Rise of the Citadel (The Search for the Brights Book 2) (55 page)

Wells returned
to the room and closed the door behind him.

“They’re
returning to camp,” He said, moving to stand beside the table.

Kilen sat up as
they all laughed quietly, bemused that Izabel’s plan had worked.

“Kilen, what are
you doing here?” Leroy said intensely through the laughter.

“The Elder
Wizards and I have come to a decision that it is time to find the next Water
Realm King.”

“Great! Who is
it?” Leroy asked excitedly awaiting an answer.

“I don’t know. I
was hoping your father could help me figure that out. There is a soul wizard in
the elemental realms. The Elders are trying to find this wizard so they can
destroy it. My task is to find and help the next Water Realm King to raise an
army just in case the they fail.”

The room was
silent and Leroy’s face was blank, as he was clearly disappointed, “Kilen,
Keepers has been here for ten years. My father and the others that are loyal
have tried everything to find another king. None will take up the mantel.”

In the silence to
follow, Wells cleared his throat, “It’s good to see you back. If there is a way
to find a new king, I am sure we can figure it out. We have a true weapon
bearer now to help us. We need to get your father here and discuss our options
in potential rulers.”

Wells began
moving around the room with Leroy talking about a reason for Leroy’s father to
come visit the inn.

Izabel’s voice
broke the conversation, “I thought Kilen was the new hope to become king.”

The two men
stopped and turned.

Kilen hopped off
the table and held his hands out in front of him, “Wait, no. I already told
them I was not a king. I don’t know the first thing about being a soldier, let
alone leading a kingdom.”

Izabel’s voice
was smooth and sing song as ever, “Yet, every soldier that sits at our bar
talks of how you stood in defiance of King Atmos. They fear you, and if they
fear you others who fear them will stand behind you.”

“I am no king.
Besides, I only have two marks on my blade.” Kilen ran his hands through his
mud-caked hair and watched as flakes of dried dirt fell to the floor. “I cannot
be king. I just need to talk to your father and know what’s going on here.”

Wells walked
back to the table and leaned in on balled fists, “I can tell you what’s going
on here. King Atmos sent soldiers here to stop you from taking the throne. At
first it was a handful of wielders, then more and more soldiers started
arriving each day.”

“We have the
soldier’s favor for the moment,” Leroy butted in. “The wielders stop here
everyday and grow our food and herbs for cooking. They also pitch in and help
us build anything we request. We’re making good use of them while they are
here. So far we have built a twelve room inn. A stable is enough to hold the
wielder’s horses and some extra. Izabel’s herbary was completed recently and
now they are working on fences for our livestock. If the Water Realm Castle is
raised again, we will have a very popular inn.”

Izabel placed a
dirt covered hand on Leroy’s forearm, “He doesn't want to know about our
business.” She faced Kilen, “The soldiers are being sent to Humbridge, and
Basham to catch you if you try to go there. Atmos has issued the orders to kill
you and others if you are found. It’s good you came at the time you did. Wind
wizards arrive three times a day to relay messages and troop numbers to the
commander here.”

“They do?” Wells
and Leroy answered in unison.

“You men do not
pay attention to anything. Yes, they arrive at least three times a day. The
commander's name is Captain Lorusk. He has a lieutenant that is very capable
named Vincent. They rode here straight from the battle with the Fire Realm.”

“How do you know
all this?” Leroy asked.

“Do you not pay
attention when they speak at the bar, or while they’re working?” She said as
she started to prune some of the plants nearby, “They already have a few
thousand men assembled and more pour in every day.”

Leroy was
clearly upset that she had been paying so much attention to the soldiers and
hadn’t moved on in the conversation. “They talk about the battle, but I haven’t
heard anything that you have heard,” Leroy said.

“You have to
listen to all the stories and put together what you have heard from everyone.”
She tapped her lip with a dirty nail, “I guess you would have to know when a
man is embellishing a story to weed out the truth.” She went back to work
tieing herbs along a string to dry.

“I know how to
weed out lies,” Leroy said defensively following her.

Wells spoke over
both of them. “We know what’s happening, but we have a bigger problem right
now.”

They both looked
at him and waited to hear the news of a bigger problem.

“Those soldiers
will come back in the morning. They may even come back sooner. We will need to
produce a sick person. I would prefer that the sick person not be the one they
are ordered to kill. If they breath a word of this to their commanders, we will
be seeing a hundred men within the hour.”

“I will get out
of here now then,” Kilen started to walk towards the door.

“It’s not that
simple, weapon bearer. If you aren’t here, they will search for the sick man we
found laying in the ditch and will figure out you were here. Then they will
kill us. If you
are
here and they come to inspect you, they will know
who you are and destroy all of our hope,” Wells voice had stopped Kilen.

Perhaps it
was not wise to have come to them,
he thought. He should have just made his
way into Keepers without them.

Izabel walked to
a plant and pulled some leaves from its branches. It had a round leaf with
serrated edges and was very dark green in color. Her voice was soothing and
loving, “Kilen, this will not be pleasant, but it will do the trick.”

“What is it?”
Kilen asked as he came closer to the table.

Leroy laughed,
“Poison.”

“Poison?” Kilen
said examining the mortar and pestle as she smashed the leaves into a paste.

“The effects
don’t last long, so we will have to be careful on our timing,” Izabel said.

Leroy reached up
to pull a small pin from Izabel’s hair. Kilen noticed that the large stakes she
had normally worn were now gone. The small pin had a head on it shaped like a
butterfly which changed color in the lantern’s light.

“Wells, we
can
make him sick. How do you think we should do this?” Leroy asked.

“We put him in a
wagon and make like we are taking him to your mother for healing. If we time it
right, they will see him sick and let us through. It will have to be a violent
sick, so the men look away instead of looking to his face.”
            “What if I don’t want to be sick or poisoned?” Kilen said as
started to back away from the table.

With skilled
hands, Izabel pulled a second pin from her hair and scraped it along Kilen’s
hand.

The world
wavered and he collapsed on the floor. Slowly, his body started to numb but his
mind was racing and in control.

“How long till
he becomes sick?” Wells asked.

Leroy was
already dragging his limp body towards the door. He could see Izabel smiling,
“That will not make him sick. It will make him paralyzed for a while or until I
give him the antidote. Even if he doesn’t want to be sick, his acting
unconscious will be horrid.”

They both
laughed and she shushed them, “He can still hear you and see you. He just
cannot move.”

*******************

  Kilen clawed
at the grip on his body, trying to move anything but he failed as he felt his
limbs numb from the poison. He tried to blink or even feel his chest rise and
fall but he felt nothing. He watched as his vision backed away from his body
into darkness. His vision now a frameless window floating before him,
surrounded by nothing.

The more distant
the window, the less he could see and hear of the outside world. A weeping
figure’s voice was causing a distraction to the conversation, drowning out
their voices. Kilen looked around in the darkness and found two other figures
with him. The figure to the left made no sound or movement other than to look
at his own body. The figure to his right struggled to move towards the frame,
yelling out in terror. The insistent screaming coming from the figure reminded
him of The Crying Man. Then Kilen saw the sword sticking from the wound on the
struggling man, a bloody black blade still protruding from his shoulder to his
ribs as if he had been skewered. It was at that point Kilen
knew
this
was The Crying Man. The spiked blade was tearing at his flesh, causing the
blood to seep anew as the man crept towards the window, pulling a black chain
around his waist. The chain extended into the darkness, rattling in the air as
he fought it’s pull.

Shocked at the
scene before him, Kilen tried to move to free The Crying Man of his burdensome
sword as the man tugged at the chains holding him back. Kilen noticed the man
paid no attention to him but instead stared into the frameless window. Kilen
moved his feet and tried to call out to the man, but his feet did not move and
his voice did not sound in the blackness. Despite Kilen’s efforts the man began
to make progress towards the window, yanking on the chain that bound him. His
movement was slow, but steady.

Kilen looked at
the window and saw Izabel’s face flash amongst the movement on the other side.
Control
,
he thought to himself. The window was control of his body, his flesh and blood.
If The Crying Man made it to the window he would gain that control, he would
become Kilen.

Kilen knew that
he couldn’t allow himself to be imprisoned here. Franticly, Kilen lunged
himself towards the window to no avail. His feet still unmovable atop the black
glasslike surface below. He fell forward onto his stomach and searched with his
hands for a grip, anything to pull himself along the floor to the window but
found only smooth surfaces. Kilen turned to see chains around his own waist
extending into black. Kilen managed to let out a scream that attracted the
attention of the figure staring at himself in the darkness.

“Kilen?” the
familiar voice of Tokeye resonated in the darkness.

Kilen let out a
shrilling panic of a scream, “I can’t move, help me!”

Tokeye took a
step towards him and pulled the chains around his waist taunt. He stopped to
look back at them and yanked it with one hand. The chains shattered in his
grip, disappearing like smoke before they struck the ground. He took a step
forward to the window, free of his bindings. “What is that?” he said, looking
at the window.

“I think it’s
me, my body. If he gets to it, he may trap us in here. You have to help me,
Tokeye. How do you break the chains?” Kilen had twisted in his chains and now
tugged repeatedly, trying to break his own.

The Crying Man’s
chains groaned under the pressure he was exerting on them, as if they would
snap under his strength.

Tokeye took
another step towards the opening and looked down at this freed hands. “Things
are strange here. Chains appear out of nowhere, people with eyes of mist walk
amongst us. Food comes and goes, food that you are not able to grasp or taste.
The things that we see here in the darkness are also seen in the sky above.
Everything is darkness now,” He said as he looked around then focused on the
window. “Everything but that,” He took two steps towards it.

The Crying Man
screamed, watching Tokeye step ever closer to the window as he struggled still
entangled in the black metal. He slipped and fell to his knees, the black blade
protruding from his side scraped against the hard smooth surface of the ground.
He let out a groan as he stood back up, still struggling against the metal
inside of him and dripping dark red blood that never touched the ground.

Kilen tugged and
slipped on the floor as he struggled to make his way to the window. He watched,
screaming at an unresponsive Tokeye who was stepping closer to the window. The
man from the Fire Realm was so close he could reach out and touch the misty
surface of the window but did not. Instead, he looked back at The Crying Man.

Their eyes met
and a rage turned The Crying Man’s eyes to hate. His voice erupted into a
volcano of fury spewing forth like the yell of a rabid dog overtaken by
violence. Tokeye shook his head and casually walked to The Crying man and
ripped the blade free from his shoulder, causing bits of flesh, blood, and bone
into the air. The Crying Man crumpled, still bound by the chain. The darkness
shuddered and trembled. Kilen felt a jolt as he pushed against the chains
letting him slip a couple steps closer to the window.

Tokeye let the
blade fall just to have it turn to smoke. He ignored Kilen and instead he
watched as the blade reformed in The Crying Man’s body. The newly opened wound
now closed in around the new blade causing the wound to drip blood again.
Tokeye, probably being as astonished as Kilen, walked behind the wounded man
and grabbed the chain. Tokeye’s grip seemed to thicken the links of chain as he
hefted the metal rings onto his shoulder.

Kilen watched
Tokeye drag the man into the darkness with his fingernails and the tip of the
blade scraping along the ground as he faded from view. The darkness enveloped
them and any sound they made, leaving Kilen alone with the window and his own
chains. Blackness faded to gray and the feeling of terror lifted from his
chest. Kilen let the tension on his chain go as he watched the area turn white.

He didn’t know
if the darkness would return, so he began again tugging on the chain. The links
had become soft and stretched like potter’s clay. The metal elongated and
became thin as he stretched it towards the window. Kilen focused on the window.
Outside he could see stars starting to appear as his vision wobbled back and
forth on the other side. When he looked back, Tokeye stood at the other end of
his chain. The Fire Realm man’s jaw clenched and he took Kilen’s chain in his
hands. With a twist, the links snapped like a twig and he smiled at Kilen.