The Dark (26 page)

Ethan peers over the edge of the boat. ‘What can you see that we can’t?’

‘Trouble,’ I tell him. ‘Just keep rowing and let me do the steering.’

Just as I think this crossing can’t get any worse, the torchlight flickers once more, then goes out. For a second, as the darkness consumes us totally, everyone is silent, except for the guys’ heavy breathing and grunting with every motion of their arms. I wonder fleetingly how we’re going to get out of this now. First things first, I tell myself, and concentrate on steering
the boat around the approaching whirlpool. The boat lifts suddenly. We’ve caught the edge. Holding the rudder steady becomes difficult as the pressure of the whirlpool increases. Finally we’re free and glide into smoother water.

‘Yes, we cleared it!’ Quickly, I reach into my bag for the batteries. I find another packet and rip it open. But in my haste to get the batteries into the torch, I drop one into the bottom of the boat.

‘What did we clear, Isabel?’ Matt asks in a slow voice, as if, while most of him wants to hear what we just missed, his heart doesn’t.

‘You don’t want to know, Matt.’

He contents himself with this, then rolls something to the rear of the boat with his foot.

It’s the other battery, and now I have the two again. Fumbling in the dark, while still trying to maintain a steady rudder, I manage to get the fresh batteries into the torch. I flick it on and it lights up the whole area for me. ‘Yes!’ But the better news is, though we’re way down river from where we entered, the other side is fast approaching. We make it across, get dragged a further twenty or so metres by the swift current there, when finally Ethan finds a place to jump off and secure the rope.

As soon as we get ourselves and our packs off, the boat begins to disappear. Matt and Ethan collapse on the sandy bank, panting and dragging in deep breaths. Matt gives his arms a shake, then sags again, spreading out on the sand.

A feeling of euphoria begins to take shape inside me. We crossed the river and made it, so this part of our journey is now behind us, bringing us that much
closer to finding Arkarian. But before I get a moment to savour this feeling, and share it with Ethan and Matt, I’m overwhelmed by a prickly sensation.

I shake Matt, then Ethan, who collapsed on my other side. ‘Hey, get up! Quickly!’

‘Huh?’ Matt moans, rolling over, exhausted.

Ethan drags himself up. ‘What is it?’

Around us the trees are thick. I peer into them as best I can. ‘I can’t shake this feeling.’

‘What feeling?’ Matt asks in a tight voice, suddenly sitting up beside me too.

‘A feeling that we’re not alone.’

Chapter Twenty-five

Isabel

At first there is the sound of hissing, squealing, and pounding in the near distance. I think there might be wolves in the bushes, but Ethan shakes his head. ‘Wolves aren’t that heavy on their feet.’

Suddenly red lights appear out of the darkness, like lasers, except in pairs.

‘What on earth?’ Matt hisses.

I soon realise what we’re staring at. ‘They’re eyes. I’ve seen these creatures in my vision.’

The second my words are out they come at us from all directions, snorting and hissing with their beady glowing eyes. They appear bigger in the flesh. I wonder fleetingly if maybe they’re just short humans. They have feet, and arms with human hands. But their bodies are no way human in form. They have bulky curved shoulders, and, stranger still, wings attached to their backs. Though they seem to prefer using their feet.

Ethan quickly flicks a dagger from each of his boots, throwing one to Matt. ‘Isabel, see if you can get a fire going.’

They attack, a dozen or more, screaming a shrill kind of war-cry. It makes me wonder if they can talk; their faces have a creepy human-like quality. One of them leaps into the air with the help of its wings, then spins around, placing himself between Matt and me. He surprises us again by attacking his own kind!

Matt sends me a startled look, but neither of us has time to analyse what on earth is going on.

‘Watch your back,’ Matt yells. ‘It could be a trick.’

From a short distance away, Ethan reminds me to get that fire organised as soon as I get a spare second. But the creatures are determined and fierce. One latches on to Ethan’s leg and takes a bite out of him. Matt tries kicking furiously to help Ethan dislodge it. Ethan sticks his dagger into its back, finishing it off. While his leg drips blood, he reminds me again about that fire.

In the end, gathering enough dry wood and tinder proves to be the hardest part to getting the fire started. But suddenly, the creature that has chosen to fight on our side runs over with his arms full of bark. It’s perfect, and I take the tinder from his arms. ‘Hey thanks.’

Matt stares at me hard for a second. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Huh?’

‘He’s the enemy, for crying out loud!’

Ethan brings down four more creatures with his dagger as if they were dominoes, while Matt uses his fists to knock one particularly stubborn one to the ground.

The creature who handed me the firewood gives a snort, then helps Ethan, who’s limping badly now, blood oozing from his leg wound.

Without giving us a second to recover our strength,
the half-dozen creatures knocked unconscious start coming round, including the stabbed ones! They must be invincible!

‘We have to turn this around, Isabel,’ Ethan calls. ‘We need to attack with fire.’

While Matt and Ethan watch my back for a few minutes, I work furiously at getting it started. After what feels like for ever, a flame ignites, and it’s not long before I hand Ethan and Matt two sticks each, burning at one end. And with two of my own, we scream and yell at the top of our voices, charging the flames right into the creatures’ faces. Beside me, their traitor makes his own weapons and joins us.

Just as Ethan suspects, the creatures turn and run off in different directions. Exhausted, we stand and watch for their return. But after a few minutes it’s clear they’re gone, leaving us in silence, except for the sound of our own breathing, and the crackling fire.

We set the torches up in a circle around us, collapsing on the sandy shore.

As we allow ourselves a moment to catch our breath, Ethan’s eyes drift to the traitor. ‘What do you think you’re doing here?’

The creature speaks, his words thick but perfectly understandable, ‘I believe I’m sitting by your fire.’

It’s a shock. Other than screaming, these are the first sounds we’ve heard these creatures make. And for those sounds to be proper words, stuns us to the point of losing our own ability to talk.

Ethan is first to recover. ‘Who are you?’

The creature stares into the fire, lifting his rounded shoulders, his wings flapping once. ‘Well, the truth is, I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know who you are?’ I ask, while working on healing the bite on Ethan’s leg. It’s deep, and takes a few minutes.

The creature smacks his forehead with an open palm. ‘My memory isn’t what it used to be.’

Ethan’s head does this roll, almost right around, like he can’t believe what’s happening, that we’re even having this conversation. ‘I saw you fighting your own kind and helping Isabel get the fire started. Why did you do those things? Why did you turn on your own kind like that?’

‘Because my kind are morons. They don’t know how to think for themselves.’

‘Uh-huh, and what, you do?’ The creature doesn’t reply and Ethan stares at it. ‘Why aren’t you afraid of fire like your friends?’

‘Fire is something none of us is afraid of. Now water, that’s a different matter.’

‘Then why did your kind turn tail and run when we charged at them?’

‘When you turned the fire into weapons, you surprised them. They may be morons, but they’re not entirely stupid. They know all about fire, especially the fact that it burns.’ He scrunches up his forehead, making deep creases in his brow, and sighs, a very human-like sound. It has me thinking, but no way, this creature can’t have evolved from human form. Surely.

‘Do you have a name?’ I ask.

His frown deepens and his red eyes seem to glow brighter. ‘I think it once was John.’

For some reason his telling us his name is ‘John’ shocks us all over again. It just sounds too … human.

‘Your name is
John
?’ Matt has to be sure he’s hearing
right. ‘What are your people called?’

‘Ah, now that I do know, for the master calls us his wren.’

‘
Wren?
’ Ethan rolls the word on his tongue. ‘Hmm, so what are your plans now, John Wren? I don’t think your friends are going to want you back.’

He doesn’t hesitate. ‘To come with you.’

Silence is our reply to this. Just how much does he know about us? Ultimately Matt asks, ‘Where do you think we’re going?’

He shrugs. ‘Since you’re wearing travelling clothes, I assume you’re on a journey. And well, I know this place thoroughly. I can guide and protect you. With me in your party the wren will leave you alone. And there are many facets to these lands that you could not possibly understand.’

‘Like what?’

‘The challenges.’

Matt and Ethan make scoffing sounds of agreement, recalling the two ‘challenges’ we just passed. And suddenly I recall Lady Arabella using the same term earlier when giving us advice. ‘We have a mountain to cross yet.’

John Wren’s wings flap twice but he doesn’t move. Eventually he says, ‘What sort of mountain?’

‘A black one. Made entirely of ice.’

He snorts a real piggish sound. Spittle sprays over his bulky chest. ‘This is not good.’

‘Why?’ Ethan and I say simultaneously.

‘It’s the most difficult challenge of all the lands.’

‘How so?’ Matt asks. ‘What will we have to do?’

‘Face your inner demons.’

The wren is right when he says we’ve found ourselves
in a strange land. And he seems to know a lot about it. He would probably make a useful guide. But why would this creature turn traitor to help three strangers? I just don’t get it. ‘So what’s in this for you?’

John Wren looks at each of us in turn, then stares off past the torches to the darkness beyond. ‘I haven’t always lived here. That much I can still remember. The three of you trigger a memory of something I can’t quite put a finger on. Perhaps the more I keep your company …’ He shrugs. ‘Who knows?’

‘Do you think you’ll get your memory back just by hanging around us?’ Matt asks.

He makes a shrugging motion with his wings. ‘Perhaps we can be of use to each other.’

‘Well,’ Ethan says. ‘I guess we could do with a guide. But it has to be all right with Isabel and Matt. And one foot out of line, and you’re gone.’

Ethan glances at Matt. ‘I don’t know. I guess it’s all right.’

‘Isabel?’

I can’t help but hesitate; trust doesn’t come as easily to me as Ethan. I’ve seen these wren before. They’re the ones who helped abduct Arkarian. I also saw them in the dream Marduke sent me. They were beating Arkarian in his cell. And didn’t I just heal Ethan from a deep wound caused by the teeth of one of them? ‘Your kind are dangerous. Why should I trust you?’

‘Begging your pardon, miss,’ John Wren says. ‘Trust has to start somewhere. And so far,
I
haven’t done anything to prove I’m unworthy of it. Have I?’

I don’t answer immediately and he goes on, ‘I do believe you’re judging me by the deeds of others.’ He continues to hold my gaze for a few moments. I pick
up the sense that he’s telling the truth, and more importantly, that he has nothing to hide.

‘All right. But I want you in my sight at all times. And you’re never on guard duty by yourself.’

‘Well,’ Ethan says. ‘Since that’s settled, do you know anything about the island we’re headed for?’

At the mention of the word ‘island’, John Wren goes strangely still. ‘What island – specifically – do you mean?’

‘It’s surrounded by a lake,’ I tell him, a shiver running through me at his nervous attitude. ‘On the other side of the mountain.’

‘There are several islands in this place,’ he says, as if in denial. ‘And many more mountains.’

Matt looks up and says, ‘It’s the island with the temple.’

John Wren draws in a sharp breath. ‘I knew it! Are you crazy? You can’t go there you know.’

‘And why not?’ I snap at him, concern growing quickly to panic, because if anyone knows anything about the island that keeps Arkarian prisoner, it would be a creature who has lived here so long he has no memory of any other life.

He says, ‘It’s called Obsidian Island. You can’t go there because … Well, to put it bluntly, it’s haunted.’

Chapter Twenty-six

Isabel

It takes a couple of days to get to black-ice mountain, though it’s hard to tell without a sun or even a moon. And our watches don’t work here, nor our torches any more. The batteries, only lasting a few hours, ran out long ago. John, as we call him now, has shown us how to make long-lasting torches by burning an element dug out of the ground. I try not to think what it’s made from. The foul smell is enough of a clue.

I’ve learned a lot about this place, thanks to John, who’s full of information, though he can’t remember how long he’s lived here, or where he lived before. As we pass through different landscapes, one thing that doesn’t change is the harsh weather. It makes me wonder if there are seasons here and maybe we were just unlucky enough to be making this journey in winter.

‘The cold is something I don’t feel and have no memory of,’ he explains. ‘But to answer your question, sometimes all but the most lush of valleys are covered in ice.’

The thought of lush valleys makes me wonder about
the many different trees and grasses we see. ‘How do plants grow here without light or warmth?’

‘Where there is a will to survive, a need, a desire …’ he shrugs, and I recall the thousands of brilliantly coloured fireflies we saw soon after our arrival.

‘But there is a moon,’ he goes on to explain, surprising me. ‘Over there.’ He points into the distant sky ahead. ‘Once a month, for a matter of minutes, it rises high enough to bathe the land in a rich red glow, directly over the master’s garden.’