Island of Shipwrecks (33 page)

Artiméans everywhere slipped off their feet and went sprawling, landing hard. Quillens, too, apart from the fighting, were frozen inside their homes or fell while doing their jobs. The few Quillitary soldiers who had survived the battle now watched in horror as their vehicles slid off the road and skidded down the embankments to the frozen shoreline. And the pirate ship nearing the lagoon in Artimé stopped short, its hull encased in a sea of ice.

I
t was midday before Aaron gained consciousness. When he could pry his swollen eyelids open, he found himself flung out across a bench in a little fishing boat, alone, bouncing and churning and lurching against the waves. His stomach lurched too, but there was nothing more than bile inside it to expel.

His face throbbed. Gingerly he reached up to touch it. His skin was on fire. It was more pain than he'd ever known. Every rise and fall of the boat caused his sight to waver and his nose to feel like it was going to explode. He pushed himself up and peered fearfully over the lip of the vessel's side, and then he sat
up and gripped the bench. The sea swam before his eyes, and briny water sloshed about at his feet. The only solid thing in sight was the pirate ship, to which his little fishing boat was attached by a heavy gold chain.

He could hear voices coming from above him, on board the ship, but he couldn't make out any words. “Hey,” Aaron said, but little sound came from his parched throat. His bottom lip was split, he could feel it. “I'm the . . . I'm the high priest. . . .”

Every effort to remain conscious took more out of him, and eventually Aaron gave up. He sank back to the floor of the boat and closed his eyes.

A
lmost no one on the island of Quill had ever seen ice before. It felt cold before it stung, and with little warning it became awful to touch. Alex, who went down hard on his back, caught his breath and scrambled to his feet, and promptly slipped and fell again. “What's going on?” he whispered to Simber, who was splayed out, legs in all directions.

“I don't know,” Simber said under his breath. He flapped his wings to help him get to his feet.

From somewhere in Quill, a dark, magical, thunderous
voice rang out above all other sound on the island, and spread beyond to the icy circle of the sea around it.

“Greetings, my people,” boomed the voice.

Claire Morning froze. “Who
is
that?”

Mr. Appleblossom shook his head.

“I am your new high priest,” the voice said. “I want to take a moment to thank Artimé for destroying the Quillitary. I didn't care which side won, I just wanted one of you out of the way. So it's Artimé I welcome back into the fold—you are a part of Quill once more. We are a complete nation again.”

She paused. No one moved.

“Enjoy the ice,” she said. “It's my little way to keep you all
safe
until I get my kingdom sorted out. It's only temporary. Probably. Or maybe not.”

Alex and Sky exchanged horrified glances.

“I'll keep you informed. Try not to freeze to death in your little ice desert.” With that, the booming voice faded away.

Those near Alex turned their frightened eyes to him. He stared back, rapidly trying to figure out what was happening.

“Okay,” he said. “I don't know who that was. We'll figure it out. But first we need to take care of our injured. I need a
team to somehow get to the mansion door and wait for Simber and the squirrelicorns to airlift our wounded and deliver them to you.”

A few able volunteers raised their hands and began sliding on hands and knees toward the mansion.

Alex looked around at all the injured, his heart filling with dread. Artimé was a disaster. Swiftly he sought out the friends he knew he could count on. “Henry, Carina, pick an additional team to take inside so they can help treat the incoming patients.”

“Got it,” Henry said. He and Carina began recruiting help from uninjured people all across the lawn.

And then Alex's eyes landed on Meghan and Samheed. Sam's face was hidden, but Meghan's was ghastly white. The ice was red beneath them. “Oh no,” he breathed. He stepped gingerly toward them on the ice, trying not to slip. Each step was agonizingly slow. “Everyone, get moving!” he shouted. “Crawl if you have to! Let's get the injured inside now!”

Simber chose to fly. Immediately he scooped up an unresponsive Meghan into his mouth and carefully dug his claws into Samheed's component vest, lifting them both. They
hung limp from Simber's grasp. Alex took his own advice and dropped to the ground, sliding himself along the side of the mansion to the door to help Simber.

A moment later squirrelicorns filled the air, picking up injured Artiméans far and wide and delivering them to the mansion.

Alex's hands burned against the ice. He crawled up to the threshold of the mansion, past the Artiméans stationed there to help transition the injured inside. He rose to his knees and grasped the handle to open the door, praying that the ice was external only.

It was.

“Phew,” he said, pulling himself into the mansion and getting to his feet just as Simber lowered Alex's two friends to within reach.

Alex stretched out his hands and pulled Meghan gently from Simber's jaws. His face paled when he held her.

“She's cold,” Simber said.

Alex's heart fell. “From the ice, you mean?” he said, faltering.

Simber was silent. He dropped his eyes.

Alex's eyes burned. “From the ice? Simber?”

“Just get herrr into the hospital warrrd!”

Wild with fear, Alex started off. “You guys grab Samheed so Simber can rescue more injured,” Alex croaked over his shoulder to the Artiméans at the door. “And tell Carina and Henry to hurry! Meghan's . . . she's bad off.” He ran with his best friend in his arms into the hospital wing, and laid Meghan gently on the nearest bed. Her freckled face was gray.

He couldn't breathe. He put a shaking hand to his mouth.

From across the ward, Sean sat up, his leg in a cast and held up in the air in a sling. “Oh, thank goodness you're all right, Al. Is everybody okay? That voice—did you hear it? That was Gondoleery Rattrapp! Eva told me about her, she's—why, wait . . .” He sat up farther and peered at the figure in the bed. “Is that—is that Meg?”

Alex could barely hold it together as Henry and Carina burst into the mansion and came running toward him, and others rushed into the room carrying Samheed. He shot Sean a fearful look. “Yes,” he said in a voice that sounded far away. “It's Meghan.” Numb, he backed off from the bed to let the healers get close, and then tripped over a side table as Sean,
helpless in his bed, strained to see what was happening.

Carina began barking out orders to the nurses, and the more intense her voice became, the more Alex felt his world crashing in on him. He stumbled to the hospital ward entrance, useless, yet knowing there were many other wounded, and he had to help them.

Blindly he returned to the front door and picked up the next body that had been left there. He ran with it to hospital ward and deposited it on a bed, and then doggedly went back. Body after body he transported from inside the front door to the hospital wing until his limbs and lungs burned.

At first he tried to block the screams and shouts that were coming from Sean, and from around Meghan's bed, but the cries were endless. Mentally he begged for a spell that would cause his hearing to fail while he did the job he had to do, but there was none. He couldn't unhear the horrible truth. His dear friend Meghan, his freckled classmate and fellow Unwanted, was dead.

When Sean cried out Alex's name and grabbed his shirt as he passed by with yet another body, Alex looked at the horror in his friend's eyes and croaked, “I'm sorry! I'm sorry, okay?
There was nothing we could do to save her!” He ripped his shirt from Sean's grasp and stumbled out of the hospital ward, hot tears singeing his eyes and throat as he went back for the next injured person. And all the while a sort of fatalistic mantra began forcing its way into his head, whether he wanted it there or not. It was the only thing that kept him going.

We can only save the ones we can save.

» » « «

By the time Florence and the rest of the ship's crew had scuttled the distance across the frozen lagoon and reached the shore, Alex had almost singlehandedly delivered the last of the injured Artiméans to the hospital ward.

Hours later, as darkness settled over the island, only Henry remained beside Meghan's now empty bed. He was crying inconsolably, his hands shaking as they clutched an unopened tin of fluorescent blue seaweed.

W
ith no water or food and in blinding pain, Aaron slid in and out of consciousness. As the pirate ship pulled his little fishing boat along, he didn't notice the cylindrical island with the rocky crown on top as they passed by, and he didn't notice the lush, larger island with the jutting mountain and waterfall on one side and the word “HELP!” spelled out on the beach with bones. Every time his eyes opened, all he could see was water. Where were they taking him?

Now and then the pirates above peered over the railing at him. Sometimes they jeered. Whenever Aaron cried out for
water, some of them would spit at him and laugh. Aaron knew this was the end of him. His tongue swelled with thirst until he reached over the side of the boat and sipped a handful of sea water, but that only made him more thirsty.

His stomach twisted in pain, his shoulder felt like fire grew inside it, and his face swelled and throbbed. The sun beat down on him during the day, burning his skin, and when it went down at night, he shivered until he thought his teeth would fall out.

He drank more sea water and became delirious, shouting, “I am the high priest of Quill. Let me go!” And when the pirates laughed, he growled, “Take yourselves to the Ancients Sector!”

Other times he shook and sobbed, though he was so dehydrated that he couldn't produce tears even if he wanted to. “I don't know what you want with me!” he cried, his voice growing so hoarse that the pirates couldn't hear him anymore.

Finally he slid to the bottom of the boat, into the sludge, and passed out. And in his unconscious state, he dreamed of his brother, and of a better life.

» » « «

It was dark and choppy when the pirates unhooked the chain. The wind slapped waves against the sides of the little fishing boat, and the current, though not strong enough at this distance to pull the pirate ship into its grasp, was more than mighty enough to control the small vessel. The boat succumbed to the outer reaches of the hurricane, and went sailing into it without a struggle as the pirate ship pulled away and grew smaller. Soon the pirates' laughter was drowned out by the whistling wind.

But Aaron heard none of it. He flopped about, shivering on the floor as the tips of waves licked the lip of the boat, and he rolled from side to side as the sea swelled. It was only when the rain came in sheets that Aaron roused. Perhaps it was instinct as the pure liquid touched his lips. Fresh water. He forced himself to lift his head, barely raising an eyelid, and opened his mouth wide to let the cool, driving liquid hit his tongue and the back of his throat. Sweet relief.