Nicholas
May 2009.
One moment they were barreling down I-10 through the Chihuahuan desert with a cop or four screaming behind them, and the next they sat staring at the welcome sign for Roswell, NM. “Please tell me we weren’t abducted,” Keanu said, finally, and thunked his head back against the driver’s seat headrest.
“Dude, I don’t fuckin’ know.” Nick sighed and slurped on the last of his frosty. “This shit happens to me all the time.”
“Random time-space disruptment or cop chases?”
“Yep.”
“Comforting.” The car dinged madly as Keanu popped open his door and got out. Nick reached over and took the keys from the ignition, then followed suit. All around them the desert was quiet and cool in the pre-dawn light. Keanu squatted by the car and carded his hands through his hair. Leaning against the hood, Nick watched the boy a long moment.
They’d been together only a couple of days, now, but already they’d managed to get into more trouble than he ever had on his own. Legal trouble, anyway. The car had been reported as stolen (presumably in an effort for the Nassars to get their son back), which they’d only found out when they were busted for speeding through Bum-Fuck-Egypt. That had quickly devolved into a car chase through the desert, complete with helicopter coverage. He wondered if they’d end up on COPS.
To top everything off, Beverly had taken up residence in the backseat and wouldn’t budge. Nick glanced behind him at the corpse still sitting quietly in the car. She met his gaze and grinned, revealing the razor-sharp teeth bristling between her lips. Shuddering, he turned away. “That shit’s gonna be all over TV soon enough.”
“I know.” Keanu was still on the ground, staring down at a rather large ant scurrying between his feet. “We have to ditch it. Or...or something.”
“We’re across state lines. Ain’t that where they can’t touch us, now?”
Keanu looked up, hands across the back of his neck. He stood slowly and flopped back to lean against the car beside Nick. “In a ‘stolen’ car? I don’t know. If we stick with it we’ll just draw more attention than not.”
That was true, Nick thought, and nodded. Traveling on foot or hitchhiking wasn’t impossible, he knew, though he wondered if Keanu understood exactly the obstacles those options entailed. Probably not. Besides...“Where are we going, anyway?”
In the east, the sun broke over the horizon and sent the first rays of orange painting across the desert sand. The Arab boy pursed his lips as he watched it. “Do you ever get the feeling that we’re meant to do something, be somewhere?”
“You missin’ the part where I’m crazy, huh?”
That earned Nick a withering glare, and Keanu stood up. “Get in the car.”
New Mexico was hot. Which probably should have been obvious, Nick guessed, but it was worth mentioning. It was hot in a totally different way that Houston was hot, and before the sun was even halfway across the sky he’d already resorted to sticking his head out the window like a dog.
Even at night the heat was stifling. Cicada trilled away in the woods, and if it weren’t for the stiff breeze blowing off the lake, he might have thought himself suffocating. Never before had he been quite so glad of the prince’s penchant for midnight shenanigans.
They’d stripped as soon as they’d reached the lake and jumped in with not a doubt in their mind that it was anything less than safe. It never had been, not for the five of them, though there were tales among the commoners of great beasts that would swallow swimmers whole.
Nick rolled onto his back and stared up at the stars above. In his minds eye he connected them, envisioning glowing strands that drew the pictures of the constellations. His friends laughed, watching him draw in the air with one finger. “Going over your old stories again, are you?”
“You’d do better to pay more attention to your studies, highness,” Nick said with a chuckle. “Lots of things that can be learned from the stars.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
“Where you’re going, for starters.” There was a splash as one of their lot climbed back up onto the pier beside them. He sat on the end of it, his long hair choked with water and clinging to his pale skin, and looked down at Nick. “Sailors use them to navigate, don’t they?”
“That’s right,” Nick said, as he found the blazing north star, sitting in its dipper.
Water splashed into his face and he came up sputtering. “Gah!” Nick shook his head and wiped his eyes clean with one hand. “What the hell?”
“Sorry.” Keanu gritted his teeth and dodged another pot hole to China. “This road isn’t exactly in the best state.”
“Naw shit.”
They were still in the desert, but there were mountains coming up ahead and other cars on the road, now. Between the blazing heat and the angle of the sun, Nick figured it was close to midday. “Where we at?”
“Just outside of Vaughn.”
“...kay.” Nick rubbed the bridge of his nose and rescued his water bottle before it tipped over and spilt across his lap. After gulping down the last of it, he tossed it into the backseat. Beverly growled.
A little while later they stopped at a dusty Shell station just long enough to buy another pack of water bottles, a road map, and a tank of gas. Back in the car, Keanu handed over the map. “I figure we ought to put as much distance between us and Texas as we can.”
Nick nodded. What Keanu had said earlier was eating at him, and he glanced the other boy over. “That whole...disruption thing ya mentioned?”
“What about it?” Keanu took a sip of water and arched a single dark brow.
“That’s been happenin’ to me a lot. Like that whole...Lamppost thing I mentioned the other night.”
“I thought of that,” Keanu said and wetted his lips. “It didn’t make much sense when you told me, but after...” He gestured off into the distance and Nick nodded.
“Yeah. So if I’m...well, what if maybe I said that somethin’ wanted me there? Like, I thought the phone wanted me to call ya.”
“Frankly, Nick, after the past few days that sounds plausible. There has to be a reason why you kept ending up there.” They blew past a mileage sign at twenty over, but neither boy seemed to care.
“Mm.” After sitting in silence a few more minutes, Nick reached forward and twisted on the radio.
“...Ésta es la carne...I'm a st...Luego repollo. Esto es repollo, ¿ok?...woman, man...poquita porque...Just cried my tears, for...muy fuerte...years, you can’t be mad at me...”
Where he honest with himself, Nick would have to admit that he’d half expected something cheesy to be playing, like Renegade or Bohemian Rhapsody. Beyonce was the lesser of the presented evils and Keanu didn’t move to change it, so Nick figured it would do. Sometime after noon they passed through Santa Fe and up into the beginnings of the rocky mountains. It was just about four PM when their station turned to static and Nick resumed playing with the dial.
“...Devuéleme ese corazón...a pair of...supiste valorar...Texas...crinkle my nose...disappeared right off the road! I mean, how nuts is this? I just gotta ask--I just GOTTA ask--what kind of cactus juice are they drinking down there, anyway? You have four state troopers chasing after a teenager on a straight shot through the desert, and you lose him!”
The two boys exchanged a glance, then Keanu turned the radio off. “Think you can take this for a bit?”
Nick nodded and they pulled off to the side of the road. A fire drill later, and Nick turned them back onto the highway. Keanu settled into the passenger seat and in a matter of moments was softly snoring. Which was probably a good thing--he hadn’t slept much in the two days Nick had known him, maybe a few minutes here and there, and Nick really wasn’t sure how the guy kept going.
Night fell over the mountains, and through the trees the open sky sparkled above them. It had been so long since Nicholas had been out of Houston; he marveled at a night sky without the orange haze cast by oil plants. One time, long ago, he reckoned the whole world had skies like this.
Each star hung above them with wisps of spider’s webs hung between them. The web grew brighter the more that Nick concentrated on it, weaving slowly together into a bridge before them. Stars to twinkled beside them, within the blurred trees and mountains as they passed, and somewhere in the distance Nick could hear a strange melody playing. It called to him like the song of a long lost lover.
He was shaken awake at dawn by a wild eyed Keanu. Frowning, Nick rubbed the sleep from one eye. “What?”
“What did you do?”
Nick shoved Keanu away and sat up. He unfastened his seat-belt and took a good look through their frost covered windows. The world was pink and yellow beyond them, as the most beautiful sunrise he could imagine rose over a field of wild flowers. Their car sat in the middle of it, with no road anywhere in sight, and no tire tracks behind them.
“Huh.”
“Huh?” Keanu stared at him, an angry tick jumping in his jaw. “Huh! That’s all you have to say?”
Nick spread his hands and shrugged. He bolted out of the car before Keanu hit him. The Arab boy got out the other side, slamming the door behind him. They circled the car, meeting at the tail end, and stared out at the flowers. Off in the distance was a purple mountain range to one side, and nothing but endless forest to the rest. From the way that the horizon seemed to roll away, Nick guessed that they were somewhere in the foothills. “Um...Maybe we’re in Canada?”
Keanu was chewing on his lip again and scowling, which made him look like more of an old man than even the shock of silver hair blazoned at his temple. He carded one hand through his hair and shoved the other into his pocket. “I’m pretty sure Canada doesn’t look like this.”
“Have you ever been to Canada?”
“Have you?” Nick shrugged. He hadn’t, but it seemed about as likely as anywhere else. “Maybe we hit another pot hole. This could be China.”
“It’s not China.”
“Fine. It’s Taiwan.” Sick to death of the bitching, Nick started forward through the field. The flowers grew up to his knees, which made walking rather difficult What he could smell of the place was nice--not at all like the pollution he was used to--and he only wished his nose wasn’t jammed with blood and mucus.
His companion trotted up behind him, and soon enough they’d left their car far behind.
Unlike Texas, where temperatures had already begun to soar into the nineties, the weather wherever they were was cool and crisp. Butterflies fluttered about them and crickets jumped about in their wake. Glancing back, Nick could see two long trails where they’d passed through the field and hoped that they’d be able to use that to find their way back.
The closer they came to the treeline, the worse that he began to feel about their predicament. He’d expected that they’d have found a street by now, but none appeared and the forest alarmingly dark. The foliage under the canopy was dense with bushes and flowers and brambles. Short of a machete, there would be no passing through there unharmed.
They exchanged a glance, then Keanu looked down the line of trees in either direction. “I don’t think we should split up.”
“Yeah,” said Nick. He stared off to the left, where the mountains peeked above the field. A chill ran down his spine and he backed up, bumping into the other boy.
“What?”
“This way.” Taking Keanu by the sleeve, he turned the boy around and began to walk along the forest edge. Putting the mountains to their back made his hackles rise further, but for whatever reason he felt like they needed to be away from it. If Keanu agreed, Nick didn’t know, but neither did the boy protest. When he was sure he’d be followed, he dropped Keanu’s shirt and trudged onward.
It wasn’t long before they came across the first passable break in the forest. The line of dirt was barely visible, hardly more than a game trail, leading back into the woods and out of sight. A cluster of arrow-shaped dents were present at the head of the trail, then sprinked along the path beyond. “Deer,” he said, though he wasn’t sure how he knew. He’d never hunted a deer in his life, or spent much time in the forest.
“If you say so.” Keanu cast a wary eye a the field behind them, and shrugged.. “We might as well.”
Letting Keanu go first, Nick looked once more behind them and then ducked into the woods. The light under the canopy was green and dim. Somewhere birds sang, though they saw none, and all the world seemed to be at peace. Gradually the ground shifted into a downward slope, and the trail they were following became more defined. What had been a barely perceptible path soon became an obvious foot-trail of firm sod, occasionally crossed by tree roots and fallen limbs. Around noon, their stomachs began to protest. With nothing to eat, and no knowledge of where they were, they had little choice except to press on.
Further into the forest the trees grew larger and more impressive. Nick had always thought all trees were big, but these made the ones in Houston’s parks look like ants. The path curved about the trunk of one which was so big that ten of him could have stood a circle around it, arms splayed, and still not have touched one another’s fingertips.
Keanu stopped a moment to stare up the three’s trunk, one hand pressed against a root which had shot out of the earth and made an archway over the path. After a moment, he ducked under it and they continued on their way.
“Did you hear that?”
Stopping at the same moment, each boy turned to face the woods in an opposite direction. Nick nodded silently and pressed his back to Keanu’s.
The giggling came again, like a pack of five year olds trying to be sneaky. This time it was on the path before them, but when they turned there was nothing but gently swaying leaves. Then it was on the other side, accompanied by the pattering of footsteps.
Suddenly it was all around them, circling. The footsteps grew faster with every second, and the giggling louder, but not a branch of the bushes moved. Nick gulped and felt Keanu tremble--or maybe it was him. “Who--Who’s there?” Keanu grabbed one of Nick’s wrists and held on tight.
It stopped. Nothing moved--not a wind through the trees, nor a bird in the distance, nor even did the insects dare to buzz.
A child appeared on the trail before them, and they jumped. Boy or girl, it was no longer apparent. Nick’s stomach churned as he took in the peeling, charred flesh of what had once been a person. Smoke rose in billows from the child’s body as it took one trembling step toward them, then another. It’s gaze rose, showing filmy dead eyes, and then it began to scream.
The noise rang through the forest loud as a siren. Nick and Keanu both clapped their hands to their ears, and fell to their needs.
The Arab boy reached a hand out toward the child, scooting forward on his knees. Fire erupted from the corpse, and the world dissolved into flames.
When he woke, the hillside forest was gone. In its place was an ashen landscape, rolling down the hill into a valley below. The river that snaked between the the hills was flooded in places, and blocked by debris in others. All along their side of the hill was evidence of the forest that once had been--blackened trees still standing upright, more yet that were fallen, and the remains of what looked to once have been a village toward the river’s edge. A castle stood at the crux of the two hills, a blackened thing with tattered flags and a broken drawbridge.
Keanu sat ahead of him on the path with the child’s remains sprawled in his lap. Tears streaked down the boy’s soot-marred face, which he wiped away as Nick approached. “What happened here?”
“Don’t know,” Keanu said, voice hoarse and broken. He looked toward the castle. “I think we should find out.”
Nick swallowed and fidgeted in place. He didn’t like the look of the castle, and if there were any more surprises like...like that...The corpse in Keanu’s lap seemed to be staring at him accusingly. Looking into its gaping, hollow sockets, he muttered, “Fine. Lets go.” With gentle hands, Keanu picked the child up and settled it to the side of the path way. They left it there and continued down through the charcoal.
The closer they came to the castle, the more bodies that they stumbled upon. None of them moved, at the very least, but the sight of each one seemed like a kick in Nick’s gut. That, combined with the smell of the place, made Nick very glad that he hadn’t had anything to eat. Beside him, Keanu wasn’t looking much better; his skin had greyed slightly, and his jaw was locked tight.
Ahead of them the castle loomed ever larger. Through the trees which sometimes obscured it, he could now see that beneath the torn banners hung from its walls were several dark shapes swinging lightly in the wind. The pair climbed up the side of a massive tree trunk sprawled across the path, and faced the first level patch of land they’d seen in ages. It looked to Nick as though it might have once been a farmer’s field; now it was a graveyard for hundreds.
“They fought here,” Keanu said.
“How can ya tell?”
Pointing at what Nick thought was a very thin cross raised upon the field, Keanu said, “That would be the battle standard. Plus...” He jumped from the tree trunk they stood upon and pulled something from the hand of a half disintegrated skeleton. Holding a sword aloft, Keanu shrugged. “Battlefield or massacre.”
“Or both,” Nick muttered. Following Keanu’s example, he landed carefully on a spot clear of human remains--at least, he hoped it was--and stared out at the scene before them. Like a ghost of what was past, he thought he could hear the clamour of steel upon steel, screams and curses, and the roar of flames. Nick shook his head, and set forward through the rubble.
Rather than toss it back into the pile, Keanu kept the sword. Though unsure as to why, when Nick spotted another among the heap, he took it up in kind. The weight and fit was wrong, and Nick frowned at the weapon. Of course it was wrong--proper swords were matched to their owners, like a pair of good shoes.
Unsure of how he knew that, Nick jogged forward to catch up with the other boy.
Beyond the field was a collection of half-broken foundations marking what had once been a village. They kept to the wide path between what were once houses, each boy staring straight ahead at the castle before them. Gradually the path became a road, and the foundations turned to stone. What had been simple square markers became half-crumbled walls, and old fences, and even gates that still swung loosely as the breeze blew by.
The road and ruins stopped before they came to the gates of the castle. A moat was sunk around the castle walls, green with scum and thick with cattails, and over it laid the broken draw bridge he’d seen from the hillside above. Ropes creaked in the wind above, a steady counterpoint to the erratic flapping of the banners in the wind. The dark shapes he’d glimpsed earlier stared down at him with wide, pecked out eyes.
Unlike the rest of the bodies they’d seen, these were not touched in anyway by flame. Cloth still clung to their form, haggard remains of white, russet and gold. All six had been hung by their necks, and picked over by the crows that perched about the rafters. One still had her hair, a dull red mass that yet retained hints of its former glory. Nearby birds cawed at the pair of boys staring up at them, and flapped their wings in defence of their prizes.
Nick’s sword dropped from his hand, and he stepped back, away from the gruesome palace. “We shouldn’t be here.” He turned, and bolted down a second path which wound downhill toward the distant rushing of the river.
The wind sprang up, pushing and tugging at him as he ran down the path. His footing slipped and he fell, tumbling down the hill into an apple orchard. For a moment, Nick merely lay there, staring upward as thunderheads began to cloud the sky. Every hair on his body began to stand as one.
He rolled before lightning sprang from the ground behind him, but his shirt was scorched and pain shot through his back. Scrambling to his feet, the boy half-ran and half-fell the rest of the way down the hill.
There was a bridge a little further down the river. Nick ran for it, and lightning snapped at his heels the whole way. Just halfway across it, there came a dull roar in the distance. He looked up to see a wall of water rushing downstream, carrying houses and people within it.
One hand grabbed at the rope bridge just before the water smacked into him. He couldn’t see; couldn’t breathe. The best that Nick could manage was to keep holding onto the rope. Eventually the water slackened. Climbing, one hand over the other like a latter, Nick broke the river’s surface with a gasp. Using the rope as a lead, he tugged himself back to the shore and pulled himself up out of the mess.
The sky rumbled overhead. Swearing, the boy got back to his feet. He limped away from the water, then eased himself into a walk, and run. Ahead of him loomed the forest, once again fresh and green, and he entered it gladly.
Something about the woods filled him with energy anew. Running--leaping--over rocks and logs in his path, Nick knew only that he was getting away. The stress in his shoulders unknotted, and he laughed with relief. He broke free of the treeline and slowed to a stop as he neared a cliff.
A boy ran past and screamed as he fell over the edge. Diving forward, Nick caught the boy’s hand and stared down into a pair of terrified, familiar blue eyes.
“Climb!” Nick reached down with his other hand, his chest pressing into stone and twig as he caught hold of the boy’s shirt and tried to pull him up. The kid scrambled at the edge, but found purchase and in another moment they were both up on the cliff panting.
Flopped back on the grass, Nick lolled his head to one side and met the boy’s eyes again. It wasn’t just that this boy was alive where so many others had died, Nick realized that he knew the boy from somewhere. Somewhere...
A green twig cracked over his knuckles and Nick yelped. Rubbing his fingers,he glared up at the old man standing over him. “Pain doesn’t make this any easier, you know!”
“He’s angry,” said the blond boy across the table from him, with a smirk written across his lips. Quick as lightning, Hiddenite smacked the boy’s hands as well, and then folded his arms across his thin chest.
“Your gifts are no laughing matters.”
“We know” Nick muttered.
“Do you?” The old knight glowered at him, then walked toward a large window overlooking the forest beyond the castle walls. “It’s a beautiful day outside. I suppose you two think it unfair that your companions are out in the salle, beating one another black and blue, and you’re stuck indoors with dusty old tomes.”
“Well, if you’re asking--” the blond began, and fell short at Hiddenite’s glare.
“Do you know what the difference is between the two of you and the three of them?”
Nick shrugged. He picked a goblet from the table and sipped at the spiced wine. “We’re stuck indoors with the dusty old...tomes?”
“Unlike them, your powers will consume you.” Hiddenite swallowed thickly. He tapped his switch against one arm as he studied the pair of them. “You might think it’s fun and games now, being able see things that you do, but think: What would it be like to be privy to every thought of every person around you, constantly and without filtering? To have your vision so clouded by people’s emotions that you lose the ability to see anything else? Without proper training, your powers will sully what you see or hear until you lose everything that you are. ”
“But, Endy--” began the blond.
“Has gifts of his own. In this area he is not half so adept as either of you. It may seem unfair...but life has ways of evening things out.”
Catching his classmate’s eye again, Nick caught the kindred confusion in the other boy’s eyes just before thunder rolled overhead again. He jerked his gaze up to the broiling clouds above. A network of lightning flashed within the blackest of the thunderheads and Nick leapt to his feet. He took off for the forest again, before it could strike at him again.
Left and right he dodged as lightning sizzled amongst the trees. Wood exploded and the underbrush caught fire. He just kept running, though his lungs burned and eyes stung with smoke. Pulling his shirt up over his mouth, Nick tripped and sprawled across the forest floor. A few drops sprinkled his arms, and then the heavens upended themselves over the earth.
Rolling over, Nick let the water hit his face and course over his body. He was soon chilled to the bone, but it was better than the heat. He opened his eyes and saw a figure above him, a shady haze of a woman with a bow slung over her shoulder. She knelt beside him and in a crack of lightning he could see her smile. “Are you trying to catch your death, then, good sir?”
“More like a nymph.” She slapped his chest, stood, and offered him a hand up.
They sat at the edge of a meadow, each so still that the fawn grazing nearby did not seem at all bothered. Nick let the woman curl against his side, her breath easy upon his neck. Carefully he brushed a lock of dark hair behind her ear, looking in wonder at the mighty huntress he held. There’d been many a woman in his life, but never one so bold as to take up the dress and weapon of a man. As she slept, he marked the callouses upon her hands, and the faint traces of wounds past upon her arms. This was a woman who had known war, he realized with a sudden sickness.
Perhaps she had a little of the psychic about her after all, for the woman roused and kissed his neck. “You’re staring at me.”
He reached for her hand and held it aloft, and with his fingers he caressed the roughness of her palm. “When have you held a sword?”
“A sword?” The woman paused, but he felt her tense beneath his arm. “No. Just hoes and butcher knives. Why would you think a sword?”
“Madness,” he said with a laugh. He kissed her temple, and lingered. The temptation was there--just a quick peek at what she hid from him, a brush. She’d never know. Nick pulled away and smiled at her. “Forget it.”
Those dark green eyes--hunter’s green, he thought--stared at him, accusing. Her fists trembled at her sides, and he knew she wanted to hit him. Finally, she growled and turned to stalk half across the meadow. “This is...this is impossible!”
“Says the poacher.”
“You didn’t have a problem with that a few days ago!” The woman rounded on him, finger out as though to poke him. Nicholas stood his ground, jaw clenched and eyes narrowed. The setting sun was casting streamers of orange across the sky, igniting the hidden red within the woman’s hair. His heart told him how beautiful she was, and he nearly lost his anger.
“I forgave a girl trying to feed her family,” he reminded her in a whisper. “Not...” Swallowing thickly, Nick looked away. “We need a plan. This cannot continue.”
“I can’t hide this anymore,” said the woman, and she rubbed one arm, “And we can’t do this anymore.”
“Obviously.”
They stared at one another a moment longer, and this time it was she that looked away frist. The woman took a step back, then another. Finally she turned and ran into the forest, and Nick did not follow.
“Traitor,” hissed a voice.
Behind him stood the fawn, its eyes grown as large as dinner plates in its misshapen head. It hissed again, revealing wicked fangs too big for its mouth. Nicholas yelped as it charged him. He dived to one side, narrowly missing an antler as it sprouted from the fawn’s forehead.
“I’m not!” Climbing to his feet, Nick found stone under his feet and his voice snatched by the wind. He turned in a circle, and clutched the nearest parapet as dizziness washed over him. Nearby banners flapped in the breeze, and beneath him swayed the disintegrating nobility on their ropes.
After losing the lunch he hadn’t had, Nick wiped his wrist across his lips and looked out at the darkening hillside. Even with night drawn he could see the destruction stretching through the river valley. “Why did they do this?”
“I don’t know.”
He jumped, and turned to find the boy from earlier at his side. Whoever he was, he didn’t seem to be a threat--not like the others. Relaxing, Nick leaned once more against the parapet and wished the smell of decay from his nose.
Just about to turn away, a light flickered into being further down the valley. Nick grabbed the boy’s shoulder. “What do you think that is?”
“I think it’s important,” said the boy after a pause.
“Yeah,” Nick said, his stomach rolling again in sickness, “Me too.”
Together they turned for the stair, and then they were running down it. The steps were steep, and thin, and would be a hazard even if they weren’t slick with--water? Struck by the sudden stench of death, Nick wasn’t so sure. He stopped at the first landing, next to a door, just before a lump stretched upon the next flight down.
A hand clamped to his mouth, Nick knelt down and reached forward until his fingers tangled into a knotted mass of hair. He lifted the head until he make out, by the light of a moonlight window, the cold and tortured face of his mentor. Hiddenite’s belly had been slit, and his guts strew down the staircase. His eyes rose to meet Nick’s. Though his voice shook, Nick heard him clear as a bell: “The King, boy. Save your King.”
He resettled Hiddenite’s head as carefully as he could, and burst through the door into the corridor beyond.
Before him marched a man, tall and broad-shouldered with shocking white hair. The heavy doors to the audience chamber closed behind them. As the doors struck home, the hall lit with the light of day and the figure momentarily overlaid with the image of a familiar boy with dark hair, it then faded altogether. Like a whisper, a memory, he thought he heard a familiar voice say:
“I am now lord general, as you both should be aware...”
Signs of a great battle were everywhere. Furniture was strewn, the rushes tossed asunder, and doors hung by splintered hinges. The castle had been ransacked, and all that was left were dark stains of blood and bodies. Nick stepped over a fallen chambermaid, telling himself that he did not see her for there was nothing that he could do. Amethyst, whispered the back of his mind; her name was Amethyst.
Marching on down the hall, one of his hands moved to the sword hilt at his hip. He glanced this way and that, but no living soul greeted him save a half-wild bitch that growled from a corner and then ran with her tail between her legs.
Beyond broken windows, birds sang and a gentle breeze blew in to rustle dust and debris about the room.
Nick turned to the sound of panting breath behind him.
Beverly stood at the end of the hall, and it was only at the sight of her did Nick remember they’d left her in the car. The ghoul stared at him, unblinking, and his blood ran cold. She growled, much like the bitch that had gone scampering, and Nick took a step backward. Looking down, he saw that Amethyst had her eyes open, now, and she stared at him.
Her lips moved, soundlessly, as he backed away until he touched a door behind him. Beverly advanced, her corpse moving in stiff, peculiar twitches. Nick yanked the door open and ran.
Tree trunks blurred past him and Nick didn’t care a wit how he’d come to the forest again. He could hear the ghoul behind him; her panting breath and animalistic growls sent shivers of terror up his spine, obliterating any tire or hurt. A path had come underfoot again, though it was grown over in spots. Following it as best he could, he thought he might soon lose her and turned his head to look.
Smacking into someone in his path, they tumbled down the side of a hill rise and landed in the dead leaves below. As Nick worked himself clear of the other boy, he realized it was the same blond he’d seen several times already. “You’re real!”
“Of course I’m real.” The boy pushed him away, and sat up. “What else would I be?”
A terrible, ragged breathing came from the woods. They turned as one to see the old woman crouched beneath a nearby tree, staring at them. She wore a torn floral print dress over her sinew and skin corpse, hunched over in a squat like a primate. Beverly stared at them a moment, then crawled forward upon her hands and knees.
Both boys scrambled backward on hands and knees for every step that she took. “Masters...Why run? Stay with us here, where you belong.”
“Go away.” Nicholas climbed to his feet and grabbed the boy up with him. Together, the two boys fled the scene, and this time the forest parted for them. The very trees got up and moved to block the demon in behind them, they were able to make an escape. He only prayed that Beverly wouldn’t find Keanu.
The woods ended abruptly at the crest of a hill--just a clearing, small and circular, but enough that they could see the countryside around them. While the other boy bent over to catch his breath, Nick turned in a circle and looked over the hillside.
“Where are we going?”
Finally he found it, a single light in the distance. He pointed to it. “There. We have to make it there.”
Though unsure of how he knew that--as unsure as he was of how exactly trees could walk--Nick did not stop to question it. A scream came from behind them, like from the very gates of Hell, and Nick fled. His companion followed, and together they plunged once again into the dark trees.
Jumping logs and gullies, they ran until their lungs begged for mercy. Even upon the streets Nick had never had to run so fast, so long. Though every portion of him wanted to quit, the screams of the thwarted spirit urged him onward.
“Help!”
Stumbling to a halt, Nick turned and saw the boy fall. Beverly clutched at his leg, more teeth than human now, and her claw-like fingers dug into the boy’s leg. “Jade!”
He grabbed one of the boy’s flailing hands, then his arm and tried to tug him away from the monster. Beverly was strong for a corpse, and she held on even as the boy turned to kick at her with his free leg. “Leave. Me. Alone!”
A sickening squelch punctuated a last, sharp kick. Beverly shrieked and let go of the boy, who was on his feet in an instant. They high-tailed it out of there, and this time she did not follow. “What is that thing?” the boy gasped.
“Dunno,” said Nick, through gritted teeth.
“Ne--”
They stopped together as they entered a sudden clearing. In front of them was a shrine of white marble nestled in a field of wild flowers, with columns that reached into the sky. The pair exchanged a glance, and then walked together toward it. Nick couldn’t help a faint sense of deja vu as the flowers brushed against his legs.
There were three steps that lead up to the flat of the shrine, and a lone pedestal was set in the middle. Nick crossed to it without a word. Five rocks were sat upon the pedestal: four each to the cardinal point and the fifth in the center. His mouth went dry as he realized, as instinctively as he’d known Hiddenite and Amethyst, that these stones were...
“Kunzite.” Nick touched the pink gem to the south.
His companion nodded, and Nick followed the boy’s gaze to a yellow-green stone to the north. “Zoisite.” Then he looked to the west. Frowning, he looked at his companion: “Nephrite.”
Like a bell inside of him had been run, like a peon to the gods, the world seemed to snap into focus; a focus he’d never realized he’d lost in the first place. Looking at the boy across from him now, he was no longer a stranger but a long lost friend. “Jadeite.”
As soon as the relief had come, it vanished as they both looked to the golden crystal at the pedestal’s center. It darkened and cracked before their eyes, and they each stepped away from the pedestal. Step after step they moved backward as the pedestal collapsed and the marble began to crack beneath their feet. Nicholas had but one moment to look up and realize just how far from Jadeite that he’d drifted before the shrine gave way. He collapsed into darkness, aware only of a soft, rasping laugh.
“Nick. Nephrite.”
Keanu stared down at him, eyebrows furrowed and scowling. For a moment Nick’s vision went blurry, and he thought he saw a ghost of silver hair and a green tabard, before the work regained itself again. His friend wetted his lips, then scratched his hair. “C’mon man, focus.”
Wherever they were, it was freezing. “I am focusing.”
A moment later, Nick managed to push himself up into a sit. He rubbed his eyes clean and glanced around at the icy cavern they stood in. His breath pooled in the air before him and he shivered. “Where...”
“Not a clue.” Keanu dropped a heavy cloak around Nick’s shoulders as he stood up. Nick drew it close and pretended to ignore the dark stains across the front of it. “But I’m pretty sure it isn’t Taiwan. Or China.”
“Hardy-har,” Nick muttered. There was nothing about them but an iced stream and a lot of rock, and the only light came from...Keanu. Nick frowned and turned to look at his friend, suddenly realizing that the boy had, in his absence, become a glow worm.
Not literally, thank God, but at this point Nicholas wouldn’t have been surprised.
Keanu seemed unware of it, or used to it. “What uh...happened to your hair, man?”
“My hair?”
Nick flicked his fingers in Keanu’s direction, “It’s...y’know, never mind.”
Though he looked ready to protest, he didn’t, and Nick was glad of it. Somehow, he didn’t think Keanu would take kindly to knowing that he had skunk stripes going down both sides of his head; it wasn’t exactly dignified.
“I think the water goes on that way,” Keanu said and gestured off to the left, “but it goes under a... well, a glacier. I would have gone the other way, but I didn’t want to leave you alone in the dark.”
“So yer aware of your lightning bug heritage, huh?”
That earned him a glower fit for an award, then Keanu marched past and down the opposite end of the stream. With little choice otherwise, Nicholas followed. As they went, Nicholas realized two things: that the light Keanu cast left no shadows, and that there was noise in the cave which didn’t come from either of them. It was a breathing, so much akin to Beverly in the woods that Nick’s blood began to race once again.
“Why’s it always the chasing?”
“Hm?” Keanu glanced back at him. Nick shook his head.
The stream never seemed to end, but it did thaw. Gradually the ice broke upon its surface and it began to flow. Nick looked down from time to time and saw the stream deepen and widen and become a river. Under the clear water, dark shapes moved beneath. Some were tiny minnows, and then eels the size of his arm. Further down, so far that Keanu’s light only touched by a small degree, moved of creatures a scale he’d only encountered in nightmares. With a shuddered, Nick told himself not to look.
Keanu slowed to a halt in front of him, and they stopped together at a point where their path had elevated above the water. The Arab boy glanced out over it, then to the side where another path went further upward. He seemed conflicted, but Nick felt something, then, like a small tug at the pit of his stomach.
“I think we should go that way.”
Their eyes met a moment, then Keanu nodded. “Lead on,” he said. Though Nick wanted to protest that Keanu was their light, he stepped forward and lead their way up the trail. Soon he didn’t need the cloak any more, and he dropped it on a boulder as they passed.
His ears popped, and his legs hurt, and they could no longer hear the sound of the river below, but the tug in Nick’s gut grew ever stronger. Before long they were reduced to crawling through a tiny space, where only the fresh air blowing in their face was any indication that they were going in the right direction. Nicholas sent up a silent prayer that this cavern would break the surface before it grew any smaller--already the rock was scraping against his back, making it hard to crawl. Then his hand met grass, instead of rock, and he pulled himself free of the cave.
Above them, through black shapes which looked like trees, he could see a star spangled sky stretched above him. Breathing a sigh of relief, Nick turned and offered a hand to Keanu. A few moments later they were both up on their feet, and dusting as much of the dirt off their clothes as they could.
Almost immediately Keanu’s presence began to brighten the darkness around them--at least enough that they could see. Though he still wasn’t sure how Keanu did that, he wasn’t about to complain. The area that they’d come out of was a tiny little hole in the forest floor. It didn’t quite look or feel like the same forest as before, and he hoped there wouldn’t be any more corpses.
As if on cue, Keanu asked: “Where are we?”
The tug he’d felt earlier had left him as quickly as it’d come, so Nick shrugged. “Fuck if I know.”
“Wonderful.” The Arab boy shook his head and took a few steps away from the cave. There wasn’t any real telling where they are, but there was at least no howling of wolves or screaming of bobcats. Always a good sign, that.
“Maybe this way,” Keanu said. Nick shrugged and followed.
Perhaps it was minutes later, perhaps hours (It was kind of impossible to tell, Nick thought, everything out here looked essentially the same. Except, he amended, a collection of strange, tiny stone houses they had passed at one point. That was pretty fucking weird.) there came a familiar sound from ahead of them. A pair of headlights passed through the trees, and rolled to a stop several yards to their left.
Keanu caught Nick’s arm as if to hold him back. “You don’t gotta warn me,” Nick muttered.
The car stayed as it was for a few moments, and then some doors shut. Another minute passed as the car circled back around and left the way it had come. Out of the darkness, two people began to shout at each other in a foreign language Nick figured was probably some kind of Asian. It sounded a lot like the kind of babble he’d hear in the Asian district, anyway.
This time it was his turn to catch Keanu’s arm. “Dude. Are ya fuckin’ insane?”
The Arab raised a brow at him. “What?”
“Two people inna woods shoutin’ at each other at night. That shit ain’t the kind ya wanna be messin’ with, trust me.”
“Says the kid who just skipped the border on the magical cave express.”
Nick let him go and trudged begrudgingly behind as his companion lead the way to the roadside. Maybe Keanu’s light wasn’t visible if you weren’t with him, Nick considered, as neither of the teenagers causing the commotion seemed to notice the boy until he walked between them.
“Hello?”
The girl shrieked, whirled, and clobbered Keanu straight in the nose. Nick smothered a snicker as his friend crumpled. The two teens stared in shock. Keanu touched a hand to his nose and looked at the blood. “Goddamn it, Zoisite, you--You’re a girl?”
There was a pause, a collective holding of breaths, as Zoisite gaped at Keanu, a blush on her cheeks. A second later she pulled her fist back and slugged him again. Silver tongued, Keanu was not.
Three hours later, the four of them sat in a hotel so seedy that even Nicholas worried if they would make it out alive. Zoisite--Zoe, he reminded himself--assured them that Japan was “a far safer country than ‘the States,’ statistically,” but if there was one thing that Nick knew about statistics, it was that people who quoted them were usually in the percentage who’d never experienced any of the shit they wanted to quote you statistics about.
Nick immediately took residence in a chair by a window, across the room from the door so that he could stare at it. Keanu put the chain into place, then turned to stare at the collection of them. They were a strange lot, Nick figured, as though nature had tried, and failed, to recreate what had once been.
Jadeite was Asian--King of the East, Nicholas mentally snickered--but blond and blue eyed, and Nick guessed that meant he was a mutt of some kind. The boy barely came up to Nick or Keanu’s chests, but his posture said that he could handle himself, if it came down to it. Catching the boy’s eye, Nick felt the long distant spark of familiarity travel between them and knew that they would have much to discuss. Or would, if they had a common language.
“So, what do we do?” Zoe sat on one of the two beds, legs crossed indian-style, and glowering at Keanu. As much as Nick was amused by Keanu’s error, he had to admit some surprise himself. The image of Zoicite was fuzzy in his head, but the strawberry-blond twig of a girl in front of him did in no way match with it, and it wasn’t just for her sex.
“I don’t know,” Keanu admitted after a hesitation. He sat on the other bed, leaned forward upon his knees, and rubbed his hands together. “We’re here for a reason.”
“To save our king?” Nick chuckled faintly, until he noticed the stricken looks of the other two. Jun, of course, just seemed confused.
Slowly, Zoicite shook her head. There were tears in her eyes, though they did not spill, as she said: “No. I think we have to kill him.”
