The Egg (Return of the Ancients Book 4) (20 page)

“Yes,” Blondie smirked.

It was terrifying.

“But, how are you at controlling your thoughts?” His voice softened but took on a menacing tone. He didn’t look scared of me in the least. In fact, he looked jubilant, like he’d just won the jackpot.

And I knew exactly why. I was engulfed in fear, fear that what he said just might be true. I didn’t trust myself. I’d always felt kind of like a victim to my thoughts. I’d never really consciously tried to control them.

“They’re trying to frighten you,” Rafael warned in a low voice. “Don’t fall into their trap. Just breathe, Sydney. Think only of breathing.”

Seizing his advice, I concentrated only on breathing long, deep breaths. It was really hard to do, but it helped.

Blondie and Marquis just watched, still leering. The other lizards behind them had stopped to hover in the background.

“She won’t be able to create an escape route for you, Blondie,” TopHat said from behind me.

Blondie drew his lips back and hissed.

TopHat shrugged. “The Brotherhood of the Snake could have been so much more. But now that you’ve cultivated only a taste for fear, you will be consigned to that pit for an eternity.” He pointed to where the other lizards writhed on the cliff.

As I watched, small dark wriggling Tulpas appeared above their heads. The lizards jaws snapped as they lunged forward to consume them, biting and clawing at each other to reach the Tulpa first. It was like watching a pack of wild dogs fight over one morsel of raw steak.

Blondie approached Jareth, reaching out as if to touch him. “You made the wrong choice, lizardling. Now you are trapped here as well.”

“I’m not one of you,” Jareth said tightly.

“Then if you’re not, simply shift away,” Blondie taunted in a low sinister voice.

That made me mad. I wasn’t going to sit there and just listen to him torturing us. “We’re not your puppets,” I snapped. But my voice sounded as scared as I truly was.

Blondie and Marquis both tossed their heads back and laughed, deep belly laughs. “We’ve controlled the Fae from the beginning, since the birth of the Glass Wall,” Marquis chortled, pointing to the thin golden classification bracelets still encircling our wrists.

The bracelets on our wrists glowed as if in response.

Blondie spat viciously, “It’s going to take more than Lysol to escape us here, human.”

I looked at my bracelet in horror. Of course, the lizards controlled them. It was the only way the access codes could have been located in the blue strand of light, accessible only in the Second Dimension. Just why they’d created the bracelets was a mystery but a mystery I didn’t really need to know the answer to in order to break them. He’d said my thoughts had power here.

Closing my eyes, I wished with all my might that our bracelets would just fall off.

Blondie caught onto my thought. I could see the alarm in his eyes as his hand snaked out towards me as quick as lightning. But he wasn’t quick enough.

Raising a defensive arm, my bracelet fell to the ground just as his claws grazed my skin. The instant he made contact, the Light Queen’s golden feather roared into life above my hand.

Blondie drew back, yelping in pain.

I stared in shock at the golden feather hovering there, wondering what it meant, but Rafael understood the implications at once.

Reaching out to grab my hand with his bracelet-free one, he grabbed Jareth’s arm with the other. “You can’t touch Fae Light,” he told the lizards. “The bracelets. You created them to control our light. It was the only way you could possess us.”

They drew their lips back and hissed.

Drawing himself to his full impressive height, Rafael ordered Marquis and Blondie in a commanding tone, “Stand back!”

They didn’t like it, but they didn’t have a choice. They backed away, seething with anger.

Hope filled my heart. At last, something was going
our
way.

We turned to go back, but the lava river had already consumed the lower portion of the bridge. We exchanged glances. There was nowhere to go but forward.

I swallowed, wondering if Rafael’s light was enough to ward off the host of lizards writhing in the pit above us, but we didn’t have a choice. I didn’t trust my thoughts enough to get us out of there. I was afraid that I’d think something horrible out of fear and we’d end up roasted.

I watched in horror as the lava river began to rise and desperately sought to think only of how we reached the top of the cliff in safety.

I pushed Rafael forward as hard as I could as Blondie and the others circled us. They were clearly trying to keep us together and away from the others piled in the pit against the cliff’s red walls.

Relieved to be distracted, I wondered what they were trying so hard to protect. It only made me want to see it more.

“What are you hiding?” I asked them.

They just hissed.

It made me look harder.

I saw them, the thousands of thin, twisting cords of light, running from the shifting pile of lizards to disappear on the other side of the red rock wall.

I knew what was on the other end of those cords.

Humans and Fae.

And I knew what they feared then. They didn’t want me to break the strings of their puppets.

Chapter Eleven – There’s No Place Like Al’s

The lizards knew at once what I was thinking. I wasn’t used to the fact that in the Second Dimension my thoughts were no longer private. I had to remember that I broadcasted each and every one as a Tulpa above my head for all to see.

“The Brotherhood isn’t afraid of a mere
human
,” Blondie sneered in outright contempt. “The cords are indestructible. There’s nothing a human can do to destroy them.”

Marquis tossed his lizard head back and gave a short bark of a laugh. “And no matter what you do, it will never be over for us, Sydney. We’ll find another human to build our bridge to Earth. We still have the Tulpa. We can always begin again.”

“We have all of eternity to get it right,” Blondie added with a malicious cackle and a swish of his coal-black tail.

Their ominous words struck terror through my soul, making me doubt myself at once.

“Don’t listen to them,” Rafael advised softly, giving my hand a gentle squeeze. “They’re trying to control you through fear.”

I swallowed, wanting to tell him that it was working and quite well.

But then Marquis said, “We have harnessed a power now, a power beyond comprehension. A power that will free—”

At that, Blondie drew his lips back with a sharp, gnashing snarl at Marquis. “Silence!”

At once, Marquis slunk back.

With a firm set of his jaw and a forbidding expression in his eyes, Rafael challenged, “And what has you so afraid, Blondie? Did he reveal too much?”

Blondie swished his tail in agitation. “Step carefully, Fae,” he cautioned. “Your light may fade here.”

“Even if it does, you’ll still have to deal with me,” Jareth warned, stepping in front of us to adopt a protective stance.

Blondie turned the full magnetic pull of his eyes directly on Jareth then. “You belong with us, lizardling.” He waved his hand at the dark, wriggling Tulpas of fear still popping into existence above the pit, and his forked tongue lashed out to make a greedy, slurping noise. “Taste it, Jareth. Taste fear as you were born to. Join us.”

“You’re wasting your time,” Jareth replied with a scathing growl.

“You lie, foolish lizardling.” Blondie laughed. “Soon, the hunger will grow too strong for you to resist. Those two will die here. There is nothing to sustain them. But not you. Here you will thrive. With us. We are brothers.”

With his nostrils expanding slowly, Jareth crossed his arms, and in an impossibly low voice—a voice so low that I felt it vibrate through my bones rather than heard it with my ears—he replied, “Rafael alone is my brother. As he always was, as he is now, and as he will be for all of eternity.”

Hatred raged through Blondie’s yellow eyes then.

All of the lizards in the pit hissed and spat.

A gust of heat rose from behind us, blasting us with warmth, and I glanced back to see the river of lava had risen to only a few feet away.

I gulped in fear.

The Man in the Top Hat stood at the river’s edge and looked directly into my eyes. “Remember the power of human thought, Sydney,” his voice echoed through my mind.

I swallowed. I knew all too well how powerful human thoughts were. The fact that the lava was rising to toast us as I feared was complete proof of it. But maybe human thoughts were too powerful. I couldn’t even control my own myself.

With the lava lapping at our heels, Rafael tightened his grip on my arm and led me up the incline towards the lizard pit.

I desperately tried to collect my scattered thoughts. How could I control them to do anything useful? They always seemed to squirm around on their own and think unbidden, unhelpful things. It was like trying to herd cats.

Suddenly, I remembered Samantha.

Jareth had said she was the most powerful being that he knew. I could hear his voice in my mind, as clear as day.
It’s her heart, Sydney. When a human operates solely from the heart in everything they do, the true power of humanity is unleashed.

With every ounce of my being, I turned my thoughts into a heartfelt wish. From my very soul, I wished the river would return to its banks.

Rafael was still pushing me up the path. The stench of sulfur grew stronger with each step. Blondie and the others kept pace with us, but at a safe distance. They clearly feared Rafael’s light, and they didn’t seem to care too much for the Man in the Top Hat bringing up the rear, either.

As we stumbled to the top of the cliff, I finally gathered enough courage to toss a quick glance back over my shoulder.

The river of lava had receded a few feet, forming a kind of waterfall over the bridge before winding around the base of the cliff to run off into the distant darkness like a glimmering golden thread. It hadn’t returned to its banks, but at least it had stopped its advance.

My fearful Tulpa had clearly been stronger than my heartfelt one.

“Not bad for your first attempt, Sydney,” TopHat observed in an encouraging voice.

Blondie spat.

TopHat turned on him then. "Your greed has brought a human into your world. You would be wise to change your ways before it is too late. This may very well be your last chance.”

“Humans are weak and foolish, incapable of stopping us,” Blondie replied contemptuously. “They are a source of food. Nothing else.”

“They are beings who dream,” TopHat disagreed. “And dreams are the seeds of reality. When humans understand they are so much more powerful than they themselves believe, your reign of terror will end. No longer will they blindly allow you to steep their race in fear. No longer will you be able to use them to wage war, destruction, and breed hatred for your benefit. They will learn they have power over their own thoughts and will cultivate peace and harmony.”

The lizards in the pit—and the few that rested on the rock shelves above it—drew back and hissed at the word
peace
.

More Tulpas of fear popped into existence above their heads, setting off a feeding frenzy in the pit. Their high-pitched squeals of pleasure made me shudder. Some of the lizards devoured the Tulpas in a single bite. Others absorbed them through their eyes and nose. It reminded me of what I’d witnessed Marquis doing, the very first time he’d taken the Tulpa out of the orange tube. It seemed so very long ago.

“Ah yes.” Marquis sighed in reminiscence. “The taste of that bait was beyond compare.”

“Bait?” I repeated, catching my breath. Had they
wanted
me to steal it? Had I fallen into their trap from the very beginning?

Marquis all but confirmed it with his next words. “We’ll have better success with the next human. We didn’t expect you to resist from the start, nor to receive help from my very own son.”

Rafael reacted to that one. “You’re not my father,” he responded immediately.

“I beg to differ,” Marquis grinned widely, revealing a huge mouthful of sharp-pointed teeth. “It was I who protected you from the very beginning.”

“Protected?” Rafael repeated coldly. “You are a murderer, nothing more. Too many have died at your hands. Innocents. Jung, the human reporter. Jareth’s bodyguard. How many humans and Fae have you—”

“As many as I needed to,” Marquis inserted with a cynical smile. “They were in the way. Disposable—”

He broke off as a Tulpa appeared in front of us. It looked like a wriggling black pineapple and gave off a sickly sweet, cloying smell. Both Marquis and Blondie reached for it at the same time, ripping it apart to devour it before its piercing scream had even finished reverberating against the rock walls surrounding us.

I closed my eyes and shivered. I was trapped in a nightmare.

At once, I felt Rafael’s caring arm pulling me into a protective embrace. “Let’s leave this place,” he suggested.

I just nodded in agreement.

I was done talking to the Lizard People. After all, I already knew what I should do next. I had to finish the job. I had to destroy the Mutant Tulpa. No doubt, the lizards would create it again, but it had taken them quite a bit of effort to do it the first time. At the very least, I could buy humanity some needed time.

And regardless of what Blondie said, I just might figure out how to cut the puppet strings along the way.

The wails emanating from the pit informed me that I was on the right path.

Blondie and Marquis began to shout at us, but I was done listening to them.

“Let’s go,” I said, strengthening my resolve.

I pointed to the cords of light running up and over the red rock walls like vines, disappearing over the edge and out of sight. A narrow path led around the lip of the pit, to a wide crack in one of the walls where a dense red fog spilled through the opening. It crept out like long fingers to hug the ground.

I waited until both Rafael and Jareth nodded in agreement before stepping forward. TopHat didn’t vote, but he followed as we took to the path. As we approached the pit, the Lizards drew back, showing their teeth. Still afraid of Rafael’s light, there was no way they could physically stop us, but after we passed, they followed, calling after us in deep, otherworldly voices which beckoned us to come back and join them.