The snow was deep, making the going hard. At first, the drifts came up to their knees; as they descended, the snow thinned and became patchy, revealing a narrow, rocky path.
“Take care,” said Leom as they rounded a large boulder. “There are fissures.”
“Fishes?” Tarlan had never heard the word before.
“You’ll see.” The burly man’s breath seemed to glow as it condensed in the air. Glancing east, Tarlan saw the sky blushing with the pale pink of dawn. Above them, the clouds were thinning. Light was coming. It was going to be a beautiful day.
As soon as they’d passed the boulder, Tarlan understood what fissures were. Ahead lay a sloping field of ice-covered rock, broken in a hundred or more places by wide, wandering cracks. The nearest of these fissures was only a few paces away; Tarlan stepped cautiously up to the edge and peered into its depths. He saw nothing but blackness.
“As I said,” remarked Leom, “care is required.”
As the sky lightened around them, they made their way down the slope, leaping across each of the cracks in turn. Tarlan was amazed by Leom’s agility.
“Did you spend a lot of time in Yalasti?” Tarlan gasped, pausing for breath at the lip of an especially wide fissure.
“It was my home once,” Leom replied. “Ice and snow are my friends.”
Tarlan nodded. Despite his pledge to abandon humans and seek the wilderness, he couldn’t help liking this gruff man.
“Mine too.”
Tarlan leaped the chasm, only to find his way blocked by Leom’s hulking fur-clad form.
“What’s the matter? Why have you stopped?”
“See here.” Leom crouched and tapped the ice. “What do you make of this?”
Tarlan peered uncertainly. “I don’t see anything . . . Oh, is that a footprint?”
Leom’s wrinkled fingers traced the outline of a boot. “Kalldrags have passed, and recently.”
“Kalldrags?”
“Wandering hunters. Like the Helkrags of Yalasti, only twice as savage.”
The sun’s disc peeped over the horizon and struck them with its rays. Long shadows fled from their feet across the field of fissures. Tarlan looked anxiously around, suddenly aware of how exposed they were.
“We must find another route,” said Leom. “This way—quickly!”
Trotting nimbly across the ice, he led Tarlan into a jumble of boulders that had fallen from a nearby slope. Protected by the shadows of the gigantic stones, Tarlan began to feel safe again.
“I’d never have seen that footprint,” he remarked as he followed Leom through the rocky maze.
“I learned to track in Yalasti, but it was in the city realm that I trained to become an Eye of Idilliam.”
“Eye of Idilliam? What’s that?”
“An agent of the king. It was our task to travel the kingdom and keep the peace—and impose the law. It was an important job, and I was proud to do it, until . . .” Leom puffed out another cloud of white vapor.
“Until what?”
“Until King Brutan ordered us to start killing babies.”
Tarlan felt sick. “The prophecy.”
Leom nodded. “Brutan knew what had been foreseen—that three would come to kill him and take the throne. When the prophecy stars appeared in the sky, he feared the arrival of these triplets. So he ordered the death of all newborns in the land.”
“Couldn’t you have refused?”
“Brutan gave us two choices: either wipe out the triplets, or be executed ourselves.”
“What did you do?” Tarlan wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer.
“I found a third option.”
“Which was?”
“Disobey the king and go into exile forever.”
By now, they’d completed their journey through the maze. Below them, a vast white plain sparkled in the low dawn light. Black spires of rock jutted from deep drifts of snow. Tarlan’s heart clenched as he recognized the place where he’d seen the thorrods. Then it sank as he realized he was about to say good-bye to the man who had twice saved his life, and who in another time and place might have become his friend.
Perhaps even something close to a father.
“Brutan’s plan worked, in a way,” Tarlan said glumly. “The triplets are no more.”
“What do you mean?”
“Gulph is dead. Elodie’s turned traitor. And I’m—”
“What? What did you say?” Leom grabbed Tarlan’s shoulders urgently.
“Gulph is—”
“Tarlan, I am sorry about your brother. That is awful news—awful for us all. But what did you say about Elodie?”
“She’s gone over to the enemy. She joined the Vicerins and—”
“No!” The sun caught Leom’s eyes, making them blaze. “I saw Elodie. I was with her. She freed the children who were prisoners in Lord Vicerin’s dungeon. She put them in my care, and I brought them here. She’s no traitor! She allowed herself to be caught to save her friend—was his name Fossa?”
“Fessan.” Tarlan reeled. There was a roaring in his ears. His stomach was trying to fold itself in half.
Not a traitor!
“Fessan—yes, that was it. Your sister is very brave, Tarlan. She took terrible risks. I fear she may now be Vicerin’s prisoner herself.”
Tarlan barely heard what Leom was saying. His thoughts were a storm. He saw the world around him in sudden, blinding clarity: the coarse black of the boulders, the dazzling white of the snowfield, and the crisp pink of the dawn sky.
All this time I’ve been thinking she betrayed Trident, handed them over to Vicerin. All this time I’ve been wrong!
“Theeta knew,” Tarlan murmured.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing. I’ve made a terrible mistake.” He gazed at the rocky spires reaching up out of the snow. “And it’s time to start putting it right.”
The thorrods are here. They’ll take me back. Back to Elodie. Back to the fight!
He ran out across the snow toward the nearest spire. He didn’t care about fissures. He didn’t care about Kalldrags. He just wanted to make up for his mistakes, rejoin his pack, fly again . . .
“Theeta!” he shouted. “Theeta, I’m coming!”
Halfway across the snowfield he stopped. The rocky spire lay directly ahead, its glossy surface gleaming in the sunlight. Perched at its tip were the two birdlike shapes he’d seen the previous day.
Except they weren’t birds.
“What?” Tarlan sank to his knees in the snow. “I don’t understand.”
The things on the spire looked like snakes with wings, sculpted from green crystal. Their eyes were huge red orbs flecked with gold. They weren’t creatures at all.
They were statues.
The disappointment was overwhelming. Yet, even as he stifled a cry, Tarlan’s hand crept to the empty place at his throat.
Green, like my jewel.
“I said you would be surprised,” said Leom, catching up with him. “They are wyverns.”
“Wyverns?”
“Only two remain, alas. Once there were three. But that was long ago, in the days of Gryndor.”
Tarlan’s dismay was turning slowly to fascination. He could hear something—it sounded like a distant drumbeat, very slow, very deep. A war drum, marking out the rhythm of some long-gone battle.
Not one drum. Two.
“I can hear their hearts,” he said suddenly.
Just for a moment, he imagined himself not out in the snow but inside the crystal skins of these strange, sculpted wyverns. Their heartbeats were loud, like thunder.
Inside a serpent. Seeking its heart. Why does that make me think of Gulph?
He shook the thought away.
“Some say they are dead,” said Leom. He was studying Tarlan closely. “Others believe they are only sleeping.”
As if in a dream, Tarlan stepped forward through the snow. The sun struck the green crystal coils of the two wyverns, piercing their glassy bodies a
nd fracturing into ten thousand glowing shards of light. Tarlan clenched his fists, the ragged nails biting deep into the beds of his palms.
You chose a cold place to sleep. Let’s try warming things up.
Again he tried to place himself inside the wyverns, this time seeking not their hearts but their minds. But their crystalline forms seemed to repel him. He kicked the snow in frustration. The night wind had sculpted its surface into a sea of rolling waves.
Like sand dunes.
Tarlan closed his eyes. He felt the meager warmth of the dawn on the back of his neck.
Then in a rush the feelings flooded through him, so strange, yet so familiar. His palms tingled as his fists filled up with sand. The sand burned, jetting hot pain up his arms. His whole body was on fire. He opened his eyes and the fire leaped out of him and struck the black spire of rock, a gush of invisible heat that wrapped itself once, twice, three times around the wyverns, then poured into them, filling them, melting them. Tarlan swayed as the fire sucked all the energy from his body. His vision dimmed; his legs began to shake.
I can’t keep this up!
He staggered, nearly fell, and then gathered his resolve. His magic allowed him to speak to animals, but it did more than that—it gave him the power of command.
This is like trying to command a pair of rocks.
“Tarlan!” exclaimed Captain Leom. “What is happening to you?”
Peering down through half-closed eyelids, Tarlan saw twin trails of golden sand gushing from between his fingers. The sand began to pile up on either side of him. Where it touched the snow, the snow hissed and gave off clouds of steam.
Command them!
Tarlan threw back his head and yelled, “FLY!”
The instant this single word left his mouth, the fire fled from his body. His fingers jerked apart, clutching at empty air. He gasped for breath.
“What . . . ?” Leom began.
From the top of the spire came a tremendous cracking sound, followed immediately by another. To Tarlan it sounded like a pair of lightning strikes. The wings of the wyverns ripped apart, spraying sunlight. Their claws detached from the spire; their bodies uncoiled.
They opened their jaws and shrieked.
Their red-gold eyes fixed on Tarlan. Beating their green crystal wings with slow, deliberate menace, the wyverns flew down toward him.
Tarlan spread his arms. “Come to me!” he cried.
“They are doing that already,” observed Leom.
Tarlan ignored him. “Come to me! Speak with me!”
One of the wyverns had a notch in its left wing. It swooped in low, doubling its speed in the blink of an eye. Snow exploded in its wake. Its blazing eyes grew large with incredible speed. Its jaws gaped, revealing shiny ruby teeth.
Tarlan stood his ground.
I hear your hearts! I hear your minds! Come to me! Obey my command!
The wyverns’ thoughts were cold and distant, hard and ancient:
We have slept. Now we wake. You are here, but you are not yet ready.
Tarlan threw up his hands, palms flat to the sky.
“STOP!”
The leading wyvern punched the air with its wings, coming to an almost instantaneous halt directly in front of Tarlan and Leom. It slammed down into the white ground, red claws plunging deep. A barrage of snow cascaded over Tarlan’s feet. A moment later the second wyvern landed beside it.
Tarlan stared at the wyverns. They stared back, twin crystal serpents, each twice the size of a thorrod, their bodies crackling with ice and blazing with sunlight.
“You have come,” said the wyvern with the notch in its wing.
Leom clapped his hands to his ears. Tarlan wondered what he was hearing.
“We have been waiting,” said the second.
“Waiting for the longest time.”
“Now our wait is over.”
“But yours must begin.”
Tarlan blinked. Their voices were deep, rich and hypnotic. “Begin? What do you mean?”
“Now it is your turn to wait. The time is almost upon you. But you are not yet ready.”
“Ready? Ready for what?”
The two wyverns spread their wings and took off once more. Snow cascading from their claws, they circled once, then struck out toward the mountain. Soon they’d vanished behind a crag of ice-covered rock.
Tarlan gazed dismally at the empty sky. He felt cold, drained of energy.
“It didn’t work,” he said. “I’ve failed.”
Leom’s gray eyebrows went up. “Failed? Do you call that failure? My boy, you have woken two beasts that have lain dormant for hundreds of years. Perhaps a thousand. You have set them free.” He grinned through his beard. “Something tells me your fate is bound up with theirs.”
Leom’s words were warming. Tarlan kicked the snow from his boots and stretched the kinks from his spine. The morning sun bathed his face.
“What do I do now?” he said.
“Only you know the answer to that question.” Leom’s grin widened. “And I believe you do know. Am I right?”
• • •
The Fortress of the Flown was in pandemonium. Most of its population had gathered in the central chamber, where many were anxiously scanning the morning sky, bright above the open roof. Following Leom toward the middle of the arena, Tarlan overheard fragments from countless anxious conversations:
“. . . flying beasts—what were they?”
“. . . if the Kalldrags have found us . . .”
“. . . it’s a bad omen, I tell you . . .”
Many hands clutched at Leom. One young woman dropped to her knees in front of him.
“What’s to become of us?” she pleaded, wringing her hands. “Where in all Toronia can we be safe?”
Leom whispered to Tarlan, “They need someone to reassure them.”
“Well, aren’t you their leader?”
Leom’s eyes bored into his. “I was once.”
“Well, if you’re not anymore, then who . . . ?” Tarlan broke off as he realized what Leom meant.
“Tarlan, I think the time has come to tell them who you really are.”
Tarlan gazed up at the sky. The clouds had departed, and the pink of the dawn was melting into clear blue. Directly overhead, the prophecy stars shone, bright despite the day.
Tarlan gaped.
Three. Three stars. One red, one green, one gold.
All as bright as one another!
His eyes fixed on the gold star. Gulph’s star.
Is he alive? Is Gulph really alive?
Filled with hope, he returned his attention to Captain Leom.
“I think you’re right!” he said.
He sprang onto a high platform of rock in the middle of the chamber. The faces looking up at him were fearful but also curious. He remembered that none of them knew who he was.
“My name is Tarlan. And I . . .” He faltered, began again. “The flying creatures you saw just now were wyverns. They’ve been asleep for a long time. Now they’re awake . . . .” He paused. “I’m the one who woke them up.”
Far back in the crowd, a man laughed. Tarlan felt a flush of annoyance.
A woman called out: “How could you do such a thing?”
Tarlan thought for a moment.
“When I was born, it was thirteen years ago,” he explained. “My father was King Brutan. Gulph and Elodie and me—they’re my brother and sister . . .” The words seemed to tangle in his mouth; would he ever be any good at talking to people like this? “We were born beneath the light of the prophecy stars.” He swallowed. “I am one of three.”
The man at the back laughed again, but many in the crowd gasped. Tarlan wished he could read their expressions better—were they hopeful or suspicious? It was so hard to tell with humans.
“A son of the stars,” said the woman. “Can you set us free?”
“That’s why I’m here,” he said. The words were coming more easily now. “Prophecies are one thing. Sometimes even I
don’t believe in them. But you all want to go home, live peaceful lives. I think I can help you. But it will be hard. If you want your freedom, you’ll have to fight for it. Are you ready for that?”
A small chorus of “ayes” echoed across the chamber. Several people cheered. But just as many remained silent. Tarlan was frustrated but not surprised. He was just a scruffy boy blown in on the wind. Why should they believe anything he said?
As if reading Tarlan’s thoughts, Leom stepped up onto the rock beside him.
“You all know me,” he said. “I guided many of you to the Fortress of the Flown. Will you hear me now?”
Another chorus of “ayes,” this one much louder.
“Tarlan is who he says he is. I know this because when he was a babe, the wizard Melchior entrusted him to my care. I was the one who carried him to safety. Now he is grown, or nearly so. Hear him. Believe him.” Leom paused, then concluded, “Follow him.”
Something like a wave moved through the crowd. A certain tension seemed to leave the chamber, leaving the audience bright-eyed and expectant. Yet even now, Tarlan could see knots of people huddled in whispered conversation, clearly unwilling to pledge allegiance to a stranger.
“I told you I woke the wyverns,” he said, taking a sudden step forward. “And that’s the truth. But I can do more than that—I can command any animal, large or small.”
“Prove it!” shouted the skeptical man at the back.
Tarlan smiled. “All right!”
He raised his fists and summoned the familiar magical heat. At the same time, he sent his thoughts flying out to the small packs of dogs scattered throughout the chamber. He found their minds at once; they shone like beacons, alert, obedient, eager to please.
After the wyverns, it was child’s play.
“Come to me!” he shouted. This was purely for effect—the actual command he sent was as silent and invisible as the desert wind.
For a moment, there was no reaction. Then people were jumping aside, looking comically down at their feet, as countless bundles of fur raced in from their various dens toward the stone platform on which Tarlan stood. High-pitched yips and yowls echoed round the chamber. Then a wave of small bodies surged up onto the platform, the little dogs clambering over one another in an effort to be first to reach their new master.
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