Black Knight (34 page)

The size and force of the river has suddenly shrunk to a tenth of what it previously was. Sam kneels at its edge to take a drink.

“It’s time we crossed to the other side,” Sam says.

“Why?” Kyle demands, suspicious. I’m not the only one suffering from paranoia. Since the loss of Pierre and Keb, Kyle doesn’t even pretend to trust Sam.

Sam goes to speak but first has to cough. “Isn’t it obvious? If we stay in the path of these fumes we won’t make it to the top.”

I scan the face of the cinder cone. The incline is a minimum of forty-five degrees, even steeper closer to the crown. Its surface is made of deep fluffy ash, which will be a demon to wade through.

“I don’t see any sign of the cave,” I say.

“Me neither,” Kyle adds.

Sam gestures. “It’s around the left side. We’ll reach it before we come to the wall. But we’ve got to start circling around now, before we climb any higher.”

“That will lengthen our hike,” Kyle says. Technically he’s right. Circling the base of the cinder cone will require us to walk farther than if we were to circle it closer to the top.

Sam shakes his head in disgust. “Try hiking straight up if you want. I won’t stop you. But a small thing called ‘lack of oxygen’ will.”

Kyle is unsure. “The wind keeps shifting. Who’s to say the south side will be clear?”

“I’m not a bloody weatherman!” Sam shouts. “I can’t tell which way the wind’s going to keep blowing. All I know is the last time I was up here, I made it to the top by hiking up the south face. And if that isn’t good enough for you, then climb up here, get yourself gassed, I don’t give a damn.”

Chad speaks. “I have to agree with Sam. The direction of the wind has shifted a dozen times since we came to this island. But it’s always come back to an easterly direction, down toward the sea. Also, a few of you might have noticed how the trees all lean slightly toward the ocean—another sign of the direction the wind favors. The south and west sides of the cinder cone should be more breathable.”

“I’m sold,” I say, studying the sun as it moves closer to the top lip of the volcano. “But we’ve only got another two hours of light left and we’ve still got at least four miles to go. We’ve got to increase our pace.”

“What are you suggesting?” Sam asks.

“Cut Jelanda loose. That way Kyle can carry Li while you, Sam, carry Chad. We’re witches. It’s our job to help out the others.”

“Says who?” Kyle mutters.

I step in front of him. “You’re the one who pushed me to lead this group. Now you don’t like my orders? What’s your problem?”

Kyle glances at Sam before answering me. “You have the gall to ask what my problem is? How about I’m scared shitless? You didn’t know Pierre and Keb, I did. They were mates of mine and someone killed them. Sam says he’s innocent and you want me to believe him. All right, for the sake of argument, let’s say I do. Then who killed my friends?”

“It could have been the ghosts,” Chad says.

“We know they’re in the area,” Sam says.

“Because you keep torturing their leader,” Chad adds.

Kyle wipes at his eyes, his voice choking from something other than fumes. “That’s good, that’s great, put Pierre’s and Keb’s deaths on me. Why not? I’m the asshole in the group. But if it is my fault I got my mates killed, then I’ll be damned if I’m going to surrender the one thing I stole from the ghosts that made them kill Pierre and Keb.”

His words shake me because they explain so much that should have been obvious—why Kyle’s refused to let Jelanda go, or kill her for that matter. It’s clear he feels he’s paid too high a price to catch her.

“She’s slowing us down,” I tell him. “Either way, she’s got to go.”

Kyle shakes his head. “I’m stronger than I look. I can drag her along and carry Li at the same time. I swear, I’ll keep up. We can’t let the White Queen go.”

“Why not?” I persist. He sounds so sure of himself.

“Think how old her race is,” Kyle says. “They go back before recorded history. But what do we know about them? Next to nothing. They move in packs and they’re telepathic. That’s it. Oh, wait, there’s one more thing. They’re so damn old because they’re so damn good at surviving. All of us, let’s be honest, we see them as the small and weak ones. We’re not afraid of them like we are of Viper and Nordra. But I think they want it that way. I think it’s all a setup. You ask me, they’re the most dangerous creatures on this island.”

“No one fears the enemy that’s right in front of you,” Chad mutters, nodding.

“Exactly!” Kyle cries, yanking on Jelanda’s chain. “Look around, we’re all afraid, and we have a right to be.” He points at Jelanda. “Now look at her, she’s not scared, not at all. Because she knows something we don’t. That’s got to be the reason.”

I consider. “All right, you’ve made your point. You can keep her prisoner as long as you can carry Li and keep up with Sam and me. Now, enough talk, let’s move.”

Crossing the river turns out to be a curious experience. It’s a mere stream compared to the raging rapids we had to wade through our first night on the island, but I find it almost as difficult as that initial attempt. I have Marc on my back, of course, and the air is thin and filled with fumes, but none of these factors equals the
chill
factor. The water is the direct runoff of melted snow and should be freezing, and yet it feels colder than ice, much colder. Splashing as fast as I can over the slippery stones hidden three or four feet below the rushing surface, I almost feel as if I’m taking a dip in a giant flask of liquid nitrogen, or some such exotic fluid that’s only found in chemistry labs. My feet and calves go numb in seconds and from the yelps I hear from Sam and Kyle, I’m grateful we have Marc, Chad, and Li secure on our backs. I swear the water would have killed them. I hate the bitch but it’s hard to watch Kyle drag Jelanda through the stream. It’s not until we’ve hiked far from the river that I finally build up enough body heat to stop shivering.

“That was cold,” Marc mumbles in my ear, slipping in and out of consciousness.

“Sleep, darling,” I whisper, and he does go back to sleep.

We circle a quarter of the cinder cone, reaching what we believe is the center of the south side, when suddenly the fumes all but disappear. What a relief! From our new angle it’s clear that Sam was right and the majority of the steam and smoke is being blown directly east, toward the sea, the direction we came from.

Yet the air is extremely thin and our lungs labor to extract enough oxygen to keep our blood from turning into molasses. Plus the terrain has changed once again. There’s snow on the ground: not everywhere, but in patches long and deep enough to slow us further. Gazing down at the distant sea in the dimming light, Chad estimates our altitude at nineteen thousand feet. The sudden drop in temperature backs up his estimate.

“We’re three and a half miles above sea level,” Sam says. “I’ve never heard of an island with such a tall mountain.”

“Actually, if you measure Mauna Kea on the big island of Hawaii from its base to its peak, it’s a lot higher than Mount Everest,” Chad says. “It’s over six miles high.”

“Bullshit,” Kyle says. “Everyone knows Mount Everest is the highest mountain in the world.”

“I meant if you measure Kea from its oceanic base,” Chad explains. “Its base is a couple of miles underwater.”

Kyle’s tired and annoyed. “What does such scientific trivia have to do with our situation?”

Chad shrugs. “It’s a good reminder that where we’re at isn’t on any map I’ve ever seen.”

“How high up is the cave?” I ask Sam. I still can’t see the opening and it’s going to be dark in less than an hour.

“You don’t see it until you’re practically on top of it,” Sam says. “It’s like someone built it that way.”

“What about the wall?” Kyle asks.

Sam’s face darkens. “Let’s deal with that when we get to it.”

Finally, the last stretch of our long hike. Soon we’ll arrive at our goal and soon we’ll know if it was worth the effort. What am I hoping to find? Answers? Sam’s already been to the cave, and the wall for that matter, and he doesn’t seem to know anything we don’t. The truth be told, I worry we’ve come all this way because we didn’t know where else to go.

Yet the dark stone embedded in our bracelets gives me hope we might discover something vital. Especially since the wall is supposed to be made out of the identical material.

I search for the magical wall as we hike toward the invisible cave entrance. I don’t see it, either, and wonder how a wall as massive as Sam described isn’t visible when we’re so close to it.

The last half mile of our hike is brutal. The cinder-cone ash is like quicksand. Every step I take forward, my leg sinks up to my knee. The incline is as bad as climbing a ladder. Even with my unnatural strength, I gasp for air and feel as if my heart is going to explode in my chest. The freezing air is devoid of moisture. I drink but my thirst remains. I never imagined I could be so cold and so thirsty at the same time. God do I miss my shirtsleeves.

Marc stirs. I lean my head back and let him press his cheek to mine. He’s so hot I feel like crying. “Hey, babe, how ya doin’?” I say.

He coughs. “Are we there yet?”

“Almost.”

“Great.”

“How are you feeling?”

He coughs some more. “Great.”

“I’m going to help you. When we get to the cave, I’m going to torture Li if I have to but she’s going to heal you. And if she refuses, I’ll heal you myself.”

“No.”

“You’re not going to stop me.”

“It’s not what I need.” He coughs again; he doesn’t seem able to catch his breath. “You know what I need.”

“Don’t think of that. We can’t do that here. We need peace, we need quiet, we need to be safe.”

“You did it and you weren’t safe.”

“I’m not going to risk your life.”

He turns his head and kisses my damp cheek. I didn’t know I’d started crying, silly me. I guess I didn’t know how much I loved him. He speaks in a fading whisper.

“There’s no risk. I’m dying, Jessie. I’m going to die.”

I want to argue some more but he passes out.

He suddenly feels so heavy on my back.

Like the way people are supposed to when they’re dead.

Please, God, no. Please spare his life. I’ll do anything if you do. Anything. Kill me if you want but save him.

I keep praying although I’m fairly certain that if there is a God, He’s not the sort who actually answers prayers from everyday people or witches like me. I think of all the billions of people throughout history—and even people I know personally—who have prayed in life-threatening situations, like ours, and not a single one of them has ever been treated to a bona fide miracle.

Still, it makes me feel better to fix my mind on a higher power. It beats thinking of Marc dying. I love God, I remind myself, I do believe in Him.

I just don’t know if I trust Him.

The sun sets in the middle of our final push. But it’s strange, I can’t say exactly when it fell beneath the horizon. It just seemed to wander to the left of the peak and disappear.

The moon, though, when it rises, is brilliant. It’s big and round and its white light seems to sparkle when it strikes the side of the cinder cone.

Higher than the moon is the haunting red of the molten peak. It dominates the sky, throwing off red sparks that rise straight up and then slowly curve and fall downward and flame out as they strike the path before us. All along I knew the volcano was active, but I never considered that it might suddenly spew out a shower of lava and roast us alive. There’s a peculiar rhythm to the spray of sparks. It comes in pulses, like a beating heart, and it makes me wonder if the volcano is alive in some way.

Definitely, I feel something powerful watching us.

“There it is!” Sam calls from twenty paces in front of me, pointing. He stops and sets down Chad and lets the rest of us catch up. Kyle also lets go of Li, but I continue to hold on to Marc. He’s still out and I worry he may never awaken.

Sam is pointing to a black hole a hundred yards above and fifty yards off to our left. Seen from the side, the cave opening is hard to focus on. I blink and lose it for a moment until I blink again. It appears as tall as a man, circular; maybe unnaturally so. I can understand why Sam feels it might have been cut into the side of the cinder cone.

“What’s our plan?” Kyle asks.

Sam nods. “We need one. Ten to one either Nordra or Viper is already up here.”

“Are you sure there’s only one way in?” Kyle asks him.

Sam shakes his head. “There might be an opening on the inside of the volcano, but unless you can swim through boiling lava, I’d advise against searching for a back door.”

“If I were Viper and I was waiting to ambush us,” I say, “I’d cloak and hang near the opening but stay outside. No way I’d let myself get cornered inside the cave, not when it’s three against one.”

“Hey, don’t I count?” Chad complains.

“Sorry,” I mutter.

“Good point,” Sam agrees. “The interior of the cave has fresh air but there’s still plenty of hot springs and lots of steam. We’d spot Viper in a second in the steam, cloak or no cloak.”

“What about Nordra?” Kyle asks.

“I doubt Nordra would allow himself to get cornered either,” Sam says.

“I’m not so sure,” I say. “Nordra’s advantage is his size and strength. The cave’s got a narrow opening. If you go by history, it’s always been easier for a small army to defend itself against a large army if it had a narrow pass to defend.”

Chad pats me on the back in approval. “You’re thinking of the Battle of Thermopylae. When a few hundred Spartans held off a hundred thousand Persians at the pass. That battle strategy could apply here, but only if Nordra believes we’re determined to get inside the cave.”

“Are we?” Kyle asks.

“Gimme a break,” I snap. “It was your idea to hike all the way up here in the first place.”

“It was Sam’s idea!” Kyle complains. “He’s the one who told me how amazing it is inside.”

“Let’s stop the bickering and make a decision,” Sam replies. “I think Jessie’s right and there’s a good chance Viper’s hanging somewhere near the entrance, cloaked. If that’s the case, we should wait here for the moon to rise higher and shine on the cave. That’ll give us a much better chance of spotting her.”