A Kingdom Rises

by J. D. Rinehart

  “Why am I wrong?” he said quietly.

  She regarded him for a long time, as motionless as a statue.

  “Wrong place,” she said at last.

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  Theeta clacked her beak together and tossed her head, a sure sign of her frustration. “Wrong future. Wrong past. Wrong now. Place wrong. Tarlan wrong.” She paused, then added, “Not . . . des-tin-y.”

  Tarlan knew what she was trying to tell him. He was sick of hearing it.

  “Everyone keeps telling me what to do!” he snapped. “I can’t stand it. This is my life. My choice. And I choose to be here, whether you like it or not!”

  “Not like. Not want.”

  “Well, I didn’t want you to come in the first place! Remember?”

  “Want go.”

  “Then go! I’m not stopping you!”

  Tarlan stalked across the snowfield, kicking aside great flurries of snow. Behind him, the black stone stood in sharp silhouette against a sky turning swiftly purple. As the sun disappeared behind the mountains, the first stars winked into view. The brightest of them were the three stars that had been looking down on Tarlan ever since he’d first left Yalasti.

  The prophecy stars.

  Except one was not as bright as before.

  Tarlan stood in the snow, gazing up into the twilight. Two of the prophecy stars—one green, one red—shone just as brilliantly as ever. But the third star, the one tinged with gold, had faded almost to invisibility. Somehow worse, its light was stuttering, like a candle flame about to be extinguished.

  One star for each of the three, Tarlan thought sadly. Now Gulph is dead—his star is dying too.

  A voice cawed softly in his ear.

  “Theeta go.”

  Tarlan’s throat tightened. His eyes stung.

  “Theeta help.” Her voice sounded more distant. The words were accompanied by the rustling beat of Theeta’s wings, growing gradually fainter. Tarlan didn’t turn to look, only stared at the black stone.

  She’s leaving me.

  “Theeta help. Find change. Tarlan broken. Theeta mend . . .”

  The thorrod’s voice dwindled as she climbed into the twilight sky. When he could hear it no longer, Tarlan at last looked up. Theeta was a tiny speck of gold crawling over a field of indigo, flying high enough to catch the last rays of the sun.

  For a brief moment, her wings burned brighter even than the prophecy stars.

  Then she turned, and Theeta’s light went out.

  • • •

  Tarlan walked through the night, his tattered black cloak wrapped tightly around him. His face grew stiff in the biting cold, and his chest felt tight and hard. His teeth chattered constantly. His hands and feet were completely numb. That was fine. Feeling numb was better than feeling lonely and full of grief. Tarlan wondered if he’d feel those things in the morning, when the sun returned and his body thawed.

  The moon rose, painting silver shadows across the rolling plains of snow. As Tarlan moved steadily upslope, he passed more black crags jutting from the ground, until a forest of dark stone surrounded him.

  He stopped and turned a full circle.

  Which way is north?

  He looked up at the sky. Thick clouds had rolled in, destroying any chance of navigating by the stars.

  I’m lost.

  Cold wind blasted against his frozen face. Snow began to fall.

  Pulling his black cloak around his shivering body, Tarlan stumbled on through the towering fingers of rock. The numbness ebbed from his body. Tingling pain replaced it. Every footstep was torture. He rubbed his hands against each other, terrified his fingers would snap like icicles.

  Just when he thought the blizzard could get no worse, it doubled in strength. The wind was a hammer, battering him from all directions, first knocking him back on his heels, then slamming him forward. It hurled snow at him from every side, now piling it up on the back of his neck, now ramming it into his mouth and trying to choke him. The storm howled, and as Tarlan staggered on, he howled along with it.

  Strange thoughts flew through his mind like frozen leaves whipped up by the wind.

  I howl like a wolf!

  I fly like a thorrod!

  I am not who I was!

  For a time, he believed this was not a blizzard but a sandstorm. He was not cold but hot. His arms were melting, his legs were melting. He was on fire, and the fire was inside his head.

  Bright! It’s so bright! I’m burning!

  He squinted against its glare.

  Take it away! Take it all away!

  The light stubbornly remained. Tarlan’s legs stopped moving of their own accord, leaving him tottering knee-deep in powdery snow. The air was still and clear. He could hear nothing but the ragged sound of his own breath as it clawed its way through his ice-scorched throat.

  He forced his frozen eyelids to peel themselves apart.

  Is that the sun?

  It was. Low in the east, an orange glow sent bright tendrils of light climbing into a sky wiped clean. Not fire after all. A new day.

  I’m still alive.

  Sometime during the night, he’d left the forest of rocks behind. Only a single tower of stone remained: a black spire thrusting up from the snow and leaning toward the dawn. It was thin, not so much a finger as a claw.

  There’s something on top of it!

  Tarlan took three plodding steps forward, then stopped again, exhausted. Had the thing on the spire just twitched?

  Not one thing. Two!

  Or was that just his blurred vision betraying him?

  Tarlan wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. He could definitely see two creatures perched at the tip of the giant stone claw. They were hunched over, making it impossible to determine their shape. Were those wings?

  “Theeta?” he croaked. “Nasheen?”

  Neither of the creatures moved. Tarlan took three more faltering steps and something flashed in the shifting orange light of the rising sun. Teeth? Talons? Impossible to say.

  YOU ARE NOT READY.

  Tarlan staggered. The voice had pierced his head like . . . like a tooth, or a talon . . . and its strength had almost knocked him over.

  He waited, staring at the things perched on the rocky spire, daring one of them to move. Daring one of them to speak.

  Nothing happened. Tarlan sank to his knees in the snow. The sun burned through the distant clouds, painting him with its fire. The sudden warmth was shocking. His vision blurred again. His ears roared.

  “Ready for what?” he cried.

  No movement. No reply.

  Tarlan thought he heard someone calling his name. His eyes closed and he fell into a blackness that wasn’t the night.

  CHAPTER 4

  Elodie led the way up the shallow slope to the copse, the shadow of a meandering hedge keeping them hidden from anyone who might have been watching from the castle. By the time they reached the trees, the sound of battle had faded. In its place Elodie could hear a low buzzing. She wondered what it was.

  “More fires have broken out,” said Cedric, turning back to face the castle. “I wonder who’s winning.”

  Elodie didn’t bother to look. If the Vicerins wiped out the Helkrags—or the other way around—that was fine by her; it would make her job easier. Either way, the outcome of that particular battle was out of her control.

  But here . . .

  . . . here is something I can control. I hope.

  Beyond the narrow belt of trees, the ground dropped away. At the bottom of a shallow, rocky slope lay an enormous field of thick grass dotted with scrubby bushes. In the low dawn light, the long shadows cast by these bushes looked like scratches drawn across the land by huge unseen claws. Something like a heat-haze seemed to ripple over the grass, despite the coolness of the early morning air.

  The buzzing noise grew louder.

  “So this is the Forgotten Graveyard,” said Elodie.

  “They are here,” said Samial. There was a dr
eamy look on his face. “The dead. They have been waiting, I think.”

  “Waiting for what?” said Sylva.

  Elodie bit her lip. “Waiting for me.”

  She began to climb down the slope. After a couple of steps, she hesitated, overwhelmed by what she was about to attempt. At once, Lady Darrand was at her side. Behind the phantom woman, perched easily on the rough boulders, was the rest of Elodie’s small band of ghostly allies.

  “We are with you, Elodie,” Lady Darrand said.

  “We have nothing to fear from those who haunt this place,” added Lord Winterborne.

  Reassured, Elodie descended the rest of the way, then stepped out onto the grass. Her feet sank instantly into the ground, all the way up to her ankles. She threw out her arms, fighting for balance. The wet soil belched, spewing up bubbles of foul-smelling gas.

  “Ugh!” exclaimed Sylva. “What’s that awful smell?”

  Elodie tried to take another step, but the swampy earth sucked at her legs, dragging her deeper. Now she was up to her knees.

  “Help me!” she cried.

  Samial was there in an instant. He grabbed her outstretched wrist . . . but to Elodie’s shock, his ghostly fingers passed straight through her flesh.

  “Samial!” she gasped. “Why—”

  A hundred giant insects descended on her, then a hundred more. The swarm buzzed around Elodie’s head like a living tornado. Their glassy bodies made them hard to see; it was as if the air itself had come to life. Some detached part of her understood that these bugs had caused the rippling she’d seen from the trees. The rest of her just wanted to scream.

  “Here, Elodie!”

  It was Cedric. With one foot planted firmly on a grassy mound, he reached down and seized Elodie with his one remaining arm. Sylva took her other hand, and together they pulled. Gradually she began to emerge from the slime. She felt something like an oily rope tighten briefly around her right ankle before relaxing and slithering away.

  With a horrible sucking sound, her legs popped free of the ooze. She fell backward, landing on her back and elbows.

  “Are you all right?” said Sylva. Behind her, Samial was wide-eyed, clearly distressed.

  “I’m fine!” Elodie replied. “Don’t worry.”

  But she was shaking. If Cedric and Sylva hadn’t been there, she would have drowned, swallowed by the mud, and the prophecy with it . . . .

  She pushed her fears aside and got to her feet. Taking care to keep to the higher, drier ground, she made her way onto the grassy hillock. There was a brooding presence here. She could sense it. Something powerful. Something waiting.

  Lady Darrand joined her. “Can you do it? This place feels different from anything I’ve known. It feels . . . treacherous.”

  Elodie tossed her hair out of her face. “I think so. I hope so. Up until now, I’ve always needed objects—like your ring, Lady Darrand. But if Frida’s right, I don’t need anything now. Just myself.”

  She took a deep breath and fixed her gaze on a nearby swarm of insects. The rippling wings made her think of hot summer days. It almost looked like . . .

  . . . like heat over a desert.

  How could she know that? She’d never seen a desert.

  But I’ve felt this before. I feel this way whenever . . . whenever I use magic.

  The heat began to build in her. It began at her feet and flowed up through her, scorching her body, her arms, her head. Hot wind blew through her. Her mouth grew dry. Sand grated between her teeth.

  She planted her feet wide and stretched out her arms. The morning sun turned the grass to gold. The insects were diamonds dancing in its light; Elodie could pick out every single one of them, each spinning in its own private waltz. The swamp yawned, opening itself to her all-seeing eyes. She saw the grass, and below the grass she saw the mud, and below the mud she saw . . .

  . . . the dead.

  They were there, just as she’d known they were. Ten thousand men and women, the fallen enemies of Lord Vicerin, buried here and forgotten . . . but forgotten no more.

  Desert light glinted from shovels and pitchforks, swords and pieces of armor. Heat shone in their unblinking eyes. The dead were motionless, held down by the weight of the mud, and the slow, slow passing of years.

  “Rise up!” Elodie cried. She raised her arms, as if by lifting them she could lift these waiting warriors. “Come back to this world!”

  No movement. Nothing at all. Yet somehow she knew they were stirring.

  “Wake up! The time has come! I am here!”

  Something rushed toward her: all the insects in the swamp, swept up in a sudden wave of scintillating light. The air filled up with their wings. The air was their wings. Everything was buzzing: the swamp, the insects, Elodie herself . . .

  “What . . . ?” she began.

  It was all she managed to say before the insects vanished and she was falling. Above her or below her, a million stars sprang into view. Their heat was unbearable. The heat intensified, then seemed to burst, leaving in its place an iciness that was beyond cold, a whiteness that was also black, a sense that she could see everything there was to see . . . and yet see nothing at all.

  The emptiness swallowed her up.

  CHAPTER 5

  Gulph floated in silence.

  I’m dead, he thought.

  His body rolled, first to the left, then the right.

  But I have no body. I must be a ghost, or else I’ve passed over into the Realm of the Dead.

  Something washed over him—a cold wave.

  Perhaps I’m not dead yet, he thought. Perhaps I’m still falling.

  Gulph kept his eyes stubbornly closed as vivid memories returned.

  On top of the tower . . . flames all around . . . Brutan!

  As the city of Idilliam had burned around him, he’d been faced with a ghastly choice: allow his undead father to turn him into a rotting, walking corpse . . . or jump into the chasm separating Idilliam from the forest realm of Isur.

  Gulph had jumped.

  Better to be dead than one of Brutan’s skeleton slaves! he told himself. Better to rob him of victory! Better to be dead than undead!

  Except he wasn’t dead.

  Was he?

  Slowly Gulph opened his eyes.

  Hazy gray light washed over him. Rising into the light was a wall, impossibly high.

  No, that’s not a wall. It’s a cliff.

  Something splashed across his face. Water?

  Gulph realized he was soaked from head to toe. His body rolled again; this time he thrust out his arms for balance. His elbows dug into something soft and crumbly. When he kicked out, his heels met the same yielding substance. Still on his back, he scrabbled his way awkwardly out of the shallow water in which he’d been floating.

  Once he was on dry land, Gulph flopped back and stared up at the cliff wall towering above him. Thick haze obscured its heights.

  His head lolled to the side. He watched the rippling water as it flowed slowly through a narrow channel in the damp ground. Gulph clambered to his knees and crawled to the river’s edge. He cupped his hands and scooped up a little of the water.

  It was silver.

  And he finally understood what had happened to him.

  He was in the lost realm of Celestis. His leap into the chasm hadn’t been to his death; he’d landed in the river that ran beneath Idilliam.

  All very well, but the impact should have killed him.

  He stared at the shining liquid, remembering the last time he’d been submerged in it. When he and his friends had fallen into the lake in the center of Celestis, the silver water had healed the cuts and scratches he’d suffered during his descent.

  It must have healed me again, he thought in wonder. However badly hurt I was when I landed, the water fixed me. Then Gulph remembered something else about the silver water of Celestis. Scrambling to his feet, he moved hurriedly away from the river until his back was pressed against the cliff. He’d already had one encounter with the
bakaliss, a gigantic red serpent that prowled beneath the waves, and only narrowly escaped with his life. He had no desire to make its acquaintance again.

  The air tasted bitter. When he looked up, he saw that what he’d thought was haze obscuring the top of the cliff was actually smoke. It came rushing back—how he’d climbed the chasm wall and set the city on fire to destroy Brutan once and for all. He shuddered as he recalled standing on top of the tower, surrounded by flames. He remembered the terrible heat, the stifling smoke. His undead father bearing down on him.

  What he couldn’t remember was what had happened to Brutan.

  He must have burned. There was nowhere for him to go.

  But Gulph couldn’t be sure.

  He flexed his back. Crooked as it was, it occasionally troubled him with aches. Now it was racked with pain. As he rubbed his hands over his shoulders, a terrible thought came to him.

  My backpack! It’s gone!

  Gulph waded through the shallows, frantically turning over crystal rocks until, to his great relief, he found the tightly wrapped bundle lodged between two chunks of diamond. He snatched it up and checked the large pocket on the side. His fingers settled immediately on the cold, hard curves of the gold crown of Toronia. Like him, it had survived. Otherwise, the bundle was empty. The fireworks he’d used to burn Idilliam were used up, and at some point the food and water he’d packed must have fallen out.

  As soon as he made this discovery, Gulph’s stomach rumbled.

  How long is it since I fell? he wondered. I could have been floating for days!

  When he’d begun his climb up the near-vertical cliff, the people of Celestis had been preparing for the invasion of Brutan’s undead army. Could the undead have set off before Gulph started the fire? Could they even now be in the tunnels beneath the city, safe from the flames, making their way to attack the underground realm?

  It was horribly possible. Ossilius and his friends would be waiting in Kalia’s house, desperate for news of his mission. Gulph had to warn them . . . .

  Keeping his distance from the water, Gulph set off at a loping run. At first he managed a brisk, determined pace. His wet clothes dried rapidly in the warm air. He felt strong. But soon he began to tire. The ache in his back spread throughout his whole body, and his pace dropped to a stagger. At one point, a coughing fit stopped him in his tracks. When he moved his hands from his mouth, he saw he’d coughed up specks of black ash.