Fates (13 page)

She peeked inside, but it was too dark to see more than a few feet of sloped earth. The tunnel smelled like musty, dank ground.

“I'll follow you,” she said. Gnomes weren't known for being entirely trustworthy, and for all she knew, the tunnel led to some kind of trap.

He pulled an oil lantern off the shelf and lit the wick; the smell of sulfur tickled her nose. He walked upright into the passageway, but Corinthe had to crawl on her hands and knees. Beatis turned around to glare at her periodically and urge her to go faster. After a few feet, the tunnel began to slope upward. The small lantern illuminated nothing more than his flickering outline and the tangle of roots above their heads. Corinthe could hear a soft gurgling sound, almost like a fountain.

Then she remembered where she was. Her stomach twisted. It was blood. She was listening to the trees feed. The air hung thicker here. Heavy. It was hard to breathe. The tunnel grew narrower, and roots raked fingers through her hair, dragged across her bare arms. She felt the shift, the flood of excitement that rippled through the ground. The walls of the passageway shuddered, and dirt showered down on her head.

“Hurry,” Beatis wheezed. “They find you. The trees be hungry.” Beatis scampered ahead and was soon lost in the darkness.

Terror shot through her. Dirt continued to rain down on her head. The roots continued to reach for her, pull at her, trying to consume and drain her. She tried to call out, but she could barely draw breath. The earth around her was closing in, burying her.

Stars exploded behind her eyes, and strangely, it made her think about the sky over the San Francisco Bay. About standing with Lucas. About the heat that raced through her blood when he had touched her.

Enough,
she told herself. Wherever he was, she would find him and kill him. There was no choice, only destiny.

Her legs were completely encased in dirt. She couldn't crawl any farther. Beatis's light had disappeared. More dirt drove down on her shoulders, pushed her head down until she lay with one cheek against the ground.

The earth pulsed like a heartbeat. She reached out one hand, desperately clawing for help that wasn't there.

And then, even as she cursed herself for trusting a gnome, she felt a rough hand close around hers. Beatis pulled her, loosening her from the earthen coffin with surprising strength.

Fresh air filled her lungs. Dirt fell away from her legs and she pushed to her knees, let go of Beatis, and threw herself at the light. She rolled a few feet down a small incline and landed on her back, gasping for breath.

The trees around them hissed softly, as though disappointed. She wondered how long it would be before they raised the alarm. Gave her away.

“Hurry, we must go fast,” the gnome said.

He didn't wait to see if Corinthe followed; he just took off down a path that cut through the trees. She stumbled after him. Hard thorns bit into her feet. Finally, the trees thinned, and then in one step, she was clear of the forest.

Twenty feet in front of her, a thick wall of mist rose to the sky. It was as if the forest simply ceased to exist right at this spot. Cool tendrils of fog snaked across the ground.

“Where is it?” she asked. There were burrs stuck to the soft soles of her feet. No wonder the gnome had taken the shoes.

Beatis spun in a full circle. “Left or right, right or left  … ,” he chanted.

Then she heard it: the high-pitched whine of the Blood Nymphs.

Not again.

Panic prickled at her skin like thousands of tiny needles. Branches clacked together behind her, gnashing like enormous teeth.

The gnome took a step back. “Deal be done.” He grinned. “Venom be poison in your blood. Feed on you till you die. I still win.”

“Where?”
she repeated, lunging for him. He skidded to the left and Corinthe stumbled past him, already woozy from the venom. She spun around and tried lunging at him again, but she tripped over a tree root and landed hard on her hands and knees. The locket spilled out from under her shirt and the clasp came undone. The lid opened and the clearing filled with the tinny lullaby. The gnome froze on the edge of the clearing. The Nymphs quieted. Listened. Corinthe held her breath as the ballerina pirouetted slowly.

The gnome watched the ballerina with feverish excitement. Saliva ran down his chin and dripped onto the ground.

“You say you have nothing else!” he whined, taking a step closer.

A wave of dizziness forced her to take several deep breaths. It had to be the venom, working in her blood again. Could the gnome have been wrong? What if she didn't have two or three days?

What if she only had hours?

“Show me the gateway,” she said. The gnome made a leap for her locket, but she scrambled backward and stood unsteadily. She pulled the chain off her neck and held it firmly, raising it high above his head. “Tell me and I'll give you this.”

Beatis licked his lips nervously, his eyes darting back and forth between the locket in her hand and a low tree full of blue leaves to her right. Corinthe could tell at once this tree was not full of blood like the rest.

Her pulse sped up. The entrance to a gateway was there. Once she entered she'd have to navigate the Crossroad to Lucas.

Corinthe turned and ran.

“Mine!” Beatis shrieked. He produced the knife from a strap around his waist and made a leap for her. She felt a quick tug; a clump of hair came away in his hand.

The angry hum of the Nymphs swelled to a scream.

Corinthe snapped the locket closed as she hurtled toward the gateway, calling on every ounce of her strength as an Executor. She launched herself up into the tree. Waves of nausea rolled over her and she fought them back.

“Beatis will find you!” The gnome stabbed furiously at the tree as Corinthe climbed. “You be dead and I get the locket. Beatis take it from you when you be dead. Deal! It be a deal!”

She kept climbing, fighting through the fierce wind that had begun to blow. The swell of the Nymphs' howling was drowned out. She could no longer hear Beatis's threats. Her hair whipped around her head. Blue leaves swirled in and out of her vision. They looked like shattered pieces of the sky.

The wind grew stronger, like a hurricane rush. It was as if a tornado had descended on top of her, intent on ripping her apart one cell at a time. The gateway had opened, and the wind from the Crossroad rushed into the forest. The force yanked at her body, pulled her grip loose. For one second, she hung suspended in the gray nothingness.

Then she fell—up or down or sideways, she couldn't tell.

She'd been told that like a river running through an endless prairie, the Crossroad forked through and across the whole universe, constantly changing direction. The motion created a furious wind, a current that blew its travelers between worlds.

Agony ripped through Corinthe's chest, a hundred times worse than the hornet stings. She willed herself against the current, following Lucas's trail,
feeling
his presence in the universe.

Focus.

She managed to open the locket, and the ballerina spun.

Think of finding the boy.

Think of killing him.

Then you can go home.

T
he hand came out of nowhere.

How he saw it, how he managed to grab hold of it, Luc didn't know. But suddenly, the blackness fell away and he was pulled to the ocean's surface, gasping for air.

Rough wood scraped his cheek, then his chest. The hand let go and Luc rolled onto his back, coughing. He was on some kind of raft. Overhead, the two suns still blazed hot in the sky. He blinked rapidly, the brightness stinging his eyes after the complete immersion in the dark water.

No, not water. It hadn't filled his lungs or wet his clothing.

Even his hair was dry.

Luc sat up slowly, leaning against a large wooden contraption—it looked like some kind of old-school engine or steering device—fitted with various levers and gears, which were bolted to the middle of the raft. Or boat. Or whatever.

The man who had saved him grabbed one of the levers and pulled. After a few cranks, a motor coughed and groaned, and the floor under Luc's feet began to vibrate. Oars on both sides of the raft began to circle, arching in high circles above the black ocean before submerging again without a sound. With each stroke, the boat moved forward a few feet in a path parallel to the shoreline. Overhead, a triangular patchwork sail snapped and billowed.

The man who had saved Luc now seemed content to ignore him. He had a scruffy jawline and hard cheekbones, and his hair stood out at all angles. He wore what looked like a pair of aviation goggles, but a piece was missing, so they only covered one eye. The uncovered eye was a cloudy white. He had on a dark jacket that hung to his knees, but he didn't seem to even notice the stifling heat.

A huge black bird was perched on his shoulder, its glittering black eyes focused on Luc. The man tilted his head and whispered to it. The bird responded with several deep-throated caws.

“No worse for the wear, I see,” the man said. For a second, Luc thought that this comment was directed at the bird. His voice was thick with an accent Luc had never heard before. But then the man turned and limped heavily over to Luc. He was holding a tin cup; Luc prayed it was a glass of water. “We were watching you. Saw you fall.”

“Thank you,” Luc croaked. His throat was sandpaper raw.

When the man opened one side of his coat, Luc saw row after row of tiny vials stitched into pockets that had been sewn crudely to the inside. His half-gloved fingers moved deftly over the dusty-looking bottles, over and down, until he pulled one from its place. Quickly, he dumped the milky contents of the vial into the water.

Luc hesitated, despite an intense urge to drink. His hand went to the knife still tucked tightly in his belt.

“Boy, if I wanted to harm you, I'd have left you in the shadows. No concern of mine if you die. Go ahead. Drink, before the heat starts messing with your head. You've been in the suns too long.” The man thunked down the cup. Luc waited until the man had disappeared into a bright patchwork tent that dominated half of the deck before drinking greedily.

The liquid tasted cool and clean, and almost immediately, Luc felt his senses clearing.

Luc stood up carefully. He saw an endless black ocean before him, stretching to the horizon. Overhead the two suns hung high in the sky.

And suddenly, that thing that had been bugging him since arriving in this freakish place—the worry, the doubt—sharpened and crystallized.

Despite the dual suns overhead,
nothing
here had a shadow. Even Luc's had somehow disappeared.

How was that even possible?

Luc moved his arm in a huge circle. Nada. A chill went through him, though the temperature had to be over 100 degrees.

What the hell? First there were two, and now there were none?

The raft swayed. He stumbled toward the tent. Maybe the drink the man had given him had some kind of weird side effect. But no. He had known before on the beach that something was very, very wrong. He had sensed it.

Luc lifted the tent flap and ducked inside, then froze, disbelieving.

He'd been expecting a plain setup, maybe a rough bunk or something. Instead, he felt as if he'd stumbled into a fortune-teller's living room. The man was sitting in a huge ornately carved wooden armchair. Almost like a throne. There was a brightly colored Persian rug covering the coarse planks and a gleaming table laid with a silver tea set.

Hanging from the juncture where the tent's poles connected, was a brilliantly lit chandelier. A hole just above it let in enough sun to reflect off hundreds of teardrop-shaped crystals, which threw tiny spots of light all over the room.

The entire space was no bigger than Luc's bedroom but was filled so lavishly that it felt grand.

“What is this place?” Luc asked. “Who are you?”

The man stood and thumped over to a small wooden chest in the corner. He began filling a pipe. The bird squawked angrily at being displaced and flew over to a perch. “The name's Rhys,” he said, without looking at Luc. “And that beautiful, indignant lady over there is my Mags. Now your turn.”

“Luc.” Luc watched as the man lit his pipe. Whatever he was smoking had a clean, floral smell. Definitely not tobacco. “I'm from San Francisco.”

Rhys returned to his chair. “Don't know it. Don't know much about Humana, actually.”

“Humana?”

“The human world. I can smell it on you.” Rhys chuckled.

Human world. Luc's heart squeezed up in his chest. “Where
am
I?” Luc asked.

Rhys moved the goggles to the top of his head and Luc could see both his eyes now. They weren't just cloudy; they were totally white from edge to edge.

He was blind?

Luc passed his hand quickly in front of Rhys's face. Rhys scowled.

“I may not be able to see what you're doing, boy, but I can feel it. I can smell it, too.”

Heat climbed up Luc's neck. “S-sorry,” he stammered.

Rhys waved dismissively with his pipe and motioned for Luc to sit. There was a bright red settee also crammed into the space—it reminded Luc of something Karen's parents might have in one of their formal rooms. Karen. Jesus. Was it possible that only last night, he'd been at Karen's party?

When would he wake up from this nightmare?

Luc suddenly felt unsteady on his feet. He sat down heavily.

“To answer your first question—” Rhys stopped and directed his eyes at Luc. “I assume you have more than one question, correct?”

Luc nodded, then remembered Rhys couldn't see him. He cleared his throat. “Yes.”

Rhys continued without missing a beat. “This is the aptly named Land of the Two Suns. Not terribly original, but then the Figures aren't known for being overly clever.”

“Figures?”

“That your next question, then?”

“I guess.”

“The Figures,” Rhys said, “are what we call—”

Mags squawked suddenly, so loudly that Luc jumped, heart in his throat. Rhys cocked his head to the side as though listening—much the way his bird did. “Ah, we have a patient to tend to. Come on, then.” He pulled down his goggles and moved as briskly as possible past Luc, holding open the tent flap to permit Mags to swoop through it. A few seconds later, the vibration of the engine ceased and the boat stopped its lurching movement. As Luc pushed back into the blazing light, his head hurt.

Rhys leaned over the side of the boat. He was talking to someone, but Luc couldn't make out what he was saying.

Luc advanced closer to the edge of the boat. All he saw was darkness.

Then, as he watched, the water shifted. A black hand—insubstantial, translucent—extended out of the water. Luc stumbled back a step. Mags began clucking.

Rhys pulled out a vial from his jacket and removed the cork. Now a face—
was
it a face? Luc could just make out shadowed contours that looked like eyes and a mouth—had surfaced as well. The mouth, an even deeper dark than the rest of the thing, opened; Rhys poured the contents of the vial into it. When the vial was empty, Rhys tucked it back into his pocket and the thing disappeared back under the surface.

Luc's heart was pounding. Questions spun in his head, but he couldn't make enough sense out of what he saw to form a coherent thought.

“Where was I?” Rhys rose to his feet, wiping his hands on the back of his pants, as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

“What—what was that thing?” Luc finally stammered.

Rhys tilted his head, looking alarmingly like the bird that perched on his shoulder. “That? That was a Figment, boy.”

“A what?” Luc was getting tired of trying to decode so many unfamiliar words.
Blood Nymphs. Figments.
His head ached.

“A long time ago, everything and everybody had two shadows, on account of the suns.” Rhys moved to the rowing mechanism and made a couple of adjustments. The vibration started in the floor; the oars began churning in and out of the water again. The raft lurched forward.

“The Figures and the Figments lived together just fine. Then one day, the suns changed orbit and the Figments grew longer, stronger. The Figures got all sorts of nervous and waged war on them.” Rhys's strange accent flowed like thick honey. “Eventually, the Figures drove the Figments here, to the Ocean of Shadows. The dark keeps them contained, but they want out. Naturally.”

“Figments,” Luc said slowly. “You mean, like, shadows?”

Rhys shrugged and spat. “They been called different things.”

Luc remembered the feel of thousands of hands on him, pulling at his clothes, touching his skin. He'd thought he was hallucinating—but really he'd been feeling the touch of thousands of Figments.

He leaned over the boat and blinked hard. He scanned the ocean in disbelief. His head felt light, as if his skull were slowly filling up with helium.
This isn't real,
he told himself. But it was. There were thousands of shadows writhing their way to the surface, and the darkness below him extended to the horizon. He saw that shadows clung to the oars each time they broke the surface. The Figments stretched like rubber bands, until it looked like they would snap, before retreating into the blackness. He wondered where his own shadows were, and whether they were safe. And whether it mattered.

“Will they ever escape?” he asked Rhys.

“Suppose so. When the Figures remember, anyway.” His voice had suddenly changed. It was quieter, filled with longing. He squinted toward the shore, and Luc could have sworn that—despite his blindness—he was staring off into the distance.

“Remember what?” Luc asked.

Rhys's lips curled into a small smile. “You don't know, do ya? No matter, we all get there in time. Don't look at me. I ain't gonna tell you—I'm just a Healer. Trapped out here, the shadows start to lose it. They blend. Forget who they are, forget what they were. I've developed a tincture that'll help them remember until the right time comes. It's the balance of the universe, boy, the light and dark, the earth and the sea.”

Luc didn't know what Rhys was trying to say, but he didn't want to press it, either. More riddles. And riddles weren't going to help him find Jas.

“Is there a Forest of Blood around here?” he asked, and then felt his cheeks heat up. He couldn't believe any of this—it was crazy.

Rhys shook his head slowly. “Don't know that I've ever heard of it. Why?”

“I'm looking for my sister.” Luc sucked in a deep breath, then blurted out, “I met a woman on the beach. She said—she warned me my sister was in trouble.”

Rhys turned away from Luc and spat again. Then he swung around and abruptly jabbed a finger at Luc's chest. “This will lead you on the straight and narrow.” Then he pointed at Luc's forehead. “This will lead you to the logical, which isn't always the best truth, if you know what I mean.”

Luc
didn't
know what Rhys meant. Mags made a sound, almost like a snort. Anger and helplessness built in Luc's chest, like hot oil welling there. He didn't know any more than he had when he'd been pulled onto the raft. Judging by the way the suns had moved across the sky—both looming directly overhead, side by side—time was passing quickly. As he wiped the sweat off his forehead, he moved the shaggy black hair that had fallen in front of his eyes. Christ, it was hot.

“The universe is a tricky place,” Rhys said, seeming to sense Luc's growing frustration. “The roads don't always go where they're supposed to. But I might have a map that can help you find a gateway.”

“A gateway?”

“An entry point to the Crossroad. Boy, don't give me that look like I'm crazy.” Luc wondered again how a blind man could see the things he did. He sat silently, waiting for Rhys to continue. “I suspect you've come and gone through the Crossroad already, so you'll need to find an entry point. But the map is back on shore, so let's make our way there. …”

Luc was surprised; he had assumed the blind man and Mags lived there on the raft. The sail snapped as it caught the breeze, and Rhys turned the rudder so they aimed toward shore. They moved across the shadowed ocean, and Luc had nothing to do but watch the Figments undulate in rippling waves. Now that he knew what they were, he saw the sea differently. It seemed mysterious, and heavy with something like sadness.