“Leeli, sing,” Kalmar said.
She wiped her cheeks. “What do I sing?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Kal said. “Just let him hear you before he dies.”
Amidst the clash of swords and the shouts of battle, Leeli Wingfeather leaned her head on the gray shoulder of what was left of her father, and sang.
My love has gone across the sea
To find a country far and fair
He sailed into the gilded west
And lo, my heart will never rest
Until my love returns to me
Or I set out to find him there.
Come home, come home! I sing to thee
My love, come home and rest thy head
I’ll watch for you the winter long
And sing for you a summer song
And if you can’t return to me
Then I will sail to you instead
Through tow’ring wave and shriek of gale
I’ll aim my vessel ever west
And steer it by the cord that bound
My heart to yours, until you’re found
And should you find my body pale
And wrecked upon the loamy shale
Rejoice, my love, and call me blessed!
In death, my love, I loved you best
The cloven lifted an arm and lowered it around Leeli and Janner. It squeezed them close, and the voice spoke in Janner’s mind again, gentle and rich.I found you, it said.And now that I have, I’ll hold you fast.
Janner didn’t understand any of it and he didn’t care. He didn’t understand why his father was a cloven, or how he ended up with Freva’s little girl. He was only grateful that his father was still alive, and even though he was deformed and he stank, even though they sat on the floor of the great hall in the middle of a battle, and even though he knew the moment would be over all too soon, Janner was bright with gladness. He felt a deep magic swirling about them. He looked into his father’s blue eyes and listened to the words that echoed again and again in his mind:I found you, I found you, I found you.
“Get them!” Bonifer cried. His eyes were wild and wheeling as he ducked beneath swinging swords with a speed unnatural to his aged frame. Danniby and the Durgans had lost their position in the chaos of the battle, and the circle of safety around the Wingfeathers broke.
Squoon grabbed Leeli and thrust her at a Fang as two others seized Janner and Kalmar. They struggled, but the Fangs were mighty with the fever of battle. Though the children screamed and reached for their father, they were swept away from him.
“Papa, help!” Leeli cried.
Esben moaned and lifted himself a few inches from the floor, but then he collapsed again and lay still.
The three Fangs dashed from the Keep with the children over their shoulders. Bonifer scooted behind them as fast as his old bones could carry him.
“Onto the carriage, you fools!” Bonifer cried. The Fangs threw the children aboard and climbed on as the horses galloped toward the harbor.
53
The Liberation of Dugtown
Sara clung to the strange man’s neck as he flew over Dugtown. She saw houses burning and groups of men and women tossing Fang armor into piles. The sun was bright in the chilly air, but it was muted by smoke and a strange musty powder floating in the wind. Most of the streets were deserted, but in a few open courtyards and along the river there were multitudes of soldiers standing in formation, marching through the streets, or mounted on saddled birds as big as horses. Townspeople crowded the walkways, and even from her height Sara heard their cheers.
“Are they gone?” Sara asked. “The Fangs, I mean.”
“Not yet,” Artham said. “But we’ve driven them out of Dugtown. It’s only the beginning, but it’s a victory. Look.”
He angled a wing and they turned southeast, toward the Mighty River Blapp. Far across the muddy water was Torrboro and its cat-like castle. It used to be Dugtown’s cleaner, wealthier neighbor—in fact, Sara and her parents had lived in a little house on the southeastern edge of the city before the Fangs had taken her. Now it was green with Fangs. They clustered and slithered at the riverfront in a way that made Sara think of worms in garbage.
“Getting the Fangs to abandon Dugtown was the easy part,” Artham said. “Torrboro is where the fortress lies, and Fangs from all over Skree are mustering there. It’s going to be a difficult fight.”
“What about the people there?” Sara asked.
“Gone. Either they’ve fled or they’ve been killed.”
During her time in the Fork Factory, Sara had come to believe her parents were gone forever. But seeing her city overrun with snake men made her stomach feel as if someone had just put a heavy stone in it. She shuddered with grief.
“I’m sorry, dear,” Artham said.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked after a moment.
“Someplace safe.”
“What about the other kids? Borley and Grettalyn—”
“Don’t worry. They’re in good hands. I’ll take you back to see them after you’ve had a bath and a good meal. You’re their queen, after all.”
Sara smiled. A bath sounded wonderful.
Artham flew lower, over a hill on the north side of Dugtown where a handsome house stood. Two horses were tethered to a fence out front. When Artham landed, the front door opened and a girl about Sara’s age stepped onto the porch. She was dressed like a boy and held a leg of half-eaten henmeat in one hand.
She burped, wiped her mouth with her sleeve, and asked, “That her?”
“Aye. This is Sara Cobbler,” Artham said with a laugh as he set Sara on the grass.
“Wanna play tackleball?” the girl asked.
“What’s—what’s tackleball?” Sara took a hesitant step forward.
“Maraly,” Artham said, “there will be time for that later. Why don’t you find her another hunk of henmeat, and maybe some soup?”
Maraly shrugged and went inside.
“Thank you, Mister Artham,” Sara said.
When Artham didn’t reply, she turned to find him squirming on the ground, clutching the sides of his head. His eyes were clamped shut, and his wings were bent and crooked beneath him.
“Mister Artham, what’s wrong?”
Artham loosed an ear-splitting shriek.
“Help!” Sara cried. “Somebody help him!”
54
Treachery
Why are you doing this?” Janner screamed. He struggled in the Fang’s grip as the carriage clattered out of the courtyard.
“Indeed, why does anyone do anything mad?” Bonifer arched an eyebrow at Janner. “For love, boy. You wouldn’t understand.”
“You kidnapped Bonnie!” Leeli cried.
Bonifer rolled his eyes. “Oh, relax. Someone would have found her sooner or later. And someone—or something—did. I arranged everything just so. I spread the rumor of Fangs in the Outer Vales to get rid of Rudric. Bunge was to banish you, and then I was going to sail you out past the Watercraw and safely deliver you to one of the Fang ships that waited in the dark outside the gate. When they lowered the chain, the Fangs were going to invade.” Squoon glanced back at the Keep in the distance and pointed his thumb. “But that fool Bunge tried to hang you and your mother, even after I threatened him with article seven of the Chumply Amendment.” Squoon chuckled. “That was a good ruse, eh? Old Bonifer worked it all out, though. I just had to ride out to the gatehouse at the Watercraw, kill the guard, and lower the gate to let in the Fang ships.”
“You—you killed a guard?” Janner said. He couldn’t imagine Bonifer Squoon doing much of anything besides reading and shuffling around.
“It had to be done, lad. Since you hadn’t been banished, I wasn’t going to sail out of the harbor with you. And if I wasn’t going to sail out with you, the guards weren’t going to lower the chain. I had to let the Fangs into Ban Rona or Kalmar would have been hanged. Gnag the Nameless would have been most displeased with me. Indeed, now that I think a
bout it, tonight wasn’t so different from when I opened the portcullis at the Castle Rysen nine years ago.”
“It was you?” Janner said, aghast. “You led the Fangs to our castle?”
“Indeed.”
“But why?”
“I already told you.” Bonifer looked up at the moon. “For love.”
“That doesn’t make any sense!” Leeli said.
“Of course it doesn’t. You’re only nine years old.”
“Which is young enough to know when something’s evil,” she said.
“Indeed. I suppose I believed the same thing when I was nine.” Bonifer steered the carriage around another corner and began the descent to the harbor. His voice turned bitter. “But as you grow you’ll find that even your dearest friend can betray you. If you’re weak, he’ll steal the thing you love most.”
“Which is what you’re doing right now,” Kalmar said.
Janner had no idea what Bonifer Squoon was talking about. Nor did he care anymore. The old man was crazy. Janner wanted to jump off the carriage and run back to his father. He wanted to be sure Nia and Podo were all right. “We trusted you,” Janner said.
“Indeed!” Bonifer chuckled. “As has your family for three generations.”
“But our family was good to you!” Leeli said.
Bonifer rounded on her and grabbed her wrist. His face was red and his flesh trembled. “Your familyruined me. And do you know the worst of it? None of you has any idea.” Bonifer took a deep breath and released Leeli. He adjusted his top hat and turned back to face the road.
“I’ve known Gnag since he was born. I loved his mother dearly, and so I have done my best to help him however I can.”
Janner was dumbstruck. Bonifer Squoon loved Gnag the Nameless’s mother? Janner hadn’t known until that moment whether Gnag was a troll or a Fang or a dragon. But a human? And Bonifer Squoon knew him? Janner wanted to push Bonifer off a cliff, and at the same time he wanted to ask him a thousand questions.
“But he destroyed Anniera,” Janner said. “He’s killed thousands of people.”
“Ah, but he’screatedmany thousands, too. Where do you think the Fangs come from? The Maker? No, Gnag has made improvements on the original design, wouldn’t you say, soldiers?” The Fangs laughed. “Wait till he discovers how to meld us with snickbuzzards! With trolls! Wait till he melds me with adragon. Nowthat will be something to see.” Bonifer sighed. “The possibilities are endless, children. But only with more of the holoré and the holoél. Only with the stones from the deep places.”
“The deep places?” Leeli asked.
“Caverns where the walls and ceilings glow with the light of the making stones. If Gnag the Nameless can make an army of Fangs with but two of the stones, think what he could do with a city of them! And do you know how to get there?” Bonifer raised his eyebrows at the children. “No? I’ll tell you.The Castle Rysen. That’s right! Your father knew. He had just begun to decipher the First Book, and he told me of a long-forgotten passageway beneath the castle. A chamber that leads to the deep places, where the Maker walked with the First Fellows. The river that feeds Aerwiar runs there, between mountains paved withholoél.” Squoon shrugged. “Or that’s what your father told me, anyway. It could all be made up. But Gnag doesn’t think so. Theholoélandholoré had to come from somewhere, did they not?”
“Then why does he want us?” Kalmar asked. “He already destroyed Anniera. What’s keeping him from digging up the stones and doing whatever he wants with them?”
“Because your father learned just enough from the First Book to know that it takes special gifts to open the chamber.”
“What gifts?” Leeli asked.
“Song, Word, and Form.”
“T.H.A.G.S.,” Janner said.
“Indeed. But not just anyone can open the chamber. It only works with the three of you, born of the High King of Anniera. No amount of fire or digging or hammering has been able to open it in nine years. Gnag needs you, children. AndI need you.” Squoon’s voice dropped to almost a whisper. “He’s going to turn me into something beautiful and strong and young again. I think I want to be a spider.” He waggled his fingers at Leeli and she cringed. “But I couldn’t just show up at the Castle Throg when I had allowed you to escape Anniera with the First Book! The Nameless One was angry with me, and I knew it. I’ve been hiding here ever since. I tell you, I could hardly believe my good fortune when you arrived in the Green Hollows and came to live in the very same house as I! It was perfect. I could keep watch and plan. I knew you were sneaking out, Kalmar. You’d be surprised how lightly an old man sleeps. I thought at first that your escapades would foil my plans, but then I realized they would play into them perfectly. I was going to sail the three of you out of the harbor with the Hollowsfolks’ blessing. All I had to do was wait until that fat fool finished translating the First Book.”
Bonifer reined up the horses at the harbor. By the light of the moon Janner saw at least ten Fang ships. More Fangs marched onto the pier with bows and swords in their paws, on their way to join the battle. Bonifer bowed as they tromped by.
“Bind them,” Bonifer told the Fangs. “And gag them while you’re at it. I don’t want them making any unnecessary noise.”
The Fangs tied the children’s wrists, gagged them with strips of cloth, and then pulled sacks over each of their heads.
Howls echoed through the streets of Ban Rona.
55
Artham and the Deeps of Throg
When Leeli sang over the cloven, her song rose from the depths of her heart and sent a burst of shimmering cords into the matter of the world. They sizzled from her in a million strands, like a spiderweb of lightning bolts. They shot through Janner and Kalmar and Esben, waking something bright in their bones, and each of them felt it differently. The music’s power was invisible to everyone around them, even to Nia; for her and the others it was just a pretty song amidst the clamor of warfare. But for the Jewels of Anniera, who bore the blood of their ancestors, the music reached into secret places and did wondrous things. Janner heard voices, Kalmar saw pictures, and Leeli’s tender heart coursed with the rivers of emotion swirling in those near her, opening her to the deep, unutterable mysteries of their souls.
Esben, lost in a vast darkness, saw a golden light.
The strand of song burned through the bedrock of the Green Hollows, through a thousand miles of molten stone and layered rock laid by the Maker at the speaking of the world, past the black depths of the Dark Sea, coursing unnoticed through the blood and marrow of massy, eyeless beings asleep on the ocean floor, till the cord was weakened by distance into a quivering rustle of cells lifting invisibly from the ground where Artham Wingfeather stood with Sara Cobbler. It reached weakly up, and up, through his flesh and into the well of his heart, and drank deeply from its waters. The strand revived and thickened and crackled back through the earth to where Esben the Cloven lay dying.
Artham felt his old shame awaken. It screamed at him. He was at once able to see in his mind Janner, Kalmar, and Leeli, huddled over a broken thing, a cloven, and he knew it was Esben. His brother, whom he was born to protect.
His brother, whom he had abandoned.
His mind shrank and he could form no thoughts, only memories. He thrashed at Sara Cobbler’s feet as he remembered when he and Esben had been captured in Anniera and thrown into the dark, wet horror of Gnag’s dungeons in the Deeps of Throg. He had tried to forget the wicked, sweet voice of the Stone Keeper, the woman who every day coaxed them to sing for power and their own freedom, coaxed them to deny their homeland and swear allegiance to Gnag the Nameless.
Artham had been so strong. Even chained to a wall and starving in the blackness, he would spit at the Stone Keeper and defy her temptations and her tortures. He had resisted the voices that seemed to come from outside himself but shrieked in his mind nonetheless. He had fought to ignore the song that was always singing, always singing, always singing, closed his eyes on the glowing shards of
stone and the hawk in the cage beside him.
Every night for a thousand days he had refused Gnag and the Stone Keeper and the voices. And then one day, he could no longer tell which of the voices in his head was his own. He couldn’t separate them. And he couldn’t quiet them. They rose in volume and wrath and convinced him that it was better to sing the song for power than to die alone.
But Esben!he had screamed.I cannot leave him!
And the voices laughed.
Then one day, from the cell where he was shackled, Artham saw Esben. The king’s head dangled between his outstretched arms, and he was chained beside a hulking and wretched old bear. Patches of fur sprouted from Esben’s shoulders, and Artham knew.
His brother had lost his fight with the Stone Keeper. She had won. The change was upon him. Esben had broken. And that meant one thing: Artham Wingfeather, Throne Warden, Firstborn of the Shining Isle, had failed the High King of Anniera.
The voices hounded him, told him it was better to stop fighting.Just sing the song, they said. They told him it was too late.Just sing the song. You’ll be so powerful. You’ll be able to fly away from here.
And one dark night, through tears, while his misshapen brother lolled his great ursine head and watched and the Stone Keeper whispered, Artham began to sing. He felt the tingle in his arms as the hawk jittered in its nearby cage. The tips of his fingers burned and contorted into claws, and he was glad the fighting was finally over.
Then he looked up to see Esben’s face, haggard and stretched, bearded with a scruff of fur. He looked on Artham with such sadness, such pleading—and such unbearable disappointment.
Artham had clamped his eyes shut and stopped his singing. The pain in his hands abated, and in an explosion of strength he broke his rusty shackles. The Stone Keeper fled, shrieking down the dungeon corridors.
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