The Dark Materials

by Amanda Churi

  “How many of you bastards did she make…?” Kevin mumbled, wincing in pain as blood began to flow from his nose.

  The Elite stared at him, expressionless and refusing to answer. Silent, they bent down, grabbing the Sword of Maeve lying next to Kevin. He immediately tried to reach for it, only this time, the moment that he moved he felt the ice surge through his arm, nearly paralyzing him.

  “If you know what’s good for you…” the Elite warned him as he gave the Sword of Maeve a quick twirl in his sculpture-like hands, “you will stay out of our way… And let Fate take its course.”

  Using those words as his dismissal, the Elite looked away from his petrified prey, securing his hold on the legendary weapon before bolting across the street, the peasants scattering like flies in terror. He paid them no attention, his eyes honed onto the dark, sinister woods as his feet carried him into the arms of the bare trees, allowing him to flee into the night.

  Kevin frowned, his neck cringing as he tried to hold back his disappointment. He… He let them get away…

  “Kevin!”

  Weak and distraught, Kevin slowly turned his head to the side just in time to see Lucy drop down beside him. Her black eyes were wide and frantic, hurriedly scanning her lover for signs of a life-threatening injury.

  “You’re so stupid!” she scolded him painfully, a frail sob escaping her trembling lips as the tears ran down her cheeks. “You could have died!”

  “Daddy!” Daisy screamed, stumbling behind Lucy and throwing her arms around his neck. “Stop being so brave!”

  Even though upset and internally broken, Kevin chuckled, the warmth from those who loved him helping to banish the coldness in his heart. He was indeed upset that he had lost the sword, but at least he had taken one Elite down; his family was safe as well, and they were what mattered most.

  “Young man,” an unknown voice came.

  Kevin looked up, his eyes settling on an old man who came forth from the crowd. His back was hunched, an old, dirty cloak thrown over him as he leaned heavily on a walking stick for support. His eyes were dominated by a film to prove his age, the top of his head covered with brown spots and a few scarce patches of white hair. Judging by his looks, Kevin took him to be the town elder.

  “Yes?” Kevin asked, Lucy and Daisy pulling back.

  “Rise,” the old man demanded.

  Kevin anxiously held his breath but did not protest. Lucy and Daisy knew better than to either, each of them grabbing Kevin’s hand and helping him to his feet. It certainly wasn’t easy; with every movement he made, Kevin felt the ice slushing through his veins as it was carried by his bloodstream. Still, he pushed through it, slowly turning to the elder once he established his balance, wiping his bloody nose with his sleeve to make himself presentable.

  The man raised his withered hand, his skin dark with scars and the marks of aging, and he pointed towards the sword lodged in the quickly melting stalagmite of ice. “Do you know whose sword that is?” he put forth.

  Kevin glanced at the weapon, his chest tightening when he realized that of all people, of course, the elder would recognize what it was. Still, Kevin hadn’t thought that he would be revealed so quickly; he hadn’t had time to work up a perfect story nor alibi of how he obtained it. If he didn’t have a convincing tale to tell, somehow, someway, he knew the truth would come out, and the town would have him executed in the blink of an eye for treason. The best thing to do was play dumb to avoid a slip-up.

  “Um, no,” he replied unsurely.

  The elder smiled, revealing his black, deteriorating teeth. “Well, you are in for quite a surprise then.” He chuckled.

  He grabbed Kevin’s shoulder with a hand, turning to face the crowd of townspeople who drew ever closer out of curiosity. “He holds King Sterling’s sword!” the elder announced, uncountable gasps sounding in the night air. “God has chosen our new king!”

  Many people looked on in shock and fear, quietly whispering to their neighbors and casting doubtful glances at Kevin. Others erupted into cries of disbelief, not caring to hide their disapproval.

  “He didn’t even know!” one cried.

  “He obviously has ties to the evil spirits that have haunted us for decades!” another proclaimed.

  “We don’t need another tyrant!”

  “How can we trust him?!”

  Kevin swallowed heavily. He thought that the peasants wouldn’t care too much either way if and when an heir came forth, though now, he could see that he misjudged them; after everything they had been through, it was only right to doubt a leader in the event that they brought their town to ruin.

  The elder frowned upon seeing his town fall into such disorganization, squeezing Kevin’s shoulder lightly. Daisy and Lucy, who stayed back, turned their desperate gazes to the elder, hoping he could do something. Kevin needed to protect this town, and if he didn’t convince the people now, he would never again be in this position.

  “Silence!” the elder snapped, his authoritative voice silencing the village at once. “Does it matter how he obtained the sword?” he questioned. “We have no blood-linked heirs; God had to choose the next successor, and if he possesses the sword, such was the Lord’s will!”

  He pointed to the melted ice pillar and to the sword, which lay on the ground, freed from winter’s clutch.

  “Evil spirits continue to haunt us as always! This man stood up to them, slaying one in the process against all odds; he is a man of true virtue! We are vulnerable without a leader to guide us! Phantome has forever been a strong town despite the uncountable supernaturals which have fled here, and now, when we are at our weakest, who knows what they will do? We need to rise up and protect ourselves! Ourselves, and our loved ones, which the Lord has brought back! Revived, I say, from the clutches of the Devil, who took their lives in the first place!”

  “Amen!” someone from the crowd exclaimed.

  “And if this man was chosen to lead the rebirth of our town, then we should let him!” the elder preached. “It is God’s wish! It is this man’s fate! It is this kingdom’s destiny!”

  Wild cheers rose in the air, people clapping upon hearing the elder’s words. Eyes so doubtful before now shined with hope and strength, all of those eyes turning to Kevin—smiles of trust and arms of security wanting to embrace the man which signified new strength for their kingdom.

  Kevin was speechless, not only because of how he had been accepted because of one powerful figure who believed him but because of how happy the people staring at him looked. They revered him for coming to their aid to protect the village. Although it took a little push and a reminder from the higher power, they wanted him here, which was something that after nearly eleven years ago, when he was sentenced to death by fire in the town square, he thought he would never know again. It was one thing to be wanted by those close to you—it was another to be wanted by hundreds of people.

  Whether their words and emotions were sincere, Kevin didn’t know, but he couldn’t be happier that he had at least been given a chance.

  “What’s your name, son?” the elder whispered as the town continued to go ballistic.

  “Kevin,” he answered with a huff of shock. “Kevin de Vaux.”

  The elder nodded, looking back towards the town as he raised his stick to the air, a smile creasing his old face. “All hail King de Vaux!”

  “All hail King de Vaux!” the town chanted in response.

  While the town rejoiced, a single soul looked on, silent.

  Her black eyes stared out at the celebrating town, flicking across the scene in a deranged manner as she tried to figure out what was happening. Her thin fingers clutched the door to her home weakly, her narrowed eyes staring out from the small crack of the opened door with distrust. The rest of her home was dark; there were no torches or anything of the sort to give the home light. Fabric was drawn across the windows and any other space which let the faintest ray of light shine, submerging the small home in blackness.

  Her eyes shif
ted to the floor, a confused expression crossing her shadowed face. “De Vaux…” she whispered weakly, clutching the door tighter with her hands. Her arms shook, her eyes troubled as she stared at the rotten floor she stood on, unable to understand what she had just heard.

  Defeated, she looked away and turned back into the darkness, silently closing the entrance to her house and isolating herself from the happiness of the town and life, leaving herself alone once more, just like she had been for so many years.

  Eight

  Hide and Seek

  If someone asked me to recall what happened next, I couldn’t tell them. The gas not only paralyzed us, but all recollection of what happened for the next allotment of time was completely out of the window. The last thing that I remembered was a concealed face staring down at me through waves of green toxins—a being who seemed satisfied with their work of rendering us helpless.

  I don’t know how long I was out, but after some length of time, my throbbing head and stunned muscles began to loosen up, my senses slowly returning.

  My eyes stung from the remnants of the toxins caught on the surface, refusing to open. My ears rang, a high-pitched buzz racking my brain and putting more pressure on my already overwhelmed mind. I was lying down, my head turned at an odd, strained angle. My skin tingled, a mix of uncomfortable coolness and heat circulating through my veins, while my skin felt like it was being poked by pins and needles.

  Get up, I told myself tiredly. Drained, but determined, I tried to stretch my arm, a rough, irritating cloth rubbing against my raw skin. I frantically retracted my arm back to my side, worried that whatever I had made contact with was something that would harm me all the further.

  “What the hell happened?!” a voice screamed furiously; their pitch was rough as they forced themselves to stifle a bone-rattling cough.

  My eyes slowly opened when I recognized the voice. Strenuously, I let my head roll to the right as I pinpointed the location of the sound.

  I could hardly believe my eyes, my pupils widening as my brain dragged itself out of the forced slumber it had fallen into, struggling to properly process what I saw through my partially blurred vision.

  A net made of thick, tightly bound rope fell next to my face; the holes were so small that I could hardly catch a glimpse of the outside world. Exhausted, I raised my stiff arms, my fingers trembling as I grabbed the semi-limp net, pulling it closer so that my eyes were aligned with the gaps.

  It looked like we were still in Pikë from what I could tell—that or some other city also blown to smithereens. It was gloomy outside, making me positive that more than a few hours passed and that I had been out so long that twilight rolled into day—the third day of absolute misery which had come and gone slower than any other period of my life. I spotted our bags and weapons far away from us, leaning against a collapsed building. Coruscus was in plain view, its aura small and dull.

  A few meters across from me was another sack identical to the one I was trapped in. Muffled struggles could be heard coming from inside, the sack tottering as its frame bulged viciously.

  “Will you calm down?!” Griffin’s voice bellowed from inside the sack, an aggressive force causing the bag to lean to one side. Laelia let out a meep of shock in response.

  “Stop pushing!” she demanded.

  “Then shut up!” he screamed back.

  Several intense beams of purple shot from the holes of the prison, a fed up hiss sounding loud and clear. “You both better shut up before I make you!” Sybil threatened crossly, another hiss following her order.

  I picked that as my opportunity to jump in before they killed each other.

  “Hey…!” I called hoarsely, my airway tight. “Are you guys alright?”

  “Oh my Jupiter! Eero, is that you?” Laelia wondered, the weight of the bag slightly tilting in my direction.

  “Yeah!” I called back.

  “Is Mabel with you?” Griffin asked.

  I paused, struggling to turn my neck to the left, when almost immediately, I noticed a slim figure next to me. I let out a breath of alleviation, refusing to turn back to the others as I stared at Mabel who seemed relatively unharmed but still off enough to look like she had experienced the biggest hangover in history. “Yeah, she is!”

  “Thank God,” he said with a sigh. “We thought maybe—”

  “Get your elbow out of my breast!” Laelia suddenly shrieked.

  “Get a smaller bust!” Griffin spat in retort.

  The flames between the two had been lit once more, so I naturally ignored them, focusing all of my attention on the girl next to me. I couldn’t see much of her besides her blood stained dress due to the low level of light, and despite the fact that we both looked like we had been on a death march (which, I guess we had), she still looked beautiful to me.

  “Hey…” I cooed gently, brushing her forehead lightly with a finger as I pushed the hair away from her face.

  Almost as soon as I touched her, her eyes weakly fluttered open, reflecting the dull light in my direction. She smiled, dazed as she was brought back into this world. “Hey…” she giggled tiredly in response, groaning painfully as she rubbed her head against her shoulder, trying to get rid of some of the filth on her face.

  “You need to stop getting hurt so much,” I joked.

  She scoffed. “Likewise. And you need to stop dragging me into trouble.”

  I was embarrassed by her reasoning, even though that was very much true. “It’s part of my curse; I can’t help it.”

  “Mhm.”

  “Seriously!” I exclaimed. “You know all about—!”

  There was a sudden yank on the net that we were held in, Mabel and I letting out a brief grunt of shock as our weight was forced downwards. Our bodies became tangled almost immediately, Mabel half flying across me so that her upper half was sprawled across my chest, our foreheads touching. Normally, my hormones would have probably burst at the seams, but considering the fact we were currently in route by an unknown force, they were dead as a doornail.

  “What the heck?!” Mabel shouted, trying to adjust herself and fix the awkward position that she was in. I could feel the earth shifting beneath the dense rope, a few pieces of stray rock sticking up through the net and scraping my back painfully.

  “Whoa, who’s there?!” Laelia cried, her voice shrill with fear. They must have been in the same situation as us.

  “If you don’t release us right now, I will rip your throat out the first chance I get!” Sybil snapped.

  Our captor ignored us completely. Mabel and I were silent, still as we tried to remain calm.

  Our bodies were dropped abruptly, though Mabel and I must have been on the same brainwave; we were practically unfazed by the halt, anxiously awaiting what was next.

  A sharp object sunk into the thick mass of rope with a thunk, Mabel shrieking and burrowing into my chest as the entity missed her head by a few inches. My eyes locked onto the deadly gutting knife, watching it closely as the blade’s position was established, before, in one fierce pull, the sack was torn open.

  The sliced rope fell around us, revealing our kidnapper against the glum sky—a person who I couldn’t be more terrified and surprised to see.

  The Seeker loomed over us, smiling in satisfaction as she held a large knife next to her face. She looked different from when I had last seen her, but nonetheless, I recognized her without trouble.

  Her skin was glowing but to a much less extreme than previously, allowing me to make out clear features. She was on the short side, oddly enough coming off as no older than thirteen, and she had blonde-white hair which shimmered so radiantly that it almost looked like a bucket of glitter had been dumped over her—some of it flowed to her shoulder blades, another section tied back into a loose bun. Her eyes were a pale gray, so flushed that they looked white, though that could not hide the hunger within them. She had on a ripped, sleeveless dress made of many shades of gray, the fabric cutting off just below her thin knees. An iron shackle was
locked around her emaciated neck; she was so thin that I could see the bone of her trachea through her unique, translucent skin.

  I honestly didn’t know what to think. She looked friendly when I had first seen her, and she was the reason that we were all still around, but now, the person I stared at was nothing short of an enemy. The excited glint in her eye worried me, causing me to tighten my grip on Mabel.

  A large squeal hit my ears, and immediately, I looked over to my side, much more frightened by our second attacker. I cringed when I saw the anger behind the stab they used when tearing the bag open, releasing my friends.

  Our second assailant was a vicious looking female located somewhere in her early twenties. She had on a crimson muscle shirt, certainly not minding to show off her horrifically large biceps. She had vibrant red hair that went to her mid-back, a pale face filled with nothing but hate, and a pair of dull blue eyes that glared at my allies in resentment. She wore black jeans rampant with holes, tucked inside heavy combat boots barely holding themselves together. A silver bow was slung over her shoulder, along with a matching quiver that held a variety of queer arrows. A few entities that looked like grenades were strung around the shell of the quiver; I guessed that she was the person who gassed us.

  For being as rambunctious as they were a minute ago, my friends now had nothing to say, gawking in the direction of their captor.

  Mabel hesitantly looked up from my chest and over her shoulder, gasping with shock and rolling off of my body as soon as she saw the spiritual child in front of us, who was honed in on her like a hawk.

  The brute looked our way with Mabel’s sudden moment, thrusting her knife into her belt before yanking her bow over her body and grabbing an arrow with blinding speed, positioning it in the string and hunching forward as she looked to and from us; it really looked like she was about to shoot us at any given moment simply for moving.