Would any of them come out alive?
Foolish thought, Julia.
In her mind’s eye Julia saw Gaius. He gave no indication of what she should do. He merely stood there, still as a pond.
Strangely enough, the image gave her confidence. He wasn’t upset. He wasn’t worried. He remained calm, as if things were going exactly as planned. Julia decided she could share in that same peace.
She turned to look over the plain they’d just crossed. The Gul’nog had not followed, but neither had they left. They sat about in a black cluster half a kilometer back, guarding the only way out.
At the rear of her people, her Aedyn family, Peter, Mitchell, Kelman, and several others walked with Peras. They’d bound his arms again and reapplied the gag, but Julia still didn’t feel safe with him there.
She heard Alexander whimpering. The boy held his mother’s hand over his ear and seemed to be trying to merge into her leg.
Louisa saw too. She knelt before him and whispered into his ear. Something she said evidently surprised him, because he jerked his head up to look at Alyce, and then back at Louisa. He sprang away from his mother and grabbed Louisa’s hand. Together, they strode toward the cave that waited before them.
Julia didn’t know what Louisa had said or promised, but it must’ve been good. With Gaius in her mind’s eye and the light of the Lord of Hosts around her, she, too, stepped into the abyss. Peter and the others followed.
The tunnel delved straight into the belly of the volcano. Oddly, it wasn’t hot in the tunnel, as Julia had thought an active volcano certainly would be. The tunnel they walked through was roughly circular, like a tube, and tall enough for them to walk through standing upright. Julia looked back in time to see the daylight at the mouth of the tunnel disappear from view. Now only this strange light that surrounded them lit their way and kept them safe. It was almost chilly in the tunnel.
The group walked deeper, their path slanted downward, further than any of them had ever dug, until the darkness felt thick but for the ever-present light coming from the talisman. They reached a bend in the tunnel. Julia shuddered to think what she would do if the talisman were lost.
What was the light? It wasn’t actually coming from the talisman, or there would be no light behind Louisa, because she wore it on her chest. It would shine only where she happened to be facing. But the light seemed more like a balloon of brightness around them.
“Stay together,” Julia said to no one and everyone, though she couldn’t imagine anyone intentionally straying far.
They walked along in eerie silence. Julia had not expected to hear sounds of animals or nature down here, but the absence of sound started to scare her. It wasn’t natural for there to be silence this deep. She felt the darkness on either side of their light bubble and the massive, erupting volcano above them and wished for a giant falcon to whisk her away home.
She was amazed that she wasn’t hungry or thirsty or tired, even after so much walking and so little sleep. If Julia needed another sign that the Lord of Hosts was with them, that was it.
Louisa stopped.
Julia looked around. Before her eyes could tell her what the problem was, her skin did. She felt a warm breeze. And not from in front or behind them, but from the side.
They were standing at a crossroads. Five smaller tunnels branched out from here. Some sloped upward, some downward, others stayed level. Just inside one of the tunnels, two more tunnels branched off.
“Now what?” Priscilla asked.
Julia was wondering the same thing. She sent up a prayer to the Lord of Hosts. If they were here on His business doing His will against His enemies, then He could be called upon to help make it happen.
She almost grinned at the thought. Was this what faith felt like?
Louisa, who was standing at Julia’s right shoulder, began to hum. It was a tune Julia recognized. In fact, it was the tune for which Louisa had become known. With no visible signal, Louisa, Julia, and the entire Aedyn group began to sing:
The two come together; the two become one;
With union comes power, control over all
Flooded by light, the shadow outdone,
The host shall return; the darkness shall fall.
Only Peras didn’t join in the singing. He seemed to cringe away from the words. It occurred to Julia that he seemed to cringe away from the light too. And Louisa. And Julia, Peter, Mitchell, Kelman, and just about everyone and everything else. What must be going through his mind? If he went out to the Gul’nog, would they welcome him or tear him to pieces?
As the song continued, Julia tried to puzzle out the meaning of the words.
The two coming together and becoming one — that probably meant the lands of Aedyn and Khemia coming under one group’s authority. She’d at first thought that was Captain Ceres trying to expand his domain. But with Ceres gone, perhaps it was the Gul’nog that wanted more land. Or perhaps the Shadow wanted all of it for itself.
The next line, about union and power over all, seemed to belong with that first part. Someone bad wanted to conquer and control. If the slavery these people had gone through on Khemia was a taste of that control, Julia didn’t want any part of it.
But as dark as the first two lines were, the last two lines outshone them. Flooded by light. Julia looked around. Yes, that’s what she was seeing here, and what she’d seen when the Gul’nog horde had attacked. Would the Shadow really be outdone? If it said so in the song, it had to be true. She hoped.
The host returning … could that mean the Lord of Hosts or the population of Aedyn? Some couldn’t return, because they were dead. But maybe this meant Aedyn could become repopulated in time. And the idea of the darkness falling was altogether wonderful, whatever it meant.
The song ended, and its last notes echoed down corridors that had perhaps never heard the sound of the good news of the Lord of Hosts.
As if someone had whispered the precise directions into her ear, Louisa marched with certainty into the second corridor on their right. The others followed without pause. Some hummed the song again. Julia didn’t know how Louisa could tell this was the right way, but she didn’t question it for a second.
However, if it was the correct path, each step brought them closer to the Shadow.
CHAPTER
14
Each time the group came to a narrow hole they could barely squeeze through, each switchback that seemed to lead in circles, each bottomless hole they had to hop across, Peter’s doubt grew. Now that they stood before another set of tunnels, Peter desperately wanted to ask, Louisa, how did you know which tunnel to take? What if they were lost? He was completely befuddled. They’d passed so many offshoot tunnels, and they’d been down here so long — or had it been long at all? He wouldn’t be able to find his way back if he’d wanted to. Every time, Louisa had seemed to know flawlessly which one to take. But what if she was just doing that to keep everyone fooled? What if the light had only so many hours of use before it went out? What if they were suddenly plunged into darkness? They would die down here and no one would ever find their bones.
Louisa leaned close to him, as though she’d read his mind. “I take a step in a direction, and if the light goes with me, I know it’s the right way.”
Peter stared at her. Was she kidding? That was her process?
She looked at him in that enigmatic way of hers and moved directly into the tunnel on the left. It went steeply downward.
Peter followed with the rest of the group, but he did so mainly because Louisa held the only light in Peter’s universe right now. He wasn’t going to strike off on his own.
He thought of his life back in England. He didn’t really have any friends there who would miss him. Certainly his school wouldn’t mourn the loss of a problem student. Father was probably jumping for joy to be rid of the family disgrace. His stepmother would probably throw a party. The only thing that would ruin her mood would be if he actually returned. Despite the light all around him, it was f
unny how his thoughts could plunge into darkness.
That was when he realized he couldn’t see.
The walls had vanished — or else the light had gone out. He knew it! They were abandoned deep beneath the …
No, wait. How strange! He could still see the others. Louisa stood there, all but glowing in the light of the talisman around her neck. Julia was there too, looking straight up. The others spun all around and gasped.
The reasonable part of Peter’s brain tried to work it out. How could he see some things but not others? He looked down — the rock floor was there.
Think, Peter. Your eyes are working. You can see people around you. So you’re not blind. And you haven’t fallen into a bottomless pit because you can still see the floor — and you’re not falling.
So if you can see others and you can see the floor but you can’t see the walls or the ceiling …
“We’re in a cavern,” he said aloud. His voice didn’t bounce back to him in that comfortable way he’d gotten used to in the tunnel. It simply disappeared, as if absorbed by the nothingness.
“It must be huge,” Trevor said. “The light doesn’t reach the edges or the top.”
Alyce caught her breath. “The entire population of Aedyn could fit in here.”
“Mommy,” Alexander said. “If it weren’t so far from the outside, maybe we could move here!”
Peter looked at him. The boy was a lot braver than Peter felt.
Mitchell pointed to Peter’s left. “Is it my imagination, or does it sort of glow over that way?”
“I can’t tell,” Kelman said, joining him. “Whenever I look right at it, it’s all black. But if I look off somewhere else, I think I see light in the corner of my eye.”
Louisa spun all around, her arms spread wide. “We are here.”
Peter’s heart sank. Where better for Shadow to dwell than in a darkness that even the light of the Lord of Hosts could not penetr—
“Where is he?!” It was Kelman, and he sounded worried.
Mitchell ran through the group, searching this way and that.
Ice ran through Peter’s veins. “Louisa! Peras is missing. Everyone, find Peras!”
Instead of searching, they clumped more tightly together. Alexander ran into Alyce’s arms. Julia gravitated to Peter’s side. Gregory and Orrin and Trevor looked around anxiously. Peter even thought he saw a flicker of something on Louisa’s—
From the darkness beyond the reach of the light came a scraping sound.
“What was that?”
Mitchell ran toward it. “It has to be Peras. Come on!”
Peter took a step that way too, but then Limas cried out behind him, “No, wait! Peras is over here.”
Peter and Mitchell froze. They were at the very edge of the light. Peter could see only the outline of Mitchell’s face and shoulder.
They heard the scraping sound again. Closer.
The first time, it had sounded like a dry stick broom being pulled across a stone floor. This time, it sounded like claws scouring over volcanic rock. Big claws.
An image of the giant falcon that had brought them to Aedyn popped into Peter’s thoughts. But the falcon in his imagination now was hateful and ate the flesh of English schoolboys.
Peter grabbed Mitchell and trotted back toward the group. “You found Peras? Where?”
Limas pointed to a lump Peter could barely see at the other edge of the light.
“Is he asleep?” Peter asked.
“Maybe he fell,” Gregory said, coming to stand beside Peter.
No one moved. In the gloom, the lump could be Peras — it certainly looked like him — but it could be some other nightmarish creature as well.
Someone cried out in the back of the group, “Did you hear that scratching? What’s out there?”
Peter turned back to Peras … just in time to see him expand in size. The creature-that-used-to-be-Peras rose to his full height, or higher. Though he faced away from them, it was clear that his arms and legs were no longer bound. Peras whipped something off his head — the gag — and turned to them. Silver flashed in his hand.
A woman in the group behind them screamed softly, whether from the appearance of Peras or something else on the other side, Peter didn’t know. He felt like screaming himself.
Peras stepped toward them, and with every step his form became clearer. Here was the very antithesis of their savior. His heroic golden hair now looked like a web of black coils. His glistening muscles now looked like the sinews of a torturer. And in his newly healed right hand, he held a knife.
Peter’s knife.
The group cried out as one. Something about the sound made it clear that it was not the appearance of Peras that caused their screaming. Though Peter feared turning his back on Peras, he had to see what had emerged from the cavern.
All at once, the darkness on the other side of the group seemed to move, as if it had never been a void at all but the light-swallowing back of a massive creature. The scratching sound gathered and exploded into the sound of solid rock being torn apart like cloth.
The form in the darkness rose and rose and rose like a volcano of darkness. Peter couldn’t see it exactly, but he felt it, heard it, smelled it. It was the smell of incinerated bones. The form coiled around the group in a vortex of sludge-like blackness. Peter’s last hope of explaining it scientifically fell away.
Peter glanced at Peras and was surprised to see that Peras looked confused too. As shocked as everyone. Peras lifted his arms and looked at the ground, as if he felt something sneaking around behind him.
“Who …”
The sound — was it a voice or a black wind? It came from all around, but loudest from the direction where they’d first thought they’d seen Peras.
“Who dares …?” it said. “Who dares come to the foundation of darkness?”
Peter tried to locate the source of the sound. But every time he thought he saw something and spun toward it, there was only blackness. Then Peter would see something in another direction, but it, too, would be gone when he looked toward it. The creature was insubstantial and murky, truly nothing but Shadow. All Peter was left with were vague images, but they were enough.
Claw. Fang. Eye. Maw. At once everywhere and nowhere.
Peter noticed Louisa striding forward, away from the group. She held the talisman in one hand, lifted toward the darkness as if shining a lantern over a dark lake. It seemed to focus the light where she pointed it.
“We dare!” she said, and though she did not shout, her voice nevertheless resonated in the chamber. The Shadow flinched away from her voice and the beam of light emanating from the talisman. “We come to the foundation of darkness because we serve the Light!”
The Shadow shrieked. The sound of its anger scraped at the edges of their light shield like a tornado trying to find the leverage to uproot a house.
“We come in the name of the Lord of Hosts!” Louisa cried. “We come in the name of Him who will take back this land for the light.”
The black whirlwind circled around them, but it seemed to ease. Not that the storm was losing power, but that it had … relaxed? The voice almost chuckled, and that was a sound more frightening than its shrieking.
“You have no weapons,” it said. “You have nothing to fight me. You think because you defeated my lords in Aedyn you can defeat me too?” The chuckle returned. “I have taken this land for myself, and I will rule it for ten thousand years.”
Louisa looked about calmly, as if she faced off against supernatural forces of darkness every other day. “No,” she said simply. “You will retreat. We do have weapons. We have the power of the Lord of Hosts. We have each other. And we have the certainty of our calling.”
With that, she swung the talisman around, and the light flared. Louisa turned to Julia and took her hand. She looked from Julia to Peter and began to sing. Everyone clasped hands and sang with her.
The two come together …
Peter and the others joined in,
and it felt as if the Lord of Hosts was surrounding each of them with a powerful shield. No. Peter thought. It is like the Lord of Hosts has arrived and has filled the cavern with His power. With wonderment, Peter continued singing the song.
… the two become one …
The Shadow wasn’t relaxed anymore. It writhed and shrieked and increased its speed. The sound of wind and scratching swelled until it sounded like a thousand ice picks scraping at the surface of the light shield. The small group’s voices rose louder.
With union comes power, control over all;
Flooded by light, the shadow outdone,
The host shall return; the darkness shall fall.
When Louisa reached the end of the song, she immediately began it over again, and the others stayed with her.
Motion on Peter’s right caught his eye.
Peras seemed to shake out of some kind of stupor. He looked around as if waking from sleepwalking. He looked at the people, the light shield, and the Shadow outside. He lowered his head and covered his ears, as if hearing the Shadow’s shrieks for the first time. But when he raised his hands to his ears, he saw the knife in his hand. He turned it this way and that like it was the first knife he’d ever seen.
Then his posture seemed to harden, and he gripped the knife firmly. He looked up at the group again, and his eyes found Louisa. He stepped forward, pushing men out of the way as if they were cobwebs.
Peter couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak. His mind wanted him to throw himself at Peras, or at least cry out, but all he could do was watch in horror as this muscular assassin stalked closer to Louisa.
Alyce saw Peras coming and cried out. Others spun to see, but they would be too late.
Louisa turned toward him, a look of utter peace on her face, the words of the song of the Lord of Hosts on her lips.
Peras drew back his hand to strike.
Darkness Shall Fall Page 10