Tales from Dargo Island: The Complete Trilogy (25 page)

Josh couldn’t
see or hear anything around him. He could barely open his eyes due to the
blinding brightness, and he heard a loud hum in the air. He pressed his palms
to his ears, but that only dulled the sound a little. All of his skin felt
really sensitive, so much so that even his clothes felt like they were scraping
him.

“Just relax,”
he barely heard a voice say to him. “Try to relax and your senses will adjust.”

Josh did as
told and the sound grew less intense. He was able to open his teary eyes to
slits as the light dimmed.

“Is that
better?” Nalke asked.

“Yes.”

Josh looked in
front of him and saw a large, lumpy cloud-wall that stretched up at least a
hundred feet. Above the wall was a light-blue sky. He looked around him and saw
more of the same. He felt like he was inside a large canyon made entirely of
clouds.

“Where are the
nature-god spirits?” he asked Nalke.

“Here!”
multiple voices replied.

Josh jumped at
the sound as it echoed in the canyon. When he looked back at the lumpy clouds
he saw faces form. Dozens of them. They reminded him of Mount Rushmore, only
creepier.

“Why have you
come here?” one of the faces asked. Josh stared at it; it was close to the top.

“Something has
happened, Father,” Nalke replied. “The boy next to me has been reborn as a
nature demon.”

“Impossible!”
another face said, this one in the middle. “There cannot be two.”

“I am aware of
that, Crenos. That doesn’t change the fact that it happened. But the boy is
unusual. He is a sort of incubus. In life, he had the ability to leach the life
out of someone else. In rebirth, it appears, his ability is slowly sucking the
life out of me without his conscious effort. I am dying.”

“Perhaps it is
your time,” Crenos said. Josh didn’t like the tone in his voice.

“Is he trained
to take over?” Nalke’s father asked.

“No. He became
a nature demon through my negligence and is not the least bit prepared. I have,
in fact, been training your granddaughter Astrid to take my place hundreds of
years from now. I am not ready to give up my position.”

“Then why are
you here?”

“To find a way
to undo this,” Josh spoke up. “I don’t want to be a nature demon, and I don’t
want to kill Nalke. Is there some way to take my power away?”

“Do you wish to
die, little incubus?” Crenos asked. Josh was starting to hate that face and his
attitude.

“Yes. I
should’ve died a long time ago, and I didn’t ask to come back.”

“How did you come
back, anyway?”

“It was my
fault,” Nalke said. “I cursed Astrid’s mother when she was pregnant. Josh tried
to leach the curse from Astrid but ended up being cursed as well. I used a lot
of my energy in the spell, which somehow mutated through Astrid. When Josh’s
body died, he was reconstituted in the clouds. Not the same way I was when I
was reborn, but he
is
a nature demon.”

“Foolish
wizards!” Crenos yelled, causing Josh to cover his ears. “We should’ve never
chosen them to replace us.”

More faces appeared
in the lumpy clouds. The sight was horrifying. The faces all cried agreement.

“Silence!”
Nalke’s father screamed, and the faces shut up. “My son may have acted
foolishly, but he had no reason to believe his actions would result in this.”

“Perhaps if his
father had been more responsible in his training,” Crenos said, “he would’ve
been more careful with his powers.”

“And I suppose
you’re the perfect father? Didn’t your daughter run away from you?”

“Rapatha
refused to follow the path of the nature demon. I raised her to be independent,
not foolish. She chose her own way and I respect that.”

“Getting back
to the matter at hand,” Nalke’s father continued, “the only thing I can think
for you to do, Josh, is to forfeit your right to live.”

“How do I do
that?”

“Give your life
energy to someone else.”

Josh looked at
Nalke. “Can I give it to him?” he asked Nalke’s father.

“No. You cannot
give it to another nature demon.”

“Why not?”

“Think of two
nature demons as two of the same magnetic energy.” He cocked a cloudy eyebrow.
“Is that the correct word?
Magnetic
?” Josh said it was, since he already
understood the metaphor. “They repel each other. You must give your negative
energy to a positive.”

“Where can I
find a positive?”

“In a being
unlike yourself. One that gives life rather than takes it.”

Josh shook his
head. “What kind of creature does that?”

Nalke’s father
laughed. “Boy, I don’t know. It’s up to you to find it. I’m dead.”

“So, if I find
a being the opposite of me and give it my life energy, Nalke will be okay?”

“He should
recover, yes.”

“What happens
to me?”

“Perhaps you’ll
join us in the nexus,” Crenos chimed in. And then he laughed maniacally. “It’s
not so bad here. Unless we’re being called upon, such as now, we don’t even
realize the passage of time. We mostly sleep, and to sleep is to be in
rapture.” He moaned happily.

“Josh,” Nalke
said, placing a weak hand on the boy’s shoulder, “we must go. I’ve grown weaker
since our arrival.”

“Fair well,
son,” Nalke’s father called down. “I hope you succeed in your goal. And if
not…I’ll see you again soon.”

“Who is that?”
Aneela asked, staring at a lone figure on a hill to their left.

Rhys looked as
well. “I have no idea. Do you want me to check?”

“No.” She
stared as her group passed the hill on horseback. The man was fifty feet away,
standing at the top of the hill, just watching them ride by. Light cast him in
silhouette, giving him an incredibly creepy look. Aneela looked away as a
something cold landed on her face.

“It’s snowing
again,” Rhys said.

They had passed
the creepy man on the hill and he was nothing but a tiny image now. Aneela
tried to forget him and how familiar he had seemed.

“Why is the
giants’ realm the way it is?” a young soldier asked from the rear of the group.

Aneela looked
back. “Giants are cold-blooded, and the only way they could live comfortably is
if they live in an icy environment. Rockne cast a spell on that valley to
accommodate them.”

“That was nice
of him,” Rhys said sarcastically.

“Rockne was a
man of questionable character, I agree. He killed many people to meet his own
ends, but he was good to this island.”

They rode the
rest of the way in silence. Aneela couldn’t wait to return to Rapatha; she had
so many questions to ask the spirit.

*
 
*
 
*

Andor had tried
catching up with the boy who looked like his son, but somehow lost him in the
alley where he’d first been seen. Andor believed his eyes had been playing
tricks, knowing his son to be dead and buried in a mass graveyard developed for
the plague victims nearly a year ago.

But the boy had
looked so much like Joffey.

He tried to
focus on what he had planned, forgetting about the vision. He wanted Aneela
dead. He ran up to the coast a mile away and looked to the small island that
had acted as Dargo’s prison for a hundred years. It was the only place Andor
had heard Aneela mention in the courtyard. She was much too careless to be
queen of anything.

He saw the
burning light of a small fire coming from the island just as it started to
snow. He had been locked away when the snow started, and it had been five years
since he’d seen it.

Andor jumped
into the freezing water and swam to the tiny island, anticipating Aneela’s
protection. She would have a few soldiers with her. Andor was prepared for
them.

Once he reached
the shore, he ran to the left, circling the uphill field of shoulder-high
grass. He hadn’t seen any soldiers when he got out of the boat, but one could
never be too careful.

He made his way
slowly up the hill, making sure not to disturb the grass too much. He saw
someone walking the perimeter up ahead, so he stopped moving and waited for the
soldier to walk away. When the soldier disappeared from view, Andor moved
quickly.

When he got to
the small camp, he saw Aneela and Rhys sitting by the fire, next to a large
black stone door that acted as the entrance to Dargo’s prison. The soldier was
on the other side of the perimeter, watching the water. Aneela held a hooded
red robe close to her to keep away the chill.

Andor pulled a
knife from his pocket and made his move.

He attacked
Rhys first, stabbing him in the head, and then he swung the knife at Aneela as
she lunged for him. She fell down, holding her slashed throat. He then threw
the knife at the guard, who was just now turning at the commotion. The knife
went through his heart and he was dead a moment later.

The whole
attack had taken three seconds.

He turned back
to Aneela, hoping she was still alive. He wanted to watch her die.

“No,” he said
as he saw Aneela lying there. The robe had disguised the petite soldier’s body.
There was no woman here, just three men. He’d been set up.

Aneela was
somewhere else.

“Daddy?” a
small voice said behind him. “You killed these people.”

Andor spun
around and saw a little boy staring at him from the tall grass. There was no
mistaking it now; it was his son. “Joffey?”

“Why are you
killing people?”

“Joffey.” Andor
could barely speak. His dead son was right there. “I’m avenging your death,
son. You…died for no reason, and it wasn’t right. People have to pay.”

“But, Daddy, I
don’t want this.” Joffey watched his dad with tears in his eyes. “I’m scared of
you. Please stop.”

Andor’s heart
broke at his son’s words. He shook his head and cried as well. “I can’t, son. I
love you too much to let them get away with what they did to you.”

“What they did
to me, or what they did to you?”

Andor looked at
the carnage he created. Three bloody bodies surrounded him. He looked back at
Joffey but saw nothing but empty grass. “It’s too late to stop, son.”

Andor wanted to
scream but trapped it in his throat. He retrieved the knife from the soldier’s
chest and ran to the boat the three soldiers had used. He feared he was going
insane, seeing his dead son.

Astrid appeared
on the wrong cloud and looked around frantically. She’d tried teleporting
straight to the home-cloud from the island but miscalculated. At least she’d
managed to leave the island; that was progress. She concentrated and appeared
on her father’s cloud, though when she got there she knew something was wrong. The
cloud was yellow and sickly looking, if a cloud could be called so. It looked
worse than before.

She raced into
the palace and called for her father and Josh. She teleported to the tower
where she’d left them and found her father on the floor, with Josh cradling his
head.

Josh looked at
her with tears in his eyes. “He doesn’t have much time left. It’s all my
fault.”

She ran over to
them. Her father’s face was dry and cracked, his beard falling from his face.
“Dear, sweet Astrid. I’m glad I got to see you one last time. I feared I
wouldn’t.”

She took his
hand. “Dad, I’m here. You’ll be okay.”

He chuckled.
“That’s kind of you, but I’m afraid my time is near. Before I go into the
nexus, I must tell you something. You must take over as the nature demon.”

“What about
Josh?”

“He is not a
proper nature demon. He was reborn, but not the way he should have been.” He
pointed to a drawer across the room. “Inside you will find a rune. You must
take this rune as you pass through the core of the earth. Once on the other side,
you will be reborn as a proper nature demon and will be able to take my place.”
He looked at Josh. “First, you must unlink Josh from the realm, or you will
surely be leached the same as me.”

“How do we
unlink me?” Josh asked.

“I do not know.
But you must find out soon. The moment I’m gone from this world, the weather
will grow hostile and become even worse as more time passes. Without a proper
demon in place to control the elements, the world will be devastated by nature
itself.”

“Can’t I just
control the elements with my power?” Astrid asked.

“They will be
too much for you to handle, dear one. Only with the full power of the nature
demon behind you will you have any hope of gaining control.”

Astrid nodded
as she began to cry. Josh’s tears spawned from guilt, hers from love. She truly
loved Nalke. She loved her father.

“Good-bye,
darling,” Nalke said with his final breath.

And then he was
gone, turning to shimmering ash in Astrid’s and Josh’s hands.

A second later,
the lightning began.

*
 
*
 
*

Astrid and Josh
ran outside, watching the devastating light show around them. The lightning was
non-stop, the thunder deafening. Astrid wiped her tears away and examined the
rune in her hand. It was the size of a cell phone and dark gray, with an
infinity symbol carved in its center.

“What do we
do?” Josh yelled over the noise.

“What did you
learn in the nexus?”

“They told me I
had to give my life to something that also gives life, or something like that.
It has something to do with me being a life-taker. I can only give my energy to
something that’s the opposite of me.”

Astrid shook
her head. “I have no idea what that means, but I have to do something about
this lightning. Look.” She pointed to the city below. Lightning struck the
tallest buildings. The people in the streets ran for cover.

“You can’t
become a nature demon until I’m gone,” Josh yelled, grabbing her arm.

“I have to.
We’ll figure it out after I get back.”

“Back from
where?”

She held up the
rune. “Back from the core of the earth.” She smiled reassuringly. Then she
jumped off the home-cloud, straight toward the ground. She hadn’t even taken a
moment to think about what she was going to do; she just did it. She shot
straight for the hard ground like a bullet, closing her eyes. She resisted the
urge to fly back to safety.

Clutching the
rune painfully to her chest, she waited for the impact to come. It never did.

She opened her
eyes and saw she was still falling, though she was traveling through the earth.
She was reminded of the few times she’d traveled through the ice to the giants’
realm using the ice lift.

Astrid
continued onward, soon passing crystals and fire. She didn’t feel the heat, but
she knew she would never forget what she saw when she reached the core. The
sight was magnificent.

Soon, she was
past it and traveling back toward the surface feet first. She kept looking up,
toward the glowing core. She almost wished she could’ve stayed there for a
while.

The rune was
warm in her hands. She looked at it and saw the infinity symbol glowing bright.
She assumed that was a good sign.

Some time later
she shot out of the ground and reoriented herself, floating in midair. She
didn’t take the time to figure out where she was (she figured she was on the
other side of the world), but instead flew up into the chaotic clouds. With her
newfound power, she waved her hands and quieted the lightning. The storm died
down a little, the lightning becoming bottled up power waiting to explode.

Astrid felt
weak. Some of her control slipped but she managed to hold on.

Josh had begun
to leach off her.