In the Darkness Visible

by Ted Neill

  Sade tottered over onto the floor, his concentration broken. All he could do was look through the legs of the gathered mob to see the father collecting himself for another foray. But he was too slow. Vondales had recovered. As if feeding on the violent energy around him, the demonic spirit that Sade had seen that day with Timos returned. Vondales’ lips curled, his nostrils flared, and his eyes shone with hate. He flung himself across the ring, leapt into the air over the man’s shoulder, and as he dove past he grabbed hold of the man’s head. Then with the agility of an acrobat he pivoted in the air, planted his feet against the small of the man’s back and using his whole body for torque, he twisted the man’s neck.

  It was too loud to hear the crack of vertebrae, but it was clear from the way the body dropped that the man was dead. The room came to a standstill. A slave dying in the ring was not uncommon, it was a danger of the sport, but this was no slave. This was an owner, a freeman, not a fighter.

  And Vondales had just murdered him.

  Sade knew the silence that followed. It was a silence of fear, the same silence that had followed Timos’ beating. It was the silence of a room terrified, a room turning against the very ferocity it had moments before cheered. A room that had called for violence then recoiled from it when an established order was so blatantly overturned. A freeman killed by a lower than low gutter-snipe fighter. A slave-owner murdered by the prize fighter. When the reality of it struck the men gathered in the room, it was suddenly unacceptable, out of bounds. If a fighter could murder one spectator, why not any spectator? Why not them? The thirst for violence remained but now was directed at reestablishing “justice.” Vondales would have to pay.

  Sade scrambled to his feet, raised his arms, and spoke one of the few spells he knew well: calling the wind. A few words of conjuring, a word to bind the spell, and the enchantment came to life between his fingers, growing to a force he held within his palms for as long as he could before he released it. A gale force wind blasted through the confines of the storehouse, blowing up dust, shaking beams and rafters, and most importantly, extinguishing every torch, lantern, and candle. The room was plunged into darkness just as the first cries of “Punish him!” were ringing out. From memory and by groping in the darkness, Sade stumbled forward, making a path to the ring where he had last seen his brother. His eyes began to adjust to the dark and he was able to make out his brother’s shape. Vondales was calling out his name.

  “I’m here!” Sade cried. They clasped one another and struggled towards the exit, Vondales throwing, tossing, and beating anyone unfortunate enough to be in their path. In the light of the doorway, they saw Nicholas punching a fat merchant in the mouth, his brass knuckles knocking teeth out by the roots. They came to his side and soon had a path to the door.

  Outside they paused for breath until they heard the cry, “King’s men coming!” Instincts took control as the sound of horse hooves on cobblestone echoed between buildings. They darted into an alleyway and fled around a corner just as the blue-cloaked law keepers descended on the fighting hall. Nicholas led them through a series of narrow passageways until they emerged on an unpaved side street. They could still hear the commotion at the hall. A pair of king’s men galloped past and Nicholas seemed to make a calculation in his mind. Sade noticed the Guild boss’ eyes narrowing as they did the day they first met, except this time what Nicholas saw was not potential, but rivals. Sade and Vondales had grown too powerful in the Guild and this was the perfect opportunity to rid himself of them.

  “They are here!” he cried out to the passing king’s men. “The murderer and his accomplice, here!” If they heard over the clamor of the hoof beats, the king’s men did not stop. They were unconcerned with the shouts of a teenager. But Vondales was. Somewhere in the fighting he had picked up a knife which he now used to slice open Nicholas’ neck. Blood poured out on them.

  They left the Guild boss in the street, a slaughtered animal with his life pooling out around him, and used the tunnels to get back to the hideout. It was empty. Most of the children were out begging or thieving. The few girls left were doing laundry in the stream that bisected the room.

  “What are we doing here?” Vondales asked breathlessly, washing the knife in the stream at their feet.

  “We need to get my spell book.”

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t know yet.” Sade looked around at the room, contemplating the order, the peace present that would soon be gone as news of Nicholas’ death spread. There would be a vacuum at the top. Rivals would fight for positions. Would it make sense, he wondered, for his brother and him to stay, to try to take control of the Guild themselves?

  Carter stumbled in through a tunnel. His clothes were torn, his face scratched from fighting. “Sade, Vondales, where is Nicholas?”

  Vondales took two steps forward and slashed Carter’s neck, too. The girls across the room shrieked. Carter fell down gurgling.

  “Would you please think before you kill any more people?” Sade shouted.

  “Why are you suddenly worried about right and wrong?”

  “No,” Sade said, his temper flaring. “Because it’s messy. Haven’t you realized people want justice and revenge? They will come looking for us.”

  Vondales sheathed the knife and stepped over Carter’s body. “I’m covered in blood. I’m changing my clothes. When I’m through I hope you have a plan.”

  Sade found his pallet on the floor, unwrapped the spell book that he kept wrapped in his blankets, changed his own shirt, then shoved a few food stuffs, waterskins, and extra clothes into a satchel. Vondales returned, his bloody clothes replaced. “Well?”

  “We start again,” Sade said. “We start over. Come on, to the docks.”

  Chapter 17

  Castle Foyle

  Deeper in the cavern Ghede discovered a storage chamber piled with spare boards and planks. He carried them up, planning to spend most of the night making repairs to the Elawn. Gabriella was already exhausted from the past few days. Since Ghede’s hammering made it impossible to sleep in the cabins, Gabriella curled up in Nicomedes’ reading chair. She could not bring herself to sleep in his bed—the blankets were old and musty anyway. But the successful opening of his chest to retrieve the folio—they had copied and replaced it—left Gabriella feeling as if they had indeed won the friendship of their ancient host. As she nestled into the high, curved sides of the chair, she could almost feel his protective presence. She pictured herself a baby bird resting in his cupped hands, the journey remaining less daunting.

  The next morning the repairs to the Elawn were finished, the replacement boards fitted neatly into the hull. Ghede and Omanuju explored the lagoon for any signs of the wyvern. When they were satisfied that it was gone, they returned to the ship and pushed off from the mooring posts. Gabriella ducked into the cabin as the Elawn passed through the waterfall. For an hour or so she studied the map from the folio and looked for useful clues, but she could decipher nothing. The symbols refused to yield up their meaning. Discouraged, Gabriella went topside and found Ghede in high spirits.

  “You will come to tell your grandchildren about the banquet we will enjoy tonight,” he said, leaning back in his chair, his feet resting on the Elawn’s wheel. “Long have my people been friends with the House of Foyle. When the Kryen hunted us, the Foyles gave us refuge. To show our thanks, after the Skyln Empire had fallen, we presented one of the silver trees from the Blue Woods to them.”

  Gabriella was not sure she followed everything the skipper was saying, but she nodded anyway. Ghede was blue, so she surmised that a tree from the Blue Woods would be special to his kind. She spent the rest of the morning scrubbing her trousers and tunic with lard soap and hung them up to dry on the bow. Meeting a king and queen was no small thing. She found some twine in the cabinets below and used it to braid her hair up. She could have done with some ribbons and pins, but the twine would do. She liked the effect. It made her look older and more mature, just the impression she hoped to
make on royalty.

  The island came into view midafternoon. Ghede, who had been humming wistful tunes for most of the day, grew silent. Omanuju joined him on deck and his expression soon matched Ghede’s own. Gabriella could not understand their sobriety. Weren’t a feast and a royal court awaiting them?

  She studied the island growing off the bow. The rock of the building merged seamlessly with the stone of the outcropping beneath. But as they neared, the castle with its village clustered next to its protective walls, looked abandoned. The flags flying from the tower battlements were tattered or missing. No smoke rose from any chimney, nor did any lookout hail them from the battlements.

  No one on the deck of the Elawn spoke until Ghede leapt up and leaned over the wheel pointing. “There, in that window there. I see someone.”

  Gabriella and Omanuju squinted, shading their eyes, but neither could make out any figure or movement in the castle at all.

  “It looked like a young girl,” Ghede said.

  The fourth side of the castle opened to a lush green slope that ran down to the village. At one time it must have been a well-manicured lawn, but now it was choked with tall weeds and small trees that had taken root. The Elawn flew over the docks. A few ships remained rocking slightly in the water, but most of the piers were empty. Gabriella thought this was a good sign: raiders would have stolen all the ships. But there were other ill omens. As the Elawn came closer, they could see masts rising out of the water where ships had sunk in the harbor.

  Ghede circled the Elawn around the village again for a better look. This time they could see stagnant water pooled on the decks of the ships still afloat, sitting low in the bay from the weight. Omanuju counted the masts of sunken ships that rose from the harbor.

  “Fourteen,” he announced. “These ships were not sunk deliberately. It was neglect. This place has been abandoned.”

  Gabriella would have been willing to abandon the place, too, if not for the possibility that someone had been left behind: the single girl that Ghede insisted he had seen. Ghede banked the ship towards the castle. They passed over the perimeter wall and the gate house. The curtain wall rose up huge before them. Blank windows and more blank windows. Ghede pulled the ship hard to port. Along the western wall of the castle, there was a spacious garden, its overgrown greenery spreading from the castle wall down to the cliff’s edge. On the ledge stood stone mooring posts for what could only be a dock for airships.

  Weeds grew in the pathways of the unkempt garden, and its bird baths were filled with green slime. A pelican flapped into the air from his perch on the head of an ivy-covered statue and squawked his displeasure at being disturbed. Otherwise, all was quiet. Ghede threw a line overboard and leapt after it, pushing through tall weeds. He pulled the Elawn against a post with an ominous thump. With the silent statues and overgrown plants, the garden had the feel of a cemetery. Ghede even said as much, looking up at the castle walls and the empty, yawning darkness in the windows.

  “Never have I been to a place that feels . . . so dead,” he said, drawing his sword to slash his way through one of the weed-choked paths. Omanuju threw out the gangway and ran down it. Adamantus followed. Gabriella was rooted in place on the deck, frozen by indecision. Her instincts told her that the island was dangerous and she was loath to leave the familiar safety of the Elawn. But in the end, as her friends disappeared into the garden, she rushed down the gangway after them, reluctant to remain alone in a place that already felt haunted.

  As the crew from the Elawn climbed up the slope, the grass was so high that it had collapsed on itself in pillowy mounds. Tree branches had grown unchecked and interlocked with one another as they fought for space. The air trapped beneath was cold. Moisture from a previous day’s rain darkened trunks and hung on bushes in fat drops. Vines were everywhere, winding over benches and strangling the castle walls.

  At the top of the slope, they reached a colonnade and passed through an archway that led into the castle courtyard, which was dominated by an enormous dead tree, its broken and twisted limbs stretching higher than the battlements. Gabriella was sure it had been a magnificent tree when it was alive. The trunk was as thick as a half dozen men. The lower branches were bigger than the trunks of lesser trees. From one of them dangled a broken swing on a frayed rope.

  The courtyard, like the garden, had an air of abandonment, despite the signs of the previous residents: a wheelbarrow, empty water jugs, a donkey harness. A rat scurried along a wall past a crushed egg basket.

  As Gabriella gazed about the courtyard, Ghede stared at the tree, his face contorted in pain. It dawned on her slowly what was going on: this was the blue oak, the gift of Ghede’s people, now dead and withered. She moved alongside him, then touched his shoulder. When her hand did not disappear into him as it had when she had swung a mace at him, she reached out and put her arms around him.

  Her gesture broke down his resistance. He collapsed to his knees and covered his face in his hands, golden tears slipping between his fingers. “It was one of the last,” he wept. Gabriella squeezed his shoulders. She turned to Omanuju for some type of explanation.

  “The Blue Woods disappeared long ago,” he said. “All that remains are trees like this one.”

  Gabriella searched the skeletal branches for any sign of blue but only saw brown and gray. She was beginning to feel Ghede’s sense of loss when, in the slanting rays of the setting sun, there was a brilliant flash of royal blue. She inclined her head for a better look, hoping her eyes did not deceive her. The wind rose, and the dry branches clicked as they rubbed together. Dead bark drifted to the ground, but between the shifting branches, she saw two glittering jewels twirling and dancing in the wind.

  “Ghede,” she said. “There are still two, maybe three leaves.”

  His face snapped upwards, his eyes bright and intent, even as the tears still wet his cheeks. At first his expression was skeptical, a furrow running between his brows, but once he saw the leaves, he leapt the wall and scaled the tree faster than a squirrel. Branches cracked and fell beneath him, but his climbing was fluid and unbroken. He looked as comfortable in the tree as in the rigging of the Elawn. The further destruction of dead branches was of little concern to him as he snapped them out of his way, forcing Omanuju and Gabriella to dodge the falling debris.

  Ghede defied gravity as he leaned on branches that appeared too insubstantial to support his weight. He plucked the sprig and cradled it against his breast as he swung down from the tree, landing without a sound. Gabriella fished her handkerchief from a pocket and handed it to Ghede. He soaked it in a puddle of rain water and wrapped the precious leaves. He spoke softly over them an inaudible incantation. Blue leaves on white cloth—it looked as if he held a piece of the sky in his palms.

  “They are beautiful,” Gabriella whispered.

  “Hope always is.” He folding the handkerchief and placed his treasure in his breast pocket.

  They followed Adamantus as the elk, sniffing the air, moved towards the gate that led into the main keep. Gabriella felt a new courage in her heart. Ghede’s rescue of the leaves felt like a small victory against the desolation that surrounded them. Perhaps they would find survivors and help free them from the island.

  If they wanted to be found, she thought.

  A grand hall waited beneath the keep. Windows stretched from the floor to the ceiling. Sconces with etched glass lined the walls and even the rafters were incised with elaborate carvings. Fluted columns spread their intricate capitals wide to hold up the ceiling, which framed the sky with wide skylights. Stone statues were crowded around a long banquet table poised in the everyday tasks one would expect at a lavish dinner party. The long-rotted remnants of food were scattered about the moldy plates and bowls where rats had fed, leaving bones strewn across the table and on the stone floor at the feet of the diners. The wine had evaporated from the crystal goblets long ago, leaving behind brownish red watermarks.

  The figures around the table were hauntingly real, so mu
ch so that Gabriella waited for them to abruptly break out of their poses and offer greetings. They were frozen perfectly, too perfectly, in gestures of laughing, speaking, touching, eating. The clothes on their backs, the forks in their hands, the jewelry that adorned them were all carved with detail that was beyond anything she had seen before. Even the skin, eyes, lips, hair looked as if they belonged to real people, just caught in stone. Omanuju finally voiced what Gabriella was struggling to understand.

  “These are the people of the castle. They have been enchanted.” He touched his hand to a servant who had been frozen in the act of placing a tray on the table. Whatever had been on the tray had long ago disintegrated into dust. “Somehow they have been turned to stone and frozen in time.”

  Gabriella could not bring herself to touch anything. One laughing woman reminded Gabriella of her neighbor, Mrs. Zelassie, who shared apple sticks with Gabriella and Dameon every fall. She turned away from the entire scene and crossed her arms to fend off a shiver.

  “What sorcery is this?” Ghede asked. He stopped at the head of the table beside a handsome, middle-aged man. A velvet jacket, a fur collar, and a satin tunic—now slightly tattered—hung from his motionless body. The signet ring on his finger was crusted over with salt from the sea air. Beside him was a woman with elaborate hair and a muslin dress. A cloak rested on her shoulders. Gabriella guessed that she was the queen. Like the king and all the others, her body was untouched by the passage of time, only turned to granite.

  “This is King Robert.” Ghede studied the man’s face. “It has been generations since I have set foot here, but I know the Foyle faces. Some features do not change. The eyes, the mouth, the nose—he looks just the way the grandson, or great-grandson of Lawrence Foyle, would.” Ghede turned a remorseful face to Omanuju. “In Lawrence’s time, they had enemies capable of doing something like this. But today such powers have long been lost, or so I thought.”