Tales from Dargo Island: The Complete Trilogy (21 page)

With the venom
and antidote in our possession, we moved on to the second step in our plan. Mom
was a decent sorceress, though she hadn’t used her magic in a while. Her
specialty was creating illusions that looked absolutely real. The next day, I
waited for Dargo to leave the palace on a horseback tour of the island. It had
been over a hundred years since he’d last seen it, after all.

Mom and I tried
to enter the palace through the front, but the red-faced soldiers stopped us.
No one was allowed inside while the king was gone, they said. The dead, defiant
soldiers still swung outside the palace.

I wasn’t
discouraged, telling Mom outside the gate about my ability to ride the wind. We
casually walked along the edge of the cliff on which the palace stood, and then
we jumped.

The wind caught
us a few feet from the water’s surface, carried us over the gate and up toward
Dargo’s bedroom. The balcony door was open again, so we walked in, and I
reflexively looked at the birdcage right inside.

The cage was
still covered. Mom and I walked to the wardrobe and took out the skeleton. Mom
placed a small red gem in its place and muttered a spell. Seconds later, a new
skeleton was there. It looked exactly like the old one.

“This should
hold for a while,” she said, “in case he checks.”

“Can he touch
it?”

“No, so let’s
hope he only looks at it the way he did when you were here.”

We left the way
we came in and took the skeleton home on horseback. Mom was able to make it
look like a little girl, though the girl said and did nothing. Mom had to carry
her to her horse and hold her while we rode. No one seemed to notice anything wrong.

Victor, Aneela,
Mom and I took the skeleton to the second island, which was no longer being
guarded, and tossed the bones into the acid pool.

At first,
nothing happened, and we all worried.

“Will Dargo
know something happened to his skeleton?” Aneela asked.

“Hopefully
not,” I said. “Though, we have it covered if he decides to check on it.”

A moment later,
the skull started to sizzle and white foam appeared. Soon, the skeleton was no
more.

We took a
moment to appreciate the significance. Then Mom said, “Now what?”

“Now,” I said,
“we kill Dargo.”

*
 
*
 
*

Aneela went up
to the palace after Dargo returned and requested to speak with him. She managed
to convince the new king to hold a banquet to celebrate his return to power.
Invites were sent to every islander.

That was when
Estevan, Victor, Mom and I went to work.

The banquet was
held the next day. The palace was full of Dargons, but the banquet hall managed
to hold all one hundred of us. We took our seats as Dargo entered through a
door at the head of the long table. No one touched the food that was laid out
by Verna and her team of cooks. Before she left, Verna winked at Aneela.

“Welcome,
everyone,” Dargo said clearly from his spot. I sat next to Mom and Aneela, with
Estevan and Victor sitting across from us. “I am deeply honored to have you all
here to celebrate a new era for Dargo Island. While I was gone, Rockne managed
to integrate the island with the mainland, tainting our world with the evils of
the other.

“No more! We
don’t need them. You all think I am evil, but I am not. I heard my twisted
story told in the history classes and I am saddened. I was cast out by a world
that didn’t understand me. They wanted to kill my kind and me.

“Rockne was a
wizard, just like me. He was a tad misguided. I know what he tried to do. He
tried to replace his brother as the nature demon.”

I looked at
Mom, confused. How could he possibly know that?

“I know,” Dargo
continued, as if reading my mind, “because he told me so himself. He used to
visit me in my prison, long after he put me there. He kept me updated about the
changing world. For every new technology the world created, I grew angrier. The
world I hated with every fiber of my being was evolving while I rotted away in
a cylinder on an island no one could see.

“I feared none
of my fellow islanders—my people—cared what happened to me. But, then, Emil
came to my aid.” Dargo looked at Andor, who sat next to Victor. Andor said and
did nothing, only stared. “Andor’s great-grandfather stole the key from Rockne
and released me from my prison. Once I had control over him, I returned to my
hidden lair to unleash my birds, just the way I planned to before Rockne
dethroned me and put Aneela’s ancestor in my place.”

He glared at
Aneela with Josh’s eyes.

“Unfortunately,”
he said, looking at the rest of the hall, “an earthquake trapped me in my
chamber by the well. Emil perished and…” He seemed to consider what to say
next. “And, the rest is history, my friends.”

I looked at Mom
again. “I was right,” I said.

“Congratulations,
dear,” she said sarcastically.

“And now I have
Andor to thank for rescuing me again.” Dargo raised a goblet. “Your loyal
family has ensured the continuation of Dargo Island.” He held his goblet in
front of him, waiting. “You won’t drink with me?” he asked Andor.

Mom and I
stared at Andor as he slowly reached for his goblet.

“There’s my
boy,” Dargo called cheerfully before taking a huge gulp of his wine.

A few seconds
after he finished drinking, Dargo realized something was wrong. He looked at
his goblet, curious, and then looked at Andor, who still had his hand on his
goblet but hadn’t picked it up.

Dargo placed
his free hand on his chest and made a face. “What’s happening to me?”

Aneela stood
up. “You’ve been poisoned, and that poison is slowly, but surely, killing you.”

He frowned at
her, and then dropped his goblet. “I will leach everyone in this room if I…have
to.” His breathing quickened and I could see he was sweating heavily. “I will
kill you for this, Aneela.”

He looked to
the woman closest to him. “You. I will have your life.”

He reached for
her, but instead of making contact, his hand went through her. She disappeared
a second later. Dargo’s eyes widened as the room quickly emptied. Nearly
everyone at the table, including Andor, vanished. The only people left were
Mom, Aneela, Estevan, Victor and myself.

“What is this
deception?” Dargo screamed.

“After you sent
invites,” Aneela said, “we made it so the islanders would not come to the
palace. Andor, however, couldn’t be persuaded, so we drugged him and left him
in his bed. I will deal with him later. We also had Verna and the cooks leave.
You are alone.”

I remembered
trying to explain to Verna how the teleporter in the closet worked. It had
taken a lot longer than necessary. That woman knew how to cook, but that
appeared to be the extent of her knowledge.

“As for what’s
happening to you,” Aneela continued, “I convinced Verna to slip the poison into
your drink. It has no antidote,” Aneela added convincingly. “You will die if
you don’t leave Josh’s body immediately.”

Dargo smiled
with Josh’s lips. “I am not alone in this hall. I have you five.”

On cue, we all
grabbed our own goblets.

“We also have
poison in our drinks,” Aneela said, and this time she wasn’t lying. We didn’t
want to chance Dargo’s ability to leach. “If you try to take our lives, we will
drink, and you will be right back where you started.”

Dargo leaned
against the table, looking much weaker by the second. His breathing was loud
and squeaky, and he looked like he’d run from one end of the island to the
other without stopping. “Are you really ready to kill your friend in order to
get rid of me?”

“You better
believe it,” Estevan said. “I’m new to the island, but I do know you tried to
kill everyone I care about on the mainland. If killing Josh kills you as well,
it will be worth it. Josh knows that as well as we do.”

“Tried to?”
Dargo asked, sitting down in his chair. “Even now my plan is in motion to kill
the outsiders.”

I smiled. “Not
anymore. Not only did I kill your birds, but I also took your cure to the
mainland. As we speak, everyone infected is being cured.”

He frowned at
me. I doubted Josh could look that angry on his own.

“I’m going to
kill you, sweet thing. All I have to do is return to my skeleton, and then from
there I can possess anyone I choose.”

We all looked
at each other, feigning worry. Anything to convince him to leave Josh.
Hopefully, he would get lost trying to locate his body and would simply perish.

Instead, he
looked curious while sweat completely covered his face. My heart sped up the
more time Josh suffered the poison. I didn’t know how much time was left to
give him the antidote.

“Why can’t I
locate my body?” Dargo asked. “I just checked it before dinner.” He looked at
me. “What did you do with it?”

So much for
that plan.

Mom suddenly
groaned. Dargo stared at her, concentrating. She reached for her goblet but
couldn’t grab it, so I picked it up and brought it to her lips. Dargo released
her and she started coughing.

“You weren’t
bluffing,” he said, chuckling weakly. “Oh, well. I shall venture outside the
palace and find someone else.” He pushed his chair back with such force that it
shattered against the wall behind him.

“There’s no one
on the island,” I said. “I sent them away.”

“Impossible.
The train is guarded by my own loyal men, and they wouldn’t dare defy me. I
made sure of it.”

“They weren’t
loyal to you; they’re gone as well. And I didn’t say I used the train.”

He looked up.
“Ah, you sent them to your father. Clever. You know I can’t get up there
without the aid of a nature demon. I didn’t think you could either. Though, you
forgot one thing,” he said in a way that scared me. “Andor is asleep in his
bed, as you said earlier. I conversed with him plenty of times after I was
released, so I know where he lives.”

“Good luck
getting to him,” Victor said. “You’ll have to go through us, Dargonius.”

“I planned to
do just that.”

And then he
roared, sending wind so powerful it shot all of us, including the table and
chairs, into the air. The large hall doors splintered open, and just before I
landed I saw Dargo flying past us and out of the palace.

“How much time
does Dargo have left?” I asked Victor as he helped me up. The table consisted
of several sections, and one of them had landed on top of Mom and I. I was
fine, but she had a broken leg.

“Not much.
Several minutes, at least.”

“I have to
catch him before he gets to Andor.”

I took the jar
of antidote from Victor, ran outside, and called on the wind. It lifted me from
the ground and carried me across the courtyard and over the gate. I cursed
myself for not thinking of sending Andor up to Dad’s realm along with the
others. I figured Aneela was doing the same thing for mentioning he was still
on the island. Neither of us knew Dargo could fly, or that he wouldn’t be able
to leave his host’s body if his own skeleton was gone.

As I flew, I
saw Dargo’s red cloak flapping in the wind. He was struggling to fly, but he
was a lot closer to Andor’s house than I was. I called on more wind, and some
lightning as well. Dargo dodged all of the strikes but one, which caused him to
lose height and fall toward the ground.

He crashed,
shooting dirt into the air. Unfortunately, he landed right outside a house I
assumed to be Andor’s. Before I could land, he was on his feet and running
through the front door. Instead of following him, I shot through Andor’s
bedroom window. I landed on the floor in a pool of broken glass, which cut my
arms. I ignored the pain and blood, locking the bedroom door.

Andor was on
the bed, his eyes closed. I tried to pick him up, to take him away from the
house, but the bedroom door burst open with a shot of cyan-colored energy.
Dargo walked in a second later and shot me with that same energy.

I hit the
opposite wall and dropped to the floor, dazed. I saw him lean over Andor, who
suddenly arched his back off the bed, gasping. Dargo was leaching the life out
of him. Andor would die in his sleep.

“Josh, don’t
let him do this!”

Dargo stopped
and looked at me, surprised by my sudden plea. “Joshua has no power over me.”
He turned to go back to leaching.

“He’s stronger
than you think,” I said, distracting him again. “I know he’s still in there. He
vowed never to use his power again, for any reason. He won’t let you do this.”

“And yet, I am
doing it,” he said without looking at me. He stared at Andor, who had dropped
back to the bed.

I was out of
words and couldn’t command my body to stand. I was still stunned from colliding
with the wall. I thought it was weird that Dargo hadn’t resumed leaching,
though. He simply stared at his victim.

“What are you
waiting for?” I asked.

Dargo shook,
and it took me a second to realize he was crying. He fell to the floor next to
the bed. I managed to crawl toward him, and saw Dargo scratching his face
violently. “Stop it, stop it! Get out of my head!”

I couldn’t tell
if it was Dargo or Josh speaking, but I figured it was Dargo. I waited, not
knowing what to do. The antidote was near the window; I’d dropped it as soon as
I crashed through. If I didn’t act soon, Josh would die.

Dargo suddenly
looked at me and laughed, and there was no doubt this time it was him. “You
think you’ve won, but you haven’t.”

And then he
just stopped talking. He stared at me without seeing. He was no longer
breathing, either. I grabbed the jar and went to him as fast as I could, but
before I could pour the antidote into his mouth, Josh’s body took a sudden,
loud breath. He grabbed the hand that held the jar.

“Don’t,” he
said. “Dargo’s still here. If you cure me, he’ll take over again. I can’t hold
him back for long.”

“But…you’ll
die.” I could barely say the words.

“It’s been a
long time coming, Astrid. Without Dargo’s skeleton, he doesn’t have anything
tying him to this world. If I die, he’ll be gone forever.”

I cried without
shame. I rarely cry, but the tears came now. “Okay,” I said. “I’m so sorry,
Josh.”

“Don’t be. I’m
dying a hero.” He chuckled, and then coughed. His breathing sounded worse than
ever. “I finally get to know what death is. About time—”

I dropped the
jar, which rolled away from us. Josh was gone.