Black (42 page)

On the other hand, Tom had just crossed the bridge and now stood in the black forest. Was he crazy? No, he had to continue. He had to know. If there was a ship as Teeleh claimed, the histories meant nothing. If there was no ship, he would trade information on the histories for another promise to deliver Tanis. He would never fulfill his promise, of course. This was the battle of the minds, and Tom could beat this overgrown fruit fly.

Teeleh stepped to the side and kept a respectable distance from the sword. A flock of wings took noisy flight when he reached the tree line. Tom glanced back at the colored trees one last time before stepping into the dark forest.

30

T
he moment Tom stepped into the black forest, Teeleh took to the trees with a mighty
swoosh
. Tom gripped the red sword with renewed intensity. No fruit, no green, nothing but black. Like walking through a burned-out forest at night.

He stopped. “Which way?”

Teeleh looked down from a tree just ahead. The bat looked too large for the spindly branch he clung to. His beady eyes stared at Tom, a cross between wonder and disbelief. Or was Tom simply projecting his own disbelief that he was actually heading in willfully?

Teeleh swept into the air and flew on without responding. He wanted Tom to follow.

Tom followed. His heart hammered steadily. He knew he didn't belong here, but still he kept pushing one foot in front of the other.

Clicking and fluttering all around him. No voices. Only the sound of endless wings beating the air and countless claws grabbing at branches as the bats moved from tree to tree.

The air was cool. It was dark down here on the forest floor. Without leaves to block the sun, he would've thought . . .

Tom looked up. The trees did have a canopy—a hundred thousand black bats directly above, peering down with red eyes. Wordless. Flapping, clicking. They formed a giant black umbrella that followed him deeper and deeper into the forest.

Light from a clearing dawned ahead, and Tom picked up his pace, drawn by the prospect of getting out from under the living canopy.

Coming into the forest was a mistake. He knew that now. He didn't care if there was a spaceship ahead; the shroud of evil hovering above him would never allow him to escape alive. He would catch his breath in this clearing and return to the Crossing. Maybe he could negotiate with—

Tom stopped. Sunlight reflected off a shiny metal surface across the bare meadow. A ship?

His heart bolted.

A spaceship.

Tom stumbled forward three steps.

He knew it! He was a pilot from Earth. He had gone through a worm-hole or something and crash-landed on this distant planet trapped in time. Here there was good and there was evil, and the two hadn't mixed. But he was different because he was from Earth.

Tom sprinted toward the spaceship. A dark flock of Shataiki flew in circles above the meadow, whooping and sneering in shrill pitches. The craft sat on its belly, majestic. He remembered this. It was a space shuttle with broad wings. The white shell looked shiny and new. There was a flag on its tail, Stars and Stripes. United States. Big blue letters on the side read
Discovery III.

Tom reached the ship just as the drove of Shataiki settled on trees above the craft. He glanced their way and, seeing no change in their behavior, ran his hand along the smooth metal of the fuselage. No tears, no patches. Restored.

Tom rounded the craft and pulled the release latch.
With a hiss that startled him, the door swung slowly up. The hydraulics still worked. He shoved the sword through the opening and clambered in after it.

The sword glowed in the darkness, giving off just enough light for Tom to see his old cockpit. He couldn't remember any of it, but apparently it, too, had been completely repaired. He stood and walked to the main control panel, using the sword to light his way. The master power switch rested in the
off
position. Surely there could be no power after such a long time. Then again, whoever repaired this craft surely knew mechanics as well as they knew upholstery.

Tom held his breath, reached down, and flipped the red toggle. Immediately the air filled with a hum. Lights blinked on all around him. He wiped at the sweat gathered above his eyes and gazed at the lighted instruments before him. He stroked the leather captain's chair and smiled in the cabin's artificial light. But the smile immediately faded. He had no clue what to do with this magnificent craft.

Bill. He needed Bill.
Please let Bill be alive.

Tom flipped the switch back off, returned to the door, and lowered himself through the hatch.

If the Shataiki had killed Bill . . .

He shoved the sword into the ground and turned to close the hatch. He grabbed the door with both hands and pulled down against the hydraulic pressure.

Wings fluttered behind him. He released the door and whirled around just in time to see Teeleh descending on the sword still stuck in the earth. His heart leaped into his throat. How could the bat touch the sword? It was like poison, Tanis had said!

But even as he thought it, he realized that the sword had changed. It no longer glowed with the red luster it had just seconds ago. The Shataiki ripped the useless stick out of the ground with a snarl.

“Now you are mine, you fool! Seize him.”

Every last nerve in Tom's body froze at the words. A dozen shrieking Shataiki streaked out of the trees and descended on him before he could convince his muscles to move.

The ship! He could get into the ship!

Tom spun around. There was no ship.

THERE WAS NO SHIP!

Michal's words strung through his mind.
He is the deceiver.

A scream wrenched itself from his chest, the kind of full-throated scream that shreds vocal cords. Talons bit into his flesh. He gasped, swallowing the scream.

The small stick at his back! He had to reach it.

Tom grasped at his back, but the world tipped and he landed on the ground, hard. He tried to strike out. Furry bodies suffocated him. He had to get the colored wood from his waist, but the bats were in his face, digging at his flesh. He instinctively brought his knees up in a fetal position and buried his face in his arms.

“Bring him to the forest!”

A single talon swiped at his back and cut to his spine. Tom arched his back and groaned. They lashed twine around his neck and feet, and he was powerless to fight against it. Then they began to pull, dragging him a few inches at a time along the ground, wheezing and groaning against his weight.

“Use this, you imbeciles,” he heard a Shataiki screech. Bitter, high-pitched arguing. “This way . . .”

“No, you fool . . .”

“Hurry . . .”

“Let go, or I'll cut your hand off!”

“Out of my way . . .”

He was being dragged slowly along the forest floor. They'd tied a tow-rope to his bindings, and no fewer than a hundred black bats were successfully pulling him along the ground.

Sharp objects cut into his back. He moaned and felt the world spin around him. The last thing he saw was the clearing beyond his feet.

The one without a spaceship.

Tom awoke to the violent, stinging drag of a taloned claw across his face.

“Wake up!” a distant voice screamed at him. “Wake up! You think you can just sleep through this? Wake up!”

He pried his eyes open and saw a fire dancing at his feet. Where was he? He struggled to raise his head. A clawed fist beat down on his cheek, snapping his head to one side. He began to slip away.

Another loud slap on his right cheek brought him back. “Wake, you useless slab of meat!” Teeleh's voice.

Tom opened his eyes and saw that he'd been strapped to an upright device by his wrists and his ankles. Scores of the hairy creatures danced about a huge fire roughly thirty feet away. Thousands of beady eyes dotted the dark forest.

He lifted his eyes slowly. Maybe hundreds of thousands. Teeleh stood on a platform to his right.

A Shataiki swooped in from his perch, screeching with delight. “He's awake! He's awake! Can I—”

With a throaty snarl, a huge black beast whirled and swatted the smaller Shataiki from the air. The bat fell to the ground with a thud. Others quickly pounced on him and dragged his twitching body into the shadows.

A hush fell over the gathering. Fire crackled. Shataiki wheezed. A sea of red eyes hovered over him. But it was the image of the large bat, drilling him with glowing red eyes, that struck terror in Tom's heart.

This was Teeleh.

He'd changed. His skin was pitch-black and cracked, oozing a clear fluid. His wings were flaking, shedding long swaths of fur. Lips peeled back to reveal crusted, yellow fangs. A fly slowly crawled over one of his eyes—red now—but the beast didn't appear to notice.

Tom rolled his head from left to right. The device on which they had hung him creaked with his movement. He was bound to a crude wooden beam planted upright with a similar beam fixed perpendicular. A cross. They had bound him to the cross with twine. Streaks of blood ran from a dozen gashes on his chest.

He slowly turned farther to his right. The beast's red eyes bulged larger than he remembered. If his hands had been free, he could have reached out and clawed the morbid balls from the fiend's face. As it was, he could only stare into Teeleh's torrid eyes and fight his own terror.

“Welcome to the land of the living,” Teeleh said. His once musical voice sounded low and guttural, as if he was speaking past a throat full of phlegm. “Or should I say, the land of the dead. We make no real distinction here, you know.” The assembled Shataiki hissed with a laughter that sent chills down Tom's spine.

“Silence!” the leader thundered.

The laughter ceased. The large beast's vocal range was incredible. He could switch from a high-pitched squeal to a deep-throated growl effortlessly.

The huge Shataiki turned back to Tom, leaned forward, and opened his mouth. His breath was moist and smelled like a septic tank. Tom tried to recoil. He managed a flinch.

Teeleh extended a claw to his face. “You have no idea how delighted I am that you came back to us, Thomas.” He began to delicately stroke Tom's face with the tip of his talon.

“It would have been such a disappointment if you had stayed away.” He spoke in a soft, purring voice now. A sick smile pulled his lips back to reveal yellow fangs. Bits of fruit flesh were lodged between his teeth.

“I have always loved you hairless animals, you know. Such beautiful creatures.” He ran the back of his furred claw down Tom's cheek. “Such soft skin, such tender lips. Such . . .”

“Master, we have him,” another Shataiki suddenly blurted, staggering from the trees.

The leader's eyes flashed at being interrupted. But then his expression changed to one of amusement and he spoke without turning to face the new Shataiki.

“Bring him in,” he commanded. And then to Tom, “I have prepared a special treat for you, Thomas. I think you will like it.”

The throng looked on as a dozen Shataiki dragged another cross into the clearing. A creature had been fixed to the beams. They managed to erect the cross and drop it into a fresh hole not ten feet from Tom.

A man.

The man's naked body sagged, battered almost beyond recognition. Wide swaths of flesh had been stripped from his torso.

Tom groaned at the sight.

“Lovely, isn't it?” the beast sneered. He giggled in delight. “You do remember this one, don't you?”

Bill.

But wasn't Bill just a figment of his imagination? He was right here, bleeding in front of him. Real.

“I know what you're thinking,” Teeleh said. “You're thinking that the spaceship isn't real and so Bill isn't real. But you're wrong on both counts.”

Bill's bloodstained body moved ever so slowly on the cross. The poor soul's hands had been nailed to the horizontal member of the wooden cross, not tied as Thomas's had been. A large spike also jutted from a deep wound in his feet. His eyes had swollen shut, leaving only thin lines. His upper lip had been split open. A tangled mat of red hair fell to the man's shoulder. Tom closed his eyes and trembled with horror.

Teeleh laughed. “You like it? He's alive, waiting for you to rescue him.” At that the throng roared with laughter. Tom kept his eyes closed. A fresh wave of nausea washed through his stomach.

Teeleh let the laughter continue for a few short moments. “Enough!”

Once again to Tom, with a mocking tone: “Now, here is your means of escape, Thomas. You really do have to escape, because unless you do, you'll never be able to bring me Tanisssss.”

Tanis?

Without removing his eyes from Tom, Teeleh motioned to the darkness. A lone Shataiki hopped toward the platform, dragging Tom's sword. He lifted it up to the leader and promptly disappeared into the trees. Teeleh took the dark sword and twirled it in the air.

“And to think that you thought you could defeat me with one measly sword. You see, it's useless. Nothing can withstand my power.”