Land Keep

by J. Scott Savage

Good-bye

  I can’t believe you have to go.” Kyja folded her arms across her chest. “This totally stinks.”

  Marcus couldn’t help smiling at all the Earth slang she’d picked up. At the same time, he was doing everything he could to keep from crying as they stood just outside the ruins of the Goodnuff farm. Being away from Farworld and his only friends for weeks—or months—was going to kill him.

  “Maybe you could occasionally jump me back without anyone knowing,” he suggested. “Just to say hi and tell me what’s happening.”

  “I can’t,” Kyja said. “You’d have to jump to get me back to Farworld, and Master Therapass insisted that jumping’s too dangerous until we understand more about the realm of shadows. Once you’re here or there you’re safe, but . . .”

  “I know. I know. Jumping across is the most dangerous because my body is there.” He’d hoped their experiences with the Augur Well had convinced her to be more of a risk taker. Apparently, not everything had changed.

  “I wish you could stay here a few days longer,” she said. “But Master Therapass think it’s best if you leave before the Dark Circle has a chance to recover.”

  Marcus nodded glumly. “Did you manage to pry anything out of Cascade about his secret mission?”

  “Not yet. But I’ll keep snooping.”

  “I still don’t trust him completely. He always has that odd little smile. And he didn’t come up to the balcony to help fight the demon after he freed Master Therapass from the dungeon.”

  Kyja picked a long blade of grass and poked Marcus in the chest with it. “Scree—I mean Graehl, said they were both keeping the unmakers occupied so Master Therapass could get away.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know that I trust Graehl much either. He didn’t tell us what he was really up to before. Who knows if he’s telling us everything now?” Marcus kicked a rock buried in the ground and looked at the mountains where the sun was beginning to rise. All around them, small purple flowers began to raise their heads in song.

  Marcus listened to their beautiful music, relieved that the song no longer included images of him destroying Farworld. He wondered if one of the dawn chimes might be the mother of the fairy they’d saved.

  “I guess it’s time for you to go,” Kyja said, blinking quickly.

  Marcus wiped his eyes with the back of hand. He thought about trying to convince her to wait a little longer, but he already knew what she’d say. Master Therapass wanted him on Earth well before sunrise. By now Bonesplinter and his army of Thrathkin S’Bae would undoubtedly be on their way back to Farworld to regroup after their latest failure.

  Therapass was hoping the motorcycle was still there and that Marcus could manage to somehow get it moving with only one good arm and leg—even if it meant driving the whole way in first gear. But if not, Marcus would have to crawl the couple of miles to the monastery where he was supposed to stay until it was safe to bring him back to Farworld, and the desert heat could be almost as deadly as the dark wizards.

  “Do you really think Therapass is just guessing that the monks will let me stay with them?” he asked. “Or do you think there’s something about the monastery he’s not telling us?”

  “I think there are a lot of things he’s not telling us,” Kyja said with a shrewd smile. “But the good thing about me staying in the tower is that I’ll have plenty of time to poke around while you’re gone.”

  “I’ll do the same there.”

  “And you have your books,” Kyja added.

  “Right.” Marcus hefted the pack of books and scrolls Master Therapass had given him to study. It was heavy. If he had to crawl, he’d have to leave it with the motorcycle until he could come back for it later. But between the magic books, the histories, and what little there was on elementals, it would give him plenty to study while he was stuck on Earth.

  “Master Therapass said I can use the Aptura Discerna to check up on you now and then,” Kyja said.

  “Just make sure it’s not first thing in the morning or right before bed. I’d rather not have you peeking at me while I’m getting dressed or going to the bathroom or something.”

  They both giggled at the thought. “I promise to keep my eyes closed until Master Therapass says you’re decent.”

  Marcus sighed. There was so much to think about, so many things happening here. He knew being stuck on Earth, with no idea what was occurring on Farworld, would drive him crazy—even if he did have the books and scrolls to keep him busy.

  “See you later, fish breath,” he said to Riph Raph.

  The skyte looked up from licking his talons as though he hadn’t even realized Marcus was there. “Haven’t you left yet?”

  “I’ll try to figure out a way to send you messages,” Kyja said.

  They both stood awkwardly, looking anywhere but at each other. Then as if on cue, each stepped forward and wrapped their arms around each other. After a moment, Marcus pulled back, not sure of what he was going to say or do. Kyja leaned forward and kissed him softly on the lips.

  Before he could say a word, the tugging sensation pulled in his stomach, and he was falling. He opened his eyes to find himself sitting by the side of a narrow dirt road in the middle of the Arizona desert. A few feet away, the motorcycle was waiting.

  He touched his lips softly, as though afraid that whatever was on them might rub off, and shook his head. “Wow.”

  Interlude

  Unlikely Allies

  The Dark Circle

  Cold lines of sweat trickled down Bonesplinter’s face as he knelt on the floor of the antechamber. He did not wipe them away. Clutching his staff crosswise before him, the Thrathkin S’Bae tried not to think of what lay ahead. But beneath his black robes, his heart thudded with the knowledge that the remainder of his life could be measured in minutes.

  The walls and floor of the hexagonal room were highly polished black stone with tiny flecks of silver. Occasionally the flecks shot out blue arcs of fire that sparked and crackled up the walls to the domed ceiling high above, like seeking fingers.

  Is that how death would come? Blue flames wrapping around his neck and cutting off his breath so he couldn’t even cry out as they burned his life away?

  His eyes strayed to the deep grooves running from each corner of the room and down to a small bowl at the center. His fingers tightened around his staff, but he dared not raise it. Even if he hadn’t known how close he was to Fein Ter’er, the inner sanctum of the Master, he could feel bands of energy raging invisibly about him as if he were kneeling at the edge of a hurricane. He understood instinctively that the moment he so much as lifted the staff, dark magic would rip his body to shreds.

  They had failed again to capture the boy. That much he knew, although not how or why. It wasn’t his fault this time. His men had been exactly where they were supposed to be—had done everything they were asked to do. He couldn’t be blamed.

  But the master wouldn’t see it that way.

  Yet even here, with shame making the thick scar on his face burn, and his death only minutes—perhaps seconds—away, he couldn’t help feeling magic flowing wildly around him and imagining what it would be like to take control of it. To hold in his fist the power, to call up almost endless armies of the dead, to raise and destroy kingdoms, to move the very mountains beneath which he knelt.

  Above his head, something crackled and flared. A bolt of blue lightning struck the ground beside him, and the Thrathkin S’Bae hunched his shoulders, waiting for the next blow that would undoubtedly take his life. But the blow never came. When he dared raise his eyes, a figure sat on a throne, where the room had been empty only a moment before.

  “Master,” Bonesplinter whispered, returning his gaze to the floor. He hoped the end would come quickly but feared it would not.

  After a moment, when nothing had happened, he dared to raise his eyes again. He’d never seen the Master of the Dark Circle in person—only a hand or eyes in the darkness—and hoped to gain a glimpse before he died. But
even that wish seemed too much to hope for. The gem-encrusted throne was clearly visible: blood red with veins of black. Outstretched claws twisting up from the arms and legs looked like some creature in mortal agony.

  Two eight-legged dogs perched at either side of the throne, so thin their bones pushed against their black fur. Their red eyes watched him hungrily, as though only waiting for their master’s word to tear the Thrathkin S’Bae limb from limb.

  The figure in the throne was not so easy to see. Though only a few feet away, it seemed to swim in and out of focus—a shadow within a shadow. For a moment, Bonesplinter thought he could make out a dark face, gray lips straining over long, yellowed teeth. But a moment later, the face disappeared like swirling smoke, to be replaced by a young woman with achingly beautiful features and a tongue that flicked out from between her red lips like a viper’s.

  Trying to make out the figure made Bonesplinter’s head ache. He satisfied himself with concentrating on the wrinkled, gray hands that gripped the arms of the throne. On the right hand, a gold ring glimmered. He had kissed that ring only a few months before with hopes of reestablishing himself with the Master—reclaiming a position of power. Now those hopes were crushed.

  “I am old.” The voice speaking from the shadows sounded neither male nor female. It could have come from a child or an ancient. It could have come from something not human at all—a dragon flushed with razing an entire city or the crimson-stained steel of an executioner’s blade.

  Bonesplinter had no idea how to respond, so he said nothing.

  “Do you have any idea what the difference is between life and death?” the figure asked between sharp intakes of air.

  This was it. This was the moment. Bonesplinter tensed his muscles, wondering what direction death would come from. He licked his lips and managed a hoarse whisper. “No.”

  The voice laughed cruelly. “It’s a riddle all men solve eventually. I’ve helped hundreds discover the answer. Thousands. I myself have nearly solved it more than once.”

  The figure shifted in its chair and sighed deeply, as though remembering. “I think the distance might not be as far as most think.”

  Bonesplinter screwed up his courage, his limbs trembling, and managed to choke out, “I . . . failed you, Master.”

  “Yes, yes.” The papery gray hand waved in the air as though brushing off a bite-me fly. “Failure and death. All men must taste both in their lifetimes.” Along each of the walls, pulses of energy raced upward in zigzagging patterns, exploding loudly overhead as they clashed together. “I do not wish to taste either!” The voice—now hard as stone—roared. “Is that too much to ask?”

  “No!” Bonesplinter quailed, his pulse racing.

  “No.” The voice grew soft again, and along the walls, the energy dropped back to its previous levels. “Do you believe there are worlds within worlds?”

  Confused, Bonesplinter nodded dumbly. He had no idea what the Master was talking about, but the fact that they were still talking inspired a faint sliver of hope.

  If the Master saw him at all, he seemed to pay no attention, but went on talking. “The foolish believe they see things as they are. But the truly wise understand that nothing is as it appears. Life lies within death. Success within failure. You have seen Earth and Farworld. Perhaps even sensed a link between the two. But there is another world more powerful than both.”

  Bonesplinter waited silently, trying without success to understand what the Master was saying.

  “I have tried to kill the child three times,” the Master finally said. “Perhaps it is not his death I must seek at all, but his failure. As death lies within life, so perhaps the child’s failure lies hidden within his success.”

  The figure shifted again, and Bonesplinter felt a sudden, intense aching at the center of his brain. He looked up to see two yellow eyes staring at him from within the shadows. “Why do you think the boy seeks out the elementals?” the voice demanded.

  Bonesplinter felt as though his head was splitting in two. “To return to Farworld,” he moaned. “It’s the only possibility.”

  “Perhaps,” the voice agreed. Bonesplinter felt sure the veins in his head were about to burst. “He hopes to return to his own world and the girl to hers. But it is not that simple. The scales are not so easily balanced. The wizard knows that—which leads me to believe he is not telling the children everything. There is something he knows that I must understand. But I have allies he is not aware of.”

  The burning inside Bonesplinter’s skull stopped, and it was all he could do to keep from collapsing to the floor. The Master’s attention had been turned elsewhere. In a haze of pain, the Thrathkin S’Bae looked up to see a section of wall slide open. The master’s assistant—a creature with the body of a twisted human and the head of an owl—stepped through the opening. In its mold-coated arms, it carried a small, curved dagger, a cage, and a box made of polished, black wood.

  The creature handed the dagger and the cage to the Master. Both dogs sniffed curiously at the cage, but when the creature shuffled to the center of the room and opened the box, they pulled back snarling and whining.

  Bonesplinter watched as the creature lifted a bleached white skull from the box and placed it near the bowl-shaped opening in the floor where the trenches met. He’d never seen anything like it. The skull had thick, curved horns similar to a ram or a goat, but instead of growing forward or around to each side, the horns curved up and then back into the skull again as if it had somehow succeeded in goring its own brain. A single eye socket lay black and empty in the center of the skull’s forehead.

  As silently as it had arrived, the owl creature picked up the box and disappeared from the room, leaving the door open a crack. Bonesplinter watched as the Master’s gray hands lifted the cage. Something round and furry squeaked inside the thin bars, which looked suspiciously like they were made of bones. As the Master unlocked the cage and reached inside, Bonesplinter recognized the animal—an ishkabiddle. At the sight of the ball of fur, the two dogs nearly went wild.

  “Soon, my pets, soon,” the Master whispered. He raised the curved dagger into the air. As he brought the blade down, the ishkabiddle seemed to sense what was happening. At the last second, it jerked in the Master’s hands, the blade barely nicking it on one side. The Master lost his grip on the furry creature, and it dropped to the floor.

  Instantly the two hounds pounced on it, jaws wide, twin tongues slavering. But the ishkabiddle was too quick. Pink feelers rose from its head and shot out a cloud of tiny gray specks that blinded the dogs momentarily. Before the hounds could react, the ishkabiddle scurried past them with surprising speed and escaped through the still-ajar door.

  “Too slow!” The Master cackled as the frustrated dogs pawed open the door and raced into the hallway beyond. “Success and failure.”

  The Master turned back to Bonesplinter. “I promised you power,” he said.

  Bonesplinter looked up, his heart pounding. “Y-yes,” he stammered. This had to be a trick. The master was going to kill him; he was sure of it. But a glimmer of hope refused to go out. Perhaps the master recognized that he’d done everything he’d been asked to do. Could he have been called here to be rewarded instead of punished?

  What do you desire? a deep voice asked. At first Bonesplinter thought it was the Master speaking, but then he saw that the eye socket at the center of the skull was no longer empty. Orange light danced and flickered from within it, as if a fire burned inside.

  “I seek a gift,” the Master whispered, holding out the knife with both hands.

  What do you offer? the skull asked.

  “The blood of an innocent,” the Master said. He held the dagger above one of the grooves in the floor. For a moment, Bonesplinter thought the blade was bare. Then he saw a single drop of the ishkabiddle’s blood roll down the tip of the dagger and drop into the groove. At the center of the room, the fire inside the skull grew brighter, flashing orange in the darkness.

  The tiny dro
p of crimson flowed down the groove in the floor until it was only inches from the skull. Then, like a snake striking, a long, black tongue unfurled from inside the skull’s mouth and lapped up the drop.

  At once, the blue light that illuminated the ceiling turned red, forming a small, intense ball of light that looked like a bloody moon. A cold wind appeared from nowhere, chewing and clawing at Bonesplinter’s clothes and face, filling the room with the sound of terrifying laughter. The floor trembled beneath his knees, and he clenched his teeth, waiting to be struck dead.

  Do you hunger? the skull asked, its voice echoing off the close walls.

  Dropping his staff, the Thrathkin S’Bae leaned back, pressing himself against the wall. Was the skull talking to him now—sensing his desire for power?

  Do you hunger?

  The question repeated itself—pounding like a sick heartbeat, somehow making itself heard above the storm raging through the room. The cold wind froze the sweat on Bonesplinter’s face and arms.

  Do you hunger? the skull asked again.

  With a terrible groaning, the stone walls cracked and broke. Unimaginable power tossed him about the room. Slivers of black stone, ripped away by the swirling air, cut his skin. He knew he couldn’t last much longer. Whatever was in the room with him could destroy him without even noticing.

  Do you hunger?

  “Yes!” he cried pressing his hands to his face. “I hunger. I do. I want power!”

  At once everything stopped—the sudden silence as shockingly loud as the chaos that had preceded it. The Thrathkin S’Bae shuddered with dread and terror.

  Then you shall have it. The skull’s eyes flared.

  The Master held out his hands. “A gift for you, my faithful servant.”

  Bonesplinter looked up. The master’s gray hands held something out to him. Still sure he was about to die—that this was some sort of trick—he got to his feet and stumbled forward. The Master offered a circular band of metal so big Bonesplinter could barely hold it. A smaller link was attached to the front. It looked vaguely familiar. He tried to remember where he’d seen it before.