A Kingdom Rises Read online

  Special thanks to Graham Edwards

  For R. K.

  In Toronia, realm of three,

  A tempest has long raged.

  By power’s potent siren call,

  Weak men are enslaved.

  Too much virtuous blood has spilt

  In this accursed age.

  When the stars increase by three

  The kingdom shall be saved.

  Beneath these fresh celestial lights,

  Three new heirs will enter in.

  They shall summon unknown power,

  They shall kill the cursed king.

  With three crowns they shall ascend,

  And true peace, they will bring.

  —Gryndor, first wizard of Toronia

  PROLOGUE

  Gryndor the wizard plucked a small pebble from the crystal bowl and spun it in his bony fingers. The pebble was smooth and milky white. In the bowl were thousands of other pebbles, each one a different shape and color.

  My stones, Gryndor thought. My magic.

  The bowl stood on a crystal table beneath the darkened window of Gryndor’s tower. Outside, he could see red-and-black striped flags dancing on the night breeze, high above the magnificent sprawl of King Warryck’s ruby palace. Surrounding the palace was the crystal realm of Celestis, the City of Stars. Its diamond roofs glistened under the moonlit sky, and its streets of sapphire shone like rivers. Surrounding the city were the defensive walls, higher this year than last.

  Gryndor eyed them with worry. If only we could keep the war at bay for one more season.

  Close by, his fellow wizards shifted impatiently.

  “I am anxious to see what you would show us, Gryndor,” said Hathka. His dark skin gleamed in the warm night air.

  “And I am anxious to return to my work,” grumbled Ravgar. Her face was as pale as Hathka’s was dark, and her expression was even more sour than usual.

  Gryndor stroked his thick, gray beard. Usually when he called Hathka and Ravgar to his tower, it was to share some new spell or to talk through whatever magical theory he’d been working on. But already those days seemed long gone.

  “I too am anxious,” he told them. He picked up his gnarled wooden staff. “Let me show you why.”

  Gryndor strode across the wide, circular chamber. His silver cloak swished dust from the floor. Hathka and Ravgar followed. As he walked, Gryndor’s old bones creaked, and he was glad to have the staff to lean on.

  A red spot marked the middle of the room, the only point of color on the white crystal. Bending stiffly, Gryndor placed the pebble he was holding on the spot, then straightened again.

  “Old ocean bring stone,” he chanted. “Stone bring magic. Magic bring truth. Truth bring enlightenment . . .”

  He began to speak more rapidly, the words tumbling over each other. As he recited the spell, his mind flew back in time to his first days as an awakening wizard.

  I walked along the Beach of the First Day, and the sea washed up the pebbles, and I gathered them up, and that was when I learned that every wizard’s magic has its own unique song.

  My song is stone.

  “. . . stone roll wide, stone roll far. Stone show us one world, three realms. Show us true, stone. Show us true.”

  He broke off, gasping for breath. His body felt stiffer than ever, as if it too were made of stone. Hathka and Ravgar pressed close against him, one on each side, peering down at the little white pebble.

  Except now the pebble was no longer small. It had grown enormous beyond measure. Or perhaps it was the three wizards who had shrunk.

  Perhaps both these things are true, Gryndor mused as he gazed down at the world-sized stone, over which they now flew like birds.

  Hathka laughed and spread his arms like wings.

  “This is dangerous magic,” grunted Ravgar. “What if we fall?”

  “We will not fall.”

  Gryndor pointed with his staff. At the gesture, he and his companions began to sink toward the gigantic stone disc. Colored patterns appeared on the surface of the stone.

  “It’s a map of the kingdom!” cried Hathka.

  “See Ritherlee,” said Gryndor, pointing to a vast patch of grassland to their left.

  “And there’s Isur.” Hathka indicated an equally large swath of dark forest ahead. “And there’s Celestis! It’s so bright.”

  Ravgar looked unimpressed. “Gryndor, we are all familiar with the three realms of Toronia. Your map is very clever, but do we really need—”

  “Hush,” said Gryndor. “Keep looking.”

  The closer they flew to the map, the more detail they saw. First towns, then individual buildings, finally people.

  “Hundreds of them!” Hathka gasped. “No, thousands! And why are they . . . ?” His voice trailed away.

  “You wonder why they are fighting?” said Gryndor.

  The three wizards watched in silence as, far below them, battle raged. All across Toronia, ordinary people were fighting with farm tools and makeshift weapons against a common enemy: soldiers dressed in black and red.

  “But that is the royal army,” said Hathka in dismay. “Why is King Warryck fighting his own people?”

  As Gryndor guided them closer to Ritherlee, it became clear that many of the fields were bare of grass. Thin figures trudged across the muddy plains, stooped and weary.

  Hathka gave a cry of outrage. Ravgar’s mouth set in a grim line.

  “This too is King Warryck’s work,” said Gryndor. “He has bled his people dry. No sooner do the crops of Ritherlee grow ripe than he takes them for the palace kitchens. While Warryck grows fat, his people starve.”

  Now they soared over Isur, where tiny people were felling trees and erecting sinister-looking towers.

  “Hunting is forbidden for all but the king and his men. Those who defy the law are hanged. You think Isur is a realm of woodland? It has become a land of the gallows.”

  With a flick of his staff, Gryndor flew them to Celestis.

  “As for the City of Stars,” he went on, “nobody now can afford the taxes demanded by Warryck’s collectors. The people of Celestis have nothing. All across Toronia, people have nothing. Is it any wonder there is rebellion?”

  “I have spent too much time locked away with my studies,” breathed Hathka. “I had not seen this suffering.”

  “The time for study is past,” said Gryndor. “The time for action has come.”

  “Action?” said Ravgar. “Gryndor, we want to end these injustices. But we are wizards, not warriors.”

  “Nevertheless, we must act.” Gryndor pointed at the columns of soldiers streaming out from the walls of Celestis. “More garrisons of the king’s army, on their way to put down the rebels. Too many have already died. And this is just the start. Unless we act now, a full-blown war will come to Toronia.”

  Hathka looked horrified. “Surely it won’t come to that. Even Warryck must see sense, sooner or later.”

  Gryndor suddenly clenched his fist. “What if I told you this war will last for a thousand years? What if I told you that death will not be measured in thousands, but millions?”

  “How can you know that?” Hathka quavered.

  “My stones,” said Gryndor. “They have shown me all I need to know—that what we see now is nothing compared to what comes next. One thousand years of darkness. One thousand years of suffering. This is the future . . . unless we prevent it.”

  Ravgar’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “And what exactly are you suggesting we should do?”

  “We must bring down the king!”

  Gryndor waved his staff in a wide circle. The map fell away, the three realms of Toronia dwindling to mere specks as the magic collapsed, until once more the three wizards were standing in the topmost chamber of
the crystal tower.

  To Gryndor’s surprise, Ravgar laughed. “Kill the king? A bold idea indeed! I for one would not be sorry to see that tyrant’s head on a spike. I wish you luck with your quest.”

  But Hathka was shaking his head. “Gryndor . . . what of the prophecy? If we wait, won’t the prophecy save Toronia from war?”

  “Prophecy?” snapped Ravgar. “Pah! It is nothing but a tale for babes. Three children born to a king under the light of enchanted stars? Three children destined to save Toronia? Hathka, do you truly believe everything Gryndor tells you?”

  Gryndor scooped up the milky-white pebble and dropped it in his pocket. Even here a battle rages. If we wizards cannot live peacefully together, what hope is there for the rest of the kingdom?

  “The prophecy may be mine to tell,” he said heavily, “but it is not of my making, as well you know, Ravgar. It is of the stars, as are we all in the end.”

  “If you think your prophecy will—”

  “I do not think. I know. The prophecy has been made. But it will not come to pass yet, Ravgar. Not yet.”

  Returning to the window, Gryndor plunged his fingers into his collection of stones and swirled them around. The stones chimed against each other, ringing like bells.

  “I cannot do this without you, my friends,” he said, his voice low and earnest. “If I alone confront Warryck, I will fail. But he cannot stand against three wizards. No man can. Join with me, please, and together we can save Toronia.”

  Hathka gulped, seemed to consider this for a moment, then came over to the window. He seized Gryndor’s hand. “I am yours to command, Gryndor.”

  Gryndor turned to Ravgar and raised his eyebrows. Ravgar frowned, her mouth compressed to a thin, white line.

  “I have no faith in prophecies,” she said at last. “But I do believe in justice. I will join you, Gryndor.”

  “When do we strike?” Hathka asked.

  From outside, roars of laughter filled the night. The windows of the royal banqueting hall were brightly lit, the scent of smoke and roasted meat drifting on the air.

  “The king is feasting,” Gryndor said.

  Realization dawned on Ravgar’s pale face. “He will not be expecting a fight,” she said slowly.

  Gryndor nodded. “We may not have a better opportunity.”

  Now that the moment had come, his back felt as straight as it had when he was a young apprentice. His fingers flexed, eager for the fight.

  “Let us strike now.”

  Snatching up their staffs, the three wizards raced for the door. Ravgar, ever competitive, lunged past them both and was first to close her fingers on the handle.

  There was a hissing sound.

  Gryndor stopped in his tracks, staring in shock at the spluttering strands of light that had suddenly appeared around the doorframe.

  “Firedust!” he cried. He raised his staff.

  Too late.

  The door erupted into flame. A hot fist of air slammed into Gryndor and threw him backward. He landed hard, the breath flying from his lungs. White fire blazed furiously in the remains of the doorway. Inside its glow, Gryndor could just make out the twisted forms of two figures. Little remained of them but bones. Even as he watched, the brittle skeletons collapsed to ash.

  Hathka and Ravgar were gone.

  The floor was shaking. A crack raced up the crystal wall behind Gryndor. Dense, white smoke poured through it. A second crack opened in the floor, growing wider. The whole tower was ripping itself apart.

  Gryndor struggled painfully to his feet, his heart filled with grief and dread. Warryck had done this, he was certain—he must have guessed Gryndor would strike, so had his chamber rigged with firedust to take him down. But did Warryck know what would happen when a wizard was killed?

  Let alone two wizards?

  The crack in the floor was widening into a chasm. Driving his aching bones into action, Gryndor leaped across it. In the doorway, the firedust continued to burn, white-hot. Behind him, the smoke was a thick, stinging fog.

  Gryndor realized his hands were empty. He glanced back across the chasm. His eyes fell on a pile of wooden splinters.

  My staff!

  A tongue of fire belched from the doorway. Gryndor ducked beneath it and hobbled toward the window, his eyes fixed on the bowl of pebbles. Five steps short of his goal, he saw the tower tip sideways. The bowl flew from the sill, showering the pebbles across the tiles and into the huge crack in the floor.

  My magic!

  Another enormous crack split the entire tower in two. This time, what poured in was not smoke but starlight. Gryndor staggered toward it. Another tremendous concussion rocked the tower. Shards of crystal fell from the ceiling. Gryndor dodged two, but a third—a cruel diamond blade as tall as a man—sliced deep into his chest.

  Howling against the pain, Gryndor pulled himself free and thrust himself through the crack. Emerging onto the open staircase that encircled the tower, he stopped again, horrified by what he saw. Fire had broken out across the whole of Celestis. The crystal streets were filled with people fighting, running, shrieking. On the roof of the palace, the flags burned.

  But that wasn’t the worst of it. The entire city had . . . tipped. For every building still standing, two had collapsed onto their sides. As Gryndor watched, the shining realm of Celestis broke into a patchwork of crystal pieces. It looked like a child’s puzzle torn apart by its owner in a sudden fit of rage.

  See what you have done, Warryck! By killing Hathka and Ravgar, you have killed Celestis, too!

  The city tilted further. Gryndor clung to the crystal balustrade, ignoring the blood pumping from the wound in his chest, the agony that coursed through his whole body.

  Below, the palace outbuildings had been reduced to a mess of broken crystal. People ran screaming through the ruins, only to be crushed by falling walls, or swallowed by fresh holes opening up beneath their feet.

  Gryndor looked up.

  His own humble tower was just one small part of a much greater structure: the Sky Tower, tallest in the realm. Alone in all the buildings of Celestis, it remained standing.

  The staircase he was standing on led directly to it.

  It’s waiting for me.

  Grimacing with pain, he staggered up the stairs. With every step he took up, he felt Celestis lurch down beneath him. All around the perimeter of the city, gigantic fingers of rock were rearing up. As Celestis fell, so the land was beginning to close over it.

  As he continued his painful ascent, Gryndor wondered what Hathka and Ravgar were experiencing. Wizards could not enter the Realm of the Dead. Somewhere their disembodied spirits bored their way out of this world and into the next, leaving chaos and destruction in their wake.

  He wondered where it was that they were going.

  Soon I will not have to wonder. He pressed his trembling hand to the bloom of blood on his robe. Soon I will be going there myself.

  But not before completing his final task.

  Another bout of agonized climbing brought Gryndor to the very top of the Sky Tower. He wasted no more time with the spectacle of the collapsing city. Instead, he turned his attention to what he’d known was waiting for him.

  The three crystal statues were huge—each one as big as ten men. Their snakelike bodies coiled in muscular knots of green emerald. Beneath each crystalline belly was tucked a pair of birdlike legs; from each back sprouted a pair of vast green wings. Gold-flecked eyes of dazzling red ruby glared from beneath angry reptilian brows.

  The wyverns!

  Gryndor dragged himself across the tower roof. In the light of the watching stars, the trail of blood he left was thick and dark.

  Fingers shaking, he slipped his hand into the pocket of his robe. He drew out the pebble he’d dropped in there.

  The last of my magic.

  “Stone bring sky,” he croaked, appalled at how weak his voice sounded. “Sky bring flight. Flight bring all to final right.”

  He tightened his fingers on the m
ilky-white stone. The pebble shattered, driving splinters deep into his flesh. Gryndor paid them no heed. His attention was captured entirely by the wyverns.

  As one, the three serpents uncoiled. Their crystal bodies flexed and creaked. Their wings extended like vast emerald sails, caught the air, and began to flap. Their clawed feet rose from their pedestals. Their jaws opened, revealing vicious ruby teeth. And they screeched.

  As the birth-cries of the wyverns filled the sky, Gryndor fell onto his side. His work was done. All that remained was to die.

  The realization made him desperately sad. Even worse was the knowledge that, with Celestis fallen, his worst fears would surely come to pass.

  “One thousand years of darkness,” he murmured. “One thousand years of suffering.”

  He gazed up at the wyverns as they soared against the stars.

  Oh, he thought in wonder. You are magnificent!

  His breath was ragged in his broken chest. Beneath him, the tower tottered as it began its final, fatal collapse. At least Melchior was safe, far away in his forest workshop, a young apprentice wizard dutifully learning all he was bound to learn as Gryndor’s apprentice. The thought made Gryndor glad.

  If only I had taught you the prophecy, Melchior. Will you ever learn of its existence? Will any of my books survive for you to find? When the prophecy stars finally shine out, and the three are born who will lead Toronia back into the light, will you know what to do?

  Mustering the last of his strength, he shouted up to the circling wyverns, “Find a safe place in the world! Go there, and wait! If the prophecy should falter, then you will come to Toronia’s aid! Then you will fly again!”

  With a colossal, grinding roar, the Sky Tower pitched sideways. Gryndor looked on in horror as the nearest of the three wyverns was struck by a flying chunk of crystal. The creature’s wing exploded into hundreds of glittering fragments. With a dreadful snapping sound, its neck broke in two.

  Then, just like Celestis, the wyvern’s lifeless body fell.

  Gryndor was no longer in pain. All he felt now was despair, and that was much, much worse. The wyverns had been his last chance to protect the prophecy. Now they were dying before his eyes.