Land Keep Page 3

  The next time had been early in the morning. Kyja now suspected that he’d let her see him on purpose, specifically showing up shortly before dawn and after sunset, when Marcus was asleep. After the first sighting, she’d had a hunch about who it might have been—although she’d had no idea how he could possibly be there. The second time, she recognized him for sure and realized he had to be following them.

  Her first reaction had been fear. What if he was trying to catch them? But if he’d wanted to hurt Marcus and her, he’d already had plenty of chances to attack.

  Her second reaction had been to wake Marcus. But she knew how he’d respond if he learned who was out there, and something about the creature made her feel sorry for him. He looked even more bedraggled than the last time she’d seen him—and hungry.

  Instead of telling anyone, she’d begun leaving him scraps of food. She was sure Cascade knew about what was going on—the water elemental didn’t miss much. She’d made sure to keep Riph Raph away; he wouldn’t approve. But until today, she’d had no idea Marcus was aware she was up to something.

  At the base of a knobby-looking tree, Kyja stopped and set the leaf on a flat rock. She knew from experience the creature wouldn’t come as long as she remained. Calling out to him didn’t help. Still, she crouched by the tree, searching the woods and wondering where he was hiding.

  Cupping a hand above her eyes, she slowly scanned the trees and bushes. She was about to give up when a soft breeze carried a scent she was very familiar with—horses. At the same moment, something moved off to her right. Kyja spun and saw a man in a long red robe. He sat astride a powerful-looking, white horse. He too, was cupping a hand over his eyes, searching the woods.

  At the same time Kyja saw the man, he saw her. Both of their eyes widened in surprise. Then the man jerked his horse’s reins and shouted, “Over here!”

  Chapter 5

  Melankollia

  Marcus continued his firm pace—clasping the staff with his good right hand and what little strength remained in his left—until he was sure he was out of sight. Then he stopped and nearly collapsed. His right leg trembled so badly he felt like a tightrope walker balancing on a high wire in a heavy wind. Pain raged from his ankle to his hip, and he ground his teeth together to keep back tears.

  Around him, insects buzzed and birds he’d never seen on Earth cheeped and sang. The river might not have smelled the best as it slowed and widened, nearing the end of its journey to the sea, but the soil it carried created a lush landscape of trees and flowers that filled the air with a hundred different perfumes.

  Gasping for breath, Marcus paid attention to none of it. What was he doing here? Life had never been easy on Earth. He’d spent most of his time dreaming of what he would do once he finally got away from foster families and the boys’ schools. But back then, no one had expected anything of him. Depending on who you talked to, he was either disabled or a freak. Most of the families he’d lived with were happy if he just stayed out the way.

  But in Farworld—if Master Therapass was to be believed—Marcus was supposed to be a hero—like Arthur drawing the sword from the stone. What a twisted joke that was!

  “I’m happy to pull out your sword, but if I let go of my staff, I’ll fall down. And even if I do get the sword out, I’ll never be able to use it.”

  Kyja was na•ve to believe Cascade would lead them to Land Keep. But she was even more foolish to believe Marcus was the great hope of her world. What if, by some miracle, they did manage to gather all four elementals? What then?

  Say they did open a drift so he could come completely into Farworld instead of this halfway jumping that made him sick if he left Earth for more than three or four days at a time. He’d still be a cripple. As soon as he came through the doorway, the Dark Circle would attack him and finish the job they’d started when he was a baby.

  Sighing, he looked around to make sure Kyja hadn’t followed. He knew part of the hopelessness he felt came from the almost constant pain he was in. It was hard to stay positive when every morning he awoke wondering if this would be the day he tried to get up and found that, even with the staff, he could no longer stand. If the Dark Circle was trying to wear him down, they were doing a good job of it.

  But the real source of his frustration and anger was the black kernel of doubt growing inside him. He couldn’t—or wouldn’t—allow himself to remember all of the dream he’d been having for the last few weeks—small fragments were all he could recall. But he awoke nearly every morning with a growing feeling that failure might not be the worst he could do.

  He still remembered what Master Therapass had told him about his fate being tied to that of Farworld. The words of the legend were burned into his memory. In the first version, Marcus saved Farworld—He shall make whole that which was torn asunder. Restore that which was lost. And all shall be as one.

  But there was another ending, one the wizard had seemed reluctant to share. Marcus remembered the sadness in the old man’s eyes as he’d said, “In the other ending—the ending spoken of only in the quietest of whispers around fires late at night—the child joins the forces of darkness, and Farworld is destroyed.”

  That was the fear Marcus couldn’t admit to anyone—not even to Kyja. His magic was growing even as his body was failing. But what if the weakness in his body wasn’t a result of what was going on in Farworld at all? What if, instead, it was just an outward sign of what was happening inside him? The one thing he was sure about the dream was that in it, instead of becoming Farworld’s savior, he turned into its ultimate destroyer.

  That would explain why he and Kyja hadn’t seen a hint of the Dark Circle since they left Water Keep. They weren’t attacking him because they knew that he was going to do their work for them.

  Somewhere off to his left, Marcus heard the sound of branches snapping. Kyja had come looking for him after all. He’d go back, but not yet. Not until he could pull himself together. Nearby, he saw a tree with a gnarled trunk and branches that grew straight out like spokes on a wheel. Vines covered with fuzzy, light purple leaves hung down from the branches. It looked like a mix between an umbrella and a weeping willow, the perfect place for him to gather his thoughts.

  Hobbling through the thick grass, he pushed his way through the vines and lowered himself gingerly to the ground. As he leaned his head against the trunk, he saw the leaves had left a powdery residue on his fingers and cloak where he’d brushed against them. He sniffed the back of his hand. The light purple dust had a soothing smell to it—like vanilla and the pages of old books. He stretched out and closed his eyes.

  He’d been rude to Kyja, and maybe even to Cascade as well, although he doubted the Fontasian was even capable of being offended. Marcus knew he should probably apologize.

  On the other hand, he thought, breathing in the relaxing aroma the tree gave off, shouldn’t they have been a little kinder to me as well? It wasn’t like he didn’t have his own problems. Neither of them understood how it felt to have something as simple as walking across the deck of the boat or leaning over to put on your boots become a major endeavor.

  A gentle wind blew the purple leaves against his face like a caressing hand, and he suddenly realized how much he’d been eating fish lately. How many times did you have to eat fish for breakfast, lunch, and dinner before you got completely sick of it? Until this very minute, he’d never realized just how much he hated fish.

  With his eyes still closed, he reached up and ran his hand along one of the tree’s long vines, remembering a blister that had sprung up on his right palm a few weeks earlier from the constant friction of the staff rubbing against it. It was an especially painful blister, and it had burned like fire when it finally burst. Did Kyja have blisters on her hands? Cascade certainly didn’t. But did anyone ask how he was feeling or offer to put a cool cloth on his palm?

  An incredible feeling of sadness washed over him. The soft leaves felt good against his fingertips, and the touch actually seemed to cool the spot wh
ere his blister had been. It was as if the only one who even understood him was . . . this tree?

  The thought seemed crazy, and yet the more he touched the vines, the more he realized it was exactly right. The tree was kinder than any person he knew. It really understood him—actually encouraging him to release his sorrows. It was a good tree, an understanding tree, a kind tree.

  Riph Raph certainly wasn’t kind. He’d been a major pain since the first time Marcus laid eyes on him. In the past, it had seemed like the two of them gave each other as good as they got. Teasing was kind of like a game. But as Marcus lay in the shade of the tree, feeling the cool leaves wash back and forth across his body, he realized the skyte’s taunts were terribly mean. Almost unendurable. How could he have put up with them for so long?

  A tear rolled down his cheek, and another, as it occurred to him his trials were worse than anyone else’s. Hugging the vines to his chest he rehearsed all the terrible things in his life—bad colds, hang-nails, even occasional b-bad b-breath.

  Pressing his face against the tree’s rough bark, he began to sob—hot tears dripping down the trunk. Now the vines were doing more than brushing against him. They wrapped themselves around his arms, legs, and body, enfolding him in a cocoon of warm comfort. A single leafy creeper entwined itself lightly around his throat.

  In the distance, Marcus heard more branches cracking, and something that sounded like the whinny of a horse. But what did that matter compared to the time he’d had to go to bed with no dinner for fighting with his foster brother?

  Closer by, the stomping hooves of several horses sounded, and men called out to each other. A voice inside Marcus’s head warned him that something was wrong. But another voice whispered, “It’s not your problem. Don’t worry about what happens to anyone else. Your feelings are the only ones that matter.”

  “That’s right,” Marcus sighed. “Only my feelings matter.” He didn’t need to worry about anyone else. Except that . . . not worrying about anyone else meant—

  A scream jerked Marcus alert.

  “Kyja!” His eyes flew open. What was he doing? It felt like he’d been pulled from a deep dream. He found himself lying flat on the ground, leaves binding his arms and legs together. He tried to jerk his right arm free, but the vine around his throat tightened like a cord. The tree had been playing with his emotions while it carefully wrapped its branches around him.

  He was trapped.

  Chapter 6

  Captured

  For a moment Kyja could only stand, mouth hanging open, as the man on the white steed charged toward her. She had no idea who he was, and her first thought was that the stranger must have her confused with someone else. Even as he took a coil of what looked like silvery rope from his mount’s saddle, she was sure he’d pull up and stop once he realized his mistake.

  It wasn’t until a familiar blur of blue wings plummeted from the sky, forcing the horseman aside, that she realized she might be in actual danger.

  “Run!” Riph Raph shouted. He banked, shooting a quick succession of small, blue fireballs at the horse. The flames deflected harmlessly before getting anywhere near the rider, but the distraction gave Kyja a chance to turn and race into the trees.

  Something snapped behind her, and Kyja turned her head to see the entire silver rope flying high into the sky, as if it had a mind of its own. Blazing points of light crackled from both ends as it twisted and looped, narrowly missing Riph Raph, who dodged and rolled in the air. A second later, it coiled into a loop and dropped into the horseman’s hand.

  A branch slapped against her face, and Kyja barely avoided running headlong into a tree. The silver cord cracked again, slicing through the branch as cleanly as a knife blade. Why was the man chasing her? Was he part of the Dark Circle?

  Kyja ducked under some low-growing bushes and pushed though a bank of reeds. Muddy water splashed beneath her feet, and she thought maybe she had lost the horseman. Her hope quickly vanished when another rider appeared out of the reeds in front of her. She skidded to the right, returning to the woods.

  “Call the snifflers!” the horseman shouted.

  Riding parallel to Kyja, the second man put a black, crescent-shaped instrument to his lips, and a series of high-pitched whistles cut through the air. Some distance away, another set of whistles answered.

  “Halt in the name of the Keepers!” the first man called.

  “Leave me alone!” Kyja screamed, panting for breath. As she leaped over a log, the rope cracked again, and something bit at her ankle. She stumbled as white-hot sparks shot from the rope, but the light bounced harmlessly off her leg, and the whip returned to its owner. Behind her, the man gaped in surprise.

  The rider to her left cut across Kyja’s path. Grabbing a small sapling, she used its trunk to spin to the right as her feet slipped in the dead leaves. She didn’t see the third man—crouched and hiding in the bushes—until he lunged forward and swung a thick branch at her.

  A burst of pain filled Kyja’s chest as she fell to the ground.

  “I’ve got her!” the man shouted, dropping his branch. He wrapped an arm around Kyja’s neck, and she instantly sank her teeth through his thin robe and into his flesh.

  “Ahh!” the man screamed. “She bit me.”

  The whistling sounds were growing closer, drilling into Kyja’s brain and increasing her panic. She struggled, stomping on the man’s foot and almost breaking free before she was yanked nearly off her feet by a hand that twined itself in her long hair.

  Gasping with pain, she turned to see a mounted figure with shoulder-length, white hair. Unlike the other riders, he wore a silver robe with a pair of golden scales sewn over the left breast. His dark eyes looked dead to Kyja as they bored into hers. “Bring the snifflers. This child is in need of balancing.”

  Marcus tried to kick his legs, but the tree’s hold on him was too tight. The purple powder felt sticky now, like glue, bonding the leaves to his skin. He tried to gasp, but he couldn’t draw any air. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t call out.

  “Over here,” a man shouted from somewhere nearby. Marcus heard Riph Raph snarl, and Kyja screamed again—this time clearly in pain.

  “No!” Marcus roared soundlessly. He looked up at the tree, remembering something Cascade told him when they first started their trip. “Water is one of the most powerful forms of magic because there is water in nearly everything.” What was the tree but fiber and water?

  Drawing on all his anger, he called upon the water to run out of the branches and leaves of the tree. He couldn’t speak, but this time he didn’t need to; he had no problem communicating the seriousness of his situation. Like a storm cloud breaking above his head, a downpour of water crashed over Marcus. The branches which held him tight as ropes a moment earlier withered to dry twigs before his eyes as the moisture was sucked out of them. Leaves crackled like tiny bits of paper and washed away beneath the torrent.

  Behind him, Marcus heard a long, low groan like a spike being pulled from a block of wood. He turned to see the tree lean precariously to one side. Shriveled roots as thick as his arm wrenched from the ground, ripping up huge clods of water-soaked dirt. It was coming down.

  Grabbing his staff, Marcus rolled across the swampy ground. Bone-dry twigs stabbed at his arms and face. Another groan, and the tree began to fall. It crashed straight toward him, as though still trying to get at its lost prey. Rolling to the side, Marcus watched as the dead tree thudded into the muddy grass, bounced once, then sank into the very water that had been sucked out of it.

  “Let me go!” Kyja cried in the distance.

  Marcus jabbed his staff into the ground and yanked himself to his feet. He could hear more voices now, not far away.

  “Hold the girl!”

  “Grab her hair. She bit me.”

  Unmindful of the trees and bushes slapping his face and tearing at his cloak, Marcus limped toward the sound of the voices as fast as he could. At last, he rounded a deadfall of old trees and branches and
saw a group of five men. Two were on the ground, trying to keep a grip on a struggling Kyja. The other three were still on their horses. Four wore dark red cloaks with some kind of symbol embroidered on the front. The fifth man’s also had the symbol, but his cloak was silver.

  “Bring the snifflers,” he shouted. The two on horseback turned and rode into the woods.

  Marcus started toward the men, but a cold, blue hand closed around his arm. “Stay back,” Cascade whispered. “There’s nothing you can do for her.”

  Chapter 7

  Rescue

  Who are you, child?” The man with the black eyes stared at Kyja. His jaw muscles twitched and bunched beneath the skin of his pale face, as though he had a mouthful of serpents.

  Kyja tried to turn away from his demanding gaze, but the man twisted his fingers in her hair, forcing her to look at him. A gasp of pain escaped her lips. “Hannah Montana,” she said, remembering a name she’d seen on Earth.

  The slap came so quickly she didn’t realize what had happened until the side of her face exploded with pain. Tears gushed from her right eye.

  “There is something very strange about you,” the man whispered, running the tip of his tongue over lips the color of uncooked liver. His eyes darted back and forth across Kyja’s face, as though looking for a clue hidden in her features. “You speak strangely. Where are you from?”

  Kyja touched a hand to her throbbing cheek. Who were these people? What did they want with her? If they were part of the Dark Circle, would they be asking these questions? Wouldn’t they already know who she was?

  “I’m from that way,” she said, pointing upriver.

  The man raised his hand, and Kyja pulled back, expecting another blow. Instead, he lifted a gold chain that hung from his neck. At the end of the chain was the same symbol sewn onto the front of his robe—a pair of balanced scales. “Do you know what this is?”