by Tom Birdseye
At first Tessa seemed not to notice she’d been freed. She was squinting into the foggy melee, a look of anguish on her face. For there was Dedron, moving like a cat across a sagging beam that had wedged into the top of the abyss when the bridge had collapsed. He scrambled up onto the Timmran side, grabbed a fallen spear from the ground, and began fighting the beast alongside his enemies.
“Dedron!” Tessa cried, and ran toward him.
“Tessa!” Arnica sprinted after her sister. “Don’t leave me!”
Tessa scooped up a sword. Together she and Dedron lunged at the beast, stabbing at its side. The beast whirled on them, its tail whipping across the earth like a giant club. It caught Arnica right across the chest. Her piercing scream stopped mid-breath as she was slammed to the earth.
“Arnica!” Radnor’s fierce cry seemed to break Yed’s trancelike prayer. He sprang to his feet, dagger drawn, and charged forward, flinging himself onto the beast’s back just as his father did the same. Both drove their weapons in deep. Dedron leaped up beside them, now jabbing with only a splintered spear as a weapon.
The beast screeched and slashed at its tormentors. In a split second all three lay crumpled on the ground. Tessa rushed to them. The beast reared up and glared down at her with evil red eyes.
“No!” With all his might Jackson concentrated his power on the beast, aiming at its underbelly. A crackling blast echoed above the clash of battle, ringing in his ears as lightning flashed from his fingertips.
In the instant of that flash, Jackson was knocked to the ground as if struck by a huge fist. His chest stung like fire. Around his neck, the chain gripped him in a stranglehold. He reached up, groping for the pendant. The necklace broke and fell into his hand, no longer a chain of gold, but now a snake coiling through the eye of the stone. It hissed at him and flicked its tongue over the etched drawing—no longer a lion, nor a dragon, but now the perfect likeness of the beast.
Jackson gasped and dropped them both. They hit the ground and exploded into tiny shards. The power drained out of Jackson’s hands and body like water out of a sieve. “But—” Jackson whimpered, a deep chill rushing in where strength had been before. “But I thought—”
The beast snarled. Jackson jerked his head up to see it still standing, ready to attack. Only now it had turned its blazing gaze on him. It stalked toward him with murder in its eyes.
Terror gripped Jackson like an iron fist. “Help!” he cried, scooting backward on the ground.
“The Shaw-Mara!” Tessa screamed. “It has to be—”
The beast roared, drowning out the rest of Tessa’s words.
But Jackson had heard enough. The Shaw-Mara. Tessa and Dedron had said it had to be blown in order to keep the Baen away, that he could somehow fix it. He had thought it was a Yakonan lie, but now … He fumbled desperately in his jacket pocket for the twin flutes he had taken from Dedron. He yanked them into the open.
The Baen roared so loudly at the sight of the Shaw-Mara that Jackson was sent sprawling again. He rolled to his knees, raised the Shaw-Mara to his lips, and blew. Nothing happened. Not even a hint of a note came out. Frantically, he whacked it against the ground as if he could beat notes out of it. Then he blew again and again with all his might.
Nothing.
Looming over him, the Baen rose up for the kill, talons dripping blood, great fangs glistening. Blind with fear, Jackson spun and scrambled to his feet, only to trip over a fallen soldier. The Shaw-Mara flew from his hand and sailed through the air in a terrible, graceful arc.
“No!” Tessa screamed. “Save it!”
But the Shaw-Mara had vanished over the edge of the abyss.
The Baen roared in fury, then leaped. With a shriek of raw horror, Jackson clamped his hands over his eyes and cowered on the bloody ground. Trembling violently, he waited the unendurable moment before the first white-hot flash of agony, the cruel beginning of what would surely be his gruesome end.
17. Into the Abyss
As abruptly as it had begun, the chaos of thundering violence ended. Jackson opened his eyes and looked down at his body. No blood, no great gashes, no broken bones. For some reason he could not fathom he was untouched. The Baen was gone.
“Thank God!” His breath came in a great rush of relief. He jumped up. “It didn’t get me! I’m—”
Jackson’s words of celebration caught in his throat. Bloody soldiers littered the ground, some pleading for help, others lying still—too still—eyes open and unmoving. He turned away from their glassy stares, only to see Tessa hovering over Dedron, then Arnica, then Yed, then her father.
“No!” she wailed. “No!”
Dedron lay moaning, blood at the corner of his mouth, on his forehead, coming from his nose, smeared across his cheek. Beside him Arnica curled limp like a worn and discarded doll, her chest jerking with ragged little breaths. But it was Yed and Radnor who looked the worst, their shirts red with blood, their faces ashen.
“No!” Tessa yanked her cloak from her shoulders and pressed it over her father’s chest, then her brother’s. The blood soaked through in seconds. Yed trembled, then went slack. “Please, no!” she cried. Radnor began to thrash about. “Please!”
Although horrified, Jackson still could not pull his eyes away. Radnor gasped, and his entire body went rigid. Then, in a slow sigh, his breath left him.
Tessa sat back on her heels, moaning. “Daddy. Yed. Why? Why couldn’t you see what was so plain to me?”
“Are they …,” Jackson ventured. “Are they both dead?”
Tessa spun on him, eyes wild with grief, and lashed out. “You did this!”
Jackson stepped back as if slapped. “I—I didn’t hurt them. It was that—that thing that—”
“No!” Tessa cut him off, her voice shaking with fury. “I thought you were the Instrument, sent by Panenthe in answer to our Prayer Song. I thought you would fix the Shaw-Mara and everything would be fine again, and Father would be able to see the love between Dedron and me, the love possible between Timmran and Yakonan, like in the old days between Musa and Grier. But the Baen tricked my father into thinking he was hearing the voice of Zallis, then he sent you to free it. This was all it needed, your act of hate. And now … now my father and my brother are dead and the Shaw-Mara is gone!”
“But—But—Wait,” Jackson said, pleading for understanding. “You’ve got me wrong!”
Tessa stared at him with pure malice in her eyes. “The Baen will find the Shaw-Mara and make it part of itself again. Restored to its full strength, it will come back and force us to be its slaves or die”—her voice broke on the sharp edge of her grief and rage—“because of you!”
“It wasn’t my fault,” Jackson said, whining now. “Everything happened so fast and—I didn’t know!”
“Didn’t know?” Tessa cut the air violently with her hand. “Your power came from the Baen. You were its slave, a servant of evil. If you didn’t know that, if you didn’t have the courage to face it, then you are nothing but a … a stupid coward!” With that she turned her back on Jackson and collapsed in great heaving sobs.
A stupid coward. A servant of evil. Tessa’s words lodged in Jackson’s heart like a whole quiver of arrows, and with a rush of deep sorrow he knew it was true. The stone pendant was the Baen’s, and the Baen had tricked him into wearing it and then doing its bidding. He hadn’t meant to cause so much pain, but that didn’t change the fact that he had. He could have listened, could have asked questions, could have sought the truth.
Jackson looked down at his shaking fingers, at the circle-and-triangle sign of the Steadfast Order branded on his right palm. But the simple fact was that he hadn’t even tried to get at the truth. He’d been too consumed with his own desires. And so, in a fit of power-crazed fury, he’d become what he’d always hated in others—cruel—and had unwittingly done the work of evil.
Tears welled up in Jackson’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” he moaned, sinking to his knees. “I’m really sorry.”
“Regret erases nothing,
you fool.”
The voice was weak and raspy, but the words were razor sharp. Jackson looked over to see Dedron roll onto his side. Dedron coughed. The sound ended in a cry of pain. Jackson had a sudden surge of nausea.
“Get out of my way,” Dedron said, pushing himself up onto his knees, “and I’ll show you how to”—he started toward the edge of the abyss, moving in broken lurches, like Jackson’s cat had done after being hit by a car—“how to do what has to be done.”
Tessa reached out to stop him. “No, Dedron,” she pleaded. “You’re hurt. You can’t.”
A flash of fury shot through Dedron’s eyes. “If I don’t go get the Shaw-Mara, who will?”
Lower lip trembling, Tessa looked around at the dead and wounded. “I don’t know,” she said, her voice quavering. “But I’ve lost so much already.” Tears streamed down her face. “I couldn’t stand it if—”
“I’ll do it,” Jackson said.
Dedron and Tessa both turned to him and stared.
Jackson blinked, trying not to look as shocked as he felt. It was as if something inside him, something other than himself, had willed the words to come tumbling out of his mouth. And then there came more.
“I’ll get the Shaw-Mara back, and I’ll make it play again.”
“This is not crazy. This is not crazy.” Jackson eased his feet over the edge of the abyss, trying to convince himself that he was not rushing into a doom of his own doing. “I’m not going to die.”
But every time he looked beyond the first foothold, his breath caught in his throat and his heart sank. The dirty fog rising up out of the bottomless shadowy depths looked too much like wicked tongues. The jagged rocks around which the fog swirled jutted out too much like fangs. The odor of sulfur mixed with decay stung his nostrils too much like the breath of something unspeakably foul. The entire abyss gaped open too much like a giant hungry mouth that could snap shut at any moment and devour him.
Just as the Baen could do. Echoing above the sound of the river cascading into the abyss, the Baen’s roars sent cold fingers of fear running up Jackson’s spine. He lost his resolve and turned back, only to find Dedron right in his face.
“You said you’d do it, so do it!” Dedron barked.
Jackson searched the Yakonan’s fierce dark eyes. He wished he could imagine successfully pulling off this daring rescue he’d gotten himself into. But even if he did somehow manage to find the Shaw-Mara before the Baen did, and even if he did get back out of the abyss alive with it, what in the world had possessed him to promise he could fix the thing? He had no special power other than what the Baen had given him—evil power—and now even that was gone.
Tessa knew. She sat with Arnica cradled in her arms, staring at him with a cold mixture of anger and despair in her eyes. Although she said nothing, Jackson knew what she was thinking. The same cutting words still rang in his ears: Stupid coward.
Jackson looked back down at the first foothold. “One step at a time,” he found himself saying in a shaky whisper. “You can do it.” He took a ragged breath, tested the foothold yet again, found a good handhold, then lowered himself into the abyss.
18. Shadowlands
The grimy fog quickly enveloped Jackson with its damp, smelly fingers. Only a few feet into the abyss, he looked back up to find that he could no longer see Dedron. A feeling of complete and utter aloneness swept over him. He cringed and leaned in against the rocks, which was a mistake. His foot slipped out from under him, his hand tore loose, and in the blink of an eye he was sliding down the steep slope.
Flailing with his hands like a bird gone crazy, Jackson clawed wildly at anything that could stop his quick acceleration. His foot caught on an outcropping of rock and flipped him. He tumbled out of control, head over heels, his life flashing before his eyes—a sad parade of failure.
Then he hit and water was everywhere, so icy it sucked the breath right out of him. He struggled to the surface, to find himself being swept downstream in the new river channel that had formed in the bottom of the abyss. He gulped air through lips already beginning to tremble. The water was so cold. He had to get out. He began working his stiff arms and legs, swimming as hard as he could for the wall of the abyss.
He had gained only a couple of feet, though, when he heard the roar of cascading water ahead and looked to see foaming waves suddenly dropping out of sight. A waterfall! He flailed with frantic yet leaden strokes for a nearby boulder that jutted above the flow. A standing wave actually pushed him in the right direction, banging him into it. He grasped for a handhold.
But the rock was too slippery, and Jackson’s fingers too numb and weak to hold on. The powerful current ripped him loose and, in the next instant, swept him over the edge.
For a long, horrifying moment Jackson knew neither up nor down, only a violently tumbling world. His lungs ached for air, but the pounding of powerful watery fists drove him under. Darkness closed in, and with it an odd sense of calm detachment, as if he were watching it all on TV.
So, Jackson thought, this is what drowning is like. I’m going to die. Pretty stupid of me. What would Chris and Seth say?
He shook his head. No, I shouldn’t die, it’s my birthday. Mom promised she’d make double-fudge chocolate cake. I love that stuff, especially with extra icing.
Jackson almost smiled at his silliness. How could he think about double-fudge chocolate cake at a time like this? He was drowning.
But then somehow he was on the surface again, coughing up water just as the river had coughed him up, and thinking only of survival. His strength was gone, though. He began to sink again when his foot brushed against something solid and, by reflex, he pushed.
The next thing Jackson knew he was wallowing about in a shallow eddy. He staggered up, slipped back, then finally struggled out of the river and collapsed in a heap on a sandy beach. Shivering violently, he thought of his Trailblazers jacket. It was back at Tessa’s house, right where he’d left it. A powerful wave of hopelessness and utter exhaustion swept over him. With a weak groan he rolled onto his side and curled up into as small a ball as possible. In seconds darkness descended like a blanket on his brain, and he knew nothing …
… until he woke with a start, heart pounding. Sweat streaked his face, soaked his chest. His throat ached as if it were on fire. He had never felt so completely parched. He sat up, desperate for water, only to find the river no longer there. It was now nothing more than an empty ditch of rock and powder-dry dust.
“What?” Jackson struggled to his feet, gaping at the river bottom. All that water—gone, vanished. As was the putrid fog that had filled the abyss. In its place, acrid smoke swirled on a hot blustery wind. Dirt kicked up into small dust devils. One of the whirlwinds raced at Jackson, throwing grit in his face.
Jackson shielded his eyes with his hand and stumbled up the riverbank. The wind eased a bit and he peered through the haze. Smoldering pits dotted the floor of the abyss, and odd-shaped pillars of stone. He squinted at the closest one, examining its knobby surface.
Jackson’s stomach lurched. The stone appeared to have been sculpted into the shape of a man, but twisted into grotesque contortions—arms and legs broken and bound, mouth open in a silent scream. Jackson searched the horrible, terrified-looking face. There was something disturbingly familiar about it.
A movement atop the man’s head caught Jackson’s eye. He looked up to see a shadowy figure perched there, darker than the surrounding gloom.
A new surge of fear rose in Jackson’s throat. He turned and began to trot quickly away from the specter.
Another shadowy figure stirred atop another pillar. In the dim light Jackson could see the outline of a face—half human, half bird, with empty eye sockets. The creature cocked its head as if listening for an intruder, then opened its hooked beak and pierced the air with an unearthly screech.
Jackson broke into a run, sprinting as if his feet had sprouted wings. For wings were what now filled the air—great horrible wings, flapping like muff
led hand claps, as all around him hundreds of screeching shadow creatures lifted upward. They joined into a dark mass and dove after him.
Jackson ducked when he felt a whoosh near his head, but not soon enough. A shadow creature’s tail slapped against his neck, sending a stinging pain shooting down his back. He cried out and clutched the wound. When he pulled his hand away, he found it smudged with dark soot.
A second then a third shadow creature attacked, whacking Jackson across the shoulder, the head. Pain coursed through him like lightning. “Stop!” he screamed. “Get away from me!” He tried to dodge the attacking shadow creatures, jumping behind one of the stone pillars, then spinning as he ran. But their marks were crusting up on him like dried mud, slowing him. If this kept up, he wouldn’t be able to move at all.
A whimper escaped Jackson’s lips. So this is how the pillars were formed. They don’t just look like petrified people, they actually are! At the thought of such a thing, he stumbled and fell. Three shadow creatures swept in on him, pummeling him with their wings, leaving streaks of darkness on his shoulders, his head, down his sides.
“Help!” he screamed. “Somebody help me!” He scrambled to his feet and ran in a blind, cowering panic with his arms over his head. “Please! I don’t want to die!”
The earth began to shake, the pits in the ground to rumble and spew fire. Great clouds of sulfurous smoke belched into the air, engulfing Jackson, gagging him. The shadow creatures shrieked, then suddenly whirled—as if on command—and disappeared into the smoke.
“Thank God!” Jackson gasped. Choking, coughing, he staggered around a bend in the abyss … to find the Baen.
19. Darkness and Stone
Although no more than twenty feet away from Jackson, the Baen hadn’t seen him yet. It was fixed on bashing a boulder the size of a bus with its powerful spiked tail. Pieces of rock flew in every direction, pelting the abyss walls. Whirling around, the monster dug furiously at the scrabble with its huge talons like a dog after a bone.
