The Lost Realm (13 page)

“Gulph is right to thank you,” said Ossilius. “You have been very kind.”

“Yes, you have,” added Gulph. “Do you always eat as well as this? I mean, where did it all come from? Not the fish, I mean—obviously you catch those.” He stopped, suddenly aware he was babbling.

Lady Redina put down her napkin. “It is natural for you to be curious. But I do not think those are the questions you wish to ask.”

Gulph glanced at Ossilius, who responded with an almost imperceptible nod.

“Well,” he gulped, “I suppose we'd like to know more about Celestis.”

“What do you want to know?”

“How does it come to be here? Has it always been here? I thought—we all thought—there were only three realms in Toronia.”

“Then you thought wrong. Celestis exists—as you can plainly see for yourselves. It has merely been forgotten. Yet to be forgotten is to be safe. I am sworn to keep it that way.”

“You rule here,” said Ossilius. It seemed to Gulph that he was trying to get things straight in his head.

“I rule, yes. But more than that, I protect. I am the protector of the lost realm.”

“But how does a whole realm get lost?” Gulph said.

“Many years ago—some say three hundred, some say more—Celestis stood beneath the natural sun. But war came to Toronia, and the ground shook and opened its great mouth, and Celestis fell. Buried beneath the rocks of the world, our realm has endured in darkness ever since. But also in safety. Part of my pledge is to ensure that war never touches us again. When war comes, realms fall. We in Celestis know this only too well.”

Gulph adjusted the bundle on his back, suddenly aware of the weight of the crown he carried there, tucked away out of sight.

“Do you think we bring war?” he asked hesitantly.

“I think nothing. I merely listen. Then I judge. So, tell me your stories.”

Gulph wanted to trust this woman who'd shown them such hospitality. But how much should he tell her? He opened his mouth, still unsure of what he would say, but before he could begin, he felt a sharp warning kick from Ossilius.

To his relief, Marcus spoke up from the far end of the table. “Begging your pardon, my lady, but it's war we've escaped from.”

Lady Redina lifted an immaculate eyebrow. “Go on. I would hear from you one at a time. Tell me your story, soldier.”

“Well,” Marcus said, shuffling awkwardly in his chair, “there was the Battle of the Bridge, to start with. The Idilliam Bridge? A rebel force tried to cross into Idilliam, but Brutan's army fought them back. Brutan is king of Toronia now—at least he was. He died, but some evil magic brought him back. He walks like the dead, but he isn't dead, if you take my meaning. . . .”

Lady Redina listened in silence as Marcus described the conflict between Brutan's undead army and the attacking forces of Trident. When he'd finished, Hetty told of her experiences trying to escape the besieged city of Idilliam. Throughout, Gulph squeezed his hands together under the table, afraid that one of his companions would reveal his true identity to Lady Redina.

Ossilius is right
, he thought.
As a hostess, she couldn't be more welcoming. But as protector of Celestis . . . how would she react to one of the prophecy triplets turning up at her door?

He was relieved that just as Marcus had been more interested in telling Lady Redina about tactics and swordplay, Hetty seemed fixated on the effects of the battle on her bakery.

“My chimney fell into the whole day's batch before it was even half-browned,” she mourned. “But I suppose there's few left in Idilliam now who'll appreciate a good loaf of bread. . . .”

As she chattered on, a servant poured dark red wine into their goblets. Gulph took one sniff and felt his stomach turn over. The man who'd been his guardian until the age of four—Sir Brax—had been a drunkard, and it hadn't taken long for the young Gulph to develop a hatred of alcohol.

As he wondered what to do with the wine, Lady Redina began to question Ossilius. “So this Nynus was the son of Brutan?”

Taking advantage of the distraction, Gulph contorted his arm behind his back and, with a deft flick of his wrist, emptied his wine goblet into a nearby vase.

“Yes. Nynus ruled for a short time after the death of his father.” The captain answered courteously and with a straight face, betraying no emotion as he spoke.

“Yet his father lives again?”

“I do not know if ‘lives' is the right word. He stands. He fights. But he is no man. He is transformed.”

“Transformed, yes.” Lady Redina rolled the word around her mouth as if tasting it. “So Toronia has been overtaken by a plague. A plague of the undead.”

“Yes.”

“Could this plague infect Celestis, do you think? I believe you came here in innocence, but might these undead creatures not have followed you? Might you not have brought your war to Celestis after all?”

“Forgive me, but it is not ‘our' war, my lady. War overwhelmed us. We are simply trying to survive it.”

“You have not answered my question. Is Celestis vulnerable?”

“No,” said the captain. “The way here is closed. I am certain of that.”

Lady Redina turned to Gulph. Her face possessed a breed of beauty that seemed to show no age. Yet Gulph fancied there was something lurking beneath the blue of her piercing eyes.

Something underneath
, he thought, suppressing a shiver.

“Now you,” Lady Redina said. “Tell me who you are.”

Gulph swallowed.

She must not know.

“I'm, er, sort of an acrobat,” he said. “A traveling player. We were performing in Isur—the Tangletree Players, I mean—and we were caught up in the fighting and taken to Idilliam.”

“And where are the rest of these players now?” asked Lady Redina.

Gulph stared into his lap. “Dead. I'm afraid they must be dead.”

I hope they are at least
, he thought miserably.
The alternative is just too horrible for words.

He looked up again and realized that his companions were staring at him in surprise.

“An acrobat?” said Hetty. “But I thought—”

“So you see,” said Ossilius loudly, “we all found each other in the heat of battle, escaped, and by a miracle found our way here to the sanctuary of Celestis. And I cannot imagine a more perfect place in which to hide from the war above. May I have more wine?”

Marcus and Hetty stared at Gulph in surprise, but they said nothing. Jessamyn was eating some lemon-yellow sweets and didn't seem to be following the conversation at all.

Gulph allowed himself to relax just a little. For now his secret was safe.

A servant refilled the goblets as Lady Redina's stern gaze strayed out to the lake.

“Perfect,” she mused. “Do you think Celestis perfect?”

An awkward silence fell.

“Well, I suppose—” Gulph started to say.

“Appearances can be deceptive,” Lady Redina interrupted. “Celestis may not be at war, but this realm is blighted nevertheless.”

“What's ‘blighted'?” said Jessamyn.

Lady Redina's face softened. Gulph thought she looked a little sad. “A blight is like a shadow, my dear. Or perhaps a disease.”

“Disease?” said Marcus, eyeing the fish in his bowl with sudden distaste.

“Not in the way you imagine,” replied Lady Redina. “Still, you might say that Celestis is as plagued as Idilliam.”

“Plagued by what?” said Gulph.

“A monster.”

Jessamyn gasped and huddled against Hetty. The baker stroked her hair and gave Lady Redina a reproachful look. “No need to frighten the little one, my lady.”

“On the contrary. There is every need. Beneath the silver waters of the Celestial Lake lurks a creature of untold evil. Few have seen it . . . except for those it has killed. It moves by night, emerging silently from the water to prey upon the unwary. All attempts to catch it have failed.” She smiled again at Jessamyn. “They say that the bakaliss swallows its victims whole and that it takes them three days then to die, as they lie suffocating inside the monster's toothed belly.”

The little girl shrieked and buried her head in Hetty's dress. Gulph wanted to comfort her too, but his thoughts were ringing from the word Lady Redina had just used.

“Did you say ‘bakaliss'?”

“It is the name of the monster. You are familiar with such beasts?”

“Yes. Well, no. Sort of.”

“Which is it?”

“It's just that . . . I once heard a story about a bakaliss.”

“Really?” Both of her eyebrows rose. “Tell it to me.”

“There's nothing much to it.”

“Tell it!”

Flinching, Gulph blurted, “The bakaliss was an evil serpent that lived under a mountain. One day a king set out to kill it, but the serpent killed him instead.”

His words echoed in the sudden silence. On the far side of the table, Marcus dropped his knife with a clatter.

“It is not much of a story,” said Lady Redina icily.

“No,” said Gulph. “I suppose it isn't.”

He bit his lip, resisting the urge to say more. She
wanted
him to say more, he could feel it. Those piercing eyes burned into him, pulling at him. He put his empty goblet to his mouth and pretended to drink, all the time trying to beat back the thoughts that were fountaining in his head.

You want to hear the real story? Then I'll tell you. One day, an evil queen called Magritt and her crazy son, Nynus, made a boy called Gulph dress up as a bakaliss so he could put a poisoned crown on the head of King Brutan. And that boy was me, and the king was my father, and as soon as I put the crown on his head he turned black and died foaming at the mouth, and now I'm king, and I might not be wearing that stupid costume with its red fur and orange frills anymore but now you're telling me there's a
real
bakaliss, and it's
here,
and it
kills
people, and guess what?
I'm
a king, and
I've
journeyed under the mountain, and if I stay here the bakaliss is going to eat
me
alive, because that's what the story says!

I
t took the Vicerin column two days to reach the bridge spanning the great Isurian River. As the wagon carried her across the broad wooden deck, Elodie remembered the last time she'd passed this way. Then she'd been a prisoner in a carriage driven by Fessan, who'd kidnapped her and whisked her away for what she'd been sure was ransom, or perhaps execution—but had turned out to be the first step on the road to her destiny.

Now it was Fessan who was the prisoner, stumbling along, his hands tied to the rail of the wagon rolling behind her. Never had she seen a man look more broken.

The clatter of hooves turned to soft thuds as they passed from the bridge to the packed-earth road beyond. The road arrowed due south, but Elodie knew it would soon swing west, steering her back to the place she'd started from: Castle Vicerin.

What did it mean, now, to be retracing her steps? Was this the end of the prophecy? Was she retreating like a snail into its shell, never to emerge again?

No! I'm not retreating. I'm attacking.

“I will find Tarlan's lost jewel,” she whispered to Samial, who sat beside her at the front of the wagon, unseen by all but Elodie. “Then we will rescue Fessan and escape. Fessan will rebuild Trident. And I . . .”

Ahead stretched the vast patchwork farmland of Ritherlee, green rolling fields stitched together by dark hedgerows. The sky was flat blue, scratched with chalk-line clouds. A flock of starlings danced in the distance, ten thousand birds drawing impossible shapes in the sunshine.

My home.

The farther they rode into Ritherlee, the more Elodie saw that her homeland had changed while she'd been away. There were fewer laborers in the fields, and many of the farmsteads looked abandoned. Some had been burned to the ground.

“What has happened here?” said Samial.

“Lord Vicerin,” she said tersely. “The man I once called Father.”

They passed a burning village. The wind brought shouts and the thin clash of steel. A rider emerged from the smoke. Reaching the two men at the head of the column, he saluted.

“Captain Gandrell. It's good to see you again, sir. Did all go well in Isur?”

Before Gandrell could reply, Stown said, “Trident was exactly where I said it was. Tell Lord Vicerin that I led his men straight to them.”

Captain Gandrell scowled. “Sergeant Stown has been of use. He is now looking forward to taking up ordinary duties in Lord Vicerin's guard.
Very
ordinary duties. Now, what news from Ritherlee?”

“The battle is almost won, sir,” said the rider. “Another barony conquered for Lord Vicerin!”