A Boat Made of Bone (The Chthonic Saga) (49 page)

It
’s Will. It’s him, and I love him.

The slope of the terrain changed slowly at first from a gentle rise with the flaming trees around them, into a vicious slant. If Kate fell, she’d have a hard time stopping. Nearby gnarled, black trunks snapped and cracked with their foliage of flame, growing out of the side of the mountain at bent angles, reaching toward the dim sun that seemed to call to them in shades of flame like their own. Ahead of Kate and Will a roar began, quiet at first, but with each faltering upward step it grew in size, the volume soon drowning out all other sound. Kate checked over her shoulder. The dragons were right behind them. Tips of wings slanted backward as their altitude lowered, bringing them closer to the elevation of Kate and Will.

Kate gasped and scrambled up the slope, moving between house-sized boulders covered in ash and char, spread out like they’d been deposited by a massive volcano. They didn’t speak—they had no breath for it. Soon the dragons lowered themselves around Kate and Will as they hid amongst a field of enormous rocks. They ducked into an overhang between a boulder and the searing ground as three dragons settled upon surrounding rock perches, shrieking primeval cries. They loomed, looking down like gargoyles. Kate’s breath came in panicked bursts that she could hardly contain. Will crouched beside her, appearing worse than ever. His face seemed to droop. His bright blue eyes were half covered by tired, slanting eyelids.

“We’re finished,” Will said, sadly.

Kate started, surprised to hear defeat in his voice, almost believing him. She shook her head. “No. No way. We’re almost there.”

“Where?” Will asked bitterly. “There’s nothing there. This is all an illusion. Like an oasis in a desert. We’re trapped. If we don’t surrender and let them take us back to Necropolis, they’ll kill us. I’m almost dead anyway. I’m burned, broken, armless.”

“But would you? Would you just go back to Cipher and keep living on this god-forsaken planet?”

“Kate, I’m—I’m so sorry. You’ve done so much for me. And now I know I haven’t been worth it.”

“Bull crap, Will. I’m sorry, but that’s bull crap. We’re not giving up. I’m not, at least.”

It was only then that she looked toward the mountain peak to determine how much further they had to go that Kate noticed a strange threshold. It was like a curtain of wind and it was just beyond the furthest dragon—a dark gray one with red-gold eyes. These dragons had no riders and they seemed to be waiting out Will and Kate, as though knowing which of the two parties—human or dragon—would win a standoff.

Kate exhaled a long, deep breath. “Will,” she whispered, pointing. “Look.”

He turned his tired eyes and saw what she referred to. “What is it?”

“I don’t know. Wind? Like a tornado?”

“The dragons, it’s like they’re trying to stop us from getting there,” Will mumbled, studying the scene. The black dragon opened its mouth as though yawning, and hobbled around to position its head near a path that could take Will and Kate into the veil of storm.

“But could the wind kill us?” Kate questioned, resting one hand on the underside of their stone shelter, the other gripped the final disc.

“Perhaps. But which death would be preferable? By dragon, Cipher, or a windstorm?” Will’s voice gave away which death he’d opt for. The wind. A fighting death. A death of glory, of trying to overcome, the unsinkable choice, the one that showed off who he’d become—a warrior, one who did not kneel at the feet of his captor weakly, begging for mercy. No. That would not do. Kate studied him. His fading eyes flickered and sparked fiercely as he told her with his expression what he wanted to do.

“So you want to go for it?” Kate asked calmly. Did he know that it might kill her too? He hesitated, and that told her that he did. He must believe it would be better for them to perish together fighting through the trap of dragons and the storm of wind than to languish in Necropolis, answering to Cipher’s whims. She didn’t blame him. That’s what she’d come for. To free him. There was risk in that and there always had been. Somehow she’d known. And still she chose it.

In her dreams she’d fallen for the playful, quick-witted, and lovely man with beautiful eyes and a touch that knew her better than anyone else. Here, now, because of trial after trial—a curse of his own hideousness, the brutal and dangerous battles—all pretense had been stripped away and Kate saw what and who Will was. Gone was any flowery language about being in love and enamored with each other. What was left was reality, and it was stone cold on this hard, unforgiving planet of dragons, demons, death, and insurmountable obstacles. Kate could see who he was through the only thing that remained of the William Hawke she knew—those blue eyes, windows into the eternal nature of his soul. And he was beautiful. Self-sacrificing. Courageous even in the moments where his strength wavered. Brave even when he didn’t know if he could really do what he knew he must. He did it. Without faltering. He pushed ahead into the unknown, trusting in the blind, the invisible possibilities.

I could love him. Even if he came back to Earth and was a ninety-year-old man, and me, barely twenty-four.
The flesh was a cloak, a costume, a distraction that prevented a person from seeing clearly what lay beneath it. It could even fool the person who wore it. Kate saw herself as a not-too-bad girl, physically speaking. She had complaints about her appearance. But like everyone else, she saw herself as the person looking back from the mirror. It was a lie. What was true was in her eyes. What was in her eyes was her soul. And it was old. As old as Will’s soul.

Will touched her cheek with his gnarled cool fingers. “It’s dangerous. But . . . yes. I’m sorry it’s come down to this, Kate.”

“I’d do it again,” she paused, collecting herself. “I would, to answer your earlier question.”

“Which?” Will asked, his heavy brow furrowing.

“Even if you were an old man, and me, young, I would still pick you.
Will
pick you,” she amended. He would live. He would come back with her. She had to believe in that.

His expression lightened and the corner of his mouth lifted. With his purplish lips, the expression was somewhat gruesome, but her heart still responded. “I’m so glad. That makes me happy. You have no idea.” He frowned a little, as though considering something unpleasant. Maybe remembering that he still wore the ugly body Cipher had given him. She hoped that was it.

“The disc? The last one?” he asked.

Kate lifted and inspected the thing again. She’d almost forgotten she had it.

“How do we make it work? It’s not like the others,” Will mused aloud.

“I have no idea. Let’s try just putting it down,” Kate said. One of the dragons screeched, startling them. They both jumped nervously and looked around. “Is it just me or are they getting restless?” The red dragon had changed positions—moved to a perch along the path to the veil of wind near the dark gray dragon.

Will clicked his tongue. “They seem anxious. Let’s hurry up with this.”

“Right. So, Leonardo said put it down between my feet,” Kate said.

“That’s it?”

She shrugged. “Yes. Cryptic, I know, but that was all.”

“Go for it,” Will urged from where he rested on his haunches like an ape.

Kate shuffled in her crouching position further beneath their overhang in case what happened alerted the dragons. “Here goes.” She put the marbled blue and white disc down between her boots and waited. Nothing happened at first. She nudged it with the side of her foot. Haltingly at first, it began to dissolve with a soft hiss, like a steam pipe venting. The clouds of mist coming off the disc swirled in a sinuous line outward in both directions, heading for her feet. She almost jumped away, but bit her bottom lip and held still. The white vaporous threads snuck outward like a snake and wrapped around her ankles, coiling about her boots in serpentine motions that made her heart stutter as though she were about to be yanked down into a vat of venomous reptiles. It continued like this until the entire disc had vanished, and what remained were clouds of white enveloping her feet.

Boots of wind.

31: Boots of Wind

“I guess they’ll do,” Kate said, touching one of the boots. They were cold and swirling like a tempest trapped in a mason jar. It reminded her of putting her hand out the window while driving ninety miles an hour in the winter—the snappish cold that bit and stung. She drew her hand back and lifted her gaze to Will. “What?” she asked when she saw the expression in his eyes.

“Kate?” His voice was alarmed.

“Will? What’s wrong?”

“Kate, are you there? I can barely see you, let alone hear you. Are you saying something?”

Kate’s eyes widened and she looked back down at her feet. What was going on? Had the boots done something to her? If Will couldn’t see her, well . . . they couldn’t keep going like that. She had a sudden thought and touched her leg just above the boots. It was cold. In fact, now that she was paying attention, she realized she felt cooler than she had since coming to Chthonos. She held her breath a moment and waited, concentrating on the way her body felt during the interval between when she inhaled and when she would exhale. Will would just have to wait a minute. Yes, yes. As she closed her eyes and focused, she felt her body-temperature lowering in tiny increments. With a gasp she let her lungs deflate and took a breath. The boots were changing her. Somehow. Cooling her. But evidently also making her hard to see.

As though she were wind.

She was wind!
she thought, exulting in the idea, wondering if it was true.

And what if she touched Will? Could that bring him into the sheath of protection? He was only two feet away. She reached out and took hold of his arm, hesitating at first, seeing that the spot she would touch was covered in brown wartlike protrusions. When their gazes locked, she caught a glimpse of the wounded look in his blue eyes. So he had seen it, and it hurt. She plunged on and gripped his arm tightly, in rebellion to the fear that made her pause before doing so.

Will’s eyes widened. “Kate! What happened? You were turning into just a haze, like a ghost. It was like you were being brushed away, like sand on the wind. Can you hear me?”

“I always could. But you couldn’t hear me. Can you now?” She brushed her fingertips across the toe of the boots.

“So is it the boots? Is that what’s making you invisible, or nearly invisible?”

“I would say yes, the boots, unless you found a way to work magic.” She grinned deliriously. 

“I wouldn’t still be living here if I had. I have no idea what keeps Leonardo here if he can make things like these boots.”

“Beatrice. We already discussed it. You wouldn’t stay for love?”

He turned and peered up the mountain at the dragons guarding the way.

“You would, wouldn’t you? Will?”

“For you, I would,” he said, turning to look at her, a glow beginning in his eyes. “But no one else. Not a chance.”

Kate sighed in relief. For a second there she worried that he would say not for her or anyone. She glanced at her Timex. “We have to go. We’ve less than an hour to make it to the top.”

“Do you think we’ll be able to sneak past the dragons?” Will asked, struggling to his feet. Kate helped him, sliding her hand down his arm and pulling him up. He mumbled a begrudging “thank you.”

“As long as we keep a hold of each other.”

“That should be easy,” he laughed softly. “I’ll never let you go.”

“Oh really? I should say I’ll never let you go even if you try,” Kate joked. They were tense, both of them. Worried about making it to the top, but even more, making it past the dragons. Even if it was hard for the dragons to see them, perhaps the huge beasts could smell Will and Kate. She whispered a prayer that the boots of wind prevented her odor from wafting to the knobby noses of the dragons.

“I hope you don’t, ever,” Will said, turning his brilliant gaze to her.

“Let me lead,” Kate said, avoiding the subject, though noticing that her heart skipped like a needle on a scratched record. If they didn’t get on with it, none of this would matter. They’d be trapped on Chthonos forever. For a split second, she thought of her friends back on Earth—Audra, Ty, and yes, even Malcolm, realizing for the first time that perhaps he wasn’t so bad and maybe he did care for her, in his own strange way—wondering where she’d gone. Were they searching for her? She felt a pang of guilt for whatever she was putting them through. “If we have to run, can you?” She glanced down at his feet. They continued to decay. It was worse now. Kate bit her lip and averted her eyes. Whatever was happening to him, she pled with God, the universe, whoever, that it would stop once he had his body back. The body of Earth. The Will she knew.

“I’ll be fine,” he said, reassuringly. “I’ll keep up with you Kate. I’ll probably end up being faster than you. And yes, to answer your unspoken question, I
will
definitely pick you up and carry you when you lose all your steam. No problem.” He winked. “By the way, I’m sorry my hand is so—so gross,” he said, lifting their interlocked hands to indicate what he meant.

“I’ve always had a thing for amphibians. It’s no big deal. It’s strangely comforting.” She knew their levity came from apprehension. So much rested on the next hour. Too much. Joking and being light about things alleviated some of the pressure. Kate released a hefty breath between her clenched teeth. “Ready?”