The Legend Thief (34 page)

Sky's brain shut down, and he clung to Rauschtlot, gibbering and crying.

Gossyrners fell all around them, silk streamers trailing behind like parachutes, and Paragoth smashed and swatted them like flies.

With arms spread out, Rauschtlot angled for an open tunnel going straight down.

They fell through. Sky rotated just so and slammed his chest against Rauschtlot's back, activating the protective Shimmer just before they crashed into the shaft. They rolled, flopping and flailing, to a stop. Even with the Shimmer, it felt to Sky as if every bone in his body had snapped, but his erfskin, and the Gnomon resilience that came from it, were still working.

Rauschtlot grabbed the Chrysalis under one arm and started running.

Paragoth's mouths plunged through earth, shooting past them, just missing time and time again.

Rauschtlot dove into a wall, grabbed the Chrysalis with her feet, and they were swimming through the loam.

Ten minutes later they emerged from the earth, battered and torn, and in entirely the wrong place.

“We’re under the manor,” Sky croaked after coughing the dirt from his lungs. “I realized this place—the tunnel that collapsed the night I became a Changeling.”

Sky jumped up and drew the shimmering blade. He stepped toward Bedlam’s Chrysalis. He found a thin opening on top, large enough for the blade. He slid the blade in, but nothing happened.

He still had no idea how to open the Chrysalis.

"The Fffinger is overunnn," Rauschtlot hissed, her body bleeding and torn. "I
.. .
mussst
... rrr ..."

Rauschtlot slumped to the ground, her skin turning bright white.

Sky dropped his shimmering blade and fell next to her.

"Rauschtlot?
Rauschtlot!"

She didn't move. She didn't breathe. She just lay there, still as the earth.

Sky collapsed back against the wall, the horror of all that had happened finally catching up to him. He cried, his body rattling with heavy sobs.

He'd failed everyone. Crystal was going to die. Exile was going to burn.

Above, the manor rumbled.

"I can't do this anymore," Sky whimpered. "I just can't." Then he heard something at the far end of the tunnel, where the ceiling had collapsed. He leaped to his feet, wiping his tears away.

He tried to activate his Pounder, but nothing happened. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that the Pounder, along with most of his new cloak and gear, had been shredded to bits. Only Phineas’ old coat remained.

Dirt poured out of a small hole in the wall. Rocks shifted. Sky backed down the tunnel.

The hole got bigger and bigger, and Sky could hear voices coming through.

A moment later Winston Snavely tumbled out of the hole.
"Phineas?"
Sky exclaimed, hardly believing his eyes.

"It's Sky!" Phineas yelled back into the hole. He turned back to Sky, holding out his hand. "Come along now.
Quickly."
Sky heard a noise directly above him, and before he could move, a Gossymer crashed through the ceiling, landing on top of him.

"Sky!"
Phineas cried.

"I bury you in one place and dig you up in another," said Morton Thresher as he grabbed Sky roughly and threw him in front of Ambrosia on the Gossymer before climbing back on. "Up we go!"

Sky caught a fleeting glimpse of his shimmering blade, lying useless on the ground, and Phineas rushing toward them, and then they were up and gone, appearing amidst the chaos in the yard outside the manor. Storm clouds swirled above and lightning crashed down, but the monsters that had been trapped in the prison slept on. Sky, Morton, and Ambrosia had arrived far back from the manor, just inside the glowing stained glass wall that marked the boundary of Solomon's prison.

Ambrosia shoved Sky off the Gossymer and he tumbled hard to the ground,
then
rolled to his back.

"Give you a hand there, mate?"

Sky looked up and saw Chase smiling hesitantly down at him, offering his hand.

Sky ignored it and stood. "Thanks. I can get up on my own."

"I can see that," Chase replied.

"Keep an eye on him," said Morton. The Gossymer carrying Morton and Ambrosia shot back into the ground. "Will do," said Chase.

Sky noticed Crenshaw and a small group of Morton's hunters hovering a short distance away. Crenshaw gave Sky a sour look before turning his attention back to the distant manor.

"What's going on?" Sky asked, loud enough to be heard over the roaring storm, but not loud enough for Morton's hunters to hear.

"Pendulum's not degrading," Chase replied. "Should've stopped some time ago, but Winston's keeping it going some how. They've blocked off the house-giant Shimmer, I think. No one can get near it. It only just dropped when you arrived."

"So Morton and Ambrosia are burrowing into the manor," said Sky.

Chase tapped his nose. "Spot on, mate."

"Sometime you and I need to have a little talk about not burying your mates,
mate,"
said Sky.

"Couldn't be helped.
Here, take this." Chase handed Sky a small vial.

"What is it?"

"Something to help you survive," Chase replied.

Sky frowned. The last time someone he knew had drunk an unknown liquid, he'd lost his memory. On the plus side, Derek had forgotten having kissed Hannah, so maybe it wasn't all bad.

"Trust me," said Chase.

"Trust you? You're a liar, Errand," Sky hissed. "You've been right in front of me this whole time and you didn't say a word."

"And you're not a liar? Pots and kettles, Sky, pots and kettles," Errand replied. "Now drink up."

Sky glowered, but Errand, or Chase, or whoever he was, was right. He'd been no more honest than Errand, and no more trusting. Besides, whatever was in the vial wasn't likely to put him in a worse situation.
Probably.

"Fine," Sky muttered. When no one was watching, Sky drank it down. Surprisingly, it tasted sweet, like honey.

"Tell me when your skin starts drooping," said Errand.

"Wait-what?" Sky grabbed his skin and pulled, stretching it much further than should've been possible. "You gave me Slippery Wick Brew?"

Errand glanced over. "Hmm . . . might've put too much dung in it. Good enough, I suppose." He raised his voice. "Crenshaw, I need your help here!"

Sky saw that Crenshaw and the other hunters had moved closer to the manor to watch Morton's approach.

Crenshaw came over, but he didn't look happy about it. "What?"

"I found this on our boy," said Errand, holding up another vial. "You're a smart one-any idea what we've got?"

Crenshaw took the vial from Errand. Their hands touched. "
Ow
. What
was-
"

Errand caught Crenshaw under the arms before he could fall and, on Errand's finger, Sky saw a small ring holding a Dovetail thorn.

"Concentrated Dovetail," said Errand, shuffling Crenshaw behind a tree, where he dropped him.
"Learned that trick from the Shadow Man."

"You call him that, too, huh? The man who
Changed
us?" asked Sky.

"What else is there to call him? We've no idea who he is," said Errand. "I've searched everywhere, Sky. Not even Bedlam knows who the Shadow Man is. Only Solomon knows."

"You don't still believe that, do you?" asked Sky.

"He wasn't lying, Sky-not about that," said Errand. "He
knows."

"Are you really working with Phineas and laying a double bogey?" Sky asked. "Or have you decided to team up with Morton to free Solomon, even after all the trouble we went through to lock him up?"

"You're
the one who became Morton's apprentice, as I recall," Errand countered.

"Whose side are you on, Errand? Be straight with me for once."

“I'm on
our
side," said Errand.

"I wasn't aware we had a side," Sky retorted. He glanced at his hand. "Why am I all saggy?"

"The brew might need some adjustments-!
was
in a hurry." Errand stretched his own hand and Sky saw the skin peel back, revealing Errand's marks underneath.

"You have to fold the skin just right to hide it," Errand continued. "Phineas taught me that trick."

''I'll bet he did," said Sky bitterly.

Errand grabbed Sky's face. "Try not to cry-I need to make a few adjustments to your fat."

Sky felt his skin slide this way and that. It hurt. "So do I look like you now?"

"You look like him," said Errand, pointing at Crenshaw. "And
he
looks like you. Now, put on his clothes while I fix him up." Sky stripped down to his boxers and put on Crenshaw's clothes, tossing his shredded cloak to Errand. He paused at Phineas’ old coat.

"Come on, the coat, too," said Errand, holding out his hand. "You can wear Crenshaw's, just empty the pockets."

"It's not the same," said Sky, moving his Tin and a few canisters to the new coat. He paused as he pulled out the seed and note they'd retrieved from the bowling alley.

"What's that?" Errand asked.

"I'm not sure . . . ," Sky replied, thinking. He added the seed and note to his new coat and put it on. "How do I look?" "Like a little girl trying on her daddy's clothes," said Errand, putting Sky's old coat on Crenshaw. "Roll up the cuffs and sleeves. Hopefully they won't notice what a scrawny
git
you are."

"Thanks," said Sky drily. "And you can drop the accent around me."

"Believable, right?" said Errand in his normal voice, which is to say he sounded exactly like Sky, even though he still looked like Chase. "I spent a few weeks in South London practicing."

"I don't know
... ,
"said Sky. "You sound more Australian to me."

"Shows what you know. The European hunters find my accent very believable. They haven't said a word."

"That's probably because they think you're Australian," Sky observed.

"Just shut up and grab his legs," Errand replied tartly.

Sky grabbed Crenshaw's legs, and together they carried him out from behind the tree.

"What are you two doing?" a girl demanded before they had taken two steps. She glanced at Crenshaw, who, Sky noted, really did look like him now. If Crenshaw wasn't several inches taller than him, and several muscles larger, they could've passed as twins.

"Our boy was causing trouble-had to give him what for," Errand supplied, switching back into his faux British-Australian accent and dropping Crenshaw's arms so that his head banged against the ground.

Before the girl could respond, thunder cracked and a swirling ball of crackling energy rolled out of the manor, knocking them all to the ground.

Morton's hunters jumped to their feet, cheering as the monsters around them-the ones that couldn't burrow, jump, fly, or climb, and therefore couldn't escape the prison last year-began to twitch and wake up.

Sky and Errand glanced around uneasily as they crawled back to their feet.

"Great. Excellent," said Errand drily.
"Most glorious."

Sky didn't say anything. Accents and imitation weren't really his thing, not to mention that he· had nothing to say. In a few minutes Solomon Rose would escape, Malvidia and her hunters would retreat, Crystal would die, and Bedlam's army would burn Exile to the ground.

"Well, ah, we should be heading out, I suppose," said Errand as he and Sky backed away.

The girl turned to look at them again.

"You blokes watch him till we get back," Errand commanded, pointing at Crenshaw. "We've got important things to do. Understand?"

The girl frowned. "What important things?"

"Morton wanted us to come and find him," said Errand. The earth rumbled, and the Gossymer carrying Morton and Ambrosia shot out of the ground. "And there he is," said Errand.

Morton shook the dirt from his clothes and hair. "What happened to my apprentice?" he asked, staring down at Crenshaw. "These two gave him what for," said the girl, pointing at Sky and Errand.

Morton stopped dusting himself off and looked at them. "We sure did," said Errand. "The ratter tried to escape." Morton nodded, apparently accepting the story. "Put him up here-and you
lot follow
us."

Sky and Errand slung Crenshaw in front of Ambrosia on the Gossymer and it darted forward, racing into the heart of the awakening monsters.

Sky and Errand had no other choice but to follow.