Lives of Kings

by Lucy Leiderman

  I only woke up with a start in the evening. The room was pitch black and I suddenly panicked that I was alone. I hadn’t been alone in months. For all that Moira and I hadn’t exactly bonded on our journey, I was still missing the company.

  I bolted out into the living room, where Moira sat watching TV.

  “Couldn’t sleep,” she replied before I even said anything.

  Seth and Garrison eventually emerged from their own rooms, each sleepily rubbing their eyes and yawning. My head was starting to ache and my stomach told me food would fix it.

  “What’s for dinner?” Seth asked.

  I pulled out a tray from one of the cupboards. “Instant coffee,” I replied, “or various types of sugars.” Taking a look at our options, I made up my mind. “I’ll go get something from outside. I need some fresh air.”

  My headache was growing from bad to extremely uncomfortable.

  “It’s freezing out,” Seth told me as I put on a sweater over another sweater.

  “I’ll be back in a bit.”

  As soon as I walked out of the lobby doors, the brisk air hit me like a brick and actually made the ache worse for a few seconds. I stood and braced myself against the glass doors, but it dissipated slowly.

  Taking deep breaths, the cold bit into my lungs. It would take some getting used to. It reminded me of all the things I’d like to forget, including being kidnapped and stripped down as a sacrifice for some ritual. And Kian had been the one who put me there. Had his guidance and his actions saved me or put my life in danger?

  Lost in thought, I didn’t notice where I was going. I passed one street and then turned down another looking for a good food option. For a city centre, it had shockingly few fast food places. I was starting to get cold when I spied pizza down the street. It’d be cold when I got back, but it was still better than instant coffee.

  Suddenly, someone reached out from the alleyway and grabbed me, pulling me off my feet. A mix of old and new Gwen fought as a hand was placed over my mouth. I kicked. My foot met something and my captor doubled over in pain.

  I tried to claw my way free, but lo and behold, biting my nails turned out to not to have been such a good idea. After a few seconds of terrifying struggle, a pair of blue eyes looked out at me from the darkness. I stilled.

  When Kian was sure I recognized him, he let go. I couldn’t move. My back against the cold brick wall, I was at a loss for words.

  “I deserved that,” Kian said hoarsely. He limped to the side, and the light illuminated his face. He looked the same. I didn’t know if I was surprised or not. After all, it had only been about two months since I saw him. His hair was a mess and he was underdressed for the weather, as usual. I guess I was too.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “I wanted to catch you alone,” he replied. I hadn’t realized until that moment how much I missed his voice. “I didn’t know if anyone was with you. I feel you deserve some … answers … before I meet everyone else.”

  “I feel that way too,” I said.

  Chapter Eight

  The night was cold. Kian reluctantly followed Magician to a cottage just at the bottom of the hill, but it was abandoned. They rummaged inside for something that might give them a clue as to what year they had returned to the hill, but didn’t find anything.

  Too miserable to speak, Kian forced his legs to move forward after the man he hated, each step bringing him further into circumstances he now knew to be a mistake.

  They walked until the early dawn, eventually reaching a road made of stone. Carts that moved faster than horses flew by, their lights illuminating the land around them and blinding both Kian and Magician.

  “What is this place?” Kian finally asked.

  “It’s the same place,” Magician said. “Different time.”

  Kian lost track of how far they walked. At one point in the night, one of the carts stopped in front of them. It made a loud noise.

  “Do you want a ride or not?” a man asked them impatiently.

  Both Kian and Magician jumped back, surprised to find a man inside. They ran into the woods before stopping to think about it.

  “Horseless,” Magician remarked. “Horses must no longer exist.”

  They made it to a large cabin illuminated by bright lights. It appeared to be some kind of dining hall, with many carts stopped outside. Dozens of people sat at small tables inside. Kian observed them through the windows while Magician examined each light closely, remarking how there appeared to be no fire.

  “This won’t do,” Magician said more to himself than to Kian. “I am completely lost in this world. People seem to move faster. We will never succeed if we move at the pace of our past.”

  Kian’s heart sank even further when, instead of entering through the front door of the cabin and indulging in some of the food Kian had spied on plates, Magician walked around to the back. There, a sour smell and huge dirty buckets littered the back wall of the cabin.

  A man emptied the garbage into a larger bin. He wore an apron and thin gloves. Magician moved toward him.

  “What are you doing?” Kian asked.

  “Getting an advantage,” Magician replied.

  As light from the cabin fell onto the man’s face, Kian realized he was young, probably younger than him. He appeared to have something inside his ears; two long wires ran down from either side of his head and into his pocket. He didn’t hear Magician approach quickly from behind.

  Magician seized the man’s temples, and he froze. Kian knew enough to realize Magician was taking his memories of this world. A minute passed, then two. Magician still gripped the man’s head until his eyes began to flutter.

  This time Kian couldn’t stand by. He rushed forward and pulled at Magician’s arms.

  “Get off him,” he yelled. “You’re killing him.”

  “So?”

  “You have what you need,” Kian said. “Let go.”

  Magician was weaker in this world. His magic didn’t allow him to both get rid of Kian and someone else at the same time, as he had in the past. Kian felt him falter, and he released the man, who toppled to the ground, unconscious.

  Kian bent down to make sure he was breathing. He was alive, but he would be missing much of his past. Magician recovered quickly.

  “Fine,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  Magician first took Kian to a house in the nearby village. When he was sure no one was home, he used his magic on the door and they walked inside. Kian couldn’t make sense of the furnishings and all of the items he couldn’t even begin to name. There were even carpets on the floors, and plenty of chairs throughout the two-storey home.

  “Do kings live here?” he asked Magician.

  The man laughed. “You have much to learn,” he said, as if he had always known the ways of this world. He took Kian to a closet in a room with a very comfortable-looking bed. Kian longed to lie down on it and sleep away his anguish.

  Kian was outfitted with a new set of clothes that felt completely foreign to him. They were much more comfortable, and the softness felt luxurious under his fingertips, but everything was so thin and light. It would take him a while to get used to it. Downstairs, Magician took two coats from another closet.

  “Aren’t you going to change?” Kian asked, motioning to Magician’s robes. The man simply put on the coat overtop.

  “I will always wear the robes of my people,” he said. “One day they will be as feared and respected here as they were in our time.”

  He lifted his sleeve and took out a sharp knife he had gotten from the kitchen. Turning his hand palm up, he cut until blood ran from his wrist down to his forearm. And as it did, veins, nerves, and the blood mixed to form a map.

  “What’s happening?” Kian asked.

  “I’m being shown the magic,” Magician said, obsessively following each new scrawl on his forearm.

  He looked like he was reading every single line, then nodded with his mouth open, as if he understood it all. Finally
, when it faded and only the blood remained, he lowered his sleeve and looked to Kian.

  “We’re going to cross the ocean,” he said.

  “And find my kind?” Kian asked hopefully.

  “Eventually,” Magician replied. “Someone is just beginning to collect their magic. But it is weak. We will need to wait for something stronger to link us to the Riada warriors.”

  “Well, how long will that take?” Kian asked.

  Magician’s menacing look implied what Kian could have guessed: he didn’t know.

  “What do we do now?” Kian asked.

  “We find my brothers,” Magician said. “We are in luck. Since your kind is just waking up, it appears mine are already powerful.”

  Kian didn’t question Magician throughout much of their journey. The world of the future was incredibly frightening. Magician had been right. Things moved faster, and people travelled farther. Kian received so many scares that his heart felt tired and ached, though he wasn’t sure if it was his regret that caused the pain or the stress of being in this strange new world.

  He tried at first to take in as much as he could so that one day he might escape Magician and warn the Riada. But no matter what he did, he seemed to do it wrong.

  The future’s food did help to restore some of his energy, however. It was rich and plentiful. Though it made no sense to him, he found himself able to read the symbols and speak the language of the people living in this land. When he first saw the date on the boxes with moving images, he grew concerned.

  “This can’t be right,” he said to Magician. “The number of the year. It is too big. There are four numbers.”

  Magician had many of the answers, but not all of them. He observed the date on the box for a while but shrugged it off.

  “We have no idea how they count time,” he said. “The only way to know for sure how long has passed is to find when our time occurred.”

  Everywhere they travelled, people gave them strange looks. Magician refused to alter his appearance or change his clothes. And after a while of seemingly getting everything wrong, Kian began to shut down and just stop trying. It was all just too hard.

  Magician used his magic only when he had to, but those times were frequent. They didn’t have any money or identities in this world, but with magic they managed to cross the ocean in a large machine made of metal that moved faster than Kian could make sense of. Even with Magician’s new memories and knowledge, he too seemed to have a hard time accepting it, calling the airplane a metal tomb. Kian spent the journey bracing himself against the plane slamming into the edge of the world, but it never happened.

  Eventually, after seeing so many things that frightened and confused him, Kian set foot in a new country.

  The name of the country, the United States of America, made him think. He couldn’t figure out if it was a name or a declaration. Either way, no one smiled at the airport and people generally seemed to be stern.

  He and Magician lined up to wait for a man in one of the carts that would take them where they needed to go. Kian took a deep breath as they climbed in and the man behind the wheel took them down another stone road at a terrifying speed.

  “What happens,” Magician asked from the front seat, “if you are travelling this quickly and hit another car?”

  The driver looked at him as if he had grown horns. “You die.”

  Kian grabbed the back seat. It seemed like a big risk just to get somewhere faster.

  As though giving a cue for Magician not to ask any more questions, the driver turned a knob near his wheel and a voice filled the car, talking quickly about a storm that was approaching the area called District of Columbia. Kian looked out the window to find the report accurate. Dark clouds approached.

  He was more than glad to finally climb out of the car. The street they found themselves on was strewn with dead leaves and lined with bare trees, more cars, and brick houses.

  Even to Kian the houses appeared wealthy. A few people walked down the stone walkway lining the street. They were tethered to dogs, and it looked as if the dogs were leading them somewhere. Kian was trying to figure this out when Magician pointed to a particularly large house.

  “It is that one,” he said.

  If he was nervous, he didn’t show it.

  Kian had known Magician long enough to know he would always feign confidence. Still, he had figured out what truly happened. The evil man who had tricked him into coming to the future with him, all so that he could steal the magic from the champions of the Riada, had abandoned his fellow Godelan so that he could live.

  Magician tapped three times on the door. Some time passed. Just as he was about to tap again, the door opened and they stood face to face with a man dressed all in grey. His black hair had flecks of grey and his eyes were like molten silver. The expression on his face went from curious to murderous in an instant.

  Before Magician could speak, the man extended a hand and Magician grabbed for his throat, choking and gasping for air, much like he had done to Adar. Kian stood, frozen, unsure what to do. If this man killed Magician, perhaps he could find the others on his own.

  “Wait,” Magician croaked.

  The man didn’t relent. He tilted his head to the side as veins throbbed in his neck with the power he used.

  “So you found us, coward,” he said in a low, dangerous tone.

  “They’re here,” Magician managed.

  Uncertainly flashed in the eyes of the man at the door. “Who?”

  Magician motioned to his throat. He couldn’t speak. The man opened his fist just a little bit, and Magician sucked in deep breaths.

  “Who?” he repeated.

  “The Riada seven,” gasped Magician. “They followed you. Used the same ritual. Were … reborn.”

  The man narrowed his eyes. Kian could see him considering Magician’s words. Being untrustworthy was obviously not a quality he had developed recently.

  “Where are they?” the man asked.

  Magician rubbed his throat, taking breaths that looked painful. “I don’t know,” he said, “but he can find them.”

  Magician pointed to Kian, whose heart sank. This was it. The last shackles of his terrible mistake were fastened. Magician had revealed his secret to the Godelan, whom the seven had died to get rid of. Now he had no choice. He had to go along with it if he ever hoped to find his brother, and maybe somehow he would find a way to warn them.

  The man at the door looked at Kian as if seeing him for the first time. His thin mouth curved into a smile, but it only made him look even more dangerous. He turned his gaze back to Magician, where it lingered between distaste and contempt.

  “Come in.”

  Kian and Magician were led inside the home, where large chandeliers floated above the stairs, and this man, the former Godel, appeared to live in luxury. He motioned to a plush couch where they sat while he spoke into a small box, telling someone else to come to his house. He then poured brown liquid from a decanter into a clear cup.

  Kian observed the craftsmanship of the glass. He had never seen such careful and fine work. So much of the modern world’s innovations had simply flown by him too quickly for him to notice. He stopped when he saw the man looking.

  “You are new, aren’t you?” he asked Kian. It was a rhetorical question. He didn’t wait to hear the answer. “So the coward is telling the truth. You can recognize them. What is your name?”

  “Kian.”

  The man’s eyes widened, and he turned to Magician.

  “Prince Kian!” he told Magician, as if the other man didn’t know it already. “Well, congratulations. Whatever scam you thought up to get him here must have been good.” He turned back to Kian. “You may call me Stone,” the man said. “My name in this world is Frederick Stone.”

  Kian wondered if he had chosen that name for his apparent love of grey.

  “How did you get here?” Stone asked Magician.

  Kian quickly began to realize that as confident as Magician ap
peared, he had been the least powerful of the three Godels who worked magic. Stone spoke to him with such contempt that it was becoming clear why Magician had refused to take off the robe that identified him as powerful.

  Kian listened, staring into his cup of strong liquid and biting the inside of his cheek until it bled. Magician explained everything that had happened, repeating some parts twice. He told Stone about how he had found Kian in the forest and what kind of deal they had struck.

  Stone glanced at Kian but didn’t say anything about the Riada.

  Kian began to realize this man was not like Magician. He was less predictable and harder to read, which made him even more dangerous. As Magician spoke, there came another knock on the door. Stone disappeared to answer it and came back with another man. This one rushed in and stared at Magician and Kian almost greedily.

  “So it is true!” he exclaimed. He was slightly taller than Stone, though still shorter than Magician. His hair was beginning to thin, but he wore the same type of clothing as Stone, a jacket and pants of the same shiny grey over a white shirt.

  “Donald,” Stone said, “this is Kian. You remember the youngest son of the high king, all grown up?”

  The man named Donald gave a slight bow. Kian couldn’t tell if it was sarcastic.

  “Hello,” he said formally. “I’m Donald Leigh. I think you have a story I should hear.”

  Kian was about to reply that he didn’t, but Stone pressed Magician to begin the story anew. And so Kian had his failures retold all over again. When Magician was done for the second time, he huffed.

  “Now will someone please tell me how much time has passed?” he asked.

  Stone and Donald looked at each other.

  “About two thousand years,” Stone said finally.

  Both Magician and Kian sat back in awe. The ritual had been a lot more powerful than either of them had suspected.

  “What is left of our people?” asked Magician.

  “Nothing,” Donald replied, anger rising in his voice. Stone flashed him a warning glance.

  “There is nothing of the Godelan?” asked Magician, as if to make sure he understood correctly.