The Star Child (The Star Child Series) (24 page)

This transition lasted only a moment. When it was over, I found that I was clad in armor; one hand gripped a sword, the other a shield. I was transformed into a warrior. I looked up at the stag and shook my head, disbelieving.

“I’m no warrior. I keep hearing that I’m going to save everyone, that the fate of the world rests on my shoulders, yet those gifts which you speak of aren’t in my possession.”

The stag seemed to ponder this for a moment before speaking again. “Things are not always as they seem, Kellen St. James. When the time is right, your gifts will reveal themselves. You must have the courage to try and the patience to wait for them.” Looking to Calienta he warned, “We will not have much time when we get to the other side of the ocean.”

“You can help us?” Relief flooded her face.

“I can only take you to the end of the ocean. Once you get there, you will be on your own. It is your destiny to finish the battle. You may call me by my name: Crísdean.”

Calienta bowed her head in deference once more. “Thank you for agreeing to help us.”

“Please rise. We must move quickly before they learn of our plan.”

We stood, and Crísdean beckoned for us to follow. As a precaution, Calienta abandoned her lantern. Leaving the clearing behind, we once again moved through the darkest part of the woods as the moon receded behind the clouds.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

UPSIDE-DOWN OCEAN

It was slow going on Crísdean’s back, even with the brisk canter he was taking. My arms had a firm grasp on the coarse fur around his neck and his breath appeared in visible clouds in front of us as he ran. Calienta’s arms were wrapped around my waist, and though this was a distraction, my mind wandered back to something I wanted to ask her about.

“What did Dillion mean about the other part of the prophecy?” For a moment, I thought she stiffened beside me, but then dismissed the concern.

“It was nothing. He was overreacting.”

“Still, I want to know. What’s the other part of the prophecy?”

After some hesitation, Crísdean spoke on her behalf. “There is another part of the prophecy that says a new evil will come after the darkness is vanquished.”

Calienta cut across Crísdean’s words. “And it has nothing to do with us.”

I stared at her, wanting to ask her what she meant, but then I began to hear the windy sea. The sound increased in decibels as we continued on, and the climb became steeper. Eventually we were forced to dismount from Crísdean’s back to struggle up the steep embankment. I slipped as I tried to gain purchase on the snowy surface.

Who knows what I expected of the Upside-Down Ocean, but when I reached the top of the hill, my breath stopped and all of my courage flooded out of me. This we’d never get past. This we’d never be able to conquer. I pulled Calienta to me, knowing now that there could be no future for us. To even think of fighting this was futile.

“Have faith, Kellen.” A glance to my left showed that Crísdean was smiling at me. “There is nothing like a good adventure, and you are about to have the adventure of a lifetime.”

“I’d rather leave that to the movies.” Looking away from the intense eyes of the stag, I wondered dimly if I’d ever see a movie again, ever hang out with friends again, or ever live a normal life again—if you could call my life normal.

The three of us crouched below the ridge of the embankment, hiding. However, it was tough to keep cover when I couldn’t believe what was before my own eyes. My mind kept telling me that what I was seeing was impossible; my eyes claimed otherwise. This wasn’t a normal ocean. Where the sky should have been, there was water. Where the water should have been, there were clouds that made way to some sort of dark abyss.

The water was black as night and it was dotted with white-capped waves lapping against the surface. The surface appeared above our heads, where the sky should have been. The waves crested several thousand feet high; they could easily surge down to where we were and suck us into the churning sea.

Progressing rapidly, the tide was taking over the surrounding land, seemingly to swallow all of Faerie whole. The narrow strip of beach that remained consisted of a thick carpet of bones strewn across the water’s edge. I wondered how many had died to contribute to it.

“What is that sound? It’s horrible.” This was meant for Crísdean, though he didn’t respond.

The sound was coming from the ocean itself. My eyes kept being drawn back to the waves, and it was only upon closer inspection that I finally understood what they were.

The white-capped waves were actually spirits. If you pictured a ghost in your mind, you’d probably conjure a transparent, white-colored shadow, like the kind that they showed on “Scooby Doo” or “Ghostbusters”. These creatures did not disappoint. They were white, skeletal, and opaque in their consistency. Rolling in the ocean, they appeared to have no control over their direction, no sense of free will.

The temperature had dropped since we’d reached this area and it was unbearably cold. I couldn’t imagine that these lost souls couldn’t feel that; it was a part of their eternal damnation.

Now I understood Dillion when he asked me to look unforgiving. I never would have been able to pull off the disguise that he’d planned for me. Those churning souls in the black sea were the spirits of both the mortal world and of Faerie, of those who’d committed atrocities so vile that neither heaven nor hell would have them.

After only moments with the ocean in view, the pain and suffering of these beings began to permeate the corners of my mind. My bones began to ache and my heart was pained, a broken thing inside me. I could only compare the feeling to that of losing my mother one hundred times, one thousand even.

“You cannot save them.” Crísdean looked at me with dark, understanding eyes. “I have tried, but there is no turning back.” He walked over to me and touched his warm muzzle against my arm, trying to comfort me, I realized. As quickly as the intense emotions began, they ended. He lifted his head and turned so that he could look at both of us.

“When we turn back the clock, there will be very little time for you to reach your goal. You must pass through the doorway as quickly as possible. You should climb onto my back again.”

We did as we were told and climbed onto the wide, strong back of the white stag. This time, Calienta sat in front of me and I reached around to hold the stag’s neck.

“Whatever happens, you must never let go until I tell you to.” Crísdean spared us one last look over his shoulder before trotting up and over the hill to the rocky beach below.

Gripping the neck of the stag fiercely, I pulled Calienta back against me. There was an unexpected coldness to her skin, so I pulled her closer, wanting to warm her. “We’re in this together, until the end. I love you,” I said.

Wanting her to understand that I wasn’t going anywhere, I let go of the stag with one hand and tipped her chin toward mine and kissed her. It might be the last time. Who knew what we’d have to face?

Her answering smile was brilliant, despite the circumstances. “I can’t believe that I’ve only found you and I have to leave you.”

“Who says you have to? We can get past this.”

Her smile didn’t waver, though her next words told me she wasn’t confident. “Kellen, you’re the one who has to get to the Ellipse. So no matter what happens, you have to go on.”

“What do you mean, ‘no matter what happens’?”

“Just promise me. If something happens to any of us, you need to go on.”

“I won’t leave you, no matter what the damn prophecy says. Others have controlled me for far too long. Now it’s time to make my own choices and I choose you.” This was my choice now; I would not be controlled by a bunch of dead Pagans.

She nodded, seeming to consider this. I wondered if she was thinking the same thing that I was, wondering what our lives would have been like if we were both mortal and we’d met under different circumstances. I’d have asked her to dinner or a movie. We’d have had all the time in the world to get to know each other.

“We’d better succeed then, hadn’t we?” I lifted her hand up and kissed it, watching her blush lightly. I gripped the back of Crísdean’s neck again. “We’re as ready as we’ll ever be.”

“Very well, but before we go on, I must caution you. The emotions that you felt when we first arrived will be nothing compared with what we will face in the ocean. Keep love and light at the forefront of your mind at all times. These are the only things that can destroy these creatures; they are your only true weapons.”

And with that, we began to move forward. It was odd. One moment we were riding on Crísdean’s back across the beach, and the next we were upside-down, looking at a vast ocean ahead of us.

Once we reached the water’s edge, it took only a second for the lost souls in the black sea to sense our presence. A tsunami started to form and it was both terrifying and exhilarating at the same time.

A sheer wall of water the height of the Empire State Building was heading straight for us. It was disgusting; a churning wall of rotting flesh and bone that circled around and around like a twisted merry-go-round. The souls’ hunger seeped into my very bones, penetrated my thoughts with their anguished cries. The lot of them wanted to absorb us into their masses, wanted to end our lives and turn each of us into one of them.

Fear started to overwhelm me and I looked around, frantically searching for somewhere to run. There was nowhere. The darkness was everywhere; the water, filled with lost souls, swirled straight at us.

Crísdean’s words knocked me out of my reverie. “Do you believe in the power of the light, Kellen?”

I frowned; this wasn’t the time for philosophical questions. Then I remembered his words to me only a few moments ago. I’d already discarded them like an empty candy wrapper. “Yes, I do.”

“Do not stop.” It was a simple command, but I understood it absolutely.

Crísdean lowered his head and charged forward, powerful beams of light shooting from his antlers. The brightness was more powerful than any I’d ever seen, even at the night football games at the Yale Bowl.

The wave instantly dissipated and the moans turned to a violent shrieking, reminding me of a wounded animal. I longed to cover my ears and make it disappear, but I couldn’t.

Crísdean clearly planned to jump directly into the water, but it had a life of its own. Immediately the water started to surge up again, preparing to overtake us. I could see individual faces staring back at me from the large wave. These were people once, with lives and homes. What had gone wrong?

Despite their bravado, Crísdean jumped in and the water began to part; a pathway was being cleared for us. The souls of the unforgiven, unable to bear the light, were granting us passage and moving aside, though probably more out of fear than courtesy. The water rose up on both sides of us forming two unfathomably high, seemingly rigid walls. Skeletal hands shot out to grab us, to pull at our hair and our clothes, but we pressed on. As the water parted, a thin sheet of ice formed beneath our feet.

After a few moments, I realized that it was Crísdean himself who froze the water with his breath. Short, frigid huffs of air were pushed from his lungs as we sped along the ice. We were almost flying now, speeding along the surface at a rapid pace like an Olympic speed skater. It was absolutely intolerable in the cold.

In an instant, a hand reached up and snatched at Calienta’s hair. Crísdean slowed and we were almost forcibly dismounted. Instinctively, I slammed my shield down upon the hand and Calienta was released as cries of pain pierced the night.

“What happens if they get one of us?” I thought I already had the answer to this question, but it made sense to put it out there. Better to be prepared.

“Instant death.” Crísdean shared this without missing a beat.

“Fabulous.” At least I had something to look forward to after this high-speed nightmare.

“This is going to take us quite a while. Hold on tight and do not let your guard down for even a moment.”

I hadn’t imagined the Upside-Down Ocean would be the size of a real ocean, but it was. There were two primary challenges that we faced: First, if we weren’t careful, we could be unseated at any moment. My knuckles were throbbing, my fingers locked around the hilt of my weighty sword. Second, the need to sleep was a dead weight on my shoulders, threatening to push me off my mount at any moment. The time that we spent traversing across the ice was agony, and I couldn’t wait to get as far away from this place as possible.

The only sounds now were the occasional cries as I fought off greedy hands, and the pounding of Crísdean’s hooves on the ice. There was no mistaking it when, after a time, I started to hear a roar. At first it was faint, like the roar of a crowd from a distance. Yet there was no denying it. Chancing a glimpse behind me, I was nearly sick.

The Sluagh, outraged that we weren’t vanquished instantly, began to regroup. The same large wave once again began to build strength.

Crísdean increased speed, but I noticed that his light had grown dimmer and he held his head lower. This worried me, as we’d be done for if we couldn’t get through the sea to the other side. Again, I’d no idea what awaited us on the other side, or if there even
was
an "other side".

If we made it to the Ellipse and it wasn’t there, I had no idea what we’d do. At least, I didn’t want to think about it too deeply. I could only assume that the “instant death” factor Crísdean mentioned would kick in.

Though we ran upside-down, we unconsciously adjusted our perspective so that we were running right side up. The sky churned, parting to show the dark abyss below—or above, depending on how you looked at it—blacker than the blackest of nights. I was looking into hell and it was more horrifying than I could have imagined. There was a groaning from the abyss. It was alive, its own entity.

I shivered and steeled myself to look straight ahead. None of us could speak, so our trio continued on, with me keeping my sword pointed out in front of us, my left hand holding tightly to the stag, prepared to fight whatever came our way.