plot is a new thing. Only a few decades old at best.”

  “Do not pretend to use the Scims’ sword on me,” the archon said, waving Hanali away. “Your own prophecies say it will be a human who kills me. Take a decade and find another one and come back again.”

  “My father,” Hanali said. “You and he were friends for many centuries.”

  “Of course,” Thenody said. “There was a time when there were no secrets between us, Vivi and me.”

  “Did you help him?”

  “As often as I could.”

  Darius could see what was happening. Should he stop it? He stepped toward the door. Or he could run. He knew how this would end.

  Hanali said, “Did you help him pick the child, I mean?”

  “What child? My dear Hanali, you are rambling. Does that sword drive Elenil mad? What strange magics are on it!”

  “The child. The human child. The one you kidnapped and brought here, to the Sunlit Lands. The boy. You know who I mean, surely. What was his name?”

  Fear came into the archon’s face now, and Darius realized that the archon had never really believed Darius would kill him. The archon was scooting back in his bed, trying to put distance between himself and Hanali. “You are an Elenil,” Archon Thenody said, “and sworn to my service.”

  Hanali strode to Darius, yanked him back into the room, tore into his pocket, and pulled out the book. “My father’s words, captured by the necromancers. His own words, Thenody. What do they say? Tell him, Darius. Speak the words.”

  Darius said quietly, “They say that there was a group of human children. Seven of them. Vivi chose one, his favorite, to be his son. He made him an Elenil and removed his memories, then raised him as his own.”

  “Human,” Hanali said with disgust. “Human. Nothing more than this boy here, nothing more than this weak piece of filth. Human.”

  Thenody started to shout something, to protest, but Hanali used him like a scabbard, and the magic of the Scim sword would not be broken by any Elenil counterspell. Thenody fell back on the bed, his mouth wide, his eyes blank and staring.

  “Killed by a human,” Hanali said. He shook his head in disgust. He yanked the sword out of Thenody and threw it at Darius. “I haven’t much time, as there are a large number of necromancers to kill before they tear down my tower. The story is that you killed the archon. I tried to stop you but too late. I may have to kill a few of the servants who saw us together, as if anyone listens to them. But better safe than sorry. Is there anything you wish to say to me before this is all over?”

  “Madeline,” Darius said, but before he could say more, Hanali was in front of him, his hand clamped over Darius’s mouth. He sneered.

  “A rhetorical question, Darius. You murdered my father. I do not want to see you, I do not want to hear you. You have served your purpose. I give you your life as a gift, but if I see you again, you will go the way of the former archon.”

  He pushed Darius, knocking him into the wall. Darius struggled, trying to get his face free to speak. “What are you doing?”

  “I told you, fool, that you walk in the Sunlit Lands with my permission. Consider that permission revoked.” Hanali pushed against Darius’s chest, and the wall behind him gave way like it was made of mud. Hanali shoved harder, and Darius couldn’t breathe. The world around him went grey.

  He tumbled to the ground, landing hard on his back. He took a breath, tried to gather himself, and stood, his legs still shaking. His first thought was Madeline. Oh, Madeline. He would go to her as soon as he could leave this place, whatever it was.

  He didn’t recognize it at first. He hadn’t been here in . . . he wasn’t sure how long. Eighteen months? Two years? It felt like years piled on years, serving with the Scim. The rumpled bed, the posters on the wall, a shelf of books. Madeline’s books, the old ones, her childhood copies of the Meselia books. She had lent them to him. His backpack against the wall, near the desk.

  Hanali had sent him home. He was back on Earth.

  “No,” Darius said. He threw open his bedroom door, slamming it against the wall. He ran out the front door and into the street. Cars passed him, honking. “No!”

  He sank to his knees on the sidewalk. He had been kicked out. Exiled. Removed. The Scim, Jason and Baileya, Shula, Nightfall—they were all out of his reach now. Madeline, too. He had no way to return, no way back to the land where he had fought so long and given so much. He put his forehead against
the concrete and wept.

  35

  A DOOR IN THE SIDE

  OF THE WORLD

  My companions the stars wheeling overhead, and I listen to the gentle lap of water, the sigh of the wind.

  FROM “MALGWIN AND THE WHALE,” A TRADITIONAL ZHANIN STORY

  Floating on her back, Madeline enjoyed the view of the stars. The stars were even brighter in Aluvorea than in Far Seeing. She could almost imagine she was looking down into a valley, and there were thousands of people below her, sitting around campfires, telling stories, enjoying one another. Or maybe she was the one below, and there were a thousand thousand people in a gigantic stadium looking down on her. Watching her swim, like it was an Olympic event. Like she was in a race. Cheering her on.

  She couldn’t hear Jason shouting any longer. It had broken her heart to hear him, but she couldn’t let him go in her place, and she couldn’t stay any longer. She knew Baileya and Shula understood, and she trusted that one day he would too. A cool green light was filling the water around her. She thought it came from beneath her at first, but then realized it was coming from her. From the center of her chest. She looked for the seed in her arm, but it was gone. Or rather, it had moved. Up her arm, into her chest. Strangely, her breathing was a little better. Not completely better but a little.

  She reached the shore and stepped onto the island. A cloud of hummingbirds met her. She had never seen anything so beautiful. They moved like a school of fish. One of them shifted, and shining wings buzzed to make room in a rippling cascade of green and purple and red. “Hello . . . friends,” she said. “Which . . . way?” The birds dipped in greeting, then zipped ahead a few feet. She took a step toward them, and a happy sort of buzzing came from them, and they zipped ahead again.

  “So you made it after all,” the Garden Lady said. “I wondered myself, I really did. I thought you might be happy to pass in that garden back home. No need to come back to the Sunlit Lands, you know. I thought, she may not want to cross the river.”