The Book of Heroes (49 page)

“They’re not monsters, they’re people!” U-ri heard herself shout, and she opened her eyes. The world around her was made of white light. Then Ash was beside her, slapping a gloved hand over her eyes and pulling her under the flap of his cloak. There was another explosion. The floor of the hall shook. The screams rose in pitch and intensity.

U-ri came to. It seemed she had been unconscious for a short while. She was lying on the hard stone floor. Ash knelt behind her, propping her head up. His hand was no longer over her eyes.

Ash breathed a long sigh. “Good work,” he said, giving U-ri a pat on the head.

Silence had returned to the hall. Half of the candles in the sconces set around the hall had gone out, and something like white ash covered entire sections of the walls. The floor was littered with burnt torch holders.

U-ri looked up at the ceiling. The royal crest was gone, and the ceiling had fallen, revealing the utter darkness beyond. Still, within the hall it was light. It took U-ri a moment to realize that the main source of the light was herself, more specifically, her forehead. The glyph was shining more brightly than it ever had before. Not like a candle or torch or even a searchlight. It was like a warm light that illuminated everything in the room evenly from all directions, yet it all came from her.

“You okay, U-ri?” Aju poked his head out of Ash’s pocket. U-ri wondered when he’d slipped in there. “How about you, Sky? Can you stand?”

Sky was lying on the floor behind U-ri, curled up like a sleeping child. The knight’s sword lay on the ground next to him. But the arm that had been gripping it and the knight that arm belonged to were gone.

“This place has been purified,” Ash said softly. “Look. Harvein the Second is gone as well.”

Only the tattered cloak hung over the throne.

“Sky, are you okay? Did you get hurt? Let me see!”

U-ri stood and reached for him, but when her hand touched the devout’s shoulder, something like sparks shot up from his body, giving her a shock. U-ri stepped back, her eyes wide. Sky crawled away from her and pressed his back against the stone wall at the far end of the dais. His purple eyes were filled with a terror so intense U-ri found herself unable to speak.

“Did I do something?”

Nothing.

“What’s wrong, Sky?”

The devout’s terror was catching. U-ri’s throat was dry. Ash stood, throwing back his cloak and stepping up beside her.

Sky was still in the throes of fear, his eyes wide and his lips trembling. “What am—”

“What are you?” Ash completed the devout’s question, his voice as sharp as his sword. “What did you see just now in the light?”

Though he did not blink, something in Sky’s eyes was turning. His eyes shone with light, then went dark. There was something reflected in them, not from the outside world, but from his heart. Whatever it was, it was too small for U-ri to see clearly.

Sky clenched one hand into a fist and began to beat his own chest. His expression did not change, yet he kept striking himself, meting out punishment. With each strike, his head jerked backward, striking the wall behind him, while he stammered, “I-I…”

U-ri dashed forward and grabbed Sky’s hands. There were no sparks this time. His skin felt icy cold against hers.

“It’s nothing,” Sky whispered, though he sounded on the verge of tears. Delicately, he removed U-ri’s fingers, gingerly nudging her hand away as though it were some fragile object.

He looked up at Ash. “We are going further in, yes? Let us be off.”

Ash nodded and turned. Behind him, Sky stood, bracing himself against the wall for balance. He put a hand to his chest and rubbed it where he had been hitting himself only moments before.

With the exception of Ash, none of them were familiar with the palace in the least—which was now an advantage it seemed, since they would not be misled by memories twisted into distractions by the incredible changes that had been wrought to the geography of the place.

Not only was nothing where it was supposed to be, but rooms were connected to rooms in the most haphazard and unconventional ways, as though the giant hands had reached in and scrambled the palace interior heedless of left and right or up and down.

There were stairs stuck in odd places, and corridors that wrapped back around on themselves. The one thing they could count on was the threat of dust-creatures around nearly every corner. U-ri quickly got used to the weight of the mace swinging in her hands, and with each encounter felt an increasing awareness of the extent of her glyph’s power.

They saw some people, but far less frequently than monsters, and only a handful of the people they found still drew breath. Most were knights in shredded armor, though occasionally they found a minister in courtly robes, or a woman in a long dress.

On one occasion they found a man lying on the ground, still breathing, though only faintly. He did not stir when they called to him. When U-ri tried using her glyph, Ash stopped her, saying it was too late for that. Again and again this happened. They would find a new room, defeat what creatures lay in wait by the entrance or that came storming up from a dark corner, and then U-ri, Ash, and Sky would look around inside at the scattered corpses in the vain hope of finding a survivor.

“Why would Kirrick do something like this?” U-ri asked, her breath short—not due to the constant exertions of battle, but with frustration. “What possible meaning could any of this have? Killing people, then mutating them into monsters just so that his pursuers can finish them off?”

“It’s all conflict, isn’t it?” Ash said. He was in front, but spoke without glancing back. “Furthermore, this is not Kirrick’s fault. This is the work of the King in Yellow.”

“But isn’t Kirrick at the King in Yellow’s heart?” U-ri insisted.

“He is. Together with your brother.”

“Say,” Aju cut in in a high squeaky voice, “I thought a search party came through here before us. Funny we haven’t run into them. Maybe they’re just up ahead?”

“Which way would that be?” U-ri wondered out loud, voicing the thought in everyone’s mind.

They reached yet another dead end. The ceiling in this chamber was high, though nothing on the scale of the throne room. Smooth, cold walls surrounded them on four sides, and the floor was littered with the bodies of various creatues. There was only the door through which they had entered and a small slit high up on the wall to the right-hand side, with no visible means for reaching it. The search party must have fought here, been victorious, and continued on—but which way?

“Looks like we go back.” U-ri sighed. Then she heard someone calling out in a weak voice. The four of them turned, looking to see where it might have come from.

“Is someone there?”

The voice is coming from that slit in the wall!

“One of the search party,” Ash said. He looked up and raised his voice: “There is a wall between us—we cannot get through. How did you get where you are?”

There was no immediate answer. U-ri imagined a man wounded, lying on the other side.
We have to get to him! Quickly!

“The wall…” came the voice again. “It is enchanted.”

Ash lightly rapped the wall with one fist, then turned to U-ri. “Knock it all down!”

U-ri put a hand to the glyph on her forehead, then turned it toward the wall, and in that instant, the giant gray slab of rock stretching up in front of her vanished like a mirage, opening up an entire vista beyond. Aju clung tightly to the back of U-ri’s neck. Even Ash seemed startled. For a moment, U-ri thought they had somehow returned to the Katarhar Abbey ruins. They were staring at a giant mountain of rubble. The room containing it all was enormous, with another high ceiling and chunks of stone and plaster piled high to the very top.

U-ri looked up and spotted something glimmering there. They all saw it.

“The crown,” Ash said. “It’s Harvein the Second’s crown.”

The owner of the weak voice they had heard was sitting at the foot of the mountain of rubble, his legs splayed out in front of him. He was not a knight. He wore clothes similar to Ash’s, with black hair falling over a young face. His cloak had been badly torn, and part of his chest seemed oddly crumpled inward, like a dented sheet of metal. He was bleeding.

U-ri ran up to him, and the young man attempted a smile. “You a wizard, little girl? Good on you. My partner couldn’t even make a scratch on that damned wall.”

“Try to sit still. I’ll fix you up.”

She knelt down, noticing that one of the man’s legs had been torn apart, leaving little flesh by the knee.

“Did you see what did this to you?” Ash asked over U-ri’s shoulder while she sat there, trying to decide where to start in mending the man.

“I did not, for it was invisible. It went down there,” the man said, pointing toward the rubble with a trembling finger. “This wreckage is what’s left after it devoured the palace. This here’s the leavings the thing spat out.”

Ash walked across the room, examining the rubble as he went. “Interesting.” He tapped a pile of stones with the pommel of his sword. “There appears to be more room beneath this one, as though it were hollow. Here. It’s a way down.”

U-ri applied the light of her glyph to the man over and over, but the bleeding would not stop. She would just manage to mend one wound only to have a fresh one open beside it.

“Give it up, little one. It’s too late for me.”

“You be quiet. It’s not too late!”

“You’re an undertaker too, I see,” the man said to Ash. The wolf nodded.

“My partner—Narg’s his name—he’s a wizard. Couldn’t handle that wall you just took out, though. He went down the hole by himself, thought he might find a way out that way.” The man attempted another smile. “If you’re really going down there, you’ll save him for me, won’t you?”

“That we shall,” Ash said quickly. “Did any others descend deeper?”

“Some knights,” the man rasped, then he began to cough violently, each spasm leaving blood-flecked spittle on his lips. “The first patrol. We were in the second. But no one’s come back.”

“Ash, stop making him talk!” U-ri protested, but the man took her hand in his own and gently pushed it down. Two of his fingers were broken, the nails ripped clean off. The young man stared at Ash.

“Be careful,” he whispered. “Its voice…I heard it. It has no shape, but it can speak.” He coughed. “It spoke with the voice of a child—a boy.”

U-ri froze.

“A boy no older than this little one here,” the man added, his eyes losing their focus as he spoke. His head slumped to one side as he continued his tale, more weakly now. “Reminded me of my little brother, it did.”

Ash stepped up beside him, then knelt on one knee. “What did this boy say to you?”

The man turned to Ash, summoning the very last of his strength to do so. His lips parted and a trickle of blood spilled from them.

“He was laughing…he was happy. He said…he said he was going to make the world beautiful. Get rid of all the filth that’s messing it up. And…” He paused, catching his breath. “And he said no one’s going to stop him.”

The man’s head slumped forward. U-ri looked at his still-open eyes and realized that the life had fled them. Her own eyes were stinging with tears.
What can I do? What is there to do?
U-ri trembled and could not stop for some time.

“It was my brother,” U-ri said, the taste of iron on her lips.
My own heart is bruised and bleeding. Pretty soon, it’ll break, and I’ll be coughing up blood just like this poor dead man.
“The King in Yellow is using my brother’s voice!”

U-ri swayed and nearly fell, catching herself on the floor with both hands at the last moment. Her body convulsed like she was vomiting, and a sob came from her mouth.

“No crying, U-ri!” Aju squeaked in a high voice from the top of her head. “No crying! Stand up!”

The little mouse yanked on her hair as hard as he could, but U-ri felt no pain. She wiped her tears, sat up, slapped her face several times with her hands, and lifted her eyes at a world blurred by sorrow.

But she could see them—Ash standing there like a hungry ghost. And Sky, all in black, even thinner than the wolf.

Up until now, whenever U-ri had broken down, it had always been Sky who ran to her first. Now he shrank away, frightened, clutching his black robes tightly to his chest and staring at her. Their eyes met for only an instant before he quickly looked away. Ash set down the grimy sack he carried, pulled out a coil of rope, and asked, “Ever rappelled down something?”

“Why would I have done something like that?” U-ri snorted.

Ash lifted an eyebrow and told her, “It’s a lot easier going down than it is going up.” Then softly, “You can close his eyes now.”