The Green Ember (The Green Ember Series Book 1)

by S D Smith

  The building was lovely. Somehow the sunlight erupted through the multicolored glass and into the garden walkway. She now saw that only some of the light came in from above. The octagonal room was brimming with sunshine, casting magic images along the walkways and the grey-green stone walls. It washed over them, and they gazed at the shimmering garden of colorful light.

  Picket joined them, his mouth gaping. Emma relished the wonder written on her friends’ faces and was silent for a long time.

  Finally, she spoke. “This is who we are here, Heather,” she said quietly. “You asked what it means to be heralds of the Mended Wood.”

  “Yes.”

  “It means this,” she said, motioning all around. Heather listened closely, and Picket, breathing hard, and a little pale, turned away from his amazed appreciation to attend to Emma. “And it means much more. Follow me.”

  They kept to the path but didn’t go into the octagonal room with the glass panes bursting with light.

  “They’re still working on Lighthall,” Emma said, motioning to the room. They heard sounds from within, a light hammering and what sounded like glass being cut. “The leading artists are getting it ready.”

  “What’s the name of this garden?” Heather asked.

  “I’m not sure anyone’s named it, officially. But everyone calls it King Whitson’s Garden, or King’s Garden. You’ll see why.”

  They followed the path around tall trees and found that the walkway widened into a circular space featuring large statues on stone pedestals. The statues were of two rabbits, swords drawn and faces strained in action. Heather understood that this was why the garden was called King Whitson’s garden. There he was, his image in bronze, cape caught up in the wind and sword aloft. What a hero. She glanced at the other statue and walked on behind Emma.

  “Do we know what King Whitson Mariner looked like?” Heather asked.

  “I don’t know,” Emma said as they crossed under an archway leading to a large wooden door. A tall rabbit in green stood by the door, gripping a long spear. “Maybe they just imagined it.”

  Heather nodded. “Are there sculptors—”

  “Where’s Shuffler?” Emma interrupted.

  Heather looked back. He hadn’t followed them. They walked back along the path, reentering the statuary space. There was Picket, looking up at the statues with tears in his eyes.

  “What is it, Picket?” she asked, coming alongside him.

  “It’s him, Blackstar,” he whispered hoarsely.

  “Is that story important to you, Picket?” Emma asked.

  “Very important,” he said. “Father loved to tell it to us. I loved to hear it.”

  “He was a real hero,” Emma said, touching the statue’s foot. They saw the black star patch on his shoulder, his place beside and in front of King Whitson, his sword frozen in flight.

  “He was brave,” Picket said, hanging his head.

  “I always loved the tale of Whitson and Seddle best,” Heather said.

  “Me too,” Emma said. “She was my favorite.”

  “It was always Blackstar for me,” Picket said. “Even more than Whitson Mariner himself. I knew I’d never be a king, but I thought, maybe …” He trailed off, shaking his head.

  “It feels like there couldn’t ever be heroes like them again,” Heather said. “Those days are long gone.”

  “But King Jupiter reigned only a short time ago,” Emma said, “and everyone says his was truly the golden age of rabbit civilization.”

  “I know it wasn’t so long ago, but it feels as distant to me as their day,” Heather said, motioning up at the statues.

  “Let’s go on,” Emma said, moving along the path. “I have more to show you.” They rounded the curve again, seeing the stone archway and the guard in green before the door. When he saw Emma, he smiled and opened the door for her. Heather thought she noticed his expression change when he looked at Picket and herself. But she wasn’t sure. Heather noticed that he bore the double-diamond emblem, stitched onto the shoulder of his tunic.

  She and Picket followed Emma through the door and down a long hallway, this one dark again, illuminated only by a few torches. Soon the hallway ended in a large round room with three large doors.

  “This is called Hallway Round,” Emma said. In the center of Hallway Round stood a large barrel of dark wood, hooped with bright brass clamping. Around the barrel paced three guards. All three bore the double-diamond crest, and the same banner hung from the ceiling high above. Two of the doors, the one to their left and the one straight ahead, were guarded. The third, on the right, wasn’t.

  “Where do the doors lead?” Heather asked.

  “I’ll show you.” Emma motioned for them to follow and, smiling at another guard in green, led them through the door on their left.

  Heather squinted as Emma passed ahead of them into sunlight. She followed carefully over the threshold and into a vision of green, gold, and white. The persistent mist hung about the edges of a green hillside, lit with glittering sunlight. There was a surprisingly wide, mostly flat area, but this soon gave way to the ever-tilting hillside. Around the rim of the village green, the hillside slanted up into stony outcroppings, ending in the mountain peaks that showed about the ring of Cloud Mountain. It looked like a broken bowl, with the green being the bowl’s inside bottom. Heather saw row upon row of vegetables of every kind—cabbage and corn, potatoes and turnips. Her mouth watered, and she felt a little lightheaded. After the confining corridors of stone, it was unsettling to be out in the open like this.

  There were rabbits all over, working and talking. Young ones played in groups dotting the hillsides, their laughter making Heather’s heart ache for Jacks. Beyond the gardens, she saw a little village of wood and stone homes. Little stone walls crisscrossed the grounds.

  “I’ve never seen a village,” Picket said as they crossed the flat grass along a row of hedges.

  “Or this many rabbits at once,” Heather said, smoothing her dress. “It’d be almost frightening, if everyone didn’t look so friendly.”

  Well, Heather noticed wordlessly, almost everyone looks friendly. Beneath a nearby maple tree, the moody black rabbit they had seen at dinner lay on the ground, apparently napping. The maple tree was curious, stripped of most of its leaves and tangled with ropes and other odd-shaped things. She saw what looked like wooden dogs with great orange heads scattered all around the tree. More large shapes filled the tree, but she couldn’t tell what they were. More orange and green, but it was too far and the shapes too crude to see clearly. The tree was scuffed and scarred in a hundred places.

  “The village has come about in the time since King Jupiter fell, of course,” Emma said, not paying any attention to the black rabbit. Heather thought this was deliberate, though Picket hadn’t seemed to notice. “The farm has also grown as more and more of us have come here.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Heather said.

  “It is,” Emma agreed, smiling.

  They walked along hedgerows and stone walls, marveling. Looking back at the door that had led them up onto this lush hillside, they saw only a great mass of rock. The door they had emerged from was nearly invisible. Heather wondered what lay behind those doors that she had not yet seen. Were there endless chambers beneath them? What secrets are in this mountain?

  Her mind filled with the beginnings of tales, loose threads that could be woven by a skillful hand. She thought of what Emma had said about the storyguild. Tale-spinners. The all-too-familiar fear returned, telling her she didn’t belong here and certainly couldn’t tell stories with anything like the skill of those who had lived in this place for years. Her stories were unimportant, mostly for little ones.

  They reached a mossy area, set up with several stone tables, and sat down. They were only a short walk from the entrance back into Hallway Round.

  “Do they all liv
e in the village?” Picket asked, motioning toward the rabbits all around.

  “Most do. I used to live up there,” she said, pointing to a neat row of cottages. Heather squinted to see the small wood and stone homes; then her gaze returned to the hedges a few feet away. She had never seen such neatly cut hedges. Everything here was well tended; even the people looked well. She felt the tranquility of the place wash over her as she imagined the many kind people who must live here, people of great character and serenity.

  Then snapping blades were speeding toward her face.

  She almost fell off her bench when she saw the long shears shoot through the hedge wall a few feet from her face. She regained her balance and saw a lanky rabbit emerge through the hedge, his long arms holding the shears, his face bent in a frown. Heather breathed a relieved sigh.

  “You frightened me!” Heather said.

  “I beg your pardon, Miss, but what’s frightening is the state of these hedges!” he said, scowling at the row and holding his hand up carefully, closing one eye, trying to measure how straight they were.

  “Hello, Heyward,” Emma said. “You’re absolutely, positively, without-a-doubt correct about the hedges. They’re really quite crooked. I almost lost my balance just looking at them.”

  “I am genuinely mortified, Miss Emma!” he said, nodding his head in agreement and looking at her in sympathetic grief. “They shouldn’t be allowed to stand. I think I shall cut them all down and start over!” He made to attack the row with his long shears. The shears seemed almost to be extensions of his lanky arms, so that he looked like a very tall rabbit with strangely incredible limbs.

  “Don’t be silly!” Heather shouted, while Picket laughed. “They look perfect. You could use the edge of those hedges to show people what the word straight means!”

  Heyward paused his attack, smiled for a mere instant, then quickly resumed his frowning. “What utter nonsense!” he puffed. Then he hustled away, hunched over the hedge, peering at it like it might run away if he took his eyes off it for a moment. Every few steps, he brought his enormous shears down on even the teeniest twig judged to be jutting out a mere fraction of an inch.

  “He’s a little bit … um …” Emma began.

  “Dedicated?” Picket said, trying not to laugh.

  “Yes,” Emma said. “He’s that. You’ll find that a lot of the people here are devoted to their work, though not many are as—well, attentive, as Heyward is.”

  “He’s a nut, and everyone knows it,” Kyle said, appearing behind them and surprising them all. The tall golden-grey rabbit they had met briefly yesterday had come from out of nowhere, it seemed, flashing his casual smile.

  “Where did you come from?” Heather asked, looking around.

  “Oh, I hail from the land of Terralain,” Kyle said with a wink. “Home of the long-lost Whitson Stone and birthplace of wonder and unity.”

  “Not that again,” Emma said, sighing loudly. “Please, bring Heyward back. More about hedges, I beg you!”

  “Well, I wish I came from Terralain,” Kyle said, smirking at Emma. Emma looked as if she’d seen enough of his smirks and he might want to try a new expression out.

  “Where’s Terralain?” Heather asked.

  “Not so far away as we imagine,” Kyle said with another wink.

  “Oh, Heyward!” Emma called, pulling on her ears. “Come back!”

  “What are you talking about?” Heather asked, trying not to laugh at Emma.

  “Oh, you’re serious?” Kyle said. “Sorry. I thought everyone knew about Terralain. But you two are from far away and have lived sheltered lives. You’ve never heard of Terralain? Mysterious land of enchantment? Home of wizards and lost princesses?”

  “Is it real?” Heather asked.

  Emma said, “No,” and Kyle said, “Yes,” at the same time. They eyed each other warily, Kyle imitating Emma’s dismissiveness.

  “Okay, sure,” Emma said, “it’s real. And they keep Jupiter’s heir there in a magic bubble where he governs the rivers with his mind. Isn’t that right?”

  “No, Emma,” Kyle said, “that’s not quite right. They don’t acknowledge King Jupiter in Terralain. But I do have some new information on the whereabouts of Jupiter’s heir.”

  Picket and Heather both sat up and attended carefully to Kyle. Heather said, “The fallen and the future king, or so Lord Rake said.”

  “Oh no, you two,” Emma said. “Don’t let this rascal fill your head with his nonsense.”

  “This is reliable info,” Kyle began, touching his nose. “I have come to learn that Jupiter’s heir is kept hidden in the Deep Belows.” He pointed to the mountain and then down. “There’s a labyrinth down there unlike any you’ve ever seen. It’s impossible to get to him without intimate knowledge of the passages. Only three people know the way. One is Lord Rake, our Emma’s secretive adoptive father and lord of this, ahem, flawless little community.” He winked again. “As Lord Rake was a councilor and friend to the fallen king, so now is he the guardian of the future king. Another is the prince’s bodyguard, a mute warrior who wears all black always and is never seen. And the last is the prince’s scribe.”

  “And what does he need a scribe for?” Emma asked, smirking. “Does he write poems about your greatness, Kyle?”

  “Not poems, exactly,” Kyle said, rubbing his hands together. His eyes were wide and excited. “It’s prophecies. You see, the prince, King Jupiter’s heir, is very sick. He’s in a sullen stone room, with only a bed to lie in and a table for his scribe. He lies there in a constant fever, never fully waking up, mumbling things in a semi-madness.”

  “A semi-madness?” Emma laughed. “So he’s ahead of you on the madness scale. That’s good.”

  “Hey,” Kyle said, shushing her. “Listen, a few years ago they realized that the things he was mumbling about would later actually happen. Like, he mumbled about a rockslide, and the next week, a rockslide happened, and it killed somebody. Then the guard knew something was wrong, so they got this scribe to write down the prophecies. They are all kept in a book, The Whispered Prophecies of Jupiter’s Heir, and it’s read day and night by the council. They make their policies and plans based on it.”

  “Fascinating,” Heather said. Kyle smiled, nodding.

  “Don’t encourage him!” Emma cried, slapping playfully at Heather’s hand. “He’s a rogue, Heather!”

  “Listen,” Kyle said, raising his hands, “I know a fellow who knows a fellow who brings water to the mad prince.”

  “I thought you said only three people can get to him!” Emma said. “And if he’s sick all the time, then doesn’t he get seen by doctors?”

  “Well, the doctor, obviously; it goes without saying,” Kyle said. “But the water bearer is met by the guard at the entrance to the stone labyrinth. Then the guard, who knows the way, takes the water.”

  “And the doctor?” Heather asked.

  “Is escorted by the guard as well,” Kyle said, nodding with authority.

  “You act like you at least believe the story,” Heather said.

  “Liars always believe their stories,” Emma said.

  “Liar is an awfully strong word, Emma,” Kyle said, looking wounded.

  “I know,” she said, scowling.

  “What about Terralain?” Picket asked. “Tell us about it.”

  “It’s a kids’ story, Picket,” Emma said, her anger rising. “It’s a fantasy to distract us from our real work here.”

  “I want to hear, Emma,” Picket said. “Can you let me decide for myself what to believe?”

  “One more thing—then I’ll be quiet,” Emma said. “You can choose what you believe, Shuffler, but you can’t change what’s true. The land of Terralain is like Kyle’s honor. It doesn’t exist,” she said, throwing her hands up in surrender.

  “But it does exist,” Kyle said, throwing another
smirk Emma’s way and half-turning away from her so as to exclude her from the conversation. “Greggor’s aunt’s friend from the Halfwind Citadel met a fellow who was out on patrol one night, and he saw it. He saw Terralain. One night, when the fog was thick and he was far away down southwest, he lost his way. After hours wandering, he crested a hill in the dark and saw in the distance a thousand torchlights, like stars across a field. It was the Valley of Stars, the lost land of Terralain. It exists. And this fellow supposed there were fairer things there than any we’ve seen here in this dingy den of sweaty labor.”

  “You haven’t broken a sweat at work in all your life,” Emma said.

  “Because I’m smarter than that, Emma,” he said. He ignored her and focused on Heather and Picket. “I’m going someday, heading out to find it. If you ever get tired of this place, you can come along.” He kept their attention as he got up, bowed slightly, spun around, and sauntered off.

  “Don’t listen to him, Picket,” Emma said. “He once tried to seriously tell me that he himself was really a prince, the so-very-secret heir to the true king. He was so, so convincing. It was like he really believed it. I’m telling you, he’s good at sucking you in, but not so good at delivering on his word.”

  “But he sure is entertaining,” Heather said, patting Emma’s hand. “And no one tells us anything, so we’re curious.”

  “I know,” Emma said. “Lord Rake says you’ll be initiated soon, and lots of questions will be answered then. I want to get you answers, but I think it’s best to get them from the right sources. I want to follow the law of initiates, even if I’m also frustrated by it. Unlike Kyle, I don’t think it’s right to pick and choose which laws to follow. Your situation is, well, unique. Anyway, that’s where we’re headed next. To meet someone who can give you some answers. This place has many, many wonderful rabbits.”

  “Good rabbits, huh? Like him?” Picket asked, pointing to the brooding black rabbit under the maple tree. The hulking brooder had risen from his resting position and was fiddling with some long ropes and straps arranged around the maple. This complicated contraption looked like a tangled mess, but he drew a rope taut here and loosed one there. He adjusted the great orange heads on the doglike wooden dummies.