“Where are we?” he said.
While the two Celestians rowed silently through the silver water, Gulph sat with Ossilius at the boat’s prow.
“There is an island, see?” Ossilius pointed. “The lake surrounds it, like a moat.”
Gulph gazed in wonder at the approaching landmass. Except it isn’t really land, he corrected himself. It’s crystal. This whole place is made of crystal.
And so it was. The shore toward which they were gliding was a tangle of diamond shards, a thousand shimmering facets jutting from the water like a shattered crown. Beyond these rose slopes of green emerald set with smooth sapphire paths, meandering between tall, glassy buildings: an entire city made of crystal. Spires and soaring arches caught the sunlight and threw it back in a dizzying series of reflections.
No, Gulph corrected himself. Not sunlight. “There’s no day or night down here at all,” he said to Ossilius. “No weather.” He studied the people who were beginning to gather on the shore. “No wonder everyone looks so pale.”
He tried to imagine a life without sunshine, without rain. No storms, no seasons, just a perpetual twilight. What a strange way to live.
“There!” said Ossilius. He sat up sharply. “Do you see that light?”
Gulph could just make out a thin bright strip on the opposite side of the lake, far from the island city. It was broken into sections by pillars of crystal.
Ossilius turned to Gulph. “Do you know where I think we are? At the bottom of the chasm.”
“What?” Gulph stared at him. “But that’s impossible! The chasm’s bottomless. Everyone knows that. . . .”
Just like everyone knows there are only three realms.
Could it be true? He peered out at the strip of light, struggling to organize the geography in his head.
We were in the tunnels under the city. Then we fell through into this cavern—a gigantic hole in the ground beneath Idilliam. So those pillars are holding Idilliam up above our heads. And what surrounds the city? The chasm.
“You’re right,” Gulph said with a shiver.
“So we can see the light of day after all,” said Ossilius. “Very dim and distant, but there.”
“Perhaps we’re not so lost,” Gulph murmured.
Jessamyn crawled between them, her small hand creeping into Gulph’s.
“It’s pretty here,” she said.
“Yes,” said Gulph, “it is.”
“Prettiness may hide many things,” said Ossilius.
“That’s true too.”
“We must be on our guard.”
The silver water snaked between high crystal banks, finally opening into a wide pool. The woman moored the boat beside a set of steps leading from the water up to the grounds of a large house: a dazzling confection of diamond walls and ruby turrets.
The man led them ashore. Gulph ascended the crystal staircase with caution, afraid its surface would be slippery. But the ground was solid, and his feet found good purchase. At the top of the stairs, he stretched, working out the knots in his muscles. It didn’t take long: his years as an acrobat meant his back was used to popping itself back into shape . . . even if that shape was more twisted than most.
A tall woman awaited them at the top of the stairs. Like their rescuers, she wore silk robes. Her face was round and open, her eyes an intense and beautiful blue. Her skin too was the color of milk.
“You have done well,” she said, addressing the man who’d brought them. Her voice was slow and strong.
“Thank you, my lady.” He gave a small, stiff bow, then hurried back down the steps to rejoin his companion in the boat.
“I am Lady Redina,” said the tall woman. “Celestis is my realm. Are you hungry?”
As if on cue, Gulph’s stomach growled, very loud. Jessamyn giggled.
Lady Redina extended her hand in a flowing, languid gesture and stroked the little girl’s hair. “So beautiful.”
“Pardon me, lady,” said Marcus, peering past her shoulder, “but is all that for us?”
With a smile Lady Redina stepped aside, and Gulph saw a long table standing beneath a gazebo in the grounds before the house. Servants stood behind crystal chairs, awaiting their arrival. The table was piled high with food.
Gulph swallowed. Except for their impromptu meal in the tunnels, he couldn’t remember when he’d last eaten.
“How did you know we were coming?” he said as their hostess led them to their places.
“I have observers,” Lady Redina answered smoothly. She indicated to each of them where they should sit, her arms moving as gracefully as a dancer’s. “Occasionally people fall. When they fall, they are seen. When they are seen, I am told. And I make ready to receive the newcomers. As I now receive you. Join me, please.”
Gulph hesitated, remembering what they’d been told in the boat.
“Does this mean we have your permission to stay?” he said.
Lady Redina inclined her head. “First we will talk. Decisions come later.”
The food was a thousand times better than the meager morsels they’d found in the tunnels. There was a kind of grilled fish that melted on Gulph’s tongue, and plates of steamed vegetables that crunched deliciously, spilling spicy flavors down his throat.
Gulph tore into it all with gusto. He saw with no surprise that his companions were doing the same, snatching up spoonfuls of this and handfuls of that and shoveling them into their mouths. Lady Redina contented herself with small nibbles of white flesh from a crab’s claw.
“Is there any bread?” asked Hetty, eagerly scanning the table.
“I fear there is only what you see,” Lady Redina replied. She daintily dabbed the corner of her mouth with a napkin.
“Oh,” the baker mumbled. “Well, it’s very fine.”
Gulph noticed that they’d not been offered meat either. No grass, he thought suddenly. Without proper sunlight there can be no fields. Which means no animals and no grain.
His belly was full now, but he swallowed the final mouthful of purple carrots in his bowl, leaned back in his chair, and let out an enormous belch.
“Forgive me!” he said, clapping a hand to his mouth. “But I do think that was the best meal I ever had.”
Around the table, everyone chuckled, including Lady Redina. Her laugh was like a low, tinkling bell.
“There is nothing to forgive,” she said. “Your satisfaction is evident. I am flattered.”
“Gulph is right to thank you,” said Ossilius. “You have been very kind.”
“Yes, you have,” added Gulph. “Do you always eat as well as this? I mean, where did it all come from? Not the fish, I mean—obviously you catch those.” He stopped, suddenly aware he was babbling.
Lady Redina put down her napkin. “It is natural for you to be curious. But I do not think those are the questions you wish to ask.”
Gulph glanced at Ossilius, who responded with an almost imperceptible nod.
“Well,” he gulped, “I suppose we’d like to know more about Celestis.”
“What do you want to know?”
“How does it come to be here? Has it always been here? I thought—we all thought—there were only three realms in Toronia.”
“Then you thought wrong. Celestis exists—as you can plainly see for yourselves. It has merely been forgotten. Yet to be forgotten is to be safe. I am sworn to keep it that way.”
“You rule here,” said Ossilius. It seemed to Gulph that he was trying to get things straight in his head.
“I rule, yes. But more than that, I protect. I am the protector of the lost realm.”
“But how does a whole realm get lost?” Gulph said.
“Many years ago—some say three hundred, some say more—Celestis stood beneath the natural sun. But war came to Toronia, and the ground shook and opened its great mouth, and Celestis fell. Buried beneath the rocks of the world, our realm has endured in darkness ever since. But also in safety. Part of my pledge is to ensure that war never touches us again. When war comes, realms
fall. We in Celestis know this only too well.”
Gulph adjusted the bundle on his back, suddenly aware of the weight of the crown he carried there, tucked away out of sight.
“Do you think we bring war?” he asked hesitantly.
“I think nothing. I merely listen. Then I judge. So, tell me your stories.”
Gulph wanted to trust this woman who’d shown them such hospitality. But how much should he tell her? He opened his mouth, still unsure of what he would say, but before he could begin, he felt a sharp warning kick from Ossilius.
To his relief, Marcus spoke up from the far end of the table. “Begging your pardon, my lady, but it’s war we’ve escaped from.”
Lady Redina lifted an immaculate eyebrow. “Go on. I would hear from you one at a time. Tell me your story, soldier.”
“Well,” Marcus said, shuffling awkwardly in his chair, “there was the Battle of the Bridge, to start with. The Idilliam Bridge? A rebel force tried to cross into Idilliam, but Brutan’s army fought them back. Brutan is king of Toronia now—at least he was. He died, but some evil magic brought him back. He walks like the dead, but he isn’t dead, if you take my meaning. . . .”
Lady Redina listened in silence as Marcus described the conflict between Brutan’s undead army and the attacking forces of Trident. When he’d finished, Hetty told of her experiences trying to escape the besieged city of Idilliam. Throughout, Gulph squeezed his hands together under the table, afraid that one of his companions would reveal his true identity to Lady Redina.
Ossilius is right, he thought. As a hostess, she couldn’t be more welcoming. But as protector of Celestis . . . how would she react to one of the prophecy triplets turning up at her door?
He was relieved that just as Marcus had been more interested in telling Lady Redina about tactics and swordplay, Hetty seemed fixated on the effects of the battle on her bakery.
“My chimney fell into the whole day’s batch before it was even half-browned,” she mourned. “But I suppose there’s few left in Idilliam now who’ll appreciate a good loaf of bread. . . .”
As she chattered on, a servant poured dark red wine into their goblets. Gulph took one sniff and felt his stomach turn over. The man who’d been his guardian until the age of four—Sir Brax—had been a drunkard, and it hadn’t taken long for the young Gulph to develop a hatred of alcohol.
As he wondered what to do with the wine, Lady Redina began to question Ossilius. “So this Nynus was the son of Brutan?”
Taking advantage of the distraction, Gulph contorted his arm behind his back and, with a deft flick of his wrist, emptied his wine goblet into a nearby vase.
“Yes. Nynus ruled for a short time after the death of his father.” The captain answered courteously and with a straight face, betraying no emotion as he spoke.
“Yet his father lives again?”
“I do not know if ‘lives’ is the right word. He stands. He fights. But he is no man. He is transformed.”
“Transformed, yes.” Lady Redina rolled the word around her mouth as if tasting it. “So Toronia has been overtaken by a plague. A plague of the undead.”
“Yes.”
“Could this plague infect Celestis, do you think? I believe you came here in innocence, but might these undead creatures not have followed you? Might you not have brought your war to Celestis after all?”
“Forgive me, but it is not ‘our’ war, my lady. War overwhelmed us. We are simply trying to survive it.”
“You have not answered my question. Is Celestis vulnerable?”
“No,” said the captain. “The way here is closed. I am certain of that.”
Lady Redina turned to Gulph. Her face possessed a breed of beauty that seemed to show no age. Yet Gulph fancied there was something lurking beneath the blue of her piercing eyes.
Something underneath, he thought, suppressing a shiver.
“Now you,” Lady Redina said. “Tell me who you are.”
Gulph swallowed.
She must not know.
“I’m, er, sort of an acrobat,” he said. “A traveling player. We were performing in Isur—the Tangletree Players, I mean—and we were caught up in the fighting and taken to Idilliam.”
“And where are the rest of these players now?” asked Lady Redina.
Gulph stared into his lap. “Dead. I’m afraid they must be dead.”
I hope they are at least, he thought miserably. The alternative is just too horrible for words.
He looked up again and realized that his companions were staring at him in surprise.
“An acrobat?” said Hetty. “But I thought—”
“So you see,” said Ossilius loudly, “we all found each other in the heat of battle, escaped, and by a miracle found our way here to the sanctuary of Celestis. And I cannot imagine a more perfect place in which to hide from the war above. May I have more wine?”
Marcus and Hetty stared at Gulph in surprise, but they said nothing. Jessamyn was eating some lemon-yellow sweets and didn’t seem to be following the conversation at all.
Gulph allowed himself to relax just a little. For now his secret was safe.
A servant refilled the goblets as Lady Redina’s stern gaze strayed out to the lake.
“Perfect,” she mused. “Do you think Celestis perfect?”
An awkward silence fell.
“Well, I suppose—” Gulph started to say.
“Appearances can be deceptive,” Lady Redina interrupted. “Celestis may not be at war, but this realm is blighted nevertheless.”
“What’s ‘blighted’?” said Jessamyn.
Lady Redina’s face softened. Gulph thought she looked a little sad. “A blight is like a shadow, my dear. Or perhaps a disease.”
“Disease?” said Marcus, eyeing the fish in his bowl with sudden distaste.
“Not in the way you imagine,” replied Lady Redina. “Still, you might say that Celestis is as plagued as Idilliam.”
“Plagued by what?” said Gulph.
“A monster.”
Jessamyn gasped and huddled against Hetty. The baker stroked her hair and gave Lady Redina a reproachful look. “No need to frighten the little one, my lady.”
“On the contrary. There is every need. Beneath the silver waters of the Celestial Lake lurks a creature of untold evil. Few have seen it . . . except for those it has killed. It moves by night, emerging silently from the water to prey upon the unwary. All attempts to catch it have failed.” She smiled again at Jessamyn. “They say that the bakaliss swallows its victims whole and that it takes them three days then to die, as they lie suffocating inside the monster’s toothed belly.”
The little girl shrieked and buried her head in Hetty’s dress. Gulph wanted to comfort her too, but his thoughts were ringing from the word Lady Redina had just used.
“Did you say ‘bakaliss’?”
“It is the name of the monster. You are familiar with such beasts?”
“Yes. Well, no. Sort of.”
“Which is it?”
“It’s just that . . . I once heard a story about a bakaliss.”
“Really?” Both of her eyebrows rose. “Tell it to me.”
“There’s nothing much to it.”
“Tell it!”
Flinching, Gulph blurted, “The bakaliss was an evil serpent that lived under a mountain. One day a king set out to kill it, but the serpent killed him instead.”
His words echoed in the sudden silence. On the far side of the table, Marcus dropped his knife with a clatter.
“It is not much of a story,” said Lady Redina icily.
“No,” said Gulph. “I suppose it isn’t.”
He bit his lip, resisting the urge to say more. She wanted him to say more, he could feel it. Those piercing eyes burned into him, pulling at him. He put his empty goblet to his mouth and pretended to drink, all the time trying to beat back the thoughts that were fountaining in his head.
You want to hear the real story? Then I’ll tell you. One day, an evil
queen called Magritt and her crazy son, Nynus, made a boy called Gulph dress up as a bakaliss so he could put a poisoned crown on the head of King Brutan. And that boy was me, and the king was my father, and as soon as I put the crown on his head he turned black and died foaming at the mouth, and now I’m king, and I might not be wearing that stupid costume with its red fur and orange frills anymore but now you’re telling me there’s a real bakaliss, and it’s here, and it kills people, and guess what? I’m a king, and I’ve journeyed under the mountain, and if I stay here the bakaliss is going to eat me alive, because that’s what the story says!
CHAPTER 8
It took the Vicerin column two days to reach the bridge spanning the great Isurian River. As the wagon carried her across the broad wooden deck, Elodie remembered the last time she’d passed this way. Then she’d been a prisoner in a carriage driven by Fessan, who’d kidnapped her and whisked her away for what she’d been sure was ransom, or perhaps execution—but had turned out to be the first step on the road to her destiny.
Now it was Fessan who was the prisoner, stumbling along, his hands tied to the rail of the wagon rolling behind her. Never had she seen a man look more broken.
The clatter of hooves turned to soft thuds as they passed from the bridge to the packed-earth road beyond. The road arrowed due south, but Elodie knew it would soon swing west, steering her back to the place she’d started from: Castle Vicerin.
What did it mean, now, to be retracing her steps? Was this the end of the prophecy? Was she retreating like a snail into its shell, never to emerge again?
No! I’m not retreating. I’m attacking.
“I will find Tarlan’s lost jewel,” she whispered to Samial, who sat beside her at the front of the wagon, unseen by all but Elodie. “Then we will rescue Fessan and escape. Fessan will rebuild Trident. And I . . .”
Ahead stretched the vast patchwork farmland of Ritherlee, green rolling fields stitched together by dark hedgerows. The sky was flat blue, scratched with chalk-line clouds. A flock of starlings danced in the distance, ten thousand birds drawing impossible shapes in the sunshine.
My home.
The farther they rode into Ritherlee, the more Elodie saw that her homeland had changed while she’d been away. There were fewer laborers in the fields, and many of the farmsteads looked abandoned. Some had been burned to the ground.
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