Emily Rodda - The Shadowlands

The slaves who were no longer slaves stared in wonder, gradually accepting the truth.

Deltora had not abandoned them. They had never been forgotten. They were free. And it was their king who had brought them home.

The doors of the palace flew open. People began to stream down the stairs, many still heavy-eyed with sleep but all shouting and opening their arms. The people on the grass stood up and stumbled to meet them. The two crowds met and mingled, loved ones and strangers alike embracing, weeping and laughing for joy.

The palace bells began to ring, calling to the people of the city below. Jasmine touched Lief’s arm. He looked down at her, his heart very full. She murmured something, but he could not hear her over the noise of the bells. He bent closer.

‘I said, it is shame to me that I ever doubted you, Lief,’ Jasmine repeated awkwardly. ‘But Faith seemed so real. And she said—’

‘The fault is mine,’ Lief said quickly. ‘I was a fool to refuse to speak of the crystal, to pretend it did not exist. I did tell you and Barda of it once, after I saw it in a dream in the Valley of the Lost. I thought you would remember.’

Jasmine looked puzzled. ‘I think I did, at first,’ she said slowly. ‘But then I looked in the crystal, and forgot everything but the lie I saw there.’ She looked down. ‘I should have known that you would never deceive me.’

Lief hesitated. This was the moment he had been dreading. He glanced at Barda, who was stolidly pretending not to listen. He cleared his throat. ‘I have deceived you, Jasmine,’ he said loudly. ‘You, and Barda too. There is something—’

He broke off. Jasmine’s hand had slipped from his arm. She was looking towards the palace.

A small group of people had appeared at the doors, looking eagerly out into the crowd. Sharn and Doom stood to one side, supporting Josef between them. On the other side was Stephen the pedlar, beaming, arm in arm with a strange, tall woman whose shaved head was painted with swirling designs. But in the centre stood Ranesh, his face expressionless, Zeean of Tora, and a graceful figure wrapped in a long cloak.

Marilen.

17 – Secrets

His heart in his mouth, Lief took a step forward. Marilen saw him. With a final glance at Ranesh, she gathered up her cloak and walked slowly down the stairs, her head held high. Lief felt Jasmine and Barda drawing back from him as she approached.

The celebrating crowd seethed around them, but the four—the three companions and the approaching girl—had eyes and ears only for one another. It was as though they were on an island in time and space.

Her face glowing with relief and welcome, Marilen held out her hands. Lief took them.

‘Oh, Lief, how I have longed for your return!’ Marilen murmured. ‘How I wished I could tell you… All is well, Lief! All is well. We are safe.’

Lief bowed his head, overwhelmed by thankfulness. He felt the girl’s hands move away from his. He glanced behind him. Barda was looking straight ahead, but Jasmine met his eyes with a determined smile.

Lief had a moment of confusion. Could it be that his companions already knew the secret he had kept from them so long?

But there was no time to think any longer. Marilen was waiting. The moment had come. He put his hands to his waist, unfastened the glittering belt, and let it fall. He heard Jasmine and Barda gasp.

Marilen pushed back her cloak. There was a flash of gleaming colour. Then she was taking something from her own waist and handing it to Lief. Smiling with relief she moved quickly away to stand at a little distance.

The great jewels of the Belt of Deltora shone like stars under the morning sky. The exquisite links of steel gleamed warm in Lief’s hands. He put the Belt on, felt its familiar weight, straightened his shoulders and turned to face Barda and Jasmine.

They were staring, open-mouthed.

‘The real Belt was safe in Del all the time!’ Barda roared. ‘You were wearing a copy ! All this time—and we did not know!’ He scooped up the fallen belt and shook it in Lief’s face. ‘ This … this really is just a jewelled trifle!’

Lief nodded, shamefaced. ‘You have a right to be angry, both of you, but I beg you will understand,’ he muttered. ‘Doom and I made the copy in secret at the forge. We arranged our meetings using coded messages—just a simple code where each letter was replaced by the one following it in the alphabet and the numbers were treated likewise.’

‘So “DOOM” would be “EPPN”,’said Jasmine, remembering the note she had found.

Lief glanced at her curiously. ‘We used gems from the palace jewels that most nearly matched the real ones,’ he went on. ‘They have a little power of their own, as all great gems do, but compared to the talismans in the real Belt, they are worthless.’

He smiled wryly. ‘Tirral felt no magic in the belt for very good reason. There was no magic in it!’

‘You—you left the real Belt behind, to keep it safe,’ Jasmine stammered. ‘Your—your friend—wore it because—because she was the one you most trusted?’

‘Because she was the one who had to wear it!’ Lief answered. ‘In case anything happened to me.’ He beckoned to Marilen, who moved back to join them.

‘Marilen is my distant cousin—my nearest relation on my father’s side,’ Lief said, with a touch of pride. He laughed as Jasmine and Barda looked politely baffled. ‘Do you not see, you two?’ he cried. ‘Marilen is my heir—the next in line to the Belt of Deltora.’

‘What ? ’ Barda exploded.

‘But—’ Jasmine’s voice caught in her throat. She swallowed and tried again. ‘But I thought only the child of a king or queen could be the heir.’

Lief nodded, unconsciously reaching for her hand. ‘The palace chief advisors encouraged that belief, because they were secret servants of the Shadow Lord,’ he said. ‘But when I thought about it, I knew it could not be true. It is far too dangerous for Deltora. My life was threatened from the moment I became king, and I had no child to wear the Belt after me, should I die.’

It was such a relief to tell the story at last. The words, so long held back, tumbled from him in a stream. ‘The Belt of Deltora says simply that the Belt must be worn by Adin’s true heir,’ he said. ‘It follows, then, that if a king or queen dies childless, the Belt will join with the next in line—a brother or sister, for example.’

‘But you have no brothers or… or sisters,’ said Jasmine, biting her lip as the last word brought back unpleasant memories.

Lief held her hand more tightly. ‘No. Or uncles and aunts, for that matter. It has been the royal habit to have one child only. By chance, Adin’s heir had only one child, and this became the tradition—one the chief advisors insisted upon.’

‘It suited them very well, no doubt, to have the fate of Deltora hanging on one frail life in each generation,’ muttered Barda.

‘Yes!’ Lief said. ‘And they had done their work so well that at first my attempts to find an heir seemed hopeless. But then—’ He glanced at Marilen. ‘But then I remembered that Adin himself had several children.’

‘All of them married Torans,’ said Jasmine slowly. ‘Jinks told me that.’

‘Exactly,’ Lief said, wincing at the name of Jinks, as did Marilen, for a different reason. ‘So I knew that if I looked long and hard enough, I would surely find myself an heir in Tora, no matter how distant a relation he or she might be.’ He smiled slightly. ‘“Blood is blood, no matter how thinly it is spread over the ages”, as someone said to us not long ago.’

‘So you searched the library books and parchments for clues,’ murmured Jasmine. ‘Family histories, records of marriages, children born… All those hours of work!’