by Joshua Khan
“Because I’m ugly?”
Gabriel sighed. “Yes. They feel sorry for you. The shape of your nose would make most children scream. And then there’s your hair. A worldwide tragedy. But they envy my handsomeness, my elegance and sense of style. I intimidate them with my perfection.”
“Maybe. Might also be because you have the personality of a skunk. You always act so superior. Like everyone else is beneath you and only there to make your life easier.”
Gabriel lifted himself up onto his elbows. “That’s the way of the world, peasant! There are those who rule: me. And there are those who serve: you.”
“In case you’ve forgotten, this ain’t your kingdom, it’s K’leef’s. You’re his hostage, remember?”
Gabriel lay back down, saying nothing.
Where was K’leef, anyway?
“Gabriel, have you seen K’leef?”
The Solar boy didn’t respond. He was moping.
Thorn stood up, suddenly afraid. “K’leef!”
Then he saw the waterskin. He picked it up. Still half-full.
No, he didn’t….
“K’leef! K’leef!”
Thorn looked in every direction. “K’leef! Come back here right now!”
He saw the footprints in the dust and followed them. But he only got thirty paces before they disappeared. The wind had done its work.
“K’leef!” Thorn shouted, even as it dawned on him it would be in vain.
He’d never find him. K’leef’s ancestors had come out of the desert, and he’d gone to them.
Thorn wanted to cry, but he didn’t have enough water left in his body. “Good-bye, K’leef. May you find shade under Herne’s Tree.”
“Where’s K’leef?” asked Gabriel when Thorn returned.
“Gone.”
“Then go find him! I order you to go find him!”
Thorn handed Gabriel the water. “Don’t finish it. It’s all we’ve got.”
Thorn scanned the horizon, but the ash whirling in the wind obscured everything beyond a hundred feet.
Gabriel sobbed, dropping the skin. “It’s empty.”
He’d finished it. Thorn knew he would. “Leave it. Less to carry.”
They struggled on, Thorn supporting the Solar boy, until Gabriel’s wound reopened and he started bleeding. Thorn put him down against an ancient stone pillar, as much out of the wind as he could manage, which wasn’t much.
It was strange how Gabriel’s clothes remained perfectly clean, aside from the patch of red spreading slowly over his chest. Thorn was a dusty gray from head to toe.
They sat huddled together, trying to keep the stinging grit out of their eyes.
“I want my mother,” said Gabriel. It was barely a whisper but nevertheless powerful. “She always made things better.”
“That’s what moms do.”
Gabriel gripped Thorn’s hand with a strength Thorn didn’t think he had. His blue eyes were losing their light. “You’ll stay with me?”
Thorn nodded. It wouldn’t be long now. For either of them.
“She used to sing this song, when I was little,” continued Gabriel. “I…I haven’t heard it in years. Father thought I needed toughening up, so he sent her far away.”
“That’s sad,” said Thorn simply.
“I wanted to make my father proud.” Gabriel stuck out his chin. “To see that I could be brave. I didn’t cry when she left.”
“How old were you?”
“Five. It was my birthday. Mr. Funny cried, but I didn’t. I was a brave boy.”
His grip was weakening, and his head lolled. His skin, always pale, was turning bluish.
Thorn spoke. “You remember the song?”
“No.” Gabriel turned slowly to face Thorn. “You know any?”
“None suitable for a noble. Just ‘The Old Duke’s Longsword.’”
Gabriel laughed. It was a sad, chest-shaking wheeze. “Sing it.”
“I ain’t got much of a singing voice. Grandpa always said it was worse than his pig choir. People paid a penny each to hear them whistle a tune at the midsummer fair. But I could give it a try.” Thorn tried to clear his throat, but it was too dry. “The old duke’s got a mighty longsword, so the maids do declare….”
Thorn sang the four verses he knew, not sure if they were in the right order, and added a few lines his grandpa had made up.
He was about to repeat it, when Gabriel fell against his shoulder. His last breath was a giggle.
The glamour that Gabriel wore faded. His hair turned lank, his skin became loose and jaundiced, and his white clothes lost their lustrous sheen, becoming stained, dusty, and torn.
Thorn tried to get up, but he couldn’t. He’d reached his limits, too. And where could he go, anyway? This was as good a place as any to die.
The stone he was leaning against was some sort of marker. It must have been taller once—the crack ten feet up proved it. How many thousands of years had it stood here? The letters on it were worn, but he bet Lily could have made sense of them. Then she’d spend the next hour boring him stupid about their historical significance.
He should’ve been thinking about his family, but it wasn’t they who dominated what was likely to be the last hour of his life.
It was that strange girl dressed all in black. And covered with jewelry. So much jewelry. She’d explain that this ring was in honor of that ancestor, and that necklace was worn on Tuesdays because of some reason from five hundred years ago, and the bracelets, well, she had long arms and short sleeves. She was always growing out of her outfits, keeping Mary busy making new ones.
Funny that now, when he had no future, the future was all Thorn could think about. He’d never get to take her to Herne’s Forest, the place where he’d been born. Perhaps that was for the best. Herne’s Forest was the domain of the druids, and they weren’t too friendly with other sorcerers. He could only imagine the chaos Lily would create dealing with them. Still, he would have liked to show her the immense trees he’d climbed, the peaceful groves where he’d picnicked, and the streams he and his brothers and sisters had splashed in during the summer.
I’ll see Lily in the Twilight.
When he did, he’d say he was sorry for not keeping his promise. He’d tried not to die. He wished he’d told her things when he’d had the chance. His feelings, his dreams. Stupid things, really.
He lay down. Might as well get comfortable.
The wind picked up—steady, repetitive gusts that blew waves of ash across the lifeless landscape. He could hear the spirits crying. Was it the ghosts, waiting for him?
By the Six, the land of the dead stank. It was like rotting….
The gusts grew stronger, and he blinked.
Giant wings flapped above him and beady red eyes shone, wild and fierce and bright with life, through the blurry haze.
Talons, each saber-long, clicked on the stony ground and those tremendous wings folded. Hades looked him over, then bent down and nudged his cheek.
“About time,” said Thorn. Then he passed out.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Cold water settled on his brow, and he felt moisture on his parched mouth, stinging his dry, cracked lips. Eyes still closed, head lost in delirium, Thorn slurped greedily.
“Careful,” spoke a nearby voice. “Just a few drops at a time.”
Thorn tried to peel his eyelids open, but they wouldn’t cooperate. Fine. He preferred the dark. “More.”
He sucked on a damp cloth, not minding the sand that seemed to coat the inside of his throat as he swallowed. He sat up and tried his eyelids again. This time they parted.
Above him stood a huge, black, hairy winged monster.
Thorn’s aching cheeks broke out into a bigger-than-manticore grin. “Hey, boy.”
Hades looked down at him, not that impressed, and sniffed. Then he almost licked Thorn’s face off.
Thorn drew his fingers through the thick, spiky fur, and pressed himself deep into it. That familiar smell, the bat’s
warmth, and the thud thud thud of his heart, a hammer that pounded against him…there was nothing better.
“How did you find me?” he asked the bat.
“We found you.”
Thorn focused on the others in here—wherever here was—and saw a woman squatting opposite him. “Didn’t I save your life a few days ago?” he asked.
“Consider the favor returned,” said Kismet. She pressed her hands on her knees to stand up. It had been less than a week since Thorn had freed her from the Candle, but her bump had grown since. The baby was in a hurry to come out.
She was out of her torn rags now and dressed in a long skirt, high boots, and a caftan embroidered with all kinds of weird shapes and swirling patterns. A coin-studded bandana covered her forehead, hiding the third eye he’d seen back in the courtyard. She wore as much jewelry as any of K’leef’s sisters, but while they wore gems that could buy whole cities, Kismet’s rocks were merely that—stones that had been painted and polished and threaded to make necklaces and bracelets. What precious metal she had was minimal, but she wore rings on all her fingers and her earlobes were stretched from the weight of her many earrings.
Only rulers put this much effort into their appearance.
He took the jug and drank until it was empty. Gritty water had never tasted so good. “Got anything to eat? I could murder a roast chicken right about now.”
“Only meat around here is desert rat. I’ve got some turning on the spit,” said Kismet. “Tastes like chicken.”
“Bring it over, then.” He was alive. He had Hades, and he was hungry. It was turning out to be a good day after all. Thorn grabbed the first skewer from Kismet and tore at the meat. She was right—it did taste like chicken. Didn’t take long before all that was left was bone, which he used to pick the stringy fat stuck between his teeth. He sucked on a thighbone as he looked around.
Fifteen family-sized tents covered a slope that led down to a flat landscape broken up by old ruins. Behind him was a line of cliffs, and above that, a cloudy night sky. He didn’t like the look of those clouds. They could boil up into another storm. The air brewed with trouble. “Where am I?”
Kismet handed him another skewer of rat. “With my tribe.”
“This tribe got a name?”
“The Accursed,” she replied wryly. “It’s not a name we like, but that’s what the other tribes call us.”
“There a reason for that name?” Then he put his hand up, stopping her. “Yeah, I bet there is, and finding out’s gonna spoil my day. Right now, I want to make the most of being alive. And speaking of being alive, you rescue anyone else besides me?”
“Yes. We found a blond boy. He’s asleep.”
So Gabriel hadn’t died after all. The Solar boy’s constitution was stronger than Thorn had thought. He was surprised not to feel too disappointed.
“But your other friend’s eager to speak with you,” Kismet went on.
“K’leef? He’s here?” The day had just gotten a thousand times better.
Just then the Djinnic boy came walking up the slope toward him. He looked like he’d been dragged from certain death on the Shardlands. When he got close, he touched the red patches of wind-burned skin on his cheeks. “Don’t laugh until you’ve seen yourself in the mirror.”
Thorn shrugged. “Yeah, but I ain’t never been pretty. As you’ve pointed out more than once.”
Kismet handed him a bundle of clothes. “Finish your food, then get changed. I have some business to attend to.” She brushed Hades’s cheek and said to him, “You can leave them, too.”
Thorn sat up. “You can’t command my—”
Hades shot up into the clouds.
Kismet raised an eyebrow. “You were going to say something?”
What had just happened? Hades hardly listened to him most of the time, and yet he’d just done what this woman had asked, without any fussing, snarling, or attempting to bite her head off. She must’ve put a spell on him.
Thorn changed into his new clothes: baggy trousers, loose shirt, and sashes to hold it all together, and then a coat with cut sleeves, even more baggy. If the wind blew up, he’d probably sail away. Then…“A turban?”
“It’ll protect you from the sun.” K’leef helped him wrap it on. “Anyone ever tell you you’ve a funny-shaped head?”
“Not so tight,” Thorn complained. “You know where we are?”
K’leef’s eyes lit up. “Let me show you.”
They were in a wide valley, with cliffs on either side. But within the valley was a whole city—a vast, ruined, empty city. The silence was eerie; the wind blew softly, as if loath to disturb the solitude. Even the cliff faces looked as if they had once been inhabited. They were carved with extravagant doorways and columns and huge friezes. Statues that shamed the ones he’d seen in Castle Gloom lined the roads, some as wide as rivers.
“I’ve never…Who built all this?” he asked, gazing at the towers sculpted from glass.
“Who else? The Six Princes.” K’leef brushed the ash off the marble road, revealing a mosaic of swirling colors and mysterious writing under their feet. “We’re deep in the Old Kingdom now, Thorn.”
Thorn gulped. “It’s too much.”
“Too much splendor, you mean? Imagine what it looked like ten thousand years ago, when it was new and the streets were filled with people.”
Thorn jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “And what do you know about them? The Accursed?”
“A tribe ruled by women,” said K’leef. “Women said to have the gift of prophecy.”
The camp covered a good few acres, but it was still dwarfed by the scale of the city they’d pitched beside. But why not stay in the city itself? There was plenty of shelter to be found there. Horses and camels were penned in one of the nearby squares, and two women collected water from a well. Goats roamed, as they tended to do, and children played hide-and-seek among the rocks, but they did not venture beyond shouting distance of the tents.
A sudden cry behind them made Thorn and K’leef jump aside.
Some tribe members rode past. They were all equipped with hide armor, spears, and wickedly curved bows. But they weren’t on horses—they rode giant lizards, green and brown and some red. Each beast was decorated—No, they changed color as they moved, patterns rippling across their shimmering scales. They rushed up a slope, easily climbing over the rocks and the sheer cliff face, to settle on a wide ledge.
“Giant salamanders,” said Thorn, awestruck. “Lily told me they lived way out in the Shardlands. Never knew you could ride ’em. That’s unbelievable.”
K’leef laughed. “Says the boy who flies on a giant vampire bat.”
“Yeah, but still…” He became distracted by a commotion on the ledge. “Something’s up.”
“Leave it to them, Thorn.” K’leef stopped by a memorial stone and began inspecting it. “Look at this. It’s in honor of a sorcerer. Says it’s—”
“Bored already.” Thorn saw Kismet talking to another group of warriors. She glanced in the boys’ direction. It was a look Thorn had seen on Lily’s face a hundred times before. That was all Thorn needed. “I’m going to find out what’s happening.”
He started walking toward Kismet.
“Thorn!” shouted K’leef. “You can’t meddle in—”
Thorn paused and looked back over his shoulder. “Thought you knew me better by now.”
K’leef hitched up his pants and followed. “Just wait a minute, then.”
First they needed to get past one of the big salamanders. Thorn was sure the monster’s jaws could take his head off pretty easily, even though it had no teeth, just a crusted beak of sorts. A high crest speckled with gold and silver spots rose from between its eyes to run halfway down its spine, and the saddle was nestled just below the shoulders. A young woman sat cross-legged upon it, chewing a fistful of cabbage leaves. Thorn glanced up at her. “May I?”
She nodded.
The salamander closed its eyes as Thorn ran his hand ac
ross its scales. They changed from red to orange to yellow and back again. The crest shivered, and the woman laughed. She said something in Djinnic.
“She says you’re lucky he hasn’t bitten your hand off,” translated K’leef. “Salamanders are surly beasts.”
“If I can handle Hades, I think I can handle an overgrown gecko.” Thorn was from Herne’s Forest. His people had a knack for dealing with animals, and he was better at it than most of them. He felt even more confident now, after hanging around monsters so long.
Kismet approached them with a party of warriors in tow. “Why are you here in the Shardlands?”
Thorn let K’leef answer. It was a ruler-to-ruler thing.
“I’m on a trial by fire,” said the prince.
She narrowed her gaze. “I thought Sa’if was going to be the new sultan?”
“He died,” said K’leef. “It’s down to me and my brothers Fafnir and Jambiya.”
“I didn’t expect this.” Kismet looked up at the ridge with a worried expression. “Someone’s approaching.”
“So?” asked Thorn.
Kismet was about to say something but stopped herself. She shook her head and backed away. “We don’t want any trouble.”
K’leef didn’t let her go. “Who is it? Do you know?”
She shrugged. “It’s none of our concern.”
She’s hiding something. What? Thorn scanned the cliff tops. He made out a few salamanders up on one ridge, well hidden, as they’d changed their color to rocky gray. “Can we see for ourselves, then?”
Kismet grunted. “Aliyah will take you up.”
The woman finished her cabbage and picked up the reins of her salamander. She twitched it around to face the watchers on the ridge. Then she motioned for the boys to climb on behind her.
K’leef paled. “Do we really have to…?”
Thorn grabbed his arm. “Come on, it’ll be fun.”
And up they went. Straight up. The salamander, like most lizards, could cling to sheer surfaces and the vertical cliff wall was no challenge.
The lurching ride was a bit like being on the deck of a ship in storm-tossed waves. Thorn was a little queasy by the time they hit the top, and K’leef was slightly green, too. But it was preferable to walking up the steep hundred-foot trail, especially when both of them were still weak from trekking through the desert. A week of lying around doing nothing but eating steak and cake was what they needed, not more wandering in the Shardlands dining on rat.