“Right. Right. I was, um, preparing myself.” Riph Raph scuttled out from under the bed.
Outside the cabin, there was a soft thump.
Marcus tilted his head to listen. “What was that?”
Riph Raph must not have heard him, because at that moment, there was a flash of light as the chair and blanket crackled into flame. Riph Raph crawled in beside him. “Did you see that?” the skyte piped in an excited voice. “I was all ‘wrath and destruction on your head.’ And that chair was like, ‘Oh, no! I’m on fire.’”
“Yeah. You were great.” Marcus’s stomach tightened. If this didn’t work, they would be in big trouble. If it did work, they might be in bigger trouble. Once they got out of the cabin—if they did at all—there was the issue of how to escape the valley. As soon as the guards realized they were gone, every man, woman, and elemental here would be searching for them. And if they managed to get out of the valley where would they go?
All of that might have been something he should have given a little more thought to before putting things into action. But it was too late now. The fire was growing. Even from under the bed, beads of sweat formed on his face, and he glanced toward the door, wondering when the guards would notice the fire.
Riph Raph coughed “So, uh, is this the part where we get out?”
“I hope so.” Smoke was beginning the fill the room. It was thickest toward the ceiling, but getting lower quickly. If the guards didn’t see it soon, he’d have to yell before the whole place was on fire.
He heard voices outside. Thank goodness. Any moment, the door would fling open. Marcus pressed his face to the floor, trying to avoid the heat and smoke while still being in a position to escape.
More than a minute passed, and still the door remained closed. What were they doing out there? Smoke swirled in front of his face. It was getting hard to breathe, and the flames were licking the walls.
“You know that whole thing you said about crispy critters?” Riph Raph asked, his tail wrapped around his face to block the smoke.
“I know,” Marcus gasped. He was beginning to feel lightheaded. He had nearly decided to shout for help when the door banged open. A gust of blessedly cool air entered the room. With plenty of oxygen, the flames leaped from the chair to the walls and bed, engulfing the room in fire and smoke.
“What in the demon’s breath is this?” a soldier exclaimed, stepping through the door.
“Now,” Marcus whispered. Grabbing his things, he scooted across the floor toward the door. He reached the grass and headed for open ground, but a hand grabbed him by the back of his robe and lifted him into the air.
“Where do you think you’re going?” the guard asked above the roar of the fire, which was growing louder by the second.
A soot-stained Riph Raph crawled through the doorway behind him, coughing and gagging. “Let him go,” the skyte croaked.
Marcus tried to bite the man’s arm through his thick cloak. The guard lifted him up so high, they were almost face to face. It wasn’t a guard holding him. It was Graehl.
“Trying to get away?” Graehl asked.
“So what if I am?” Marcus spat. “Someone has to save Kyja.”
“True.” Graehl nodded. “But perhaps your chances of success would be better if you made your escape without sending up a signal for the entire camp to see.” On the ground at his feet, one of the guards groaned softly.
Marcus turned his head and saw the second soldier lying unconscious on one side of the cabin. He looked back at Graehl. “What . . .”
“I told you,” Graehl said, lowing Marcus to the ground. “People do what they have to do. Especially for those they care about.”
Ten minutes later, the three of them were making their way through a thick grove of trees. Riph Raph, perched on Marcus’s shoulder, shivered and whispered, “This place gives me the creeps.”
“No kidding,” Marcus said. The branches were so thick overhead, he could barely see a thing. And there was no sign of any kind of trail or markings. All he could do was follow Graehl, hoping he knew where he was headed. “It feels like we’re going away from the passage through the waterfall,”
“We are,” Graehl said. “There’s no chance of getting past the guards there.” He glanced over his shoulder. “We need to hurry. It’s only a matter of time before they realize you’re gone. Can you keep up, or would you like me to carry you?”
“I can keep up,” Marcus said. His legs were throbbing, and it was hard to breathe at this altitude. But if he was going to rescue Kyja, he couldn’t do it being carried around like a baby. “So you were the one who wrote the letter.”
“What letter?” Graehl asked, picking up the pace.
If Graehl hadn’t written the letter Marcus found on his bed the first night here, who had? “What made you turn against Master Therapass?” he asked, changing the subject.
Graehl shrugged. “I’m not turning against him. I’m doing what I think is right.” He paused for a second, as though listening to what he’d said, and nodded. “As he is.”
“So am I,” Marcus said. “But before, you said it was too dangerous for me to come with you.”
Graehl stopped and spun around so quickly that Marcus nearly tripped trying to keep from running into him. Riph Raph flew from his shoulder with a yip of surprise. “Do you want me to take you back?”
Marcus was so shocked, he couldn’t speak. He shook his head.
Graehl studied him. “Do you want to save your friend?”
“Of course.”
“Would you do anything to save her? Even if it meant doing hard things?” He stared at Marcus as if the wrong word would send them both right back to the burned-out cabin.
“I’d do anything for her,” Marcus whispered. “No matter what it takes.”
“So will I,” Riph Raph said, settling back on Marcus’s arm.
Graehl stared at Marcus a moment longer before turning and continuing through the trees. “It’s only a little farther.”
After a brief but tiring hike, they came out of the trees to find a sheer, gray cliff. Marcus stared up at a stone wall that rose hundreds, if not thousands, of feet above him. Were they going to try to climb that? Was that the “hard thing” Graehl had been talking about?
Graehl reached into his pocket and took out something that glinted in the moonlight. “Therapass is a good man. Tankum too, in his own way. They want what’s best for Farworld. Their problem is that they see only one way to achieve their goal. I’m a pragmatist. Do you know what that means?”
Marcus shook his head.
Graehl turned the item in his fingers. It looked like some sort of ring. “It means that when I look at a problem, I examine every potential outcome—all possible solutions. I weigh the costs against the results then come to the best decision. My choices may not be perfect; I may not be the idealist Therapass is. But I get the job done. Sometimes that means doing hard things—things other people shy away from.”
Marcus nodded. “I can do hard things.” He looked up at the cliff. “How do we start?”
“Start?” Graehl followed Marcus’s gaze and laughed. “We’re not climbing. I’ve arranged for a ride.”
A shadow blocked the moon for a second, making Marcus look quickly up. But whatever had been there was gone. “How can we get a ride? I thought you said this place was hidden.”
“It is,” Graehl said. “Protected by magic you and I can only dream of. Which means we need more powerful magic to get past it.” He held out a gold ring for Marcus to see.
Marcus leaned forward, and his eyes opened wide. “It has the symbol. The one on my shoulder.”
Graehl nodded. “It does. You have no idea how powerful this symbol is.”
Something brushed against a nearby tree. Marcus turned to see several figures closing in on them. “The guards found us!”
“Oh, they found us,” Graehl said with a dark laugh. “But they aren’t the guards.”
The figures stepped into the
moonlight—six men in dark robes and holding black, forked staffs. They were Thrathkin S’Bae, sorcerers of the Dark Circle. Marcus stumbled backward. One of them lifted his staff, and a bolt of blue light blasted Riph Raph from Marcus’s shoulder. Marcus turned to run but found himself looking at curved talons as long as he was tall.
Cold fear froze his feet to the ground as he looked up, into the blood-red eyes of a Summoner.
“People do what they have to do,” Graehl said. “Even if it means doing hard things.”
Marcus tried to scream, but a hood was pulled over his head, and something knocked him to the ground.
Interlude: The King’s Army
The soldiers finished searching the latest building, with no success.
“Another zero,” said the one known as Bones. He picked up a pocket calculator, which had washed up on the edge of the street; he looked it over and stuck in his pocket. You never knew when something like it might come in handy. Whenever one of the engineers needed a circuit board or a battery, he’d be there to provide it. Could be worth a bag of fruit or a video game.
“King won’t be happy that we came up empty again,” Tuck said. “Word is he thinks the magic level is nearly there. Harness up a couple of powerful Casters, and they could put us over the top.”
Bones thought about the harnesses and shivered. He’d been in the dungeon once, and he’d be more than happy to never see it again. All of those blank faces creeped him out. “Sure glad I’m not a Caster.”
Tuck gave him a strange look. “’Course you are. Who’d want to be one of them?”
They headed to the next building, both alert for the whistling that meant the beasts had found something. To their right, a bubble rose slowly out of the street, then paused, as though waiting to see if they had any magic before receding back into the blackness. That was a good sign.
“Think it’s true what they say about the passages being blocked off?” Bones asked.
Tuck snorted. “How would anyone know? Not like any of ’em’s been to the Caster world. They start flapping their gums when nobody shows up for a while.”
“True.” Bones rubbed his chin. He’d sure have liked to bring King Phillip the magic he was looking for. A Caster with lots of power. Wouldn’t he get a reward for that
11: Awakening
The girl opened her eyes.
Flickers of blue and orange light illuminated the jagged spears of black rock hanging above her head like broken teeth and rotted gums. A faint taste of flowers filled her mouth. Did that mean something? She thought it should, but she couldn’t remember why.
She lay, staring up at the shifting patterns, for a period that seemed neither short nor long. Time felt unimportant here—almost unreal. She might have continued to watch the dance of fire and shadow indefinitely if she hadn’t been distracted by a steady moaning coming from her right.
It was a rhythmic sound, starting with a quiet uuuhhhh, rising to a louder ah-ah-ah, and finally ending in an anguished ohhhhh, before starting over again. Like the wind blowing through dead tree branches, or waves breaking against a rocky shore.
It was too regular to be the sound of the wind, though—too . . . human.
Was someone in trouble? Worry filled her chest—although that emotion had the same unreal feeling as the memories she couldn’t seem to dredge up. Her thoughts felt muted, somehow, as if they were no longer important.
She placed her palms on the flat surface beneath her and pushed herself up. She was sitting on a rectangular block of dark stone—the same stone as the ceiling, but, unlike the ceiling, smooth as glass. Her thin, white gown shifted as she moved.
“Hello?” she called, her voice echoing back at her.
The moaning paused for a moment before returning to its regular pattern.
“Is anyone here?” She realized she had no idea where she was or how she’s gotten there. She tried to recall anything—her name, where she was from, what this place was. Her mind was as blank and empty as the black rock.
She swung her legs over the edge of the platform, and five or six dancing flames dropped from the ceiling, skipping and twirling toward her. She jerked back, afraid the fire would burn her skin or ignite the gown. But when it touched her, she felt no pain—only a soft tickling against the soles of her feet, like the playful lick of a skyte.
Something about the thought of a skyte licking her toes made the girl pause. A memory tried to surface in her mind.
It was . . . It was . . .
Before the thought could become clear, it faded like mist under the sun. Whatever the memory had been, it wasn’t important.
She slid forward until her toes touched the floor, which was nearly as smooth as the stone she’d been lying on, and neither hot nor cold. The flames circled about her, drifting forward and darting away.
She glanced around the cavern; it wasn’t a single room, as she had first thought, but many rooms seemingly connected by tunnels and passages. Flames cavorted across the floors, walls, and ceilings like fairies.
Laughter came from somewhere behind her, and she followed the sound down a sloping path into a small room with a ceiling so high it disappeared into the darkness. Sitting cross-legged in the center of the room was a man with a tangled, gray beard. For some reason, the beard seemed familiar. But again, the memory—if that’s what it was—slipped away like water through her fingers.
“Hello,” she said to the man, who wore the same type of robe as she did.
The man gave no sign that he’d heard her. He continued to laugh, staring at a glowing blue ball a few feet away.
She moved closer. “Can you tell me where I am?”
Haltingly, the man’s clouded eyes drifted from the pulsing blue globe to meet her gaze. He raised a hand to his mouth, and the laughter cut off abruptly.
She knelt before him and touched his knee with one hand. “I woke up—well, I’m not exactly sure how long ago. But I don’t know where I am or how I got here.”
The man blinked “A garden. Picking flowers in a garden. The rain. The dirt. The . . . the . . .” His eyes drifted back to the ball, and he began laughing again, his low chuckles growing to lunatic guffaws that made her skin crawl.
Something was wrong with him. She patted him softly and stood. “I’ll find my own way. Can I do anything for you? Bring you something?” she asked, before realizing she had nothing to give him.
“Flowers.” He coughed out the word between maniacal laughs.
She nodded and drifted away from him. “If I find any, I’ll bring you some.”
The girl left the room through the same passageway she’d entered from, then heard the moaning again. She cocked her head, trying to place the sound. Either more than one person was moaning, or the chambers made it seem that way. Her feet padded soundlessly across the floor as she explored one room after another.
She nearly missed a skin-and-bones figure pressed so tightly into a crevice that it seemed to be almost one with the stone—a woman, pushed as far back into the wall as she could get. Her arms were wrapped around her knees, drawing them to her bowed head so she was almost a compact ball. Long, brown hair hid the woman’s face. But there was no doubt that this was the person—or one of the people—making the moaning noises.
“Are you all right?” She reached for the woman, but a voice spoke from behind her.
“You’re new here.”
The girl spun around and raised her hands as she took in the creature before her. His lower body was that of a horse, complete with four legs and a tail. His upper half appeared to be somewhat human, with a man’s chest and arms. From the neck up, though, he was . . . What? A demon? A serpent? A dragon?
His entire body appeared to be made of raging red and gold fire. Intense heat radiated off of him. The only part of the creature not made of flames was a metal breastplate, which glowed orange as if it were in the center of a blacksmith’s forge.
Shading her eyes with one hand, she looked up into the beast’s red eyes. “I .
. .” she began, unsure whether to speak to the monster or run from it. “I don’t . . .”
“Don’t know where you are?” The creature grinned. A tongue of flame flickered in and out between his glowing fangs. “Don’t know who you are? Why you’re here?”
“Yes,” she said, her pulse beginning to speed up. “I think I’ve lost my memory. Can you help me?”
“Of course!” The creature cavorted around the room, his flaming hooves kicking sparks off the floor in a shower of light. “I’m the only one who can help you.” He flashed a dazzling smile, stuck out one hoof, and bowed before her. “What would you like to know first?”
She studied the creature’s face. For some reason she couldn’t explain, it didn’t bother her that he had the head of a monster and was made of fire. But there was something in his almost insanely cheerful expression and lilting voice that made her uneasy.
On the other hand, he was the first being she’d found here who looked like he might be able to tell her anything. She glanced at the woman who was balled up in the crevice. The woman was obviously incapable of providing any useful information.
She studied the beast. “Where am I?”
“An excellent question.” The creature reached inside his armor and pulled out a flaming dagger. He examined the blade and used it to pry a stone out of his front right hoof. “I’ve asked myself the same thing as long as I’ve been here—which is ages, I assure you.”
She tilted her head, a little annoyed. “You don’t know what this place is either?”
He gave a laugh that was half snarl, half whinny. “It depends which answer you are looking for. From a purely metaphysical standpoint, we are somewhere between the celestial realms—the home of the gods—and the fiery furnace of the devils. Although, frankly I admit that I think we’re closer to the latter than the former. However, if you’re asking about the journey of life, where are any of us? Near our goals? On the brink of failure? At the top of the pile or on the bottommost rung?”
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