Meritorium (Meritropolis Book 2) (24 page)

Darting forward, driven more by fear of the six pairs of yellow snake eyes than by actual courage, Charley sprinted along the sandbar toward the island.

Churning up sand in his wake, Charley thought again of Alec. It gave him a sinking feeling, as if some premonition of imminent death had brought him to mind. A sad but very possible realization loomed: he could have made it this far, actually into the arena with the murderer of his brother, and then die before he could even confront him.

His arms pumped and his legs pistoned, jetting him forward, powered by a potent cocktail of pure fear and adrenaline. The island loomed closer, and Charley could see the craggy volcanic rock jutting upward in its very center, a pinnacle that represented everything he had ever wanted.

The czar. Revenge at last.

The noise of the boisterous crowd rose in anticipation.

He was almost there. Charley could feel at least three stingers embed into him as he ran, but he didn’t even slow. They were like miniature cattle prods, each a jolt of nitrous that only propelled him along faster.

One moment he was racing down the sandbar, so close to the island. The next moment he wasn’t.

A tightening sensation cinched his waist, squeezing him until his ribs crackled like dry twigs on a forest floor. He was being lifted straight up into the air with a whoosh. He was being squeezed so hard, he could feel his face turning purple as he fought for air.

Abruptly, he was slammed down into the water. Submerged in the icy depths, bubbles streamed around his face, and with his eyes open he could see a school of toad-bat creatures propel their way past him. His mouth still open, frozen in a silent scream, he felt paralyzed. The contrast between the sun beating down on his brow in the arena a moment earlier and the frigid depths of the manmade lagoon stiffened his body into instant rigor mortis.

He felt like a corpse. A sadness, blue as the waves around him, enveloped him slowly and steadily, draining his life away and leaving one thought.
So this is how it will end
.

A seemingly irrational fear of snakes had turned out to be not so irrational after all. Having never even seen the ocean, he was to find his final resting place in the icy depths of this manmade re-creation.

This could be his final resting place, but he would have no rest. He had been so close to avenging Alec, but he wasn’t going to manage it. He struggled mightily against the great corded strength of the water creature, to no avail. His arms were free, but even clawing his nails against the scaly skin of the snake had no effect.

His limbs bobbed in the water like loose spaghetti. He was a helpless rubber doll, fading fast. He was no longer able to think straight. He considered whether he should inhale a big gulp of water and be done with it. It was a moment for honesty: who did he think he was to think that he could challenge the System? He was just one person, and kind of a hotheaded screw-up, if he was being honest.

A slow-moving bat-toad wiggled through the water. Turning slowly, it rotated to look him directly in the face, its big blubbery lips opening and closing, opening and closing.

Charley’s eyes began to shut. Now was certainly the time to be honest with himself.

He was drowning.

Alone.

His shoulders slumped; his head lolled forward. His parents had left him. Alec had left him. And he could never get them back. Nothing he could ever do would change that. He was alone, and now he would die alone.

A violent thrashing in the water jolted his eyes open. Grigor’s powerful shoulders torpedoed directly toward him, descending with aggressive snaps of his arms and legs. Shaking Charley’s shoulders, Grigor’s wide concerned eyes lightened upon seeing that he was still alive. Drawing the dirk from his boot, Grigor wrapped his legs around the slithery beast and, using all of his weight, pressed the dirk into its flesh. Burying the blade up to its hilt, Grigor held on to the handle with both hands and dragged the blade toward him, ripping a long gash that sent a cloudy miasma of blood expulsing outward.

Through the blood, Charley could see Grigor’s face, grim with determination. Grigor had come for him.

The effect was instantaneous. Charley’s head snapped back as he and Grigor were lifted out of the water and thrashed toward one of the Scylla’s heads.

Charley coughed out a sickening amount of water and gasped in a breath of air. While Grigor ripped the dirk out of the beast’s side and sliced upward, tearing another wide gash under its serpentine head.

Out of the corner of his eye, Charley could see that the other five heads of the beast were preoccupied with a volley of rocks thrown by the Low Scores, many of whom had already made it onto the island, and were now raining little black volcanic rocks on the beast. Hank and Orson were actually hurrying the final few Low Scores across the sandbar, casting anxious looks at Charley and Grigor, high above in the grasp of the beast.

Grigor waved the dirk, feinting back and forth, his knees still grasped around the twisting beast’s body. Charley wiggled his way upward; the beast was losing blood, and its grasp was loosening.

The sixth head maneuvered close to Charley and Grigor, yawning open its spiky-toothed mouth and flashing its yellow eyes. With a vicious strike, the beast snapped down at Grigor’s arm. Narrowly twisting away, Grigor flashed the dirk upward, deflecting the strike, but it glanced off a wickedly sharp tooth, and plummeted to the water below.

A long, sinister forked tongue flicked out, mere inches from Grigor and Charley. With the dirk gone, they were weaponless—and the beast seemed to know it.

Well, almost weaponless, Charley realized.

Drowsily, Charley reached down with both hands and tugged a bat-toad stinger from his thigh. Grasping the tail just above the onion-like bulb, Charley used all of his strength to jam it directly into the snake’s yellow-orbed pupil.

With a shriek like talons on the Devil’s chalkboard, the Scylla released Grigor and Charley. They landed on the sandbar with a thud of tangled limbs, before scrambling up and running the remaining few yards to the island.

As one, the Low Scores retreated to the volcano, under cover from a continuing volley of the jagged black rocks.

Falling to his knees in the sand, Charley promptly threw up what seemed like a gallon of murky water.

“We made it through Scylla and Charybdis,” Hank said cheerfully, pulling Charley to his feet. “Oh, by the way, we need to start climbing this volcano right away, I think.” He pointed to one of the other sandbar spokes. “Look, here come the Circumcellions. I don’t think we want to be hanging out down here.” He gestured to some of the other spokes. More warriors and animal combos streamed toward the volcano.

Orson shielded his eyes against the sun, looking to the summit of the volcano. “And my father will be at the top.” His face twisted into a grotesque grimace before he spoke in almost a whimper. “It’s all about him; it’s always about him.”

Charley could hear screams in the distance. Scylla and Charybdis were moving on to the other spokes. The roaring of the crowd was only drowned out by the roaring in his ears. He threw up again.

“We must keep moving.” Grigor extended his hand, lifting Charley to his feet, almost tenderly, like a mother with an infant. “You can do this.”

He looked at Grigor, an unlikely instrument of grace, but never a truer one. “Thank you. I mean it. Whatever happens.” Charley lowered his head. “Thank you.”

Like a sunburst splitting through grey clouds, Grigor smiled, teeth gleaming. “No need for the long face—the day’s not over yet. Let’s get going.”

Charley climbed, the rough-textured pumice of the volcano grinding against his palms as he pulled himself upward. Exposed on the volcanic rock, the sun was brutal and he was already beginning to dry. From the higher vantage point, he could see the stands filled to capacity, but no emperor in the royal box. Maybe he was readying himself to parade out onto the arena floor, particularly if his back-door assassination attempt of the czar proved successful. Charley hoped they at least had the element of surprise going for them. As Low Scores, the czar wouldn’t be expecting much from them, and if he looked half as pathetic as he felt, Charley was in a fine disguise indeed.

Reaching the summit, Charley hefted himself up and over. And for a moment, he was alone. All was silent, even peaceful, on the plateau of the immense manmade volcano. Low cottony clouds floated by. If only they could carry him away, up to the skies, forever freed from the evil and the hate, the violence of it all. After the adrenaline high of encounter with the water creatures, the plateau, by contrast, was a soft and comfortable blanket of tranquility.

But the feeling only lasted a moment.

A tremendous beating of heavy wings pounded the air, forcing Charley to flatten himself against the rock, eyes twisted up to the sky in panic. An evil dragon-like creature, easily as big as Shooey, hovered above him, talons extended, before landing on a spire of black scoria. The wings folded back before the creature—Charley guessed it was a vulcodile—perched on the rock, facing aggressively outward like a gargoyle in repose.

An enormously muscled warrior hopped off the creature’s back with a flourish. He was heavily armored, wearing full battle gear complete with a helmet with large wicked horns protruding from the top.

He was easily as big as Grigor, but he moved like a much smaller man. He lifted a battle-ax into the air and gestured to the crowd, soaking in their applause. Charley heard an announcer say the word “czar” quite distinctly.

Grigor, Hank, and Orson arrived at Charley’s side, their eyes glued to the imposing figure. Orson spoke first. “What the—”

“That’s your dad?” Hank asked. “Why didn’t you tell us that he was … like this? I thought he was an old man.”

Orson’s mouth hung open. “I did, too …”

“Are you sure it’s him?” Grigor questioned. “This is like an entirely new person.”

The warrior turned from the applause of the crowd to face them. He lifted his visor, revealing dark eyes that distinctly resembled Orson’s. “Hello, son.”

Orson started visibly. “I—what—it’s really you?”

“It’s really me.”

“What—what happened to you?”

“Never mind that. Why are a bunch of High Scores, not to mention a former Commander of Meritropolis, on top of my volcano, pretending to be Low Scores?”

Charley swallowed. So much for the element of surprise.

Orson’s face whitened. “I—I just—”

The czar whirled, took two quick steps, and stamped on the exposed fingertips of a fast-climbing Circumcellion attempting to lift himself onto the summit. With a scream that ended abruptly, the fingers disappeared from view. Another grimy face appeared, peering over the edge with eyes wide. He was instantly met with a boot to the face. The czar then turned to his vulcodile, lifted his hand like a master falconer, and motioned with his fingers. With a screech the enormous creature flapped along the edge of the summit, tearing climbers off the rock with its razor-sharp talons, before dropping them to plummet to their deaths.

Turning back, the czar looked directly at Orson. “Pardon me, you were saying?”

Charley watched Orson closely. He squirmed, his face contorting into the shame of a small child caught stealing from the cookie jar. A surprising wave of sympathy washed over Charley. “I’m sorry, Father. I—” Orson managed to stammer. He lowered his head, not meeting his father’s eyes. “I just—”

“Enough!” the czar roared, taking a step forward, his armor jangling. “I don’t want to hear excuses and lies! The emperor has told me all about your misguided plans.” The czar gestured behind him, and Emperor Titus appeared with a flourish from behind a large black rock.

He looked directly at Charley, eyes cold. “I do love a dramatic entrance. Come on, did you really think you could throw a spear at me and get away with it? The lot of you would have been dead long ago, but I thought the czar might appreciate me serving you up on a silver platter.”

The emperor curled his fingers lazily in the air, as if summoning a butler to fluff his pillow, and a cadre of heavily armed and armored Meritorium Honor Guard marched into formation behind him, flanking the four High Scores.

Charley felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He shouldn’t be surprised: the emperor had double-crossed his own double-cross.

The czar spat a thick stream of viscous fluid onto the ground and coughed. His eyes bored into Orson. “You lost Meritropolis, and then you set out to find me with these nobodies?” He waved a hand at Charley, Hank, and Grigor. “And now you, what? You want to confront me about something? Is that it?”

Orson dropped his head, his shoulders slumping.

“You hate the System now, too? The same System that kept you alive?” The czar’s eyes burned a strange shade of red. He looked from Charley to Hank to Grigor. “The same System that kept all of you alive.”

Heat flushed up the back of Charley’s neck, sending tendrils of fiery flame licking upward. His vision clouded over, the familiar darkness vice-gripping his head, controlling him, pushing him. He couldn’t refuse to act anymore than he could stop his heart from beating.

“The System killed my brother.” Charley took a step forward, his limbs crackling with rage. “The System stole everyone I loved.” His voice rose. “The System stole our humanity and reduced us to animals.”

The czar turned slowly to face him. He tipped his head to one side, as if deciding whether Charley was worth the trouble. “I don’t know who your brother is.” He enunciated each word very slowly. “And I don’t care.”

The firing pin clicked; the mushroom cloud blossomed; lightning sizzled through Charley’s brain, and magma erupted through his veins. He stepped forward stiffly. “Alec,” he said quietly, his lip curling. “His name was Alec.”

The czar unslung the battle-ax from his shoulder, his eyes never leaving Charley. “I have no idea who you’re talking about, but I’m
not
sorry for your loss. I stand by every decision of the System—my System.” He lifted his chin. “If the System said your brother had to die, then he not only had to die, he deserved to die.”