I snatched up his sword and ran back to the spring.
My father wasn’t there.
Surely I’d laid him down right here, beside the spring. But the ground was empty.
Even shades can die, my father had told me. The magic bleeds away, and the spirit disperses. There’s nothing left.
Nothing left.
No. I wouldn’t accept that. He must have dragged himself away from the fight. I circled through the forest, searching, calling. Nothing.
I went back to the spring and stood beside it. I cupped my hands around my mouth and poured everything I had into my voice.
“Dad? Dad, where are you?”
I shouted until my voice was a mere croak, and even that didn’t stop me. I called and called, but the only answer was the lush music of magic bubbling in the spring.
25
DAD WAS GONE. I COULD STAND HERE CALLING FOREVER, BUT no answer would come. Yet how could I leave? I sank to the ground, my head in my hands.
You failed him again, buzzed a voice inside my head.
I couldn’t rouse myself to tell Butterfly to shut up. The Eidolon was right, anyway.
And this time, you took two lives. That Keeper was only trying to do his job. And you’re letting the poor schmuck bleed to death on the ground. You cut him down, then you didn’t even bother to see if you could help him, did you?
“Letting” him bleed to death—was the Keeper still alive? I lifted my head. I got up and went over to where he had fallen.
The man hadn’t moved. He lay on his face, and his tunic had darkened to a deep burgundy. For a moment I thought it was blood, but shades’ blood was rainbow-colored, like the spring. As I watched, burgundy deepened to black. The Keeper wasn’t dead yet, but if he didn’t get to the cauldrons, he’d die in this clearing.
I rolled him onto his back. His eyes were closed; his pores sweated out magic. The wound in his stomach gaped like a huge, shocked mouth. This guy wouldn’t make it to the cauldrons or anywhere else.
What could I do? The spring’s musical bubbling filled the woods. Dad had hoped the magic would revive him. Could it help this dying Keeper? It was worth a try.
I went to the spring and, cupping my hands, dipped them into the pool. A sharp, electric tingle pricked along my forearms like needles. My fingertips buzzed with an odd, sizzling sensation. Walking quickly and trying not to spill any, I carried the liquid magic back to the fallen Keeper. I knelt beside him and let the magic drip from my hands into the gash.
The Keeper cried out, although his eyes stayed closed. The magic bubbled and steamed. Was it helping or hurting him? I stood, watching. The steam rising from the Keeper’s body expanded, surging up in colorful billows. Some got into my nose and throat and I backed away, coughing. If eating magical food was a bad idea for the clay-born, breathing magic was probably worse.
I couldn’t see the Keeper anymore; fog filled the woods. It was beautiful, like an abstract painting of the most exquisite colors you could imagine, but set in motion. I watched the hypnotic dance of colors. They took away a little of the pain that seared my heart.
Until that whiny voice started up again. Oh, so now you’re an art lover? You can mope around here and look at the pretty colors all you want. But if you don’t haul ass to Tywyll and stop that Pryce, you’ll feel a hell of a lot worse. You think two deaths feel bad? Wait until millions die—and it’s all your fault. A cackle. I’ll be the fattest Eidolon in the history of demonkind.
“Since when did you become my conscience?”
Oh. Silence. Is that what I’m doing? Never mind.
Yet Butterfly was right. For all I knew, Pryce may have already succeeded. But if there was anything I could do to stop him, I had to try. Millions of lives did depend on me.
I gazed into the beautiful fog of magic, listened to the music that filled the forest. There was no other sound. “Good-bye, Dad,” I whispered. Then I turned around and headed back to the road that led to Tywyll.
THE CAPITAL CITY OF THE DARKLANDS WAS EXACTLY AS DAD had described it: a maze of narrow cobblestone streets that wound past squeezed-together shops and houses. Some of the buildings were stone; others were half-timbered, with overhanging upper stories that looked ready to tumble into the street.
I’d entered Tywyll through the southern gate. My sense of direction hadn’t improved; I’d seen the word Southgate carved in ornate letters over the entrance. Shades were still pouring into town for the ceremony. The crowd flowed like a river of bodies through the streets, carrying me with it.
“Where’s the ceremony being held?” I asked a young woman in a charcoal-gray tunic.
“Resurrection Square, where else?” Her tone implied it was the stupidest question she’d heard in a while. She gave me a sidelong glance. “By the way, would you like—?” She fumbled in her pocket.
“Not hungry, thanks.” I cut her off before she could show me the roll or the orange or whatever she’d brought to eat. I didn’t need to see any food right now.
The crowd was moving steadily uphill, along a lane that gradually got steeper. My heart pumped harder with the effort of climbing. At the very top of the hill, the street widened into Resurrection Square. Going through the tight, narrow lanes of Tywyll, I’d expected the square to be small, nothing like the vast space that opened before me now. The place was larger than Rhudda’s archery range and banquet hall put together. In its center, three huge cauldrons clustered together in a triangular formation. Each of them looked to be ten or twelve feet high. I recognized the one that had been stolen from the Peabody, although it had grown so large that Pryce would need a crane to lift the thing now. The cauldron of transformation had been spiffed up, its dents repaired and its bronze polished so that it seemed to shine with an inner glow.
Bleachers stretched along three sides of the square. Shades climbed the steps and jostled each other for seats. More shades thronged the square at ground level. My group turned right, heading for a set of bleachers. I stepped out of the flow to take a better look around.
Along the stone wall beside me, a set of steps led up to a second-story balcony. That looked like a good vantage point; from up there, I could check out the square and maybe spot Pryce in the crowd. No one appeared to be on the balcony, although I couldn’t be sure from this angle. Keeping low, so I couldn’t be seen from the ground, I started climbing.
About halfway up, I paused. Kneeling on the steps, so I could just peer over the railing, I scanned the square again. A high platform with three golden chairs, the middle one distinctly regal-looking, had been erected in the space between the cauldrons. No one stood there yet, but the platform was obviously the spot where Lord Arawn would preside over the ceremony. The square was filling up fast, shades pouring in through all four entrances. So many people. Was Pryce among them? It was impossible to tell.
I looked up, checking the rooftops. Silhouetted against the sky stood a tall man; a crossbow dangled from his hand. Eight archers were stationed around the square; two on each side. Good. The cauldrons were well guarded. It would be hard for Pryce to approach them.
“Come up.” A voice drifted down from the top of the stairs like a warm spring breeze. “Don’t be afraid.”
Whenever I hear a disembodied voice urging me not to be afraid, I figure it’s a good time to have a weapon in my hand. I drew my sword. Holding it ready, I went up a few more steps.
“Come,” breathed the voice.
A woman came into view on the balcony. She had long, straight, white-blonde hair, and she wore a welcoming smile and a scarlet cape. A Keeper. She held out her hands to me, then her mouth rounded with surprise.
“You’re clay-born!” she exclaimed.
“That’s right. Don’t offer me any food, please.”
“But only shades may climb the stone stairs! You must descend at once!”
“Why?
“Because…because…” The woman sputtered, too shocked to get the words out. Then something caught her eye across the square. “Look—over there! You’ll see why.”
The Keeper pointed to a balcony like ours on the other side of the square. I ran up the last few stairs to see what was happening. A man—a shade—stood on the opposite balcony, looking out over the crowd.
“I see a guy standing on a balcony. So?”
“Shh! Watch.”
I stepped back so I stood between the Keeper and the wall. I could see what was happening, but anyone looking up from ground-level wouldn’t notice me.
On the other balcony, the shade raised both arms above his head in a gesture that seemed more resigned than triumphant—a surrender, not a victory. He tilted his head back. After a moment, thin tendrils began to rise from his fingers. The tendrils looked like smoke, except they weren’t gray but rather multicolored, like the fog that had filled the spring’s clearing. The rising tendrils joined together into a swirling rainbow of vivid, glorious colors: red, blue, green, yellow, purple, gold, and myriad shades in between. The magic was so lovely. The rainbow grew, arcing, and stretched from the man to one of the cauldrons. It looked like a path made of glittering jewels.
The man dropped his arms. A red-cloaked Keeper stepped forward and helped him climb onto the path. I realized now that the shade’s outfit was midnight black. He bowed to the Keeper and then walked—no, glided—along the rainbow. His feet didn’t move. At the end of the path, he stopped. He looked around once, twisting to the left and right, and then he raised his arms again. In a graceful swan dive, he plunged into the cauldron.
“Good return,” whispered the Keeper in front of me.
The rainbow exploded in a blast of light. Colors burst and flared and sparkled like fireworks. Then they subsided—fading, drifting, and finally disappearing.
Whoa. That was strange. But even stranger was the fact that no one in the square paid the slightest bit of attention to the spectacle. Shades milled around, talking to each other and pushing their way through the crowds. No one had glanced up at the shade walking on a rainbow above their heads. No one had flinched at the boom or oohed and ahhed over the display.