North! Or Be Eaten (45 page)

Beware
, said the sea dragon, and now Janner knew. It was Gammon all along; Gammon who wanted to use the young ones for his own ends. And Janner had been too foolish to see it. He had followed the man right into Kimera.

“I had a farm,” said Gammon. Janner grew still. He tried to imagine Gammon without his black clothes and commanding presence. He pictured him with a hoe and a straw hat, but it was so ridiculous that he snorted.

Gammon shot a look at Janner. “Funny, is it?” he said, and Janner feared the man would strike him. But Gammon chuckled. “I suppose it is. I must tell you; I’m a much better soldier than I was a farmer. I could hardly grow a totato bigger than a grape. But my wife, Yona, could turn even the smallest totatoes into a fine meal. When the Fangs came, my poor Yona was killed. They left me my daughter,” he said, glancing at Maraly, “who would have been about your age, lass. But a year later the Black Carriage came and tore her from my arms. That day I swore I would serve Skree. I would do whatever it took to set my land free. Do you understand? I’ll do
whatever it takes
.”

Janner stared at him with a confusion of sympathy and outrage.

“I don’t know why Gnag the Nameless wants you.” Gammon shrugged. “And I don’t really care. I didn’t even believe Anniera was real until you showed up here. But if I can use you to banish this evil from my country, then I will do so. At least this way your capture will mean something. Take heart in that.”

He knelt in front of Maraly. “I’m sorry, lass, but sometimes things must be done whether you like it or not. You’ll have to pass for the other boy.” Gammon placed a hand on her shoulder. She thrashed like a wild animal, and Gammon recoiled. He
straightened and said, “That’s all. I’ll send for you when the time comes. The Fangs will be here soon.”

They sat for a long time, listening to the sputter of the torch and one another’s breathing. They each took a turn twisting their arms to loosen the bonds, but it was no use. Soon the silence was broken by sniffles, and Janner saw Leeli was crying. Nia tried to talk to her through the gag, but it was no use.

When Leeli’s tears ebbed, she began to hum. She had no whistleharp, and she could form no words, but the melody that emerged dripped with weariness and sorrow. The song filled the chamber, and all their hearts—even Maraly’s—resonated with it. Janner looked at each of them in turn and saw their cheeks were wet. Janner closed his eyes—and saw bright colors.

His mind was vivid with swirls and bursts of movement. He soared across the steeps of the Stony Mountains, so close to a grimace of snickbuzzards that he saw the tiniest feathers on their rumpled necks. Then he swooped down, past a foraging bomnubble, across the foothills and south of the Barrier to the Mighty Blapp River. He felt the vision heading south toward Glipwood, but he remembered from the maps where the Phoob Islands lay, and he pressed his mind eastward. The image responded, and his view swung left. He skimmed the tops of the glipwood trees and caught glimpses of the river below, until the land fell away and he beheld the chaos of Fingap Falls.

He guided the image north and east over the Dark Sea of Darkness until he saw a cluster of brown islands just off the coast of Skree. Closer he flew to the islands, until he could make out the masts of ships and gray shapes moving on their decks. He wanted to move closer, and he pressed his mind that way, but the image seemed to resist, and he remembered his mother’s words:
“That you can see these things when she plays is a gift. Never try to become its master, but serve it. Allow it to be what the Maker meant it to be.”

Janner let go and allowed the image to go where it wanted. He heard dimly the notes of Leeli’s song, and he prayed she would keep humming. He sensed he was close to something.

The image sped past the islands, north along the coast, where the Stony Mountains spilled their giant crags into the sea, until the land whitened with snow. The flat nothingness of the Ice Prairies stretched away to the horizon, and Janner wondered what he was meant to see.

Then he detected a speck on the horizon. The image whooshed nearer with every note of Leeli’s song, and the speck grew in size until Janner saw what it was. It was
such a shocking, baffling sight that he cried out, and when he did, Leeli’s song cut short and the spell was broken.

Janner opened his eyes and saw only the gray stones of the cell, but what he had seen in his vision was burned into his mind. It sent a violent shiver through his body and a jubilant cry out of his mouth. He sat on the bench in his bonds, bouncing up and down like a toddler throwing a happy fit.

“
MMMT
!” he said through the gag. “
MMMK
!
MMMT
!”

They looked at him like he was mad, half concerned and half amused by the joy on his face.

“
MMMK
!” he said again and again. They couldn’t understand him, but he didn’t care. He laughed and whooped and shook his head with wonder. Every time he calmed down enough to see the looks on his family’s faces, their confusion was so delightful that it sent him into another fit of joy.

What is it?
their faces asked.
What did you see?

He could hardly wait to tell them.

A
rtham pressed his feet against the cage door and his back against the rear bars. He clenched his teeth, clamped his eyes shut, and pushed with all the strength in his heart. The eerie melody filled his ears, and above it he heard one of the Grey Fangs shout, “Eyes on the birdman! He’s trying to break the cage!”

Artham felt hairy paws on his arms and legs, and more than once the butt of a spear smashed into his face, but he mustered his strength again and pressed. The bars of the cage were as thick, but Artham felt the tiniest give and it renewed his strength. Again and again pain flowered in his face as the Fangs tried to stop him. The bones in his knees and back throbbed and threatened to break if he pressed any harder. The melody from the chamber swelled, and even with his eyes closed he saw the bright flash of light.

“Esben!” he screeched, and in a loud voice he sang along with the melody that came from within the box, the melody he had tried so many years to quiet. He could run no more from his darkness.

The voices in his head that cried
coward
and
weakling
drew back into the shadows. He knew he was those things but feared them no longer. Then another voice spoke. It called him
throne warden
and
protector
and
uncle
, and at last he believed it.

A surge of power ran hot through his bones. With one final shove, the cage splintered into pieces. Grey Fangs tumbled backward. Bent steel littered the floor.

Artham P. Wingfeather stood in the center of the debris, bloodied and panting, eyes ablaze.

He was aware of an odd sensation in his back and wondered if he had broken some of his ribs. Children from the Carriage scattered to the corners of the cavern, while the Grey Fangs recoiled and whined like puppies.

Artham drew in a deep breath, spread his arms, and loosed a victorious scream. As he did, two graceful wings unfolded from his back, the feathers damp and glistening. They were dark gray, flecked with white and speckled eyelets of the brightest crimson.
Though they were still sharp as knives, his talons had narrowed and lengthened enough that they felt more like hands and less like claws.

Artham felt lighter and stronger, and for the first time in nine years, his mind was clear and sure. The words to a hundred of his own poems scrolled across his memory; he saw faces of old friends, battles he had fought, and even the most terrible moments of his life—and yet he remained himself. The wild animal inside that he had struggled so long to kill pulsed with power, but it was no longer his master. He rode the pain like a knight rides a horse.

He spread his wings and leapt twenty feet into the air, over the heads of cowering Fangs, to the dais. He landed with sure feet and tore open the iron door.

“Tink! Kalmar!” he cried into the darkness.

Smoke wafted out. He folded his wings and entered the chamber.

“Kalmar!” he whispered.

He was answered by a whine from somewhere in the corner. Artham reached into the smoky blackness until he felt a furry arm. It trembled, damp and hot to the touch. The creature whined again.

“Hush, lad,” said Artham. “I’ve got you. Your uncle Artham has got you. This story will end well. I don’t know how, but things will be made right. Come on.”

Artham lifted the trembling thing and held it in his arms. He moved to the doorway and peered outside. The Grey Fangs had found their feet, but none seemed ready to attack the wild man who had just broken a cage to bits. Then a voice came from deep in the box.

“You’re too late, Throne Warden. The boy is gone and a new thing has come,” the Stone Keeper said. “Sing the song of the ancient stones and the blood of the beast imbues your bones.”

Artham paused at the door. He flexed his neck, shook the feathers of his mighty wings, and turned to the woman, barely visible at the back of the box.

“You call that poetry?” he said.

With Tink unconscious in his arms, Artham stepped to the edge of the dais and leapt into the air. His great wings beat the air and carried the two of them over the heads of the astounded Grey Fangs, even as the Stone Keeper emerged and ordered the Fangs to pursue. He landed lightly at the mouth of the tunnel from whence the Black Carriage had come, folded his wings, and sped toward the surface.

Many Grey Fangs had gathered at the mouth of the tunnel when they heard the frantic voice of the Stone Keeper from within. Artham saw their silhouettes clogging
the exit, saw their wolf ears twitching. He lowered his head and slammed into them before they knew what they were seeing. He was running so fast that he had only to spread his wings and he lifted over the ferry, swooped high above the strait, and glided in a slow circle above the island.

The tiny figures of the Stone Keeper and her Grey Fangs emerged from the cavern and gathered quickly into companies. Artham realized his vision was clearer, more precise than it had ever been. He could see the Grey Fangs’ yellow eyes, the flecks of seashell embedded in the stone walls of the fort. The turrets crawled with gray beasts, organizing themselves much faster than any green-scaled Fangs that Artham had ever seen. An arrow whizzed past, and he saw with alarm that a regiment of archers had him in their sights.

He clutched Tink’s furry, trembling body close to his chest. “Let’s go find your family, your highness,” Artham said with a smile.

He drew in his wings and dove like a hawk, straight for the fort. The alarm on the Grey Fangs’ faces was worth the risk. He spread his wings at the last moment and skimmed above their heads in a blur. The Grey Fangs ducked and scattered.

Artham’s momentum carried him in a graceful arc over the strait to the rocky coast of Skree. He followed the mountainous coastline until the land flattened, white with the snow of the Ice Prairies.

An armada of warships lined the icy coast—a hundred at least. The trampled snow around the ships gathered into a wide path that scarred the perfect surface of the Ice Prairies. The path led northeast, and he knew the Grey Fangs marched on Kimera. Down he soared until he flew just a few feet above the snow, following the contour of the prairie as it rose and fell in gentle, pristine drifts.

Artham’s eyes watered from the wind and from the speed and from the magnificent beauty of the land arrayed below him. Water streaked from the corners of his eyes toward his ears and, in the vicious cold, froze into silvery jewels.

He would have to write a poem about this.

T
he many hours Janner spent bound and gagged in the cell with his family were maddening. He pushed at the gag with his tongue, but it held fast no matter how hard he tried. They all looked at him with confusion and glimmers of hope, but they couldn’t understand his grunts, and he couldn’t understand theirs.

He still wasn’t sure how the images worked. Had he seen things as they actually were or images that merely hinted at the truth? At the Fork Factory, when he had seen the vision of Leeli in the mountains, had that been a picture of where she was actually standing, or was it only a representation of her surroundings, as in a dream? The pictures swirled and moved, but they always had the look of a well-framed illustration in one of his picture books.

Could that explain the unbelievable thing he had just seen?

It was Peet—but it
wasn’t
Peet. The Peet in his vision had great, feathered wings and soared like a lone fendril across wide drifts of snow. His face was handsome and bold, not like the haggard, jumpy Sock Man Janner had come to know. Maybe it was a metaphor. Maybe Peet was running—flying—to the Ice Prairies, and Janner’s mind had added the wings.

Janner had seen something in Peet’s arms, too, and though he didn’t see it clearly, he was certain it was Tink. Again and again Janner closed his eyes and reconstructed the vision, willing himself to catch every detail, but he only saw a fuzzy blur in Peet’s arms. Despite this, in the deepest part of his heart, he knew it was Tink.

After much grunting and head nodding, Janner communicated to Leeli that she should hum her song again. She tried several times, but as before, nothing happened.

The thrill of Janner’s vision faded, and the hours slogged by, until heads drooped and some of them dozed.

At last, the door opened and Gammon looked them over.

“Brogman, loose them from the bench, but keep their hands bound. And keep them gagged.”

Another bearded mountain of a man entered the room and untied their lashes from the bench. With a rope, he strung the seven of them together in a train with Podo at the front. He left one of Leeli’s arms free so she could walk with her crutch and lashed her other wrist to the train.

“Tie the knot well, Brogman,” said Gammon. When Brogman finished, Gammon looked the rope over and inspected each of the knots. When he was satisfied, he led them in single file through Kimera. The snow city was quiet as a tomb. Every room was empty.