Servant of the King (The Fledgling Account Book 3)

by Y. K. Willemse

  His foot collided with a wall, and he gave a restrained exclamation. He hadn’t been focusing. All he wanted to do was sleep.

  But no. He had a brother to please. That was important; he would go on doing that till his dying day. His foster father Talmon would have condemned Francisco’s desires to save Siana as madness. Once, Francisco would have agreed with him. Now, however, he worked for the redemption of Siana for two reasons. The first, and biggest, was Rafen. It took a twin to know how desperately his brother wanted this country free. The second reason was that the Sianians had gotten a hold of his heart that day Talmon had massacred three hundred of them in the New Isles marketplace. Francisco would never forget it. Next to his brother, though, he felt so ineffective.

  A pinprick of light appeared at the end of the tunnel, and Francisco cringed back against the earthen wall, afraid. The Selsons might not be here anymore. More than that, Francisco was afraid Roger still was. He couldn’t stand the man.

  Inching closer, Francisco saw it was merely a torch against the wall, and he sighed in relief. The next ten minutes dragged as he remembered the old paths, occasionally pausing in terror, wondering if the shadow behind him was not his own, if the echoes of footsteps he heard were someone else’s. Eventually, he reached the underground stream.

  His heart swelled with hope. King Robert was a stone’s throw from him, contemplating the waters. He looked more haggard than before, his red hair hanging in lank strands about his face.

  Francisco crept closer, picking his way over the rocks. King Robert’s eyes flicked to him, and he started.

  “Francisco?”

  King Robert was better at telling Rafen and Francisco apart than Roger was. Francisco assumed it was because King Robert had taken Rafen for a son once, like King Talmon had done with him. King Robert knew Rafen not by height, for Francisco was taller, but by his bearing: his watchful, suspicious expressions; his fiercely determined expressions; his hardened, fighting expressions; and expressions that emanated both age and vulnerability at once.

  “It is me,” Francisco said, his voice much louder than he had intended, piping through the cavern the stream ran through.

  King Robert started climbing hurriedly over the rocks to him, a glint of desperation in his eye.

  “Rafen and Etana, where are they, my boy?”

  “Ah,” Francisco said, remembering Alexander’s message. Alexander had taken him aside in private and commanded him to tell the king what his daughter was planning. “They are… in the Woods.”

  “Where in the Woods? What are they doing?”

  “They are keeping safe,” Francisco said. Then more firmly: “I cannot tell you what they are doing. I am sorry. My brother would not like it.”

  King Robert’s face fell. “Please don’t tell me they are planning to save Siana,” he said. “It is beyond saving, Francisco. Beyond it.”

  “I know it.”

  “But they will try anyway,” King Robert said wearily, sitting down on a flat-faced rock and staring at the silvery, bounding stream. He gripped Francisco’s arm abruptly. “You must make your brother return with my daughter! They’re not safe! They will be killed. You must tell Rafen to come back. Dear Zion – Francisco, please, tell him.”

  “I have other messages,” Francisco said, ignoring this outburst. “They have found Alexander. Alexander told me to tell you his plans. He wants you to come out, Your Grace, to give the people hope and help lead the battle.”

  King Robert did not respond.

  “There is also… ah, a new threat, Your Grace.”

  The king raised his eyebrows. “A new one?” he said with mild interest. It was plain he didn’t really care anymore.

  “Sirius Jones has come to Siana,” Francisco said, settling down on a rock beside him.

  “Oh,” King Robert said. “Oh, I see, my boy.” He laughed mirthlessly, and Francisco’s heart sank.

  “He has designs on Siana too?” King Robert said.

  “Ah, yes,” Francisco said, “yes, he does. He has won Rusem and—”

  “Rusem,” King Robert said. “That was quick work.”

  “It was,” Francisco agreed. “He plans to win Parith and Quidon, and then New Isles.”

  “He plans to fight the Lashki?” King Robert asked, turning his wan face to Francisco.

  “He is more the fool,” a voice said from behind them.

  Francisco’s blood chilled in his veins. He leapt up and whirled around.

  Stooping, the Lashki filled the entrance to a tunnel behind him, five strides away. His face wore a ghastly smile as he ran slimy fingers along the copper rod’s rapier length. The gold circlet with the royal amethyst on it gleamed dully on his forehead.

  “It is over, Rafen,” he said in his low voice.

  The copper rod rose blindingly quick, and a jet of blue shot toward Francisco’s forehead. Francisco threw himself sideways, the kesmal hitting the rocky wall opposite the stream with an explosion that shook everything. A shower of rocks fell into the pool with muted splashes, and a gray, creamy dust rose. King Robert had sprung up with unexpected energy and shoved Francisco back toward the entrance from which he had come.

  “Go,” he coughed, “just go, boy!”

  “No,” Francisco began, but the copper rod was pointed at him again. He saw the Lashki would leave King Robert alone if he thought he had Rafen.

  Francisco scrambled over the rocks, cutting and bruising himself. A fan of blue spread in the air behind, and he threw himself forward into a dip in the stone, letting it pass over him. His face smashed into rock, and he tasted blood. He leapt up again and flew through the entrance through which he had come.

  The Lashki’s insane laugh rang in the chamber behind, and momentarily, Francisco wondered in terror if he had done the right thing, leaving King Robert behind.

  Then the moist drum roll of the Lashki’s running began, frighteningly fast. Francisco dashed through the black tunnel, his mouth dry. A disoriented slam before him, and he flopped to the ground, reeling. Without a light ahead, he had run into another wall. Luminous blue approached behind him, bouncing wildly as it flew nearer and nearer. The memory of being tortured at the Lashki’s hands drove him on. Scrabbling with his fingers, Francisco discovered another earthen doorway near him, and he shot through on all fours, leapt to his feet, and lunged into a run again.

  The Lashki was steps away – Francisco wasn’t going to make it. His lungs were burning.

  Now he was in a hall blazing with light, and he realized he had taken a shortcut he didn’t even know existed. The double doors leading from the Hideout were before him: two faceless panels of rock that bore huge carved phoenixes on their other sides.

  The Lashki had swerved out of the tunnel behind him, his face twisted with pain from his leg wound. He wanted revenge, and there was nowhere to go. Francisco hurtled toward the panels, thinking that if only he somehow got out, he could draw the Lashki away from the others before someone was killed.

  As he ran, he passed a chamber he hadn’t seen. Three people flew out of it. While Queen Arlene and Prince Robert flattened themselves against the wall in the second before the Lashki passed them. Elizabeth threw herself between Francisco and his hunter with a wild cry, her tangled black hair flying.

  It happened so fast Francisco wasn’t sure it was real. It looked like the Lashki ran into her, but one hand shot out to grab her neck before their bodies met. A sudden flick of his wrist resulted in an audible crack as he tossed Elizabeth against the left wall, her head lolling backward. She fell like a ragdoll.

  His back to the two panels, Francisco screamed. The Lashki raised his copper rod, preparing to smash Francisco’s skull to smithereens. The voices from the copper rod roared in Francisco’s head.

  Before the rod could descend, a beam of pale orange hit Francisco in the diaphragm, and he fell backward through the double panels that had magically opened. He glimpsed Queen Arlene’s grimly satisfied face before his back hit the ground and the retracted pa
nels blinked into place again soundlessly. The crash of kesmal and copper against stone sounded on the other side, and the Lashki gave a demented cry.

  Francisco leapt to his feet and threw himself against the twin stone phoenixes.

  “MY MOTHER! MY MOTHER!”

  He banged his forehead against the rock and felt the blood blister on his skin.

  “No!” he cried, subsiding onto the ground. “Elizabeth! Answer me!”

  An explosion sounded against the panels of stone on the opposite side. The carved phoenixes shook, and a sliver showed between them. Any minute now, and Elizabeth’s last deed would have been in vain.

  Francisco couldn’t get back in. He didn’t know the password. But he knew there was a rope ladder somewhere in the huge black cavern he now kneeled in.

  He had to find Rafen. His eyes blurry, he leapt to his feet, pelting into the darkness, hardly knowing where he was going. In the black, the only thing he saw was Elizabeth, falling over and over again, her head impossibly free. The crack of the broken neck in his mind was louder than the noise of battle beyond the stone doors.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The

  Changeling

  It was different without Francisco. He had somehow added gentle balance to their number, and Rafen always preferred to have him within sight. The last time Rafen had bid goodbye to his brother, he had nearly died by the Lashki’s hands.

  They journeyed faster now, but Rafen missed Francisco’s weight on his back. Within the hour after they had left Francisco, Rafen had felt a terrible blow to his consciousness while in wolf’s form, a kind of smothering horror. He had returned to his normal form with a jolt. The clothes that had been absorbed while he had been an animal seeped out to cover him again, the phoenix feather warming the upper button hem of his shirt. It had never really been gone. As Rafen’s abilities grew, he began realizing he had more control over his transformations than he had at first thought. His clothes, sword, and feather returned to him because he wanted them to. When he became a wolf, they melted into his body, the sword becoming a cool edge against his consciousness and the feather a burning presence near his heart. Yet now he didn’t feel much like reveling in his powers. He started traveling in his normal form more often, simply for the sake of company. As the Wolf, he was lonely. Later that same day, he had felt curiously cold and agitated. Being apart from his twin again was telling on him, and he stayed close to Etana and Sherwin.

  His boots slippery on the carpet moss beneath him, he now paused before a screen of fiddlewood leaves. The smell was becoming stronger. Rafen could recognize it anywhere: blood, grime, and urine – the scent of Naztwai. As of yet, it was too weak for the others to pick it up, though it would only be a matter of time.

  “Closer?” Sherwin said, noticing him screw up his nose.

  “Much,” Rafen said. “We might be a day away… half a day, even.”

  They had been traveling a week.

  Etana smiled faintly at him, her nervousness apparent. Sherwin seemed stoic as usual, but his right hand was at his sword hip permanently. At every sound of wildlife, mostly only the grunting possums that ventured this close to the Naztwai, they started.

  “Don’t worry, Etana,” Sherwin said, “we’ve got Raf with us.”

  Rafen thought Sherwin was a little disoriented. He was a danger magnet, not a shield.

  “So, yer were right,” Sherwin said. “About yer visions and stuff. What’re we doin’ when we get to this army?”

  “Just having a look,” Rafen said. “Checking that there aren’t many of these Naztwai. We don’t want the Lashki to be increasing his army. We want to make sure the Naztwai over there aren’t doing anything.”

  “Spyin’ then,” Sherwin said. “Figurin’ out what they’re up to, and why they’re all there.”

  “That’s it,” Rafen said. “We’ll decide what to do after that.”

  “I don’t know if I can stand…” Etana began, then stopped. She took a root out of her pouch and started chewing it.

  “What is it?” Rafen said.

  “I couldn’t stand seeing one of them,” Etana said, twiddling her food. “I don’t know if I can stand seeing a whole crowd of them. I’m sorry, Rafen,” she said, her eyes misting, “but this is affecting me: hunting for the barriers and scampering away every time someone appears with a club or sword or something. I keep seeing awful things happening in my mind too.”

  Rafen drew closer and clasped her hands in his.

  “Whatever happens,” he said softly, “I will look after you. I won’t let anything come near you.”

  Etana saw the promise in his eyes and smiled through tears.

  “What about you?” she said. “Who is going to take care of you?”

  “Um, hm, I don’t know,” Sherwin said sarcastically. “Zion perhaps? Ruddy heck, Etana, we’re goin’ to be all right.”

  Etana nodded, her eyes still on Rafen.

  Sherwin looked slightly disgusted. “Sisterly affection, I know. Holding brass bands, all regular.”

  He started off through the leaves. Rafen released Etana’s hand and rushed after him with less caution than he should have.

  “Barrier to your right!” Etana hissed urgently, and Rafen skipped lightly sideways to avoid it.

  “Sherwin,” he muttered, having caught up, “does it annoy you?”

  Sherwin grinned. “Naw, I guess not. Yer like her then?”

  “She’s a sister to me.”

  Sherwin converted a laugh into a muffled cough. “Right,” he said. “Right. Naw, Raf, I don’t mind, but yer could at least own up to it.”

  *

  In the night, Francisco stumbled through the undergrowth of hawthorn, his mind screaming and his limbs trembling. Any moment now, he was going to walk into some barrier and alert the numerous enemies in the forest. His heart thundered.

  It had been half a day ago. The images and sounds stayed in his mind: the crack, and the flinging aside of the body. She had lain crumpled, with her black curly hair over her face.

  A tiny voice of hope in Francisco told him she might still be alive, but he knew the truth.

  He hadn’t known her long, not even three months after his escape from the New Isles palace. Yet her voice and face had brought back things long forgotten: he remembered a windy night on board a ship. She had been clasping him to her side and pointing to the sky, to the horizon, naming everything in Spanish, a language he would never learn. In Vernacular, she had called him “my treasured son”.

  He had never known what to talk to her about. Now he realized he would have loved to speak to her about her past life, her parents, family, interests as a child. He wouldn’t have had to speak to her about her interests in her present, in the Hideout. Her family was her consuming passion. Having them all together at last was inconceivable joy. Francisco had been awkward because he hadn’t known how to begin. How do you begin with someone you haven’t seen for twelve years?

  She had been interested, and he felt a fist clench his heart as he remembered it. She had asked him about his education, and what he wanted to be when he was older. Strange, to ask him, Francisco, what he wanted to be! Once he had been Prince, with the Tarhian throne to look forward to. But his life of deception had been torn apart, and now…

  Pulling back the branches of brack trees as he staggered forward, he thought now he wanted to be dead. She would have wanted otherwise; she had such faith in him.

  One night when Francisco couldn’t sleep and was watching his brother slumbering on the earth floor, breathing deeply, she had said: “You must never think you are less than him, Francisco. He was chosen for leadership, for the fight, for recognition and responsibility. You, my son, have a different role, and it is equal, and just as great to me. You will stand by your brother, won’t you?”

  Francisco had met her deep, dark blue eyes. “I promise,” he had vowed.

  “You will be his advisor and his companion, his boon in trouble.”

  “No,” Fr
ancisco had said, a sharp pain in his throat. “That is Sherwin.”

  “He needs both of you,” Elizabeth had said slowly and distinctly. “Sherwin will not always listen to him, and that is when you must stand by your brother. Sherwin may have troubles of his own in the future, and then you will need to help both of them. One day, Francisco, you will have back your old life: you will be a lord, a nobleman, maybe. I know you will.” She laid a finger on his lips, because he had been about to speak.

  “These things will only be given to you if you follow the leadership of Zion,” she said. “He is strange to you and me, but He has chosen our family. Promise me you will be a prince in your brother’s kingdom. Promise me to serve Him and keep his faith until the end, when all has been won.”

  Francisco wondered at her foresight. “I promise,” he had said again. “Always.”

  What was this? Francisco’s eyes were wet again, and he wiped them with filthy knuckles, staring at the form in the clearing ahead. Could it be?

  In the clothes she had died in, Elizabeth stood before him on the grass, in a little pool of moonlight. Her eyes met his, and her lips parted slightly. She reached out for him, her fingertips outstretched.

  Francisco was suffocating. In Tarhia, he had heard of ghosts returning to their children, to give last instructions or admonishments. But if it were a ghost, was it still his mother?

  Drawing a deep, shuddering breath, he threw out a hand and closed it on the fingers. They vanished at his touch. In an instant, the surrounding air was a white whirl, and the wind screamed in his ears. Shrieking, he felt his back hit the ground.

  The night was dark again, and he struggled to sit up. His arms were pinioned to his sides. He glanced down at his body in horror, which was swathed in a cold, white, sticky substance that tightened as it dried against his clothes. His heart pounding, he remembered Etana avoiding a similar encounter earlier in the year: Bambi, gliding toward her in the shrubbery, beckoning silently.