Heir Of Doom

by Jina S Bazzar

  To Zantry, however, it was a bouquet of scents and imprints. Still, although there was plenty for him to find, most he recognized as the lingering presence of people who'd come searching for her.

  At one point, Zantry thought he sensed the residual of fear and we tried to follow the “ethereal imprint”, but we lost it before we could decipher anything. The problem with the Low Lands was that even footprints were hard to find, given that the ground was nothing but cracked and packed earth.

  We shifted back and forth, from alleyway to the Low Lands to alleyway, but there was nothing to follow, nothing to indicate where Mwara had skipped to, where she had dropped back.

  When we finally returned home, an entire day had gone by. The next day, we resumed hopping through leeway, jumping back and forth between planets. It came to a point where shifting with Zantry felt like a twist on a waltz: predictable and pleasant.

  Back and forth we went, the time difference sometimes playing in our favor, sometimes against. Twice more Zantry sensed the lingering presence of fear and, although we'd search widely from that point, going around in ever-widening circles, of a child we found nothing.

  We even went to other planets too, ones that weren't as close or parallel to the Low Lands or earth, but those that had direct paths in the leeway and were easy enough for a child of eleven to follow. The waltz here seemed longer, like two turns, perhaps a small dip, but it still felt pleasant. We covered so much ground, I was afraid we'd return and discover my time was up, but all we actually lost was half a day.

  On that second day, we managed to search three planets, one that intersected with the Tristan Star, where animals were either monstrously disproportional or little furry things that made you want to pet them; a planet that had rainbow-colored vegetation that breathed and sighed whenever we passed by; and another planet that felt eerily creepy, simply because it was too familiar to Earth's topography, except for three low-hanging moons. They looked so close to the planet, I felt that if I could jump high enough, I'd be able to touch them.

  But despite the discovery, the knowledge that this was all waiting to be claimed and conquered, I found no joy in it, all my senses oppressed by the knowledge that we were running out of time, and no traces of Mwara could be found.

  We skipped enough leeways to emulate a path to Sacramento – it only took half an hour – and again, there was nothing to find but those lingering traces of fear that we weren't even sure belonged to the kid. We also skimmed the streets and alleyways of Manhattan with no result.

  Now, all that was left were two days. And that was it, I told myself while I prepared sandwiches. We arrived, starving and aching, and me in desperate need to use the john and have a long hot shower.

  Zantry was lounging on the sofa, one arm thrown around his face, the other drawing imaginary doodles on the floor with a tall finger. I hadn't rested or slept a wink for the past two days. Hell, I'd hardly eaten anything.

  I prepared two turkey and cheese sandwiches, sighing every few minutes for no apparent reason, placed them in the toaster, then filled a bowl with ground meat for Frizz. Slumping against the counter, I watched him eat. “Do you know where Mwara is, Frizz?”

  In the living room Zantry lowered his arm and stared at the gargoyle with sharp interest.

  Frizz's ears flicked back and he glanced at me, his shell shaped dark eyes empty of any emotion, though I could sense his weariness. Maybe I should leave him home or send him to Vicky.

  “No, master.” He hissed. I sighed, not surprised. Frizz resumed eating, assuming conversation over.

  Zantry stood and approached the gargoyle, a stalkish air about him. His eyes held such sharp intensity, even I watched him warily. Frizz's tail shifted left to right once, but aside from that and the flick of one ear, frizz didn't acknowledge him.

  “Ask him if he knows who she is.”

  Startled, I glanced down at frizz. “Do you know who Mwara is, frizz?”

  “Yes, master.” He scooped the last of the meet from the bowl.

  I felt a jolt of shock at his answer, but it seemed I wasn't on the same page as Zantry. “That's it. Let's go,” He said.

  I looked down at Frizz, feeling we were on the verge of something, yet unable to reach it. “What is it?” I asked Zantry.

  “Come on, I'll explain as we go.” He said and threw me my jacket. I grabbed my keys from the counter and followed, almost losing balance when Zantry skipped back to get both scolding sandwiches and a wad of napkins. “Can't leave the food behind,” He explained with a sheepish smile.

  As he pulled open the door, Diggy was raising his arm to ring the doorbell. His hand froze midair, his hazel eyes frosting at the sight of Zantry, before shifting to me, standing behind, one arm inside the jacket, the other still uncovered.

  “Diggy,” I said, shrugging on the jacket and zipping it all the way. “What are you doing here?”

  His arm dropped, his hands dipped inside his jacket pocket. His lips formed a grim line as he looked from Zantry to me. “I figured I'd come and offer you some assistance, seeing that your training was still ongoing and you have no idea how to track someone.” His eyes shifted to Zantry, and before he could back off, Zantry cut in, “Good, let's go. Time is running out.” He handed me one of the sandwiches before he moved around Diggy and bit into his, saying with a full mouth, “I'd offer you the other sandwich, Vemourly, but I believe I'm too hungry to be polite.”

  Diggy raised an eyebrow at me. I shrugged, locked the front door and followed after Zantry. I didn't have time to argue about traitors or who I could or couldn't associate with. Seriously, I didn't even care. I took a huge bite of my sandwich –a hot piece of heaven, and didn't care what Diggy would say or think or report back to Roland.

  Near the bakery where I had met Mwara, we turned right into York, and Diggy fell into pace beside me.

  I gave him a sideways glance. “Aren't you worried to be seen with Zantry the traitor?”

  Diggy said nothing.

  “Seriously,” I insisted, “wouldn't this be worse than the Mwara situation?” Before he could reply, I added, “Wait, I thought Roland said you weren't allowed to help.”

  He shrugged. “Roland managed to convince everyone that if I'm taking some of the heat, then it's only fair to let me help with the hunt.”

  “Oh. They waited awfully long, don't you think? Almost as if they don't want us to find her.” My expression was curious, but my tone gave the sarcasm away.

  It took Diggy a moment to reply, “I've been searching for her for the past week.” He glanced down at me and added, “I came by, but was informed that you were missing too.” He glanced next at Zantry, who acted as if he couldn't hear us.

  Ah, he must have found Logan. I studied his expression, trying to decipher his mood, but there wasn't any anger coming off of him or in his eyes. There wasn't even any heat there. On the contrary, he had on his preferred mask of calm aloofness.

  “I take it you didn't find anything.”

  He grunted once and motioned at Zantry. “Where are you two going?”

  “Not sure. But Zantry thinks he's on to something.” to Zantry, I said, “where are we going?”

  He ducked into the alleyway we guessed Mwara must have used to shift to the Low Lands. “To the Low Lands. We'll have Frizz follow Mwara's sent from there, start skipping from wherever he loses her.”

  “Frizz?” Diggy inquired, brows lowering.

  “The shadow.”

  “Ah,” Diggy's expression cleared, “I'll be damned.”

  I glanced at him, at his gleaming eyes, and a spark of hope lit inside me, began to spread.

  * * *

  But Frizz couldn't find her anywhere, and after a frustrating hour where we moved from point to point, shifting from alleyway to the Low Lands then to a foreign planet, back and forth, back and forth, Zantry finally called a halt to the merry chase in the middle of nowhere, Low Lands.

  “Ask him if he can sense her presence now, here.”

 
I turned around, saw nothing but a vast empty space, the ground dry and cracked, the odd blackened twig lying forgotten, still like that for centuries with no wind, animal or decaying fungus to displace it.

  “Do you sense Mwara, Frizz?”

  “No, master.” he hissed, crouching beside me.

  “How about we try at another point? Maybe Frizz can sense her somewhere else, if she's closer?” I offered, grabbing at straws. Time was slipping away, pushing me to the gauntlet.

  It was Zantry who answered. “No, no. You see, these creatures are a part of this land. They sense things. Anything anywhere, everywhere. No matter where they are. That's how they know where to hunt. Ask him if he sensed her presence in the recent past.”

  “I already asked him that.”

  “No, you asked him if he senses her here, now. Present time. I want you to ask him if he ever sensed her presence here, in the past.”

  I tilted my head. Maybe he had a point. I relayed the question to Frizz.

  Frizz's ears flicked back and forth a couple times before he answered. “No, master.”

  I sighed, frustrated and confused. Did this mean Mwara had never made it to the Low Lands?

  Diggy sighed, shifted on his heels.

  Zantry glared at Frizz, as if intimidation would make the gargoyle sense the child.

  I sat on the ground beside my familiar and let my forehead rest against my raised knees. I was about to drift off when Diggy suddenly said, “His pack. The ones that helped him when you were in the cave. Have him go find them.”

  Zantry's head snapped up. “Yes, that's it,” he said, snapping thumb and forefinger. “Have him go find them, and ask them.”

  I groaned, rolling my head to the side and pressing my temple to my knee for a few seconds before standing on weary feet. “God, can't we just go home? I'd rather die rested,” I muttered.

  “You're not going to die,” Zantry snapped with a savagery that surprised me out of my haze. “Vemourly is right. Frizz might not know because he was with you when she came through here. But his pack was here. Now, have him go ask them. We don't have time to waste.”

  I glanced down at my loyal familiar, feeling his need to help. Bending, I picked him up and settled him on my hip like Vicky often did.

  Zantry made a choking sound. Diggy huffed out a laugh.

  I ignored both and focused on Frizz, his velvet-like wings buzzing madly with pleasure. I scratched his back and Frizz closed his eyes, a contented feeling emanating from him.

  When I scratched him behind the ears, the buzzing intensified. When he grew, would the tiny wings grow also, allow him to fly for real? What would happen to him if I died? Would he return to this dead land, where he'd be forced to go without all the luxuries he'd come to know? I wondered if these past months with me had done him an injustice. Would he be able to acclimatize back to the life he'd once lead? But who was I kidding, if I died, he would die along with me.

  “Frizz,” I began with a rough voice, “can you summon the pack here, now?” The words had just left my lips when eleven shadows appeared, crouched in a semi-circle around us.

  “Motherfucker!” Diggy jumped back and away.

  “Son of a bitch.” Zantry clapped.

  Again, I ignored both and searched the faces of the eleven shadows. I found the one with a torn ear and focused on him, knowing instinctively he had taken Frizz's position as leader upon his absence. It wasn't something I'd known before, just something I recognized when my gaze landed on him, as if the knowledge had been offered, unbidden to my mind. They weren't bonded to me like Frizz, but they still owed me for the feeding, and they were here to pay.

  “Taz,” I said, and the gargoyle stepped forward.

  Beside me, Diggy made a strangled sound. Zantry, however, had fallen quiet, expectant.

  “Do you know who Mwara is?”

  Ears flicking , Taz hissed with a harder-edged tone than Frizz's, “Yes” and made my skin crawl. How connected were we? At least he wasn't calling me “master”.

  With a deep inhale, I asked, “Have you sensed Mwara in this land recently?”

  “Yesss.” He hissed.

  I jolted, stunned at the unexpected answer.

  Diggy murmured something undecipherable.

  “Where?” Zantry asked, but the shadow ignored him.

  “Where? Can you take us to her?” I repeated.

  Taz unfolded his thin legs, gaining a foot of height, his wings buzzing with excitement. “Yesss. By the Mandolia Mountain.”

  I had a very bad feeling when Taz uttered that name. The look in Zantry and Diggy's eyes didn't help either. “What?” I demanded. “You two know something.”

  But Diggy merely turned and vanished, and Zantry reached for me and shifted us after him.

  Chapter Forty

  It turned out, to my increasing alarm, that the Mandolia Mountain was the same place I had hiked with Diggy not so long ago.

  The moment Zantry flashed us to the foot of the hill, I moved toward Diggy and stepped in front of him. He stopped – it was either that or plow through me. “What? You owe me an honest answer, damn it,” I demanded fiercely.

  But Diggy only glanced at Zantry, his eyes guarded, hooded. I could see the mistrust in them even with the dim lighting.

  “What were you doing here that day?” he asked, the frigid look returning to his eyes.

  It felt like a shock of icy water, dumped over me all of a sudden. I stepped back, realizing both men were hiding something. I never questioned Zantry his presence that day when Frizz and the band had brought me out of the cave. Never asked Diggy why he'd sent me in there, why he'd wanted me to know what was inside.

  But now that I thought about it, I drew short, inhaled sharply, and turned to wait for Zantry's answer.

  Mouth set in a grim line, he replied, “I sensed Remo Drammen on the other side of the valley and came to snoop on him, but by the time I got there I couldn't tell where he'd gone. So I set to scope the entire mountainside, but still found nothing, and I gave up. That day I walked you to base?” Zantry gave me a questioning look, and after I nodded once, he glanced at Diggy again, “I decided to give it one last try, and instead of Remo, I found you standing by that rock, peering in. I stood back, waiting to see what you were doing, and that's when you came out, Roxanne.” He addressed that last part to me, expression sincere. After searching my face, he turned back to Diggy, his eyes twin pools of cobalt fire, narrowed with menace. “What about you? Why did you send her into that cave alone, while you stood back and waited in safety?”

  Diggy stiffened with the implication, drew himself high. “She wasn't supposed to engage. She was to scout out the place and return. I'd have broken the ward if I'd sensed any danger or if she stayed longer than a minute.”

  Zantry angled his head. “But you didn't answer my question, now did you? Why did you send her in there in the first place, Douglas Vemourly?”

  Diggy glanced at me, his eyes icy. Anger radiated from him, but not guilt. Beside him, his hands fisted.

  “Well?” Zantry prompted, and I narrowed my eyes at him, at his damning silence.

  “Why did you send me in, Diggy?” I asked.

  He took a step forward toward me, and I stepped back, keeping my distance from him. “The day of the panic attack, when I left you alone during the training? Well, I thought I sensed Mr. Drammen. I came to check it out, near the valley on the other side.” He motioned a hand to the far right and continued, “But there was nothing there but a lingering scent. So I went back to you, took you home. Ever since that day, after our trainings, I come back and check every hidey-hole, turn every rock large enough. But I found nothing of Mr. Drammen's. It was by chance that I found the warded entrance of the cavern, and it was only because I had been near enough to see the distortion, feel the soft hum.”

  I looked down at my hands, frowned at my bare fingers, empty palms. I was expandable. Everyone thought so. “You sent me in, even though there was a possibility I'd find Remo Dramme
n there.”

  “No. The ward isn't Mr. Drammen's. I'd have known it. I swear, there's no trace of him anywhere near that cave, or even on this side of the mountain. I wouldn't have sent you in otherwise.”

  I didn't say anything.

  “Roxanne, look at me.” Diggy waited for me to look up, face blank, empty of any emotion before he spoke. “I'd never willingly endanger you. If you don't believe that, then believe it when I say it I wouldn't endanger you for the sole reason that Roland would ostracize me, cast me away and announce me rogue.”

  I nodded. That was true. If anything, Roland would blame him for whatever happened to me on his watch. “Did he send you to come find me so we could search for Mwara together?”

  “No.” Diggy's lips twitched humorlessly. “There's strength in numbers, and despite all your faults, you're not stupid. Let's just say I have something to gain if we find this child in time.”

  I nodded, and Diggy turned to Zantry next. “Why are you helping? What's in it for you?”

  “I have no ultimate reason for helping Roxanne. I am not a traitor, Vemourly. I'm not in league with Remo, never have been. I'd like nothing more than to see Remo gone,” He glanced at me before adding, “You, Roxanne, of all people, shouldn't doubt my words.”

  I didn't doubt him. I never had, in fact. He'd suffered because of Remo, and being in league with him was a ridiculous accusation. For someone who knew the truth.

  I nodded, and Diggy exploded. “What's this? You'll believe him, even after we told you he's suspected of killing Arianna, of joining hands with Mr. Drammen?”

  I glanced at Zantry for help, but he said nothing, gave no indication if I should or shouldn't confide in Diggy. So I settled on a lame reply, laced with conviction. “Everyone's got secrets, especially around me. If Zantry has his, I at least know he's not in league with Remo, and Arianna's death is none of his fault.”

  When Diggy began to protest, I cut him off, “I know that. I am sure of it, even if I don't know the circumstances surrounding her death. Do you understand what I'm saying, Diggy?” I asked when he opened his mouth to protest again. “I know Zantry Akinzo is not in league with Remo and that he had nothing to do with Arianna's death. Nothing.”