A faint scratching sound came from the door on the other side of the chamber. It was like something was digging on the other side at the base of the door. Rapid-scratch, scratch, scratch.
Antoinette looked back to the sword. Then, there it was again. Scratch, scratch, scratch.
Something was there, behind that door. Scratch, scratch, scratch.
Antoinette approached as silently as she could, listening, straining to determine what would make such a sound. The scratches stopped as Antoinette drew near. Slowly, she leaned over and put her ear to the door.
Wham!!
Something slammed into the other side of the door, sending Antoinette sprawling backward to the floor. A deep growl rolled out, until it seemed the whole chamber was filled with a menacing rumble.
Scratch, scratch, scratch. SCRATCH, SCRATCH, SCRATCH! Something tore into the bottom of the door.
It’s trying to get in here! Antoinette’s mind raced as a jagged chunk of wood was ripped free from the base of the door. A dark claw reached through, grasping, seeking. Then it withdrew. And just for the briefest moment, a yellow reptilian eye appeared.
Frantically, Antoinette slid backward. She screamed. A rivet from her armor pressed into her side. She rolled over on her stomach, the new wound burning.
The sword! I’ve got to get the sword!
She got to one knee. The scratching continued behind her. She heard another piece of the door being torn away. Another growl.
Antoinette struggled to her feet and ran awkwardly to the pedestal. Her hand was an inch from the sword.
No. The sword is not the answer, Antoinette suddenly realized. I am not the answer. I need the King’s word.
The clawing continued. A larger chunk of the door broke off, and the taloned claw came through again.
Antoinette made the decision and grabbed the scroll. She unrolled it and read:
FeaR is the enemy. And tRust is youR fRiend. I will not leave you. YouR life will not end. The cReatuRe knows evil. The cReatuRe knows good. You must stand fast befoRe him, when he bReaks down the wood. The scent that you caRRy is a song that you sing. It caRRies the melody, youR oath to the King.
Antoinette looked up from the scroll. A pair of three-toed claws reached through the gaping rent in the door. They clutched a ragged edge and began to pull with violent strength.
Stand fast? How can I just wait around for that thing? Antoinette looked to the other pedestal, but the sword was gone.
“Okay, I get it!” Antoinette yelled. Clutching the scroll, she edged closer to the door. Finally, just a few feet away, she stopped and closed her eyes. She could hear the relentless scrapes and scratches of the beast’s sharp talons on the door. She could hear shards of wood cracking and being torn away. She could hear the anxious breaths of the creature on the other side. Antoinette knew, in moments, it would get in.
Through the terrifying ruckus, Antoinette repeated the words from the scroll, again and again in her mind. I will not leave you. Your life will not end. I will not leave you. Your life will not end. I will not leave you…
There was a tremendous, splintering crack, and then the sound of something heavy being thrown with great force into a corner of the chamber. Cold air washed over Antoinette. She stood very still. She felt something in the room with her.
There were footfalls, many footfalls. There’s more than one creature?!
Antoinette struggled to keep her eyes shut. She struggled to keep still.
She felt an icy breath on her forearm. She heard it sniffing her. Then something wet touched her skin.
“Please don’t kill me!” she whimpered.
“Kill you, hmmm? Is that what you thought I would do to you?” came a deep, rasping voice very near to Antoinette’s face. “No, no, no, my dear. Faethon would rather be grilled in the open sunlight than to harm a servant of King Eliam. Besides, you are unarmed. It would be hardly sporting for me to attack a weaponless knight. Open your eyes, my dear. Open them and behold Faethon!”
Antoinette opened her eyes to a squint. A scaly creature was coiled in a wide circle around her. It was armored with dark scales on its long body. Some of the scales glimmered as if encrusted with jewels. The scales tapered off to gray leathery flesh on the creature’s many limbs.
That’s why I thought there was more than one! Antoinette thought.
“Impressive, hmmm?” The creature grinned. Its face was broad, its jaws long and filled with rows of fangs. Creased winglike ears swept back from its head. And large yellow reptilian eyes gleamed out from heavy lids. Antoinette was reminded of the dragons she had seen in Chinese New Year parades.
“I am Faethon, a mortiwraith,” he said. “The last living son of Falon the Great! I serve King Eliam and guard his treasuries, among other things. And today, Antoinette, I became your challenge.”
Antoinette sat down hard on the floor and winced in pain. The wound in her side stung.
“You are injured,” Faethon said. “I smelled fresh blood. I am sorry. I suppose I got a little carried away when I ripped down the door.”
“It’s my armor,” Antoinette said. “Something on the side here keeps poking me.”
“Nothing Kindle in the armory cannot fix,” Faethon replied. “Your wound shall be fixed as well. The leechcraft in this city is excellent. Perhaps Sir Oswyn is available… yessss, he is the best in The Realm. Ask Sir Aelic to take you to Oswyn’s apothecary.”
“You know Aelic?” Antoinette asked.
“Yes, though he has only been in Alleble for a short time,” Faethon said. “Aelic comes down from the Guard’s Keep to bring me meat. He keeps me company from time to time. I think he has become quite fond of you.”
Antoinette blushed.
“Yessss, very fond of you indeed,” Faethon said. His toothy grin widened. “He tried to make me promise not to harm you. I refused, of course.”
“What if I had picked up that sword?” Antoinette asked.
“That is a good question,” Faethon replied. “I most likely would have spared you anyway, as I sensed the purity of your heart from the moment you entered this chamber. But had you taken that blade and attacked me, hewed at one of my beautiful limbs through the door… then I do not know what I might have done. A mortiwraith provoked is a fearsome sight, indeed. But let us not think of such unpleasant things, hmmm? You have passed this test, Antoinette. It is time you enter the second chamber. Climb the spiral stair to the Guard’s Keep. I believe Kaliam the Sentinel… and Sir Aelic are waiting.”
“Congratulations, Antoinette. You survived your meeting with Faethon,” Kaliam said when Antoinette entered the Guard’s Keep. “Though not unscathed, I see.”
“It’s just a scratch,” she said dismissively. “There’s a rivet or something sticking out of this back thing-”
“The backplate,” Aelic offered. Brindle sat on his shoulder, but scampered down when she saw Antoinette.
“Faethon said Kindle could fix the armor,” Antoinette said. She winced as she stooped and Brindle returned to her new home in Antoinette’s hair.
“Yes,” Kaliam replied. “But your wound needs tending first. Aelic, escort Antoinette to Sir Oswyn’s apothecary. Do you know it?”
Aelic nodded. “Who would not? Os plays his lute and sings to great crowds at dusk every evening! I know the way.”
“Excellent,” Kaliam said. “Make haste from there to Kindle’s, and be sure that he will have Antoinette’s backplate ready this evening for the gathering.”
15
WOUNDS THAT DO NOT HEAL
A elic led Antoinette again through the market. Brindle bounded along behind them. Many of the shops were closing for the day, and there were fewer goods to see. But those Glimpse merchants selling food were very active and had lines waiting to be served. One Glimpse merchant stoked a mound of glowing embers till it cracked into a fire beneath dozens of hunks of meat turning on iron spits. Juices dripped from the roasts and fell with a hiss into the fire. The smell that wafted from that place was almost overw
helming, reminding Antoinette she had not eaten since the scones early in the morning.
“Do you think we could get a bite to eat?” Antoinette asked. “After we get my side taken care of. The final test took a lot out of me.”
“Ah, you also have fallen prey to the scents of the marketplace, eh?” Aelic said, and he laughed. “There will be food in plenty at the gathering this evening. I think a morsel could be arranged prior to that. I know someone who makes a remarkably good stew-”
“Elspeth, right?”
“Oh, she told you about my insatiable appetite for her savory stew, did she?” Aelic grinned. “I am not surprised. Once Elspeth begins to talk, there is no telling when she will ever stop.”
Antoinette laughed and then winced. “Owww,” she said, clutching her side. “This stings! Stop making me laugh.” She said nothing to Aelic, but blood was seeping through her tunic.
“We had better get to Oswyn’s quick,” Aelic replied. “For I do not know if I can restrain my jovial nature!”
“Ouch!” Antoinette said, coughing through a laugh. “Yeah, we better hurry.”
They turned a corner and came at last to a little gray house with a thatched roof and an etched mortar-and-pestle sign hanging from its gables.
“Sir Oswyn!?” Aelic called, leaning inside the door. “Sir Oswyn, are you here?” There was no answer at first, so they walked in. There was no one in the shop, but there were candles burning.
“Wow!” Antoinette said, looking around. The square room they had entered was absolutely stuffed. Arched alcoves recessed into every wall were lined with shelves and stocked with ceramic or glass jars of every imaginable size and color. In the middle of the floor, turned this way and that, were several six-foot-high cabinets. And each of those had innumerable tiny drawers, each labeled in the same flowing script. No doubt for herbs, Antoinette thought. Brindle raced around the shop, stopping now and again to sniff at something.
Antoinette looked up. Larger ingredients webbed in fishing nets, strings of dried plants, and various vines hung even from the ceiling! At the back of the store was a wide counter made wholly of dark maple. Aelic approached and called out again. “Sir Oswyn!? Sir Oswyn, if you are here, I need you!”
“A moment!” a deep voice sang out from somewhere behind the counter. There was the sound of a door slamming, and a tall Glimpse appeared. He flung back the long, dark bangs of his thick mane, revealing bushy eyebrows and startlingly bright blue eyes. He saw Aelic and Antoinette and grinned broadly. Scores of wrinkles and dimples from a lifetime of smiling appeared, and his face took on the look of the happiest of souls. There was also, in the gleam of his eyes, a hint of mischief. He reminded Antoinette of a classical composer gone mad with laughter, and she wondered what sort of doctor he could be.
“Sir Aelic,” he said, still grinning “what brings you to my humble apothecary? Oh-ho! Unless I have gone utterly mad, this must be Lady Gwenne’s twin from the Mirror Realm! And her name is Antoinette.”
“How did you know?” Aelic asked.
“Aelic, you should know by now that I never forget a name, and since her feats of yesterday in the arena, I daresay most of Alleble knows of Antoinette.”
Antoinette smiled slightly and then winced. Oswyn immediately saw her wound. “A pox upon us, Sir Aelic,” Oswyn said, and he ran around the counter to examine Antoinette. “For we have bandied words while a noble lady waits for treatment.”
“Tell me, Antoinette,” he said, looking up from the wound. “This knave here… he did not do this to you, did he? Practicing his beloved moulinet?”
“No,” Antoinette said. She winced as Aelic held up the backplate.
“Ah, I see,” said Oswyn. “Be at ease. It is not more than a scratch, though it bleeds more than it should. I have just the thing for that. I tended that very herb in my gardens this morning, as a matter of fact.” Oswyn disappeared behind the counter. A door slammed, then slammed again, and Oswyn returned. He carried a long green plant with feathery leaves and tiny flowers of pale lilac blooming at its top.
“Yarrow,” Oswyn explained as he laid it on the counter. “Most deem it a weed, and so it is-an aggressive one at that! Given the chance, its roots will spread beneath the surface until it takes over a garden! But yarrow has a virtue that few now remember: it stops a wound from bleeding and prevents infection! Staunchweed, some call it-an apt name. A little of this, and you will be as good as new.”
Oswyn took out a ceramic mortar and began mashing the yarrow stalk. Every now and then, he poured a small amount of a milky liquid from a small dark bottle into the bowl. An acrid smell filled the air.
“This will sting a little,” Oswyn said, daubing a clean cloth in the ointment. He pressed it into the wound and held it there for a few seconds. Antoinette grabbed Aelic’s shoulder, and were it not for his armor, she would have made more wounds for Sir Oswyn to heal.
“You said it would sting a little!” Antoinette complained through gritted teeth. “I feel like my whole side is on fire!”
“It is doing its work, m’lady,” Oswyn said, and he removed the cloth. “You see? There now, the wound is no longer bleeding. Allow me to put on a bandage, and you can be on your way.”
“After all you have been through today, you must be anxious to find a place to recline,” Aelic said as they left Oswyn’s apothecary. “But I wonder if you might walk a little longer with me. There is some thing I would like you to see before I take leave to bear your back-plate to the armory.”
“I’m intrigued,” Antoinette replied. “But don’t forget I’m hungry!”
“No, I will not forget. I will see to it that one of the guards at the gatehouse sends word to Elspeth to prepare copious amounts of her stew and bring it to the Guard’s Keep.”
“Aelic, I don’t think I could eat that much stew,” Antoinette said.
“Ah, but Antoinette, what you do not eat, I will.”
Antoinette laughed and noticed that her side no longer hurt. “Wow, that stuff Sir Oswyn mixed up sure did the trick!”
“Sir Oswyn is as skilled a warrior as he is a healer,” Aelic said.
They walked back through the streets of Alleble, Brindle bounding along behind them like a ball of yarn, keeping ever close to Antoinette. The streets were less crowded now, and all of the shops had closed at last. The sun had nearly set, and all but the rooftops were in shadow. Eventually they made their way to the main thoroughfare of the city.
“Now, Lady Antoinette, cover your eyes.”
“Uh, okay,” Antoinette replied, a little leery. Aelic led her a few more steps.
“Now, uncover your eyes!” he said dramatically. “And look upon the grandeur of Alleble!”
Antoinette lowered her hands and gasped. The sun was half hidden by the mountains on the distant horizon, but it spent its last rays dazzling the Fountains of Alleble. Great plumes of water and mist shot high into the air, and droplets of water sparkled like jewels thrown into the sky.
“It… it’s breathtaking, Aelic,” Antoinette said, and Aelic stood beside her.
“Yes,” was all he said for many quiet moments. But then, his hand brushed against Antoinette’s, and he stepped away abruptly. “I need to see to your armor,” he said, dashing off through the thoroughfare. “And your meal!”
As Antoinette walked back to the castle, she looked at her hands and smiled. She was reminded of Faethon’s words, “I believe Sir Aelic is quite fond of you.” But she wondered. Was Aelic really fond of her? Or was it her resemblance to Gwenne? Another question spoke in a tiny, mostly ignored part of her mind: And what about Aelic? Am I fond of him, or is it his resemblance to Aidan? Antoinette shook her head. Having a twin in another world sure was getting weird! Antoinette laughed quietly to herself.
Just as she reached the castle’s main gate, Antoinette thought she saw someone standing in the shadowy street behind her. She turned around to confront, but there was no one there-only the Seventh Fountain of Alleble stood behind her. Brindle raced
down from her shoulder and disappeared into the gatehouse. But Antoinette was drawn to the presence of the fountain.
She found herself walking slowly up to the dry pool and peering into its gray emptiness. She put her hands on the cool stone rim, and suddenly, she began to see faces twisted in sadness and fear. And torches waiting to light the dark oil that filled the fountain.
“So, great King,” said a voice that seemed to come from both above and behind. The thin, high-pitched, frenzied voice asked: “Will you lay aside your crown for your people?”
There was terror in the eyes of the Glimpses in the reflection.
“You do not command this!” another voice, weary, but still lordly and assured, declared. “I am allowing it. And nothing will ever rescue you from the doom you have chosen!”
There came a shriek and then the sound of a sword scraping across stone. The pool in front of Antoinette erupted in fire. Flames raced around the pool, and faces turned to terror and pain. Antoinette struggled to let go of the stone, but something held her to it. Helpless, she stared into the inferno.
Then she saw two people she seemed to recognize… a man and a woman. They are not Glimpse-kind, she thought. In vain the man embraced the woman, trying to shield her, but the flames engulfed them. Suddenly, to her own surprise, Antoinette screamed, “Mommy! Daddy! No, please, nooo!”
A hand grabbed Antoinette’s shoulder, and as she fell backward, a single tear from her cheek fell into the dry fountain.
A Glimpse knight stood before her. He had long sandy brown hair drawn tightly back and a thin silver circlet above his restless blue eyes. “M’lady, are you all right?” he asked. Antoinette could not at first speak. She nodded weakly.
“You seemed in pain,” he said. “I thought you ill… that you might fall.”
“Fire,” she said. “My birth parents…”
“Alas, m’lady. Now that the cruel shadows of night begin to fall, we are all haunted by the black deeds of our enemy. My brother Bolt fell to Paragor’s dark army in the battle at Mithegard. But come; though some wounds do not heal, let us seek the light within the castle of our King. There we may find comfort and peace in times of trouble.”
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