Twisted Legends: Twisted Magic Book 4

by Kaye, Rainy

  She retrieved four metal figurines piled on the floor next to her leg and erected them in a row along one side of the board. They were tiny metal elephants with small handmade inconsistencies.

  Fair enough.

  “Both players start at the same side of the board. You can only move forward unless you can capture a piece. You can capture your opponent’s piece, or you can capture your own, but the piece will be out for the rest of the game.” She scooped up a handful of small stones from another pile on the floor and began to place them out on the board in alternating colors of black and green. “The objective is to capture the most elephants.”

  I frowned down at the board. “There’s four elephants, though. What happens if it’s a tie?”

  “Then you play again,” she said, placing the last token in its position.

  “And then if it’s a tie again?” I prompted. “There has to be a tie breaker round of some kind.”

  She shook her head. “No, you just play again.”

  “So…” I sized up the board and mentally recounted the elephants again to verify I was following the game correctly. “Since there are four elephants, and apparently no clever rule that keeps ties from happening regularly, you simply play and then start over and then play again. Do you just keep going…forever?”

  “Of course not,” she said with all the self-assuredness of a child who long figured out some adults didn’t get it, and she was right.

  “Right, so then when does the game end?”

  Her gaze flicked up to me, and she grinned. “When a player gives up.”

  My heart sank to my stomach, but before I could assess why the rules of this game bothered me so much, Aella stepped over with two glasses in hand filled with a purple-red liquid. Behind her, Gray poured more of the drink from the pot he had retrieved from the fire into the rest of the glasses.

  “Dinner will be ready in just a moment,” Aella said, passing me one of the glasses and then giving the other to Hava. “Let’s pick up your game, Hava.”

  Hava nodded and sipped from her drink.

  Sweet and spicy scents sauntered up to me from my glass, and I couldn’t determine if I detected alcohol in the mixture or not. Probably not, unless they boozed up their children.

  They did give them a vaguely sadistic game to play.

  Dinner was served on polished rectangle stone slabs, a pile of grains and vegetables drizzled with a creamy sauce with surprising layers of flavor. I had to wonder if they had managed to eke out all of this from the current hostile world, or if they had pulled out the reserves as homage to the better times, in celebration of their arrived prophetess.

  Me.

  They had so much hope riding on me. I could tell by the way they ate and clinked glasses and discussed the coming days like their fortune would change.

  Running away in the night might make me an awful human being.

  I swatted away the thought. No one in their right mind would believe I needed to go to actual war with the Fire Lords.

  I had to get to the keys, and soon, but that meant finding a way across the lava lake. Our exploration had been cut short by traipsing off after Marlowe to Drop in the Rock, but I couldn’t imagine what further investigation would have found, anyway. A bridge over the lake was impractical. Equally so was the notion we could simply walk around the body of not-water. My magic couldn’t quite give us wings.

  No other options had presented themselves.

  After we ate, Gray and Sahir set to work cleaning up the dishes, Randall hovering nearby helping out but I knew that look by now. He was alert and ready for an opening, whatever that might be. My brain was too sluggish from food to bother with clue finding right now, especially since I didn’t know what I was hoping to find out anyway.

  Hava returned to playing her game, and I absently watched her defeat herself in a quest for an odd number of tin elephants.

  “Let’s get you home,” Aella said to Marlowe, helping her off the couch. “I’ll walk with you.”

  Marlowe eased to her feet, and limped towards the door.

  Aella tossed a glance to the room in general. “I’ll be right back. Marlowe has had a rough day.”

  “Good night, Marlowe,” Gray called as he stacked the cleaned rock plates. “We will be by in the morning to check on you and bring you breakfast.”

  “Thank you,” Marlowe said. At the door, she leaned against the wall, Aella ready to catch her though such close guard didn’t seem needed. She turned to me. “Prophetess, please understand, we are aware of what we ask. We are under no delusions that in another place, we would be equals. For a reason uncertain to us, you have been determined our savior, perhaps by only a twist of fate or a little luck—good or bad, depending on position.”

  She smiled, and it was sad. Exhausted. Pained far more than just the bandaged leg injury.

  “We don’t know why you are here, but rest assured, we do not believe you came to the Dark Lands for a pleasant reason—yet a glass half empty can still save one dying from dehydration,” she said.

  Her words were still processing in my groggy brain as the door closed behind her and Aella.

  Her last plea. Not just for herself, but for her family, friends, town. Everyone in Drop in the Rock and quite possibly far beyond too. The Fire Lords ruled this world, and everyone else had been paying the price.

  A heavy silence fell over the room. Everyone stood around, a motion away from having frozen in what they had been doing when Marlowe had made her case.

  I couldn’t quite look anyone in the face. Not even Randall, though perhaps that was for an entirely different reason.

  Finally, Gray stepped forward and took a seat, perched on the edge of the couch, peering at me, his hands steepled in front of him.

  “We just need a path,” he said, voice hoarse. “We will accept the repercussions, the aftermath of our dissent. All we require is someone who can shield our way to the idols. Once our offering is made, the elements will return and the world will course correct without further intervention. I understand this is no small task. If the Fire Lords were simple opposition, we’d have taken their Tin Elephants by now.”

  His glance at Hava was small and sad.

  “My daughter has never heard the thunder of an approaching storm, felt the relief of the first rain, or watched a flower bloom in the spring. No breeze on her face as she plays. No lakes in which to swim. Please,” he said, barely more than a whisper, “cross the lava lake with us and help us win this turn.”

  I opened my mouth as I hurriedly formulated a polite, sad, but firm, rejection, but my brain stalled on what he had just said.

  Cross the lake.

  “How?” I asked, and then added, “How will we get across the lava lake? My magic has limits, even here.”

  “Oh, that.” He leaned back, no longer a groveling supplicant but the town’s fearless leader. Strangely, both roles were the same coin. “That’s the easy part. We have boats that can cross lava.”

  I straightened, concealing the thoughts rolling across my brain like the ember clouds.

  Boats.

  If we staged their war, we could reach the tower.

  “Okay,” I said to Gray. “I’ll do it. I’ll fight the Fire Lords.”

  14

  After my agreement to wage war on behalf of Drop in the Rock, the conversation thinned to murmurs. There was no use pressing the point; they had won their first battle, and that was getting me on board. Tomorrow, we would begin planning. For tonight, Randall and I bid everyone goodnight and returned to our accommodations.

  While Randall washed up, I headed up to the loft to poke around our sleeping arrangements. A firm, thin mattress covered the entire loft floor, blankets piled on one end and pillows on the other.

  I peered down over the edge railing as Randall stepped out from behind the brick wall, wearing only pants.

  “There’s plenty of room up here,” I called down to him, sitting on my knees on the mattress. “It’s bigger than a king-s
ized bed, by far. And plushy.”

  I bounced a little to illustrate my point.

  “As long as it’s not made of lava and has room for my sword without skewering us in the face in the night, the rest is just perks,” he said. He ambled over to where his sword lay on the table and held it up. “Do you think it will come with us back to the real—other—world? Or just sort of disintegrate as we walk through the portal opening?”

  “As long as the keys can cross back with us, I’m not going to waste energy on worrying about anything else,” I said, leaning back onto my palms. The mattress gave just a little. “I have so little of it to spare right now.”

  “And you’ll need it all to take on the Fire Lords.” He flashed a grin up at me from below the loft. “I think this might be an awful idea.”

  “Oh, no, it’s definitely a terrible plan,” I said around a yawn.

  He started up the stairs, sword in hand. “We could try something else first.”

  “Keys,” I said. “We need the keys.”

  I twisted around and pulled blankets and pillows to make myself a downy nest against the wall.

  Randall placed the sword longwise at the foot of the bed and crammed a pillow under his head, staring up at the ceiling. “Any ideas on how you intend to clear a path for the Drop in the Rock to reach the idols?”

  “I’m not,” I murmured, nestling deeper into my blanket-and-pillow fort. “Once we touch shore, we’re making a run for it to the tower.”

  “That’s…”

  “I know,” I whispered. I didn’t want to hear about how shady my plan was; I was well aware. “We’re going to have to convince them to let us go ahead first, so the Fire Lords don’t make the connection that we were sent by the Drop in the Rock. As long as they think we’re just weirdos from another dimension or whatever, they shouldn’t go after Gray or Aella or anyone else as punishment.”

  I had intended to sound sure, but it came out as a question.

  Randall reached over and stiffly patted my arm draped over a pillow hugged to my chest. “I know you want to save them, Saf.”

  “I do.” I frowned into my pillow, eyes closed. “This world is pretty awful, and I don’t like that we have to just…leave it like it is. What’s the likelihood anyone will be by in another hundred years who can help? I mean, we don’t even have a way to accurately guess that. We don’t even know why people are in here to begin with.”

  “Or why the Fire Lords rose up,” he said.

  “What do you mean?” I didn’t look at him, but my interest piqued, tired as it was.

  “Well, something had to have changed that gave them the upper hand, right? Or some incentive. Something. From what they said, they’ve been here for thousands of years—without aging, it would seem—but the first five hundred or so went swimmingly. Something changed. They didn’t just one day get tired of playing endless rounds of Tin Elephants and decide to take over the idols.”

  I giggled into my pillow. “I don’t know, maybe. That game sounds tedious.”

  “That it does,” he said, sounding far away as I drifted off.

  Sleep came, dark and empty. I couldn’t imagine anyone dreamed in this world.

  A pounding noise startled me awake. I bolted upright, my foot knocking the sword into the wall as I flailed out of my fluffy tomb. My brain cleared as the sound came again.

  I turned to Randall and shook him awake.

  “There’s someone at the door,” I hissed, and then climbed over him, heading for the stairs.

  He slapped his palm against his face and then rolled over and pushed upright. I was already at the door by the time he reached the ground floor, sword in hand.

  I yanked open the door.

  Hava stared up at me, dark brown eyes catching the amber colors of the lava pond.

  “Mom said to let you know breakfast is ready,” she said.

  I cursed the dark sky for the lack of sunlight. It felt like I had been cheated out of a full night of sleep and prodded to wake at midnight.

  She leaned in and whispered, “She made custard cakes.”

  Cake for breakfast. I could live with that.

  “Thank you,” I said, and then stopped myself from asking if coffee existed in this place or if we were in actual hell. “At Sahir’s house?”

  She nodded. “I’ll take you.”

  Either they were all excited about custard cake, or they were trying to disguise their fear that we would run away when they weren’t looking. Had a watch been set up while we slept?

  I shuddered and then stepped back inside to slip on my boots. Randall tugged on his shirt and shoes, and after a moment of contemplation, left the sword on the table before we headed outside.

  There was no sun, so no dawn. No breeze, no birds chirping. Nothing that felt like morning. This world was just an endless night of suffering.

  I had to wonder what it had been like before the idols had been seized by the Fire Lords. Had this world really been that much better?

  It was only up.

  Hava led us across the bridge but stopped just on the other side and picked up a small stone. It was mottled gray with pale purple veins.

  She grinned up at me. “Watch this.”

  She skipped the stone across the lava surface, and sparks flew up in its wake. Those weren’t fire though. I recognized the glow, the charge. That was magic.

  My chest tightened a little. This world wasn’t just fire; it was shaped by fire magic. I didn’t play by elemental laws, but everyone and everything else certainly seemed to. All of it was tied to those idols.

  I still had so many questions.

  The stone came to rest in the middle of the lava. I waited for it to sink, but the stone drifted along the surface, nearly of its own accord.

  “Cool, right?” she asked with a smile.

  I nodded and kept my opinion about this strange little world to myself.

  A long black latch along the barricade wall at the end of the town caught my attention. It wasn’t just a wall, but a small gate.

  “What’s past there?” I asked, nodding toward the structure. Maybe it just led outside the town, but for a group at a serious disadvantage planning war, that seemed an unnecessary weak point in their minimal defense against the Fire Lords.

  “The gardens,” she said with a shrug. “You want to see?”

  I thought of the plants that had grown along the lava streams. The flora had adapted to thrive, somehow, but I had to wonder how Drop in the Rock managed to procure enough food to keep themselves fed during the worst dust bowl ever.

  “Sure,” I said. “If you won’t get in trouble.”

  “Nah.” She ducked around us and skipped toward the gate. She stopped to skim another gray and purple stone across the lava pond, enticing up bigger magic sparks that arched along the surface like orange lightning.

  At the gate, she hopped up and down to reach the latch and then flipped it up. The gate swung open, revealing darkness between tall rock sides.

  She strolled inside, humming a little song.

  I nudged against Randall as we followed after her.

  A path of dark earth wound around and through a marsh of lava. Plants of different shapes sprung up from the molten fire, pulsing and throbbing with the orange in their veins. The garden reminded me a bit like the bayou in New Orleans, but with lava.

  Hava was a dark silhouette as she bounced around on the dark earth path.

  “There’s red berries, that we make spiced juice from, and orange berries, that we make custard from.” She waved her hand at each plant as she passed. “And lava apples, which grow the fastest so we eat them all the time.”

  She emphasized her complaint as if that were the single worst part of living in a barren wasteland of lava and soot.

  “We have to harvest every day so the fruit doesn’t fall into the fire,” she said.

  “Is that one of your chores?” I asked absently as I crept closer to the garden to get a better view.

  She shook
her head and then nodded. “Wait, yes. Everyone’s job though. We all have to be careful not to waste anything.”

  I rubbed my jaw a little as I surveyed the garden. It stretched all the way back until it butted up against a rock ledge topped with metal spikes to prevent either theft from their garden or a small invasion.

  “So the plants survive without water?” I asked. “They just use lava for everything they need?”

  That was quite the evolutionary trait.

  Something long and dark floated along the surface of the lava, farther away. I squinted, trying to follow the path of the plant root.

  “Well, we have to put nutrients in the lava,” she said.

  She swatted at the fronds nearest her.

  I tipped my head. The pair of roots came out parallel and then joined together. Something was familiar about that shape.

  “What kind of nutrients do they need?” I asked, but the question faltered on the last syllable.

  An arm. Those were not roots. That was a human arm.

  There was a skeleton in the lava.

  Randall stepped forward, clearing his throat.

  “Let’s forget all this and go get some of that cake,” he said, but I could tell by his tone he had already pieced this situation together.

  Drop in the Rock had resorted to feeding cadavers—of their own people, or prisoners, it hardly mattered—into the lava to fertilize their garden.

  No wonder they were so desperate to reach the idols.

  We hurried out of the garden, and Hava locked the gate behind us. I didn’t speak as Hava, skipping and hopping, led us back to Sahir’s house, but my mind spun around with dizzying speed. Inside, I dropped down, already exhausted, onto Sahir’s couch.

  The cast from the previous night had appeared for breakfast, including Marlowe. Spirits were high for people who tossed bodies—hopefully already dead ones—into lava lakes to grow a garden.

  Mary, Mary quite contrary…

  I shivered as I accepted a plate from Aella and stared down at the custard cake. Made from orange berries. Grown from corpses.

  I heaved a little into my mouth, and then forced down the nausea as I carefully set aside my plate and smiled at the group, feigning interest in the conversation, feigning that I wasn’t about to vomit on my boots.