A Rule of Queens (Book #13 in the Sorcerer's Ring) (7 page)

“And yet, even the great fall,” Bokbu prodded.

Gwen nodded, seeing he understood.

“And what happened?” another chieftain asked.

As she reflected on their fall, Gwendolyn wondered
the same thing.

“The Empire,” she said. “The same as you.”

They all fell into a gloomy silence.

“What if we were to join you?” Atme said,
breaking the silence. “What if we were to attack them with you?”

Bokbu shook his heads.

“The city of Volusia is well-fortified,
well-manned. And they outnumber us a thousand to one.”

“Surely, there must be something that could
bring down the Empire?” Brandt asked.

The elders looked at each other cautiously,
then after a long pause, Bokbu said:

“The Giants, perhaps.”

“The Giants?” Gwen asked, intrigued.

Bokbu nodded.

“There are rumors of their existence. In the
far reaches of the Empire.”

Aberthol spoke up:

“The Land of the Giants,” he said. “A land with
creatures so tall, their feet could crush a thousand men. The Land of the
Giants is a land of myth. A convenient myth. It was disproved in our fathers’
fathers’ time.”

“Whether you are right or wrong, no one knows,”
Bokbu said. “But one thing we do know is that the Giants, at one time, existed.
And that they are fickle. You might as well try to tame a wild beast. They
might just as easily kill you as the Empire. They do not seek justice; they do
not seek to take sides. They only seek bloodshed. Even if they still existed,
even if you found them, you would more likely end up dead by visiting them than
by invading Volusia.”

A long silence fell over them all as Gwen
studied the flames, pondering it all.

“Is there no other place?” Gwendolyn asked, as
all eyes turned to her. “Once our people heal, is there no other place in the
Empire we can go where we can be safe? Where we can start again?”

The elders exchanged a long look, and finally,
they nodded to each other.

Bokbu raised his staff, reached out, and began
to draw in the dirt. Gwendolyn was surprised at how skilled he was, as she
watched an intricate map unfold before her, and all her people crowded around. She
watched as the contours of the Empire took shape, and was in awe at how vast
and complex it was.

“Do you recognize it?” he asked her as he
finally finished.

Gwendolyn examined it, all the different
regions and provinces, dozens and dozens of them. She looked at the odd shape
of the Empire lands, it center rectangular, and in each of its four corners, a long,
curved peninsula jutting out in opposite directions. They each looked like a
bull’s horn.
The four horns of the Empire
, her father used to say. Now
she understood.

“I do,” she said. “I once spent an entire moon in
the house of the scholars, studying ancient maps of the Ring and of the Empire.
The four corners are the four horns for the four directions and those two
spikes are of the North and the South. In the center is the Great Waste.”

Bokbu looked back at her, wide-eyed, impressed.

“You are the only outsider who has ever known
this,” he said. “Your learning must be great indeed.”

He paused.

“Yes, the very shape of the Empire belies its
nature. Horns. Spikes. Waste. They are vast lands, with many regions in
between. Not to mention the islands, which I’ve not even drawn here. There is
much that is uncharted and unknown. Much is rumor. Some wishful thinking passed
down from those who were enslaved too long. We no longer know what’s true. Maps
are living things, and mapmakers lie as much as kings. All maps are politics.
And all maps are power.”

There came a long silence, nothing save the
crackling of the fire, as Gwen pondered his words.

“Before the time of Antochin,” Bokbu finally
continued, “before the time of my father’s and your father, there was a time when
the Ring and the Empire were one. Before the Great Divide. Before the Canyon. Your
men of armor, of steel, legend has it, split from each other. Half left for the
Ring and half stayed behind. If it is true, then somewhere, in the midst of these
Empire lands, the kingdom of the Second Ring lives.”

Gwendolyn paused, her mind racing.

“The Second Ring?” she asked, under her breath,
growing with excitement. It was all coming back to her, all her reading. It was
hazy, and she could not quite remember all of it; she had thought it was a
children’s fable.

“More myth than fact,” Aberthol chimed in, his
old voice cutting into the air as he stepped forward to look at the map. “
Between
the four horns and the two spikes
,” he began to recite, “
between the
ancient shores and the Twin Lakes, north of the Altbu—
”

“
—and south of the Reche
,” Bokbu finished,
“
the Second Ring resides.
”

Aberthol and the chief locked eyes with each
other, each recognizing the old writings by heart.

“A myth from centuries past,” Aberthol said. “You
trade old wives’ tales and myths here. That is your currency.”

“Some call it myth,” Bokbu said. “And some,
fact.”

Aberthol shook his head doggedly.

“The chances of an alternate Ring are remote,”
Aberthol said. “To stake the hopes of our people on such a venture would be to stake
our future on death.”

Gwen studied Bokbu and she could see the
seriousness on his face, and she felt he truly believed that the Second Ring
existed. He studied the map he had drawn, his face grave.

“Years ago,” Bokbu finally continued, his voice
grave, “when I was a young boy, I saw a sword of steel, and a breastplate,
brought into this village. It was found, my father said, in the desert, on a
dying man. A man who looked like your people, with pale skin. A man who wore a
suit of steel, who had armor with the same markings as yours. He died before he
could tell us where he was from, and we hid the armor on fear of death.”

Bokbu sighed.

“I believe the Second Ring exists,” he added.
“If you can find it, if you can reach it, perhaps you can find a home, a true
home, in the Empire.”

“Another place to hide from the Empire?”
Kendrick said, derisively.

“If the Second Ring exists,” Bokbu said, “it is
so well-hidden that they are not hiding. They are living. It is a remote
chance, my lady,” he concluded, “but a chance nonetheless.”

Before Gwen could process it all, a shrill
voice suddenly cut through the night. At first it was a shriek, and then it
morphed into a long cry, and then a sustained chanting.

Gwen turned as all the men fell silent and sat
back and watched, as there stepped forward a woman with long black hair falling
down to her waist, palms up by her side, and a red silk scarf wrapped about her
neck. She leaned back, raised her hands to the heavens, and chanted a solemn
song. She chanted louder and louder, and as she did, the flames on all the
bonfires leapt higher.

“Spirits of the flames!” she chanted. “Visit
us. Let us pay our respects. Tell us what you have to tell us. Let us see what
we cannot!”

Gwendolyn flinched and jumped back as the fire
before her began to spark and grow brighter. She looked and was shocked to see
shapes swirling within it. She felt her hairs stand on end.

The seer’s chanting slowed, then stopped, as
she came over and stood over Gwendolyn. Gwen felt fear as the seer’s glowing
yellow eyes stared back at her.

“Ask me what you will,” the seer said, her
voice inhumanly dark.

Gwen sat there, trembling inside, wanting to
ask, wanting to know, but afraid to. What if it was not the answer she sought?

Finally, she summoned the courage.

“Thorgrin,” Gwendolyn said, barely getting out
the words. “Guwayne. Tell me. Do they live?”

There was a long silence, as the seer turned
her back on her and faced the fire. She reached down and threw two fistfuls of
dirt into the flames. The fire sparked and shot up, and the seer, her back to
Gwendolyn, began muttering dark words Gwen did not understand.

Finally, she turned to her, her glowing yellow
eyes fixed on hers. Gwen could not look away if she wanted to.

“Your baby will not return as you know him,”
she pronounced darkly. “And your husband, as we speak, is entering the Land of
the Dead.”

“NO!” Gwendolyn wailed, her cry rising above
the incessant crackling of the flames.

She stood in outrage, felt her heart beating
too fast, felt her whole body go weak. The world began to spin, and the last
thing she saw was Steffen and Kendrick behind her, getting ready to catch her, and
she fell into their arms and her world went black.

Thorgrin stood on the edge of the boat and
looked up in wonder as the current carried them slowly forward, drifting into
the immense cave at the edge of the world. He looked up at the ancient arched ceiling
a hundred feet above, the gnarled black rock dripping, covered in moss and
strange scurrying animals. A cold draft arose as they entered, and the
temperature dropped ten degrees. Behind him, Reece, Conven, Elden, Indra, O’Connor,
and Matus all stood, looking out in wonder as they drifted deeper and deeper
into the darkness of the immense cave. Thor felt as if they were being
swallowed whole, never to return, and his sense of foreboding increased.

As they went, Thor looked down and saw the
waters change, begin to glow, phosphorescent, a soft blue lighting up the
darkness, reflecting off the walls, giving just enough light to see by. The
walls and the creatures clinging to them were reflected in grotesque shadows,
and the deeper they went the more the sounds amplified, the screeching insects,
the fluttering of wings, and the strange low moans. Thor tightened his grip on his
sword, on guard.

“What is this place?” O’Connor said aloud,
asking the question that was on all their minds.

Thor peered into the darkness, wondering. On
the one hand, he was relieved to be out of the ocean and into a harbor of sorts,
a place where they could all rest and regroup. On the other hand, Thor felt a
chill in the air, and sensed something that made the hairs on his arms stand on
end. His instincts were telling him to turn around, to head back to open sea. But
their provisions were so low, they all needed rest, and most of all, Thorgrin
had to explore this place in case it was truly the land of the dead. What if
Guwayne were here? Now that Guwayne was dead, Thorgrin no longer cared about danger
or darkness or even death; a part of him wanted death, would even embrace it.
And if Guwayne was here, then, Thor felt, it was worth coming here to see him,
even if he could never escape.

An eerie moan pierced the darkness, setting
them all on edge.

“I wonder if we’d be safer risking the sea,” Matus
said softly, his voice echoing off the cave walls.

The waters twisted and turned, and as they went
deeper and deeper into this place, the currents dragging them in as if dragging
them to their fates, Thor turned and glanced back, and he saw that the ocean
was already gone from view. They were embraced by the darkness, by the glowing waters,
and they were now at the mercy of wherever the tides should take them.

 “The current runs only one way,” Reece said.
“Let’s hope it also leads us out of this place.”

They floated in the blackness, turning a narrow
bend, and as they went, Thor looked out and examined the walls, and all along
them, he saw pairs of small, yellow eyes blinking in the darkness, belonging to
some unknown creatures. They blinked and scurried, and Thor wondered what they
were. Were they watching them? Were they waiting to strike?

Thor tightened his grip on his sword. He was on
alert as they turned and turned.

Finally, they turned a corner and Thor saw, up
ahead in the distance, the waters came to an abrupt end. They stopped at a
beach of black sand, giving way to a new terrain of black rock.

Thor and the others looked out, baffled, as the
boat came to a stop, bumping gently against the sand. They all looked at each
other, then out at the wide rocky expanse before them. The cave disappeared in
blackness.

“Is this where the ocean ends?” Indra asked.

“Only one way to find out,” Conven said,
stepping out of the boat and onto the beach.

The others followed, Thor going last, and as
they stood on the beach, Thor looked back at their boat, rocking gently on the soft
currents. Thor looked out at the glowing water, saw where the cave twisted, and
saw the exit no more.

He turned back around, and peered into the
darkness, darker here without the glowing of the water, and felt a cold draft
rise out of somewhere.

“We can camp here at least,” Elden said. “We
can wait out the night.”

“Assuming nothing eats us in the darkness,”
O’Connor said.

Suddenly, in the distance, a torch was lit—then
another, and another. Dozens of torches lit up the darkness, and Thor, grabbing
the hilt of his sword, looked out and saw people facing them, small people,
half his height, their bodies way too thin, looking emaciated, with long,
pointy fingers, long pointy noses, and small beady eyes. Their heads were rose
to a point.

One of them stepped forward, clearly their
leader, held up his torch and broke into a grin, revealing hundreds of small,
sharp black teeth.

“You stand at a crossroads,” the creature
replied.

The leader was not like the others. He was three
times their height, twice as tall as Thorgrin and his men, with a big belly, a
long brown beard, and carrying a staff. The man rubbed his long beard as he
stared down at them in the tense silence.

“A crossroads to what?” Thor asked.

“The land of the living and the land of the
dead,” he replied. “It is where the ocean ends. We are the keepers of the gate.
Beyond us lie the gates to the land of the dead.”

Thor looked beyond, over his shoulder, and in
the distance he saw massive gates, a hundred feet high, made of iron ten feet
thick. His heart leapt with excitement and hope.

“It is true then?” Thor asked, filled with hope
for the first time since Guwayne’s death. “There is a land of the dead?”

The creature nodded back solemnly.

“You can stay here for the night,” he replied.
“We shall provide you harbor, provisions, and send you on your way. You can go
back from where you came and continue wherever the ocean takes you.”

“Why should you give us your hospitality?”
Reece asked, cautious.

The creature turned to him.

“That is the duty of the Keepers,” he said. “It
is our job to keep the gates closed. We do not accept people into the land of
the dead—we keep them out. Those who have lost loved ones come here, searching,
grieving, and we reject them. It is not yet their time. They struggle and
strive to see them the ones they love, and we must send them away. As we must
send you away.”

Thor frowned and stepped forward.

“I want to enter,” he said, without hesitating,
thinking of Guwayne. “I want to see my boy.”

The creature stared back at him, cold and hard.

“You do not understand,” he said. “There is but
one entrance, and there is no exit. To enter those gates means to never leave.”

Thor shook his head, determined, filled with
grief.

“I do not care,” Thorgrin said firmly. “I will
see my son.”

“Thorgrin, what are you saying?” Reece said,
coming up beside him. “You can’t enter.”

“He does not mean his words,” Matus called out.

“Yes I do,” Thorgrin insisted, filled with
sorrow and a longing to see Guwayne. “Every one of them.”

The creature stared back at Thor for a long
time, as if summing him up, then shook his head.

“You are very brave,” he said, “but the answer
is no. You will stay here for the night, then you will set back out for the
ocean. The morning tides will take you away. Stay on them long enough, and over
the course of a moon, you’ll reach the eastern shores of the Empire. This is no
place for men to stay.”

“I will enter those gates!” Thor demanded
darkly, drawing his sword. The sound of the metal leaving the scabbard echoed
loudly off the cave’s walls, and the cave came alive with the sounds of insects
and creatures scrambling to get out of the way, as if they knew a storm were
coming.

Immediately, the dozens of creatures behind
their leader drew their swords, too, white swords made of bone.

“You disgrace our hospitality,” the leader
sneered at Thor.

“I don’t want your hospitality,” Thor said. “I
want my boy. I will see him. And not you, or any creatures of this world, will
stop me. I will walk through the gates of hell to do so. I want enter the land
of the dead. I will go alone. My men can accept your provisions and head back
out to sea. But not I. I will enter here. And no one and nothing of this earth
will stop me.”

The leader shook his head.

“Every once in a while we encounter someone
like you,” he said. He shook his head again. “Foolish. You should have accepted
my offer the first time.”

Suddenly, all of the creatures behind him
charged Thorgrin, dozens of them, swords held high, racing toward him.

Thor felt such a determination to see his son
that something overcame him: his body suddenly welled up with heat, and his
palms felt on fire, as he felt more powerful than he’d ever had. He replaced
his sword, raised his palms, and as he did, an orb of light shot forth and flashed
through the cave, lighting it up. He moved his hands in a semicircular motion, and
as he did, the beams of light struck the creatures on the chest, knocking them
all down.

They all collapsed, moaning, writhing on the
ground, stunned but not dead.

Their leader’s eyes opened wide in shock as he
looked Thor over carefully.

“It is you,” he said, in awe. “The King of the Druids.”

Thor stared back calmly.

“I am king of no one,” he replied. “I am just a
father who wishes to see his son.”

The leader stared back at him with a new
respect.

“It was told there would come a day when you
would arrive,” he said. “Of a day when the gates would open. I did not think it
would be so soon.”

The leader looked Thorgrin over long and hard,
as if looking at a living legend.

“To enter those gates,” he said, “it is not the
price of gold. But the price of life.”

Thor stepped forward and nodded solemnly.

“Then that is the price I shall pay,” he said.

The leader stared back for a long time, until
finally he was satisfied. He nodded, and his dozens of men slowly gained their
feet and stepped aside, creating a path for Thor to pass. Dozens more of them
rushed forward to the gates, and, all of them grabbing hold of the iron, they
yanked on it with all their might.

With a great groaning and creaking noise, the
gates of death, protesting, opened wide.

Thor looked up in awe and watched the
hundred-foot high gates swing. It was like looking at a portal to another
world.

As they held their torches out toward the gate,
it was lit up, and standing beyond them, on the other side, Thor saw a man in a
long black robe, holding a long staff, wearing a black cloak and hood pulled
over his face. He stood near a small boat, which sat at the edge of a bobbing
river.

“He will be your shepherd to the land of
death,” the leader said. “He will take you across the river. On the other side
of it lies the ladder down to the center of the world. It is a one-way boat
ride.”

Thor nodded back gravely, realizing it was permanent,
and grateful for the chance.

Thorgrin began to walk, past the leader, past
the rows of his creatures lined up, creating a passage for him, and toward the
open gates of death, prepared to take the long march alone.

Suddenly, he heard a shuffling of feet all
around him, and he turned and was surprised to see all of his brothers standing
beside him, looking back solemnly.

“If you are going to the land of the dead,” Reece
said, “you’re going to need some company.”

Thor looked back at them, confused; he had
never expected them to give up their lives for his sake.

O’Connor nodded.

“If you’re not coming back, then neither are we,”
O’Connor said.

Thor looked into their eyes and saw their
seriousness, saw that there would be no changing their minds. They were
standing there with him, at his side, brothers in arms, prepared to march
through the gates of hell with him.

Thor nodded back, more grateful than he could
say. He had found his true brothers. His true family.

As one, they all turned and began to walk, Thor
leading the way as they marched through the gates and through the entrance to
another world, a world from which, Thor knew, they were never coming back.