"And what happened?" another chieftain asked.

As she reflected on their fall, Gwendolyn wondered the same thing.

"The Empire," she said. "The same as you."

They all fell into a gloomy silence.

"What if we were to join you?" Atme said, breaking the silence. "What if we were to attack them with you?"

Bokbu shook his heads.

"The city of Volusia is well-fortified, well-manned. And they outnumber us a thousand to one."

"Surely, there must be something that could bring down the Empire?" Brandt asked.

The elders looked at each other cautiously, then after a long pause, Bokbu said: "The Giants, perhaps."

"The Giants?" Gwen asked, intrigued.

Bokbu nodded.

"There are rumors of their existence. In the far reaches of the Empire."

Aberthol spoke up: "The Land of the Giants," he said. "A land with creatures so tall, their feet could crush a thousand men. The Land of the Giants is a land of myth. A convenient myth. It was disproved in our fathers' fathers' time."

"Whether you are right or wrong, no one knows," Bokbu said. "But one thing we do know is that the Giants, at one time, existed. And that they are fickle. You might as well try to tame a wild beast. They might just as easily kill you as the Empire. They do not seek justice; they do not seek to take sides. They only seek bloodshed. Even if they still existed, even if you found them, you would more likely end up dead by visiting them than by invading Volusia."

A long silence fell over them all as Gwen studied the flames, pondering it all.

"Is there no other place?" Gwendolyn asked, as all eyes turned to her. "Once our people heal, is there no other place in the Empire we can go where we can be safe? Where we can start again?"

The elders exchanged a long look, and finally, they nodded to each other.

Bokbu raised his staff, reached out, and began to draw in the dirt. Gwendolyn was surprised at how skilled he was, as she watched an intricate map unfold before her, and all her people crowded around. She watched as the contours of the Empire took shape, and was in awe at how vast and complex it was.

"Do you recognize it?" he asked her as he finally finished.

Gwendolyn examined it, all the different regions and provinces, dozens and dozens of them. She looked at the odd shape of the Empire lands, it center rectangular, and in each of its four corners, a long, curved peninsula jutting out in opposite directions. They each looked like a bull's horn. The four horns of the Empire, her father used to say. Now she understood.

"I do," she said. "I once spent an entire moon in the house of the scholars, studying ancient maps of the Ring and of the Empire. The four corners are the four horns for the four directions and those two spikes are of the North and the South. In the center is the Great Waste."

Bokbu looked back at her, wide-eyed, impressed.

"You are the only outsider who has ever known this," he said. "Your learning must be great indeed."

He paused.

"Yes, the very shape of the Empire belies its nature. Horns. Spikes. Waste. They are vast lands, with many regions in between. Not to mention the islands, which I've not even drawn here. There is much that is uncharted and unknown. Much is rumor. Some wishful thinking pa.s.sed down from those who were enslaved too long. We no longer know what's true. Maps are living things, and mapmakers lie as much as kings. All maps are politics. And all maps are power."

There came a long silence, nothing save the crackling of the fire, as Gwen pondered his words.

"Before the time of Antochin," Bokbu finally continued, "before the time of my father's and your father, there was a time when the Ring and the Empire were one. Before the Great Divide. Before the Canyon. Your men of armor, of steel, legend has it, split from each other. Half left for the Ring and half stayed behind. If it is true, then somewhere, in the midst of these Empire lands, the kingdom of the Second Ring lives."

Gwendolyn paused, her mind racing.

"The Second Ring?" she asked, under her breath, growing with excitement. It was all coming back to her, all her reading. It was hazy, and she could not quite remember all of it; she had thought it was a children's fable.

"More myth than fact," Aberthol chimed in, his old voice cutting into the air as he stepped forward to look at the map. "Between the four horns and the two spikes," he began to recite, "between the ancient sh.o.r.es and the Twin Lakes, north of the Altbu-"

"-and south of the Reche," Bokbu finished, "the Second Ring resides."

Aberthol and the chief locked eyes with each other, each recognizing the old writings by heart.

"A myth from centuries past," Aberthol said. "You trade old wives' tales and myths here. That is your currency."

"Some call it myth," Bokbu said. "And some, fact."

Aberthol shook his head doggedly.

"The chances of an alternate Ring are remote," Aberthol said. "To stake the hopes of our people on such a venture would be to stake our future on death."

Gwen studied Bokbu and she could see the seriousness on his face, and she felt he truly believed that the Second Ring existed. He studied the map he had drawn, his face grave.

"Years ago," Bokbu finally continued, his voice grave, "when I was a young boy, I saw a sword of steel, and a breastplate, brought into this village. It was found, my father said, in the desert, on a dying man. A man who looked like your people, with pale skin. A man who wore a suit of steel, who had armor with the same markings as yours. He died before he could tell us where he was from, and we hid the armor on fear of death."

Bokbu sighed.

"I believe the Second Ring exists," he added. "If you can find it, if you can reach it, perhaps you can find a home, a true home, in the Empire."

"Another place to hide from the Empire?" Kendrick said, derisively.

"If the Second Ring exists," Bokbu said, "it is so well-hidden that they are not hiding. They are living. It is a remote chance, my lady," he concluded, "but a chance nonetheless."

Before Gwen could process it all, a shrill voice suddenly cut through the night. At first it was a shriek, and then it morphed into a long cry, and then a sustained chanting.

Gwen turned as all the men fell silent and sat back and watched, as there stepped forward a woman with long black hair falling down to her waist, palms up by her side, and a red silk scarf wrapped about her neck. She leaned back, raised her hands to the heavens, and chanted a solemn song. She chanted louder and louder, and as she did, the flames on all the bonfires leapt higher.

"Spirits of the flames!" she chanted. "Visit us. Let us pay our respects. Tell us what you have to tell us. Let us see what we cannot!"

Gwendolyn flinched and jumped back as the fire before her began to spark and grow brighter. She looked and was shocked to see shapes swirling within it. She felt her hairs stand on end.

The seer's chanting slowed, then stopped, as she came over and stood over Gwendolyn. Gwen felt fear as the seer's glowing yellow eyes stared back at her.

"Ask me what you will," the seer said, her voice inhumanly dark.

Gwen sat there, trembling inside, wanting to ask, wanting to know, but afraid to. What if it was not the answer she sought?

Finally, she summoned the courage.

"Thorgrin," Gwendolyn said, barely getting out the words. "Guwayne. Tell me. Do they live?"

There was a long silence, as the seer turned her back on her and faced the fire. She reached down and threw two fistfuls of dirt into the flames. The fire sparked and shot up, and the seer, her back to Gwendolyn, began muttering dark words Gwen did not understand.

Finally, she turned to her, her glowing yellow eyes fixed on hers. Gwen could not look away if she wanted to.

"Your baby will not return as you know him," she p.r.o.nounced darkly. "And your husband, as we speak, is entering the Land of the Dead."

"NO!" Gwendolyn wailed, her cry rising above the incessant crackling of the flames.

She stood in outrage, felt her heart beating too fast, felt her whole body go weak. The world began to spin, and the last thing she saw was Steffen and Kendrick behind her, getting ready to catch her, and she fell into their arms and her world went black.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

Thorgrin stood on the edge of the boat and looked up in wonder as the current carried them slowly forward, drifting into the immense cave at the edge of the world. He looked up at the ancient arched ceiling a hundred feet above, the gnarled black rock dripping, covered in moss and strange scurrying animals. A cold draft arose as they entered, and the temperature dropped ten degrees. Behind him, Reece, Conven, Elden, Indra, O'Connor, and Matus all stood, looking out in wonder as they drifted deeper and deeper into the darkness of the immense cave. Thor felt as if they were being swallowed whole, never to return, and his sense of foreboding increased.

As they went, Thor looked down and saw the waters change, begin to glow, phosph.o.r.escent, a soft blue lighting up the darkness, reflecting off the walls, giving just enough light to see by. The walls and the creatures clinging to them were reflected in grotesque shadows, and the deeper they went the more the sounds amplified, the screeching insects, the fluttering of wings, and the strange low moans. Thor tightened his grip on his sword, on guard.

"What is this place?" O'Connor said aloud, asking the question that was on all their minds.

Thor peered into the darkness, wondering. On the one hand, he was relieved to be out of the ocean and into a harbor of sorts, a place where they could all rest and regroup. On the other hand, Thor felt a chill in the air, and sensed something that made the hairs on his arms stand on end. His instincts were telling him to turn around, to head back to open sea. But their provisions were so low, they all needed rest, and most of all, Thorgrin had to explore this place in case it was truly the land of the dead. What if Guwayne were here? Now that Guwayne was dead, Thorgrin no longer cared about danger or darkness or even death; a part of him wanted death, would even embrace it. And if Guwayne was here, then, Thor felt, it was worth coming here to see him, even if he could never escape.

An eerie moan pierced the darkness, setting them all on edge.

"I wonder if we'd be safer risking the sea," Matus said softly, his voice echoing off the cave walls.

The waters twisted and turned, and as they went deeper and deeper into this place, the currents dragging them in as if dragging them to their fates, Thor turned and glanced back, and he saw that the ocean was already gone from view. They were embraced by the darkness, by the glowing waters, and they were now at the mercy of wherever the tides should take them.

"The current runs only one way," Reece said. "Let's hope it also leads us out of this place."

They floated in the blackness, turning a narrow bend, and as they went, Thor looked out and examined the walls, and all along them, he saw pairs of small, yellow eyes blinking in the darkness, belonging to some unknown creatures. They blinked and scurried, and Thor wondered what they were. Were they watching them? Were they waiting to strike?

Thor tightened his grip on his sword. He was on alert as they turned and turned.

Finally, they turned a corner and Thor saw, up ahead in the distance, the waters came to an abrupt end. They stopped at a beach of black sand, giving way to a new terrain of black rock.

Thor and the others looked out, baffled, as the boat came to a stop, b.u.mping gently against the sand. They all looked at each other, then out at the wide rocky expanse before them. The cave disappeared in blackness.

"Is this where the ocean ends?" Indra asked.

"Only one way to find out," Conven said, stepping out of the boat and onto the beach.

The others followed, Thor going last, and as they stood on the beach, Thor looked back at their boat, rocking gently on the soft currents. Thor looked out at the glowing water, saw where the cave twisted, and saw the exit no more.

He turned back around, and peered into the darkness, darker here without the glowing of the water, and felt a cold draft rise out of somewhere.

"We can camp here at least," Elden said. "We can wait out the night."

"a.s.suming nothing eats us in the darkness," O'Connor said.

Suddenly, in the distance, a torch was lit-then another, and another. Dozens of torches lit up the darkness, and Thor, grabbing the hilt of his sword, looked out and saw people facing them, small people, half his height, their bodies way too thin, looking emaciated, with long, pointy fingers, long pointy noses, and small beady eyes. Their heads were rose to a point.

One of them stepped forward, clearly their leader, held up his torch and broke into a grin, revealing hundreds of small, sharp black teeth.

"You stand at a crossroads," the creature replied.

The leader was not like the others. He was three times their height, twice as tall as Thorgrin and his men, with a big belly, a long brown beard, and carrying a staff. The man rubbed his long beard as he stared down at them in the tense silence.

"A crossroads to what?" Thor asked.

"The land of the living and the land of the dead," he replied. "It is where the ocean ends. We are the keepers of the gate. Beyond us lie the gates to the land of the dead."

Thor looked beyond, over his shoulder, and in the distance he saw ma.s.sive gates, a hundred feet high, made of iron ten feet thick. His heart leapt with excitement and hope.

"It is true then?" Thor asked, filled with hope for the first time since Guwayne's death. "There is a land of the dead?"

The creature nodded back solemnly.

"You can stay here for the night," he replied. "We shall provide you harbor, provisions, and send you on your way. You can go back from where you came and continue wherever the ocean takes you."

"Why should you give us your hospitality?" Reece asked, cautious.

The creature turned to him.

"That is the duty of the Keepers," he said. "It is our job to keep the gates closed. We do not accept people into the land of the dead-we keep them out. Those who have lost loved ones come here, searching, grieving, and we reject them. It is not yet their time. They struggle and strive to see them the ones they love, and we must send them away. As we must send you away."

Thor frowned and stepped forward.

"I want to enter," he said, without hesitating, thinking of Guwayne. "I want to see my boy."

The creature stared back at him, cold and hard.

"You do not understand," he said. "There is but one entrance, and there is no exit. To enter those gates means to never leave."

Thor shook his head, determined, filled with grief.

"I do not care," Thorgrin said firmly. "I will see my son."

"Thorgrin, what are you saying?" Reece said, coming up beside him. "You can't enter."

"He does not mean his words," Matus called out.

"Yes I do," Thorgrin insisted, filled with sorrow and a longing to see Guwayne. "Every one of them."