A Myth to the Night

by Cora Choi

  Chapter 30: The Forgotten Ones

  The electricity had been shut off on the island, and the lamps along the Five Ring Road remained unlit. The students must have all evacuated, for there wasn’t a single soul in my view. Carrying Durendel in my right hand and the olifant in my left, I trekked to Stauros Hall in near-complete darkness, feeling as if I was the only one on the island.

  When I reached the main door, I found it unlocked. I expected the Shrikes to have removed all the statues and paintings in the entryway and foyer, but they remained. Perhaps Parafron had been bluffing and the island wasn’t going to be bombed.

  As I crossed the foyer, I paused when I saw that the door to the ancient library was wide open. I gripped Durendel even tighter as I entered. I paused at the landing at the top of thirteen floors that yawned before me, the stairs spiraling downward, winding around the cylindrical shaft that stretched from the landing to the bottom floor. The concave walls reflected a faint bluish light that emanated from below. Sloshing and splashes echoed up from the source of light. The last time I had entered that abyss had been years ago, with Anne-Marie, the night before she’d fled the island.

  “Drev!” I yelled, descending the stairs three steps at a time. No one answered, but the splashes continued. I quickened my pace—fifth floor, fourth floor, third floor—the splashing got louder, and then I heard hollering echoing from the walls.

  “Drev! Where are you?” I said, looking frantically to my left and my right. I was closer to the water, and though I couldn’t see anyone, I heard the struggle. There were splashes and roars of frustration—Drev was there. I also heard eerie, breathy murmurs that seemed to bounce off the walls and over the water. I bent my head and concentrated to see if I could make out any details. There was a voice, or voices, yelling, “He’s the Slayer! He’s the Slayer!”

  Those breathy murmurs—too faint to have come from a living soul—were familiar to me. Years ago, I had heard them behind me as I’d run from the library. Now they were here, lurking, hissing to one another that Drev was the Slayer. The Saboteurs were out to destroy him!

  Without further thought, I jumped over the railing and landed on the ground floor with a terrific splash. At first I was surprised to see that the water came up to my knees. I recalled how the leprechaun had told me that Drev had come up from underneath the floor of the library with a rush from the sea. The blue lanterns he had mentioned were scattered about. A couple were hooked to the sides of bookcases, inches above the water level, while several others floated about like eerie balls of light bobbing up and down in the darkness.

  “Drev!” My voice echoed around me. The splashes that had seemed distant a minute ago became louder and clearer. I saw Drev making his way toward me, punching the air. Initially, I couldn’t see who he was fighting, and it seemed, from my vantage point, as if he were shadowboxing. But as he moved in closer to where I stood and the blue lanterns illuminated the space he entered, I saw the Saboteurs.

  I felt my entire being buzzing. According to ancient lore, the Saboteurs were the shadowy guardians of the World of the Damned, who lured innocent living souls to that hell. Not having died properly, the souls that had fallen to the World of the Damned were unable to find eternal rest. They were forever condemned to that world that was neither life nor the afterlife.

  The Saboteurs themselves were doomed to continue their existence in this purgatory state, as they continually roped innocent living souls into the World of the Damned. They were the eternal purveyors of that hell. A fight with the Saboteurs was a futile one. It was believed that as long as they existed as shadows, they could never be destroyed.

  However, the beings milling about Drev weren’t the shadowy figures I recalled from the two encounters I had had with them before. They resembled nothing of the dark patches of mist twirling in the air like a fleet of transparent black veils. They were solid beings, almost human. They looked as though they had been sculpted out of obsidian, their eyes gleaming, as they reflected the light from the lanterns. It was eerie. Some of them—just the shape of their bodies—reminded me of people I had known long ago.

  Instinctively, I focused my attention on Drev and examined him. From where I stood, he looked and moved like a normal living being. To my relief, he had not transformed into a phantom. Perhaps that was because there was no need. I had never heard of someone being half phantom, but because he was such a hybrid, I imagined that he could enter the world of the dead and come back to the world of the living just as easily as he could see the spirits of the dead.

  “Hugh!” he called out, though he didn’t turn his head in my direction. He continued to fight off the demons, who didn’t outright attack him but approached him with their limbs stretched out in front of them, as though begging him, beseeching him. I was flummoxed about why they didn’t notice me. As they scuffled by me, I thought I saw a singular look of distress on all their faces. They weren’t baring their teeth for attack. Rather, their mouths were agape, as though calling out for help. Were we wrong to fight them?

  As I was about to turn my head away from them and back to Drev, I caught a glimpse of a familiar face. Philos?

  I looked back to where I thought I had seen him, but he was gone. I was sure I had seen the face of the young student who now haunted Parafron to madness. I held my breath; something about the Saboteurs was not right.

  “They’re solidifying!” shouted Drev, as he knocked away a hand reaching for his face. “When I first came up, they were just these shadowy things flying around. There were so many, I couldn’t see a thing. I kept fighting them, but more kept coming. And now they’ve turned solid!”

  I studied the mass of what looked like moving black sculptures. What had made them change form? Had it been the flooding of the tunnel? Could they not return to the World of the Damned now that the tunnel was closed?

  “Hugh, help! I can’t get rid of them,” shouted Drev. My thoughts turned back to him. He was right. Drev would never be able to fight off all of them, let alone make his way up the thirteen floors. Even making it to the first steps from the ground floor looked impossible. But did he have to fight them? Could there be another way?

  The Saboteurs’ movements were urgent, but they weren’t attacking him. Their outstretched arms and clingy fingers seemed only to want his attention, his help. Their mouths remained open, as though in a silent scream. Clearly, they were trying to communicate something to Drev.

  I heard a loud splash and saw a dozen figures look as if they were falling through the floor, as though a sinkhole had suddenly opened up under them. I realized Drev had fallen, and I quickly maneuvered my way over to him. The Saboteurs were too numerous and blocked my path. Though I was yards away, I saw Drev struggling to his knees, trying to stand up among all the hands that seemed to pull and push at him all at once. I wasn’t sure if they were trying to help him up or drag him down with them.

  I shouted, “Catch!” and threw Durendel toward Drev. He stretched out his hand and caught it effortlessly. However, I wasn’t certain that even Durendel could effectively fight off the Saboteurs.

  Nevertheless, once I saw that Drev had Durendel in hand, I felt reassured that he could at least keep the Saboteurs at bay. I grabbed the olifant and blew. With this many Saboteurs, we would need help getting out of the library. The sound was deafening, and even the Saboteurs turned away from Drev to look at me. I felt myself shrink as I became the focus of their glazed-over stares. I waited while the olifant’s echo gradually faded. I looked up to the highest floor of the library, thirteen stories up, squinting to see if anyone had come. Nothing happened. I suppose I was foolish to have anticipated a cohort of reinforcements once I blew the olifant, but I did expect some reaction. When none came, I blew it again. And again. When it was clear no one was coming to our aid, I decided to dodge through the Saboteurs and get to Drev, no matter how many Saboteurs stood in my way.

  As I barged through them, their faces turned toward me, only inches from mine. I was stunned to
recognize many of them. The water around my feet seemed to turn to quicksand as I lumbered through that crowd of familiar faces.

  They had all been students whom I had once approached with my book, hoping they would read it. But then they had all disappeared. I no longer doubted that the figure I had seen earlier was Philos. I scanned over and between their heads to see if I could find him again, but I couldn’t make out any distinct faces beyond the first row of Saboteurs who were around me. They all seemed to blend together.

  I was breathing hard, heaving, as though there wasn’t enough air around me. I had never thought of the Saboteurs as souls who had once been alive. I had thought of them only as monsters, working along with the Order of the Shrike. Sympathy crept over me as their pleading, pupil-less eyes looked into mine. I understood that like all nonliving beings haunting this world, they were souls seeking an end to a relentless existence.

  “Philos!” I said, as a set of saucer-shaped eyes appeared before me. A glimmer of recognition reflected in that beseeching stare before he howled. He crumpled into the water, falling to his knees first, his torso bending over afterward. The whirl of the sword flying through the air whipped past my ears, and I saw three other Saboteurs fall in the same manner. Behind them stood Drev, with Durendel stretched out in front of him. Was Durendel capable of killing the Saboteurs? Or was it that Durdendel in Drev’s hand had the power to kill the Saboteurs?

  Drev raised the sword, glimmering in the dark. Now that it was in battle, the sword seemed to come to life in his hands. He turned to another poor soul, a Saboteur still unaware that Drev had the ability to destroy it. He dealt the poor creature a mortal blow.

  I stood there, speechless, as I saw Drev raise the sword once again, high above his head, and swing it down, as if nothing else were more natural to him. Five pitiful specimens released high-pitched wails as Drev sliced through them easily, sliding the sword through them as if he were slicing butter. When they fell, they didn’t rise again. They were dead.

  Knowing that the Saboteurs could die, I had a brief sense of relief. However, urgent concern immediately replaced it. The Saboteurs had once been living people—good people who had fallen unwittingly to the World of the Damned. By all means, they had not wanted to go to the World of the Damned. Victims of a curse created by the Order of the Shrike, they had been tricked and then forced into the interminable task of roping the innocent into that hell. Now that they saw someone destroy the cave and could see that he had the power to face and fight them, did they think they could get help from him, find a way out of their miserable predicament?

  “Drev!” I called out. He had moved several yards away from me while fighting with the Saboteurs. Doubt overwhelmed me. I saw him raise his sword and swipe at another oncoming wave of creatures.

  “Drev!” I called out, but the small distance that separated us was still too great for him to hear me, and there were still too many Saboteurs between us for me to keep a steady view of him. They continued to crowd him, their arms and hands stretched across each other’s, like a never-ending web of limbs. Although I didn’t have a sword, I swung the olifant at them in an attempt to forge a path among them. They moved aside, somewhat, and I was able to advance toward Drev.

  “Wait!” I said to him. His ears seemed deaf to my voice.

  How many were there? Some seemed to show a flicker of recognition on their face when they came toward Drev and saw me standing next to him, others none at all. How wrong to have thought of the Saboteurs as nothing but pure evil, without giving a second thought to where they’d come from and how they’d fallen to the World of the Damned in the first place. Although they couldn’t be salvaged from the World of the Damned, I wanted to help them if I could.

  “Who are you?” I tried asking the ones nearest me. “What do you want?” I searched their faces for clues, for they wouldn’t say a word. They all seemed preoccupied with getting closer to Drev. I opened my mouth to attempt to speak to them again but stopped. My jaw dropped when I saw an old friend of mine—the very one I had seen the Saboteurs lure into the cave when he and I were still apprentices under Abbot Pellanor. His shiny black-marble claws grabbed onto my robe.

  “Brother,” I whispered. Pangs of sympathy and sadness paralyzed me. I couldn’t even reach out to him. The humanoid who stood before me tilted his head in recognition.

  “Brother,” he whispered, his voice a breathy echo of my own. I could feel his words, and they made my spine shiver.

  “Free us.”

  His message was clear. Pangs of guilt pierced my heart, as I began to realize that what I had suspected earlier was true: the Saboteurs were seeking help—a release from the misery to which the Order of the Shrike had sentenced them. As far as they could see, they had an opportunity to get that help.

  Before I could ask my dear friend a question or respond to what he’d said, I heard a roar from Drev and saw the blade of Durendel rise behind my fellow monk, coming down on his head.

  “No! No!” I shouted. “Stop!” I spoke too late. My friend was about to collapse into the water, when I reached out to catch him.

  “Stop? What do you mean?” Drev retorted.

  “They need our—your—help.” I looked down at my fellow monk. His body was a cold, gooey substance. He didn’t stir. What little had been left of his soul was now gone.

  “They’re the Saboteurs!” said Drev, looking at me as I laid my fallen brother gently in the water. “Like you told me, they’re ‘evil, nebulous creatures.’ They lured all those students to the cave, and the students were never heard from again.”

  “But here . . . These Saboteurs . . . these are those students who disappeared!” I cried out. “Philos! And all the rest! They’re asking for help. We should try to listen and figure out what we can do.” I reached out and grabbed Drev’s arm, the arm that held Durendel. However, the damage had been done. The Saboteurs were afraid of Drev. They no longer approached him but were backing away, some scurrying. Drev jerked his arm out of my grasp and, to my horror, chased after them—hunting them down like a merciless assassin.

  “Drev!” I could barely breathe. Part of me could recognize his ruthlessness. There was no denying that half his blood was that of the Order of the Shrike. He could be capable of all kinds of atrocities.

  “Stop!” I bellowed.

  However, the slashing and the howling continued. I lifted one heavy leg after another in the shallow water, calling after Drev. I knew he was intense, and that whatever he set out to do, he’d achieve it thoroughly and completely. As the Slayer, he needed all these qualities, but he also needed to be merciful.

  Howl after howl reached my ears as I yelled for him to restrain himself. I was desperate for him to stop, yet his rampage seemed to go on forever. And then, suddenly, there was silence. The quiet trickling of water reached my ears. I stood still. I saw Drev emerge from the shadows and trudge toward me.

  “They needed to die,” he said, looking at me. “They needed someone to put them away.”

  I stared at him in silence. I couldn’t disagree with him. They were looking for a way to be released from being the Saboteurs, and death was one path. However, part of me wondered if there might’ve been another way. I regretted that Drev had taken action without ever asking how he could help them.

  Durendel continued to glow in Drev’s hand. I looked at Drev, and it seemed as if I were seeing him again for the first time. He did resemble me. However, the aura around him, the aggression and violent energy that circulated, was that of Anne-Marie. Part of me wanted to recoil, but another part wanted to embrace him. I chose the latter. I waded through the water that separated us and stretched my arms out to him. He stood still, clearly not expecting such a gesture from me. I gave him a hug, then stepped back and asked, “How were you able to come back?”

  In a low, nearly robotic voice, he said, “I let Pamina go.”