There was no answer. Only the constant tap, tap, tap, of water on stone.
He tried to scoot toward the light, and his head banged against something hard. Reaching out with his fingers, he felt thick metal bars spaced three to four inches apart.
“Riph Raph?” he called. But if the skyte was nearby, he didn’t answer.
He tried to sit up again—more slowly this time, resting his head against his shoulder. He rose inch by inch, until he was finally upright. He was in a small, stone cell—no more than three feet deep and five or six feet wide—with bars on three sides and jagged stone on the back. Turning his head to the right, he saw a pair of dark green eyes staring at him from the next cell over.
“Kyja?” he called, leaning against the bars. It was definitely her—he could just make out her pale face and the shape of her cloak. But she didn’t answer him except with a wide, unblinking stare.
“Kyja, what’s wrong with you?” he called. He reached out to her through the bars, but before he could touch her, his fingers stopped against something cold and hard. With a shock, he understood why she wasn’t responding. She was encased in a block of solid ice.
Was she dead? He felt his mouth dry up as his heart leapt into his throat. She looked so alive, almost as if she was watching him. But how could she be? Tears burned his eyes and leaked down his cheeks as his fingers searched against the smooth, hard surface of the ice block.
“They’re saving her,” a raspy voice whispered from somewhere nearby. “For later.”
“Who’s there?” Marcus pressed his face against the bars at the front of his cell and found he could just manage to make out a shape in a cell on the other side of the stone corridor.
“You’ll envy her before long.” The man’s voice was strangely flat and empty of all emotion.
“What are you talking about?” Marcus asked, pressing against the bars. “Come closer, where I can see you.”
A skin-and-bones white face appeared at the bars, and Marcus gasped. It was like looking at a skeleton with a long, bushy beard. “Can you feel it yet?” the face asked.
“Feel what?”
“Feel yourself coming apart,” the man said. His eyes glowed darkly from his gaunt face. “That’s what they do, you know.”
“What who does?” Marcus asked, wondering whether the man might be crazy. He certainly sounded crazy.
“The unmakers, of course. They start with whatever magic you’ve got. They feed on it the way a spider sucks the life out of a fly. Then your emotions. Once they’ve sucked you dry of all feelings of any kind, they start on your body.” He held up an arm that was hardly more than a stick, and Marcus grimaced at the sight.
“When they first captured me, I had arms the size of your waist. Now I’m almost down to nothing. Soon they’ll be done with my body, and they’ll finish by siphoning away my will to live.”
He fixed his blank eyes on Marcus. “It won’t take long. I imagine that’s why they went looking for you and the girl.”
Marcus sat stunned, trying to understand what the man was telling him. Creatures that fed on emotions? “They’re starving you, then?”
“No.” The man slid a metal plate against his bars, and Marcus could just make out some kind of dark, lumpy shape on it. “They feed you. If you can call it food. But all it does is make the process of finishing you off last a little longer. Like fattening a holiday bird before serving it for dinner. Once they finish with me, they’ll start on you. After that, they’ll thaw out the girl and suck away her life as well.”
“You mean she is alive?” Marcus turned to look at Kyja. Encased in her block of ice, she looked like she was sleeping, but . . . “How’s that possible?”
“She’s alive.” The man lifted something from his plate and shoved it absently into his mouth. It made a squishy sound as he chewed it. “Don’t know how it’s possible. Don’t really care.”
“We have to escape,” Marcus said. “You know all about this place, and I can do magic. Together we can unfreeze Kyja and find a way out.”
“Don’t want to escape,” the man said, pushing another piece of the dark substance into his mouth. “And we couldn’t even if we wanted to. You don’t understand. Magic doesn’t work in this place. The unmakers suck it away as soon as you try to use it. They gobble it up, like candy. The only one they let use magic is old Screech, and he won’t help you. He serves them.”
Ignoring the thumping in his head, Marcus got to his knees and slammed his fists on the unyielding bars. “Okay then, forget magic. We’ll find a way to escape without it!” he shouted. “You can’t tell me you really want to stay here?”
“Can’t say I care much, one way or the other,” the man said. He took a handful of goopy-looking gray stuff from his plate and offered it to Marcus.
“Yuck,” Marcus said, wrinkling his nose. It smelled terrible, and looked like the stuff between the tiles of a bathroom floor.
“Suit yourself.” The man shoved the glop into his mouth and licked his fingers. “Even if you could get past the bars, you’d never make it out. The unmakers are everywhere. You can’t see ’em unless they want you to.”
“You mean they’re invisible?” That would explain how they’d appeared out of nowhere. But how could he fight something he couldn’t even see? Especially when he couldn’t use magic?
“Not invisible,” the man said, pushing his empty plate aside. “Unmade. They’re the opposite of everything we are. You can’t see ’em cause they aren’t there in the way we think about it. Don’t even know if they’re alive. They’re just nothing, and everything they touch eventually becomes part of that nothingness.”
It was the closest Marcus had seen the man come to showing any kind of emotion, and the effort seemed to exhaust him. The man lay down on the cold stone floor, curled up into a ball, and began to hum softly to himself.
“You can’t see them at all?” Marcus asked, picturing the black holes he’d learned about in school.
The man continued to hum in his cell, and Marcus didn’t think he was going to answer. Then the humming stopped. “Not unless they want you to,” the man said in the same dead voice. “I only met one man who did. And he spent every day drooling on himself.”
Marcus didn’t know if it was what the man had said, the cold, dreary cavern, or the force of the unmakers themselves, but he felt what little hope he’d been able to muster fading away. He was going to die in this dank, lifeless place. And after him, Kyja would die. What would happen to each of their worlds if they were gone? Would the Dark Circle take them both over, growing and growing until they destroyed everything that was good?
He couldn’t give up. He had to find a way to hang on. But he was so tired, and it was so much easier to just lie down on the floor and rest.
Sometime later, Marcus heard the sound of rattling metal, and the light from the candle drew closer as a tall figure shuffled toward his cell.
“Rise and shine,” said an eerily cheerful voice. “Time to go.”
Marcus sat up, his back aching and stiff from the cold, hard floor, and stared at the figure before him. The man—if that’s what he was—stood at least nine feet tall. Long, greasy hair hung from parts of his head in clumps and strings, while other areas of his gray scalp were completely bald. Scraps of tattered clothing—none of it seeming to have come from the same source—hung from long, bony arms and legs.
“Who are you?” Marcus asked, pressing against the back wall of his cell.
“Who am I?” the man cackled. He looked at the filthy figure in the cell across the tunnel from Marcus. “Didn’t your friend tell you? I’m Screech.” He pulled a ring of keys from his belt and unlocked the cell door. Marcus saw that each of the man’s fingers ended in long, blackened claws that looked more like talons than nails.
As soon as the man swung back the bars, Marcus darted toward the opening. But Screech was much quicker than he looked. His clawed fingers closed around Marcus’s neck and lifted him easily into the air.
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“Eager are you, my sweet?” he said with a wet cackle.
With Screech’s fingers wrapped around his throat, Marcus could only cough and gasp for air.
“That’s good. Very good.” The man grinned, revealing blackened gums and a few remaining teeth, sharpened to knife-like points. He picked up Marcus’s staff from the cell floor, examined it briefly, and tossed it aside. “The unmakers are anxious to meet you too.”
Chapter 46
The Unmakers
Screech dropped Marcus on the floor of the wide, circular cavern with a bone-jarring thump. Before Marcus could even think about moving, the long, cruel fingers snapped a rusty manacle around his wrist.
The creature, who had seemed absurdly cheerful before, glanced nervously about the empty room before whispering, “I’ll be back,” and lumbering away.
Marcus tugged on the chain. But although the enclosure was flaked with rust, it was plenty solid. All around the walls of the high-ceilinged chamber, torches spit and popped. The air had an odor that was both moldy and sweet—like apples gone bad. He glanced across the room, wondering how long he’d have to wait before the unmakers arrived.
Would whatever they did hurt? The man in the cell hadn’t mentioned it, but maybe he was beyond pain the same way he was beyond emotions. Marcus tugged at the spike he was chained to, but the metal bar was embedded deep in the rock. He should have listened to Kyja and gone back to Earth instead of staying in these mountains. It seemed like every decision he made ended up getting them into trouble. He couldn’t imagine how anyone could conceive of a failure like him even managing to save himself, let alone an entire world.
As he waited for the unmakers, a thought occurred to him. The man in the other cell had told him it was impossible to use magic here. But Marcus had never actually tried it. Maybe the man was wrong. Or maybe Marcus’s magic was different. Just because it didn’t work for one person didn’t mean it might not work for another.
Gathering his strength, he focused on the spike and chain. He imagined a force of wind ripping the spike from the stone floor—shattering rock and metal. He could do it, now, before the unmakers arrived.
Concentrating all his will, he whispered, “Air like bread dough, thicken please. Shatter rock, pull metal free.”
For a second he felt the air around him begin to gather force. Then it was as if someone had reached down his throat and ripped something vital from inside him. The pain was enormous. Unbearable. He felt his body slam to the floor, and colors blazed in front of his eyes.
“Stop!” he screamed, but the pain went on and on. It was like someone was sucking his insides out with a straw. All around the room he heard sloppy, wet sounds, like giant lips smacking against each other, and deep grunts of pleasure. The unmakers had been here all along.
“No!” he cried, his body rattling against the floor.
“So-o-o-o go-o-od,” a thundering voice rumbled from one side of the room.
“Delicious-s-s-s,” another voice sighed.
“Feed us,” a voice whispered, and something wet brushed against Marcus’s cheek. It burned like fire, and he jerked away.
He heard the sound of things slithering across the floor all around him, and the very walls of the cavern shook with their passing. They sounded enormous, and they had him surrounded.
On the floor, Marcus gagged and shook for what seemed like forever. It went on and on, until his breathing came in harsh, quick gasps and his head felt as if it were going to explode.
Finally the pain stopped, and he lay on the floor, trembling.
“This one is powerful,” a thick voice boomed.
“He will last a long time,” another said.
“No,” Marcus moaned. “Please.” He turned toward the sound of the voice and saw nothing. Then, for just a second, beneath the flickering light, the air appeared to twist and darken. It was as if the skin of reality had been ripped away for just a moment, and underneath was a vast, unending expanse of nothingness.
“Come along,” a voice whispered. Screech was back. He gripped Marcus by the arm with his bony fingers, unlocked the manacle, and dragged him away.
Once they were outside the chamber, Screech’s good humor returned. “Did you enjoy yourself, my sweet?” He chuckled.
Marcus could barely keep his head upright. His muscles ached, and his stomach felt like he’d swallowed a brick. He didn’t know how he could take many more sessions with the unmakers. But he
wouldn’t give this foul creature the satisfaction of knowing it.
“It was nothing,” he said with grim determination.
“Nothing, was it?” Screech said with a nasty grin. “You’ll have lots more of that nothing to look forward to over the next few months.”
Marcus couldn’t stand the look of satisfaction on the big creature’s face. He tried to think of something to wipe it off. “I wouldn’t be so cheerful if I were you,” Marcus said as Screech dragged him through one dank corridor after another.
“No?” Screech said, shaking the long, greasy hair out of his eyes with a look of amusement. “Why is that?”
Marcus thought furiously. “They were asking me questions,” he blurted.
“They don’t ask questions. They only feed.”
“Fine,” Marcus said, trying to hide the pain he was feeling. “Don’t believe me. But some of the questions were about you.”
“You’re lying.” Screech continued to grin, but Marcus thought he saw a hint of unease in his captor’s big, dumb eyes. How confident was Screech that one day the unmakers wouldn’t turn on him?
“They wanted to know about your magic,” Marcus continued.
“My magic?” Screech paused for a moment before continuing to drag Marcus toward his cell. It was long enough for Marcus to see the worry on the creature’s revolting face. It gave him a newfound strength.
He forced himself to smile. “They wanted to know if your magic was as strong as mine.”
“Ridiculous,” the creature screeched, and Marcus understood how he’d gotten his name. “Of course my magic is stronger than yours. You can’t even do magic here. They won’t let you.”
Marcus shrugged. “That’s not what they said. I got the feeling they were looking for someone to replace you.”
“You’re making that up!” Screech shook him like a doll. Marcus felt his arms and legs nearly rip from the sockets, but he gritted his teeth and grinned through the pain.
“Hey. I don’t even want the job,” Marcus replied. “But what could I say? My magic is stronger than yours. I couldn’t lie to them, could I?”
By now they were back at Marcus’s cell. Screech threw Marcus to the ground in a fit of rage. “I’ll show you magic. I’ll burn you to the ground.” The towering creature pulled a crooked, black stick from the folds of his tattered clothes and pointed it at Marcus.
Marcus held out his hands, afraid he had carried his taunting too far. “Think for a minute. What would the unmakers do to you if anything happened to me?”
Screech continued to hold the wand wavering in front of him before finally lowering it. “You’re lying.”
Marcus had only been trying to unnerve the nasty creature, but all at once a hint of a plan came to mind. It wasn’t much, but it was all he had. “There’s an easy way to prove it.”
“How?” Screech asked with a suspicious glare.
Marcus pointed to where Kyja was encased in her block of ice. “You try to cast a spell on her, and I’ll try to stop it. Whoever wins has the strongest magic.”
“The unmakers don’t want her touched,” Screech said. He gave a quick look over his shoulder. “They said she’s special.”
“What’s the matter?” Marcus taunted. “Afraid they’ll suck your magic away too?”
“No! They wouldn’t. They promised.” Swinging his greasy hair out of his eyes, he started to push Marcus into his cell.
“Wait,” Marcus said, twisting away. “It doesn’t have to be anything major. Just a little spel
l. Move her back a few inches. If I can’t stop you from doing it, I’ll tell the unmakers you have the most powerful magic.”
“You won’t,” the creature said. But from behind his mat of long, dirty hair, he seemed to be considering Marcus’s offer.
“Pinky promise,” Marcus said. He reached up and hooked his pinky with Screech’s disgustingly-dirty little finger.
“Pinky promise?”
Marcus nodded. “It’s absolutely unbreakable.”
“A little spell.” Screech picked at the tip of his chin with his long, black claws as though trying to figure out what Marcus was up to.
“Tiny.” Marcus held his thumb and index finger a fraction of an inch apart.
“All right,” Screech said at last. “One little spell. Then you go straight into your cell. And you pinky promise to tell the unmakers I have the strongest magic.”
“If your spell works. You can’t expect me to lie if my magic is stronger.”
“It isn’t,” Screech said. He pulled out his wand, pointed it at Kyja, and said something in a language Marcus didn’t understand. It sounded sort of like “deep-fried mayonnaise.”
Nothing happened.
Marcus folded his arms across his chest. “I was afraid of that. I guess your magic isn’t quite as powerful as you thought it was. I have no choice but to tell the unmakers.”
Screech glared at him. “Let me try again.”
“What’s the point?” Marcus asked. “It’s not going to change anything. You tried a spell. I blocked it.”
“That wasn’t fair,” Screech said, stomping his big, hairy foot. “You tricked me. You wanted me to cast a simple spell so it would be easier for you to block.”
Marcus pretended to yawn, infuriating the imposing creature before him. “Let’s face it. Your magic is weak. I’m surprised the unmakers even let you stick around.”
“I’ll show you,” Screech said, holding his wand out before him with both hands. “I’ll make her float up in the air, and you can’t stop me.” He shook his wand at Kyja and growled what sounded like “spinach-face librarian.”
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