Birthright: The Crystal Throne - Book 1

by Kim Fedyk

  Satisfied in her logic and more interested in finding out what was behind the door than in wasting time thinking about what the hiss had been, she turned the key in the lock. The key turned, but only slightly; Arleth felt a lot of resistance, as if something was pushing against her efforts. She raised her left hand and putting it on top of her right, she tried turning the key again. This time, with the added force of her second hand, she felt the key turning farther. She heard a series of clicks and the sound of metal grating against metal. With a final grunt, using all of her remaining effort, she forced the key as far as it would go to the left. There was a final click and the door swung slightly inward. Arleth plucked the key from the lock and with a deep, anxious breath, she pushed the door open and stepped inside.

  The smell hit her like a punch in the face.

  She staggered backwards a few steps, unable to stop her body from recoiling in disgust.

  “What.... is in.... this room?” Arleth coughed, putting her hand up to cover her nose and mouth. It smelled like a nauseating cocktail of mould, rotten meat and the whole host of human bodily functions – from both ends. Even with her hand over her nose, Arleth’s eyes started to water and she felt the bile begin to rise in her throat. She felt herself getting a bit light-headed from the stench and she had to steady herself by placing her hand on the door frame.

  She certainly didn’t want to turn back, but at the moment, she didn’t know how she would be able to continue. As dark as it was, it was impossible to see very far. But even still, Arleth had the sense that the room stretched quite far into the distance. And she had to find something in all this gloom. Something that Neve’s brother had thought was vital for Arleth to see. But she had no idea what she was looking for or even if she would know if she found it. Normally, this would not have bothered Arleth in the slightest. It was an adventure. But she didn’t enjoy the thought of spending potentially hours immersed in this disgustedly smelly room – and worse, not even knowing what was causing the odour.

  Maybe she could just go back and try and find Neve’s brother again. Get him to tell her what he had wanted her to find. Yes, that would work... She was just about to turn around when an image of his face flashed into her mind. As clearly as if he was standing once more before her, she saw the fierce intensity and ray of hope in his eyes as he had handed her the key in the dark storage room. Instantly Arleth felt guilty. That man had risked everything to meet her and tell her about this room and she was going to turn away just because it smelled bad? What was wrong with her?

  Unbidden, the face of Neve and then Flora came to her mind. She saw their faces glowing as though angels, laughing and talking to her, seeing memories from her childhood. Then instantly the happy images turned to the picture, forever burned in Arleth’s mind of Flora’s face her mouth opened in an “o” and her eyes wide in shock as the spear of light stabbed through her chest. Arleth squinted in pain and shook her head to clear it.

  She felt like a terrible person. There were a lot worse things than a bad smell.

  Feeling quite ashamed, she walked decisively through the door and pushed it shut behind her.

  As she was shutting the door, she noticed that the back of it was covered in metal gears and cogs of all sizes. No wonder the door had been so hard to open she thought to herself. Turning the key in the lock only activated the nearest gear. That gear then turned the one next to it which turned the one next to it in sequence. It was only when all of the gears and cogs were turning that the door would open.

  It was so dark that she couldn’t make out more than a few feet in front of her and she had nothing to light her way. So Arleth made her way cautiously, walking in what she guessed was the centre of the room. She walked with one hand out in front of her protectively, one hand covering her nose and her eyes darting back and forth into the darkness on either side of her. Although she didn’t want to admit it to herself, she was afraid that something would jump out at her from the darkness. Something that she wouldn’t be able to see until it was too late. She scanned the darkness more closely as she walked. But, she didn’t see any movement in the shadows and the only noise was the soft patter of her feet as she walked.

  Reassured for the time being, Arleth’s thoughts turned to what was in this room. And how was she supposed to find it when it was so dark?

  She had been walking down the middle of the room for a while and she hadn’t come across anything but open space. Arleth thought about the instructions Neve’s brother had given her. He really hadn’t given any clues about what she was going to find here or where she should look. Just that this room would answer all of her questions. For all she knew then, this whole room could just be a long hall and what she really wanted was in an adjoining room. She would walk through the whole room and find nothing but the back wall. Even if there weren’t side rooms, she had still found nothing going the way she had. Perhaps it was time to try something new.

  Arleth turned to her right and with her hand still held out in front of her, she searched for the side wall. She had taken no more than five steps to her right when her outstretched hand knocked into something.

  Something cold and slippery.

  Reflexively Arleth jerked her hand back and stopped dead in her tracks.

  What had she just touched?

  Arleth took a small, cautious step forward and squinted into the darkness. She could make out a large cylindrical shape in front of her. It was twice as wide as she was and stretched up farther than she could make out, which given the darkness might not have been more than a few feet. Arleth stepped closer to it and put both hands out to touch its surface. As she had noticed before, it was acutely cold and so smooth as to be almost slippery.

  Something about this object seemed vaguely familiar to Arleth but she couldn’t quite place what it was. She ran her hand farther along its surface – as far up as she could reach, down to the ground and as far left and right as her arms would stretch. Everywhere she touched had the same feel and texture. The same cold, smooth surface with no imperfections or divisions of any kind. As she was examining the object in this way, it came to her what had seemed so familiar. It seemed like a gigantic bottle or jar.

  But if she was right, what was inside it?

  Instinctively she pressed her face to its surface to see if she could see into it. At first she couldn’t make out much of anything. But after a few moments shapes started to take form and she could see what was inside. Although what she was seeing she had no idea.

  There appeared to be some kind of fluid flowing inside the cylinder. It was hard to tell for sure in the dark, but it looked clear with a faint blue tinge. Inside the fluid were hundreds of string-like shapes. They were all roughly the same size - about the length of Arleth’s hand and were a drab gray colour. As she looked closer at the shapes, they appeared to be swimming through the fluid.

  Were they alive?

  As some of the shapes passed near the edge of the cylinder where she was standing Arleth observed them more carefully. They didn’t appear to have eyes or even faces and they looked to be moving completely at random with no goal to their motion. She didn’t think they were living, thinking creatures but based on what she had seen so far in just a few short days on Oherra, Arleth wasn’t ready to rule anything out.

  Something reddish about a foot downwards in the fluid caught Arleth’s attention and she ignored the string-like ‘things’ for a few moments. She bent down slightly to get a closer look at where the colour was coming from. There appeared to be a platform suspended in the fluid separating the swimming strings and the fluid on top from those on the bottom. Arleth couldn’t see any visible difference in the stringy forms or the fluid on either side. She wondered why they were separated.

  Looking down into the fluid she could see that there was yet another platform. It was a bit less than a foot lower down than the first one she had seen. How many different levels were there?

  She lowered herself down to the ground slowly, counting the l
evels as she went. In total there were four levels below the one that she had first seen. In each one, there appeared to be no difference between the inhabitants of it and the ones above and below it. She stood back up again and looked up into the fluid. Sure enough there was another platform in the fluid above her head. She was willing to guess that the whole cylinder was divided into these equal sections.

  But why?

  As she was contemplating the answer to this question, one of the stringy shapes detached itself from the pack and swam straight at Arleth. Deep in thought, she didn’t notice it until it was right in front of her eyes. It rammed into the side of the cylinder with such force that it made an audible “TWACK.” The force of the impact caused the stringy form to fall down into the liquid where it stayed motionless for a few seconds as if startled before resuming its prior unsystematic swimming as if nothing had happened.

  Arleth on the other hand, let out a startled yelp and staggered back a couple of steps to her right. Her right foot tripped on something furry lying on the floor and with her arms flailing in front of her she fell to the ground with a crash. She landed on her back with such force she was momentarily winded.

  It was at that instant, when she had no breath to scream that a pair of large, bright green eyes appeared directly in front of her.

  Arleth stared up at the disembodied eyes in horror. She opened her mouth to scream but no sound came out. Her body was sluggish from her fall and it was with great effort that she managed to scuttle slowly back away from the eyes. Her escape attempt didn’t last long as within a few paces she felt a familiar smooth, cold surface at her back. She had backed up into another one of the gigantic jars. Arleth brought herself up into a sitting position and pressed her body as much as she could into the cylinder. She was literally trying to melt into the surface and become invisible to whatever was in the shadows in front of her.

  Her heart was beating rapidly and Arleth could hear the thumping of her chest. She put her arms up in front of her in an attempt to protect herself from whatever was about to come at her through the darkness. She turned her head rapidly from side to side scanning the shadows for any sign of movement. She didn’t see or hear anything – even the eyes had disappeared. But instead of calming her, this worried Arleth even more. She knew that something was there, right in front of her, but she had no way to know where it was, or even if it was in front of her still. She continued scanning rapidly her head and eyes jerking back and forth.

  Was the creature watching her, waiting for the right moment to attack? She pictured a blood-thirsty creature, standing right beside her, with its head hanging above her ready at any moment to snap her up in its jaws and swallow her whole. Her breath was coming in ragged gasps – she was too terrified to even try and control it.

  Precious seconds passed, but there was still no movement in the shadows and nothing had snatched her up. A glimmer of hope shone in her mind – perhaps the creature couldn’t see in the dark! She remembered the concealing spell she had taken just as she had entered the room. Neve’s brother had told her that it would hide her presence magically (whatever that meant) but it wouldn’t make her invisible. But hopefully the darkness would.

  If she just sat here maybe the creature wouldn’t be able to find her and it would get frustrated and leave her alone.

  That thought lasted all of two seconds.

  The green eyes reappeared in front of her and a tired, male voice said, “Who are you?”

  The return of the eyes startled Arleth and she involuntarily jerked her head back, slamming it into the wall of the jar-cylinder behind her. It made a faint ‘thud’ and would probably give Arleth a bump later. But she was so preoccupied that she didn’t even realize she had hit anything.

  It took Arleth a few seconds to get over her initial surprise of having the creature talk to her, before she could respond. Even still her voice was far from calm.

  “Whhhoo aaree you?” Asked Arleth nervously.

  “Ahh what rude manners you have, I asked you first,” responded the creature with a touch of laughter in its voice.

  This creature, whatever it was, didn’t seem to be dangerous, so Arleth relaxed a bit. Enough at least that her voice had returned to normal.

  “My name is Arleth.”

  “Arleth?...” Said the creature curiously. “Do you have a last name Arleth?”

  “No,” she responded a bit sadly.

  “Ahh,” there was a pause and then “I see.”

  “But you never told me who you are.”

  “You are very right Arleth, I suppose it is I who has bad manners then. My name is Zeeshan. I am a Talywag from Occa.

  “What is a Talywag?”

  “Oh my you must not be from around here hmm? Talywags are quite popular creatures on Oherra if I do say so myself. Well, hmm how do I explain... Us Talywags are rather small in stature, not remarkable in physique or bravery, I’m sorry to say. But our intelligence is legendary. Not to brag, but we have double the brainpower of a human such as yourself. Occa is our capital city, it lies on the outskirts of Frasht Forest to the east of Iridian Castle.”

  “How did you get here then?”

  “My mom wanted to make a pie for my father’s birthday dessert. So, my best friend and I, Thom, had gone into the forest to collect berries. We were playing and joking with each other and we didn’t see the Grekens approach. I had just enough time to see the Greken fully in front of me before I was knocked unconscious. I woke up here, naked in this room fastened to the wall with this apparatus strapped to my head.”

  Although Arleth had a dozen questions she wanted to ask, she decided to ask the least important one first.

  “How old are you?” What he had said made Arleth think that he was a child, perhaps younger than her. But his voice and demeanour were of a much older man.

  “I am seven.”

  “So where is your friend now?”

  “He is.. gone.” The way Zeeshan said ‘gone’ gave Arleth pause. There was a tremor in the boy’s voice as if he were about to cry.

  “What do you mean gone?”

  “This is a horrible place. The king here is not good, not if he allows things like that to happen here.”

  Arleth was even more intrigued. Perhaps this child would be the answer to her questions about Absalom.

  “What do you mean,” she said gently.

  “Some green sorcerer came down here with another evil-faced man. They were leading a couple of growling snow bears from the north. The sorcerer strapped them to the wall beside us. Then he uttered some words in a language I did not know, some kind of spell. And then... then...” His voice broke into a sob.

  Arleth gave him a few seconds to collect himself and then she prodded gently again. “And then...”

  “And then Thom and one of the bears started to scream, the most horrible sounds you could ever imagine. It sounded like he was being ripped in two. It was terrible. Slowly Thom’s body began to change. He grew in size and stature, his hands and feet spread into talons, white fur grew all over his body, his head expanded to twice its size and his eyes bulged into two huge green orbs. The bear slumped against its chains, there was nothing left but bones. Hovering above Thom’s head were hundreds of strange stringy things. The sorcerer said some more words and those things flew into the jar that you are now leaning against.”

  Arleth was speechless, she stared in open-mouthed horror at what Zeeshan was telling her.

  “After they had finished with Thom, they turned to me. It was the most excruciating pain I have ever felt. I can’t even describe it. My body was ripped from me and replaced with something hairy, huge and foreign. The sorcerer and the man soon left and I fainted into a painful haze. I don’t know how long I lay there, perhaps days, drifting in and out of consciousness. I don’t know what happened to me during that time. The only things I remember were the pain and the groans of Thom beside me to tell me that he was alive and still there.

  The sorcerer, the man and a third dar
k-haired man came in at last. They talked for a bit and seemed pleased with Thom but they had agreed that I was a ‘failure.’ They took Thom with them when they left. He didn’t seem the same. I mean of course he wasn’t the same, we both weren’t. But his mind seemed different. He obeyed every command of theirs instantly with a ‘yes master’ and didn’t even look back at me when he left with them. That was perhaps a day ago, it is impossible to tell here, and I haven’t seen them since.”

  Arleth didn’t know what to make of this. To say she was horrified and shocked would have been a tremendous understatement. She had a hundred more questions. But she didn’t think that Zeeshan would have the answers. Why had they captured this boy and his friend? What had they done to them? And why? She didn’t have a doubt in her mind now that Absalom was bad. No one could do something like this to another living creature and be good. But this revelation of course brought with it a flood of new questions.

  She decided it didn’t hurt to see how many of her questions Zeeshan could answer. She talked with him for close to twenty minutes. But, as she had thought, he didn’t know many answers. He had no idea why they had been captured. He was also clueless as to what had been done to them or why. She asked him what Neve’s brother had told her – if Absalom was the rightful king. Once again the Talywag, being a child, didn’t know for sure.