The Egg (Return of the Ancients Book 4) (21 page)

“And they call humans foolish?” Jareth muttered in a voice thick with sarcasm.

I silently agreed with him. Did Blondie really think I’d just give up and join him after everything that had happened? And especially after he’d killed Tigger?

Walking through the red swirling mist, we reached the crack in the wall. The air still stank of sulfur, but it wasn’t quite as bad. The mist seemed to have some sort of dampening effect on it.

Rafael went first, nearly stooping in half to step through the crack. He made me wait until he poked his head back through to announce it safe before I followed. Ducking through the crack, I straightened slowly on the other side and peered at the pulsing network of light cords spreading out across a vast field. It looked like a massive golden spider web splayed out on the ground.

“It is some kind of trap,” Jareth whispered as he joined us.

“It is,” TopHat confirmed from behind. “The Brotherhood of the Snake keeps humans trapped in their base emotions to feed off of them. Fear. Hatred. Distrust.”

I shivered. “Is there a way to destroy it?” I asked.

TopHat met my inquisitive gaze with a kind smile. “It is time for me to go, Sydney. You must continue alone.”

Icy fear jolted through me. He hadn’t answered me. “Is that my Blue Thread?” I asked hoarsely.

He just smiled and said, “Trust yourself, Sydney.”

That was exactly what I didn’t want to hear. That was the hardest thing to do. But before I could even protest, he melted into the shadows and was gone.

“Figures,” I muttered under my breath. When I needed him the most, he wasn’t going to be there. But then, I wasn’t sure what he could really do, anyway.

Straightening my shoulders, I took a deep breath. I had the Tulpa to destroy and maybe the light cords, too. And with the way my thoughts reacted in the Second Dimension, I’d best keep myself as focused as possible.

“Shall we?” Rafael asked, bowing a little.

I glanced up at Jareth, but he was unusually quiet and withdrawn.

“Let’s see where the cords go,” I said then.

They both just nodded.

Silently, we skirted the edge of the field, inspecting the cords to see where they ended, but they were merely twisted strands of light, woven back into the web and seemingly didn’t even possess an end.

It was difficult to not let my thoughts wander. I generated myriad Tulpas above my head, mostly dark, gloomy ones. I hadn’t realized before just how much I’d let my thoughts control me instead of the other way around. And even worse, most of my thoughts were criticisms offered by a running inner-dialogue of negativity whose sole purpose was to make me feel as bad about myself as possible. It was a battle to focus either on the task at hand or on positive, happy thoughts.

We’d covered almost the entire perimeter of the field before we stumbled upon a conduit of some kind. It was huge. There were so many twisted cords of light that they had fused into a single channel which descended into the bowels of the Second Dimension itself and flowed out of the field to the edge of what looked like a dark forest.

I took a step forward and then paused. I didn’t know where I was going. Was I leading both Jareth and Rafael down the wrong path? What if I was leading them to the wrong destiny?

Nervously, I turned to them and asked, “Where is it going?” I asked. “It isn’t somewhere we should go, right? Am I making the wrong decision?”

I didn’t have to say it. They knew I was asking if it led to the Tree of Life.

“The Tree is not something to be found easily,” Rafael explained softly. “Its leaves have yet to be found on Earth. Its roots are still hidden on Avalon. No doubt, the trunk is as protected here as well.”

That made me feel a little better. But only a little. “But your fate. And Jareth’s …” My voice trailed away.

Jareth’s brows drew into a dark line. “The Tree of Life is surrounded by the Shadows of Death, Sydney. Only something truly evil can penetrate it. As ornery as you are, I really don’t think you qualify.”

It felt good to roll my eyes back at him.

It was all a bit esoteric to me, but it sounded like it wasn’t too risky to keep following the cords. “Then let’s keep going,” I said, cautiously heading for the woods.

But as I walked, my eerie, nagging sense of doubt turned increasingly fearful. What if they were wrong? What if I imagined we broke though the Shadows of Death? Would that summon them to me? Would I accidentally harm the Tree of Life and blow up the dimensions all because I couldn’t control my thoughts?

A different thought blazed across my mind.

If my thoughts were all that powerful in the Second Dimension, why couldn’t I just wish myself home like Dorothy in
The Wizard of OZ
?

Startled, I came to an abrupt halt.

“What is it?” I heard Rafael ask.

But I was too busy thinking of Al and Betty to answer.

I tried to focus on just them. I really did. I even kept repeating to myself
there’s no place like home, like Al and Betty’s.
But more things popped into my head than Al’s bald head and Betty’s sweet nature. I saw the Wicked Witch of the West, along with Toto, and Mrs. Patton’s creepy garden gnomes.

The ground shifted and then we were falling, scraping our shins against a rock wall.

I lost all control of my thoughts after that and panicked.

“Relax, Sydney,” Rafael’s gray eyes swam into view. I felt his strong hands cradle my head. “Just breathe. Slow and easy. Like this. Copy me.”

I fought my rising panic to focus only on his voice and stare into his eyes. It took several tries, but then I was just breathing like he was, long slow intakes of air like going up on a roller coaster and then letting it all out once before repeating the process again.

It calmed me almost at once.

I looked around.

It was warm. It looked like I’d only succeeded in transporting us deeper into the woods. We were standing in a small clearing next to a rock wall. Faint lights and shadows played on the stones. To the left, I could see the fused light cord still running through the dark trees surrounding us. Wherever we were, we hadn’t really gone far, I guess.

We certainly hadn’t gotten any closer to Earth.

I guess my power to dream and use it to forge my own destiny was underdeveloped. I couldn’t control it enough to direct it to what I wanted. It was weird. My negative thoughts had so much more power. I guess I’d been working on those kind much more than the others.

“I don’t think I can do this,” I confessed in a whisper, dimly aware that I was proving my point by reinforcing my negative thoughts again.

“Just what
was
that thing you created?” Jareth asked me then, his dark eyes lit with a glint of humor, but there was sympathy in them as well. “It’ll give me nightmares.”

“I was trying to get us all home,” I answered, blinking away sudden tears.

Rafael pulled me close and hugged me hard. “It’s ok, little pixie,” he whispered into my hair.

I just let myself stay there and refused to think about anything except how much I loved Rafael and appreciated the fact that he
was
there.

“We should rest for bit,” Rafael proposed after a bit.

“Good idea,” Jareth agreed. “She’s getting exhausted.”

Suddenly I
was
exhausted. And I was getting thirsty. My lips were parched. I felt Jerry stir in my sweatshirt pocket and my heart tugged, hoping he was still hibernating and not suffering from thirst or hunger. Yet. Blondie had said there was nothing for humans to eat or drink here. I wondered if it was true, but I was too afraid to even attempt imagining some sort of water.

“Here,” Jareth said, thrusting a water bottle in my face. He waved to his guitar case that he’d just dropped onto the ground. “I only brought a few, but you might as well drink up.”

It was the best water I’d ever tasted. Cool and refreshing. And after seeing Jerry drink his fill as well, I tucked him back into my sweatshirt. Tightening the water bottle cap, I leaned back against the rock wall to gather my scattered wits and rest, if only for a few moments.

Sitting down next to me, Rafael placed his hand on the back of my neck and gently rubbed my cheek with his thumb. It was relaxing.

With a faraway look in his eyes, Jareth tuned his guitar and absently strummed the strings. Gradually, the soft notes morphed into a song to accompany his voice. I just listened. There was no doubt he was a talented musician. He knew how to embed his emotions into music.

I don’t know how much time passed. One moment, I sat there cradling my head on my knees, taking comfort in Rafael’s presence and listening to Jareth’s music. And the next moment, I woke up with Rafael bending over me.

“No more dreams, little pixie,” he said, his amused gray eyes studying mine.

I stared up at him sleepily.

It took a moment to remember where I was. It took even longer to realize that my dreams were even more dangerous here than my thoughts. I jumped up so quickly that I had to steady myself against the low rock wall.

“What did I do?” I gasped.

“Nothing irrecoverable,” Jareth said. His voice came from high above my head.

I glanced up to see him pacing along the top of the stone wall, his hands locked behind his back. But the wall was much taller than before and part of it had morphed into a replica of Disneyland’s Cinderella Castle. A few feet away there was a puddle of white, melted goo.

I covered my mouth with my hands, vaguely recalling I’d been dreaming about being chased through a castle by an evil Pillsbury Doughboy. I eyed the puddle of white, melted goo again.

“Fortunately, Fae light still has its uses here,” Rafael said with a smile, following my questioning gaze. “You have an interesting mind, little pixie.”

I wasn’t sure
interesting
was exactly the right word.

Jareth dropped down from the wall, landing lightly on his feet. “Shall we go?” he asked quietly.

We didn’t really speak much after that. And we left quickly, following the ever-growing channel of light through the dark trees surrounding us.

I tried not to think of anything but what I saw in front of me. I had some success, and it made me more observant than usual. It wasn’t long before I could tell something was very wrong with Jareth. It was in the tenseness of his shoulders, the way he walked, and even in the tilt of his head.

Thinking it better to engage in conversation rather than let my thoughts wander, I skipped ahead a few steps to join him, leaving Rafael to bring up the rear.

“What’s bothering you, Jareth?” I asked, picking up his arm to put it around my neck.

He didn’t say anything at first, but finally, in a voice so low I almost didn’t hear it, he answered, “I was made to destroy this place. I’m a weapon, Sydney.”

I frowned. “You’re not under Melody’s control—” I began.

“I’m still a weapon,” he cut me off gruffly. “I’m capable of destroying the Tree of Life, maybe even this place and Earth along with it.” He shrugged in helpless resignation. “Maybe that’s what I’ll do here, after all. It’s what I’ve been created to do.”

I felt horrible. “It’s my fault,” I whispered. “If I hadn’t come here—”

“Neither of you are to blame,” Rafael interrupted us from behind. “I ordered Jareth to bring me here. The fault is mine. And I was the first one to make the wrong Blue-Threaded choice.”

We all stopped walking and just looked at each other.

“So, we’re all responsible,” Jareth said with a bitter curl of his lip. “And our fates have brought us here, just the same.”

I bowed my head. Maybe they’d made mistakes. I hadn’t made my choice yet. The pressure of it all—the sheer weight of it—was becoming too much to bear.

How did Samantha
do
it? How did she hold onto her dream through it all? How did she persevere through the negativity to create a new reality? I wondered what such powerful thoughts actually looked like.

I guess I’d really managed to marry my heart’s wish with my burning curiosity that time, because we were suddenly caught up in some kind of vortex. It was kind of like those special effects used in movies to illustrate jumping to light speed. The darkness whooshed past us and all at once we were still standing next to the conduit, but on the edge of a magical world, a world of beauty.

It was beyond inspiring just to look at it, a collection of crystal towers sweeping gracefully into the sky, lit with internal golden light. Threads of light ran through each of the stones, depicting different scenes of butterflies, flowers, and birds that—as I watched—detached from the stones to fly or move about on their own.

The entire place was alive.

Windows dotted the structures, and from them I could hear the peaceful sounds of flutes inviting those outside to enter and take rest. A glowing pool of purple light surrounded the entire place like a moat, and though the sky behind the entire structure was still black, it was an exotic, velvety darkness, holding beauty in its own right.

It was a place of serenity and harmony.

A cool wind blew against my face, bringing with it the refreshing, pleasing scent of coffee.

There was no doubt about it. This entire creation belonged to Samantha, her life’s work.

I just stared at it, awestruck.

Jareth gave a low whistle, and as if in a dream, knelt by the purple moat, skimming his hand over its glowing surface.

“Part of me belongs here,” he confessed in a whisper. “Not with the Brotherhood, but here, in this place. It calls to me like a siren’s song.” There was a wild, almost hungry look in his eyes.

I kind of understood what he meant. The place was an inspiration. But it didn’t make me want to stay. It made me want to create a world of my own.

Jareth’s face had turned almost sad, and I moved back to give him his privacy.

And promptly stepped on Rafael’s toes.

As I whirled to apologize, he caught me about the waist, looking at me from under long, black lashes.

I reached up to lock my hands behind his neck and meet his gaze. “Thank you for coming for me,” I whispered, letting my love for him shine in my eyes.