Everfound s-3

by Neal Shusterman

  “Add more muscle,” he would tell the luchador, for he had long since unremembered how scrawny he had once been. “The gods will be pleased,” he would often say, for a Mayan king was a reflection of the gods, so the more glory that he heaped upon himself the greater the joy of the gods-or so he reasoned. Overseeing this project was so important, he gave his vizier control over the kingdom-everything but allowing him to sit on the throne-primarily because the throne had been moved in front of the forge to face the statue. The vizier-a sort of mystical spiritual advisor-was more than happy to run the kingdom.

  As the statue neared completion, the more obsessed with it the king became. He had unremembered that the statue was a worthless tribute to his own arrogance… and by the power of his own unremembrance, he turned something worthless into the single most important object in the world.

  Upon arriving, Jix, Mikey, and Nick were brought directly to the forge. Had the vizier been able to intercept them, things might have gone differently, because he had a tendency to make visitors disappear before ever reaching the king-but the vizier was with the king at the time, so couldn’t prevent His Excellency from seeing them.

  The vizier, however, behaved very oddly today. The moment the new arrivals were brought into the forge, the vizier hurried behind the statue to hide. The king might have wondered why, if he weren’t so absorbed in watching the metal-molding luchador build his glorious likeness.

  Jix walked into his field of vision, and the king seemed annoyed. “Your Excellency,” said Jix. “I have returned with gifts from the North.” He spoke in English so the king would respond in the same tongue.

  “Oh,” said the king. “It’s you. Didn’t we just send you on a mission?”

  “That was more than a month ago, Your Excellency.”

  Nick hung back with Mikey and watched the interchange, trying to take in everything around him. Nick studied the king, his shiny black onyx throne, the statue, and the diligent luchador-even the vizier, who peered out every few moments from behind the statue, so hidden in shadows he could barely be seen. Nick’s gut told him that something was very wrong here, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was. As for the king, Nick found him to be overadorned and so full of himself that he might just explode in a flurry of glitter. He had straight hair, as dark and shiny as raven feathers. He wore a golden headdress, golden wrist cuffs and golden anklets, and a golden skirt that went almost to his knees, and the way his hair was cut in bangs straight across his forehead, it made him look like a very short, very tan, very shiny Mr. Spock. Other than the gold adornments, though, the king had no other clothes. It was clear that these objects were all add-ons, and didn’t cling to him as Everlost clothes would. Nick suspected that he either crossed naked, or in a loincloth beneath his golden skirt-but Nick was definitely not curious enough to check.

  “Your assignment was to bring us the Eastern Witch,” the king said to Jix, “but neither of these two look like her, unless she is very clever with disguises.”

  “DON’T TRUST THEM!” screeched the vizier from behind the statue. “CAST THEM DOWN TO XIBALBA. THE STARS TELL ME THEY WILL BRING YOUR DOOM.”

  While Jix looked concerned, and Mikey just annoyed, something about the vizier’s voice tripped in Nick’s mind. His thought processes had gotten better, but he was still not fully himself. There were memories and thoughts bouncing around his head that had not found a suitable place to cling… and one of those loose memories was the sound of the vizier’s voice. Was it his imagination or did the vizier sound familiar?

  The king just reclined on his dark stone throne, dismissing the fearful prophecy with a wave of his hand, as if swatting away a gnat. “We see no stars; it is daytime.” Then he turned to the luchador. “It is daytime, isn’t it?” But apparently he had been in there for so long, he had no idea.

  “Why does he keep saying ‘we’?” Mikey whispered to Jix. “Are there more than one of him in there?”

  “No,” Jix whispered back. “Royalty always does that, even if there’s just one.”

  “We do not approve of secret conversations,” said the king. “We demand to know what you are talking about!”

  “We’re talking about the Eastern Witch, Your Excellency,” said Jix. “She is a powerful enemy: She broke through your barrier of wind, and at this moment she threatens to destroy the living world.”

  “What do we care about the living world?” said the king.

  Suddenly Mikey stepped forward and spoke brashly. “If she does it, then thousands, maybe millions, will be under her control, and she will declare herself Queen of Everlost.”

  The king raised an eyebrow. “It speaks!”

  “I’m not an ‘it,’” growled Mikey.

  Jix grimaced, but the king merely gave his gnat-chasing wave. “Of course you’re an ‘it.’ You are an ‘it’ until we say that you are not.”

  Mikey opened his mouth to say something, but the king cut him off. “Being an ‘it’ makes you an object, and we don’t ever remember seeing an object move of its own free will. No, we don’t remember that at all.”

  Then all at once, Mikey was frozen in place, unable to move, standing as stiff as the statue, thanks to the king’s unremembrance.

  “Now, then,” said the king, “what is this other gift you bring me?”

  “A boy of chocolate,” said Jix.

  The king smiled. “This is something new.” He rose from his throne and approached Nick, looking him over, dabbing his finger to the tip of Nick’s nose and then tasting the chocolate on his fingertip. Then the king laughed. “We should forget that there aren’t more spirits like you!” the king said. “And perhaps we’ll forget them in different flavors. Coconut, strawberry, tamarind…”

  “Please, Your Excellency,” said Nick, thinking quickly, “I am one-of-a-kind, and if there were more, I wouldn’t be the special gift that I am. One flavorful spirit for the one true king.”

  The king considered it. “Very well. But we may choose to unremember your flavor if the royal taste buds tire of chocolate.”

  “That,” said Nick, “would be fine with me.”

  “DESTROY THEM,” hissed the vizier, still hiding behind the statue. “THROW THEM INTO THE CENOTE RIGHT NOW.”

  The king sighed. “Our vizier doesn’t like you, but we have yet to pass judgment.” Then he turned to Mikey, who was still unable to move. “Your chocolate friend’s wisdom has saved you. We shall unremember that you are an object that cannot move.” And in an instant, Mikey was no longer frozen in place.

  “So,” said the king. “We assume that the jaguar-boy would not bring us a gift that did nothing.” The king folded his arms, looking intently at Mikey. “We order you to impress us!”

  Jix nodded to Mikey, and Mikey transformed into various spontaneous creations. The king actually applauded.

  “We are truly amused! The gods themselves would be amused!”

  Mikey transformed back into himself, and folded his arms in the same superior way that the king had done.

  “You shall be my personal mascot!” said the king. “I shall parade you on a diamond-studded leash and you will become whatever creation I desire.”

  Mikey stared at him, eyes bulging furiously, growing more and more veins.

  The king matched his anger, staring into those bulging eyes. “Do I sense that my mascot has become unruly? Perhaps I should listen to my vizier’s advice.”

  “YES, YES!” yelled the vizier. “LISTEN TO ME AND SEND THEM TO XIBALBA!”

  Mikey’s eyes bulged just a little bit more… and then, to everyone’s amazement, Mikey got down on his knees, then on all fours, and spread himself out on the floor before the king.

  “I will be a rug before your feet, your Excellency, from now until the end of time, if you agree to battle the Eastern Witch.” Then he transformed himself into something flat and furry. He would have resembled a bear-skin rug if he didn’t have a dozen eyes.

  The king looked at him a bit disgusted. “We have
enough rugs,” he said. “But we like the way you think.” The king tapped his lip, as he considered the rug-boy before him. “We’ve changed our mind. If you will entertain, with brand new forms that we have never seen before, We shall agree not to put you on a leash if we can help it.”

  Mikey transformed back into himself, and bowed. “Your Excellency has a most gentle and merciful spirit.”

  “Of course we do,” the king said.

  “But about the Eastern Witch…,” Mikey said.

  “The Eastern Witch will wait until we feel like dealing with her.”

  “CAST THEM DOWN NOW,” the vizier cried out. “DO IT, BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!”

  The king shook his head. “Our vizier is having a bad day.” It was Jix who spoke up. “Your Excellency, pardon me for being so forward.. . but I think that any spirit who has a mind to condemn me and my gifts, should do it to my face.”

  “Very well,” the king said. He snapped his fingers to the blue luchador. “Fetch the vizier for us.”

  The luchador put down his metal-working tools, went behind the statue, grabbed the vizier, and although he tried to escape, he was much smaller and weaker. The luchador was able to lift him up by his armpits and bring him to the king, in spite of the way he squirmed and kicked.

  “We present to you the Royal Vizier,” the king said, and Nick just stared at him in disbelief. Finally, that stray bouncing memory stuck in his mind like a spit wad, and he said, “Vari?”

  The small, curly-blond boy looked at Nick with that permanently pinched face he always had when he had served as Mary’s rotten little toady.

  “CAST THEM OUT! SEND THEM DOWN! XIBALBA! XIBALBA!” Vari screeched.

  The king was hugely amused. “You know each other?”

  “Vari used to serve the Eastern Witch,” Nick said.

  “Well, now,” said the king. “At last our day has become interesting.”

  The path that brought Vari to Chitchen Itza was a strange one. He had shed his name of “Stradivarius,” pretending to be the McGill when he sailed in the Sulphur Queen across the Atlantic Ocean, but that didn’t last very long. He might have been an excellent violin player, but he was a lousy monster. Still, he had seen the wonders of Atlantis

  … and then had been thrown out. He had seen the glory of Pompeii. .. and had been exiled from it. He had strode the halls of the great library of Alexandria… and had been tossed down its thousand steps and told never to return by the Afterlights who inhabited it.

  While Pinhead-his second-in-command-had found a cushy job giving guided tours of the Tower of Babel, Vari had no such luck. Wherever he went, he eventually wore out his welcome because he was so painfully irritating. Sure, everyone enjoyed the melody of a well-played violin, but it was hardly worth putting up with the boy who played it.

  He thought he might fit in with a horde of young Vikings because he looked somewhat Scandinavian. But after only a month, he was set adrift aboard a perpetually burning Viking funeral ship.

  Eventually, he got picked up by the Titanic which had been taken over by a gang of angry dead Icelandic youth, who seemed content to do nothing but hunt narwhal… but since narwhal had never been known to cross into Everlost, nothing was ever caught. He got a gig as the second violin in the Titanic ’s string quartet, but there was only so long he could stand playing “Nearer My God To Thee” over and over, with no actual hope of hitting an iceberg and sinking. Eventually he hatched a mutiny plan, which failed miserably, and, once more, he was set adrift-this time in a lifeboat.

  After several months at sea, he landed on the Yucatan Peninsula, where he was caught by the king’s army and brought to the king. Vari quickly learned that his knowledge of the world made him a valuable spirit to the king. At last he was appreciated.

  Since time immemorial, the king’s vizier had been a pudgy Toltec girl who told fortunes by reading entrails of goats-which were extremely hard to come by in Everlost-and while fortune cookies always yielded undeniable truths, goat entrails were a little bit iffy. Once Vari told the king about the Eastern Witch, the king (at Vari’s suggestion) hurled the Toltec girl into the Cenote and put Vari in charge of all prognostication. Now, as the king became more and more entranced by his statue, the kingdom fell more and more into Vari’s hands, which is exactly what he wanted. Things had been looking up for Vari. Until today.

  To: stopmarynow@gmail. com

  From: Bobwurldtravlur@aol. com

  Subject: We’re in the City of Souls

  It’s Jix. Good work Allie with milos amp; moose. Worried about Jill. King hard 2 convince 2 join us. Mikey says stay safe, allie. Guess what? Hindenburg is here.

  Sent from bob’s iphone

  After several days home, Jix was getting increasingly anxious. Home simply did not feel like home anymore. All the noise and excitement seemed to pale now that there was something truly worthy of his attention. And someone. Jix would skinjack tourists on a regular basis, using their iPhones, or whatever they had, to check the e-mail address that Allie set up, hoping for a message from Jill, but usually the “stopmarynow” mailbox was either empty or had an update from Allie. The fact that no e-mails had come from Jill was a very bad omen, and made him want to get back to a place where he could help her, or at least find her. He knew that Mikey felt the same about Allie. The distance, and the lack of interest from the king in their cause, made them feel helpless.

  From past experience, Jix knew that the king could be conjoled into doing many things if he thought it was his own idea. Such cajoling, however, could take months. Usually time was not an issue, but they didn’t have months. The one good thing was the airship. It could provide them with a fast means of getting them where they needed to go, if only the king would see how serious the threat was. If not, Jix resolved that he, Mikey, and Nick would take it themselves… although without the king, his power of unremembrance, and his army, their chances against Mary Hightower were slim.

  Johnnie-O and Choo-choo Charlie had no idea where or what Chichen Itza was when the Hindenburg arrived. All they knew was that being there was heaven on earth. The angels-who turned out not to be actual angels at all, but redheaded kids with wings-brought the drifting airship down from the heavens. The arrival of the giant airship was enough to bring the king out to personally greet them, thinking it might be the long-awaited arrival of the gods. When they turned out not to be gods, the king’s vizier adamantly insisted they be sent to Xibalba, but he was overruled when Johnnie-O presented the king with the bucket of coins. As far as the king was concerned, that bottomless bucket was more valuable than all the gold in Everlost. It was, in short, the greatest tribute that the king had ever received.

  “Let it be known,” announced the king, “that We are generous to those who are generous with us.” Thus, Johnnie-O and Charlie were rewarded with a team of personal servants, and a never-ending feast in the Hall of a Thousand Columns. All manner of crossed food and drink were set before them on a continual basis, and since Afterlights never got full, and never gained weight, it was a perfect, if somewhat overindulgent way to spend eternity. Charlie even stopped singing long enough to stuff his face.

  They had been happily dining for more than a week when Nick showed up in the City of Souls, and when Johnnie-O saw him, he embraced Nick like it was a family reunion. However, their tender moment ended abruptly once Nick opened his mouth.

  “We need to convince the king to go after Mary,” he told Johnnie.

  “What are you, nuts?” Johnnie said, his mouth stuffed with something that tasted like chicken. “Forget it. Mary’s not our problem anymore.”

  “She’s my problem and that makes her your problem.”

  “We don’t work for you anymore,” Johnnie-O said. “We quit.”

  Nick grabbed him, getting chocolate all over his shirt sleeve. “If we stay here, Mary will eventually come to the City of Souls with enough Afterlights to overthrow the king. Can you imagine this place under Mary?”

  Johnnie-O scowled at hi
m. With Mary in charge, the city would no longer be the endless party that it was, and there wouldn’t be an eternal smorgasbord for him and Charlie. “Why do you keep ruining my death?”

  Nick turned to Charlie, trying to reason with him as well, but Charlie just smiled back as he ate, saying nothing.

  From the outside world’s perspective, it might have appeared that Choo-choo Charlie had completely lost his mind, but in truth, he had never been more at peace with his place in the universe. Now the songs that had been coming out of his mouth were merrily rolling along in his head instead, swirling into one another. Although all the words of all the songs were different, the meaning to him was the same.

  You’re ready, Charlie, the songs said. It’s time to move on.

  He knew it since he first began to sing, and he could have taken a coin from the bucket, held it in his hand, and completed his journey at any time. He didn’t want to do that to Johnnie-O, though. He couldn’t leave Johnnie alone. But as long as he had the songs in his head, he didn’t mind waiting-even if he had to wait until the end of time. Now he understood how the souls at the center of the earth felt. He was one of them now, full of patience, perfectly centered in himself, even without being centered in the earth.

  It was only now that Nick was here, that Charlie felt he could leave Johnnie. So, on the evening that Nick arrived, Charlie left the Hall of a Thousand Columns and went to the forge. The king was out, making Mikey perform transformations for the king’s closest personal flatterers, which included the luchador, so no one was guarding the statue. Charlie thought he was alone. He had no idea that he had been followed.

  He walked closer to the statue, skillfully crafted from the thousands of coins collected from the souls of Chichen Itza, and the coins taken from the bucket. The statue looked like King Yax K’uk Mo’ but that was just a clever lie. No amount of disguise could hide the truth from Charlie. You could melt the coins down, pound them out, and make them look like some king’s face, but it didn’t change what they were. They were the way out.