“That’s just cold, Jimmy,” Jett complained.
Seconds felt like hours as votes were cast. Finally, when all the Elves had looked up and given Manaelkin nonverbal assent, the council leader said, “Reveal your conviction.”
Screens fell one by one. A blue candle lit. A purple candle lit. Another blue. From his vantage, Tommy couldn’t see all of the candles. Perhaps no one could except Manaelkin. Tommy thought that maybe it was designed that way. From what Tommy could see, the vote seemed very even . . . surprisingly even. The other lords gazed around the room as well. But Tommy saw Autumn close her eyes and bow her head. What does that mean?
Manaelkin’s gaze seemingly followed the candles around the room, and at first, he began to smile.
“Oh no,” Tommy whispered.
But then his expression hardened. Manaelkin hammered down his gavel and announced, “By three votes . . . the Lords of Berinfell will travel to Whitehall. There they will train and learn the art of Vexbane under the tutelage of Guardmaster Grimwarden for a period of no more than seven months. Your convictions have spoken. Let it now be done.” He slammed down his gavel once more.
Polite cheers rang out. Goldarrow clapped Grimwarden on the shoulder. Most of the other lords surrounded Autumn in a group hug. Only Kat hung back. She was relieved they could train longer, but her enthusiasm was drained by the voice she had heard. Slaughter. What did that mean?
Grimwarden stood before the council in the final hour of the meeting, recapping the plans they had all drafted years earlier of an attack on Vesper Crag, anticipating the eventual return of the Seven. The meeting room had thinned somewhat, leaving only the lords, the most senior Sentinels, military leaders, and members of the council. While the young lords still required training, a full-fledged siege was still at the forefront of everyone’s mind and needed to be addressed. “As you all are well aware, we’ve a sound plan for the initial attack and a prolonged blockade. However, I fear that what we really need the most is something we can no longer obtain.” Grimwarden searched his memory, recalling his many conversations with Sarron Froth. Without the defecting Drefid’s help, the portals would have remained a mystery to the Elves . . . the Seven would have never been found. But Froth had additional secrets, and the revelations of his most recent and final project might have proved invaluable . . . had Grimwarden only pushed the Drefid harder. He scolded himself now.
“Do not punish yourself further,” Goldarrow spoke up. “What’s past is past. We cannot change it.”
Tommy leaned over to Kat. “What are they talking about?” he whispered.
Kat scrunched her face. “Something about . . . a map.”
“Not just any map,” Grimwarden said, startling them both. “The map of Vesper Crag.” And with those words he withdrew a long cloth parchment from his belt. He laid it out on the table. The Seven all leaned in to take a closer look. The map showed a definite outline of a region, but only one corner of the map was filled in. Paths, symbols, codes—all sketched in rich black ink—no one but a master cartographer could have worked such fine detail and craftsmanship.
The Seven studied the parchment, each trying to understand the markings. Then Johnny and Autumn blurted out as one, “We know that map!”
All eyes went to the pair. Grimwarden’s face changed in an instant to a mask of disbelief and . . . hope. “You know this map?”
Autumn looked to Johnny. “It’s in our house,” he said.
“Under my bed!” added Autumn.
“Impossible,” Goldarrow said. “No one on Earth would have such a map as this.”
“We found it in our backyard,” said Johnny. “. . . In a field behind our house. Autumn picked it up.”
“When we found the cave, with the book, and the weird wall,” Autumn rambled.
“Weird wall?” Grimwarden begged.
“The book Nelly gave us”—Johnny looked at the map—“had a picture in the front that resembled a cave on our neighbor’s land, Mr. Rizzo. So we went there and found the weirdest thing.”
“Half a footprint,” said Autumn. “Like a solid stone wall had cut it in half . . . like a person—”
“Had walked right through,” finished Grimwarden.
Johnny smacked himself in the head with the palm of his hand. “It was a portal!”
“Yes, a portal!” said Nelly. “I told you that before, but you said nothing of finding a map.”
“We didn’t know,” said Johnny. “Is it important?”
“Is it—?” Grimwarden half chuckled, half sighed. “Vital, but that’s only if it is a map of Vesper Crag.”
“Yes,” said Manaelkin skeptically. “There are many maps that show many things.”
“No,” said Johnny. “I know that this is right. See, I thought the outline here and here was shaped like Sam when he lays down on the back porch.”
“Sam?” Manaelkin inquired, his fiery eyebrows raised.
“Our dog,” said Autumn.
“A dog is like a wolf,” said Nelly, clarifying the strange word for the group.
Johnny frowned and went back to the map. “Yeah, but it’s the same shape here . . . and here. Just like Sam’s ears. And . . . up here, there should be a tower . . . or a platform or something.”
Grimwarden was stunned. “That’s right! That would be the Black Balcony near the pinnacle of the mountain. You could only know that if it was on your map. You . . . you found this in your . . . what did you call it? Back card?”
“Our backyard,” corrected Autumn.
“Let me be sure I have understood you,” Alwynn said, seemingly fighting back a grin. “You have the rest of this map secured back in your home on Earth?”
“Yeah,” said Johnny.
“You’re certain?”
“Absolutely!” replied Autumn. “I hid it myself. No one would ever find it.”
Tommy raised his hand. “Excuse me. But why all the fuss about this map? I mean, I think I have a better idea here, one we’re not thinking of.”
“Go on, Lord Felheart,” motioned Grimwarden to Tommy.
“If we’re going to talk about bringing things back from Earth, we have weapons the Spider King could never dream of! Rifles, pistols! I’m sure some of the Dreadnaughts could help me find some machine guns on the black market.”
“Black market, Tommy?” asked Kat doubtfully.
“Okay. Maybe online. You know, eBay. We could totally blast—”
“Lord Felheart,” Grimwarden cut him off. “These weapons you speak of . . . are they made of metal?”
“Yeah, of course.”
He smiled. “While they might be worthy additions to our arsenal, we could never bring them back.”
“Some sort of time-space continuum issue?” proposed Tommy.
“Uh-no, Lord Felheart. Nothing inorganic, especially metals, can come through the portals. Conducting electrical currents in the gateways is not a good idea.”
“Oh.” Tommy’s eyes lit up. “Kind of like putting a fork in the microwave. I did that once.” The Elves didn’t understand. In the awkward silence, Tommy leaned over to Kat and whispered, “I’d hate to be the Elf who first discovered that scientific fact. Zzzap!” Kat dipped her head and giggled.
Alwynn looked to Johnny and Autumn. “If this map is as you say, Lord Albriand, Lord Miarra, then we have no choice but to at least attempt a retrieval.”
Everyone grew very quiet, looking one to another. Finally Johnny spoke up. “I’ll go.”
“Whoa!” Tommy exclaimed. “Johnny, there are soldiers there. You heard Flet Marshall Brynn. Lots of soldiers.”
“Tommy’s right,” said Nelly. “But not just because of the soldiers. You, my young lord, need to train. I know the way to your home. I will go.”
“With your leave,” said Regis to Grimwarden, “I will go, too.”
“What about the enemy?” asked Jimmy. “Yu could be takin’ a great risk.”
“An entire war host is a great risk,” Regis admitted. “But, Jim
my, that map isn’t just a general diagram like a street map of Glasgow. A map of Vesper Crag will show us the weak points in the Spider King’s walls, the locations of his defensive war machines, armories, spider nurseries, and”—she paused, collecting her thoughts—“the slave camps.”
“Slave camps?” asked Kiri Lee.
“Where he takes the people he’s abducted from Earth to work, building his war machine. Some are taken as kids, so they are able to learn the trades of war and become more efficient when they grow up.”
Tommy finally broke the silence. “We have to save them.”
“Agreed,” said Grimwarden.
“Without the map—,” Manaelkin began.
“It would be impossible,” finished Grimwarden.
“Still,” said Goldarrow. “There’s no guarantee Nelly and Regis will get through. Should we not send a battalion of flet soldiers and a rank of archers . . . storm the portal?”
Manaelkin shook his head. “You speak my mind as well, Goldarrow,” he said. “I am a firm believer in overwhelming force. In this instance, however, stealth is our best hope. A frontal attack will only draw out the Spider King’s interest. . . . He might even close the portal altogether.”
“You will go blindly through the portal,” said Grimwarden. “We do not know where on Earth you will appear. There’s even a small chance that the Spider King has found another world to occupy. It could all be for naught. Nelly, Regis, are you certain you want to volunteer for this task?”
“I am certain,” said Nelly.
Jimmy eyed Regis. Please don’t go. The only one who heard his thoughts, of course, was Kat.
“As am I,” said Regis.
Grimwarden raised his chin and nodded. “Very well. It does present its own set of difficulties, however.”
Tommy waved his hands about. “You mean, besides sneaking through an entire war host set on killing them and having no idea where the portal spits them out?”
“Yes, Tommy,” said Grimwarden, “besides those.”
“Like what?” Tommy asked.
“Time.” All eyes turned to Alwynn. “If Nelly and Regis are gone for but only one hour on Earth, that is almost three days for us here. Depending on where that portal ‘spits them out,’ as you say, it could be weeks for us. Maybe even months.”
“Still, it is a risk we have to take,” said Nelly.
Goldarrow sighed. “But it means—”
“We’ll have to leave immediately,” said Regis.
“Agreed,” said Alwynn.
Grimwarden hesitated. He looked at the Seven. “Agreed.” He stood up straight. “We base as much of our planning as possible around having that map in hand.”
“And if it doesn’t come back?” Manaelkin asked.
Grimwarden said curtly, “Then we will remain in hiding until it does.”
“You mean a decision will be made by the council, don’t you?”
Grimwarden turned his back and as he walked away said, “Of course.”
7
Paying the Price
FERRAL DRAGGED his burden past six gates. None of the Gwar sentries offered to help. “Where is he?” Ferral asked. “The throne room?”
One of the guards emitted a wet snort. “Bah, throne room? Not hardly.”
“Haven’t seen him in the throne room since last Norander, heh-heh,” said the other guard. “He’s in his Plotting Chamber . . . practically sleeps there.”
“Foul mood today,” said the first guard. “I hope you’ve brought him good news.”
Ferral inwardly cringed. He’d spent most of the long journey back from the Dark Veil thinking about how he’d break the news. What does it matter? What is the worst the Spider King would do? He could lock me up and make me work in the pits. He might kill me. Ferral shrugged. After what he’d been through, he was ready to die . . . if need be.
Ferral cast a derisive look at the two guards. “Lazy, the lot of you. After the leagues I’ve trod, you’d think one of you might lend a hand.”
“What? And leave my post unattended?” asked the first guard.
“Perish the thought,” said the other, laughing harshly.
Struggling for a better grip on the huge sack he was dragging, Ferral snorted and continued down the corridor. Just before he passed out of range, he heard a final exchange between the guards.
“He smells overripe, that one,” said one guard. “Horrible.”
“Yeah,” the other replied. “Smelled like he’d been struck by a bolt in the Lightning Fields.”
Ferral was half-tempted to go back and twist both their heads off, but he refrained for he had more pressing business. He traversed a tall arched hallway and found the stairwell he needed. It spiraled up, and Ferral found that dragging his burden was harder. The heavy sack slid from one step to the next, each one bringing with it a wet slapping kind of thud, until he reached the top and ducked under an arch to enter the passage.
Torches lit the right side of the hallway, and Ferral followed them to the Plotting Chamber at the end of the hall. The door was open, and the room was well lit by torches, braziers, and gigantic candle chandeliers. Ferral looked up to the high domed ceiling and wondered whose job it was to keep all those candles lit. No thank you, thought Ferral. He didn’t care much for heights. That’s why he’d volunteered for infantry. “Better get going,” he muttered. “Or it will be my job.”
It was a vast L-shaped chamber, and between the evenly spaced pillars on either side enormous steer-skin maps were stretched taut. Each of these, Ferral knew, represented one of the Spider King’s victorious campaigns. Many battles against the Elves of Berinfell were there. And the slow, methodical annihilation of the Saer. Ferral had fought in the last battle against the Saer. The Spider King had commissioned the greatest fleet of warships ever assembled, and they’d at last taken the battle to the Saer’s home island. Now that, Ferral thought, was a glorious victory. Having been a part of several such battles galled Ferral even more that his battalion had been ambushed so easily.
Somehow, his burden seemed even heavier now. Ferral slogged it across the floor, rumpling up several animal-skin mats. He turned the corner and saw the Spider King hunched over a table at the far end. He seemed so riveted, so utterly engrossed, that Ferral thought he might not have noticed he had a visitor. Still, Ferral wasn’t about to break protocol and speak before being addressed. So he stood and watched his king, master of the Gwar race.
The sickle-shaped pupils of the Spider King’s large half-moon eyes remained fixed, boring down on the map from their red irises. Like all Gwar, he was gray-skinned and mostly bald. But his skin was darker than most, more the slate gray of a tombstone or a thundercloud. And his fierce, dark eyebrows arched and then flared back over his scalp in a continuous strip that stretched all the way down to the back of his neck. A third strip of hair began like a sharp arrowhead above the center of his brow and swept all the way back like the other two.
Ferral watched and waited. The Spider King stared down at a map of the Thousand-League Forest. He never took his eyes off it but took out a stick of char and drew a painfully straight line, then another. When he was finished, the Spider King had drawn a diamond-shaped region, one of many such areas, Ferral noticed.
The Gwar ruler grasped a handful of figurines, Warspiders, Gwar, Drefids, and Wisps, carved from volcanic rock, and slammed them down one at a time—each with a sharp thok!—in the sector he had just outlined. Then, his elbows on the table, he dropped his head into his hands and went completely still.
“Ferral,” said the Spider King without looking up, “where is your commander?”
The sudden voice so startled Ferral that he dropped the end of his sack. He bowed low to reach for it and said, “He is dead, my sovereign.”
“Dead,” he repeated, still not looking up. “Mm . . . hum. That . . . is unfortunate.” The Spider King’s voice was not as deep as some Gwar, but carried a resonant weight of its own. Even short responses sounded clever and calcul
ated. To speak with the Spider King was to feel perpetually on edge and cautious, for undoubtedly the trap was already set.
“There’s more,” said Ferral. “Mobius . . . his plans failed. He even took half of our team for reinforcements. No one came back through the portal except . . . except for the Elves.”
The Spider King stopped scanning the map. “The Lords of Berinfell . . . they have returned, then?”
“Yes,” Ferral said in a half mutter, half growl. “It was by their hand that Mobius was laid low. We chased them to the Dark Veil, cornered them, and fought. But their powers were too much.”
“Powers?” The Spider King swiped up one of the Gwar figures from the map. “Hmmm . . . they’ve reached the Age of Reckoning, then. Are you sure?”
“Certain, my king.”
“Certain. Really?” With a flick of his thick thumb, the Spider King snapped the head off of the figurine. It bounced onto the tabletop and off onto the floor. “Certain is such a profound word. How can you be so sure?”
Ferral whisked out a tarnished dagger, slit the rope tie, and then upended the sack. The charred thing that rolled out onto the stone floor had once been a Gwar, that much was clear from its broad frame. But the figure was burned beyond recognition, a blackened husk.
“One of the Seven, the firehand, he sent forth streams of flame, flame that adhered to whatever it touched and would suffer no effort to extinguish it.” Ferral growled under his breath.
“I have seen that sort of fire before,” said the Spider King. He stood up straight at last, shrugged his massive shoulders, and—with a sudden twist of his pointed chin—cracked the joints in his neck. His eerie eyes fell on Ferral. “It is a devastating weapon. Tell me, Ferral— how then did you escape?”
“I hid,” Ferral replied honestly, “in a cleft of rock beyond the reach of the flame. Someone needed to return to Vesper Crag, to bear you news.”
“Did they now?”
“But I watched from that height. And I saw many things.”
“Tell me.”
Ferral smiled inwardly. He knew his information would prove valuable. How valuable? He had no idea, but he wasn’t going to throw it out all at once, but rather let the Spider King ask for it. “One of the Seven is injured, perhaps mortally,” he said. “A girl . . . she was carried the entire time by the Berylinian lord.”
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