The Flute Keeper's Promise (The Flute Keeper Saga) (14 page)

I climbed over the rubble into a
hollow sanctum. Bazzlejet stepped in behind me and started to build the wall
back up.

“Any Enchanters in here?” he called
over his shoulder. “I could use some help patching this.”

A long-faced farmer stepped out of
the darkness. “I’m no Enchanter, but I’ll help you fix that wall.”

My eyes hadn’t adjusted to the
darkness yet. I could hear scared voices whispering at the back of the
mausoleum. The little girl let out an ear-splitting scream. A skeleton was lying
in a compartment next to us. A shiver ran down my spine as I saw more skeletons
lying in rows on both the sides of the mausoleum.

Othella’s pale face scowled out of
the darkness. “Quiet!” she hissed. “We don’t want to give away our position!”

 “She’s just a child, Mom,” said
Violet’s wispy voice. “Come here, little girl. Let me see if you’re hurt.” She
stepped forward out of the shadows. Her face and hair were covered with ash and
dust. I handed the little girl to her.

As my eyes adjusted, I saw that no
less than a dozen people were crammed into the mausoleum. Among them were the
Baroness of Ipswimmy Island, several personal butlers and, much to my relief,
Chloe.

“Emma!” Chloe said in an excited
whisper. She shoved a dangling skeleton hand out of her way to get to me. “I
was so worried about you! Where have you been?”

I was saved from having to answer
her question when Bazzlejet appeared. He was pouring sweat. He went to wipe his
brow and the tattered remains of his wig slid off, revealing the spiky
silver-blue hair underneath.

“Hell of a funeral,” he said.

 Chloe stared at him with her mouth
hanging open. “You’re a…you’re a boy!”

Realizing his mistake, Bazzlejet
looked to Othella for help. She pinched her lips together and shook her head.

“You sicko!” Chloe shouted, hitting
Bazzlejet in the shoulder. “How dare you impersonate a maid? Who do you think
you are?”

“Shhhhh!” Bazzlejet and I hissed at
the same time.

The mausoleum rattled as something
metallic banged on the wall. Ages of dust filled the air, causing everyone to
cough. Skeletons rattled in their resting places.

 “The monsters are gonna get us!”
The little girl squealed.

“Take heart, child,” Violet said. “Commander
Frayne Larue is on his way. We’ll all be safe when he and the rest of the
Master Casters arrive.”

The mausoleum rattled again and a
chunk of stone flew out of the hastily barred wall.

“We’re surrounded!” said the baroness.
She twisted her bright floral handkerchief nervously. “What if they break
through before the Master Casters get here?”

Bazzlejet and I glanced at each
other.

“Can you hold them back if they
break through?” Bazzlejet asked.

“I think,” I said. “It would help
to have some backup.”

“I’ll cover you,” Bazzlejet said.
He turned to Chloe. “Care to scorch some bad guys, Your Highness?”

Chloe glared at him. “I’d just as
soon scorch you. You were such a lousy maid and so TERRIBLY unattractive that I
should have known something was up.”

Bazzlejet looked offended. “Hey!
Knock my maid skills all you want, but don’t call me—”

 “Guys!” I said. I pointed at the
wall of rubble that stood between us and the mechamen. Pieces of stone tumbled
inward. A metal arm punched through the barricade.

White light made the mausoleum
brighter than day as Bazzlejet cast his electrical magic at the intruder. It
halted the assault for only a moment before three more mechamen tried to come
in through the breech.

I jumped in front of Bazzlejet,
ready to cast a barrier.

“Stay back,” he said. “Guard the
others.” He looked over at Chloe. “I know you hate me, but I need your help.
I’ll zap em’ if you fry em’.”

Chloe rolled her eyes. “You idiot!
Isn’t it obvious fire doesn’t work against these undead creeps? Besides I’d end
up smoking us all out.”

“Then get behind Emma!” Bazzlejet
shouted over the sound of collapsing stone.

“No way,” Chloe said. “You zap them.
I’ll
freeze
them.”

I protected the others behind a
barrier while Chloe cast jets of white ice crystals at the mechamen. Her ice
spells were nowhere near as powerful as Commander Larue’s, but they did slow
the mechamen down. She stunned them by coating their metal parts with ice and
Bazzlejet picked them off with bolts of lightning.

One by one the disgusting bodies
fell on top of each other, but the mechamen kept coming.

“They’ve concentrated their attack
on us,” I said. “I hope that means everyone else is safely out of Mag Mell.”

“Or they’ve killed everyone else!”
exclaimed the hysterical baroness.

“Not my mommy!” the little girl
wailed.

Violet hugged the girl close. “I’m
sure your mommy is fine.”

“Fall back!” Bazzlejet shouted when
the tide of mechamen spilled forward into the mausoleum.

Everyone pressed as far as they
could to the back wall. I took a few steps back and recast my barrier. Chloe
and Bazzlejet resumed their counterattack but they were getting tired.
Bazzlejet’s aim was off and Chloe’s ice spells grew too weak to do much good.

When all Chloe could do was produce
jets of chilled air, I grabbed her and pulled her behind me. Four more mechamen
remained intact and they were gaining ground. Bazzlejet’s spells only made them
pause.

“I think I’m tapped out,” Bazzlejet
said with a gulp.

I was growing exhausted, too, but I
still had some magic left in me. I pushed Bazzlejet out of the way and tried to
shove the mechamen back with a barrier.

The stubborn drones fell back and
then launched themselves forward again, unfazed. Inch by inch, I lost ground.
It was time to try something desperate.

“Everyone duck and cover your
heads!” I shouted. “I’m going to drop the roof on them.”

“Heavens!” said the baroness,
bringing her handkerchief to her forehead.

“Please don’t crush us,” Chloe
squeaked.

I moved in close to the others and
raised one hand. A bubble-like barrier encircled us. While concentrating on the
protective barrier, I summoned up the last reserves of my strength and hurled
as much magical force as I could at the mausoleum’s roof.

A loud rumble filled my ears. I
went blind as a cloud of gray dust exploded around us. Skeletons crunched under
falling rock. It was all I could do to keep my focus and maintain the barrier
that was keeping us all from being pulverized.

Then it was over. Daylight penetrated
the dust cloud. When I no longer heard the sounds of falling stone, I
cautiously let down my barrier.

The crypt lay in ruins. It was a
grisly sight with old white bones poking out from the rubble along with pieces
of the mechamen. Some of their metal limbs still twitched despite being
severed.

Chloe grabbed my hands and jumped
up and down. Bazzlejet bear hugged me around the shoulders. The weeping baroness
leaned in and kissed me on both cheeks.

 “That was amazing!” Chloe cheered.

“Yeah, quick thinking,” Bazzlejet said.
He gave Chloe a pat on the back. “You weren’t so bad yourself.”

Chloe gave him a murderous look. He
wisely backed away.

A flash caught my eye. Across Mag
Mell, Commander Larue and his troops were dealing with the last of the
mechamen. Fire, ice, lightning and blasts of wind flew through the air like a
demented fireworks display.

Battered Fay came out of hiding
from behind monuments and overturned carriages. The tide of mourning that had
pervaded Mag Mell earlier in the day was replaced with shock and fear. Nothing
was sacred anymore. Nowhere was safe.

Violet rounded up some other
Channelers and went to work mending injuries. The little girl I’d saved tagged
along with her until a woman nursing a bruised arm limped over to us.

“Mommy!” the little girl shrieked
ecstatically.

“Thank heavens!” the woman
exclaimed, embracing the girl with her good arm.

Mag Mell looked like a war zone.
Many monuments were broken. Trees had been burnt black. Injured people lay on
the ground. Some weren’t moving. The eerie scene reminded me of Moonlight Pass.
The difference was that the carnage at Moonlight Pass had been almost total.
Only one person had survived.

I felt a pain like a knife twist in
my chest. It had nothing to do with the devastation around me.

“It will take teams of Enchanters
all year to clean up this mess,” said one of the survivors.

“This couldn’t have happened at a
worse time,” lamented another.

“They’re right,” Chloe whispered,
huddling close to me. “Practically every Fay who lives within three days’ journey
was here today.”

A frightful thought occurred to me.
“It’s like Robyn knew, isn’t it?”

“Do you think she’s been watching
us?” Chloe asked with more than a trace of fear in her voice.

“Or she has an informant,” I said.

Chloe shook her head, spilling dust
from her purple curls. “Surely not. The funeral was widespread news. She could
be anywhere, so there’s a million ways she could have known Mag Mell would be
full today.”

Chloe made perfect sense, but I had
never been able to ignore my gut feelings.

“Thank the stars!” said Lord Finbarr
said, approaching us from a row of graves. There were scratches on his face and
his glasses were dirty. Garland, who looked no better, trailed behind him.

Chloe met them halfway. “I’m so
glad you guys are okay! How did you make it through?”

Both men looked over their
shoulders. Where the king’s casket had sat during his memorial there was now a
tall mound of earth with thorny vines encircling it. The casket sat atop the
earthen fortress, untouched.

“We thought it best to protect
him,” Lord Finbarr said.

“Yeah!” Garland added with vim. “We
couldn’t let those abominations desecrate the king!”

Chloe smiled gratefully at both of
them. Then her green eyes brimmed over with tears and she hugged them with so
much enthusiasm that they both winced for their injuries.

“Thank-you-so-much!” Chloe said
between sniffles.

Commander Larue soon joined us. The
tall, grim-faced man looked like he’d aged ten years in the past day.

“Ridiculous…embarrassing…
insane
,”
he kept mumbling as he surveyed the damage. “Your Majesty, I am so sorry. I
can’t believe that these
things
snuck in right under our noses!”

“You were guarding the castle like
I asked you to,” Chloe pointed out.

“Speaking of which, who is guarding
the castle now?” I asked.

“I left a small squadron,”
Commander Larue said.

“What of the people who flew away?”
I asked. “Are they safe?”

“Most of them made it to
Loosestrife,” Commander Larue said. “There are a couple of groups scattered
throughout the valley. I’ve sent a handful of troops along with some Channelers
to check on them."

Garland and Lord Finbarr exchanged
a look.

“I’ll go see if our carriage is
still intact,” Garland said, excusing himself.

I raised my eyebrows. “What’s that
all about?”

“Our things are already packed for
our journey through the outlands,” Lord Finbarr explained. “We were going to
depart after the funeral so that we wouldn’t have to deal with more of the
Seelie Court’s nonsense. They threatened to use their guards to stop us from
going. All the other emissaries dropped out because of the pressure. Now it’s
just Garland and me.”

I gasped. “You can’t go by
yourselves after what just happened!”

“I agree,” said Commander Larue.
“Take some of my men.”

Lord Finbarr put up a hand and
smiled. “That won’t be necessary. I may be an old man, but I can hold my own.
Garland’s skills aren’t to be sneezed at, either. His mother would be very
proud if she could see how well he’s doing. He fashioned that fortress of
thorns all by himself.”

“So your mind is made up then?” Commander
Larue asked.

“Absolutely,” Lord Finbarr said. “I
just need a few words with Her Majesty and we’ll be on our way.”

I thought he meant Chloe, but he
walked over to Othella. She was having a whispered conversation with Bazzlejet
near the demolished mausoleum. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that they were
discussing W.R.A.I.T.H. business. I thought about edging my way close to them
to hear what they were saying, but Violet asked me to help with some injured
survivors.

“Where are the judges anyways?” I asked
Violet as I pressed a poultice over a boy’s puffy cheek. “I know I saw them here
earlier.”

There was a flash of green as
Violet waved her emerald source crystal over a little girl’s sprained ankle.
“They escaped when the trouble started. Their personal guards flew them back to
the castle. By now they’re probably cozy in their quarters.”

“But Chloe has loads of personal
guards,” I said. “Why didn’t they get her out of here?”

“Ha!” Violet said, tossing her
hair. “You think she’d let them? She insisted on staying and fighting. Of
course, we got in over our heads and ended up hiding in the crypt anyways, but
you’ve got to admire her courage.”

It was the first time I had heard
Violet praise her older sister so warmly.

 “I just hope everyone else sees it
that way and doesn’t call her reckless,” I said. “The last thing she needs
right now is more bad publicity.”

Violet moved down the line to a man
with a burn on his chest. She pulled sachets of minerals from her apron and
began mixing them together. She then turned the mixture to a thick liquid using
her source crystal and slathered it on the burn.

“I wish I had more supplies,”
Violet said, turning one of her sachets inside out to get the last bit of
minerals.

“Why not get some supplies from
W.R.A.I.T.H?” I whispered. “Can’t you contact one of your people on the other
side to open a portal?”