Fire Keep

by J. Scott Savage

  “Won’t be needing this here,” the first guard said. His metal fingers clicked like a sewing machine as he grabbed Marcus’s sleeves. “What’s this?” He leaned down to look at Marcus’s right arm, then ran an icy metal finger over the scar there. “Think the king’s gonna want to see this.”

  23: Phillip and Aurora

  The man and woman who had floated Marcus into the castle wanted to take him to see the king. But the guards argued that the prisoner was theirs now, and they’d be the one’s getting the credit. Carrying him between them as if he weighed no more than a pillow, the guards took him back up the elevator to the top level of the building.

  There they waited outside elaborately carved double doors until a robotic voice granted them permission to enter. Once the doors had swung open, they carried Marcus along a red rug, which ran down the center of a room piled high with every kind of electrical equipment Marcus could imagine. Ovens, toasters, computer monitors, air conditioning units, DVD players, video game systems, and some things Marcus didn’t recognize, were stacked floor to ceiling. Thousands of displays, panels, and lights blinked in a kind of surreal mosaic.

  At the end of the rug, they stopped and knelt before a raised pedestal. They lowered Marcus until he knelt beside them.

  “Your majesty,” the guard with the metal jaw said, eyes locked on the floor. “We present the newest Spell Caster.”

  Footsteps sounded on the podium, and Marcus tried to look up, but the guard with the metal hands forced his head to stay down.

  “You may arise,” said, a pleasant-enough sounding voice.

  Considering what he’d seen so far, Marcus expected the king to look like something out of a fairytale—wearing a jeweled crown, a long fur-lined robe, and lots of rings. Except in this world, maybe his scepter would be a car antenna or a blender.

  But the man who entered and sat on the throne looked like an older and slightly less heavily armed soldier. His disheveled hair was gray on the sides, and his neatly trimmed beard and mustache had traces of salt and pepper in them. He wore a black leather jacket and boots, with no trace of a crown, scepter, or any other symbol of royalty.

  The king sat on the throne, crossed his legs, and waved a hand. “You may rise.”

  The guard on Marcus’s right pulled him to his feet, and Marcus had to wrap an arm around the man’s waist to keep from falling.

  “What’s wrong with your leg?” the king asked, staring down at him.

  “It’s been this way since I was a baby,” Marcus said. “I was attacked by . . . by some bad guys.” Until he had a clearer idea of what was going on, it might be better not to give too much information.

  “Bad guys.” The king raised an eyebrow. “I’ve been informed you bear the mark of some rather bad guys on your right arm. I want to know who you are and how you got the mark.”

  Marcus folded his arms across his chest. “I’ll answer your questions if you answer mine.”

  The guard on the right clamped his steel hand on the back of Marcus’s neck, and the guard on his left raised a fist, but the king laughed. “You have more spirit than the typical Caster. Perhaps you don’t understand your current situation.”

  Marcus knew he was taking a big risk. But unless he could figure out what was going on and find a way to escape, he had no chance of saving Kyja. “I understand that you want to hook me up to a machine that will turn me into some kind of living battery.”

  King Phillip’s leather jacket crackled as he folded his arms. “The realm of shadows is a harsh place. We all do our part. However, being hooked to a harness should be the least of your worries at the moment. The penalty for consorting with the Dark Circle is death. The penalty for being a member of the Dark Circle is a very slow—and very painful—death.”

  “I’m not part of the Dark Circle,” Marcus said. “I’m fighting against them.”

  The king leaned forward, hands on his knees. “How?”

  Marcus licked his cracked lips. He couldn’t back down now, or he’d lose any leverage he might have gained. “Like I said, I’ll answer your questions if you answer mine. I want to sit down. My leg hurts.”

  “What if I choose not to grant your requests?” King Phillip asked. “I can order the guards to torture you until you’re ready to answer.”

  “You can torture me. You can kill me. But that would mean losing the strongest battery you’ve ever seen, and you still wouldn’t get what you’re looking for. Or, you can answer my questions, which won’t cost you a thing, and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

  The king snapped his fingers. “Get the Caster a chair.”

  The guard with the metal jaw hurried out of the room and came back with a wooden chair which Marcus gratefully dropped into.

  The king leaned back in his throne, eyes fixed on Marcus. “Lie to me, and you’ll regret it. Now, how many of you came across from Farworld?”

  Marcus didn’t know if the soldiers had managed to track Riph Raph. If not, he didn’t want to say anything that might help them. “Only me.”

  A metal fist slammed into his side, and pain burst across Marcus’s ribs and back. The king waved a hand, and a soldier carried Riph Raph into the room. The skyte’s right wing was bloody, and he was wrapped, head to talons, in conductor wire.

  “Riph Raph,” Marcus cried. “Are you okay?”

  Riph Raph winked a swollen left eye. “You should see what the soldiers who caught me look like.”

  “Lie to me again, and I’ll have you killed without further discussion,” the king said.

  Marcus pressed his arm to his side. Every breath brought pain. “I thought you meant people. I was the only person who came through. Riph Raph came through as a bird, but I changed him back.”

  The king nodded, as though satisfied with that answer. “Where did you enter, and why?”

  Marcus had no idea how much they knew, and he now believed that the king would have him killed if he lied again—even if it meant losing a powerful battery.

  “I was pushed through a portal in the cavern of the Unmakers by three elementals at the command of the Master—the leader of the Dark Circle.”

  At the mention of the Master, King Phillip’s face visibly darkened. “What do you know about the Master?”

  “My turn to ask a question,” Marcus said. “How do you have so much Earth stuff here? Microwaves, computers, video games.”

  The king blinked. “How would a Caster know about microwaves?”

  Marcus rolled his eyes. “I’ve heated up plenty of frozen dinners in them. Now answer my question. Please, your majesty.”

  The king was obviously confused, which delighted Marcus. Maybe the man didn’t know as much as he thought he did. As he studied Marcus more carefully, his eyes narrowed. “You know of Earth?” he said, holding up one hand.

  Marcus nodded.

  “And you know of Farworld.” The king held up his other hand. He moved them together until the thumbs overlapped. “The realm of shadows is the place where the two worlds touch. Think of this place as an island between two oceans. Things . . . wash up on our shores. Some from one world, some from the other.”

  That sounded a little hard to believe. “You’re saying that one day, a 7-Eleven appeared here out of nowhere?”

  “Sounds like a big fat lie to me,” Riph Raph said, and Marcus put a finger to his lips.

  The king lowered his hands. Marcus was almost sure he was holding something back. “We may have ways of encouraging things to come here. Now tell me how you know Earth.”

  Marcus wondered how much he should reveal. Eventually, he went ahead and told it all. How he’d been found in the desert by monks, raised by various fosters families, and pulled over by Kyja. He told of his past with Master Therapass. The more he talked, the more interested the king became, until at last, the man was leaning forward on the edge of his throne.

  When Marcus finished the story, the king shook his head. “Fascinating. This Therapass, the wizard who sent you to Earth—h
e wasn’t, by any chance, related to the leader of the Dark Circle?”

  The question caught Marcus off guard. “The Master claimed that he and Master Therapass were brothers. How could you know that?”

  “Yes.” King Phillip waved to the two guards and to the soldier who’d carried in Riph Raph. “Wait outside until I call you.” The guards reached for Marcus, but the king shook his head. “Leave the boy and the skyte.”

  “Are you sure?” the soldier asked. “The flying lizard can’t be trusted. He bit an ear off one of my men.”

  “I’m not a lizard,” Riph Raph said, struggling against the silver wire. “And I would have bit the other ear off too if the first hadn’t tasted so nasty.”

  “I’ll watch my ears,” the king said.

  As the men left the room, he studied Marcus. When they were alone, he folded his hands and rested his chin on his fists. “Did Therapass say anything about the rest of the people in the city that was attacked when you were a baby?”

  Marcus lowered his eyes. “Only that they were all killed.”

  The king blew out a long, slow breath. “Your parents?”

  “Killed.” Marcus rubbed his right shoulder. “By the Dark Circle. Because I’m the one who is supposed to save Farworld.”

  King Phillip leaned back again. He ran his fingers through his graying hair and crossed his legs. “What if I told you that you are not why the city was destroyed? What if I told you the reason you were attacked, why everyone around you was killed—was because of me?”

  Marcus slid forward on his chair. “I don’t understand. What could any of this have to do with you?”

  “It has everything to do with me,” the king said. “Because unless I am mistaken, you are my son.”

  “Don’t believe him,” Riph Raph said. “He doesn’t look anything like you.”

  Except that Marcus thought that he and the king did look a little alike. The resemblance wasn’t something you’d notice right off, but once you were looking for it, you saw small things. Like the way their ears stuck a little too far, the way their hair looked like it needed to be cut and combed, the way they both sighed when they were thinking.

  “Is it true? Are you my father?”

  King Phillip drummed his fingers on the gilded arm of his throne. “You told me a story. Now I’ll tell you one. I haven’t always lived in the realm of shadows. I was born on Earth. But I never really felt like I fit in. I preferred reading to the company of other children. My father called me a daydreamer and said I’d end up living on the streets if I didn’t learn how to work.”

  Marcus nodded. Many of his foster parents had said the same things to him.

  “When I was not much older than you are now, I left home. I don’t know exactly what I was looking for—something different, I guess. A place where everything didn’t already feel claimed, used, and worked to death. Whatever I was looking for, I didn’t find it. Soon enough, my father’s predictions came true. I was living on the street, begging, stealing, doing whatever I could to satisfy appetites that continued to grow more and more base. I probably would have died there if I hadn’t met a man with baggy clothes and a long, dirty beard.”

  “A wizard,” Marcus said. “You met a wizard. Was it Master Therapass?”

  The king chuckled. “No. He wasn’t a wizard, at least not in the traditional sense. Just another homeless man I’d come across in a bus station. But he must have seen something in me, because one rainy night, after I shared my dinner with him, he said that he could tell I was a dreamer. He said that if my dreams were still alive, he knew a place they might come true.

  “He sent me to an abandoned house, which didn’t look any different than the hundreds of other places I’d holed up in. Only it was different. I knew it was different the moment I walked through the rusty screen door. There was a feeling.” He closed his eyes and rubbed his chin with one hand. “The floors were warped. The linoleum looked like someone had gone after it with an axe. The whole place smelled like cat urine. But as I stepped inside, I felt hope, a return of purpose, a sense of adventure. I remember thinking that it felt like . . . magic.”

  “It was a passageway,” Marcus said. “A door between Earth and here.” Ever since he’d realized there was a portal between Farworld and the realm of shadows, he’d wondered if there might be more of them. And if there were doorways to here from Farworld, why not from Earth?

  “It was,” the king said. “I found myself drawn toward a closet with a nest of rats in the corner. One minute I was walking across rotted boards. The next minute I was stepping into . . . a new world.”

  Marcus looked around at the appliance filled-room. “And this was all here?”

  “No.” King Phillip laughed. “The realm was nothing like the magical world I’d pictured. Most of it was gray and empty. There were monsters I’d never imagined, plants that made me so sick I thought I’d die, and odds and ends I recognized as coming from Earth. Other things I didn’t recognize at all. It was cold and depressing and dangerous.”

  “If it was so bad, why did you stay?” Marcus asked.

  “I probably wouldn’t have. After weeks of nearly dying from one thing after another, I figured that the old man had sent me here as a joke, or maybe a punishment. I was ready to return through the portal and tell my father that he’d been right. But then I met the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.”

  24: The Last Piece

  Turnip knelt on the floor and gathered the shards of the globe. She hoped that by touching what was left, she might regain some fragments of her memories. But whatever had been in the retinentia, it was gone now. She’d never know who she was or where she’d come from. Letting the pieces fall to the ground with a tinkle like fairy wings, she stood up and looked from the black door to the golden light.

  Go back, or go forward? There were good reasons for choosing both of them, and maybe if she’d been able to regain her memories, the decision would have been clear. But now, with nothing pushing her one way or the other, she felt as if she had to continue on. Who knew—if she opened the gate, maybe freeing the fire elementals would somehow help her figure out who she was along the way.

  She looked around the room, wondering again who the boy was and what he’d wanted. Would he come back, or had contact been a one-time thing? Like her memories, that might be something she’d never know.

  Steeling herself against whatever would come next, she reached out with both hands and pushed the door.

  Nothing happened.

  She pushed harder. It didn’t budge. She searched for a knob or button—some kind of hidden lock. But other than the flaming symbol, the door was completely blank, no edges to grab or cracks to pry into.

  She banged on the door. “Hello? Is anyone there? Let me in.” But if anyone heard, they didn’t respond. She tried pressing the symbol, running her fingers over it forward and backward. None of it made a bit of difference. She picked up a sliver of the broken retinentia and tried scratching the door’s gleaming black surface It didn’t leave so much as a mark.

  Defeated, she collapsed to the ground. The fire elementals were right. Without magic, she couldn’t open the gate. Her efforts had been for nothing.

  “My mother?” Marcus asked.

  The king nodded. “Neither of us was much more than a child at the time, but our stories were very similar. I was born on Earth and went in search of magic. She was born into a world filled with magic and went in search of . . . I’m not sure exactly—predictability? Reliability? A place where people actually worked for what they wanted instead of casting a spell? We each found a portal, and apparently we each found what we were looking for in the other.”

  “Did she come back to Earth with you?” Marcus asked, remembering the first time Kyja had jumped from Farworld. He wondered if his mother had been as excited by chocolate milkshakes as Kyja had.

  “She couldn’t come to Earth. And I couldn’t go to Farworld. As it turned out, while we could both pass through the portals betwe
en our worlds and the realm of shadows, neither of us could go through the portals to the other’s world. Once we realized that the only way to be together was by staying here, we decided to make the best of it. She told me all about her world, and I told her about mine. Obviously, I was thrilled when I discovered that magic was real, and she was equally fascinated by technology. She got such a kick out of anything electrical.

  “Once day, I told her the story of Sleeping Beauty. She loved the idea of love’s first kiss so much that we changed our names to Phillip and Aurora, after the prince and princess in the movie. We decided to create our own kingdom by combining magic and technology.”

  “It sounds great,” Marcus said. “What went wrong?”

  The king clenched his jaws so tightly that Marcus could hear his teeth grinding. “We met a couple of wizards with a plan.”

  With nowhere else to go, Turnip walked back into the light. She hoped that once she returned to Fire Keep, Magma, Prudentes, and the other fire elementals could come up with a way to get through the door. But the truth was, now that she’d seen what was inside the vortex for herself, she was afraid there was no way out. Maybe that was for the best. The fire elementals did have fierce tempers, and perhaps they were locked up for a reason.

  Moving deeper into the brightness, she thought about the boy again. Had he seen her as clearly as she’d seen him? He seemed to recognize her, to reach out to her. Could that mean he knew her? And that, therefore, she’d known him? She pictured his face as hard as she could, and for a second, she saw a flash of something.

  The word turnip came into her mind. The name she’d chosen for herself. But nothing else.

  The boy might not have been real. He could have been a random bit of memory brought to life by the leaking globe. She’d been walking for quite a while when she realized that the light was growing dimmer. Hurrying forward, she looked for the passage back to the vortex. But when she stepped out of the blinding brightness, she was at the door again.