The Dark Light (33 page)

“Vermillion and Delane are gone,” said Sol, after again checking the alley. “You ready?”

I nodded.

“Then let’s see how fast you can run.”

We didn’t get far. No sooner had we entered the alley than grunts and growls came from close by.

“They’re coming,” I said.

We sprinted left, toward a narrow passage close to Malone’s that cut back to Maslian’s Square. Sol stopped. He pressed his back to the wall and peered around the corner. He quickly pulled back. “No good,” he whispered. “They’ve blocked it.”

I ducked low and peeked. A sentinel gang waited at the head of the passage. Their aim was unclear. Keep others out? Or keep us in? I checked in the direction of the house, expecting more sentinels to stream into the alley from behind.

“We can’t go back,” I said. “We’ll never make it past the house.”

“Then we’ll have to run for it.”

“Toward the
sentinels
?”

“If we wait much longer, they’ll cut off the other end of the alley too.”

“But they’ll see us go past,” I whispered.

“Keep your eyes forward, your head up, and whatever you do, don’t fall.”

I took a couple of breaths and tried to gauge the distance to the street. I used to get pretty good times in track. The end of the alley couldn’t have been much more than a hundred meters.

“This is nuts,” I said.

“You can do it, Mia.”

I again checked behind. The sentinels had not emerged from Malone’s.

“Remember,” said Sol. “Head to the Velanhall.”

I hesitated, no longer liking the tone in Sol’s voice. “Sol—”

He squeezed my hand. “You’ve got the Solenetta,” he said. “Don’t look back.” Before I could stop him, he tore toward the gang of waiting sentinels.

It was an utterly psychotic act. And all just to give me a few precious seconds to get away. I couldn’t waste them.

Head up, eyes forward, I sprinted as hard as I could. A hundred meters had never seemed so far. All I could picture was Sol
among the sentinels that guarded the passage. He
was
crazy. He couldn’t fight that many. And outrun them? He didn’t stand a chance.

A deep voice called from behind—
“Get her!”
—and I stumbled as I glanced back. Sentinels poured out of Malone’s. Their gargantuan feet pummeled the cobbles as they picked up speed. But thirty . . . twenty . . . ten meters and I’d make it to the street, thanks to Sol.

The sounds and scents of the crowd drew me—cheering, clapping, and a sweet aroma like melted toffee or fudge. The Solenetta bounced around my neck, pounding against my skin like an external heartbeat. It was a part of me. I couldn’t let them take it back.

Five . . . four . . . three . . .

A final push and I burst free of the alley.

To the right, the street was almost empty. But to the left, a large group had gathered on the corner of Maslian’s Square. I headed for them with one mission in mind: lose the sentinels in the masses. Another group merged with the one on the corner. And then another. And another.

A cry went up from behind,
“That way!”
But it was too late. I was already deep in the crowd.

The drums beat ever louder. Bodies surged to catch sight of the Suzerain’s approach. Elbows out, I forced a path in the
direction of Malone’s hideout, searching for Sol. There was a commotion as the sentinels pushed through the crowd.

Head down, crushed on all sides, I pressed on. But it was no good. For every forward step I took, the crowd forced me three steps to the side. Bodysurfing the mosh pit had never been my thing. Claustrophobia hit. Fireworks exploded overhead and massive cheers erupted. With a final surge, I was pushed forward and out into the front of the crowd.

A wide path arched across the square to the street that led toward the Velanhall. Lines of guards held back the masses. On the far left, the Suzerain’s cavalcade appeared.

It started with a row of sentinels and then a troop of guards who marched in step with flags and pennants outstretched. Dancers came next. Musicians. Acrobats and jugglers. The Rubber Man from yesterday posed on a moving platform.

The people went crazy around me. Why did they cheer the man whose plans would see Brakaland enter a war with no end? How did the Suzerain dare to face the people when he was responsible for so much death? Cheer as they may, no one knew that I stood with the one thing the Suzerain most wanted around my neck—something I would never let him have.

I scanned the faces in the crowd, searching for someone,
anyone
, opposed to this madness. Instead I caught movement on the opposite side of the square. A group of guards had broken free of their duties and pursued a figure that dashed along the edge of the crowd. Sentinels followed.

“Sol,” I whispered. I ducked between the guards to see better. It was no good. Every time I moved, one stepped to the side and blocked my view. I jumped, feigning interest in the parade, cheering and clapping with those around me.

One guard broke from the line to push back a man who’d stepped onto the route. The pursuit across the square became clear. A young man darted in and out of the crowds. But it wasn’t Sol.

It was Delane.

The parade forgotten, I pushed into the guards, battling to get out into the street.

“Keep back!” bellowed a guard.

The chase continued. Delane swerved in and out, heading to the right and somehow keeping out of reach of the guards he passed. The sentinels gained speed. Another pack approached from the right. Clearly, Delane hadn’t spotted them. He was sprinting right for them!

The flag bearers at the head of the parade were less than fifty feet away. The crowd went crazy and pushed again. Delane ran toward the sentinels.

Gripped with panic, I reached into my pocket. My fingers closed on the decimator I’d saved for the Suzerain. I had no choice; I couldn’t let them take him. Eyes closed, I said a prayer. And then I crushed the decimator between my palms and hurled the spell into the crowd across the square.

E
nergy surged from the epicenter of the blast, knocking me, and everyone around me, off our feet. The drums stopped. The music ceased. Chaos erupted.

Terrified I’d be crushed, I scrambled up as the crowd began to flee. The guards, many of whom were also down, battled to hold back the herd. Delane was nowhere to be seen.

A man beside me got unsteadily to his feet. He pointed a shaky finger at me. “She did it!”

Time to go. I spun around. Three guards approached from the rear.

“It was her!” cried the man, outraged. “I saw her throw it. She tried to kill the Suzerain!”

Guards closed in to my left. Sentinels to my right. Soon they’d formed a wide ring around me. Onlookers drew close until a deep wall of bodies surrounded me. There was nowhere left to run.

One of the guards broke free of the ring. “Is this her?” he shouted, heading my way. “Is it her?”

An annoyingly familiar voice again rang: “That’s her! I saw it! She was after the Suzerain!”

Frozen, I didn’t dare speak. I glanced at the sentinels on my right, praying they weren’t the ones who’d chased us from Malone’s. I was in big trouble if they recognized me.

The crowd fell silent as another guard entered the fray. He was taller with a scarlet uniform, which stood out against the other guards’ gray. “Is this the one who released the decimator?” he demanded, forcing his way to the front.

“This is the one,” said the first guard, again pointing at me.

“Then take her!” the leading guard barked. “Make way for the Suzerain!”

The ring of guards closed in. A hand grabbed my arm. As quick as that, I was under arrest.

As they herded me away, the enormity of what I’d done hit me. In one stupid moment, I’d blown our entire plan. As if they would ever have caught Delane with all those people! Malone would be looking for me too—the eye had seen me. It wouldn’t
take long for the guards to put it together. And here I was, alone, arrested, and with the Solenetta around my neck.

The guards marched me from Maslian’s Square to a covered, sentinel-drawn wagon. There was no sign of Sol.

“In,” said the guard to my right. He flung me forward. Another guard waited by the cart.

I took another look for Sol, but, other than a few onlookers, there was no one on this part of the street. I climbed up, slipped between the tarp flaps at the rear of the wagon, and then perched on one of the two benches inside.

The tarp blocked much of the sunlight, and the air inside was close and hot and smelled vaguely of mildew and sweat. Veering between stunned disbelief and outright panic, I grasped the Solenetta beneath my shirt and prayed for it to call to me again, to offer me some kind of help.

How was I going to get out of this? I prayed that Sol or Delane or
someone
had seen what had happened. They could save me. Or Bromasta—he’d defeated a demon army on the Theadery Plains! Busting me out of a wagon couldn’t be so hard. But what if they didn’t know? Sol would be waiting for me on the Velanhall’s steps. Delane, if he had any sense, would be sprinting to Vermillion’s as fast as he could. I’d be clapped in irons before they’d even realized I was missing. Word would spread of what had happened at Malone’s. And then the Suzerain would come for me.

Rocking through the cobbled streets, we slowly made our way through Orion. From time to time, the flaps in the tarp caught in the breeze and I’d catch sight of a sentinel guarding the step at the rear of the wagon. I crossed “make a run for it” off my dwindling list of options.

The wagon stopped abruptly and a guard appeared at the rear.

“Out.”

Tall white buildings surrounded a courtyard filled with wagons and horses, guards and sentinels. A white tower rose into the clouds above. It was the Velanhall.

Seizing my arm, a guard led me to a wooden desk manned by more guards. “We’ve got another,” he said, and hurled me toward them.

“Crime?”

“Releasing a decimator in a public place and within reach of the Suzerain!”

It didn’t sound good when he said it like that.

The guard at the desk watched me from beneath thick bushy eyebrows. “Speak!”

But what to say? I’d never been in trouble with the cops or even at school. My attitude to authority was pretty straightforward: Do what’s expected of you, keep your head down, and people pretty much leave you alone. Now I had to think—fast. And that was difficult mid-meltdown.

“It was an accident,” I stuttered.

Bushy eyebrows shot into the guard’s hairline. “An accident?”

“Yeah.” I glanced at the guard at my side. “It was in my pocket and . . .”

“And?” asked the man.

“And I thought it was going to get crushed.” I watched closely for a hint that they were buying my story. It was difficult to tell. Best to keep talking. “We were packed really tight. So I took it out to keep it safe, but this guy behind me pushed and . . .”

The guard at the desk leaned forward. One of the eyebrows sunk. “Where are you from?”

I forced myself to hold his gaze. “Fortknee.”

It couldn’t have been more than a couple of seconds that we stared eye to eye. It felt like hours. If brains were made of clockwork, then this guy’s cogs and pulleys were definitely whirring. His finger drummed the desk. His mouth twitched at the corner.

“Fortknee,” he said. And then, with a dismissive shake of the head, he backed down! “I haven’t time for this. Seventeen arrests already today. She’ll have to wait. Take her to the pit.”

Without a word, the guards at my side forced me through a door at the rear of the courtyard and into the Velanhall.

My first thought when we stepped inside was that I’d passed through yet another Barrier. This was one of Sol’s worlds within a world, a vast concourse of polished marble with columns that
rose to a high, vaulted ceiling. The room stretched on forever—it had to run the width of the entire Velanhall, at least the length of a city block. In the center lay a crystal-blue pool, larger than the pool at Crownsville High. Water blossomed from fountains hidden beneath the surface. Two or three hundred people walked here, all of different races. Their voices and footsteps echoed.

I didn’t get long to take in the space before one of the guards shoved my shoulder and marched me to the left, away from the pool, and toward a narrow wooden door.

“Stop!”

One of the guards grabbed my jacket. Confused, I turned, just as the guard to my right sank to his knee. One by one, everyone in the concourse did the same. Silence fell. Only a small group of about twenty remained on their feet. They headed toward us, flanked by sentinels and guards. Then the sentinels parted. There stood a tall, thin man dressed in a three-piece suit of pale gray.

As soon as the man stepped forward, those who’d walked with him also bowed. The Solenetta grew heavy around my neck. I resisted the urge to grab it.

It had to be. I knew it.

Finneus Elias.

The Suzerain.

I don’t know where he’d got that suit, but it was definitely from somewhere expensive and it was definitely from somewhere on the Other Side. He appeared neither young nor old and had cropped dark hair. You might have guessed he was a lawyer or a stockbroker. He certainly looked out of place here. He moved with the confidence of a man who didn’t care that everyone watched him. In fact, he looked as if he enjoyed it. The heels of his polished black shoes clipped the marble floor.

“So this is the young lady who disrupted my parade,” he said, his voice smooth and deep. I noticed his eyes—one purple, one gray. These were the eyes of the man who’d killed my mother. “So now I am rushed back here when my people wished to see me on the streets. What is your name?”

I knew what I wanted to yell—“I’m the sister of the boy you snatched!”

Instead, I said, “Poppy Pillows,” then kicking myself, added, “
Fellows
. My name is Poppy Fellows.” My voice echoed off the marble walls.

He looked as though he was trying to remember the name. “You don’t seem certain.”

“It’s Poppy Fellows.”

The fountains trickled in the background. The guards breathed deep at my side. Tension was ripe in the air.