The Golden Queen

by David Farland

  “Not far,” Gallen panted. “Not more than fifty yards.”

  Everynne was nearly senseless with exhaustion. They climbed ahead, and she found herself blindly grasping for limbs. Smoke crept through the forest like a thin fog. Just before they left the grove, Gallen pulled off his sweaty, soiled greatcoat and threw it into a crevice between two trees. Veriasse watched him and did likewise, and Everynne realized the value of leaving behind something strong of scent. She pulled off her own blue cloak, tossed it back. Everynne looked down, caught Gallen staring at her as she perched on a branch. He did not look away guiltily as some men might have. Instead, he just seemed to admire her. She wondered what he saw—a woman in a blue tunic, perched in a tree, silver ringlets in her dark hair. She realized that she was sitting in the last rays of the dying sun, and perhaps so lit, she looked resplendent. She had been bred to look that way to common humans.

  She leapt to the ground and raced into the forest, under the tall pines. Night was falling. Gallen seemed bone weary and had no more tricks in him. Now it was only a race to the gate, and the young man led them over the shortest route.

  They reached an old forest at the fork of a canyon just at sunset. Behind them in the distance, Everynne heard an exultant howl. The vanquishers must have picked up their trail. In moments they would be here.

  Everynne rushed to the gate and opened her harp case, throwing it to the ground. Gallen stood panting beside Maggie and the bear while Veriasse stepped up behind them. Everynne pulled out her key, a crystal shaped like a horseshoe, then held it up and thumbed a switch that transmitted an electronic code to power up the gate. Her crystal began glowing as the gate transmitted its acceptance signal.

  The gate on this world was perhaps the oldest Everynne had ever seen. It was a small thing—taller than a man and two yards wide. It looked like a simple arch made of polished gray stone. On the posts of the arch were carved designs—flowers and vines, images that Everynne could not decipher.

  As Everynne held her crystal aloft, the air under the arch began to glow pale lavender.

  “My lady,” Gallen said, “will you be safe in this next world?”

  Everynne looked at him. Gallen obviously wanted to follow, and Everynne had to decide whether to take him. But the vanquishers were coming. The young man would need to guard Maggie and Orick. If Everynne let him follow, the others might die.

  “I’ll be safe enough for the moment,” Everynne answered. “I have the only key to the gate. The vanquishers will have to hunt me in their sky ships. I should get a good lead on them. But for now, you and your friends need to leave here at once. The vanquishers want only me.”

  Everynne took one last look at this world—tasted the scent of the pine trees, the freshness of the air under the dark forest. On the first part of her journey here, she had seen the clean brooks full of trout, slept under stars where no one worried about dronon. She doubted that Gallen and Maggie understood what they had here, and she hoped that by leaving, the vanquishers would follow. Perhaps in ten years, people here would forget that vanquishers had once passed through a town. And in a hundred years, the account of Everynne’s race through these woods would only become a fairy tale, the story of the time that the sidhe were seen walking alive.

  Everynne looked at Gallen over her shoulder. The young man was tense, and Everynne could read his intent simply by looking into his eyes. He planned to leap through the gate when she did. She said quickly, “Eternal life, if I reach my destination. I promise. Gallen, will you pick up my harp case for me?”

  Gallen bent over, and before he could react, she grabbed Veriasse’s arm and pulled him through the gate.

  Gallen had not known what to expect. He planned to wait until Everynne was ready to leave, then jump through the gate with her, but he’d wanted to say good-bye to Maggie and Orick first.

  Instead, Everynne had taken Veriasse’s arm and leapt forward. There was a flash of white, and suddenly the lights under the arch snuffed out like a candle. A freezing chill hit the air. The arch itself turned white with frost, and Gallen walked under it, stood a moment looking up at the ancient runes of flowers and animals carved into the stone. As a child he had brought a hammer and chisel to the gate, but had not been able to chip off any of that stone. Instead, his chisel got blunted and bent, and finally the handle to his hammer splintered. It was like no stone in the world. He looked at Maggie, took her hand.

  Gallen felt as if his heart had been pulled from him, and he just stood, staring. He heard a shout from the forest behind, and Maggie tugged on his hand, urging, “Come away from here. Take your legs into your shoes. Run!”

  Gallen found that he was shaking, and he ducked beneath the arch, felt a thrill of cold air, but nothing more. For him, the gate led nowhere. It had closed.

  “Come!” Orick growled. The bear stood up, sniffed the air nervously.

  They ran up a small hill. Gallen stopped near the crest and took cover behind a fallen log. Maggie and Orick lay down beside him. There was shouting below in the glen, and Gallen peeked over the log, the rotting black bark pungent under his nose.

  Vanquishers rushed under the dark trees. Two ogres. They were battered, dirty. One ogre cursed and kicked at the arch. “They made it through,” he said.

  The ogre looked up while the other threw himself to the ground to rest. He spoke to the air. “Lord Hitkani, we’ve found the gate, but Everynne and her escorts have escaped.” He listened for a moment, then answered, “Yes, we’ll wait.”

  Gallen sat watching them for several minutes and heard a rumbling noise over the trees. A black creature with enormous wings dove below the treetops, settled on the ground beside the gate. It walked in circles around the gate, touching it with long feelers beneath its mouth. Gallen watched the dronon and could only name it to himself silently—Beelzebub.

  The dronon reached into a pouch at its side, pulled out a crystal shaped like a horseshoe. It held the crystal in the air, watching it change colors to a soft lavender. In an odd, guttural voice it said, “They have gone to Fale. When the others arrive, we will renew the chase. You there,” he said to one ogre, “see if you can get this key working.”

  The dronon sat on a thick carpet of pine needles, beating his wings softly, while one vanquisher fumbled with the key. The shadows under the trees were thickening. Gallen wanted nothing more than a bath and something to put in his shrinking belly. This seemed to have been the longest day of his life. He had not slept in over thirty-six hours. Yet he dared not move for fear of making some noise that would alert the vanquishers, and he dared not sleep.

  Beside him, Orick and Maggie quietly watched the vanquisher work as the shadows deepened under the trees. An evening wind began blowing in from the sea, hissing through the treetops, making limbs creak.

  Orick stuck his muzzle into Gallen’s ribs, then looked off behind them to the north. Gallen followed the bear’s eyes. In the woods, flitting through the trees, was a pale blue light.

  It was said that a man’s best defense against a wight was to lie low, hide. Yet Gallen knew the wights would be searching for him this night.

  His mouth suddenly felt dry; he licked his lips. He spotted other lights flickering in the forest, pale blues and greens flowing between the trees as fluidly as a deer leaping a fence. By staying where he was, Gallen risked that the wights would catch him. Yet if he tried to make it out of Coille Sidhe now, the vanquishers would take him.

  “Got it,” the vanquisher muttered, a weary note of triumph in his voice. Gallen turned, saw that the arch glowed brighter. The ogre set the flaming crystal back into its pouch, then sat with the others a couple yards away.

  The wind hissed through the trees, and a woodpecker began tapping above them. Gallen toyed with the idea of rushing the giants, grabbing the key and leaping through to another world. Everynne had seemed secure in the knowledge that she had the only key to the gate. She would not expect the vanquishers to follow her so quickly. But Gallen suspected that if he tried to
attack, his little knives would hardly trouble the vanquishers.

  Gallen put an arm around Maggie’s shoulder and whispered, “Lie low and make your way home in the morning,” then tapped Orick on the muzzle, stood up and leapt over the log quietly and began running downhill on the soft humus, letting the pine needles cushion the sound. Orick leapt over the log and ran beside him, glancing at Gallen fearfully. Gallen poured on the speed, thinking, by God, they won’t see my heels for the dust.

  But at that moment, the dronon lifted its head and hissed, making some spitting noise. Gallen had been running up behind the creature, but now he saw that it had a clump of eyes on the back of its head. The dronon pulled out its incendiary gun, but Gallen was too close for the creature to use it.

  Gallen whipped out his knives, screaming, “Hold or you die!” and the ogres were so stricken with surprise that they scuttled backward a step.

  Gallen was almost to the arch, and he snatched the pouch in one smooth move.

  Fast as a striking serpent, one of the ogres grabbed Gallen’s wrist, spinning him around. Gallen concentrated on holding onto the key as he slashed the giant’s corded wrist. Huge gobbets of blood shot out, drenching Gallen’s hand, but the giant held on. Gallen slashed again, jerked backward, and fell to the ground, still holding the key.

  He looked up. All three vanquishers had recovered from their surprise. In unison they lunged.

  A piercing shriek rose behind them. They halted for half a second, and Maggie rushed between one ogre’s legs. Gallen felt Orick’s teeth biting into his collar as the bear tried to drag him under the arch.

  Gallen scrabbled to his feet enough to kick backward a step, faintly aware of the ghostly lavender light radiating from the arch.

  Orick roared in fear and Gallen kicked again and Maggie was with them, dragging Gallen backward. He saw the giants’ faces twist in rage, yet suddenly Gallen was swept away through a cold, brilliant light.

  Chapter 6

  When Gallen and Orick took off down the hill toward the vanquishers, Maggie had felt a thrill of fear as she realized they planned to leave her. She buried her face in the dirt, trying to make herself as small as possible, then heard Gallen’s shout.

  Below her in the woods, she saw the green and blue lights of wights rushing uphill toward her, and she realized she was in the thick of it.

  Her fear suddenly turned to anger. She got up, saw Gallen and Orick struggling to get the bag with the key from a vanquisher. She rushed down the hill, screaming, and bowled into Gallen and Orick, pushing them through the gate.

  An icy white light took her, and she had a strange sensation of gliding, as if she were a leaf fluttering through the wind.

  Maggie fell back and hit the ground rolling, tumbling against Orick’s warm fur. Gallen landed on top of her. She was furious, wanted to hit someone. Maggie shouted, “Gallen O’Day, you …” Then she just sat and stared, her mouth open in wonder.

  They sat in a meadow surrounded by a lush forest, thick with undergrowth. It felt like summer. A warm evening breeze rushed across her back, ruffling her hair, and in the distance a tiny oblong lavender moon hung on the horizon behind a swirl of clouds.

  There was no sign of a gate from this side. Maggie looked around, just to be sure. All around them, broad-leaved trees whispered and rippled in waves under the wind. Locusts sang in the darkness. Overhead was a sky filled with more stars than Maggie had ever imagined.

  Gallen got up, folded his arms and stood staring. “What?” he asked, absently. Orick sniffed the air.

  “Gallen, is your head filled with nothing but blubber?” Maggie shouted. “You’ve done it to us bad! I don’t like the looks of this place.”

  “Fale,” Gallen whispered under his breath. “The vanquishers called it Fale.”

  Suddenly, carried on the wind, there were screeching sounds from above. A flock of white birds hurtled overhead in the twilight, creaking like rusty hinges, some diving into the trees as if to catch insects in the air. The birds passed.

  Gallen put his hand to his mouth and shouted, “Everynne? Veriasse?” He stood waiting for an answer. None came.

  “I can’t smell them,” Orick grumbled, standing on his hind legs to sniff at the wind. “Not even the faintest trace of a scent. They didn’t come out here.”

  “What?” Maggie asked. “They had to come out here. They came through not five minutes ago!”

  “Maybe,” Gallen wondered aloud, “it’s not like a gate so much as a hallway. Maybe it branches. Leading to different places. Everynne called it a maze of worlds. Maybe we made a wrong turn.”

  Maggie looked at the sky full of whirling stars and an odd-shaped moon. The trees smelled strange, and the evening breeze was soft and warm. Nothing like Tihrglas. She couldn’t begin to imagine where they might be.

  “You mean we got off on the wrong world somehow?” she asked. “Gallen, you reeking bag of fish, I ought to knock you in the head! What did you have to do this for? What were you thinking, going after the key that way? You could have gotten us all killed! I know what you were after—that woman Everynne. You’ve been hot for her from the moment you first saw her. Why, if someone lopped off your head, it would be no loss. Your gonads would still do all the thinking!”

  Gallen shrugged. “The vanquishers had another key. I had to warn Veriasse. Besides, I didn’t ask either of you two to come along.”

  Maggie glared at him. “You left me! Both you and your dumb bear left me. As soon as those ogres began shouting, every wight in the country rushed up the hill toward us. I had to throw in with you! And if I hadn’t come to your aid, we’d have all been killed! We could have all stayed home, hidden safe in the woods, but now…!”

  Gallen said, “I’m sorry. I would never wish any harm on you. I’d never have dragged you into this.”

  He had such an expression of grief on his face, and he spoke with such sincerity, that Maggie had a hard time staying angry. She pointed her finger at him and then shook her fist. “Just admit one thing. Just be honest about one thing: don’t you dare tell me that you came here to talk to Veriasse. It was Everynne you were after. You’ve been giving her looks all day, and don’t you dare deny it, Gallen O’Day, or I’ll beat you with a stick.”

  Gallen shrugged. “I couldn’t just let her get killed.”

  Maggie figured that was as much of a confession as she’d ever get from him. She got up and looked furiously for the crystal key. She had fallen on it when she rolled through the gate. Its lights were gently fading. Maggie picked it up. She could see little worms of silver inside, bits of wire and small circles made of gold, odd things that looked like a priest’s communion wafer.

  Orick grunted. “I’m hungry. Is anybody else hungry? Where do you think we could get some food?”

  “Aye,” Gallen said, “I’m hungry. And thirsty, and tired. And I’ve no idea which way to go, do you?”

  Orick gave a little bawl, bear talk for, “No, and it really makes me mad.”

  “If we head off on a straight path,” Gallen said, “maybe we’ll meet up with a river or a road.”

  Maggie looked toward the falling moon on the horizon. It seemed as good a direction as any to take, and if she left it to Gallen and Orick, they’d never make up their minds. She began hiking through the forest and the others were forced to follow.

  The uneven ground featured no real hills be few flat spots. They pushed their way through broad-leaved plants that made the sound of tearing paper, and everywhere she could hear mice or rats running through the dry undergrowth. Often, tumbled white stones protruded from the ground.

  Every few minutes, Gallen called Everynne’s name, but after nearly two hours, Maggie got angry. “Will you quit that bawling. She’s nowhere near here, so you might as well put a cork in it.”

  Gallen fell silent. Though they walked a long time, the moon still lay in the sky like a glowing blue eye, warm and distant. It had hardly moved at all. They found a small pool of water that reflected night shadows a
nd starlight, then knelt to drink. It tasted slightly salty, but quenched Maggie’s thirst. Nearby, several white birds flew up in the night, screeching and circling.

  Orick snuffled in the grass and shouted, “Hey, you two, over here!”

  He’d discovered some nests. Maggie opened the first egg and found a bird embryo in it, so left the rest to Orick. Maggie was exhausted. They hadn’t found anything more impressive that what might have been pit trails—no sign of a house or a road.

  Not knowing what else to do, she looked for shelter. Aside from the arching trees, she found nothing.

  She went to a large white rock, thinking to huddle behind it. It had been sculpted with strange symbols—as if it were part of a building. She looked about. All the white stones had been shaped by hand. They had been hiking through the ruins of a vast city.

  Gallen collected two armloads of grass and leaves to use as a blanket, laid them by Maggie in the lee of the rock. The ground was hollowed like a shallow grave or as if some beast often came there to rest, thus packing the soil. Orick lay with Gallen and Maggie, his thick fur warm and welcome.

  Gallen called one last time for Everynne. Only the croaking of frogs gave answer. A wind blew cool against Maggie’s skin, like the touch of a silver coin in winter.

  Maggie wondered if someone should keep watch, but they’d seen no sign of anything larger than a mouse.

  Gallen whispered to himself, “So Father Heany is dead. He was such a clean man. Death is such a small and nasty affair, part of me is shocked he would get involved in it.” He said nothing more. Soon, Gallen breathed deeply in sleep.

  Orick sang some bear lullaby to Maggie as if she were a cub:

  “Through winters long and cold we’ll sleep.

  Don’t you weep, don’t you weep.

  With hides and fat, warm we’ll keep,

  Though snow grows deep, though snow grows deep.

  So let your tired eyes rest, my dear,

  And when you wake, I’ll be here.

  And when you wake, I’ll be here.”