Joshua and the Lightning Road (16 page)

Her robe streaked behind her, a green-gold blur parading like a battle pendant. She whipped her horse on as the Child Collector oozed over his poor horse, straining to keep up. And there was the top of Finn’s head.

Then they were gone. Sticks and pebbles stuck to my knees. It felt good to stand, my legs numb from kneeling on the hard ground.

“We’ll get him back,” Leandro said, pounding a fist on a tree trunk. “We know which way they’re headed.”

“We need to get Sam first.” I strained to find him in the gloomy woods. Leandro pointed. Sam was curled up on the ground, facing away from us.

We all ran over and, with my hand on his shoulder, I rolled him toward me, but fell back when I saw his wrinkled face. His white hair was streaked with gray and his hands were bony with knotty knuckles and long, yellow nails. He smelled like an old book that had been closed for a long time.

I crab-walked backward fast, my hands scratching across dead bark. Leandro pulled me up, and we all stared at Sam in silence.

“What on Earth?” I said.

“This is not of Earth, Joshua,” Leandro said in a low voice. “It’s an Old World curse.”

Sam, the old man, struggled to get up. I closed off my fear of touching him and pulled him up, supporting him under his arms.

Sam looked at me with a creased forehead. “Did you get the codes?” It came out a whispery rasp.

“Yeah.”

He half-smiled, then bent over coughing. “Hekate, cursed me.”

“Bo Chez, what do we do?” I said.

He thumped a fist to his jaw. “There’s nothing we can do.”

Leandro nodded. “There’s no cure for the Old World curse. You can only slow its effects down.”

“There must be a way to stop it!” I protested. Even Charlie had nothing funny to say for once.

“The one way to get rid of it is give it to someone else,” Leandro said, sharing a meaningful look with Bo Chez.

“How do you do that?” I stiffened. My hands were pressed up against Sam’s paper-dry skin. “Is he contagious?”

“No, but he must decide whether to pass this fatal curse on to someone else. Or he can choose to accept his own death,” Leandro said. “We’ll bring him with us. It’s time to move now. We have the codes to get back to Earth.”

“Is that all you care about, the codes? I mean, look at him!” I said, waving a hand at Sam.

“Yeah,” Charlie shouted back.

Leandro’s voice boomed at me. “Don’t pretend that you don’t want to use the codes too. If Sam is to die, at least we can save ourselves.”

Leandro was right, and Charlie must have thought so, too, because he was silent.

“We now have another problem, Joshua,” Leandro said. “Hekate thinks you’re the Oracle.”

“She does?” Bo Chez said, staring at me.

“It’s dangerous for her to think so,” Leandro said.

Bo Chez nodded this time, still looking at me with puzzlement.

Sam coughed again. “She’ll never stop coming for you.” His hair seemed grayer than it had just a moment ago. His face more lined as the curse developed with super speed.

My arms shook from holding him. Bo Chez took him from me and held him like a sick child, just like when I had strep throat and he fed me popsicles and ice cream. He sat with me for two days, telling me funny stories to ease the pain. He even slept in the armchair one night. He was no mother, no nurse, but he stayed. Soon after, I remembered wishing to be sick again so Bo Chez would be by my side night and day, just one more time.

“He’s growing older by the minute,” Bo Chez said.

“How long does he have?” I said.

“Days, perhaps. The young ones last longer. Unless we can find the Moria plant. It wards off death. When crushed up and placed under the victim’s tongue, it slows down the advance of the spell. It could give him a few more days … or weeks.”

“Otherwise Sam will die from old age?” Charlie said. It was the first time he’d ever called Sam by name.

Bo Chez nodded.

“Leandro,” I said. “Where can we get this Moria plant?”

“If the Lost Realm grows any at all, we’ll find it in the greenhouse.”

“What about other realms? We could go there. Wouldn’t one of them help?” There had to be others on this world who would come to our aid.

Leandro shook his head. “There are worse fates for you in other lands if you’re caught. You could end up working with the cadmean beasts to mine coal in the Fire Realm. Or thrown in the water and chased by hydriads for fun in the River Realm races.”

Or used as bait in the Arrow Realm
. Staying here was way safer than any of that.

“But even if we find this plant, he’ll still die?”
Please say no
. But he nodded. “Then we’ve got to give the curse to someone else. But how?”

“Sam must cut off a lock of his hair and burn it,” Leandro explained. “Then fling the ashes on the person he chooses to pass the curse on to. Only his hand can achieve it, but I don’t know the spell for it.”

“I do,” Bo Chez said. “We had to memorize them in Storm Master training in case we ever encountered this curse weapon in warfare. It goes, ‘Ashes to dust, is what’s left of me. Unless, to live, I pass this to thee. Then ashes to dust now you will be.’ Can you remember this, Sam?”

“I think so.” His voice quavered as he repeated the spell. “I know it. It’s similar to an old childhood rhyme we would sing. But—” He coughed again and couldn’t stop. And I was dumbfounded by the rhyme that came to Bo Chez so easily. He had lived a whole different life before me.

Charlie spewed out a sigh. “
Mon dieu
, we’ve got big problems here. Bad men want to kill us. One of us needs a cane. And we’re stuck on another world!”

Sam recovered from his coughing fit and motioned for me. He pressed his gnarled fingers to my arm, his brittle nails digging into my skin. “Hope.”

“Hope?”

“There’s a reason you came here. You could be the hope we need to change things on our world.”

“
Mon dieu,
” I whispered with a gulp, not wanting to be the hope for a whole world.

Then Sam closed his eyes. “Not passing the curse.”

His words commanded the sudden silence, and even the breeze that chilled my skin stopped blowing as if it listened. Sam seemed even more shriveled now, and he feebly tugged his flute out and held it toward me in his shaky hand. “Joshua, take this.”

“But it was your mother’s,” I said.

“Yours now. You can play it. And you may need it.”

I ran my fingers over its smooth, worn ridges, then put it in my back pocket. What do you say when a dying friend passes on his most prized possession? “Thanks” didn’t seem to cut it.

Sam went limp in Bo Chez’s arms, and we were all paralyzed for a moment. Then I motioned for us to move. “Come on!”

“Joshua’s right,” Leandro said. “We can’t stand here any longer.” He plunged ahead through the fog that crept over us.

We ran after Leandro.

We would save Sam.

We would get Finn back.

We would get home.

Leandro would find his family.

We could do all this. We had to.

We reached the same creek again. Its waters still raged around the boulders, although they now ran clear. More hydriads replaced the ones Leandro had killed. Their tusks cruised back and forth through the water as if waiting for our return. The bloody spears of their friends still lay scattered on the creek bank.

“Hekate and her army crossed here,” Leandro said, searching the markings on the ground. “She didn’t even take the bridge. She’s not afraid of the Acheron creeks. The hydriads must fear her. I bet that evil witch is headed back to the power mill. It’s her home base.”

“Can we call the kernitians?”

Bo Chez stared at me. “You can speak to animals.” It wasn’t a question.

“I—yes.”

“It’s been a long time since I knew a malumpus-tongue.” His face sagged, and he looked old for the first time.

I desperately wanted to know when that was but now was not the time.

Leandro and I called to the kernitians. My voice was hoarse and burned with our call for help. We waited as the sky deepened its purple, a heavier darkness creeping over me. Still nothing.

“I fear they won’t come,” Leandro said. “Not when an alarm has been sounded. They could be in hiding. They’re timid creatures.”

And they didn’t.

“We have to jump across again,” I said, and then Bo Chez was in the air with Sam in his arms, leaping to the first boulder. The hydriads swam faster, banging into his rock, as the frothy foam spewed salty spray at us. Charlie chewed on his fingers with renewed intensity, flicking his eyes to me and back to the watery devils.

“We can do it, Charlie,” I said.

But he just stood there, gnawing on a finger.

Bo Chez was already leaping off the last boulder and onto the other side. Leandro went next. He, too, landed safely. “Charlie and Joshua! Hurry!”

I tugged Charlie’s shirt and finally, with wide eyes, he took a deep breath, ran back, and jumped. His long legs made it easier for him than me. He landed steady on the first boulder, hesitated, and launched himself once more. Hydriad tusks raced around the rock in a vicious circle. He jumped again, off balance. And even before he slipped I knew he wouldn’t make it. Charlie hit the boulder. He clung to the top of the rock, his left leg in the water. Tusks thrashed back and forth as he screamed.

“Charlie!” I rushed into the icy water, pushing it angrily away in my eagerness to save my friend. It stung like a thousand icicles jabbing into me.

“Joshua, no!” Bo Chez strode into the creek.

Leandro sailed through the air past him to me, and we both yanked Charlie up and pushed him toward the bank where Bo Chez dragged him to safety. Leandro and I were close behind when a great wave of water slammed into us. We fought our way against the current to get back to the creek bank when hot pain cut through me. A tusk was plunged into my side. Hot needles stabbed me. I clenched the tusk and pulled it out. It glistened red. I shoved it into the rolling water and stumbled forward against the waves.

“Joshua!” Leandro lunged for me.

Water roared down on me and all became black.

***

Everything was a bouncy blur. Leandro held me as he ran over rocks and logs. Ripping pain shot into my side.

“Hydriad disease.” Bo Chez’s words carried to me.

Charlie then spoke in a wobbly voice. “Leandro, you said the plant that can cure Prince-man may grow in the greenhouse. Can it help Joshua, too?”

Leandro held me tighter as he ran, his ragged breath on my cheek smelling of bittersweet chocolate. “It should. The Moria plant can just slow down a curse that poisons the soul, such as Sam’s, but it can cure true poisons of the body.”

“But you’re not sure?” Charlie’s voice cracked.

No one answered. Only rhythmic breathing and footfalls followed along with me now. My head was thick and my body was speared through with pain and fever, yet I shivered in wet clothes.

Leandro and Bo Chez’s voices tumbled together.

“Sir, if he has Apollo’s ancient power of music perhaps he could—”

“No! He is not what you want.” Bo Chez’s voice boomed then softened. “He’s too weak, even so. The plant is our best bet.”

“I am sure you’re right on both accounts,” Leandro said.

Moaning, I opened my eyes and tried to focus, but even the dimness of the Lost Realm burned hot in my head.

“We’re almost back at the cave, Joshua,” Leandro said.

Bo Chez’s large hand brushed my sweaty head as he ran alongside Leandro. Even with my eyes closed I’d know his smell anywhere. It was home.

And so we returned to the cave that sheltered us before, but this time Charlie was the only kid standing.

The blurriness overtook me and, once again, darkness claimed me.

***

Cold rock against my hot skin shocked me awake. We were back in the cave. Nightmares clung to me and swirled away. Coldness filled me, although sweat lined my upper lip and Leandro’s cloak lay heavy on me. Sam was under a blanket on a slab next to me, unmoving.

“Leandro, you said we can save Joshua and slow down Prince-man’s curse,” Charlie said. “
If
you can find the plant and
if
you come back.” He sighed and muttered. “
Zut!
These ‘ifs’ just get more and more terrible.”

Zut!
I wanted to say, but my tongue wouldn’t form the word.

“I’ll find the plant and I’ll bring it back.” Leandro turned to me. His nostrils flared and, even in the low light, his eyes glinted with fierce determination.

“I’m going with you,” Charlie said in a hoarse voice. Leandro looked at him for a moment, then bowed.

“My lightning will send you there,” Bo Chez said.

Leandro nodded and touched Sam’s head. “He’s getting worse. We need to hurry.” Then he bent down and inspected my wound. His rough hands were surprisingly gentle. “Joshua’s wound is festering and dehydration will set in. He needs spring water.” He poured it slowly in my mouth. It cooled my throat, but I was still hot one moment and shivering the next. The pain was made worse by hunger, thirst, exhaustion, and despair. After all we’d been through, we were going to fail.

I tried to speak, but the words were hard to form. Finally they came. “Save Finn.”

And then I cried, something I hadn’t done in a long, long time. I cried for all the circumstances that got us here and for all the things we’d suffered with no end in sight.

Leandro pressed a hand to my forehead and stroked my bangs back until I was all cried out. Bo Chez bent down to take my hand, but it was Leandro I needed. I reached out my hand to him. He glanced at Bo Chez, then took my hand, gripping it hard, his muscled fingers heavy on mine.

“Light of Sol go with you,” I whispered, wanting to find hope in his world’s saying.

“And you, Joshua.”

Leandro moved to stand by Charlie, who gave me a brave thumbs up even as he jittered about on his feet.

“Safer to follow Leandro than me,” I told Charlie.

“But you’ll get me home to my brother, just like we’ll get you to Finn,” Charlie said with a lopsided smile.