I sat back on my haunches, oblivious now to the antics of boy and dog, to the awakening of the crowd Thane had corralled. I focused on the words and the firestorm just outside, then widened the hole in the ground with bare hands so I could slide through. I pushed my head down inside, the smell of wet earth surrounding me; I wriggled through, feeling stuck but not giving in.
I didn’t see the appearance of two white transparent figures inside the enclosure, or how they each reached down to help the trapped humans scramble to their feet. I didn’t know that Nick and Pinch, my two darkest and most dangerous characters, had been mysteriously summoned, or that they were already pulling pranks, elbowing a few people and then tripping them on their way toward the exit.
Despite this, my chimerical villains were listening to me. For no one had ever loved them as much as I did.
They were watching me.
Ever faithful. Ever ready.
Just like they had been from the moment I first created them. Listening even now, ready to do whatever I asked them to do.
Chapter 90
A Great Wall
Maddie:
I pushed my way through to the surface, mud in my hair, on my face, fingers wet and dark with it. The scent of the earth clung to my clothes and skin; I pulled myself out of the narrow hole, then climbed to my feet and brushed my hair away from my face.
A black cloud bristled in front of me. Wings darting, talons gleaming, Darkling bodies merged together to form a great wall of negative and positive shapes, ever moving, a turmoil of hellish arms and legs and teeth. Screams and laughter filled the night air and the ground trembled. Something horrid was happening on the other side of this wall of Darkling flesh. Then a voice called through the hallways of my mind. The red-black blood on my hands burned again, blisters reminding me.
Ash.
Stay back.
He was trying to warn me.
Take your boy and leave. Now. Never come back.
Foolish creature. Foolish as any man I had ever known. As if I would leave now, knowing that he was in the midst of some vicious battle; after he had saved me, more than once. I glanced at the perimeter of the wall, saw three female Darklings trying to break through. One of them had tears running down her face as she repeatedly called out, “Father!”
Even they couldn’t save him.
Then I smelled Thane’s stench, spidery and moldy, like a creature you would find in an abandoned shed.
I’m not leaving, I told Ash in a silent voice.
A sigh circled overhead, wrapped itself around the field, seemed to caress me before it drifted off into the trees.
For a moment the moon turned bright, even brighter than the sun.
It smiled down. Narrow beams of light poured through misty clouds, glanced upon my skin and set it aglow. I felt suddenly stronger, like a surge of electric energy pulsed through my limbs, radiated from my fingertips. And behind me, though I didn’t see it, the field began to fill with the people who had been set free from Thane’s spell, all of them climbing through the hole, following the path I had forged. Nearly fifty people scampered through the narrow earthen tunnel, Tucker and Samwise at their heels. Until finally, they had all escaped and now stood behind me, poised and ready.
Among them were Nick and Pinch.
A transparent army of two.
Chapter 91
The Feast of Forbidden Dreams
Ash:
Incantations flew through the air, dangerous and heavy as weapons made of iron. One misstep and a jaw could be torn loose. Stay back. I knew that Elspeth, Sage and Sienna were trying to rescue me. I could feel their spells, delicate as a spring breeze, offering a light reprieve, just enough for me to open my eyes. Leave this place. There are too many.
Those I loved would get caught up in the melee—they could be killed—if their enchantments broke through the wall and they tried to enter, but this fight was my choice, not theirs. My battle.
My sacrifice.
Thane laughed, withdrew his bloodstained fist from my side, then struck me across the face. He towered over me, pinning me to the ground, foot on my chest as he cast another enchantment.
A spell of silence.
Suddenly I was all alone, separated from my clan, unable to communicate through word or thought. Thane barked a command to those who huddled nearby.
“Guard the perimeter of the fight, see that no one enters, not one of his clan,” Thane said. “Not even the werebeast!”
The barbarians chittered and cackled, sent patrols to defend the ragged edges of the flock.
Thane leaned down, then whispered, “And now I shall take the dreams that should have been mine. I take from you all the hope, all the glory, all the life that you have stolen from others, I take it and claim it as my own.”
He began the ceremony of sacrilege, an act that left the surrounding Darklings incensed and amazed. No one had performed this rite in hundreds of years.
He was going to break our most sacred rule.
“Give me your dreams!” Thane cried then, conjuring magic that had been nearly forgotten, a spell so old he could barely pronounce the words. His voice carried through the crowd to the forest and the returning echo nearly shook him off his feet.