The Flame in the Mist (43 page)

“I’ll get you, common dross!” He lurched toward Digby, his eyes blazing with hatred. Flames leapt into life around Digby’s light sphere. Jemma quickly reinforced it, and the flames went out.

“Keep back, you!” Digby jabbed the halberd at Feo, while veering from side to side and kicking over a few candles. They snapped upright again, burning brightly.

“Your darkest demon—Scagavay!”

Darkest demon? Jemma gulped. Last time, it had been “favored phantom,” and that had been terrifying enough.

Untie, knot—please!
At last, the rope slithered undone.

“Come on, Flora.” Jemma pulled the quivering girl over to Simon and Tiny. Noodle and Pie were just gnawing through the last strands of their ropes, and the boys shook themselves free.

“Morda-Morda-Morda-lay …”

Jemma grabbed their hands and dragged all three triplets toward the door, kicking at as many candles as she could on the way. But the candles remained standing, as if attached to the flagstones by springs, their flames still strong.

“You who keep’st the Light at bay …”
Nox and Nocturna droned on. Smoke belched into the room.

“Flora, Simon, Tiny,” said Jemma, “hurry outside! Your pa will be there any minute.”

The triplets bolted for the door, and Jemma ran toward Digby, who was swinging the halberd at Feo. Feo shot another Fire gaze at him, but the light sphere around Digby was strong, and the flames instantly died.

“Hazebury muck!” Feo snatched at the halberd’s handle.

“Agromond menace!” Digby dodged Feo’s grasp.

“Bring to us on this Your day …”

Jemma stood by Digby’s side. For a split second, Feo’s eyes wavered to her and flashed with sadness. Then he fixed them on Digby again, his expression hardening. Behind him, smoke curled around Nox and Nocturna as if embracing them. Jemma gathered her focus and took a deep breath.

“The Opening Call, Digby,” she said. “I’ll say it three times. Join in when you can—”

Screams from the hall split the air. She wheeled around. Shade stood in the doorway, clutching Simon and Tiny by the collar in one hand, Flora in the other.

“Did you really think a mere lock could hold me, Jem-
mah
?” she sneered. She kicked the door shut behind her and marched into the Chamber, adding her banshee-shrill voice to the Agromond chant.

“Your darkest demon—Scagavay!”

Jemma hurled herself at Shade. Noodle and Pie were ahead of her, running up Shade’s legs. For a second, Shade flinched. Simon and Tiny wriggled free and ran for the door, but it was shut fast. Gripping Flora’s hair with one hand, Shade hurled a Dromfell at Jemma with the other. Jemma ducked, and it exploded against one of the pillars.

“You coward, Shade. Let her go!”

“And
why
exactly would I do that, Jem-mah?” said Shade, sweeping Noodle from her shoulder as if he were a speck of dust, and sending him flying.

The Agromond chant droned on.

“Jem—help!” Digby yelled. “I can’t hold him!” His light sphere was flickering, choked by the smoke now surrounding him and Feo. Feo was choking too, and apparently unable to summon more flames. Red with rage, he finally managed to grab the halberd’s handle. He and Digby were now face-to-face, deadlocked, the handle horizontal between them.

“Dig, hold on!” Jemma shot reinforcing Light at him.

“Oh no you don’t, you she-devil!” Shade snarled. “We can’t have you helping him, now can we?” She caught Jemma’s wrist with her free hand and twisted, forcing her to the floor. “I’ll teach you to destroy my amulet!” Even without it, her strength was immense. She flung Flora to the flagstones, then straddled Jemma, pinning Jemma’s arms with her knees and closing her fingers around Jemma’s throat. Noodle and
Pie scratched and bit, but Shade was oblivious to them now, and to Flora and the boys, who had thrown themselves on her and were pulling at her dress, her hair, anything their small hands could grasp, yelling
Get off her! Leave her alone!
at the top of their small voices.

Choking for breath, Jemma called upon her Stone’s Power and managed to pry Shade’s hands apart.

“Very well, have it your way, Jem-mah!” Shade’s diamond birthmark was almost black with rage. “Revenge can still be sweet!” She ripped Jemma’s Stone from her throat, then dropped it with a roar of pain, her hand red and blistered. She blew on her palm, and the red faded. Then she blew on Jemma’s face. Jemma felt her whole body freeze.

“And that,” said Shade, “is the last breath I’ll ever waste on you!” She stood, shaking off the triplets and rats, then kicked Jemma hard, in the stomach. Jemma doubled up, groaning, and reached for her Stone, but Shade kicked it away as she grabbed Flora by the hair and hauled her toward the fireplace.

“Let me go! Pleeeeease! Jemma—help!” Flora’s cries ripped Jemma’s heart. Simon and Tiny lay on the floor, trembling. Digby was on his back now, with Feo on top of him, holding the halberd’s handle across his throat.

The Agromonds were winning.

Don’t despair
. Two snouts nudged Jemma’s hand, and dropped her Stone into her palm. Warmth trickled through her.

“Morda, Morda, Mordalay …”
Shade’s strident voice now joined with her parents’.

“Feo!” Shade yelled, holding Flora around the neck with one arm. “Stop squandering precious energy on that scab and get over here! It’s time for the Sacrifice!”

Flora screamed. Digby roared, held down by Feo. Simon and Tiny wailed.

“No …” Jemma clasped her Stone and struggled to her knees. Noodle and Pie leapt onto her shoulders and rippled energy into her, but still the pain from Shade’s kick was intense, and she let out a moan, clutching her belly.

Feo looked at her. His face softened. He loosened his hold on Digby and mouthed her name.
Jemma …
The pinkish aura she had seen the night before flared around him.

“It’s not too late, Feo,” Jemma rasped. “You can still change your mind.” The aura moved toward her, hesitated, then moved again. “Please, Feo, think of what you said last night.”

“Bring to us on this your day—”

“Feo!” Shade shrieked. “Your family needs you
—now
!”

Suddenly, Feo’s pink aura withered and disappeared. His mouth set. He spat at Digby and released the halberd, then stood and backed away. The Agromonds’ protective shield shimmered like dark water as he stepped back into it and took his place next to Shade. Both his eyes and Shade’s glazed, and they joined in the chant.

“Your darkest demon, Scagavay!”

Flora, still gripped by Shade, was choking on the smoke, tears streaming down her face. Digby hauled himself to his feet and charged toward her, but the force field around the Agromonds was even stronger now, and he slashed and clawed at it in vain. Jemma crawled over to him, clutching her Stone, the rats on her shoulders. Tiny and Simon followed close behind. Her lungs seared from the stinking black cloud spewing from the fireplace. Her light shield was all but gone. Digby
helped her stand, the light around him strong again now that Feo was no longer attacking him.

“Morda-Morda-Mordalay …”
Nocturna slowly stepped away from the group and turned to face Flora. Wind whisked from the fireplace, spiraling all the grayness in the room into one dense mass above her head, where it hovered, pulsing like a monstrous dark heart. Nocturna gripped the sword with both hands and slowly began to raise it.

Jemma summoned all her strength and concentration. “The Light be called,” she yelled. “Scagavay, be gone, now!”

Nocturna wavered; the sword wobbled. Scagavay’s dark mass shrank slightly.

“The Light be called!” Jemma shouted a second time, as loudly as she could. “Scagavay, be gone—now!”

Scagavay shrank again. The black candles sputtered. Nocturna’s sword clanged to the ground. Nox and Feo stopped chanting. For a second, their gray protective shield wavered. Seizing his chance, Digby rushed into it and wrenched Flora from Shade’s grip.

“Got you!” He picked her up and carried her back to Jemma’s side.

“The Light be called!” Jemma yelled as Noodle and Pie sent a burst of energy through her shoulders. “Scagavay, be—”

An arrow of blackness shot out from Scagavay, puncturing her light shield and twining around her throat. Her words choked. Noodle and Pie fell to the ground.

“Bring to us on this Your day …”
The Agromond voices strengthened again. The ever-growing mass above their heads swelled.
“Your darkest demon—SCAGAVAY!”

The candles in the circle flared. Flames in the fireplace
leapt up. Scagavay started to emit a sound, high at first, like a distant scream, which rapidly crescendoed as a deep roar rose up behind it, overpowering it and filling the room with one deafening howl. The wind renewed its assault, whipping up the debris around Jemma, Digby, and the triplets. Noodle and Pie clawed their way up to her pockets.

“Come on, Jem,” Digby yelled. “We can do it!” He took her hand. Her light shield intensified. The strand around her throat fell to the floor in sooty fragments, and together, they shouted at the top of their lungs:

“SCAGAVAY, BE GONE NOW!”

The flagstones around their feet seemed to melt. Wisps of light, hundreds of them, gold, green, pink, and blue, poured up from below and swirled toward Scagavay.

“Jem!” Digby gasped. “Look—Luminals!” The Luminals wove through Scagavay’s thick mass, separating it into strands, which began to shrink and dissipate. Several candles went out.

“No!” Nocturna shrieked. She picked up the sword and grabbed one of her weasels by the scruff of its neck. “Mord Ancestors,” she shouted, holding up the writhing creature, “witness my Offering!” With one deft move, she sliced its throat and dropped it, then snatched up a second one and repeated the slaughter. Scagavay dipped smoky tendrils through the sacrificial blood pooling at Nocturna’s feet, and expanded again.

The triplets screamed. Luminals kept coming, but as fast as they materialized, they were absorbed by Scagavay’s darkness. The surviving two weasels slithered toward Jemma, teeth bared, then leapt for her throat. But Digby was quick.
He grabbed them by their tails and flung them, screeching, into a pillar.

“Jem!” he yelled. “The Song!”

The Song. Jemma fought to remember its melody, but it muddled in her mind. Then she heard it—the heavenly sound that had poured into her through Drudge’s arms the day before, winding through her head, gathering force.

“Jem—that’s beautiful!”

“It’s not me, Dig—”

The melody was coming from the back of the room. Jemma wheeled around, and there, emerging from the shadows, was Drudge. He stood for a second, teetering. A blue aura flickered around him, stronger than Jemma had seen surrounding him before; and then a younger, luminous body began shimmering through his wizened exterior as he walked slowly toward them. The song flowed from his mouth, but seemed to be swirling around him also, growing louder with every step he took.

The Agromonds’ voices trailed off. Clumps of ceiling plaster rained around them. One of the pews cracked. In a far corner of the room, a beam crashed to the floor.

Drudge’s hair blew back in the wind, his gait steady and purposeful. Layers of aging dissolved, as if being peeled away by his warrior spirit. It was Gudred who stepped up beside Jemma.

“Three hundred years I have tarried,” he said, his voice strong and clear. “Now it is your voice they await. Sing, Jemma. Sing with me, and with the Song!”

He took her hand. Suddenly, the glorious sound was somehow rising from the ground, rushing up through her feet and
out of her mouth with a crystal clarity that felt utterly new and familiar at the same time. It was as if a whole choir was pouring out from her and into the room.
The voices of Majem, and all my ancestors
, she thought. But it was so much more: an army of Light Beings, of souls who had come to add their voices to the Song. They
were
the Song. And as they sang, Luminals appeared again, increasing in number and intensity. Scagavay pulled back, fragmenting, then coalesced again into a trembling cloud above the Agromonds’ heads. Stunned into silence, Nox and Feo were ashen. Shade clamped onto Nocturna, whose sword now hung limp in her hand as Luminals came thick and fast, flying through Scagavay’s cloudy sinews, breaking them apart.

“Jem,” said Digby, “it’s working! Scagavay’s shrinking!”

Jemma’s heart lifted, then fell again when she turned to Gudred. His light was dimming.

“You must go on,” he rasped. “Finish it.…”

She held his hand tighter, as if doing so could keep him there, and continued to sing. The glorious chorus grew. Scagavay’s roar died down; the wind dropped. The black globe was shrinking. The Agromonds stood stupefied, their protective shield gone. A stone arm fell from Mordana’s statue. With a loud
crack!
a fissure zigzagged across the hearth.

The invisible choir stopped its melody, hanging on one heavenly chord as if every note in the universe were hovering on the edge of some momentous event.

“Now,” Gudred whispered, “the Releasing Rime … Say it!”

But before Jemma could take a breath, Nocturna’s voice pierced the Ceremony Chamber. “Mordrake, Mordana,” she
shrieked. “I hear your promise and accept your demand!” She grabbed Feo, threw him onto the hearth, stomped one foot onto his neck, and raised her sword.

“Mama, no!” Feo screamed. “Please, no!”

Nox stepped toward them, but Shade pushed him back and wrapped him in dark energy bands, holding him fast. Her face quivered with glee. Scagavay hovered above them, taking the form of a huge open mouth, ready, waiting.…

“Stop!” Jemma shrieked. She leapt forward and shot out a light sphere to protect Feo, but Nocturna parried it and swung her sword at her, forcing her back. Shade shot a Dromfell at her. She ducked, but it grazed her shoulder, its impact knocking her backward to the floor. “Stop—you can’t! He has the Mark—he’s one of you!”

“Yes, he has the Mark,” Shade sneered, “just as you do! It seems meaningless, does it not, Jem-mah?” She turned to her mother. “Do it, Mama—do it!”

Nocturna raised her sword again, and drove its long blade into Feo’s heart. He shuddered, groaned once, and was still.