Bayne

“Rubies be cursed!” Bayne muttered, then kissed a red-ringed finger in apology. But the boy had crashed his machine, and a golem down would be nearly impossible to get on its feet again.

He and the Wizard joined the Elf who was already perched in a tree, reaching up to extricate the boy from the cockpit through the open front. The Wizard hurried to help her. It looked like they were pulling a child’s rag doll out of a crashed minecart.

“Help us!” the Wizard cried, and Bayne stepped forward and held out his hands. A pair of thin shoulders and a lolling head were deposited into them as the Wizard wrangled the rest of the boy, who wasn’t much heavier than a set of sheets. They laid him gently down, and the Wizard began to work his healing charms.

“There’s no blood,” the Elf murmured to the Wizard, leaning over the boy’s prone form. “What’s wrong with him?”

“I don’t think anything’s broken,” the Wizard muttered back.

Bayne rubbed his hands together. It had felt strange, holding another living being in one’s hands. Bayne hadn’t done that since he’d said goodbye to Dayne so many years ago.

“I don’t think he’s injured; I think he’s sick,” the Wizard said. “Oh, he’s awake!”

Bayne heard the weak coughing fit and stood on his tiptoes to peer over the Wizard’s broad shoulders.

The boy moaned and tried to sit up. “Why did you do that, useless magickers?” He burst into another fit of coughing, which transitioned into retching.

“Settle down there, spunky. It looks like you may have passed out at the controls. Do you have some kind of medical condition?” the Summoner asked.

The boy didn’t answer, but his verbal attacks and coughing subsided. In their wake, another sound cut the forest quiet—squawking voices.

“What is that?” the Elf queen demanded, staff at the ready.

The Wizard tilted his head skyward. “It’s coming from the golem. Is that thing talking?”

Bayne looked behind him to see if perhaps the Wizard was speaking to someone else, someone who knew the answer to that question.

The Elf hopped back up into the tree and turned her ear to the golem. “It sounds like Imperials speaking through a tunnel.”

“What are they saying?” the Wizard asked her. Without waiting for an answer he asked Bayne, “What is that?”

Bayne shrugged. There were numerous knobs and switches inside the golem, but many of them hadn’t seemed to do anything when he tested them in his workshop. He’d been focused on powering it and then driving it. He hadn’t worried about the nonworking parts. But perhaps they weren’t nonworking after all. “Maybe it’s a communications array,” he suggested.

The Elf had climbed inside it and found a way to turn up the volume. Bayne recognized the voice coming through immediately as that of Kenji Zamora.

...in the wake of his passing, we will hold our banners high! We will not back down! We will not surrender! We will destroy the Elf and Wizard factions and deliver the Emperor’s heirs a Terris worth fighting for!

Kashur’s jaw dropped. “The Emperor died?” His head whipped from Bayne to the Elf Queen and back to Bayne again. “Did anyone know this?”

“I saw his litter overturned and empty after the battle,” Bayne said, trading places with the Elf Queen to hoist himself into the cockpit and inspect the communications array.

“This isn’t good,” Kashur said. “Who will lead the Imperial forces?”

The boy chuckled. “Who do you think will lead them? He will.” He waved a vague hand at the squawking golem. “It’s what he’s wanted from the beginning.” His words disintegrated into hacking coughs delivered into a handkerchief.

“The Sentinel?” The Elf Queen asked. “But he’s the Emperor’s most loyal servant.”

“This one’s a bit of a donkey’s ass,” Kashur replied.

The boy chuckled again. “I didn’t realize anyone else saw that side of him.”

“How would you know that side of him?” Kashur asked. “And what’s a sick kid doing on a battlefield anyway? Because whatever’s wrong with you didn’t come from crashing the golem.”

Bayne turned the knob clockwise and counterclockwise, and the sound of Kenji Zamora pledging to honor the Emperor on the battlefield got louder and softer.

Let’s honor the man who led us for so long! Imperials forever! May the shield hold strong!

Roaring cheers followed.

“Turn that off, will you?” the boy called from the ground. “It’s all a bunch of pisswater, anyway. The Empire is over.”

“It’s considered treasonous to talk that way,” Kashur warned.

The boy barked a mirthless laugh. “I don’t think anything I say can be considered treasonous.”

“Oh really? And why would that be?” Kashur asked.

The pieces came together in Bayne’s brain, like circuits clicking into place. The nightshirt and velvet slippers. Ivy’s regular visits to the litter. It’s not what you think.

“Because he is the Emperor,” Bayne called down. “Has been for a while now, haven’t ye, lad?”

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“You’re so stupid! You’re all so stupid!”

The Elf Queen laid the tip of her staff against the boy’s jaw and turned his face to her. “Speak plainly, boy, or I’ll silence your worthless tongue for a fortnight!”

His scoffing laugh cut off and his face grew sober. “My grandfather’s been dead for a year now, and Kenji Zamora has spent every minute since then trying to undermine me. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d crushed my litter himself! Do you think I want to be out here on the battlefield? He insisted, probably for this very purpose. And he’s just using you Dwarves to get close to the crash site. He aims to take control of all of that crystal for himself! You think he’s going to share it with you coal miners? He’s not going to share it! Not the crystals. Not the power. Not Terris itself!” The boy broke down into more manic laughter.

Bayne looked at the Wizard and Elf. They appeared as worried as he felt.

“I could have stopped this, you know,” the boy went on. “Showed up in my golem. Taken Kenji out once and for all. Claimed my rightful place. But no, you idiots had to get in my way!” He banged the back of his head on the ground, like a tantruming toddler. “Now, the crown will go to a despot thanks to you!”

“So it’s our fault you took the golem on a nose dive?” Kashur muttered. Bayne was thinking the same thing. The Wizard shook his head. “Why don’t we just take you to the crash site and tell everyone who you are?”

“No!” the Elf Queen interrupted. “Are you a fool? He’s the perfect bargaining chip. The rightful heir to the Imperial dynasty. We must hold onto him. We’re in enemy territory, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“He’s a kid!” The Wizard argued. “It’s not right. Besides, we know who the real enemy is.”

“You heard the Sentinel. He seeks to destroy our factions.”

“What if we offered to share information?”

Her eyes flashed. “You mean defect? The Queen of the Elves and the Alchemist’s Summoner committing high treason? I’m sure that will turn out well. I need to think of my people.”

Bayne glanced sideways at the sick boy. So much arguing over a child. Ruthie would cluck her tongue. Also, he wondered where he stood in all this. If they took the boy, would they let Bayne go? He could not let them hold him. He needed to go search for Ivy. It had been far too long...

“This is about more than the Elves!” the Summoner countered. “This is a fight for Terris itself, and we’re going to lose if our fate is in the hands of power-hungry idiots like Kenji Zamora. First, we need to warn the Elves that Mol Morin is compromised. Tell them to hold the crash site against him until we can convince the Dwarf conclaves and the Imperials to join with us. If we all come together, maybe we can—”

“Do what?” the Elf cut him off. “Defeat the Wizards and their Goblin army? Kill Mol Morin? Have you the stomach for that, Summoner?”

He opened his mouth, but the words seemed to teeter on his tongue—Bayne knew what that felt like. Finally, the Summoner managed to say, “If we all come together, maybe we can confound their plans enough to stop the Celestiri from coming. Or at least have a fighting chance when they do come.”

Bayne squirmed. He probably shouldn’t interrupt, but then again Ruthie had taught him it was important to speak up when one had a question. “Excuse me. Celestiri?”

The Elf Queen’s eyes shone as green as newly cut emeralds. “The Celestiri are not from this world. They sent the meteorite as a weapon to weaken us. And they’re coming, although who knows how much of Terris will be left when they arrive.”

“What do they want?” Bayne asked.

“Who can know?” the queen said. “To harm us. To harm Terris or to destroy her.”

“Or maybe to change her,” Bayne mused.

Everyone stared at him.

“That’s why they sent the meteorite,” Bayne went on. “To prepare a way for themselves; that’s why the energy is so powerful, yet different. It’s like dropping a bag of supplies into a new crevice before you venture down. You know everything you need will already be there when you arrive.”

The Wizard’s dark eyes were sad. “He’s right. They’re not attacking Terris. They’re terraforming it. They mean to take it for themselves.”

“Sprites!” The Elf’s nostrils flared for a moment before she turned away, speaking something soft and strange to the wind. A moment later, a hawk swooped in and landed on her arm. She whispered something to it, and it flew off again. The interaction was so swift and natural and beautiful, it took Bayne’s breath away.

“I’ve warned my people not to allow the Wizards entry into the stronghold. Meanwhile, we will head there ourselves, keeping the young Emperor as a bargaining chip.” Her green, luminous eyes lit on Bayne. “You’ll be coming with us as well.”

Bayne nodded. He didn’t see any other option, given the circumstances. “That’ll be after we find Ivy.”

The queen removed her crown, fingering the two purple crystals seated there. “I don’t think we should use these anymore.”

The Wizard’s chin bobbed in agreement. “No more purple crystals.”

“I’ll upgrade the golems’ power sources so they won’t need any more crystals,” Bayne explained. “Just the ones that’re in ‘em.”

The queen placed the crown back on her head with only the shiny white Riverstone left in it. The two crystals gleamed like poison in her hand. “Now that that’s settled, let’s find the girl and be on our way.”

But before she could stand, the boy lunged forward, snatching the crystals from her hand.

“I’ll never let you take me prisoner! I won’t be used as a pawn against my people! I’d rather die!”

The Wizard and the queen leapt on the young Emperor, but it was too late. He was already convulsing, sickened by the touch of the crystals. Purple light illuminated his grimacing face, glowing between the vise grip of his fingers. White froth issued from the corners of his mouth.

“Stop him!” the queen shouted, fighting to pry open his petrified hands. “We can’t let him die.”

Bayne wasn’t sure what he should do, if anything. Two adults against one child seemed like plenty. The Wizard muttered an incantation, and they finally succeeded in prying the crystals free, but by that time the boy was pale and still. The crystals crumbled in the Wizard’s gloved hand, now nothing more than dust.

“You used them,” the queen whispered to the Wizard, eyes wide. It was hard to tell if she said it as a question or an admonishment.

“I didn’t mean to,” he replied with equal horror.

The ground underneath them shifted, all the color draining from it. Pine needles shriveled into pale, brittle toothpicks. The dark soil, rich with tree litter, blanched. The blemish spread under their feet like spring water rising up from an invisible geyser, all the way to the tree where the Elf’s mare and her little monster were secured, and then up the tree’s trunk. The monster whined and scampered as far as its tether would allow. The tree made a dry, cracking sound as it turned snow-white.

While the others stared at the tree, Bayne thought to ask, “Is the Emperor alive?”

The Wizard seemed to snap back to reality, pressing two gloved fingers to the boy’s neck. His face fell.

“No!” the queen cried. “We need him!” She began to pump on the boy’s chest.

“Wait! Stop!” the Wizard cried. When she didn’t listen, he seized her by the shoulders and hauled her out of the way of the black tendrils snaking up from the dead ground beneath the boy Emperor, like threads of fungus, but impossibly thick. Something veined and purple unfurled from amongst them, like an enormous flower petal, the size of a Dwarf.

Bayne stumbled backward, his throat feeling like it was closing up. He felt a tightening around his ankle and looked down. Black tendrils were creeping up his leg. Panicked, he stomped at them, and a bubble of sand popped under his foot, releasing a purple cloud of gas. Bayne covered his nose and mouth, too late. The smell was odd—chemical and organic at the same time. Sharp and warm and cloyingly fragrant. Not terrible, actually.

By the time he noticed the purple veil curling over his face, he was already cocooned.