A Liar in Paradise

by M H Woodscourt

  I stumbled but caught myself and forced my legs to hold my weight. Moving forward again, I strained my ears. “Jenen, where are you?” Don’t panic. Everything’s gonna be fine. I’m gonna wake up any second. —But I knew that wasn’t true. While this was certainly a nightmare, I was very much awake.

  Mid step, something halted me, as if a hand forced me to stop, though nothing was there. I smelled peppermint. Somehow, I knew that a body was sprawled on the ground before me. Calm washed over me. Alien. Safe. Raising a hand, I whispered, “Liitae,” and a ball of blue light formed above my hand. I lowered the light toward the ground.

  As the blue light illuminated the ground, I found him. Jenen. Somehow, I’d known it was him. Kneeling before the limp form, I placed my free hand on his face and felt his cold skin. He was dead.

  Panic spread through my mind, but the peculiar calm inside batted it away.

  Grasping the ball of light with both hands, I shoved it against Jenen’s chest and watched as it was absorbed. He drew breath as his eyes fluttered. I grasped his hand and dragged him to his feet. He stumbled, then straightened. While I had surrendered my source of light, I wasn’t worried. Jenen was glowing like a starburst; even the whites of his eyes were radiant blue.

  Our eyes met. “Vendaeva,” he whispered.

  A thrill coursed through my body at the word, but then it was gone, taking with it the last of my waning strength. I collapsed, and he caught me, easing me to the ground without any effort, though seconds before he’d been dead.

  “What is this blackness?” I asked.

  “It is the work of Kirid Clan,” he hissed.

  “What?” How could the Kirid do something like this?

  “Somehow they have gained their own Seer, and they used the power such a Being provides to destroy me.”

  My awareness wavered. “Why you?” I wasn't trying to sound conceited. Just…it really didn't make sense why they were out to get him, instead of me.

  “I wish I knew,” he answered, gazing into the distance. Was he lying?

  I decided not to press the issue until I had the mind for it. The calm whispered at me. Heeding, I willed the blackness around us to dissolve. The sun broke though the shadows and warmed us as I allowed a different darkness to overcome me.

  Sleep.

  12

  Deadly Venom

  Forced from my rest yet again, this time it wasn’t hard to place why. Heated voices ascended from somewhere below. The tones rose and fell, making my ears ache with an effort to catch the exchange. I peeled open my eyes and stiffened as I saw branches hanging not an inch from my nose. Oh, please, not a tree.

  I looked down.

  —Great, a tree. Precariously balanced as I was, it was a miracle I hadn’t fallen in my sleep. Now that I was coherent, I felt the limb beneath me palpitating in the crisp breeze. After easing into a sitting position, I grasped the trunk and hugged it. What had Jenen been thinking, putting me in a freaking tree?

  Only when I felt sure I wouldn’t fall did I measure just how many feet I would have dropped before my sudden demise. Too many.

  Recalling the voices that had awakened me, I tilted my head down to catch snatches of the argument. I caught more than snatches.

  “You know where he is, so tell me,” a hoarse voice demanded in a thick accent.

  “Don’t get so upset, it won’t help you,” Jenen answered.

  “Easy for you to say. You aren't—” He broke off, coughing violently.

  “…Running out of time?”

  “You’re only cocky because you have the boy,” the rasping voice said between gulping breaths. “Just wait until you’re overpowered by the Kirid. When that time comes—” He began coughing again.

  “I’ll have you distract them.”

  By this point I was brave enough to venture away from the trunk, creeping out onto the quivering branch, to catch a glimpse of the stranger. His fit ceased and he gulped air again. “Your time for humbling is coming, Yenen traitor.”

  “Your prediction is dismissed.”

  Yenen traitor? Yet again he’d been accused of that offense. My eyes narrowed. Really, when everything was laid out, who was on my side? I could only think of one person who, while under the orders of Crenen, still stood his ethical ground. Menen. I decided the only person I would trust was Menen.

  “All I want is to see him,” the stranger said, changing tactics.

  “Only to betray him to the Kirid for your own sake.”

  “Why would I do that when I desire Vendaeva to save us all from this disease?”

  “Yourself, you mean.”

  While I didn’t entirely trust Jenen, I was cheering him on.

  I'd climbed out as far as I dared on the limb, but it wasn’t far enough to get a clear view. The only thing I could make out was a bloodred shoot of thick hair jutting out in every direction. Apparently, this guy hadn’t heard of a brush before, or he’d had a run-in with an angry barber and a dull knife.

  “Leave, Sikel,” Jenen said. “Do not make me insist.”

  I held my breath and waited for the stranger to depart, stalking noisily through the brush as he went. Releasing the air from my lungs, I nimbly grabbed the branch and swung down to the ground—

  Okay, that's a lie.

  I found myself stuck, unable to crawl backwards, and well aware of the distant between the branch I clung to and the hard ground. I craned my neck to catch a glimpse of Jenen.

  “Uh, hey, could you give me a hand?”

  I heard footsteps beneath me. The crack of a twig. Jenen appeared, gazing up at me. A smile crossed his lips. “But I need my hands, the both of them.”

  I moaned, rolling my eyes. I was stuck a good twenty feet from the ground, unable to move for fear of falling, and Mister Always Serious decided to take this moment to poke fun. “That’s very funny,” I said, trying to ignore the imagined sounds of cracking branches. “Why’d you put me up here?”

  “Sikel wanted to steal you.”

  “Right, I gathered that much. But who is Sikel?”

  Jenen sighed. “A backstabber, a cheat, and a liar.”

  That sounded familiar. “So why do you associate with him?”

  “I don’t.”

  “You were talking with him.”

  “That’s different.”

  The branch swayed, forcing me to cling tighter still. My knuckles turned white. “He had the Paradise-whatever disease, didn’t he?” They say fear has a way of making one ramble. I can vouch for it.

  “Paradisaical. Yes.”

  “How do you get it? I mean, is there some way to pre—”

  “It strikes at random.” His eyes flashed.

  “Okay, all right. Don’t get huffy.” The branch swayed again. “So…uh, can you get me down now?”

  “Find your own way.”

  I scowled. “You put me up here. What happens if I fall?”

  “You get hurt.”

  “I really could use some help.”

  Jenen opened his mouth, most likely to retort, but a new voice beat him to it. It came from directly behind me. “Don’t worry, I’ll take it from here.”

  Jenen stiffened, his eyes wide. The fact that Jenen was surprised at the appearance of the newcomer behind me was unnerving enough. Couple that with recognizing the voice and I was downright dumbfounded. I might have dreaded Crenen’s return, I might have cheered Menen’s rescue, I might have kicked Lon out of the tree, or smiled at the ditsy Veija—but this guy was none of them. In fact, the very fact that he was in Paradise made no sense.

  I turned my head to find the bane of my existence: the young man called Chas. The very same idiot who had shoved me into the great Phudel with a maniacal smirk on his pretty-boy face.

  Before I could move, the blond young man leaped from the branch he stood on, grabbed me by the collar of my hospital robe, then jumped to the grass so many feet below. I allowed myself a shaky sigh before I refocused on the strange situation I found myself in. Well, the stranger si
tuation.

  I stared at the guy I’d known all through high school. He stood nearly six feet tall, with black clothing that slimmed him down but didn't diminish his well-toned physique. He smiled back, with that usual smug expression of his, then his green eyes flicked to Jenen and his smile broadened.

  “Well, if it isn’t the little lost prince,” Chas said.

  Jenen’s gold and silver eyes narrowed. He snatched my robe collar and pulled me back toward him. “You cannot take him.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it. I was only sent to be sure he was protected, since you seem unfit to manage even that much.” Chas strolled back to the tree trunk and leaned against it, folding his arms and crossing his legs.

  “We’re managing fine,” Jenen said, dragging me back another few feet.

  My mind was racing five times faster than the speed of light. At least. He knew Jenen; he was somehow here in Paradise; I was in my hospital apparel. My eyes widened. I was still in my hospital apparel. Thank goodness I had a robe, but still!

  Focus, Key. By now Jenen had dragged me a good fifteen feet from the tree and the arrogant man leaning against it.

  “Well, Jason,” Chas said, “seems you’re having quite the adventure.”

  I could’ve sworn I heard Jenen hiss. “How do you know this boy?” he demanded.

  Chas shrugged, eyes dancing. “We were at the same school, though our roles were significantly different. Jason was a nobody, while I was what Earthlings label the resident ‘heartthrob,’ isn’t that right, Jasey?”

  I scowled, my loathing for the most popular senior at my school returning. It wasn’t that the girls adored him, though that might have had a little to do with it. More than anything it was Chas’s acceptance of it—in fact, he had reveled in it, playing the strings of every girl's heart like a harp.

  “Still,” I said aloud, “I wonder how you know my name. It’s not like we ever talked…” Except once. When he’d pushed me into the puddle. Since he was here, did that mean he had sent me to Paradise on purpose?

  “Ah, but I would never forget the face of my rival.”

  I scrutinized him. Was he nuts? He considered me his rival? Every male student had declared him the rival of each of us, but it was only at a distance. No one dared to say it to his face.

  Chas’s smile widened. “You have questions, so many questions, running through your head.”

  “What were you doing in the land of Earth?” Jenen asked.

  “You might say it was my assignment.” Chas shrugged.

  My eyes narrowed.

  “You’re with Kirid Clan,” Jenen said.

  Chas tossed his head back and laughed, a clear, singsong sound. “Well now, Prince, I wouldn't—” He broke off. “Not now. Something’s coming.”

  There. I heard it now—thousands of feet, marching across the ground in perfect synchronization. They were a little way off, but still too close. “What is it?”

  “You wouldn’t hear,” Chas said.

  “I hear it just fine, but I don’t know what it is that’s coming.”

  Jenen and Chas stared at me.

  “You can hear that?” Jenen asked in disbelief.

  “Well, yeah.”

  “But…it’s still thirty miles off,” Jenen whispered.

  “Actually, twenty-two.” I blinked. “Uh, wait…” How in the world had I known that?

  “The boy’s right,” Chas said. “And quickly approaching. We have fifteen minutes, at the most.”

  Jenen still had his eyes on me, though one long ear was cocked toward the approaching sound. “...Yes. We must move.”

  “You didn’t answer my question. What’s coming?” It was especially important, since whatever it was had to be going roughly the speed of a car on the freeway, and that was pretty dang fast.

  “The Paradise Warriors,” Jenen answered. “They’re coming to kill you.”

  That was enough motivation to get me moving. “Right then. Let's go.”

  Chas leapt into the tree. “They come from the west. We’ll head east, then.” He looked down.

  “He can’t travel by tree,” Jenen said, and I considered it the funniest thing yet to come from his mouth. Who ever heard of traveling by tree? I smiled to myself but was also resigned to my fate. The fact that I hadn’t heard of it just bolstered its chance to exist in this crazy place.

  “Carry me, I don’t care,” I said, though my heart hammered with the prospect of approaching doom.

  Jenen raised an eyebrow. “I am not carrying you.”

  “Nor I,” Chas said, swinging down to dangle by his legs from the tree’s branch, his hair sticking every which way.

  “Fine, but you’ll be considerably slower with me walking beneath the blasted trees,” I growled and spun around to trudge in the direction I guessed was east.

  “It won’t do,” Chas remarked.

  “Agreed,” Jenen said.

  Suddenly they acted like best buds? Terrific. My day was now complete.

  As I stomped off, my ears began to thunder with the sound of the approaching army. They were moving faster than Chas had estimated. Suddenly the crash of feet halted, and the sound of silence reigned in the forest like the promise of death.

  They were here.

  “Vendaeva! Find and destroy Vendaeva!” a deep voice cried in my head. I doubled over as a sharp pain shot through my body. Gasping, I straightened in time to catch a blur of red against my vision.

  “Jason!” a familiar voice called, but it was far away, too far to reach. Then arms encircled me, and I was yanked up. Trees bounced around me. No, wait, that had to be me. I was bouncing. Small comfort.

  Reality crashed back into place around me. My face flushed. So, one of them had ended up carrying me after all.

  —I thought too soon. I slipped from the person’s arms and tumbled to the forest floor below, branches snagging at my face and clothes as I plummeted. I hit hard but managed to stay conscious. Getting to my feet, I limped out of the thicket I’d fallen into and hobbled on, though where to I didn’t know. I just let my feet lead the way.

  It wasn’t long before the noise of a fight met my ears and I hurried faster, ignoring my twisted ankle. Branches whipped by, and undergrowth reached out to trip me, but I was determined not to fall.

  Urgency filled my stomach with sickening dread.

  “C’mon, let me through, dang it!” In response the trees bent away from me to clear a path. The undergrowth lay flat. I didn’t stop; I could reflect on the wonder of that later. Right now, I had to get through. My robe was tattered, and I felt several stinging cuts bleeding along my arms, but the previous taunting of the forest had desisted, and I made better time. The sounds of battle grew louder.

  Breaking through foliage, I entered a dim clearing, the scent of peppermint strong in my nose. I stared at the scene before me. A half dozen furapintairow faced off against Jenen, who deflected their assaults with bloodied claws, dark hair clinging to his face.

  I rushed forward, fingers tingling, and threw my hand out. “Liitae.”

  A blue light shot from my palm and slammed into one of the creatures. It rolled over; its pink eyes closed; the jagged tail fell limp beside it. I raised my hand to destroy another. Again, the light appeared and killed the second furapintairow. I repeated this process until six Small Red Fuzzies were lying on the ground. As fast as they’d been before, in this moment I’d been faster still.

  Jenen, soaked in sweat and blood, gasping for breath, stared at me. A smile touched his ashen lips.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, rubbing my palm.

  “I—” He staggered. I darted forward and caught him, then eased him to the ground.

  “They bit you, didn’t they?” I searched for bite marks and found more than a dozen. “Holy mackerel, Jenen, how are you still alive?”

  He managed a smirk. “It takes more than that…” He moaned.

  “Just hang in there. Where’s Chas?”

  “He...he went to save you.”


  I touched his forehead and winced. He was burning up. “He did a terrific job,” I muttered, recalling the person who’d dropped me. Or perhaps he had deposited me there to keep me from harm. Who could say?

  Jenen is dying, a voice said inside me. Much as I appreciated the tip, it wasn't hard to guess that already.

  Jenen hissed. I grabbed his shoulders. “Hey, I said to hang in there.”

  He was shivering, and his head tossed from one side to the other. “I…know.”

  “I’m going to get this poison out, okay?” I said, wondering how I was supposed to do that. When I first came to Paradise, Jenen had saved my life. Now it was my turn. “You touched one,” I told him.

  “We all have…moments…of...foolishness…” Apparently, he'd been reflecting on the same thing.

  I touched one of the bite marks. I need to draw out the poison. Fluid shot from the wound to hover before my palm as a violet bubble. I stared, then shook myself and touched another puncture mark, reiterating the same thought. Again, fluid emerged from the bite, hovering near my hand. I continued the process until I’d withdrawn the venom from each wound. As I pulled my hand away, the bubbles popped, splashing onto the grass.

  Jenen had lost consciousness. I felt his forehead again. It was still on fire, but something inside me whispered that he would live. “You’ll be okay now. Just rest.”

  He moaned in response, and I smiled. It felt good to help.

  “Where are you going?” the boy asked, his voice distant, echoing.

  “Leave me be!” the other youth shouted.

  “Are you coming back?” the first boy asked.

  “No. I’m not.”

  “Oh…” The adolescent hung his head, but then he looked up again. “Before you go…” He ran off, but returned a moment later, clutching something to his heart. “Take this.” He extended the object toward the other boy. “To remember.”

  “Don’t you understand? I want to forget!”

  “Not forever. Someday you will want to remember.”

  I awoke with a start. The chill night air seized the chance to slap my face. Wincing, I pulled my robe closer to keep the worst of the cold out. It did nothing for my frozen legs. As I gazed into the darkness, I tried to figure out what had awakened me from my dream.