Aster Wood and the Blackburn Son (6 page)

“Two hundred years of imprisonment did nothin’ to their abilities but make ‘em fight harder. But when Cadoc returned to the city after his pursuit of you that day, he took out his loss on all of us. We held for a time, but in the end he crushed us. We spent a fair number of days in the dungeons. It’s no place for any man.” He shook his head in disgust.

“But you’re not in the dungeons now. How did you escape?” I asked.

“Didn’t need to. When you killed Cadoc, everyone in Stonemore was released from his grip. It was like we’d all been in the middle of a wild, black hurricane, and then suddenly one day, it left us.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead with one wrinkled, shaking hand. “After that, it was chaos, but the evil of the place had been released.”
 

He rolled onto all fours and slowly climbed to standing, another long, low groan escaping him. He turned and walked in the direction of the water. I jumped up after him.

“Then, months back,” he went on, “Owyn caught wind of trouble at the Fire Mountains. He left us to see if it was true. If the mountain had been compromised, then our hope to defeat the Corentin was lost. We feared
you
lost, too. But not long after he left the haze descended on the city.” He grimaced. “Only at the last moment, when I found myself painting Chapman’s place a disgusting pink, did I realize a curse had overtaken us. But by then it was too late.” He knelt by the stream, cupping water into his hands and drinking deeply.

“What happened to Owyn then?” I asked.

“Dunno,” he said, leaning back. “He never came back. Or if he did, he must’ve gotten out before the mist took him.” He stood back up and peered down at me. “But now with you here, we got a chance. You and I can go back together, rescue the others. Then we can figure out what to do next, how to get rid of that sickening cloud. Where’s your friend? The girl?”

My insides suddenly cramped, and I thought I might be sick. I wrapped my arms around my stomach as if I had just been punched.

“She’s…gone,” I said. “Almara, too.
 

Kiron sucked in his breath.

“So you
did
find the old one,” he said.
 

I nodded.
 

“She was his daughter,” I said. “We traveled together for a while. But once we found Almara, and he was mad, it was too much for her to take.”

“Almara was mad?” he asked, surprised.

“Yes, but there’s more,” I said. “On my way here, I passed by an army. At least a thousand men maybe twenty jumps from here.” I gestured to the link, his link, still hanging around my neck. “They’ve got the children imprisoned.”

“Children?” he asked.
 

The sound of Rhainn being struck by Dormir rang out in my memory, and I nodded.

“The army, they’ve destroyed the villages on Aeso. They killed the adults and captured the children. Now they’re slaves. We have to go back and get them out.”

I started panting as I recounted the story to him, and soon I was fighting back hysteria. I wanted to run back to Rhainn right this minute, to lead the charge of every man in Stonemore to flatten that horrible army.

He put a hand on my shoulder.

“Calm down,” he said. “You can’t help nobody like that.” He sat back onto the rocks in the dry part of the stream bed. He looked as if he had run for hours. “We can’t just storm in there. We’ll have to get the others out of Stonemore first.”

I nodded.

“Okay, let’s go,” I said.
 

He raised one hand, stopping me, and tilted his head back, exhausted.
 

“Just a minute, boy. You still haven’t told me everything. What happened to Almara?”

“The Corentin, he got to them both. We made it to the Fire Mountains, but Almara sacrificed himself to save us. And then she—Jade—fell to the darkness.” I stared at the water, running crystal clear and clean over smooth, black rocks, and felt miserable. “The Corentin had been controlling him for centuries,” I said. I dropped my bag to the ground and dug out the Book of Leveling. “We—I—took this from the mountain before it collapsed.” I handed it to him.

“What is this?” he asked.

“It’s called the Book of Leveling. It tells how to balance the planets in the Fold, to take the Corentin’s power away.”
 

He ruffled through the pages of the book and then looked up, perplexed.
 

“It’s blank,” he said.
 

“Oh, yeah,” I said. Then I took the palm of my hand and rubbed it over the page he was opened to. Instantly, words and calculations appeared on the parchment.
 

Kiron stared.

“My boy,” he said, “you have been busy.”
 

And for the first time, he smiled.
 

We sat on the ground, our backs up against two trees, and watched the fire crackle in the small pit we had dug. I had told him about the army preparing to launch its attack on Stonemore, but it wasn’t enough to get him up and moving yet. So, trying hard to be patient, I had joined him by the fire.

“What will we do next?” I asked, my socked feet hot from their closeness to the flames.

“Well, they ain’t in a rush. Not with Stonemore the way it is,” he said. “They can take their time.”

“You think they know? About the curse?” I asked.

“
Someone
knows,” he said. “Though I doubt everybody does. That’s not the kind of power you just go flashin’ around, especially to an army of bloodthirsty men. Seems to me, though, that this Coyle is behind the whole thing.” He stared blankly into the fire, as if this were the first time he had rested in months.
 

“He’s just setting them up,” I said, tossing a rock into the embers. They sizzled at the disruption.
 

“The calm before the slaughter,” he said.

“We have to do something,” I said. I started rifling with my boots, hastily cramming them onto my hot feet. “We have to break the spell.”

Kiron’s hand reached out, covering my chest.

“We got time,” he said. “And I need to rest.”

“We don’t have
time
,” I said angrily. “Those kids don’t have time.”
 

Kiron laid his head back against the trunk of the tree.

“I need to
rest
,” he said again. “If you want to run off and fight this Coyle person on your own, be my guest. Laughter and merriment for three months straight ain’t no easy task.” He closed his eyes.

I stood up and kicked a larger rock into the fire in frustration.
 

One eye opened, glared, and then shut again.

I huffed. Couldn’t he see that we had to move
now
? That every minute that passed brought Rhainn and Cait closer to death?

But I let him be. I knew better than anyone that Kiron was not to be forced into anything. And he would be no use to me exhausted, his powers spent.

I turned and walked out of the clearing, unable to sit still after his strange tale. Far in the distance, Stonemore’s walls were visible. But the enchantment cast upon them was not. I looked out over the fields, but Kiron was right; the army wasn’t on the move, at least not anywhere close. It would take them time to get to the city. They could wait and attack at their leisure, knowing full well that it would be an easy fight.
 

I paced.
 

It would be a horrible fate for the Stonemorians if the army succeeded in reaching them before we figured out how to break the spell. They would be confused, not understanding why one second they were dancing and free, and the next slaughtered and in pain. Stonemore had become a world without pain. How would the people react to war?
 

I had been hoping to raise the alarm, to get the people to assemble and prepare to fight. But this would be impossible now. We didn’t even know if we’d be able to get in and out again without succumbing to the unnatural happiness that filled the place. If we failed at that first and easiest task, we would fall to the enemy as well.

That couldn’t happen. We were the only ones who knew about Rhainn and Cait. I was the only one who fully understood the peril they were in. The peril
I
had put them in.

Finally after over an hour of walking around, anxious and impatient, I went back to Kiron’s tree. I was surprised to find that he was no longer there. The flames of the fire had gone out, and now all that remained was a bed of hot coals.

“Kiron?” I said. Then louder, “Kiron!?”

“Over here, boy,” his grumpy voice answered. “No need to shout.”

Just out of sight behind the trees, he sat on a large boulder, gazing out at the city beyond.
 

“How will we do it?” I asked.
 

He chewed thoughtfully on a twig, not breaking his gaze.

“There’s eight of ‘em in there,” he said. “We’ll get ‘em one by one. Then, when we got everyone, we’ll jump. Together.”

“But, I don’t see how that will work. It was hard enough with just you and me.”

“It’ll work,” he said, swinging his legs over the boulder and climbing down. “I know where to go to find ‘em, but I need you to focus on the task, keep me from breaking concentration. Can you do that?”

“Can ten people really jump out of there? All at the same time?” I asked.

“Dunno,” he said, shrugging. Then he turned back to the city, still chewing on the stick. “Guess we’ll find out.”

Historically, people put walls around cities to protect them from their enemies. Now, the enemy was using the city walls to imprison its people. The fact that they were happy within their cage didn’t seem to matter. I wondered if the Coyle would do the same to them as he had to all of the other villages in his path. I thought of the children running through the streets down there right now, their colorful clothing and bright faces unaware of the danger that lurked outside.

Kiron turned and walked over to me. He drew out the link necklace from beneath his shirt again, pointing it towards the city. Then he gripped my hand, and I held it tight.

“Keep your eyes on mine,” he said. “Don’t let me fall.”

I shivered.
 

What about me?

Then he opened his mouth and shouted the command, and the blast sent the remaining coals in the fire flying into the trees.

We landed not far from where we had last been, just on the outer perimeter of the square.
 

“Chapman’s first,” Kiron shouted. His blue eyes were fixed on mine as if his life depended on it. “Do
not
break eye contact!”

We walked sideways across the square, our arms entwined and heads close, as if we were performing some strange dance.
 

“You alright?” I asked. Kiron’s looked terrified.
 

“It’s hard,” he said through gritted teeth. “Hard to resist.”

Perhaps he, having been under the spell for so much longer than me, was more susceptible to it.
 

“Just hang onto me,” I said. So far, I felt fine. “Tell me about Almara.”

He seemed confused for a moment, but then was able to catch a wisp of clear thought and began speaking.

“Almara was a great sorcerer,” he said stiffly. “One of the most talented anyone in the Triaden had ever seen. He gathered the Eight, and together they set off to fight—to fight the darkness.”

“That’s right,” I encouraged. “They went on a quest to fight the darkness. The sickness, remember? Tell me about the drought.”

“The drought,” he said with noticeable effort, his brain working hard to move back in the past. “No water. Plants died.”

In my peripheral vision I could see the front door to Chapman’s shop. I noticed that it was painted a pleasing, salmon pink.
 

That’s nice,
I thought.

Then I wrenched myself back.

A salmon pink door was not “nice,” I reminded myself forcefully. Not here.

Focus.

I stared back at Kiron.

“Then Almara disappeared, didn’t he?” I asked, having a little trouble speaking now, myself.

Kiron nodded with a look of physical pain on his face.
 

“And we came…” I started.

“Here,” he finished. “And that evil bastard, Cadoc was here.” His eyes became focused as he said this, remembering the acts of the Corentin clearly. “And he killed so many. And the rest of us he threw into the dungeons.”

“Yes,” I said, also clearer now at the thought of Cadoc. We were at the door. I didn’t bother to knock. I turned the handle with one hand and kicked the door open with my boot.

“Chapman!” I yelled.
 

Kiron and I stared at each other, waiting. No response came.

My heart sank. If Chapman wasn’t here, I didn’t know how we would be able to continue. I took the link from around my neck and gripped it in my fist, ready to jump if I felt myself losing control.
 

“Chapman!” Kiron yelled, understanding that we would have to flee again.

A rustling sound came from deep in the room, and from within it, the round little man who had hidden Kiron and I during our first trip to Stonemore emerged. Relief flooded through me at the sight of him as he bumbled through his shop, stacked to the top with books and trinkets. In the window, the golden sculpture rotated soothingly on its axis, forever a beacon to any follower of Almara who might happen upon it.

I reached out with one hand and grabbed Chapman. Then I turned to him, almost laughing as I took in his costume, a pink three-piece suit.

At first, he smiled the same vacant smile as everyone else in the town. Then, as he slowly recognized us, the truth descended on him, noticeably drawing down the features of his face until his mouth hung open in disbelief.
 

“You!” he said, staring at me.
 

We three stood, holding hands like children playing a game. But the power that came from recognizing one another was greater than with just two.
 

“Who’s next?” I asked Kiron, not bothering to answer Chapman’s unasked questions.

“Finian!” he said.