The Flute Keeper's Promise (The Flute Keeper Saga) (60 page)

Then I saw something else. There
was another thread, like the shining sticky silk cast out by a spider. It led
from him back into the blackest void where all life and light ceased. Something
was waiting there. It was an entity far more evil than the duke, and it had
control of the threads of his life. I understood now what Lev was trying to
tell him before. He was just a pawn.

“Consider me your angel of mercy,”
I said. My voice sounded like the rush a thousand breezes, not unlike the
Seraphim. “I have come to cut you free.”

The duke shivered. All the blue
spikes on his body rattled. “Silence! Don’t waste my time! I have seen the
future. You aren’t in it!”

He swung out his arm like a whip,
letting the spikes crack and splinter together. Some of them broke off and flew
towards me.

I swept gracefully to one side. I
felt the duke’s blow as a cold draft brushing through my wings—a revelation! I
was intangible. He could not harm me.

The question was, could I harm him?
I had no weight of my own. I experienced everything as fluid motion, but I had
nothing to strike with. The only thing I seemed to be able to do was excite the
glowing particles in the air. Every life form caused disruptions in the fabric
of existence. Every single tiny action caused a reaction. Now that I could see
it all taking place before my eyes, I realized I could use it to my advantage.

The duke began to back away. The
spikes in his body suddenly appeared to weigh him down.

“Get away!” he said. “Stay back!”

I flowed closer to him, paying
special attention to the spikes. I could hear voices in the blue stones. The
magic particles inside of them were trapped. They’d been ripped from their
rightful bodies, separated forever from a proper existence. They wanted to be
free.

My bright wings bathed the duke in
light as I floated to him. He cringed. The spikes on his body glimmered. I
could hear the particles inside of them screaming, praying, begging to be
released. I noticed again the thread that bound the duke to an unseen force. It
was drawn tight. I came closer and it began to hum as though it had been
plucked.

“
Please
,” the duke said.
“Stay away! Stay back! I’m warning you!”

I reached out with what would have
been my hand. It was just another flowing extension of my form. The particles
in the spikes vibrated faster and faster, reacting to my presence. I touched
the duke’s chest.

The alchemic stones could no longer
confine all the tiny, stolen magic particles. They shattered, releasing streams
upon streams of light. The duke’s body was vaporized instantly.

The thread that was bound to him
snapped. It sent waves through the fabric of existence as all the particles
were released back into the atmosphere.

Though the thread was broken, I
knew that there was still somebody waiting at the other end. My light couldn’t
penetrate the blackness to see to the other side. There was some kind of wall.
I could not see it, but I sensed it. It was the barrier between two realms.

“Emma.”

My form flickered again. I swept down
to Lev’s side. His light was very, very dim. He was fading fast from the world.
Nothing I could do would stop that.

“So you finally got wings.”

His voice was weak. Even in my new
form, I felt myself shaking. I longed to pick him up and take him away. I found
that if I tried, I could excite the particles of my form enough to make them
somewhat solid. I was able to sweep a hand across Lev’s forehead.

He closed his eyes. “That feels
warm. It’s nice.”

I let my wings droop down to cover
him, enfolding him within my form so that I couldn’t tell where his light left
off and mine began. We were part of the same entity, just a big collection of
bits of existence wrapped up, one into the other. All the threads of his life
were tangled with mine.

But mine kept going, on and on as
far as I could see. His were unraveling.

With a gasp, he pushed away from
me. I cried out as the cold rushed in to fill the place where he’d been.

“Emma, there’s something I’ve got
to do.”

“Don’t talk!” I pleaded. Every word
made his light grow dimmer.

He smiled sadly. “I must.” He
pushed himself up on his elbows as best he could and stared at the place where
the duke had been. “Do you see that?”

He was staring at the void where
the mysterious thread still hung in place, broken by the duke’s death. I had
thought there was some kind of wall there. However, I now perceived a gap where
the shining thread crossed the threshold into our world. Beyond it lay the
blackness of the unknown.

With a start, I realized what I was
looking at. “That’s the Twi-Realm, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Lev said. His face was calm.
“I have one last thing to ask of you.”

I felt myself fading. My form
couldn’t last when my emotions were so strong. It made me much too heavy. Pain
was a thing for mortals, not an ethereal being of light.

“Anything,” I whispered.

“Take me over there,” Lev said. “Let
me enter the Twi-Realm now, while I still have a body.”

I didn’t question him. I didn’t
dare, even though the thought of letting him enter the void was enough to sever
the flute’s spell. I returned to my normal body with its burden of flesh and
its breaking heart.

Lev tried to smile. “There’s the
face I’m going to miss. Help me stand.”

He was so heavy. He had to lean on
me completely as I took his arm over my shoulders. Any normal person would have
been dead after losing so much blood but, as always, Lev was driven by things
that no normal person could comprehend.

We struggled forward, leaving a
trail of blood as we went. Now that I was back in my normal body I couldn’t see
much. I was aware of the void, though. It had its own gravity. I felt it
pulling us towards it.

“Stop here,” Lev said.

Stooping under his weight, I took
deep breaths. He steadied himself against my arm and then, miraculously, stood
on his own.

“This isn’t the end,” he said. “My
battles aren’t yet over, and yours are just beginning. We both have to keep
fighting. Promise me you’ll keep fighting.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat.
I wanted to delay the moment as long as possible, but Lev didn’t have long. “I
promise. It’s Robyn, isn’t it? You know her plans.”

“She’s trying to launch the world
into chaos,” Lev said. “The duke was just another step towards that. He was
evil enough on his own to overthrow Chloe—”

“And Robyn gave him the push to
send him over the edge,” I guessed. “But what about this?” I touched the red dagger
that he’d returned to me earlier that day.

“When the time comes, you’ll know
what to do with it,” Lev said. His knees buckled. He grabbed my shoulder for
support. “There’s one more thing. You have the power to lift the curse at
Seraph’s Tear. I would have told you before but—” he coughed and sagged heavily
against me.

There was no time left to lose and
so many questions left to ask. With labored steps, I took Lev closer to the
void that led to the Twi-Realm. He shook. He was so, so cold. He turned his
head to press his lips to my cheek.

“Liebet Ivern, Emma Wren,” he
whispered. “I am yours forever. Always have been. Always will be.”

“I’m yours forever, too, Lev
Hartwig, no matter what.”

With his last bit of strength, Lev
stood and walked into the Twi-Realm. 

CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO

Somehow I made it down to Chloe’s
old room. I was numb. I moved as if in a daze, not sure where I was going, not
even really caring.

He was gone.

The castle made groaning sounds. I
heard screams outside. Ivywild was leaning slightly. I only noticed it when I
walked out to the foyer near the topmost branches of the elevatree.

Nobody tried to stop me. Everyone
had evacuated the castle. It was lifeless as a ghost town.

I heard whispers. The Dryads were
still in the elevatree.

“Hello?” I called. My voice didn’t
want to work.

“Who’s there?” asked a Dryad.

“Just a passer-by. Where has
everybody gone?”

“The red capes have gone to attack
something on the ground,” the Dryad said. “The servants all left when the
castle started leaning. They’re afraid it’s going to crash. Is it going to
crash?”

“I don’t know,” I said, walking
away.

“Wait!” the Dryad cried. “Come
back. Tell us what is happening!”

I ignored her. The mention of a red
cape attack on the ground brought me out of my daze. Woodman’s Hall was still
in danger.

I walked to my old room, then to my
balcony. How many nights had I sat out here while Lev taunted me from the eaves
above?

Not now
, I begged myself.
I
can’t think of that right now
. I’d never been given time to mourn properly,
not for any of my losses. There was always another battle to fight.

I stood on my balcony, watching the
panic of those in the streets below. None of Ivywild’s remaining residents
could fly. They were all Gnomes or magical weaklings or people who’d had their
magic drained from them by the duke.

I resented them all. Why couldn’t
they just take care of themselves? What about Woodman’s Hall, for that matter?
I was tired. I didn’t want to fight anymore, but I’d made a promise.

It felt like it took a long time
for me to reach the bottom floor. A few people recognized me when I emerged
from the castle. 

 “Have you come to save us?” cried
a frantic man.

I tried not to meet the stares of
the desperate mob. “I’m going to bring you help.”

A rally of pleas ensued.

“Please carry me down with you!”

“You can’t leave us here!”

“Take my baby!”

I put up a hand as a woman tried to
shove an infant into my arms.

“Hey, what’s that over there?”
asked an old man.

Everyone turned to look at the grand
arch where the waterfall used to spill out of the castle. Something big, brown
and lumpy was rising into view through the opening.

A wave of fright went through the
crowd.

“It’s the red capes. They’re back!”

The woman with the infant screamed
and hugged the child to her chest.

“Run!” shouted the old man.

“WAIT!” I shouted. My voice echoed
off the walls.

The people froze in startled
silence as I walked to the archway. The big, bulbous thing was still rising. It
was some sort of heavy material that had been patched in several places. It
looked familiar.

Then the bottom of the thing rose
level with the archway. It was attached to a giant raft.

“Welcome to Château Larue version
two,” said Jules Larue, bowing. He hopped to the edge of the castle and tied
off the raft near the archway. “All aboard!” he shouted.

The throng of people approached
cautiously. None of them had ever seen a blimp before. The raft was large
enough for all of them. At first they were mistrustful, but when they realized
that their pilot was the brother of their beloved Commander Larue, they hopped
right on.

 The raft sank under all the added
weight so that the last people to board had to leap down quite a distance.

Mr. Larue whistled. “Chloe was right.
There were a lot of people left up here! Hop aboard, Emma.”

He had begun untying the rope. He
was waiting on me to jump down to the raft.

I suddenly found it impossible to
move. If I left the castle, I really was leaving Lev behind. Part of me believed
that he was still back there in the throne room. Even though I knew it wasn’t
true, I couldn’t bring myself to make the leap.

Mr. Larue looked worried. He
grabbed my hand. “Come on Emma, we have to go. Everybody is waiting. The castle
is adrift. Chloe and Garland think it may crash.”

I saw it all again in my mind: the
roof collapsing, the duke’s mutated body leering over me, the look of joy on
his face as he stood there, flaunting Lev’s torn wings.

 I fell.

With a yelp of surprise, Mr. Larue
caught me. He let me drop to the raft below where the crowd of survivors waited
with outstretched hands. They lowered me gently to the floor of the raft. Their
faces surrounded me, looking down with concern. Hands caressed my forehead. A Gnome
took out his handkerchief and wiped a smear of blood from my cheek.

I closed my eyes, awash in guilt for
having resented them.

“What’s wrong with her?”

“She’s covered in blood!”

“Shhhh!” The Gnome admonished the
others. “We must take care of her, that’s all.”

They watched over me as Mr. Larue
maneuvered the blimp down to the ground. When we got close, the sound of cannon
fire shook the skies.

All the passengers screamed as a
cannon ball whizzed by between the balloon and the raft.

“Watch your aim!” Mr. Larue shouted
to somebody below. “Try to hit the red capes, not us!”

“Sorry, chief,” shouted one of the
Gremlins.

I sat up. The others drew back.

“Maybe you should lie down until we
get there,” suggested the Gnome.

“I’m okay,” I said, glancing around
at the concerned faces. “Thank you all.” I got to my feet and walked to the
front of the raft where Mr. Larue was controlling the thing through a system of
rope pulleys. I held my breath and looked below.

All of the fortifications around
Woodman’s Hall were still intact. Mr. Tulley and the Terra Cartisans were
holding off one ragged group of red capes to the east while the Gremlins fired
cannon balls at another group of red capes who had taken refuge in a distant
stand of trees.

“Your preparations worked well,”
Mr. Larue said. He glanced sideways at me. “We’ve had some injuries, but so far
the red capes’ losses greatly outnumber ours.”