The Dark Passenger (Book 1)

by Joshua Thomas

  Walking upstairs, the wood groaned beneath his weight. There was a faint outline of light as he got nearer the top, and he extinguished his own spark with a wave of his hand and cautiously crept forward. Unlike the ground floor, this level wasn’t broken into rooms; in the middle of the large room sat a small, delicate platform, above which floated a necklace, the source of the soft light.

  Edwin looked around the room for any traps, but there seemed to be none. Besides the floating necklace, the room was as normal as the rest of the cottage.

  Reaching the pedestal, he carefully inspected the necklace. The chain was nothing special, but it supported a marble-sized ball unlike any he had ever seen. An infinite number of tiny floating lights circled an invisible well of gravity, and even from a distance Edwin could feel its power. The ball was soft and warm as he reached out to touch it, inviting even, and he gently plucked it from the pedestal.

  At his touch, the little lights extinguished in his hand and the necklace went cold. Without the light of the necklace, the outside lamp, which could be seen through a window, filled the room with long shadows. There was a sound behind him, and he turned and saw Gretchen removing her mask.

  “Welcome, Edwin,” she said, and Edwin jumped as one by one Mina and the triplets removed their masks, popping into view.

  Staggering backwards, Edwin asked, “What are you doing here?”

  “He did it! He really did it!” Mistral cried. She, like her four sisters, was still holding her mask in her hands. “I always knew he would.”

  “Today is a great day, sisters,” Gretchen said. “Today is the day we destroy the Hosts’ last hope.”

  “I see you found a brownie,” Meryl said. “And you released it! Joyous, joyous day!”

  “What are you doing here?” Edwin repeated.

  Smiling, Gretchen said, “Isn’t that obvious? We’re here to claim our birthright. Now, hand over the necklace.”

  Even with her voice dripping with venom, Edwin couldn’t help but notice she was beautiful, and he took another step back, his head swimming. He had so many questions—questions about the necklace and whether it was what they were after, about whether they had used him just like the spirit said they would, about how they had followed without his knowing—but instead he asked, “What about Walt?”

  The sisters cackled.

  “Oh, silly boy!” Pyre cried. “Walt is right here in this room. Isn’t that right, Walt?”

  Removing his own mask, which was orange like the sun, Walt popped into view in front of his aunts. So shocked he forgot to breathe, Edwin’s heart leapt and he jumped forward. The brownie fell from his shoulder, chirping unhappily.

  “Walt, you’re alive!” he cried as he hugged his friend. “I thought for sure you were dead. But…” He backed away, cradling the necklace to his chest. Everything was happening so fast. “…the whole time? A trick?”

  “I’m glad you came, Edwin,” Walt said. “You’re the only one who could have gotten us here. Sure, my aunts could have gotten us past the golems and the creatures that feed on the Gate’s light, but only a mahr could find the incantation to open the Gate itself.”

  “And that was only the beginning,” Gretchen said. “There was also the nixies’ siren song in the tunnel. Only those with Host blood aren’t lulled to sleep. It’s a useful trick if you want to keep creatures from escaping. And then there were the nixies themselves. They were common in our time, and they have always loved turning creatures to stone. Of course a Host can undo the nixies’ magic, as you’ve already seen.”

  The little brownie was crawling up the back of his cloak and back up onto his shoulder, quietly chirping with indignation.

  “Thank goodness you finally figured out how to bond properly with your mahr before the nixies tipped the whole boat over,” Gretchen said. “We always knew you would be able to do it.”

  Next to Gretchen, Walt’s dark, almost cynical expression sent chills down Edwin’s spine. Blushing stupidly, Edwin said, “I thought you were my friend… my only friend… I tried coming earlier, but the villagers almost killed me. Willem Medgard tried to kill me, but I killed him. He was the only father I’ve ever known.”

  There was nothing kind in Walt’s smile. “You came to the Gate the first time without your mahr. That was a foolish thing to do.”

  “You saved me from the Umbrage Box and the villagers all so I would take you here? Why didn’t you just make me come? Or ask me?” Against the wall now, he could retreat no further, and he threw the necklace on over his head.

  “It had to be your choice,” Walt said. “Only the pure heart of a Host could open the Host’s Gate and the door to this cottage.”

  The witches wore expressions so overcome with joy that they could barely control themselves. Pyre said, “Enough of this. Let’s just kill the boy and be done with it.”

  “Be careful not to hurt his mahr,” Gretchen said, her satisfied smile sickening.

  “Yes, even with the Host’s Tomb there’s no reason to waste a perfectly good candle,” Pyre said.

  Unsure what he could do, Edwin asked the next question that came to mind: “Why a cottage?” The sisters stood between him and the stairs.

  Walt waved away his question. “I’m sure this building has had many forms over the years. Can’t you feel it? It is in whatever form the imp desires.”

  They were approaching him quickly now, and Edwin cried, “Stop, don’t come any closer,” but they only laughed.

  “I said stop!” Edwin yelled, and he muttered a few words, creating a blue crackling bolt between his hands. He threw the bolt forward with all his strength, and it was so strong that thunder echoed throughout the room. But when the light cleared, he saw that Mina had pulled the energy towards her and absorbed it effortlessly. “How… Who… What are you?”

  They were still advancing, but as a group, like they were toying with him. Following him around in circles, Gretchen said, “Your little book didn’t tell you?” Gretchen laughed. “No, wait, Herald always has been a miser of knowledge. Of course it didn’t.”

  “Look, sisters, he knows nothing of us, of our reputations, yet see how he cowers,” Meryl said.

  “Perhaps he is smarter than we gave him credit,” said Pyre.

  “Savor this moment, sisters, for it is the last day of the Hosts,” Gretchen said. “Remember this before you die, little one: It was you who destroyed the Hosts’ last hope.”

  “So you’re just like the villagers? You want to destroy this place?” Edwin asked, trying to keep them talking. He kept trying to get closer to the staircase, but Walt moved to stop him while Gretchen laughed at his question.

  “No, no, no. We don’t want to destroy this place,” Gretchen said. “We only want to destroy you.”

  Still walking backwards, Edwin asked, “But why?”

  “The Hosts tried to kill us,” Gretchen said, and her sisters nodded.

  “Your people were greedy,” Meryl said. “They were greedy, greedy hoarders of magic. They wanted to keep it all to themselves. We may be halflings, but we have as much a right to magic as any Host. We could never have a mahr of our own, but we had the gift.”

  “Though we mostly had to steal the magic from others, we did learn that we had some innate abilities of our own,” said Pyre. She threw a fireball in Edwin’s direction, which he hopped over with a squeal.

  They continued walking around the big room in circles, and it seemed the sisters were all too happy to prolong the moment. But even so, they were moving in closer, and Edwin knew they would only allow this farce as long as he kept them entertained.

  “First we stole magic from little things,” Gretchen said. “Brownies, gnomes, and the like. But over generations we learned to take more. With nothing but stolen power, we were the Hosts’ scourge, much like our father before us. He was an outcast too, you know.” She pulled a few rocks out of her pocket, and, like controlling a puppet on a string, she released the rocks and let them fly in the air and orbit her body.


  Water had begun dripping from Meryl’s face and down her fingers, soaking her body and blue hair. A wind had picked up around Mistral.

  Pyre said, “The Hosts believed we upset the natural order, so we had to protect ourselves, naturally. The humans were easy to persuade. Kill a child here, a cleric there, and they were aching for a fight.”

  “They were stupid,” Gretchen said. “Only our perverted magic could hurt them as long as they were protected by the Great Tree. It was our father’s gift to them, but they never understood that the Hosts weren’t the threat. Men came to us and begged for our help, and our help they received.”

  The water around Meryl was dropping into great pools, and the wind around Mistral was so fierce that her platinum hair stood on end.

  “But then the Hosts ruined everything,” said Meryl, her body soaked.

  Her voice echoing between gusts of wind, Mistral said, “Magical creatures had fled to the Hosts’ fortress, which you know as the Black Keep. We thought the creatures had been ours for the taking, their magic ours to do with as we chose, but then they created all this to protect that necklace around your neck.”

  “The Host’s Tomb,” Meryl said, her voice reverent.

  Mistral continued: “All their power, all their knowledge, all magic locked away in a little ball, waiting for what? To be safe? The Hosts were fools to think such a time would ever come.”

  Gretchen nodded. “Magic became all but impossible to find after the Hosts fell. We have scoured the world to find magic and extend our lives, but this couldn’t go on forever. Our only hope was that one day a Host would open the Gate. But a true Host, one who had lived during the time of the great fall, would never allow our entry. A true Host would rather see the Host’s Tomb lose power and allow every creature in it to die. But then you appeared, you with your mahr, and I knew what we had to do.”

  Mina’s ethereal voice cut in. “Sisters, beware! I sense a change in tide.”

  Alarmed, one triplet locked hands with another, and water met air. The combination spiraled out from their hands, rushed around their three sisters, and flew towards Edwin from both sides.

  “Edwin, your cloak!” It was Sam’s voice.

  A gap appeared between the sisters, and Edwin saw Walt trying to hold Sam to the ground, a moon-shaped mask between them.

  Falling to the ground himself, Edwin covered himself with his cloak just as the water and wind surged at him from all sides. The force of the elements dissipated the moment it hit his cloak, and steam rose into the air.

  “Walt, your twin was your responsibility. Take care of it!” Pyre yelled, and her hands grew bright with fire.

  Wind pulled the roof off the cottage, and flying wood was everywhere. Coils of fire rushed towards them, flowing from beneath the lake in molten columns that seemed to come from the earth itself. The nixies were screaming, and the cottage shook. The huge fire cackled menacingly above the triplet’s fierce red hair and took on the unmistakable shape of Edwin’s mother. Pyre laughed and the fire screamed. His mother’s mouth unhinged, and the inferno came crashing down on Edwin as though to devour him. But like the wind and water before it, the fire couldn’t penetrate his cloak.

  Pyre met her sisters’ eyes and together they laughed. “Your cloak can’t save you,” she said. “You only prolong our fun.”

  Mina stood behind her sisters hugging her shoulders, rocking back and forth on her feet. “This has to end. The boy must die. The boy needs to die!”

  Gretchen yelled, “Mistral, Pyre, Meryl, no more games! You heard Mina. Something’s wrong. Kill the boy now, and Sam too if necessary.”

  Still holding down Sam, a grin broke out across Walt’s face. “Are you ready to die?” he asked Sam, or Edwin, or both.

  The sisters were running towards Edwin now, and he sent a bolt at the ground. The wood splintered and cracked, and then the whole floor gave way and they were falling into the rooms below.

  Edwin heard the sisters getting up in the other rooms. “No more tricks, little mahrling,” Pyre yelled.

  While the triplet taunted him, Edwin saw that Sam had used the fall to wiggle free of Walt. Now trading punches, Walt and Sam threw on their masks and disappeared.

  The sisters appeared in the splintered doorway, and they advanced on Edwin quickly. Together, with a single swipe of their hands, they also put on their masks and disappeared.

  “What will you do now, little one?” a triplet asked. She was too close, and Edwin quickly backed towards the shattered picture window. The brownie held tight to his cloak but never made a sound.

  The room was filled with the sound of shuffling, and a triplet on his left said, “You’re trapped.” There was a cackle to his right.

  “Enough!” It was Gretchen’s voice, and she was close—perhaps right in front of him. Edwin turned and ran.

  Outside the cottage, he sprinted towards the boat, only to find that it was no longer there. His first thought was that the halflings had moved it, but then he saw its faint silhouette in the distance. It was moving back across the lake fast, carried away by the nixies.

  Not daring to stop, he ran around the island and jumped at the nearest large statue. It was a mammoth horse-like creature, and he straddled its neck as he grabbed for its horns. Rock began to fall from the statue, and the creature began to shake the battle-axe in its hands. Then there was a cutting sound, and the creature’s head, still partially rock, slid from its body and fell to the ground.

  As Edwin leapt from the statue, he grabbed the creature’s battle-axe and ran. Behind him Gretchen said, “I can break rock with a thought, but only if you make me. There aren’t many of that creature’s kind left. How many others must die?”

  On the other side of the island he could still hear Sam and Walt fighting, but the other four sisters hadn’t made a noise and could be anywhere.

  Though he had never tried to lift so much, Edwin circled the lake with a new determination and reached for the water with his mind. Feeling its presence, he conjured it towards him, and clouds swept up and into the air, swirling, filling the sky. And then it began to rain.

  Sliding to a stop, Edwin turned around. The witches’ silhouettes appeared in the raindrops, and he could see that all five of them were fast approaching. Meryl threw up her hands and said, “I cannot stop this rain, sisters. The spell is too strong.”

  “Clever Host,” Pyre grumbled.

  “Hurry, kill him!” Gretchen yelled.

  “I have an axe. What are you going to do, kill me with your bare hands?” Edwin asked.

  The sisters smiled wickedly, the contours clear in the rain. “Of course,” Mina said. “That axe in your hands is a nuisance, but it will do nothing to save you.”

  “We’ll see,” Edwin said, and he tested its weight in his hands. The sisters were circling him now.

  Suddenly he heard Sam’s voice cut through the air: “Edwin, run! Come to me!”

  “…or maybe we won’t,” Edwin said, and he charged the sisters and dived between two triplets. They scrambled to catch him, but he was already past. Their feet splashed in the mud as they raced to catch up.

  As he again rounded the cottage, Sam saw him and cried, “The stick-bug! Grab Walt’s stick-bug!”

  Sam and Walt’s masks were strewn across the ground, and Sam had Walt pinned but couldn’t move for fear of Walt breaking free. Unconcerned by the commotion, the stick-bug had crawled out of Walt’s pocket and was making its way slowly across the ground.

  Without stopping, Edwin grabbed Walker the stick-bug and kept running. The ground was wet and slippery, but the rain-shower was losing strength. Now that the bug was in Edwin’s hands, Sam had jumped up and was running with him.

  “I always thought you didn’t like me,” Edwin said to Sam. Farther behind him, he heard the sound of footsteps trailing off as the witches and Walt split off to circle both sides of the island. He knew that soon he and Sam would be trapped.

  “I tried to tell you to leave,” Sam said, “but n
ow’s not the time.”

  “Idiot!” he heard Pyre yell. “How could you let them take the double’s key?”

  Edwin glanced at the bug, and its little eyes stared back up at him. He asked Sam, “Why do we need Walker?”

  “That bug commands the imp. It used to be a Host’s mahr.”

  Edwin realized immediately what that meant. “How does it work?”

  “Give it to me. There’s no time to explain,” Sam said.

  Edwin handed Walker to Sam, but Walker’s beady little eyes continued to follow him, only once leaving his face to glance at the brownie still hanging onto his shoulder. Edwin was starting to feel the strain of conjuring the rain, and he commanded it to stop.

  Sam began speaking in the Hosts’ tongue, and chills went down Edwin’s spine as he realized just how little he had known. “Why’d you only tell it to steal their masks?” he asked.

  “They’re my family,” Sam said.

  The imp appeared from under the surface of the lake, and its tentacle-like hair began scouring the island. Edwin heard a yelp to his left, another one behind him, and three more to his right. With their masks hanging from the imp’s tentacles, the witches stopped running. The witches and Walt approached cautiously, and Edwin saw pure hatred burning in their eyes.

  “It’s over,” Sam said with a conviction Edwin wished he shared. “We command the imp, and you’re only half-blood witches. Don’t test to see whether the imp can harm you.”

  “We should have dealt with you years ago,” Pyre said.

  Sam’s face was unreadable. “You know Mina’s prophesy. Neither twin may live without the other.”

  “There are other ways to deal with such problems,” Pyre retorted.

  “Enough!” Gretchen said. “What do you want, Sam?” She smiled her most alluring smile, but Edwin could only wince.

  “Your plan failed, but we will let you leave,” Sam said.

  “We will?” Edwin asked.

  Nodding, Sam said, “Yes. Now go, live your lives, but never try to find us.”

  Gretchen shook her head. “You know we can’t do that. We need the magic contained in these walls to live.”