The Dark Passenger (Book 1) (26 page)

“People of Chardwick, our way of life is under attack. We
all know Lady Nemain, myself better than most, and yet she stands before you
guilty of aiding the Other. The boy killed good Willem Medgard. Yes, the rumors
are true! The boy has escaped from the mines.”

Loud grumblings filled the air. The Lucent raised his voice
over the crowd. “Nemain Ross intercepted a communication from poor widowed Anne
Medgard and tried to keep this information from my ears.” There was an
outpouring of anger. “Hush, calm now! There is more! Today another of our
people discovered the clothes of missing Ashton Hotraben. It seems our fears
were true; that abomination killed our village’s beloved son. We can’t let these
deaths go unpunished.”

Edwin cursed himself. He had always meant to go back and get
Ashton’s clothes; he never should have been so careless.

“With Willem Medgard’s death we know the Other has escaped
the mines, and we know that he ran down the pass to Chardwick, not up to
Newick. It is clear that he could only survive among us with help. For this
reason, I am left with no choice but to call on the aid of the Fury. With its
help, we will search every home, every hole, every alley.”

“What do we do?” a lone woman yelled, audible above all the
rest.

“He’s lived amongst us,” another woman cried, “served an
apprenticeship, played with our children!”

“The boy has been with us all this time!” a man yelled.
“We’ll never find him.”

 “Burn it! Burn everything!”

Edwin’s jaw dropped as he realized the crowd was descending
into chaos.

“Yes, burn it!”

“It’s the only way to be sure!”

“Burn it all!”

There was a chorus of yelling, and Edwin could barely hear
the voice of the Lucent asking for calm.

“We have to leave,” the spirit said from his side, but Edwin
didn’t hear. He heard only the yelling in the village square, and he imagined
Lady Nemain being led to her death.

The spirit moved its essence in front of his face. “Edwin,
we musst go. Now!”

“I get it now. I finally get it. The Hosts, the
villagers—”

“Edwin, lissten.”

“This is war. I’ve been such a fool, fighting myself this
whole time, I—”

The spirit slapped him with its essence. “This isn’t the
time. You must move. This house is no longer safe.”

Edwin had never heard such clarity or conviction in his
spirit’s voice before; it sounded almost human. “What about Herald?” he asked.

“We have no time. Ruun,” it hissed.

Edwin nodded, called the spirit to join with him, and they
began running at once. Hopping from roof to roof, he ran as fast as the spirit
could take him, and behind him he heard the deafening call of the Fury. He
hadn’t really thought about it, but he knew he was going back to the mine. It
was the only option he had left.

Sliding down a pipe on the building at the end of the road,
Edwin hit the ground running. All the people of Chardwick had been in the
village square, and he was glad to have a head start. He also knew how fast the
Fury could make them run, and knew they wouldn’t be far behind.

He thought about poor Lady Nemain, and hoped that maybe with
all the chaos they would forget about her. Inspired by their talk of fire, he
wondered whether fire would help distract them, and lightning began flowing
between his fingers as he shot bolt after bolt at nearby houses, which exploded
and helped the inferno grow and spread.

Chancing a look behind him, he saw a cloud of smoke rising
in the air and thought of Herald. As difficult as the book had been, his mother
had left it for him, and it would be a huge loss to lose its knowledge forever.
He could imagine the spirit telling him that if he died there would be no one
left to read it anyway, and this made him run faster.

When he reached the mine, he didn’t bother to sidestep the
torchlight and ran as fast as his legs would take him. With all the miners in
the village, all he heard was the drip, drip, drip of snowmelt making its way
down to the deepest tunnels. Joined with his spirit, all the twists and turns
he’d made last time made sense, and it wasn’t long before he reached the tunnel
guards. He was annoyed to see they hadn’t left with the others.

At first the men didn’t move, but they must have recognized
him when he got closer because the man on the right lifted his staff and banged
it against a bell tucked into a recess cut into the wall, sending a
reverberating wail throughout the tunnels.

The bell having been rung, the men moved in a synchronized
crouching motion, locking their staffs between themselves to block his path.
Seeing the glistening red reflection of a bloodstone, Edwin didn’t waste energy
casting an incantation. Instead, he ran at the man on the left, jumped in the
air, and kicked him in the stomach. It was like hitting a brick wall, but
determined not to fall, he used it to leap backwards.

“Nothing can ever be easy,” Edwin groaned as he picked up a
handful of pebbles and flung them forward, propelling them at the guards with
the power of the spirit. The guards were nimbler than Edwin would have expected
of such huge, muscular men; their bodies and staffs moved at dizzying speeds,
deflecting and avoiding his assault.

“I don’t have time for this,” he said, sure that the rest of
the village couldn’t be too far behind. Desperate to keep moving, he pulled at
every rock and speck of dust around him, and a whirlwind began to grow and
circle his body. With a growing barrier of dust between himself and the guards,
he approached the guards again, who waited under the torches. As he moved
between the two men, the man on the right came down first with a swat of his
staff, and Edwin leapt into the air, his elbow grazing the roof of the tunnel
as he flipped and rolled above the guards’ heads.

The air grew darker as it filled with dust, and the men
struggled to keep their eyes open. Like Edwin, their movements were impossibly
fast, and their staffs blurred with movement. Jumping and ducking, moving in a
blur of speed, Edwin evaded their every blow.

Unable to see each other through the dust, the guards’
staffs connected. Finally, one guard swung and missed Edwin, but connected with
the head of the second guard. There was a crumpling sound as the man fell to
the ground.

Swiftly, Edwin grabbed the fallen guard’s staff. Though the
remaining guard towered over Edwin, knocking him to his knees was easy with a
weapon in hand, and with one final blow to his head, the man fell. Blood
spattered across the wall behind him, but the guard was alive.

When the air settled Edwin heard the faint echo of footsteps
behind him, and knew the villagers were close. He ran on, past the point where
the tunnel curved, and on to the strange blue-white light. Reaching the ledge,
he began running to his left towards the rock-bridge just as people began pouring
out of other nearby tunnels, and he realized he wouldn’t make it to the bridge
before the way was blocked. The spirit, he felt, wanted him to jump, but he
hesitated. The moat was too wide, even with them joined.

Retreating back into the tunnel, he saw that more villagers
were heading towards him, leaving nowhere left to go.

Jump! Jump!
the spirit urged.

With no other choice, Edwin told it, “We need a running
start.” He turned and ran back towards the ledge and leapt forward when he
reached the edge.

Before his feet had even left the ground the spirit took
control of his body and was grabbing for his cloak. It was off his neck and in
his hand in a second, and his mouth was whispering words from the book, words
that he had only just read in Herald. The words sounded strange but familiar to
his ears, and his cloak transformed into a rope. As he fell he threw it across
the moat, hoping to snag a rock. The rope reached the surface, but despite his
best efforts, he hadn’t leapt far enough. With horror, he watched as he fell
below the field of flowers and down into the moat.

But then the rope pulled taut, and he flew the last few feet
across the moat. He hit the column of rock with a thud, making his teeth
chatter, but he held tight.

Before he could even process what had happened, the spirit
was urging his body up the rope, and within moments he was pulling himself onto
level ground and was surrounded by a field of the yellow flowers. They nuzzled
his shin, cooed, and smiled with their vicious little teeth. As he picked up
the rope, some of the flowers moved out of the way, and he realized that a
horde of the strangle little creatures had piled on top of it to keep him from
falling.

“Thanks,” he said, wondering whether weird magical flowers
could understand him.

Then, through the spirit, his mouth mumbled a word, and the
rope transformed back into his cloak. He looked at the strange forest and white
light in front of him, and then back across the moat at the villagers. Some
were staring at him with dumbfounded disbelief, while others were racing to the
bridge. He turned towards the blue-white light and started running.

The flowers spread apart to clear a path for him, exposing
more than a few human bones. Edwin felt a pang of remorse, knowing that today
more bones would be added to this strange cavern, but there was nothing to be
done for it. As he ran past the field of flowers, someone blew the Fury behind
him, and looking back he saw a band of armor clad villagers maneuvering towards
the bridge. How they had put the armor on so quickly he didn’t know.

Edwin raced on to the forest of trees with their gnarled
branches and strange beckoning faces carved into their trunks. The blue-white
light sent dark, ominous shadows across the carvings, and he had to suppress a
shudder. When he looked back again, he saw that the vanguard of armored men had
already reached the flowers, and hissing and yelling filled the air as men
crushed the flowers beneath their heavy iron boots. Like the last time Edwin
was down here, as the acid fell from the dead it flowed into those alive, and was
quickly made airborne. The men raised their shields and acid oozed to the
ground; the villagers’ shields smoked and simmered, but it wasn’t enough to
pierce them.

With men flooding across the bridge, the golems’ eyes flamed
to life. The men tried backing away, but the golems came on them like an
avalanche, crushing them effortlessly.

Two of Lady Nemain’s Shades, the brothers with hair touched
by fire, appeared in the crowd. One yelled, “Destroy the creation
spells—the parchment, get it from their mouths!” Circling a nearby golem,
they took a lick of black powder from a pouch they each kept at their side, and
fire burst from their hands, hitting a nearby golem to no effect.

Edwin kept running, appreciating again the size of this cavern,
but when he reached the edge of the enchanted forest, he slowed down to a trot.
There was a shuffling sound to his right, but he saw nothing. Behind him the
villagers, led by the Shades, were closing in fast. All the faces carved into
the trees hauntingly stared at him.

Then, before Edwin knew what was happening, he was in the
air. A branch had coiled itself around his stomach and was pulling him to a huge,
forlorn face. He pulled away, trying to break free, but the tree held tight,
its miserable open-mouthed expression never changing as it inspected him.

There was a loud crash and movement behind him in the
forest. High overhead there was a scream, and Edwin saw a man tumbling in
circles through the air before he fell to his death. Another man appeared
nearby, moving swiftly but cautiously. He held his sword tight in both hands,
ready for an attack. Almost too fast to be seen, a tree branch came at him from
above, flattening him to the ground. Another villager appeared in the forest,
sword in hand, and then another and another. With a low groan, the trees began
to shake themselves awake, and there was the sound of ruffling as their
incandescent leaves fell to the ground.

As quickly as he had been lifted, Edwin was back on the
ground, and he felt a pat-pat on his butt as the tree urged him on to the blue-white
light. There was a high-pitch chattering as hundreds of white-haired bats
swooped down from the roof of the cavern, their fangs bared and ready. Behind
him he saw that the trees had joined the golems in a full-scale attack against
the villagers, but he realized it wouldn’t be enough. While the villagers crushed
the flowers, hacked at the bats, and rushed the trees with torches, the water
and air Shades had joined the two fire Shades in destroying the parchment
hidden in the golems’ mouths. Without the parchment, the flame in the golems’
eyes went out and they crumbled into a mound of dirt.

Edwin ran over roots and around the strange lumbering trees.
The blue-white light was growing brighter, and the sound of fighting behind him
grew more distant. The forest seemed to go on forever, but then he reached a
clearing.

And then he saw it, the source of the blue-white light. It
was the Gate to the Host’s Tomb.

*   *   *

With the sound of fighting far behind him, Edwin released his
spirit, where it settled next to him and sparked uncertainly. “Are those bones?”
he asked.

“Yess,” the spirit said. “But not human.”

“Hosts?”

The spirit purred. “Yess, there is strong magic here.”

Edwin and his spirit stared up at the Gate a moment in
silence. Buttressed between two huge, solid walls of rock, the Gate was woven
together floor-to-ceiling in complete skeletons that burned in a constant
flowing blue-white fire. Taller than any building in Chardwick, the Gate’s fire
lit the entire cavern and was mesmerizing, but the wall also caught his
attention. Though less auspicious, every inch of the wall was covered in runes
as far as the eye could see. Edwin wasn’t sure how far the wall went, but he
guessed to the edge of the moat.

“What do you think it all says?” Edwin asked.

“I don’t know,” the spirit said, “but be wary.”

“The Hosts’ power is in their language,” Edwin said,
recalling the text from
The Lost Words
. “So how do we get past?”

“Don’t you feel the Gate calling you? Join with me. We are
the key.”

Before Edwin could say the word to call the spirit into him,
a man behind him yelled, “Diiiiiieeeeee,” and came at Edwin brandishing his
sword. At the last moment, the spirit rushed and crackled lightning in the
man’s face, and Edwin dove at his feet, causing him to fall into the Gate. The
man burned from the inside out, leaving nothing, not even blood, and his sword
clanked as it fell to the ground.

Edwin gulped and looked at the spirit. “Trusst me,” it said.
“Join with me. We are the key.”

Edwin did as he was told, and as soon as he and the spirit
had joined, he understood what the spirit meant. The Gate was whispering to
him, calling to him, quiet and almost imperceptible, yet so much louder than
the battle going on behind him. “It wants a sacrifice, an offering…. So crude,
so unnecessary….” Edwin muttered to himself. Without giving it a second
thought, he reached down to the fallen sword, sliced a thin line down the
length of his hand, and reached for a hipbone and pulled it like a door handle.
The blood disappeared into the bone as though being absorbed by cloth, only it
left no stain. With a sound like the inner workings of a clock, the bones came
to life and moved aside, creating a door. Despite the bones’ blue-white glow,
the other side of the Gate was strangely dark. With the sound of the battle
getting closer, he ran forward, and saw on the underside of the Gate bright
white runes flowing between the bones, an enchantment in the Hosts’ tongue.

As soon as Edwin was inside, the door started to close
behind him.

*   *   *

“Hurry sisters, the Gate is closing!” Gretchen cried,
invisible.

“The boy has done it; he’s really done it!” Meryl said as
she ran.

“He found the lost door,” Mistral said. “Finally, the Host’s
Tomb.”

“Quiet!” Gretchen hissed, and not another word was said.

*   *   *

Past the Gate, the walls on both sides of Edwin were tall
and narrow, the tunnel was dark, but at the end, far in the distance, he saw a
small pinprick of light. He released the spirit and it crackled in front of
him, and he saw that the Hosts’ runes also covered the walls on this side of
the Gate.

The air in the tunnel was hot and stale, but Edwin didn’t
dare take off his cloak. The dark path forward made him feel small and encased
in rock. At first the light at the end of the tunnel felt close, but the longer
he walked, the more it felt impossibly far way. And then, suddenly, he noticed
a slight breeze.

“Do you feel that?” he called behind him.

“Yess, it repels my essence. Hurry, join with me.”

Looking back, he saw that the spirit was struggling to keep
itself together. The words of joining gave it new energy, and it surged forward
and into his body.

The wind grew stronger by the second, but it took Edwin a
while to realize that it was carrying a song. The song was so quiet and subtle
that he couldn’t place the moment between hearing and not hearing it, but once
he realized it was there he couldn’t get it out of his head.

A few minutes later he saw his first corpse. It was a
strange dried out body of a creature unlike any he had ever seen, with flesh
that appeared to keep in the dry air, and skin that was withered and brown.
There was no way to tell how long it had been down here, and a few paces later
there was another body, and another after that, all withered, all different,
all strange.

“What do you think happened here?” Edwin asked the spirit,
and he sensed its own confusion. “I don’t see anything wrong with them. They
look like they just laid down and went to sleep.”

The farther he walked, the more bodies he passed, none of
them human. Suddenly, he stopped and looked behind him. “Did you hear that?” he
asked the spirit. It heard everything he did, and he sensed that it had.

*   *   *

Quietly, Gretchen said, “Come, sisters.”

“May the blood of our father protect us,” Meryl said.

“The wind! It ignores my calls,” Mistral said, her voice
shaking.

“So sleepy,” Mina yawned.

Gretchen grabbed Mina’s invisible hand. “Everyone hold
hands. Hurry! We mustn’t lose the boy.”

A few minutes later Sam fell to the ground. Pyre tripped
over Sam’s body and let out a cry as she, too, fell. But that is how all these
creatures had died. The song… just want to lie down… forever.

*   *   *

Not seeing anything behind him, Edwin crept forward. Though
the song in the wind was sweet as a summer rain, it reminded him of the Fury.

And then the tunnel ended and opened up onto another huge
cavern. In front of him was a lake, and far out in the middle was an island
with the small light that he had seen from the tunnel, which stood out like a
beacon in the near darkness. Walking forward, he quickly found himself
ankle-deep in mud that made a loud, squishy sound with his every step. The
sound echoed throughout the cavern, and the breeze ceased. A shadow to his
right caught his eye, and he made out the outline of a lone rowboat standing at
the edge of the lake.

“Another test?” he asked the spirit. It was as wary as he
was.

Edwin regarded the boat a moment. He knew he was meant to
row out to the island, but he had never learned how to swim. Lighting a small
flare in his hand, he bent over to inspect the water, but it was dark and murky
and he couldn’t see anything. What looked like a hand dashed under the light,
and he backed away.

There’s no going back
, he reminded himself.

The rowboat rocked more than he would have expected almost
as soon as he put his hand on it, and he struggled a moment to settle it. The
boat was long enough for many people to ride in it, but Edwin chose a spot in
the back and picked up an oar, which he used to push off from the shore. The
boat wobbled gently and lurched forward.

“Here we go,” Edwin mumbled as he took his first row. The
boat glided a few feet, and he took another unsteady row. “This isn’t so bad.”

Hearing a disturbance in the water a few feet away, he
stopped rowing and looked out at the lake. A few ripples appeared on the
surface, and on his other side he heard another little splash.

Row
, the spirit urged.
Row fast.

Clenching his hands tightly around the oars, he began to row
as quickly as he could.

*   *   *

The sisters held each other’s hands tightly. Edwin had noticed
how much the boat rocked when they all got on with him, but he couldn’t suspect
them.

The nixies’ song had drained the life from their limbs. Gretchen
had worried they would end up like the other poor creatures in that tunnel, but
their father’s Host blood saw them through. They had come so far and were so
close to claiming their prize. Only a few more minutes and they would reach the
island. There they would be safe from the nixies.

It would be up to Edwin to protect them until then.

*   *   *

Behind him, Edwin heard a voice snicker. “Fer-esh souls,” it
said.

“Yum,” another voice said. “Tast-y.”

The boat began to rock, and Edwin yelled, “Stop! What are
you?”

Coy laughter from all corners of the lake filled the air,
but it was converging on him. “Yes, tast-y souls for our coll-ec-tion.”

“You eat souls?” Edwin blanched.

“Yes,” said a chorus of voices.

“Turn your little bod-y to stone, we will.”

When the boat lurched precariously on its side, Edwin lost
an oar, and he quickly pulled the other oar up and lit a spark between his
hands. Pushing it forward, he looked into the murky water and saw a pale,
smiling face with slits for a nose staring up at him. The figure retreated
under the light, and snickering again filled the air.

Looking at the island across the lake, Edwin was close
enough now to see that the light was nothing more than a lamp, and behind it
stood an average looking cottage. But he didn’t have time to consider how
strange it was to see something so ordinary so close to the Host’s Tomb. Many
spindly, slimy hands had grabbed the boat and were beginning to spin it around
in circles. When he slapped at one hand with his oar, another hand tried to
grab it, and he pulled the oar away, afraid of losing it.

 “I said stop,” Edwin yelled, and he shot a bolt of
energy into the water.

“Now that’s not play-ying nice,” a voice whined.

“No, not nice at all,” another voice complained.

“What a star-range crea-ture he is. Not like the oth-hers.”

“But we have seen worse.”

“Yes, much worse.”

“You too will join our un-der wat-ter gard-den.” There was
another outbreak of snickering.