“He died when I was young. His name was John.”
Porter nodded and brushed the crumbs from his lap. “And what did he do, this father named John?”
“He worked in a forge, repairing metals. Sometimes he brought things home to show me. Rings, crests, and shields, mostly.”
Porter nodded, though it was clear his attention had drifted. “And Willa? Who is she?”
“A friend. She took me in after my father died.” An expression of intense pride filled Mudge’s eyes. “She’s very talented with herbs and banes. People from all around come to buy her potions.”
Porter let out a breath, his disgust evident. “Very good. Now we’re to depend on a soft-hearted old hag who sells potions.”
“She’s not an old hag!” Mudge shot back. “She’s not softhearted either. She’ll take you through the swamp only if she wants to—and only if the price is right.”
“Excellent.” Porter pitched his apple core into a bush. “A greedy hag. Even better. We truly are doomed.” He leaned back against a hay bale and closed his eyes.
There seemed to be nothing more to say. The cart’s wooden wheels rumbled beneath them, carrying them farther into the deepening twilight. Suddenly realizing he hadn’t eaten all day, Tom reached for the pewter cup and took a tentative sip. Goat’s milk. The taste was strange to him, thick and heavy in his mouth, but it settled nicely in his stomach. He took another deep swallow and then spread a bit of the creamy cheese on a biscuit. Goat’s cheese, naturally. He ate it all, then eyed the dried meat. Not hard to guess its origin. He lifted a strip and took a cautious sniff.
“Eat it,” Mudge urged, taking a large bite himself. “It’s good.”
A goat shifted toward Tom. It was an unnerving, black-coated beast, with curved horns, scruffy beard, and slanted yellow pupils. The goat’s eyes locked on Tom’s, as though conveying a message. Tom looked at the meat, then looked at the goat. “I can’t.”
“Why not?” Mudge asked.
“I think it’s someone he knew.”
Porter opened his eyes to stare at him. Mudge stopped chewing. He choked on the meat in his mouth, swallowed hard, then threw back his head and howled with laughter. Porter let out a breath of utter disdain and turned his back to Tom, curving his body against a hay bale as though to sleep. After a bit, Mudge packed away the remains of their dinner and did the same.
The sinking sun took the day’s meager warmth with it. Soon Mudge’s soft snores drifted back to him.
Tom sighed. He was exhausted, but not sleepy. His fingers traced the edges of the map curled in his lap. Although he could no longer see it, he recalled the names written upon the section marked The Beyond.
The Dismal Swamp. The Cliffs of No Return. Bloody Passage. Miserable Forest. The Lost Lake, which drained through the Wretched River into the Cursed Souls Sea. And finally, the Desert of Thirst and Starvation. Either their father had had a morbid sense of humor or they were in for a difficult journey.
Father. Mother. His thoughts skidded to a stop as he considered the words. Words as foreign to his tongue as the taste of goat’s milk. And then there was Porter. His brother. No, not just brother. Twin brother. With whom he seemed to share only two things: an unnerving destiny, and an intense mutual dislike of the other.
He tilted his head and stared heavenward. The air was cold but clear, the sky studded with stars. The constellations were the same ones he’d viewed from the rooftops of the Lost Academy, he noted with surprise. Same moon, same stars, same night sky.
Different world.
Porter’s voice broke through the stillness of the night. “You never answered my question.”
Tom understood immediately what he was asking. His thoughts returned to the cruelty he’d seen today. The injustice and brutality. He considered, briefly, the choice of turning his back on it all. Of finding Umbrey and the passage that would take him home. Forgetting the map, Keegan, and the sword. Taking the safe route and pretending he’d never learned this other world existed.
He rolled onto his side. “How did you feel,” he said, answering Porter’s question with one of his own, “when we touched the map together?”
Though Tom had yet to see his brother smile, a flash of white—his teeth perhaps?—suggested he just had. “Alive.”
It had been the same for Tom. He’d felt more alive than he’d ever been in his entire life. But more than that. Destined. As though everything he’d ever learned, everything he’d ever done, had been nothing but a rehearsal to set him upon this course. He couldn’t turn away from the quest any more than Porter could.
Was it worth the risk?
Absolutely.
CHAPTER NINE
FIVE STONES
It was well after midnight, yet torches still burned within the great hall. A bad omen, Keegan’s sergeant-at-arms thought, a certain sign that Keegan’s mood was even more foul than usual. The sergeant’s stomach tightened as he approached his master’s chamber. He hesitated for a moment, steeling himself for the worst, then raised a fist and rapped on the heavy oak door. At the call to enter, he stepped inside.
Keegan stood with his back to the door, staring out a large window at the grounds below. Twelve members of The Watch, Keegan’s personal guard—each rumored to have been hand-selected for his physical strength, sheer brutality, and unquestioning loyalty—stood at attention with their backs to the walls.
As dictated by protocol, the sergeant waited in silence, not speaking until he was acknowledged. The moment stretched. At length Keegan turned, his dark eyes burning with an almost feverish intensity. “News?” he queried softly.
“They’ve gone, Sire. My men and I searched everywhere. We could find no trace of them. I believe they’ve left the district.”
“Is that right? Left the district, you say?” He drummed the talon-like fingernails of his right hand together, producing a sharp clicking noise, like a nest of swarming beetles. “They were there, right there, in the broken-down district where the horse was discovered. I saw the dark-haired boy myself. Yet he and his brother escaped your entire force.”
The sergeant blinked in confusion. “As you ordered, Sire.”
“Indeed. As I ordered.” A ghost of a smile flitted across Keegan’s face. “How fortunate for me that I can rely so completely on the incompetence of you and your men. The failure must have appeared rather natural.”
The sergeant opened his mouth, then closed it, understanding that the wrong response, perhaps any response, could prove fatal.
“What of the forger?” Keegan continued. He strode to his desk, opened a thick ledger, and began flipping through pages, drawing his long nails down the columns of numbers. “I assume he and his family have been dealt with?”
The sergeant hesitated, gathering his courage. “I’m afraid there was a slight problem, Sire.”
Keegan’s hand stilled on the ledger. He slowly lifted his head. “Oh?”
“Before they fled the district, the brothers destroyed the execution scaffold. In the confusion that followed, the townspeople swarmed The Watch and helped the family escape.”
Keegan regarded him for a long moment in silence. “And you allowed this?”
“There are … resisters, Sire.”
“Resisters?” His voice was silky soft, yet the menace contained in that single word cut as clear and sharp as a razor’s edge.
The sergeant swallowed. He was treading a difficult path, but he’d learned that withholding information could prove just as deadly as giving too much. “Not just in Divino, Sire, but in all the kingdoms. Pockets of citizens who have begun to fight back. Who refuse to submit to order.”
“Find them. Punish them. Make examples of them as you’ve done in the past.”
“There’s more to it now, Sire. There are rumors …”
“Rumors?”
“They call them the Hero Twins. The ones you allowed to flee. They say once they’ve recovered the sword, they will put an end to your reign.”
; Keegan stared at the sergeant. Bright spots of fury tinged his cheeks. He brought his hand down hard, slamming it against the ledger. “Do you think this is news to me? Do you believe I rely on the word of a bumbling fool like you to tell me what happens in my kingdom?”
“No, Sire.”
Around them, Keegan’s personal guard shuffled restlessly, like a pack of vicious dogs straining to be set loose.
“Do you not wonder why I didn’t kill the mapmaker and his son years ago? Why I allowed them to live?”
“I—I don’t know, Sire.”
“Because I will have that sword. Let them follow their sacred map into The Beyond. When they return, I will be ready for them.”
Keegan pulled open a desk drawer and reached inside. He opened his hand. Five perfect stones, flat and round, as dark and shiny as obsidian, fell to the table. “It took me ten years of searching to find these. Ten years. They are utterly worthless on their own. But when combined with the sword, there will be no end to my power.”
“I understand, Sire.”
“Do you? I wonder.” With one long nail, Keegan sent the stones skidding across the desk. “Prepare your men. Tell them I have new orders.”
“Yes, Sire.”
“Find the forger and his family. Arrest them, and any you suspect of having helped them escape. Use whatever means necessary to put fear back in the hearts of these resisters. Let the people see what happens to those who defy me.”
“Yes, Sire.”
Keegan looked up at the sergeant, his gaze as dark and fathomless as the stones themselves. “The Hero Twins will kneel before me and lay the sword at my feet. It is already accomplished; they simply don’t know it yet. The sword is mine.”
CHAPTER TEN
WILLA’S PRICE
The goat cart bounced through a ditch and then rumbled to a stop.
“We’re here!” Mudge called, in a voice that sounded obscenely chipper to Tom’s sleep-numbed brain. He pried open his eyes and raised his head, feeling as though he’d drifted off only minutes earlier. Mudge leaped from the cart, followed by Porter. Tom shoved a goat aside and did the same. His feet barely hit the ground before the cart was moving again, old Raynard humming off-key, with the only good-byes issued being those of the bleating goats.
Tom took a moment to get a bearing on his surroundings. His father’s map identified the place as Rupert. The dreary village looked nothing like the bustling town square of Bromley Market. A series of thatched huts ringed a taller structure that could have been either a church or a courthouse; it probably functioned as both. Scrawny chickens, pigs, and goats milled about, unrestrained by fences or pens. A thick haze hung over the scene. As the stench of rotten eggs hit his nostrils, he recognized the seeping dampness as sulfur from the swamp, rather than morning fog.
Mudge raced away, leaving Tom and Porter to sprint after him. They followed him to a crudely plowed patch of land—a vegetable garden of some sort, Tom guessed. Upon their approach, an old woman, bent in the act of uprooting a vegetable, turned toward the boy. She was broad and heavyset, her skirts drooping around her ankles, her face a mass of wrinkles. When she spoke, dark gaps appeared between her teeth. “Didn’t think you were coming back, boy.”
“Not an old hag, huh?” Porter muttered beneath his breath.
Mudge, however, didn’t stop at the old woman, but simply bid her a good morning and skirted past her, racing toward a lone figure working in a distant corner of the vegetable patch. A girl. Dressed in clothes the color of dirt and weeds, entirely occupied with her work, she had escaped Tom’s notice. As he and Porter moved toward her, Mudge shouted out her name.
The girl dropped the basket she was holding and spun about. She wrapped Mudge in a tight hug, then crouched down low and held him at arm’s length, as though to deliver a lecture. Then her gaze caught Tom and Porter and she abruptly stopped. She stood as they approached and draped one arm protectively over Mudge’s scrawny shoulders.
Tom judged her to be roughly the same age as he and Porter. She was of average height, delicate and graceful in the way some girls can be. She was pretty—very pretty, even dressed in baggy clothes the color of dirt and surrounded by a garden choked with straggly weeds. Her skin was honey-colored, her pale brown hair was shot through with rich gold streaks, and her expressive hazel eyes were flecked with golds and greens.
Mudge broke the silence. “This is Willa.”
The name suited her. Slim and willowy, but conveying a supple strength.
Porter nodded a curt greeting. “Mudge tells us you know a way through the swamp.”
The girl’s eyes widened. Until that moment, she had been regarding them with an expression of mild curiosity. Suddenly her gaze swung from Tom to Porter and back again. Shock, disbelief, and a myriad of other emotions, all moving too quickly for Tom to read, crossed her face. Then, like a door slamming shut, something changed. Her eyes hardened and her mouth went tight. “The boy tells tales,” she said. “There’s no way through the swamp.”
“You don’t understand,” Porter said. “I’ll pay whatever you—”
“You’ve come a long way for nothing. No one enters the swamp. It’s forbidden.”
“But, Willa—” Mudge objected.
“But nothing,” she bit out. She picked up her basket and pushed past them, pulling Mudge along with her. “Come,” she said. “I’ve more than three days’ chores waiting for you. You can start by stacking wood, and when you finish that, there’s water to fetch, linens to clean, the floor to sweep …”
She pulled Mudge with her into a small hut near the outer edge of the square. Tom watched her walk away. His eyes swept the village. It was mid-morning, yet there was little activity. A pair of fighting cats. A drunken old man muttering to himself, rocking back and forth near a crumbling stone wall. A woman screaming at her children for spilling a bucket of water. Beyond it all was the swamp, oozing a foul haze and issuing strange, ominous sounds.
“Excellent,” Porter bit out. “We’ve found paradise.” He let out a ragged breath and tugged his hand through his hair. “Now we’ve wasted a night, as well as an entire day, and we’re farther from the sword than we were yesterday.”
“Not necessarily.” Tom’s eyes flicked to the swamp. “We could try it on our own.”
“We could,” Porter agreed. “Unless you’re interested in getting out alive.”
Tom’s thoughts returned to Willa. To her expression. Before she’d turned away, there had been something in her eyes, some fleeting spark … recognition. She’d recognized them. But how? “C’mon,” he said to Porter, moving as he spoke.
He and Porter stopped outside the hut Willa and Mudge had entered. There was no door, just a length of dirty linen cloth hanging over the entrance. Tom brushed it aside and stepped inside. Porter followed. The smell of sizzling meat greeted them. Willa stood before a small stove, one hand resting on the handle of a black skillet in which were crowded a dozen sausage links. The links Mudge had stolen from the butcher, if Tom wasn’t mistaken.
Willa turned to look at them, her expression flat. She lifted a fork and poked the sausages. “If you’re here to see my grandfather, you’re too late. He died three months ago.”
Hardly a welcome, but neither had she ordered them to leave. Tom scanned the interior. It didn’t take long. Two small cots by the hearth. A small table and a pair of benches. No ceiling—at least, none that he could see. Hanging overhead was what appeared to be an upside-down garden. Bunches of dried flowers, herbs, and weeds were suspended from every rafter and beam. Glass jars, vials of powders, a mortar and pestle, scales, and other assorted tools crowded the shelves, completing the makings of what appeared to be a primitive apothecary.
“You know who we are,” Tom said.
A grim smile touched her lips. “I know who you think you are.” She put down her fork and rested her hands on her hips, an expression of stormy defiance on her face. “The light and the dark. Hero Twins. On a quest to locate the fabled Swo
rd of Five Kingdoms and save us all from Keegan’s unholy reign, no doubt.”
Porter stepped closer. “So you’ve heard the prophecy?”
“Heard it?” She gave the pan an impatient shake. “Yes, even here in Rupert that ridiculous tale reached our ears. It was all my grandfather could talk about. He said it gave people hope that one day things would change.” She removed a plate from a rough wooden shelf and set it on the table with enough force to nearly crack it. “Hope,” she spit out, as though the word tasted foul on her tongue. “You’ve come a long way for nothing. A story, that’s all it was.”
“You’re wrong,” Porter countered.
“Really?” A small, mirthless smile touched her lips. “You believe the two of you can defeat Keegan?”
“Yes.”
Willa plucked the sausages from the pan and stacked them on the plate. She cracked eggs into a bowl and whisked them together. “Mudge tells me you did him a kindness. Saved him from a beating. For that I’ll give you breakfast, nothing more. Then you can be on your way.”
Tom stepped closer, his voice low and urgent. “We need your help.”
“My help? Fine.” She set the bowl down, reached for a basket, and spilled the contents across the table. “Here. My grandfather’s treasures. If you believe in that sort of foolishness, you can have them all. A feather to turn you into a falcon so you can soar through the sky. A stone that allows you to read the thoughts of your enemies. A brass ring for wisdom, a necklace that grants the wearer outrageous beauty, an amulet for eternal youth, a bag of bones to divine the future. Worthless, all of it. There is no magic left in this world. Keegan’s taken it all away.”
Tom shook his head. “Not all of it.”
He grabbed the map and spread it across the table, sending the ragged assortment of magical bones, rocks, and rings crashing to the floor. He drew his hand lightly across the parchment surface. Lions roared, seas raged, bison stampeded, and volcanoes belched plumes of smoke into the air, then oozed thick globs of lava.
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