The Thorn Queen

by Elise Holland

  Grimorex stroked his chin. “An old rumor comes to mind. You must have heard it—that when Queen Emery was a girl she was forced to drink a broth of thorns as penance for what she did to Princess Amber.”

  “Yes! That’s what we thought at first, but it doesn’t make sense. Why would Queen Emery destroy her own Queendom?”

  “Why indeed?” Grimorex murmured, lapsing into silence.

  For a moment all that could be heard was the sound of crickets chirping and Blue munching on a donut. The scent of roses permeated the air.

  “More important question—how save Great Oaken Mother?” Hope said to Grimorex. “She said need Trisdyan.”

  Grimorex sneezed and peered up at the sky that had become violet in the twilight.

  “All Glendoch needs Trisdyan,” he replied wistfully. “Alas he is nowhere to be found.”

  “Yeah we covered that already. So what can we do?” Blue asked impatiently.

  A twig cracked from beyond the orchard. Looking toward the noise, Meylyne thought she saw something move behind a tree. In a flash, Grimorex dashed to where the noise had come from.

  “Ugh! A snake!” he said.

  Walking back to the table, he scooped up Meylyne and Blue and strode back to his castle. “Let’s go inside. I can’t abide snakes and it’s getting chilly out here.”

  They entered the castle through a door that led them into an enormous kitchen in which an army of fairies prepared supper. Some chopped vegetables and spices while others rolled out a large circle of dough. A delicious assortment of scents filled the air. Grimorex threaded his way through all this activity to a spiral staircase at the back.

  “We shall eat in my study,” he announced, climbing the staircase.

  When he reached the top, he flicked a light switch and two lamps came on, revealing a room with pink and gold striped wallpaper and a fireplace in the corner. Three of the walls were lined with books, while the fourth was all glass. Meylyne walked over to it, almost tripping over a huge white tiger stretched out on the floor. It didn’t move.

  “Pay no attention to Opholo,” Grimorex said. “She’s sound asleep.”

  To his right was a black-and-gold lacquered sideboard with a decanter and a set of crystal goblets on top. Pouring three glasses, he handed one to Meylyne and one to Blue.

  “I sometimes prefer to eat supper here. Far cozier than the dining room.” He held up his glass. “Cheers!”

  Meylyne took a sip of her drink. It tasted of cinnamon and burned her throat going down. A feeling of lightness stole over her, as if she was suspended in air. She set her goblet on a bookshelf.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked, echoing Blue’s earlier question.

  Kneeling before the fireplace, Grimorex set the logs aflame and then sat down in an armchair. Meylyne, Blue, and Hope sat down on the rug that was so plush it felt like a bed.

  “Do you remember I told you that I grew up in the Palace of Lions? Well, as it happens, the lions and the eagles are old friends. I heard of an eagle that is a direct descendant from the Parliament of Thor-Schael. It is said that his feathers are suffused with extraordinary power,” Grimorex said.

  Blue grimaced as he took a swig of his drink. “What’s the Parliament of Thor-Schael?”

  “Do you know of Trisdyan?”

  Blue’s eyes began to water from the drink. “Old wizard,” he wheezed.

  Grimorex looked at Blue as if he’d just vomited on his favorite pair of trousers.

  “Trisdyan is far more than an old wizard! It was he that summoned the Original Six when the old Glendoch began to die. He that harnesses the powers of good when the powers of evil start to rise—”

  Grimorex’s voice had also started to rise. With a deep breath, he brought it back down.

  “And the Parliament of Thor-Schael are his trusted cohorts.”

  “I still have no idea what you’re talking about,” Blue replied impatiently.

  “I’m talking about using one of the eagle’s feathers to heal the Great Oaken Mother.”

  Meylyne folded her arms. “You’re kidding right? We’re going to use a feather to save Glendoch?”

  Grimorex drained his drink in one gulp. “Do you have a better plan?”

  “Yes! I’m going to go back home, fetch my mother, and she will heal the Great Oaken Mother!”

  “Doubtful. Trisdyan himself fortified the Great Oaken Mother against all foes. If someone has found a way to poison her, then we will need something of Trisdyan’s power to heal her.”

  “I’m sure my mother can do it,” Meylyne insisted.

  Grimorex regarded her. “What makes you so sure? She can’t heal Prince Piam of his rapid-aging affliction. And why not? It can’t be that difficult—not for a powerful sorceress like your mother. The little I know of alchemy tells me that if Prince Piam’s disease were of this world, your mother could cure him.”

  Meylyne threw up her arms. “Who cares about him now? Glendoch being overrun by sphers is a lot more important than some stupid prince’s disease!”

  Grimorex got up and poured himself another drink.

  “Not necessarily. What if both have the same culprit at their source?”

  Meylyne stared at Grimorex, waiting for him to say more but instead he pulled a cord on the wall. A distant clanging was heard and the white tiger woke up. Rising to her feet, she surveyed the room, and then padded out of it. Grimorex followed her to the door and said,

  “After supper, I shall show you something—something that I think may offer us a clue as to the source of both your prince’s disease and the Great Oaken Mother’s demise. But for now, we eat!”

  12

  The Secret of the Diamond Chariot

  TWO HOURS LATER, MEYLYNE AND BLUE LAY BACK IN their chairs. Grimorex’s fairies had made a huge pie for supper that was stuffed with sweet potatoes smothered in gravy and spices they had never tasted before. Dessert was another pie; this one stuffed with hot gooey apples and custard bubbling over the sides. They had devoured every last crumb and now they felt as though they might burst. When the last plate had been cleared away, Grimorex pulled on a mauve smoking jacket and lit a pipe.

  “No falling asleep young lady,” he said to Meylyne between puffs. “There is something I still need to show you!”

  Meylyne struggled to keep her eyes open. “Really?” she yawned. “It can’t wait until morning?”

  “Cover your mouth please. And no it can’t wait. We need to set off at the break of dawn, if we are to make it to the Palace of Lions by dusk.”

  That woke Meylyne up.

  “The Palace of Lions? What are you talking about?”

  “I told you before—the lions will know the whereabouts of the eagle we must find.”

  Meylyne rolled her eyes.

  “Look, this eagle can’t exist. If it did, I’d have heard of it. Everyone would want one of its feathers! I just want to go to bed now.”

  Clamping his pipe between his teeth, Grimorex picked up Meylyne and Blue, one in each hand.

  “Trust me, you won’t be tired when you see what I have to show you!” Glancing behind him, he gestured at Hope to follow them. “You too!”

  Grimorex ignored Meylyne’s protests as he made his way down the spiral staircase, through the kitchen still buzzing with fairies cleaning up, and into the garden.

  The outside was blanketed in silence. Trees and flowers glowed frostily in the moon’s silver light, and as they headed into the forest, glowing fireflies dotted the air. Within a few minutes they were back at the diamond chariot.

  As grumpy as Meylyne was, she had to admit that it looked even more magnificent than before. The moonlight set the diamonds ablaze, bathing them all in rippling patterns of silver and blue.

  Grimorex climbed inside. Depositing Meylyne and Blue on a cushion, he made his way to the front of his chariot. There was a mysterious smile on his face when he turned around.

  Meylyne scowled back at him.

  “Can we get on with this p
lease? I know we have to save Glendoch and everything but I’m tired and cold and I want to go to bed!”

  Grimorex rested his hand on what looked like a lever.

  “Don’t worry, you’ll be warm and wide awake in a minute. You had asked, earlier, how it was that I know so much about Glendoch. Well here, my dear—” Grimorex pulled down the lever. “Is the answer—”

  All of a sudden, the air in front of Meylyne and Blue began to wobble. Then it whirled around like a funnel, crackling and popping with sparks flying out. Meylyne tried to scoot back and ended up falling off the pillow.

  “Whoa!” Blue gasped. “What’s going on?”

  Grimorex trained his eyes on the air-funnel. “Old Glendoch. Second Monday, Month of the Flowers, Year of the Star.”

  As Meylyne scrambled to her feet, shapes emerged from within the whirling air and a beautiful scene came into focus—a sparkling ice-mountain, dotted with firs and a stream coursing down from the top, rainbow-colored fish jumping from its water. At the bottom, a family of ogres and two garlysles sat around a fire and to their right three stallyinxes sat in a steamy, glacial pool.

  “You see,” Grimorex announced triumphantly. “This is the chariot’s most prized trick! She can show you Glendoch’s past!”

  Meylyne, Hope, and Blue gazed, spellbound, into the whirling air funnel.

  “No way,” Meylyne breathed. “So that’s how you know so much about Glendoch!”

  “Indeed it is.”

  For a moment, no one said a word. Meylyne could not believe she was looking at the same Glendoch in which she’d grown up. She thought about the date Grimorex had said and calculated that this scene was about a thousand years old. Aside from Glendoch Mountain, it looked entirely different. Garlysles sitting side-by-side with the stallyinxes. No cities. No humans.

  “Why is the air tinged with gold?” she asked.

  “Alchemy,” Grimorex replied softly.

  Meylyne’s eyes got even wider.

  Alchemy? So much you can see it in the air?

  As Meylyne gazed in awe at the scene before her, something niggled at her. She was reminded of something but could not remember what.

  “That’s awesome!” Blue burst out. “We can ask the chariot to show us who poisoned the Great Oaken Mother, right?”

  “Unfortunately not,” Grimorex replied. “You have to ask for a specific date. It would take us years to go through all the possible days upon which that travesty occurred.”

  “Well we’ll just go back to the tree and ask it when it happened then,” Blue said.

  “That won’t work. Nature does not see time. Everything happens in the now. Do you want to see more?”

  “Wait!”

  Meylyne had remembered what it was that niggled her. Dumping her rucksack on the ground, she rummaged through it, muttering,

  “I knew something about the chariot looked familiar—look!”

  She pulled out her hand from her rucksack, holding up her mother’s crystal for everyone to see.

  “What is that?” Grimorex asked, squinting at it.

  “It’s my mother’s enchanted crystal. She uses it, or rather she used it before I stole it from her to see what was going on in Glendoch. Doesn’t it look like a piece of the chariot?”

  Grimorex held out his hand. “May I?”

  Meylyne handed him the crystal and he inspected it thoroughly, murmuring,

  “That is no crystal, my child. It is undoubtedly a diamond. And yes—definitely from the same diamond from which the chariot was hewn, if not from the chariot itself! How did your mother come by this?”

  “I’ve no idea. It’s different from the chariot though. It doesn’t show Glendoch’s past; it shows what’s going on in Glendoch right now.”

  Blue’s eyes lit up to hear this. “Really? Well let’s fire it up then! I wanna see what’s going on in Glendoch right now!”

  Meylyne bit her lip. Her mother would kill her if she found out that not only had she taken her diamond-crystal but that she had used it too.

  “It’ll be boring. It’s night time—everyone will be asleep and besides, Grimorex has something else to show us, right Grimorex?”

  “That’s all right, it can wait. Even at night time in Glendoch, there is bound to be something of interest going on.”

  Grimorex’s voice oozed curiosity. Obviously he too was dying to see what was happening in Glendoch right now. As are you, a voice whispered in her head. And you’re in so much trouble anyway. Who cares if you do something else wrong?

  She exhaled. “Okay. But only for a minute!”

  With a tingle of excitement, she moved her fingers across the diamond-crystal and whispered the password to turn it on. In a flash, the diamond lit up, filling with swirling colors.

  “Between-World, my cave,” she said.

  The colors parted to reveal the rich, reddish-orange walls of her tunnel and the door to her cave.

  “Inside,” she added.

  The colors swirled again and her living room emerged. Meylyne’s throat tightened. She never thought she could miss that ugly couch and even uglier painting so badly.

  “Mother’s bedroom,” she said chokily.

  The colors swirled again and parted. Meylyne held her breath, expecting to see her mother asleep in her bed but to her surprise the bed was empty, its covers rumpled. Her mother was not sitting at her desk either. Frowning, Meylyne went through all the rooms in her cave and found no sign of her mother anywhere.

  She must be out looking for my father. Or for me!

  “Show me those garlysle friends of yours!” Blue urged.

  At the thought of Trin and Train, Meylyne forgot all about her mother. She longed to see them too.

  “Trin and Train’s cave,” she whispered. “Their bedroom.”

  Blue edged closer to the diamond. As the colors swirled and faded away, Meylyne’s heart gave a jump. Instead of being in their nests, asleep, the twins were up and whispering by candlelight.

  “Awesome—they’re awake!” Blue murmured. “Can you turn up the volume? I want to hear what they’re saying!”

  “Forte,” Meylyne muttered.

  The twins’ whispering was suddenly amplified. Train, sitting on the right, was in mid-sentence.

  “. . . can’t believe they took her to the Shadow Cellars,” she said. Her voice sounded tinny and small.

  “I know—I overheard Father say that Groq won’t stand for it,” Trin replied. “She is his family after all.”

  Meylyne’s stomach tightened. They were talking about her mother.

  “Won’t stand for it? What do you mean—you think he’ll go to war?” Train asked.

  “How would the Above-Worldians find time to fight us? They’re too busy fighting each other! You know the Welkans were rioting at the castle gates yesterday,” Trin replied.

  The twins jumped as another voice boomed from outside.

  “Trin, Train, are you still up?”

  At the sound of their father’s voice, the twins snuffed out the candle and crawled into their nests. The diamond became quiet and dark aside from a glow around the outside. With shaking fingers, Meylyne waved her hand over it and the glow subsided.

  “My mother is in the Shadow Cellars,” she murmured.

  For a moment, no one said a word. Hope and Grimorex looked as shocked as Meylyne while Blue’s eyes darted from Hope to Grimorex to Meylyne in the hope that someone would tell him what that meant.

  Meylyne felt numb inside.

  It’s because of you, a voice whispered in her head. As if reading her mind, Hope nuzzled her shoulder with his nose and said, “Not your fault.”

  “Absolutely,” Grimorex agreed in a low voice. “This sounds like sphers’ work to me. More must have escaped than we thought. They’re turning everyone against each other.”

  From the middle of the lake, a marsh bird wheeled out from the water, shimmering drops falling from it as it flapped overhead. Meylyne watched it fly away with unseeing eyes. One thing was
certain now.

  Mother can’t help us fix this.

  “Okay,” she said at last. “Tell me more about this eagle.”

  13

  The Palace of Lions

  MEYLYNE WOKE UP EARLY THE NEXT MORNING WITH A pounding headache. She had spent a restless night, dreaming of shifting sands that crumbled beneath her and a door in the distance that she needed to reach but the sands kept moving it further away.

  Pulling aside the curtain, she peered outside. It was still dark except from a layer of gold blanketing the ground in the distance. The sun would soon be up. Slipping her feet out from under the blankets, she slid out of bed and padded down the hall, down the stairs and into the kitchen. Grimorex was already up, chatting with some fairies while a pot bubbled on the stove. He stopped talking when he saw her.

  “Good morning,” he said. “Did you manage to sleep?”

  Forcing herself to smile, Meylyne nodded.

  Grimorex eyed her. “You look dreadful. Here,” he dragged over a low, heavy armchair in front of the fireplace. “You sit here and I shall bring you a cup of chocolate.”

  Meylyne climbed into the enormous armchair and held out her hands in front of the fire, crackling in the fireplace. After learning that Glendoch was on the brink of civil war, they had come back to the castle. Whatever else Grimorex was going to show them could wait—he said they had to be up early if they were to get to the Palace of Lions by dusk. He was quite sure that the lions would know where to find the eagle, no matter how well hidden he was.

  Footsteps approaching shook Meylyne from her thoughts. She looked up as Blue walked into the room. His hair stood on end and he had dark shadows under his eyes. Clearly he had not slept well either.

  “Morning,” he said, attempting to be cheerful. Two fairies brought him a donut and he sat before the fire, munching on it.

  Meylyne felt a pang of pity for him. With her mother imprisoned, there was no one that could restore his memory or his size. He was probably as scared as she was.

  “Good morning,” Meylyne replied. “When are we setting off?”

  “Just as soon as I get dressed,” Grimorex said. “Which I shall do right now, if you’ll excuse me.” He laid two plates piled high with donuts and fruit on the floor next to Blue. Please help yourselves.”