From Light to Dark (20 page)

“Why not?”

At this point, Vul looked at her own body and seemed to become aware of the blood for the first time. Her cries escalated into tremendous shrieks.

Caer clapped her hand over Vul’s mouth and stared at the Exile and Eref. “She’s gone mad!”

“Let’s go back into the jungle,” the Exile said. “Just a few yards, to be safe. We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves now.”

“But what about Balor?” Eref kept scanning the trees. “He should be nearby.”

The Exile shook his head. “We need to retreat. Come on.”

They carried Vul’s dripping body backward into the jungle and set her down near the widening river. Caer went immediately to work, bringing water to wash Vul.

“She isn’t wounded,” she said after she’d rinsed a good portion of Vul’s torso and arms.

“What?”

Caer looked up. “This isn’t her blood.”

Eref didn’t want to speak. He imagined that staying silent for another few minutes would keep the truth from being real. It couldn’t be. He wasn’t ready.

“The…The Light Person…,” Vul stammered, still shaking.

“What happened, Vul?” Caer stroked her head and wiped more blood from her chest.

“He carried me out…. He saved me….”

Caer rinsed Vul’s neck. “Then what?”

Caer spoke with a gentle voice, but it wasn’t enough to calm Eref’s nerves. His insides felt frozen and still as a statue by the splashing river.

“Down…,” Vul said. “Down a tunnel. Doors…straight down. Then through a hollow root….”

The Exile leaned forward. “Do you remember the way, Vul?”

“The way….”

“Do you remember which way you went?”

Vul looked as if she were in a trance, as if everything was recorded in some deep area of her consciousness. “He said to remember. He said to say it over and over. Down, down, down. Right, left, down. Right, up, left, right, down. Right, up, down, left, down. We went down, but you must go up. He said to go up to go back….” She cried a little under her words. “He pulled me along…bugs…dirt…no room….”

The Exile smiled. “She knows the hidden passage. Balor must have discovered it. Now you won’t have to go through the guards at the entrance.”

Eref looked at the old man. Surely he didn’t expect Vul to draw him a map.

“What happened then, Vul? Can you tell us?” Caer patted Vul’s head in her lap as if she were comforting a baby.

“Then….” Vul shuddered some more. “The opening.”

Everyone waited for Vul to continue.

She squeezed her eyes shut as if trying to make an image go away. “It was blocked…. We were trapped….”

Eref knelt down by her side. “What was blocking it?”

She covered her face with her hands. “Bog Beetle…. Red…. I told him to wait…. It would go away…. But he said…it had been waiting there a long time…. No other choice….” Vul pulled her knees to her chest and tucked her head between her elbows. She quaked as if she were freezing.

Caer held onto her and stroked her head. “Shhhh. Vul, you’re safe now.”

But Eref wanted her to continue. “What did he do?”

“No, no, no…,” Vul cried from her own arms.

“What did he do?”

“Eref!” Caer snapped. “Look at her.”

“Vul,” he said, his voice a little softer. “Please. He’s my best friend. Tell me what happened.”

Vul peeked her head out and looked at him. Tears filled her eyes. “He…he told me to go on after he stepped out. He said not to look back, just keep going. Find Eref at the cave. Go to the cave.”

Eref’s heart froze. Had Balor fought the Bog Beetle?

More sobs came from Vul, and Caer tried to help her relax. “I told him not to! You’ll die! It will kill you! But he said, ‘That’s fine. I’m going to die anyway. Give this to Eref, and tell him I’m sorry.’”

Vul pulled something from a pocket of her stained dress. Arms shaking, she reached out to Eref and dropped an object into his hands.

Dark-vision glasses.

Eref stood up. “Where is he?”

Vul shook her head.

“Where is he?”

“Eref, please,” Caer said. Her eyes had filled with tears, too.

“Tell me where Balor is.”

“Everywhere, everywhere,” Vul said, her face wild again, in its earlier uncontrolled panic. “It took a second…blood everywhere...snapped him in two.”

She convulsed and shrieked once more. Caer tried in vain to hold her still. Vul flailed her arms around, fighting an invisible monster. “I had to crawl through! I had to crawl through to get out!”

Eref leaned in. “Crawl through what?”

She stared Eref dead in the eyes, absolute terror on her face. “
Him
.”

Eref stumbled backward and tried to breathe.

Caer looked frightened and disgusted at the same time. Her hands retracted a little from Vul’s head.

This couldn’t be real. They had entered a nightmare.

Not until the Exile spoke did Eref come out of his horrified daze. “Balor didn’t just die to save Vul,” he said. “He died to save us all.”

“Eref,” Vul said. “I’m sorry.”

He looked at her, still dripping with blood in some places. He looked at the dark-vision glasses in his hand.

“It’s all right.” He didn’t know what else to say.

“Eref,” Caer said. Her face was so sorrowful.

Her sympathy made him frustrated. Nobody needed to pity him. He had known Balor would die. Who cared how it happened, or that Eref hadn’t been there to say goodbye? What difference did any of that make now?

“We need to get Vul back on her feet,” the Exile said.

“Not right now,” Caer said. “She’s not well.”

Eref looked at Caer and Vul and the Exile. He thought of Balor, dying alone in Dark World.

“We need her to help Eref into the Shade.”

“She can’t be moved just yet,” Caer insisted. “Let her rest a few minutes at least.”

None of this mattered.

“She can be moved. We just need her to guide Eref through the secret passageway—”

“You want to send her back in there?”

What did it matter whether he said goodbye to Caer and Vul? What did it matter if he did things the Exile’s way? Would he care when he was dead?

“She knows the path. If we don’t send her with Eref, he could be killed.”

Eref couldn’t take this bickering any longer. “I’m going to be killed anyway! Who cares about any of this?”

Caer turned her face to him with her eyes wide. Vul rolled over on her side and sobbed some more. The Exile stood still.

“There. Now you know,” Eref said. “I’m not coming back from this.”

“What do you mean?” Caer rested Vul’s head on the ground, and she stood up, hands hanging helplessly at her sides.

“When I go to the Shade, I will merge Light World and Dark World together into the Safety. But in order to do that, I must become the Safety.” He paused. Caer didn’t show any sign of understanding, so he put it more bluntly. “I’m going to sacrifice myself.”

Her mouth dropped open. She looked at the Exile as if he could tell her it wasn’t true.

The Exile only stared.

“No,” she said. “That’s not possible.”

Eref couldn’t handle the shivering of her lips or the fear in her eyes. He stared at the ground instead.

“It has to be done,” the Exile said. “There’s no other way.”

“No,” Caer whispered. “Eref. Look at me. Please.”

He lifted his head but didn’t meet her gaze.

“Eref,” Caer pleaded. “You can’t do this.”

“If you stop him now,” the Exile said, “he will be killed. You will be killed. Vul will be killed. And generations of Light and Dark people will live as slaves to the Governors.”

Tears spilled down Caer’s cheeks. “But that’s not true! We can turn back now and live with you in the cave. We’ll have everything we need!”

“Would you rather have that? Would you rather live in a cave with Eref and let the rest of the world suffer forever?”

“That’s what they’ve always done,” she cried. “No one will know the difference. He can’t die! This isn’t fair!”

Vul sat up slowly on the ground. “Caer,” she murmured.

But Caer didn’t listen. “I don’t understand why we have to be in pain so that everyone else can live happily ever after!”

Eref stared at the ground again. He didn’t want to do this. Goodbyes were too difficult. Everything seemed so pointless.

“Because that’s what happens in a revolution,” the Exile said. “Someone has to be willing to sacrifice for change.”

“But why is it us?”

Eref ran his fingers over the dark-vision glasses Balor had sent him. He could see his way through Dark World now. He had no need for their help.

“Caer,” Vul said again. She sounded a little more coherent.

“What?”

“That Light Person saved me. I owe it to him to help.”

“No, Vul,” Caer said. “Not you, too.”

“He died for me, Caer.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to go back there and get killed, too,” Caer said, turning to face Vul.

“But I know how to get back in,” she said. “He needs my help, right?”

Eref couldn’t listen to this any longer. Nobody was watching him. They wouldn’t even know….

“Vul, stop it,” Caer said.

“You can’t control what people choose to do with their lives,” the Exile said.

That’s right
, Eref thought.

Without a sound, he backed away into the jungle.

Alone.

The Shade

If Balor had found it, Eref could, too.

He adjusted his dark-vision glasses.

Under the magic of his protective light, Eref had experienced a lush jungle of incredible beauty. Now he saw tangled vines and lethal monsters lurking in the darkest places. A murky, swampy ground made his feet heavy while he hiked his way toward death.

Then, a few yards away, he saw something else.

Balor.

What was left of him, at least. His torso had been torn apart, and his arms and legs sprawled outward, clutching nearby branches. Little insects marched up and down his skin, taking what they wanted for their nests.

Holding back the urge to collapse right there, Eref approached his friend. Balor’s face had frozen in a look of shock, his mouth wide open. And there, in the mess that was his mid-section, was a hole.

Vul’s escape.

His entire body shaking, Eref gathered Balor’s corpse and carried it to the nearby swampy moss. He rested Balor’s arms together and closed his frightened eyes.

There they were, two best friends who had just played a stupid prank during school. How could they have known what would happen next? Eref wiped the mud from Balor’s face.

As he lay there in the ground, algae slowly covered Balor’s injuries, and then, inch by inch, he began to sink into the earth.

Eref stood still and stared. They hadn’t had a chance to talk. He hadn’t gotten to say goodbye.

Balor looked so peaceful and still, like he had just lain down for a nap.

For a moment, Eref wanted to lie next to him, to sink into the mud and disappear.

Instead, he touched his palm to Balor’s cold forehead.

“Thank you.” He wiped his stinging eyes. “Goodbye.”

The swamp took Balor down slowly, covering him with soft moss and pale flowers, until he became part of the jungle itself.

It was time to go. Blood stained the passageway, so Eref found it with no trouble. A hollow root with an opening wide enough to crawl through beckoned him to the end of his life.

He couldn’t stop thinking that Balor had taken this path a few hours ago.

If only Eref could have been with him….

As one last gesture of respect, Eref cleaned the place where Balor had died. He brushed the opening clear of all violence and covered it with leaves. When he was done, it was time to go.

Eref crouched down to get inside. Bugs of all kinds mingled with thick mud and tiny weeds. He moved into them, ignoring the dreadful squishing sound, and looked forward.

A long tunnel loomed ahead. Several feet away, it appeared to branch off in different directions.

First, he crawled up. Then he chose right. That took him slightly upward, but then it went drastically down. He kept going. Maybe it would turn up again soon.

Eventually the root leveled out, and Eref found himself looping around to the left and crawling up again.

Soon things looked familiar. He’d ended up back where he had started.

Eref sat back and rubbed his eyes. Bugs nipped at his fingers and crept near his ears.

What would he do if the maze got more and more difficult? He was terrible at these things.

Just ahead, a pale hand reached into the entrance. Eref backed up, hoping he wouldn’t be noticed. Someone must have followed him.

“This is the way,” a familiar voice said.

Another voice spoke. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. I remember it.”

“Vul, I’m scared.”

“Where’s the old man?”

“He’s watching to make sure we aren’t followed. He said he’d come in after us.”

“There are nasty bugs in here, Caer. I had to pick them off as we crawled.”

Eref slid forward to the entrance and grabbed the beige hand.

Vul cried out.

Eref pulled her closer. “What are you guys doing here?”

“Eref?”

“He’s in there? Eref,” Caer called. “We’ve come to help you.”

He let go of Vul’s hand and stuck his head out of the entrance. Caer and Vul were standing at the root’s opening. “Why did you come?”

Caer frowned at him. “You didn’t say goodbye.”

“You have Vul back. You don’t need me. You don’t need to be a part of this. I don’t want to cause you any more trouble.”

She shook her head. “We’re past that now. I was scared at first, but when you left, I realized what I want.”

“Caer. I can’t let you do this. You either, Vul. Go back to the cave.”

Vul pushed him through the root. “Move over so I can get in. I need to get my bearings.” She seemed to have recovered from her earlier trauma.

Caer walked closer to the entrance as well. “The old man is on his way. He’s keeping watch from a distance, but he’ll be here soon. Please let us in before we’re seen.”

Vul squeezed by and made her way up the tunnel. Eref looked at Caer squatting down outside the root.

“You don’t have to help me,” he said. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”