Aster Wood and the Wizard King (Book 5)

by J B Cantwell

  We sat for several long moments, remembering all that had gone on between us, all that had happened during our time apart.

  “What happened to your hair, anyways?” I finally asked. I gave her a half-hearted smile.

  Jade had always had long, flowing hair the color of light straw. Now, only a mop of unevenly cut strands stuck out from her head.

  I had meant the question almost as a joke, but her face clouded.

  “We were fleeing,” she said, swallowing hard. “And one of them, one of the gliders, grabbed me by the hair at the last second. I cut myself free to escape.”

  I tried to imagine that, what it was like to be so close to freedom from his possession, and then to be snatched away from that freedom at the last moment.

  It seemed that none of us were free of him, not yet.

  “I don’t have any power,” she said. “You should know that. When Erod is with me, my power disappears.” She clamped her hands firmly together in her lap, squeezing them as if doing so could somehow relieve her of the stress she felt. “It’s worth it, though. I would rather be this way and not have him in my head.”

  “So you can’t do anything?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” she said. “I’m completely human, completely powerless. I can’t even use the Kinstone.”

  The Kinstone. I had forgotten about it entirely. Of course she would still have it. Now, with the knowledge that its power was lost to us, my breath caught in my chest.

  The Kinstone was a link, a ticket to anywhere in the cosmos that you could imagine. It had been passed down to Jade over generations. She, the oldest Wood in our family line, was the only one who could wield its power. Even though I hadn’t considered using the Kinstone to help us in our quest before now, the loss of it hit me hard in the chest.

  “Wow,” I said, sucking in my breath. “No power.”

  I couldn’t decide if Jade’s loss of her ability to manipulate stones was a hinderance or a blessing. On the one hand, she was no longer a danger to me. But on the other, without her power she was just a girl. An ordinary girl that might’ve been born anyplace, anytime. No longer the mystical princess who had survived centuries, her power enabling her to live far longer than any normal human. How could she help the resistance now?

  “Well, at least we have plenty of gold now,” I said.

  “And the book,” she said. “I’ve been studying it while you’ve been away. I’ve made a sort of road map for you based on my knowledge of the planets. I told you before that I studied the cosmos when I was a young girl. I know which planets are the most hospitable, the most likely to result in your successes.”

  “To get our feet wet, you mean,” I said.

  She frowned, not quite getting the metaphor.

  “Easy places to start,” I explained. “So that we don’t all get killed the first time out.”

  Her frown intensified, this time for a different reason.

  “There will be danger on every planet you travel to,” she said. “There are guardians in the places where the gold was removed, though what they guard now, I do not know. And every planet seems to be teeming with monsters of some sort. Or inhospitable terrain. It won’t be easy.”

  I didn’t expect it to be easy. And yet I was excited to get moving again. It seemed as though everything had been leading up to this point, that my knowledge of the Fold, my discovery of my own power, and my slowly attracting a party of powerful wizards to help in the quest.

  She produced from within her robes a large, folded piece of parchment. When she unfolded it, I gasped. It was full from corner to corner with notes about the worlds we were about to embark upon. I saw, with a strange sort of relief, that the three of the planets I knew already, Aeso, Aerit and Aria. We were on Aeso now. Aerit was where Kiron made his home. And Aria, that was where Jade was from, where the great castle of Riverstone, overrun by possessed giants, no doubt, would be awaiting us.

  There was, of course, much more to these planets than just the places I had personally been to. Of them all, I had seen the most of Aeso. We had found this very book deep within the Fire Mountains that stretched across to the east from where we now stood. I had traveled for months on my own after losing Jade to her madness, to her possession, until I had finally stumbled across an army readying itself for attack. There, I had found Rhainn, the young slave to the warrior men, and learned of the imprisonment of his little sister, Cait. And, of course, Stonemore lay just to the south of us. All were places and experiences full of a richness of memory that I had never known before coming to the Fold.

  But where would we start? I glanced at the names written down the page. She had put them in order.

  Yunta

  Grallero

  Barta

  Aerit

  Dursala

  Thalio

  Aeso

  Aria

  “Why is Aeso second to last?” I asked, confused. It seemed to me that the smartest place to start our journey was to work with the planet we were already on. Jade shook her head.

  “Aeso has been besieged,” she said. “Certainly you understand that. You’ve seen the armies. You’ve been in the battles, yourself. I heard tale of one you call the Coyle who walks these lands, a willing servant to the Corentin. No. Aeso has become one of the most dangerous places in the Fold.

  “And Aria?” I asked. “You think Aria is the most dangerous?” I snorted.

  “I most definitely do,” she said, sitting up a little taller as she spoke. “You may have fled Riverstone when his powers became too great to bear, but I had no such choice. I was forced to stay there through all of it. I’ve seen the possessed giants, their enormous bodies full to breaking with unnatural power. I, myself, have been chased by the gliders during my escape. And his power is stronger there than anywhere else. He may have the ability to enchant a town or steal a mind or two here, but I can feel that his grip is less than it was on Aria. You must save Aria for last, and hope that, as you move along from planet to planet, his power may become reduced. You may have a chance at finding him then.”

  It was an argument I couldn’t, and didn’t really care to, disagree with. I, myself, had had the same hope—that as we leveled the planets, one by one, the Corentin’s power would diminish. We knew that he was strengthened by, and took advantage of, the imbalance in the Fold. Could it be that, once the balance was restored, we might have a chance at fighting him?

  It seemed to me that at some point we would need to do battle, face to face. I shuddered at the thought, the monsters I had seen in my nightmares flitting across my sight. I didn’t know how that fight would end. I didn’t know if, in the end, I would somehow become a murderer. It was a title I never wanted to bear, no matter what the benefit might be to the millions of others who were affected by his reign.

  I folded the parchment and shoved it into a pocket deep within my coat. I couldn’t think about that now. Not yet. Maybe we could find a way to imprison him somehow. Or force him to flee and leave these lands with a peace they hadn’t felt for thousands of years.

  “Yunta, it is,” I said. “Has Kiron seen this?”

  She nodded. “They all have. I’ve been working on it for weeks.”

  As Jade and I had talked, the group of wizards had begun to gather around the fire circle. Larissa already had the frame in her hands, the very one I, myself, had ripped from around Cadoc’s neck. Cadoc, another puppet in the Corentin’s army, had had no idea the value of the trinket he’d carried. He thought it was just a coin of gold, surely worth a fortune in the gold-stripped planets of the Maylin Fold.

  But it had been much more. Within its exterior of gold was masked one of the most powerful, and rare, objects in the Fold. A frame. A map to the cosmos, allowing the user to pinpoint any planet to which he desired to travel, and to craft a link to take him there.

  Larissa, a far more accomplished link maker than myself or any other wizard here, blew gently onto the frame, and from within it burst a three dimensional sea of stars.
I stood, ever amazed, watching as each glowing orb slowly stretched out from the point of origin, finally aligning in a perfect mirror of the real stars that floated above us.

  “Where to, boy?” she asked.

  Within the planets in the frame, Cait wandered around, her face amazed. Just as I had been the first time I had ever seen one.

  “Yunta,” I said, handing her the tiny vial of gold dust I had brought back with me from Earth.

  She withdrew a deep blue stone from her pocket and placed it within the fire ring. Jade released a small gasp at the sight of the stone. I knew that it probably hurt her to be so close to something so precious, something that had brought her power before. Now it would be as lifeless in her hands as it would be in mine.

  Larissa sat at the base of the fire ring and began to chant.

  “In fire and gold

  The fortune sold

  In dust and frame

  To worlds untamed

  “Through dark and light

  And endless night

  We fly as one

  Our wings alight

  “Lock path and line

  Heavens align

  Until our feet

  The soil they greet

  “On parallel

  With gods and spell

  Time beats the core’s

  Celestial roar”

  She released the gold dust over the blue stone, which was hovering now within a beam of golden light, suspended in midair. The gold immediately fused with the stone, and when the transformation was complete, thumped to the hard ground beneath it.

  Larissa’s trembling fingers picked it up, and she examined it closely. The gold had been completely taken in by the blue stone, which now appeared speckled, shining like a page glued with a million sparkles. She stood.

  “We have our link,” she said.

  She walked up to Kiron and plunked the sapphire into his hand. His eyes squinted down at his sister.

  “I never did doubt your abilities,” he said in a hushed tone.

  “Just my motives,” she huffed. Then she smiled. “No matter now, eh, brother?”

  “No,” he said. “We are on the same side. That’s true.”

  He held the stone up above his head.

  “We have our ticket,” he said to the group at large. “You have one hour to gather your things.”

  I needed no such time. I had kept my bag packed since our arrival here. A handful of the other wizards flitted away to tend to their possessions. Jade moved away from the group, and Cait took her place beside me.

  “I hope it’s ok,” I said, “that you’re coming with us again. I know it’s not what you want.”

  “I want to be with Lissa,” she said, her tone bright with the thought of it. “And besides, we’re going to get Rhainn-y, right?”

  I smiled. I wanted to believe that fulfilling that one wish of hers would be possible.

  “I have a question,” I said. “Can you, yourself, see the path to Rhainn? I mean, your power zeros in on the things people want more than anything in the world. Does it work for you, too?”

  She shook her head, a tint of sadness coming into her eyes. Immediately, I felt guilty for upsetting her mood.

  “It doesn’t work for me,” she said. “Only the others.”

  Shame prickled around my neck. This poor kid, dragged along with our group because of her own misfortune to carry with her the power to see the desired path. I put my hand on her shoulder and squeezed it.

  “A time will come when finding Rhainn will be the thing I want the most,” I said. “We can follow my trail then. I promise.”

  The time passed so quickly it felt as though only minutes had elapsed since Kiron had sent the men to gather their supplies. But before I knew it, I was standing among the group, all of us readied. Father had joined us, and Cait had scampered away to hold Larissa’s hand, waiting.

  “And so it begins,” Kiron said, his voice booming. “This may be our only chance to defeat the dark one. Do any here wish to stay behind? Is there one among you who cannot find it within to take upon himself this journey?”

  No one spoke. The silence was so complete that not even a breath of wind ruffled our hair as we stood, waiting for Kiron’s command.

  “You have had your opportunity,” Kiron went on. “And now we risk all for the sake of the Fold. For the sake of our lives and the lives of those who have come before, and who will come after.”

  He held the stone high above his head, the enormous Book of Leveling sticking out awkwardly from the pack strapped around his shoulders.

  My breath caught in my chest, both with pride and apprehension. We had no idea what to expect when we arrived on Yunta, and my breathing was coming fast.

  Instinctively, we all moved toward him, holding out our hands to touch our hands to his. Then, when we were all connected by our flesh, Kiron belted out the word, the command that would send us all spiraling into oblivion.

  I looked up at the last moment. In my peripheral vision, Erod’s glow registered. I searched for her then. And, finding the face I was looking for, took in those deep green eyes as the world around me spun us all away from this place and into the next.

  CHAPTER NINE

  We all fell into a heap, draped on top of one another like a pile of rags. Dust rose up from our impact upon the hard ground. I squeezed my way out from between Kiron and Larissa and rolled away, trying to clear my eyes of the gritty dirt. Grumbling erupted from the group, and gradually they all unpiled, staring around at our new strange environment.

  Some looked hopeful. Some nervous.

  I was panicked.

  We were in a great expanse of desert that seemed to stretch for a hundred miles in every direction. No mountain or cloud, not even a hill, broke up the landscape, and the horizon was barely visible where it cut between the earth and the sky.

  I had been thirsty when traveling before now, and though we had all taken large swigs from the water bucket that was kept near the fire ring before departing, I could almost feel the coming dryness on my tongue. We each carried two bottles of water to drink, but no more. It wouldn’t come close to being enough to keep us alive in a place like this. Not for long.

  I stood, brushing the rest of the dirt and sand from my clothes. Cait was standing several paces away from the rest of the group, her eyes far away as they followed the trail only she could see. I moved through the group of men towards her and put one hand on her shoulder. She didn’t flinch, she barely seemed to notice I was there at all.

  “It’s not far,” was her only response to my touch.

  Not far? How was that possible?

  “Um, it sort of looks like it’s not close, either,” I said, kneeling down beside her.

  “It’s not far like the journey on Earth was,” she explained.

  That was good. I didn’t think we could make it too far using the shorter distance links we had brought. The uncomfortable pile we had just wrestled our way out of seemed like something nobody would be keen to repeat anytime soon, and that had been the result of jumping with a proper link. The other links we had, the ones Kiron and I wore around our necks, were crude at best. They worked, but using them was downright uncomfortable. I couldn’t imagine jumping hundreds, or even more than nine or ten times in a group this size with one of those. We would be better off traveling on foot. At least for now.

  The men stood in a group, a few huddled together, a few taking tentative steps away to take in the landscape.

  Nobody seemed ready to move.

  I heaved my backpack up, strapping it securely to my shoulders and moved my staff from my left hand to my right. This was going to be a long day.

  “Let’s get moving,” I called to the group.

  “But…where do we go?” Donnally spluttered. His eyes had been clear and full of adventure just moments before the jump. Now that we were here, I could see fear creeping into his irises, his dilating pupils.

  I tried to stand up taller.

  �
�We follow Cait,” I said. “She knows the way.”

  I didn’t stop to wait for their assent. They muttered under their breath, and I could tell that they couldn’t quite decide if they should listen to me or wait for Kiron’s command.

  I had the gold, though, and the list, and the magic girl who turned dreams into maps in her brain. I walked away from them. They could follow me or not.

  “After you,” I said to Cait, and, not taking her eyes from the invisible path in front of her, she took her first steps into the desert.

  Larissa fell into step beside her immediately, clearly intending to keep her safe so she could focus on her task. Whether Larissa believed in Cait’s abilities or not, it seemed she had taken up the post of primary caregiver. She shot angry glances at the men who followed us, daring them to keep up their whispered dissent with this unusual plan.

  Father caught up to me quickly, and when I looked up at him I was surprised to see a smile across his face.

  “What are you so happy about?” I asked.

  “It feels better out here,” he said. “Away from the big one. I feel like myself again.”

  Yeah, I thought. Whoever that is.

  “I have a question for you,” I said as the minutes ticked by. It seemed we had nothing but time ahead of us to fill with questions.

  “Ask me anything,” he said, his black eyes, if anything, kind.

  I hesitated. On the one hand I didn’t want to offend him. And on the other, I could care less.

  “How do you think it’s possible that Cait can see so much good in you?” I asked. “I mean, sometimes you’re ‘Father’, helpful and calm. And then the part of you that’s my dad comes out and tries to kill me. How does that make you good on the inside?”

  He thought for a moment, staring down at his boots as they crunched the dry ground beneath us.