Crown of Three (4 page)

“I suppose it could be worse.” The grin was back, the gloom having left Nynus as quickly as it had come. “But I do get bored reading the same old books, and pacing the same old circle.”

Gulph smiled back uneasily. “Well, it's luxurious compared to the rest of this place.” His eyes strayed over the fine needlework of Nynus's robe, the gold trim at the hems. “So how does this work? Are you rich or something?”

“Yes.” Nynus nodded happily.

“Oh. All right. But I'm not. I don't understand why they've put me in here too. Queen Magritt ordered it, but . . .”

“Well, I'm only here because King Brutan doesn't like me. I've done nothing wrong.”

“That doesn't sound very fair.”

“It isn't. But there's nothing I can do about it.”

The smile had vanished again and all the energy seemed to drain from Nynus's body. He looked even paler than when he'd first jumped out of the shadows. Gulph had never seen anyone look sadder or more wretched.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “It must be terrible, being shut away from your family all these years.”

Nynus shrugged. “I don't even remember what they look like.” He started humming what sounded like a lullaby. At the same time, his hand crept up to his face and started stroking his cheek.

Gulph shifted awkwardly. Should he try to comfort him, and tell this strange, pale boy that he knew what it was like to grow up without a family? With a shiver, he wondered if this place would eventually make him like Nynus too.

A drop of water landed on Gulph's cheek. He looked up at the slit in the rafters. The daylight had turned gray—a cloud passing in front of the sun, he supposed. More water splashed on his upturned face; outside, it was raining.

Hope stirred inside him.

“Have you ever tried to escape?” he said.

Before Nynus could reply, Gulph went over to the desk and swept the books onto the floor.

“Hey,” said Nynus. “My books!”

“The world's full of books,” said Gulph. “I'll show you.”

Gulph climbed on top of the desk he'd cleared. Lodging his fingers into the woven strands, he started up the iron wall. It was hard work, like trying to climb a tree with only the rough texture of the bark to cling to, but his joints were strong and supple and soon he was halfway up. The wall was smoother here, forcing him to contort his body and stretch his arms beyond the reach of any normal boy in order to find the next handhold. Each time he performed another impossible maneuver, he heard Nynus gasp, and felt a warm glow of pride. The other prisoners had called him a freak. If only they could see what a freak could do.

At last he reached the place where the wall met the sloping roof. Hanging like a spider, he pressed his face against the narrow slit in the rafters and peered out. The smell of sewage wafted in.

Below stretched the crowded streets of Idilliam. Beyond them, at the city's edge, loomed the craggy rock known as the High Peak, which Pip had pointed out to him on the day they arrived.

“From the top of the High Peak,” Pip had said, “you can see all three realms of the kingdom. I wish we could go up there!”

The memory of that moment stung Gulph's eyes even more than the rain. He wondered if he'd ever see Pip again.

Near the High Peak was the great Idilliam Bridge: a huge stone structure spanning the chasm between the Toronian capital and the vast green forests of Isur. It felt like a lifetime since the Tangletree Players had crossed that bridge on their way into the city. Yet it was merely five days. Now the bridge promised escape and freedom, but it was impossibly distant. Gulph couldn't see how he'd ever reach it.

One step at a time.

He studied the roof outside. Just below the slit through which he was peering, a network of gutters met above a fat waste pipe. The top of the pipe was open; it was from here that the bad smell was emanating. The pipe ran at a steep angle down the side of the Vault of Heaven.

All the way to the ground.

The door to Nynus's cell rattled. Heart racing, Gulph scrambled back down the wall, releasing his grip and leaping the last few feet to the floor. Just as he landed, a slot in the bottom of the door swung open and a fat hand shoved two battered metal bowls into the room. One contained a steaming pork chop, two potatoes, and a mound of cabbage. The other was filled with a nameless gray slop.

Unable to stop himself, Gulph said, “Are we supposed to fight over dinner?”

A second slot opened at eye level and Blist glared through. “Know your place, freak,” said the jailer. “Nothing in my orders about giving you special treatment. It's not like you're a prince, is it?”

“Of course I'm not a prince!” Gulph shouted, but already the door slots were shut. He turned to Nynus. “What was he talking about? What's this got to do with—?”

To his astonishment, his cell mate was bowing. “Prince Nynus, at your service. I'd ask you to kiss my hand, but I think we've got past that, don't you?”

“Prince . . . Do you mean you're the son of . . . ?” Shock made it hard to string the words together. “But what are you doing locked up here? You said the king ordered it, but isn't he . . . ?”

“My father? Yes, he is. He's also completely mad. He's convinced everyone's out to steal his throne.”

“Why?”

“Who knows? Maybe it's because he stole it in the first place. When I was six, he got it into his head that I'd be the next one to try, so he had me locked up. Mother—I mean, the queen—had no choice but to go along with it, but she does what she can to make life comfortable for me.” Nynus's eyes widened. “That's why you're here! She sent you to be my companion!”

Beaming, Prince Nynus clasped his arms around Gulph and hugged him so hard his feet left the floor. Gulph endured the embrace, bewildered that a deformed contortionist from a traveling circus should have found himself mixed up in a royal family feud. And what must it be like for Nynus, being at its center? Gulph didn't even remember his father or mother, but Nynus's only memory of his parents was the day they locked him away.

No wonder he's ended up like this.

Still smiling, Nynus put down Gulph and picked up the bowls of food.

“Shall we share?” he said brightly.

B
lack le . . .”

The words died on the frost witch's blue lips. A shudder ran the length of her body. One of the elk hides slipped aside, exposing a white, bony wrist and a hand like a spider.

Tarlan replaced the fur blanket and stroked the old witch's brow. Her skin was colder than the ice that lined the mouth of the cave. Reaching up, he pulled down another hide from the wall and draped it over her motionless form.

“Don't try to speak, Mirith,” he said. “Just rest.”

He grabbed a stick and poked it into the fire. The flames rose a little before sinking back to a feeble flicker. Soon he'd have to fetch more wood. But he couldn't leave Mirith like this. She looked so small, so weak. Just like a baby.

Seeing her this way, Tarlan felt momentarily dizzy, as if time had stood still—or folded over on itself. Was this how he had looked to Mirith, thirteen years earlier, when she'd found him as a helpless baby, abandoned in the icy wastes of Yalasti? When she'd picked him up, taken him in, cared for him as he'd grown.

Just like a mother.

A clay pot was lodged in the embers at the edge of the fire. In it was the dregs of the broth Tarlan had prepared the previous night. He dipped a bowl into the pot and scooped out the steaming food.

Slipping his free arm under Mirith's shoulders, he eased her into a sitting position. It shocked Tarlan how little she weighed. For the first time, it occurred to him that she might die. The realization filled him with terror. The thought that followed was even worse.

It was his job to care for her. If she died, it would be his fault.

“Here,” he said, pressing the edge of the bowl to her mouth. “Try to drink.”

Mirith shook her head. With more strength than she'd mustered for several days, she lifted one trembling hand from beneath the elk hides and pushed the bowl away.

“Black . . .” she began, before lapsing into a fit of coughing.

“What? Black what?”

“Lea . . . Black leaf.”

Tarlan cursed himself for not understanding sooner. “Black leaf? You want me to get some? Is it medicine? Will it help you?”

Mirith nodded. Tarlan thought he could hear the bones in her neck creaking.

He put down the bowl and lowered her back onto the bed. Springing to his feet, he snatched up his robe and threw it over his shoulders. The dizziness came again. This was the same robe he'd been wrapped in when Mirith had found him. Now he'd grown tall enough to wear it without the hem brushing the floor of the cave.

Bending, he kissed Mirith's brow. Her eyes were closed. He held his cheek close to her lips, reassuring himself she was still breathing. Then he seized his hunting spear and strode out of the cave.

The instant he was on the ledge, the icy Yalasti wind slammed him back against the sheer rock wall. Tarlan forced himself to stand against its blast. He'd known this wind all his life, and was more than a match for it. He wrapped his cloak tightly around him, the warmth of its black velvet defying the cold white wilderness surrounding him.

Cupping his hands around his mouth, Tarlan tipped back his head and shrieked. His scream sliced like a knife through the gale. When his breath was gone he paused, breathed in, then shrieked again.

On the third call, the thorrods came.

They swooped out of the low cloud, just as if they'd been waiting for Tarlan's call. Perhaps they had. The gold feathers on their wingtips fluttered as they dropped toward the ledge. The dawn light glanced off their huge, hooked beaks. Long talons opened and closed. They resembled gigantic eagles, but the intelligence in their eyes was more than birdlike.

Reaching the level of the ledge, the four enormous birds began to circle. The flock's leader, Seethan, turned his gray head toward Tarlan. Most thorrods were as big as horses. Seethan was bigger than two.

“Something wrong,” said the huge bird. His voice sounded like splintering wood.

“Mirith's sick,” Tarlan shouted in the thorrods' tongue, into the wind. “It's getting worse. I have to bring her black leaf. If I don't, I'm afraid—” The words choked in his throat. “I'm afraid she'll die.”

“East forest,” said Seethan, soaring back up to hover above the other birds. His wings cast great moving shadows over the ledge.

“Kitheen!” called Tarlan.

A thorrod the size of a pony landed on the ledge before him. Extending his open hand like a wing, Tarlan allowed Kitheen to touch it with the tip of his lethal beak: the gesture of trust between thorrods.

“Will you stay here?” said Tarlan. “Keep guard?”

Kitheen said nothing, simply hopped past Tarlan and took up station in front of the cave, his feathers—black but for those golden wingtips—plumped against the wind.

Tarlan bunched the hand he'd extended into a fist. At once, a third thorrod left formation and flew just beneath the level of the ledge. Timing his jump to perfection, Tarlan leaped onto her back, thrusting his legs down behind her wings and seizing the thick ruff of feathers around her neck. Of all the thorrods, Theeta alone had golden feathers from head to tail.

“You're the one who found me in the forest, Theeta,” he said. “You're the one who brought Mirith to me. You saved me and . . . and now we must save her. Fly fast, as fast as you can!”

Theeta carried him low over the snow-covered landscape. Seethan and white-breasted Nasheen flew just ahead, their slipstream making it easier for her to carry her load.

Away from Mirith's mountain retreat, the wind was less violent, but the air was no less cold. They passed village after village, each filled with houses cut from the ice. Smoke rose from countless fires as the men and women who lived there made their stand against the endless Yalasti winter.

A dark blur on the horizon grew rapidly in size. Soon they were flying over the great eastern forest. Theeta swooped over the towering cinderpines. The lower trunks of these majestic trees were bare of branches, but each carried a broad canopy of glossy green leaves at the very top. The leaves were coated with flammable resin, which local villagers harvested to burn in their winter fires.

Tarlan tried to peer down through the canopy, but the leaves were too thick. “Where's the black leaf?” he said.

“Low,” Theeta replied. “On trunks.”

“There,” called Nasheen, dipping her beak. “Gap.”

Theeta dived toward a space in the canopy. Tarlan ducked his head and closed his eyes as his gigantic steed plunged through the leaves and into the clear space beneath.

When Tarlan opened his eyes, the whole world had changed. Above him, instead of the clear blue sky, was a glowing green ceiling. All around him were the stiff, straight trunks of the cinderpines. Tarlan clung to Theeta's feathers as she weaved her way between them. Had his mission not been so desperate, he might have whooped with excitement.