The Dark Passenger (Book 1)

by Joshua Thomas

  “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.

  CHAPTER 28: THE SKELETON KEY

  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. Th
e 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.

  At this, Edwin shot another bolt towards a gray face. He hit it directly between its eyes.

  The bald head surfaced. “Puh, puh, puh. It tastes sour,” the creature spat, and the lake laughed with mirth and menace.

  With the spirit’s presence calming him, he leaned over the boat as far as he dared and studied the many strange faces looking up at him. “See how he look-s down at us,” said the nearest of the faces.

  “He won’t wear that ug-ly look for long,” another said.

  “Drain aw-way his soul we will. Drain, drain, drain.”

  “Drain, drain, drain,” another sang.

  The spirit began moving his mouth, or maybe Edwin was doing it himself—he wasn’t sure. He knew the spell he wanted, and he saw the incantation as clearly as if Herald were right in front of him. Wisps of smoke left his fingertips and reached the nearest of the gray-faced creatures. She dissolved into a murky ash, and a great cry spread across the lake.

  “Oh, a mahr-ling,” a voice said from a great distance. “Why didn’t you say so?”

  “We nixies would nev-ver harm a mahr-ling.”

  Keeping a close eye on the water, Edwin let a minute pass. He then grabbed his one oar, turned his back, and rowed the rest of the way to the island. Though he continued to hear the sound of distant ripples in the water, it was no longer followed by snickering.

  * * *

  Gretchen began to feel life returning to her limbs after the nixies retreated from the boat. The last of the song’s effects were finally leaving her, but even so, a few minutes passed after Edwin reached the island before she felt strong enough to stand.

  CHAPTER 29: THE HOST’S TOMB

  The little two-story cottage looked normal in every way. A stone path led up to the front door, but Edwin walked across the dirt yard to the large picture window instead. The room he saw was dark, but he could just make out the outline of a couch and table.

  Backing away from the window, he looked at the front door, but decided he would rather walk around the cottage first. Finding something so common in a place so strange made him more nervous than he
would be if he’d found something supernatural.

  “Walt!” he yelled hopefully, but there was no answer.

  As soon as he rounded the cottage’s corner, he found himself facing a huge statue of a dragon. It was hunched forward, its mouth was open in the shape of a scream, and its front paw was in the water.

  As he got closer he saw that there was a smaller figure next to it, barely as big as one of the dragon’s claws. It was a hairy little creature with huge wings for its tiny size, and its foot was outstretched as though to see if the water was warm. He bent down to pick up the little statue, but no sooner had he touched it than the rock on its surface began to crack and the little creature was shaking itself awake. As it shook off the stone, it looked almost like a tiny, fist-sized woman, only it was covered from head to toe in chocolate brown hair, save a mane of white hair that ran down its back. But it was the creature’s hexagonal red-on-gold wings that most caught Edwin’s eye. The creature stirred as though waking from a dream. Not feeling threatened, Edwin said, “You’re beautiful.” The little creature hopped into his open hands and chirped happily.

  “I woke you, didn’t I?” Edwin felt disturbed by his connection to this place. And then, looking back at the dragon, he added, “I’m sure glad I touched you and not that. What are you?”

  As the little winged creature climbed up his shoulder, it made a noise that sounded like the word brownie, and Edwin continued around the cottage. There were other statues, but he didn’t dare touch any. Before long he was back at the front door, and he decided he had best go in.

  The door opened too easily for Edwin’s tastes, and he wondered whether it had been made to open for a Host or had never been locked at all. Inside, he found himself in a dark little hallway, and he lit a small spark in his hand. Nothing looked out of place; there were three different rooms downstairs and a stairway placed between them.