Shifter (9 page)

            “I’m sorry,” the unicorn said, “but I can’t let you shy away from this.” Briony felt a force grab hold of her arm, willing her to strike out at the unicorn.

            Her arm swept out, holding the dagger, which she plunged into the unicorn’s heart. It toppled, collapsing onto its side, staring up at her. “I’m so sorry,” Briony cried, tears running down her cheeks, as her body was led by the scepter to complete her task. Briony was sure that she felt the moment when it died, something changing in the pull of the scepter, but that didn’t stop her from doing what she had to do next, no matter how gruesome it was. She set to work with the knife even while tears fell from her eyes, the compulsion that had made her strike holding her there until the golden shaft of the horn sat in her hand, as smeared with blood as the rest of her.

            The unicorn had paid its price. It had given up its life, just like that. Just for her. Briony knelt there, staring at the horn as though seeing it for the first time. She knelt there trying to hold back her tears, trembling violently with the enormity of what she had just done, while Archer and Fallon dragged away the body of the first creature of Palisor. She stared at the horn while they buried it, trying to work out how what she held could possibly be worth what she’d just had to do.

            As a strange but warm sensation flow over her from the unicorn’s goodness and powers, she knew how she had to use it. It was a stake.
The
stake. One that would give her a chance against Pietre and his vampires without having to call up a threat that would kill all of their kind. She forced herself to stand and looked at Archer. She didn’t know how her face looked right then, but even the dragon seemed nervous.

            “Change back into your dragon form,” Briony commanded. “We have a gate home to find.”

T
hey rose up over the clearing again, clinging tightly to Archer’s back. The dragon’s wings lifted him sharply, leaving the spot where Briony had slain the unicorn behind in a matter of seconds. It couldn’t happen quickly enough for her then, though with the golden horn of the beast pushed into her belt and the creature’s blood still staining her clothing, some parts of the last few minutes weren’t so easy to leave behind.

            “Get us to the gate, Archer,” Briony ordered and the dragon swooped around, heading in the direction that he had been going before they had found the unicorn. That didn’t last for more than a few seconds though because then Archer wheeled around.

            “What is it?” Briony asked him, but flying there, with the head of the scepter around her neck, she knew. She could feel it the same way that she’d been able to feel the gate through to here before. The gate that Archer had found was gone, vanished from the face of Palisor in whatever cycle of appearances and disappearances governed them.

            “No,” Briony said. “No. It
can’t
be.”

            Archer made a huffing sound, and Briony knew that she’d guessed correctly.

            “What is it?” Fallon asked her.

            “The gate is gone,” Briony said. She wasn’t going to give up that easily though. “Archer, can you find another?”

            The dragon’s head looked around at her and the answer was obvious even to Briony, but she couldn’t give up that easily. Not when Pietre was on the other side, making more vampires. Not when Kevin was on the other side with… with
her.

            “Try, Archer,” she insisted, knowing that because it was her asking, the dragon wouldn’t be able to refuse. He was her dragon, and he could no more ignore an order from her than give up breathing.

            Archer roared his displeasure, but he did as Briony commanded, flying out over fields and streams, broken land and marsh, trying to find a way through into Wicked. Into anywhere in the real world. As far as Briony was concerned, even a portal through into Alaska would work, because at least that would be on the right plane of existence. They could deal with getting back to Wicked from there.

            Archer flew on, and on. Behind her, Briony could feel Fallon getting restless.

            “How long are we going to keep going?” he asked. “If the gate’s gone, then…”

            “There will be another gate,” Briony insisted. “Somewhere, there will be another gate.”

            “It took Sophie decades to find a way through,” Fallon pointed out. “The gates aren’t that simple to find, Briony. Even with the scepter, they don’t just come when you call.”

            “We keep going,” Briony said, and Fallon must have heard the determination in her voice, because he didn’t continue to argue. Maybe it was killing the unicorn that had done it. Maybe having to do something so terrible had pushed her over the edge. Or maybe, Briony thought, it was just that, having done that, if they couldn’t get into Wicked, it meant that the creature’s death was in vain. She couldn’t allow that.

            So they kept going. Archer flew in circles, completing ever wider circuits with the castle somewhere at their center. He flew over villages and track ways, rolling hills and forest. Briony had never seen so much of her kingdom. They even flew over the darker lands where there was nothing but broken rock, and it seemed like even the sun took on muted shades. She hadn’t been there since Marcus’ brother had kidnapped her and tried to persuade her to fetch the scepter for him.

            Archer swung back around over the kingdom, and Briony could see that the sun was setting there too now. Had they really been flying for so many hours? She could see now that Archer’s wings were moving more slowly, and she could hear the great huffs of breath that came with every stroke of them against the air. Even his supernatural strength was starting to wane.

            “All right, Archer,” Briony said at last, knowing that it was no use. “Go back to the castle. We’ll try again tomorrow.”

            And the next day. And every day after that until they found a way through, Briony insisted. It was then that she heard the rumbling. It was low, barely registering with her at first, but it went on, not stopping for several minutes. An earthquake. A big one too, from the sound of the shaking. Yet they were far enough above it that it wasn’t a threat, and in any case all the land around them was simply open fields.

            “Just keep heading for the castle,” Briony urged Archer. They kept flying, eating up the distance slowly now that the dragon was tired, but still going.

            A purple and green streak shot past them. Briony turned, recognizing the shape of another dragon. Recognizing the dragon too. It was Fletcher, Archer’s brother and the dragon of King Waltham before her father’s death. Fletcher wheeled to move alongside them, and then let out a hissing cry that Archer apparently understood, because he started to lose height.

            Fletcher landed in an open field. The castle was on the horizon, but Archer didn’t seem interested in it. Instead, he landed beside his brother, who was back in his purple haired human form by then. It was that of a lean young man who looked a lot like Archer, though a little shorter and with a tendency towards much darker clothes. The whole effect was vaguely Goth, though Briony suspected that wasn’t deliberate. Briony slid down off Archer’s back with Fallon beside her, looking over at the dragon.

            “Fletcher, what are you doing here? Why have you brought us down in a field like this?”

            “Forgive me, my queen, but it could not wait. There was something I had to check after King Waltham died, and it seems urgent to tell you. You felt the earth shake?”

            “An earthquake,” Briony said.

            “But what caused it?” Fletcher counted.

            “I guess the answer isn’t going to be ‘shifting tectonic plates’,” Fallon put in from beside her.

            “What are those?” Fletcher shook his head. “No. This came because in the east of your kingdom, a chasm was opening up. One that we had thought long closed. One
held
closed by the power of your father.”

            “So when he died, it stopped holding it?” Briony asked. It sounded like another thing about this kingdom that no one had told her, and that was now her responsibility. “Why was the chasm closed?”

            “It was a place to keep the worst creatures,” Fletcher explained. “The ones too dangerous to walk the light.”

            “Um…” Briony wondered how to put it. “Wasn’t
Marcus
too dangerous to be allowed to stay here?”

            Fletcher shrugged. “Marcus and his brother were too strong together to deal with. And they were intelligent enough to stop us from destroying them. You might not believe this, but when he killed his brother, Marcus made it a lot easier for you to kill him.”

            “That was meant to be
easy
?” Briony said.

            “Easier than it was before,” Archer replied. He was back in his human form now. He looked exhausted. “Fletcher, are you saying that Xylyx is open?”

            “Xylyx?” Briony asked. “What’s Xylyx?”

            “It’s the name of the abyss where the most dangerous creatures on Palisor live,” Fletcher explained. “This chasm is a way in, and more importantly, it’s a way out. Creatures that haven’t been seen in Palisor for thousands of years will pour from it if we can’t deal with this. Including the Bestial.”

            “What’s that?” Fallon asked.

            Fletcher shook his head. “It’s more a case of ‘who are they?’ They’re fanged creatures. Some say that they were once Hugtandalfer who gave themselves over to evil and were changed by it to become the original vampires. Some say that they simply sprang up as vampires, an original, pure form driven by blood. Whatever they were though, now they are little more than beasts, driven by the need for blood and violence.”

            “Like Marcus’ vampires?” Briony asked.

            “Worse. Marcus’ vampires were barbaric and savage, but these… they don’t speak. They don’t plan. They don’t take prisoners. They just kill, and kill, until they’re stopped. And they might not even be the worst of what’s coming out of the chasm.”

             Briony paused, because she knew what was going to come next. As the Queen of Palisor, she had to deal with it. It was going to be her responsibility. She would have to go out to slay the creatures, or gather armies, or maybe even marry Josh to get the power to deal with them, despite what she’d just gained with the horn taken from the unicorn.

            Yet the truth was there was a part of her that just wanted to ignore all of that and keep searching for a way back to Wicked.
That
was her home, even if this was her kingdom. And Kevin… Kevin wasn’t in Palisor. He was back in Wicked with Carol, and right then, if it was a straight choice between monsters here and Carol back there with Kevin, Briony knew which one was the greater threat to her.

            She squashed those feelings, though. What was important to her wasn’t the same thing as what was
important
. If she did run out on her kingdom just to find Kevin, that might be what her heart told her, but it wasn’t what was right. She couldn’t have the deaths of all the people of her kingdom on her conscience. She might want to go, but she knew she couldn’t.

            Not that she really had much of a choice in the matter. It wasn’t like there was a gate back across now anyway. Right then, it felt almost like the whole kingdom was conspiring to keep her there to protect against this threat. Maybe it was. The scepter could control the gates, and it had the essences of the old kings and queens of her realm within. Maybe it had sensed the threat and shut down the gates to help protect Palisor. Briony guessed that she would never know for certain.

            “We should act quickly,” Archer said. “After so long in captivity, they won’t wait before they start to destroy what they can. They’ll want revenge.”

            “The ones that can understand the idea, at least,” Fletcher added. “The rest… destruction is just what they are.”

            Briony made at least one final attempt, because there was more than even Kevin at stake back home. “What about Wicked? Pietre is back there transforming people. I can’t just leave them and let him do that.”

            “You have to,” Archer said. “Palisor has to be your priority, and not just because you’re its queen. If it falls, then the gates between the worlds will be without protection. The creatures from the chasm will be able to cross with impunity. Then no one will be safe. Not even in Wicked.”

T
hey flew, speeding back towards the Cloud Palace. Archer’s exhaustion seemed to be forgotten for the moment, and he powered them back in quick, efficient strokes of his wings. Briony hadn’t seen the Cloud Palace properly as she’d left it. She hadn’t been looking back, but now she could see it, the elegant spires and rises of the palace seeming to grow out of the rock around it, so that the whole building seemed to be a part of the mountain top it stood on.

            They didn’t fly back towards the balcony they’d taken off from. Instead, they headed for a flat space on the roof that reminded Briony a little of a helipad. A dragon pad, perhaps? There were figures standing on it, and Briony recognized them with a sinking feeling as Archer took her closer. Sophie was there, and Josh. Prince Vigor, the Hugtandalfer man her father had adopted to be his heir if he couldn’t get his daughter back, was there too. He was a large, powerfully built Hugtandalfer with hair of alternating black and silver stripes, his eyes solid silver and his features possibly the most beautiful of any man Briony had seen. Certainly beautiful enough that Sophie liked him. A lot.

            They’d be angry, of course. Her great aunt would be angry that she’d run off without telling her. Josh would be furious that she’d run away from him. And Vigor… he would probably be the angriest of all, that the girl who had taken what could have been his throne would try to run out on her kingdom. Yet right then, there wasn’t the time for them to be angry. Not if Fletcher was right.