The Lost Realm (15 page)

Of course!

Cedric was Sylva's older brother, and the three of them had grown up together: Cedric and Sylva and Elodie. They'd played and fought and done all the things ordinary siblings did. She hoped he'd return soon too.

“I am so proud of my Cedric,” Lady Vicerin went on. She stopped beneath an ancient painting of a knight on a war horse. Old as the picture was, the resemblance to Cedric was unmistakable in the knight's high cheekbones and aloof gaze. “So proud that he fights for our house.”

Elodie recalled the day Cedric had marched away to war, the single glance he'd thrown her from his place at the head of his regiment. The look of excitement on his face as he rode toward glory in some future, imagined battle.

Only that's not what war is like. I know that now.

“Yes,” she agreed. “Cedric is brave.”

“Such a shame about your hair.” Lady Vicerin frowned at Elodie's shorn locks. “That red and gold was always so striking. Still, it will grow out again. Indeed, my dear, I do believe
you
have grown, even in the short time you have been away. We shall simply have to throw out your whole wardrobe and start again. Sylva, tell the head seamstress to meet me in Elodie's room in the morning. There is a lot of measuring to be done.”

“I will, Mother.” Sylva bobbed a curtsy to Lady Vicerin, but her gaze was fixed on Elodie.

You know something
, Elodie thought as they climbed the final flight of stairs to her tower chambers.
No . . . you're trying to tell me something. But what?

They reached the door to her old room. It looked solid and impenetrable.

Elodie's hand stole to the green jewel around her neck, then up to the collar of her tunic, which seemed suddenly tight and suffocating.

The room looked exactly the same as when she'd left it. In the center stood a huge four-poster bed. Beside the window was a large dressing table covered in jewelry and bottles of perfume. It was at once familiar and very strange.

“Rest, my dear,” said Lady Vicerin, kissing her forehead. “You must be tired. Soon we will dine. Sylva, come.”

Sylva gave Elodie another hug. But when she pulled away, the look she gave Elodie was so searching that she felt a jolt of worry.

Has she seen through me?
After all, Sylva knew Elodie better than the other Vicerins. She had been Elodie's shepherd, always two steps behind her, always playing the part of the protective older sister. Elodie knew that the real reason Sylva had kept close to her side was to make sure she didn't try to run away from the Vicerins. She could still remember the panic on Sylva's face that day when Trident kidnapped her from among the market stalls, how she'd chased desperately after the carriage Elodie had been bundled inside. Had she simply been worried about the trouble she'd be in for losing her? Or had she been fearful for Elodie, too? Elodie wasn't sure.

And if she has seen through me, what will she do?

Two castle guards arrived at the top of the stairs and took up station outside the room.

“For your protection, my dear,” Lady Vicerin said smoothly, perhaps seeing the expression of alarm that had crossed Elodie's face. “There are Trident sympathizers everywhere. You are too precious to lose twice.”

As Lady Vicerin and Sylva left, the door closed with a solid clunk. Elodie turned to Samial.

“What she means is she doesn't trust me not to run away,” she muttered, dropping her voice so the guards outside wouldn't hear.

Samial nodded. He was sitting on the windowsill, staring around at the room.

“It is very grand,” he said.

“Yes, it is,” Elodie agreed. “But really it might as well be a prison cell.”

She sat beside him, and something caught in the window frame brushed her hand. It was a feather.

Elodie pulled it free. The feather was soft and downy, and very long—far too long for an ordinary bird.

“It looks like gold,” said Samial in wonder.

“It's Theeta's,” Elodie said.

Carefully, she tucked the feather into the same pocket that held the arrowhead Samial had given her. The two objects nestled together like old friends.

You were here, Tarlan. And you escaped. I'm going to escape too.

T
he sea was a sudden, dazzling explosion of light. They came to it unexpectedly, after a difficult afternoon of flying through increasingly narrow canyons. Rock walls had turned to and fro, forcing the thorrods this way and that, their wings clipping the walls. Tarlan had been about to suggest they fly higher when the walls peeled back, spitting them out into a breathtaking vastness. The rich tang of salt, which Tarlan had been smelling all day, hit him like a punch to the face.

“The Warm Sea!” proclaimed Melchior. “Also known as the Western Ocean or, in the old tongue, Dup-an-Aegis.”

“Big water,” cawed Theeta. Her scratchy thorrod voice was filled with excitement.

Tarlan laughed. He felt giddy. “That's right, Theeta! I've never seen so much water in one place!”

As the thorrods carried them out over a black sandy beach, he drank in the view. The sea stretched to an impossible distance, both marking the horizon and surpassing it. The sea was everything to his left, and everything to his right. It was ahead and beyond, a huge rippling blanket of color and light and endless depth.

I can see into it
, Tarlan thought in wonder, staring down through green shallows to the coarse contours of a winding coral reef. Lifting his gaze, he observed how the sea changed from green to gray, and how in the places between it contained all the shades of blue he could ever have imagined, and a thousand more besides. He saw whitecaps of foam hurl themselves against toothed rocks. Far out toward the horizon, he saw the ridged back of some immense monster break the surface for a single, breathless second before vanishing once more into the unknowable depths.

“It is beautiful, no?” said Melchior.

“I've never seen anything like it.”

“Seethan saw,” Theeta put in.

“What?” said Tarlan. “What did Seethan see?”

A lump came to his throat. It was still hard to talk about the old thorrod who'd given his life to save them from the elk-hunters. That terrible day in Yalasti seemed so long ago now, yet his grief was still fresh.

“Endless lake,” Theeta responded. “Long ago.”

Tarlan knew that was all she would say on the subject. Like all thorrods, Theeta used few words. It wasn't because her mind was simple. In fact, Tarlan was sure, the opposite was true. Thorrods merely struggled to squeeze their thoughts down into anything so crude as speech.

“A village,” said Melchior, pointing south along the coast toward a cluster of low buildings. They appeared to have been constructed on stilts. Long-hulled boats swarmed in the waters around the village; a fishing fleet, Tarlan supposed.

“Is that where we're going?”

“No. Did I not tell you? We go west.”

Melchior swung his arm straight out to sea.

Tarlan squinted. The afternoon was drawing into evening, and the sun lay low in the sky, directly ahead. Its golden light was beginning to turn the surface of the sea into a field of tiny fires.

“I don't see . . . Oh!”

Far offshore, an island had materialized out of the haze. It was black and rocky, jutting from the water like a giant's hat.

“The Isle of Stars,” said Melchior.

Tarlan shivered. “It looks . . . bleak. Are we going there now?”

“No,” said Melchior. “Night will fall soon, and the Isle of Stars is best approached by day. We will make camp and wait for the rest of your pack to arrive.”

They landed in a small cove surrounded by cliffs. Tarlan and Melchior climbed down from their thorrod steeds, after which Theeta and Nasheen made a rough nest among some rocks. While the birds settled themselves, Kitheen flew back along their trail.

“Your pack members are loyal to their leader,” said Melchior as the black-feathered thorrod disappeared into the canyon. “To each other as well.”

It was true. Without being asked, the thorrods had taken it in turns to fly at ground level, brushing their wings through the undergrowth in order to leave a trail of scent that Greythorn, Filos, and Brock could follow.

“It won't take the others long to catch up,” Tarlan said. “I'll build a fire.”

He gathered dry driftwood from beneath the cliffs, then started collecting rocks. The wind from the sea was strong, and he would have to build a low wall to protect the flames.

The best rocks were to be found near the waterline. As the sun began to sink below the horizon, Tarlan approached the sea with trepidation, unnerved by the bellow of the waves as they pummeled the black sand. A sudden rush of surf raced toward him, moving faster than he'd expected, and crashed around his knees. Laughing, he fought for balance, entranced by the sucking sensation of the waves as they withdrew, dragging away the sand from beneath his feet.

Returning to the camp, he began to lay the rocks in a circle. Some were black and glossy; others shone like large jewels.

“Are these precious?” he asked as he piled a gleaming green gem on top of a shining red one. He touched his hand to his throat, suddenly missing the beautiful green stone Mirith had given him . . . oh, it seemed so long ago.“They are sky rocks,” Melchior answered. “And all such stones are precious.”

“Precious? Why?”

The wizard's piercing gaze fell on Tarlan's fingers, still at his throat. “I do not yet know. I only know that your jewel is valuable, just like the jewels that belong to your brother and sister.”

“I wish I hadn't lost it. Will I ever get it back, do you think?”

“I do not know that either, Tarlan. What is lost may not always be found.”

Tarlan laid the last of the rocks on the circular wall. “Did Mirith get my jewel from here, then? I didn't think she'd ever left Yalasti.”

“Mirith received your jewel from me.”

Tarlan looked at the wizard with renewed interest. “All right. Where did you get it from?”

“From Gryndor.” A wistful look softened Melchior's old eyes.

“Who's Gryndor?”

“The first of all wizards. He walked Toronia before . . . well, before it was Toronia. He walked this world when the seas were dry and the lands were dreams.”

“I don't understand.”

Melchior chuckled. “Let us just say that Gryndor was very, very old!”

“So where did
he
get the jewels from?”

“I cannot say. But I can tell you that when the sky rocks first fell, many ages past, they formed everything we see around us today. They made the realms, Tarlan, do you see?”

“Not really.”

“Your homeland of Yalasti stands on sky rocks. So do Idilliam, Isur, and Ritherlee. And Celestis did too, of course.”

Tarlan paused, his arms full of driftwood ready to be tossed within the circular wall.

“Celestis? What's that?”

“The fourth realm,” the wizard replied. “City of Stars.”

“I've never heard of it.”

“It is forgotten. A lost realm. Where the city of Idilliam now stands, Celestis once stood. But now . . . now Celestis is gone.”

Tarlan began stacking the timber. As he worked, his gaze strayed to the gleaming rock wall, then up at the high cliffs, then out to sea. Finally he found himself staring straight up into the darkening sky, where the three prophecy stars now framed the comet, which by now had grown very large and very bright. The world was big and strange, and full of endless wonder.

There's so much I don't know.

“What happened to this . . . Celeris?”

“Celestis.” Melchior tossed a handful of driftwood onto the pile Tarlan was making. “Celestis was once ruled by a king. An evil king.”

“There seem to be a lot of those around.”

Ignoring him, the wizard went on. “The cruel acts of this king were so hurtful to his people that Gryndor allied himself with two of his fellow wizards. Together they plotted to bring the tyrant down.”

“Three wizards against one king? Did they succeed? They must have done.”

“They died,” said Melchior tersely. “The king killed them before they could work their magic. As they died, their powers burst across the whole of Celestis. Their magic undermined the city, pulling the rock out from under it and burying it deep underground.”

Tarlan thought about how the sea had tried to drag him under, and shuddered.

“How long ago did this happen?”

“A thousand years.”

Tarlan frowned. “Then . . . people talk about the Thousand Year War . . .”

Melchior was nodding. “The death of Gryndor and the collapse of Celestis started the war that has raged in Toronia ever since. Ah, but those were terrible days.”

“You talk about them as if you were there.”