“Whoa. What the fu—”
But the sounds of battle stopped her.
Huge, dark mountains loomed in a hazy purple sky full of odd constellations and two moons. Fire raged all around. Maria’s heart pounded. An army of robed men stormed the barricaded gates that the boy stood behind.
“Duke!” someone shouted near the boy.
The boy turned around. The sword in his hand shook violently.
“Duke, retreat! Retreat! There’s too many of them!”
The boy wasn’t fast enough.
The gates blew open in a blast of black…fire? That’s fire. I’ve never seen black fire.
Duke cried out. He was too late. A burning splinter of wood struck his face, stripping away the skin.
Maria was sitting down on the carpet of her bedroom floor, looking up at the blurry screen where the battle played out, murmuring, “No. God, no…”
The explosion shook the entire world, it seemed. The boy lost his footing and tumbled onto the rocky ground, his sword sent out somewhere among the scattered dead bodies, which were impaled with blood-red arrows.
A shadow came over him; a shadow came over all of the land.
“C’mon, Duke,” a gruff man’s voice said. He bent down and picked Duke up. There was fresh blood on the man’s hand.
Then, like in a movie, the camera shifted perspective. The man who picked up Duke wasn’t a man at all.
Maria jumped. She noticed, out of the corner of her eye, that her version of Duke was smiling slightly.
The thing that picked Duke up was out of a science fiction movie; horrific science fiction, at that.
“An Arachnid,” Duke said at Maria’s side. “I know you’re wondering, and I know it’s quite a shock to you. I’d been around them for fifteen years and I never got used to how they looked.”
“Arachnid? That’s what we call a spider here…”
“They had to come from somewhere, right?” Duke said.
Maria grimaced. “I hate spiders.” The truth was, spiders were so creepy, they had to be aliens.
“We do, too,” Duke said. There was a slight lilt in his voice.
“What?” Maria said, catching the change in his tone.
“Keep watching.”
Maria did, but she wished she hadn’t.
Once the gates were blown down, and Maria saw the looming forest in all of its dark glory, she also saw what came through the rubble. Large creatures with faces like the thing that had helped Duke. They wore dark robes, but underneath the dark robes, Maria could see the lumps.
“What are those?”
“Two legs and six arms,” Duke said.
“Ugh,” Maria said.
Their eyes glowed dark red. Spit frothed and foamed from their mouths.
“Geez,” Maria said. “That’s nightmare-inducing.”
One of the Arachnids raised its exposed arm. Purple and green lightning shot out. Duke stumbled, but the one who had helped him didn’t let him fall. They moved across the battlefield, deftly maneuvering through downed humans dressed in the same uniforms as Duke, until they reached cover behind a wooden building.
‘Thanks, Malakai,” Duke said. “I’d be dead if it wasn’t for you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“We must get to the music box. If they get ahold of it, then the villagers are doomed,” Duke said.
“Doomed regardless,” Malakai said.
Duke turned with a snarl. “No, do not give up hope yet. The music box is ours until they take it from our cold dead hands.”
“I’m afraid that’s their plan. I know my species,” Malakai said.
“You’re not like them,” Duke said.
Malakai’s face went dark. He turned away from Duke.
“Resist,” Duke said. “Resist. Resist for me, resist for the ones you love, the ones in the world in between who wait for us.”
Malakai turned back to look at Duke. Now there was a look of sadness on his face. Each one of his eight eyes—Yellow eyes, Maria thought, not red—looked down.
The two hobbled toward the back door. Flames licked at the sides. Beyond the door was a taller building; one Maria thought to be a wooden castle. Soldiers hung over the edge of the moat, half in the water, half out of it. All of them were dead.
“I think we’re the last ones standing,” Duke said. “We must save the Queen Witch.”
“Do you still have the key?”
Duke smiled, his grin bloody. He looked nothing like a fifteen-year-old boy. He looked like a war-crazed man.
Maria felt a pang in her heart. She looked at the boy she’d met. The boy was dead. She knew where this story was heading. She’d watched and read enough stories containing war; they rarely ever had a happy ending.
The Duke on the blurry screen dug his hand into his pocket and pulled out a shining piece of metal.
“They gave it to you?” Malakai asked.
Behind them, the sounds of explosions rocked the world again.
“I took it off the general. He died. But just before he went, he told me to guard it with my life. And that is what I intend to do.”
“We shall guard it together,” Malakai said. He threw his arm around Duke’s shoulders and dragged him, limping, toward the castle.
Once they reached the drawbridge of the castle, the building they’d come from—just three hundred yards away—went up in flames.
Duke hobbled over people he’d known and cared about, trying to keep his soldier’s psyche, trying not to let the acts of war slow him down. It wasn’t working.
“Cousin,” he said sadly. He bent down and swiped a hand over a corpse’s face, closing his eyes.
Malakai backed up the drawbridge. “They’re coming! They’re coming.”
With tears in his eyes, Duke left his dead cousin and headed into the castle. A throne stood at the end of the long structure. A strip of red carpet stretched the length of the palace. At the end of the carpet was an emerald-looking basin, glowing green in the dim firelight cast from the sconces on the walls.
On the floor near the end closest to Duke was the king. He was dead.
“No!” Duke shouted. The tears coursed from his face now. “No! No! How could they have gotten in? How?”
Footsteps echoed in the hall. From the throne came a voice.
“It wasn’t too hard.”
Duke went rigid. The hand gripping his wounded side and overflowing with blood fell.
“Malakai!” Duke screamed. “They’re here! They’re here!”
A robed figure sat in the throne. Two other robed Arachnids came out from the shadows around the side.
“Three of them! We can take them!” Duke shouted.
The seated Arachnid laughed. It was a terrible sound, like tree branches that had been struck by lightning, splitting and falling to the hard ground, burning away to ash.
“Malakai!”
“Scream all you want, boy, but the battle is lost.”
Duke leaned down and took the sword out of the king’s scabbard. He raised it with his good arm.
“Never!” Duke cried, and he charged forward.
Maria screamed and hid her face in horror.
The Arachnids stepped forward, all six of their arms coming out from beneath each of their robes. In two of each of them were swords.
Duke skidded to a stop. He was brave, but he was no idiot.
“Now, boy, you know you’re outmatched. Turn around and hide in the ruins of your village,” the lead Arachnid said.
There were footsteps behind Duke now. Malakai.
“Korion,” Malakai said.
“Ah, Malakai, we meet again.”
The Arachnid smiled. It was a gruesome smile. Dripping fangs hung over black leather lips. The eight red eyes suddenly looked hungry.
“It’s not often we meet a traitor to our species, and that traitor lives to tell the tale,” Korion said. The other two laughed and crossed their swords over their chests.
“Fair warning, Ma
lakai.”
“Let’s kill them, Mal!” Duke said.
Now Korion lost it. He almost fell from the throne with laughter.
“You’re not going to be able to laugh when I’m through with you,” Duke said. He raised the king’s sword higher.
“Ha! A boy threatens the leader of the Arachnid army. Can you believe it?” Korion said.
The others laughed.
“On three, we charge,” Duke said under his breath to Malakai. Malakai’s eight eyes met his. He nodded.
“One…two…THREE!”
Duke took off.
He got no farther than three steps before he felt something cold go through his belly. He choked and looked down. The pointy end of a blade jutted from between his ribs. Duke dropped his sword and clenched the bloody tip protruding from him.
As he fell, his eyes watery and the corners of his mouth trickling blood, he held Malakai’s gaze and felt the sword leave him.
“I’m sorry,” Malakai said, holding the hilt of the sword. “I’m so sorry. They are my kin. I can never be like you. My blood runs Arachnid.”
“No,” Duke said. He hit the floor.
On the other side of the screen, Maria whimpered. “No, this couldn’t have happened—”
The boy known as Duke pulled up his ghostly clothing. A black line, open and breathing, ran across his ribcage. It was a sword’s perfect fit.
“Turn it off,” Maria begged. “I can’t watch anymore.”
The boy nodded.
The screen appeared to be sucked back into his hand.
Maria turned her head away. Vomit was on the rise, or tears. Two things she absolutely didn’t want to come.
“What was the point?” she asked.
“Your music box,” Duke said.
“Yeah, what about it?”
“The music box is from the past. It is special.”
“Why do they want it?”
“Because it’s an answer,” Duke said. “An answer to the place where I am.”
“Where are you? You’re dead, right? Is it the afterlife?”
Duke grinned. He had a boyish grin, one that spelled trouble. “Not quite. For that is my goal—the afterlife. However, I’ve fallen into a place we on Oriceran call ‘the world in between’. A place where the living and dead roam, never aging, never living.”
“So, purgatory?”
“I do not understand,” Duke said.
“A limbo. A world between two states of being: living and dead.”
Duke nodded. “You are quite smart,” he said again.
From the bottom of the steps came soft growling. Pictures of the horrid Arachnids flooded Maria’s mind.
“It is only your dog,” Duke said. “Invite him up, for I do not bite.”
“Sherlock, come here, boy.” She made kissing sounds. “Come here.”
Sheepishly, Sherlock climbed the steps, his eyes never leaving the ghostly figure of the dead boy soldier. Once he reached the top of the steps, he growled, slinking between Maria’s legs.
“It’s okay, boy,” Maria said.
It is not okay. This boy is dead. D-E-A-D, Sherlock’s voice said in her head.
“Oh, my God, you can spell?” Maria said.
Dogs are smarter than humans.
“I wouldn’t go that far, Sherlock.”
“He’s a nice dog,” Duke said. He bent down and reached a hand out to Sherlock, but his hand passed through the dog.
“So back to the music box. Why are you showing me this?”
“Because a portal has been opened. The Arachnids desire that box, and they desire vengeance.”
“Vengeance for what?”
“For this,” Duke said, and he waved his hand again.
The image showed the throne room. The lead Arachnid hugged Malakai with all six of his upper arms. “I knew you’d come through.”
“Once a traitor, always a traitor,” one of the other Arachnids said.
“Quiet,” Korrion hissed. The other Arachnids slunk back into the dark, their red eyes glowing. “Now, let’s get this started.”
Quick footsteps echoed down the hallway, and a shadow on the wall grew taller and taller until it disappeared.
“Oh, my God,” Maria said, covering her mouth. “Is that—?”
“It is,” Duke said.
She returned her gaze to the blurry silver screen. She stumbled backward, hit the hallway wall and fell to the carpet.
Hey, I know him! Sherlock said.
Maria just watched with her mouth gaping.
The man who ran into the throne room dressed in the same garb as Duke, yet wearing armor over his sternum like a medieval knight, was Ignatius Apple, Maria’s grandfather.
“Unhand the box, Korion, and I promise to only chop off four of your arms.”
Korion smiled, then his mouth parted in a hiss, spraying hot saliva onto the floor.
“Never,” he said.
“You asked for it,” Ignatius said.
He charged forward.
“This is not how I’d pictured my grandpa,” Maria managed to say.
“It gets better, watch,” Duke promised.
Gramps stopped about five feet short. He said a word Maria didn’t understand, something like ‘Somedoi,’ and he thrust his sword into the carpet. A loud clink came, as a result from brick clashing with steel, but the sword burrowed into the stone, dimpling its surface.
The Arachnids brought their arms up to cover their faces, but they were too late.
An explosion of white light erupted into the hall, so bright Maria had to cover her face, worlds and years away.
When the chaos settled, the Arachnids were nothing but piles of ash. Maria counted three of them.
“Wait, where’s Malakai?” she asked.
The answer came in the form of a harsh scream.
Malakai sprang forward from out of the picture’s view. His soldier’s outfit was singed and hanging from his body in tatters. All six arms were exposed.
“Gramps, no!”
But Ignatius was fast. As if he’d heard her, he pulled his sword free from the brick and swung up to deflect Malakai’s. The sound their blades made upon meeting was painful to Maria’s ears.
Ignatius fell backward, rolling out of the way of Malakai’s strikes. Then he grabbed another sword and threw it. It sailed through the air and buried into Malakai’s thigh. It quivered like an arrow.
Malakai yanked it free then let a growl loose—one that sent goosebumps up Maria’s arms.
Gramps was up now, and charging at Malakai.
Their blades met again.
They sliced and diced at each other, hitting nothing but the other’s sword. This kept going until Gramps was backed up against the wall.
“You’re not one of them, Malakai!” Ignatius said.
Gramps, be careful! But it’s not ‘Gramps’—not yet. It’s Ignatius, Maria thought.
“I cannot deny my blood, but…” Malakai paused, looking toward the piles of ash scattered across the throne room. “I am bound by no species. All I crave is the power.”
“No mortal can control the world in between. Many have tried and many have died. You are no different,” Ignatius said.
“That’s where you’re wrong. I know the one. She will do it.” He stuck out his hand, wet with blood. “Now hand it over.”
Duke crept up, holding his ribs. Maria gasped.
Ignatius’s eyes wavered, but not for long. Not long enough for Malakai to realize the boy soldier was sneaking up behind him.
Duke jumped, screaming. He grappled Malakai’s neck and hung on like a cape.
Ignatius charged again. He sliced once, and the flesh of one of Malakai’s arms opened. Malakai yelled at the top of his lungs, causing Maria to shrink back.
Then Duke, already dying, let go.
As Ignatius raised his blade to put an end to the traitorous Malakai, the Arachnid rolled out of the way and grabbed Duke by the throat.
Duke cried out.
“Why?” Duke wheezed. “Why?”
“NO!” Ignatius said.
The rage, the fury overtook him. He aimed the blade and swung again. This time he did not miss. He struck Malakai in the shoulder, and a burst of blood escaped the wound. Malakai shrank back and fell to the floor screaming.
He didn’t scream for long.
Ignatius made sure of that. He killed the turncoat Arachnid.
He then turned to Duke, and saw the extent of the damage to his body. “No, Duke, no,” Ignatius whimpered.
“T-Thank you. Thank you for all you have done for me.”
“Don’t thank me. I haven’t done anything.”
“No, no, don’t say that,” Duke soothed him. Ignatius held him in his arms. Blood soaked their clothes. “You will save our village. You will survive the onslaught and protect the Queen Witch so she can bring the others home.”
Ignatius cried. Tears dripped down his smooth cheeks.
“No, I can’t lose you, Duke. You’re like a…like a son to me,” Ignatius said.
Duke smiled but said nothing.
“No, we can save you. We can! For the love of Oriceran, we can!”
“Do you hear that?” Duke said. His smile vanished. He lolled his head toward the door.
Screeching came from beyond it.
“There’s more. The Arachnids will not give up,” Duke said.
“No, no, NO!” Ignatius said.
“Go, Ig! You must protect the village; you must save them all. If they get the music box then it’s all over. We would’ve died for nothing.”
Ignatius stood up, cradling Duke in his arms. Duke was nothing but a sack of red-stained clothes. He looked like he weighed next to nothing.
“You’re coming with me then,” Ignatius said.
He went to the piles of ash and picked up the music box. He opened it, hearing the sweet melody within. From his hand came a burst of purple light, and the world seemed to shatter.
“What is that?” Maria found herself asking.
“It’s a portal.”
The screeching amplified. The sounds of thunderous footsteps followed.
“We must go, Duke. Are you ready?”
Duke was too hurt to answer.
Maria watched Gramps step forward into the tear in the world holding the music box.
Midwest Magic Chronicles Boxed Set Page 6