by T. D. Steitz
Wymond sighed. “Then we all owe them a great deal.”
Amani nodded. “My Lord, I want to introduce you to someone. This is Jacosa.”
Wymond extended his hand to Jacosa, and she took it.
“She has been a critical part of forging this alliance. Sakina has sent her as her representative.”
“It is good to meet you, Jacosa,” Wymond said sincerely. “Follow me. We have much to discuss.”
Throughout the months that followed, Jacosa, Amani, and Wymond worked together to forge a partnership that would strengthen both the Forest Clan and the Southern people. Caravans of food and medicine continued the journey from the Southern Villages to the Forest Clan and back. Slowly, illness and starvation became a painful memory. The shacks in the mud were replaced by sturdy homes in the trees. The caravans from the South were sent back with soldiers and weapons from the Forest. Both nations flourished, and hope burned in all hearts.
One morning, Jacosa walked across a wooden pathway in the trees, passed two guards, and entered Wymond’s meeting hall.
Huntress trotted over excitedly.
“Hey, I brought you something from the last caravan.” Jacosa knelt and fed Huntress a strip of dried tusker meat.
“Good morning, Jacosa!” Wymond’s deep voice was light.
Jacosa had grown close to the great ruler. She looked up to and respected him.
“Wymond, can I ask you something?” She wondered.
“Of course. Anything.” Wymond replied with a smile.
“I was wondering what you could tell me about Ardent.”
Wymond froze for a moment. Jacosa’s question struck a nerve. “Ardent is a story for children.”
Wymond was trying to move away from the subject, but Jacosa longed for answers, so she pushed harder. “It’s just that, ever since I was a little girl, there has been this voice.”
Wymond was inexplicably hesitant to discuss Ardent.
“One of my earliest memories is the day my home was destroyed by Shadow Creatures. The voice spoke to me and saved me that day. Since then, the voice has been there. Before we took back the Key Village, the voice showed itself to me as a shining man and I looked into his fiery eyes. He is the one that destroyed Calamity’s armies. I’ve never known his name, but then Amani shared the legend of Ardent. I think the voice is his. I think the man I met was him. Will you tell me about him?”
Wymond looked at Jacosa with intense sadness in his eyes. “Let me show you something.”
Wymond led Jacosa down a spiral walkway to the ground. They walked through the Forest Clan village, to the vast cemetery, and stood before one grave with a large ax protruding from it. “This is my son Wybert’s grave.” Wymond’s deep voice broke and tears welled in his eyes as he spoke. “When he was a boy, he too had many questions about Ardent, and I foolishly answered each one. Even as our enemies closed in around us, he would tell me to hold onto the hope that Ardent would return and make the world right again.” Wymond pulled a tattered book out of a pouch on his belt. “He held onto that hope until the very end.” Wymond’s voice drifted away.
Jacosa didn’t know what to say. “Wymond, I am so sorry. I didn’t know. But, if Ardent is who I think he is, then Wybert was right to trust in him.”
Wymond shot an angry look at Jacosa that startled her. “Was he?!” He demanded. “Beneath this gravestone, there is nothing but dirt! I couldn’t even bring his body home; there was nothing left!” Wymond ran his huge hands through his thick hair and breathed deep. When he calmed down, he spoke again. “That, Jacosa, is what trust in Ardent gets you. I will not speak of this again.” Wymond turned and walked away.
“Wymond!” Jacosa shouted after him. “I won’t stop! If you won’t help me, I will find another way. If you knew what I know, if you felt what I have felt, you would never ask me to stop searching for him.”
Wymond stopped and turned slowly. “You know, you remind me of him, my son. He wouldn’t have stopped either.” Slowly, Wymond held the old book out to her. “This was his. It has everything you want to know.”
Jacosa stepped forward and took the book from him gently. “Thank you,” she said.
“This voice, the man that you’ve seen… Is he worth all the lives lost in his name?” Wymond asked.
“Yes. He is.”
“Well then, I hope you find him again,” Wymond said. “Please be careful.” Then, he walked away.
Jacosa ran her fingers delicately across the book’s cover and whispered the title aloud to herself. “Long Live the King.” She sat down, still in the shadow of Wybert’s ax, and cracked the book open. She glanced up and down the page, and quickly read a few passages. She browsed over pieces like “I’ll never forget the way it felt when I first encountered Ardent’s fire.” And “All the fear and darkness I had come to accept as inescapable, fell away. Courage and purpose won my heart.” As she read those short scripts, she knew that they were referring to the voice. She knew the feelings the author described well. She flipped to the first page of the book, to the very beginning, and read. “Once, there was nothing; nothing but deep, shapeless darkness. Within the nothing that was everything, there was a spirit. The spirit inside the waves of darkness was the spirit of light, and that spirit commanded immense power...”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The Marked One Has Come
The terrible grind of rusty metal scraping together echoed through the air.
Alistair’s heart dropped. The trap doors were opening. The fumes were what he had dreaded the most since Ardent asked him to return to the Shadow Lands. Columns of the putrid, black smoke billowed into the sky. “Matana! We have to get out of here now!” Alistair shouted. He knew they only had moments before the fumes settled and became inescapable.
Matana ran beside Alistair.
He grabbed onto her and swung onto her back as she passed. Driven by his fear, Alistair urged her to run faster.
Matana reached a bent, dead tree just as the trapdoors slammed shut.
The fumes began to settle. Alistair pulled himself into the tree and looked back to see Matana disappear beneath the fumes before she had time to follow him. Alistair called out to her, but she was gone. The dense gas had settled.
Alistair knew the terror she must be feeling. Time passed excruciatingly slow. All Alistair could do was sit in the flimsy tree and wait. Finally, the dark fumes began to dissipate.
Matana hadn’t moved. She stood still at the base of the tree.
The fog cleared, and Alistair hurried back to the ground. “Matana, are you alright?” He asked.
Matana slowly raised her head and looked at Alistair with empty eyes. She lunged towards him and Alistair stepped back.
“Easy girl. You still know me, right?”
Matana bared her teeth and Alistair raised his staff.
“Matana it’s me!” He shouted.
Matana rose on her hind legs, her mouth pulled into a snarl, and sneezed loudly.
Alistair laughed as Matana’s tongue fell out of her mouth, and she licked him happily. The gas hadn’t affected her. “We better keep going,” he chuckled. The trapdoors had given Alistair an idea. “The first time I was here,” he explained, “I saw a huge pipe system beneath those trapdoors. If we can get to one when they open, we might be able to get inside before the gas settles. Then, we can follow the pipes to Malum without being seen.”
They traveled slowly and waited for the fumes to return. They were deep in the Shadow Lands. Alistair and Matana were far beyond any trace of life when the awful, metal grinding returned. Gas pillars shot into the air.
Alistair pointed to the closest column. “There!” He leaped onto Matana’s back, and she sprinted towards it. They reached the pillar, and Alistair slid off her back. They stood at the edge of the open trapdoor. “Get ready!” Alistair shouted over the roar of the fumes shooting into the air.
The gas flow stopped.
“Now!”
They leaped and the heavy doors slamm
ed shut above them.
Alistair’s staff lit up the dark passage ahead of them. “This way.” He led Matana towards the heart of the Shadow Lands. His eyes flashed, and a bolt of white light shot from his staff.
The light expanded as it flew down the massive, steel pipe until it stopped and sealed the passage.
Alistair ran up to the wall of light that blocked their way. “What? No! What are you doing?!” He demanded as he pounded his fists in a futile attempt to breach the wall. He couldn’t get through. “This is the easiest way to Malum! I can get the slaves out before the Fallen even know they’re gone! Just let me through!”
There was no response.
Alistair gave up and dropped his head against the wall of light.
Matana whimpered and pawed at the wall.
“Don’t waste your time,” Alistair said. “He wants us to go back. Sneaking under the surface… it’s not how he wants to do this.” Alistair closed his eyes and sighed. “We have to go back up and cross the Shadow Lands. When we get to Malum, our only path will be right through the front gates.” Alistair slid down to sit with his back to the warm, shining wall. The thought of walking to Calamity’s front door, exposed and vulnerable, left him terrified. It reminded him of the day he said goodbye to his mother and prepared to leave the safety of the barn to stand in the open, alone against evil.
Matana nuzzled her head under his chin, as he worked up the courage to stand.
“Let’s go,” he finally said. There was no point in putting it off any longer.
They walked slowly back along the massive conduit until they were back under the trapdoor at the end of the pipeline.
Ardent’s power grew in Alistair, but he did not welcome it. He shot a blast of fire from his staff that consumed the trapdoor.
A sphere of white light enveloped them, carried them towards the patch of gray sky above them, and set them gently back on the black dust of the Shadow Lands.
Alistair carried on bitterly. He hated this place with everything in him. He hated and feared the gas that he knew would come again. A part of him even hated Ardent for making him face it.
When the grinding of metal returned, Alistair’s instincts took over. He looked frantically for trees to hide in as the pillars of dark gas exploded once more into the air. There were none. This far into the Land of Death, even the twisted corpse of a tree was too much life. The trapdoors slammed shut. They were out of time.
Alistair coughed as the smoke enveloped him. He took one last gasp of clean air. “Matana, run! Get away from me! The gas will make me hurt you!” Alistair croaked with his last breath. “Please, run!” His lungs failed. Blackness swarmed in the outskirts of his vision.
Matana was standing over Alistair. She pulled him into the fur on her chest just as the fumes penetrated his mind, and darkness took him.
Alistair gasped. His eyes snapped open, but all he saw was darkness. He tried to walk; he couldn’t. He tried to move, but he was held in an inescapable grasp. He flailed violently, trying desperately to free himself. He glanced down at his chest. A giant snake was wrapped around his body. His skin crawled as the snake’s thick body flexed and tightened. Alistair started to panic. Swarms of insects filled the sky. Waves of terror washed over him as they descended. Alistair fought with all his strength against the snake’s hold. The buzzing insects swarmed around him and covered his body. They bit his face and his eyes. He cried out, and they swarmed into his open mouth. He couldn't breathe. His heart raced. All he wanted was to escape this nightmare; for darkness to take him again, but it didn’t.
“I’m not dying,” Alistair thought. “Why am I not dying?!” The horror gripping him made it nearly impossible to think straight, but a few fleeting realizations broke through the panic. He remembered where he was. He remembered the gas. His thoughts began to clarify. “Wait, I can breathe. Breathe.” Alistair urged himself to focus. “Breathe!”
Alistair gasped. Air rushed into his lungs. He gulped it down gratefully, and his mind began to clear. “Look through the haze, and the confusion. Look deep. Search for what’s true.” Someone had told him that. Alistair looked down at the snake wrapped around him. He fought the fear welling up within him and banished it from his mind. He looked through the snake, searching for something real. The snake’s body grew hazy. Alistair’s certainty grew. “There’s no snake. There’s no snake. Your mind is playing tricks on you. There’s no snake.” Slowly, the snake loosened its grip. It started to fade, and then, it disappeared. Alistair stepped back and looked up into Matana’s concerned face. Alistair breathed in, and then out. In, and out. The dark gas still surrounded him. He was breathing it in, and he was fine. He wasn’t afraid.
The fearless Marked One rode his great, black bear through the poisonous mist. They strode across Malum’s ever-reaching shadow with a confidence that did not belong there.
Alistair raised his face to the towering, steel gates before him. He whispered a heartfelt reminder to himself; a reminder of who he had followed to these gates, and who he would follow beyond them. His reminder turned into a battle-cry, and Ardent’s power surged within him. Alistair raised his staff and shot a sparking, thrashing bolt of white light at the gates. The dazzling flame slammed into them. The shock spread down the walls of Malum and shook its foundation. The gates’ tremor became a quake. The thick, black steel began to crack and split. The gates couldn’t withstand the blinding force any longer, so they were ripped apart.
There were no guards to raise an alarm. They had all neglected their posts to witness Wybert’s execution. Alistair donned his hood and rode Matana through the torn-open gates. A slight breeze whisked black dust into the air and an eerie silence enveloped them until Alistair heard the distant shouts of an angry mob.
“We need to find that crowd,” Alistair said.
Matana turned and lumbered towards the noise. As she did, thunder split the sky.
Alistair lifted his shrouded face to the heavens, and it started to rain.
The din of the crowd grew and rang out over the thunder as Alistair and Matana crested a small hill. The crowd stretched out below them.
There was a platform far off in the distance, across the sea of people. There was a man, bound in chains, on top of the platform. This was an execution. The crowd was here to participate.
Alistair stared hard at the prisoner. He knew him. “Wybert…”
A shout filled the air. “Long! Live! The King!!!” Wybert’s time had run out. A hundred stones hurtled towards him from the crowd.
Alistair’s next move was pure instinct. He raised his hand and yelled. “STOP!!!”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Ardent’s Promise
“Long! Live! The King!!!” Wybert’s final cry faded as a hundred stones flew toward him. He closed his eyes.
“STOP!!!” The voice that exploded through the air drowned out the thundering storm and the roaring crowd.
Wybert’s eyes snapped open. A hundred stones floated around him; suspended in the air by white flame. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
The crowd spun around to see where the powerful voice came from. Gasps and whispers filtered through the crowd as they saw them standing on the hill, a hooded man, staff in hand, riding, a great, black bear.
Alistair’s heart pounded. A thousand eyes were on him. He had no plan. He opened his mouth to speak, and when his voice escaped, it was joined by another, a voice of power.
Ardent’s and Alistair’s voices echoed through the Shadow Lands together. Ardent spoke, and as he did, his words came to Alistair. “I am The Marked One!” Alistair shouted to the amazed crowd. Lightning lip up the dark sky. “Ardent, the one whose mark I bear, has sent me with a message! His people are no longer your slaves! They are free!” As he said the words, every shackle and chain in the great mass of slaves began to tremble. The shackles were torn open, and the chains were ripped apart. “Lift your heads!” Alistair and Ardent shouted together. “Stand tall and come with me!” Alistai
r raised his horn to his lips and blew.
The horn blast echoed through the Shadow Lands and was followed by the uproar of a thousand slaves casting their bondage aside.
The Fallen guards and soldiers were disoriented. They were outnumbered ten to one. They made little attempt to stop the slaves as they climbed the hill to the hooded man.
Wybert’s broken chains hit the wooden platform, but he still couldn’t move. The flaming stones, hand-chosen for his execution, surrounded him like a wall. Through the gaps between them, Wybert could see that someone else was on the platform beside him; Alvah the breaker.
“Don’t just stand there, you worthless dogs!” He screamed at the stunned soldiers and guards. “Stop them!”
The Fallen snapped into action and the slaves slowly stopped fleeing. Many froze with fallen blades at their backs or throats; the rest stood still to save them.
“If anyone moves, we kill them all!” Alvah shouted. “You!” He screamed at the hooded man. “Leave now! Or they die!”
The hooded man’s only movement came from the subtle rise and fall of his bear’s breathing. A great silence fell as Alvah and the Marked One stared each other down, neither yielding.
Wybert watched the silent struggle with bated breath. He heard a soft scratching sound behind him. Rael was trying to remove the stones to set him free. “No! Rael, stop!” Wybert whispered frantically. “Go! Get out of here! Now!”
Rael shook his head. “Not without you.”
“Rael, please! He’ll hear you!” Wybert begged.
Rael gasped as a powerful hand grabbed him and dragged him away.
Alvah lifted Rael toward the silent Marked One and pressed his sword point into Rael’s back.
Rael whimpered.
Wybert froze in horror; unable to speak or move.
“No, no, no!” Alistair thought helplessly. “Ardent, please. Don’t let him hurt that boy.” Alistair felt Ardent’s words on his tongue again. He opened his lips and their intertwined voices rang out once more. “Perhaps you misheard me. These people are no longer your slaves! Do not try to stop them. Let them go.”
