The Age of Knights & Dames Read online

  Bidden by the librarian’s account, the air became less dense with sparks. The once green island yellowed. The mage and his magesty stood stock-still, watching the southern end of the island suspiciously.

  Humans, olive skinned and wary, approached the mages cautiously. The two mages held their arms open in welcome.

  The librarian continued: “Mage and human lived in harmony for several years. The families grew in safety and numbers. But the island began to fall into famine due to the dwindling magic and excess of citizens.”

  All around us, the isles changed with the librarian’s words. A small gathering of cottages was built near the eastern end of Coral Canyon. But even as this grew, the face of the island darkened. The grasses became dust. The hazy golden atmosphere lightened to the point of nonexistence.

  “And then,” Sir Rignot continued, “one day, several generations later but still long before our time, when it seemed this would be the final generation to live on the island, two citizens shared a kiss on the cliffs.”

  A dashing boy and button-nosed girl popped into existence, chasing one another toward the cliffs. They wrapped one another in a strong embrace and kissed. It was long and passionate. Sparks flew off them—and not just figuratively. Literally. Golden embers exploded out of that kiss, filling the air like a million tiny fireflies.

  “At their feet,” the librarian continued, “grew a plinth.”

  So it did: a rock tore through the grass. It was made of black stone like the castle’s walls, about the size of a man’s chest cavity, and tapered up to a flat top the width and length of a human palm.

  “And from the sparks of their kiss…,” Sir Rignot said.

  The sparks around the couple amassed on the plinth’s top and blossomed into red and orange flames. Golden-red sparks sputtered in every direction and the flames’ tongues danced wildly.

  “…was born the first magical flame of Dembroch,” the librarian concluded. He took a deep breath—the kissing couple froze in their lip-lock of the century and the waves below stopped crashing—and said ponderously, “From this moment, the magic of the land was not just in the ground and the air and the water, but concentrated in the flames. Because of this, though they wouldn’t discover it until much later, the magic was accessible and tangible for humans to use.”

  “And the flames were started by them?” I assumed.

  Sir Rignot nodded.

  “How?” Clay asked.

  “They are SparkSources,” the librarian said contritely, “so named because they were the source of the spark that started the flame and concentrated the magic.”

  The word SparkSource sounded familiar to me. I knew I’d heard it or read it in my youth, perhaps elsewhere in my book, but I couldn’t remember its importance.

  “Let us move on with the story,” the librarian said, “to when the magic was officially discovered.”

  Beckoned once more by Sir Rignot’s narration, the scene around us changed fast and frequently. The sun and moon rose and fell in quick succession. Rain and wind assaulted the flame, but it continued to burn. At the same time, the couple kept returning to the cliffside, sharing meals or talking or kissing. Ever so slowly, they grew older.

  Then, all at once, the tide of time stopped. With the sun at the height of the sky, the couple returned once more to the plinth, but this time, they had several people in tow, including the mages and an elderly, regally dressed man. The mages and elder inspected the flame. Sir Rignot bowed at the sight of this older gentleman, hand thudding against his chest.

  “King Peter, our first ruler,” he whispered. “The late father of our late King Richard.”

  My friends and I bowed disjointedly at the man though he couldn’t see us.

  The librarian continued his narration: “Over the course of several years, the couple aged less rapidly than their friends and family. The leader of the land, soon to be King Peter, deduced with the island’s mages that the flame exuded a magic of timelessness. Anyone within arm’s reach of the plinths stopped aging. To preserve the peculiar, unexpected magic, fearing it could be put out by a storm or wind, King Peter ordered a shelter to be built around it.”

  Quick as a flash, a tower was built before us. It was cylindrical and at least fifty feet tall. The flame was visible through the bottom window.

  “Cliffside Tower,” the librarian proclaimed. “Impressive, yes, yes? Once a shining beacon of our humble beginnings. Now sunken, sullied, and the site of our defenders’ defeat.”

  I approached the tower’s window and looked in on the plinth. The flame seemed ordinary, but on the black stone, I noticed indentations. It took me a second, but I realized they were words.

  “Ca…ri…tas?” I sounded out.

  It took a moment, but I placed the word. Caritas. It was Latin for a love deeper and truer than any simple friendly, brotherly, or familial bond. It was the type of love that could change the world. And if that word was on the plinth of the flame started by a couple kissing… The gears in my head turned, putting two and two together.

  “Some time later,” the librarian continued, “as humans began to understand the magic of the first flame and began using it to accomplish other means, five more flames came into existence with the aid of other SparkSources.”

  Suddenly, we were deep in the Coral Canyon. A woman floated in one of the shallow pools.

  Sir Rignot explained what we were seeing: “A woman, shunned by even her family for her opinions and open-mindedness, found peace with herself, a greater peace than any on Dembroch had known.”

  The woman smiled serenely. A spark of light flew from her, as though it had been within her. Just as had happened before at the cliffs, a black plinth rose from among the shallow pools. The sparks amassed on its flat surface and burst into flames. The golden tongues of fire danced, spitting out sparks.

  I squinted. There were words on this plinth too. Was it pax?

  I didn’t have much time to look closer, because the second the flame lit, we were taken somewhere new. Coral Canyon became a barren, white wasteland of hot springs and geysers. Before us, a man held out a hand to another.

  “Come with me,” he said. “Trust me.”

  Sir Rignot filled us in: “Two friends discovered gates to distant lands and trusted one another enough to discover the unknown together.”

  One friend took the other’s hand, and together, they leapt forward toward a hot spring. Before they landed in the torrid water, they disappeared from view. The only thing left in their absence was a sparking flame upon a plinth. This one had the word fides carved into the black stone.

  We were off again, flying to the northern reaches of Dembroch. We saw a woman deep in the woods, a man upon the sandy shores of Whittlesea, and a lone figure atop Ryderwyle’s mountain. All the while, the librarian narrated, and we saw what he said: “A generous woman took the first steps into Dembroch’s newly grown woods and tended to a hideous monster none dared to heal. An embittered man who lost his wife during childbirth found joy in the new life he was to care for. A man, the last of his line, lost everyone he loved, but with much effort, saw the goodness in the world still.”

  We saw each of these—the hideous mushroom-colored monster licking the woman’s face in thanks, the man holding his newborn with tears of joy and sorrow in his eyes as the sun rose over a sandy shore, and a man overlooking Dembroch from a towering mountain as he cast his burdens from himself—and in each of these places, sparks gave birth to flames on plinths. On each, I saw carved words, but they were long and difficult to remember.

  “Each of the flames exuded the same small aura of timelessness, though each had been started by different means,” the librarian said. “The power of the flames spread across the isles, and many sought it as their own. Fighting ensued.”

  All at once, we were back at Cliffside Tower. Hordes of people came running at us, pushing and fighting for entrance into the tower. Those who got inside fought for space around the plinth. One woman cleared enough roo
m to hold a wooden torch in the fire. The torch did not light. Then, someone pushed her and she fell onto the plinth, her hands landing in the fire. She cried out, pulling back burnt hands. The torch clattered on the ground, flameless and unburnt.

  “Yes, yes, notice,” the librarian observed. “Anyone near the flame is free to bask in the magic, but most anyone who tried to touch the flame was burnt and no one could light a torch from the flame. Well, none of these people.”

  “Could someone else?” I asked.

  “Indeed, indeed,” Sir Rignot said. “As the book’s account states… To quell the fighting of his people, King Peter and the mages devised a plan to spread the magic throughout the island and make the blessings of timelessness available for all. King Peter organized the isles into a kingdom and, on a beautiful summer’s day, sent out the new monarchy’s defenders to collect the flames.”

  Above the shouts of the mob, I heard the whinny of a horse, then its approaching gait. From the corner of my eye, I saw that the Dembroch castle had been half-built near the center of the island.

  Over the hill came two horses, and upon them was a knight and a dame. They wore heavy armor and the knight bore a hefty metal torch.

  The mob parted in the presence of the two defenders. Together, the knight and dame entered the tower and, each holding the torch, lowered its brackets into the flame.

  They waited a moment. The crowds hushed.

  When the knight and dame lifted the torch, it was alight with golden flame and spewing sparks. Fire still burnt on the plinth too.

  The knight and dame exited the tower, holding the burning torch high for all to see. The people clapped and shouted.

  I marveled at the two. They looked impressive with their armor, weapons, and—

  “Hold on!” I shouted.

  The scene froze. The crowds and the knight and dame stopped moving. I approached the couple, careful to not run into anything else in the library, and peered through their visors. Within was the dashing boy and the button-nosed woman, the ones who had first started the flame by the cliffs.

  “Hey,” I exclaimed, pointing at the knight and dame. “They’re the first SparkSources.”

  “Indeed, indeed,” the librarian said. “After much trial and error, the eight SparkSources were the only ones who could spread the flames. As such, the eight became the founding knights and dames of the defenders. Each went to the flames they’d originally started and spread them back to the castle.”

  The knight and dame mounted their horses. Bearing the torch and leading the masses of people, they took off for the half-built castle in the distance. As they went, hundreds of sparks filled the air and hung there. Soon, the entire island was shining with billions of orange embers like a million suspended stars.

  We arrived in the bowels of the castle, standing upon an oval, metal platform that hung from a stone ceiling. Railings circled the edge. Below was oily blackness and the eerie silence of a great, open expanse.

  Eight knights and dames stood around the balcony, holding up six torches of flames. At their feet, arranged in a tight circle were six rocks, the same size and shape of the black plinths we’d seen rise throughout the kingdom.

  “This is the castle’s Aerary,” the librarian explained. “Accessible only through the kingdom crest in the Rotunda.”

  I recalled passing the crest when we had first entered the castle and admiring it before Sir Liliford had hurried us along.

  “In the Aerary, the defenders spread the kingdom’s flames, and by extension, the magic, throughout the realm. From that moment forevermore, the Timeless Kingdom of Dembroch was suspended in a summer’s day.”

  Beckoned by the librarian’s words, the knights and dames lowered their torches toward the plinths on the balcony. There was a burst of light. The Aerary was filled with the orange glow and a million tiny sparks. The flames grew into full force, each burning so bright that they met one another and formed a circle.

  At the same time, the room below us had become lit. It was a massive cavern. There were trees growing from the ground, their leaves glowing lightly. Wine barrels and stores of food were stacked in piles far below.

  “Omnia Aeterno,” the defenders chanted.

  “It means—” the librarian began.

  “All things eternal,” I interjected.

  He nodded. “Sadly, sadly, all is not truly eternal on Dembroch. The space below is no longer a wine cellar. It has been converted to catacombs. Many now lie beneath the castle.”

  My heart fell. All this beauty and splendor, I’d almost forgotten that it had all come crashing down.

  The librarian cleared his throat and, forcing a tone of cheeriness, announced: “The knights and dames, having successfully spread the magic throughout the kingdom, were tasked with tending and safeguarding the flames. Wielders and philosophers alike began to use the magic to benefit the kingdom.”

  Suddenly we were outside, hovering high above Dembroch. Before us, the island became bountiful. Vegetation grew from the ground, producing food. Rivers and springs carved into the land. The golden haze fell upon the whole island once more. Six flames flickered around the whole kingdom.

  I couldn’t believe my eyes. This place…it was stunning and far different from the desolate isles we had discovered.

  My heart fell. What had happened? How had it fallen so far? Could it be this paradise once again?

  “It was quite the wondrous feat,” Sir Rignot continued, “but one that did not go without notice. The appearance of such powerful, timeless magic and the development of the kingdom attracted the attentions of darker forces in the world beyond. Many a dark soul sought Dembroch’s shores to corrupt it or use its magic for their whims.”

  We were swamped in darkness. I sensed something watching us, something immense and bloodthirsty. And then, there were eyes in the darkness. Many of them. Some were human, others reptilian, others clustered like a million spider eyes, others alien and foreign to me. Each and every one stared at us with the wide, thirsting, longing of a predator seeking its prey.

  Jenn let out a squeak. The seer shuddered. Sir Rignot went on, his voice shaky with fear.

  “The order of defenders called for assistance from throughout the world to defend the kingdom. For each one who offered, they were trained rigorously by Master Malleator and, when ready, to prove themselves worthy of the flames.”

  The scene around us remained dark, but the eyes were replaced by dozens of new recruits running past, diving, jumping, swinging, and running their way through obstacles and trainings, right back into the Aerary. The dozen gathered around the ring of flames. Overseeing the ceremony were the mage, the magesty, and a stately man and woman, their expressions observant.

  “Our queen and her late King Richard,” the librarian said, kneeling. The seer knelt too, knocking on her chest in reverence. Jenn and Clay copied them, but I only had eyes for the woman beside the king.

  It was Queen Coralee. She looked the same as she had in the throne room—or as the witch had—young, elegant, and shrewd. Her eyes, though, were full of kindness. This was the true queen of Dembroch, both in mind and body.

  “What happened to King Peter?” Jenn asked.

  Sir Rignot was quick to explain: “After spreading the flames and creating the kingdom, King Peter did not feel it was his right to lead such a nation. He gave the kingdom to his son, King Richard, who was born with a lion’s heart and deep love for goodness. Afterward, King Peter left the isles and lived out the remainder of his days in the world beyond, aiding those in need and pointing the persecuted to the haven of Dembroch. In standard time, this was millennia ago.”

  I nodded in understanding, eyes passing over the king. He looked impressive dressed in deep purple. Upon his brow was a thin, black-and-gold flecked crown. He looked strong, confident, bold, and breathed fairness and justice. It was no wonder the queen had loved him. Maybe she still did.

  Before us, the king gestured at the ring of fire. The dozen recruits reached out
their hands and placed them directly into the flames closest to them. A few leapt back, shouting in pain, while the rest did not scream, nor did the flame burn their hands. These lucky, unburnt dozen began to circle the plinths, continuing to hold their hands in the flames. Many shouted at one point or another, but four of them made a full circuit without being burnt.

  “Those select few who were worthy of the flames were invited to join the ranks of the defenders and share in their responsibilities,” the librarian said.

  From their scalps, the four remaining recruits pulled tufts of hair. They held the hairs over the plinths and dropped them in the flames. The follicles disappeared in bursts of sparks. The recruits’ eyes glowed the color of the fire for a moment. Queen Coralee presented the four with a Dembroch medal—just like the one we’d had.

  As I watched this, I remembered that my friends and I had sent our hair to Dembroch. Our hair must have been cast into the flames. Had this created some type of magical bond? Had my eyes glowed at some point in my youth?

  “The defenders grew one hundred strong,” Sir Rignot said, “each dedicated to preserving Dembroch’s magic. And so long as the defenders stand, the magic of the isles would continue forevermore, bound in the age of knights and dames.”

  Something about this last statement struck me, as though it meant more than what was stated or immediately understood, with Sir Rignot’s final word, the Aerary, its flames, and the defenders of old faded from view. Bright white smoke surrounded us again. I squinted, and then, with a blink of an eye, the story ended, the smoke disappeared, and we had returned to the library.

  CHAPTER 14:

  The Age of Knights and Dames

  “Do you understand, yes, yes?” Sir Rignot asked us, closing the book and handing it back to me. “Do you see now what the witch must never know?”