The Black Reckoning

by John Stephens

  “Oh, it will be horrible,” Magda von Klappen said. “Count on that.”

  “But as I was saying, she won’t even be able to use its power to kill the fiend. She’ll need help from you lot.” Robbie McLaur nodded at the wizarding contingent.

  “Exactly so,” Magda von Klappen said.

  “Ha!” barked Hugo Algernon.

  “You’ve something you want to say, Doctor?” the dwarf king asked wearily.

  “Yes, I have something to say. First off, Magda von Klappen here wears old-lady underwear. I know because I saw her washing it this morning—”

  “This is ridic—”

  “I thought she was washing a bedsheet or maybe a tablecloth, but they were her knickers all right. Second, even if the girl could use the Reckoning, haven’t any of you realized that she probably won’t get the chance?”

  This silenced everyone, even Magda von Klappen, and Hugo Algernon glared around triumphantly.

  “Yes,” Michael said quietly.

  The entire Council turned to look at him, even Kate, who wondered what Michael knew that he hadn’t shared.

  “What do you mean, lad?” the dwarf king asked. “What’s he getting at?”

  “Well,” Michael said, adjusting his glasses, “you have to question the coincidence of the Dire Magnus attacking Loris and taking control of the portal right before Emma is going to come through it with the Reckoning.”

  “You mean,” Robbie McLaur said, “he knows she’s in the world of the dead?”

  “Possibly. If so, he’ll be waiting for her. So even if she could use the book, like Dr. Algernon says, he wouldn’t give her the chance. He’ll have some trap set up.”

  “But how would he know?” King Bernard said. “You think he has spies here?”

  “Maybe,” Michael said. “Though there is one other explanation.”

  Hugo Algernon was nodding. “At least two people at this table aren’t total morons. Bright lad. Like his dad in that. ’Course I taught his dad, so I get most of the credit.”

  “What do you mean?” Kate asked. “What other explanation?”

  Michael looked at her. “That the Dire Magnus planned it all. Our escaping from his fortress, discovering the Countess’s remains, bringing her back to life, finding out where the Reckoning is hidden. Think about it, if he knew where the book was, then he would’ve also known that only the Keeper of the Reckoning could pass into the world of the dead, so he would’ve made us think we were doing everything ourselves, and all the while he knew Emma would be bringing the book right to him.”

  “But how,” Kate said, her throat so thick she could scarcely speak, “how could he have done that?”

  Michael shook his head. “I haven’t figured that out. He would’ve had to ’ve been pushing us along somehow.”

  Michael was still staring at her, and for an instant Kate thought, He knows, he knows Rafe has been appearing to me….

  But even if Michael did suspect, what did it matter? He was wrong about at least one thing; it had been Rafe, and not the Dire Magnus, appearing to her!

  And yet, a voice inside her asked, could she say that for certain? When it came down to it, what did she have that she could point to, besides her own belief, that it had been Rafe, and not their enemy, who’d come to her on Loris, and then again in the land of the giants? And did she truly believe it, or, as she’d wondered before, did she just want to believe it? Wasn’t the very fact that she had avoided saying anything to her brother and sister proof that she had her doubts?

  She felt her heart beginning to race and gripped the arms of her chair to steady herself. For if it had been the Dire Magnus manipulating her all this time, that meant she had done the one thing she’d never thought possible: she had chosen someone else over Michael and Emma; and in the process, she had doomed them all.

  She could see Michael looking at her, trying to read in her face what was happening, and when Lady Gwendolyn, the silver-haired elf, began speaking, it was with immense relief that Kate turned from him and looked across the table.

  “If we may speak of practical matters,” Lady Gwendolyn said, “we cannot open a portal into the Garden of the Citadel. We all know there are wards to prevent such a thing. But what of the Atlas? Its power could override any such defense. It could take a band in to rescue the girl and bring her back here, where we could instruct her in using the book.”

  “Maybe. It’s just…something’s happening with the Atlas.” Kate had had to swallow before she’d been able to speak, and her voice was far from steady. She hoped the others—mostly Michael—would hear it as nervousness about using the Atlas. “I can’t control it the way I used to. Leaving the Dire Magnus’s fortress, I tried to take us to Loris and we ended up in the giants’ land. Then last night…” And she thought again of the pain she’d felt when she’d used the magic. “I mean…I’ll do whatever you think best. I just don’t know if we should count on it.”

  “I’m guessing you’ve felt the same thing, haven’t you, boy?” Hugo Algernon was almost glaring at Michael from beneath his bushy eyebrows. “When you used the Chronicle?”

  Michael nodded. “Yes. I’ve felt it.”

  “Well, that’s that,” the man grunted, and crossed his arms, as if he’d definitively proven some point that only he understood.

  “So,” Robbie McLaur said, in the tone of someone trying to keep things on track, “what we’ve got is that the Dire Magnus might or might not have planned this whole thing—I vote for he has, though I’ve no idea how he managed it—might or might not be waiting for the lass—again, I go with he is—and we’ve no way of simply magicking ourselves into the Garden. Fine. But still, we have to get in there and get the girl and the book before he does or our collective goose is bloody well cooked! Is that about the size of it?”

  “There is also the very tricky issue of timing,” King Bernard said—the elf had, Kate reflected, the longest eyelashes she’d ever seen. “When will the girl come through? Tonight? Tomorrow? She could be appearing right this very moment while we sit here bathed in dwarfish body odor—”

  “Hey now!” Haraald started to rise, but King Robbie’s hand on his shoulder forced him back down.

  “And before anyone raises the prospect of a small band sneaking into the Garden to rescue the girl, consider, they would have to remain there, undiscovered, until such time as the girl appeared. A proposition, I think, with little hope of success. The fact is, the only sure way for us to protect the child and keep the enemy from gaining control of the Reckoning is to retake Loris and the Rose Citadel and hold it ourselves till she comes through. But seeing as we just abandoned Loris—”

  “Unnecessarily,” muttered Captain Stefano, the first words he’d yet spoken.

  “—and our forces are weaker now than they were then, that would seem an impossibility. What are we, therefore, to do?”

  “I told you,” Hugo Algernon said. “Make our way to a well-stocked bar. I know a couple if anyone’s interested.”

  “Everything King Bernard says is correct,” Robbie McLaur said, anger burning in his eyes, “except in regard to retaking Loris. It ain’t impossible. All’s we need is a bigger bloody army. And we’ve got one, just waiting to be snatched up!” He jabbed a stubby finger at the elf king. “How many elf clans are there spread around the world? Dozens. How many a’ those elves, not counting the ones you brought yourself, have shown up to help us? Zero!” He whirled on Captain Stefano. “And you, Captain, despite all your grumbling about abandoning Loris, you’ve yet to call in the oaths from the other humans in the magical world! As I recall, each one of them is sworn to protect the island and the Citadel. But we’ve not seen hide nor hair of any of them! So don’t tell me it’s impossible, because it’s not!”

  “The other elf clans will not come to fight under a dwarf,” King Bernard said crossly. “Even though I’ve told them that for a dwarf you are almost completely unobjectionable and rather clean.”

  “And I have tried contacting th
e other fiefs,” Captain Stefano said. “No one will be the first to move. They say they pledged their oath to the city of Loris. Not to a dwarf king—”

  “So I’ll step aside!” King Robbie cried, slapping the table. “You can be the bloody general! Or you! I don’t care!”

  Haraald shook his head. “Your Majesty, you know well that the dwarf battalions who’ve answered your call wouldn’t follow an elf—”

  “And I,” Captain Stefano said wearily, raising his wounded arm, “am in no state for the job.”

  Michael pushed his chair back and stood. The action was abrupt enough that it silenced the table.

  “What is it, lad?” King Robbie said. “You have something to say?”

  “What? Oh, no. Just…” His face was red, but Kate saw that it was not anger; he was blushing. “The princess is here.”

  Kate and the rest of the table shifted about and looked toward the entrance of the tent. Wilamena stood there, wearing a dress the color of the desert sky. Her hair shone as brightly as if she’d been dipped in the sun.

  Perhaps having been embarrassed by Michael, Robbie McLaur, Haraald, Master Chu, and even Hugo Algernon all stood.

  “Welcome, Princess,” King Robbie said. “There’s a chair next to your father—”

  “She can sit here,” Michael said, indicating a chair beside him. “I mean, if she wants to.”

  “Thank you,” Wilamena said.

  The dwarves and the two wizards remained standing while Wilamena floated around the table to the chair Michael was holding. Then, after pushing it in and asking if she wanted anything to drink (she didn’t), Michael glanced around, saw everyone staring at him, and turned even redder. It was as if he’d forgotten they all were there. But then Kate saw a change come over her brother; it was as if he had said to himself, “Well, so what?” and he stood up a little straighter, and when he spoke, his voice was clear and strong.

  “There’s something I’d like to say: while you sit here arguing, my sister has gone into the world of the dead alone, something no one else has ever done. She’s risking her life to save all of us, not just me and my sister, but all of us. And she’s twelve years old. So, no disrespect, but you need to grow up.”

  He sat down and, as Kate and the others watched, the elf princess, her eyes shining with pride, took his hand, and Michael, though he blushed even redder, did not pull it away.

  The first person to speak was King Robbie.

  “Hold now, hold now.” A smile was creeping at the corners of his mouth. “I believe I’m getting an idea….”

  But they were not to hear what it was, for right then, Captain Anton rushed in to say the island was under attack.

  —

  “Where?” King Robbie roared.

  They were in the sunlight outside the tent. There were screams, people running around, pandemonium. King Robbie was holding an ax, as was Haraald, and Kate saw that King Bernard and Lady Gwendolyn both had their gleaming swords out and by their sides.

  “On the northern shore. It looks to be a single raiding vessel, perhaps a scout. They came up over the cliffs.”

  “The northern shore? Bloody—Princess?”

  “I left my bracelet in my tent.” And then Wilamena was gone, a flash of gold streaking away.

  King Robbie looked at Kate and Michael. “You two stay back.” Then he shouted for the others to follow, turned, and began running up the island’s hill.

  Kate threw one glance at Michael, and they both took off after King Robbie, Captain Anton, and the others.

  As the island sloped gently uphill, it meant that Kate and Michael had a clear view of what was happening. They could see, perhaps half a mile away, the dark shapes streaming over the edge of the cliff and toward the families and children from Loris.

  But Kate and Michael had run only a short way when both were roughly grabbed by the backs of their collars. “Right. Hold it. You heard the king.”

  It was Hugo Algernon.

  “What’re you doing?” Kate demanded. “We can help.”

  “You can help more by not being dead. Oh, hello—”

  Throngs of people were pouring toward them, running away from the attackers, while from behind rushed a wave of their own soldiers.

  “We’re gonna get sandwiched,” Hugo Algernon said, and he lifted them in his arms and turned sharply to the left. After a minute of huffing and rough shaking, he’d reached the edge of the island and set them down atop a small cliff.

  “There,” he said. “Safe enough.”

  “But how did they find us?” Michael said. “I thought this island was invisible.”

  “The Dire Magnus has dozens of ships out looking for us. Get close enough, it’s not hard to see the enchantment. Now you two be good kiddies and wait here, and maybe I’ll buy you an ice cream later. Stay here! I mean that!”

  Then he turned and ran toward the battle that was now going on at the upper end of the island. The air was thick with cries of fear, the clanging and crashing of metal, and the shrieks of morum cadi.

  “This isn’t right,” Michael said. “We should be allowed to help and—”

  He was cut off by a scream, a child’s scream, and both he and Kate turned. Thirty yards below them was a rocky beach. A pair of children, a boy and a girl, perhaps seven and eight years old, stood on the beach as a creature—an Imp, Kate saw—climbed out of the water toward them, a black mace in one hand.

  “Kate!”

  The Imp grabbed the boy, lifting him up in the air. There was no one else around, no one to help. As the creature lifted the mace, Kate seized Michael’s hand, reached inside herself for the magic, and stopped time.

  “Kate—”

  Michael’s voice was strangely flat and toneless, and yet it was the only sound in the world. Kate tried to speak, but she felt a great, crushing pressure on her chest.

  “You stopped time, didn’t you? You—are you all right?”

  “We—have to—get down there. I can’t—hold it long.”

  There was a narrow path winding down the cliff, and Michael took the lead. Kate followed, every muscle in her body shaking with effort. She felt that every second she kept time suspended, she was doing terrible damage, to the world and to herself.

  When they reached the beach, Michael ran forward and yanked the boy from the Imp’s grasp. He bent to pick up the girl as well, but he couldn’t carry both.

  “Kate, we have to—What’re you doing?”

  Kate had rushed past Michael and stopped a foot from the Imp. She was too weak to carry the girl, and if she restarted time, the Imp would catch them. She pulled a short, ugly sword from the creature’s scabbard.

  She heard Michael say her name again.

  Bracing the sword with both hands—her vision seemed to be clouding over—she held the blade, trembling, tip out toward the Imp.

  “You have to run,” she shouted. “I’ll hold it here as long as I can. Get help!”

  “Kate! No!”

  She let time restart.

  And she had just said, “Don’t move—” when the Imp rushed forward, impaling itself on its own sword and knocking Kate to the ground.

  The last thing she remembered was the back of her head hitting a rock.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The Lost Tribe

  The boy who’d given them a ride from the village stopped his truck and told them he could go no farther.

  “Okay,” Clare said, speaking, as the boy had, in Arabic. “We’ll get out.” And she called out the window to Gabriel and her husband, who had ridden in the truck’s bed. “This is as far as he’ll go.”

  It had been a four-hour trip, and the truck, a rusted-out, loosely bolted scavenge job of three or four different trucks, had seemed at the point of rattling apart with every bump and pothole; indeed, Gabriel was surprised they’d made it this far. Now, lifting his pack and sword, he climbed out, the whole truck tilting sharply as he swung himself over the side. The children’s father climbed out next. Like Gabriel,
he was covered in red-brown dust, and he unwrapped the scarf from his head, took a sip of water from his canteen, swirled it around in his mouth, and spat to clear the grit. He gave his wife and Gabriel a smile.

  “So, that was awful.”

  The boy had maneuvered the truck around and was already headed back the way they had come. Alone, the group turned and looked about. Gabriel had been to many places in the world, but never anywhere quite like this. Narrow, stony mountains lurched upward all around them, tilting this way and that at odd, almost impossible angles. Richard had explained that thousands of years before, the land here had been lush, and rivers had carved strange formations in the rock. But now there was no water, and the landscape was all burnt-red and brown. Even the sky, thick with dust, was lit red by the setting sun, as if the air itself was on fire. The sound of the truck had already faded, and the silence was complete.

  The rutted path they had been following snaked upward over the rocks.

  “He said there’s nothing up here,” Clare said. “Just more mountains.”

  “Well,” Richard said, “let’s find out.”

  And the trio began walking uphill.

  It had been almost a day since they had left the small town on the Adriatic in the plane flown by Gabriel’s friend, hopscotching their way across the Mediterranean, landing on splinters and shards of the magical world, first in Greece, then Cyprus, and lastly in Lebanon, refueling each time, before flying out over the endless desert of the Arabian Peninsula. The pilot had landed at the base of the mountains on the southern coast, next to a village of mud and concrete houses. It was there that they’d found the boy with the truck.

  Gabriel’s shoulder was stiff from the blow he’d received the night before, and he adjusted the strap of his pack, which carried food and water for him and the couple. The man and woman were still weak, but they were tough and kept on, uncomplaining. Gabriel gauged that they had three hours till nightfall, and then the temperature would drop quickly.

  “It is time,” Gabriel said, keeping a steady, tireless stride, pausing only now and then so he did not overtake the couple, “for you to tell me what we are doing here, and how you hope to uncover the rest of the prophecy.”