The Familiars #3: Circle of Heroes (4 page)

Aldwyn wasn’t the only one awed by the hidden treasures of their former teacher. Skylar was slowly flying along the bookshelf, reading each of the titles. Gilbert eyed vials of unlabeled potions, then asked the question Aldwyn had been thinking.

“Why would Kalstaff keep all this stuff a secret?” Gilbert looked around curiously.

“Maybe he was protecting us,” said Marianne.

“From what?” asked Gilbert.

That creepy helmet, for starters, Aldwyn thought.

At the far end of the chamber was a writing desk where Aldwyn’s eyes were drawn to something dangling over the edge of a jewelry box: a silver anklet embedded with squares of emerald. Only the Noctonati, a secret sect of knowledge seekers to which Skylar also belonged, wore them. These humans and animals believed learning magic and searching for answers to all of life’s mysteries was even more important than the laws of the land.

“Skylar, come look at this,” called Aldwyn, curious to know what she’d make of it.

The blue jay fluttered over to the desk. When she saw the anklet, her face filled with surprise.

“People said Kalstaff had once been a member of the Noctonati,” said Skylar. “I just never believed it.”

She took the anklet in her talon and pointed at an inscription:
KGM
.

“Kalstaff’s initials,” she said. “So it was true.”

Beside a nearby bookshelf, Gilbert sat on Marianne’s shoulder. She was flipping through one of Kalstaff’s handwritten diaries.

“Do you think you should be reading that?” he asked. “It’s private.”

“Did you know that Kalstaff and Queen Loranella were once romantically involved?” asked Marianne, rapt. “Until the Mountain Alchemist came between them!”

“It really feels wrong to be snooping like this,” insisted Gilbert. He paused for a moment, then curiosity got the better of him. “Well, what did the Alchemist do?”

“He stole her away for himself,” said Marianne.

“Listen to this,” said Dalton, interrupting them. He was reading a different journal. “Here, he writes about taking Galleon on a trip into the dream world. It’s one of the final tests of a graduating wizard.”

Aldwyn was less interested by the personal revelations in Kalstaff’s diaries; his attention kept getting drawn back to the helmet, which was now sending plumes of cold air out through its nostril holes. He watched as a wisp of chilled vapor slithered through the still air and wrapped itself around a book with no title on its binding. A slight gust swept the book open to a spot in the middle. Aldwyn looked at the page in front of him and saw words written on the parchment in a shaky handwriting. Most of the time, Kalstaff had dictated to Scribius when he needed something to be written, but on rare occasions he wrote notes to the young wizards himself. Clearly, it seemed whatever had been recorded here was so personal Scribius hadn’t transcribed it.

I have become troubled lately by a great fallacy that many Vastians have taken to be truth: that all prophecies are divine and certain. My studies are beginning to uncover that this may not be the case at all. Take Eradeigh Wallus, the young goose farmer destined to wield Brannfalk’s sword against a herd of tunneler dragons. He tried and failed, and all of the northern villages fell to the beasts’ mighty horns as a result. And he was not the only one. The Flora Sisters never built the Sapphire Temple. No legendary hymns could be written about the prophesized warriors of Marth, since they never even rode into battle at all. History only seems to remember the prophecies that come true and turns a blind eye to the ones that do not. A warning to those with a destiny of their own: just because it is written in the stars does not make it so. These words will surely cause great worry among all who depend on the fates protecting them. I must think long and hard before choosing to share them
.

Another sudden swirl of cold air ruffled the pages, and then the book was closed once again. Aldwyn jumped back. He knew the evil helmet had played a role in his troubling discovery, but there was no denying that the words had been written in Kalstaff’s hand. A sickly feeling crept over Aldwyn. Was the prophecy of the Three as false as the ones that Kalstaff had uncovered? His confidence had grown since he had learned that he did in fact possess magic powers, but were he and Gilbert and Skylar really powerful enough to save Vastia? He looked at his friends, wondering if he should share Kalstaff’s warning. But why, he thought. What good would it do to fill their heads with doubt?

Through the iron cellar doors, Aldwyn could hear the unmistakable chirping of dawn crickets announcing the arrival of the morning sun. Even though he needed no reminder, the sound spurred Aldwyn back to the mission at hand.

“Come on,” he said to his animal companions. “We should go.”

Skylar looked like she was on a shopping spree, filling her satchel with small spell scrolls and rare dried components. Dalton handed her Grimslade’s Olfax tracking snout, which he’d detached from the hunter’s belt, along with his small leather pouch.

“These aren’t going to do us a whole lot of good down here.”

Skylar opened up the bounty hunter’s bag and peered inside. “It’s a Mobius pouch!”

Aldwyn peered inside. Although small from the outside, it was enormous within, big enough to hold gear ten times its size. Aldwyn spotted a noose stick, dispeller chains, and some traps inside, similar to the one that had snared his tail when Grimslade first tried to catch him, back when he was an orphan cat in Bridgetower.

Skylar placed Grimslade’s pouch within her own just as Gilbert beckoned Shady out from his backpack.

“I’d love to take you along, boy,” Gilbert told Shady. “But I think Marianne, Dalton, and Jack might need you here, to help keep them safe.” Gilbert turned to Marianne. “He’s really easy to take care of. You just need to walk him, once around midnight and again a few hours before dawn. And he has to be hand-fed. Grubs are his favorite. But you have to chew them up for him first. Now, bathing him can be a little tricky. You know, maybe I should make a list.”

“I think we’ll be okay,” said Marianne, trying to reassure her familiar with a smile. “Be careful out there.”

Jack got down on one knee before Aldwyn.

“I feel like we’ve been saying good-bye a lot lately,” he said.

“When this is all over, you and I are finally going to go on an adventure together,” replied Aldwyn.

“Pinky swear?” asked Jack.

“If I had one, absolutely,” said Aldwyn, nuzzling up against Jack’s leg.

The boy gave him a final pet under the ear. Then Aldwyn headed for the stairwell that led out of the cellar. Dalton climbed to the top step and pushed open the iron doors.

“Send my regards to Galleon and Banshee,” he said.

“We will,” replied Skylar.

And with that, the three familiars left the underground chamber. Aldwyn looked back as Dalton began closing the cellar doors and caught a glimpse of Jack. In front of Aldwyn, the boy had put on a brave face, but now he appeared overcome with worry. Then the doors slammed shut, and Aldwyn heard the clang of the latch falling into place. Once again, it was down to the familiars to save the queendom from certain ruin—but what if, as Kalstaff had feared, prophecies didn’t always come true?

3

THE INN OF THE GOLDEN CHALICE

“W
e should arrive in Split River by nightfall,” said Skylar, who was leading the way across another long and monotonous stretch of the Aridifian Plains.

“Yes, if we journey by foot,” replied Aldwyn. “But we’ve made this trip much faster once before.”

“Oh, no,” said Gilbert. “There is no way I’m jumping on the back of a moving horse wagon
again
.”

“You’ll be fine,” said Aldwyn. “Besides, this way, we might get there in time for lunch with Galleon and Banshee.”

“Last time, my tongue nearly got ripped out of my mouth. And a frog without a tongue is like a bird without feathers, a cat without whiskers, or a mosquito sundae without slug cream.”

Fortunately, early on in their adventures, the trio had made a pact that majority ruled, so Gilbert didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. But there were no wagons in sight.

As the Three continued their trek, the clouds suddenly began to churn above them. Aldwyn looked to the west, where the disturbance was coming from. He could make out Bridgetower’s tallest spires and just beyond them, a column of gray ash that funneled into the sky.

“What is that?” he asked.

“It’s the essence of magic soaring to the Heavens,” said Skylar. “The first glyphstone has been destroyed.”

Aldwyn felt something in the pit of his stomach: a sense of growing dread.

The familiars soon caught up with a dirt road twisting into the distance, and although there was little traffic on it, they spotted a caravan of mule-drawn wagons, covered in fabric that was beautifully decorated with driftfolk ornaments. It was no surprise driftfolk were on the move in spite of Paksahara’s Dead Army. They knew the roads better than anybody else and could easily find escape routes if they were attacked by the zombies roaming the land.

“All right, Gilbert, let’s hitch us a ride,” said Aldwyn, getting a running start down the hill toward the caravan. “Remember, it’s all in the knees.”

“A frog getting jumping advice from a cat,” said Gilbert. “That’s just embarrassing.”

The two chased after the wagons as Skylar flapped her wings above them. Aldwyn made it look easy, bounding through the air and landing on the back of the rear wagon. Gilbert wasn’t nearly as graceful leaping aboard, tumbling past Aldwyn into a crate of planters.

“Wow, that knee thing really worked,” said Gilbert as he was peeling his face up off the floorboards.

A butter newt looked over at the familiars from a nearby bed of fungus.

“Whoa-oh-oh!” exclaimed the butter newt. “A cat, a bird, and a frog?! Am I in the company of
the
Prophesized Three?”

Skylar held her head high.

“Yes, you are,” she said proudly.

“Let me shake your paw and webbed hand and wing,” said the newt, gushing. “I’ve heard so much about you. I mean, the Three are famous!”

He flung his hand out toward Gilbert, who was about to give it a shake when he realized his webbed fingers were covered in dirt from the planters. The butter newt gripped them anyway, shaking vigorously.

“I didn’t even know if you were real,” continued the butter newt. “But here you are. In the flesh.” The newt hardly took a breath. “You’re going to save Vastia, aren’t you?”

“So it has been foretold by the stars,” said Skylar.

Just because it is written in the stars does not make it so
. Aldwyn almost said it out loud. Yet here this butter newt stood, like so many other Vastians, believing that these familiars—the chosen ones—would rid the land of evil, counting on them because of a prophecy that might not even be true.

“Our caravan was in Bridgetower when the wall crumbled,” said the butter newt. “But I fear it’s just the first of many cities the zombie hordes will overtake. Even before the glyphstone there fell, many had split off, diving into the Ebs and walking across its bottom until they emerged on the other side.”

“They must be heading toward the second glyphstone,” said Skylar. “The one among the ruins of the lost city of Jabal Tur.”

“Well, I just feel better knowing that the three of you are out here protecting us,” said the butter newt. “Do you think I could ask you a favor? I hope it’s not too much of an imposition, but would you mind giving me your autographs?” He spun around and whipped his tail directly before the trio. “You can sign right there on my tail. Make it out to Nigel.”

“Scribius,” called Skylar. “A little help here.”

Scribius popped out from Skylar’s satchel and glided over to inscribe the three familiars’ names on Nigel’s tail.

“So, where are you headed?” asked Nigel. “Or is it top secret?”

“Split River,” replied Gilbert, who seemed eager to impress his first fan.

“We’re going to visit a wizard,” added Skylar. “His name is Galleon. Perhaps you’ve heard of him. He graduated with high wizard ranking and has gone on to be something of a town hero. He vanquished a river dragon with a single strangle spell and dispatched a pack of werewasps with a ring of silver arrows.”

“Never heard of him,” said Nigel.

“He’s staying as a distinguished guest at the Inn of the Golden Chalice,” continued Skylar.

“Sounds fancy,” said the butter newt.

“Yes, well, for someone of Galleon’s esteem, no luxury is too great.”

“In that case, the three of you should be staying there, too,” said Nigel. “Crowned with jewels and bathed in dewdrops.”

Aldwyn just didn’t feel right giving this innocent drifter false hope. He politely excused himself and curled up in a comfortable spot on a stack of rugs. The last thing Aldwyn heard before he fell asleep was Nigel saying to Skylar and Gilbert, “Vastia is in good hands. The stars are never wrong about these things.”

Aldwyn’s eyes opened to find Gilbert’s webbed fingers poking him.

“We’re here,” said the tree frog.