by P. D. Kalnay
“You said nothing could touch us in the yard,” I said.
“Nothing not allowed here by the mistress of the house. Your grandmother gave the Clansmen guestrite, and they betrayed the pact. That’s a grave insult and will mean that no others of their clan will be allowed passage to Seventh World again. I don’t believe it likely your grandmother will ever return to the First World, but should she do so, it would be a dire day for that clan.”
“And you still can’t tell me anything about Gran?”
“Nothing specific,” Ivy said. “You already know her House and that she’s dangerous.”
Gran was too scary not to be dangerous, and Ivy’s promise made her a dead-end topic. Time to move on again.
“Tell me about Knight’s Haven. One way or another, it looks as if we’ll be living there right?”
“Yes, it’s inevitable now that we have these.” Ivy rubbed the vine tattooed on her wrist. “The island is a volcano as I told you before. I’ve seen old maps and a few drawings in books. There are far fewer books in the First World, but I was well educated until my condition became clear. Knight’s Haven is a vast crescent-shaped island with a protected harbour at its centre. The outer slopes of the island are so sheer as to be unclimbable, and the shoreline provides no place to dock or anchor. Inside the crescent, the slope is gentler, and over aeons, terraces were cut into it. Gardens and orchards once flourished in the rich black soil, feeding the people of the island and the travellers who sought shelter there. The city of Havensport filled half of the harbour’s shoreline, and it’s said that in Janik’s day, a thousand ships could find safe anchorage in the harbour. All were welcome if they kept the peace in those times.”
“And now?”
“Now most of the city is fallen into ruin. Our people grow only enough to feed our fleets and maintain only enough of the city to warehouse food and goods. Once, a mighty gate protected the mouth of the harbour from the roughest seas and from attack, but it hasn’t done so since Janik’s time. A new noble of our people is appointed every seven years, and he or she brings their household to the island, to squeeze as much gold from the venture as they can manage in that time. None have any incentive to be true custodians of the Knight’s Haven. They flee before the dragon returns, leaving the island empty for as long as a year after the burning in each seven-year cycle. Raiders often visit the island ahead of the dragon, and the three representatives of the houses must hide, or lock themselves in the main keep, until they leave. As I said, it’s a hard life.”
It doesn’t sound like much fun, I thought.
“We’ll have each other,” I said, squeezing Ivy’s hand again. “I’ll watch your back.”
“And I’ll watch yours.”
“Why don’t any of these people make a run for it?” I asked. “It’s a seriously crappy deal.”
“Some do, beforehand, as I tried. Once on the island—there’s no way off. Only large ships with substantial stores can cross the Endless Sea, and no captain would dare to carry one of those chosen away from the island. A slow and painful execution would be their final payment. For us, once the vine is planted on the island that will become moot. Ironically, the vine may even make our lives there longer than they’d otherwise be.”
“How?”
“The greatest strength, and the greatest weakness of our kind, is our tie to the land, to a specific place. Each of the Fae is strongest and most content in a certain place on the First World. Typically, it’s the place of one’s birth or near to it. Sometimes, one of us must wander for decades, or even centuries, seeking their place in the world. Slaves were often sold to distant lands, making them far weaker in the process. Part of the enchantment of the vine is to tie the slave to a new place.”
“And that replaces their natural affinity to their place in the world?”
“To an extent. They’ll still be weaker than they’d be in their truest home, but the vine provides supplemental power and a stronger connection to the earth. My place was in the valley of my birth, and yours is unknown, but the vine will make Knight’s Haven our new place. Without the vine, we’d have small affinity to a rock so far from the lands of our peoples.”
“What would happen if we left the island?”
“Pain would grow in our bodies until it became unbearable. No slave has ever escaped the vine… except in death.”
I hadn’t accepted any of it, but I had no alternate plan, so I kept those thoughts to myself.
***
Ivy was already waiting in my room after evening sword practice. She was sitting in her usual chair in front of the big TV, but she hadn’t bothered to start looking through Netflix, as had become her way. I was glad because we only had a few days left, and many questions remained. Gran was unlikely to answer any of them over the coming winter.
“You OK with talking?” I asked.
“Of course, Jack. I’ve made you wait so long, and you’ve been incredibly patient.”
“Telling me earlier wouldn’t have affected how I feel about you,” I said. It was true. “It’s not as though I didn’t realise crazy magical stuff was going on around here.”
“Perhaps it was foolish, but I feared losing your friendship more than I feared returning to Talanth or living out my life on Knight’s Haven. Before we begin—may I see the knife you made?”
“Sure, why not?”
I pulled the knife in its golden-green sheath, from my sock drawer. Ivy’s necklace lay next to it, wrapped inside an old tube sock. Ivy looked at the knife without touching it.
“Are you gonna take it?” I asked.
“No, I don’t think so,” Ivy said, peering closely at the dragon emblazoned sheath. “Will you draw it so I can see the blade?”
When I did so, Ivy leaned back with a sharp gasp. She forced herself to examine the blade and the rest of my knife. Finally, she sat back in her chair looking exhausted.
“Thank you, Jack. You should put it away again.”
“What’s the big deal?” I asked, tossing the knife back in the drawer. “Why didn’t you want to touch it?”
“Even knowing that Mr. Ryan is the Dragon Lord, and having seen Duzalain’s sword break against you, a part of me hadn’t yet accepted that you are the Blackhammer reborn. Your knife is enough proof for anyone from the First World. It’s the work of a master, and terrifying beyond words. That you could work powerful enchantments and make such a thing in this world is almost beyond belief.”
I still didn’t know what the big deal was. Yeah, my knife was a work of art, but it was still just a knife. Enchantments?
“It’s a pretty fancy knife, but I don’t know about any enchantments,” I said.
Not totally true, because it was nearly indestructible, but how could Ivy know that? She was giving me a weird, unreadable look.
“Jack, your knife is made from the stuff of the First World, this world, and the World Tree itself. I don’t know how that’s possible, but I’m sure of it. When the Clansman disappeared, it may be that you sent him back down the Tree, or…”
“Or what?”
“Or cut his soul loose from the Tree itself. I don’t understand all of the enchantments you wrought in that blade, but I believe it will cut anything, and sever any tie; physical or otherwise. It’s a terrible weapon. More so, because you did these things without intending to.”
Ivy looked serious, and seriously scared.
“I’ll be very careful with it,” I promised.
“That would be wise. Your knife makes the sword in the library seem like a toy by comparison. In the First World, many less sensitive than I would mark that blade if it came within a mile of them. Few would dare to investigate.”
“Do you think I should do something with it?” I asked.
“Safeguard it, and use it only at great need,” Ivy said. “I’m unqualified to give you advice in this matter. Mr. Ryan might be a better choice.”
“OK, maybe I’ll talk to him about it later,” I said. That needed some consid
eration.
Ivy stared into her lap, looking sad. I hated seeing her that way.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“You should have accepted another match when you had the chance,” she said. “It was selfish of me to remain silent, and to carry on with the Binding. Even were you not so very special, you’d still deserve better than me. I’m truly sorry, Jack.”
I came close to telling her everything then, but things were getting heavy, and I couldn’t find the right words.
“I’d pick you every time,” I said. “I can’t think of anyone I’d rather be stranded on a desert island with.”
“That’s kind of you to say, but the weather on Knight’s Haven is temperate for most of the year, and quite wet for the rest.”
Classic Ivy. That started me laughing uncontrollably, and somewhere along the way, Ivy joined in. My ribs hurt by the time I finished.
“Why don’t you continue educating me about your world?”
“What’s your next question?”
Ivy was looking less down.
“Tell me about Mr. Ryan and the Order,” I said. I wanted to know more about Marielain Blackhammer too, but it felt weird asking.
“There are hundreds of stories involving the Dragon Lord, spanning centuries, and the Order has existed for thousands of years…”
“What about the dragon lady? How did he marry a dragon?”
For the first time in a while, Ivy smiled.
“What?”
“That story is my favourite,” she said. “It’s also a long one, so you might as well get comfortable.”
It took Ivy the next three hours to recount the story of Janik Whiteblade and Sirean Silver Mantle, and to tell how he became known as the Dragon Lord. By the time she finished, I felt drained from experiencing the adventure third hand. That one story, about the man Mr. Ryan used to be, would’ve made an amazing movie. It also made me sad, knowing he was separated from his one true love. Sirean was Mr. Ryan’s Ivy. In the middle of the story—I determined to help Mr. Ryan find his way home. Ivy stared at me when she’d finished.
“Jack?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“You look very serious.”
The story hadn’t been all romance or happy endings, but telling it appeared to have pulled Ivy completely out of her funk.
“I’m going to help Mr. Ryan get home,” I said. I didn’t know how, but I’d figure out the details later.
“I’ll help you if I can,” Ivy said.
“Then we’ll do it together.”
I held out my hand, and we shook on it.
Chapter 19 – Jack, Out of the Box
The last days of summer passed quickly. Ivy and I gave up all pretence of swimming lessons, and the gardening was essentially finished. We talked and talked, and then talked some more. I had many questions, and on each of those final afternoons, Ivy did her best to answer them. She simply didn’t know the answers to many of my questions, in the same way that I couldn’t give more than a cursory description concerning the lives of whales or the country of Peru. Sure, I was aware they existed, and had a general knowledge of them, but I couldn’t have provided meaningful details to save my life. It was the same for Ivy. When it came to what interested me most, Ivy only knew vague history or bedtime stories. The exceptions were the stories about Janik Whiteblade. Ivy knew a whole lot of stories involving Mr. Ryan. Janik had led the Order for almost three hundred years, and apparently… he’d been busy. Our evening movie had been replaced each night with those stories. Unfortunately, Ivy knew none of the details of how Janik had been banished from the First World.
In a few afternoons, I gained a rough understanding of the First World. That understanding was disjointed and missing so many pieces that my list of questions only grew. I’ll try to organise and summarise what I learned, starting with the basics. The First World is round, but not a sphere like Earth or the planets in our solar system. I asked a lot of follow-up questions to confirm I’d understood that correctly. I only stopped when it became clear Ivy was getting angry regarding my doubt of this fundamental point, concerning the world of her birth. Finally, I just accepted it and let her move on. The edges of the First World are rimmed with impassable mountains, that according to Ivy, only dragons have crossed. What lies beyond them… unknown. At the centre of the world is the Endless Sea, sitting like a giant puddle in the bottom of a world-sized crater, and in the middle of that—the island of Knight’s Haven. All the countries and lands of the world lay around the sea, between the mountains and shoreline. Ivy had no specific information in regards to distances or population sizes. Those things she described as a certain number of days journey, and with non-useful terms, such as many.
What I took from her explanations was that there were as many types of geography as the earth contained. Most of them sounded entirely alien. Parts of her world were organised into countries of similar people, like the Fae, but more of it remained wild, untamed wilderness. She told me about the other intelligent races that inhabited those lands. That took a whole afternoon. There were dozens of different kinds, and I suffered from information overload. To sum up: they had dragons (not many), a variant of most of the fairy-tale creatures from storybooks, and others so alien I wasn’t sure I had a proper grasp of what Ivy had described. At a basic level, Ivy told me that things were fairly consistent across the seven worlds. They all had plants, animals, and insects. The smallest creatures of each world bore the greatest resemblance to their counterparts on other worlds, and the differences grew as one moved up the food chain. For example, Ivy had seen bees before she came to Gran’s. They didn’t look exactly the same, but they were similar, and served the same purpose in her world.
The First World didn’t have humans; the Fae were as close as it got. World history and politics were topics we just didn’t have time for. Ivy did tell me that her world had wars and the same kinds of unpleasantness as my own, and that the various peoples and nations tended not to get along. I asked who’d want Ivy and I dead, badly enough to try both summers. She said that list was long, and every nation with a port on the Endless Sea held a grudge against the Fae. Ivy assured me there’d been nothing personal in the attacks. It didn’t make me feel any better.
On the second last day before Ivy would leave, Gran noted that we’d suspended our swimming lessons. She informed me that Mr. Ryan would give me extra sword training the following afternoon… since we were obviously just goofing off (she didn’t put it that way exactly). I was always grateful to Mr. Ryan for teaching me, and there was still a lot for to learn, but I couldn’t help being angry that my last afternoon with Ivy had been stolen. From the time Gran told me, I got progressively angrier about it. Mr. Ryan—a keen observer of pretty much everything—noticed. He didn’t say anything until we’d neared the end of a punishing morning sparring session.
***
“You’ve redoubled your efforts these last few days,” Mr. Ryan said, stepping easily back out of the reach of my practice blade.
Mr. Ryan didn’t need to parry my attack. He was so many steps ahead of me that he usually knew my next move before I did. I’d been working harder since Ivy and I returned from the First World. The things Ivy had told me swirled around in my brain, and I hadn’t slept well. I’d also been getting generally angrier and angrier as the days went on. Mr. Ryan taught me to focus surplus emotions into training, and I’d been trying to—with mixed success. He’d also been training me harder than before, and I had plenty of bruises to show for it. Suddenly, Mr. Ryan moved from defensive to offensive, attacking me relentlessly and driving me back down the full length of the yard. I couldn’t afford to look away, but my peripheral vison told me that I’d soon be pinned against the house.
In three quick strikes, Mr. Ryan disarmed me and threw me to my back. We were still on the grass and it cushioned my fall. The blunt tip of his wooden sword hovered rock-steady above my throat. I looked up at Mr. Ryan, framed by a clear blue sky.
�
�You’ve redoubled your efforts,” he repeated, “but your thoughts are elsewhere. There’s no place for daydreaming in what we do. Your focus is your greatest weapon. I’ve mentioned that before.”
“You may have, once or twice.” It’d been closer to a hundred times. “I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be pissed-off about this stuff. Nobody asked me about it.”
My voice sounded sulky, but I couldn’t help it.
“Life isn’t fair, Jack. I’m sure you’ve already noticed.”
He still hadn’t moved the tip of his sword from my Adam’s Apple.
“I noticed.”
“What’s the worst-case scenario?” Mr. Ryan asked.
It was quiz time again.
“I get magically imprisoned on a stupid island with Ivy, where we get worked into the ground, so some rich and powerful douche bags can get richer and more powerful, and then we die.”
“You were offered an alternative, weren’t you?”
“What?”
“You said the Talantial King offered you your pick of the young ladies at Court.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Did you realise it’d get you off of the stupid island with Ivy?”
I hadn’t really considered it, but I had understood what the deal was.
“I guess so.”
“Were the young women unattractive?”
“More like supermodel-attractive.”
“So you chose the life of servitude, with an unattractive girl you’ve only known for a few months, instead?”
I wasn’t sure where he was going with that, but it wasn’t making me less angry.
“Ivy’s beautiful,” I said, before I could help myself. “Those other girls were just… good looking. She’s also my friend. Are you going to let me up, or what?”
“So, you’ve been consigned to live out your life, a life which will, in all probability, be as long as one you’d have in this world, trapped with the girl you’re in love with? And you’re angry because… nobody asked you?”