From Light to Dark (3 page)

“Well,” she said, her fingers sliding aimlessly across his shoulder and back. He longed to do the same to her shoulder, to feel out her looks. He resisted.

“I think,” she continued, “I understand what happened to you.”

“You couldn’t understand,” he said. He thought of Balor’s fiery face and the stones in his hands. Eref bit the inside of his cheek.

“But I do,” she insisted. “The people of Dark World call themselves civilized, but they kill other creatures. Nothing that gives off light or is at all different is allowed to survive. And, to prevent us from thinking too much about it, they…do something to us when we reach eighteen.”

Eref stopped eating and leaned forward in surprise. “That’s exactly what happens in my world. Only my people destroy shadows.”

“I thought so,” she said. “Here, people who disobey the law are executed in a great pyre in the woods. Right where you fell.”

“A pyre?”

“Yes. Everyone attends, but we aren’t allowed to watch. The light would blind us. We just listen to the screams.”

Eref shuddered, imagining hundreds of blindfolded people listening to a person burning alive. “That’s disgusting,” he said.

“Is that what happened to you? Did they try to burn you?”

“No,” he said. “When we break the law, they stone us to death.”

Caer’s fingers tightened around his shoulder. “How horrible!”

“And every day, more people turn eighteen and are changed. After the change, they fear shadows, and they—” He choked on his words, remembering what fun they’d had the day before Balor’s birthday. Just hours before getting arrested.

“You don’t have to tell me about turning eighteen,” she said, stroking his shoulder and back again. “We’re afraid of it here, too.”

Eref closed his eyes, wishing his lids could block out the image of Balor scowling at him. Changed, murderous, insane.

But Eref couldn’t make the vision go away.

“Why did they want to stone you? What did you do?”

At the sound of Caer’s voice, Balor faded.

“I… It was an accident, really,” Eref said. But the judges at the Center hadn’t thought so. All those angry faces, the shouting….

“My friend and I just wanted to play a prank,” he went on. “We thought everyone was so stupid, with all their fears. They stone anyone who’s light-skinned or hairy or cool to the touch. And shadows. Shadows are their number one fear. They light fires anywhere a shadow appears. Investigations are held into the source of every shadow, and someone almost always gets sent to the End for it. Whether or not he’s guilty.”

“Were you innocent?”

Eref paused. Was he? It wasn’t that simple. But before he could answer, Caer clapped her velvety hand over his mouth.

“Hang on,” she whispered in a harsh breath. “Someone’s coming.”

Eref jumped when a rapping sounded on the door, which he gauged to be about fifteen feet ahead of him.

Caer stood and called out, “Who is it?”

“It’s Vul,” said a friendly female voice. “Can I come in?”

“Eref,” Caer whispered. “I’m going to have to hide you in the other room, alright?”

“What if she finds me?” His breath quickened. This blindness made him helpless. He couldn’t even sneak out of the house if he needed to.

“Caer?” The voice on the other side of the door called again. “Did you hear me?”

“Yeah, Vul, I’ll be right there!” Caer grabbed Eref’s hand and pulled him up from the couch. She led him through a doorway and guided him to an enormous soft chair.

Eref sank onto it and waited.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” Caer whispered. He listened in a quiet panic as she walked out of the room and shut the door with a click.

From his hiding spot, Eref heard Caer let Vul inside. His lungs felt as though they were fighting a battle inside his chest; it was impossible to breathe normally with danger this close. What was it Caer had said they would do to him if they found him? He gripped the cushiony arms of the chair and told himself to stay calm. The last thing he needed was to be found out because he was making so much noise hyperventilating.

Vul spoke first, after a brief silence. “So…why didn’t you meet me the past few nights?”

“I’m sorry, Vul. I’ve just been really busy around the house.” Caer didn’t sound like a good liar. Eref’s heart pounded.

“Hmm.”

“Honest. Want some fruit and wine?”

“Sure.” The other girl seemed to have decided not to press the issue. Eref’s heart slowed a beat, and he sighed a thankful breath. “Wait’ll you hear what I’ve got to tell you. We’re going to have fun tonight!”

“What’s up?”

“Well,” Vul mumbled, her mouth audibly full of food, “I was hanging out at the Pyre yesterday, and you’ll never guess what I saw!”

“What?”

“It’s all roped off. Maybe fifty guards standing around. With
flamethrowers
.”

Caer said nothing for a moment, and when she spoke again, it was with an unsteady voice. “Flamethrowers? Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” said Vul, whose mouth was apparently full of fruit again. “They won’t let anyone near. They wouldn’t say what happened, either. Something big, I’ll bet, to bring out fifty guards with flamethrowers!”

Eref held his breath. Something big
had
happened there. He had happened.

He had fallen through from Light World.

“How long have they been there?” Caer’s voice shook more dramatically, and Eref wondered how long it would be before Vul noticed something was wrong. His heart sped up again.

“Since three days ago, at least. Some kids said a couple of the guards were talking about two intruders from Light World. I guess they’re trying to trap them, or something. Isn’t that
crazy
?”

“Two?”

Eref’s fingers pressed deeper into the sides of the fluffy chair, every muscle in his body tense.

“Yeah. I don’t know how they got here. Pretty awesome, huh?”

“Two?” It sounded as if Caer didn’t know what else to say. And Eref didn’t know what to think. Had they just made an error? No one else had fallen through – had they?

“I wonder how you kill a Light Person, anyway,” Vul mused. “The Pyre probably doesn’t hurt them, since they’re just big, nasty balls of fire themselves.”

“No they aren’t,” Caer blurted out. Eref bit the inside of his cheek, willing her to be silent. Change the subject. Leave the house. Anything.

“Oh, yeah? And you’re some kind of expert?”

After another awkward silence, Caer said, “What if they’re just people? Just the same as us, only in a different world?”

Vul laughed. Her voice sparkled like Caer’s, though a little deeper. “Well, this is our chance to find out! When can we sneak over to the Pyre to see what’s going on?”

“Are you out of your mind? No way!”

“Come on,” Vul said. “Live a little. It’s not like we have much time left, anyway.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

Eref stared in the direction of the voices, willing his eyes to see, but nothing appeared. Only the sounds of their voices and the warm smell of this room like wet earth after the rain. He was stranded and broken, unable to defend himself. What could he do, even if the Dark People burst in right now with their flamethrowers?

Suddenly, something small and furry brushed against his leg. Startled, he jerked in the chair and let out a muffled cry.

“What was that?” Vul’s voice sounded much closer to the door, and Eref snapped his mouth shut.

The furry thing rubbed back and forth against Eref’s legs. He stood frozen in place, his heart banging painfully inside him.

“No, Vul,” Caer said.

“Do you have someone over?”

“I—”

The furry creature at Eref’s legs started licking his feet. He scrambled backward and bumped into a wall that felt and smelled as though it were made of tree bark.

“I thought you were just busy around the house,” Vul said, her voice icy. “My birthday’s coming. We were supposed to spend time together, and you had someone over instead?”

“Vul, I—”

The furry thing stopped licking Eref’s feet and began to slide its long, thin body up his legs, across his belly, over his chest, and onto his shoulders. Eref shuddered. It licked his ears.

“My birthday, Caer. My
eighteenth
birthday. Don’t you even care?”

“That’s not fair,” Caer said.

Then, right into Eref’s slobbery ear, the furry creature shouted, “It’s time for dinnerrr! Caerrr! Caerrr!” It sounded like a person speaking with a mouth full of water.

“Just a minute, Atc!” Caer answered.

“Atc?” Vul paused and then laughed. “It was just Atc?”

Eref heard Vul’s footsteps coming his way. He turned and bumped into a table. The furry creature leapt down from his shoulders and shouted, “Watch wherrrre you’re going!”

“Atc,” Vul said from the other side of the door. “You silly thing. I’ll feed you.”

“Vul, no—”

The door swung open, and Eref stood still, trapped between the chair and the table.

Vul screamed.

The Pyre

Balor crept through Dark World. He hid in the revolting shade of the trees. Nothing could stop him from hunting Eref down. Not even this horrible place could dissuade him, though it came close.

When Eref had disappeared so mysteriously, suspicion had turned to Balor. Nothing he said had convinced the Light People that he had no part in freeing Eref.

“You were working with him!” they had insisted.

“No! I’m eighteen! I’m eighteen!”

But they’d hurled stones at him anyway. People had shouted and cursed and even beaten him with their own fists until Headmaster Lesur had come to stop them.

“What are you doing? This student of mine was misled by the criminal Eref, but he has been saved by his age. His is no longer capable of following evil. Leave him alone.”

The people had retreated, but the look in their eyes told Balor he was a dead man. One of these days, when he let his guard down…

Balor had heard the whispers. Eref had escaped. He’d planned this all along. He was living as a king in Dark World, building an army. Waiting to take over Light World.

So Balor knew he had to prove himself. The Governors would thank him. All of Light World would thank him. When he returned victorious with Eref’s head, things would be good again. He could live a happy, normal life. The hero of Light World.

He had sneaked into Headmaster Lesur’s office, stolen the rare dark-vision glasses they used to study shadows in class, and hurried to the End. It didn’t take much to get past the lazy soldiers guarding the area. Those idiots believed everyone was too afraid to come near.

But not Balor. He wasn’t afraid of Eref. He would kill him with his bare hands.

And then, with a deep breath, he had dropped down through the hole.

The fall was long, and it had dropped him into the blackest, ugliest world he’d ever imagined. Even as a child, Balor hadn’t thought of Dark World like….

What had he thought?

On the ground, Balor scratched an itch at the back of his head and adjusted the glasses. Moist, mossy trees spread their branches low all around him. When he moved, their slimy vines slid across his shoulders. When he stepped, the swampy earth squished beneath his feet.

The air blew warm, clammy breezes that made Balor feel as though he were breathing underwater. And the
smell
. Revolting. Flowers, thick with water and the scent of tangy mint, oozed odors by his nose. Nausea threatened at his throat.

But Balor was stronger than that. He thought of home. He focused on the bright, dry light that kept everyone healthy and safe. He remembered the logical structure of his world, so unlike what appeared to be a vague, circular layout in Dark World.

Balor’s homeland made sense. Clay homes atop tall, dry, sturdy stones in the Northeast and Southeast. In the Northwest stood the Lightcare, where the sick or elderly went to die in peace.

Three essential structures made up the middle of Light World: the Light, on the west end, where everyone worshipped twice a week; the Learning, their school on the east end; and in between, the largest, most impressive building in Light World. The Center.

The Center, to which all roads in Light World ran. No one could reach any destination without first traveling to the massive white structure at the heart of their world. It stood so high that only the Governors who lived there knew how many stories tall it was.

From the Center, the Governors sent forth new decrees, lesson plans, and laws. They blessed gems. And, of course, the Eighteener Entrance took place there.

Balor scratched his head.

Dark World disgusted him. From what he had seen in the past two and a half days, it was a jumbled mass of dumpy little homes in the darkest places possible, all surrounding one large tree in the center of the world. That tree had great roots that, in some places, rose high enough out of the ground to create an enormous pavilion beneath them.

Dark People clambered to the awkward pavilion throughout the day, not marching in an orderly line as Light People did, but scrambling over one another like fire dogs for a treat.

Something fuzzy scurried past Balor’s leg, and he jerked away. Through the bushes, a long, thin creature slipped away, its green fur blending in with the swampy growth of the land.

“This way,” a man’s voice spoke, just a few yards from where Balor stood. “We need more men at the Pyre.”

“I’m coming, I’m coming.”

Balor ducked under a large, red flower that spiked out of a thorny, green branch. He peered at the men who walked by.

One was a tall man in a black uniform with silver buttons on his breast. The other was smaller, much younger, in a gray uniform with no buttons. Both men were shorter than Balor by a foot and covered in thin hair. Their complexion was an unhealthy chalk white.

“Did an invader really come through?” the younger man called out, tripping over vines and roots. He kept falling behind the taller man.

“Two.”

“But how can that be?”

“No idea. We’re setting up guards at the Shade and at the Pyre.”

“Man. Why can’t we be stationed at the Shade? It’s so much nicer th—”