Thursdays with the Crown (4 page)

The Arkower finally answered, but he directed his words at Rolf. “Our people have gone to the West and built cities there, closer to the ocean. The griffins do not like the ocean, so we had never settled close to it before. This last village is mostly those too old to go any farther away, and those too pious to leave the Castle. Of course, during the holiday season, more come back for the tribute.”

“The tribute?” Celie asked.

“To the Castle,” the Arkower said. He gave her a narrow look. “I thought you said you all lived in the Castle?”

“Of course we do,” Celie hastened to assure him.

“The annual tribute? The feasts and the decorations? They do not arrive in the Heart of the Castle?”

Celie stopped dead in the middle of the path. The others would have run into her, but they had stopped, too.

“The holiday feasts?” Celie's voice came out as a squeak.

“Yes, precisely.” The Arkower continued to walk forward, and they had to scramble to follow. “Where did you think they came from? The Castle cannot make food out of thin air!” He laughed, a crackling sound that ended in a cough as though he were out of practice.

“We … we didn't know,” Celie said.

When the holiday feasting hall — which normally appeared for only a week during the winter holidays — had appeared in the Castle that spring, it had been the sign to everyone that something was very wrong with the Castle. Moreover, Celie had been haunted by the sight of the decorations boxed up and stored neatly. Somehow she had always thought that yes, the Castle
did
make everything out of thin air, even though she and Lilah had had to live on leftover biscuits for a time when they'd been trapped in the Spyglass Tower. The question of who decorated the hall and prepared the feasts had plagued Celie since the Castle had begun acting strangely. Who were the people behind it all? Did they know about the Glowers? About Sleyne? And why were they doing this?

Now she had answers, of a sort.

“They pay tribute … to the Castle?” Rolf said. “Why?”

“The Castle was once all,” the Arkower said, and his voice was almost savage. Celie drew back so that she was walking behind Lulath. “The center of our world. Then it was taken from us!”

“By the Hathelockes?” Pogue asked.

The Arkower paused again. “It was taken from us,” he finally repeated.

They walked in silence for a while, and Celie tried to ignore the gnawing pain in her empty stomach. Lulath kept pointing out berries and nuts as they passed, but the Arkower would only glance at them and say no. He didn't
clarify whether they were poisonous or merely tasted bad; he just said no and walked on. They continued to trudge after the Arkower, trying not to count the hours since they had last eaten.

Finally they left the forest and walked across a stretch of low, flat grass to a beautiful sandy shore. Ahead of them lay a lake, a flat circle of dark blue, nestled within a ring of white sand. The forest also stretched around the lake, but on the opposite side were three conical mountains that almost appeared to have been sculpted, not made by nature. There was a broad, flat boat pulled up on the shore in front of them.

“Well, at least we won't die of thirst,” Lilah grumbled.

The Arkower whipped around. “Do not drink this water!” He pointed a long knobby finger at her face, making Lilah leap back with a frightened cry. “Do not even touch it!”

Celie rushed forward and took Lilah's arm, and her sister clung to her. Celie realized that she was shaking, her heart pounding. The Arkower's face … she wished she'd listened to Lilah and refused to follow the wizard into the forest.

“Why not?” Pogue asked. “Is it sacred?” He sounded just faintly mocking.

“Sacred?” The Arkower gave him an evil look. “Try
poisoned
, boy.”

They all gaped, except for Lulath, who now turned facetious. Or so Celie thought. With his accent it was hard to tell, and he was so rarely rude that she had some doubts.

“There is being a way of having the poison to fill a very lake?” He shook his head. “What a wonder is this Glorious Arkower! I am so very! Never have I heard of such a thing as being a lake of poison entire!”

The look the Arkower had given Pogue was nothing compared to the scorching look he now gave Lulath. He, too, seemed to think that Lulath was making fun.

“It was poisoned by wizards,” he snapped. “This is what caused the plague that killed most of my people and our griffins!”

Lulath drew back as if slapped. Lilah lifted her skirts a little and looked anxiously for puddles, and Celie scanned the skies. What if Rufus chose now to return to her? Did his family know about the lake? What if they followed her here and they all drank? She shuddered.

“Don't worry,” the Arkower told her. “The native griffins know. They will keep your beast away from the lake.”

Celie shuddered again, and added another question to the dozens turning over and over in her head already. How had the Arkower known what she was thinking? Could he read minds?

He went to the boat and began to move it down the shore, surprisingly spry for a man of his age. It dawned on Celie that he must be close to seven hundred years old, if what Arkwright had told them about his uncle was true.

“Come and help me,” he called back to them. “We will take the boat along the shore to my home.”

Rolf walked over to the boat but didn't stoop down to help the old man.

“Why?” Rolf asked.

“What?” The Arkower straightened, a look of astonishment on his face.

“Why are we going to your home, and away from the Castle ruins?” Rolf folded his arms. “I'm sorry, we were just so caught up in meeting you …” He stopped and cleared his throat. Celie gave him a little jab in the back to make him continue. “Can you get us back to Sleyne?”

“I
am
a wizard,” the Arkower said. “But I will need things from my home, and you need food and better shelter than that old hatching tower can provide.”

“Oh, yes, of course, thank you,” Rolf said. He gave an apologetic smile to the old man, who didn't return it. Rolf stooped and helped launch the boat.

“Get in now,” the Arkower instructed them. “Any farther and your feet will get wet, and you will sorely regret it.”

They all climbed in, except for Rolf and Pogue, who insisted on shoving the boat out just a little farther. Right before the still water touched their boots they both leaped in. The Arkower passed around long oars, and they used them to push off from the shore entirely. Celie and Lilah sat in the middle, nervously watching to make sure the rowers didn't splash anyone with their oars. For a little while they used them as poles, pushing off the bottom of the lake and away from the shore. Then at the Arkower's instruction they began to row.

“How did you get here by yourself?” Rolf asked the Arkower with a grunt.

Pogue looked like he was about to fall over, and Lilah rose and took his oar. He tried to protest, but in the end he just nodded and slumped down by Celie. He still looked terrible, with a swollen lump on his temple and a grayish tinge to his skin. He gave Celie a weak smile and then rested his head on his knees.

“I was not alone,” the Arkower said. “I have those who help me.”

“Where are they being at this moment?” Lulath asked.

“They are fetching me some things,” the Arkower said. “They can walk back.”

Celie thought this was a bit rude, but she didn't say anything. It was cold out on the lake, and Pogue had fallen asleep again and was shivering. She got up and went to Lilah, who was the only one of them wearing anything approaching a cloak. Lilah's gown had a stiff little decorative cape pinned to the shoulders. It didn't look warm, but it was better than nothing.

After Celie pointed to Pogue, who was visibly shaking, Lilah didn't need to be told anything else. She handed her oar to Celie and unfastened the gold clasps at her shoulders. Handing over the cape, Lilah took back her oar, and Celie went to Pogue, smoothing the fabric over his broad shoulders as best she could.

It had a strange pattern on it: asymmetrical and embroidered, almost like one of the older tapestries. There was a
violet-colored circle in the middle, a row of triangles across the top, dark lines down the sides, and two gray figures that looked like towers. It wasn't Lilah's usual mode of dress, but it — along with the blue velvet that made up Lilah's and Celie's gowns — had been found in a room full of fabric that the Castle had recently brought to Sleyne. Lilah had seen this type of cape in a book of patterns among the fabric, and though it was apparently a fashion from centuries ago in the Glorious Arkower, Lilah had decided that she liked it, and ordered it made from this oddly embroidered piece.

Spread flat across Pogue's back the pattern looked even more familiar. Celie studied it again. It looked like something … a map! She had seen a beautifully inlaid wood map in the new map room at the Castle a few days ago that looked just like this. How strange, Celie thought. Here was the same map again, only this time in fabric.

She felt eyes on her and looked up to find the Arkower watching her. Behind him the three mountains rose into the sky. She glanced again at the cape. Three mountains, above a circle — the lake! The Arkower was still looking at her, so she gave him an innocent look and turned away from the cape, gazing at the shore instead.

Once she had looked away from the cape and the wizard, she found the shore more than captured her attention. There were griffins diving in and out of the trees, and one walked to the edge of the water to stare at them as well.

“So many griffins,” Celie said, startled. “I thought all the living ones were sent to Sleyne.”

“Those are wild griffins,” the Arkower said, dismissing them with a gesture. “They are too small for a grown man to ride and not smart enough to be trained, either. You can tell them even from this distance by their brown coloration.”

“Oh,” Celie said. The griffins that Rufus's father had chased away earlier that day had been brown. They must have been wild griffins encroaching on his territory. “But what about Rufus's parents? They're not wild …?”

“Of course not. They're royal griffins,” the Arkower said.

“Royal griffins?” Rolf asked before Celie could.

“The griffins bred and raised to carry riders,” the Arkower told them. “The Builder's grandfather bred them from wild griffins, but by the time of my youth, they were as different as goats and sheep.”

“The Builder?” Celie asked before Rolf did this time.

“Of the Castle,” the Arkower said, looking appalled. “Did my nephew tell you nothing?”

“Nothing that we didn't wring out of him,” Rolf said in a bitter voice.

“Well,” the Arkower said after a momentary pause, “I am sure that he had his reasons.”

“They weren't very good ones,” Rolf muttered.

“We are almost there,” the Arkower told them.

They had been hugging the shore, and they were almost to where the trees thinned out and the base of the first mountain rose up. The Arkower guided them farther
out into the lake so that they could cut straight to the base of the mountain.

Celie gently shook Pogue awake. He almost fell over, and was even more embarrassed when he discovered himself draped in Lilah's cape while she did the rowing for him. He seemed not to remember handing her his oar, which worried them all, but the sight of the mountain looming overhead pushed other thoughts aside.

“That is being a most very mountain of alarm,” Lulath said, which was more or less what Celie had been thinking.

It was nearly black in color, and nothing grew on its sides. The side facing them still appeared to be too smooth to be natural — more so, now that it was seen up close. But any trepidation about journeying into the mountain was wiped from Celie's thoughts when a familiar figure swooped down and landed on the beach in front of them.

“Rufus!” Celie shouted with joy, which quickly turned to fright. “Don't touch the water!”

Celie leaped out of the boat with Rolf and Lulath, holding her skirts high to avoid the water. She used Rufus's harness to lead him toward the mountain while her brother and their friend pulled the boat to shore. Rufus's parents landed beside them, clucking and snuffling at Celie, but as soon as the Arkower had tied the boat to a post they took off again. Celie and Lilah exchanged a look, and Rolf made a small noise in his throat.

There was something off about the Arkower, and they all felt it, even the griffins. But if he could get them back to Sleyne, Celie supposed they would just have to put up with him. If things went well it would only be another day at the most until they were home. Or so she hoped.

“Through here,” the Arkower said, and led them to an archway set into the base of the mountain.

Celie had no desire to follow this strange wizard into a
cave, and she could tell that the others didn't, either. But again they looked at one another, and again they realized that they had no choice. Rolf and Lulath went first, with Lilah in the middle and Celie and Rufus walking with Pogue, ready at any moment to bolt.

But the inside of the mountain was nothing like Celie had expected.

It was like nothing she'd ever seen before. Turning in circles to look all around her, she could only gape, along with the others. The Arkower smiled indulgently at them, a ball of bright-blue light floating above one hand to guide them.

The mountain was hollow, or at least, it had been hollowed out. The rock had been carved into terraces and ramps that wound up as far as Celie could see in the Arkower's bluish wizard-light. Rufus cawed, and the sound echoed around them: the entire mountain was empty.

“Once, children, this housed five hundred griffins,” the Arkower told them. “And their riders, the riders' families, their servants, and so on. Now only I reside within, I and a mere handful of attendants.”