The woman gathered her in and glared at Owen. “What do you want with us? We don’t need your kind.”
“What kind is he?” a woman said, her voice floating down the rocks and reaching into Owen’s heart.
With a start he shaded his eyes and looked up to a lone dwelling high above the floor of the gulch, where the Queen stood on a ledge.
People seemed to appear from everywhere, whispering, calling to others, pointing.
Thaddeus bowed and took off his hat, exposing his splotchy, grotesque head, but the Queen did not turn away. “Your Highness, I was hunting the east quarter in the fog and heard wings. But instead of meat falling, I found this young man who claims he has met you before.”
“What is your name?” the Queen said, her head high.
“Your Highness,” Owen said, “I met you at the mine when you were in the separation room. I am the Wormling.”
The people gasped and murmured.
The Queen edged forward. “You are either an impostor or your appearance has greatly changed.”
Owen pulled out his sword and raised it. “I have been through much since last I saw you, Your Highness. My appearance may have changed, but this should tell you all you need to know. It is the Sword of the Wormling. And in my pack is The Book of the King.”
“Stay where you are,” the Queen said as Owen moved closer. “You were going to search for my Son. Did you find him?”
Owen stared at his mother, knowing that the mirror of her in the Highlands was Mrs. Rothem. He could see the same kindness in her eyes. “I did find him,” he said haltingly. “And I also spoke with your husband. He met me in the Highlands.”
She put a hand to her face. “The King is alive?”
“I’m coming up,” Owen said.
The Queen shook her head. “Stay where you are. Anything you have to tell me you can say in front of these people.”
Owen scanned the growing crowd gazing up at the Queen as if she were some beacon of hope—their only reason to keep going. Enough for a decent army, Owen thought. Wounded warriors but an army nonetheless.
He broke for the stone stairway, and several men hobbled to block him. Owen skirted them, jumped to the fifth step, and continued.
The people shouted and threw stones, but they were too weak to even come close. A few men tried to follow, but halfway up they were overcome with fatigue.
“Stay away from me!” the Queen shouted when Owen reached the top.
“Don’t worry. I don’t have their disease.”
Owen wanted to run to her and embrace her and tell her the truth, but she ran into the cave.
When he unsheathed his sword, the crowd yelled for him to stop and hurled threats.
Owen held it high. “This is the Sword of the Wormling given to me by the King of the Lowlands, who is also King of the Highlands and the creator! Do not be afraid! This sword will lead you to victory over the evil one!”
Owen crept into the woman’s dwelling to find nothing but a straw mat and a blanket. No table. No chair. No vanity with a mirror. And no food but a half-eaten piece of rancid meat. The Queen kept her back turned to him, and it was all Owen could do not to run to her. She was much thinner than when he had last seen her, and no wonder.
Owen had grown much through his travels and adventures, but the truth was he still longed for her embrace, for the warmth and security that only a mother can give.
“Your Highness,” he said, “you need not fear me. I am not diseased. There is something I must tell you. Something you’ll want to hear.”
“Stay where you are,” she said, wringing her hands and pacing.
“The King gave me a message for you,” Owen said, his voice cracking.
She turned and glanced at him, then turned back again. “How am I to believe you?”
“I saw him in the Highlands. He has found Gwenolyn.”
The Queen reached for the wall to steady herself. “My daughter is alive?”
“And beautiful, like you.”
She waved as if the news was too much. Finally, she said, “Swear to me my husband and my daughter are all right.”
“Gwenolyn is fine. She’s taking Onora to a safe place. Onora was stung by the minions of time.”
The Queen faced him. “You’re saying the bride still lives too?”
He nodded. “I assume they’re still safe, of course. The King took every precaution.”
“Always. Except for me.”
“Oh, don’t say that. He did think of you. He told me as much.” Owen recounted the King’s words. “He said he knew you had been treated badly and that things would get even worse for you. But he also said your life would not be taken.”
“It might as well have been,” she said.
“Not true. A flyer who can take us out of here awaits above.”
The Queen turned away again, and her shoulders shook.
“I don’t blame you for losing hope,” Owen said softly. “And neither did the King. He said you would despair and that the Dragon would test you in every way, but you’re a woman of uncommon courage and strength.”
“The King thinks more highly of me than he ought. I have betrayed him in a thousand ways, believing he abandoned me.”
Owen moved closer and reached to touch her but held back. Like a mighty river pushing at swollen banks, his emotions fought to overwhelm him. Through tear-filled eyes he saw her glance at him.
“I know who you are,” she whispered. “I knew as soon as you left the mountain that day. Your face, the resemblance to your father, the way you spoke—everything confirmed what I knew in my heart.”
Owen staggered to embrace her, but the Queen blocked him.
“Mother, I told you—I don’t have the disease. You don’t have to worry.”
She shrank back, finally uncovering her face to reveal a white spot on her cheek. “I’m not worried about me. I’m worried about you.”
Since I arrived, I’ve wanted to help these people,” the Queen sobbed. “I gave them hope that someone could live in their midst and not be tainted by the disease, but now I have become one of them.”
Owen could stand it no longer and embraced his mother. She pleaded with him to let her go, but Owen hugged her all the more and cried with her.
“I have dreamed of this day,” she managed, looking Owen full in the face.
“I have as well,” he said, wiping his tears. “And seeing you like this makes me wonder what I could have done to keep you from this.”
The Queen cupped his face. “Surely you have read what your father wrote. ‘Pain is part of the recipe of life.’ I was chosen for this and will accept it.”
“But if only I had—”
She shushed him. “Our lives are not about getting everything right. We stumble and fall. Difficult paths lead to what is good. Your father asks you to choose what is good and true. And when you do that, you can’t help but change the lives of those around you and fulfill his purpose for you.”
Owen sat, elbows on his knees, smiling sadly. “When I was younger, I would come across a passage in a book about a mother and her child, and I would dream about what my own mother would say to me.”
Owen told her all about the bookstore, Mr. Reeder, books that thrilled him, his school, his few friends—in short, everything he could remember about the Highlands. Then he quoted passages from The Book of the King.
The Queen’s eyes filled. “It’s like listening to him. His words bring fire to my heart.”
“It will bring more than that,” Owen said.
A noise outside interrupted him, and his mother quickly covered herself and led him to the entrance.
Thaddeus, hat in hand, called up to them in his hoarse voice. “Your Highness, we thought we heard crying and wanted to make sure you were all right. Has he hurt you?”
Owen whispered in his mother’s ear, and she nodded. She lifted both hands. “My friends, I have news for all afflicted with the disease that has brought you here. The Wormling has come!�
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Faint cheers and applause came from people too weak to make much noise. Word had spread, for the amphitheater was packed and more people streamed through the pathways.
“He has met with the true King,” the Queen continued. “He is a young man of the book—The Book of the King. His message is one of life and hope for the future.”
“What future?” Thaddeus said. “I mean you no disrespect, Highness, but we have no future. We will die here.”
“I implore you,” the Queen said, “to listen to him.” She rolled up her sleeves to expose her whitened skin. “Listen to what he has to say to us.”
The crowd wailed, “It’s our fault! You’re sick because of us!”
“Please,” she said, “this is the not the end.” But the people’s laments drowned her out. She held up her hands and waited. Finally, when they had quieted, she said, “Thaddeus, what do you desire more than anything?”
Owen could hardly contain himself as the man struggled to find the words. It was as if he hadn’t even dared desire anything for so long that he hardly knew where to begin. Finally, lips quivering, he said, “To be clean!”
“Yes!” someone shouted.
“To be spotless!”
“To be pure!”
Thaddeus seemed to feed off the crowd, standing taller now. “And I long to return to my home and the land where we grew crops and fed our children. Yes! To live without fear!”
“To have our lives back!”
“To see my family again and to embrace them!”
“To take off my hood!”
“To not be ashamed!”
A flood of voices filled the amphitheater, the people so busy shouting they didn’t notice Owen walking down the steps and joining them. When the thunder of noise subsided, the people swarmed him. He took out his sword and drew a large circle in the sand.
“What are you doing?” the little bald girl said.
Owen put a hand on her head and leaned close. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and the people looked terrified.
“Do you want to be healthy again?” Owen said.
“I can’t remember what it feels like,” the girl said.
“Look at me,” Owen said, showing his arms to the crowd. “The King offers freedom from your condition if you will only receive it.”
A woman scowled. “How can you offer the impossible?”
“Only the King has the power to cleanse you,” Owen said. “The truth is, even those who appear healthy have stains within.”
“What do you mean?” Thaddeus said.
Owen opened The Book of the King. “‘Everyone is contaminated by the enemy’s stain. On some it is easily seen, but in others the stain is hidden. So then, if all have this stain, how will they be cleansed? How can they be pure again?’”
The people seemed mesmerized.
An echo of a voice came to Owen’s mind. “Your wound is your strength.” He slipped off a shoe and sock.
The people pressed close, clearly amazed at the hue of his skin compared to theirs.
“The enemy comes to kill you from the inside out,” Owen said. “He wants to steal the pleasure of living. His desire is to destroy.” He raised the sword and looked up at his mother. “But the book says the King has promised life to anyone who wants it. He wants you to live your lives to the full.”
Many shook their fists at him, but others looked on earnestly.
Owen asked for a bowl and was handed a stone basin used to catch rainwater. He brushed off his foot and showed the scar from where Mr. Page (also the King) had cut him to remove the locator the Dragon had implanted.
The people fell back when Owen used his sword to slice his foot open, and blood spurted from it into the bowl. He motioned for his mother to come down.
Clara closed the door to Connie’s room and tiptoed along the dark hallway of their hideout—an aged bed-and-breakfast called the Shadow Inn. The King had rented all the rooms and told her in the letter he had given her that all her meals would be taken care of as well as care for Connie. But the proprietors, an elderly couple, offered burnt toast for breakfast, nothing for lunch, and peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches for dinner.
“My friend is sick,” Clara had told them the night before, trying in vain to get more food and some aspirin for Connie. “My father will not like the way you’re treating us. He paid you well.”
The man shrugged. “Tell your father to come back and complain.”
The next night the woman sat back and warmed her hands with a coffee mug as Clara approached the kitchen. The place was worse than drafty, the upstairs rooms so cold you could see your breath. Clara wondered why the couple had not been stung by the minions. There were certainly enough holes in the walls and windows.
“I heard screams outside,” Clara said. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing new,” the woman said. “Lots of people have been stung and—”
“Not that,” Clara said, opening a curtain. “It sounds like an attack. Noise from the sky . . .” A light flashed. “Did you see that?”
“It’s just a storm,” the woman said, cackling. “You kids watch too many horror movies.”
Clara noticed a flickering streetlight at the end of an alley and two figures facing each other. One was clearly the proprietor, built squat with fat arms, a protruding belly, and hair that stuck out of the back of his undershirt. The other wore a hooded cloak and stayed in the shadows.
“Get away from that window!” the old woman ordered. “Lightning can knock you across the room.” Her tone softened. “I once had an aunt who was at the screen door when lightning struck and . . .”
Clara moved but could still see through the opened curtain. The light went out at the end of the alley. Seconds later lightning flashed, and she caught her breath. The old man was returning, but the hooded figure just stared at the window. At Clara.
With the next flash of lightning, the figure disappeared.
Clara whirled on the woman. “Who was your husband meeting?”
“I don’t know what you’re—”
“You’re working with them, aren’t you?”
“Them?” The woman stood and pushed back from the table. Something was wrong with her eyes. Was it Clara’s imagination or did they look red?
Clara ran and burst through a door underneath the stairs, tripping and landing on plastic, lumpy and squishy. Human eyes stared back at her from inside the plastic.
The real owners!
The woman behind her chuckled. “Those two just didn’t work out.”
The other impostor, the one who looked like the husband, came through the back door, his hands gnarled into claws.
Clara leaped to her feet and raced upstairs, the two watching her and laughing as if there was nothing she could do.
She flew down the dark hallway to Connie’s room, only to find a hulking form standing over her sleeping charge.
“Leave her alone!” Clara yelled. “I’m the one you want.”
The being turned, appearing part human with long hair and a pointed nose. She had seen this man outside the restaurant where she worked. He was a street person called Karl. However, Karl had never looked like this. The other part of him was hideous—like some giant insect. Liquid dripped from his mouth, burning a hole in the floor so big she could see to the basement.
“I know who you are,” he growled, eyes glowing. “I’ve been watching you.”
His voice crawled up and down her skin like a thousand cockroaches. Everything in Clara wanted to run and not look back. But something came to her, something her father had said: “Do not think that you are lesser than the Son, for you are chosen as well, a daughter of the King. Chosen because your heart is clean and pure. And because you will one day rise above your fear.”
She had been slow to believe she was a princess, but she had never felt at ease with her parents, never felt she really belonged with them or to them.
The King had explained as much as she could handle—what h
er real mother was like, how much her parents had both missed her and wanted her back. He also assured Clara that there was no fight she could ever enter in which he would not be there to assist her.
“Your brother was born to gain the victory over the evil one,” the King had said. “There is no mirror for him. But there is for you. Remember that when you face the coming evil.”
She had told him she didn’t understand. But she did now.
“This is the chosen one,” Karl said. “And I’ve been sent to bring her back.”
“Get away from her,” Clara said, grabbing a heavy brass candlestick from the mantel.
“She will awaken in the Dragon’s realm,” Karl hissed. “As will you, the last trace of the Dragon’s enemy.”
With all her might, Clara swung the candlestick and plunged it into the mass of cartilage in his head. Tissue gave way like a crab’s legs being snapped, and Karl glared at her as he slumped to the floor.
Connie’s ancient, wrinkled skin felt cold and clammy, but Clara could see the slow rise and fall of her chest.
“Connie, we need to leave,” Clara said. When Connie did not respond, Clara lifted her from the bed and headed downstairs.
The Dragon’s aide noticed that the Dragon had become preoccupied. With what, RHM did not know, but it was clear something was afoot. When the Dragon disappeared for yet another long stretch, RHM assumed his leader was perhaps raiding towns, assisting the vaxors in wiping out every village between Dragon City and the Amoyn Valley. But lead vaxor Velvel had recently announced that all the villages had been dealt with and that only a few citizens had escaped into the caves and hillsides.
“Everyone else is either lying in their own blood or in His Majesty’s prisons,” Velvel said. “When the stragglers have returned, we will make one more sweep and wipe them out.”
“Excellent,” RHM had said, pondering the flight of the Dragon. Where was he? What secrets did His Majesty keep from RHM? And why? Didn’t he trust him? Was he hiding something at this new palace?
When RHM had dared inquire of the Dragon about these clandestine trips, the beast had snarled and muttered something under his sulfurous breath about “insubordinate workers” and that RHM needed to “keep your dirty tentacles to yourself.”
The Author's Blood Page 9
