The Lost Realm (41 page)

By now they'd reached the fountain in the middle of the garden. At Vicerin's command, it burst into life, sending water spraying high into the sunlit air. At a second signal, the water turned brilliant blue. Vicerin blue.

The crowd roared.

“Oh, my dear, I almost forgot.” Vicerin beamed, reaching inside his ceremonial tunic. “I have a special wedding gift for you.”

“I don't want it!”

“Really? But you accepted it readily enough the first time I presented you with it.”

Elodie looked down. He was holding the jeweled dagger he'd given to her . . . and which she'd then given to Fessan.

“This was never really a dagger,” Vicerin was saying. His voice sounded as if it were underwater. Elodie fought back the urge to scream. “It was a test. I was curious to see what you might do with such a thing. And now I know.”

“Fessan,” she mumbled through lips that had turned numb.

“Yes,” Vicerin replied. “Fessan.”

“What have you done with him?”

Vicerin's grin widened into a hideous leer.

“Now that, my dear, is the wedding present I
really
want to share with you.”

He led her past the fountain to a wide expanse of lawn. By now the clouds had closed over the sun, and the day was turning rapidly cold. As Elodie stood shivering in her wedding dress, rain began to fall.

In the middle of the lawn was a wooden platform on which stood a sturdy wooden tower. Set into the sides of the tower was a system of ropes and pulleys, while at the top hung something shiny, mirror flat, and as sharp as a finely honed sword.

The blade of a guillotine.

“Bring him out!” cried Vicerin.

A squad of six guards climbed onto the platform, carrying between them a bedraggled figure Elodie recognized at once.

“No!” she cried. She surged forward, only to be held back by her own band of guards.

The guards forced their prisoner to kneel before the crowd. He was a sorry sight, with his torn green tunic and his head hanging low. The rain had already soaked his mud-splashed clothes and was dripping from his long hair.

One of the guards grabbed his head and pulled it back, and Elodie found herself staring straight into Fessan's anguished eyes.

“Please!” she sobbed, dropping to her knees before Vicerin. The ground around her was rapidly turning to mud, and it clung to the fine gold ribbons of her wedding gown.

She didn't care. All she cared about was saving Fessan's life.

“Spare him, please! I'll be your queen. I'll help you take Toronia, I promise. Please, just let him live!”

Vicerin glared down at her, his face a mask of contempt.

“This is a place of punishment,” he said. “And this is
your
punishment, my dear. This is the price you pay for betraying me and freeing this prisoner from my cells.”

“Then put me in the cell instead. Anything, please, I beg you. . . .”

“It is too late for that. The time has come. Without this man, Trident dies, along with any misguided ideas you might once have had about ruling this kingdom with your wretched brothers.” He leaned close to Elodie, breathing hard. “This is where your so-called dreams end, Elodie. All of them!”

“You're a monster!”

Leaping to her feet, Elodie wrenched herself free of the guards and rushed to the platform on which Fessan was being held. She grabbed its rough timber edge and was about to haul herself up when Vicerin's hand yanked her back. She pulled free, started climbing again, then was hauled away so violently that she fell full-length in the mud.

The crowd gasped. Elodie clambered slowly to her feet. The gold dress had turned almost black. She wanted to cry. She wanted to shriek. She wanted to claw Vicerin's eyes from his smug, powdered face. She bunched her fist and drew it back, and Vicerin slapped her face.

“Leave her alone!”

Despite the blood in his mouth, despite the rain pouring down his face, Fessan's voice was strong and level. Hearing his prisoner speak, Vicerin looked around in surprise. Elodie took the opportunity to kick him in the shins, and felt a surge of satisfaction when he cried out in pain.

Her face stinging from the blow he'd struck her, she leaped for the platform once more, this time managing to climb all the way up before Vicerin's fingers clamped on her ankle. She kicked out, rejoicing as the heel of her foot smashed into Vicerin's nose, breaking it with a sickening crunch.

Vicerin reeled back, his hands pressed to his face. Elodie dodged around the hateful killing machine and threw her arms around Fessan's neck.

“I'm sorry,” she sobbed. “I'm so, so, sorry.”

“You will win in the end,” Fessan answered. “You, Elodie, and your brothers. In the battle between good and evil, good will prevail.
You
will prevail.”

Elodie was seized again: around the arms, around the legs, around the neck. Screaming, she was carried bodily off the platform and hurled into the mud.

“Let him go!” she yelled as she was pinned to the ground. “I am your queen! I command it!”

“Shut up!” howled Vicerin, still clutching his bleeding nose. “Hold her head! I want her to see something she'll never forget!”

Rough hands grabbed Elodie's head and held it rigid. She began to close her eyes, to shut out the dreadful scene unfolding before her, then realized that Fessan was still looking at her.

You will win
, he mouthed.

I will watch it all
, she resolved.
I owe it to you, Fessan. You won't die alone!

The guards on the platform forced Fessan's head down into the curved wooden brace at the foot of the guillotine. A man stepped forward carrying a black hood in his hand. Elodie was horrified to see it was Stown.

“What's he doing here?” she shouted, trying to fight her way free again.

“Good service brings its rewards,” snarled Vicerin, his voice muffled by his broken nose. “Sergeant Stown has been promoted.”

Stown stared briefly at Elodie, showed his teeth in a thin smile, and slipped the black hood over his head. Through a slit in the material, Elodie saw his eyes glistening eagerly.

Stown swung a clamp over Fessan's neck, locking him into the apparatus. He picked up a large wooden bowl and was about to place it beneath Fessan's head when Vicerin cried out.

“No bowl! No bowl! Let his head roll!”

Stown shrugged and tossed the bowl aside. He wrapped his thick fingers into one of the ropes hanging from the wooden tower . . . and pulled.

No! Not yet. It's too soon. Please don't . . .

The blade fell, landing with a dreadful
thunk
.

As Lord Vicerin had commanded, Fessan's head rolled.

And Elodie saw it all.

“Take her to the White Tower!” Vicerin shouted as the rain flowed red with Fessan's blood. “Lock her away with my treacherous children! Let them all rot there together! This wretched girl has served her purpose. Now I never want to see her again!”

I
gave you shelter! I gave you aid in your time of need! And this is how you repay me?”

Lady Redina's face had turned white with rage. She paced back and forth in the shining crystal courtyard, glaring into the faces of each of the Tangletree Players in turn. Gulph stood as straight as his twisted back allowed, all too aware of how scruffy and bedraggled they all looked.

“We came to warn you straightaway,” he said as sharply as he dared.
What else did you expect us to do? Stay up in Idilliam with the undead?

“So I see! Could you not have had the decency to dry yourselves first? Or do you respect me so little?”

Gulph stared at the pool of silver water growing beneath his feet—beneath all their feet. When they'd emerged into the vast underground chamber that held Celestis, their only choice had been to drop into the lake, just as Gulph and the others had before. Luckily, Kalia had been keeping watch for them, and boats had arrived swiftly to pick them up.

Even more fortunate: the bakaliss had not found them first.

Facing the monster might have been better than this
, thought Gulph glumly as Lady Redina unleashed another volley of furious curses.

“Not only do you have the audacity to return—against my strict instructions—but you tell me you have left open a doorway to the upper kingdom!”

“We tried to close it. Really, we did. But it was impossible. We thought the best thing to do was to come and warn you straightaway. Anyway, the tunnels under Idilliam are starting to collapse. The chances of an army coming through are—”

“
You
came through!”

Gulph lowered his head, abashed. “Yes, we did.”

“Celestis has remained safe and hidden for a thousand years. Now we are exposed. Brutan will find us. His undead warriors will find us. And it is all your fault!”

“It isn't!” Pip stepped forward. “You don't know what you're talking about. Gulph saved us. And now he's trying to save you. If you were half as brave as he is—”

“SILENCE!”

Lady Redina's voice resounded off the emerald fountains, the ruby walls. Crystal flowers tinkled, echoing her outburst. Two armed soldiers stepped from a nearby doorway in the diamond wall of Lady Redina's splendid house, but she waved them back.

“I warned you!” she snapped. “I warned you that if you left Celestis, you could never be allowed to return! You ignored my warning. For that reason, I banish you! You will be taken from here without delay and cast out into the wastelands at the foot of the chasm. If I ever see your faces again, you will be killed instantly. Do you understand?”

Gulph was all too aware of the emotions of his friends: exhaustion, desperation, fear. He tried to imagine them facing up against the ranks of the undead who'd fallen into the chasm. He didn't think they'd last very long.

I've brought them all this way for nothing
, he thought bitterly.

Kalia, who'd been standing to one side and listening to the entire exchange, stepped forward. She bowed deferentially.

“Sending them out into the chasm means certain death, Lady Redina,” she said.

“I care not.” Lady Redina turned away.

Kalia caught Gulph's eye, then went on. “Perhaps not, but do you not care about the defense of Celestis?”

Lady Redina stopped, turned back. “What is your point?”

“My point is simply this: Brutan is coming. We cannot escape that fact. Never mind casting blame—Celestis must prepare for invasion. And it must prepare now.”

Lady Redina's face was paler than ever. “I am aware of this.”

“Then let them stay, at least until the battle is over. They have proved themselves brave and resourceful—how else could they have evaded Brutan and survived the journey down here? Their knowledge of the undead king's ways makes them valuable. Let them fight for you. Let them prove their worth.”

“They have no worth!”

Lady Redina stared long and hard at Kalia. Gulph held his breath.

“However . . . we will need every sword arm at our disposal.” Lady Redina arched one eyebrow at Gulph. “If I give you weapons, will you use them well?”

“Your enemy is our enemy, Lady Redina,” Gulph answered.

“Then, as a courtesy to Kalia, I will let you remain in Celestis . . . but only until this situation is resolved. As for what happens afterward . . . I make no promises.”

Relieved, Gulph bowed low and nodded to his friends to do the same. “You are merciful, Lady Redina, and we thank you.”

Lady Redina clapped her hands. Servants poured from the house and gathered around her. She barked orders to each in turn, instructing this one to summon the leaders of the Celestian defense teams, that one to rally the boat riders, another to call in all the observers and deploy them to the watchtowers.

Gulph listened, fascinated. Up to now, he'd seen Lady Redina as a rather remote figure, the kind of leader who sat aloof in her palace and allowed others to do all the hard work. Now he saw her sharp mind in action, as with a series of crisp instructions she set the defensive machinery of Celestis into motion.