The Familiars: Secrets of the Crown

by Adam Jay Epstein

  “I think we need to find a place to sleep for the night,” he said.

  Skylar pointed off the path to a large field of grass that had sprung up round the burnt remnants of wooden buildings.

  “That looks like as good a spot as any,” said Skylar. “We can take turns keeping watch.”

  Aldwyn veered off the spirit trail and the familiars got closer to the expanse of green. As they did, Aldwyn could hear music, a triumphant battle hymn that filled him with a sense of adventure and purpose.

  “Whistlegrass,” said Gilbert fondly.

  Aldwyn remembered passing such a field once before, on the way from Bridgetower to Stone Runlet, when Jack had first chosen him as his familiar. Kalstaff had explained how every rolling hill of whistlegrass played a different song, one that recounted the story of something that had taken place there days, weeks, or even years before.

  When the three animals stepped through the blades, it felt as if they were suddenly surrounded by an orchestra of a hundred thousand instruments playing in perfect unison. They settled into the grass, and Aldwyn was sure that despite the music echoing around him, sleep would swallow him as soon as he closed his eyes.

  “I’ll take the first shift,” said Skylar. “Gilbert, I’ll wake you in an hour.”

  “Don’t you think six-hour shifts would be more effective?” asked the tree frog innocently.

  “By then the sun will have risen,” she replied.

  “And I will be very well rested,” said Gilbert.

  The music lifted to a crescendo as a strong breeze blew across the field. Pollen from every stalk of grass took flight, and as the melody settled into a quiet hum, the fine yellow grains, twinkling like stardust, began to form moving pictures in the air. Burnt frames of houses destroyed long ago appeared whole again, having returned to their original peaceful states. Between the buildings, human villagers walked, carrying buckets of water and going about their everyday morning chores.

  Aldwyn wasn’t sure if it was his weary eyes that were creating this vision, but as he looked at Skylar and Gilbert, he could see they were rapt too.

  “How rare and beautiful,” said Skylar. “The whistlegrass is showing us the past of this place.”

  The grass symphony started to build to a more ominous refrain, and from the nearby hill the pollen took to the air, forming a translucent army of men shambling forward. As they entered the town, Aldwyn could see that these men were in fact zombies, their faces nothing more than exposed flesh and skull, with muscles dangling limply from their arms. A few were even missing limbs. Aldwyn had heard many stories of the Dead Army Uprising, but now to see what this horrific mass of undead soldiers truly looked like gave him the chills. Villagers ran in terror as the zombies set the houses aflame with torches and lifted their rusty swords against the peaceful inhabitants.

  High on the hill, watching over the army, were two ominous armoured figures, masked and sitting atop two spectral steeds.

  “Who are they?” asked Gilbert, their fearsome appearance causing his voice to tremble.

  “Wyvern and Skull,” replied an awed Skylar, “the two dark mages responsible for the uprising.”

  On the ground beside the evil wizards stood a two-headed coyote, what Aldwyn could only assume was one or both of their familiars.

  The carnage continued. Why, Aldwyn wondered, had the whistlegrass at first sounded so triumphant, given the horrors that had occurred here? Though he didn’t ask the question aloud, his thoughts were answered as the field’s melody turned into a fanfare of trumpets. Six figures entered the battle from the other side of town: three humans and three animals. Aldwyn would not have recognised them, had he not seen pictures of them in their youth. It was Kalstaff, Loranella and the Mountain Alchemist, looking young, vibrant and heroic, and even more magnificent than anyone could ever imagine the Prophesised Three to appear. Following faithfully at their sides were their familiars: Zabulon the bloodhound; Edan the tortoise; and yes, Paksahara, the grey hare who was now plotting to raise a Dead Army of her own.

  Skylar and Gilbert recognised them too. They all watched in awe as they witnessed the true power that these great wizards of yesteryear once possessed. In a flash, they were in the fray of the battle. Loranella was first to strike, sending a bolt of energy from a ring on her finger, blasting a horde of charging zombies to smithereens. Kalstaff was next, cutting through an onslaught of decomposing limbs with a sword in each hand. Edan lowered his head to the ground, creating a time shell round the Mountain Alchemist and three torch-wielding soldiers of the dead. In the blink of an eye, the bubble was gone, and so were the zombies. Aldwyn had once wondered what this slow-moving tortoise could do in the heat of battle, and now he knew.

  A volley of flaming arrows flew towards the wizards, fired by a brigade of undead archers. Kalstaff was able to deflect the ones heading for him, but Loranella was not fast enough. The fiery tip of a bolt was coming right at her when Paksahara shape-shifted into a giant rhino. The arrow bounced off the transformed hare’s toughened hide.

  The music continued to swell as wizards and familiars – six against a thousand – decimated their foes. And then, with a gust from the north, the pollen was blown away and the song of the whistlegrass faded back into a quiet hum.

  Gilbert was the first to say something.

  “Wow,” he said. “Kalstaff kicked zombie butt.”

  “I’ve read hundreds of history scrolls about the Dead Army Uprising,” said Skylar, “and how the Prophesised Three fought them back. But no written word could ever do justice to the feats I just witnessed.”

  “If Paksahara succeeds,” said Aldwyn, “and a new Dead Army does rise, how will the three of us ever be able to stop it?”

  His words hung in the air. It was rare for Skylar not to have an answer, but this time she didn’t.

  “We should get some rest,” said the blue jay eventually.

  The funny thing was, even though he had been bone tired a few minutes ago, now Aldwyn was wide awake. As he stared up at the stars, all he could think about were the zombie hordes that Wyvern and Skull had unleashed upon Vastia, and how Paksahara – once noble and pure of heart – was preparing to do the same in a mere four days.

  “Why don’t you let me take the first watch,” Aldwyn said to Skylar. “I don’t think I’ll be falling asleep any time soon.”

  Early the next morning, Aldwyn found the spirit path just where he had left it, glowing bright and stretching off to the north. He and his fellow familiars resumed their journey.

  “Can you believe the way Kalstaff swung those swords?” enthused Gilbert. “It was like, swoosh-clang-bam!”

  Gilbert had been reliving every moment of the whistlegrass vision from the minute he first woke up. No detail was too mundane to recount, from the drool dripping from the zombie soldiers’ gums to the sandals the Mountain Alchemist was wearing during the battle.

  “Paksahara was so selfless,” said Skylar, “the way she put herself in harm’s way to protect Loranella. There was no hesitation. I could see only compassion in her eyes for her loyal.”

  “Whatever good she possessed is gone now,” said Aldwyn.

  Baxley’s paw prints led to a gorge a hundred feet wide and extending to the east and west as far as the eye could see. Two wooden stakes marked the beginning of a rope bridge that was no longer there; only frayed twine swung from the posts.

  Aldwyn arrived at the edge and looked across to see two similar stakes on the other side, where the bridge would have ended and Baxley’s glowing trail resumed.

  “The path continues across the gorge,” said Aldwyn. “Something must have happened to the bridge since Baxley walked its planks.”

  “This is Liveod’s Canyon,” said Skylar. “It’s the border of Vastia. Everything past this point is the Beyond. Even Scribius won’t know what lies ahead.”

  The feather-tipped quill peeked out of Skylar’s satchel upon hearing its name, then disappeared again and started making scratching noises insid
e the bag.

  The three animals stood at the precipice, Gilbert’s orange eyes peering over the edge at the sharp, sheer cliffs that flanked the bottomless chasm.

  “OK, now that you’ve proven your geography skills,” said Gilbert to Skylar, “how do we get across it?”

  Aldwyn was trying to clear his mind, the way Malvern had taught him to. He tried to feel the height of the earth and the weight of the sky. Three flat rocks were hovering like stepping stones across the first six feet of the gorge. A fourth rock was moving into place to extend the telekinetic bridge. Unfortunately, the rustling of some nearby leaves was enough to distract Aldwyn’s attention and send the stones tumbling to the bottom of the canyon.

  “Come on, Aldwyn,” Gilbert encouraged him. “Fifteenth time’s the charm.”

  “It’s no use,” said Aldwyn. “My mind isn’t strong enough yet.”

  The initial thought of circumventing the gorge by foot had been quickly dismissed by Skylar, who explained that Liveod’s Canyon stretched over fifty miles to the west and even further to the east. By the time they would have made it all the way to the paw prints on the other side, the next full moon would have arrived and with it Paksahara’s Dead Army. Of course, Skylar could have just flown across, but what good would that have done, seeing as how she was unable to see Baxley’s path? Aldwyn had had the idea of using his telekinesis, but the way things had been going, crossing a bridge that depended solely on Aldwyn’s powers of the mind would surely have ended with Gilbert and him plummeting to their deaths.

  “Looks like our only option left is to create a bridge out of thin air,” said Skylar matter-of-factly.

  “She must be suffering from sunstroke,” whispered Gilbert to Aldwyn.

  “I heard that, Gilbert!” said Skylar. “But I’m perfectly fine. I’m talking about an incredibly powerful illusion,” she continued, “one whose manifestation is so convincing that it can even fool gravity and the laws of nature themselves.”

  “We would be walking over something that wasn’t there?” asked Aldwyn.

  “Yes, but it would be as solid as the ground we stand on now.”

  “So why did you let me waste all that time trying to lift those stones?”

  “Because I can’t cast such a potent illusion,” said Skylar. “At least not yet. Only a five-feather master illusionist can create a phantasm so powerful.”

  Aldwyn had always thought Skylar was a master of her talents; he was surprised to learn that she hadn’t reached her full potential yet, either. He was also rather worried what would happen when she did.

  “We’re closer now to the Nearhurst Aviary than we were before,” said Skylar. “There are numerous birds under its dome capable of such a feat. If we hurry, we could get one to accompany us back here by high sun.”

  “Well, what are we waiting for?” asked Aldwyn.

  Deviating from the glowing trail, the familiars set off for the Aviary. Skylar was visibly happy to be leading her companions once more. She was guiding them towards a small mountain range in the distance, and the closer they got to it the more chipper she appeared. She’d flap ahead and then spin back to Aldwyn and Gilbert, and if she could have carried them on her wings she would have.

  “Slow down,” said Gilbert, “I can’t hop that fast!”

  “Come on, we’re almost there,” she said.

  Aldwyn had never seen Skylar so exuberant before. Usually she kept her emotions in check, but returning to her childhood home seemed to have brought out the chick in her. It was the giddy feeling a family reunion could bring out in some; it also was a feeling Aldwyn was now certain he would never have.

  Skylar landed on a tree branch before a rocky hill and smiled warmly at the barren mound of earth.

  “We’re here,” she said.

  “Huh?” croaked Gilbert, as he did a three-sixty.

  Aldwyn was equally confused – nothing resembling an aviary or any kind of building was within sight.

  Skylar flew to the base of the hill and pressed her feathers up to a block of stone. Much to Aldwyn’s surprise, a door opened within the side of the mountain, and the blue jay entered. Aldwyn and Gilbert quickly followed.

  Once inside, Aldwyn realised that this mountain was not a mountain at all, but a giant dome of glass and steel. The appearance round it had been an illusion, cast in order to protect the sanctity of this incredible place. Full-grown trees towered inside the translucent hideaway. Its size was as breathtaking as the polished beams of metal that arched like rainbows overhead.

  Hundreds of birds flew among the vegetation, and nests sat on every branch of every tree. There were cardinals, blue jays, yellow-tailed swallows, parakeets – feathered fowl of every size and colour – all of them practitioners of the art of illusion.

  The Nearhurst Aviary was not only home to these magical birds, but to blossoming plants and flowers as well. The air was humid from the sunlight entering through the glass ceiling, and the smell of lavender mixed with honeysuckle hung densely in the air like a warm, sweet fog.

  Human caretakers, women wearing cotton blouses, linen trousers and no shoes or socks, tended to the Aviary. Some held wooden bowls filled with seeds and grubs, while others watered and clipped the vines. The grounds were kept pristine and immaculate, and it was clear where Skylar had got her tendency towards perfection.

  “This is nicer than the Bronzhaven seaweed springs,” said Gilbert. “Do they give out foot massages too? My toes are killing me.”

  Aldwyn heard feet stampeding behind him and jumped out of the way of a charging tree ogre. Skylar let the large wood-skinned beast pass right through her.

  “Don’t believe everything you see here,” she said.

  A bright red cardinal flew to the ground. “Sorry, whiskers. Just a little Nearhurst welcome.”

  “Mason,” said Skylar. “You’ve got bigger. But you certainly haven’t grown up.”

  “I missed you too, Sky,” said the crimson-mohawked bird.

  “These are my friends, Aldwyn and Gilbert. This is Mason.” The animals acknowledged each other. “So, has anything changed since I left?” asked Skylar.

  “I know what you’re wondering,” replied Mason. “And yes, all of your illusion records still stand. Biggest, longest duration and most conjured at the same time. A lot of birds try to beat them, but nobody’s come close.”

  Skylar tried to keep from gloating, but a smile crept out from her beak all the same.

  “I don’t see my parents’ nest,” she said, looking to the treetops.

  “They relocated to the lower branches,” said Mason. “Your pop isn’t the spry jay he was when you last saw him. Come on, I’ll take you to them.”

  Mason flew over a well-manicured rose garden full of hummingbirds and turtle doves changing the colours of the flowers with trembling wings. Aldwyn still flinched now and again as different illusions swept past his head; he was finding it difficult to get used to a place where winged pythons and vine-swinging trolls could appear at any moment. Gilbert was faring even worse, diving into some prickly shrubs to avoid a day bat that didn’t exist and chomping through an illusionary hornet’s nest, causing him to bite his own tongue. By the time a robin offered him a worm pie, he was too sceptical to accept.

  “No, thank you,” said Gilbert. “I’m not falling for any more tricks. I’ve been made a fool of enough today.”

  The robin shrugged. Within seconds, half a dozen birds landed and devoured the dessert, slurping up every last worm. By the time Gilbert realised the pie hadn’t been an illusion, there were only crumbs of mud left.

  While Gilbert was complaining loudly to Aldwyn about the lost meal, Mason had reached the trunk of a short magnolia tree, with several nests scattered through its lowest branches.

  “I should probably get going, Sky,” said the cardinal. “I’m late for scent-summoning class.”

  Suddenly, a strong fragrance of roses overwhelmed the air.

  “Professor Keel says a female bird can’t resist th
e scent of black roses,” said Mason.

  “I’m resisting,” replied Skylar.

  Mason smiled before taking wing to one of the tallest trees in the Aviary.

  “You never told us you had a boyfriend,” said Gilbert.

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” said Skylar, looking a little less blue and a little more red as she dismissed Gilbert’s comment.

  “He called you Sky,” teased the tree frog. “I thought you only let Dalton call you that.”

  “You know, Aldwyn still doesn’t know about the lily pad wetting incident,” said Skylar.

  “Just kidding,” said Gilbert. “Forget I even brought it up.”

  Then, from above, a voice called down, “Quickly, the four types of rain clouds.”

  “Heffinger puffs, white lingerus, cumula perspirants and neb swirlums,” Skylar answered without hesitating.

  “That’s my girl,” said the voice.

  A blue jay descended from the branch, his azure feathers speckled with silver, but his beak still as sharp as that of any bird half his age.

  “Daddy!” exclaimed Skylar, lowering her head into his feathers. He put a protective wing round her, holding her close. A second jay flew down; this one arched her back the same way Skylar did.

  “Welcome home, dear,” she said.

  Skylar moved from her father to her mother, hugging her as well.

  “Hi, Mum.”

  “And this must be Aldwyn and Gilbert,” said Skylar’s father.

  “How did you know?” asked Skylar.

  “Word travels fast when your daughter is anointed one of Vastia’s Prophesised Three,” said her mother proudly.

  “Then you know about Paksahara and her dispeller curse?” asked Skylar.

  “Yes,” said Skylar’s dad. “Not since Wyvern and Skull has magic been used in such a corrupt manner, solely for the pursuit of power.”