A Land Of Fire (Book 12) (7 page)

Alistair followed Erec’s mother through
the night, as she led her in the darkness, twisting and turning down the narrow
alleyways of court, her heart pounding as she tried to keep up and not be seen.
Long shadows were cast across the stone walls and paths, the only illumination
coming from the sporadic torchlight, and Alistair, freshly escaped, could not
help but feel like a criminal.

His mother finally led her behind a wall
and crouched down low, out of sight of the guards, and Alistair squatted down
beside her. They crouched in silence, listening, watching the guards pass by,
and Alistair prayed they would not get caught. Erec’s mother had waited until
nightfall to lead her here, so that they would not be detected, and they had
twisted and turned down the series of labyrinthine streets and back alleys that
led the way from the dungeons to the royal house of the sick, where Erec lay. Finally,
they were close, close enough that Alistair, peeking around the corner, could
see its entrance. It was well guarded, a dozen men standing before it.

“Look at that door,” Alistair whispered
to his mother. “Why would Bowyer keep it so well guarded if he was really convinced
I am the one that tried to kill Erec? He has positioned these men here not to
protect Erec—but to prevent him from escaping, or to kill him, should he
recover.”

Erec’s mother’s nodded in understanding.

“It will not be easy to get you past the
guards,” she whispered back. “Lower your hood, lower your eyes, keep your head
down. Do as I tell you. If this does not work, they will kill you. Are you
willing to take that chance?”

Alistair nodded back.

“For Erec, I would give up my life.”

Erec’s mother looked back at her, touched.

“You could escape if you choose, yet
instead you risk your life to heal Erec. You really do love him, don’t you?” she
asked.

Alistair’s eyes filled with tears.

“More than I can say.”

Erec’s mother took her hand, suddenly
stepped out from behind the wall, and led Alistair right up to the main doors
of the building, walking proudly, straight down the middle, right to the
guards.

“My Queen,” said one.

They all bowed and began to allow her
through, when suddenly one guard stepped forward.

“Who accompanies you, my lady?” he asked.

 “Dare you question your Queen?” she
snapped back, her voice made of steel. “Dare speak like that again, and you
shall be removed from your post.”

“I am sorry, my lady,” he said, “but I
follow the chain of command.”

“Whose command?”

“The new King, my lady—Bowyer’s.”

The Queen sighed.

“I shall forgive you this time,” she
said. “If my husband, the former king, were alive, he would not be so kind. So
you know,” she added, “this is my dear friend. She has fallen ill, and I am
leading her to the sickhouse.”

“I am sorry, my lady,” the guard said,
his head low, reddening, and stepped aside.

They opened the doors for her and Erec’s
mother rushed in, holding Alistair’s hand, and Alistair, heart pounding, keeping
her head down, heard the door slam closed behind them.

Erec’s mother reached up and pulled back
her hood. Alistair looked around and saw they were inside the house of the
sick, a beautiful marble building, with low ceilings, dimly lit by torches.

“We have not much time,” she said. “Follow
me.”

Alistair followed her down the halls,
twisting and turning, until finally his mother instructed her to raise her
hood, and approached Erec’s door. This time, the guard stepped aside without
any questions, and his mother strutted in, holding Alistair’s hand.

“All of you, leave us,” Erec’s mother
commanded the guards in the room. “I wish to be alone with my son.”

Alistair kept her head down, waiting,
her heart pounding, hoping no one detected her. She heard the shuffling of feet
as several guards filtered out of the room, and finally, she heard the slamming
of the wooden door behind her, and an iron bolt being slid into place.

Alistair pulled back her hood and
scanned the room immediately, looking for Erec. It was a dim room, lit by a single
torch, and Erec lay in a kingly bed on the opposite side, beneath piles of
luxurious furs, his face more pale than she’d ever seen it.

“Oh, Erec,” Alistair said, rushing
forward, bursting into tears at the sight of him. She detected his energy
before she even got close, and it was a death energy. She sensed his life force
on the way out. She had been away from him for too long. Alistair knew she
should not be surprised; the first healing she’d given him had only been enough
to immediately revive him. He had needed a longer session of healing to prevent
him from dying, and so much time had passed.

Alistair rushed to his side, knelt down,
and grabbed his hand in hers, leaning it on her forehead as she wept. He was
cold to the touch. He did not stir, did not even flutter his eyes. He lay
perfectly still, as if already dead.

“Is it too late?” his mother asked as
she knelt by the other side of the bed, panic-stricken.

Alistair shook her head.

“There might still be time,” she
replied.

Alistair leaned over and placed both her
palms on Erec’s chest, slipping them through his shirt, feeling his bare skin.
She could feel his heart beating, though faintly, and she leaned over him and
closed her eyes.

Alistair summoned every power she’d ever
had, willing herself to bring Erec back to life. As she did, she felt a
tremendous heat rushing through her arms, through her palms, then felt it
leaving her body and entering Erec’s. She watched her hands turn black, and realized
how desperately Erec needed this.

Alistair remained there for she did not
know how long.

She did not know how many hours had
passed when she finally opened her eyes, feeling something subtle shift within
her. She looked down and saw Erec open his eyes for the first time. He looked right
at her.

“Alistair,” he whispered.

He raised a weakened hand and clasped
her wrist.

Alistair wept, and his mother wept, too.

“You’ve come back to us,” his mother
said.

Erec turned and looked at her.

“Mother,” he said.

Erec’s eyes closed again, and he was
clearly still weak and exhausted; yet Alistair could see his skin turning back
to its old color, could see the life force once again flowing within him.
Slowly, his cheeks came back to color, too. She was elated, yet drained.

“He will be weak for quite a while,” Alistair
said. “It could be weeks before he can stand and walk. But he will live.”

Alistair leaned over, exhausted, nearly
collapsing on the bed, all her energy taken from her. She knew that she, too,
would need a long time to recover.

Erec’s mother gave Alistair a look of
profound love and gratitude.

“You saved my son,” she said. “I can see
now how wrong I was. I can see now that you had nothing to do with his attempted
murder.”

“I would never lay a hand on him.”

Erec’s mother nodded.

“And now you must prove that to our
people.”

“This entire island has me convicted,”
Alistair said.

“I will not let them,” his mother
insisted. “You are like a daughter to me. After tonight, I would send myself to
the dungeons before you.”

“But how can I prove my innocence?” she
asked.

His mother thought for a long time, and
slowly her eyes lit up.

“There is one way,” she finally said.
“One way you can prove it to them.”

Alistair looked at her, her heart
pounding.

“Tell me,” she said.

His mother sighed.

“We Southern Islanders have a right to
challenge. If you challenge Bowyer to the Drink of Truth, he will have no
choice but to agree.”

“What is that?” Alistair asked.

“It is an ancient rite, practiced by my
forefathers. On the highest cliff, we have a fountain with magical waters, the
waters of truth. Whoever lies and drinks from it will die. You can challenge
Bowyer to the drink. He cannot refuse, or else be assumed to be lying. And if
he is lying, as you say, then the waters will kill him—and prove your
innocence.”

She looked back at Alistair
meaningfully.

“Are you prepared to drink?” she asked.

Alistair nodded back, elated at the
chance to prove herself, elated that Erec would live, and knowing that her life
was about to change forever.

Romulus opened his eyes slowly, awakened
finally by the sound of crashing waves, and the feel of something crawling
across his face. He looked up to see a large, purple crab, with four eyes,
crawling slowly on his face. He recognized it immediately: it was a crab native
to the mainland of the Ring. It narrowed its four eyes and opened its jaw to
bite him.

Romulus reacted instantly, reaching up,
grabbing it in his palm, and crushing it slowly. Its claws pierced his flesh,
but he didn’t care. He listened to it scream, and he delighted in the sound of
its pain, continuing to squeeze it deliberately and slowly. It bit and pinched
him, but he didn’t mind. He wanted to crush the life out of it, to prolong its
suffering as much as he could.

Finally, its juices dripping down his
palm, the creature died, and Romulus chucked it to the sand, disappointed its
fight was done so quickly.

Another wave crashed, this one rolling
over the back of his head, over his face, and Romulus jumped up, covered in
sand, shook off the freezing water, and looked around.

Romulus saw he’d been passed out, washed
up on a beach, and recognized it as the shore of the Ring. He turned and saw
thousands of corpses, all washed up onto shore, as far as the eye could see.
They were all his men, thousands of them, all dead, all washed up, unmoving on
the beach.

He turned and saw thousands more
floating in the waves, lifeless, slowly being washed up with the others. Sharks
nipped at their bodies, and all up and down the shore was a blanket of purple
crabs, feasting, devouring the corpse’s flesh.

Romulus looked out at the sea, so calm
now, at the sunrise of a perfect, clear day, and he tried to remember. There
was a storm, that wave, greater than anything he imagined could exist. His
entire fleet had been destroyed, like playthings of the ocean. Indeed, as he
scanned the waters, he saw it littered with debris, wood from his former ships
floating up and down the shoreline, what remained of his fleet butting against
the corpses of his men, like a cruel joke. Romulus felt something on his
ankles, and looked down to see the remnants of a mast smashing against his
shin.

Romulus was grateful and amazed to be
alive. He realized how lucky he was, the sole survivor of all his men. He
looked up, and even though it was morning, he could see the waxing moon, and he
knew his moon cycle had not ended—and that was the only reason he had survived.
Yet he was also filled with dread as he examined the shape of the moon: his
cycle was almost up. That sorcerer’s spell would end any day, and his invincible
time would come to an end.

Romulus reflected on his dragons, dead,
on his fleet, destroyed, and he realized he had made a mistake to pursue
Gwendolyn. He had pushed too hard, for too much; he had never expected the
power of Thorgrin. He realized now, too late, that he should have been content
with what he’d had. He should have stayed on the mainland of the Ring.

Romulus turned and looked out at the
Ring, the Wilds framing the shore, and beyond that, the Canyon. At least he
still had his soldiers here, the ones he’d left behind; at least he still had
one million men occupying it, and at least he had razed it to the ground. At
least Gwendolyn and her people could never return here—and at least the Ring
was finally his. It was a bittersweet victory.

Romulus turned his gaze back to the sea,
and he realized that now, without his dragons, without a fleet, he would have
to give up chasing Gwendolyn—especially with his moon cycle coming to an end.
He would have no choice now but to return to the Empire—with a partial victory,
but with the shame of defeat, the shame of a vanquished fleet. Humiliated yet
again. When asked where his fleet was, he would have nothing left to show his
people—just the one measly ship he had left on the Ring to transport him back
to the Empire. He would return as conqueror of the Ring—and yet deeply
humiliated. Once again, Gwendolyn had escaped him.

Romulus leaned back, held his fists out
to the heavens, and shook them, the veins bulging in his neck as he shrieked in
rage:

“THORGRIN!”

His cry was met by a lone eagle,
circling high, that screeched back, as if mocking him.

Thor opened his eyes slowly to the light
sound of lapping waves, bobbing up and down, not sure where he was. He squinted
at the daylight, and saw that he was lying on his stomach, bent over a plank of
wood, floating in the middle of the ocean on a piece of debris. He was
shivering, cold in these waters, and he looked up to see dawn breaking, and
realized he had been floating here all night long.

Thor felt a light nipping on his arm,
and he looked down and saw a fish and brushed it away. A light wave wet his
hair, and he lifted his head, spit out the seawater and looked all around him. The
sea was littered with debris as far as Thor could see, thousands of broken planks
from Romulus’s fleet blanketing the ocean. He was floating right in the middle
of it all, with no land in sight on any horizon.

Thor tried to remember. He closed his
eyes and saw himself on Mycoples, diving down, fighting Romulus’s men. He remembered
being underwater, pierced by arrows, then rising up; he remembered summoning the
storm. And the last thing he remembered was the immense tidal wave coming down
on them all. He remembered being caught in the wave, and about to crash
hundreds of feet into the ocean below. He remembered the screams of all Romulus’s
men.

And then all was blackness.

Thor opened his eyes fully and rubbed
his head, his hair caked with salt; he had a tremendous headache, and as he
looked around, he realized he was the only survivor, floating alone in the
midst of an endless sea, surrounded by nothing but debris. He shook from the
cold, and his body stung all over, littered with arrow wounds, and scratches
from the dragons’ talons. He was injured so badly, he barely had the strength
to lift his head.

He searched every direction, hoping for
a sign of land, maybe Gwendolyn and her fleet—anything.

But there was nothing. Just vast,
limitless ocean in every direction.

Thor’s heart sank as he lowered his head
again, half submerged in the water, and lay there, bent over the plank. The
small fish returned, nipping at his skin, brushing up against it, and this time
Thor didn’t care. He was too weak to brush it away. He lay there, floating,
realizing that Mycoples, whom he had loved more than he could say, was dead. Ralibar
was dead. And Thor himself felt like he was dying. He was weaker than he had
ever been, alone in an empty sea. He had survived the storm, had saved Gwendolyn
and her people, had taken vengeance on the Empire, had destroyed the host of
dragons, and for that he felt immense satisfaction.

Yet now that the great battle was over,
here he was, injured, too weak to heal himself, with no land in sight, and no
hope left. He had paid the ultimate price, and now his time had come.

More than anything, Thor ached to see Gwendolyn
one last time before he died; he ached to see Guwayne. He could not imagine
dying without laying eyes on their faces one more time.

Please, God,
he thought.
Give
me one more chance. One more life. Allow me to live. Allow me to see Gwendolyn,
to see my son again.

Thor lowered his head in the water as he
felt more fish begin to nip, now at his feet and ankles and thighs; he felt his
head submerged a bit lower in the cool water, the soft lapping of the waves the
only sound left in the endless morning stillness. He felt so exhausted, so
stiff, he knew he could not go on any further. He had served his purpose in
life. He had served it well. And now his time had come.

Please, God, I turn to you, and to you
alone. Answer me
.

Suddenly, there came a tremendous
stillness in the universe, so quiet, so intense, that Thor could hear himself breathe.
That stillness terrified him more than anything he’d ever encountered in his
life. He felt it was the sound of God.

The stillness was shattered by an
immense splashing noise. Thor opened his eyes wide and looked up to see the
ocean part. He saw an enormous whale, larger than any creature he seen his life,
and different than any whale he’d ever seen. It was completely white, with
horns on its head and all down its back, and huge glowing red eyes.

The beast shot out of the ocean, letting
out a great screech, and opened its jaws, so big they blocked out the sun. It rose
higher and higher, then came down, right for Thor, its mouth wide open. The
world became dark as Thor felt the whale was about to swallow him.

Thor, too weak to resist, embraced his
fate, as the immense jaws of darkness clamped down on him, swallowing him. He
slid into the blackness of the whale’s mouth, and as he began to slide down its
throat, its stomach, his final thought was:
I never thought I would die like
this.