Agglar turned his cold gaze on Alex. “Your sister came to him for help. For protection. He turned her away.”
Alex stared at Derren. “Emma? You…didn’t help her?” His stomach seemed to be falling all the way back to the first floor of the Tower. A lifetime ago, Alex had been sure that Derren would help them, no matter what.
Derren held up his bound hands. “I made sure she didn’t end up like this,” he answered.
“Silence.” Agglar whacked his cane against Derren’s chair this time. The younger man didn’t flinch. “Master Alex, I will find her. I will find the Eye. You can stand by and watch this world break apart, or you can join me.”
“I don’t care what happens to this world!” Alex shouted. “I don’t care what you want, or what you’re doing, or anything! I just want to find my sister! I just want to go home!”
Home to a world he understood. Home where things might be hard, but at least they made sense.
Agglar put the tip of his cane back on the ground and leaned on it with both hands, glaring at Alex. “What home, boy? Your uncle’s empty house? If the Shadow Conjurer succeeds, there will be no home for anyone. Not here and not in the Flatworld, either. You need not like me. Only trust me.”
“I don’t think any of you even know what that word means,” Alex spat. He looked from Derren, who’d abandoned his sister when she needed him, to Pimawa, who’d handed him over to his enemy, to Agglar. “Trust you? My parents trusted you so much they hid the Eye from you.”
Agglar laughed, barely loud enough for Alex to hear. “So I always thought. What did you find in their office, boy? I will give you one opportunity to tell me.”
Alex felt as if the note from his mother were about to burn a hole through his pocket, revealing itself to Agglar, to Derren, to everyone. He took half a step backward, as if that would protect him. He could feel Pimawa close behind him.
“Bravo,” Derren muttered. He bent his wrists in, toward each other, and then out. “This is why your old stage show failed. You terrified the children.” He gave his hands a shake and dangled the cuffs from one free hand. “Cheap theatrics. That’s all you were ever about. Although, I must admit, this Shadow Conjurer of yours is an exquisite production. Should’ve put that in your old stage show instead of making tired elephants disappear.”
The older magician whipped his cane up, stopping it a millimeter from Derren’s throat. “I have wasted enough time on you,” Agglar snarled.
“Master Agglar!” yelled Rowlfin, real panic in his voice.
Everybody looked up as the Jimjarian pointed out the window. Alex felt as if his throat and lungs were suddenly coated with ice.
One of the creatures he’d last seen in his uncle’s house—a Rag-O-Roc—was gliding through the sky, skeletal white face gleaming, ragged black robes rippling in the wind. On its back was the man with the sickly blue face marked by three red scars. The Shadow Conjurer.
More Rag-O-Rocs thronged the skies behind him. All of them were soaring directly toward the Tower.
Agglar whipped away from Derren to plant himself at the window, feet braced on the floor. He wrenched his cane apart and slid a thin sword out of its interior. “Master Fallow, get the boy out of here!” he ordered.
Derren wasted no time.
He leaped up from his chair and vaulted over the table. As he slid over its surface, Alex, frozen with shock, watched the window explode. Shards of glass showered Agglar, who stood firm, unflinching.
A Rag-O-Roc swept in. Rowlfin leaped toward the creature as if to defend Agglar, but it thrust one bony arm at him and sent him sprawling to the floor. Outside the broken window, Alex could see the upright form of the Shadow Conjurer, standing casually on empty air, hundreds of feet above the ground.
Somehow that seemed odder than the flying skeleton that was now snarling at Agglar through bared teeth.
Derren landed on the other side of the table, feet away from Alex and Pimawa, as the Shadow Conjurer stepped calmly inside, flicking broken glass off his robe.
“So glad I didn’t miss you this time, Christopher,” the Shadow Conjurer said, and Derren swung around so that he faced the threat head-on. Alex stared at the Shadow Conjurer’s face. The three red scars ran angrily down his face, and it almost seemed as if he could see perfectly well out of his featureless face.
“A sword? Really?” The bluish face wore a mocking leer. “Let me tell you from experience, it is a true pleasure to have enough power to not need such a barbaric weapon.”
Rag-O-Rocs flooded in through the broken window in a torrent of black.
“Let’s go!” Derren shouted. Turning back, he shoved Pimawa and Alex toward the exit. But Pimawa twisted away from Derren’s hand.
“Father!” he yelled.
Turning his head, Alex saw that the Rag-O-Rocs had engulfed Agglar entirely. His sword flashed and then disappeared into a raging frenzy of black cloth and clanking bones. Rowlfin stumbled to his feet, staring at the place where he’d last seen his master.
Overhead, a wrenching sound startled Alex, and he jerked his head up as splinters of wood and a shower of plaster dust fell down upon him. A Rag-O-Roc’s grinning face peered at him through a hole in the roof. Skeletal fingers pried at tiles and rafters, and more and more holes appeared.
A sucking wind began to tug at Alex’s hair and his clothes, as if it wanted to waft him up within reach of the Rag-O-Rocs trying to tear the roof apart. Pimawa was staggering toward his father. Derren spat out a word Alex had only recently learned and lunged forward, grabbing the older Jimjarian by the collar and jerked him out of the way of a chair that suddenly swept up toward the disintegrating roof.
“Run!” Derren bellowed at Alex, but the rising wind snatched his voice away and Alex could barely hear him. “Move! Now!”
Alex moved. He, Derren, Pimawa, and Rowlfin raced for the door, fighting the wind. The Shadow Conjurer stood as still as a pillar, watching with a mocking smile on his distorted face.
Emma
“That one!” Warden Turner strode down the corridor, pointing at Emma. “I have a special cell for her.” He stopped a few feet away from Emma. The Grubians were right next to her, Savachia and his father a little behind.
Savachia let go of his father for a moment to thrust his arm over Emma’s shoulder. Sergeant Miller jumped forward to grab the boy’s wrist, yank up his sleeve, and remove the snowstorm device. “No squalls in the forecast today,” he said, tossing the metal box away.
The ground vibrated under their feet. Dirt showered down from the ceiling.
“Earthquake!” came a panicked voice from one of the cells.
Sergeant Miller looked alarmed. Emma backed away from the sergeant—but where could she run that these men could not catch her?
More alarmed cries erupted from the other inmates.
“Quiet down!” yelled the warden. “We don’t get earthquakes in the Conjurian.”
The floor seemed to disagree. It lurched suddenly, throwing Emma to her knees. Several guards staggered. One or two fell.
“Hidey-ho, time to go!” Neil exclaimed. He nodded at Clive.
Clive grabbed his brother under one arm and Emma under the other and plowed past Sergeant Miller, knocking him into a wall. Before the sergeant could catch his balance again, Clive had barreled past the rest of the guards.
Squashed and breathless under Clive’s enormous arm, Emma had only the vaguest sense of what was happening. Dirt fell on her head. A rock the size of her fist bounced off Clive’s shoulder. There was shouting from behind her and from the cells on either side. She didn’t know where Savachia was or what had happened to Sergeant Miller and his men. But she could tell which way Clive was going—and she knew it wasn’t right.
“You’re going the wrong way!” she shouted.
“Men of our stature never leave a prison by the fr
ont door,” said Neil from under Clive’s other arm. Then he whispered to his brother, “Are you sure it was this way?”
The whole prison shivered, and Clive staggered, nearly dropping his burden.
“Don’t leave us in here!” cried a desperate voice from behind a cell door. “This place is coming down!”
Emma squirmed and twisted under Clive’s arm. “We have to let them out!” she gasped.
“No time,” Neil answered grimly. And this time he didn’t add a joke.
Parts of the ceiling rained onto Emma’s feet. She craned her neck to see behind her and caught sight of Savachia, dragging his father’s limp body along the corridor.
Clive suddenly stopped as the most serious tremor yet shook the entire prison. He dropped to his knees, pulling Emma and Neil with him to the floor, shielding their bodies with his own.
Savachia, right behind them, tripped over Clive’s feet and fell on top of their mound of bodies.
Emma heard a rumbling that grew into a muffled roar. She heard screams.
A wave of dirt rushed over her, sealing her inside pitch blackness.
Alex
Alex sprinted down the spiral stairs of the Tower, jostled by panicked Conjurians fleeing alongside him. Derren and Pimawa and Rowlfin were somewhere in the chaos, but he didn’t dare look back. One misstep and he would be trampled.
“Keep going!” he heard Derren shout from behind. “Whatever you do, don’t stop!”
Around and around they went, spiral after spiral, until Alex was dizzy with more than terror. The building shook. The stairs trembled under his feet. In less time than he would have believed possible, he saw the main hall just one flight below.
The building gave a particularly bad lurch as he was more than halfway down, and he felt himself begin to lose his balance. He flexed his knees, shoved off, and jumped, landing hard on the floor, falling, tumbling, and colliding with a Jimjarian and then with a man in a plum-colored velvet tuxedo.
The rabbit bounded up without a word and raced on, while the man growled at Alex and staggered to his feet. Alex rolled over, got up, and headed out the door, ignoring his throbbing knees and the ache in his shoulder where he’d landed.
Derren had been right. Alex knew he couldn’t stop. Whatever happened, he couldn’t stop.
A car-sized chunk of stone thudded from the ceiling, crashing down to Alex’s right. He dodged to the left and ran on. The door was just ahead of him, but it felt as if it were miles away. At last he stumbled through it and down the steps to the packed dirt of the field.
But it wasn’t far enough.
If the whole Tower was about to fall—and it seemed very likely—then he had to get as far away from it as he could. The Conjurians seemed to feel the same. He was caught up in a crowd, pushing forward, running, staggering, stumbling. All of them moving as fast as they could.
What about Emma? Was she back in that Tower somewhere? But Alex had no way to get to her. No way to find her. He could only hope that she was doing what he was doing—getting out. Getting away.
His foot caught on something and he lurched forward, hands out, to meet the ground. He knew, as he fell, how dangerous this was. He couldn’t stay on the ground. He’d be trampled into jelly. He had to get up. Keep moving. Keep running…
A hand grabbed his collar and yanked him back to his feet.
“Don’t stop!” Pimawa shouted in his ear, letting him go.
As if Alex needed a reminder.
The Jimjarian and the boy ran with the rest, ducking under arches made of mammoth tree roots. Alex could feel the roots straining and shaking. The Tower was pulling at its foundations as it swayed under the attack of the Rag-O-Rocs and the Shadow Conjurer. The poor roots could not hold it up much longer.
At last he and Pimawa made it across the field and into the first of the city streets. Pimawa pulled Alex into the doorway of a shop, and Alex collapsed, gasping, heaving in huge breaths.
They’d done it. They’d gotten out. They were safe.
The streets were packed. People were still streaming past, away from the Tower. “Should we…keep going?” Alex wheezed.
Pimawa pointed back the way they’d come.
Alex stared as a dust cloud rose up into the sky, billowing larger by the second. It came from the field where the Tower stood.
Where the Tower used to stand, Alex realized. It was gone.
Emma. Had Emma still been inside when it fell?
“Master Fallow!” Pimawa croaked out. “Father!”
Derren was stumbling down the street with Rowlfin a step behind. The two joined Alex and Pimawa in their doorway, watching the dust rise and the citizens of the city panic.
“We have to keep going,” Derren said firmly.
“We’re safe here,” Pimawa said, putting a gentle paw on Alex’s shoulder. “We’re far enough away.”
“Not from them,” Alex said. He pointed up into the sky, at the tattered black forms sailing toward them.
Running away from flying creatures, Alex thought grimly, was pretty much completely pointless.
It didn’t matter which way the four of them ran; the Rag-O-Rocs, soaring overhead, kept pace easily. Every now and then they swooped so low that the hem of a tattered robe or a trailing sleeve brushed the top of Alex’s head. But they never grabbed him. They seemed to be…waiting for something.
Alex didn’t want to imagine what that could be.
“In here!” Derren shouted. He waved them over to a vacant shop. Above the door, a giant glowing sign showed a deck of cards, slowly rotating.
Alex dashed across the street and tore inside the shop. Derren was right—they had to get off the streets.
But the Rag-O-Rocs, apparently, did not want them to.
Rowlfin and Pimawa had barely followed Alex inside when a Rag-O-Roc crashed through the front window. Its bony hands were reaching out like the claws of a hunting bird, straight for Alex.
“We can’t get trapped in here! Out! Out!” Derren ordered. He seized Alex’s shoulder and shoved him toward the door.
Broken glass crunched under Alex’s sneakers as he raced back through the door and onto the street once more. Another Rag-O-Roc dove at him. He ducked. The creature swerved up and smashed into the neon sign. Red and blue sparks showered down.
The Rag-O-Roc seemed to have gotten stuck in the neon tubes somehow; it hissed and struggled above Alex’s head. But the one inside the shop soared right back out the broken window as Derren, Pimawa, and Rowlfin followed Alex out the door.
They ran. Again. Each breath hurt Alex’s chest, and his heart pounded at his ribs like it wanted to escape. He couldn’t keep this up much longer; he knew it. But he couldn’t stop. Couldn’t rest. Couldn’t even slow down.
He was helpless.
No, he told himself angrily as he skidded around a corner after Derren. No. He couldn’t fight the Rag-O-Rocs off. He’d seen what had happened to Agglar when he’d tried it.
There would be time later (Alex hoped) to admit how wrong he’d been about Agglar. The man might have been a power-mad tyrant—but he wasn’t a villain. He’d died doing his best to protect Alex from the Shadow Conjurer.
Now Alex had to protect himself.
He had no weapons, true. But weapons hadn’t saved Agglar. The man’s sword had been useless.
However, Alex had something that was better than a sword.
His mind.
He needed a strategy, that was all. Something better than running because he was being chased.
Derren turned suddenly to race down a narrow alley between two buildings. Alex ran after him, but he felt himself slowing. Gasping for air. Thinking.
To defeat his enemies, he had to understand them. He had to think about how they were thinking.
Why were these things
chasing him? What did they want?
They wanted him, Alex. Okay, obvious. But also interesting.
They wanted him, not Agglar. Not Derren. Not Pimawa or Rowlfin or anyone else, apparently, in the entire city.
If all they cared about was Alex…then Alex could use that fact to his advantage.
They spilled out of the alleyway onto a cobblestone street. Alex quickly looked both ways. To the right, the street went uphill, with shops to one side and narrow houses on the other. To the left, downhill, Alex caught a glimpse of the river, which would eventually run to the Sea of Dedi.
“Go right!” he yelled to Derren. “That way! It’s better!”
As Derren turned right, a Rag-O-Roc swept down on him. Derren dropped to the pavement and flipped. Pimawa jumped to one side, careening into Rowlfin, nearly knocking his father down.
Alex dodged left.
“Find Emma! Take care of her!” he shouted with as much breath as he had left.
And he ran.
At least going left meant he was going downhill. That helped. A little. He heard Pimawa shout, “Master Alex! Wait!” He heard a wordless roar from Derren—anger? Disapproval? Fear?
It didn’t matter. Alex didn’t stop. He kept running.
The Rag-O-Rocs swarmed after him like wasps. Angry wasps. Angry skeleton wasps. So his plan was working! He’d lured the monsters away from Derren and the others. That would give them time to find Emma and get her out of here.
If Emma hadn’t been buried under tons of wood and rock as the Tower collapsed, of course.
But Alex had gotten out. He’d been at the very top, and he’d gotten out. So had Derren and Pimawa and Rowlfin.
He had to believe that Emma had done the same.
Rise of the Shadow Page 12