by Sanders, Dan
“He’s a friend of Emily’s. I think his name was Zane.” The Governess continued with the conversation. Theni threw a sidelong glance at the crystal soldier.
Throughout dinner Emily had watched the new girl, Theni, with interest. “What a lovely pendant, Theni.”
Theni grabbed the necklace, swallowed and said, “Thanks.”
“Where did you get it?”
“I can answer that,” the Governess said. “It was given by the King of Korak as a birth gift. Wow, that was seventeen years ago now. How time flies.”
Emily felt an uncomfortable energy from the red stone in the necklace, but couldn’t quite put her paw on it. She asked, “What is that stone made of?”
Theni jumped in, “Mother doesn’t know. It was just something from their crystal mines. They have all sorts of crystals mined out their way.”
The Governess said to Professor Sashiel, “How about the vote being cancelled? I thought the King of Ibendari was going to have a fit. I’m glad reason prevailed.”
“I didn’t know the vote had been cancelled,” Sashiel said.
“What do you expect?” the Governess interrupted. “Another royal murder. This time it was Nadia Peramon, the daughter of the Queen of the Vodnik. It was gruesome. They say her body was drained of her life-force.”
Theni choked on her pink drink. Emily pretended not to notice.
“Are you unwell, darling?” Theni’s mother said.
Theni waved her hand in dismissal. The conversation continued.
Kato looked at Theni before her deep, honeyed voice entered the conversation. “Did they capture the murderer?”
“I haven’t heard,” The Governess said. “I did hear that Melder Whiteoak was chasing a few clues, but nothing firm.”
“If the vote went ahead, where would the Storven’s’ vote be?” Lupi asked the Governess. “Will they remain part of the CoA?”
The Governess looked sadly across at Professor Sashiel before answering. “We are Earth Lore people. Our fates are entwined with the Ibendari and the confederation. Are you sure you cannot stay longer?”
“My quest is dangerous,” Emily said. “Professor, you may not know, but Alendi, the seaside town in the far north, has been destroyed by the darkness of Gorgos and his Lord Melder, Torek. Others may have fallen to his dark shadow. I have to collect the Artefacts of Harmony and deliver them safely to Havendel before the end of this lunar cycle.”
“Impossible, in one day. You will not make it,” said the Governess. “I did however inform the Professor of the unfortunate plight of Alendi. My family and I were at the Gala dinner when the Queen announced it.”
“We should just make it in time. We have help.” Lupi pointed outside in the direction of their giant eagle companion, Arun.
The Professor scratched his short red beard and asked Emily, “So what brings your quest to this part of the world?”
Emily chose her next words gently. “We came for Gilga’s Kettle.”
“What makes you think we will give it to you?” Theni said, fidgeting with her pendant.
“Theni, we have no say in the matter,” said the Governess sternly. “It is the Reven who will bestow or withhold. There may however be a problem. How will you ask them, without knowledge of the Reven tongue?”
Emily sniffed around the room, as though looking for answers. “I thought we could all communicate in the global language of Annwyn.”
Lupi answered, “The Governess makes a good point. All Exotics have retained their ancient tongues so the natural Lore may pass through generations untainted. We Agramond may choose to use the common tongue, but the Reven do not.”
“But Tholmar the Reven spoke to Emily in the common tongue when he bestowed her gift in Ibendari,” Lupi said.
The Governess said, “But not in their home enclave, in deciding matters as part of their ancient communion.”
“What do I do?” Emily asked.
“When all else fails, remember your connection,” Kato said.
Emily nervously wrung her paws as they were escorted to the opening of the Reven stronghold. Lupi led the way and was about to pass through the oval cutting in the stone door when Theni stopped her. “Only the rabbit can enter the Reven stronghold.”
“Hey you,” Lupi bit back, “she’s not just a rabbit. Use her name.”
“We will wait here, if you insist,” Kato said slowly, watching Theni.
“Theni is right,” said the Governess. “It is most unusual for anybody to be granted entry. Tholmar has only granted Emily this privilege.”
Lupi, Rupurt and Kato watched Emily enter the Reven stronghold to meet the oldest race on Annwyn. Zane stood off to the side of the entry, his black crystal eyes staring ahead.
Chapter 37
Xavier and Daimon
JALPARI,
ANNWYN
Daimon shook his head. Sweat dripped from his hair, and he licked his lips. He looked up at the shackles holding him just above the floor in the middle of the chamber. They tinkled when he kicked his feet. That’s right, captured by the dark Melders. But where was he? The room was hot and he could barely breathe. And then a bigger question. How did he end up here, in this mess? The Spartan boys, he remembered. He needed to control his temper. Too late for sorries, have to get back to Emily.
He stared at the yellow light from the crystal chains cutting into his wrists. There’s another difference to home, he thought; floating crystals used in war. His right wrist, the new stone arm created by Prince Bevan, didn’t hurt. Now there’s a strange man, he thought. Self absorbed like most princes, yet he acted with honour with Sabina.
A thin voice penetrated the aching darkness that pulled at his shoulders. Two men stepped into the light of the shackles. Daimon’s throat burned when he swallowed.
“It is the only way to prove yourself,” the taller man was saying to the boy. He pulled back his robe to reveal black eyes against pale skin and cream hair.
“There are other ways,” said the boy. He was about Daimon’s age. Daimon recognised the bright red colour of his hair as one of the fire people. He must be the Xavier boy that Lupi talked of, apprenticed to the dark Melder.
Behind the two men, Daimon vaguely saw the red light of a large stone tub with lava dripping over the edges and bubbling onto the floor. So that was source of the heat that itched his skin and filled his nose.
“Who are you?” Daimon demanded through his singed throat.
The two men laughed.
“We thought you could answer by now, Earth boy.”
Daimon shook his hands in the shackles. “By the gods, when my friends find me here, you will be made to regret taking one of the Circle.” He wasn’t sure where that came from, but realised Emily and the Circle were his friends.
“Oh, I don’t think your friends will be coming somehow. They only have a few sunrises before the spring morn.”
“Then why me?”
“Now you speak sense. You will tell us where the Chosen One is heading and we may let you live. Where is Eostra’s lost Egg?”
“And where is the Harp?” Xavier added.
“Don’t… know?” Daimon’s voice croaked through the dry steam.
Blade turned to Xavier and whispered, “We don’t have time. You will extract it out of him and bring the information to me.”
“But I can’t–”
“As I said,” Blade whispered, “you must prove yourself after your previous failures. And, this is important, he must not live after you have extracted the information. We must break the Circle.” Blade pulled the hood over his hair and billowed from the room.
Daimon’s heart beat hard and his belly sank. Kill me?
“I truly don’t know where the Egg is,” Daimon said, which was the truth.
Xavier walked over to Daimon and stuck his thin nose in the Earth boy’s face. His voice was thin and wispy. “You will tell me now, else I will send you mad in extracting it from your mind.”
Daimon had to think quic
kly. Stall him. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”
“What?”
“All of it. You can join us.”
Xavier smiled, clicked his fingers and a tuft of flames burst alight, dancing in his hand. The fire bowed to him and he held his hand up to Daimon’s face. “You know what that is, Earth boy?”
Daimon shook his head.
“Fire Lore,” Xavier said. “The greatest of all the lores. And I am a prince of the Fire Lore people. And more than that, I will be the greatest of the Fire Lore people. That is the gift from Torek and Gorgos, the supreme dissonant one. Now what is it you can do for me?”
Daimon closed his eyes and tried to reach out and Thoughtspeak Bevan. Nothing. He tried Emily, but he knew that wouldn’t work. He was too new at this.
Daimon’s mind raced. Searching for answers and hope, he thought of Odysseus on his home of Earth. Would he give up in defeating Troy, after ten years of battle? He had to save Emily and his world. He needed the courage of Odysseus and the strength of Achilles. He sucked hot air through his lips and through blistered eyes he looked around the room. He saw his CBlade lying lifeless against the wall. He remembered his lessons with the Mithrans and Sabina and Bevan, and reached his mind out to the blade. Nothing, too much pain. He dropped his chin and slowed his mind and connected with the particles of air between him and the blade. And he connected with the particles of the crystal. Yes, and the blade came alive, blue against the red light. Now, here’s the test. You can do it, he said to himself. Use the air and the blade to lift across the room. And the CBlade wobbled and lifted off the stone and into the air. Daimon felt its power responding. He had done it.
Then a cackling sound broke his concentration. The blade was torn from his mind and flew across the dim chamber into the hands of Xavier. The blue light of Daimon’s blade winked out.
“You think your puny Earthling mind can save you. You Earthlings are all weak. And weakness will always lose to greatness and strength.”
“Who are you trying to convince, you or me?”
“When this is over, I will be the supreme ruler of the fire people. Even over my father. What will you get?”
Daimon sagged in his chains, his shoulders numb, his chest wheezing from the pressure against his lungs.
“I don’t know. I just want to go home, to my mother and …”
Xavier stared at Daimon, watching him, sizing him up. He spat and paced the floor, searching his own mind for answers.
“I know this was not your choosing, to be here,” Xavier said. “Nor was it my choice to be here. But we are now men, and we must make something of ourselves. It is the decisions we make today that shape the men we will become.”
Daimon sensed Xavier’s doubt. “You’re right. Our decisions will be our mark on this life. But what of honour and courage and knowledge?What say you of those things?
“I have courage.”
Daimon remembered something his mother had said. “What say you of things of music, things of beauty, of nobility.”
“Ha, ha,” Xavier said. “It is only strength and power that can change your circumstance. People don’t really care for beauty and honour. They only respect power and their place in it. People believe only what they see in front of them.”
Daimon thought of his mother and of Socrates and realised they were right. It is not just about war, and honour. It is about the beauty of knowledge and the truth that it brings. The hero must bring back truth, else the people at home remain in darkness and ignorance. He must get home. He ignored the blood that dropped from his left wrist onto his cheek, and glared into Xavier’s eyes.
“You choose your path, Xavier of the fire people. Choose death and darkness. But how will you be remembered when your people will spend eons in misery, with a land destroyed and barren? You may have power but what of your people, and their children. What will you tell them?”
Xavier’s red eyes opened in rage. He clenched his fists. “So be it. I hope they carry your memory to your people, for you will not see them again. This is bigger than both of us, Earth boy.”
Xavier slapped his palms together and the shackles clinked open and Daimon fell, stopping just above the floor. Xavier’s outstretched hand lifted Daimon and led him like a dangling rat above the vat of molten rock.
“This is from the Jalpari Volcano,” Xaveri said. “The hottest stone on all Annwyn.
Daimon’s face glowed orange as he hovered with his palms pulled like a cross.
“Arrgh…” Daimon’s nostrils and lips burned, his tongue shrank, and his breath grew shallow as the heat seared his lungs. The rock below him crackled in the burnt air. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t cry. His clothes caught fire and his naked skin peeled and the room blurred.
Over the noise of the angry liquid, Xavier cried, “Your last chance, Earth boy. Where is Eostra’s Egg? Where is the Chosen One?”
With arms outstretched, the skin on his toes blistering, his vision blurred and his mind like a fog, he whispered, “Emily.”
And through the steam, before the room went black, he thought he saw the Chosen One’s ocean eyes and cream fur; and he saw her fear, for him.
Chapter 38
Errenor
ERRENOR,
ANNWYN
Bevan glanced around the corner of the building and waved Sabina to follow.
“Where are you going now?” Sabina asked. A sharp rasping cough stopped her in her tracks.
Bevan glanced back and saw her kneeling on the limestone pavement. He gently took her by the arm and helped her stand.
“What I have been trying to do all morning, find somebody daft enough to transport us underwater to Nilawen, as you instructed.” He bit down on the final word and immediately regretted the sting in it. He continued more softly, “I said we should get you medical attention first. The Harp can wait until you are better. Our mission will cease if you rejoin.”
She placed her slender fingers on his arm. “I am sorry I’m a burden. But I can’t shake this feeling that Nilawen must come first. I can’t explain it. You should know by now I hate to rely on ‘feelings’.”
He chuckled at her confession. Sabina let her arm fall from his and shuffled after him down the bustling street.
They strolled along the crescent promenade with the sea on their right. Bevan pointed to the Filderma and Newdell Rivers gratefully ending their Annwynian pilgrimage into each end of the colossal harbour. Boats with silky crystal sails, bobbing leaf boats and merchant ships drifted across the sapphire sea canvas. Tas and Lar, white round muses, filled the crescent sky.
With her hands shielding the sun from her eyes, Sabina peered deep into the sea floor.
“What are you looking for?” Bevan followed her gaze into the blue below.
“Just seeing if we can see Nilawen from here. Stories tell of the glow from the city being so bright it can be seen above the sea.”
Bevan shrugged and said, “We had better move along. We’ve much to do.”
“Have you ever been there?” Sabina said, pointing to the gentle slaps of water.
“I never had the interest, to be frank. I hate the claustrophobic feeling of being under water.”
“Pity, I love the secure feeling of water on my skin.”
“Can you smell that?” Bevan said. He took a deep breath. Rich gravy smells from pies and sweet cakes filled his nose. He had forgotten they hadn’t eaten. He stepped into a shop and emerged with a small basket filled with food. The sun had almost reached its middle peak and Sabina agreed to rest in one of the parks dotting the foreshore, spreading out under the waxy broad leaves of one of the trees. They sat on Bevan’s cape under a tree. As they ate Bevan felt Sabina relax. He wanted to express his feelings but for the first time in his life was lost for words.
“You shouldn’t blame yourself for what happened to Daimon. You saved his life.”
“I’m not blaming myself,” Bevan said indignantly.
“I’m just trying–” Sabina began.
>
“Don’t, please. You’re right. I do blame myself. I have never endured such failure in all my life, ever.”
“We will find him. He’s smart, and resilient. More now since your gift with his arm. Besides, Torek will keep Daimon alive to bargain with Emily.”
Bevan stood and packed their things. “You like Daimon, don’t you,”
“Very much. I feel close to him.”
Bevan looked hurt. Sabina smiled. “Like a brother. Don’t you?”
Bevan laughed. “I hope Lupi and Emily are having more success.”
Sabina nodded and placed her arm though his as they walked back into Errenor. Oh how he wished Sabina was Errenor born. Their fates could easily become one. Errenor and Ibendari were cousin nations. His father might overlook Sabina’s peasant origins, but being Loric born could not be overlooked. A thought struck him, did she just like him as a brother?
She stopped at a grocery store with dark green frames and large windows filled with rainbow-coloured sweets. A large family of children pulled hair and clothes for prime position in front of the sweets constructed in fairytale settings.
Her face lit up and she said, “Wait Bevan, something’s not right. I think, no… I’m sure, I’ve been here before.
“When?” Bevan said, pressing his face against the window.
“My grandmother, my father’s mother, brought me here when I was a child.”
“You sure?”
“I said I was, didn’t I?”
When Bevan didn’t respond Sabina apologised, “Sorry, it was a long time ago, but the memory is clear.”
Sabina’s hand wandered down to the crystal Seltan on her necklace.
Bevan pointed to the pendant. “Did she gift that to you?”
“It was a gift from my father. The only thing I have left of him. I never take it off.”
“It accentuates the emerald in your eyes.”
Sabina smiled at Bevan’s compliment and looked to the ground.
The day waned and Bevan now franticly searched for cartage to the underwater city. He cajoled all his old friends, collected over years of parties and adventures; but with the rumours of war between Exotics and Annwynians now reaching the streets, people would take no chances in upsetting the powerful water nation sitting just off their coastline.
