by Sanders, Dan
Emily saw Sabina’s face was transfixed. “I thought Mother was a lone eagle–?”
“Now Emily is, but not always. There is something you should know about your mother, and about yourself. And it cannot wait any longer. It should come from your mother, and Eostra knows Cera will rip the grey from my hair for telling you.”
The Treebith paused for a moment, stared at the white streams of the two moons, and continued. Sabina’s voice became softer. “But why now?”
“It’s something the Faoir said in the gift giving ceremony. I think it relates to Emily’s mission and the prophecy.”
“You are making no sense, Icelander.”
“I can’t be sure. But when your mother–”
Reaching too far to listen, Emily slipped off her branch and onto a lower branch. Emily apologised to the startled Chief, pretending to reach a bird nesting in his head. They paused again for Lupi to lift Emily to her rightful position. Aldrick looked ashen at the disturbance, hastily climbed down to the leafy earth and wandered off into the forest. A light-crystal in his hand bobbed in the night as he disappeared in the darkness.
Sabina would have followed but the Treebith reached out his vine-twisted arm and said, “Leave him be. I was hoping he could also be here, but there is something you must see before the light rises on the river. It cannot wait.”
“Another person telling me it cannot wait!” Sabina said, exasperated.
Emily was lowered to the ground. Emily wanted to know almost as much as Sabina what news Aldrick had been about to reveal. Embarrassed at ruining the moment Emily looked away from Sabina and stayed close to the Treebith.
It was the early hours of the morning, and the cool blue light of the twin moons rested in the clearing.
With leafy hands, the Treebith waved Emily and Sabina to stand beside him. Another Treebith gently pulled a startled Daimon awake from Kato’s back. A sleeping Lupi was carried in on the branches of another. She joined Emily on the ground.
Emily watched a sixth Treebith complete the ring around the circular clearing. The ancient masters of Earth Lore chanted in an ancient tongue. Emily felt they were calling to the land around them. As Emily watched the stunned faces of the others in the darkness, Emily realised it wasn’t the land they were calling, but the water element. The tendrils of their eerie sound wafted through the whispering trees. Emily felt the movement of the water before Emily saw it flow beneath her footpads. Water from the Orena River rose to meet them. Daimon tried to dash from the side of his Treebith but it held his arm firmly. Twisting wildly he reached for his CBlade but it was missing. Emily waved her paws in panic.
“Fear not,” Chief Dranwen said as he reached into their minds with Thoughtspeak, “there is grave darkness on the land and you must see for yourself the true nature of that you seek to defend.”
Sabina yelled back into their minds, “We know of the darkness and the danger. In the name of Enki, we demand to be let go.”
The muscular vine bodies of the Treebith tightened. Small streams of river flowed between their legs and into the circular clearing. Emily thought the volume of water would flood the area but instead it stayed inside the clearing, soaking into the earth. The sound of the chant became commanding. The river stream stopped flowing. The earth-water in the clearing spun slowly at first then, as the chanting increased, the speed increased. Sprays of water from the whirlpool splashed their faces and Emily’s whiskers. The singing stopped. And the spinning water stopped. The Treebith let go of Daimon’s arm. Emily blinked the water from her eyes and saw they were left with a large emerald pool, luminescent in the dawn. Daimon kicked at the water’s edge, sending a ripple across the glassy finish.
Chief Dranwen said, “You must see what cannot be seen. And for that you must walk without walking. We do this to show you how much we care for the land.”
“What is he babbling about?” Lupi said.
Sabina looked horrified and said, “You cannot be serious. We have Earthlings and unschooled Agramond. We cannot–”
“You need no skill with this,” the Treebith said evenly.
Emily said, “What are they saying, Sabina?”
“He is talking about Astral projection.”
“You are kidding,” Lupi said. “I’m not–”
The Treebith reached down and dragged each of them into the puddle. Kato’s flame-filled roar quickly silenced any attempt to remove her from the water’s edge. Emily squirmed against a vice-grip. As her snout was engulfed by water, Emily held her breath and pulled her long ears over her closed eyes.
The only one left on the bank was Kato.
Chapter 26
Alendi
ALENDI, ANNWYN
Twirling and gliding, they flew across a blur of time and space, across vague plains and mountain ranges, until Emily felt her rabbit body slow and plunge to the ground.
I’m not dead, she thought. There was no pain or fear, no sound and no light. Eyes closed, she sucked in fresh air and not water and sat upright. As she nervously opened her eyes the dark gave way to a grey fog. They were in an open field of black and grey. Red lightning scratched the grey sky like bloody veins. Thunder from the storm shook the ground and cracked in their ears.
As Emily squinted into the darkness, bleary lights bobbed in the distance. Her companions’ tunics and her white fur were the only colours against the desolate landscape. She looked down and saw blackened grass. She felt empty inside. The Treebith were gone. All the animals were gone. Sabina and Daimon stood on either side of her. Lupi hovered next to Daimon with one hand on his shoulder. Instinctively the group drew closer when they realised they were alone.
“Where are we?” Daimon said.
“Our bodies are still in Springton Forest, but our essence is in this place.”
“What–?”
“Hush,” Lupi said. “We are not alone.”
Emily heard it too, small sounds in the distance: the crying of a child, a hammer on an anvil, and the moaning of a cow.
Daimon whispered as he spoke, “What is that smell? It’s like burnt wood and horse hide.”
Lupi said, “That’s death.”
Emily felt exposed on the hilltop as they moved slowly through the fog. She saw a town in the valley but thought they must be in a dream.
“Is that…?” she began.
“Death.” Lupi shuddered.
Sabina beckoned them to come close. She whispered, choking back tears. “We have been sent here by the Treebith.”
“Where is here?” Daimon persisted.
“I recognise this place from the books. It is Alendi.”
They turned their heads back to the town. They remembered the Queen’s cry at the Gala Ball.
“I thought it was on the other side of Annwyn,” Daimon said.
“It is, but weren’t you listening to Sabina? We have been astrally projected to this place. I’m not sure how but we are here.”
“It must have been that strange water they pulled us into,” Emily said. “They must want us to see this place.”
“But why?” Daimon said. He put his hand where his blade usually rested and remembered it was empty.
Without speaking they entered town. Emily heard Daimon and Sabina’s restrained breath pushing at the fog. Every hop she took brought her pain. The land was crying out to her. Her throat was tight and tears sat at the edge of her eyes. Lupi patted her shoulder in silent concern. Emily lifted her ears as tall as she could and kept her eyes ahead to the unfolding devastation.
Just then Daimon tripped on a log. The log moaned. Emily looked down and saw a body lying in mud.
“Ohhh no,” Sabina said, and dropped to her knees.
It was a woman’s body, twisted so her muddied leg jutted from where her arm would normally be. Her sockets held no eyes and blood filled her mouth. Her nose had been removed and bits of her yellow hair stuck out from her blackened skull. Her breathing was harsh and shallow.
Sabina yanked a crystal from her pocket. Fu
mbling in the dark, she leant over the woman and spoke a few words. The orange crystal glowed brightly across the woman’s body. The eye-less sockets of the woman opened wide before she arched her back and in a final hoarse breath collapsed into silence.
Emily hopped away from the sight and vomited onto the earth. Her bile vanished as it hit the ground. Her snout and whiskers burnt.
“What did you do?” Lupi asked Sabina.
“I removed her suffering,” Sabina said.
Sabina moved on. They saw the true horror unfold. To Emily it seemed as though the town had been caught in a vicious fire storm. Houses were upended, town buildings rammed into one another, and every object and every being had been burned into a blackened cinder. Bodies melted into each other. Bodies from animals and bodies from Annwynians had somehow merged, forming whole new beings.
The litter of corpses, like rafts on a river, lay strewn across the rolling burnt earth. Emily saw a lifeless leopard’s head sitting atop a young boy’s charred body. She screamed when the face of a man stared up at her. It was attached to a lamb’s body. Another body had no hands or feet. Blackened branches poked lifelessly in their place.
Sabina used her orange crystal on anything left alive as she had on the first woman they saw.
The hammer that rhythmically banged in the air was close. They rounded the corner to the epicentre of the town and saw a large man hammering an anvil. Lupi and Sabina squealed. He was banging his other hand, smashed into a pulp. Two fingertips lay at his feet. His head turned at the intruders and Emily hopped into Sabina’s arms when she saw the empty sockets again.
They stepped and hopped over the debris towards the town inn. Emily heard a noise and turned and her heart stopped. Standing at the entrance of the inn, facing inside, stood a man in a black robe. Although he had his back to them, Emily felt he was alive. His robes flickered above the smouldering embers.
Sabina pulled them in closer. She put her finger to her lips. Only the sound of the screeching wind buffeted their robes. Emily’s heart thumped. A blast of lightning lit the ground with bloody daylight. Daimon stepped forward. Something crunched under his foot. The man in the robes spun in the air and faced them. Beneath the hood two red dots glared in the bleak fog.
For a moment nothing happened. Emily held her breath. She felt a powerful force try to enter her mind.
“Chosen One?” The ancient voice from the hood was an accusing squeal, thin and devoid of life.
“Who are you?” croaked Emily.
The hooded man’s laugh was bitter. He hovered closer, then paused. Emily wanted to move but could not. Lupi squeezed Emily’s paw.
“I come to bring a new life. I am the humble servant of Supreme Gorgos.”
“Humble,” Lupi spat.
“Torek,” Sabina said matter-of-factly.
As though he noticed the others for the first time, he said, “So the Circle of Six is as the Seers have foretold. Where are the other two?”
Sabina waved her arm at the destruction at her feet and said, “What have you done?”
“To bring a new harmony requires disharmony.”
“You speak rubbish,” Lupi said.
Torek looked at Lupi through his glowing red dots and demanded, “Who is helping you with such power to come here?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Lupi laughed.
Torek pointed his white bony finger at Lupi. In defence the Agramond put her fingers together and began pulling at an invisible ball of air.
As the air in Lupi’s hands grew, Emily hopped forward and interrupted. “You cannot harm us, for we are not here.”
Torek turned to her and sniggered, “Perhaps not, Chosen One, but you have seen your fate.”
The hooded man raised his hands and spoke aloud to the storm. He gleefully watched his swirling black dust storm rage from the ground to engulf them. Lupi raised her hands to counter his power, but Emily felt some other unseen force grab her from behind. The world shimmered, the sound of rushing water filled her ears and snout, and they were once again swallowed into blackness.
Chapter 27
Battle at the AGate
AGATE, SPRINGTON FOREST,
ANNWYN
Aldrick tapped Emily’s snout and Noogie pecked at her paws. She woke to Kato’s concerned tiger face standing over her. She sat bolt upright, thinking she was still underwater, but quickly realised it was only heavy rain. Even the raindrops are bigger than on Earth, she thought. She looked around and saw the brilliant blossoms of Springton Forest but no Treebith. She was relieved when she saw Noogie dodging the rain as she sought cover. She asked Aldrick, “Where are we?”
Aldrick said as he woke Lupi, “We are near the AGate. Come on Agramond, time to go.”
Lupi opened her wings and flew under cover. Sabina rolled onto her feet and pulled her hood over her face. She followed Daimon under the wide branch of a Springton Tree. They sat silently, watching the rain pour into the swollen Orena River. A mother duck and her ducklings left the river and headed under the cover of the same tree.
Aldrick hurried to each of them, placed a glowing lilac crystal upon their head and spoke a few words before nodding. Emily felt him gently check her mind. She felt a tenderness she had not seen before in the Professor.
“You seem well, but what in the name of Eostra happened back there?”
At first nobody spoke. They sat and watched the leaves and grass become heavy with the teeming rain. Lupi hugged her knees and said flatly, “Death.”
“What? I can’t hear you over this infernal rain.”
“Uncle, it was…” Sabina tried to explain. Her hand fidgeted with the emerald pendant around her neck.
“Horrible,” Emily offered simply. “Sabina said we were in Alendi. We saw Torek.”
“What? How?” Aldrick paced about in the rain.
A large log blocked the path he was pacing. Rather than step over it, he pointed his hand at it and willed the log out of his way. It wobbled, flew across the clearing and thudded into another tree. Emily chuckled at his wet hair hanging flat about his ears.
“Settle down, Uncle,” Sabina warned him. “You’ll blow a brain cell.”
Aldrick ignored her and said, “Astral projection. Those prickly Treebith. They didn’t tell me what they were doing, and they leave us here, alone. I should have been there. And all because I offended them.”
“Professor, I think it was more than that,” Emily said. “I believe they genuinely thought they were helping us, to show us what is really happening.”
“Well, it worked,” Lupi said angrily. “I didn’t know how bad it was. How does Magas propose we stop what we saw?”
Emily was only absently listening. She had asked herself the same question. “Remember what they said about the artefacts. The Harp and the Egg and that Gilga’s Kettle–whatever that is, were used by the early Elementals to keep harmony in the land.”
“Not enough, not enough! Exactly what happened back there?” Aldrick pushed.
“Later, Uncle,” Sabina said as she packed up her things. “Emily’s right. I have been thinking about what the Treebith said about the place between the Twin Worlds. The key is in an AGate. I know there is one around here. While the artefacts are the ultimate destination, we must get to the AGate and find that key. The key unlocks the Harp of Harmony, that’s what the Treebith said.”
“Where is that slacker prince?” Lupi asked Aldrick. “We need him right now.”
“Don’t ask silly questions. You know the King has detained him to find the culprit of the assassinations,” Aldrick snapped.
“This is more important, Aldrick,” Lupi snapped back.
Rupurt said, “Sabina, what happens after we get the key?”
Lupi said, “I’ll tell you what’s next. It’s easy, really. We have to work out a way to get from one side of Annwyn to the other in eight days. And we hope these Exotics are agreeable enough to give us what we seek. And that is far from certain, if you ask me.”
&nb
sp; “You are a cloud full of charm today,” Daimon said.
“Watch it, Earthling,” Lupi said darkly. She folded her arms and turned her back.
Emily hopped out into the storm, leaned into the throbbing river and said, “Where exactly is the AGate?”
Sabina had already taken out a map from her pack and pointed to a thin blue line running through the centre of Annwyn. “See here; we are already on the edge of the forest. They must have carried us here through the night; amazing.”
Kato had been pacing up and down the river’s edge. She pawed back to them and said, “I feel uneasy. There is something out of balance and I can’t quite connect with the trouble.”
“You’re just worrying,” Rupurt assured her. “I’m sure we are all tired from last night.” He saw Emily’s concern at Kato’s worry, hopped over to Emily and patted her red paw.
Aldrick consulted Sabina, who strode off into the forest without a word. With fingers spread wide, Sabina held out her hand as she walked, silently commanding overhanging vines and ferns to part for the group. Emily hopped behind Daimon and listened to him spend most of the morning badgering Sabina about how she worked her magic on the plants. Despite her explaining it was nothing more than TC, his own attempts failed to lift a twig. Kato padded in silence, glancing anxiously at the skies.
The trip tired Emily. She often had to stop and pull a twig or thorn from her footpad. Last night’s astral projection had affected everybody. The path they walked rose higher along the forest edge. As the rain eased, they dodged spiders happily rebuilding their webs, shining like mini rainbows in the sun.
She could see across the valleys opening below and watched with interest as the river fell away and twisted towards to south-west. Munching on an apple she considered why she felt sad to leave Springton Forest and realised that while the other places in Annwyn were still beautiful, she drew great strength from the power of this part of the land. Aldrick didn’t stop grumbling about the Treebith and their extreme measures. She wondered if he was still troubled by the news he had for Sabina.
