The Flute Keeper's Promise (The Flute Keeper Saga) (45 page)

Chloe, Violet and Othella glanced
quietly at each other. Chloe was trying not to become frustrated, but it did
really look as though they’d come to a dead end.

“Well, I suppose there’s only one
thing left to do,” Othella said. She reached into her tote bag.

Chloe watched curiously. “Mother?”

“If we can’t find anything else
here then it’s time to go back. If Kiros is the tablet and somebody needs it,
she’s still alive. If she’s alive, she’s in Faylinn.”

Chloe’s heart fluttered.
Home!

“We don’t have any allies,” Violet
said. “It’s just us three. We may as well have never left if we can’t bring
back more help!”

“You have me,” Tobin said. He
placed the picture carefully back in its place and then faced them. He stood
rigid with his fists clenched at his sides. His jaw was hard and his eyes were
narrowed. “I don’t know where we’re going but if my mother is there, I’m in.”

Othella tilted her head and looked
at him thoughtfully. “Since you are part Fay you should be able to cross into
Faylinn, but I cannot guarantee that we can bring you back here.”

She took out the Pyxis Charm. The
poor little trinket was tarnished and cracked.

“I’m sure,” Tobin said. “I want to
see this place where people have wings. I want to see my mother’s homeland.”

Chloe wondered if he had any idea
what he was in for. For that matter, now that they were going home, she didn’t
know what
she
was in for. What would they find there? They’d been gone
almost third of a year. She gulped and tried to be brave. She was a queen. She
wouldn’t show fear.

“We don’t have the backup I
wanted,” Othella acknowledged as she twisted the sides of the Pyxis Charm. “We
can only hope that we still have allies in Faylinn—Damn it!”

Chloe and Violet both let out
squeaks of surprise. They’d never in their whole lives heard their mother
curse.

Alarmed, Chloe asked, “What is it?”

“The Pyxis Charm,” Othella said.
“It’s far weaker than I thought. I will not be able to choose our destination.
If we’re lucky, it will still break the seal between our world and this one,
but I have no way of knowing where we’ll end up.”

“That’s not good,” Violet said.

The Pyxis Charm started to glow.

“Hurry!” Othella said. “Everyone
grab onto my chair!”

Tobin grabbed one of Othella’s
armrests. Violet clasped one of her mother’s hands and Chloe held onto the back
of the chair.

The light from the Pyxis Charm
flickered wildly. Chloe felt the world around her wobbling. There was no other
way to describe it. There should have been an explosion of light, but instead
they heard an awful ripping sound. Fractured beams of energy danced around them.
At first it seemed as though the beams materialized out of nothing, but soon
enough they all saw it: there was a gouge in the air. Light from the world
beyond it spilled into the room. Space bent around the anomaly, creating an
optical nightmare.

“What’s that?” Chloe shouted.

“A rip in the seal!” Othella said.
Her words were scattered by the turbulent atmospheric forces at work in the
room. “It’s from whoever came through here last.”

A tremendous bang drowned out her
words. The streams of light from the rip lashed out and wrapped around the four
people and the wheelchair.

Then it was over. They were in a
dark, cold room with a floor made of stone. It was quiet as a tomb.

Nobody spoke. Chloe didn’t know
where they were. It didn’t feel like a place in the castle. It was too dark and
too drafty.

“Where are we?” Violet whispered.

“I don’t know,” Othella whispered
back. “The Pyxis Charm pulled us through an old rip rather than creating a new
one. Wherever it is, we’re stuck here.”

She lifted a sad little heap of
parts in her hands. Their Pyxis Charm had made its final journey.

CHAPTER TWENTY-
SIX

I knew with miserable certainty
that the tree King Hugo spoke of was the tree that my ancestors had used to
make the Summoning Flute. They had sacrificed the beasts now bound to the flute
at the tree’s roots, along with countless other enemies of the Fay. They had
poisoned the tree with such sacrifices, but they had also made it powerful. That
was why they had sealed it away at the bottom of the ocean.

What I knew was too big to keep to
myself. I had to speak to him. There was no room left for pride. I watched for
an opening. People with questions surrounded him, along with his intimidating
crew of Slaugh. It was no good. I couldn’t approach him with so many people
around.

Something big, brown and furry
cleared a path up the steps to where I stood. Before I knew what was happening,
two big arms wrapped around me and drew me into a tight embrace.

“It’s you!” Yert exclaimed
tearfully. “It’s been so long, but I haven’t forgotten!”

Yert’s husband, Ralph, stood behind
her. Bayard led Sandrine carefully up the steps. Once he was clear of them, he
abandoned Sandrine and outdid Yert’s hug by lifting me off my feet and spinning
me around.

“My goodness, you’re so grown up!”
He exclaimed as he put me back on my feet. “I don’t know how I ever hoped to
compete with you. You’re a lot prettier than me!”

I was so dizzy that I saw two of
him. “Um…thanks. Not looking too bad yourself there, Golden Boy.”

Sandrine cleared her throat loudly.
Bayard went and led her to me. The Hobgoblin stood up straight and walked
steadily even though she wore a blindfold around her eyes. She reached out and
felt my arm.

“Hello, Captain,” I said.

Her ears perked up. “So it is you.
I’ve heard some fantastic tales about you these past two years. It seems you
haven’t yet learned how to stay out of trouble.”

“Hey, trouble follows
me
,” I
said. “I’d be glad to be rid of it! What about you? How’s the ship?”

Sandrine removed her plumed hat and
held it to her chest. “Ah, the old Melidee Gale. May she rest in peace along
with dear, departed Dr. Splitfoot.”

I held a hand to my mouth and
gasped. “Oh no! Is he…?”

“No longer of this world,” said
Wimbleysminch. The Gremlin and his partner, Joyboy, were perched next to me on
the railing.

“What happened?” I asked.

“We were anchored in a cove off the
Bangador Islands,” Sandrine said. “It has interesting rock formations. There’s
a famous one that looks like a dragon. Dr. Splitfoot was sleepwalking one night
and wandered up to the deck. He saw the rock formation and took it to be a real
dragon. Unfortunately, someone had left the cannon powder out. We heard lots of
shouting and cursing, so we ran out on deck to find Dr. Splitfoot sitting on
the cannon, yelling at the dragon. He had stuffed the whole barrel of powder
into the cannon.”

“And he’d already lit the fuse,”
Bayard said. “We were too late.”

“Let me guess…” I said.

Sandrine nodded. “Aye, the cannon
exploded. It blew a hole in the ship. We were anchored close to shore, so the
rest of us made it out alive. All we ever found of Dr. Splitfoot were his
glasses. We buried them on the beach.”

“It was a nice memorial,” Yert
said, wiping away a tear.

Joyboy and Wimbleysminch snickered.
Sandrine scowled in their direction.

“What?” Joyboy asked innocently.

“Yeah, you’ve got to admit, it was
a hell of a way to go out,” Wimbleysminch said, grinning. “Long as I live, I’ll
be able to picture that crazy old Hobgoblin on top of that cannon, cussing at
the top of his lungs.”

I did have to stifle a grin at the
thought of it. “What’s your new ship called?” I asked Sandrine.

“
Splitfoot’s Folly
,”
Sandrine said. “Hopefully we can repair it—when we get it out of the trees,
that is.”

I wanted to talk to them more, but
I saw Hugo and his entourage leaving the room below. I gave Yert a pat on the
back and said, “We’ll catch up at dinner.”

Hugo, followed closely by Katriel,
walked towards the boys’ sleeping quarters on the far side of the Hall. I
passed Valory on the stairs as I headed after him.

“Hey Em, wanna come with me to tell
stories to the kiddies?” Valory asked.

“Later,” I said without stopping.

Valory saw who I was tailing and
gave me a wink. “Good luck.”

Most of the Slaugh were going the
same direction as Hugo. I didn’t want to barge through them, so I hung back a
little. They’d been given lodging in a large room that encircled a tree trunk.
There were hammocks and waterlogged supplies laid out to dry on the floor.

Hugo and Katriel went past the big
room to a stairwell leading down to a room I had not yet seen. Hugo entered the
room while Katriel stood guard at the top of the stairs.

Great
, I thought. Unsure
what to expect, I tried to steady my pulse and look calm as I approached.

Katriel drew herself up like an
angry snake when she saw me. “What business do you have down here?” she asked
with a sneer.

She was scary. I didn’t want to
come off as defiant—not yet.  “I just need a word with King Hugo.”

Katriel smirked. “He doesn’t want
to be disturbed.”

I held my ground. “This is
important. I must talk to him right now.”

“No disturbances!” Katriel growled.
“Leave.”

Something belligerent rose up in me.
I crossed my arms, lifted my chin and pasted on the stoniest expression I could
muster. “I’m not leaving until I speak to him.”

There came the cold, metallic sound
of a weapon being drawn from its sheath. I reacted instantly, drawing my
shortsword from my belt.

Katriel’s weapon of choice was a
rapier. While she was busy brandishing it under my chin, I flicked my sword
quickly and held it to her thigh.

Startled, Katriel drew away from
the sword but I stayed close, trying not to mind the rapier just inches from my
nose. If Katriel backed up any more she’d tumble down the stairs.

“So now what?” I asked.

Katriel growled and lunged to the
side, avoiding my sword. She shoved my shoulder with the butt of the rapier.

Dazed, but still upright, I threw
all my body weight into a counter blow, ramming Katriel in the stomach. The
Slaugh girl gasped as I knocked the breath out of her. She stumbled and grabbed
the wall to keep from falling down the stairs.

“Now you’re in for it!” Katriel
hissed. She let out a war cry and hurled herself at me.

I didn’t have time to prepare my
defense. Katriel quickly landed some punches that would leave ugly bruises.
They didn’t worry me. I was more concerned about the rapier and how far I could
push Katriel before she became infuriated enough to use it. I dodged what would
have been a crushing blow to my cheek and elbowed Katriel in the chest.

For a few moments everything became
a blur of fists and elbows and knees. I got socked in the jaw, but I managed to
kick Katriel in the thigh. The move bought me enough time to draw back and
recollect my strength.

Wincing, Katriel leaned against the
wall. Her face was contorted into an animal snarl. She screeched her awful war
call again and brandished her rapier.

“Katriel, Stand down!”

The words were spoken in the Slaugh
language. I understood them thanks to the lesson in the fruit Anouk had brought
me in the cathedral cell.

Katriel was still bristling. It
looked as though it took every ounce of her strength to keep from impaling me. Hugo
glared at her from the bottom of the stairs. “
Stand down
,” he said in
Slaugh again.

I stayed absolutely still with the
sword at my side. I didn’t want to give Katriel any reason to disobey orders.

Katriel made a hateful face at me.
“She started it!” she said to Hugo in Slaugh.

“She’s perfectly capable of
finishing it, too,” he said, still in his mother tongue.

I felt a pang of warmth. Was it a
compliment? Of course, he’d trained me in combat. To say I was a good fighter
was the same as complimenting himself.

There was another clang of metal as
Katriel sheathed her rapier. She looked like a dog that had run to the end of
her leash only to be jerked back.

“She says she wants to speak to
you,” Katriel said in my own language.

Hugo did not look at me. He turned
and simply said, “Fine.”

Unsure whether it was an invitation
or not, I sheathed my sword and proceeded slowly after Hugo. Katriel hissed as
I walked past her.

Hugo left the door propped open. I
walked inside and was greeted by cool air that smelled of earth. The room was
dug underground. It was dark and chilly and quiet just like Lev’s old room back
at Ivywild.

I shook my head to rid it of the
memory. What mattered was the here and now. I closed the door behind me and
waited for Hugo to speak. My heart thudded so loudly that I thought I could
hear it echoing in the room.

Hugo was preoccupied with arranging
his supplies, which were laid out on a rickety table. He inspected things and
walked around the room, never once looking at me. He studied his weapons as
though they were the most important things in the world. It took someone who’d
known him as long as I had to notice that his forehead was knotted in a
petulant way and that he was subconsciously biting his bottom lip.

I suddenly saw him not as the
mysterious Slaugh king, but rather as the ill-tempered boy that Commander Larue
had wrapped in chains and tossed in the back of a wagon. He had been so full of
himself back then and so eager to prove that he didn’t have any use for
anybody.

Well this is just ridiculous
,
I thought. There was no way we could accomplish anything if he kept ignoring me.
It was going to hurt a lot, but I knew what had to be done.