Revary

by Abigail Linhardt

  “But there are others who must share this quest. One who failed long ago,” the Son went on. “An earthling came to Revary and did not finish his task. For this, the Umbra had his servant sever his head and separate it from his body to keep him from rising up against him again. But he had already relinquished most of his powers to delay the destruction of Revary.”

  “No!” Galis cried in dismay as he understood.

  At the same time, Clare shrieked, “The oracle?”

  The Golden Son smiled playfully. “Isn’t he divine? But there is one more thing.” They waited in silence. “Stella may be saved. She has brought great evil to this land. She has joined the side of Umbra and has used her earthling powers to destroy Revary. This is something that is rarely done. But more and more in your world do I see earthlings destroying similar places.”

  “An earthling is in league with Umbra?” Folkvar growled. “We cannot stand a chance against such power!”

  “Do not forget you have more than one earthling here,” the Son replied. “But, Clare, you have another task in Revary, do you not?”

  She shrugged. “Do I?”

  “Yes. The souls you carry with you.”

  Suddenly, she remembered. “I took Yilith’s and Gwen’s sins onto myself the first time I was here,” she said. “I forgot. How do I repay that debt?”

  The Son shook his head. “It is not a debt to be repaid. Your task was to carry the souls and return them safely should they ever be in danger. I think you will find both are in grave danger.”

  Clare dropped her head and said sadly, “I’ve already failed Gwen.”

  The Son looked hard at the bone necklace around her throat. “I think not.” He sighed and nodded. “Yes. Before you seek out Greylheim, you must go to the new Mirror Castle and face your friend. There you will complete a task.”

  Galis stood up. “Are we even of aid for these tasks? What good are characters in a story?”

  “Have you heard nothing?” the Golden Son asked. “The meaning and purpose of you is great! Go with the earthlings and fight for them, their world, and your home. Fear not, barbarian. Your story is just as valuable as theirs.”

  With this, he bid them farewell and reminded them they already possessed all they needed to strike down Umbra. With a smile for each of them, he bade them to hurry, for not even his Golden Tree and the Celestial Plane could stand alone against Umbra’s malice.

  As they descended the planes back to the Surface, Clare stood by the rail with Lance, Alice, and Max. None of her trips to Revary had been quite like this one. Had she known the Golden Son was there, she may have visited him earlier for her tasks.

  “Can we really face Stella?” Max asked in a small voice. He had wilted from his great arcanist presence back to his earthling fears. “She seems so angry. What was wrong with her that she had to come here and destroy everything? I mean, isn’t that really bad?”

  Clare nodded. “I think so.”

  Alice joined in. “Maybe the power was too much to ignore?”

  At this, Clare shook her head. “No, she left Zealnis once rather easily. This was something more. I hate to say it’s all about me, but I think she was angry at me.” She moaned. “Yilith doesn’t deserve this.” She clutched the necklace that supposedly held his soul’s power. “I owe him this much at least.”

  In the distance, the outline of castle Calimorden was visible now, but something was wrong.

  “Look,” Lance pointed. “See that fog? And the mountains have begun to crumble!”

  Calimorden was decaying. A shiver ran through Clare as she imagined what she would find inside. Hopefully they could avoid people, slip in, and leave with the oracle. If he was still alive. But if what the Golden Son had said was true and he was a rather unfortunate earthling, maybe he could last longer against the corruption than the Revarians. That was the only hope she had.

  They landed just outside the castle doors since no one was around to stop them. Looking over the side, Clare’s fears were acknowledged. All the people of Calimorden were ghostly zombies, walking aimlessly and pushing carts full of garbage and decaying personal items.

  “Don’t go near them,” Folkvar warned. He flexed his arm and shook it as if trying to relieve stiffness. “I already feel the presence of the corruption.”

  Clare, Alice, and Max left the ship and the ladder was pulled back up for safety.

  “We’ll be right back,” Clare called up. “This should only take a second. Don’t touch anything and don’t speak to anyone.”

  The trio picked their way through the trickle of wondering people, careful not to touch anything in case the decay could be spread by contact. They walked up to the bridge that covered the moat and began to cross. One man was on the bridge, his invisible frame cloaked and hooded. Behind him, he pulled a cart full of broken chairs, kitchen supplies, bedding, and personal treasures.

  “Why do they take all that?” Max asked with a shiver.

  “When you know the end is coming, I guess you grab all that’s valuable to you,” Alice offered.

  “It didn’t save them,” Max said. “Creepy.”

  Inside the castle, careful to avoid loud noises so as to not upset the ghost people, they went up the stairs to the throne room. The doors had rotted and fallen off so there was no need to push them open. The room was dark and falling apart with gaping holes in the floor. Avoiding those, they drew nearer the throne.

  To their surprise, slumped in the throne was Queen Zephyr. Her whole frame had shrunk to a mere skeleton and her once regal clothes were tattered, moth-eaten, and decaying. Her hair was brittle and falling out. She was dirty and breathing loudly through a parched throat.

  “Your majesty?” Clare called from a few steps away.

  Clutched in her hand was the glowing oracle head. His eyes were bound shut with a rag and the queen’s scabby, rotting hand was clamped over his mouth to stop him from talking. At the sound of Clare’s voice, her zombie head shot up and faced them.

  Alice and Clare shrieked as the queen’s eyeless sockets glared in their direction. Max gave a shudder.

  “Is that the earthling child I hear?” the queen said in a squelching tone. Her voice was struggling to make it past all the grime that had accumulated in her throat. “Come to take my power?” She clutched at the head more tightly. “You cannot have it. It will save my son. Bring Gwen home now. My dear boy.”

  Her head dropped and dry sobs escaped her throat.

  Clare motioned Max and Alice forward while she took a few more cautious steps.

  “Let me take the oracle and I’ll find Gwen.” She knew this was a lie. Gwen was dead, but she would have preferred the queen just hand over what they needed.

  “You cannot have it!” screamed the zombie queen.

  She leapt forward and reached a decaying hand out for Clare, but Alice’s curved scimitar was there first. With a cry and a gargling shriek, the queen dropped the oracle and clutched at her severed limb. It didn’t appear to be blood, but something dark and rank splattered across the ground from the wound.

  “Stay away!”

  The queen drew her own sword now and challenged Alice. Clare was forced to step away from the dropped oracle, which was now coughing and spitting on the ground, as the two engaged in a furious battle. Clare drew her own sword and came to Alice’s aid as she was quickly being out-maneuvered by the queen. With just the one sword, the queen was able to fend off both girls.

  “Max, get the oracle!” Clare shouted. “It’s the severed head,” she added when he looked around.

  With them keeping the queen busy, Max ran in and was able to slide between them to retrieve the oracle.

  He leapt down all the stairs and called back, “I have it!”

  The queen shrieked like she’d been cut again. But she had screamed too loud.

  The walls began to quiver and shake. Parts of the floor splintered and shattered and began to fall again.

  “My kingdom!” she cried, dropping her sword. The
floor under her was falling way. “No!” She fell to her knees and scrambled to collect rocks and debris up to her and hold onto it to prevent it from falling away.

  “Come on!” Max called from the doors. “We can’t help her.”

  Clare glanced one more time down at the pitiful queen in her decaying state as she attempted to hold the pieces of her kingdom. There was indeed nothing they could do now.

  Without another look, Alice and Clare sped out with Max clutching the oracle. Just as they vacated the throne room, the walls and ceiling fell in, burying the queen and her futile attempts to save her realm.

  But they couldn’t stop. They raced as the floor fell away beneath them, choking on the dust and smoky debris. In a matter of seconds, after dodging around the crying ghostly people, they were outside of the destroyed castle.

  Without slowing, they dashed all the way to the airship and called for the ladder to be thrown down. With a scream, Alice pointed behind them. Coming out of the kingdom were hordes of the ghost people, invisible hands and monster claws outstretched to take the earthlings down with them.

  “Climb!” Lance shouted.

  After all three were just barely on the rope ladder, he wheeled the helm and departed the once glorious kingdom of Calimorden, leaving it to ruin and decay.

  Chapter 21

  The First Death

  Galis guided Lance by sight to Mirror Castle. It wasn’t entirely simple since the land had changed and shifted since the arrival of the earthlings and the dark destruction was everywhere. Clare apologized for making it harder than it needed to be.

  Max had tried to concoct a potion for Folkvar, who was laying below decks with a horrible sea-sickness. He had started to turn deathly pale and could hardly stand. Clare said no one would mind if he took time to rest and did not aid in sailing the airship. He also complained of stiffness in his arm, but Galis laughed that off as him carrying too much tension in his body from sailing.

  Clare watched Lance piloting the ship from the great wooden helm and thought that being a sky captain rather suited him. Secretly, she missed his barbarian garb a little. He seemed to be in his element when in command and he gave no sign of fear or discouragement. He was good at being in charge.

  She walked to Max who was trying another potion from his Arcanum. She sat next to him and laughed a little.

  “Don’t laugh at me,” Max commanded in a fierce frown of concentration as he poked at the little fire he had conjured under his simmering potion.

  “I wasn’t,” she said. “I was thinking how this is like us going to school.”

  Max nodded and shrugged. “Of course. School is just like figuring out how to kill a huge world-devouring dragon.”

  Clare raised her eyebrows at the thought. “It kind of is, I guess. I mean, the way school is taught these days doesn’t exactly feed our imagination or teach us how to think. Just how to test and what to believe. We’ve all talked about that to death, right? In a way, it’s like Greylheim.”

  Max was quiet as he watched the blue potion bubble. Then he said, “Clare, I guess now is a good a time as ever to tell you something. I can only say it now because I have this feeling something will be different with all of us when we get back to our world. But I’m kind of afraid to say it.”

  She nudged him encouragingly with her elbow. “Max, we’ve been best friends almost our whole lives. Just say it. There’s nothing about you I don’t know.” She sighed happily at a memory. “Like when you finally confided in me about your parents? That was awesome of you.”

  He still hesitated a moment. Finally, he exhaled loudly making up his mind to confess. “What’s holding me back is Al.”

  “Al?” Clare nearly cried out in surprise. “What on earth does he have to do with anything anymore?” She crossed her arms and shook her head. This didn’t seem to alleviate Max’s tension at all.

  “That’s just it.” His voice was strained. “Al is basically perfect.” Clare snorted. “And you turned him down for years whenever he asked you out.”

  “Tch, yeah.” She threw her hands up. “For obvious reasons. He was so driven that he was going to take me down with him. He has no ambition in life. I do. Well,” she hesitated and corrected herself. “There is nothing wrong with wanting a family and a nice house. But that’s all he wants. Does he even know what it means to have kids? He has no aspiration for those future spawn and all he wants to do with himself is business school so he can be financially set. To me, there’s something lacking there.”

  Max pushed his top hat onto the back of his head and met her eyes bravely. His blue eyes shone brightly in the sky weather. “What if someone less put together than Al asked you out? Or really thought you were the one? Or really just saw himself spending the rest of his life with you?”

  Clare shrugged. “I guess it depends on why. Because Al said some similar stuff. Over and over again.”

  “Clare,” Max’s voice had lost just a little more of its bravery. “What if he loved that you were ambitious? What if he wanted to share that dream with you because his was similar and he wanted nothing more than for you to succeed together? That he just wanted to help you along because he’d work well with you. Like you’d compliment each other. And you had the same moral values and maybe could raise amazing kids later…” He couldn’t think straight past that. His breath caught in his throat. He had to just say it.

  “I’ve been in love with you forever, Clare.” He froze then blinked, his own words shocking him. “I just love everything about you. The way you think, what you think, how you are with other people, your strong moral code. You’re amazing.”

  Clare wanted to control her face, her heart, and her accelerated breathing, but she couldn’t. Max would never know what a dream come true that had been for her. As he was speaking, a shiny-eyed smile soared over her face. She had felt in her heart for some time now that she loved him, but she could never define the feeling. Hadn’t she loved him for years? They had spoken their deepest secretes and fears to each other since the beginning. What could be more natural than for two best friends who had tolerated each other over the years to remain together?

  “Maxey,” she sighed. She gave him a huge, giddy smile until tears brimmed in her eyes. She leaned across the deck and slowly, but not hesitantly, kissed him for the first time in her life.

  She felt him smile under her lips then kiss her back. He reached up and put his hands on either side of her head to hold her closer with his black-painted nails. She reciprocated the motion and soon they were locked in a wonderful, understanding kiss.

  “Hero Maximus!” Lance cheered from the helm loudly and a few of the crew, including Galis, all clapped and laughed at the event.

  Max took his top hat off and shielded Clare and himself from everyone’s view.

  By nightfall the next day, they were hovering over Mirror Castle. Just what you might think from the name, the entire castle had been made of mirrors on the outside. This caused it to blend into the horizon a little, but that was not the intent of mirrors. If what Clare suspected was true, the mirrors were a gateway. The whole castle and the Mirror inside were just a giant gateway between the worlds. But only an earthling’s magic could make that happen. Hopefully, an earthling’s magic could undo it as well.

  Poor Folkvar had to be carried out from below deck and onto the ground on a makeshift stretcher. He was too weak to even stand. Soon they were all on the ground. Lance ordered the boson to pilot the Exorcist a short distance away from the castle in case the worst should happen. He did not want Stella, on her rampage, to have an airship.

  “I guess we can either sneak in or storm the castle,” Clare mused, looking up at the reflective fortress in the moonlight.

  The moon had turned to a sickly green and was crumbling slowly before their eyes. It would only be a matter of nights before the whole thing had crumbled away like an old statue of a Greek goddess.

  “The east!” Galis hissed in a whisper as he ducked down.

  The
others followed suit and looked to the eastern horizon. There, in the dim light of a dying sun, was a horrific sight.

  Greylheim was undulating through the sky with rumbling, earth-shattering roars. Behind him, like a chariot, was a great mass of bundled black clouds and lightning. Left in the wake of the storm was nothingness: a vast decayed sky. As it neared them, the storm took the shape of a spiny, ten-headed dragon. It was heading towards the Mirror Castle.

  “We have to hurry,” Alice suggested.

  “Let’s go,” Clare ordered.

  They all stood up and began to run inside, all bent low to the ground to avoid detection, when Folkvar cried out. He had lost all the strength in his legs and they had become stiff like his arms. It was more than just seasickness.

  “What is it, my friend?” Galis asked, kneeling by Folkvar’s massive fallen form. “You cannot still be ailing from the ship. You are stronger than that.”

  The norcan shook his head and collapsed all the way to the ground. “It is not that. For some time now, I have felt it, but could not describe it.” His voice was strained. “I have not even touched the corruption and already it has taken hold of me.”

  The oracle, which was back on Galis’ belt, tried to shake his head. “It was not up to you to touch the corruption to become corrupt.” His hallow eyes turned to the castle. “Someone has brought it here.”

  Clare fell to the ground next to her old friend and took his strong hand in hers. “You can’t be ill like this. I’ve healed it before.” She turned to the oracle. “How do I undo it? I’ve already named him. The name saved Yilith, but what can I do for Folkvar?” Her face was overcome by fear.

  “Nothing. It is the work of another earthling,” the oracle said sadly.

  “We cannot undo one another’s work?” she cried. “Then how are we to defeat Stella?”