by Obert Skye
“Hello, Leven.” It wasn’t his mom.
“Antsel?”
Antsel nodded and reached out to touch Leven’s shoulder.
“I wasn’t talking about you,” Leven pointed out.
Antsel smiled. “This may feel like the den of the dead, but it isn’t.”
Clover snored loudly and turned over.
“What’re you doing here?” Leven said, feeling disappointed.
“I came to warn you.”
“Of what?”
“Between ten and eleven, he will attack.”
“Who?”
“It will be the last stand for him,” Antsel said.
“I don’t understand.”
“You’re almost there,” Antsel said. “What an accomplishment you are.”
“I’ve done nothing,” Leven said angrily. “What I want is to get off this island and to be with Geth and Winter.”
“You’ll understand,” Antsel said kindly.
“I’ve been shelved.”
“Look how passionate you are,” Antsel observed. “From a boy to a warrior—perfect.”
“Let me fight,” Leven begged.
“Clear your life and you will fight,” Antsel insisted. “You have no idea how powerful a settled soul is. It is necessary that you have no inner conflict. Now, between ten and eleven.”
“Tonight?” Leven asked desperately.
The flame flickered back to orange and the speckled outline of Antsel was gone.
Clover mumbled in his sleep, “I’m a lot taller than I look.”
“Ahhh,” Leven said to himself, lying back down. “If I ever get off this island, I’m going to have it buried.”
Leven closed his eyes and tried to see the future.
Chapter Thirty
Karma
There are few things more miraculous than a new day. Nothing wipes away the concern of yesterday like a good sleep and the promise of tomorrow. It’s amazing how heavy and impossible something might be at night, but the next morning you’re wondering why you ever worried. It doesn’t matter where I am or what I’m doing, there’s always something magical about starting again.
I remember when I was in China once, I had spent the night answering questions that I didn’t want to answer and being treated as if I were a spy. That was a dark night. But I also remember the next morning, when I was escorted out of my cell and taken to a bus, how the sunlight shone off the front of the bus and the smell and sounds of a new day almost made everything better. Of course, getting free also required a pair of smuggled tweezers, a car filled with priests, and one well-timed train accident. But I’m not sure I would have felt so happy if it had not all gone down during the dawning of a new day.
Well, unfortunately, Reality had seen its last regularly scheduled dawn for a while. Our single moon couldn’t decide if it should go up, down, or sideways, and the sun was acting sluggish and depressed.
“What’s up with the sky?” Janet asked.
“What’s up with the world?” Tim countered.
They were currently in their stolen blue jeep going over a hundred miles an hour down a road heading north. The highway was filled with other cars whose occupants had long given up on the speed limit.
Thick patches of sarus flew across the sky, and Tim watched as one of those patches descended on a car and lifted it right up off of the road. The sky behind the sarus was changing different colors and appeared to be rolling from side to side.
Tim looked in his rearview mirror at Osck and Janet. He wanted so badly for it to just be the lighting, but he could tell they were fading. Janet caught him looking.
“What?” she asked.
“Are you two okay?”
“I feel sick,” Osck said. “I move my arms, but they don’t feel like they belong to me. And my body hurts because Janet’s changing shades. They were right, weren’t they?”
“What are you talking about?” Tim asked. “Who was right?”
“Those who fought against Azure,” Osck said. “We shouldn’t be here. We’re dying.”
Tim was silent as the car continued to race forward.
“We could go back,” Tim suggested. “But I’m afraid we would never get through the entrance. There are probably still hundreds coming through.”
“I can’t go back,” Janet said. “I have to see myself.”
“But . . .” Osck started to say.
“I have to see myself before I fade,” Janet insisted. “I need to tell myself what I’ve learned and make sure that I understand about Winter.”
“I don’t know how much time we have,” Tim said.
“Then I want to die trying.” Janet looked at Osck.
“It’s a fair plan,” he said, smiling at her.
Tim pulled off the road and raced into a service station. Two short men inside were intently listening to a radio. They looked at Tim as if he were a salesman peddling something they didn’t want any part of.
“Stay in the back,” Tim whispered to Janet and Osck. “I’m not sure what these people will think of you.”
Tim stepped out of the car and in through the open door. “Hello.”
One man nodded.
“Would it be possible to buy some gas?” Tim asked.
“You got cash?” the fatter one asked.
Tim nodded.
“Where you heading to?” the other asked. “There’s a war going on.”
“I know,” Tim said. “I’m just trying to get home before it gets messier.”
The radio was talking about windy telts messing with the Golden Gate Bridge. All three of them listened for a few moments and then shivered.
“Well, then, help yourself,” the fatter man said. “I ain’t going to charge a man trying to get home to his family during the end of the world.”
“Yeah,” the other one agreed. “What if that karma stuff’s for real?”
“Then this should cover me,” the fatter clerk smiled.
Tim filled up the car and sped off. As he was making his way to the main road, a giant avaland tore across the opposite road and missed hitting Tim head-on by two feet. The avaland wiggled under the road, sending another car rolling.
Tim swerved and drove faster.
“Did you see that?” Tim asked. “I hope we make it.”
Tim looked at Osck and Janet in his rearview mirror. They were huddled together and trembling.
“I must be on drugs,” Tim said to himself. “The world’s falling apart, and here I am chauffeuring a ghost and a man made of fire.”
“What about me?” Swig asked, materializing in the passenger’s seat.
Tim looked down in amazement.
“Swig,” Tim cheered. “I thought you were out.”
“I was,” Swig answered. “But I got to thinking how helpless you all were without me and I thought it just might be the right decision to tag along.”
“You’ve been here the whole time?”
Swig nodded while reaching up to put his seat belt on. He clicked it and smoothed out his fur. “Can’t this thing go any faster?”
Tim pushed the gas pedal all the way down and flew.
Chapter Thirty-One
Maybe Just a Bite
This day looks better than yesterday,” Clover said cheerfully as he hopped from moss-covered stone to moss-covered stone.
“Really?” Leven replied. “That’s because you slept well. All I see is trees and rocks and . . . oh, look, there’s some more trees.”
“Where?” Clover asked, excited.
“Seriously,” Leven said. “It’s beginning to feel a little hopeless. I’d give anything to see Geth and Winter and have them point the way.”
“They’re not the Want,” Clover pointed out. “And you have a path to follow. I bet even if they were here pointing, you would stick to the path.”
Leven stopped and stared at Clover. “When did you get so wise?”
“Probably school,” Clover answered. “I had a really good teacher—Professor Winsnicker. He said
he was the smartest teacher Foo’s ever had.”
“Wow,” Leven said, smiling.
“So who do you think’s up ahead?” Clover asked, springing from the ground to Leven’s right shoulder.
“You know, I’ve thought about it, and I kind of never really squared things off with that Phoebe girl.”
“Oh,” Clover cooed. “Nice one.”
“What?” Leven said defensively. “I’m not kidding. I mean, I unlocked her cage and that was it.”
“And how would you finish that?” Clover asked. “With a big kiss?”
“Forget it,” Leven said, frustrated. “I was just saying.”
“No,” Clover replied. “I can’t wait to tell Winter about what you were just saying.”
“I take back everything I ever mentioned about you being wise.”
The glass path widened as they came to the edge of a massive river. Leven could barely see across to the other side. He stood there with Clover on top of his head staring at the swift-moving water.
“I still don’t like water,” Leven said.
“Really?” Clover asked, surprised. “It’s so refreshing.”
“I like to drink it,” Leven clarified. “But I don’t like to be in it.”
“Well, that is a lot of water,” Clover observed.
“Thanks.”
“And look,” Clover pointed. “There’s a bunch of oaf fish.”
“Are they bad?” Leven asked, trying to see what Clover was pointing at. “You mean those huge black things?
Clover nodded.
“They look like whales.”
“Well, do you think any of your Wave friends are in this river?” Clover asked.
Leven called out, but nobody answered.
“Interesting,” Clover said.
“What is?”
“Well, it’s just interesting how those Waves aren’t here but I am,” Clover said.
“Interesting and lucky,” Leven replied, lifting Clover off of his head.
“So,” Clover asked, “how are we getting across?”
“Maybe we’re not supposed to cross it,” Leven suggested.
“Nice try.”
“How deep do you think it is?” Leven asked.
“I have no idea,” Clover answered. “You could wade into it and find out, but stay away from the fish.” Clover paused to stare at Leven’s hands. “Are you okay? Does the water really make you sweaty?”
“I don’t know,” Leven said, wiping sweat off his forehead. “I don’t feel right. My hands feel all tingly—and look at my fingers.”
Leven held up his hands and showed them to Clover. There was a strange sharpness to his mitts. Whereas his fingers were normally round on the edges, they now had sharper, squared-off corners and ends.
“Weird,” Clover said.
“It started this morning,” Leven admitted. “I was kind of hoping it would wear off.”
“You don’t want that to wear off,” Clover said kindly. “We sycophants are supposed to help you develop your gifts. The thing is, you have so many gifts I forget that more could be coming.”
“This is a gift?” Leven asked, holding up his hands.
“You’ll learn how to control it,” Clover said. “So your hands won’t look like that when you don’t want them to, like when you’re at the prom. You can make them normal.”
“Again with the prom.”
“You only get one,” Clover said defensively.
“So what kind of gift is this?” Leven asked.
“Remember when you were fighting the Ring of Plague and that one nit fell off the onick and then dug himself into the soil and popped back out at you?”
“Kind of,” Leven admitted.
“You can burrow,” Clover said. “Try it.”
Leven bent down and thrust his hands into the ground. Large swatches of dirt effortlessly twisted around his hands and arms as if he were a drill bit.
“Now pull back,” Clover instructed.
Leven pulled his arms back and there, with almost no effort, was a nice round hole big enough for him to crawl through.
“Wow,” Leven whispered. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“About the prom?”
Leven’s eyes glowed gold. “No, we could just tunnel under the river.”
Clover liked the idea. So much so that he smiled and began to dance anxiously on Leven’s left shoulder. “Do it.”
Leven stepped off the path and bent down at the side of the river. He thrust his hands into the dirt as deep as he could. The soil seemed to magically twist up around him and gather behind. He shifted his position and dug deeper. The movement was new to him, but it felt natural. His ability to see through soil made it possible for him to see where he was going and just how deep the river was. Unfortunately for Leven, just because he had the gift of burrowing didn’t make him an engineer. And any self-respecting engineer could have seen that Leven was burrowing way too close to the river.
Leven burrowed ten feet down and started to angle farther.
When he got twenty feet down, the weight of the water against the walls of his tunnel became too great. The walls began to crack and water crashed in, filling the tunnel and sucking Leven out into the river.
“I hate water,” Leven gagged as he was swept up into the heart of the river.
Leven heard Clover hollering something about how the world needed water to live. He also felt the pull of water carrying him deeper down into the river. Fat oaf fish smacked up against him, and his arm scratched against a large, jagged rock. Leven tried to relax, hoping he might have the gift of breathing underwater, but his lungs began to burn violently. He clawed his way to the surface, got two breaths of air, and was pulled down under again.
Leven kicked and pulled at the heavy robe he was wearing. It felt like a mushy chain pulling him down. He pulled out his kilve and wriggled out of his robe.
He let the robe go as his lungs began to burn again. He pushed his head above the water and sucked in air as quickly as he could. In his mind he pleaded for the Baadyn to come save him, or for Garnock to wash up underneath him and carry him to safety. But nobody came to his rescue.
Leven hit a huge rock and was propelled upward. His body shot out of the water, and he was able to gulp down some air before he was slapped back into some surging rapids. The river became deeper, and there was no sign of any sides or bottom.
Another huge fish bumped into him, biting his right side. He couldn’t see the fish clearly, but it looked like a big, dark ball. A different and even larger fish came up from below and completely swallowed Leven’s legs.
Leven kicked as hard as he could and stabbed the fish with his kilve. The fish let go, and Leven sprang to the top of the river, desperately gasping for air. As soon as his lungs were filled he was pulled back under by a twisting current.
Two huge fish squeezed around him as he moved into the middle of a school of whale-sized oaf fish. Leven stabbed one that was coming at him and punched another as his lungs began to scream for air again. Leven kicked off a particularly huge oaf fish and paddled for the surface.
He was too slow.
The large fish opened its mouth and with one smooth gulp swallowed Leven.
Leven’s eyes glowed strong. It was suddenly quiet, and he could see he was inside a large stomach. There was some air to breathe, but it wasn’t the kind of fresh air you joyfully suck in. It was more the rotten, foul, Dumpster kind of air that you desperately try to blow out. Leven wobbled about as the fish swam up and down in the river. He tried to pry open the fish’s throat or mouth with his kilve, but the opening he had come through was sealed shut.
A trickling, hissing sound could be heard.
Leven looked down to see that small holes in the bottom of the fish’s stomach were beginning to ooze. Leven touched some of the ooze with his right foot, and instantly the plastic on his shoes began to melt. The smell of hot plastic added to the other unpleasant aromas.
“I’m
going to be digested,” Leven moaned, banging hard on the inside of the fish.
The hissing got louder and stronger as the bile filled the stomach from the bottom up. Leven jammed his kilve into one side of the fish’s stomach and then pushed it so that it was wedged up against the other, creating a bar across the whole stomach. Leven lay across that bar watching the bile rise.
“Clover?”
There was no answer.
Leven foraged frantically in his pocket. His fingers brushed up against the Filler Crisps Clover had given him earlier.
Leven smiled.
He took the two crackers out of his pocket and crumbled them in his hands. He then dropped all of the crumbs into the bile. Instantly the crackers began to whine and expand, and foam pressed up against Leven.
“Open your mouth,” Leven yelled at the fish. “Open your mouth!”
The foam pushed up and around Leven.
“Spit me out!”
The foam filled Leven’s nose and mouth and ears, pressing in on him tightly and squeezing him up against the inside of the fish. Once again Leven couldn’t breathe, but this time it was because of foam.
The Filler Crisps continued to expand.
Leven could feel his nose being pushed inward and his body being crammed into one tight ball. The pressure against his ears was so great that his head began to pound and ring. It took all the strength he had to move his hands over his ears. He wanted to scream, but there was no room for it. It felt as if his entire body were being pumped like a blood-pressure test.
The pressure was too great.
Leven’s eyes were pushing in, his stomach was being shoved up into his ribs, and he had foam in places where foam should never be as the Filler Crisps filled the fish’s stomach well beyond capacity.
Four seconds before the pressure would have collapsed all his organs, a tremendous explosion rocked his ears and Leven felt himself flying through the air. His body slammed down against something hard, and then there was nothing but sweet relief and a dizzying unconsciousness.
ii
“You’re off course,” a strong voice said.
“Is he?” another voice questioned. “Or is this how it was meant to be?”
“You might want to get up,” Clover whispered into Leven’s right ear.
