Nightfall

by Jake Halpern

  It felt right.

  The idea that he was Kana, a shy, weak boy from Bliss, seemed like a distant memory, even an illusion. He was becoming someone else, or something else. And as he grappled with this, he understood what he had to do in the coming days—and what this meant for Marin and Line.

  Kana gritted his teeth and forced his boots back on. He could feel new wounds opening, but he ignored the pain. Marin and Line couldn’t know about this. Not yet, anyhow. His priority was to make it to the Coil and to get them on a boat and away from Bliss. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t seen movement on the seabed. The creatures would be here soon.

  Of this, he was certain.

  CHAPTER 35

  Marin had never been good at waiting. As she paced to the far end of the chapel, she came upon a narrow doorway that she hadn’t noticed before. It opened into a stairwell that spiraled into the darkened depths below.

  “There’s a set of back stairs here,” announced Marin. She looked up at Line, who was sitting on a bed of crumbling stone. “Maybe I should check them out.”

  Line shook his head. “Bad idea.”

  “I won’t go far,” said Marin.

  He stood up and joined her at the doorway. They stared into the darkness below. “It doesn’t look promising,” he said. “Just wait here—Kana will be back soon.”

  “Maybe there’s a supply room down there.”

  Line raised an eyebrow. “Doubtful. But if you have to go, we should do it together.”

  Marin peered into the stairwell, then turned back to Line. “I want to go,” she said. “I can’t just sit here.”

  Line placed his hand on her shoulder. “Wouldn’t you rather stay? We can play spin the skull and take turns doing dares and telling embarrassing stories.”

  Marin smiled and brushed the curls away from his eyes.

  “You’re right,” said Line, nodding. “We don’t have any whole skulls—maybe a nice femur?”

  “You’re a sick boy,” said Marin. She put a hand to his forehead. He didn’t feel feverish, which was a relief. “I guess you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”

  “Soon,” said Line. “That’ll happen when the hypothermia sets in.”

  Marin gave Line the candle. “I’m going to have a quick look at those stairs, okay?” She pushed away from him gently.

  “You should take the candle,” he replied, grabbing her arm as if he didn’t want to let her go.

  Marin shook her head.

  “It’s our only one,” she said. “At least until we find the one I dropped. Don’t worry—I’ll be within shouting distance.”

  “Wait a second,” he replied.

  Line picked up a piece of sodden wood. He wrapped several strands of dried seaweed around it, and thrust the makeshift torch toward the candle. It smoked terribly, but it kept a tiny flame going.

  He handed it to Marin.

  “Be quick,” he said. “I don’t think this torch will last long.”

  Marin walked back to the doorway and proceeded down the stairs. She descended slowly, testing each step to make sure it would hold. Loose pebbles and sand shifted under her feet. Water dripped steadily from somewhere nearby, and the walls were cold and slick.

  After twenty feet or so, Marin stopped. She could see very little, even with the faint torch. Her heart was beating so quickly that she felt her ears throb. The sound of dripping water had grown louder, although its location had shifted. Now it sounded like it was below her.

  “Marin? Everything all right?” Line’s voice sounded distant.

  “I’m here,” she shouted back. “I’ll be back soon.”

  In the silence that followed, the dripping water sounded louder and closer, as if it were moving toward her. Marin extended her hand in the direction of the noise and felt the hard, cold surface of a wall that abruptly ended in a corner. She moved closer to investigate and realized she had come upon another staircase. It was smaller and more narrow. Does it go all the way down to the sea? Maybe it led to a storage room with supplies. Doubtful, but worth checking.

  Marin turned to descend the smaller staircase. Droplets of water began to fall on her. The torch fizzled and went out. The darkness was total, but it didn’t matter. She knew how to get back, even in the dark. She dropped the torch and tiptoed down several steps, pausing frequently to feel the walls. They were wet but not crumbly.

  Marin forced herself to keep going. She placed her hand only inches from her face—but she couldn’t even see that. The dripping water grew louder. Now it sounded almost like a stream. The air turned pungent and moldy. Her throat tickled. And then the staircase ended. Feeling with her hands, she discovered an iron gate that spanned the entire passageway. In the middle of the gate was a half-open door, which screeched terribly as she swung it open.

  Marin stepped through the gate and stood on the other side. She knew she should return to Line. It was useless to be down here in the absolute darkness. And yet she lingered, trying to imagine what this space could be. A vast storehouse, or a passageway, or a basement, or . . . It was tantalizing.

  She took a step forward and realized that the sound of water had stopped. When had it stopped? She couldn’t remember. A sudden unease crawled up her spine, and she retreated back through the gate.

  “Yes—you should leave now.”

  Marin whirled around. The voice—soft, a little raspy, and strangely accented—drifted toward her from somewhere in that space. It was a woman’s voice, but unrecognizable to Marin. She felt rooted in place, as if heavy weights were strapped to her legs.

  “In the forest, many things are waking—and they want you gone. Do you understand?”

  It took Marin several seconds to comprehend these words. She felt as if she were underwater.

  “Go back and follow the stream through a gully. Take the trail past the old walls. Then the forest trail beyond the white stone arch. Do you know it?”

  Marin nodded.

  “You will find the river—and a cave. Inside is a sea vessel. Take it and leave.”

  “Who are you?” Marin asked. She was finding it hard to speak. “Do you mean the fishing depot?” Her voice wavered, despite her conscious effort to control it.

  “Quiet.”

  Water began to drip again, but there was something else—another noise, a shuffling of rocks and gravel on a nearby surface.

  “Go,” said the voice. “They have your scent—and they are coming for you.”

  CHAPTER 36

  Up above in the chapel, Line sat quietly. He rubbed his temples in short, staccato movements. The pressure felt good. At the same time, he closed his eyes so tightly that he could feel his facial muscles ache from the effort. When he finally relaxed, he thought—for the briefest of moments—that he heard Francis’s voice, thin and faint in the distance.

  “Francis?” he called out. It was crazy to think that his brother might be here, but he couldn’t help himself. “Francis?”

  Line pictured his brother huddled in a ball, whimpering himself to sleep—just like he’d done after their mother died.

  Stop. This is not useful. Line stood up and shook his head violently. Then he wiggled his legs, trying to loosen his calves and quads. Pull yourself together.

  It was the pain in his arm that brought him back. His ankle was feeling better, but his arm was worse. It was really hurting now—both throbbing and itching. He needed more lekar. The throbbing seemed to extend beyond the arm, radiating up into his shoulder. He felt the pulse in his neck. It was fast. Too fast? He wasn’t sure.

  Line looked up suddenly.

  He thought he’d heard something far above. Line walked into the stairwell that led to the roof and called for Kana. No reply. He climbed the stairs for a minute or two, shouting Kana’s name, but there was still no answer. He turned back. Kana was often like this—running off on his own for long
stretches. He used to do it all the time when they foraged together. Damn, Kana was good at finding mushrooms. Those eyes of his—they could spot anything in the darkness. And lately, it was more than just his eyes that were remarkable. Line thought back to when Kana had pushed that door closed at the mayor’s house. Who knew he had that kind of strength?

  Line moved his hurt arm and yelped. Tentacles of pain ran up into his shoulder and neck. He looked down at the arm. Gangrene. For a moment, he visualized Palan’s stump. He began to panic, just a little bit. There were tiny signs that something was wrong—his toes were starting to clench and sweat was gathering in the small of his back. Easy now. Don’t go there.

  To focus his mind somewhere else, Line grabbed the candle and walked methodically around the room. He climbed onto the stage at the room’s far end and was examining the stone pulpit when he took a bad step and slipped. He landed on a pile of cold, wet seaweed, and his arm felt as if it had been stabbed with red-hot needles. Line cursed loudly. He was about to get back on his feet when he noticed a latch attached to the top of a narrow metal drawer that was built into the pulpit. The drawer was so unobtrusive that, under other circumstances, he never would have seen it.

  At first it wouldn’t open, and when it finally did, there was an audible sucking noise—the sound of an airtight seal breaking. The edges of the drawer were lined with crude rubber inserts. Line had seen seals like this before. People in seaside towns often kept their most valuable papers in airtight drawers to protect against the dampness and humidity; his own mother had stored jewelry and documents in such a compartment. Line reached into the drawer and pulled out a lone piece of paper, which was so old and thin that it was almost translucent in the candlelight. It was a diagram of the citadel, showing the main staircase, the chapel, and the roof with its grasses and trees. It also showed the second stairwell—the one that Marin was now exploring—which appeared to go all the way down beneath the tower into a vast, cavernous basement.

  The diagram was etched in faded black ink, but someone had used blue ink to scrawl three crude X’s along the very bottom of the back stairwell. There was also an arrow that started on the bottom of the back stairs and pointed into the great basement. Line studied the diagram carefully but couldn’t puzzle out what the X’s or the arrow meant.

  At that very moment, Kana returned, silently emerging from the shadows.

  “About time,” said Line. “Hey, I could use more of that lekar.”

  “Sure,” said Kana. He reached into his pocket, pulled out the wooden container, and handed it to Line.

  There was very little left. Line spread a dollop of the ointment onto his forearm. Although it stung the wound and surrounding tissue at first, the sting was soon reduced to a tingle, and then the whole arm went cool and numb. Line returned the container to Kana.

  “Where’s Marin?” asked Kana. His eyes were bright and his cheeks were flushed—even without eating, he looked healthier than Line and Marin. The candle threw an arc of light onto his muscled legs . . . and onto a dark, spreading blot on Kana’s right boot.

  “She went down those stairs to look around,” Line said. “Did something happen to your foot? Is that blood?”

  Kana looked down and lifted the toe of his boot. “I slipped. Lucky it’s just a scrape.”

  Line tilted his head and looked into his friend’s blue eyes. “You are lucky.”

  Kana glanced at the darkened doorway.

  “She’ll be back soon,” said Line. “How were the Dwarf Oak Islands?”

  Kana shook his head ruefully. “No rescue ships, but at least I didn’t see anything heading here from the island.” He noticed the paper in Line’s hands. “What did you find?”

  “A diagram of the basement. It was in an airtight drawer built into the pulpit,” Line replied, handing Kana the paper. “Take a look.”

  Seconds later, something scurried across the chapel floor. It was a rat. Line and Kana watched it with curiosity. Very occasionally he had seen rats by the town docks, but there were very few in Bliss. A second rat emerged and then a third. They were coming from the hallway that Marin had entered. More rats came—at least a dozen.

  “What’s with the rats?” Line muttered. He looked back at the diagram Kana was holding, then glanced again at the three rusted gates, which were lying on the floor of the chapel. “Wait a minute,” said Line. “The three X’s on the diagram—those are for the three gates.”

  “Huh?”

  “The people who holed up here—they were going to use them to block the way up.”

  Kana still looked confused.

  “Look at the arrow,” said Line, stabbing his finger at the map. “The arrow must be pointing at a way into the basement—a way in from the outside—and the people here were going to use these gates to seal off the tower. But they never did.”

  “Why not?” asked Kana, glancing over at the gates lying on the ground.

  “Who knows why,” said Line. “The point is, there’s a way to get inside the citadel from the basement.”

  A wave of fear swept across Kana’s face.

  “Marin!” yelled Kana. He ran to the doorway. “MARIN!”

  CHAPTER 37

  Marin heard Kana yelling, but by that point she already knew that something was coming for her—pushing, shoving, and grunting through the darkness. And it wasn’t alone. She raced up the stairs, only dimly aware that she was scraping her body against the jagged stone walls. Down below, she could hear the sounds of deadly struggle. A fight was taking place—grunts, running, bodies slamming to the ground—and then a loud, distinct groan. No question—it was somebody’s last breath. Was it the woman? Marin almost stopped, almost turned around, but her desire to flee was overpowering. She climbed until she collided with her brother.

  She nearly fell back, but Kana grabbed her by the arms and pulled her toward him. “Marin! What’s going on?”

  “They’re coming!” she said breathlessly. “GO!”

  Marin pushed past him and kept racing up the stairs, Kana close behind. Moments later, they found Line, who’d heard enough to understand that they had to get out, and fast. Marin grabbed his hand, and the three of them dashed across the room. Marin slipped and fell, but sprang back to her feet, and they all continued down the main staircase.

  Marin slowed her pace just enough to avoid another fall. There was a steady rumble of thunder in the distance, as if a whole series of storms was passing over, one after the other.

  By the time they made it to the ground floor, they were out of breath, but they dared not stop to rest. Instead, they climbed to the crumbling arrow slit and pushed through. They crossed the bridge of stones, and soon they were back on the exposed seabed. Only there did they pause to catch their breath. Clouds had parted, and the moon was the color of undyed muslin.

  “Are they behind us?” she gasped.

  Kana shook his head.

  Line shouldered the sack that contained their possessions. It was distressingly light. The candles. The two they had brought along were in the citadel. Now, the sack held several half-rotten apples, a box of wooden matches, some rope, and a flint. That was it.

  Thunder sounded in the distance, directly above the island. It was very regular, sounding at ten-second intervals. The storm seemed to be sitting on the island. But above them, the sky was clear.

  “What did you see down there?” asked Line, still panting. He was bent over, his hands pushing against his knees for support.

  “I—I didn’t see anything,” said Marin. “But I heard them—a lot of them.”

  “How many?” pressed Line. He moved closer to her, assessing for injuries.

  Marin shook her head. “I don’t know . . . but there was a woman down there, too.”

  Kana looked back at the citadel. “A woman? What did she look like?”

  “Don’t know,” said Marin. “It was too dark.
But she said we should take the path by the stone arch.”

  Kana frowned. “You had a conversation with her?”

  “Not really,” said Marin. “But she said at the end of that path there’d be a cave with a sea vessel.” Marin took in Kana and Line’s expressions and then threw her hands up in the air. “I don’t know what else to tell you—the point is, that’s the same path you were talking about, isn’t it, Line?”

  Line visualized the map. “I think so—but why does it matter? I thought we agreed we’re not going back into the woods.”

  Kana ground his foot into the damp sand and then placed a hand gently on his friend’s shoulder. “We don’t have a choice.”

  Line stared at Kana in disbelief. “Why?”

  Kana gestured up toward the Dwarf Oak Islands. “When I was up there—on top—I got a good look around,” he said. “There are far too many canyons for us to be able to make it across the seabed. It’s dangerous.”

  Line shook his head vehemently. “More dangerous than going back in the woods? You’re not serious, are you?”

  “Either way, we can’t stay here,” said Marin, cutting off the argument. “We have to get away from the citadel.”

  Line grimaced. She’s right. We can’t just stand around. “Okay,” said Line. “But we’re not done talking about this.”

  They walked quickly across a slippery mix of sand, pebbles, seaweed, and mud, then paused to get their bearings. Marin pointed toward a shallow stream of freshwater that wound across the old seabed, toward the citadel—just as the voice described. The reflection of the rising moon on the water made it look like a serpent.

  It was hard scrambling over rocks to the stream, and at times, they had to crawl. Eventually, after what felt like hours, they reached the cliffs. Here, the stream continued inland, along the floor of a tight gully that cut into the cliffs.