CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The words ‘Wyld Fell Palace’ were engraved above the palace doors. The door was opened by a palace guard who saluted with his arm out stiff and his eyes looking straight ahead.

Walking into the palace proved a strange experience. It was like being outside and inside at the same time. The walls were formed by living branches, thick with berries and leaves. Lamps splashed yellow circles on the timber floor. There was a sweet smell, like crushed leaves. Jane’s shoes drummed on the timber.

A short hallway led to the throne room.

Like the rest of the palace, the throne room had been lined with living branches trained to grow in a solid wall, the walls covered with a luxurious mat of ivy. The floor was wooden slabs, red in colour, smooth and polished to a gorgeous shine. The throne room was lit by candles in carved bone chandeliers.

There were columns along both sides of the throne room, and behind the columns was darkness, and in the darkness Jane could just make out the shapes of Empire soldiers, their dark uniforms with the symbol of the Empire on their shoulders and breasts.

The hairs on Jane’s neck prickled.

The throne sat on the raised platform at the far end of the large room. The throne was huge: a grand gesture. It was carved from a single slab of wood,

Beside the throne a thrip sat at a desk, head down, quill on hand, studying a parchment and making notes, marks, dots and ticks and squiggles that had the semblance of something terribly important, and terribly urgent. The scribe wrote with nervous energy. He looked up and saw the Governor and made a squeaking sound and put his head back down.

In front of the columns on either side of the long room were seats carved in the same manner and style as the throne, lacking only the grandeur.

The Governor pointed at a seat and told Jane to sit.

Jane sat, and two of the soldiers that had followed her up from the Wyld Fell marketplace, took up positions either side, as though she was dangerous.

The Governor left the throne room by a side door that lay behind the columns, in the shadows.

For several minutes all Jane could hear was the rasp of the scribe’s quill. She looked around the room, trying to see the soldiers in the shadows, trying to assess their attitudes. It was dark behind the pillars and she could only make out the soldiers as vague shapes. Something metallic clanged. One of the soldiers coughed.

The side door opened and a soldier walked into the throne room. He continued from the dark behind the columns out into the brightly lit centre. He was a short plump man with spindly legs and a face that wobbled. He wore a polished black breast plate with an etched symbol of the Empire.

He looked at Jane with curiosity, then turned from her to the scribe.

‘I need scroll H20738’.

The scribe took one of the rolled up parchments from a timber receptacle and handed it to the fat soldier.

‘Long live the Emperor,’ said the soldier.

‘Long live the Emperor,’ the scribe mumbled in return.

The fat soldier turned to exit but ended up in a tangle with the Governor who was walking into the throne room. The Governor growled something and the fat soldier began apologising profusely.

‘Salute me bag brain,’ said the Governor. He raised himself up to his full height, and his pointy chin jutted toward the soldier, while his cat eyes blinked with fury.

The fat soldier saluted then fled the room.

The Governor strode up to Jane.

‘The King is about to enter the throne room. When the King addresses a question to you it is thrip law that you must answer that question immediately and truthfully. The King has the prerogative of forcing you to answer. Do you understand?’

Jane nodded.

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

The side door opened again, and a footman walked into the room, followed by the thrip King.

The King stood tall - a tower compared to the Governor. He wore a finely woven robe of shimmering green, the cloak shining as though it contained energy. A stole of white fur sat across his shoulders. while around his neck hung a necklace strung with small tooth-like blades of shining metal.

He had a narrow head and a face made of acute angles, and his forehead was vast and noble. His hair stood up in spears and was as white as frost. His ears were tall above his head, and narrow and vibrant and green with small green hairs curling out. He looked at Jane then let his eyes travel across to the Governor who stood to Jane’s left. The thrip King’s mouth dropped fractionally.

If she was meeting the new Queen of England Jane would had stood, and she would have curtsied. She wasn't sure what to do in this situation, so she did nothing. She just remained seated. She wondered if the King thought of her as important?

The King climbed the four stairs up the dais and seated himself on the throne. He leaned from the throne and said something quietly to the scribe with the quill, and the scribe nodded and searched among the scrolls for whatever the King had asked for.

The Governor spoke in a voice that oozed with sarcasm.

‘Our mighty King. Your business with a thrip scribe is not necessary to the matter at hand.’

The King breathed like a large animal. He ignored the Governor and kept speaking in a low voice to the scribe. The atmosphere became increasingly tense.

Eventually the King’s eyes came up and found their way to Jane. His eyes glistened emerald. A diamond shaped iris quivered.

Finally the King said, ‘So I understand you have sought an audience with the King of Wyld Fell.’

‘I have.’

‘And you have been intercepted by the Governor here?’

‘Yes.’

The Governor interrupted.

‘This girl has arrived in Wyld Fell accompanied by the Princess Trinket.’

The King stared at the Governor, and Jane got a sense of his tremendous presence. Then the King spoke, and his voice was iron.

‘Where is my daughter?’

‘That is not relevant.’

‘Where is my daughter?’

Now the King sounded dangerous, and even though the Governor obviously wielded power over the King due to his command of the Empire soldiers, he seemed shaken by the King's tone.

‘Your daughter has been involved in something.’

The King lifted his shoulders and the stoll rose like it had come alive.

‘So you have arrested my daughter?’

The Governor’s silence told the King all he needed to know. He sat on his throne as still as a rock with a look of held back power, like there were incredible forces just below his surface that were being held at bay.

The Governor took a moment then gathered his composure and he stuck his chin out and tried to look tall. ‘Ask this girl, Jane, the questions that we previously arranged for you to ask.’

From the shadows there came a sound of soldier's boots adjusting positions on the wooden floor.

The King shook his large head, then looked at Jane.

‘What is the purpose of your presence in Wyld Fell, and why have you specifically requested to have an audience with the King of Wyld Fell.’

Jane said, ‘I want to talk to you alone.'

Silence fell, and stretched, and Jane watched the King with every piece of hope she could muster that the information she held, that of the secret book, and her companion being Elion, were things of such importance that she could somehow get some control of the situation.

The Governor said, ‘Nobody is leaving the throne room. Answer the King’s question.’

Jane breathed out slowly then said, ‘I will answer all questions, but only if I am alone with the King.’

The Governor seemed to be vibrating. His face was turning purple. His fist clenched beside his hips. Jane could hear the faintest sounds coming from the darkness behind the column, but all she could see was the light from the recessed torches wriggling against the walls.

The King spoke to the Governor, ‘Let me speak to the girl alone.’

Before he could answer the Governor was interrupted by a bird flying into the throne room through an impossibly high window. The bird was the same type of bird that had swooped Jane and Tom earlier, back in the northern meadow as they were entering the giant woods. The bird had the same big hunched wings, and the same bat-like face. Now it dipped a wing and flew in a spiral down from the ceiling. It spread its wings and slowed its descent, then extended its claws to land on the Governor’s shoulder. It dipped its beak into the Governor’s ear and Jane could hear the bird’s uttering in a sibilant whisper.

The Governor puckered his lips, and nodded his head, then his eyes opened wide as though he had heard something that made him afraid. He glanced at Jane with a look of trepidation.

When the bird finished talking, the Governor reached up and grabbed the bird off his shoulder and held the bird so that the bird’s beady eyes lined up with the Governor’s eyes.

‘This message does not leave this room.’

The bird hissed. The Governor squeezed the bird until it opened its beak wide, gasping to breath. It beat it wings against the Governor’s grip. Finally the Governor let the bird go and it flopped and tumbled and landed on the tabletop, its beak open to draw a breath. After a moment it it squirmed to its feet, raised its wings and took flight.

The Governor turned to Jane and his smile was dreadful.