Island of Legends Page 4

  “What are they doing to her?” Alex asked.

  “It’s hard to tell,” Samheed said.

  “She can’t die. Not after everything.”

  Samheed looked on with Alex and nodded. “I know. It’s not right.”

  Just then there was a flurry of activity at Sky’s side.

  “Roll her on her side!” Ms. Morning shouted. “Quickly!”

  Alex strained to see what was happening. “Sky, please!” he cried out as his insides ached and trembled. Samheed didn’t try to quiet him.

  After a moment of stillness, there was another burst of movement. Henry lifted something in the air and shouted in triumph, “Okay, Sky—now breathe!”

  Another agonizing moment passed. And then Alex thought he heard a hoarse cough.

  “Atta girl,” Ms. Morning said. “That’s it. Get it all out.”

  Before Alex’s eyes, Sky sat up, coughing and hacking, sucking in air.

  A cheer arose. Alex broke free from Samheed’s grasp and ran to her bedside, squeezing past the people who surrounded her. She coughed a bit more, and when she stopped, Alex spoke her name. “Sky?”

  She turned, seeing him for the first time, and smiled weakly. “Hey.”

  Alex flung his arms around her. There was nothing that could possibly feel better right now than her dirt-covered cheek on his, and her ragged breath against his neck.

  The New Unwanteds

  While Sky was left to spend a few hours recovering in the hospital ward with the dozens of other injured, Alex and Samheed found Lani and Meghan at the shore hard at work. They and several others had all the people of Warbler lined up and shackled to keep them contained until Artimé could figure out what to do with them.

  Simber and a bunch of squirrelicorns flew out over the water behind the fleet, plucking up any additional Warblerans who were falling off the sides of the ships as their spells wore off. They brought them to the shore, where Meghan took over, stripping them of their weapons, shackling their wrists, and walking them over to the others.

  Almost all the newcomers were children, and they looked scared. Their ages varied, but most looked around ten or eleven, like Henry and Crow. Some a little older. They pleaded with their orange eyes. Others cried silently or looked at the ground. None of them made a sound, of course.

  Alex looked them over carefully, not yet sure what he was going to do with them. They seemed harmless enough. He glanced over his shoulder at Meghan. “See if you can find Crow and ask him to come here, will you? He may still be in the library.”

  “Be right back.” Meghan took off for the mansion.

  Alex turned back to the silent prisoners. “Well, here you all are,” he mused. “Abandoned.” They didn’t look like criminals at all. “Look,” he said matter-of-factly, “when you surprised us by parachuting in, we didn’t know what we were facing. We cast some spells on you to keep the situation under control, but none of them were painful. Looking back, I now understand that somebody probably strapped a parachute to you and put you in a catapult, and you maybe didn’t have any say in that. But the reason I’m angry with you is that once you got here, you attacked us with knives and you hurt people. You did that all on your own. And I’m wondering why you’d do such a thing. Did we hurt you in some way when we went to Warbler to rescue our friends?”

  Several Warbler children burst into silent tears. Alex couldn’t look at them. He had to figure out if there was evil in these children. He needed to know if they felt bad about what they did, and if he could trust them not to hurt anyone else. He took his time studying each face. By the time he had looked at them all, the entire group had dissolved into remorse.

  Alex softened. “Listen, guys. We do things a little differently in Artimé.” His voice grew kind. “You see, we found ourselves here because we were Unwanted and Purged from our society in Quill, which lies beyond that wall.” He paused as the children of Warbler lifted their heads to look where he was pointing. “It appears your ruler has used you and left you for dead,” he said. “Which I guess makes you Unwanted too.”

  A girl in the front row raised her shackled hands to her lips. A boy behind her touched her elbow. Another girl gazed across the water at the retreating ships, lip quivering.

  Suddenly Alex realized they didn’t understand. To him, now, being Unwanted was a good thing. But the term still held its nasty bite to the children before him, stuck in this precarious position. “First,” he said hastily, “I want you to know that we consider Unwanted people to be very special. But I know—it feels terrible.” He nodded solemnly and wondered about these children’s parents. Did they know they’d be losing their children today? And were they as okay with it as Alex’s parents were? Maybe these children actually wanted to go back to Warbler.

  He frowned, trying to imagine what Mr. Today would say, and then followed his instincts. “Well, we have a few options here. Let’s see. Does anyone wish to be returned to Warbler? We will get you there safely. Don’t be afraid.” When no one moved, Alex said, “Uh, you don’t need to answer yet—let me give you all the options first.” He turned when he heard footsteps coming up the path toward him.

  “Ah, good,” Alex said, relieved. “Crow, can you interpret for us?”

  “Sure,” Crow said. He scanned the group. “Hey,” he said. His eyes alighted on the blond girl in the front. A look of recognition passed between them. Crow studied her teary face for a long minute, and then turned to Alex. “You can ask them the questions yourself. But they can’t answer with the shackles on.”

  “Oh. Of course. Which—?”

  “Her,” Crow said, pointing to the girl. “I know her.”

  Alex bent down next to Crow and said in a low voice, “Do you want to try to release the shackles?”

  Crow shook his head. He wasn’t very good at magic. “You do it.”

  Alex did. The shackles fell to the ground. The girl rubbed her wrists and signed, “Thank you.”

  “Can you tell us . . . anything?” Alex wasn’t sure where to start. “Why did they use children in the catapults? Why did they leave you all here?”

  The girl’s hands flew through the air. Crow watched. Sam and Lani did too, since they’d begun learning this language, but soon it was clear by the looks on their faces that they were lost. Every now and then Crow stopped her and reported her answers, and before long, the whole story came out.

  “It was the parents,” Crow said. “When they heard that Queen Eagala was going to attack, and how she was going to do it with the catapults, the parents began a secret mission to send the children on shore to fight. They convinced Queen Eagala’s ruling board that the catapults could fit more children because they are smaller. Their plan all along was to retreat without going back for them.”

  “What? That’s terrible!” Lani cried.

  “It’s just like Quill,” Samheed muttered.

  “I can’t believe it,” Meghan said.

  The girl began signing faster.

  “No,” Crow said. He jumped up and down, trying to get the Unwanteds’ attention. “Not like Quill. Listen.”

  Alex held up a hand to quiet everyone and addressed Crow. “What are you saying?”

  “She says the people of Warbler—their parents—convinced the ruling board to send the children to attack because their parents were trying to save the kids.” He looked at the girl, whose hands had slowed. “Their parents did it so the children could escape Warbler for good. To give them a chance here in Artimé.” He turned to Alex. “They did it out of love.”

  “So they’re not Unwanted at all,” Alex said. He tried to imagine what it would be like to have to send your children off when you didn’t actually want to, in order to save them. It was kind of like what Lani’s parents did when they sent her to the Death Farm. Only she didn’t know it at first.

  Samheed didn’t look convinced. “How do you know she’s telling the truth?”

  Crow shrugged. “Because I know her. But mostly because that’s what parents
are supposed to do.”

  A Journey into Quill

  Later, with the nurses caring for the injured and several of Alex’s trusted friends monitoring the Warbler children to be sure they weren’t tricking the people of Artimé, Alex turned his thoughts back to the events of the previous night. Something had been bothering him.

  He knew what it was, of course, but hadn’t had a spare moment to think about it. Now that things were settling down a bit, Alex frowned, deep in thought. Anger bubbled up inside him. He slipped past the busy Artiméans and made his way with a firm step up the stairs, across the balcony, and down the last hallway on the left. At the end of it, he turned right and entered the tube. He pressed the first button.

  In an instant he was reaching through the tube opening, feeling for the closet doors in the dark. He found them and pushed them open, stepped into Haluki’s stuffy office, and strode through the house to the front door, letting himself out into the overpowering desert heat of Quill. He walked up the short, dusty road to the larger main road that encircled Quill, and headed up the hill toward the palace.

  As he drew near his identical twin brother’s lackluster residence, portions of his angry inner rant broke through his lips like bursts of steam from a kettle. He approached the rickety old gate. Two guards stood on the other side. “Open up,” he growled at the guards.

  There was a moment of confusion as they looked at Alex, clearly mistaking him for Aaron but taken aback by the bright color of Alex’s robe. “It’s the brother,” one of them muttered. “I seen ’im before, wearing one a those ugly robes. Don’t let him in.”

  The guards stood fast.

  Alex clenched his jaw. He was in no mood for an argument. “Open the gate,” he said through gritted teeth, “or I’ll blast you.”

  The guards drew their rusty metal weapons.

  Alex’s brain had nearly heated to a boil. With a split-second movement, he reached inside his robe, pulled out two abstract spells, and flung them at the guards. Immediately their appendages spun around their bodies to different sockets, and their eyes and ears rearranged with their noses and mouths. The guards lost their balance and stumbled about, crying out.

  Alex focused on the chain and lock and muttered, “Release.”

  The chain fell in pieces to the dirt. Alex kicked the lock aside, opened the gate, and went up the driveway toward the palace door. Without comment, he stunned the door guard with a soliloquy. Inside the palace, Alex stood and looked around for a moment, unsure where to go. It had been a while since he’d been here, and he’d never gone upstairs before, but he had an inkling that would be where the palace chambers and offices would be.

  He took the stairs two at a time. At the top, he rounded the corner and nearly ran smack into someone.

  It was Eva Fathom, Carina’s mother. She gasped at the sight of him, then clapped her hand to her mouth, too late to stop it.

  Alex stopped short and fought the urge to turn around and go the other way. Eva’s betrayal, choosing Quill over Artimé and helping Aaron take down the magical world and its leader, still stung quite a bit. He cringed but held her gaze, and waited for her to shout a warning to Aaron that he was coming.

  The two stood frozen, staring at one another in a most intense way, each wondering what the other would do next. After what seemed to Alex like the longest second in the history of time, Eva Fathom wordlessly stepped aside and pointed out the door to Aaron’s office.

  Confrontation at the Palace

  Alex remained still a moment longer, confused and surprised, and then brusquely nodded his thanks. He turned on his heel toward the office door while Eva slipped downstairs at a frightening speed for an old woman.

  Alex shoved the door open. It slammed against the wall, and a giant hinge broke off, which made a dissonant clang when it bounced on the stone floor.

  The High Priest Aaron Stowe jumped out of his seat, yelling out in fright. His pencil went flying, and the paper he was doodling on slipped to the floor. “What do you want?” Aaron demanded, once he realized it was his brother standing before him. “Secretary!”

  But Eva Fathom had been just swift enough to make it outside and, arguably, out of earshot. Alex caught a glimpse of her from Aaron’s window, walking along as if she hadn’t heard.

  Alex picked up the paper, looking at Aaron’s ship drawings in disgust. He faced his brother, and the anger welled up again. He slammed the paper down on Aaron’s desk and gave him a cool stare. “You’re a disgusting coward.”

  Aaron looked on in disdain. “Please,” he said with a sneer. “I’m the high priest of Quill. You’ll treat me with respect.” He snatched the paper and turned it facedown, out of Alex’s reach.

  Alex laughed bitterly. “Right. Like how you treat me?”

  “I don’t have to treat you with respect,” Aaron said. “You’re nobody.”

  “I see.” Alex toyed with the spell components in his robe pocket. “Well, it may surprise you to realize that I am not under your command, so I don’t have to respect you. Nor do I. But I’m not here to quibble about that. I’m here to call you a coward, and to inform you that if you don’t do a better job of protecting our island, you might not remain high priest for long.”

  Aaron glanced out the window at the forty-foot wall around Quill. “I’m taking care of my island just fine. In fact, further reinforcements go into place today.”

  “We protected you.”

  “From?”

  “From Warbler Island’s attack. You saw the ships.”

  Aaron barely shifted. “They weren’t attacking Quill.”

  “We all live on this island, Aaron. And they didn’t get into Quill because we kept them at bay on our shore! We protected your people. And what did you do? You ran away and hid.” Alex could feel the bile rising to his throat. “You’re such a stinking coward! Next time we’ll let them in and point them in the direction of your cruddy palace.”

  “No, actually, you won’t,” Aaron said coolly. “After today, there will no longer be an entrance into Quill.”

  “What?” Alex looked confused for a moment, and then his eyes flew to the window once more. “You filled in the hole in the wall?” he said. “Why would you want to do that?”

  “And we’re blocking over the space where the gate was as well. You’ll have to continue fighting battles on your own. I’m not interested. Justine had it right. And I have it even more right. There will no longer be any vulnerable parts to our fortress.”

  Alex gripped his head in frustration. “Aaron, not that I care to help you, but that’s a huge mistake. Just because you can’t see things happening doesn’t mean they aren’t happening! Besides, some of your Quillens visit—”

  Aaron cut him off. “Actually, the fact that all of you exist is the huge mistake, and I do blame Justine for not being aware of what her nasty brother was doing. And I’m not stopping there. Once we’ve walled over the gate, I’ll be blockading your magical entrance to Haluki’s house. Since you haven’t destroyed your evil tube in Artimé, I’m going to have to do it here. We’ll never have to see each other again.”

  Alex seethed. “Fine. You need us more than we need you, anyway.”

  “Ha! Tell that to all the Unwanteds and Necessaries you starved. They’re all here in Quill!”

  Alex worked his jaw. “When you come to regret this, remember that you sealed your own fate—literally. If you wall off all access, it will be for forever if I have anything to say about it.” He pulled himself up to his full height. “You want to cut all ties? That’s completely fine with me. I don’t need you in my life—you’re just a cowardly, annoying fly buzzing about, being worthless.” He went on, growing more stubborn and reckless by the minute. “But make no mistake. If you do it, Artimé will never, ever help you again. Never.”

  “As if I need help from a bunch of Unwanted losers.”

  Alex glared at his brother. He glanced at the drawing on Aaron’s desk and shook his head, disgusted. “You could have been one of u
s.”

  “Death would’ve been a better option.”

  Alex clenched and unclenched his fists. And just before he turned to leave, he did something he knew was completely, utterly wrong. He wound up and punched Aaron smack in the jaw.

  Aaron reeled, off balance, and flipped over his desk, landing hard on his back on the floor. He grunted, the wind knocked out of him.

  “That’s for the day in the rain when we were ten,” Alex said. He shook his hand out, adjusted his robe around his neck, and set off, out of the palace.

  Paying Respects

  Instead of heading straight to Haluki’s house to take the tube back to Artimé, after he released the spells he’d put on the guards at the gate, Alex found himself wandering through the sectors of Quill. He ignored the glances from Quillens and walked, stone-faced, in one particular direction, as though propelled there by a mystical force.

  Soon he found himself in the Ancients Sector, standing in front of the burial grounds.

  Alex hadn’t been here in years—not since he was a little boy, spending the day helping his father dig graves. How grotesque, Alex thought now, about this job that could really be very meaningful. But here in Quill it was ordinary and emotionless when you knew no one cared about the dead. There was no mourning. As he thought about the grave he sought, he began to worry that Aaron had turned it into some sort of mockery, a reason to rejoice. Alex imagined a sign celebrating the death of the Death Farmer himself . . . the Death Farmer who had tricked all of Quill for dozens of years. Who had defeated Quill once already, to the High Priest Aaron’s great shame. Alex wished he’d demanded to bury Mr. Today’s body himself back when Aaron had delivered the mage’s robe to him. But by then it had been too late. He picked up his pace, dreading what he might find.

  He walked over to the small building and began to read the names of the recent dead. He scanned the list, recognizing a few surnames—Quillens who had died in the skirmish that broke out after Artimé disappeared. And then he saw it.