The Lost Realm (5 page)

“Not if you want me to stay,” he answered at once.

Her eyes filled with tears. “I do, Samial. I do.”

“Then take this.” The ghost boy drew an arrowhead from his tunic. As he held it up, the sun sent a thread of light through the trees, painting yellow light down its edge. “It has always been my lucky charm. If you keep it, you will keep me, too.”

Elodie's fingers trembled as she took the arrowhead and slipped it into her tunic pocket. She swallowed hard. Then with a shaky smile she looked around at Sir Jaken and the rows of shimmering knights.

“Good-bye,” she told them. “And thank you.” Then she placed the last of the dirt on the flag.

The ghosts of the knights and their horses glowed with a brilliant light and Elodie took a step back, dazzled, her hands shielding her eyes. The knights raised their arms in one last salute. Then they dissolved into the morning, fading like a forgotten dream.

Elodie stared at the empty trees for a moment. Beside her, Samial bowed his head.

“There,” she said with a long, ragged sigh. “It's over. I just hope I did the right thing.”

“What does your heart say?” asked Melchior. He stood some distance away, leaning against a tree.

“That I did my best. But was it enough?”

“So like your mother,” he murmured.

His words cut through Elodie's grief. She snapped her head around to look at him. “My mother? You knew my mother?”

“Yes.”

He said it in such a matter-of-fact way that at first Elodie thought she must have misheard him. But his small smile told her she hadn't. She strode toward him. “Tell me about her!”

The wizard cocked his head, seeming to consider this. He looked to Elodie like a heron poised on the bank of a river, waiting patiently for a fish to pass.

“Her name was Kalia,” he said at last. “She was a witch-of-the-earth, and never did I see a mother more devoted to her children. She was prepared to give up everything for you. Even her life.”

Everything inside Elodie had stopped: the beat of her heart, the pulse of her blood, the breath in her lungs.

“The Vicerins told me my mother was a peasant woman,” she said slowly. “But that was just another lie, wasn't it? She was a witch! No wonder they didn't tell me.”

“And if they had told you?”

She felt a smile twitch her lips. “I might not have let Lord Vicerin treat me like a puppet. I'd have liked to see him try to get the crown without me.” She glanced back to where Samial remained by the buried standard, kneeling on the ground beside it. A thought occurred to her. “So my mother had magic! Is that why I'm like this, Melchior? Could she see ghosts too?”

“It is possible.”

“Where is she now?”

“I am sorry, Elodie. There is no easy way to tell you this. When Brutan discovered that you and your brothers were still alive, he had your mother burned at the stake.”

Elodie felt cold all over. “Then she's . . .”

The old wizard nodded. “Yes. I am afraid your mother is probably dead.”

She looked at him sharply. “Probably?”

“Indeed. As soon as I learned of the execution, I tried to intervene. But Brutan had barred all access to the Undersalle.”

“The Under-what?”

“Never mind. I was forced to find another way. I made my way onto the battlements, but I was too late to damp the fires as I had planned. So I improvised.”

“What happened?”

Melchior's blue eyes stared far into the distance, or perhaps back in time. His hands roamed over the etched surface of his staff. His toes curled in the soil.

“I attempted a spell no sane wizard would ever try to cast. Just before the moment of Kalia's death, I tried to withdraw her from the world.”

“You . . . saved her?” Elodie felt numb and confused. Could she even dare to hope her mother was still alive?

Melchior's eyes regained their focus and locked on hers. “I do not know. The magic I used was ancient and . . . brutal. To withdraw a person is to take them beyond both life and death, into a realm that has little to do with either. The process is perilous. As for bringing them back . . .”

Elodie's excitement was mounting. “But you think you might have succeeded! You do, don't you?”

The wizard shook his head. “I cannot say. When I examined the pyre later, I found nothing but ashes.” He sighed. “The older I get, the more I realize that wizardry is more about questions than answers.”

“But your spell might have worked.” Elodie wrestled with the idea, trying to squeeze it into her overloaded heart. “And I don't care about questions, Melchior—I'm just glad we have a wizard on our side!”

“Alas, currently you do not.”

Elodie gaped at him. “What? What do you mean, you're not on our side?”

A smile appeared on the wizard's face. “That is not what I meant, Elodie. Never doubt my loyalty; I am with you to the end. I simply meant that I am no longer a wizard.”

Elodie stared at him.

“The spell of withdrawing is forbidden. When I used it to save your mother—to
attempt
to save her—I broke all the laws by which magic turns. The instant the spell was cast, the stars took back my powers. Ever since that day, ten years ago, I have wandered the world in impotence. Oh, I have helped here and there; I helped Fessan to create Trident, for example. But now, I fear, you need more than just a frail, old man. It is time for me to recover what was lost.”

“Get your powers back? Can you even do that?”

“I do not know. But I must try. I must go on a journey and, at journey's end, I must lower myself into the ocean of time and plead with the stars.”

Now Elodie felt goose bumps rise all over her skin. It came to her that the man standing before her—this stooped old fellow in a scruffy yellow robe—was not a man at all.

“I tell you all this in confidence,” said Melchior, placing one gnarled hand on her shoulder. “Trident must not know. Fessan must not know—he bears a heavy enough burden as it is. Until my powers are restored, it is our secret. Will you keep it?”

Elodie nodded dumbly. Since waking this morning, she felt as if her whole world had tilted, leaving her balanced precariously between past and future. She pressed her hand against her pocket, relishing the hardness of the arrowhead Samial had given to her. A lucky charm, he'd said.

Well, we could do with a little luck.

At long last, far behind the trees, the new sun rose.

H
old tight!” Tarlan cried. “We're here!”

Bunching his fingers into Theeta's golden neck ruff, he bent forward as the giant thorrod plunged down toward the trees. The four women riding behind him gasped and clung to each other.

Tarlan glanced left and right, to where Nasheen and Kitheen flew in perfect formation, each with five more survivors on their backs. Plucking these wretched people from the smoke-shrouded Idilliam battlefield had been hazardous, and when they'd crossed back over the chasm surrounding the city, he'd been afraid his passengers would fall. Yet here they were, soaring over the Isurian forest, toward the Trident camp. The third rescue flight was over.

How many more will it take before I find my brother?

With a raucous cry, Theeta splayed her wings wide, slowing her descent as she swooped majestically into the forest clearing. She flew low over a row of tents; Tarlan saw lines of wounded soldiers lying outside them, their faces turned up in the pale light of the morning sun. His winged steed passed a makeshift forge, where blacksmiths toiled over broken weapons. He guided Theeta into an open space between an enormous fire pit and a corral of horses, where she touched down at last.

Their thorrod companions landed beside them, each bird silent despite its massive bulk. As soon as they were all down, Tarlan slipped to the ground and helped the survivors to dismount. Nurses arrived from the hospital tents carrying stretchers; gratefully, Tarlan handed the survivors over to their care.

“You did well, Theeta,” he said, patting the bird's huge beak. He smiled at the other thorrods. “You all did.”

“Fly again?” Theeta replied in her dry hiss of a voice.

Before Tarlan could reply, something heavy bowled into him, knocking his legs out from under him and spilling him to the ground. He rose laughing, throwing his arms around the two animals that had just felled him like a tree.

“Greythorn! Filos! Are you trying to kill me?”

The wolf and the tigron cub pressed against his legs, yipping and purring their pleasure.

“I am happy when the pack is together,” said Greythorn.

“Me too,” Tarlan replied.

“Your brother?” asked Filos. “Did you find your brother?”

Tarlan stroked the tigron's blue-and-white striped fur. “No, Filos. It's chaos over there. But I'll keep trying.”

“Brother melted,” said Theeta.

“Melted?” It took Tarlan a moment to work out what she was saying. “Oh, you mean he disappeared?”

“Brother melted,” Theeta agreed.

Tarlan nodded, remembering that strange moment in the middle of the battle when he'd seen Gulph facing the undead monster their father had become . . . and suddenly turning invisible.

I talk to animals. Elodie sees ghosts. And Gulph . . . Is vanishing your only trick, my brother, or can you do more?

“He will be hard to find,” grunted Greythorn.

“Yes,” Tarlan agreed. “But I won't give up.”

The last of the people he'd rescued—a young man with a broken arm and a deep gash on the side of his face—looked at Tarlan curiously as he hobbled past.

The only thing they can hear when my friends speak are growls and squawks
, Tarlan thought, feeling a curious breed of pride.
We have a language all our own.

He led his pack to the fire pit, where they sat eating strips of meat—cooked for himself, raw for the others. As they ate, Tarlan checked Theeta's injured foot.

“How does it feel?” he said, touching the bandaged stump where Brutan had severed one of her talons during the Battle of the Bridge.

“Claw gone,” Theeta mumbled through a beakful of meat.

“That's right.” He patted her scaly leg. “You must tell me if you need to rest, Theeta. We've done three flights since the battle already.”

“Brother there,” Theeta replied, in a tone that told Tarlan they would be in the air again soon.

Once they'd eaten, Tarlan sat fidgeting. He knew they should rest at least a little longer before setting out for Idilliam again. But the Trident camp, with its constant human bustle, was just so
noisy
.

You're a human yourself
, a voice whispered in his head.
These are your people.

“No,” he muttered. “I have my pack. I go my own way.”

“And what way might that be?”

Tarlan turned to see Fessan standing a few paces behind him. The Trident commander's arms were folded, and his scarred face was stern.

“Back to Idilliam, if it's anything to do with you,” said Tarlan, standing up. “Someone's got to help these people.”

“You've done enough, my prince,” Fessan replied. “I cannot authorize another flight.”

“Authorize?” Tarlan snapped. He hated it when Fessan called him “prince.” “You think I need your permission?”

“It is too dangerous.”

“You think I don't know that? I'm the one who flew in there during the battle, remember? You didn't even get past the bridge!”

“Many of my men died on the bridge.”

Tarlan supposed that Fessan was right. But was that any excuse for inaction?

“Everyone's just lying around licking their wounds!” he said. “At least I'm doing something! What other hope has my brother got?”

“Ah, so we come to it. It is not the citizens of Idilliam you care about. You just want to find your brother.”

“Of course I want to find Gulph. So does Elodie. If I can help some others along the way, so much the better.”

Tarlan realized he was advancing on Fessan, and that Greythorn and Filos were matching him stride for stride. The wolf and the tigron were both growling, and their hackles were raised. Tarlan could feel the curl of his own lip against his teeth.

Suddenly he saw that Fessan didn't look stern at all. He looked exhausted.

“Back,” he murmured, dropping his hands to his companions' heads. Both animals looked up at him curiously. But they did stop growling. “Go back. It's all right. Just leave us a minute.”

Reluctantly, Greythorn and Filos retreated, planting themselves among the waiting thorrods and looking on suspiciously.

“I suppose you've got a better plan?” Tarlan said to Fessan, speaking more quietly now.

Fessan regarded him through narrow eyes. “I do.”

“Are you going to tell me what it is?”