Greystone Valley

by Charlie Brooks

  Baelan offered a forced smile in return. “You misunderstand me, Adlin. I don’t want to harm Sarah or any of her friends.”

  “That’s not the message we got when you tossed us into your dungeons!” Kay shouted.

  “That, my dear boy, was a misunderstanding. Aries can be a little overly enthusiastic at times. When I say I want to speak with someone, he sometimes thinks I mean something much crueler. But it’s all an honest mistake.

  “Besides,” he said, turning back to Adlin, “I said I wanted to speak with her. In private, preferably. I’m unarmed, and Aries will remain under your watch. I’m just looking for a conversation. Nothing more.”

  “You want a conversation? I’ll give you a conversation!” Sarah took another step forward and raised her wand. She didn’t need to look through her spellbook, because she had been studying the old tome almost since Adlin gave it to her. She already had a few spells down pat. With a shout of three magical words, she cast her first spell as the new Emerald Enchantress.

  A burst of green lightning flew from the wand, heading straight toward Baelan. His magical sword and well-polished armor wouldn’t be able to help him. Unfortunately, Sarah hadn’t counted on the other dragons getting in the way. Adlin stepped forward, right into the lightning’s path. The bolt bounced harmlessly off her silver hide, ricocheting against a distant stone wall.

  “I can’t allow fighting here,” she said with a little regret in her voice. “Grimjaw offered Baelan the protection of the dragons, just as Azal did for you. By the law passed down even before I was born, dragons must always uphold the promises of other dragons, no matter what. I won’t force you to talk with him, but I can’t allow any of you to harm anyone else in this cavern.”

  “But you know he’s lying!” Sarah protested. “He doesn’t want to talk to us at all.”

  “I have a good idea of what he wants, but I also know what we will allow in this cavern,” Adlin replied. She turned toward Baelan again. “If you can convince Sarah to follow you willingly, you may go one hundred paces into the western tunnel, where you’ll have some privacy. But there will be a host of dragons waiting here. We can see in the darkness very well. If you so much as touch a hair on Sarah’s head, I myself will lead the charge, and even the protection of one of our own won’t help you. Do you understand?”

  Baelan bowed deeply. “Your wisdom is even greater than I had been told to expect, lady dragon.”

  Adlin looked back at Sarah with eyes that were both calm and sad at the same time. “We won’t force you into anything you don’t want. If you allow Baelan to speak with you, we’ll watch over you. If you don’t let him, we can’t send him away until the morning, but we can keep the two of you apart.”

  “Don’t do it,” Kay whispered. “It’s a trick. Even if he puts his sword down, he’s dangerous.”

  “It’s not much of a choice, really,” Sarah said, never taking her eyes off the warlord. “If I don’t talk to him, he’ll just leave and come back tomorrow with an army of his own. Maybe he’ll even have Grimjaw fighting for him then. If he tries something, he knows he’ll be fried by the dragons out here. It might not even come to that, though. I’ve been looking through that spellbook of mine, and I think I know enough magic to take care of him if I need to.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it,” said the pessimistic Dax, returning to his companions. “Magic’s nice, but I’ve seen it fail more than once or twice. And it always seems to go wrong just when you need it the most.”

  “I can agree with that,” Kay added. “I certainly wouldn’t count on any of my spells being useful enough to put Baelan down with my life on the line. You’re a better wizard than I’ll probably ever be, but more powerful people than you have gone up against him and lost.”

  “What other choice do we have?” Sarah asked. “If we don’t figure out how to give him the slip now, he’ll be following us all the way to Castle Greystone.”

  Kay looked at his feet and muttered something to himself. After a long time, he finally responded. “OK, you do what you have to. We’ll back you up, no matter what.”

  Sarah nodded. She grabbed Kay by the hand and gave it a little squeeze, and then she nodded solemnly to Dax. Finally, she turned back to the others and glared at Baelan, who had his arms crossed and a smug smile on his face.

  “I’ll talk to you alone,” Sarah said. “You’ve got five minutes to tell me what you have to say. Then you’re done.”

  “Of course, dear girl,” Baelan replied, bowing gracefully. He gestured toward the tunnels and started walking. “Aries, please wait here. I wouldn’t want Sarah to feel threatened.”

  Aries grunted and glared at everyone around him. He seemed uncomfortable in the presence of the larger dragons. For once, he wasn’t the biggest and most powerful one around.

  Baelan traveled down the tunnel first, and Sarah followed. Just before she left the cavern, she heard Kay whispering something to Dax. Whatever it was, she didn’t have the ears of a dragon, so she couldn’t hear it.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Baelan said after he had taken Sarah as far away from the main caverns as the dragons would allow. “You’re thinking I’m an evil warlord who’s been making Kay’s life miserable ever since I reached the valley, and now I’m starting to pick on you instead.”

  Sarah glared defiantly at the warrior. “I’m not afraid of you chasing me down. I don’t need to run away from the likes of you.”

  Baelan smiled, showing the white tips of his teeth. “That’s exactly the attitude I appreciate. There’s no sense in running away from what you don’t understand. Face it head on. At least then, you’ll learn something.”

  “That’s my plan,” Sarah said. “And now I want to learn why you’re so interested in me right now and Kay before that.”

  “Isn’t it obvious? Kay has the book, with all of its infinite wisdom. But that book can only be used once inside Castle Greystone. You, on the other hand, are special. You’ve got magic in you, even though you didn’t come from this world. At least, not directly, anyway.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  Baelan’s keen eyes noted the expression of curiosity on Sarah’s face. Sarah saw his satisfied look and tried to return to the angry glare she was giving before. But the warlord had already seen her slip up.

  “You’ve got the blood of a valley native running through your veins,” he said. “No one else could use magic the way you do. But you’re also from outside this world. You call another place home. In my long travels, I’ve never met someone whose soul exists in both Greystone Valley and another world.”

  “You’re wrong,” Sarah exclaimed. “I’ve never been to this place before in my life. Neither have my parents, or their parents.”

  “Are you sure? How much do you really know about your parents?”

  “Of course I’m sure. At least, I think I am.” Sarah furrowed her brow in thought. Like most children, she had been more interested in the stories she made up herself than in the ones her parents had to tell. When she was a little girl, she might have asked her mother and father how they met or what life was like before she was born, but such stories always seemed like another kind of fairy tale. After all, how could she ever imagine her parents as children themselves?

  “A long time ago, I had a wife and children of my own,” Baelan said, speaking in a softer voice than Sarah had ever heard him use before. “I would have conquered an entire world for them, but they never showed an interest in their old man. It was always about fantasies and fairy tales with them. That’s the way it is for all children. By the time they realize that there are heroes right in front of them, it’s already too late.

  “But it’s not too late for you, Sarah,” he continued. “You’re part of two different worlds. You have the power to open up Castle Greystone. To release the magic of this world into another—into all the other worlds there are. This fairy tale doesn’t have to end for you, or for anyone in your family. You can bring the faeries and dr
agons and wonders of this world into your own. You can be a heroine. With your magic, you can have anything you want.”

  An image of Sarah’s father flashed across her mind. “Anything?” she asked.

  Baelan nodded. “Nothing’s impossible. Not for you.”

  “And what do you get out of it?”

  “I get to leave this valley, once and for all. Ever since my warriors and I got pulled in from our world, I’ve been trapped here. Greystone Valley is too small for me to conquer. I want other worlds. I’m a warlord. I want to lead my armies again. I want to conquer new lands, like I was born to.”

  “I can’t do that,” Sarah said, her voice wavering slightly. “I would love to bring magic back to my world, but I can’t let you out. You’ve made life miserable enough for the people of this valley. I’m not about to give you an entire world to conquer.”

  The calm smile left Baelan’s face and was replaced by a stern scowl, the likes of which Sarah hadn’t seen even when she had spilled soda on her mother’s old wedding dress. “Fortunately for me, the choice isn’t up to you.” He flicked his wrist, and Sarah jumped back, expecting him to pull out a hidden dagger. But the object that came from beneath his armored sleeve wasn’t a dagger at all, but a thin crystal rod with an odd white glow to it.

  Baelan slammed the rod against the wall of the stone tunnel, and it shattered. A sudden burst of thunder drowned out even Adlin’s roar from the main cavern. Then a bright light enveloped three figures: Baelan, Aries, and Sarah herself. Sarah thought she saw another form in the light, but it was too small to be anything but a trick of her imagination.

  She staggered backward and threw up her arms to cover her face. But then the light died down, and she realized she had a different problem. She was falling. The ground underneath her feet had vanished entirely, and she found herself tumbling into an empty void. Without knowing where she would land, all Sarah could do was close her eyes and hope for the best.

  Twenty-Two

  The fall felt like it would last forever. Sarah tumbled head over heels, always spiraling down, down, down. But she didn’t seem to be gaining speed as she fell, and when she finally landed, it didn’t hurt. In fact, she thought for a moment that she was back at home, safe in her bed, with the entirety of her adventures in Greystone Valley nothing more than a long, strange dream. But then she opened her eyes, and she knew that wasn’t the case.

  She was lying on the grass, which was still wet with morning dew. The sun was just beginning to creep over the hills and chase away the twilight that had come before. Sarah had spent all night awake in the dragon caves, and she suddenly felt all her sleepiness rush upon her at once. But she ignored that, because she wasn’t alone.

  Baelan stood in front of her, as proud and haughty as ever. His hands were on his hips, and his breath formed into a thin trail of steam in the chilly air. Whatever traveling magic he had used hadn’t left him as bad off as Sarah. If he had been disoriented at all, he didn’t show it one bit. Neither did Aries, who was nearby. The ram-man snorted and pawed the ground impatiently, waiting for Sarah to get up.

  Before she decided what to do, she heard the clanking of weapons and armor around her. Chancing a quick glance to each side, she saw a collection of beast-men and human warriors suiting up with swords and armor and rushing to their leader’s side. Baelan had planned his treachery from the beginning and had made sure he had some of his men at the ready here, wherever the warlord’s magical rod had brought them. She was as good as trapped.

  “You have two choices right now, Sarah,” the warlord said. “You can come with us willingly, or we can drag you along. Either way, I will have Castle Greystone open to me by the end of the night.”

  Picking herself up, Sarah reached for her wand. “You won’t be dragging me anywhere, unless you want to find yourself turned into a toad.”

  Unfortunately, while Sarah’s attention was focused on him, the warlord nodded to his general behind her. Before Sarah could react, she heard the heavy footfalls of Aries as he charged up. He grabbed each of her arms, pinning them against her body. Then he lifted her off her feet. Sarah squealed and tried to squirm away, but the massive beast-man’s grip was tighter than any ropes or handcuffs she could imagine.

  “Take her wand away and give me her spellbook,” Baelan said. Aries shook Sarah hard, until her fingers went limp and the wand clattered to the ground. Another pair of beast-men rushed up with rope. Although she was still fighting to break free, she found herself hopelessly overpowered. Within a few more moments, Baelan held her spellbook. Sarah was left with her hands and feet tied. To make matters worse, the beast-men put a gag over her mouth, so she couldn’t even give them a piece of her mind.

  Baelan casually flipped through the spellbook. Then he walked toward Sarah, picking up the wand as he approached her prone form lying helplessly on the grass. Kneeling in front of her, he spoke without any semblance of the kindness he had tried to convey back in the caves. “I won’t stop at one world,” he said. “I am a warlord. It’s my duty to conquer every land that lays before me. Once the secrets of Castle Greystone are open to me, my armies can ride anywhere, and I’ll have enough magic to stop anyone who would be a challenge to me. This is my destiny, do you understand?

  “I gave you a chance to link your destiny to mine, to be the willing key that allowed my greatness to sweep over the many worlds connected to this one. Instead, you’ve decided to be a foolish little girl. That’s the destiny you’ve chosen for yourself, and that’s the destiny I will give you once I’m finished using you. You could have been the greatest sorceress the world has ever known, Sarah. I could have made you that. Instead, you chose to make me an enemy.”

  Sarah wasn’t paying much attention to Baelan’s rant. Her mind was elsewhere, as she tried to figure a way out of her bonds. As Aries lifted her up and slung her over the back of a horse, she tried thinking of a spell that could help her escape. Unfortunately, all the magic she had seen—in both the spellbook Adlin had given her and Kay’s heavy tome—required her to at least be able to speak.

  As the war band saddled up and began riding with her as a prisoner, though, she remembered that she hadn’t always been a sorceress. Not too long ago, when she was still a part of another world, she had just been a girl. And while she had never been tied up like this, she had played plenty of games with her friends. Years ago, when she was much younger, she used to play with a boy named Scott Farris. Scott’s father was a police officer, and one day Scott brought his dad’s handcuffs to school.

  During a game of cops and robbers, Scott wound up handcuffing Sarah to the playground’s monkey bars—their pretend jail at the time—and losing the keys. It took most of recess, with all the other children panicking around her, but Sarah eventually managed to squeeze her thin wrist out of those handcuffs. For months afterward, she was known as the great escape artist.

  Now she tried to recall those skills from years ago. She clenched her hands and tightened her wrists, squirming so much that she nearly fell off the horse. It would take her some time, but she could get free, as long as no one noticed her.

  Fortunately, it turned out Sarah had one other secret advantage that Baelan hadn’t counted on: her friends.

  “Don’t wiggle so much, silly,” whispered a voice in her ear. Sarah whipped her head from side to side, trying to find the source of the words. Even though she couldn’t see anyone, she recognized the speaker as none other than Keeley.

  “Mmmfff… mnff…” Sarah said as she tried to speak through her gag.

  “And don’t talk, either, or someone will know that Keeley is here. Kay helped her turn invisible with spells taught by great Adlin the dragon-queen. Keeley will help you free, but you have to pretend to be caught still. That way, we can all surprise the evil warlord who thought he could trick us dragons. Kay and Dax will arrive to help us, and you’ll be safe again.”

  Sarah nodded and stopped struggling. She had already managed to slip out of one loop around her wrist
s, and now she felt a tug at the ropes as the invisible Keeley gnawed through them. The dragon was careful, though Sarah supposed that someone who was six inches tall always needed to be a little careful, no matter how scatter-brained she seemed. The ropes didn’t fall away entirely, because Keeley didn’t bite all the way through them.

  She left just enough of the bonds to make it look like Sarah was still caught—but also enough that she could snap right through them at a moment’s need. Then Sarah felt Keeley’s small body run up along her back and come to rest on her shoulder. It felt like a large mouse with an overly large tail was climbing around—not the best of feelings, but certainly nothing Sarah was going to complain about right at that moment.

  Keeley climbed onto the back of Sarah’s shoulders and perched there, draping her tail across Sarah’s neck like a scarf. Sarah still felt every bump and bruise caused by her capture, and her body ached as the horse she was on rode at an uneven pace. Still, having a friend nearby was comforting, to say the least.

  Now she just had to hope that Kay knew what he was doing with those spells of his for a change.

  Twenty-Three

  At first, Sarah thought Castle Greystone was just another mountain among the many peaks that sealed the valley away from the rest of the world. It was a massive gray structure that was much more weathered by age than the beautiful ivory tower Sarah had imagined. The grass turned brown as they grew closer to the great structure.

  The patches of dirt she saw looked like red clay. Sarah wondered if that color came from the battles waged by warlords like Baelan who wished to take the castle’s magic for themselves. Maybe some of them had even come close to succeeding.

  Her ribs ached from her constant bouncing on the back of the horse. She desperately wanted a break to stretch her muscles and relieve her aching bladder, but she knew that Baelan’s troops would only laugh and press harder if she asked for mercy. The warlord had made it very clear that she was a tool to him and nothing else. She was glad she hadn’t listened to him the first time they had talked.