by Terry Brooks
It would be a journey of more complicated and far-reaching consequences than the boy realized.
The King of the Silver River watched him until he was almost out of sight. There was much he had not told him, much he kept secret. To tell the boy everything would have placed too great a burden on him, and he was already carrying weight enough. There was an element of chance, of fate, to everything. It was no different here. But the boy would know this instinctively and without needing to hear the details.
The boy was beyond his line of sight now, and he turned away.
“You are as much my child as you are anyone’s,” he said quietly. “My last, best hope.”
In the golden light of the gardens, it seemed possible to believe that this would be enough.
FIVE
T HE HANDGUN FIRED BY the boy with the ruined face made a soft popping sound as it discharged a pair of filament-thin wires. Owl could barely make out the wires in the darkness, could only just see the gleam of metal threads as they connected with their target. It happened so fast that it was over almost before she knew it was happening. Her hand was still raised to stay the boy’s precipitous action. She was still saying, “No!”
Then the wires found their target, the charge exploded out of the solar pack, and it was too late.
But not for Owl. Although the charge was meant for her, fired directly at her midsection, it was Squirrel who took the hit. Curled up in her lap, he provided an unintended shield against the strike. Perhaps the boy with the ruined face hadn’t even seen him, his vision limited by his injuries. Perhaps he really didn’t care. That he acted carelessly and out of fear and confusion was a given. That he actually understood what he was doing was less certain.
Whatever the case, the wires from the handgun struck Squirrel, and the electrical charge surged into him. Owl heard the little boy gasp sharply and felt his small body jerk. In the next instant the wires retracted into the barrel of the handgun, and Squirrel went limp and still.
Bear was already charging for the boy with the ruined face, roaring with rage, his heavy cudgel lifted. It was a terrible sight, for Bear was big and powerful, and when he was angry, as he was now, he looked as if he could go right through a stone wall. The boy with the stun gun wheeled toward him, trying to defend himself. He had gotten close to Owl before firing his weapon because he knew it wasn’t accurate beyond twelve to fifteen feet. But getting close to Owl meant getting close to the other Ghosts, as well, and Bear was on top of him in seconds. The boy had just enough time to aim and fire his weapon once more. But the gun jammed, and then there was no time at all. Bear’s cudgel came down with an audible whack on the boy’s head, and the boy dropped like a stone, his weapon spinning away into the dark.
Bear was still roaring, looking for fresh targets, and he would have had plenty to choose from if the boy’s companions had chosen to stay and fight. But when they saw their leader fall, they turned and ran as fast as they could manage, vanishing back into the tangle of abandoned vehicles, spilling down the ramp, and fleeing into the darkness until the last of them were out of sight.
Owl sat in the wheelchair watching, unable to move. While Squirrel had received the brunt of the attack, she had been its secondary victim, the recipient of the residue of the electrical charge. It hadn’t been enough to knock her out, but it had shocked her nevertheless, ripping through her body and leaving her temporarily paralyzed. The jolt had been powerful enough that it had even knocked Chalk backward because he had been holding on to the metal arm of the wheelchair with one hand.
River and Candle rushed to Owl’s side, panic mirrored on their young faces. Both began talking to her at once, asking if she was all right, begging her to say something. They touched her cheeks and rubbed her hands. They didn’t realize that the seemingly sleeping Squirrel was the one who was most seriously injured, and Owl couldn’t tell them. She tried, but the words came out as odd sounds.
“Not me!” she managed finally, gasping from the effort. “He shot Squirrel!”
Immediately they turned their attention to the little boy, lifting him out of Owl’s arms and laying him on the ground. River bent close, putting her head to his chest, her ear to his mouth, checking his pulse, her hands moving everywhere, her face stricken. “He isn’t breathing!”
She began CPR on him, pumping his chest, breathing into his mouth, working to revive him. It was a skill Owl had taught her, one that she had learned from one of her scavenged books. Fixit hurried over with a blanket, but River motioned him away. Chalk was on one knee next to her, urging her on, telling her that she could do it, she could save him. Bear stalked out of the darkness, the heavy cudgel gripped in one hand, his face twisted with anger. The boy with the ruined face lay where he had fallen, and Owl could not tell if he was dead or alive.
“Breathe, Squirrel, breathe!” Chalk was saying, over and over.
Candle stood beside Owl, and one small hand reached out to hers. Owl could feel the pressure, and she squeezed back. The effects of the stun gun were wearing off now, and the feeling was returning to her body. “It was an accident,” she whispered to Candle. When the little girl’s eyes met her own, filled with doubt and horror, she nodded for emphasis. “He didn’t mean it.”
She watched River continue her efforts, listening at the same time to the din of the battle being fought on the waterfront. The sounds were louder and more frantic now—the automatic weapons fire, the discharge of heavy artillery, the shrill whine of flechettes, and the shouts and screams of the combatants. The skyline was lit with the glow of fires burning from stricken ships and from old warehouses on the docks. She could smell the smoke, could see its shifting haze against the backdrop of the fires and the starlight.
Fixit walked over and put the blanket across Owl’s knees, staring down at Squirrel as he did so. “It isn’t working,” he said softly. “He isn’t breathing.”
If anyone heard him, no one was saying so. They stood grouped together in silence, watching River work, praying silently for a miracle. The minutes passed. River continued her efforts—breathe mouth-to-mouth, a dozen quick pumps with her crossed palms against Squirrel’s chest, breathe mouth-to-mouth again, a dozen more pumps, over and over. There was determination mirrored on her face and an almost fanatical insistence to her movements. She would bring Squirrel back to life; she would find a way to make him breathe.
Finally, Owl said, “That’s enough, River.” When River ignored her, she said it again, more sharply. When River looked up at her in disbelief, she said, “He’s gone, sweetie. Let him go.”
The words hung in the night air against the backdrop of the waterfront battle and the freeway ramp of ruined cars and scattered bones. The words whispered of other times and other losses, conjuring memories of Mouse and Heron when their lives had ended. The Ghosts stood together in the near dark and remembered, and their memories made them feel empty and helpless. Tears filled their eyes. Several cried openly.
They were still standing there, frozen by shock and dismay and incomprehension, staring down at Squirrel’s silent form, when a ragged Panther and Sparrow appeared at the head of the ramp shadowed by the dark, spectral figure of the Knight of the Word.
LOGAN TOM knew something of CPR and combat injuries, and he tried his luck with Squirrel, even knowing how unlikely it was that he could do anything. But his luck proved no better than River’s. The shock of the stun gun’s electrical charge had been enough to stop the boy’s heart, an organ already weakened by sickness and maybe even by genetics. There was probably nothing anyone could have done, he assured the others, knowing even as he said it that no one was listening to him.
Sparrow was devastated. She had been Squirrel’s primary caregiver, his nurse and companion for the weeks of his illness, and she could not accept that he was gone. Disdaining the help offered for her own injuries and ignoring her bone-aching weariness, she knelt next to the little boy, wrapped him in the blanket that Owl offered, and held him while the others listened to Panther and Logan Tom explai
n what had happened at the compound.
“You’re saying that he just disappeared into thin air?” Owl demanded when she heard the Knight’s explanation of why Hawk wasn’t with them. “Tessa, too? They just vanished?”
“So those who saw it claim.” Logan Tom could hear the disbelief in her voice and shrugged. “You never know. But it does seem clear that something supernatural intervened to spirit them away from the compound and those who wanted to hurt them. That means they were saved one way or the other.”
“Or taken prisoner by those demon things you keep talking about,” Panther declared. “You can’t know.”
“No, but I can take a reasonable guess. The demons don’t have the power to lift humans out of thin air. They can find them and kill them by physical means, but they cannot extract them with magic. No, this is something else.”
“What sort of something else?” Panther persisted.
Logan Tom shook his head.
“Well, how are we supposed to find them again?” Chalk wanted to know. He was almost as impatient and angry as Panther. “What are we supposed to do now?”
“Get away from here, first of all,” Owl declared. “It’s not safe to stay even another minute.”
“Tell me about it,” muttered Panther, walking over to Sparrow. He reached down and stroked her hair gently. “You be strong, little bird,” he said. “You be tough.”
Logan Tom glanced down at the city and the fires and fighting on the docks. The invading boats had secured a landing and were disgorging their occupants onto the waterfront in droves. Thousands of feeders, drawn by the bloodletting, swarmed invisibly as the once-men engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the compound defenders. The defenders were brave and fought hard to hold their ground. The battle would rage the rest of the night, would last until the defenders were driven back behind their walls. When that happened, the once-men would begin to search the city for strays. It would be a good idea to be as far away as possible by then.
“We should leave,” he said, agreeing with Owl. He glanced behind at the overpasses, which were flooded with refugees from the city—the Freaks and street kids and others that had come up from the waterfront. They had disdained the freeway ramps, intending not to abandon the city but to look for shelter farther inland, thinking to come back when the attackers moved on. As yet, none of them had chosen to come down the ramp the Ghosts occupied.
But that could change at any moment.
“Pick up everything you want to keep,” he instructed. “Carry it down to the Lightning. Tie the cart to the rear hitch. Strap the old man into the carrier on the AV’s roof. He’ll be all right for now.” And safer for all of them if he stayed out in the open air with his plague sickness, he thought, but did not say. He glanced down at Sparrow, who was still cradling Squirrel’s body. “We’ll put the little boy inside where he will be safe until we can find a place to bury him,” he said. “You can stay in there with him.”
The Ghosts began to gather up their possessions, a sad and desultory group, none of them saying anything. Bear walked over and lifted Squirrel’s body out of Sparrow’s arms, hushing her sobs as he did so, telling her to come with him. Fixit and Chalk picked up the Weatherman, and River took the handles of Owl’s wheelchair and turned her about.
It was Panther who said, “What about him?”
He pointed at the boy with the ruined face, who still lay sprawled in the street where Bear had flattened him with the cudgel. When no one else moved, Logan Tom walked over and bent down, checking the boy’s pulse and breathing. “He’s unconscious, not dead.”
“Leave him,” Bear growled, stopping long enough to look back, still holding Squirrel in his arms.
Logan glanced at the others. “Can you wake him?” Owl asked. “Can you get him on his feet?”
Logan examined the damage done by the blow that Bear had administered, a deep, purplish bruise on the left temple. “I think he’ll get past this and wake on his own.”
“But if we leave him?” she pressed.
Logan glanced at the throng on the overpass, and then at the fighting on the docks. He shook his head. “He probably won’t make it.”
“Leave him!” Bear repeated, shouting it this time.
“Leave him,” Panther agreed.
The others repeated the words, all except for Candle. “Squirrel wouldn’t want that,” she said quietly to no one in particular.
Owl’s dark eyes fixed on the little girl’s, and she nodded. “No, he wouldn’t. We’ll take the boy with us.”
“Frickin’ spit!” Panther snapped at her. Bear muttered something under his breath as he turned away. The others gave Owl dark glances of disapproval, but no one said anything more. Logan waited a moment, then picked up the disfigured boy and trudged downhill after Bear. He thought it was a mistake to take him, but it wasn’t his place to say anything. Not yet, anyway. Later, perhaps. He knew how it worked. Sometimes you did what you had to, not what you wanted to. Sometimes you did what you knew was right even when you knew you would regret doing it. He had learned that particular lesson from his time with Michael. As a result, he had accumulated enough regret to last him a lifetime, but he had done what he had done because it was what was needed.
Now he was looking after a pack of street kids because he had failed to rescue their leader. Not necessarily because they needed it or because it was given to him to do so, but because it seemed like the right thing.
Still he found himself wondering, as he glanced at his ragged young charges, if doing what he thought was the right thing made any sense at all.
THEY TRAVELED through the remainder of the night with Logan driving the Lightning S-150, the Weatherman and the boy with the ruined face strapped to the roof, Squirrel and Sparrow riding in the back, Owl riding in the passenger’s seat, and the cart with the assorted possessions salvaged by the Ghosts attached behind. The others either walked or rode on the wide, flat fenders, taking turns when one or more needed to rest. Panther and Bear walked almost the entire way, riding only when Owl ordered them to do so, unwilling to acknowledge any hint of weakness. Logan kept the car’s pace slow enough so that even Candle did not have trouble keeping up. Speed wasn’t crucial just yet. A destination wasn’t immediately important, either, which was a good thing since none of them—including Logan Tom, or maybe especially Logan Tom—knew where they were supposed to be going. At some point soon, they would need to have some sort of destination in mind. But for tonight it was enough to maintain a steady pace that would take them out of the city and into the surrounding countryside, far away from the once-men and their madness.
They traveled south, the direction in which the freeway took them after coming down off the entry ramp and the one with which Logan felt most comfortable. He had come into the city from the north and east, and he was not anxious to go back through those mountain passes. Perhaps it was the possibility of another encounter with the ghosts of the dead or perhaps it was his aversion to retracing his steps when his enemies were always looking for him to do so. He did not know yet where they would have to travel to find the missing Hawk and Tessa, but he knew he would be happier searching for them somewhere other than where he had already been.
He also knew that in order to make any sort of journey, they would require a trailer large enough to haul both themselves and their possessions. It was all right to poke along the freeway at a snail’s pace for tonight, but after that they would need a means by which they could move more quickly, if the need arose, and the Lightning couldn’t hold them all.
These considerations and others flitted through his mind as he eased the AV down the long ribbon of concrete into the darkness, weaving through a tangle of abandoned vehicles and trash heaps and the bones of the dead. Distant now, but still visible, the fires of the ships and the compound lit the night sky in a yellowish haze. He found himself thinking of the people who lived in the compound and likely would die there before this was finished. In particular, he found himself thinking of Meik
e, with her freckles and anxious eyes. He wondered if she would do as he had told her or make the easy choice and stay put. He decided that maybe he didn’t want to know.
When they got far enough down the highway, all the way to the far end of a huge airfield, he turned off the road and drove them to a piece of high ground that overlooked the airfield and, farther back the way they had come, the city. He drove the Lightning into a small copse of trees where it wouldn’t be immediately noticed, parked, and climbed out. He had a pair of tents and blankets in the back, enough so that with the interior of the vehicle to use, as well, they could all get a little sleep. That they needed to rest was a given. Everyone was exhausted.
Using the boys to help set up the tents and Owl to provide encouragement, Logan put them all to bed. Owl went last, taking time to clean the wounds of the boy with the ruined face before insisting that Logan put him inside with the Weatherman. Logan agreed, but handcuffed one wrist to a ring at the rear of the vehicle.
Alone again, he set up watch in the driver’s seat, facing the AV out toward the roadway they had just traveled down. He didn’t expect any pursuit, but he had learned never to take anything for granted, even the reliability of the Lightning’s warning systems. With the uneven breathing of the Weatherman drifting out of the rear of the vehicle, he stared out into the darkness and fell into a light doze.
He was drifting somewhere between dreams and reality when the Lady came to him.
HE SENSES HER PRESENCE before he hears her voice, and it is enough to cause him to rise and move out onto the grassy knoll on which the Lightning S-150 AV sits. He sleeps poorly this night, his mind restless, his thoughts dark and rife with foreboding. Memories of missed chances haunt him, come like ghosts to plague his rest. He dozes for a few minutes here and there, but he fights a losing battle with his personal demons; they give him no peace. Mostly he tries to pretend that he is equal to their challenge and to the wounding accusations they whisper.