by Brindi Quinn
“What now, Grim? Why have you taken us here?”
His words have already begun to unlock. They are fueled with something greater than monotonous indifference.
“The throne,” I say. “Sit upon it.”
“You are mad.”
I am entirely not mad. “Sit upon it, Awyer. Trust in me and sit upon the throne.”
Awyer’s tapping footsteps, which previously echoed around the abandoned hall, go silent. Mine, on the other hand, have always been silent.
“I refuse to sit upon the king’s seat,” Awyer says, obstinate. “They will toss me into the underground prisons. They will knock down my home and seal my line! Is that what you want, Grim?” Anger rises in him. And rightly so. The consequences he speaks of are true. But there is a consequence more imminent that must be remedied. Bloőd’s intrusion into the city is a consequence of Eldrade’s stolen color. It is time for me to confess.
“Beyond the walls of Eldrade, there are a great many things,” I say.
“What has that to do with now?” Awyer now speaks with traces of trepidation. Being in the throne room puts him on edge. Though he refuses to go further, the shined floor longs to meet his feet with each step; and he can sense it drawing him to his rightful place.
I recite the words he needs to hear:
“For all living things, it is said, are contained within a vessel. Made of material beyond man’s comprehension, the Eternity Vessel rests suspended in the blackness of time. Therein, the world is kept lingered between two powerful, terrible sources: Azure and Bloőd. At the top, Azure, filled with cunning and bide. At the bottom, Bloőd, of ardor and haste. Two powers to hold a sphere.”
Awyer blinks at me. “Two powers?” he repeats. “And what of Amethyst?”
“The third power, Amethyst, feeds from the life sources of its mothers, Azure and Bloőd, and as such, is a power stolen. Amethyst is Eldrade’s stolen color. A color to which they no longer have claim.”
“Grim.” Awyer narrows his eyes. “Do not be vague.”
“The people of Eldrade are not meant to command Amethyst,” I say. “Not any longer. You see, more powerful than either of its mothers, Amethyst can be wielded by only one nation at a time. In ages past, wars were fought to gain rights to such power. They were fought in cycle. The people holding Azure and the people holding Bloőd were to periodically attack the people holding Amethyst, under the understanding that the winner would be the new holder of Amethyst and that the other powers would thereby rotate. There was a system set in place so that no one nation would dominate the power forever.”
Letting his narrowness subside, Awyer looks to the glassed ceiling. “Something happened.”
“Yes. It went on in such a way, the powers rotating every hundred years or so, until a new element was introduced into the equation. The last time bequeathment occurred, the victors, the new people of Amethyst, did something forbidden. They used outside help to set up a barrier that would not allow any to find their land. If the land could not be found, it could not be attacked and the power could not be won. This magick of trickery allowed a hitch in the system, thereafter halting the rotation of power.”
As it dawns upon Awyer, his eyes slide from ceiling to wall. “Trickery like grandfather’s.”
“Aye, it was with the craftiness of the sphinxes that Eldrade’s powerful barrier enchants came into existence. More specifically, it is because of ONE line of sphinxes – Eldrade’s only line of sphinxes – that the Amethyst City has awaited nothing for nearly a thousand years. That ends today. It seems that after great lapse, cunning Bloőd has found a way around your enchants. And they have come to steal back what was stolen.”
It is much for Awyer to take, but he no longer questions. He looks to the throne with intent.
“Sitting on the king’s seat will undo what has been done?”
I give him a small, half-truthful nod.
Awyer’s footsteps echo as he briskly makes his way to the throne.
I am sorry for what I have held from my sphinx, but if I tell him everything, he will not live through the end of this battle. This is his destiny.
Awyer reaches the throne and stops. Before sitting, he brushes a hand along the grooved armrest on the chair’s left. Two of the hummers zip away to alert the elders of the treachery about to transpire. The rest remain, a tiny army of scarlet and teal. Awyer locks eyes with mine. They are more slanted than usual under the influence of suspicion. I nod to show my support. He heaves a sigh and settles onto the seat he does not believe is meant for him.
Nothing happens a moment. And then a second moment. In the third moment, however, the doors of the hall burst open again and a single man, accompanied by the two escaped hummers, enters. The man is dark beneath the eyes, with sleek black hair that has been combed to the side, and a plum cloak to mark his class. So an elder he is, though he does not appear olden.
The man points to the throne and gives a flick of his wrist. Though it is an intended assault to quake the base, Awyer remains unharmed. No enchant can reach him from upon the king’s chair.
“What do you think you’re doing, stripling?” the man hisses in a voice soft and high. The words are quiet, but they reach from across the hall and linger in the space around our ears.
“Pay him no mind, Awyer,” I order. “And speak these words: ‘A riddle of gold and Amethyst. If light were to touch it, it would be dead.’”
With the man rapidly sweeping toward us, Awyer speaks the words.
He speaks them in his disinterested way.
He speaks them with the voice of a king.
The incantation works.
Before the stranger can reach the place of the throne, he is assaulted. The man, cloak trailing fluidly, doubles over. Then, out of his mouth, something comes. A bomb of compacted Amethyst smoke propels from the hole between his lips.
Across the sterile room the ball flies at us, its target Awyer. While he sits upon the polished throne, the man’s Amethyst forces its way into his unsuspecting mouth and crams into a place untouched by light.
“AAAARGGH!” With the introduction of new power, Awyer’s lungs begin a roar.
“Breathe, my ward!” I instruct. “Breathe.”
In a matter of seconds, his veins are filled with color stolen. Not only do they now contain his own Amethyst, but the black-haired man’s as well. And that is not all. Immediately to follow, a much larger blast of smoke plows into the room from the adjoined hall adorned with fabric cutouts. Into the room it comes, and down Awyer’s throat the purple smoke ball goes.
This time his roar echoes through the throne room, bellowing this way and that along the walls of white.
“AAAAAAARRRGGGH!”
He has just ingested all of the Amethyst formerly belonging to the casters of Terrlgard.
Soon after comes a final bomb of cloud from the Amethyst-imbued residents of Eldrade. The blast breaks through a red and blue window high on the throne room’s wall, showering the doubled-over man with shards of sparkling glass. If the man responds, I cannot see, for at that moment, the whole of the room is fogged by purple. It remains that way until Awyer ingests the last of it – the tail of the last Amethyst cloud.
Only now is my sphinx able to speak.
“GRIM!” He coughs and clutches at his throat, and cries to the ceiling. His veins now writhe faster and hotter than before. He possesses more Amethyst power than any one mortal should have. He possesses it all.
The castle town of Eldrade has been left powerless.
Panting, Awyer glares in my direction.
“Speak not, my ward! This was necessary! With the Amethyst gone from the air, the attacks of Bloőd will retreat. They are spelled to seek out Amethyst. Without Amethyst, there is naught for them to attack. Their masters will be beguiled for a time.”
Awyer looks to his own changing flesh. “But what of me? It aches more than before! Did I swallow the whole of it?!”
“You have, but the spells of Bloőd will no
t find you. The Amethyst hides beneath the blessing of the sphinxes. The golden power within you masks it. You are safe. You will live. And so, too, will the people of Eldrade. For now, at least.”
But Awyer is not glad. He shows an expression I have never before seen from him.
It is rage.
“You lied to me, Grim! You–”
“I did nothing of the sort. I saved you and your people. And it is no fault of mine. This was destined to happen from the beginning. The sphinx line was always to take the power at the end of Eldrade’s time, in exchange for outwitting Bloőd and Azure.”
This is the truth. In a deal made in ages past, Awyer’s ancestors aided the Eldradeans in exchange for the power Awyer now contains. I know it is truth because I was there. Long have I followed Awyer’s family line. Long have I known what was to come. Long have I lived.
Awyer wants to ask more of me, but to that regard, he is unable. The black-haired man, who was so unfortunate as to enter this chamber at all, rises from the floor and begins to stagger toward us on uneasy legs. No doubt he is feeling the effects of being without Amethyst for the first time. “You shouldn’t have done that, stripling,” he says, voice yet light and, in addition, melodic. Because my shadow is hidden, he believes Awyer to be alone. “It’ll be your head. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll retract it now.”
“Fear him not, Awyer. There is nothing they can do to you. You hold more power than any,” I say.
“I do not want it,” Awyer utters under his breath.
“You cannot outrun things predestined,” I state. But although I play stony, Awyer’s distress touches a part of me it should not. I wish him not to be troubled.
Compromising.
“Ask of him his name,” I issue, to distract myself.
“What is your name?” says Awyer.
“You don’t know?” The man’s lip curls. “I am Count Bexwin, elder of Eldrade and attendant to the king.”
I have heard of him.
“And is it not true that you also, in secret, advise the Pates?” I ask via Awyer.
Count Bexwin is caught unaware. A secret kept in shame is often unnerving when brought to light. “A nasty lie,” he retorts, singsong. “A rumor spread by those who would see me fall. I purely offer council to the troubled denizens that wish to repent their misdeeds.”
But I see and hear many things others should not. His intentions are not so pure.
“What should I do?” Awyer mutters from the corner of his mouth.
“Tell him to halt.”
Awyer does.
“Or what?” the man teases. “What will the stripling do?”
“You must show him, Awyer, the power you contain.” I observe that the rest of the hummers have absconded. Their masters will surely return soon. “True, your Amethyst has yet to fully emerge – seventeen has yet to come – but it may be forced.” I place a hand on his. “Lift your arm and will the broken glass into the air. Enchants are merely about breathing your will into the objects around you.”
But Awyer has never wanted to become a caster. His reluctance hits peak.
“Lift your hand, Awyer! You are now most powerful!”
Awyer grumbles. He would rather not. It is his take on everything. He would simply rather not. Were things his way, he would live alone in a quiet clearing, never to be bothered again. But that is not suitable for a boy of such great destiny.
I push his hand up from below and speak into his ear. “Lift your fingers and will the broken to rise.”
And with my hand below his, he does. The shards of colored glass obediently rise into the air and hover. Bexwin takes no notice. The floating pieces are at his back. He continues to sweep his robes along the floor in our direction.
“Will them to fall. Will them to shatter even more against the ground. Will them to clash and clamor so that he might witness your power.”
With an even jaw, Awyer sets sights on the floating cluster behind Bexwin. He breathes in through his nose and –
CLASH!
– A most powerful clashing erupts in the air. Not only has Awyer caused the cluster to fall, he has caused all windows in the chamber to burst. Bexwin, warned of the danger by the cracking of glass, takes refuge beneath his robes. Awyer is not so reactive. He covers his head with only his hands as sparkling shards of glass are flung from the heavens. I fly up to shield him; a useless maneuver, for the glass moves directly through me and makes contact with all of his exposed flesh.
Awyer bleeds. Cut by a myriad of broken glass bits, Awyer bleeds much.
“MY WARD!” I did not anticipate that his first enchant would have an outcome so weighted. But of course. He possesses the power of a thousand men. Untrained and too powerful, what other outcome might there have been?
I cradle him with hands only he can see. I am nowhere near as potent as my ward now is, yet I focus all energy on forcing the shards away from him. The decision is not so smart. Some tear through his flesh on the way out.
“No!”
What might I do?! Giving in to alarm, I panic to think of a solution. I could enchant his clothing to bind? Or his skin to close?
Yes, I place my hands on his chest and will his blood to clot and his flesh to close. Enchanting a living thing is not impossible, though it is far more difficult than spelling something without life. In order to enchant him, I must battle his body’s will to bleed.
And his body’s will to bleed is strong.
I am stronger.
Because I must be.
Because I am his keeper and he shall be mine until the day he dies. That day is not today, and so I must be stronger. He must live because he is not finished.
And also . . . because of compromising things. Because I do not want to see him bleed.
I do not want to see his pain.
Within my chest, my heart moves oddly.
Awyer’s flesh closes slowly, and by the time I am finished, Bexwin is gone, along with my breath. I fall over the injured boy. The hummers remain flitting about us, keen-eyed. They, too, are results of Amethyst enchants, and they, too, will eventually fall. After depleting the last of their stored energy, ALL enchanted things of Eldrade will fall. Whether the process takes hours or weeks, it matters not; we will not be here to see it.
“Ugh.”
A small noise comes from beneath my embrace.
“Awyer!” I allow him space. “Do you ail?!”
Awyer shakes his head before sitting up to prove it. From there, he looks to the shattered glass coating the ground and then upward to the pane-less windows. “I did that,” he says.
He is far from gladdened by the notion.
“You did.”
“It is your fault.” He groans and returns to lie on the space of floor kept bare by his fallen body. “What now?”
“Much.”
“And the time?” He scans my hair. “You have started to turn from gray to black.”
“I am charcoal, and the sun is setting.”
With averseness, he ventures, “That count went to fetch an army.”
“You are wrong. The casters are recuperating from having their magicks stolen, and the count has undoubtedly warned them of your power. They will not come for you. They would be foolish.” I lean over his body to inspect him for unfaithful wounds, pleased that there are none.
While I am inspecting him, he is inspecting me.
“You should do the same,” he says.
Now it is my turn to be caught unaware. “W-what?”
“Recuperate, Grim.” He reaches a few lazy fingertips to the side of my face. “You do not look well.”
I am weak. Not only in body, but in resolution. Though there is no reason I ought to, I delight in the way his eyes, dark-edged and primal and more like an animal than any person’s, stare at me with hints of concern. His golden irises – which make claim to the golden blessing he holds – for now, are set on me.
“You are no longer angry with me?” I ask softly.
“I would be if I had the energy,” he says.
“You may be angry, but I am not. I am glad the power has bequeathed to you. I am glad the reign of Eldrade is finally through. And I am glad you are unhurt.”
I allow my hand to make contact with his fingers on my cheek. Awyer’s destiny flashes to the forefront of my mind:
Awyer stands atop a pillar, encompassed in a funnel of Amethyst smoke. Soundless, the air around him rises, pushing the cloud higher and higher until there is nothing less than a direct line to the heavens.
From below him, a golden light shines, through which stoic faces are visible. One rises above the rest. Part man, part lion, the being offers a token to the deliverer that is Awyer.
“We shall set out when my hair returns to white.” I drop his hand and float to my feet. I move toward the entrance of the room. Awyer follows, feet crunching the glass of the floor with each step.
“To where, Grim?” he says.
“The Golden Lands.”
“Homeland of the sphinxes?”
“Your homeland, Awyer.”
“They will hardly welcome a man holding only a quarter of their blood.”
“They will welcome a boy, destined to deliver their promised power.”
None too happy, Awyer glances at me sidelong. I will explain if I must.
“Am I correct to assume that you do not wish to keep the Amethyst within you?” I say.
Awyer’s glance does not let up.
I continue, “We will bestow it upon your relatives and you will become free. Forever free from the stolen color.”
With this, his gait piques. It is a tempting offer for a boy who would rather not hold all of the power of Amethyst. Even more tempting for a boy who would rather not hold any. Again, I have refrained from telling him everything in store. Our journey will not be one of ease, and Awyer does not yet know of the forces beyond Eldrade’s fallen barrier. I will guide him, as I always have, through the outer lands of Bloőd and Azure, through the brushlands and mountains that surround this place, and through the many who will stand to oppose him.
