The Shaktra (27 page)

Ms. Smith nodded. “In a way, it is an abstract question. Yet you two rode a bus to Toule with her, and you must have talked about me on the way. What did she have to say?”

“She said almost nothing,” Steve said. “She had not met you at that time.”

Ms. Smith shook her head. “What if I told you that was not true? That I met Ali before she even came here. But that once she was here, I carefully avoided contact with her.”

Steve shrugged. “I wouldn’t argue with you about it.”

Ms. Smith grew hard. “Has she ever referred to me as the Shaktra?”

“What’s that?” Steve asked.

Ms. Smith reached in her back pocket, took out a red Bic lighter. Holding it directly in front of his eyes, she flicked the flame into life, even as her cold voice came through the fire like fog through a broken windowpane.

“You have heard the word before,” she said. “Ali has spoken it in your presence, and you lie to me when you deny it. But I told you, the time for lying is over. I’m going to ask one last time. Did Ali ever refer to me as the Shaktra?”

Steve trembled. “She was curious about you, that’s all.”

Ms. Smith smiled, nodded, and then let the flame drift slowly
up toward his right hand. Steve felt the heat on his palm, at first just a pleasant warmth, although he was too afraid to look at what she was doing. But then he felt a sharp stab of pain, and heard an ugly sizzling noise. He tried to jerk his hand away but of course it was locked in place. A nauseating odor filled his nose. He knew what it was, he was smelling his own burnt flesh! Even though he tried, he could not stop himself from letting out a loud scream. Ms. Smith withdrew the lighter, put it out, lowered her head close to his.

“Now, please, tell me if Ali thought I might be the Shaktra?” she said.

Steve had tears in his eyes, agony in his palm. “I don’t know,” he mumbled.

Ms. Smith shook her head. “I’m afraid that’s not good enough.”

“Yeah, she thought you were the Shaktra, what’s the big deal?” Cindy blurted out.

Ms. Smith looked over. “You find it hard to watch your friend suffer? That’s a noble quality, also a weakness. But I’m glad you’re in a mood to talk. I have questions for you as well, Cindy, and I have a different colored lighter in my pocket specifically for you. Amazing toys, aren’t they? Spend three bucks in a drugstore and you get a whole packet of them. Yet they’re capable of bringing the strongest man on Earth to his knees.”

Cindy was bitter, but also terrified. “You will not get away with this,” she said.

Ms. Smith put away the red lighter, took out a green one, and casually strolled to Cindy’s side. “Tell me how Ali escaped Radrine’s lair inside the mountain?” she asked.

Cindy stared at her. “I don’t know.”

Ms. Smith nodded. “The truth, good. Did Ali ever speak to you about Radrine?”

Cindy closed her mouth tight, but Steve felt compelled to speak.

“She told us that Radrine was the queen of the dark fairies, that’s all,” he said.

Ms. Smith stood between them. “Did Ali talk to you about the time distortion that she experienced on the other side of the red door?” she asked.

“She mentioned it,” Steve said.

“That’s all? She did not explain how she used it to get away from Radrine?”

“We told you, we know nothing about this Radrine except her name,” Cindy said.

Ms. Smith stared at her. “You were on top of the mountain with Ali when the elemental army entered this world. According to Karl, you were close to Ali when she first picked up the Yanti, and then activated it for her own purposes and sent the elves and the dwarves back into their world. Now I’m going to ask you another question, and this one is more important to me than all the others combined. If you fail to answer it, I will get very angry, and that is not a sight either of you want to see. Do you understand?”

Cindy glared past her, at Karl. “Ali should have killed you when she had the chance.”

Karl snickered. “Ali is too weak to kill someone like me.”

“Shut up, Karl,” Ms. Smith said, closing in on Cindy, her green lighter in her hand. “Tell me, Cindy, how did Ali activate the Yanti?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Cindy said.

Ms. Smith paused, surprised. “But you were close to her. You must have heard her say something to the Yanti. A word? A chant?”

Cindy lowered her head. “I didn’t hear her say anything.”

Ms. Smith suddenly flicked the lighter to life, and Steve sucked in a terrified breath of air. Yet the woman made no move to attack either of them. She seemed to be thinking. It was clear that she sensed Cindy was telling the truth.

Nira suddenly appeared; she was like a flash of light in the darkness. Hurrying to her mother’s side, she grabbed her hand and tugged on it, even as the witch stood in the center of the room contemplating what she should ask next, and whom she should burn. But then Ms. Smith shrugged, as if weary of the subject, and gave in to Nira’s demand for attention. It made Steve sick to his stomach to see the woman reach down and brush the girl’s short red hair. It was obvious to him right then that Ms. Smith must have the same bright red–colored hair as her daughter—that she had only dyed it to hide the fact.

Hide the fact that she was a fairy?

Who
was Ms. Smith, he wondered?

“I’m afraid these questions will have to wait until later,” Ms. Smith said. “My daughter is hungry and there are things I must attend to at the office.”

“Do you want me to stay and torture them?” Karl asked hopefully.

“No. I want you to go sit in a room and cause no trouble.” With Nira in hand, Ms. Smith walked back toward the way they had entered the cave. But she called over her shoulder. “Don’t think you’re getting off easy. Slow growing pain can be the most effective, and within an hour I’m afraid you’ll find that the muscle spasms in your arms are close to unbearable. Honestly, Steve, Cindy, the next time we chat I think you’ll be far more cooperative.”

Steve called out before she disappeared. “What was your name when you went to high school here?” he asked.

Ms. Smith turned and blushed. It was almost as if she were shy to admit the truth.

“You mean, you haven’t guessed?” she said.

“No,” he said.

“I was Hector Wells’s girlfriend.”

Steve nodded grimly. “You are Lucy Pillar.”

“Perhaps. Whoever I am, I’m not the person I used to be.”

With that, Ms. Smith left them alone in the dark cave.

The cavern above Tiena was dome-shaped, and made up of large gray stones, each set with black cement in an exquisite arc that spanned the exact width of the river. Once more Ali was sure she was staring at the handiwork of the fairies, and she wondered how many years it had taken her people to erect the lengthy tunnel around the subterranean river. For that matter, she wondered how old the elemental civilization itself was. Five thousand years? A million? She leaned toward the former, sensed its history probably paralleled humanity’s. Then again, she thought, there were many scholars on Earth who felt there had been civilizations long before the Egyptians and the Sumerians.

Drash, what a crazy boat he made for them all. The odd thing was, the longer he swam, the more he seemed to enjoy it. He even began to tell her about his favorite foods. Apparently he loved what sounded like apples and bananas. For some reason, she was relieved to learn he was a vegetarian. But from the sound of it, so were fairies and elves, and that depressed her. She wasn’t ready to give up her bacon and eggs in the morning!

The way was long but no one complained. They were all
happy that Drash was keeping them afloat—plus they were covering tremendous ground. Tiena flowed at only half the speed of Lestre, but in combination with Drash’s swimming, they were probably going twenty miles an hour.

Ali did not have a watch, but estimated they had been on Drash’s back for five hours when she spotted the torch up on their right. As they grew nearer, she saw a harbor similar to the one they had left behind at the south entrance to Tiena, yet this port was undamaged. There was a whole fleet of untouched wooden rowboats. The sight was reassuring, but not nearly as much as the two fairies waving the torch at them. It was clear to Ali that she and her pals were expected.

Drash swam them to the sandy shore, on the side of the wooden planks that made up part of the harbor, and Ali and her friends dismounted. Ra carried a torch, and was the only one to accompany Ali as she approached the two tall fairies—a man and a woman, both with long red hair, green eyes, white robes, and loving faces that seemed so familiar that she came close to weeping. These two had
not
been marked. Indeed, their faces shone with an enchanting green light that made her feel small next to them. Yet they bowed low as she came near.

“Geea,” the man said in a soft melodious voice. “Welcome home.”

Ali bowed as well, gave Ra a nudge to follow her example. “I’m happy to be here, thank you,” she said. “This is my friend, Ra.”

They bowed in Ra’s direction. “Welcome to Uleestar, Ra,” the man said. “My name is Trae, I’m Geea’s adviser of old. This is Amma. . . a friend of the royal family.”

Amma spoke, and her voice was sweet as rain. “We have been waiting for you,” she said. “But we were not sure when you would arrive.”

“How did you know we were coming?” Ali asked.

“It was inevitable that you would return here, once you had the Yanti,” Trae said. “And your capture of the Yanti from Lord Vak is well known in our world.”

“I did not capture it so much as he let me have it,” Ali said. Trae nodded. “Forgive me, Geea, I have not had a chance to advise you in many years, and I think your estimation of your encounter with Lord Vak is more accurate. You see, we know a bit about your life in the yellow world, but there is much we don’t know.”

“But understand that we are here to help you in any way we can,” Amma said.

Ali smiled. “Please, you speak to me like I’m your boss, when I’m just a visitor to this land. Let us talk as equals.”

Trae smiled but shook his head. “You must forgive us, Geea. We remember you quite differently than you remember yourself. To us, you are the bright jewel of this land, and we owe you our lives and allegiance. Indulge us, and let us treat you as our ruler. It does not matter to us that you elected to be born in a human body. You are still our queen.”

“Your queen is suffering from a severe case of amnesia, I’m afraid.”

Amma came near, went down on her knees in front of Ali, peering up at her intently. As if to touch her hair, to caress her face perhaps, she raised her hand, but then thought better of it. A note of loss entered the fairy’s rich voice.

“But a part of you remembers us, does it not?” Amma asked.

Ali felt a wave of emotion then, stronger than any she had experienced in her life. Yet the feeling was a brew of opposites: love and loss, joy and sorrow. Ali reached out and touched the woman’s hair, let it run through her fingers, and it felt so nice. . .

“I don’t remember you, I’m sorry. But I
know
you,” Ali said.

That appeared to satisfy Amma, and she bowed her head and stood and took a step back. Trae spoke next in a respectful tone. “Geea, we don’t know what you have learned about Uleestar in your travels in our world, but it has already been overrun by the Shaktra and its gruesome army. Fortunately, for reasons unknown to us, the enemy has chosen to leave our capital unoccupied. Amma and I, along with twenty other fairies, have managed to remain here by hiding in the Crystal Palace.” He added, “Your home.”

“There are no scaliis here?” Ali asked.

“None on the central island,” Amma said. “But earlier this morning, Trae and I saw a group of dark fairies fly over the palace. They did not stop or land, but they have clearly been sent by the Shaktra to see that the palace is empty.”

“These twenty fairies you speak of—they keep well hidden?” Ali asked.

“There are secret rooms in the palaces few could find even if they were given a map,” Amma said.

Ali considered. “Do you know Radrine?” she asked.

Trae nodded. “We know a great deal about her.”

“I had a run in with her the other day. I hurt her, she hurt me, but I think she is here in this world. Do you know if she was one of the dark fairies that flew by?”

“We did not see her, so we have no way of knowing for sure,” Trae said. “But it is possible she is here, and in communication with the Shaktra.”

Ali felt her heart pound. “So the Shaktra is definitely in this world?”

Trae turned to Amma, who hesitated. “Yes, it is here,” she said. “But we believe it to be in the far east, in command of an army that is pressing the bulk of the elementals against a range of mountains we call the Morray.”

“Is the fairy army there as well?” Ali asked.

“
All
the fairies are there,” Trae said. “All that are left alive, or unchanged. The Shaktra attacked our land first, coming in force over the sea from the Isle of Greesh. The scaliis, the dragons, the crashing ice—they were an irresistible black wave. They came so fast, there was nothing we could do to fight back. We had to evacuate.”

“General Tapor took command of your army, Geea,” Amma said. “You may not remember him, but he’s a great man—a brilliant tactician, a fearless solider. He fights with Lord Vak and Lord Balar as we speak.”

“Even the leprechauns and the trolls fight with them, which has never happened before,” Trae said. “But we have heard that their combined armies have been ravaged by the Shaktra’s, and that they are being pressed to surrender—to eventually be exiled in the human kingdom.”

Ali nodded. “The koul that travels with me told me some of this. Do you know if General Tapor, Lord Vak, and Lord Balar are considering surrender?”

Trae shook his head. “Our news is at best a week old. Much could have happened since then.”

Ali glanced at Drash. “Do the dragons continue to fight alongside the Shaktra?”

“Yes. Along with other creatures I did not mention, the marked ones,” Trae said.

“I know of them. We met several on the road,” Ali said. Amma shuddered. “Were they. . . our people?”