The Key (16 page)

His voice has a warm timbre to it now that is easy to listen to.

‘You will learn to command the elements.'

What is he saying?

‘You will learn to move the winds and the waters of the earth, to create and extinguish fire, to mould mountains and valleys and rivers. And you will learn how to commune with the animals, and take the shape of any that you desire.'

Am I hearing him right?

‘But these things of nature, Matthew, you will not do with magic spells and potions. You will do them with just a single thought from your soul. One thought.'

One thought?

‘You will become invisible whenever you need to, and you will be able to create invisibility for others in your company.'

His words are difficult to absorb, yet they have a strange hypnotic effect. At last my heart rate starts to slow and my breathing comes in gentle effortless puffs. Eventually I give in to the incredible lethargy overcoming every one of my muscles.

It's as if Dartemis is speaking to me now from a vast distance. His words float across this ever-increasing void softly and slowly. He talks about life and the strength my powers have over the living.

For a long time I am unaware of my surroundings, of who or what I am, what I am doing, if I am hungry, tired or cold, whether it is night or day, or even if I am still breathing. I feel nothing except a sense that I'm floating and that my body is weightless, my mind empty. Time
passes that could be minutes or hours or days.

Eventually I become aware of a disturbance below. A voice penetrates. A man's, but not Dartemis's.

‘Sorry to disturb you, my lord.' Slowly I recognise the voice as that belonging to Janah. He sounds worried and my consciousness grows. ‘But the news is grave.'

The sense that I'm floating starts to dissipate.

‘Slowly, Matthew,' Dartemis warns.

But I'm new at this sort of thing. I open my eyes to see that it isn't a
sense
of flotation I'm experiencing. I really am floating! Almost to the ceiling.

But not any more!

I start to drop, and quickly hit the floor with a hard thump.

Dartemis winces, then turns his attention to Janah. ‘What news?'

‘Your sister has entered the middle realm and destroyed the white bridge.'

I scramble off the floor and rush over to where the two are standing. ‘What does this mean?'

Dartemis glances at me with a frown between his brows. ‘It means that the lost souls will never reach their true destiny. Tell me more, Janah.'

‘My lord, Lathenia has opened a rift, forging a tunnel between the realms. Where the white bridge once stood, there is now a joining of the middle realm with the underworld.'

Dartemis whispers almost to himself. ‘So now my sister controls the souls of the lost as well as the damned.' He glances down at me. ‘Matthew, until I am satisfied, you will train day and night now. Do you understand?'

There's no mistaking the seriousness of his tone. A
shiver darts through me and I nod.

‘Good, let us begin. Janah, leave us.'

‘But my lord …' he starts, then hesitates. ‘I have more news.'

The frown returns and Dartemis groans as if resigning himself. ‘Tell me.'

‘Marduke is attacking the fortress.'

‘What fortress?' I ask, feeling nauseous all of a sudden, and not knowing whether it's from my recent floating experience or Janah's news.

He says, ‘Neriah's fortress. It's where she lives with her mother under the protection of the Guard.'

‘
What?'
I call out.

Dartemis rests his hand on my shoulder. I look up into his luminescent face. His golden eyes shimmer the colour of fire once more.

‘Matthew,' he says. ‘We must hurry.'

As the three of us stand at the gate to Neriah's fortress an unsteady opening forms in the protective barrier, closing behind us with that familiar sucking sound. My heart is pumping hard at the prospect of danger, yet not knowing what to expect. I have only seen this yard at night. It was creepy then and it's even creepier now, full of flickering shadows.

A sudden cracking sound from above draws my eyes to the dome, and then I understand the reason for this strange and eerie twilight. ‘Look at that.'

‘What the hell …?' Ethan takes in the scene overhead too.

The protective barrier is covered with hundreds of birds – the same kind that attacked Ethan and me in the forest. They outline the entire dome, making it visible. The birds are pecking away at the barrier with their sharp beaks, thumping it with their bodies. Others tear at it with their claws.

‘They're almost through,' Isabel says.

Another cracking sound, then another further away. Squawking and shrieking sounds grow louder. Goose bumps break out over my skin. ‘How long will the
barrier last?'

Isabel starts to move. ‘Arkarian thinks it won't be long. We have to get into the house, ‘cause once the barrier is down, Marduke will be able to get in.'

Marduke? And the birds?
Hell!

That eerie crackling sound, like the breaking of dozens of egg shells, quickly becomes one continuous roll.

‘Run!' Ethan yells.

We take off, running as fast as we can towards the shelter of Neriah's house up ahead. But the path is long. Birds, a few at first, then dozens at a time, come pouring through the widening breach. And then the barrier gives away completely. It shatters and starts raining down over the top of us.

‘The barrier's made of crystal!' Ethan screams out, then has an idea. ‘Throw us your coat, Rochelle.'

I'm not sure what he wants to do with it, but I shrug it off anyway. He throws it horizontally over the three of our heads. It offers us some protection from the shattering crystal. But the coat is no barrier to the birds. They come pouring down, fighting each other to get to us.

Arkarian and Dillon appear by our side and start yanking the birds off our backs and heads and beating them with their bare hands. As well, Neriah's dogs, in their snow leopard form, come bounding down the driveway. They're quite magnificent to watch, graceful with the hint of incredible power. They leap high, and the birds they attack drop straight to the ground and remain motionless.

We make it to the front doors where Neriah and her mother beat back the birds trying to get in around us. At last the doors close and the snow leopards change back
into dogs. But the squawking outside continues. The birds bang their bodies and wings against the walls, windows and rooftop. The noise is deafening. Aysher and Silos claw at the door, but Neriah orders them back and immediately they sit calmly by her side.

Arkarian looks around and spots one of the house guards. ‘Any word from Jimmy?'

The guard replies, ‘He's just about done.'

Almost simultaneously the entire outside surface of the house, including the walls, windows and rooftop, begin to buzz and glow softly. The birds screech and fly off as if burned, then return again, only to screech with such ear-piercing ferocity we all have to cover our ears. They lift off the house at last and settle in the branches of the trees in the yard.

Jimmy comes running into the room and heads straight for a window. They've been boarded up, but through a crack he can see where the birds have settled. He turns to us with a grin. ‘It's working.'

Arkarian thumps his back. ‘For the moment we have a reprieve.' He turns to Ethan and me. ‘Good to see you made it here all right. No trouble with Lathenia's hound?'

Ethan shakes his head, then motions out the window. ‘But we had trouble with those birds.'

‘Were either of you hurt?'

Ethan's eyes shift sideways to me, but he stays quiet. I try hard not to pick up any more of his thoughts. I don't want to know what's in his head. He may not be adept at screening his thoughts all the time, but he sure knows when I'm reading them. It only makes him hate me more. And now that I have control over my Truthseeing powers again, I can safely stay out of his head for good.
Arkarian is still waiting for an answer.

‘We're fine.'

‘Good, now we have to act fast to get Neriah and Aneliese to safety.'

‘So what's the plan?' Ethan asks.

‘I can shift Neriah to the Citadel,' Arkarian explains, then turns to Neriah. ‘You will be safe there until we decide where it will be best for you to live. But …' He pauses, glancing at Neriah's mother for a moment. ‘I can't take you, Aneliese. Only those with the powers of the Guard can endure the pressure of such a timeless zone.'

Aneliese touches her daughter's arm. ‘You have to go, Neriah.'

Neriah turns to her mother with a wild look in her eyes. ‘I'm not going to leave you! And besides, I want to stay. I want to help.'

‘Your training's only just begun,' Arkarian reminds her. ‘Your powers are still limited.'

‘I'm fit and capable, Arkarian. And I can help in other ways too. I'm not going to let Marduke harm my mother!'

Arkarian says softly, ‘I'm not doubting your ability, Neriah. But sometimes you have to give your trust over to others. It's what we do in the Guard all the time. And I'm asking you to do that now. You do trust me, don't you?'

‘Of course! I know you would do anything in your power to protect us both, but if the situation becomes desperate …'

She bites down on her lower lip as if she is trying to stop the rest of her words from rolling out of her mouth. I try to read her thoughts – nothing. But it's obvious she
has some sort of plan.

‘Marduke would do you harm too, Neriah,' Arkarian makes sure she understands.

‘I don't think he would.'

‘What makes you so sure?'

‘I'm his daughter, and he loves me!'

Everyone goes still at Neriah's display of emotion. Aneliese grabs her arm, knowing, like the rest of us, there's more going on in Neriah's life than she is telling us.

Arkarian says, ‘You told us you haven't seen Marduke since his fight with Shaun.'

Looking reluctant to explain, she finally says, ‘Sometimes he speaks to me.'

Aneliese's eyes grow wide and she shakes her head.

Before the questions come, Neriah quickly adds, ‘But only in my dreams. He has spoken to me in my dreams.'

‘Neriah, I know Marduke,' I try to explain. ‘I know how he works.'

Dillon interrupts, ‘Yeah, so do I! He's a madman who will stop at nothing to satisfy his appetite for revenge.'

Dillon's words seem to only prove her point. ‘Exactly! He wants to take his revenge out on Mum. He will kill her!'

‘Look, Neriah –' I start to explain, but Dillon interrupts me again.

This time Arkarian puts a staying hand to the front of Dillon's chest. ‘Go ahead, Rochelle.'

‘I worked very closely with Marduke. He can be very persuasive. I succumbed to his power of persuasion many times. He convinced me that I belonged to the Order because of my heritage, that it was my destiny, and that my soul belonged to the Goddess. When I
looked at him I saw my own father. Sometimes I even saw my father's face, smiling at me in a way that I always longed for. And when Marduke praised me, it was as if my own father did.'

Except for the occasional squawk of a bird outside, I become aware of complete silence and everyone's eyes on me. I hate to open myself to their scrutiny like this, but Neriah has something dangerous planned, and I must try to stop her.

‘You have to see that when Marduke comes into your dreams, he's trying to manipulate your emotions, just like he did with me. He is the Goddess's servant, the Master of her troops, and, until his fateful journey to the middle realm, her lover as well. Whatever she commands him, he won't hesitate to do it. Believe me, his loyalty to Lathenia will come before his love for you.'

Dillon scoffs loudly. ‘Love! That creature wouldn't know what the word means.'

But Dillon doesn't know Marduke as I do. His loyalties and his passions run deep. He gives his all to everything he does, whether in servitude or in love. And he expects the same in return. He feels his losses deeply, and over his long lifetime he has lost plenty. ‘I think he knows love only too well.'

There must be something in the way I say these words that creates a sudden tension in the room. Nobody seems to know where to look.

But our thoughts are suddenly interrupted by a loud explosion. It rocks the house, shaking the walls around us. Jimmy throws Arkarian a bag. Arkarian opens it and pulls out black masks. He throws us one each. ‘Put these on to protect your identities.' They cover our entire heads, bar our eyes and mouths.

‘Ethan and Rochelle, take Neriah and Aneliese into the tunnels,' Arkarian orders. ‘Aneliese will lead you to the one that will take you to my chambers.' He turns to the others. ‘Everyone else, come with me. We have to stall Marduke long enough for Neriah and Aneliese to reach safety.'

With Aneliese and the dogs in front, we run down a narrow flight of stairs, through a doorway, then descend another stairwell. Down this far, it's completely dark. Aneliese fumbles for a torch from a shelf to her right. Down the bottom is a door bolted with an iron bar and lock. Aneliese yanks a chain from her neck. There are several keys on it. She takes one and opens the lock. Ethan lifts the bar and the door creaks open.

The tunnel is made entirely of sandstone and bricks. Aysher and Silos leap off ahead like scouts, but stay within sight. Overhead we hear the sounds of rumbling thunder. It must be Marduke. It sounds as if a battle has started. It grows louder by the second. I hope they can hold him off long enough for us to get Neriah and Aneliese to safety. And I hope this tunnel isn't too long. I'll be glad when we get out into some fresh air and can take these masks off.

We run and keep running, the dogs leading the way. Then at last we slam to a stop. The tunnel has split into three.