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.
CHAPTER TWELVE
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.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Alistair stood guard before the vast doors to the royal house of the sick, standing before the building as war raged all around her, determined not to let anyone in to kill Erec. Shouts pierced the air alongside the clang of metal, as the Southern Islanders fought furiously against each other. It had become a civil war. Half the island, led by Erec’s brother, Strom, fought the other half, led by Bowyer’s men.
As dawn began to break over the hillside, Alistair recalled what an intense night of fighting it had been. The battle had broken out as soon as she had killed Bowyer, and it had not stopped since. All over the Southern Isles, men raged against each other, fighting on foot, on horseback, up and down the steep mountain slopes, killing each other face-to-face, hand to hand, throwing each other off of horses and cliffs, all fighting to see who would hold the crown.
As soon as the fighting broke out, Alistair rounded up two dozen of Erec’s most loyal watchmen, and headed with them for the House of the Sick. She knew that no matter where the battle raged, eventually Bowyer’s men would attempt to come here to kill Erec, so that they could end the fighting and claim the throne for themselves. She was determined that, in all the chaos that ensued, no matter who won, Erec would not be harmed.
Alistair had watched the fighting from her vantage point here all throughout the night, and had seen thousands of dead
bodies piling up, up and down the hillsides, littering the city grounds. It was an island made up of great warriors, and great warriors fought against great warriors, needlessly killing each other. As hour blended into hour during the horrible night, Alistair didn’t even know who or what they fought for anymore. The tide of battle was impossible to gauge, as it had been all throughout the night, the tug-of-war going back and forth as one group battled the next.
As dawn broke, Alistair looked up and saw that the cliffs were filled with Bowyer’s men and that the battle was now much closer to the city walls, raging just outside of it. Momentum was giving way, and she sensed that soon they would be through the gates, overriding the city. After all, this city was the center of power on the island, and whoever was victorious would want to claim it first, to raise the banner high and proclaim himself the next King.
Alistair looked up and down the mountainside and watched Strom’s men, holding their ground, using long pikes, waiting patiently, disciplined, behind rocks. As Bowyer’s men charged down on horseback, Strom’s men, on foot, jumped up and thrust them up. One at a time, the horses reared and neighed, impaled with pikes. Bowyer’s men swung back, but the pikes were too long, the distance too far for the swords to reach.
Horses reared and fell, and men tumbled off them, rolling down the cliffs and rocks.
Alistair watched Strom, out in front of his men, rush forward, grab a man, and throw him off his horse headfirst, sending him falling, shrieking, down the steep mountainside. Yet at the same moment, Strom was kicked in the back of the head by a horse, and he fell onto his side.
A soldier, seeing an opportunity, rushed forward with his sword and swung for Strom’s head; Strom whirled out of the way and chopped off the man’s legs at the last moment.