SPARX Incarnation: Order of the Undying (SPARX Series I Book 2)

by K. B. Sprague

  The acrobatic archers, held up in a high booth, felled young cloakers with their deadly arrows as easily as swatting flies. Together, they brought a larger beast crashing down onto the stage.

  Holly and I darted across the main stage, sidestepping the felled beast. I looked for Bobbin on the way. He was nowhere to be seen. As we sped past centre stage, I shoved the blinded guards into the churning water, still moaning and holding their burned out eye sockets. We fled past the stands of the fighting nobles, towards the sea. Just before reaching the arch, I waved to the swooping cloakers, sorting through the confusion for Gariff or Clickety-clack.

  I spotted the two of them circling about together. Gariff spotted us as well, tagged the pilot, and the giant cloaker abruptly changed course and rushed our way.

  I thought we were safe. I thought we were in the clear. But the game was not up yet: The wraiths were gaining traction and Karna’s Messenger was not revered as divine without reason. Again, he stayed his course against the force of the whirlpool. The waves pummeled his massive bulk, but he did not budge. I applied more focus. The cycles grew larger and wilder.

  The White Whale struggled against the current. He began to glow, just like he had done after our long conversation on the shores of the Dim Sea. His horns unfurled like reptilian fans. They pivoted and angled this way and that way, and as they did so, cloakers plummeted to the ground. The juveniles fell in thick masses. A scant few evaded the assault, either they were able to resist it or somehow it “missed” them. Gariff and Clickety-clack were among the less fortunate. Their cloaker splashed down into the cove. The tortured mount writhed and twisted in agony. Show-goers still in the higher stands put their hands over their ears, shrieking.

  Gariff and Clickety-clack had dropped near the stage. They clambered out of the water while others splashed about the cove frantically, struggling to reach the shore against the rotating current. The White Whale joined the foray. He swam in a circle against the flow and snapped at them all, even the cloakers, thrashing his head when he trapped one in his great jaws. The swirling water ran red.

  In their gliding way, the two remaining wraiths closed in on Holly and me. I drew Shatters from my pack and brandished it boldly. With the loss of their leader, they seemed less confident, less aggressive. But deterred fully they were not. Slowly, the wraiths advanced, scythes readied. The whirlpool ceased as I recalibrated the splitting of my focus.

  In my head, came a voice – the voice – in a low and regretful rumble. “HUUM ha… Goodbye young Pip,” it said. “I call you my friend. I am sorry it ends this way. It is as it was meant to be.”

  I looked to the cove and saw that we had drawn the attention of the White Whale. Debris bobbed in the water around the great beast.

  “Fear not,” the voice continued. “Huum ha… all that you have ever known will be preserved… forever.”

  The leviathan closed in to support Taradin’s undying servants; in his wake a brutal, bloody mess of flesh and blood and guts.

  “Yes… get them!” Taradin cried out to his men. He was still held up in his booth. Taradin then called out to the beast. “Thank you, great vessel of the sea, for this superb intervention.”

  At the water’s edge, the White Whale raised himself high above the surface until he loomed over Holly and me. The Flipside girl fell back into my arms as the beast’s many eyes danced with pleasure at the promise of more flesh and secret knowledge. And from beneath his massive forebody, tentacles writhed out of the water. Holly and I were within his grasp. We both just stood there, paralyzed.

  I closed my eyes and shook my head, and in the process shook off the fear and wonderment. I had been misled. The hard edge of betrayal cut through me. I had thought the leviathan wise – an advisor. I had believed in his Dim Sea lair, and that it would be a safe haven in the otherwise harsh world of darkness underground. He devoured my parents, and now he wants us.

  The betrayal then burned like acid through my veins, and brought the phantoms of fury and darkness within to convergence, and then to resonance. A strange vibration fed back into me from the stone and from Shatters. I felt the tingling presence of Holly’s stone too. Something was happening, something different. Something big. The power of shaping flowed through me, and of building, organizing, but most of all, undoing.

  A pulse of energy injected into my forebrain. Betrayal is a command, I realized. I looked to Holly. Her SPARX stone shone strong and bright, and as green as mine was red. They pulsed in unison like two chambers of a single heart. The wraiths held back, uncertain, as the brightness shot up and the pulse quickened. Even the leviathan paused. I need more power.

  “Holly, hold tight,” I said. Then I told her what she needed to hear. I told her what I needed her to hear. “It’s over, I’m sorry. These simple lights will not do. Fyorn sent you here to your death. He sold you out to feed this hungry beast information. He sold us all out to get what he wants. I never should have introduced you to him.”

  “Whaa?” was all she said.

  “It’s true,” I reaffirmed. “The Elderkin betrayed you.”

  I saw in her eyes that she denied it. Slowly, I nodded. Then Holly’s green eyes widened and her lips pursed. She shook her head. I could literally see the realization spread through her mind like a fast virus. She was mine.

  Kechekenibek exposed his gaping jaws. The wraiths stepped back to give him the room he needed.

  I raised Shatters defiantly, but I did not attempt to strike the beast. In full rage and desperate anger, I struck the platform at our feet. A new command of matter issued forth, the strongest yet – a wave like those in water, except to make the stone dance. But cold stone is brittle. A pulsing surge of energy coursed through my body from the ground up, then into my arm, and through the deepwood club before closing the circuit back into the stone. Like with the Dancing Pool and the whirlpool, I had set something in motion. A vibration. I could feel it. But I had no conscious control of what followed.

  The stone platform shattered like a thin sheet of ice, and all who stood on it were scattered as it exploded outwards. I was thrown back against the stands, ears ringing. The leviathan was knocked off-balance. He crashed down on jagged rubble. The room flickered again, in and out of darkness. The force of the hit had knocked Holly down. We were both scraped and bloodied, but otherwise unharmed.

  The wraiths came at us, scythes raised. Then three arrows whirred past and felled one. I recognized the fletching – orange feathers. Suddenly, the air seemed to fill with arrows. And before the other wraith could attack, he was felled as well. Fyorn. I stumbled to Holly, grabbed her hand, and looked her in the eyes. She nodded as I raised Shatters a second time. I bashed the stands.

  We leapt out of the way and ran towards the seashore, past the arch. Behind us, the stands crumbled to the ground. I turned and watched as Taradin himself came tumbling down, riding on huge blocks of stone. One Red Maiden quickly disappeared from his side, swallowed by the rubble. The other struggled to protect him from it. The Vicegerent crashed at the base of the flaming arch. Dust was everywhere, the tunnel exits impassable. Shell-shocked, the last remaining crowd members stumbled around stupidly. Others soon returned to their senses and tried to clamber out of the stadium to the shore.

  I caught a glimpse of Gariff and Clickity-clack. They had made it to the other side of the inlet with many of the onlookers. With an ear-piercing stream of chirrups, the Glooms broke off their attack. A single wraith lay impaled in the water, twitching, and the leviathan struggled with a long sliver of stone wedged in his lower jaw. Those nobles who had remained to fight in the stands now lay buried somewhere in rubble. Taeglin had run off.

  One wounded cloaker, of the small variety I had first encountered, dragged itself along the rock floor by only one claw. The other had been severed, and a wing was crushed.

  “There there,” I said, as I quickly scooped up the poor thing by the tail and stuffed it in my pack.

  The leviathan, jagged sliver and all, turned full a
bout and headed for the mouth of the cove, impeded by his impaled jaw. Gariff’s booming voice cut across the inlet. “NUD, THE ARCH!”

  The instant before the last cloaker was to retreat and moments before the White Whale could make for open water, I abandoned the shoreline and bounded back into the stadium, just inside the arch.

  Taradin lay there, trapped under rubble, a Red Maiden crumpled beside him. His hood had come off and his body was broken, but no blood spilled forth. The First King beheld me standing next to him. He looked up. I met his gaze. Death Incarnate. He spoke.

  “I once rolled dice to save mankind,” he said, “and won.” Then he coughed dust, and spat.

  I delivered to him the words of my uncle. “Yes, Taradin,” I said. “You died a great hero long ago.” I raised Shatters for one last time that day. “You should have stayed that way.”

  Taradin closed his eyes and nodded. At last, the First King laid his crowned head to rest on the stony surface. I think he realized Fyorn was right. I think he was tired of what his life had become.

  I took his crown – his heir didn’t deserve it – and then I looked away – it was madness. I smote the arch of the grand cavern. The act had been mine alone, without Holly. It was a dark moment. Looking back, it was the darkest ever, in all my flesh-bearing years.

  The rock ceiling of the stadium came crashing down with a thundering CLAP! As I exited the stadium, debris piled into the cove and a great wave spilled forth from it. Everyone on the shoreline took cover amidst jagged rocks to shield themselves from the water and the splintering fragments that rained down. Dust billowed up and around, and strong waves rolled in and out. When the air finally cleared and the waves dissipated, a heavy silence fell over the Dim Sea. Only our breaths and the rush of distant falls dared disturb it.

  Chapter XXIX

  Karna’s Whim

  Black Sliver was far too large a vessel for us to handle, even with two of the giant kind at our sides. So we commandeered a smaller vessel at dock that went by the prophetic name of Karna’s Whim. Fyorn took the helm, the giants had the oars, and the rest of us did what we could to get her out to sea. Lord Sevalyr gave the orders – he had seafaring experience, while Lady Elise watched the shoreline disappear. Harrow would blame the Lord and the Lady for the catastrophe.

  Holly knew then that I had lied to her about the woodsman, and she knew why. Fyorn quickly explained that the Hurlorns had lied to me. I had a pretty good idea why. I hoped the Glooms would understand why I lied to them.

  When we passed the rock wall, the faerie sky beyond luminesced a pale green and the calm waters glimmered in the twilight. A thin veil of folding sunlight broke through the darkness in the far-off distance. Karna’s Whim caught a fair wind to carry us there. The rush of falls grew nearer.

  Chapter XXX

  Hollow

  I would like to say that, glad to be done with the trying ordeal once and for all, I lifted the latch on the front gate to our yard, casually strode along the garden path to our front door, opened it and walked right back into my life as though nothing unpleasant had ever happened. But that is not how it went. It wasn’t even our yard or our front door any more – they were just mine, and I had no sure way of keeping them.

  So instead, when I reached for the gate, I found I could not open it. Welling up right then and there, I nearly lost composure. A lady and child walked by at that exact wrong moment, expectant looks of greeting on their faces. I managed a polite nod without giving myself away completely, and then froze just to stare at the rusty metal latch and the gentle arc of the once lithe branch that formed the top of the gate frame. I could have walked away, but I would only have to come back again, eventually. There was nowhere else to go.

  The neighbors were grilling fish for dinner. A gusty breeze cast about the sweet aroma of the catch, mingling it with the flavorful scent of strong oak butter and herbs. The next neighbor down had her clothes hanging out back. She would smell like fish tomorrow. Paplov should have been grilling too, right about then. He made the best barkwood batter…

  The meticulous old Pip painstakingly had woven the gate and fence out of piles and piles of twigs that he had collected years ago and spaced out neatly on the front lawn, sorted by size and length; plus a few larger branches for extra support where needed. Posts made of solid bog oak, dragged from who knows where, lay scattered about. I had been quite young when he built the fence. It was during the first summer I spent just with Paplov. I had “helped” in full belief that I was indispensable, and received much praise for my hampering efforts.

  Besides bringing him the proper sized twig from a pile, or more twine, or his hammer that had somehow disappeared, Paplov engaged me in the interlacing. He patiently demonstrated exactly how it was done so that I, in turn, after casually trying one or two weaves on my own, could dismiss it and turn my attention to becoming as troublesome, noisy and annoying as possible. I got away with such behavior, despite the disapproving looks Paplov received from neighbors and passersby. “Discipline that child,” they might as well have said.

  Disciplining was not Paplov’s way and patience was a meek substitute. He simply did not know how to be unkind. Not in any way.

  Paplov probably built the fence out of some instinct to be protective. Well, it didn’t keep snakes out or pipsqueaks in, so in the end the effort amounted to little more than decoration.

  Now Fyorn is a drillmaster and had forced a mean pace back to the bog lands, marching south along the banks of the Upper Malevuin and then across Whisperwood, straight through to the crossing at Proudfoot. My feet and legs ached from the grueling hike and I longed to sit down in a cozy chair and put my feet up. Inside, I walked past such a chair and into the next room. As is usual in muggy weather, the heavy, midday heat had already crept into the study. An odd odor lingered about the room as well – the entire hut, really – a staleness that arises when a dwelling sits too long unattended. A home needs to breathe and be lived in. It needs people stirring things up, traipsing in and out of doors, burning scented candles, cooking, and opening windows when it is too hot. Paplov had often sat in the study sipping tea and going over agreements or running numbers, comfortably laid back in his favorite chair.

  Evidence that neighbors had come by to tidy up was everywhere. Books lay stacked neatly out of place, Paplov’s blanket hung nicely folded over the end table instead of the back of his chair, and the wrong pillow had been placed there. I would have to go over and thank them later. One thick book lay atop the end table next to Paplov’s favorite chair. It was in the right place for one actively being read. I opened it on the table. A black feather neatly marked the very last page – he had finished the book, at least. On his writing desk were less than neat stacks of the usual assortment of agreements and legal documents, arranged by type and locale. I would have to sort through them all and determine whether or not any contained urgent matters.

  Standing in the study, staring blankly at Paplov’s desk and the jumble of his unfinished business, suddenly I felt more than just physically empty from a lack of regular meals. Hollow. Some part of me was missing; so much as some part of that room had been vanquished forever. I needed some air and so did the hut. I went out through the back and headed for the workshop, leaving the door ajar behind me.

  The workshop appeared exactly as it had always appeared. It was the only area that Paplov had ever permitted to get out of sorts. By the looks of it, he had been busily attending to a dozen or more projects, none of which were finished. Arrows in various states of completion lay scattered about tables, and unfinished animal carvings sat here and there on tables or shelves. All manner of boards and logs and sticks were stacked on the floor, including some interesting pieces of bogwood that were not quite interesting enough to be put on display in the garden.

  I removed my backpack, unloaded the remaining deepwood, and then left the way I had come. A walk would clear my head.

  On my way to the road, I thought back to something the woodsman had to
ld me on the path home, shortly after handing over the last of the odd tablets I had taken from the Hanging City, the same as those I had seen in the Catacombs. Once through the gate, I decided to head towards Everdeep.

  We had just put the Ghost Pines behind us, and Fyorn had asked if I ever thought about the whisper received in the sacred grove, the one informing us that Paplov was much improved. I needed no reminder of that whisper – it had been instrumental in my decision to return to Harrow. It had initiated all that followed, both wondrous and tragic. In an almost apologetic tone, he had commented that such blunders were unheard of and that the Hurlorns had never before been so far off the mark in any of their tellings.

  “They have a higher purpose in mind,” the woodsman had said. He seemed to let himself explore the thought a little further rather than defend it, all the while examining the small tablet from the Hanging City. I fixated on my footsteps over the soft pine needles as I wove my way around jagged rocks and over jutting roots. “If this is what I think it is, Gan should be able to pressure Harrow to cease and desist any activities planned for the bog. I’ll just say that a ‘source’ acquired it from the Catacombs. Got it?”

  “Close enough,” I replied.

  It was a good idea, but unnecessary. I did not know it at the time, but by then Harrow’s excursion into the bog had already been delayed – mining hands and equipment had been diverted to the task of clearing out the collapsed stadium and putting the dead to proper rest.

  To this day, I wonder if I had been misled purposely by the Hurlorns. It must be said that I never questioned Fyorn’s motives. He was forthright at the grove and was not opposed to me turning my back on Harrow and instead heading home to see Paplov immediately. If only I had done just that, I would have made it back in time to say goodbye, and maybe a few other important things.