Nephilius - A Walker Saga Book 5 (9 page)

I’d tucked the book into a large inner
pocket of my coat, and I could feel the weight slapping against me
as I ran. The queen caught my eye and I decided to ask her about
something that had been puzzling me.

“So even though this land was created by
you, there are other creatures here. How did that happen?” My
breathing was even. I felt no effort to talk. Sometimes being a
Walker was awesome.

She glanced back over her shoulder to
answer.

“In a manner I sucked the living energy of
everything in a hundred-mile radius through this portal I created.
And there were more than pixie energies. There were goblins …” She
paused. “Which my guard informed me were raging outside the castle.
I’m terribly sorry about that. The others are not quite so
angry.”

“
Goblins,
sheplas, p
antaponies, and woodland
sprites.” Refis listed them. “Those are just the main
ones.”

“
I have no
idea what most
of those creatures are.
Are you fighting with all of them?” Lucy asked, her gaze flicking
left and right as we reached the end of the tunnel and emerged into
the light.

Thankfully
there were no deadly species blocking our path
. So far we had a clear run.

“The goblins are our enemies, the others are
neutral. We have our own territories and at times they’ve become
involved in battles, but mostly we do not hear from them,” Malisna
said. “But we’ll have to cross all of their territories to venture
along the road to perdition.”

Great, it was sounding better and better,
this journey to escape pixie land.

We continued to run. Our new surroundings
were drier, less green than the forest around the castle. Our
moving feet kicked up dust, well mine, Cerberus’ and Lucy’s did;
the other two were drifting just above the ground, their sparkling,
translucent wings fluttering. They were so pretty and twinkly as
they flapped.

“Am I going to get wings?” Lucy asked, her
gaze also drawn to the extensions the pixies were sporting.

Malisna reached back and grabbed her hand.
“Your pixie abilities are locked away. I can feel them fighting to
be free. I will help you to achieve every one of your gifts before
you leave me.”

“
But they
can’t be
completely locked away; I’ve had
visions of the future. And I can float when my emotions are
heightened,” Lucy said.

Malisna’s
brow furrowed, the smooth, agelessness of her skin creasing
minutely. “The floating is because you need to fly; the action is a
release, freeing and rejuvenating to pixies. But I don’t know about
the
prophecies. We have some small
glimpses of the future, but that sounds much bigger. I wonder if
that’s from faerie … your father.”

We all stopped moving when Refis came to a
halt. He’d been leading the way, but now had dropped back and moved
to Lucy’s side. He reached out a hand and placed it onto her
forehead. My blond friend jerked herself back slightly, before
recovering and allowing his touch. He closed his eyes and we
watched him for a few moments. What was he doing?

“Your visions are not your own.” His deep
voice reverberated; he didn’t reopen his eyes. “You have echoes of
foreign memories, planted information. This essence is neither
pixie nor faerie.”

Lucy gasped. And so did I. I couldn’t help
it. Lucy’s visions had guided so many of my decisions lately.

“Does that mean that the future will not
happen in the way I’ve seen?” Lucy reached forward and clutched the
smaller man’s biceps. “How do you know they’re not real?”

Refis opened his eyes and stared at Lucy for
endless moments. “I cannot tell if the visions themselves are real.
All I feel is that they don’t come from your energy. They were
planted in your mind by something very powerful.”

Malisna growled, baring her slightly pointed
teeth. “No daughter of mine will be a pawn for any other species.
We must unlock your pixie side and teach you to protect yourself.”
She gave a flick of her head. “And we need to keep moving.”

The running and flying started again, and my
mind was also going a million miles an hour. Why would visions have
been planted in Lucy’s mind? Was it because she was a pixie and
guide to Walkers? And was the powerful entity a friend or
enemy?

Oh, my god: Brace. I almost tripped over my
feet as a wave of sorrow flooded through me … seeking … destroying
and kicking me in the ass. I needed Brace; I couldn’t do this
without him. I was alone and adrift with no idea how to find my way
home.

I didn’t realize I’d dropped to my knees and
was gasping in and out, my breathing loud as I fisted my hands into
the dry grass and dirt below. My scattered vision noticed that
Malisna and Refis were expressionless as they examined me, but Lucy
had fallen down next to me.

“Abbs,” she was shouting through the fog
surrounding my thoughts, shaking me. “What’s wrong?”

I shook my head, hoping to clear some of the
fuzziness and odd ringing sound in my ears. Finally, after a few
moments I pulled myself together enough to meet her eyes.

“I can’t do it, Lucy, I can’t do this
without Brace. There’s too much. I’m just one ordinary person.” My
gasps turned to sobs and, like before in my bathroom, I was pissed
off with myself. “Just the thoughts that your vision might be fake,
that all of the suffering was for nothing.”

I needed to get it together. What the hell?
I wasn’t allowed to fall apart right now. Private time was when I
could grieve.

“You’re not alone, Abbs, and we’ll be
figuring out if my visions are false. That way you can reform the
bond with Brace.” Lucy had her arms tightly wrapped around me, the
security of her embrace helping me to ground myself again. “We
won’t stop until your melding is reformed, and you and Brace are
driving the rest of us insane again with your overabundance of
love.”

I
appreciated her words, but all I could think about was the warning
from the laluna
s that the melding bond
might never be the same. I might never have that perfect thing in
my life again. I sniffled loudly, before taking one last deep
breath and shakily getting to my feet.

Lucy helped me and I gritted my teeth,
pushing all of the anguish and agony back into the box. Tucking it
away until it broke free again. And in that moment I felt a flicker
of something in my mind. Something warm and comforting. And then it
was gone. But it was as if for a second Brace had been there with
me.

Cerberus dropped both heads down to rest
them on my shoulders, and then he licked my cheek once. You had to
love doggy comfort.

“
I do not
know what your malady is, but we must leave now.” Malisna’s voice
was urgent, and her eyes darted around as if she was sensing
something but could not see it yet. “This is the edge
of the pantaponies’ territory. They’re gentle by
nature, but will not like us lingering here.”

We didn’t
speak again as we followed the two pixies. I wiped away the last of
the moisture on my cheeks, and Lucy gripped my
other hand tightly. She didn’t let go for a really long
time.

The landscape we crossed was changing again,
and there was no way to really describe it but as –

“Freaking rainbows,” Lucy snorted. “What the
hell is going on here? I feel like I just fell into a rainbow.”

There were splashes of color everywhere, in
eight-feet-wide stripes that covered the countryside, which was
made up of lakes and flat plains. These areas were filled with long
grasses and flowers. It was beautiful, if not a little dizzying
from the array of colors.

And then I saw them.

The
p
antaponies were grazing in the field to
our left. They were shaped like miniature horses, but with an extra
set of legs close to the back pair. So six in total. And they were
brightly colored in the differing shades of the rainbow land. Long
tails scraped along the ground and they had full wavy manes. They
were without any doubt the prettiest ponies I’d ever seen. A true
medley of colors.

“They use the colors in the land to hide and
act as camouflage,” Refis explained. “They’re very intelligent and
can speak in the tongue of Walkers, so you will understand them,
but if they approach, let Mother smooth the path for us. It’s the
proper way.”

We entered the grassed area and every tiny
horse face looked in our direction. Their snouts were shorter than
photos I’d seen of Earth horses, with eyes that were larger and set
higher and closer together.

It seemed as if they just watched at first,
allowing us to move further through their territory. I kind of
expected sparkles of colored dust or glitter to shift under our
feet as we ran, but there was nothing like that.

And then,
just as I could see an end to t
he rainbow
fields, four of the pantaponies stepped into our path. The one that
was front and center was red, a bright seamless color that only
shifted in tone along the length of its tail and mane. The others
were blue, green and some other color I didn’t know. Almost like a
khaki or dirty green.

The red one started to make noises, like a
wailing cough. Malisna stepped forward from our group, Refis close
to her back. Cerberus pressed near to me, both heads watching
closely. And if I wasn’t mistaken, he was increasing in size.

“We need safe passage through your grasses.
We might actually have a chance to free ourselves from this land.”
Malisna’s voice rang free; it was authoritative without being too
commanding.

The green spoke. “Your schemes, they never
work. We do not want any more on our land. Too much death and
burning.”

“My daughter has returned.” Malisna stood
taller. “It was my sorrow, tears and her hair that bound this
world, and with all three in return, we have a real shot to be
free.”

The four ponies turned away from us for a
moment. They seemed to be conversing amongst themselves. Their
large, dark eyes constantly shifted toward Lucy and me. And when I
glanced over my shoulder there seemed to be a lot more rainbow
ponies gathered closer.

Although the
way that Cerberus was gr
owling had them
hesitant to step into his vicinity. Smart move. He could eat these
little creatures up in one gulp.

“The goblins like to set fire to their
grasslands,” Refis explained in a whisper. “It has made the ponies
decidedly unfriendly.”

Couldn’t
really blame them for
that.

Finally they
turned back to us. “Last time we will allow this, Queen Malisna.”
Red spoke for the
group this time. “Do
not linger long; we have limited patience.”

And then they stepped aside and let us
proceed through their grassy plains. We didn’t waste more time.
Lucy and I were going at a rapid pace to keep up with the
pixies.

We soon left
behind the rainbow lands, without any further incidents. The
landscape
slowly shifted then, the bright
colors fading out as the darker zone took form.

The next area we stepped into was damp and
there were clouds hovering low. It had somehow turned cool and dark
in an instant. It was bizarre how these lands seemed to have their
own little weather systems, despite the fact they stood side by
side.

The ground started to soften, and those of
us using our feet were having trouble navigating the land. It was
rapidly turning into a swamp.

I gasped as I tripped over an exposed root –
these thin, wiry trees were starting to sprout up everywhere – and
almost landed in a large pile of something smelly and dark. Like
mud, but thicker. At the last minute Refis caught my arm, and with
surprising strength for someone his size, yanked me out.

“Do not step into the deadzone. These pits
will suck you right in … and you will not return.”

“We don’t fly. How are we supposed to avoid
them?” I said, taking a step back from the killer puddle.

“
Let
Cerberus go first and step only in his footprints. He can see and
evade the
pits,” Malisna said. “And if a
shepla appears, Cerberus is your best bet of avoiding
injury.”

“
Oh
, awesome,” Lucy drawled. “I do
love to avoid injury.”

Malisna examined her for a moment. Sarcasm
didn’t seem to register with the pixies, which was sure to make
their relationship interesting. I couldn’t wait to see if she
pulled the mom card and kicked Lucy in the butt.

We moved
slower now, Lucy and I stepping into the huge prints left by my
Walker friend. The ground got soggier, but Cerberus was heavy
enough to compact the area he stepped
on,
so we didn’t sink. The sheplas’ territory could not be more
different to the previous beautiful rainbow land. It was cold, dark
and wet with long mud plains that were only broken by the gnarled
trees. Everything was in shades of brown, black and
yuck.

“
R
emind me not to come back as a
shepla in my next life,” Lucy groaned as mud splattered up her
legs. She hated to get dirty. “Bet they look like little
piglets.”

She wasn’t exactly right.

My first indication that we were about to be
attacked was the hair on Cerberus’ back standing up.

Then he froze to the spot.

I managed to stop myself before I crashed
into him. Suddenly, high-pitched screams flooded the area. I
dropped to my knees, hands covering my ears. Energy rose inside me
in response to the attack.

I staggered to my feet, hands still trying
to protect my vulnerable eardrums, and lurched around Cerberus,
lucky not to land in a deadzone.