Black (47 page)

“Go ahead, wave it at my subjects and see how much power you have.”

Tanis glanced at the throngs behind Teeleh. He motioned at them with the sword, but none so much as flinched.

“You see? How can you compare your power to mine, unless you first know? Know your enemy. Know his fruit. Taste what Elyon himself has invited you to taste by
not
forbidding it. Just keep your stick at your side so that it doesn't touch me.”

Tanis now wanted very much to try this mysterious yellow fruit in Teeleh's claw. He lowered the sword to his side, ready to use it at a moment's notice, stepped forward, and took the fruit. It felt daring, but he was a warrior, and to defeat this enemy he had to employ his own trickery.

He stepped back, just out of Teeleh's reach, and bit into the fruit. Immediately his world swam in stunning color. Power surged through his blood, and his mind felt numb.

“Do you feel the power?”

“It's . . . it's quite strong,” Tanis said. He took another bite.

“Now, raise your hand and command my legions.”

Tanis looked at the black bats that lined the trees. “Now?”

“Yes. Use your new power.”

Tanis lifted an unsteady hand. Without a single word, the Shataiki began to shriek and turn away. The sound made him cringe. Terror swept through their ranks. This with a single outstretched arm.

“You see? Lower your arm before you destroy my army.”

Tanis lowered his arm.

“Can I take this fruit with me?”

“No. Please hand it back.”

Tanis did so, though somewhat reluctantly. The Shataiki continued their ruckus.

“Not to worry, my friend. I have another fruit. More truth. More power. This one will open your mind to the forbidden truth. That is the truth only the wise ones possess. You can't command armies with power alone. You must have the mind to lead. This fruit will show it to you.”

Tanis knew he should leave, but there was no law forbidding even this.

“It's the same fruit your friend Thomas ate,” Teeleh said.

Tanis looked up, shocked. “Thomas ate your fruit?”

“Of course. It's why he's so wise. And he knows the histories because he drank my water. Thomas has the knowledge.”

The revelation made Tanis dizzy. That was how Thomas knew the histories. He reached out his hand.

“No, for this fruit you must put your sword on the railing here, on my side of the bridge. I can't touch it, of course. But you must hold this fruit with both hands.”

The bat's reasoning sounded very strange, but then Tanis's mind wasn't entirely clear. As long as the sword was right there where he could grab it if needed, what harm would there be in setting it down? If anything, it put a greater barrier between him and the bat.

Tanis stepped forward and set the stick on the railing. Then he reached both hands for the fruit in Teeleh's outstretched claw.

When they broke from the forest, Tanis already stood before the horrid beast, like a dumb sheep bleating to its butcher. Tom skidded to a halt. Michal landed on a branch to his right.

“Michal!” Tom
rasped.

“We're too late!” the Roush said. “Too late!”

“He's still talking!”

“Tanis will decide.”

“What?”

Tom turned back to the scene before him. Tom stood frozen by the moment. He could barely hear his friend's voice above the shrieking bats.

“This is the fruit that Thomas ate?” Tanis took the fruit from the grinning black beast with both hands.

Tom released the tree he had gripped with white knuckles and leaped forward.
No, Tanis! Don't be such an utter fool. Throw it back at him!

He wanted to yell it, but his throat was frozen.

“It is indeed, my friend,” Teeleh said. “Thomas is a very wise man indeed.”

Half the Shataiki lining the trees now noticed him. They flew into a fit, pointing in panic, shrieks now earsplitting.

Tom raced across the bank toward the arching bridge. “Tanis!”

But Tanis didn't turn. Had he already eaten?

Tanis took one step backward, and Tom was sure that he was about to fling the fruit back at the beast and leave him standing on the bridge's crest. The man paused and said something too softly for Tom to hear above the bats. He stared at the fruit in his hands.

“Tanis!” Tom cried, rushing onto the bridge.

Tanis calmly brought the fruit to his mouth and bit deeply.

The throng of bats in the trees behind Teeleh suddenly fell silent. The wind whistled quietly and the river below murmured, but otherwise a terrible stillness swallowed the bridge.

“Tanis!”

Tanis whirled around. A stream of juice glistened on his chin. The fruit's yellow flesh was lodged in his gaping mouth.

“Thomas. You've come!”

He closed his lips over the piece between his teeth and held the bitten fruit out toward Tom. “Is this the same fruit you ate, Thomas? I must say, it is very good indeed.”

Tom slid to a halt halfway up the arch. “Don't be a fool, Tanis! It's not too late. Drop it and come back.” He shook as he spoke. “Now! Drop it now!”

“Oh, it is you,” the beast behind Tanis sneered. “I thought I heard a voice. Don't worry, Tanis, my friend. He would like to be the only one to eat my fruit, but you know too much now, don't you? Has he told you about his spaceship?”

Tanis swiveled his head from Tom to the beast and back again, as though unsure of what he was expected to do.

“Tanis, don't listen to him. Get ahold of yourself!”

Tanis's eyes seemed to float in their sockets. The fruit was taking its toll on the man.

“Thomas? What spaceship?” Tanis asked.

“He's afraid to tell you the truth,” Teeleh snarled. “He drank the water!”

“It's a lie!” Tom said. “Do
not
cross the bridge. Drop the fruit.”

Tanis wasn't listening. Yellow juice from the fruit trickled down his cheek, staining his tunic. He turned back to the beast and took another bite.

“Very powerful,” he said. “With this kind of power, I could defeat even you.”

“Yesssss.” The hideous bat grinned. “And we have something you cannot possibly imagine.”

He withdrew a leather pouch.

“Here, drink this. It will open your eyes to new worlds.”

Tanis looked at the bat, then at the pouch. Then he reached one hand for the pouch.

Teeleh turned, and in doing so he bumped into something Tom hadn't seen before. A stick resting on the railing. A dark stick that had lost its color. The wood slid off the railing and fell into the river.

Tom whirled around. Michal was watching in silence. “Elyon!” Tom screamed. Surely he would do something. He loved Tanis desperately. “Elyon!”

Nothing.

He spun back to the bridge. What was happening was happening because of him. In spite of him. He felt as powerless and as terrified as he could ever remember feeling.

Teeleh walked slowly, ever so slowly, favoring his right leg. Down the bridge to the opposite bank. “More knowledge than you can handle,” he said. “Isn't that so, my friends?” he bellowed to the throngs lining the forest.

“Yesss . . . yessss,” rasped a sea of voices.

“Then bid our friend drink,” he cried out, stepping onto the opposite bank. “Bid him drink!”

“Drink, drink, drink, drink,” the Shataiki chanted slowly, in one throbbing, seductive tone. A song.

Tom felt the hair on his neck stand on end. Tanis looked back at him, eyes glazed over, a grin twisting his face. He released a nervous chuckle.

Tom's mind began to swim in panic. Tanis was falling for it!

In final desperation, he lunged up the arch toward the intoxicated man. “Tanis, don't . Don't do it!” he cried over the bewitched song. “You have no idea what you're doing!”

Tanis turned back to the chanting throng and took a step toward the opposite shore.

Images of Rachelle and little Johan flashed before Tom's eyes. This was not going to happen, not if he could help it.

He leaped forward, gripped the railing with his left arm, and flung his other arm around the man's waist. Planting his feet hard, he jerked Tanis back, nearly pulling him from his feet.

With a snarl Tanis swung around and planted a kick on his chest. Tom flew back and sat hard on the deck.

“No, Thomas! You are not the only one who can have this knowledge! Who are you to tell me what I must do?”

“It's a lie, Tanis! I didn't drink!”

“You're lying! You're dreaming of the histories. No one has ever dreamed of the histories.”

“Because I fell!”

A brief look of confusion crossed the firstborn's face. He turned away with a tear in his eye, lifted the pouch to his lips, and poured the water into his mouth.

Then he walked over the bridge and stepped onto the parched earth beyond.

What happened next was a sight Tom would never forget as long as he lived. The moment Tanis set foot on the ground next to the large black bat, a dozen smaller Shataiki stalked out to greet him. Tom scrambled to his feet just as Tanis extended a hand in greeting to the nearest Shataiki. But instead of taking his hand, the Shataiki suddenly leaped from the ground and slashed angrily at the extended hand with his talons.

For a moment, time seemed to cease.

The pouch dropped from Tanis's hand. His half-eaten fruit tumbled lazily to the ground. Tanis lowered his eyes to his hand just as the white walls of a deep gash began to fill with blood.

And then the first effects of his new world fell on the elder like a vicious, bloodthirsty beast.

Tanis screamed with pain.

Teeleh faced the black forest, standing tall and stately.

“Take him!” he said.

The groups of Shataiki who had greeted Tanis dived for him. Tanis threw his hands up in defense, but in his state of shock it was hopeless. Fangs punctured his neck and his spine; a wicked claw sliced at his face, severing most of it in one terrible swipe. Then Tanis disappeared in a mess of
flailing black fur.

Teeleh raised his wings in victory and beckoned the waiting throngs that still clung to the trees. “Now!” he thundered above the sounds of the attack on Tanis. “Now! Did I not tell you?” He lifted his chin and howled in a voice so loud and so terrifying that it seemed to rip the sky itself open.

“Our time has come!”

A ground-shaking roar erupted from the horde of beasts. Above the cheer Tom heard the leader's throaty, guttural roar. “Destroy the land. Take what is ours!”

Teeleh swept his wings toward the colored forest.

Tom watched, frozen by horror, as a massive black wall of bats took flight. The wall ran as far as he could see in either direction and seemed to move in slow motion for its sheer size. A dark shadow crept across the ground. It moved over the black forest, then up the bridge toward Thomas. The white wood cracked and turned gray along the forward edge of the shadow. The pungent odor of sulfur swarmed him.

Tom whirled and ran just ahead of the shadow. He leaped off the bridge and hit the grass in a full sprint. Michal was gone!

“Michal!” he screamed.

He dared a quick glance back at the trees that marked the edge of the colored forest. The grass behind him was turning to black ash along the leading edge of the shadow, as if a long line of fire had been set ablaze beneath the earth and was incinerating the green life above it.

But he knew the death didn't come from below. It came from the black bats above. And what would happen to his flesh when the shadow overtook him?

He screamed and pumped his legs in a blind panic, knowing full well that panic would only slow him down. “Elyon!”

Elyon wasn't responding.

The shadow from the wall of black bats above reached him when he tore into the clearing just beyond the riverbank. He tensed in anticipation of the searing pain of burning flesh.

The burned grass under his feet crackled. The colored light from the trees on either side winked out, and the green canopy began crumbling in heaps of black ash. The air turned thick and difficult to breathe.