Fire Keep Read online

  I met her in the market square,

  a lovely little flower.

  I raised my wand above my head

  to demonstrate my power.

  I thought to place into her hair

  a pleasant scented blossom.

  Alas, my magic went awry.

  And now she is a possum.

  Marcus looked at Riph Raph, and the skyte flapped to the farthest corner or the cell.

  “What kind of a song is that?” a deep voice bellowed. “Who ever heard of a love ballad for a possum?”

  “Tain’t for a possum,” answered a squeaky voice, which grated on Marcus’s ears like the tines of a fork dragged across a tin plate. “It’s a song for a woman. A lovely woman with eyes like those blue gems. What are they called?”

  A huge belch echoed down the corridor, and Marcus could only hope it hadn’t been pointed toward his plate. “Blueberries?”

  “That ain’t a gem. It’s a vegetable,” the squeaky voice said.

  The two guards came into view and stopped. The fat one shook his greasy red hair out of his face and scratched his rear with the hand not holding Marcus’s plate. “You’re right. He’s still there.”

  The skinny guard, who had a long, curved nose that came down past his mouth, cackled. “Told you so. Pay up.”

  Marcus, didn’t want to talk to either of the guards, but he couldn’t help himself. “Where did you think I’d be? I’m locked in a cell.”

  The fat guard rubbed his doughy cheeks, a stupid expression on his face. “Hmm. Never thought of that.”

  Each man carried a plate—one for Marcus and another for Riph Raph—to the cell door and slid them under the bars.

  “You know,” the skinny guard said, squeezing a wart on the tip of his chin, “when you first demanded to be locked up here, I thought you was suffering from depression or obsession or some other -ession. But now your strategy has become all too clear to me. You realized with all the cleaning up going on in the city that you would never be able to get any serious thinking done.” He tapped the side of his helmet and gave a sly wink. “But down here, you got no distractions at all. Good planning, young man. Ought ’a see if I can get a room in the dungeon myself.”

  “That’s about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” Marcus said, sliding a plate to Riph Raph. “I’m here for a crime I committed, like everyone else in the dungeon.”

  “Crime?” The fat guard gasped as though the thought had never occurred to him that someone locked in a dungeon might have done something to deserve it. “What did you do? Swipe someone’s gold? Kidnap their children?” He shivered. “The very thought gives me the willies.”

  Marcus stared at his hands. “I’m guilty of murder. I killed my best friend.”

  The skinny guard’s eyes opened wide. “Spells and curses! You didn’t!” He arched a bushy eyebrow. “Put a knife in his heart, did you?”

  Marcus glared at the old buffoon. “My best friend is a she, not a he. And I might as well have stabbed her. I gave her the poison that . . .” He hated the word, but it was time to face the truth. “I gave her the poison that killed her. Then I let her drink it.”

  The fat guard clapped both hands to his mouth. “He’s talking about Kyja.” He placed his lips to the skinny guard’s ear and whispered so loud that Marcus could have heard it from the top of the stairs. “I was there too. I seen her drink the poison straight down. And I dint do nuffin to stop her. Think they might throw me in a cell too?”

  The skinny guard smacked him on the front of his breastplate. “Don’t strain what little brains God gave ya. I heard tell the girl was determined to take the poison no matter what anyone did. If letting a person do what they are determined to do is a crime, half the people in this city are guilty.” He leered at Marcus. “I know what you are guilty of, though.”

  Marcus shoved a forkful of eggs into his mouth, barely tasting them. “What?”

  “Of being so arrogant as to think you are the only one who feels the pain of the dear girl’s loss and the guilt of not realizing what she was up to.”

  Marcus slammed his fork on his plate. “That’s the lamest thing I’ve ever heard. Who told you that?”

  “I know! I know!” The fat guard danced around, waving his hand like a kid in school. “It was the crazy old wizard you’re always talking to. Ther-a-puss.”

  Marcus jumped to his feet and grabbed the bars. “Master Therapass is not crazy.” He turned to the skinny guard. “Is it true? Did he say that to you?”

  Master Therapass had come down to the dungeon once, trying to convince Marcus and Riph Raph that they didn’t belong there. It didn’t work, and he hadn’t returned.

  The skinny guard bobbed his beak-like nose. “That’s exactly what he said. Also that you are guilty of the crime of stubbornness, the crime of ignorance, and most damaging of all, the crime of pride.”

  The words cut deeper than Marcus wanted to let on. He dropped to the floor. “He can say whatever he wants. I’m not leaving.”

  “Neither am I,” Riph Raph said. “We’re waiting right here until Kyja pulls us to Fire Keep.”

  The fat guard rubbed the back of his thick neck. “What if she never pulls you over? What then?”

  That was what Marcus was most afraid of. If Kyja didn’t pull him over soon, it could mean only one thing. That she was dead.

  The fat guard stared down at Marcus, his face surprisingly serious. “I hear that batty old wizard has been working night and day on a way to get her back.”

  “Really?” Marcus asked. Riph Raph, who had been pecking at his food, flew to Marcus’s side and nuzzled under his hand.

  The skinny guard moved close, his eyes oddly familiar. “Do you think for a minute that every man, woman, and child in this city wouldn’t do anything they could to bring Kyja back?”

  Marcus shook his head silently.

  The fat guard rubbed his jowls. “Don’t you think she would do anything in her power to bring you to her if she could?”

  Marcus’s vision blurred as tears leaked from his eyes. “I know she would.”

  The skinny guard stepped back from the cell and straightened his ill-fitting armor. “Then we must assume she is not able to summon you to her at this time. The way I see it, you have two choices. You can sit here wallowing in your own guilt and feeling sorry for yourself, which seems as dull-witted as my large-bellied companion—”

  “Or you can do something useful by figuring out how to reach her,” the fat guard added. “Become a man of action.” He pointed to the skinny guard. “Unlike this cowardly excuse for a human being.”

  “Reach her?” Marcus had spent the first few days here thinking about that exact thing before deciding it was impossible. “How can I?”

  “You could join that brilliant wizard, Master Therapass, and his bullheaded, bumbling, act-first, think later, excuse for a warrior, Tankum,” the skinny guard said. “I hear they’re leaving for Land Keep to search for an answer.”

  Marcus jumped to his feet, feeling the first hope he’d had since Kyja’s eyes had closed for the last time. “When are they leaving?”

  The fat guard counted on his pudgy fingers. “I’d say . . . right about . . . now.”

  “Let us out,” Riph Raph yelped.

  “We’re going with them,” Marcus shouted.

  The skinny guard reached under his armor and pulled out a wand. He glared at the fat guard. “It’s about time. If I had to spend another day listening to your ridiculous fake accent, I would have gone crazy.”

  “Trust me,” the fat guard said. “Based on your singing, you went there a long time ago.”

  The guard waved his wand and the men’s costumes disappeared, revealing Master Therapass and Tankum. The cell door clicked and swung open.

  “Well?” the wizard asked looking back with a sly grin. “Are you two coming or not?”

  2: The Power of Hope

  Marcus leaned against the wall, trying to catch his breath. After sitting in the cold, dam
p cell for more than a week, his legs wobbled with each step, and every few minutes, a raspy cough tore at his chest. His joints felt as if they’d been filled with crushed glass.

  The pain wasn’t only from his time spent in the dungeon, though. His health was still mysteriously tied to the health of Farworld, and right now it felt as if Farworld was in danger—maybe the worst danger it had ever seen. But what did that mean? That the Dark Circle had grown in power? Or was it because Kyja was in trouble? Or dead?

  Tankum reached out one of his large stone hands. “Let me help you.”

  “No.” Marcus wiped the sweat from his face and made himself climb another step, trying to stifle the groan that forced its way from his mouth.

  “Punishing yourself won’t help Kyja,” Master Therapass said.

  Marcus stopped, nearly falling backward. Riph Raph grabbed the front of his robe and flapped furiously until Marcus regained his balance. “You think I’m punishing myself?”

  He’d been warned more than once that he would kill Kyja. He should have been on guard. But that night, he’d been so busy stuffing his face with food and drink—and congratulating himself on stopping the Dark Circle—that he hadn’t noticed something was wrong with Kyja until it was too late. The only reason he wasn’t in his cell paying for that anymore was the small sliver of hope that he might be able to find a way to bring her back.

  “Maybe I am.”

  Tankum turned, the metal of the crossed swords on his back reflecting the sunlight shining through a nearby window, and started up the stairs. “Good.”

  Marcus thought he must have misheard. “You think I should be punishing myself?”

  Riph Raph launched himself into the air and circled the warrior’s head. “Who asked you? I say he should be giving himself a break. No one could have stopped Kyja.”

  “Doesn’t matter what I think,” Tankum said, continuing up the circular staircase. “But you might as well get used to it.”

  “Get used to what?” Marcus panted, trying to keep up. He coughed again, his lungs and throat burning. He deserved everything he was putting himself through and worse. But part of him hoped that Therapass and Tankum would find a way to convince him differently.

  “Get used to doubting yourself.” Tankum turned and folded his arms across his broad chest. The cold expression on his face matched the granite he was made of. “You’ve got a whole lifetime of what ifs ahead of you, lad—assuming you live that long. Trust me. I’ve had enough myself. What if I’d told my troops to retreat instead of charging the day I lost half my regiment in an ambush? What if I’d been there the day my friends were slaughtered? What if I’d asked the girl I loved to marry me before she chose another man? What if I’d opted for a life of peace instead of war so I could have been there when she needed me?”

  Marcus thought that the warrior’s eyes glistened for a moment. But it had to be a trick of the light; statues couldn’t cry.

  Tankum clenched his jaw before growling, “You have two choices in life. You can spend your time stewing over what you could have done differently and beating yourself up for decisions you can’t go back to change. Or you can look forward, learn from your mistakes, and keep doing your best.”

  Marcus opened his mouth, but the warrior held up a flat, gray palm.

  “You have the weight of an entire world on your shoulders, lad. You didn’t ask for it, but it’s there. And the fact of the matter is, you’ll probably fail. Your chances of success were never good, and they’re worse now than ever. If you’re going to wallow in guilt over everything you could’a done differently, you might as well get used to it. Because this won’t be the last time you have regrets.”

  Marcus collapsed against the wall, his face hot with sweat and anger. The backs of his eyelids prickled. “If . . .” He gasped for breath. “If you think I’m going to fail, why did you bother coming to get me?”

  Tankum stopped short of the door at the top of the stairs, where he and Master Therapass shared a look Marcus couldn’t read.

  “Not everyone believes you will fail,” the wizard said. “But as Tankum so aptly stated, it doesn’t matter what we think. If you’ve already quit, you may as well return to your cell.”

  Marcus snapped his head up. “Who said I quit?”

  “Haven’t you?”

  “Of course not,” Riph Raph said, ears waggling furiously. “I know Marcus. He’d never give up. Never.”

  The wizard nodded slowly. “Then it’s time to stop acting like a quitter. And that means accepting all the help you can get.”

  Marcus swallowed. He’d never been good at accepting help, and he was even worse at asking for it. But if that’s what it took to get Kyja back . . .

  He tucked his staff under his arm and held out one hand. “Could you help me up?”

  “I don’t understand why I have to take a bath,” Marcus called over the screen that shielded the brass tub he was soaking in from the rest of the room. “The sooner we get to Land Keep, the sooner we can find a way to save Kyja.”

  “For one thing,” the wizard called back, “you smell like a dung heap.” Therapass had brought Marcus to a room high in the tower to wash and change clothes while Tankum checked on their transportation. “It makes my eyes water to be in the same room as you.”

  “He’s right,” Riph Raph said. The skyte perched on the top of the screen, looking the other way to give Marcus some privacy. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but I’ve smelled three-day-old fish rotting in the sun that weren’t as stinky as you.”

  “You haven’t bathed either,” Marcus said, shoving away the magical scrub brush that was flying through the air attacking his ears, back, and hair.

  Riph Raph rolled his golden eyes and clucked. “Skytes don’t need baths. We are some of the most naturally clean animals in the world.”

  As if hearing his words, the scrub brush ducked under the water and flew straight at Riph Raph’s stomach.

  “Stop that,” the skyte yelped. “It tickles.” Dirty gray water streamed from his scales as he flew into the air, and the scrub brush stayed right with him, darting up under his floppy ears.

  “For another thing,” the wizard said with a chuckle, “it wouldn’t do to have the city see you looking like a mud-caked sewer rat.” He reached over the screen and draped a freshly cleaned robe across the top.

  Marcus climbed out of the tub, dried off, and began getting dressed. The robe was thick wool, with the crest of Terra ne Staric on the front and what looked like gold leaves on the collar and sleeves. It seemed way too fancy for a trip to Land Keep. “Why do they have to see me anyway? Wouldn’t it be better if we snuck out so the Dark Circle doesn’t know what we’re up to?”

  “The Dark Circle has the entire city surrounded,” Master Therapass said. “With the largest army of Fallen Ones I have ever seen.”

  The Fallen Ones were undead creatures and humans brought back to life by a Summoner.

  Marcus limped around the screen, still barefoot. “They’re here? Since when? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Master Therapass rolled the map he had been studying into a tube, which disappeared up the sleeve of his robe. “They arrived the day after Kyja went over. Either they had spies in the city, or they have . . . another way of tracking what goes on here.”

  “But how are we supposed to get past them?” More than once, Marcus had nearly been killed by a Summoner; he had no desire to meet one again if he could help it. “That makes sneaking out an even better idea.”

  “I vote for sneaking too,” Riph Raph called from the back of a chair, where he was keeping the scrub brush at bay with a volley of small blue fireballs.

  Master Therapass handed Marcus a pair of leather boots embroidered with gold thread, then inspected his robe. “Over the last ten days, word of Kyja’s ‘death’ has spread to all corners of Farworld, along with the fact that you have been holed up here inside the tower, planning a rescue.”

  “But I haven’t.” Marcus felt his face flu
sh. “I’ve been sitting in the dungeon feeling sorry for myself.”

  “The only person other than Tankum and I who knows that is High Lord Broomhead, and we have sworn him to secrecy.” Master Therapass tugged one sleeve of Marcus’s robe even, then wrapped a blue and gold scarf around his neck.

  “Why?” Marcus asked, sitting down. “Why would you let them think that I was doing something I wasn’t?”

  The wizard picked up one of Marcus’s boots. “At this moment, Farworld is on the brink of panic. When Kyja brought you here from Earth, most people doubted that a boy and girl as young as you two could defeat a group as powerful as the Dark Circle. But as they have watched the two of you find and gain the help of first the water elementals, then the land elementals, and finally, the Aerisians, their trust in the two of you has grown.”

  He pushed the boot until it slid over Marcus’s foot. “When the two of you managed to defeat the golems here, and the Summoner in Windshold, people discovered a hope they hadn’t felt for years.”

  Marcus ran his hand along his crooked right leg. “We didn’t do it alone.”

  “The two of us know that,” the wizard said, holding up a pair of knobby fingers. “But the people see you and Kyja as proof that victory against an evil that grows more powerful every day is still possible. At least, they did until—”

  “Kyja drank the poison,” Marcus interrupted. “So they blame me too.” It made sense. He’d have done the exact same thing in their position.

  “No!” Master Therapass closed his fist, and everything in the room jumped—the screen fell over, the tub splashed water, and Riph Raph leaped from the back of his chair. “They don’t blame you,” the wizard said. “They trust you. They trust that you will find a way to reach Kyja, and that the two of you will find a way to defeat the Dark Circle. That trust is the only thing keeping them from panicking. It’s the only thing keeping the Dark Circle from complete victory.”

  Marcus ran his tongue across the front of his teeth. He’d never looked at it that way. “I’m . . . I’m sorry.”