She took hold of the cork to pull it out when something thumped into her from behind. It jolted her, and the vial hopped out of her hand. It soared in a clean arch and zipped through the cloud at her feet. Nothing checked its fall. It didn’t bounce on any solid floor. It whoofed through the cloud into nothing.
Raleigh cursed out loud and rounded on whatever hit her when she came up against Dax stumbling back. He tripped over her feet, but he couldn’t stop himself. His weight forced her back into the crowd of warriors rushing to destroy them.
Over Dax’s shoulder, Raleigh caught sight of something so terrible she couldn’t get her mind to comprehend it at first. A little way away and slightly above their heads, a massive wall of menacing grey cloud rolled toward them, but it didn’t look like any cloud she ever saw before. The cloud-shapes formed faces, dissolved, and reformed in every visage of hideous countenance she could imagine.
In front of her eyes, those deathly faces glared at her and her friends. They grimaced and snarled, and the low grumble of thunder inside that cloud formed their voices calling out to the world.
In that instant, she knew exactly what they were. They were Eochehxea. No other force in the universe had the power to make the floor disappear under that vial at exactly the moment she prepared to uncork it. They waited all this time, and now they showed themselves. Why?
She didn’t have to wonder about that, either. The young man falling into her arms told the whole story. Only Dax could succeed in stealing Bishop from them, and they waited until this moment to unleash their power on him.
He collapsed into her arms, and they both fell back into the cloud-swept floor. He grunted in agony from some unseen impact, but she couldn’t help him against this foe. As she watched, a curving finger of tornado wind stretched out of that cloud toward her. It seized her mind so she couldn’t fight back. She wanted to cower and cry in terror.
That slithering curl slapped Bishop aside. He tumbled out of view still struggling against masses of Uk, and Raleigh lost sight of him. The twister caught Dax around the ankle and started dragging him into its clutches.
Raleigh tried to hold him back, but the crushing force oppressing her mind wouldn’t let her. She shrank back from him and watched in horror as Dax slid through the cloud-ponds toward the Eochehxea’s cloud.
Chapter 25
Every time Raleigh thought about doing anything, crushing fear curled her into a fetal ball. She couldn’t watch. She couldn’t think. Horrible images flooded her mind. She saw them instead of the sky city around her. She dared not even look for Bishop for fear of what she would find.
Dax fought against the snake holding him. He screamed and foundered in the clouds, but it hauled him into its maw with every passing moment. If he went into that cloud, he wouldn’t come out.
His foot touched the cloud’s leading edge. The iron grip holding him sucked him in up to his knee. He screamed and kicked his free foot against the nearest cloud face, but he couldn’t break free.
Raleigh cringed on one side. No one could fight the Eochehxea. Whatever they were, they were more powerful than anybody. Maybe they were even more powerful than the Auhlulhu.
Dax sank into the cloud up to his thigh. He rolled right and left, and he started to change. One arm turned into a whipping snake, while his head sprouted horns and snorted through an ox’s nose. His other arm grew fur and claws and a tiger’s stripes. Green scales covered his chest, and a forked tongue lashed from his mouth.
Every inch of him changed to anything and everything faster than the eye could follow. He sank into the cloud up to his hip, and he let loose a garbled cry of a thousand voices all mixed up together.
All of a sudden, an explosive force hurled him away from the wall of cloud faces. That force ripped his pants leg off. He sailed past Raleigh and struck hard against another mass of cloud some ten paces away.
At first, he slumped where he fell and didn’t move. His chin sunk onto his chest and rose and fell with his breath, but the bank of cloud faces didn’t move. The Eochehxea didn’t advance to attack him again. Raleigh couldn’t understand what was going on. Did they spit him out? Why would they do that?
Another rumble sounded inside the cloud behind those faces, and Dax’s eyes heaved open. He raised his head and fixed his eyes on the cloud. The indentations outlining those faces became more distinct. They showed individual features. They remained fixed in place long enough to show recognizable features.
Dax stiffened and sat up. With slow, deliberate movements, he got to his feet. He straightened up and faced the cloud. The grumbling thunder buried deep behind those faces got louder and more threatening, but he didn’t retreat.
Bishop scrambled out of the mist. He took hold of Raleigh’s shoulders and shook her hard. “Raleigh! Raleigh, look at me.”
He jerked her around, and her eyes met his. The terrible oppressive fear lifted, and she could see and think again. She noticed for the first time the countless Guildsmen and Eol’i hemming them in on all sides.
She floundered to her feet, but it was already hopeless. She knew that. She had no more weapons with which to fight. She was exhausted, and Bishop was injured. No one could fight so many warriors at once.
They would recapture Bishop and her, too. They would lock them up in that factory in Henleyville. Angela was gone. No one would be left to free them.
Just then, Dax turned around and extended his arm toward the attacking Guildsmen. An invisible power flattened them to the ground as far as the eye could see. They toppled like dominoes until not one remained standing.
Dax turned his attention back to the Eochehxea. The faces glared at him for one long, last minute. Then the cloud burst apart in a million tiny pieces. A blasting wind blew Dax’s hair out of his face, and he squinted against it.
Faster than thought, all those myriad particles converged to reform in huge cloud bodies. Enormous monsters towered high over Dax’s head. Dragon heads whipped down on him from one side, and lightning forked from their jaws. A giant body on the other side sprouted ten necks topped with dozens of hammaslahti heads.
Raleigh couldn’t recognize all the monsters surrounding Dax, but he never flinched. A dragon head slithered down lightning fast. He chopped it off with his hand, and it became another harmless puff of cloud like so many others.
One head after another darted in to attack him. He put his hand up to one of the hammaslahti, and it collided with his palm. Its head flattened into its neck and became nothing. All the others swooped in at the same time, but Dax only closed his eyes. They wheeshed all around him in a hiss of steam.
The cloud monsters retreated and reintegrated into a massive cloud one more time. This time, Dax didn’t wait for the Eochehxea to make their move. He flexed his chest and extended his arms on both sides. He inhaled a deep breath.
He kept inhaling, and inhaling, more and more. Air hissed into his flared nostrils. He arched back so far Raleigh thought he would fall over, but his feet left the solid floor and he floated into the air facing that cloud.
When he couldn’t possibly take in any more air, he blew it all out in a powerful exhalation. He forced the air out through his lips so hard a great hurricane wind blasted the cloud apart. He blew harder and harder without stopping. His whole body contracted from the effort, and his face clenched.
The gale slammed into the cloud and split it apart. It blew the cloud hundreds of miles into space until nothing remained, but Dax didn’t return to stand where he stood before. He hung suspended above the cloud city and fixed his piercing eyes on the horizon where that cloud disappeared.
Raleigh sank down in relief. She groped for Bishop’s hand. He was still here. Now Dax could take them home. They would put this whole miserable experience behind them and get on with their lives.
She didn’t hear anything, but the air changed. A biting chill cut her to the quick, and the blue and white brilliance of the city took on a steely haze. Dax stiffened in the sky, and
Raleigh shivered.
Just then, a boom of thunder ripped across the city. It struck Dax and sent him reeling. He cried out in agony and tumbled over and over without touching down. Another and another bowled him every which way.
A black darkness crowded over the horizon. It swelled larger, but it didn’t form another bunch of cloud faces. It extended over Raleigh’s head to black out the sky. One boom after another hit Dax. He grunted and cried at every blow, but he couldn’t fight back. One wicked crack knocked him out of the sky, and he thumped down at Raleigh’s feet.
She crawled to his side and gathered him in her arms. “Get us out of here, Dax. You can’t fight them. You’re just not strong enough.”
He didn’t respond, but lay limp and defeated in her embrace. The dark roof covering the sky dropped lower. A rippling black roof pressed down all around. One by one, the fallen Guildsmen and Eol’i got to their feet. They gathered their weapons and turned their ferocious eyes on the intruders.
Raleigh’s heart sank. That was it. Dax gave it his best shot, but the Eochehxea were too strong for him. He had to develop his powers to fight them—if he ever got the chance to develop. They would kill him, and no one would ever find out what he was really capable of.
Dax convulsed in her arms and lay still. She looked down at him, but his head lolled against her elbow. His hair hung over his neck. He looked exactly the same as he always did. He had no special power—not any he could use to save them right now.
All of a sudden, he gave another jerk. Before he could settle down again, a terrible quivering, jerking spasm seized him all over. He roared between gritted teeth against the wrenching convulsions ripping him apart.
When it ended, he collapsed the way he did before. Raleigh looked around. She had to find a way out of here. She had to get Dax and Bishop out of this horrible city—but how?
Just then, Dax twitched one more time. She looked down at his face and gasped out loud. A shining light glowed all around him. His skin gleamed iridescent, pearly white. Light radiated all around him.
His eyes fluttered open, and he looked up into her startled face. He smiled, but she didn’t recognize that face. She found herself gazing down at something unknown, something unknowable.
Now she understood a little bit of what he told her about the Auhlulhu. They existed beyond human understanding. They lived in energetic symbiosis with each other, without individuality, without identity. They merged with each other to become each other.
Those eyes looking up at her from Dax’s face didn’t belong to the boy she knew. They belonged to some creature not of this world. Many identities lived in that gaze, and they were all Dax.
He didn’t sit up or stand up on his own. The bubble of light surrounding him lifted him out of her embrace. She almost burst into tears at losing him like this, but she had to let him grow into himself.
She always knew this would happen. Now it was happening. He had to become himself to save them from the Eochehxea. The shining sphere carried him back into the air. The light dispelled the darkness up there, and the booming noise echoing down the heavens faded at his approach.
He pointed his index finger at the black cloud, and it sucked in on itself to form a distinctive shape. It didn’t form a wall of menacing faces, though. It congealed into a tight, black ball, and sparkling spears of black and dark colors of gleaming ice and stone and fire shot out of it to pierce his sphere.
He spread his arms to expand his orb. The light shone stronger and brighter. Colored shafts streaked out of it to shoot toward the black ball. Raleigh couldn’t see anything inside that dark center, but she never lost sight of Dax.
The colored spears fought back and forth between the two shimmering balls. They tumbled and sang in the air. Energy surged from one to the next. First Dax gained the upper hand and drove the Eochehxea back before they recovered and advanced on him again.
A cry from Bishop attracted Raleigh’s attention from the battle. The Guildsmen converged in ranks, and now one of them swung his sword over his head and yelled to the others. They charged forward.
Bishop scrambled to his feet and caught hold of Raleigh’s hand. They had nothing with which to fight but their bare hands. Raleigh looked back over her shoulder. “Dax!” she called. “Dax!”
He stole a glimpse down and saw the men closing in. He raised his hand, but a powerful black shaft of dark energy penetrated his sphere. It slapped his hand away before he could do anything, and he had no choice but to turn his attention back to the Eochehxea.
The first Guildsmen closed the gap. The leader swung a sword in one hand and aimed his cube at Bishop with the other. Raleigh let out a feral roar. If she was going down in this place, she would go down fighting.
She rushed forward and caught the Guildsman’s sword hand in both of hers. He tightened all his muscles to bring it down on her head, but she stiffened against the force and wrestled that sword back.
He brought up his cube to fire into her stomach. She kicked out one knee and slammed it aside. She let go of his wrist and darted back a few steps. He recovered and turned both his weapons on her to blow her away.
Raleigh waited until sword and cube came between her and the Guildsmen. Quick as a wink, she lunged for his cube. Before he could react, she stripped it out of his hand and turned it on him. She fired, and he staggered back into his attacking comrades.
She shot off her cube in all directions, but the Guildsmen closed around her. Bishop fought somewhere behind her, but even without looking, she sensed his weakened state. He couldn’t pull the same tricks he used to before the Guild took him prisoner.
One cube couldn’t fight a whole army. She called out to Dax one more time. He glanced down at her, but he couldn’t take his attention away from the Eochehxea. If he wavered for an instant, the black shafts penetrated his sphere and stabbed into his body.
In the end, he no longer turned around at all. He concentrated all his efforts on keeping the Eochehxea at bay. He shot his light weapons at the black ball, but only one in ten sank its tip into the shiny surface. Most bounced off and glanced into outer space.
Bishop cried out again. Raleigh peeked over her shoulder in time to see him go down under a tide of bodies. Swords rose and fell to hack the spot where he once stood. The next instant, a sword point stabbed into Raleigh’s shoulder.
She spun around to face her own adversaries. She couldn’t grieve Bishop—not for the second time. If he died here, she hadn’t lost anything. The Guildsmen would hack her to pieces in a minute, and she and Bishop would be together forever.
At that moment, a cube blast hit her in the sternum. She doubled over, and her own weapon fell out of her hand. Pain and despair dragged her down. She couldn’t fight anymore. She lost too much, too fast. Overwhelming exhaustion and anguish robbed her of all her strength. She went down on one knee, and Guildsmen converged to block out the light.
She peeked through their knees to where Dax still fought the Eochehxea. The black orb drifted closer to him. Its barbs flew faster and stronger. He couldn’t hold them off much longer before it enveloped him.
She thrust out her hand and called out one last time, “Dax!” She didn’t expect him to turn. He couldn’t. He had more important things to worry about right now.
At least he found out what he was. At least he came into his power at last. He was good. He was happy. He was with his own people, where he belonged. That’s the best she could hope for. She could die, now that she fulfilled her pledge to him.
Her call caught him. To her astonishment, he spun around to face her. He turned his back on the Eochehxea, and both his hands flew out toward her. He met her gaze, and in that moment, he looked happier than she’d ever seen him.
At the same moment, something pulsed out of the center of her being. It pushed the Guildsmen apart and left space enough for Raleigh to get to her feet. She put out her hand toward Dax and touched something solid.
She looked around he
r. A clear bubble of shiny energy surrounded her on all sides. The Guildsmen around her hacked the bubble with their swords, but their weapons bounced off no matter what they did. They blasted it with their cubes, but their shots ricocheted and struck their comrades instead until they gave it up.
Raleigh looked around her. Dax held out one hand to Bishop, and he appeared among the Guildsmen in a bubble of his own. Dax moved his hands together, and the two bubbles merged into one. Bishop stood at her side, as hale and alive as ever.
Raleigh laid both hands against the transparent wall in front of her. “Dax!”
He smiled again. He didn’t see the black ball of Eochehxea rush up behind him. In the blink of an eye, the blackness enveloped his sphere. Disgusting black fingers flowed all around him and cut off the white light radiating around him.
Bishop beat his fists against the bubble. “Dax! Dax, no!”
Dax broke into a grin. He placed his index finger against his thumb and flicked. The bubble protecting Raleigh and Bishop jumped and floated away. The black slime darkening Dax’s sphere threatened to cut off their view of him.
Dax waved his hand, and the bubble drifted over the Guildsmen’s heads. They waved their swords at it but couldn’t hit it. Dax’s voice came to them through the clouds of light and the dark colored shafts flying all over the place. “Get out of here. Go home.”
Raleigh’s heart exploded. “Dax!” They couldn’t leave him behind. He gave the Eochehxea an insurmountable advantage to save their lives. Now he was sending them back and staying behind to face the music.
Raleigh and Bishop pounded the glass and screamed out loud. “Dax! Don’t do this! Dax!”
He only smiled and waved them farther away. He turned around to face the Eochehxea, but that black corruption covered his sphere and almost snuffed out its light forever.
More and more of the wicked colored barbs punched through his perimeter. They stabbed him from all directions. He screamed and cried in pain, but no matter how Raleigh and Bishop beat against the bubble, they couldn’t break it. They couldn’t help him.
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