Renegade Page 7

  “And if I choose your way?” Billos said.

  “Then you bring me the four books from your reality, which will allow us to find the last three books that are lost on Earth.”

  “We only had three books.”

  “Well, you better get those three back and then find the fourth, baby. ‘Cause we need all four to find the three hidden on Earth. Where I hail from.”

  “And why do you need me? Go get them yourself.”

  “You don’t know? Only those from your reality can see the books here, unless all seven are together. The three you’ve lost can only be found by someone from your side. By you. You see, it all comes back to you. I can clap my hands and …”

  He clapped his hands, and a book of history materialized in his right hand.

  “… presto, I have a book. Cool, huh?”

  Billos blinked. “The book’s cold?”

  “Expression they use here. Never mind. It’s an illusion, like Darsal. Unfortunately this book isn’t”—he brought his hands together again and the book vanished—“real. This, however”—he snapped his fingers and a goblet appeared in his grasp—“is real. Care for a sip?”

  Black lifted the glass to his lips and drank the milky substance. “Ahhh … Worm sludge, they call it, but it’s delicious. Take a drink.” He nodded at a table to Billos’s right where a similar glass goblet sat, filled to the brim with the nectar.

  “It’ll give you the kind of power you need to finish this task of yours.”

  Billos hesitated, then picked up the glass. Smelled the drink. A sweet, musky odor reached up into his nostrils and stung his eyes. He felt lightheaded and pleasant. He’d had strong grog, but nothing that smelled so delicious and none that affected the mind with a single sniff.

  He took a sip. The worm sludge, as Black had called it, tasted awful, much like he imagined worm sludge would taste. But it filled him with such a feeling of … what was it? Confidence? Power, the man had said power.

  He took another sip. On second thought it wasn’t so bad at all. Warmth spread through his chest and arms. Mighty fine grog at that, this worm sludge.

  Black was grinning.

  “So what is it, Bill? My way or his way?”

  The choice seemed clear. And although Blacks approach was rather unorthodox, it was compelling.

  “Naturally, I’ll give you more than grog,” Black said. “Clap your hands, baby.”

  “Now?”

  “Now. Put the drink down, and clap your hands together.”

  Billos took one more slug, set the glass down, and clapped his hands. A bolt of energy rode up his arms. Without warning, a piece of formed steel appeared in his right fist. Like a curved knife with a handle in his palm, and a tube where the blade should be.

  He was so stunned by the appearance of the strange object that he nearly dropped it. He studied it in awe. He’d done this?

  “How … how did …”

  Black chuckled. “You like? That’s what I’m talking about, baby. Magic! I call it suhupow. Short for superhuman power.”

  “Suhupow,” Billos repeated, staring at the weapon. “What is it?”

  “It’s called a gun. Pull the trigger.”

  He assumed the small lever under the crook of his forefinger must be the trigger, so he pulled on it.

  The weapon bucked in his hand, throwing it back. Boom! Thunder crashed overhead.

  Billos yelped, dropped the weapon, and grabbed his ears. His heart pounded. “What? What happened?”

  Black chuckled and nodded at a chair next to him. “You missed me.”

  The chair’s back had a large, splintered hole in it. He’d done that? Billos looked down at the gun. Smoke coiled from the hole on one end,

  “My way or his way?” Black asked again.

  “What’s in it for me?”

  “More power than you can imagine, Billy-boy.”

  Billos’s lips twitched in wonder. “Your way,” he said.

  “Very cool.” Marsuvees Black snatched up the goblet of worm sludge. “I’ll drink to that. Join me?”

  Billos picked up his glass, now feeling altogether intoxicated and headstrong.

  Black lifted his glass. “To Billos.”

  Billos toasted the air. “To the books.”

  Black: “To grace-juice, baby!” Billos: “To the gun!”

  Black threw his head back and laughed. “Drink!” They drained their glasses as one. Then Black threw his to the ground, where it vanished a split second before striking. “Now, let’s go rule the world!” Billos threw his glass down and watched it disappear. He looked up, grinning so wide it hurt. “Yes, let’s rule the world … baby!”

  he Black Forest lay in a massive depression that could not be seen until they were upon it. Even then Darsal knew that no human besides she, Johnis, Billos, Silvie, and now Karas could see it at all.

  The Shataiki parted for them as they neared. “Keep the water handy,” Darsal said.

  “You don’t need to remind me. I know how frightened it made me just a few days ago.”

  They urged their horses up to the depression’s lip and stared over a cliff into the abyss. Black, leafless trees covered the charred ground below. Thousands of black bats perched on the branches, looking up at them.

  The forest ran a mile or so in, then dipped under a huge rock lip that stretched the depression’s full width. The earth swallowed up the forest. How far underground the trees grew, Darsal couldn’t tell, but according to Hunter, this forest was larger than the last, and by that measure, the underground cavern had to be massive indeed.

  Evidently the black trees didn’t need sunlight to grow. Only the fertile soil of death.

  “We’re really going to go down there?” Karas asked in a voice that trembled. Finally she was showing her youth.

  “It wasn’t my idea for you to come.”

  Karas stared at a large Shataiki bat that waddled closer and settled on the lip, staring back at her with its cherry eyes. Flies, always flies around these putrid beasts. This one looked like it had more flies than fur covering its mangy body.

  And the smell … there were no words to describe the rotting stench that clogged their nostrils. Darsal could hardly breathe through her nose, and the idea of breathing through her mouth made her sick.

  None of the Shataiki seemed surprised by their presence. It was as if they’d been long expected.

  “He’s waiting,” the Shataiki that had come closer said in a low, scratchy voice.

  Karas faced Darsal and saw that the girl’s lips were quivering.

  “Stay close.” Darsal turned her horse onto a series of switchbacks cut from the cliff. The Shataiki watched them go. Several squawked fifty meters away, but their attention was on something they fought over, not on Darsal or Karas.

  The air grew warmer and even more putrid as they descended. With each step the feeling that she had made a mistake in coming here grew, and Darsal had to work a little harder to persuade herself otherwise. But she was on a rescue mission, not unlike Johnis’s mission to save his mother and the girl who rode behind her.

  “Darsal?”

  “Quiet, Karas.”

  “I’m frightened, Sister.”

  So am I, Sister. “I’m not your sister. But stay close, and keep the water closer. You’re safe with me.”

  The path leveled at the bottom and snaked into the towering forest. Angular branches covered with moss jutted every which way in a tangled mess, blotting out the morning sun. The rancid air turned cool and damp.

  Shataiki bats screeched overhead, glaring with red eyes, following them from tree to tree.

  “It’s dark,” Karas said.

  And darker yet to come. “We’ll follow the eyes.”

  “I’m really, really frightened, Darsal. Maybe we should go back.”

  “We couldn’t even if we wanted to. Please, just try to be brave and keep quiet.”

  “Can’t we talk? I think it would help.”

  It wouldn’t hurt, Darsal
decided. And the sound of Karas’s voice did cut the chatter of the Shataiki—perhaps they were trying to listen in.

  “Okay, tell me about how Johnis rescued you.”

  So Karas told her all the details as they continued into the darkening forest, step by step. The path began to descend again when they passed under a huge overhang. Their voices sounded hollow in the cavern. To think this hole had been here the whole time, harboring a more ominous threat than all of the Horde combined!

  You do not belong here, Darsal.

  It was Billos’s doing, and for a moment she hated him for his impulsive, selfish bull headedness. She muttered under her breath.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  They’d traveled into the darkness nearly an hour, giving the horses their heads, when the sound reached Darsal. She pulled up.

  “Water,” Karas said.

  It was only a dripping sound, but now that Darsal could hear it, she could also smell the musky, dank smell of stale water.

  A flame suddenly swooshed to life a hundred meters ahead, casting an orange glow in the cavern. Karas inhaled sharply.

  They were at the very edge of an underground lake with a black surface. Across the water sat a wooden platform, all too familiar to Darsal. On the platform stood a solitary Shataiki, larger than the rest, and in his claw he held a large torch.

  “Alucard,” Karas guessed.

  “Alucard.”

  They could see the ceiling now, hewn from the rock, jagged and dripping water from long stalactites. The drops of water fell to the lake’s surface and sent out ripples—the sound they’d heard.

  The path snaked around the lake, barely visible between the gnarly trees and the stagnant water. Darsal turned her horse right and forced it forward. Without trees to support them over the lake, thousands of Shataiki now perched on the trees that ran the lake’s perimeter, staring with beady eyes. So many that Darsal thought the caverns orange glow might be caused in part by the eyes, not just the torch.

  Without moving, except to face them as they rounded the lake, Alucard watched them come. And then they were in the mud before the platform, eye to eye due to their being mounted on horses.

  The beast stood nearly twice as tall as most Shataiki, and his skin was more than twice as mangy. Fur worn thin to reveal his skin beneath. He looked very old, if age was something that could be judged by how haggard a beast looked. His upper lip hung down on either side of his snout, like a sad hound that held a long stick supporting a flaming torch.

  Only this hound gazed at them with furious red eyes, not dog eyes.

  A centipede scurried across the bat’s brow and across its upper cheek before vanishing into the beasts ear. Darsal imagined a nest inside and shivered.

  “Only one of you,” Alucard finally said in a low, wet voice. Saliva trailed off his snout and dripped to the ground. “And this traitor.”

  “I’m here on my own,” Darsal said. “Armed with water—”

  “Silence!” the bat snapped.

  Darsal flinched.

  “Does this look like your home? It’s your tomb.”

  “Then it’ll be your tomb as well,” Darsal said, gathering the last reserves of her courage. She cast a quick glance to her right at Karas. The girl was shaking.

  Eyes back on Alucard. “I’ve come to make you a deal.”

  That set the bat back a few moments.

  “I don’t make deals with my enemy,” he said.

  “You did with Tanis. Or was that Teeleh? You don’t have the power to deal like that greater monster?”

  “I could have you killed with the slightest move of my hand.”

  Darsal glanced at the beast’s sharp, curved claws. For the last two days she’d thought about the proposition she would now voice, and however preposterous, however blasphemous, however treacherous it sounded, she saw no way around it.

  But first she had to know if Alucard had one of the books.

  “You can’t kill me,” Darsal said. “Not if you want the books.”

  “I’ll do what pleases me in my home.”

  “You’re not just a pawn of that bigger beast, Teeleh?” Darsal asked. “I assumed you do only what pleases him.”

  No response.

  “You have another one of the books, safeguarding it for Teeleh, I imagine.” Darsal didn’t know this, of course, but she said it as if it were well-known. “I have three. But the three I have are with Billos, and Billos can only be gotten to via the book in your possession. Are you following me?”

  “You’ve lost the books in your possession? You’re even more foolish than I thought. You have nothing to bargain with.”

  “I do have something. I have your desire for the three books that Billos has. I can get them. But I need your book to do it.”

  So now it was out there. And judging by Alucard’s stillness, he was interested.

  “So Billos used the books. Did he open them?”

  “No.”

  “You saw this?”

  “I saw him touch the cover of one book with blood and vanish with all three.” She paused. “What would have happened if he had opened a book?”

  “You don’t know? No, of course you don’t. You’re just a spoiled young warrior pretending to be important. Why he would choose you to match wits with me and the Dark One is beyond comprehension.”

  So Alucard knew who the Dark One was.

  “Then tell me, what would happen if Billos opened a book?”

  “It would depend. There were four books here: one with the Horde, one with Teeleh, one with me, and one with the Roush. Gather all four, and they would create a breach into the lesser reality where the last three books are hidden. But there is no way for him to return here with the books. Unless he has all four from this reality.”

  “He had only three, yet he went. I saw him.”

  “He’s not where he might think he is.”

  Darsal pondered this but couldn’t wrap her mind around the scope of these realities he suggested.

  “So you’ve gone? You can tell me what to expect?”

  “I’ve been to where I assume your friend went by touching the book with blood. But I would need all four books to go to Earth.” Alucard slowly smiled, but offered no further explanation.

  “So you need four books to go where you want to go?” Darsal questioned. “Which is different from where Billos went, because he only had three. So where has Billos gone?”

  Alucard’s response came slowly and carefully “To a place of unlimited opportunity,”

  “Then that’s what I have to offer you,” Darsal said. “Three more books and yours back after I retrieve Billos’s. They would have my neck for making this deal with you, and frankly I’m not sure I can offer it much longer. Any minute and I’ll decide to give my life up instead of the books. Which will it be?”

  “You expect me to believe that you’d give up the four books for one piece of meat?”

  “He’s not a piece of meat,” Karas said, speaking up with a thin voice. “That’s the difference between you and them. They appreciate every life; you don’t.”

  “The traitor has stopped trembling long enough to speak,” Alucard said.

  “From what I gather, you’re the one who turned your back on Elyon.”

  “Shut up, Karas,” Darsal snapped.

  “That would make you the traitor,” the little girl said.

  Alucard whipped his head back and roared, an earsplitting howl that crackled with rage.

  The roar rang, then echoed. Silence filled the cavern.

  “Wouldn’t it?” Karas said.

  Had she lost her mind?

  “Do not speak that name in my home,” Alucard snapped. “It makes me doubt you. Why should I agree with someone who defiles my home?”

  “She’s a young child; ignore her. I’m the one you’re speaking to. And you can trust me because I would give my life for this ‘piece of meat’ named Billos.”

  Alucard regarded her with a
n expression hidden by red, pupil-less eyes. The centipede slid out of his ear and disappeared into a patch of mangy black fur.

  “Yes, you would die for him, wouldn’t you?”

  He thumped the wooden platform with his stick. Three Shataiki flew in from the side and disappeared into a hole behind the dock. Into the lair, not unlike the one Johnis had entered at Teeleh’s lake.

  “And I’ll give you that opportunity,” the beast said.

  Darsal’s pulse pounded, as much from the anticipation of accomplishing her first objective as from a gnawing fear.

  “How many big bats like you are there?” Karas asked. The tremble was gone from her voice.

  Alucard just stared at her.

  “Why do you want to go where Billos has gone?”

  Darsal didn’t think the bat would entertain such simple questions from a little girl. “Karas …”

  “I am Shataiki!” the beast snapped.

  “And that bothers you?” Karas pushed.

  “Did it bother you to be Horde?”

  “No. I was too deceived. Are you saying you want to bathe in the lakes and make amends with Elyon?”

  Alucard’s neck stiffened, and his lips pulled back to reveal sharp, crusted fangs.

  “Sorry, you didn’t want me to speak Elyon’s name. I forgot.”

  The beast’s coat quivered, sending flies that Darsal hadn’t noticed buzzing. “This is my home.” He seemed to force each word out, one by one.

  “But you don’t want it to be?” Karas persisted.

  For a long time Alucard just glared at her, and Karas stared back, though her shaking hands betrayed the state of her nerves. The entire forest had become deathly quiet.

  When the beast spoke, his voice was nearly a growl. “Human,” he said. “What I do, I do for a purpose beyond your understanding. A purpose that serves Teeleh well.”

  Darsal remembered something that Gabil, the Roush, had said before. That all Roush were in wonder of humans, the beings Elyon had fashioned after himself. Maybe jealous in a friendly sort of way. Now, looking at Alucard, she knew that Shataiki were also jealous. A bitter, spiteful hatred for being less than Elyon and human.

  One of the three Shataiki who’d descended into the lair emerged. Darsal’s horse shifted under her. The bat settled on the platform, clacked across to Alucard, and held out a leather bag.