by Jerry Hart
“No more! We don’t need them. You all think I am evil, but I am not. I heard my twisted story told in the history classes and I am saddened. I was cast out by a world that didn’t understand me. They wanted to kill my kind and me.
“Rockne was a wizard, just like me. He was a tad misguided. I know what he tried to do. He tried to replace his brother as the nature demon.”
I looked at Mom, confused. How could he possibly know that?
“I know,” Dargo continued, as if reading my mind, “because he told me so himself. He used to visit me in my prison, long after he put me there. He kept me updated about the changing world. For every new technology the world created, I grew angrier. The world I hated with every fiber of my being was evolving while I rotted away in a cylinder on an island no one could see.
“I feared none of my fellow islanders—my people—cared what happened to me. But, then, Emil came to my aid.” Dargo looked at Andor, who sat next to Victor. Andor said and did nothing, only stared. “Andor’s great-grandfather stole the key from Rockne and released me from my prison. Once I had control over him, I returned to my hidden lair to unleash my birds, just the way I planned to before Rockne dethroned me and put Aneela’s ancestor in my place.”
He glared at Aneela with Josh’s eyes.
“Unfortunately,” he said, looking at the rest of the hall, “an earthquake trapped me in my chamber by the well. Emil perished and…” He seemed to consider what to say next. “And, the rest is history, my friends.”
I looked at Mom again. “I was right,” I said.
“Congratulations, dear,” she said sarcastically.
“And now I have Andor to thank for rescuing me again.” Dargo raised a goblet. “Your loyal family has ensured the continuation of Dargo Island.” He held his goblet in front of him, waiting. “You won’t drink with me?” he asked Andor.
Mom and I stared at Andor as he slowly reached for his goblet.
“There’s my boy,” Dargo called cheerfully before taking a huge gulp of his wine.
Chapter 25: Almost Easy
A few seconds after he finished drinking, Dargo realized something was wrong. He looked at his goblet, curious, and then looked at Andor, who still had his hand on his goblet but hadn’t picked it up.
Dargo placed his free hand on his chest and made a face. “What’s happening to me?”
Aneela stood up. “You’ve been poisoned, and that poison is slowly, but surely, killing you.”
He frowned at her, and then dropped his goblet. “I will leach everyone in this room if I…have to.” His breathing quickened and I could see he was sweating heavily. “I will kill you for this, Aneela.”
He looked to the woman closest to him. “You. I will have your life.”
He reached for her, but instead of making contact, his hand went through her. She disappeared a second later. Dargo’s eyes widened as the room quickly emptied. Nearly everyone at the table, including Andor, vanished. The only people left were Mom, Aneela, Estevan, Victor and myself.
“What is this deception?” Dargo screamed.
“After you sent invites,” Aneela said, “we made it so the islanders would not come to the palace. Andor, however, couldn’t be persuaded, so we drugged him and left him in his bed. I will deal with him later. We also had Verna and the cooks leave. You are alone.”
I remembered trying to explain to Verna how the teleporter in the closet worked. It had taken a lot longer than necessary. That woman knew how to cook, but that appeared to be the extent of her knowledge.
“As for what’s happening to you,” Aneela continued, “I convinced Verna to slip the poison into your drink. It has no antidote,” Aneela added convincingly. “You will die if you don’t leave Josh’s body immediately.”
Dargo smiled with Josh’s lips. “I am not alone in this hall. I have you five.”
On cue, we all grabbed our own goblets.
“We also have poison in our drinks,” Aneela said, and this time she wasn’t lying. We didn’t want to chance Dargo’s ability to leach. “If you try to take our lives, we will drink, and you will be right back where you started.”
Dargo leaned against the table, looking much weaker by the second. His breathing was loud and squeaky, and he looked like he’d run from one end of the island to the other without stopping. “Are you really ready to kill your friend in order to get rid of me?”
“You better believe it,” Estevan said. “I’m new to the island, but I do know you tried to kill everyone I care about on the mainland. If killing Josh kills you as well, it will be worth it. Josh knows that as well as we do.”
“Tried to?” Dargo asked, sitting down in his chair. “Even now my plan is in motion to kill the outsiders.”
I smiled. “Not anymore. Not only did I kill your birds, but I also took your cure to the mainland. As we speak, everyone infected is being cured.”
He frowned at me. I doubted Josh could look that angry on his own.
“I’m going to kill you, sweet thing. All I have to do is return to my skeleton, and then from there I can possess anyone I choose.”
We all looked at each other, feigning worry. Anything to convince him to leave Josh. Hopefully, he would get lost trying to locate his body and would simply perish.
Instead, he looked curious while sweat completely covered his face. My heart sped up the more time Josh suffered the poison. I didn’t know how much time was left to give him the antidote.
“Why can’t I locate my body?” Dargo asked. “I just checked it before dinner.” He looked at me. “What did you do with it?”
So much for that plan.
Mom suddenly groaned. Dargo stared at her, concentrating. She reached for her goblet but couldn’t grab it, so I picked it up and brought it to her lips. Dargo released her and she started coughing.
“You weren’t bluffing,” he said, chuckling weakly. “Oh, well. I shall venture outside the palace and find someone else.” He pushed his chair back with such force that it shattered against the wall behind him.
“There’s no one on the island,” I said. “I sent them away.”
“Impossible. The train is guarded by my own loyal men, and they wouldn’t dare defy me. I made sure of it.”
“They weren’t loyal to you; they’re gone as well. And I didn’t say I used the train.”
He looked up. “Ah, you sent them to your father. Clever. You know I can’t get up there without the aid of a nature demon. I didn’t think you could either. Though, you forgot one thing,” he said in a way that scared me. “Andor is asleep in his bed, as you said earlier. I conversed with him plenty of times after I was released, so I know where he lives.”
“Good luck getting to him,” Victor said. “You’ll have to go through us, Dargonius.”
“I planned to do just that.”
And then he roared, sending wind so powerful it shot all of us, including the table and chairs, into the air. The large hall doors splintered open, and just before I landed I saw Dargo flying past us and out of the palace.
Chapter 26: Dargo Takes Flight
“How much time does Dargo have left?” I asked Victor as he helped me up. The table consisted of several sections, and one of them had landed on top of Mom and I. I was fine, but she had a broken leg.
“Not much. Several minutes, at least.”
“I have to catch him before he gets to Andor.”
I took the jar of antidote from Victor, ran outside, and called on the wind. It lifted me from the ground and carried me across the courtyard and over the gate. I cursed myself for not thinking of sending Andor up to Dad’s realm along with the others. I figured Aneela was doing the same thing for mentioning he was still on the island. Neither of us knew Dargo could fly, or that he wouldn’t be able to leave his host’s body if his own skeleton was gone.
As I flew, I saw Dargo’s red cloak flapping in the wind. He was struggling to fly, but he was a lot closer to Andor’s house than I was. I called on more wind, and some lightni
ng as well. Dargo dodged all of the strikes but one, which caused him to lose height and fall toward the ground.
He crashed, shooting dirt into the air. Unfortunately, he landed right outside a house I assumed to be Andor’s. Before I could land, he was on his feet and running through the front door. Instead of following him, I shot through Andor’s bedroom window. I landed on the floor in a pool of broken glass, which cut my arms. I ignored the pain and blood, locking the bedroom door.
Andor was on the bed, his eyes closed. I tried to pick him up, to take him away from the house, but the bedroom door burst open with a shot of cyan-colored energy. Dargo walked in a second later and shot me with that same energy.
I hit the opposite wall and dropped to the floor, dazed. I saw him lean over Andor, who suddenly arched his back off the bed, gasping. Dargo was leaching the life out of him. Andor would die in his sleep.
“Josh, don’t let him do this!”
Dargo stopped and looked at me, surprised by my sudden plea. “Joshua has no power over me.” He turned to go back to leaching.
“He’s stronger than you think,” I said, distracting him again. “I know he’s still in there. He vowed never to use his power again, for any reason. He won’t let you do this.”
“And yet, I am doing it,” he said without looking at me. He stared at Andor, who had dropped back to the bed.
I was out of words and couldn’t command my body to stand. I was still stunned from colliding with the wall. I thought it was weird that Dargo hadn’t resumed leaching, though. He simply stared at his victim.
“What are you waiting for?” I asked.
Dargo shook, and it took me a second to realize he was crying. He fell to the floor next to the bed. I managed to crawl toward him, and saw Dargo scratching his face violently. “Stop it, stop it! Get out of my head!”
I couldn’t tell if it was Dargo or Josh speaking, but I figured it was Dargo. I waited, not knowing what to do. The antidote was near the window; I’d dropped it as soon as I crashed through. If I didn’t act soon, Josh would die.
Dargo suddenly looked at me and laughed, and there was no doubt this time it was him. “You think you’ve won, but you haven’t.”
And then he just stopped talking. He stared at me without seeing. He was no longer breathing, either. I grabbed the jar and went to him as fast as I could, but before I could pour the antidote into his mouth, Josh’s body took a sudden, loud breath. He grabbed the hand that held the jar.
“Don’t,” he said. “Dargo’s still here. If you cure me, he’ll take over again. I can’t hold him back for long.”
“But…you’ll die.” I could barely say the words.
“It’s been a long time coming, Astrid. Without Dargo’s skeleton, he doesn’t have anything tying him to this world. If I die, he’ll be gone forever.”
I cried without shame. I rarely cry, but the tears came now. “Okay,” I said. “I’m so sorry, Josh.”
“Don’t be. I’m dying a hero.” He chuckled, and then coughed. His breathing sounded worse than ever. “I finally get to know what death is. About time—”
I dropped the jar, which rolled away from us. Josh was gone.
Chapter 27: Transformation
Everything that happened next was difficult to talk about. Estevan and I returned to the mainland and told Josh’s parents what happened. There were many tears and denials about his death (“He can’t die!” his mom screamed), but they came back with us to the island. They had been so traumatized by the news they didn’t even care about the large waterfall that separated Dargo Island from their world. None of the strange sights seemed to register.
They met Aneela, who apologized for what had happened to their son, but told them he died a hero. They allowed us to bury Josh on the island, though I doubt they would have if Estevan hadn’t explained everything to them. He and Josh had been friends since childhood; they trusted him.
Josh was buried in a large, elaborate tomb built just for him. It stood on a large hill in the center of the island.
We found Dargo’s new bird, which hadn’t been injected with the plague, and destroyed it.
Aneela was as good as her word about Andor. Once the islanders were brought back from Dad’s realm, the reinstated queen locked Andor away in the palace dungeon “until I decide to release him.” She did this in front of every Dargon, in the palace courtyard, to send a message to anyone who ever decided to go against her rule.
“If we ever face a threat as great as this,” she said, “or any threat, for that matter, we will face it together.”
The crowd cheered.
“And let’s get rid of this silly paint,” she added. “We can talk now, after all.”
Aneela and Commander Rhys eventually admitted their love for one another, got married, and produced an heir. A boy named Joshua.
During the day, I spent most of my time in Dad’s realm to avoid the old-lady curse. He continued to train me, but my heart was rarely into it. I mostly produced depressing storms. After a while, he left me alone to do whatever I wanted with nature. “As long as no one gets hurt,” he said, before going into his cloud-palace.
I created a couple of tornadoes in empty fields and flew around a bit before landing on a large, mountainous cloud. I wouldn’t have thought twice about this cloud if I hadn’t heard someone call my name from it.
After landing, I searched but found no one around. Who could have possibly called me from a cloud anyway? I was about to fly away when I heard my name again. This time, the voice had come from the top of the cloud. I flew to the peak, where I saw the silhouette of a figure. It looked like a boy made out of the cloud itself. I couldn’t see the face at first, but once I flew closer, I recognized it immediately.
“Josh?”
“About time you heard me,” he said. “I’ve been calling you from different clouds for days. I can’t get out, though.”
I was still in shock, but I grabbed his hand and managed to pull him out of the cloud. He looked like flesh and blood, the way he had when he was alive.
“What am I?” he asked.
“I think you’re a nature demon now. It must be because of the energy Dad used for the curse. He said he didn’t know what would happen to you if you died.” I couldn’t help it. I cried.
“I guess we know now.”
I laughed. “I guess we do.”
He looked down at himself. He was completely naked. “Now what? I don’t know anything about being a nature demon.”
I hugged him and said, “I’ll teach you.”
Author’s Note
When I wrote Dargo Island, I’d planned on it being a standalone novella. A few days after publishing it, I came up with an idea for the follow-up. I wrote it in two weeks and loved it every bit as much as the first. I would say I’m finished now, but I like this world so much, I just may write another one. I have ideas for a third novella, but will leave it to the readers.
Book 3: Rapatha (The Final Tale)
Prologue: The Perfect Hiding Place
Seemingly surrounded by stars, Rapatha walked up the steep cobbled path, past the dark shops on either side. The road was so steep her legs barely managed to get her to the top. When she got there, she saw a maze of paths before her. The town of Lacey was full of magical creatures, and Rapatha worried what she might run into.
She was just as worried about what she planned to meet. She’d traveled here to speak with a man that could help her, though she didn’t know how anyone could help her with her problem. Hiding from nature demons and a wizard sounded impossible.
Pulling her hood and cloak close, she headed down the path and chose an alley to the right. She hoped the tree she’d spoken to had told her true. Rapatha had come across it while running through a forest. She had been running away from the wizard and managed to lose him, but she knew it wouldn’t be long before he found her again.
When she came across the tree, she feared it would hurt her, but it simply asked her what was wrong. It sto
od eight feet tall and blended in with the forest. Rapatha had never seen anything like it before, and marveled at the strange beauty of it. She sat with it, at its camp, and feasted on deer. It was the first solid meal she’d ever had, and she found it quite enjoyable.
After the meal, the tree again asked what was wrong. Rapatha told it some of her story, and the creature scratched its gnarled chin, as if deep in thought.
Then it told her of Lacey.
It was the last haven for magical creatures like itself, one safe from the world of man.
“Are there any wizards there?” she asked.
“None. The only wizards I know of are the brothers.” The tree’s voice was so soothing, it nearly lulled Rapatha to sleep after the meal.
“The brothers? You mean Rockne and Nalke?”
“Are there any other wizards?” the tree asked as it chuckled.
“Their father.”
“But he is a nature demon now, is he not?”
Rapatha nodded. “There is another, however. His name is Dargonius.”
“Dargonius?”
Rapatha clutched the necklace beneath her cloak, its green gem glowing. “He is a kind wizard…at times.” She couldn’t help but smile.
“I would hope so. We need a wizard on our side. Who else could protect us from the nature demons?”
Rapatha gave him a sharp look. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“The nature demons are toying with the natural world for their amusement. They cause the ground to shake, the waters to rise. They abuse their power and must be stopped.”
Rapatha shook her head. “The old demons weren’t evil. They were irresponsible, but they never meant to hurt anyone.”
The tree laughed. “You sound fond of them.”
She regained control of her words. “Not at all. In fact, I’m running away from them.”
