The Flute Keeper's Promise (The Flute Keeper Saga)

by Ashley Setzer

  Chloe thought she misheard him. “A hole?”

  “Just floating in the air,” Garland said. “It’s where a passage was blotted out with a magic spell. According to rumors, it contained a parody of the cathedral elders. The author had them laying eggs in the pews and clucking like farm fowl.”

  “That’s our way out?” Bazzlejet asked.

  Garland nodded. “Yes, but you have to get past the door first.”

  “Let’s go,” Chloe said.

  “Be careful,” Garland said. “I’ll wait here.”

  The door was a ridiculous rendition of itself. Its wood was stained and knotted. It spoke to them with a booming voice that shook the ground around it.

  “WHO APPROACHES? TAKE HEED. I AM THE CATHEDRAL DOOR, THE BIGGEST KNOW-IT-ALL IN FAYLINN! I AM AN OLD HUNK OF WOOD AND I LIKE TO HEAR MYSELF TALK. COME CLOSER SO I CAN JUDGE YOU AND TELL YOU WHAT A USELESS HEAP OF RUBBISH YOU ARE! ”

  Chloe and Bazzlejet looked at each other uncertainly.

  “Hello,” Chloe said. “We’d like to enter, please.”

  The door grunted, creaked and groaned. Bazzlejet hung back a few steps. He kept glancing side-to-side.

  “YOU,” the door said.

  Chloe looked around. “Me?”

  “YOU ARE SPOILED AND ARROGANT. YOU ARE PERFECT FOR THE CLERGY. YOU MAY PASS.”

  Chloe scowled at the plank of wood. “Now wait just a minute, I—”

  Bazzlejet nudged her forward. “What about me?” he asked.

  “YOU ARE A HOPELESS BUFFOON,” the door said. “THIS IS ACCEPTABLE.”

  “Hey!” Bazzlejet exclaimed.

  “Just come on,” Chloe said.

  The door swung open and they found themselves in a menagerie. All the clergy inside the Cathedral had been given animal characteristics. The place was full of cawing and mooing and screeching.

  A priest with the face of a donkey greeted them. “Welcome to the Cathedral. HEE-HAW! HEE HAW!”

  “This way to the sanctuary,” Chloe said, brushing past the priest.

  Bazzlejet pinched his nose shut and followed her. “Smells like a barn in here.”

  They entered the long, white inner sanctum where, in the real cathedral, the clergy led solemn hymns. Chloe heard distant clucking noises, but there was nothing to see other than a black hole floating in the middle of the sanctuary. It looked like the mouth of a cave.

  Chloe gulped. “After this we’re in real Ivywild. Are you ready?”

  Bazzlejet looked pale behind his freckles but he tried to smile. “Are you kidding? I’ve been waiting for this moment for months!”

  “Me too,” Chloe said. She took a deep breath. “Okay, so we just walk right through?”

  “Yeah,” Bazzlejet said. “But let me go first.”

  He crept up to the hole. Chloe felt a static charge as he passed by her. He held his right hand out stiffly. Little arcs of energy danced between his fingers.

  He poked his head cautiously through the hole. The darkness was so complete that it made him look like a headless body. Chloe let out a little squeak of alarm but Bazzlejet leaned back in and gave her thumbs up.

  “We’re clear. Looks like Anouk’s room.”

  With a sigh of relief, Chloe hopped through the hole. Her head bumped against something and she realized she was underneath a cot. Bazzlejet came through behind her. He stood up the whole cot tipped over.

  They were in a tidy little dorm room. Behind them on the floor lay the book they’d just come out of. Chloe picked it up and read the cover.

  “New Perspectives on Clergy Life by L.M. Flibbertigibbet.” She tucked the book into her pocket. “We’d better keep this close in case we need to escape. Now for our disguise…”

  “Got it.”

  Bazzlejet had already put on a women’s green robe. He found a spare in the laundry pile and handed it to Chloe.

  “You don’t waste any time,” Chloe remarked as she pulled the robe over her head. She made sure to cinch the hood to hide her face. Then she stood up straight to stretch and felt oddly unbalanced. The floor moved beneath her feet.

  “Whoa,” she said. “Do you feel that?”

  Bazzlejet steadied himself. “Yeah. I feel kind of seasick.”

  “Is it from being the book so long?” Chloe asked.

  “Maybe,” Bazzlejet said, “but never had that problem before.”

  The strange feeling of vertigo stayed with them as they snuck out of the dormitory and onto the castle grounds. Outside it was eerily quiet. There was no hint of the vivacity that used to fill Ivywild from the castle steps to the market square even though there were still plenty of people. Chloe and Bazzlejet lost themselves easily among the crowds, but all the people went about their business quietly with no enthusiasm. There was at least one red cape for every three citizens.

  Chloe pulled her robe tighter around herself. “This doesn’t feel like home.”

  “It’s under martial law,” Bazzlejet said in his most serious tone. “This is just sad.”

  They walked down a tree-lined boulevard that led to Ivywild River. The leaves rustled noisily overhead.

  “Does it seem windier than usual to you?” Chloe asked.

  “Yeah,” Bazzlejet said. “And would you have a look at that?”

  Ivywild River was not flowing. A dead sprite floated by on the stagnant water.

  Knots of rage formed in Chloe’s stomach. What had happened to her home? This is all wrong!

  The ground lurched and she stumbled backwards. Bazzlejet caught her even though he was having trouble keeping his own footing.

  “Is it possible we’re just in another book about Ivywild?” Chloe asked. “This can’t be home. It just can’t.”

  For once there was no humor in Bazzlejet’s amber eyes. “This is real. What are we going to do about it?”

  Chloe glared at the red capes guarding the castle steps. “We have to get inside.”

  It was not easy, but thanks to Chloe’s knowledge of the servants’ passages, they were able to crawl into the kitchen. It took a lot of scuttling on hands and knees since the passages were built only to accommodate the average Gnome. Afterwards they had to wait in a cramped cupboard full of onions until the coast was clear.

  “Phew!” Bazzlejet exclaimed as they burst out of the cupboard. “I’m gonna reek for days!”

  “It’s not so bad,” Chloe said. “I used to hide behind the salted fish barrels and listen to the kitchen servants gossip. My maids never understood why I smelled fishy all the time.”

  They ducked behind a cutting block as a Gnome walked by.

  “Once we’re out of the kitchen we should have no problems getting to the sixth floor,” Bazzlejet said. “After that, it’s all nobility’s quarters. What do you think?”

  “We go outside and fly up to Violet’s balcony. It faces away from the crowds. If there aren’t any air patrols, nobody should see us.”

  They left the kitchen and went to the elevatree. Chloe was appalled by the way she saw red capes treating the servants. She recognized Violet’s handmaid, Bea. The old Gnome struggled to carry a basket full of dirty drinking mugs. Her little arms gave in and she dropped it. There was a crunch of breaking glass.

  “Watch it!” shouted a red cape.

  Bea bent over to pick up the basket and the red cape kicked her. “Be careful with those, you old crone!”

  Shaking, Chloe started towards the red cape. Bazzlejet grabbed her arm.

  “You can’t do anything about that right now,” he whispered.

  “I could vaporize him!” Chloe hissed.

  But Bazzlejet was right, of course. They couldn’t risk alerting everyone to their presence, so they took the next gondola up to the sixth floor. They walked out onto a promenade above the castle square. To Chloe’s chagrin, there were a couple of red capes outside smoking their pipes.

  “We should pitch them over the edge,” Chloe said. “I bet they can’t even fly!”

  “Let’s just have a seat over there an
d pretend like we’re studying or something,” Bazzlejet said. He pointed to a bench near the low wall that encircled the promenade.

  With a frown, Chloe walked over to the bench. Before she got there she had the uneasy feeling of imbalance again. Dizzy, she stumbled the last few steps and caught herself on the wall. She glanced over the top of it and almost got sick.

  “Bazzlejet,” she squeaked. “Come over here!”

  He joined her at the wall. “Are you okaaaaay…” he trailed off, staring at the scene below.

  Now Chloe knew why they felt motion sick.

  They were high enough to see past the outermost castle wall. There was nothing beyond it but sky.

  Ivywild was airborne.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Chloe’s head spun. There was nothing more disorienting than having the whole bulk of her ancestral home floating above the ground. And it was moving. Fast.

  “How?” Bazzlejet said. “There aren’t enough machines in the world to lift the whole castle!”

  “I don’t hear any machines,” Chloe said as she listened closely. When she was able to pry her eyes away from the view below, she glanced upwards. All the crystals on the castle towers flashed bright purple.

  “That’s unusual,” Bazzlejet said, staring with her. “Why are they so bright?”

  Chloe shook her head. “I don’t understand. The crystals drew their power from the spring below the castle…”

  “But now there’s nothing below the castle,” Bazzlejet said.

  “So where is the power coming from?”

  “Heads up,” Bazzlejet whispered.

  The red capes were snuffing out their pipes and heading back into the castle. As soon as the last one left the promenade, Chloe and Bazzlejet conjured their wings. They flew up and around one of the towers and then hid on an eave while a patrolman paced across a suspension bridge below them. After that, they darted around the side of the main tower and had a straight shot up to the balcony of Violet’s room.

  Chloe peered through the balcony doors. The bed was messy. Abandoned boots lay in a heap on the floor next to a dirty red cape uniform. Wrinkling her nose, Chloe said, “It looks like they’ve turned Violet’s room into some kind of officer’s quarters. She’d be so sad if she knew. Look, they’ve destroyed her collection of rare herbs.”

  Violet’s precious bottles of healing greens looked like the victims of a late night slingshot contest. They lay in broken shards on her dresser.

  Bazzlejet’s ears were pricked up and he was listening closely to a tune being sung off key by someone inside. A tipsy red cape swaggered into Violet’s room. The foam from a stein of some potent beverage clung to his beard. His eyes were bloodshot and it was a miracle he stayed upright long enough to make it to the bed.

  Another red cape poked his head in and asked, “You okay, Stilskoats?”

  The tipsy man on the bed waved a hand. “Been celebrating all night. Duke promoted me for sniffing out those rebels.”

  Chloe’s skin prickled. No! She let out a whimper. Bazzlejet clapped a hand over her mouth.

  “Right good job you did, man,” said the red cape at the door. “I heard you escaped from fifty Slaugh.”

  “It was a hundred Slaugh,” said the drunken man loudly. “And they got all my men. I had to drink their share for them last night, poor buggers. We were outnumbered by those cutthroats.”

  “Rest up,” said the other man. “We’ll need you come nightfall.”

  They listened to the sound of boots thudding away from the room. The drunk man dozed off on the bed.

  Chloe trembled. “They’ve found it! They’ve found Woodman’s Hall! We’re too late!”

  “Calm down,” Bazzlejet said, though he looked rather stricken himself. “We just need a way in and we’ll put a stop to this.”

  Overwhelmed, Chloe buried her face in her hands. “But it’s just the two of us! And they have a Pyxis Charm and a flying castle and…oh! It’s no use! We’ve got to get out and warn the others!”

  Bazzlejet shook his head. “And then what?”

  “And then…” Chloe sighed. “And then we wait around with everyone else. No, that won’t do. You’re right, we must get inside and do something.” She turned her sights on the man sleeping in Violet’s bed. “Let’s start with him.”

  They snuck through the balcony door without arousing little more than a snort from the sleeping red cape.

  “Shall we put a spell on him, or torture him?” Bazzlejet whispered.

  Chloe spied one of the vials of broken herbs and got an idea.

  “See this yellow stuff?” she whispered, scooping the herb off the floor. “This is Violet’s own creation. It’s a powdered mix of bellberry and lichens. If we can get that man to swallow it, he will believe that he is a teapot for a few hours.”

  Bazzlejet blinked. “How is that medicinal, exactly? I thought you said these were all healing herbs.”

  “Well it tends to keep a patient sedated if he believes he’s a teapot, doesn’t it? Not much he can do. Violet poured some in Garland’s soup when we were younger. He sat on a table for half a day and made bubbling noises.”

  The red cape was snoring loudly. Pinching her nose shut because of his foul breath, Chloe dropped some of the yellow mixture into his open mouth.

  The red cape sat up with a choking noise and glanced around wildly. Chloe and Bazzlejet ducked. The one thing Chloe hadn’t counted on was how the mixture might react with the dozen steins of ale the red cape had in him.

  The red cape propped his arm up at his waist and lifted his other arm at a bent angle to his side. His eyes went unfocused and he teetered on the edge of the bed.

  Chloe rose from her hiding spot.

  “Cup of tea?” the red cape asked. He leaned sideways so that his bent arm tipped down like a spout.

  “Why yes, thank you,” Chloe said. She winked at Bazzlejet and cupped her hands near the red cape, catching a pretend stream of tea. “I’d like to take a cup to the Duke of Briar,” she said. “Do you know where I can find him?”

  “The throne room,” said the red cape. “Squirt of lemon?”

  “No thanks,” Chloe said. She grabbed Bazzlejet by the elbow and inched towards the hallway. As an afterthought, she sealed the red cape’s lips shut with a coating of frost.

  “What did you do that for?” Bazzlejet asked.

  “Teapots are known to whistle,” Chloe said. “Let’s go this way.”

  They sidled down the hall towards her old room.

  “But the throne room is upstairs,” Bazzlejet said.

  “Yes, it is,” Chloe said. “So we go this way.”

  They ducked behind a colored glass column as a red cape walked past. When they came to Chloe’s room, she put her ear to the wall and listened. “It doesn’t sound like anyone is inside, but just to be sure…” she took a pin from her hair and jammed it into the crack between the wall and the door. She flicked it with her finger and it gave off a satisfying hum.

  “A detection charm?” Bazzlejet asked.

  Chloe nodded. “A trick I learned a long time ago so I could burst in and startle the maids when they were cleaning. Sounds like it’s clear.” She twisted the knob and entered the room.

  All the furniture and trinkets she loved so much had been scattered topsy-turvy and pushed against the walls. In their place were piles upon piles of confiscated weapons. There were swords, longbows, axes, daggers, slingshots and even farm tools. Somebody had filled her luxurious soaking tub to the brim with arrows and other ammunition.

  “They’ve turned my room into an armory!” she wailed.

  “We’ve no time to waste in here,” Bazzlejet said. “We need to get to the throne room!”

  Chloe gave him a withering look. “Don’t get your ruffled panties in a bunch. I know precisely what I’m doing.”

  She climbed over a pile of pitchforks to get to her closet. With some effort, she cleared a wide enough space to open it. She peeked inside. “Good. They didn’t
disturb anything.”

  Bazzlejet let out an impatient sigh. “This is no time to worry about your clothes.”

  Chloe ignored him. She pushed back the bulk of dresses hanging in the closet and felt around on its ceiling. She found the end of a curled-up rope ladder. She gave it a tug and the ladder unraveled until the end dangled just a few feet from the floor—the perfect height for a little girl to reach up and grab hold. She was no longer such a little girl, so the rope looked more flimsy than she remembered. It led up to a narrow hatch in the ceiling.

  Bazzlejet poked his head inside. He spied the ladder and his eyes lit up. “Nifty. How long has that been here?”

  “Since I was five,” Chloe said. “I begged Daddy to make me a secret passage so I could visit him in the throne room without having a ton of servants following me. I used to climb up after supper and make him tell me stories…shhhh! I hear voices.”

  A deep voice could be heard coming from the room above but it was too muffled to make out the words.

  “Where does it come out?” Bazzlejet asked.

  “The statue of Danu Dana behind the throne,” Chloe whispered back. “I’ll go up first and take a look.”

  She grabbed the middle rungs of the ladder and began to pull herself up. Before she got to the top, though, the old rope ladder broke on one side. With her footing in jeopardy, Chloe floundered. Bazzlejet caught her ankles and managed to hold her up.

  “Can you still reach the hatch?” Bazzlejet asked with a grunt as Chloe settled heavily on his shoulders.

  Chloe stretched her arms and found the edge of the opening. “Lift me up higher,” she hissed.

  Bazzlejet groaned and stood on his tiptoes. Chloe nudged the hatch open ever so gently, just making a thin crack so she could peek into the room above. A statue of the legendary Fay warrior, Danu Dana, blocked off the view to the main part of the throne room. Chloe could hear the voices in the room much better now. The one she heard filled her with instant rage.

  “That’s it, take all you can. We’ll bleed these traitors dry! Look sharp, old girl. No rest for the weary, I know, but we’ve got a job to do!”

  The duke was filled with psychotic glee. The air felt unusually warm and there was a strange crackling sound in the room. It made the hair on Chloe’s neck stand on end.