Legend of the White Sword (Books 1 - 3)

by P. D. Kalnay

  Chapter 20 – Acceptance

  I’d almost reached the tower’s door. The tower vanished periodically behind the curve of the mountainside. Rounding the last bend, I discovered that the door stood open. One less thing to worry about. I also discovered I wasn’t alone on the narrow path. A woman blocked the way ahead. She was unarmed, but a shiver of fear ran down my spine. We’d met before.

  “It would seem, I’m not the only one who’s come to this island early,” Sirean Silver Mantle said.

  At first glance, she looked the same as she had when she’d tried to kill Ivy and me. That was only at first glance. Her skin was more silvery, and her hair shone bright in the sunshine, but mostly… she was bigger. Not taller. I was now taller than Sirean. And not fatter. I don’t know if dragons get fat. There was simply more of her. She had a presence that was closer to an office building’s than a person’s. Ivy had said that we’d met a diminished version in the Seventh World. Until I stood before Sirean on that narrow pathway, I hadn’t really understood.

  “I wondered who’d be walking this path,” she said. “You’ve caused quite the uproar with the usual pre-burning crowd.”

  I could only stare. Meeting a dragon in the First World was in no way comparable to doing so on Earth.

  “Mopat got your tongue, boy?”

  Time was wasting, and I still hadn’t found Ivy

  “My name is Jack,” I told the dragon for the second time. “I’m a friend, and I don’t want to fight you, but Ivy’s in trouble. I don’t have time to talk right now.”

  “A friend? That seems… unlikely.”

  I had to get past her to the door. My shield had already proven to be remarkable protection, and I unslung it from my back, pushing my arm through the strap and grasping the handle. Holding the handle hurt—a lot—but I had no choice.

  “Please move aside,” I said. I was certain that saying please to dragons was a good policy.

  Sirean looked at my shield and then back at my face.

  “Fascinating,” she said. “You’re more Jack, now, here on the First World, than you were the last time we met. I sensed your shield, and the other things you carry, a great distance from here. Something you carry… called to me.”

  I reached into my tunic’s inner pocket for the half-ring and held it out to her.

  “It was probably this,” I said. “I made it for you.”

  Golden eyes stared hungrily at the gold ring.

  “It’s beautiful and terrible,” she whispered, “but it feels incomplete.”

  “This is half of the pattern,” I said.

  “Where is the other half?”

  “Mr. Ryan—Janik is wearing it. It wishes to be whole again.”

  “The halves call to each other?” She took the half-ring from my hand and examined it closely. “You made this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who are you?”

  “If you hadn’t interrupted me on the way to collecting my hammer… you wouldn’t have to ask.” I said, pointing at the tower’s open door.

  She considered that for a moment.

  “What will this do, if I put it on?”

  “I don’t know. I think it will ground Mr. Ryan in the Seventh World, or at least make it so you can locate him otherwise.” I shrugged. “Most of the things I’ve made have had unexpected consequences.”

  Sirean laughed and pushed the half-ring up her arm. As had happened with Mr. Ryan, the ring sank into her flesh leaving its distinctive, endless pattern. This time, the tattoo maintained a white-hot glow.

  “That sounds about right. Truly… some things never change. I once told my beloved that you were the most dangerous creature on this world, Smith. Do you know how to end his banishment?”

  “No, I’ve been going on instinct up to this point. Now, I’ll figure out how all of this actually works. Can I assume you’ll help?”

  “A fair assumption. What is your first step?”

  “Shutting the gates.”

  “And then?”

  “Re-establishing the Order here on Knight’s Haven.” I swung the shield out to show her my vine tattoo. “I won’t be able to leave. You, and others, will have to search for any answers that aren’t here.”

  “The Three Houses will not sit idle. Shutting the gates is a declaration of war.”

  “Yes.” Let them come.

  “Are you prepared to do what must be done?” She looked me hard in the eye.

  “Mr. Ryan is my friend.”

  “And?”

  “They hurt Ivy.” I looked at my feet. The thought of it made my hands shake. I could have killed in that moment. I looked back up at her. “I’m going to make them pay.”

  Sirean’s smile told me we were in complete agreement.

  That’s when I heard Ivy’s scream.

  It came from right below us. I leaned out over the edge of the path. We stood two hundred feet above the harbour. A thin strip of rocky shoreline lay at the bottom of the sheer cliff-face. It narrowed, and disappeared, before reaching the wave-lapped base of the tower. Under us, Ivy was scrambling atop the tumbled boulders, desperately trying to escape her pursuers. Five huge, grey ogres followed her up the narrow beach. Tiny specks of bright light swirled around the ogres, but they appeared unbothered by them. Ivy tripped on the rocks and cried out again. Sirean leaned out next to me.

  “Whatever enchantments are in her necklace don’t appear to be effective against ogres,” she said.

  “I have to help her.” It was miles of hiking down the tower path, and then back around the shoreline, to where Ivy was. The ogres were steps from reaching her. I could only arrive far too late—no matter how fast I ran.

  “She has little time left,” Sirean said. She didn’t sound interested, or concerned, about Ivy’s safety.

  “Can you help her?” I asked.

  “Certainly.”

  Something wasn’t right.

  “Will you?”

  “No.”

  “Please,” I begged. “I’ll do anything.”

  “This is why you came to the First World, isn’t it?” Sirean asked. “To save your beloved?”

  “Yes, but I can’t get to her in time!”

  The ogres were directly under us now. Nothing seemed real, and the world around me was moving in and out of focus.

  “Jack, the human boy from the First World can’t save her,” Sirean said. She said it as though she was commenting on the weather instead of Ivy’s life.

  “What?” I couldn’t look away from Ivy.

  “Humans don’t exist here. You must travel to the Third World to find any at all. And they aren’t quite the same as those from the Seventh World.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked. This wasn’t the time for a philosophical discussion. I looked around for rocks to drop, but the path was entirely bare.

  “You are here, but you have yet to truly commit to this world, to accept who you are.”

  I was only half listening.

  “Jack cannot save her, but perhaps Jackalain Moonborn Talantial, rightful heir to two of the Three Houses—and the Blackhammer reborn—can.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “Sometimes in life, and often in love… a leap of faith is required.”

  I stared into her depthless golden eyes for an instant before I understood what she was saying. Then I looked back down. Ivy lay on the rocks below; the ogres had caught up with her. Gravity worked the same on the First World, and I had plenty of cuts and bruises showing that I’d gained no invincibility on my trip there, but Ivy was going to die. I might at least take out one or two of the ogres by landing on them. The distraction might buy Ivy a chance to escape the others. There was no more time.

  Pushing around Sirean with a glare, I ran a few steps up the path, glancing, to make sure I was above the first ogres… and jumped. I’d judged the distance right and was directly above the ogre closest to Ivy. I clamped my mouth shut, to hold in a scream, as I fell. It’d be pointless if I warned my ta
rget, and he stepped to one side. Halfway to the bottom, things changed. There was no way I could not scream. It began with a ripping sensation between my shoulder blades. With my shield raised above my head, like a sad parachute, I could only see my one hand. That hand was glowing with the golden light of the World Tree. Light was coming from inside me—burning its way out. Everything hurt. Every bit of me, from heart to skin, burned. That’s what led to the screaming. That, and a thousand new sensations tearing through my brain. Ground and the ogre grew rapidly below me, and then… I began to slow.

  Somehow, I controlled my fall, turned myself in midair, and landed hard on the rocks between Ivy and her pursuers. They all looked equally startled, but the closest ogre leapt at me. He must have stood nine feet tall and weighed eight hundred pounds. Without thinking, I swung my shield, striking him mid-flight. He made a sickening sound—like a dropped melon. Then he flew a remarkable distance, landing with a loud splash. Instinctively, I knew he was already dead as his body flew away from me. I turned to the ogre’s companions and drew my knife for the first time since arriving on Knight’s Haven. Then I drew it some more… and some more. The scabbard looked no different than it had at Gran’s, but more and more knife came forth until I held what could only be considered a full-sized sword. Its blade was visible only in that the utter blackness stole the light around it. The sight of it, and the feel of it, made me want to vomit.

  The ogres evidently felt the same because they backed away. Terror was written clearly across their lumpy faces.

  “Mercy, my lord,” one begged. His voice grated like two stones being rubbed together.

  My anger had disappeared with the dead ogre’s splash. The mere proximity of the knife/sword was making me nauseated.

  “Spread the word,” I said. My voice sounded strange in my ears. “Anyone still on Knight’s Haven, when the gates shut… will never leave.” That sounded scary enough to me.

  The ogres must have thought so too. They fled up the narrow shoreline without another word. I watched them go and tried to catch my breath. Too many weird things were happening at once.

  “Jack? Is… is that you?”

  Ivy’s voice sounded strange too.

  “Who else would it be?”

  I very carefully sheathed the midnight blade. That’s when I noticed that my hand was grey, my skin rough-looking and pebbled. I turned to greet Ivy, relived she was OK. One of my wings brushed the base of the cliff-face. Wings?!? I turned my head to get a better look, and then turned around a few times, like a dog chasing its tail. New muscles in my back, or old ones doing new things, made my wings flap.

  “What are you doing?” Ivy asked.

  “I’ve got wings!” It seemed pretty obvious to me.

  Then Ivy’s arms were around my waist and her head buried in my chest.

  “My Jack, I knew you’d come,” she said, “but I had hoped, for your sake, you wouldn’t.”

  “I’ve got wings.”

  Ivy didn’t let go, but her dirty, green, tear-streaked face smiled up at me.

  “They’re very nice wings, Jack.”

  A new sound made the both of us look up. Sirean slid down the cliff-face, the fingertips of her left hand ripping four grooves in the rock face as she came. Flakes of stone fell around us, preceding her arrival.

  “Jack no longer,” she said when she reached the bottom. She glared at me. “Who are you?”

  For the first time in my life, I knew.

  “Jakalain Moonborn Talantial.”

  I’d finally grown into my stupid name.

  ***

  It turned out that Winathen wings aren’t actually good for flying, just gliding (with wind enchantments in play), so we walked back up the rocky shoreline together. It widened out, and by the time we approached the nearest edge of Havensport, just below the path to the tower, the raider’s ships passed by us, heading for the sea gate. One ship, the white one, veered towards us, but only until Sirean let out a roar. That quickly caused the captain to reconsider. It also left Ivy and me deaf for the next half hour. We said little on the walk. Ivy did hold my hand. She was clearly exhausted, stumbling now and again. I was trying to deal with my new reality. So many strange sensations were hitting me from all directions that it was overwhelming.

  “How did ogres track you?” Sirean asked Ivy as we turned upward. “Your wood-sense should have made avoiding them effortless.”

  “I had no problem avoiding them until yesterday,” Ivy said. “And Jack’s necklace provided ample protection against the others, but then they released a new enchantment that hounded me, and has kept me from finding any respite.”

  “What sort of enchantment?” Sirean asked.

  “Butterflies,” Ivy said.

  I’d been off in my own world to that point and was only half listening.

  “Butterflies?” Sirean asked.

  “Enchanted, demon-butterflies,” Ivy said. “They have my scent, and although I am the swifter, they’ve proven impossible to elude for any time. I tried using my bees against them, but they refused. It’s been exhausting.”

  “I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Sirean said. She sounded baffled.

  “There they are!” Ivy shouted.

  I followed her little finger, and sure enough, my butterfly hair clips were fluttering towards us. At a distance, they looked no different from ordinary butterflies. The weird thing was… I’d felt them before they’d come within sight. I headed towards the hair clips.

  “Ivy–”

  “Jack, be careful!”

  “Ivy–”

  “Do you know of this enchantment, Smith?” Sirean asked.

  “Yeah, they’re just a present I made for Ivy. Hair clips to replace the ones she left behind. They flew away when I got here. Sorry for scarring you.”

  Ivy had a hand on her necklace. She was giving me a strange look that I couldn’t read.

  “Jack,” she said, “I think the necklace is enough. I don’t know if I can… manage another gift.”

  “You’re certainly one for grand gestures,” Sirean said dryly. “What will these do?”

  “They’re just hair clips… I think. I’m not totally sure.”

  “Can you stop them?” Sirean asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  I tried wishing the butterflies to me. Nothing.

  “Come here,” I commanded.

  They continued their slow flutter towards Ivy.

  “I trust you,” Ivy said. “And I can’t spend my life running around the island.”

  I came back to stand beside her. We waited for the butterflies to close the distance and alight in Ivy’s hair. It was so weird; I could feel the things I’d made now. If not to the extent I’d felt them travelling the World Tree. Just as the butterflies landed, I sensed a surge of something from them. In that instant, I knew what their enchantments were, what purpose I’d unconsciously given them. Desperately, I reached for the hair clips, but the little legs had already grasped strands of Ivy’s hair. I was too late.

  “Jack!”

  “Ivy, I didn’t mean it! I want you to stay the way you are.”

  “JACK!”

  The hair clips glowed white-hot in my grip until I couldn’t hold onto them any longer. A part of me knew that I’d have to let things run their course. Ivy’s eyes went wide and then tears streamed from them. I made to reach out for her again, but Sirean pulled me away.

  “Some things can’t be taken back,” she said.

  Ivy’s body filled with a pulsating rainbow light, all the colours contained in the butterflies’ wings. Then the bright light vanished, and Ivy alternated between crying and laughing. I wondered if my gift had driven her insane.

  “I love you, Jack,” she finally said.

  “Are you OK?” I asked. “I was sure they’d change you, when they landed on your hair.”

  “They did. Thank you.”

  The enchantment on the hair clips was meant to give Ivy her wish; to let her blossom from t
he green of childhood as all of her people blossomed in adolescence. I’d known that as soon as they’d touched her. Now, I felt less sure.

  “So you decided to stay green?” Sirean asked.

  “Jack likes me this way.” Ivy turned to me. “Don’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “But,” Ivy said, “I’m not limited to a single blossom.”

  She gave me a joyful smile, and the butterflies glowed again, if less brightly than before. Ivy’s hair turned a bold red, as did her lips, and her skin changed to a soft rosy pink. Green shoots sprang up from the sparse rocky soil, spreading outward from her bare feet in concentric circles. They grew, in a few heartbeats, into wildflowers of every hue and shape. I didn’t recognise any of the species, but that part was to be expected. Ivy laughed again and gave me a second smile.

  “Maybe… I’ll stay red for today.”

  “You make it work,” I said.

  Ivy looked just as beautiful in red.

  Chapter 21 – Locked In

  Ivy, Sirean, and I carried on walking. Ivy no longer seemed tired. She practically skipped along beside me. The new sensations, washing over me, were confusing, and I didn’t know what was going on. The strongest sensations came from the items I’d crafted, but I could also sense Ivy in a vague sort of way. Even, when I wasn’t looking at her. Sirean’s presence was many times stronger. It felt as though she radiated heat like a wood stove. A few times, I reached up to touch my check, on the side she was walking, to see if it was actually getting warmer. The heat wasn’t physical, but it was unquestionably real. More disturbing were the distant things I could sense swirling high in the sky above, and deep beneath my feet. I paid little attention to the path as we walked, trying to come to grips with my new reality.

  After climbing dozens of stone staircases, taking us up dozens of terraces, we were back on the level with the path to the tower. Suddenly, I felt three new presences. They felt similar to my shield, Ivy’s necklace, and the hair clips. Looking for whatever it was I felt, I discovered a knee-high cave mouth, a short way up ahead, cut into the base of the wall of the next higher terrace. A second later, One poked his silver head out. Seeing us, he stepped into the light, soon to be joined by Two and Three. A few more steps brought a reunion with my strange, diminutive new friends.