Child of Darkness-L-D-2 (12 page)

He made his way through the crowd gathered there, headed to the path that would lead to the Dya’s wagon. But a voice called out to him over the panicked noises of the crowd, and he stopped.

“Cedric!” Dika struggled past a stubborn clump of Gypsies moving in the opposite direction. He went to her, though it was difficult to focus on her face when the crowd was so distracting. “What is happening?” he demanded as he pulled her to his side. She clung to him, as though afraid herself. “I thought you would not return in time! I worried, I wanted to go get you, but Dya said they would kill me at the border!”

“In time?” He surveyed the chaos around him, looked to the hole high above the central hearth, where the mortals now clustered.

“We are leaving, Cedric!” Her voice was a mixture of joy and terror. “We are finally leaving!”

“Leaving.” He could do little more than repeat what she had told him. “You are leaving the Underground?”

She nodded solemnly, the expression in her eyes uncertain. “You are still coming with us?

You haven’t changed your mind?”

“No.” The answer was mechanical, so he tried again, with more emphasis. “No! No, I only thought that there would be some time. For planning. This seems…disorganized, at best.”

A man with a caged chicken pushed by them, grumbling that they were in his way. Dika took Cedric’s hand and led toward the wide, deserted avenue that he had sought in the first place. The Dya’s wagon was parked there, blocking the path, and they ignored the cries of people who clustered near it.

“We were not thinking we would leave this soon.” She examined the disordered throng and wiped beads of perspiration from her brow. “Not that we would have done things any differently. It may look chaotic to you, but we are a race meant to be nomads. This is routine, and everyone knows what they are doing.”

“But what has moved you to leave now?”

Dika looked away, as if an answer other than what she wished to give would come rushing out of the mass of Humanity seething around the communal hearth. When that did not happen, she wetted her lips nervously and glanced toward the wagon, as though the old woman, presumably inside, would overhear.

“There have been rumors of something horrible, here in the Darkworld.” The gravity she gave the words suggested it was something even more horrible than the horrors that already lurked in her home realm. “Gaido found a Demon on his way back from the Strip…it had been…gutted. Eaten. And this was a Demon. A Demon! They are the worst you can imagine, huge, impossible to kill!”

“Not impossible,” he corrected, but she did not hear him.

“My grandmother fears the creature that could have done such a thing, and worries that it might have already taken some of our men. A group left to go scavenging two days ago. They have not yet returned. She fears—”

The sound of the wagon door banging open cut off her words and pulled her attention away. She stared wide-eyed at the darkened portal.

The Dya emerged from her wagon, her motions setting the little lamp beside the door swaying. In the slow, deliberate time it took her to descend the steps from the wagon door, Cedric was sure the gathered crowd would rush to her, box her in. But they stayed back, kept the respectful distance they always seemed to allow her.

She looked at him, pasted on an expression of surprise that her eyes betrayed. “Tom,” she said with a smile in her voice, “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”

He waited, his anger a hot coal inside of him, smoldering while she made her clumsy, old way toward him. When she reached the place where he and Dika sat, the smolder gave way to flame.

“Is that why you command your people to leave now? Because I had not returned, and you hoped I would not?”

The Dya made a motion, and Dika rose from her seat, helped her grandmother to sit there, instead. The old woman made a noise, “tcha, tcha, tcha,” that held all of the disappointment in the world of both the Underground and the Upworld.

After a long while of catching her breath and adjusting her posture, she said, “And why, Tom, do you believe you are such an influence on our lives? Because you are a Faery? Because you shine as we cannot?” She made the sound again. “I had greater hopes than that for you, Tom. You really are like all the others of your kind.”

It was a surprisingly effective insult, and Cedric felt at once ashamed of himself for his accusation and ashamed that he would let a mortal mock his race. “I only thought—” he began, but he stopped when he realized that what he thought did not matter. He’d already told her what he’d thought, and the reason for thinking it would not make him seem less selfimportant.

“I was going to tell him why, Grandmother,” Dika said quietly, as though confessing. “I thought he had a right—”

“He already knows why we are leaving,” the Dya rasped, suddenly seeming more powerful and dangerous than an aged mortal should appear.

It was magic, Cedric realized. That was what she held over her people, and that was why she was given a feared and revered position of leadership. Dark, powerful, ancient magic flowed into the Dya from some distant and unknowable source. The kind of magic that even the Fae had not learned to predict. They could harness it, get a glimpse of the future worlds, but only at the whim of the magic; they could not control it.

The Dya could control it. The power writhed and twisted in her invisible grasp, raged and screamed against its bonds, but ultimately bent to the will of its captor.

“You know of the Waterhorses.” It was not a question.

At the mention of the creatures, Dika shivered where she stood. A mortal might have reached out an arm to pull her close and comfort her, but now was not the time to pretend he was mortal. Not when facing something so intimidating as the Dya’s new appearance. The old woman nodded, the dangling flaps of her leather cap dancing with the motion. “I have seen them in my dreams, coming ashore. They saw available prey in the daylight, but ignored it. They sought their masters, your enemy, ignoring all else until they were weak and emaciated. That was the spell that commanded them. Now, they have found those they sought, but they are in no position to do battle. They hunt, here in the Underground, every night, so that they can become strong again.”

“They are here? Now?” It was enough to know that they were not an empty threat from a power-hungry Queene. But to know they were close, so close as to frighten away other denizens of the Darkworld, was far more troubling. “We had warnings, but—”

“But you could not trust the word of an Upworld Queene.” The Dya nodded. “Oh, yes, I see more than what affects our little camp. I see your past, present, and your future. I see the lies you tell yourself to come here, and the ones that make you stay at your Queene’s Court. I see the girl who waits for you, but does not want you.”

“There is a Faery I am promised to,” he admitted clumsily. “But I have no intention of honoring that imposed betrothal.”

“It is true,” the Dya told her granddaughter reassuringly. “He has no intention to. But clever Tom has yet to learn, with all of his hundreds of years behind him, that his will and the will of fate sometimes disagree. In that argument, fate will always win.”

“So, you will leave me, and marry one of your own?” Dika’s voice held the threat of tears. She did not understand, Cedric realized for the first time, how different the ways of their races were. He looked to the Dya, silently imploring her to cease her predictions.

“He does not believe he will honor this promise, but he will. You will be long returned to the Earth, so rest your fears.” If the Dya felt any sadness at the thought of her granddaughter’s death, she did not show it. “He will be faithful to you for as long as you live.”

Heaving herself to her feet, she shuffled a few steps toward her wagon. “Something you should know, Tom,” she began, leaning on Dika’s arm, “your Queene will not be long for this world against these creatures. I have seen into your soul, so much as a creature of your kind can have one. You are loyal to her, you see her as helpless without you. If you go now, we will not wait for you. But if you venture Upworld on your own, and you travel tirelessly west, you will find us. We will welcome you back, if you choose.”

Dika reached for her grandmother’s elbow and helped steady her to the wagon. When she returned, tears shone in her eyes. “Don’t leave. Go up with us.”

Something tugged in him, something Humans would have attributed to their emotional heart, no doubt. He knew better. It was his loyalty to Ayla, pulling him away from his desire to be among Dika’s people. He wanted to take that loyalty, to shake it apart and stomp the pieces. But he could not. “Go up ahead of me. I will follow close behind.”

“You will never find us!” Dika’s voice took on a pitch Cedric had never heard before. Something desperate and angry boiled inside her, struggling to break free in her words. Cedric did not like that hysterical edge, and sought to calm it. “I will go west, as the Dya said. I do not need to sleep, if I wish not to, so I will be able to travel night and day until I return to you.”

“There is nothing in your world for you now,” she insisted. “Unless you hurry back to be with your betrothed. Is that it?”

“No!” The very idea was absurd, and he wished he had the time and ability to show her why.

“You heard your grandmother. I will be faithful to you until death.”

“Faithfulness can be achieved even if you are not with me.” Tears spilled over her cheeks now.

Those tears should have inspired his pity, but all he felt were the black embers of his anger at the encounter with the Dya. “They will destroy my Queene. Possibly my kind. Would you have me abandon them without warning?”

“And after this warning, you will stay with me until the next one? When she will pull you away from me again?” Dika shook her head. “You do not truly wish to be one of us. You do not truly wish to be with me.”

He gripped her shoulders and shook her. He did not care if the others saw. “Stop this! I will return to you! But I will not be moved to do so out of guilt and obligation!”

She pulled back, hurt plain on her features. “Go then! You have made your choice!”

“I will return,” he called to her as he watched her go back to the wagon. She walked quickly, her head down, arms wrapped around her waist. He wanted to go to her, then, but that pull kept him back.

He would be faithful to her until death. Her death. The Dya had assured it, and he did not doubt the truth of the magic that flowed into her.

Still, as he left the Gypsy camp, as he felt the pull toward Dika lessen and his sense of duty to his Queene build, almost crushing him, he doubted the old woman’s words.
Eight

I n hindsight, Cerridwen decided, the plan to leave the Palace, the Lightworld, would have worked far better if she’d known where to find Fenrick.

The Strip was far more crowded than usual, and hot. She lifted a lank strand of hair from her forehead and tried to peer through the impenetrable wall of traffic before her. Something had stirred the Underground. She only prayed it was not due to some move of her mother’s. Usually, when she escaped to the Strip, it was with no agenda. Most times, she found Fenrick, or he found her. On a few occasions, she had not seen him but ran into other acquaintances she had made and gone off with them for a time. Of course, she always hoped she would find Fenrick…but if she did not, her life did not crumble around her. Tonight, it felt like it would. A thousand horrible thoughts curled through her mind like insidious vines breaking through pavement; her mother had already sent troops, they’d already captured Elves. Though she knew that Cedric would not have lied to her—and she did not know how she knew this, but she simply knew—she still feared that her mother might change her mind and order an all-out assault on the Darkworld in reckless pursuit of Elves, no matter how innocent they might be. If such a thing happened, if she could not find Fenrick first—

She choked back a sob that caught her by surprise. The panic that rose in her was due in part to the little sleep she’d managed, the weariness in her feet and the horrid temperature. But the root cause was her fear that she would not find Fenrick, and she could not force the other contributors to silence. Heedless of the crush about her, she pushed her way through the bodies, her heart pounding in her chest as though it would explode. Each new form that came into view, if it looked even a small bit like Fenrick, threw her into terrible hope, hope soon dashed at the sight of a pale brow or mortal face.

Someone stepped on her cloak, and she pulled against it without knowing. The clasp broke at her neck and the garment fell. She barely had time to pick it up before a Goblin marched across the place where she had stooped. The creature had no intention of stopping and hissed at her as it bumped past. She ignored it and spun to catch sight of a dark-skinned form. It was only a mortal. To her side, something white flashed, and she turned again, stumbled into a Vampire woman with silver hair. The creature shoved her, and she fell, became trapped by a forest of feet that did not care what they trampled.

Rolling to her knees, she crawled blindly toward where the crowd thinned, where only a few creatures stood around a wooden cart. Someone’s boot caught her in the ribs, and a voice high above her head cursed her in a language she did not understand. Her breath came hard as she made the clearing and pushed herself up, struggling to get even one foot beneath her.

“Cerri?” The voice caught her attention, turned her head when her body was not ready to respond, and she fell to her hands and knees again, the impact sending shocks up her arms. Fenrick was at her side in an instant, his face twisted in concern and some amusement.

“Cerri, what are you doing down there?”

When he helped her to her feet, she threw her arms around him and held on to him tightly.

“Something has happened! I had to warn you—”

But he did not return her embrace. Instead, he pulled free from her, looked a bit embarrassed and even annoyed as he held her arms at her sides. “Warn me of what?” He was not unconcerned, but he seemed…preoccupied.