Tales from Dargo Island: The Complete Trilogy (23 page)

“My, oh my,” he
said, grabbing another jar from the shelf and taking a sip of the golden vapor.
The face scratches healed instantly. “You are unlike anyone I’ve ever met.”

“Tell me how to
hide,” she commanded, her breath coming more easily.

He placed the
jar on the counter between them and reached down for something. When his hand
returned, it held a brown bag.

“Eat these and
you shall be hidden.”

She took the
bag and looked inside. “Beans?”

“They’re more
than beans. Simply swallow them and Rockne will never be able to find you. No
one will.”

Rapatha stared
at him, incredulous, but then nodded. “Thank you.”

When she got to
the door, Wesonger said, “Make sure you’re in the water when you swallow the
beans.”

“Why?”

“Because the
magic works better that way. Goodbye.”

He took the jar
and disappeared to the rear of the shop. Rapatha left and kept an eye out for
Rockne. She managed to get to the lake at the edge of the town, took the small
green beans from the bag, and swallowed them. They were flavorless.

She stood in
the water, her cloak billowing up around her. The ocean reflected perfectly the
brightest stars above. The water was cold, but she barely noticed because her
stomach rumbled. Something was happening, and it didn’t feel pleasant.

Suddenly, her
hands felt numb. She looked at them and saw they were gray and hard, like rock.
“What is happening to me?” she asked herself, frightened by what she saw.

*
 
*
 
*

The giants
wandered along the edge of Lacey. The tiny giant noticed a large rock floating
along the surface. For some reason, it looked like the most beautiful rock he’d
ever seen. And it appeared to be growing.

“Happy Snow
Day, Queen Aneela,” a maid greeted.

“Happy Snow
Day, Wilhelmina.” Aneela, queen of Dargo Island, walked through her palace with
a smile on her face. The smile was a mask for her true feelings, however. She
was on her way to visit someone she didn’t want to see.

Andor. He was a
traitor who had unleashed a dangerous wizard from his prison and nearly caused
the extinction of the entire planet. He was currently being held in his own
cell in a dungeon beneath the palace.

Aneela, wearing
a blue robe that felt way too big for her, walked quickly down a circular
stairwell. She had left her husband, Rhys, in bed because she knew he would
want to escort her. He used to be the commander of her army, but she had loved
him for a long time, and he had loved her. They had managed to keep their
relationship a secret from everyone, though after nearly being decimated by a
plague unleashed by the wizard Dargonius, they’d decided life was too short.

When Aneela
reached the dungeon, she greeted the man guarding Andor. He still wore the
traditional blue-and-yellow paint on his face, though she had deemed it
unnecessary. The paint had been used long ago, before her people developed
their own language. It was meant to convey emotions to others. The guard hadn’t
yet grown out of the habit, even though it had been nearly a year since the
change in tradition.

He snapped to
attention. “Your Majesty.”

“Greetings,
Malax. At ease.”

He stood
relaxed as he smiled at her. He couldn’t be much older than her twenty years.

“I’ve come to
speak with the prisoner,” she said. “I would like to be alone.”

“But, Your
Majesty—”

She held up a
hand. “I will be quite all right with him. He’s not as dangerous as he’d like
you to believe. He’s merely a traitor. If you would, please wait outside the
dungeon. I will call on you if I need you.”

Malax nodded
and left Aneela alone with Andor.

Aneela peered
through the bars, into the dark cell. She saw movement to the right. Someone
was sitting on a small bed. The dungeon was lit by torches, but none were close
enough to shine into the cell.

“‘Queen’
Aneela,” a rough voice said from within. “What brings you down here to this
wonderful paradise?”

“I’ve come to
see how you’re doing. You’ve been locked away for nearly a year. How do you
feel?”

“How do you
think I feel? My son died of the plague because you refused to release Dargo
from his prison, so I took matters into my own hands. And now I’m in my own
prison.”

She sighed.
“I’m terribly sorry about your son. But what you did nearly destroyed the rest
of the planet. I couldn’t allow that.”

He appeared
before her, so close she could smell his unwashed body. “What if it had been
your son stricken with the plague?” he asked. “What would you have done then?
What if the little prince had been dying?”

Aneela had
anticipated that question, but it still shocked her. “I…don’t know what I would
have done.”

“Exactly!”
Andor spun around and then locked eyes with her again. “How old is he?”

“A month.”

“A month? What
a magical age. I remember when my own son was a month old.” There was so much
anger in his voice that Aneela couldn’t help but step away from the bars.

“If I could
bring him back, Andor, I would.”

“Would you,
now? Somehow, I don’t think you truly mean it.”

“I do mean it.”

“What would you
do to bring back my son?” Andor’s eyes were wide with curiosity. “I already
know you wouldn’t let the plague wipe out the unknown world, the world we are
not a part of. What else could you possibly do if you couldn’t do that?”

Aneela didn’t
have a response. She simply stood there and stared at him.

He turned back
to his bed and said, “I know what I would do.”

“Oh? And what’s
that?”

He lay down on
the mattress and said, “I’d kill everyone on this island.”

He stared at
her from the darkness. She tried to stare back, but the longer she stood there,
the more uncomfortable she grew. She left the dungeon and let Malax resume his
watch.

Aneela left the
stifling dungeon and walked into the palace courtyard. It was a winter
wonderland.

The courtyard
was covered in the whitest, purest snow. People danced around, wearing white
robes and crystallized masks. It was a tradition nearly as old as the island
itself. For some reason, it only snowed every five years on Dargo Island. In
the old days, the islanders started wearing ice-blue masks that stood out from
the white of the snow and danced among the courtyard. Only one part of the
island was constantly covered in snow, but that was a result of magic. This
snow was natural. The dances were spontaneous but had managed to become highly
synchronized. Dargonians were simply in tune with each other.

They danced in
a large circle, waving their arms in a way that would make you think of wind
flowing through the air.

Aneela returned
to her bedchamber, where she found her husband still sleeping peacefully. She
walked over to a crib at the foot of the bed and checked on her son, Joshua. He
was a chubby baby, with wild spouts of blond hair on his head. He was asleep as
well, and she gently touched his face. Then she lay down next to Rhys and tried
to go back to sleep.

“Why did you go
down there again?” he asked, startling her.

“Because I kept
wondering if I was doing the right thing, keeping him locked up.” She turned to
Rhys and saw his face, thanks to the moonlight shining through the balcony
door.

“And you’re no
longer wondering?” he asked.

“No. He said he
would kill everyone on the island if it would bring his son back. He’s a
dangerous man.”

Rhys kissed
her. “Your judgment has never led you astray, My Queen. You should never doubt
it.”

She laughed.
“Stop calling me your queen. I’m your wife now.”

“Same
difference.”

They kissed
again, but only for a moment, because the entire room lit up like the sun had
suddenly risen.

“What is that?”
Aneela asked, shading her eyes with her hand.

They looked
toward the balcony as a roar grew louder by the second. Rhys ran to the door
and looked out. “A fire in the sky,” he said.

Aneela joined
him and saw the fire as it shot toward them. Whatever it was, it left a smoky
trail in the sky. The fire shot over their heads with a deafening roar that
woke Joshua in his crib.

A moment later,
an explosion shook the palace.

Josh Debelko
saw his life flash before his eyes right before died. The vision started with
him in the womb with his twin sister, whose name he still didn’t know. She’d
died because of him, because he’d drained the life out of her when he had grown
too weak to survive on his own.

Then he saw
himself at six years old, climbing a tree with his best friend Estevan. Next,
he was kissing a girl for the first time at fifteen. He and Maxine were playing
laser tag when she’d pulled him into a dark corner. She hadn’t done any more
than that, and instead waited for him to kiss her.

Next, he was
being sucked into a tornado at nineteen, saving his someone from certain death.
He’d died that day as well, but it had only been temporary. The neighbor, Shae,
had thanked him by getting him a job on Dargo Island as a security guard for a
gated community filled with strange residents: Victor the dwarf, Champagne the
empath (she could sense and affect people’s emotions), Astrid the nature
demon’s daughter, and…

Well, then
there was Rockne the wizard. He was Astrid’s uncle, a man who wanted to
dethrone his own brother as nature demon. As far as Josh knew, there could only
be one nature demon at a time, and he or she could control everything from the
weather to earthquakes. Josh saw how it appealed to Rockne.

But Josh had
killed Rockne, and his brother Nalke still ruled as the nature demon. Things
were as they should be.

Except now.
Josh, who should have been dead for the final time, was now floating inside a
cloud. His body had been possessed by another wizard named Dargo, the island’s
namesake, and he had sacrificed himself to kill him once and for all before he
could destroy the world with a plague.

Josh accepted
his fate, his death long overdue. He couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t dead
now. He felt like he was floating in a pool full of cool cotton, and he was
extremely comfortable. He wondered if he was in heaven. He’d never believed in
such a place before, but seeing was believing.

He saw a shadow
fly by on his right. He swam toward the edge and peered out, which was like
looking through a foggy window.

Astrid. She was
flying away like a superhero. He yelled for her, but she didn’t hear. He swam
through the cloud, in her direction, and was grateful there was no resistance.
The cool cloud felt great against his face.

He kept calling
his friend, but she continued to fly away from him. Soon he reached the end of
the cloud and found himself trapped. He cursed and tried to punch through the
cloud but couldn’t. It was like punching a pillow.

Josh could no
longer see Astrid, and found himself drifting to sleep. He was awakened by a
thunderclap and saw he was in a gray cloud. Lightning streaked above him. He
wondered if he could get struck by it and cowered as far away from it as he
could.

He couldn’t
tell how much time he spent trapped in the clouds, but he saw Astrid
occasionally. Every time she flew by, he screamed her name. She never heard.
One time, he grew so frustrated that he swam to the top of the cloud in which
he occupied. It was a very large cloud, and he felt like he was swimming a
vertical Olympic-sized pool.

Josh saw Astrid
approaching from the right. He’d been waiting for her, since she seemed to fly
the same pattern often. He screamed for her again.

She heard him
this time.

She landed at
the bottom of the white, puffy cloud and looked around. He hadn’t expected that
and was about to make his way down, but she started to come up. He waited.

When she found
him, she pulled him out of the cloud, crying with joy.

Victor sat just
outside the hexl’s crater as it swam around. It was like watching a dog at
play. He had been watching it for months, having grown fond of the giant plant
creature.

“I’ll get my
axe back, yet, you silly monster. You can’t keep it in your belly forever.”

He smiled as he
remembered the quest he and Astrid had taken, extracting a poison and its
antidote from the hexl’s body. It had been the only way to get rid of Dargo
while he possessed Josh. They succeeded, though they’d lost Josh in the
process.

“Hey there, Sugar
Squash,” a female voice said behind Victor.

He spun around
and saw a dark figure across the road, hidden within a shadowy forest. “Who
goes there?”

The figure
stepped into the dirt road. “Don’t tell me you don’t recognize this old face.”

“My gods,” he
whispered harshly. “Champagne DuBois?”

The old woman
wore the clothes in which she’d been buried: a dark-green dress with a silver
necklace. The snow fell on her as if she were real.

“But you’re not
real,” Victor said. “You’re dead, dear.”

“Don’t I know it?
Something brought me back, though. Something’s wrong with the island and the
dead are walking about.”

“The dead
walk?” Victor could barely get the words out. He imagined the dead walking
around this very night and shivered. “Are you really here, dear lady?”

She walked up
to him and touched his face gently. “I am, Sugar Bunny.”

He smiled and
laid his face on her palm. “I was always fond of your cute nicknames.”

She pulled her
hand away. “You must help the island.”

“The island?”

“The island’s
soul. She’s dying. If she dies, the island will be destroyed.”

“What do you
mean?”

Champagne shook
her head. “Whatever magic brought me here also helps me understand what the
island feels. She’s in so much pain.”

Victor thought
Champagne’s words over. “How do we help her?”

“I don’t know.”

Victor shook
his head. “I’ll speak with Aneela. She should know this.”

“Good luck,
Sugar Dwarf. I love and miss you.” She backed away, toward the woods.

“Where are you
going? I thought you said you were back.”

Champagne gave
him a sad smile. “I’m back, but not alive. I have no heartbeat. I am a walking
corpse. I found you in order to warn you of the danger.”

“Why didn’t you
warn Aneela?”

“I tried, but I
was drawn to you instead. I think it has to do with my connection to you. Now
you must go to Aneela for me.”

He nodded. “It
will be done, cherished lady.”

She smiled and
disappeared into the woods once again. Victor stared at the footprints she left
behind. He was convinced she had really been there. He turned back to the
crater and saw the hexl staring at him. The floral creature sneezed and
something shiny shot out of its petal-mouth. The object landed right in front
of Victor.

He picked the
long-lost axe out of the ground. “Thank you, silly beast.”

*
 
*
 
*

Aneela and Rhys
ran out into the courtyard, where most of the soldiers met them. Everyone was
in a panic, but Aneela commanded their attention. “Something has fallen from
the sky and struck the island. Everything is all right.”

“But what was
it?” a soldier asked, more panicked than the rest.

“I don’t know.
I’ve never seen or heard of anything like it before.”

“It was a
meteor,” a female voice said.

Aneela saw a
short woman approach from the palace gate. “Shae. You know what it was?”

“Yes. It was a
piece of rock that fell from space. They’re not uncommon in the rest of the
world, but this appears to be Dargo’s first encounter with one.”

“Is it
dangerous?” Rhys asked.

“Only if it
crashed on or near any islanders.”

“We should
search for it,” Aneela said. “Shae, I’ll need your help adding this meteor to
the school’s curriculum.”

Shae smiled.
“Gladly.”

Aneela, having
dressed before leaving her room, gathered her horse. Six soldiers followed her
and Rhys while Shae agreed to watch Joshua in the palace. The smoke trail still
lingered in the sky, so the group didn’t have trouble locating the crash site.

“It appears to
have shot through the giants’ realm,” Rhys said as they approached a cluster of
mountains.

“I guess it’s a
good thing Rockne killed all the giants,” Aneela said sadly. “Otherwise, there’s
no telling how many would have died tonight.”

They followed a
trail into the mountains until they reached a clearing. A frozen lake rested in
the exact center. Aneela and the others got off their horses and approached the
lake.

It had a large
hole bored through.

“It must have
shot through like a bullet,” Aneela said, looking through from the safety of
the grass. She couldn’t see much, but the meteor had gone through at an angle.

“How do we get
down there?” Rhys asked his wife.

“I don’t think
Rockne ever disabled the lift system that allowed the giants to get in and out
of their kingdom. He had no reason to, since all the giants died that night.”
She paused, remembering
why
they died. Rockne had manipulated her
father, who was then king, into thinking the giants had sided with his “evil”
nature-demon brother Nalke. The giants had been under Rockne’s spell, causing
them to attack the islanders. They’d been innocent.

Aneela stepped
onto the frozen lake, next to the hole. Nothing happened.

“Perhaps
Rockne’s magic has completely left this island,” Rhys said. “Everything he
created no longer works—”

Aneela suddenly
began lowering into the ice. She smiled at her husband. “Or perhaps you’re
mistaken.” She completely disappeared as the lift took her down into the
giants’ world.

Everything was
covered in ice. Aneela faced toward the village, filled with white, round
houses. A large bridge was set over a dark-blue river that flowed around the
village. She looked up to see the icy ceiling high above. She waited until she
reached the bottom to look behind her, where she saw a large ice wall a mile
away.

The meteor had
crashed in the field between the village and the wall.

Aneela waited
for the rest of the group to join her. When they did, Rhys looked unhappy. “It
goes even farther?” he asked, looking at the impact hole.

“I suppose so,”
Aneela said. “At least we don’t have to worry about anyone being hurt by—”

The ground
shook and she braced herself against Rhys. Ice rained down from the ceiling.
The only place to take cover was in the village. They ran over the large bridge
and into the closest hut. The ground quaked for at least a minute, and the
group listened to the thuds of large blocks of ice rain down around them. After
the quake ended, they left the hut.

The ice lift
began to lower and on it sat a twenty-foot-tall sentient weed. Victor, the
dwarf, stood next to it. “Aneela!” he shouted as the lift reached the ground.
“I have something to tell you.”

“What is it?”

“The island is
in danger. Something has happened.”

“Danger?” She
grabbed his round shoulders. “What are you talking about?”

“I saw…well,
you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. But I was told something has injured the
island. I saw you heading this way, so I’m guessing you saw something?”

“Yes. A meteor
struck the island.”

“A meteor! That
must be what she was talking about.”

Aneela shook
her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who told you the island was
in pain?”

Victor stood
silently for a moment before saying, “Champagne. I swear I saw her, but I don’t
know how it’s possible.”

“Champagne?”
Champagne DuBois, a beloved elderly empath, had died not long ago. “Victor, are
you feeling all right?”

He smiled, his
eyes shining through his bushy red beard. “I’m fine, Aneela. Thank you for
asking. I know Champagne is dead, but I know what I saw. The beast saw her
too.” He indicated the hexl next to him. The hexl didn’t speak, of course.

“Well,” Aneela
said, “the meteor crashed through here. Let’s follow it and see where it takes
us. Then we’ll talk more about what you saw.”