InterWorld

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The room was dark, the only source of light a firefly-green glow on the other side of the hall. We waited near the door, none of us willing to go farther in, letting our eyes adjust to the blackness.

And then a honeyed snarl whispered from the gloom. “Hello, children,” said Lord Dogknife. “Come to gloat, have we?”

We edged into the room. There was a black shape, outlined against the green glow.

“No,” said Jo. “We don’t gloat. We’re the good guys.”

There was a grunt. The glow light grew slightly brighter.

Now I could see what it was. The Walker souls, the ones from the jars, were hanging in the air, pressed together like an enormous swarm of bees. And facing them, with his hands plunged deep into the center of the swarm, was Lord Dogknife. He seemed to be holding the souls in place, but the effort was obviously costing him energy and effort. He was wheezing even more than usual, and he did not turn to look at us as we came closer.

“You creatures have caused me a great deal of trouble,” gasped Lord Dogknife. “Freeing these ghosts has cost me my ship, and the Lorimare invasion.”

“And FrostNight?” I asked.

He turned and looked at us then, and the swarm pulsed more brightly. One tiny light parted from the whole and skimmed toward Dogknife’s face, raking down his cheek. Dogknife almost seemed to stumble, and then pulled himself back to his feet and growled, “No. FrostNight will continue on schedule, whatever happens to me.”

There was a shudder and a crash as something below us fell apart. That was happening more and more lately.

“Why are you here?” I asked. “Shouldn’t you be in a lifeboat or something by now?”

It was like the bellow of a bull or the growl of a tiger. “Cannot you see, boy? This ridiculous simmered-up ball of spirits has me caught.” He groaned and heaved, trying, vainly, to pull away. The firefly-green light burned more brightly. It began to spread up his arms, oozing like slow green oil. It made sense. If he’d had me imprisoned in a glass bottle for years—having first had mind-mashing amounts of pain inflicted upon me, to help me “focus”—I know what I would have wanted to do. I would have wanted to hurt him, just like he hurt me. I would have kept him on the ship until it blew or crashed or did whatever sabotaged ships did in the Nowhere-at-All.

Josef touched my shoulder. “Joey? This is your deal.

Whatever you’re going to do, you need to do it fast.”

I nodded. Took a deep breath and walked forward. I faced those eyes, eyes that were the color of cancer, of bile, of venom. I looked into them, even though every cell of my body was telling me to run, and I said, “I want my mudluff back.”

His huge hyena face twisted briefly into an expression of amusement. I could see him calculating, realizing that he had something I wanted.

“Ahhhh. You didn’t come all the way back here just to witness my death. You want the creature, then?”

“Yes.”

A light flashed brightly in the swarm of souls, and Lord Dogknife flinched. “Then get me out of here, and I’ll give you your little friend back. But you must free me. Right now I couldn’t even get the prism if I wanted to. My hands are somewhat occupied.”

“Why should we trust you?” called Jakon.

“You can’t trust me. Nor should you—” He paused then, grunted and seemed to concentrate. Then he moaned. It was the closest I ever heard Lord Dogknife come to making a sound of weakness, of pain. I had to admit, it didn’t give me as much satisfaction as I might have hoped. Still, I was a long way from feeling sorry for him.

“If you want your pet back, then for the sake of all you hold holy,” he said, “help me. I will not last much longer. The pain is more than I can bear. And I can bear much pain…”

I hesitated. “I don’t even know if I can help. What if we just took back the prism?”

“Then,” he panted, “you would have a prism with an ouroboros imprisoned in it. You need me to open it.”

The ship gave a sudden lurch, and suddenly everything was at forty-five degrees. I lost my footing on the slippery wooden floor and slammed against the wall. I rolled out of the way barely in time to avoid Lord Dogknife, who hit the same spot, only a lot harder. He groaned and pulled himself back to his feet.

Tentatively, I put out my hand and pushed into the glowing light.

Hate.

Hate filled my mind.

The desire for revenge.

Each of the spirits, and there were hundreds of them in that swarm, still roiled and reeled and writhed in pain. They were full of hate; hate for the ship, hate for HEX, hate for Lord Dogknife, hate for Lady Indigo; hate was the only thing they had to distract them from the pain.

It was horrible. All over my mind, hundreds of versions of me were screaming.

I had to stop it.

“It’s over,” I told them, hardly knowing what I was saying. “No one’s going to hurt you again. You’re free. Let go. Move on.” I tried to think of good things to back up the thoughts I was sending them. Hot summer days. Warm winter nights by the fire. Thunderstorms. After a while I ran out of commonplace touchy-feely things and concentrated on family memories. The smell of Dad’s pipe. The squid’s smile. The stone around my neck, the one that my mother gave me before I left.

The stone…

For no reason I could name, I reached in my shirt and pulled it out. It hung in my hand, reflecting the flickers and pulses of the souls. And then I noticed something peculiar: The stone wasn’t just echoing the lights; it was resonating with them, harmonizing with the flickering colors, somehow. And I could see the firefly lights were changing; beginning to pulse and flare in sync. If it had been sound instead of light, I would have been hearing two contrapuntal melodies that were slowly merging.

They were almost ready to believe me. I knew it, somehow. Almost, but not quite.

“Stop fighting them,” I told Dogknife.

“What?”

“As long as you’re fighting them, they’ll keep trying to destroy you. Just stop fighting them and they’ll let you go.”

“Why”—he gasped—“why should I trust you?”

“We’ve just been over all that. Now stop fighting them.”

And he did. He relaxed every muscle, and I could almost hear the tension fade. See? I told the sparks in my head, barely realizing I wasn’t speaking out loud. Now let it go.

The light began to glow more and more brightly, filling the room with a blinding radiance. I closed my eyes, screwed them up tightly, but the light filled my head and my mind. I thought I heard something say good-bye, but I might have just imagined it. Then the light faded, and Mom’s stone went out as well.

The whole room went dark.

“Take it,” said Lord Dogknife’s voice. Something sharp and cold was pressed into my hand.

“Thanks,” I gasped, without thinking.

Something flickered and a nearby candelabra erupted into flames. Lord Dogknife stood next to me. His breath was a pestilence, and the pure hatred gleaming from his eyes could have put the sun out. He bared his teeth, so close that I could see things, like tiny, almost microscopic maggots, crawling on them.

“Do not thank me, boy,” that ruined snout whispered. “The next time we meet, I shall chew your face from your skull. I’ll floss with your guts. You have cost me so much. So do not—ever—thank me.”

He put his head on one side, as if he were listening for something, and then he howled loudly, like a maddened wolf.

“My associates are coming,” he said.

“Open Hue’s prism,” I told him, “or I’m calling back the spirits.”

His sharp teeth glinted in the candlelight. “You are lying. You cannot do that.”

He was right, of course. I couldn’t, but he couldn’t be sure of that. I cupped the stone pendant in my free hand. “Let’s find out,” I said.

His red eyes burned into mine, but he was the first to flinch. The prism began to feel ice-cold, like the hull of a space shuttle must. “It will not open completely in my presence,” growled Lord Dogknife. He grabbed me then, lifted me off my feet. “So, sadly, you must take your leave, Walker.”

He threw me, like an Olympic javelin thrower might casually toss a twig. I flew the length of that huge room, hard enough to break half the bones in my body when I hit the far wall. Which, fortunately, didn’t happen, because Jo threw herself across my path, using her wings to slow us down. We landed softly on the deck, and an instant later the rest of my team had surrounded me. I got to my feet, and would have fallen again when the deck lurched suddenly, if Jakon hadn’t grabbed me. Everything was shuddering now. I could see rivets cracking, and sections of the hull warping.

Dogknife howled again, and the far wall erupted into wood fragments. Something was hanging in the not-space alongside the ship, something that looked like a magic carpet upgraded to a modern day life raft. I could make out Lady Indigo, Scarabus, Neville and a number of other creatures who might have been HEX bigwigs on it.

Lord Dogknife growled and leapt for the raft, landing on it hard enough to catapult a creature on the edge of the raft screaming, out into the Nowhere-at-All.

And then, like a bad memory, the raft was gone, and the Malefic was tearing itself to pieces around us.

“Where’s the portal?” shouted Jai.

I was going to tell him it was below us, but then I realized it wasn’t below us anymore. It was somewhere to my right, a few hundred yards away. “It’s somewhere over there!” I shouted back, pointing.

Around about then, the ceiling started to come down.

We ran.

“Out!” bellowed Josef. “Let’s head for the deck! It’s our only chance!”

“Less talk, more running,” said Jakon.

The prism in my hand felt colder. Then it felt wet. It was a strange feeling, familiar, but I couldn’t stop to open my hand and look at it. I was running, trying to keep up with the rest of the team.

The prism began to drip from my hand as a liquid. It was ice, I realized with a shock. Nothing more than melting ice. I hoped it hadn’t been some kind of trick on Lord Dogknife’s part.

A section of the floor started to crumble beneath us. J/O, Jakon, Jai and Jo made it across to the nearby staircase. Josef and I didn’t. Now there was a gap, easily ten feet wide, with flames erupting from it. Flames were spreading along the floor behind us.

“We’re never going to get out of here alive,” said someone. I think it was me.

The planks beneath me started tumbling away. I stepped back onto what I hoped was more solid footing. It wasn’t.

There was nothing but fire beneath me. But before I could fall into it, somebody picked me up, grabbing me by the belt as the deck vanished completely. “Hey,” said Jo. “Relax, or I might drop you.”

I relaxed. Her wings flapping, she rose above the hole and put me down on an untouched part of the deck. Then she turned back, dropping again to rescue Josef, who was hanging from a spar.

“You okay?” asked Jakon. I nodded. Then I opened my hand, where the prism had been. There was nothing there.

“He tricked me.” I said. “He lied.”

Jakon grinned. “I don’t think so.” She pointed above me.

I looked up. Hue hung in the air above me. He was faint and gray, but there nonetheless. I felt relief wash over me. “Hue! You’re back! Are you okay?”

A faint blush of pink spread along the mudluff’s bubble surface.

“I think she may have been hurt,” said Jakon.

I wondered about the “she” part, but there was no time to get into something as potentially complicated as that. “The quickest route’s through here,” I said, pointing at the wall. J/O stepped up and aimed his blaster arm. I didn’t see what he did; the smoke had become so thick that I couldn’t see, or breath very well either. “Hurry,” I said, coughing. Then I saw a flash of scarlet light through my closed eyelids, heard something like ffzzzhhsstt!! and suddenly there was fresh air in my face. Someone pushed me forward, and I stumbled out onto the Malefic’s forward deck.

“There’s the gate,” said Josef. “Look.” You could see it almost a hundred yards away to one side of the ship, glimmering against the strangeness of the Nowhere-at-All. “How do we get there?”

Jai said, “Jo, can you navigate the ether?”

“Can I fly over there?” She hesitated. “I don’t know. Probably not.”

“This is crazy,” growled Jakon. “We’re going to die on this stupid ship within sight of a gate.”

I looked again at the “hole” in the “sky.” It looked smaller, as if we’d drifted farther away. No. We weren’t drifting.

The gate was shrinking.

I looked up at Hue. “Hue! Could you get us out of here?”

He pulsed a sad gray. He had obviously been hurt by his time in the prism.

“Okay. Could you get us over to the portal?”

Again, a gloomy gray pulse. No. He couldn’t even do that.

“Well, then, could you get one of us over to the portal?”

A pause. Than a positive blue spread across Hue’s surface.

“Great,” said J/O. “So you get to live, and we get to die. That’s great. That’s just great, by which I mean, it really sucks, in case you were wondering.”

“You know,” I told him, “I was just starting to like you, after that sword fight. All of us are getting out. And the one I want Hue to carry over is Josef.”

“Me?” said Josef, his brow creasing.

“That’s right,” I told him. There was another explosion from below us, and another chunk of the ship dissolved into splinters.

“Quick,” I told them, looking around, “we need that rigging over there, and—yes! There’s a segment of mast down there. We need it over here.”

Jakon grabbed the rigging—it was the size of a couple of bedsheets, a netlike tangle of thumb-thick line—and Jai, with a little effort, levitated one end of the broken mast from under the pile of broken spars and timbers. Jo pulled up with the other, flapping her wings as she did so, and Josef and I pushed it up and over to the spot I had indicated.

I wrapped the rigging around the spar, tying it at the top and the bottom. It wouldn’t win any design awards, but it would serve. I hoped.

“Now,” I said. “Let’s hope that there isn’t much inertia in the Nowhere-at-All. Josef, how’s your javelin throwing?”

“Why?”

“Because,” I told him, “I want you to throw us at the gate.”

They all stared at me with that particular stare reserved for someone you’ve pinned your last hopes on, only to discover he’s utterly mad. “You’re crazy,” said Jakon. “The moon has taken your mind.”

“No,” I told her, told all of them. “It’s perfectly sensible. We hold on to the rigging, and Josef throws the mast toward the gate. It’s still pretty huge, although it’s shrinking fast. We hit it, I open it and Hue brings Josef through.”

They looked at each other. “It sounds very straightforward that way,” said Jo.

“It sounds like worms have eaten your brain,” said Jakon.

“Completely cracked,” agreed J/O. “Neural systems failure.”

“Josef,” said Jai. “Do you believe you can throw us that far?”

Josef reached down and hefted the length of mast. It was as long as, although thinner than, a telephone pole. He grunted with the effort, then nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I think so. Maybe.”

Jai closed his eyes. He took several deep breaths, as if he were meditating. Then he said, “Very well. It will be as Joey says.”

“Hue,” I said. “You have to stay here, on deck, and bring Josef over to us once we’re on our way. Can you do that?”

There was a green glow from one small bubbly corner.

“How do you know it even understands you?” asked Jo.

“Do you have a better idea?” I asked her. She shook her head.

We pushed the mast over the side of the ship, with the end pointing slightly up and toward the gate, which was pulsating like a holographic nebula in the bleakness a hundred yards to the side of us.

“Let’s do it,” I told Jo. We all, except Josef, clambered onto the mast, holding tightly to the rigging.

“Okay, Josef. Go for it.”

He closed his eyes. He grunted. Then he pushed.

Slowly we began to move away from the ship. We were falling, flying, coasting toward the gate, moving through the Nowhere-at-All.

“It’s working!” shouted Jakon.

Sir Isaac Newton was the first person (on my Earth, anyway) to explain the laws of motion. It’s pretty basic stuff: An object (let’s just say, for instance, a length of mast with five young interdimensional commandos hanging from it) if left to itself, will, according to the first law, maintain its condition unchanged; the second law points out that a change in motion means that something (like Josef) has acted on the object; the third states that for every action there is a reaction of exactly the same force in the opposite direction.

The first law, the way I saw it, meant that we should have just kept floating toward the rapidly shrinking gate until we got there. True, there was air, or ether or something that we could breathe, but simple atmospheric friction wouldn’t slow us enough to stop before we reached it. So my plan was foolproof, right?

Problem is, as I’ve said before, there are some places where scientific laws are only opinions, and pretty questionable opinions at that. Where magical potency can be stronger than scientific law. The Nowhere-at-All is one of those places.

And the members of HEX know it.

We were still about thirty feet away from the gate when we stopped. Just stopped, and hung there in space.

And then, from behind us, we heard a voice. A voice as sweet as poisoned candy. A voice that, not too long ago, I would have died to hear a single word of praise from. And from the looks on the others’ faces, I knew they had once felt the same way.

“No, Joey Harker,” the voice said. “No last-minute escape for you.”

As one, the five of us, as well as Josef, back on the Malefic, turned—to face Lady Indigo.