* * *
More clammy and shady and shadowy than ever, pressing ever more deeply into one’s mind with all-consuming desolation, Karaka enshrouded the queen and the demi-god like a moldering grave. Here, Power triumphed over his newly-gained prisoners, gloating and planning, and Garrity lay broken and bloody on the floor.
Adlena stood, untouched, beside him, tall, brave, and terrified, and at her breast, she clutched baby Lillian. She gazed deep into the being of Power, but she did not shudder. She looked into the very depths of wickedness, saw the decrepit nature of his being, and yet she refused to despair. For she was a queen, a dryad, a human, and a believer; she believed that goodness would triumph, that Trinian would find a way to defeat the pure evil of the god, and she believed in Fate.
Suddenly, Garrity awoke, his eyes crusted over so that he lifted his lids with difficulty. He looked without seeing, and Adlena bent down to touch his arm soothingly. He moved his head groggily and moaned.
“It’s me, Garrity. It’s Adlee.”
“No!” he muttered, clutching his stomach which was one great bruise.
She shushed him, soothingly running her white hand over his back. Lillian made a quiet baby sound, and Garrity opened his bloodshot eyes wide in horror. “No, no,” he repeated desperately, and despair rushed over him like a tidal wave, and he could not move.
* * *
“Are you too, then,” Power was watching them, and he tilted his head at her, grinning wickedly, “a daughter of a god?”
“My mother was a Dryad. I am no demi-god, only the daughter of a spirit of a wood. But most of all, I am the queen of Drian and you will suffer for bringing me here.”
He raised his head and laughed, a deep, rising laughter that shook the black and miry chamber, and brought her near to tears. But it went on too long, just a bit too long, for Power was utterly, completely, and powerfully mad. “Your husband, you mean? Yes! He will come to save you, spirit of the wood. He will most surely come,” he leaned forward – but did not like to touch the baby, and paused an inch from the queen’s face. “You can count on that.”
* * *
Trinian’s mind whirled, drowning out the voices that surrounded him – “Only one, only one, only one. There’s only one to fall so he’ll be killed/ One you love, in land of cruel end of day.” From where he stood, rooted to the ground, far from his wife and far from Power, he suddenly cried out, “We will go now! Why do we wander around Minecerva and wait for him to attack? Why do we defend rather than advance? I can kill him – Fate has foretold it, and I must go. ‘There’s only one to conquer him you fear,/ And only one to hold his might at bay.’”
“How?” breathed Lavendier faintly, trembling in pain of body and soul.
“Through Drakans. Yes!” he cried in defiance of their shocked faces. “If he has control over the underworld, then so do I; for he may have power of life and death over mortals, but I have power of life and death over him. We saw where the army came out; we will go back the same way, and with steeds the speed of the wind, unencumbered by an army, we will arrive before he knows to expect us.”
108
Fear of Prophecies
Lavendier slipped out of the Healory in the night, knowing that Trinian planned to leave with Afias in the morning, and stumbled haltingly to the royal stables. There she told all to Melcant, who wept with her and nuzzled her, and spoke soft, comforting words that soothed her sad, weary soul. When she asked him to carry her brothers on their journey, his only reluctance was in parting with her. “Of course I will carry them. It will be my honor. But yet my heart fills with foreboding, for I expect this is the last time I will see you.”
“Say no such thing. I cannot bear another death.”
“I do not say death, for I doubt that I will ever die. But I think I will only stay a little while longer before I rejoin my master, wherever he has gone.”
“I am so selfish – I do not want you to go.”
He pushed his velvety muzzle gently against her chest, and she wrapped her arms around his head and held on tight. They stood thus a long time. Finally, when she released him, he said to her, “I have never met anyone so selfless and brave, my dear, dear own princess.”
Lavendier returned to the Healory and sent one of the young healers to bring Trinian to her, and Trinian came in the opening hours of the morning, before the sun rose above the horizon.
“I had to speak to you before you left,” she said softly.
“Well. I am here.”
“Garrity is going to die, Trinian,” her voice broke, and she was speaking around the cracks in her heart, but she pushed past her tears to say what must be said. “So he foresaw, and now I think he was right. Power wanted me in Mestraff – he tried to possess me twice, but when I overcame his temptations, he did not care to stop our band, though we traveled across Karaka. We are ants to him, creeping, crawling, invisible creatures that he only cares about if he can use us. What I am trying to say is…Trinian, he wants Garrity for something. And the queen too. You must be on your guard, for what if he has possessed them? What if he possesses you and takes the birthright?” Trinian listened disbelieving, disconcerted by her heart-breaking tears that glistened like stars on her white cheeks, surprised into listening and heeding what she said. “You will be careful?” she begged. “You will?”
He stepped nearer and took her hand in his, pressing it and trying to speak, but her tears were working upon him, and he too felt them stinging his eyes. “Adlee would never…” he broke off, unable to finish the thought.
“Not if she can withstand it. She and Garrity are both greater and better than I – we must have faith that they have had the strength to resist. But Trinian, what of Lillian? If the god uses her against them…”
Trinian frowned at her. “Lillian?”
“Your daughter, Trinian. Lillian is your daughter.”
He shook, then, like a dry leaf in the wind, and groped until he found a chair and landed in it. Burying his pale face in his large, dry, cracked hands, he was a mere shell of a man. Lavendier watched him silently, letting him grieve, and after a moment, he lifted his head and pushed himself up. “No!” he declared. “No, Adlee will not give in. Nor Garrity either. And I will kill the god who would take them from me. I will kill the god who would hold my daughter captive! Laven, if you and I could withstand him, then so can they. If Garrity dies, it will be in resisting the god, and not at his mercy. He is a great and good man.”
“I know he is!”
Trinian hesitated for a moment, a new realization suddenly flooding his mind, and he looked at his sister with fear. “Laven, Gladier said nothing of any other men in that boat.”
“No.”
“Then Merciec…and…?” he asked.
“Only Garrity was left.”
“Only Garrity. How did you bear it?”
His words were so unexpectedly tender that she collapsed into tears, and his arms encircled her and held her close. She wondered how she had born it, and how she could bear it again. All the death, all the dying, just so she could live, just to gain one more moment of suffering on this earth. The fresh loss of Trigent tore at her heart, ripping open wounds that had barely begun to close after Asbult and Merciec. She knew she would continue to fight and live and go on, for remembering Garrity’s words, she knew she would never again despair of her own life; but oh, she did not want to go on if another person was to be the cost for her to keep living.
“You must come back,” she sobbed. “You must.”
Trinian was pierced with love, and he said, “My dear sister, I have been a hateful fool. I have ever hurled anger against you, for I did not know the courage of your heart.”
“No, no.” She pulled back and looked up at him. “I deserved all of it and more. I was an utterly wretched person, and I tried to do the unforgiveable. Oh, I shudder to think how I nearly betrayed you. Your anger was just and you were right to be suspicious. Do you have conviction that you will return?” she asked sudd
enly.
“I have hope,” he whispered.
She nodded. “Yes. Good. That is the same thing.” Then Lavendier told him to take Melcant. “He bore me here in three days. If you want to travel quickly, he is your way.”
“Thank you – I owe you more than my life, Laven. I owe you my kingdom, and my love.”
Trinian, not privy to the secrets of his sister’s soul, did not know the healing weight of his words, but their utterance sealed a wound deep in her heart, as her love healed his. As he grew confident in accepting the love of his family, her wound of childhood betrayal, loneliness, and desolation – a wound that had twisted and dug deep within and led her, after her father’s death and her brother’s departure, into a life of selfishness, greed, and self-pity – closed, and she smiled at him.
* * *
“I command thee!” cried Trinian at the ground. “Open to the king!”
Nothing moved. Seated astern Melcant, Trinian and Afias had left Drian in the light of the morning sunrise and ridden to the entrance of Drakans. But when they arrived, it was only a large hill in the side of the landscape, and no tunnel led to the bowels of the earth.
“I am the one destined to preserve Minecerva, and I command you to part for me!”
Still the earth was as solid as ever. Embarrassed, Afias shifted in his seat, but he said nothing.
After a long moment, wherein Trinian’s frustration flared near the point of tears, a great warrior, who glowed with an unearthly light, wielding a blazing, fiery sword, rounded the hill and approached them.
“Who are you to command the earth?” he demanded, his voice deep and reverberating across the lawn so that Melcant’s legs shook with the earth.
“I am the Emperor of Mincerva. Who are you?”
“I am not important. But you cannot pass this way today. It is closed. Come back tomorrow.” He turned around and headed back around the hill.
“I will pass this way!” cried Trinian, not knowing how like a willful child he sounded. “I have business this way!”
“Come back tomorrow,” said the warrior calmly, and then he disappeared around the hill, and though they searched for him, they found him not. Trinian wept with anger, but he was defeated by the immovable ground and unyielding warrior, and had to return to Drian.
That night in the stables, Melcant did not sleep. He heard a voice calling him – young and joyful and confident. He followed the sound – out of the stable and across the city. Still the voice called, and the horse, making sure that the gate-keeper slept, leapt lightly over the gates and ran northeast to fort Saskatchan. Outside the fort, a little child was making his way on the path toward Drian.
“Hello horsey!” he cried in delight. “Aren’t you big and lovely! Can you take me to my father the king?”
“I can.” He laid down so the child could climb up. “Are you Prince Jacian?”
“Yes! And I have something to give my father.” The boy was dragging a heavy sword behind him on the road, and he held it before him as he clambered over Melcant’s back. Once the horse was certain the boy was settled, he stood and carried him carefully back to the city, marveling at the weight of the sword on his back. Melcant gave the password at the gate, the gatekeeper opened, thinking it was the child who spoke, and horse and rider walked up to the palace.
They arrived just as Trinian and Afias arrived at the stables to saddle Melcant.
Jacian, solemnly, dropped from the horse’s back and approached Trinian. With two hands, he held up the heavy blade, holding it effortlessly, and knelt before his father.
“This is a blade to defeat all blades, given me by my other mother. With it, you will defeat all evil.”
Trinian gazed in wonder at his son, who had seemed to materialize suddenly before him, and older now than when he had left. He was transfixed by the solemnity of the child, and stepped forward to accept the sword.
Grasping it by the hilt, he was awestruck by its beauty, and it practically leapt into his fingers, feeling like an extension of his own arm. The balance was made for his powerful frame, and it was easy and effortless to hold. He tested it against a tree standing near, and without meaning to, sliced the entire trunk in half. The tree crashed to the ground, even knocking over another as it fell, and filling their ears with the sound of snapping branches.
“It was given to me in the caves,” explained Jacian, “and it’s not ours. Just to borrow for awhile, until I give it back to my mother.”
Trinian knelt before his small son. “I’m going to get your mother. I’m going to save her.”
The prince put his small hands on his father’s shoulders. “I know you will, for you are brave and strong. You will find both my mothers, and bring them both back.”
Trinian was disconcerted by his son’s open faith. “Who – who is the other one?”
“I can’t tell you. You just have to meet her.” Trinian took his son in his arms and held him close, letting the boy’s faith inspire his own, though he did not understand his words. Then, with the new sword wrapped safe in his cloak, Trinian and Afias mounted Melcant and rode back to the mound.
109
The Road of In-between, and the Keeper of the Dead
This time, there was no sign of the man with the flaming sword. There was, instead, a gaping hole in the hillside that swallowed any light, gulping it down like a ravenous beast. Melcant stepped fearlessly within, and instantly they could see nothing. Even looking over their shoulders, they could not see the light of day, and the horse stood uncertainly a moment.
Trinian urged him forward, kicking him in the ribs and commanding “gee-up,” but Melcant stood unmoving.
“I don’t know if you’re going to get him to walk,” Afias murmured. “Even I am terrified.”
“Yes,” said Melcant, and both men nearly jumped out of their skin. “This is the land of the dead, the in-between where eternity and mortality are ever at war. Without light to guide us, we know not what we will find.”
“Does Lavendier know that you speak?” cried Trinian.
“She does.”
“Oh.”
“I am willing to obey you, your majesty, but I may well be leading you to your death.”
Trinian sat up straight on the back of the horse, and squared his shoulders. “Let death come if he dare. This is the only way.” Then with a grand gesture that he hoped was worthy of a king, he unwrapped the sword from his son and held it aloft in the tunnel. To the astonishment of all three, it shone with a burning gold light that pulsed like a heart, and they could see clearly the way ahead.
“The Golden King be praised,” breathed Afias, and Melcant stepped forward, unurged, into the in-between of life and death.
They traveled two hours in the realm of darkness, Melcant sweeping through like an owl in the night, galloping at full speed. The brothers’ hair stood straight out behind them in the wind.
They were almost to Karaka.
Suddenly, so suddenly that Afias nearly slid off his back, the great horse stood still, only his haunches trembling.
“What is it?” asked Trinian.
“The keeper.” He whispered it, like a curse that could not be said aloud.
“Who is the keeper?”
“My doom. My salvation.” But then he shook his mighty head, like a normal horse would shoo away pesky flies from his mane. “I’m sorry. I am overcome. He is the one who leads souls to the other side. I am afraid of him, although it is my time. He is coming to us.”
Afias shifted in the saddle and pushed his hair away from his forehead, for he was remembering his encounters with spirits, and did not wish to be sidetracked or tested before reaching Karaka. “We should go.”
“No,” said Trinian after a moment. “I wish to speak with him.” He dismounted and waited.
After a moment, they heard a scratching sound that grew nearer and nearer, but though Trinian shone the sword all around, they saw nothing. There was a moment of silence, and then a deep, heavy sigh.
&n
bsp; “Reveal yourself!” cried the king. “I know you are there.”
Silence. Then the sound as of a pebble dropping.
“I command you! I would speak with one of the dead!”
“You have no power here.” The cracked voice came suddenly from beside them, and Trinian whirled the sword to reveal a man who was no more than a skeleton, sitting propped up on the ground. He has no eyes, only sockets; no mouth, for the jaw bone had dropped away. No arm on the left side, and no pelvis bone. His legs stretched before him on the ground, disconnected from his ribcage, which was propped against the wall.
Trinian, with all the majesty of his title, stood before the keeper of the dead and declared, “I know that is not true, or I could not have come so far. If the enemy can command the dead, then so can I. For I know the prophecy that I will defeat the enemy.”
The creature of skeleton and flesh jumped up and cackled suddenly in the solemn king’s face. Then, with his bones flying disconnected in the air, he began to leap about and flap his skinny arms in twisted, free-flying convolutions. “Think you know so much!? Think you know the extent of it! Rule the world, why don’t ya? Rule the dead, mortal man!”
Trinian flushed. “How dare you mock me? How else could we enter this land of the dead?”
The Keeper stared at him smugly. “I owe you no respect. You have no power here. My orders hail from a higher authority, and it is only by his grace that I do not rip your soul from your body, and all those with you, for clomping with your loud, corporeal boots through this forbidden land.”
Afias strode forward at that, placing himself securely before Melcant and gripping his sword; but the king, hearing the stir behind him, held up his hand.
“Very well,” said Trinian calmly, looking squarely into the keeper’s eye sockets, “who is this higher authority?”
But the keeper had said all he intended and now he closed up firm as a vault, and returned to his position on the floor.
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