Crown of Three

by J. D. Rinehart

  Before Nynus could reply, Gulph went over to the desk and swept the books onto the floor.

  “Hey,” said Nynus. “My books!”

  “The world’s full of books,” said Gulph. “I’ll show you.”

  Gulph climbed on top of the desk he’d cleared. Lodging his fingers into the woven strands, he started up the iron wall. It was hard work, like trying to climb a tree with only the rough texture of the bark to cling to, but his joints were strong and supple and soon he was halfway up. The wall was smoother here, forcing him to contort his body and stretch his arms beyond the reach of any normal boy in order to find the next handhold. Each time he performed another impossible maneuver, he heard Nynus gasp, and felt a warm glow of pride. The other prisoners had called him a freak. If only they could see what a freak could do.

  At last he reached the place where the wall met the sloping roof. Hanging like a spider, he pressed his face against the narrow slit in the rafters and peered out. The smell of sewage wafted in.

  Below stretched the crowded streets of Idilliam. Beyond them, at the city’s edge, loomed the craggy rock known as the High Peak, which Pip had pointed out to him on the day they arrived.

  “From the top of the High Peak,” Pip had said, “you can see all three realms of the kingdom. I wish we could go up there!”

  The memory of that moment stung Gulph’s eyes even more than the rain. He wondered if he’d ever see Pip again.

  Near the High Peak was the great Idilliam Bridge: a huge stone structure spanning the chasm between the Toronian capital and the vast green forests of Isur. It felt like a lifetime since the Tangletree Players had crossed that bridge on their way into the city. Yet it was merely five days. Now the bridge promised escape and freedom, but it was impossibly distant. Gulph couldn’t see how he’d ever reach it.

  One step at a time.

  He studied the roof outside. Just below the slit through which he was peering, a network of gutters met above a fat waste pipe. The top of the pipe was open; it was from here that the bad smell was emanating. The pipe ran at a steep angle down the side of the Vault of Heaven.

  All the way to the ground.

  The door to Nynus’s cell rattled. Heart racing, Gulph scrambled back down the wall, releasing his grip and leaping the last few feet to the floor. Just as he landed, a slot in the bottom of the door swung open and a fat hand shoved two battered metal bowls into the room. One contained a steaming pork chop, two potatoes, and a mound of cabbage. The other was filled with a nameless gray slop.

  Unable to stop himself, Gulph said, “Are we supposed to fight over dinner?”

  A second slot opened at eye level and Blist glared through. “Know your place, freak,” said the jailer. “Nothing in my orders about giving you special treatment. It’s not like you’re a prince, is it?”

  “Of course I’m not a prince!” Gulph shouted, but already the door slots were shut. He turned to Nynus. “What was he talking about? What’s this got to do with—?”

  To his astonishment, his cell mate was bowing. “Prince Nynus, at your service. I’d ask you to kiss my hand, but I think we’ve got past that, don’t you?”

  “Prince . . . Do you mean you’re the son of . . . ?” Shock made it hard to string the words together. “But what are you doing locked up here? You said the king ordered it, but isn’t he . . . ?”

  “My father? Yes, he is. He’s also completely mad. He’s convinced everyone’s out to steal his throne.”

  “Why?”

  “Who knows? Maybe it’s because he stole it in the first place. When I was six, he got it into his head that I’d be the next one to try, so he had me locked up. Mother—I mean, the queen—had no choice but to go along with it, but she does what she can to make life comfortable for me.” Nynus’s eyes widened. “That’s why you’re here! She sent you to be my companion!”

  Beaming, Prince Nynus clasped his arms around Gulph and hugged him so hard his feet left the floor. Gulph endured the embrace, bewildered that a deformed contortionist from a traveling circus should have found himself mixed up in a royal family feud. And what must it be like for Nynus, being at its center? Gulph didn’t even remember his father or mother, but Nynus’s only memory of his parents was the day they locked him away.

  No wonder he’s ended up like this.

  Still smiling, Nynus put down Gulph and picked up the bowls of food.

  “Shall we share?” he said brightly.

  CHAPTER 3

  Black le . . .”

  The words died on the frost witch’s blue lips. A shudder ran the length of her body. One of the elk hides slipped aside, exposing a white, bony wrist and a hand like a spider.

  Tarlan replaced the fur blanket and stroked the old witch’s brow. Her skin was colder than the ice that lined the mouth of the cave. Reaching up, he pulled down another hide from the wall and draped it over her motionless form.

  “Don’t try to speak, Mirith,” he said. “Just rest.”

  He grabbed a stick and poked it into the fire. The flames rose a little before sinking back to a feeble flicker. Soon he’d have to fetch more wood. But he couldn’t leave Mirith like this. She looked so small, so weak. Just like a baby.

  Seeing her this way, Tarlan felt momentarily dizzy, as if time had stood still—or folded over on itself. Was this how he had looked to Mirith, thirteen years earlier, when she’d found him as a helpless baby, abandoned in the icy wastes of Yalasti? When she’d picked him up, taken him in, cared for him as he’d grown.

  Just like a mother.

  A clay pot was lodged in the embers at the edge of the fire. In it was the dregs of the broth Tarlan had prepared the previous night. He dipped a bowl into the pot and scooped out the steaming food.

  Slipping his free arm under Mirith’s shoulders, he eased her into a sitting position. It shocked Tarlan how little she weighed. For the first time, it occurred to him that she might die. The realization filled him with terror. The thought that followed was even worse.

  It was his job to care for her. If she died, it would be his fault.

  “Here,” he said, pressing the edge of the bowl to her mouth. “Try to drink.”

  Mirith shook her head. With more strength than she’d mustered for several days, she lifted one trembling hand from beneath the elk hides and pushed the bowl away.

  “Black . . .” she began, before lapsing into a fit of coughing.

  “What? Black what?”

  “Lea . . . Black leaf.”

  Tarlan cursed himself for not understanding sooner. “Black leaf? You want me to get some? Is it medicine? Will it help you?”

  Mirith nodded. Tarlan thought he could hear the bones in her neck creaking.

  He put down the bowl and lowered her back onto the bed. Springing to his feet, he snatched up his robe and threw it over his shoulders. The dizziness came again. This was the same robe he’d been wrapped in when Mirith had found him. Now he’d grown tall enough to wear it without the hem brushing the floor of the cave.

  Bending, he kissed Mirith’s brow. Her eyes were closed. He held his cheek close to her lips, reassuring himself she was still breathing. Then he seized his hunting spear and strode out of the cave.

  The instant he was on the ledge, the icy Yalasti wind slammed him back against the sheer rock wall. Tarlan forced himself to stand against its blast. He’d known this wind all his life, and was more than a match for it. He wrapped his cloak tightly around him, the warmth of its black velvet defying the cold white wilderness surrounding him.

  Cupping his hands around his mouth, Tarlan tipped back his head and shrieked. His scream sliced like a knife through the gale. When his breath was gone he paused, breathed in, then shrieked again.

  On the third call, the thorrods came.

  They swooped out of the low cloud, just as if they’d been waiting for Tarlan’s call. Perhaps they had. The gold feathers on their wingtips fluttered as they dropped toward the ledge. The dawn light glanced off their huge, hooked beaks. Long talon
s opened and closed. They resembled gigantic eagles, but the intelligence in their eyes was more than birdlike.

  Reaching the level of the ledge, the four enormous birds began to circle. The flock’s leader, Seethan, turned his gray head toward Tarlan. Most thorrods were as big as horses. Seethan was bigger than two.

  “Something wrong,” said the huge bird. His voice sounded like splintering wood.

  “Mirith’s sick,” Tarlan shouted in the thorrods’ tongue, into the wind. “It’s getting worse. I have to bring her black leaf. If I don’t, I’m afraid—” The words choked in his throat. “I’m afraid she’ll die.”

  “East forest,” said Seethan, soaring back up to hover above the other birds. His wings cast great moving shadows over the ledge.

  “Kitheen!” called Tarlan.

  A thorrod the size of a pony landed on the ledge before him. Extending his open hand like a wing, Tarlan allowed Kitheen to touch it with the tip of his lethal beak: the gesture of trust between thorrods.

  “Will you stay here?” said Tarlan. “Keep guard?”

  Kitheen said nothing, simply hopped past Tarlan and took up station in front of the cave, his feathers—black but for those golden wingtips—plumped against the wind.

  Tarlan bunched the hand he’d extended into a fist. At once, a third thorrod left formation and flew just beneath the level of the ledge. Timing his jump to perfection, Tarlan leaped onto her back, thrusting his legs down behind her wings and seizing the thick ruff of feathers around her neck. Of all the thorrods, Theeta alone had golden feathers from head to tail.

  “You’re the one who found me in the forest, Theeta,” he said. “You’re the one who brought Mirith to me. You saved me and . . . and now we must save her. Fly fast, as fast as you can!”

  Theeta carried him low over the snow-covered landscape. Seethan and white-breasted Nasheen flew just ahead, their slipstream making it easier for her to carry her load.

  Away from Mirith’s mountain retreat, the wind was less violent, but the air was no less cold. They passed village after village, each filled with houses cut from the ice. Smoke rose from countless fires as the men and women who lived there made their stand against the endless Yalasti winter.

  A dark blur on the horizon grew rapidly in size. Soon they were flying over the great eastern forest. Theeta swooped over the towering cinderpines. The lower trunks of these majestic trees were bare of branches, but each carried a broad canopy of glossy green leaves at the very top. The leaves were coated with flammable resin, which local villagers harvested to burn in their winter fires.

  Tarlan tried to peer down through the canopy, but the leaves were too thick. “Where’s the black leaf?” he said.

  “Low,” Theeta replied. “On trunks.”

  “There,” called Nasheen, dipping her beak. “Gap.”

  Theeta dived toward a space in the canopy. Tarlan ducked his head and closed his eyes as his gigantic steed plunged through the leaves and into the clear space beneath.

  When Tarlan opened his eyes, the whole world had changed. Above him, instead of the clear blue sky, was a glowing green ceiling. All around him were the stiff, straight trunks of the cinderpines. Tarlan clung to Theeta’s feathers as she weaved her way between them. Had his mission not been so desperate, he might have whooped with excitement.

  “Here,” said Theeta.

  Clinging to the trunk of a particularly massive tree was a plant that was all curling tendrils and drooping leaves. Black leaves.

  “That’s it!” cried Tarlan. “Get nearer!”

  Theeta hovered as close to the tree as she was able. Tarlan stretched out, grabbing handfuls of the leaves and stuffing them into a pocket within his cloak. They stood out in sharp contrast to its bloodred lining.

  Seethan, who had followed them down through the canopy, flew out from behind the vast trunk.

  “Men,” the old bird hissed. “Many.”

  Looking down, Tarlan saw a line of mounted hunters making their way through the trees. They were riding not horses but elks. The huge antlers of these great winter beasts nodded steadily as their riders drove them on through the snow. The riders had antlers too, sculpted from wood and fixed to their helmets.

  “Elk-men!” said Theeta.

  Tarlan’s heart sank. Mirith had warned him about these merciless hunters who roamed the forest, not just hunting for food but chasing down and slaughtering anything that would run, simply for the sport of it.

  Including people, he thought grimly.

  A cry rose up from below. Suddenly the line of elks was fanning out. Faces looked up. Mouths opened and began to shout. An arrow shot past Tarlan’s face, then another.

  “Quick, Theeta!” he cried. “Time to go.”

  The giant thorrod wheeled in the air, screeching. Down on the ground, one of the hunters had dismounted and was running along the line of elks with a burning brand. As he passed each of his comrades, he used the brand to light the tip of a waiting arrowhead.

  “Go!” called Seethan. His silvery wingtips blurred as he angled into a steep dive, heading straight toward the hunters. Six men drew their bows and fired at him. The old thorrod darted through the lethal onslaught, and the burning arrows slammed into the canopy above.

  The resin-coated leaves exploded into flame. Fire leaped from one treetop to the next, quicker than Tarlan’s eye could follow it. Within seconds, the entire roof of the forest was ablaze.

  Fire above. Hunters below. No way out!

  Shrieking, Theeta beat her mighty wings against the searing air and raced through the trees. Burning embers fell all around. Whenever they landed on her feathers, Tarlan beat them away. But the trees closed in, forcing Theeta to double back and fly straight toward the waiting hunters.

  As they approached, one of the men stood up on the back of his elk steed and brandished a spear. “You tame the thorrods!” he shouted. “Witch boy! Your birds will feed us for a month!”

  “Nobody catches the thorrod!” Tarlan yelled back, waving his own spear in fury. But the words caught in his throat.

  How are we going to get out of this?

  “This way!” It was Nasheen, dropping down in front of the gasping Theeta and leading the way toward a distant gap in the trees. The three thorrods sped toward it, Seethan bringing up the rear. The hunters followed, spurring on their elks with harsh cries and angry kicks. Burning arrows flew past, some falling harmlessly into the snow, others striking the trees and starting new blazes.

  “Nearly there!” cried Tarlan as the gap opened up before them. Then, from behind came a dreadful scream.

  Turning, Tarlan saw Seethan’s great wings falter and fold, saw the old thorrod tip over onto his back. Saw the burning arrow jutting from his chest. As Seethan plunged toward the snow, flames engulfed him. By the time he hit the ground, his whole body was on fire.

  Theeta faltered, letting out an anguished screech of her own. Below, the leader of the elk-men spurred his mount over Seethan’s burning body and drew back his spear, aiming it upward, directly at Theeta’s heart. Before Tarlan could bring his own spear to bear on the enemy, another arrow shot through the air directly in front of Theeta’s face. He tugged at her feathers and she rolled aside. The arrow whipped past her beak, slicing through the upper part of Tarlan’s right arm.

  Pain seared through him. Losing his grip, he slipped from Theeta’s back and plummeted toward the ground. As the white hump of a snowdrift rose up to meet him, all he could think of was Mirith, cold and alone in the mountain cave.

  He’d failed her after all.

  CHAPTER 4

  It’s entirely the wrong color,” said Elodie, tossing aside the sample of blue silk she’d selected from the market stall.

  “What do you mean?” sighed Lady Sylva Vicerin. “It’s blue, isn’t it?”

  “But it’s not the right blue. I want something more . . .” Elodie waved her hand impatiently.

  “Like the sky?”

  “No.”

  “Like a river?”


  “No.”

  “Like what then, Elodie?”

  “I’ll know it when I see it!”

  Elodie marched across the castle court to another row of stalls. A strong breeze caught the bolts of silks and linens, turning them into pennants. Sylva scurried in her wake.

  “What about this one?” Sylva suggested, pointing to a roll of sapphire cloth on a nearby stall.

  “It’s cotton,” said Elodie, curling her lip. “Don’t you want me to look nice at the banquet? Do you want Lord Vicerin to look like a miser?”

  “My father says he might have to cancel it,” said Sylva.

  “What?” This was terrible news. Vicerin banquets were grand affairs, meticulously planned and talked about far and wide. Elodie had been dreaming about it for weeks. “He can’t do that. The seamstresses are waiting to start on my dress. They’ve only got three days to make it and—”

  “Elodie, I’m sorry. For once, my father has other things on his mind.”

  “What do you mean?” Elodie found it hard to imagine anything more important than a banquet.

  Sylva led her into a quiet space between two stalls. “Don’t tell anyone, but I heard Father say the king’s army has reached the Northwood Dale.”

  “Oh, that’s leagues away. Anyway, don’t we have people out there to stop them?”

  “Yes. But Father says that the crown troops already control lots of the main borderways. He thinks our allies are spread too thinly.” Sylva’s gray eyes were serious. “Elodie, these traders were lucky to get through—next month, there may be no market at all. Who knows, if the fighting goes on much longer, Castle Vicerin itself might be under siege.”

  Elodie looked up at the red stone walls and the battlements running along the top. The stalls huddled beneath them seemed very small. For all the color and noise, the market looked ramshackle, as if it had been set up in haste, and might be taken down at any moment. Several of the traders even wore light armor; Elodie didn’t recall ever seeing that before. Did they really think King Brutan’s men would bother attacking a few trestle tables?

  “I don’t know why everyone worries so much,” she said. “We’re safe enough here. Anyway, Lord Vicerin always sets things right.”