The final two at the table, however, outshone all the rest. A man and a woman, their clothes were the definition of elegance. The man was dressed in clothes of brown and white, and he wore a half-cape with brown fur trim. His face was plain, but it commanded respect. He was the only one at the table standing, leaning forward with his hands planted on the wood, but he wasn’t speaking. He was listening attentively as one of the Runegard spoke, appearing to outline the situation. His eyes were sharp, calculating, but lacking in cruelty or anger.
The woman at his side, on the other hand, seemed to radiate resentment. Her clothes matched the man’s in color, right down to her cape, though of course she wore a dress rather than a shirt and pants. Around her neck was clasped a gorgeous amber amulet. It was wrought in silver and caught the light of the sun no matter which way you turned it, twisting it and reflecting it back out with a yellow hue. The sun’s glow from the windows above poured through the amulet and bounced to the table where the meeting was taking place. It painted the wood and everyone’s outstretched hands in a golden tone.
She and the guy, who I was sure was her husband, were clearly richer than everyone else in the room. I spotted circlets on their heads that could have been simple crowns, less ornate than the ones used for ceremony. In a flash I realized that they were the king and queen of Athorn. Whatever was going on, it had to be serious if they were here. But the king seemed cool and level-headed about it, whereas the queen looked like she thought this whole meeting was just a waste of her time.
“Hey Greystone,” I said, interrupting the heated conversation that was going on. “What’s happening?”
Greystone whirled and gave a strangled cry. “Why are you first again? Why couldn’t it have been absolutely any of the others?”
I was suddenly very aware of everyone around the table staring at me. The Runegard looked at me curiously, the nobles with disinterest and the king with amusement. But the queen stared at me coldly, her eyes radiating a threat I didn’t understand. Was she totally clueless that we were here to help?
“Are we under attack?” I said. “Is the city in danger?”
“Of course not,” Greystone scoffed. “The barrier protects the city, or haven’t you managed to learn that much?”
“So why is everyone freaking out? Why are the king and queen here? Good morning, your majesties, by the way,” I said, giving them a half bow. Greystone had told us when we’d first arrived that we were held above royalty in Midrealm, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to be polite.
“And good morning to you, good Sir,” said the king, smiling even wider. He stepped back from the table to do a full bow, going horizontal at the waist. In an instant, the nobles on the other side of the table joined him. I guessed it wasn’t considered polite to stay upright while your king bowed.
The queen, however, did not bow. Instead she merely clutched the amulet at her throat, dousing the glow it cast upon the table.
“We are all warmed by the return of the Chosen to the capitol,” the king said as he straightened. Greystone had told us that “The Chosen” was what royalty called us, to remind themselves that they had their power through accident of birth, while we were picked by Destiny to be Realm Keepers. “We shall all need your help and your counsel in the days and years ahead.”
“You shall have it,” I said, resisting the urge to bow again. No need to turn this into a game of bobble-head. “I apologize, good king, but I have not been informed of your name.”
Greystone stepped forward, grumbling. I guess I’d made him look bad, but it felt nice to be making him squirm for once. “King Nestor, Ruler of Morrowdust, Lord of Athorn, greatest of the Free Kingdoms. May I present…” He flopped a hand toward me. “Sir Calvin.”
I inclined my head as though I hadn’t noticed the subtle snub. “It is my honor.”
King Nestor, too, inclined his head, then turned to Greystone with a smile. “You didn’t tell me they were so polite,” he remarked. “Normally they’re quite terrified at first.”
“This one is…special,” said Greystone sarcastically.
Nestor’s smile dampened slightly as he turned to his queen. “Come forward, my Queen,” he said.
The queen did, icily. She was still staring at me like I was a steak she was about to eat. She did not, curtsy or bow as she approached; she just kept staring.
“My Lady Elanor,” Nestor said. “May I present Sir Calvin, the Keeper of…” he looked at me as if for help.
I looked at Greystone.
He looked at me, enjoying my discomfort.
“What power do you possess, Sir Calvin?” Nestor prodded me.
“Oh!” I said. “Air. I’m air.”
“Keeper of the Air,” Nestor finished. “Sir Calvin, my wife, the queen Elanor.”
“I am honored, your majesty,” I said, inclining my head rather than bowing. She was beautiful — forget that, she was gorgeous. But the beauty was marred by her disdain. I wasn’t going to show respect to someone who hated me for no reason.
“If you’re quite finished, Nestor?” said Greystone. “We must speak of the matter at hand.”
Nestor turned to him. Elanor did not. “Yes, of course,” Nestor said hastily. “Well, we can’t sally forth. We should have to ride to the other barrier gate, and we could not reach the nearer until tomorrow at best. The day after if we wished to have a rested force.”
“Okay, somebody fill me in,” I said, brushing past Elanor and coming to the table. I wasn’t just going to stand there and let her size me up while everyone else talked about whatever was going on. I wanted to help. “What are we dealing with?”
Everyone looked askance at me except the Runegard; they were smiling. Greystone rounded on me. “It is a matter of great peril,” he insisted. “You should return to your quarters immediately. You should not have brought him.” He pointed at Darren.
Before Darren could reply, I leapt in. “I ordered him,” I said. “Don’t blame him. And I’m not going back to hide in my room while everyone else deals with this. Tell me what’s going on.”
I didn’t know if that counted as an order, but Greystone stopped arguing and glared at me. When he spoke, it was as if he were being forced.
“There is a creature of Chaos at the barrier gate,” he said. “Behind it is an army. Not a great one, but great enough. The creature is attempting to destroy the gate. The legion stationed there cannot turn it back.” He turned to the table, dismissing me. “Which is why I suggest that we muster the remaining soldiers in Morrowdust while we summon more from Stanchion. Hopefully the gate will hold until they get close. If it does not, the army will have to hold off the Shadows. Hopefully they can destroy the beast.”
“How can we hope to defeat the thing?” said one of the men across the table. He spoke as if he was a soldier, but he didn’t have a weapon or any armor. “It’s a thing of Chaos. Can’t you deal with it? Use your spells?”
“And what did you think I was doing at the wall, waving my arms in the air and asking for a recipe for tuna tartare?” Greystone snapped. “When you are a wizard, and have been for nine hundred years, then you can tell me what to do and what not to do.”
“Let me go to the gate,” I said.
That stopped them. Everyone stared at me in shock, all except Greystone, who rolled his eyes and muttered what sounded like a prayer under his breath.
“I can help,” I said in the sudden silence. “I can do something. Let me go.”
“I am far less likely to do that than I am to suddenly pitch all of Athorn into the depths of the sea,” said Greystone. “You are one Realm Keeper, untrained. As much as it pains me to say it — and you will never understand how much it pains me to say it — your life is far too valuable. I will not waste you against a demon when you have no hope of defeating it.”
“You don’t know that,” I said stubbornly. I didn’t know what had gotten into me all of a sudden, but I knew I wasn’t going to be ordered around like some kid. I was already a rej
ect back on True Earth. My parents were too afraid to talk to me. Nobody at school cared about me any more. I wasn’t going to be useless here, too.
“You may believe me when I say I know it truer than anything I have ever known.”
“I am the Keeper of Air!” I said, slamming my fist down on the table. It didn’t create exactly the boom I was hoping for, more of a tap. Now the expressions of the men across the table were turning from shock to a simpering sort of condescension. It made me even angrier. “If I’m not here to help the people of Midrealm, then why am I here? You said it to me yesterday: we’re here for a purpose. How am I supposed to fulfill my purpose if you try to keep me cooped up like some prize bird?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Greystone sniffed. “A prize bird would be far preferable right now. At least its warbling would be tolerable.”
That did it. I’d had it up to here with this guy and his dismissal.
I threw my hands forward, pulling at the air around me. A wind blew from them with the force of a hurricane, and everyone’s clothing whipped in the gale. The column of air flung Greystone from his feet and through the air, sending him flying into the wall on the other side of the great hall. I lowered my hands and the wind died away.
“I. Can. Help,” I said through gritted teeth.
Greystone pushed himself up on one knee, and I saw fire flash in his eyes. It should have scared me, but it didn’t. It wasn’t a flash of anger. It was something else.
“Fine,” he said, a smile tugging at his expression. Then he held his own hand out. I felt, rather than saw, a plate of air form beneath me. With a twist of his wrist, Greystone flipped the plate end over end, sending me head over heels to crash into the ground. I groaned as I lay on my back, suddenly not eager to go anywhere at all.
“We don’t want you getting too uppity, after all,” Greystone said as he stood. “Now. Can you ride a horse?”
“Can I what?”
CALVIN
TURNS OUT, I COULD RIDE a horse. Also turns out, I hated it. I couldn’t figure out how to get myself up onto the saddle, so eventually Darren had to give me a boost, Greystone complaining the whole time. Once I got up there, I was about as comfortable as a no-legged cat at a dog show. The thing bounced and shifted under me, seeming like it was trying its hardest to throw me off. I’d had an idea of galloping with Greystone and Darren up to the barrier gate, arriving in a clatter of hooves and posing dramatically like a knight in a movie. Instead, I wrapped the reins around both my hands and clung to the saddle horn for dear life, and we moved along at what was barely a brisk trot.
“When we get there, stay out of sight,” Greystone said as we rode. “It will try to kill you if it can. Try not to let it.”
“Try not to die,” I said, each word forced out of me in a grunt as my horse bounced up and down. “Got it.”
“Sir Calvin, you’re clinging too hard to the horse,” Darren commented. “Put some weight in to the stirrups. Keep your legs firm, but mobile. Bounce up and down with its motion.”
I tried loosening up and going with the flow. Immediately I bounced too hard, and my groin slammed down into the saddle. I gasped and leaned forward, clutching at the saddle again.
“I think I’m good like this,” I squeaked.
It was barely dawn as we rode through Morrowdust. We passed through the streets, the alarm bells still ringing throughout the city. I could feel how nervous the townspeople were. They were hurried, nervous as they moved throughout the streets, going through their day-to-day routines. They looked up at us anxiously as we passed, but there were no cheers, no waves, and no smiles. They simply watched us ride, mute.
The city’s gate was closed, but Greystone hailed the gate guards and they threw it open. The wide doors took an eternity to create a gap that we could pass through. The road outside was even bumpier than the cobblestone streets had been, and I felt like the horse would shake my teeth loose from my head.
The sun had just risen over the horizon as we emerged into the fields outside the city. Far away, I could barely see the barrier gate. The barrier itself was a thin blue haze, the gate sitting like a monolith in its middle. When we’d seen it the day before, the gate had been almost deserted. I’d seen only a few soldiers patrolling the tops of its towers and wall. Now the top of the gate was vacant, but the ground before it was covered with troops. It had to be over a thousand men. They were standing, waiting a good distance away from the massive metal gate that was the only thing standing between them and…whatever was on the other side.
We rode through the troops, coming to a halt thirty feet from the gate. Greystone and Darren dismounted and I did the same, sighing with relief.
BOOM.
I almost leapt out of my skin as a gigantic, thundering crash sounded from the gate. It didn’t shudder, but the ground beneath me did. Following the crash, I heard the torturous roar of a creature on the other side. Adrenaline pumped through my body like a gunshot had gone off in my ear, immediately making my knees shake.
“What was that?” I stammered, hearing how high my voice had become.
“That is what we have come here to face,” Greystone said grimly.
One of the soldiers came to us. The stripes on his tunic and the decoration on his armor told me he was probably an officer, maybe even a general. He gave me a deferential nod before turning to Greystone.
“Watcher,” the man said. “It’s still out there.”
“Of course it is, man,” Greystone said. “Did you think the creatures of Chaos would turn and go home for supper?”
“What are your orders?”
“Be ready,” Greystone told him. “The Keeper of Air and I are going to take stock of the situation.”
BOOM.
Another crash from the gate made me jump again. A hand found my shoulder, gripping it for support. I turned to see Darren looking down at me. He looked nervous, too, but he looked to be doing a heck of a lot better than I was. He nodded slightly, and I nodded back. Freaking out wasn’t going to do any good.
I’ll tell you one thing, though: I was seriously regretting my decision not to stay in Runehold.
Greystone motioned to me and strode for the barrier gate. I nodded to the officer, whose name I didn’t know, and followed. Darren brought up the rear.
The barrier gate had looked big from far away. Up close it was massive. It loomed over me, standing at least fifty feet high, and looked to be ten feet thick of solid stone. The banners I’d seen earlier, the sword and the hawk, fluttered in a light early-morning breeze.
“We shall have to climb the stairs to the top,” said Greystone. “I would bring us there with Air, but the creature might see us, or the Shadows, who have arrows.”
“No problem,” I said.
“When we get to the top,” Greystone said sternly, “keep your head down. Do not look above the wall until I do. At the slightest sign of you, the creatures of Chaos will do their best to take your life. Do you understand?”
BOOM.
My nod turned into a small squeak as another crash echoed from the gate. Greystone eyed the gate grimly. Its hinges were still firm.
“Come, then,” he said. “Quickly now!”
An iron door stood at the bottom of each tower. We were at the bottom of the tower bearing the banner of the hawk. Darren swung the door open, and Greystone led the way in. Flights of solid stone steps with an iron railing wrapped around the interior of the tower, rising all the way to the top. Greystone immediately started up them, and I scrambled to keep up. The clank of metal behind me told me Darren was following.
There were platforms at each landing, and the ones on the south wall had arrow slits that allowed us to see outside. I stopped at the first one we reached and peered through the slit.
What I saw nearly stopped my heart.
Shadows of Chaos stretched out before us. Not as many as at the Battle of the Circle, but enough. Hundreds. Their black, formless shapes shifted under ancient and rusted armor. They wer
e standing a good ways off, probably staying out of arrow range.
BOOM.
As if on cue, the entire tower vibrated with the crash of another assault on the gate.
“Sir Calvin,” said Darren behind me.
“Right,” I said, breaking my transfixed stare through the arrow slit. Greystone was almost to the next platform. I jumped up the steps two at a time until I reached him.
After two flights I was starting to get winded. I almost started to fall behind, until I realized that Darren was doing the same climb while wearing at least forty pounds of armor. I steeled myself and picked up the pace, walking right on Greystone’s heels.
“Couldn’t you fly us to the top inside the tower?” I asked Greystone breathlessly.
“I was battling the hellion for an hours before you arrived,” Greystone grunted in anger. “You’ll forgive me if I’m somewhat tired from my ordeal.”
“What’s a hellion?” I asked.
“You shall soon see,” he said grimly.
After what seemed like an eternity, when every breath felt like a knife in my lungs and my legs felt ready to buckle beneath me, we reached the top. A heavy wooden hatch barred our way. I was expecting Greystone to throw it open with a swing of his staff again, but instead he sat down heavily on the steps just below it. He leaned hard on his staff, his eyes closed and labored breath coming from his lungs. Darren stepped forward and silently opened the hatch.
BOOM. Another shock reverberated in the tower. I jumped once again. If the dang thing would just hit the gate with a regular rhythm, I thought, it wouldn’t be such a surprise every time.
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