Prologue
I open my eyes to a large field surrounded by stunted evergreens. The trees look out of place, as though they’re trying to grow in hostile dirt. The grass before me is the dark, rich green of perfect-cut emeralds. Dew sparkles on each blade, a diamond complement. Hills undulate in the distance and from here I see that these trees are a rarity—they are either dying or being cut down. Soon, there will be nothing here but the rocks, the hills and the emerald grass.
Standing in the shadowy cover of pine boughs, I watch as two figures meet in the field. Both move with the careful dignity of age and station, their robes flowing around them like brown and gray waves. Each holds a large wooden staff—one as though it’s a part of his hand, and the other as though it is a treasure. A large stone sits like an altar between them, holding an oddly shaped piece of wood scored with hundreds of tiny runes. It looks like a star, but lopsided. It is magnified in my eyes.
The two men speak, the tone of their words harsh.
“You would die for this . . . bauble, Emrys?” With a disdainful gesture, the man on the left, the one who holds his staff so tightly that his knuckles are white, points at the wooden object on the altar.
“A thousand times if I must. Seek power elsewhere, Coghlan. This power is not for mortal hands.”
“You are mortal, Emrys. Accept my challenge and I will prove it to you.”
The man called Emrys sighs, and I see how sad he looks, like a man who already knows what is about to happen. “I am many things, Coghlan, but not mortal as you understand the term. Will you not cease in your hunt?”
“Never. The powers of the Board, and of elemental binding, must be mine. I will not rest until both are in my grasp.”
“Then I accept your challenge,” Emrys says. “I am sorry for you.”
“Save your pity, Emrys,” Coghlan says. “I need it not.”
The two men walk away from each other, following rules they both know and that I cannot fathom.
As Emrys turns, a ball of fire roars through the air toward his head, a spinning orb that grows larger as it moves. He raises his right hand and the fireball hits an invisible field, ricocheting into a nearby group of stones and bursting into a million sparks of red, yellow, and orange.
Two nearby trees groan as Coghlan mutters incantations and gestures with his staff. He tears them from the ground by their roots, and hurls them through the air with terrific force.
Emrys raises his hand again, and the invisible shield deflects the huge missiles, sending them crashing to the ground in a spray of earth and broken branches. Emrys then gestures toward the sky, and, overhead, I see a swirling cloud of fire begin to form.
Beads of sweat stand on Coghlan’s brow as he hurries to prepare another assault. Emrys waits, his face bearing the same sad expression.
With a shout, Coghlan points a finger, and it seems that every stone in the field flies into the air, arcing toward his enemy. A thousand missiles, each one capable of striking a fatal blow, hurtle toward Emrys.
And each one slams into the invisible shield, clattering to the ground in knee-high piles of rocks that look like burial mounds.
“Your powers are not strong enough to challenge mine,” Emrys calls. “You will leave me no choice but to destroy you.” Above, the clouds have taken on the fiery form of a large bird that is both beautiful and terrible to behold. Its wings blaze in violet and red flames, its body the glowing embers of a star. The bird cries once, the sound echoing over the field. I flinch in reaction—its call is at once mournful and disturbing.
This is the legendary Phoenix, I think. It spreads its wings to their full majesty for a moment, a beacon of fire, then tucks them in and dives.
“The powers of the Boards must be mine!” At the last second, Coghlan looks up and sees the Phoenix hurtling toward him. He reaches into his robe and removes a long, wooden wand. “You were never so weak as to need a familiar, Emrys!” he cries, pointing it at the creature.
A thin beam of silver light shoots from the tip of the wand and slams into the Phoenix. An explosion of sparks burns in the sky and the wounded bird furls its wings, crumpling to the earth.
Emrys reaches into his own robes and removes a Board. This one is shaped much the same as the others that are already in my possession, though the distance is too great for me to make out the runes that undoubtedly score the surface of the Board. Emrys points a long, thin finger, and it is then that I realize he is old. Old beyond counting for a human. And so very tired.
In the center of the field, a cube of stone flies into the air, glowing runes appearing on its side as it rises. The falling phoenix and rising stone collide, and another brilliant shower of sparks bursts in the air. Then the phoenix is gone and the stone falls to the ground. The runes on its side flicker crimson for a moment, and then fade.
“He is not my familiar, Coghlan,” Emrys says. “He is one of my guardians. A benefit I am granted for my protection of the Board of the Earth and the key to elemental binding.” He points once more and calls out in a voice deeper and more resonant with power than before. “Leave, Coghlan, lest I call upon my true abilities and destroy you.”
“Never!” Coghlan screams. He points his wand at Emrys and the silvery beam flashes again.
It strikes the shield and dissipates harmlessly.
“Enough, then,” Emrys says. He makes an almost negligent gesture, his eyes sad and weary.
The ground rumbles around us, and Coghlan’s eyes widen. He tries to hurry his casting, but the incantation tumbles from his lips in gibbered words; the power he wields untapped in his panic.
Emrys closes his hand into a fist, and beneath Coghlan’s feet there is a horrendous sound, like a gigantic sheet being torn asunder. The ground opens under him like a gaping mouth and he falls into the hole, which slams shut behind him. His final, defiant words echo in the air where he stood just a second ago.
“Goodbye, Coghlan,” the man called Emrys says. “You poor, pitiful fool.”
Then he turns to stare at me and I wonder how that is possible. This is a dream. A dream of long ago. Emrys should be long dead.
“Ah, but what is death,” he says, as though reading my thoughts, “to a wizard?”
“I don’t know,” I admit.
“To most of us, time and death are absolutes—much as they are for normal mortals. To those such as myself, and your enemy Malkander, they are merely avoidable truths.”
“Who are you?” I say. “How can you see me?”
“I am the Emrys,” he says. “And though death came for me long ago, I see you now through the power of magics I cast long before you were born.”
“Then how . . . ?”
“I possess the Board of the Earth, and the power of elemental binding,” he says. “What is time to me?”
“I don’t understand,” I say.
“That much, at least, is clear,” he says. “Come.” He strides to the center of the field and I follow, a mere shadow to his reality in this dream.
We reach the altar, and Emrys removes the wooden object from it, and then connects it to the Board of the Earth. It is obviously not a Board itself, but somehow it . . .
“Ties them together,” he says, looking up. “When you have all the Boards assembled, this piece is the one that will unite them and give you the power of elemental binding.”
“What is the power of elemental binding?”
“The power to use the four primary elements of this world together, and the fifth element that binds them all.” He smiles at me and adds, “Many of the difficulties that plague you now will be relieved once you have all the Boards and the key in your possession.”
Elated, I ask, “Where is the Board of the Earth?”
“All will be made clear to you . . . in due time,” he says. “But first, there is a task you must perform for me.”
“Task?” I ask.
He picks up the small, rune-marked stone cube where the fiery bird disappeared. “The creature you saw—the Phoenix—is both spirit and reality. A guardian of sorts for those who hold the Board of the Earth and the key. This stone is a phylactery—while the Phoenix resides inside, no harm can come to his essence. The damage done by Coghlan will have long since healed by your time.”
“And?” I ask.
“You must find the stone and bring it to my tomb.”
“So where is it?”
“In your long and long ago past, the stone was taken . . . ” Emrys stops and shakes his head. Under his breath, I hear him mutter a foul word and something else about the transient nature of time. Then he continues, “The people called the Picts took the stone and placed it atop another as a marker on a battlefield—this field, in fact. You must find the field in your time, locate the marker, and bring the Phoenix stone to my place of burial. Only then will I reveal the location of the Board of the Earth and the key piece. Only then will you be ready to accept the mantle of Keeper of the Elements.”
With that, he turns and walks across the field, disappearing into the shadows on the far side.
The ground where Coghlan disappeared is unmarked, and then I know for certain this is a dream.
“Wait!” I cry. If the four Boards of the Elements require something else to tie them together, there must be more information I need. “What is the fifth element?” I think a moment, and add, “And where is your tomb?”
His voice comes from nowhere and everywhere. “You have already been given the answer to your first question, Keeper of the Boards. Think on it, and it will come to you in time. As for the location of my tomb, that, too, will be made clear to you—when you have the Phoenix stone.”
I am alone in the field and I look at the altar. The oddly shaped piece of wood is gone. The Board of the Earth is gone. The Phoenix stone and the man called Emrys are gone. But this place, this landscape, will be here when I awake. Somewhere in Scotland, if Shalizander had not lied. I must memorize it all as best as I can.
All around me the field is silent and waiting, like the land itself is holding its breath, waiting for the turn of the season or the coming of the next age. Or the death of the trees.
It is as though the land knows what is coming and is afraid.