“Does anyone else feel that?” an Ikarus soldier asked.
“It’s the mud. It knows we’re here,” Simon said.
Indrid looked back and noticed that the same trees as when they first got into the water were still there, the same distance away. “We have been walking west for hours and those trees behind us are just as close as we began. Either we aren’t moving, or they are.”
An Ikarus soldier cried, “Something is grabbing my feet!” He stabbed into the water turning it black by disturbing the mud beneath.
“Stop!” said Sir Simon.
When the blade hit the bottom, the roots all around the soldier began to swell, trapping his feet in place.
“Keep calm. You will only anger it,” Simon said.
Two Graleon knights were suddenly caught by their feet and swallowed into the mud. More and more men were suddenly being taken from below.
The plants that were closing in on them were goliaths. They had huge pumpkin bodies, slug-like feet to transport them around, and long necks sprouting out from the stems with flower-bud mouths at the ends.
They must be the infamous man-eating ghords that named the mud lands, Indrid thought. They looked bigger than Gretchen had described in her stories. They were no ordinary plants. The beautiful giant flowers surrounding them clearly had a plan. They could see and move and communicate with each other.
As they closed in on the men of Grale and Ikarus, the ghords opened their drooling mouths lined with jagged teeth and hissed. With their prickly vines, they reached out, grabbed men, and strangled them to death. Some crushed their bones before eating them. The larger ghords swallowed men whole.
Indrid chopped at the ghords’ stems that held their heads. But the larger ones had long and thick trunks holding up their heavy buds. At the other end of the stem was its body with a slimy slug-like sack underneath. The biggest one was the size of a wagon, and its head was as long and wide as an oval dinner table. It snapped at Indrid, catching him in its mouth.
In salivated darkness, the crushing pain from the compression of the ghord’s jaws was intense. Indrid heard and felt his men chopping at the rough stem, but he knew that their blows weren’t penetrating it. Although his armor kept his skin from the sharp edges of its long teeth, Indrid was certain that the ghord’s bite would crush him. This is the last moment of my life, he thought.
Through blurred vision Indrid watched the front teeth of the giant ghord begin crashing down into his head. Before the sharp edges dug into Indrid’s face, he felt a sudden thud. He slid down the ghord’s throat before he blacked out.
When Indrid woke, he found Sir Simon Atikan standing above him. They were no longer in the mud lands. They’d made it to the river, and under a golden sky the ruins of Illyrium were visible in the distance.
“What happened?” Indrid asked.
“We chopped you out, my lord, before the ghord could digest you,” said Simon with a smile.
“How many men did we lose?” Indrid asked.
“Eleven. Three of you were lucky to be swallowed whole by the big ones,” Sir Simon said. “The others were bitten and crushed first.”
After the mud had dried and the dirt was wiped clean from their armor, the Ikarus and Graleon hybrid army continued their trek to the ruins of the first capital of Men without looking back.
Anna Lott refused to become Demitri’s wife.
She, along with Ikarus council members, ambassadors, and castle maids and servants, were held in the nave of the temple as prisoners of war. Benches were flipped over in the aisles leading to the altar. The vaulted window above it was shattered. Pages of torn prayer books were scattered across the granite floor. There was no candlelight, and it was getting colder by the hour.
Everyone sat on the floor in the corner of the room and huddled together to keep warm. A broad-shouldered woman, an ambassador of Grale, hummed a soft, soothing melody.
Anna regarded the exits, windows, custodial closets, and stairwells, trying to think of a way to freedom. But, outside, Demitri had corralled the innocent into the market streets while releasing the Ikarus criminals. And there were mages everywhere. Even if she did get out, she knew she needed to be careful.
There was a back door that led to the basement and out to the gardens. When Anna would come to the temple, she always used the basement entry. It made it easy to avoid the people’s stares if she arrived late to a gathering. And she never noticed anyone else ever use that door other than the priests. She wondered if the invading mages would even know about it.
Because the mages inside the temple had a close eye on everyone, she couldn’t inform others of her plan nor could she include them in the escape. She feared it would jeopardize her own opportunity. If she didn’t leave, alone, no one would leave. Anna took an unlit lantern from one of the tables at the end of the pews and crept her way to the bathroom hall to inspect the basement. It was completely dark. When she lit the lantern, it carried only a tiny flame, and she could see no further than a few steps ahead. But the room sounded unoccupied.
Anna knew that she was meant to be kept alive. Demitri Von Cobb, the leader of the mage clan, wanted her as his bride. They wouldn’t kill me, she thought. That notion alone gave her courage.
She found an exit near the gardens. But at the corner of the building there was a mage directing traffic in the streets, his back to her. He had a deep, raspy voice. She sidled along the wall, slowly and quietly. But someone shouted from behind her. The mage turned. Quickly, she jumped into the shrubbery lining the gardens.
The mage only looked back for a moment. Since the brush was much taller than Anna, he saw nothing and didn’t bother to investigate the noise. But she could see the mage clans running through the streets. They were wrangling the civilians that were still resisting.
Anna crawled to the edge near the street and overheard two mages arguing over which man they were supposed to take to the Illyrium oubliette, ‘where the old wizard is being held’. When she heard this the first name that came to her mind was Burton Lang. It was shocking to finally discover the whereabouts of the famous sorcerer.
But she remained focused on the escape.
While mages had two civilians roped up on the ground the shouting got its loudest. Anna took her chance and sneaked into the back of the carriage heading for Illyrium. The steel bars across the sides were rusty and the wooden floor was strewn with mold. When she looked to the front, everyone was chained to their seats. It was obvious to Anna that Demitri was sending only the strongest away from the kingdom. Every captive was a man, large and tough. So instead of sitting among them and leaving herself exposed where she obviously didn’t belong, she hid under a pile of blankets thrown into the back corner of the wagon.
After she settled into her nook and the wheels began to turn, all that Anna could think about was how easily magic overpowered metal. She couldn’t believe that she had stopped time by playing a specific progression of notes through her flute. With a power like this a thousand blades would be of no threat. Then, she thought about Rayne and his extraordinary form. He must help us, she thought. The stones he had set only delayed the invasion. The fact that Rayne’s memory was lost made it difficult for her to connect with him. And she didn’t know where to find him. If anyone knew how to find Rayne, it would be the infamous Burton Lang.
The trip was long and bumpy. Her legs cramped.
On arrival, Anna waited for the last man to be taken off the carriage before she could escape. No one had seen her get on. They can’t see me getting off, she thought.
After the mages cleared the wagon, they closed the gate behind them. Anna almost cried, thinking she was locked in, until she checked and the gate was still open. She watched them walk into an entry beneath the old castle. Then, she stepped off and hid among the rubble of Illyrium.
An hour had passed before the clan left. Anna crept into the tunnels. The further she went, the darker it became. And she was now without a torch. But the mages had left a door open
for her to see a stone well. Anna walked up to the edge where there was a bucket used to lower people and things down and back up. Beyond the bucket she saw a light reflecting off of the water below.
Alone, Anna descended; the darkness becoming darker. Without someone at the top to turn the crank, her light weight brought her down slowly, and she realized that there was no way back to the surface.
At the bottom, the rocks were slippery. In the oubliette there was no sound other than dripping water, and the smell was surprisingly crisp. Over the water’s surface there was a thin mist rising with warmth. She called out several times hoping that someone would respond. But no one did.
Suddenly, a light from a small boat approached. There was an old man holding not a torch or lantern, but a wand with its tip lighting the space.
What could possibly give off light other than the sun and fire? Anna thought. She knew it was a form of magic and knew who the man must be. When the bow of the boat reached the gravel shore, she could see him. His drooping hood covered the top half of his face. “You’re Burton Lang,” she said. She felt an intense sensation being in his presence.
Lifting his hood, the man smiled. “I am,” he said. “And you’re Anna Lott. Please, come.” He held his hand out for her.
When Anna stepped into the boat, it moved away from what seemed like the only piece of land around. She realized that Burton wasn’t even rowing. But the boat was moving. The water looked like it went on forever.
“I’m guessing you did a bad thing under the new rule of Demitri Von Cobb,” Burton said.
“I spat in his face,” Anna said proudly. Yet she was still in awe that she was in the presence of Burton Lang. She couldn’t stop staring at each wrinkle on his face, wondering how much this man had seen throughout the ages. Each line told a story.
Burton got a good laugh out of that. “When you are sent away to an oubliette, they don’t expect you to live,” he said.
Anna could see that by the looks of the space. There were no animals or plants to eat, not even bugs. Even the water they were sailing on was salty and without fish.
“Actually, I escaped and chose to come here,” Anna said.
“Why did you choose to come down here, maiden of Mern?”
“I am from Mern, but I’m not a maiden,” Anna said, chuckling. She thought his assumption that she was an authoritative figure of Mern was amusing.
“My apologies, my lady,” Burton smiled and looked on in the direction they were moving.
“I came to find out what happened to my stepbrother, Rayne Volpi,” Anna said. “I thought you would know.”
Without too much detail, Burton explained Rayne’s demise and who was responsible for his disappearance.
The story saddened her. But Anna wasn’t surprised to find out that the same pig that had sexually harassed her was involved in Rayne’s assault led by a priest.
Burton continued. “Now, Rayne is an imprisoned soul caught between realms. His true name cannot be spoken by tongue. In fact, I’m too old to even remember my true name. I know I have one. Although Rayne doesn’t remember who he really is, he remembers parts of his previous human life, but the rest of his soul is disconnected from his mind. There is a quarantine placed around this planet to keep beings like me from coming here, and to prevent those of us who are here from leaving.”
“Is Rayne like you?”
“In some ways, yes,” said Burton.
“Then, how did he come to Naan?” Anna asked.
“With the help of Montague La-Rose, I opened a doorway. But there were consequences. Upon entering, the entity’s memory—Rayne’s memory—was wiped clean. It was a dangerous but necessary compromise. To win this war, we need both Rayne Volpi and Montague La-Rose to end the Nekrums’ madness. I already sent for Montague,” Burton said.
It’s all magic and sorcery, Anna thought. She didn’t understand any of it. “Montague is in the dungeons of Ikarus, heavily guarded. How are you going to get him out?”
“You got out,” Burton noted.
Anna smirked.
“Besides, there are other ways to get to him; from underground. The trolls are my allies,” said Burton.
“Trolls?” Anna asked.
“Yes, trolls.”
“I didn’t think that they were real.”
“They are as real as those waterbirds you keep seeing. And all those old stories that you were told as a child about the monsters in the sky; they were also real. Our sky is occupied by an evil force,” Burton said.
The news was a paradigm shift for Anna. What she thought she knew about the world was no longer true. The myths that Montague had exposed to her held more truth than written history. And she was shocked at how much Burton knew about her seeing waterbirds when she had never met him before.
“So how do we get Rayne’s memory back?” Anna asked.
“I need your help with that, my dear. When the time comes,” Burton said.
Anna saw land ahead. It looked like a castle within the mountain. “What is this place?”
“Come. It’s almost time for dinner,” Burton said.
The cave opened up to a beautiful, well-lit castle with chandeliers, sprawling red carpets, and gold décor. The place was illuminated brilliantly by something other than fire. There wasn’t a flame anywhere. Anna was amazed.
Burton led her to a dining hall with a long table with crystal utensils placed alongside ivory plates. No matter the elegance, Anna still didn’t understand how they were going to be served anything edible.
As they sat, people came out from the wooden doors along the wall. All kinds of people came from their own room, which also looked extravagant, even compared to her quarters at the castle. Anna was stunned that not only Burton Lang managed to live down here, a colony was thriving. Anna then saw the men she remembered from the wagon Demitri had sent. But they wouldn’t recognize her. They never saw her.
A man limped over to the table with wine glasses and a kettle of water that smelled of rot and looked like algae when his shaky hand spilled some. “Can, can, can, can I interest you in something to drink?” the man stuttered.
Burton took the kettle. “Yes, thank you.”
“We aren’t going to be drinking that, right?” Anna asked, hoping he’d say, no.
Burton laughed. “Of course! The cavern is our only access to water. It descends a mile down before it connects to the sea, right near the waters of Mern,” he said.
Mern, Anna thought. The idea of drinking disgusting water was put on hold.
“What do you know about Mern?” Anna asked. She was curious to know about her birth family. She had lived with her uncle for a few years before she came to Ikarus.
Before he answered, Burton stood and snapped his finger above the kettle and asked, water or wine?
Anna hesitated. “Clean water?” she asked.
When he poured water into her glass, it was now crystal clear and odorless. Anna was amazed.
“I’ll have wine!” said a guest, holding out his glass.
“Red or white?” Burton asked. “Sweet or dry?”
More and more people came in from the tunnels with shovels and wheel barrels of rocks and dirt into the room. They carefully organized each dish with a healthy combination of soil and stone with a garnish of spider webs before covering them with metal lids.
Burton sat down again next to Anna. “Well, I will tell you this, Anna Lott. The Mern city is far beyond what you see on the surface. There lies a kingdom beneath the ground, and you are part of the royal family that rules the real city of Mern. You are a maiden’s daughter and your mother would be delighted to see you again.”
“My mother? I don’t ever remember meeting my mother. Before I was sent to Ikarus after the attacks, I lived with my uncle my whole life. He raised me and was very strict. I didn’t have much of a life there. So there is little to remember of my childhood before the mages attacked the Mern islands and I was sent to Ikarus.”
“Your ‘uncle’
William was not your uncle. But before I go on, it’s time to eat,” Burton said. He began at the end of the table that stretched across the huge dining hall. There were more than twenty different covered plates on the table. He placed his hand over the first lid.
Anna could see the dry dirt spilling out from the sides. She couldn’t believe that these people were actually going to eat it. Was Burton going to do something like he did to the water? She thought.
“So what is going to be our appetizer for tonight’s meal?” Burton asked aloud.
Everyone started cheering and laughing, shouting out all types of delicious foods that Anna would give anything to have a taste of right now. The water was clean and satisfied her thirst, but now her body needed nourishment and dirt wasn’t going to give that to her.
Burton smiled through the shouting. The lid he held started steaming, and the aroma was so delicious it made Anna’s stomach rumble. She gained hope for a real, hot meal.
“To start,” Burton said, “shrimp, scallops, and oysters.”
When he lifted the lid, the plate was filled with food: seafood, her favorite. Her mouth watered while the others picked at the plate. She was surprised at how patient and generous everyone was to each other. Nobody pushed to get into the food or complained.
“Next…smoked ham,” Burton said. He went on lifting the rest of the lids: eggs, fish, berries, bread, corn, potatoes, and chicken soup. Then there were cakes and pies towards the end.
Anna and Burton talked for hours over the delicious food. He told her about her mother and how she had lain with a mainlander and had Anna. Her father, who she had called her uncle, kept her above ground with him, holding her ransom. He demanded gold from Anna’s mother, living secretly beneath the sea, where underwater mountains were rich in the mineral, so he wouldn’t kill her. Your father’s greed solidified your mother’s fear of land dwellers and secluded herself from the rest of the kingdoms. It was a dark truth, but Anna needed to hear it.
Then Burton lightened the mood, sharing stories about the histories of Mern, Grale, and Illyrium while Anna told him all about Ikarus. By the time Burton finished briefing her, Anna had eaten her fill.
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