The Dark Light (36 page)

I rolled my eyes. “Not you too,” I said, and gave him a nudge.
“Alex!”

Alex continued to gape; he was lost in Vermillion’s world.

“Delane, you’d better take him,” I said. “Maybe he’ll snap out of it once we’re moving.”

Vermillion had already intercepted me. “He can come with me,” she said, putting her arm around Alex. Her fingers went to his hair. “A little boy like this would make a—”

“I don’t think so,” I said, horrified by the thought of Alex
ending up in one of Vermillion’s jars. “He can stay with me.”

Delane led on with the gutterscamp slightly ahead, and Sol at his side carrying Ben.

“He led us through the sewers beneath Blood Alley,” said Delane. “A wall’s collapsed down there and there’s a tunnel full of gutterscamp nests that leads to a shaft. The Suzerain can’t know or he would have sealed it.” He stopped and then pointed up. “It’s pretty tight, especially if one of us has to carry the boy.”

About twelve feet up there was a black opening in the cavern wall. The gutterscamp bounded up and through.

“We have to climb,” said Delane. “Vermillion, you first.”

Vermillion took Alex’s hand. She led him to the wall.

“You next, Mia.”

“Ben first,” I replied, and ushered Sol forward. “He’s been here longer.”

Sol had barely taken a step with Ben when a loud clang resonated through the pit. We all froze.

“That was the gates,” said Sol. “They’re coming. Move. Go.”

A shout boomed. I just about shed my skin.

“Poppy Fellows!”

My stomach turned. “That’s me,” I cried.

“Poppy Fellows! Make yourself known!”

P
ut out the torch,” said Sol. He thrust Ben into Delane’s arms. “They’ll see.”

We were far from the guardhouse, but already two tiny clusters of orange light were visible some way back in the cavern.

Panicked, I bashed the torch against the rocks, convinced that at any moment we’d be spotted. It refused to die.

“It’s not working!” I said, searching for a pool of water in which to drown the flames. “Delane, go. Get them out.”

“POPPY FELLOWS!”

Clinging to the wall, almost in reach of the shaft, Vermillion
and Alex clambered upward. “Go!” I begged, wrestling the torch. “Sol, they’ll see us.”

Seconds sped by. The window for escape was rapidly closing.

“There’s no time,” said Sol. “Mia, you have to go.”

“I’m not leaving you here,” I replied. “Sol, it’s me they want; if they don’t find me they’ll know something’s going on.”

Delane still held Ben in his arms. “Solandun, we won’t all get through in time,” he said. “Any second they’ll see us.”

“Why haven’t you gone yet?” I asked, forcing him toward the shaft. “There’s time to get the kids out. Delane, you have to help Ben, but you have to go now. If they catch any one of us crawling through that gap, they’re going to follow. We can’t let them find out how you got in here.”

He did not climb.

“Please,”
I urged. “Save the kids. Get them to Bromasta—tell him they’ve taken Jay and the boys to the Nonsky Fault.”

Finally Delane nodded. “All right,” he said. He gestured to his side where a dagger hung from his belt. “Solandun, take it. Use it.”

With Ben clutched to his chest, Delane scrambled up toward the shaft. I moved away from the cavern wall, offering the sentinels a target far from where the others escaped.

Sol hung back, close to the wall, the dagger firmly in his grip.
“I’ll be right behind you,” he whispered. “Take care.”

He vanished into the darkness before I could reply.

Torch quivering in my hand, I walked toward the sentinels.

“Drop the flame!” commanded one as soon as I was in reach.

I dropped the torch.

“Hands up.”

I raised my hands.

“Now follow. The Suzerain awaits.”

Though I allowed my face to show no emotion, inside I screamed. The Suzerain had spoken to Malone. He knew. But the others would be safe and that was all that mattered. With Sol somewhere behind me, I gave myself over to fate. In minutes, we’d be free or we’d be dead.

We passed the spot of our makeshift camp, passed the opening to the passage where I’d found Alex. There was still no sign of Sol. Cold sweat covered my skin. My breaths, already shallow and rapid, grew faster with each step. I struggled to focus, concentrating only on the sentinels, the bobbing torches in their hands, and the fast approaching light of the guard room. The bars appeared. Two guards waited beyond.

“Bring her through,” said one. “She’s to be taken to the council room.”

My gaze fixed on the guard as he moved to the lock. The rattle of steel against stone followed. If Sol meant to strike, it had
to be now; there was only so long I could delay before stepping through that gate. Careful not to betray that Sol was behind me, I looked to the ground, dragging my heels, counting the seconds until the chance to escape would be gone.

Come on, Sol!

Sol flew from the shadows.

The first sentinel fell from a dagger through its throat. The second had barely turned when it suffered the same fate. Carnage exploding, the guard at the gate yelled as he scrambled for the bars. Too late. I’d snatched the second sentinel’s torch before it touched the ground. Vaulting its body, I thrust the flames at the guard’s hand. With a scream, the guard pulled back. It was all the gap Sol needed to burst through the gates.

He moved as fast as a sentinel, almost flying, his movements both powerful and effortless. One thrust of the dagger and the guard at the gate went down. A leap and the second joined him on the ground. Blood flowed.

I leapt over the fallen gate guard, joining Sol in the antechamber, ready to fight. The gate guard moaned, grabbing the bars as he struggled to rise. Face pale, his front soaked with blood, he toppled back, dragging the gate closed as he fell. He collapsed to the ground and did not move.

I dropped the torch and darted for the now locked gate. It was our only way back to the shaft. “Sol, it’s a bond key!”

Sol was checking the second guard for signs of life. “Do you see the key?” he asked.

Frantically scanning the ground, I found it in the outstretched hand of the fallen guard. “It’s here!”

Together, we dragged the guard’s body back to the lock. Sol placed the key into the recess. He covered it with the guard’s hand. The lock did not release.

“It’s still locked,” I said, tugging the gate. “Why isn’t it working?”

The guard’s hand fell from Sol’s grip. It landed with a thud on the floor. “He’s dead,” said Sol. “The key needs living blood.”

I glanced into the pit where the secret shaft waited for our escape. And then I thought of the Velanhall, vast and bustling, above us. “We’ll never make it,” I whispered.

The fear I felt was not visible on Sol’s face. He surveyed the room, at the fallen guards and the blood trickling on stone. “We have to try,” he said.

With no choice but to press on, we sprinted up the passage toward the Velanhall, our steps echoing behind us. Freaked by the Suzerain, I’d paid little attention on the journey down, but I marked the endless corridors and passages that opened around us. “It’s impossible. We’ll never get out.”

“We’ve made it this far,” said Sol. He stopped at a junction to another passage. He peered around. “It goes up.”

Glued to Sol’s side, I reached for his arm. “Guards?”

“It’s clear.”

At every junction, Sol stopped and checked the way. The stone labyrinth stretched on and on. It was eerily quiet.

“This is all wrong,” I said, after six or seven turns. “They must know by now. The place should be crawling with guards.”

Slightly ahead, Sol slowed. “I was thinking the same thing.”

We paused in the passage, Sol looking one way, me the other. Still we remained alone. “What if it’s a trap?” I whispered.

His back against the wall, Sol fingered the dagger at his side. “Then we’re heading straight for it.”

We sprinted on, the route growing steeper the farther we ran. Finally, we turned a corner and a set of stone steps rose before us. A wooden door stood at the top. Though I’d wanted nothing more than to get out of this place, that door set my mind on edge. Passages were one thing; you could see ahead and behind. Imagining what surprises lay behind that door made me very uneasy.

Sol started the climb. Grabbing what breath I could, I followed. At the top, Sol placed his ear to the wood.

“Anything?”

“Nothing.”

“Maybe it’s locked.” I anticipated us bursting into the Velanhall’s concourse and half hoped it would be true.

Sol tried the handle. “It’s open.”

His hand fell as he turned to me. Sweat glistened on his brow, but he wasn’t sucking air like me. He leaned in and without a word planted a light kiss on my damp forehead.

“What is this, good-bye?” I asked, hoping a joke might mask my terror.

“It was for luck,” he replied. “Ready?”

I nodded, shook my head, and then nodded again.

Sol pushed open the door.

It appeared to be an empty guard room, about ten feet wide and twenty long. Eight chairs surrounded a table in the center. Sheets of dappled sunlight, which entered through the narrow open windows that lined the walls, brightened the room. Another passage continued on at its end.

Relieved to have found nothing worse and hungry for fresh air, I dashed to the nearest window and pushed my face into the breeze. The sun hung in the west. Orion’s white stone gleamed beneath us; we’d come higher than I’d thought. Distant sounds rose from the city.

“We must be in the base of a tower,” said Sol, at the window beside mine. He pushed up, trying to force his body through the gap.

“Are you nuts?” I exclaimed. He looked as if he were trying to jump.

“Too narrow,” he said, as he dropped back down.

“Too high,” I replied.

“At least we’d be outside.”

“But that’s not much good if we’re halfway to the moon.”

He looked like he was about to smile. Instead he frowned, then sniffed.

“What is it?” If there was one thing I’d learned in Brakaland, it was to always trust Sol’s nose.

His gaze went to the open door through which we’d entered. “Demons,” he said.

Any thought of escaping through the window fled as we dashed to the door. A visage demon, with several more behind it, was climbing the stairs.

“Brace it,” yelled Sol.

I slammed the door as Sol grabbed a chair and wedged it beneath the handle. As soon as it was secure, I grabbed another chair and then another and another, stacking them haphazardly against the wood.

“What do we do?” I spluttered.

“We have no choice,” said Sol. “We keep running.”

We’d gone no more than a few steps before the first bang came at the door.

“Don’t stop!” yelled Sol.

The passage at the head of the room led to another set of
stairs. A second room, identical to the first, appeared at the top. On and through. Up another set of stairs. A crash sounded from below. Screeches echoed.

“They’ve broken through!” I hollered. “Sol!”

We sprinted into the next passage. A spiral stone staircase, dimly lit, waited at the end. There was no other way onward.

Sol ushered me up. “Go!”

I ascended as fast as I could, my hands gripping the walls as I counted the steps beneath my feet. Twenty. Thirty. All the training sessions I’d skipped in the gym returned to haunt me. My lungs screamed.

“Keep going!”

Forty. Fifty. Sixty. There had to be a way out—somewhere! Or a way back down! I suddenly felt as I had in the Wastes when I realized that the sentinels had herded us there on purpose. This must’ve been the same. There
was
no way to escape, and the visage demons knew it.

My head down, arms pumping, I was watching my feet so I wouldn’t trip, when I crashed squarely into a door above. Off balance, I fell back onto Sol. He grabbed my waist before I could topple down the stairs. With his free hand, he yanked open the door. Fresh air and daylight flooded into the tower.

The flight of stairs we’d climbed continued on through the door, only now the steps coiled around the outer wall of
one of the Velanhall’s towers. All I could see was gleaming white stone.

“We can’t go that way!” I gasped.

Screams carried up from below.

His hands tight on my shoulders, Sol forced me to look into his eyes. “Mia, you have to trust me,” he said, rapidly. “Tell me you trust me. Say it.”

Air rushed into the tower like water gushing from a broken dam. It whipped our faces and hair. Sol never released his hold, his eyes penetrating my soul, his fingers crushing my bones. The look in his eyes. Was it Sol admitting defeat? I remembered sitting with Sol on the grass outside my father’s home, and the night in Bordertown when I’d first seen the visage demon and had cried at Sol’s side. But mostly I recalled the first time we’d spoken at Crownsville High with radios blaring from the parking lot and students streaming by. The moment when Sol had truly entered my world.

I glanced down the steps. The demons were drawing closer. I gazed back at Sol, who was watching me keenly, his hands tight on my shoulders.

“I do,” I said. “I really do.”

“Then follow me.”

He pushed me through the doorway and out into the blustery air. The wide, white steps spiraled the Velanhall’s tower all the way to the clouds. It wasn’t the best idea, I know, but I
looked down. Orion lay far beneath us. At least two hundred feet of air separated us from the Velanhall’s roofs. It was what I’d feared. The only way down was back.

“This isn’t a good idea!” I gasped, my vow of trust already forgotten. Dizzy, I grabbed at the tower’s white stone. Sol brushed past me, continuing to climb.

“Just run!”

“Run where?”

Screeches carried up the spiral staircase.

“Up! Mia, you have to move!”

I ran, but to what I didn’t know. Death? That and the clouds were all that waited for us on top of the tower. All I’d wanted was for the others to get away and for Jay to be safely home in Crownsville. I would have given anything for that. But regardless of the dangers we’d so far survived, I’d never thought that saving Jay might cost me my life. Everything I’d wanted, everything I’d worked for—college, Willie, the chance to just get out of Crownsville and be
something
—flashed before my eyes and, just as quickly, faded. Those things were gone.