Curse of Kings (The Trials of Oland Born, Book 1) (24 page)

RAX GAVE ONE LAST PANICKED GLANCE BEHIND HIM
before he disappeared into the shadows.

“He called
you
roxling…” said Oland.

Delphi was too stunned to speak.

“He's clearly mad,” said Oland.

“That was… the strangest… we need to leave here, now,” said Delphi. “Bream was right about this place. We should have listened to him. And there's no crest here anyway…”

Delphi and Oland made their way down to the shore to the cove where they had left the boat tied.

“They imprisoned a firewild on an island where his only job is to burn things,” said Delphi, untying the rope from the stanchion. “How is that meant to teach him anything?”

“I would venture that no one is meant to learn anything on Curfew Peak,” said Oland, taking the rope and beginning to pull the boat into the water.

“We certainly haven't,” said Delphi. “What a hideous place.”

Suddenly, Oland grabbed for his bag and opened it. He stared inside. He shook out the contents. “The little runt!” He jumped up. “He's taken King Micah's letter! He's taken my knife!”

They both stood up.

“When he was handing me the kerchief, he was distracting you,” said Delphi.

“Singing his stupid song.” He started to walk back towards the cabin.

“We can't go back up there,” said Delphi.

“Oh, we can,” said Oland. “I'm getting that letter back…”

He fell silent. An ominous sound was building at the far end of the shore, its deep tone mounting over the sound of the water.

Delphi looked towards the source. “Oh, Oland,” she said.

A wave taller than the highest tower in Castle Derrington rounded the cliff on the furthest end of the shore and moved in a way that they had never before seen water move. Oland felt as tiny as one of his tin soldiers.

It was a tornado of water, swirling and foaming, spinning towards them, half in the ocean, half tearing up the beach. They watched as its vicious, twisting force quenched the first torch that the Pyreboys had lit, then the second, then the third. It moved rapidly towards them.

“Look!” said Oland, pointing. “The stakes are still standing! The water has quenched the flames, but the stakes are still there. Run for the stakes! We must climb the stakes!”

He turned to Delphi, a girl whose whole life had been spent facing dangerous waters. He thought about her strange existence – the fact that she knew so well the thing that could kill her. And here it was in a terrifying incarnation, bearing down on her, hostile and insurmountable.

They reached out for each other's hands as the water came their way, the white ridges of the waves foaming and spitting.

“What about the boat?” shouted Delphi.

“Forget the boat,” said Oland. “Run!” He pulled her towards the closest stake. “Wrap your arms around it,” he said. “You'll get wet, the water will be powerful, but you will not be submerged.”

Delphi grabbed on to the stake. Oland ran to one that was twenty feet from hers, closer to the swirling water that was charging their way. He wrapped his arms and legs around the timber, pressing his cheek against the weathered wood. The last thing he saw before he squeezed his eyes shut was the wall of water, building in strength and height the closer it came.

The strange tornado hit Oland with breathtaking force. Delphi screamed as the water washed over him, but he held his grip on the stake.

Seconds later, Oland opened his eyes and turned to Delphi. The stake where she had stood was still there, but Delphi was gone. Oland's heart jumped. He looked towards the shore and saw one of her boots where it had been torn from her foot. But worse than that, when his eyes moved out to sea, he saw the turmoil of the water and, at its height, Delphi. Her tiny body was being thrown around with the force.

But still, she did not go under. Oland couldn't predict what the water would do next – maybe it would spin back towards the shore and drop Delphi at his feet. Instead, he watched in horror as the water started to calm and each rotation of the tornado got slower and weaker. And, as it did, Delphi was dropped lower and lower until, eventually, she was submerged.

“No!” screamed Oland. “No! Delphi!”

He ran into the waves until the water was up to his waist. “Delphi!” he roared. He could see nothing except miles of merciless water and the white tops of its waves. “Delphi!” He roared and roared until his throat burned. And, as the water rose around him, he was forced to swim. It was a monstrous battle to stay afloat. He fought for as long as he could, but soon, part of him wanted to succumb to the waves. As their force waned, he finally washed up, shattered, back on to the shore of Curfew Peak.

URFEW
P
EAK WAS THE DARKEST PLACE IN THE WORLD
when its torchlights were quenched. Oland sat on the shore for hours, waiting for Delphi. He ached in every way possible, but he refused to lose hope, if only because Delphi believed in it. He had never thought it was her life he would be hoping for.

The water had calmed, and it seemed cruel that it could rise up so violently, and now stretch out before him, almost serene. It was as though it had gone back to sleep after a nightmare. For Oland, there was no nightmare, just a horrifying reality. He fought sleep. If there was a chance that he could go into the water again, that Delphi might appear and that he would have another chance to save her, he wanted to take it. But, as he listened to the gentle, lapping, lying ocean, exhaustion finally took over.

After a short troubled half-sleep, he woke up, desolate. The sun had come up and was cruelly shining on the bare shore. His best friend, his only friend, was gone. He was the one person who could have saved her. And he had failed. There would be no second chance. He looked out again at the mocking calm of the sea. There was just undulating water, no waves, no white crests.

Oland felt something stir at the edges of his consciousness, an idea beginning to form. Something to do with waves, their rage and their calm.
No white crests.

Oland sat up. “Waves!” he cried. King Micah's riddle rushed back to him. “Depth and height. From blue to white!” A wave!

“I have found the Crest of Sabian,” he said.
The giant wave that struck the shore of what was once Sabian.

Oland realised that it had never been a heraldic crest they were searching for. It was the crest of a wave.

“Delphi,” he shouted, running back towards the water. “Delphi – it was the wave. The Crest of Sabian… Delphi… Delphi…”

He had discovered the Crest of Sabian. But it was gone, and it had taken Delphi with it. Powerful gusts encircled him. An unfamiliar pain burned in his chest. He struggled to breathe. But he could no longer blame the wind for that. The fact that he had found someone like Delphi and so quickly lost her was what was truly taking his breath away.

Distraught, Oland backed away from the sea and walked up towards the dunes. He thought about the crest; he wondered, could a wave really be lost? Or was it just swallowed up by the sea and returned again in a different form?

He let out a breath as a feeling slowly crept over him. All of nature had been stirred up: the high winds at Galenore, the sea off Pallimer Bay, the terrifying height of the Crest of Sabian. Oland could feel the ground, unsettled, beneath him.

He considered the rest of King Micah's riddle:

‘What's left behind is yours to find.'

He looked around the beach. The only things that the wave had left behind were the stakes. And him. The boy who was to save the Kingdom of Decresian. He felt like a fool. The boat they had stolen had been washed high on to the dunes, and made his efforts seem all the more pathetic.

But then he noticed something, something that had only appeared after the wave had struck. It was a deep channel that had been filled with seawater, and it wound into darkness through an archway in the cliff. Oland wondered if this was where he should go. He looked further up Curfew Peak. In the gloom, he could see the place where the drogues had attacked Delphi; he recognised the silhouette of the boulder where Delphi had lain.

Delphi
. With the recklessness that comes with loss, Oland ran up the dunes to the boat and dragged it towards the channel. He set it in the water and climbed inside. He had no reason to do anything else. He had nowhere else to go.

He rowed up the channel. Before long, it ended in a pool, and from its centre rose a giant, craggy, triangular rock. The only sound was the echo of the lapping water. Oland sat in the boat, feeling like he had reached the end of the world. Cliffs towered around him. The only way out was the way he had come in. He had truly reached a dead end. The cliffs were so high and curved at the top, it was almost as dark as night. Oland looked up at the sky, and willed even a sliver of sunshine to appear. But he knew he had no power to alter the dark world of Curfew Peak.

Suddenly, a shaft of sunlight shone through the opening. Oland straightened. He stared up, but it was no longer just the sun that had captured his attention. Halfway up the rock, at the centre of the pool, there was a metal door. Oland rowed closer. He tied the boat to a stanchion, and climbed up.

The door was bolted shut in two places. Oland's heart pounded wildly as he slid back the first bolt, then the second. He pushed open the door. The tiny cell glowed with candlelight. As he stood in the threshold, a figure came into focus. Oland's legs were weakened by a rush of recognition. For before him a man, a portrait, had come to life.

The man rose to his feet.

Oland could not understand how this could be. He could not understand how now, years from his birth, and years after his death, stood roxley Prince Roxleigh… the lunatic prince.

RINCE
R
OXLEIGH SMILED
. A
LTHOUGH HE HAD AGED, HE
seemed youthful. His smile was as warm as Oland had been told and there was a charming curve to his mouth. His limbs were skinny, his neck slender and his grey hair was like tumbleweed.

“Now, who might you be?” he said.

Oland struggled to reply. He'd had no time to process the loss of his only friend, and now he had to process the reappearance of a dead prince.

“My name is Oland Born.” he finally managed “I am from Decresian.”

“And did you come looking for me or did you stumble across me?” said Roxleigh. His brow furrowed as he spoke and one eye opened slightly wider than the other. It was an endearing quirk.

“But…” said Oland, “you're…”

“Mad?” said Roxleigh. “Dead?”

Oland didn't want to answer.

“Both?” said Roxleigh. He smiled. “I'm sane and very much alive.”

“But everyone thinks you went to an asylum,” said Oland.

“Oh, I did. But that was a very long time ago…”

“I know,” said Oland.

“It is sad when a father thinks his son has gone mad,” said Roxleigh. “Sadder still when everyone appears to agree.”

“But people only ever speak fondly of you,” said Oland.

“Ah,” said Roxleigh, raising a finger, “but also mockingly.” He paused. “Have you ever called someone roxley?”

Oland nodded. “Yes… I'm sorry…”

Roxleigh smiled. “Now, back to the questions…”

Oland was hesitant. “Why are you here? Why are you imprisoned?”

Roxleigh smiled. “Please don't worry, Oland. I'm on your side. I'm on the side of Decresian.”

“Who keeps you here?” said Oland.

“I keep myself here,” said Roxleigh. “I came to Curfew Peak for my own reasons, and then I decided to stay. Now, tell me, Oland – how did you come to be here?”

Oland told him about finding King Micah's letter, without mention of the archivist's hand, which might have diminished the letter's importance in the prince's eyes.

“Would you mind showing me the letter, Oland?” said Roxleigh.

“A Pyreboy stole it…”

“Frax?” said Roxleigh. “The firewild? It is ash by now, I imagine. He used to spend a lot of time in Galenore when he was younger. Before he fell under the spell of fire, he was a street act, a thief. Shameless. He once stole the emerald ring from a magistrate and had the gall to wear it himself. He used to steal anything from anyone – he wasn't particular…”

“What happened to his arm?” said Oland.

“He tried to steal from the wrong person is what I heard,” said Roxleigh. “Now, to the king's letter…”

“I remember it all,” said Oland, “I've read it so many times.” And he recited the king's words:

 

“‘You live in the ruins of a once-proud kingdom destroyed by greed and misguided ambition. But fear not – Decresian shall be restored. And it falls to you, Oland Born, to do so. On such young shoulders, it will prove astonishing how light this burden will be.

 

Your quest is to find the Crest of Sabian before The Great Rains fall, lest the mind's toil of a rightful king be washed away.

In life, a father's folly may be his son's reward.

 

In case this letter were to fall into the wrong hands, to guide you, know this:

Depth and height

From blue to white

What's left behind

Is yours to find.

 

Be wise in your choice of companion and, by nightfall, be gone.

 

In fondness and faith,

King Micah of Decresian'”

 

Roxleigh went very still. It was some time before he spoke. “I don't quite understand all of that, Oland. But… tell me, have you heard anything from anyone else about The Great Rains?”

“A madman,” Oland paused. “I mean… a man in the village of Derrington says that The Great Rains are nigh.”

“Who is this man?” said Roxleigh.

“His name is Magnus—”

“Magnus Miller?” said Roxleigh.

“Yes!” said Oland.

“What about the Roses?” said Roxleigh.

“Hester Rose?” said Oland. “That's his wife, who tended the gardens of Castle Derrington.”

“And the Dyers?” said Roxleigh.

“Gaudy Dyer?” said Oland.

Roxleigh nodded. “Are they saying the same thing?” he said.

“Yes,” said Oland, “and a man called Bream who we met at Pallimer Bay. But how do you know these people?”

“Decresian is a land of tradition,” said Roxleigh. “They're all, I would guess, descendants of the group of great thinkers I was once part of, along with my dearest friend, Rowe. The Great Rains nearly destroyed Decresian, so it became one of the subjects we studied. No one had predicted them. We looked for signs… anything that might have foretold them.”

“Such as?” said Oland.

“There were teal flowers that only bloomed right before The Great Rains came,” said Roxleigh, “shoals of amber fish, particular types of cloud formations, high winds, shipwrecks, cyclonic waves—”

“I don't know about shipwrecks, but the rest have all happened,” said Oland.

Roxleigh's eyes widened. “In that case, we must return to Decresian at once,” he said.