Crystal Doors #3: Sky Realm (No. 3) (13 page)

Several terodax dropped to the ground, standing with their wings spread their clawed hands holding sharp weapons in front of them, blocking the alleys. Sharif turned and tried to pull his friends in another direction, but an aeglor warrior stood in their way. The flying man’s eyebrows were thick, bushy, and drawn together, like caterpillars butting heads.

Overhead, Raathun yelled to the leader of the terodax, berating and insulting him. The terodax leader snarled and snapped in response, but Raathun was not impressed.

Aeglor warriors dropped down lower, holding their net. Sharif pulled out his dagger. “Back to back,” he said to Gwen. “With me. We cannot let them capture us.”

Raathun’s voice boomed as he overheard Sharif. “We will capture you. Be thankful I have talked this primitive creature out of killing you outright.” The terodax leader hissed and cawed. Raathun snapped, “You are stupid. You cannot plan ahead. There was a far simpler way to end this battle that would have cost far fewer of your people — not that a hundred dead terodax are any great loss.”

The scarlet-crowned creature shrieked, and Raathun lashed out, “I should kill you myself for putting these valuable hostages in danger. You do not know how important they are. Azric gave us explicit instructions.”

“Azric!” Sharif cried, shocked to hear the name of the dark sage. Even so, the pieces began to fall into place.

Raathun let out a loud, rumbling laugh that made his dark beard quiver. “Yes, Azric. I believe you have met him. And I believe your brother knew him quite well . . . especially in the last few moments of his life.”

Sharif tried to hurl himself up into the air at the attackers, but the aeglors dropped the long, tangling net over him and Gwen. Another group of the winged men snared Vic and Lyssandra, while two terodax wrested Tiaret’s staff from her grasp, plucked her from her high position on the scaffolding, and brought her down, scratched and bleeding from minor wounds, to drop her amongst the other captives.

“Wrap them up and fly them to the palace,” Raathun said. “We do not want them wriggling their way free to drop and make a mess on the streets far below. This will be our new city, the flying aerie of the aeglors. It will be difficult enough cleaning the human vermin out of their hiding holes.”

Sharif struggled, but the strands of the net bound him too tightly. The threads were made of some kind of elastic contracting substance. He had heard of the fibers the aeglors extracted from their tall and flexible kelptrees. He knew he wouldn’t be able to saw through the strands even with his knife.

As the aeglors lifted him up in the air, his stomach lurched. He and Gwen were pressed together in a tangle of arms and legs, looking down through the openings in the mesh to see themselves being carried swiftly over the rooftops. The surviving members of the Irrakesh guard shouted and cursed. A few still launched arrows until their captains ordered them to stop for fear that a stray shaft might kill the Prince or one of his companions.

Sharif was so incensed at the betrayal of the aeglors that he could barely spit out his words. “Why are you doing this? What did Azric promise you that goes beyond what the Sultan agreed in your alliance? You swore an oath.”

“I swore an oath to a
human,
” Raathun said. “That means nothing. Azric promised to give us Irrakesh once the humans are removed. Your people should not be in the skies. You are not meant to fly. Irrakesh is offensive to us, and when the aeglors inhabit your towers and your palace, it will become our great fortress in the sky. We will fly far from our forest home. We will command this whole world.”

Next to him, the leader of the terodax snarled. Raathun didn’t take the creature seriously. “I do not know what Azric promised to these . . . things.” The terodax leader shrieked in annoyance, but Raathun didn’t try to understand.

Gwen squirmed, tipped her head upward, and spoke boldly to the aeglor king. “If you can so easily break your word to humans, what makes you think Azric will keep his promises to you?”

“He must,” Raathun said, his voice booming. “He would not betray the aeglors.”

“Now we know you have bird brains to go with those wings,” Vic scoffed.

“Insult us all you wish,” Raathun said with a deep-throated chuckle. “But you are our captives, and we have just conquered Irrakesh. The palace is already secure, and we will soon convince your Sultan to surrender the whole city without further fighting.”

“My father will never surrender,” Sharif snapped.

“We both have confidence in the old Sultan,” Raathun said, “but we expect different things of him.”

Fires from the previous attack had begun to spread through the marketplace as tent cloth, draperies, and awnings burst into flame. Looking down at the disaster, Sharif felt a blade of dread pierce his heart.

They flew over the palace, which now looked like a rookery with so many flying creatures, both terodax and aeglors, circling the highest minarets, clustering on the domes and pointed rooftops. They flew in through the open balconies and sat on the sculptures that embellished the entrances around the sapphire dome. As they flew in through the open keyhole arch that formed the grand entrance to the Sultan’s throne room, Sharif saw that five of the palace guards lay bloody and dead on the tiles outside the entrance.

Inside the vaulted throne chamber, hundreds of aeglors and terodax strutted about. Sharif saw some of the winged creatures dragging away dead bodies, some human, some terodax or aeglor. Jabir, in his sunset-colored robes, struggled and thrashed, but he was bound with thick ropes. A gag had been placed in his mouth, so that he could speak no spells.

The old Sultan, looking grayish and weak, had been yanked from the throne and pushed forward; Sharif guessed his father was far closer to death than the Prince had seen him since returning to Irrakesh. The Sultan had expected to spend the day “in contemplation” — which meant resting and conserving his last remaining energy. He had little of the antidote left, and Jabir had said his body could tolerate no more of it.

Unceremoniously, the aeglors dumped their netted captives on the floor. One of them began plucking at the strands binding Vic and Lyssandra. Another winged man released the now-weaponless Tiaret, who sprang to her feet, looking warily around the room but knowing better than to throw away her life in a pointless attack. King Raathun used his long, sharp blade to slice open the net that held Gwen and Sharif. He grabbed the Prince roughly by the shoulder and hauled him out. He yanked the young man to his feet and held him threateningly. Ignored, Gwen freed herself from the severed net and stood, looking indignant.

“I have asked for your surrender,” Raathun said to the Sultan. “You will now send word that all of your guards are to cease fighting. Tell them to throw down their weapons and bow to their new rulers, the aeglors.”

“I will not,” the Sultan said. “I would rather see Irrakesh destroyed.” Sharif knew that his father meant it. “I will tell my Vizier to reverse the spell that keeps our city flying. Irrakesh will come crashing down.”

“You would never do that,” Raathun said, his voice rumbling. “And I would be all too happy to kill everyone of your humans and throw them over the edge, but for some odd reason Azric does not want that.”

The Sultan struggled to remain upright, his grayish face turning red with anger. “If Azric ever sets foot here in Irrakesh, I will destroy him.”

“Bold promises for such a weak man,” Raathun said. “I could have my people and these other . . . creatures,” he gestured to the terodax with a sneer, “work for days just slaughtering you all, but I am not a patient man. I have waited far too long for Irrakesh.” Now he grabbed Sharif by the hair and jerked his head back. He pressed his sharpened sword edge against Sharif’s bare throat. “This is your chance, Sultan. I know he is your son. Surrender Irrakesh now, or I will behead him while you watch, and then before he stops bleeding and twitching, I will call my aeglors and tell them to massacre your entire population.”

Shuddering with the strength of his inner fury, Sharif struggled, but the razor edge of the aeglor’s sword pressed into the soft skin near his jugular vein. “Do not do it, Father.” His stomach knotted. He couldn’t help but remember all the disappointment his father had experienced, all the deprecating things he had said about Sharif’s ability to lead, how he could never be a strong leader like his brother Hashim.

Sharif drew a deep breath and waited to die. The old man had never been flexible or compassionate with him. Sharif was sure his father would make the right decision.

Instead, the Sultan broke down sobbing. “I cannot endure the death of two sons.” His shoulders slumped. “Take your blade away from him.” The Sultan could not look Sharif in the eyes. “I am sorry.”

Raathun let out a loud laugh.

“Father, no!” Sharif snapped. “You cannot. Think of all the —”

But the Sultan glared at him and held up a hand in a gesture that abruptly silenced any further words from his son. “I still rule here, and I make the decisions.” He looked at Raathun. “Irrakesh is yours.”

16

THINGS WERE BAD, VERY bad. Gwen, Vic, and their friends had come to Irrakesh to request allies for the island of Elantya, assistance in healing Kyara, and the temporary loan of the Prince of the realm. Instead, Irrakesh had been captured, the Air Spirits had declined to do anything for Vic’s mother, and Sharif’s father was dying. The people of the city had been disarmed or imprisoned. In addition, all five of the friends were now trapped in the flying city when they should have been hurrying back to Elantya to defend it.

Now that the Sultan had surrendered his city, all of the energy seemed to drain out of him. He wavered and collapsed on the polished steps in front of his throne. The jeweled flute came free of his sash and clattered on the floor. Gwen gasped as the Sultan’s turbaned head hit the tiles with dull crack. Kneeling beside his father, Sharif picked up the flute and tucked it back into the Sultan’s sash. The friends all tried to run forward to help, but aeglors held them back. Somehow managing to duck free of their winged captors, Lyssandra bent over the Sultan and, removing the stopper from the tiny crystal vial around her neck, dribbled a few drops of restorative greenstepe into his mouth. A bit of color came back to his cheeks, and he seemed to breathe more easily, but Sharif’s father did not wake up.

Somehow Vizier Jabir managed to dislodge the gag that had kept him silent. “The poison is too strong,” he said in a voice heavy with sorrow. “The Sultan belongs in his bed, not on the floor.”

King Raathun motioned to two of his guards, who picked up the Sultan unceremoniously by his hands and feet and followed Jabir out of the room. Sharif still knelt on the floor, his head bowed. “My father, the great and wise ruler of Irrakesh, a captive in his own palace.”

Though the Prince resisted, Lyssandra made him drink some of the restorative brew as well.

“Can this get any worse?” Vic mumbled. “A dying ruler, the city invaded by enemies, the would-be allies turn out to be traitors? Have we run out of clichés yet?”

Just then, the aeglors fluttered their feathered wings, producing a sound like muted applause. They raised their voices in loud shrieks and raised their eyes to something that flew toward them across the city. A flying carpet? Gwen wondered. Another aeglor or one of the prehistoric-looking leathery winged creatures? But it was even worse.

Beside her, Vic groaned. “I had to ask.”

It was, in fact, a terodax flying toward the palace — the largest one Gwen had ever seen — and on its back, his arms spread wide as if to embrace the entire sky realm, sat a man she knew all too well. Breezes whipped the long, straight, black hair away from a youngish face that was handsome but at the same time wrong somehow, even from this distance. Gwen could see the man who had killed her parents: Azric.

The ancient dark sage guided the terodax to land on the railing of the terrace outside the throne room. Once perched, the creature bowed its head low to touch the tiled floor, and Azric gracefully dismounted, landing nimbly on the floor before the captive apprentices. A mixture of tension, fear, and anger seemed to squeeze all of the breath out of Gwen. Sharif struggled back to his feet, and Tiaret took up a wary defensive stance.

Azric swept his mismatched blue and green eyes around. “Ahhh, all present and accounted for, I see. Well, almost. Tell me, where is the Sultan?”

“In his own apartments, ill unto death’s doorway,” the king of the aeglors said. “He will not last long.”

This brought a look of great pleasure to Azric’s face. “Excellent.” Gwen wanted nothing more than to put as much distance as possible between herself and this evil man, but she and Vic did not dare show weakness. The dark sage had come so close to controlling them when they were captives among the merlons. She and her cousin had to demonstrate immediately that they would unseal no crystal doors for him.

The dark sage folded his hands in front of him, steepled his index fingers, and chuckled with delight. “The city captured, several extra hostages, and the children of the prophecy as a bonus. I can scarcely believe my luck. Only it’s not luck, is it?
She
told me it would be so.”

Gwen cleared her throat. “Who is ‘she’?”

Azric smiled as if this were a brilliant question. “Why, the last of your merry band, of course. Oh, didn’t I mention it? I brought your friend with me.” And from a satchel hanging at his belt, he took out a kind of carafe with a broad, bulbous base, a long slender neck, and a stopper at the top. The amber and purple glass of the bottle was etched with intricate designs that seemed to glitter from a faint light within it. “Your little, very useful djinni.”