The Fire Chronicle (35 page)

Gabriel said nothing, but continued staring down the valley.

“Here I am!”

They all turned as Wilamena appeared at the top of the stairs. She was flushed from running up the tower, her cheeks like two pink peaches—

Stop it, Michael told himself.

The elf princess was carrying a large, shallow clay bowl and
a small jar, and she had a waterskin slung over her shoulder. She knelt on the landing and set the clay bowl carefully before her.

“This is Xanbertis’s scrying bowl; it will allow us to see what is transpiring in the valley.”

She poured out an inch or so of water from the skin, then unstoppered the small jar and dribbled a crescent of oil across the surface.

“Gather close.”

Gabriel and the children knelt around the bowl. Michael felt Wilamena slip her hand into his, and he thought about protesting, then let the matter go.

Almost immediately, an image began to appear in the bowl. It was both clear and strangely fluid. Michael likened it to watching television at the bottom of a pool.

Emma let out a gasp. “Screechers! I never seen so many!”

They were looking at a scene taking place in the forest: a score of black-clad creatures, carrying swords and crossbows, were moving quickly through the gloom of the great trees. It was a fearsome sight—and all the worse, Michael reflected, as the Screechers were not alone.

“What is that thing?”

With his free hand, Michael pointed to one of the thick-bodied figures marching beside the
morum cadi
. The creature had leathery-looking skin and carried a barbed mace. Short yellow tusks jabbed upward from its jaw.

“An Imp,” Gabriel said. “A foot soldier of the Dire Magnus. I have had dealings with them before.”

“That means he killed a whole bunch of ’em,” Emma said.

Michael ignored this, saying, “When did they get here? They must’ve been climbing into the valley all night.”

Gabriel said, “Show us where the smoke is coming from.”

Wilamena dribbled in more oil; the image before them dissolved, and a new one rose to take its place. At first, they could only make out a large, pale blob. Then the picture snapped into focus, and Emma cried out and leapt to her feet.

“That’s him!” She pointed down at the bald man whose head now filled the bowl. “That’s the guy Dr. Pym stayed behind to fight!”

“So it is Rourke,” Gabriel said, and there was a note of finality in his voice, as if some chance or hope had been extinguished. “Can we see more?”

The elf princess moved her hand over the bowl, and it was like a camera pulling back; the image widened, revealing Rourke standing in the same clearing that Emma had been taken from the night before. And behind him, where the elves had placed the sculpture of Wilamena, they saw that an archway had been fashioned out of newly cut trees. It was perhaps fifteen feet high and ten feet wide, and flames coursed along the wooden struts, sending up a spiral of black smoke.

“Look,” Michael said, “do you see …”

Imps and Screechers, in twos and threes, were stepping out of the flaming archway and into the clearing. But the strange thing—what had drawn Michael’s and now drew the others’ attention—was that the creatures were not passing through from one side to the other; rather, they seemed simply to materialize beneath the crossbeam, as if appearing out of thin air.

“Rourke has created a portal,” Gabriel said. “He must have
come through the mountains with a small band, then he made this gateway to transport the rest of his army.”

“Well, so he’s got an army,” Emma said. “So what? We’ll just …” She looked at Gabriel. “What’re we gonna do?”

Gabriel turned to Wilamena. “How many ways are there out of this valley?”

“Only one. The tunnel through the mountains.”

In other words, Michael thought, they were trapped, with Rourke’s army between them and the only avenue of escape.

Gabriel asked the princess what help they could expect from the elves, but Wilamena couldn’t say.

“At dawn, I lit a signal fire to tell them that my curse had been lifted. They will come; but to reach us, they will have to pass these creatures.”

Emma had knelt back down, and Michael felt her take his right hand. He closed his eyes and imagined it was Kate, and not Wilamena, holding his left hand, and that both his sisters were with him.

We’ll get through this, he thought. I’ll get us through this. I have to.

“If Rourke is here,” Gabriel said, and Michael opened his eyes to see the man staring out at the black column of smoke, “then Dr. Pym cannot be far behind. We have to hope that he or the elves arrive in time to aid us.”

“But there must be something we can do,” Michael said. “I mean … isn’t there?”

Gabriel looked at him. “Yes. You can eat your breakfast.”

Despite arguing that they had no appetites, a few minutes later, Michael and Emma were in the small building along the fortress wall that served as a kitchen, wolfing down bowls of stew. “Whatever happens today,” Gabriel had said, “you will need all your strength.” And once they had begun to eat, which they did standing beside the fire where Gabriel had made the stew, the children had found that they were famished. Not counting the sausage and dried fruit and bread from the day before, Michael and Emma had not had a proper meal since the outpost café on the coast of Antarctica, and already that felt like a lifetime ago. Moreover, the stew was delicious, as Gabriel had found the fortress storerooms chock-full of fresh vegetables, all grown to gigantic sizes in the magically fertile soil of the valley.

As Michael and Emma bolted down their stew—Gabriel had gone to look over the fortifications and see what, if anything, could be done—Michael thought about the Guardian. When he and Emma had passed through the keep, the man had not looked up; but Michael had heard the Guardian’s words echoing in his head, “You’re not the Keeper! You’re not the Keeper!”

Emma abruptly lowered her bowl, and what sounded like the war cry of a great prehistoric toad erupted from her throat, filling the entire room. The children looked at each other; Emma seemed nearly as taken aback as Michael.

“Sorry.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But wow, huh?”

Then they heard “Darling Rabbit and his sister! Come quickly!” and they dropped their bowls and ran.

Arriving in the main courtyard of the fortress, they found forty elves, lined up in neat rows, all kneeling before the princess. Gabriel stood beside Wilamena. The first thing Michael and Emma noticed about the elves—besides the fact that they were each and every one astonishingly good-looking—was that they were not dressed like the old-fashioned dandies the children had seen in the clearing the night before. These elves looked like elves out of a fairy tale. Soft leather boots. Medieval tunics. Vests of silver rings. Hooded capes of green and brown. They all had swords at their sides and held smooth wooden bows, while quivers bristling with arrows were slung across their backs.

One elf was out in front of the others. He had dark, shoulder-length hair, very pale skin, and the bluest eyes that Michael and Emma had ever seen. Indeed, his eyes were so blue that they made the children reevaluate their whole notion of blue, as if everything they had ever called blue before would now require some new name, like not-blue, or almost-blue, or nothing-remotely-approaching-blue.

“And my father is well?” asked Wilamena.

“Save missing you,” replied the blue-eyed elf.

“Tell me, Captain, what is the state of his hair?”

“Not as lustrous since your captivity, but I’m sure it will regain its natural fullness and bounce once you are home.”

“The poor dear. Let us hope so.”

The elf princess turned to Michael and Emma. Her smile, Michael had to admit, was radiant, and for once he did not try to smother his thoughts.

“I told you my people would come. This is Captain Anton, the head of my father’s guard. Captain, tell your troops to rise.”

The blue-eyed elf gave the command, and the rows of elves sprang to their feet.

Wilamena placed her hand on Michael’s shoulder. “This is the fearless knight who lifted the curse. I owe my life and freedom to him.”

The elf captain bowed to Michael. “You have returned the sun to our skies. Thanks to you, we no longer live in darkness, Sir—”

“Rabbit,” said the elf princess.

“Actually,” Michael said, “my name—”

“Three cheers for Sir Rabbit!” cried the captain.

“Oh, forget it,” Michael grumbled.

And he stood there as forty elves—with Emma gleefully chiming in—hurrahed the brave Sir Rabbit.

There then followed a brief interlude where members of the elfish troop would raise their hands and ask permission to speak, Wilamena would grant it, and the elf soldier would compliment some facet of the princess’s beauty.

“Your eyes are luminous! They shine like the Andromeda in the coldness of space! Compared to them, diamonds are as lumps of coal!”

“Your chin is a perfect round nub connoting both firmness of purpose and compassionate pliability. Also, I like your dimple!”

“I have composed an ode to the curve of your foot! ‘O Sublime Foot—’ ”

Finally, Gabriel broke in, asking what the elf captain had seen of Rourke and his army of monsters in the valley.

As much as it was possible, the elf’s face became grim.

“Very little. We came along the far side of the river, as there was a foul air seeping from the clearing. This man—Rourke—who is he? What does he want?”

“He wants these children,” Gabriel said. “And he wants the book that the Guardian was defending.”

Then Wilamena spoke, and in her voice Michael heard a new, distinctly regal tone:

“Just as the rabbit saved my life, now we have a chance to save his and his sister’s. We must be thankful for this opportunity.”

The elf captain bowed. “We are with you and Sir Rabbit to the death, Princess.”

Gabriel asked if they could expect reinforcements.

The captain shook his head. “We ourselves did not come expecting war, but merely to escort the princess home. And the rest of our colony will be busy preparing for Princess Wilamena’s party. If we lit a signal fire, I doubt any would see it.”

“Light one anyway,” Gabriel said. “A chance of help is better than none at all. In the meantime, we must do what we can.”

Michael and Emma were given the task of evaluating the fortress water supply. A search through the storerooms and of the various rain catches revealed four large barrels of water, though one of them, Michael admitted, had a good deal of mud floating in it.

When he and Emma returned to the courtyard to give their
report, they found the siege preparations well under way. Elf soldiers were repairing damaged areas of the ramparts; other elves were using their knives to fashion arrows, bundles of which were being stationed at intervals along the walls; another team of elves was buttressing the main doors with thick wooden beams; even the forge had been lit, and an elf was hammering away at the anvil. Not surprisingly, all the elves were singing, though once Michael heard the words, he decided that he didn’t much care for the song:

“I wrote it myself!” Wilamena said, skipping toward them. “When I couldn’t think of anything, I just had them say
tra-la-la
. There’s an entire verse about your nose and how generous I am to overlook it.”

“Great,” Michael said.

“Why aren’t they dressed like the elves we saw last night?” Emma asked. “All old-fashioned-y?”

“Oh, you’re so funny! You can’t expect a body to dress the same way every day of the week! We’re not dwarves!”

“Listen—” Michael said, having just about reached his limit.

But at that moment, there was a deep rumble, and the earth
shook beneath their feet. Michael and Emma grabbed at one another, and Gabriel, who’d been overseeing the work on the main doors, rushed to their side.

“Is that …,” Michael said, “… is that Rourke?”

“No,” Gabriel said, “that was something else.”

They all turned; a fat black cloud was billowing up from the cone of the volcano.

“That’s not good, is it?” Emma said.

“You think it’s because we took the
Chronicle
out of the lava?” Michael asked. “Like somehow it was keeping the volcano stable?”

“If so, there is nothing we can do,” Gabriel replied. “Come.”

He led them to a ladder, and the children and Wilamena climbed up behind him to where Captain Anton stood on the battlements, staring down at the distant tree line.

“They are massing just inside the forest,” said the captain.

Michael marveled at the elf’s eyesight. To him, the trees were little more than a large, dark smudge.

Gabriel said, “It will not be long now.”

The singing died away as the elves stopped work and took up their positions. Soon, all was quiet save for the steady
clink-clink-clink
from the forge. Michael glanced left and right at the elves stationed along the walls. They all stared calmly down the slope, bows in hand, full quivers upon their backs. He suddenly felt very small and mean for his years of relentless elf bashing. Yes, they could be silly, and yes, they spent a great deal of time thinking about their hair, but Michael knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that every elf within the fortress would die to defend him and
his sister, and, before the day was over, many of them probably would.