“Shut up,” Azure screamed, scratching at his ear like a dog going for a flea. “You understand nothing. You don’t know what you’re talking about. I am in control of myself, while you wait for fate to show you your bleak future.”
“I don’t believe your—”
“Shut up!” Azure raged.
The two nits trembled with anxiety as Azure stepped faster.
The maze seemed to wander on forever. Geth and Winter had turned so many corners and gone so many different directions that if it had not been for the sky they would have had no hope that something besides black rock existed. Twice they passed other lost souls. One had evidently wandered in the maze for many weeks. He was emaciated and could barely crawl. It broke Winter’s heart to just leave him there.
“Can’t we take him with us?” Winter argued.
“No,” Azure insisted. “Let him die.”
“It’s fate that we came across him,” Geth said. “I’ll carry him.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Azure said. “Fate has no say in your actions. I, however, do.”
The giftless nits pulled Geth and Winter away from the man. Two turns later, Geth knew that even if he could have turned back, he would probably not have been able to find the man.
“There’s so much selfishness,” Geth said to Winter. “Before, it was mostly a small group of dissatisfied cogs and rants who thought only of themselves. Now it’s the very lithens who were sworn to protect Foo.”
“There’s still hope?” Winter asked skeptically.
“Of course.”
After an hour of working their way through the maze of stone, they took a final turn and moved straight up against the side of a cliff. The maze seemed to dead-end up against the wall. Azure’s blue line disappeared inches before the stop.
“I thought you said your line would shift?” Winter said, far more panic in her voice than she would have preferred to show.
Azure stepped up to the stone wall and pushed his left shoulder into the rock with ease. Moving at an angle, he worked his entire body into the rock wall.
“Wow,” Geth said. “I haven’t seen that before.”
One of the giftless nits tried going straight in, but the solid wall stopped him. He turned just a bit and slid in diagonally.
Geth mimicked the move, and in a couple of seconds he was back behind the cliff wall standing by Azure. Four seconds later Winter and the second nit were beside them.
“What is that?” Geth said with curiosity.
“The result of the Want messing with light and angles,” Azure said. “There are a few spots on the island where his tinkering didn’t work out so well.”
The ground behind the wall sloped in a circular pattern. The group spiraled down around massive stalagmites. Water trickled across the trail they were walking on.
“We’re heading down,” Geth commented.
“Reality has made you brilliant,” Azure laughed.
As they descended, the stalagmites began to change. They became thinner and thinner until they rose to the ceiling looking like iron bars. Geth touched one and shivered. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by the presence of metal,” he said.
“There should be no shock,” Azure said. “The Council of Wonder has always interpreted the law as it wished. Of course, now there is no council.”
“Our interpretation used to be for good,” Geth argued.
“Such a simple mind,” Azure laughed.
Azure stepped aside as the giftless nits pulled Geth and Winter past him and on into a large metal cage. The bars ran from ceiling to floor in a triangle pattern, creating a prison room no bigger than a small bedroom. Once in the cage, the nits became nervous and moved to get out. Before either of them made it, Azure waved his kilve and knocked the heavy gate closed.
“How quaint,” Azure said, wincing, his ear so painful he had to bend over.
“You can leave us here, but the Want will find me,” Geth said confidently.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Azure said. “In fact, I can promise you that the Want has no interest in you anymore. He sent me to finish you.”
“That can’t be,” Geth whispered.
“The Want has changed,” Azure hissed. “I suppose now there’s no harm in you knowing that.”
“Changed?”
“He no longer cares for Foo.”
“I don’t believe it,” Geth said tightly.
“Whose idea do you think your death was?” Azure asked, his ear so swollen it looked like he was holding a bloody orange to the side of his head. “Lith is dying. By the morning its soil will be added to the gloam. And your corpse will give it energy to reach. It’s my gift to the cause.”
“No,” Geth said in shock.
“Lith’s soil is a gift from the Want himself,” Azure smiled. “The gloam will grow rapidly.”
“It will be able to reach the fourth stone,” Geth calculated out loud.
“And possibly the fifth as well,” Azure added, his blue eyes flashing with smugness.
“Leven’s still out there,” Winter said. “You have no control over him.”
Azure smiled. “I’ve not yet had the privilege of meeting Leven,” he said. “But he soon will perform the one task the Want is most in need of. Poor boy, at this very moment he’s walking blindly into a trap, and there’s not so much as a common cog to help him.”
“Please, Azure,” Geth begged, his voice more desperate than Winter had ever heard before. “Leven’s just a boy. You can’t let the Want harm him. You once stood for the good of Foo. That Azure can’t be too far gone.”
“Such pathetic words,” Azure said. “Even before Sabine destroyed you, I had thoughts of silencing you. You do understand that the reason Sabine was able to put you in the seed was because of the power of the Want?”
Geth’s eyes grew cloudy.
“He knew your soul and your dreams,” Azure smiled. “He felt certain that you would never agree to what needed to be done. It also seemed that there would be no one better than you to get Leven back. What is it the dirty tharms say? Oh yes, ’burying two nits with one hole.’”
“Where’s Leven now?” Winter asked.
“Hundreds of feet above us,” Azure answered. “I would assume that at the moment he’s being told what he needs to do to save Foo. Too bad he doesn’t understand how difficult a time the Want has telling the truth these days.”
“So the Want never planned to save Foo?” Winter questioned.
“The Want’s plan doesn’t run parallel with that of the Dearth,” Azure said hotly. “But they will both serve each other in the end.”
“But the gateway is gone,” Winter argued. “Leven destroyed it.”
“Do you think we would have let Leven ruin the only way out?”
Geth put his head into his bound hands.
“There’s another gateway?” Winter asked Geth.
Geth didn’t answer. He lifted his head and stared at Azure.
A small fire burned behind his eyes as his entire body painfully absorbed the knowledge.
“But why did Sabine try to stop us from getting back?” Winter asked.
“Sabine,” Azure laughed. “What a worthless nit. He became a liability years ago, so consumed with returning to Reality quickly that he sidestepped strategy and saw no need to appease the Want by having Leven enter Foo. Sabine and his shadows became far more powerful than we were able to control or influence. He wanted out too badly. Now Reality has killed him. Had he structured his passion, he would be alive and about to taste success alongside the Dearth.”
“There can’t be another gateway,” Winter insisted. “Where is it?”
“There is, and I don’t know,” Azure said. “But the Want is willing to trade us the location and the means to open it—all for the measly price of destroying you two and, of course, taking care of Leven. Something I would have done for free.”
Winter felt sick.
The giftless nits in the cage began
to weep and complain. “Let us out,” they cried. “We’ve done nothing.”
“Your souls will feed the soil as well,” Azure said. “Of course, giftless souls are hardly a meal.”
Azure pulled at his swollen ear, grimacing at his own touch. “Take heart, Geth,” he boasted. “Your death will give the troops great hope in the cause.”
He turned and walked off, leaving Geth and Winter to die in relative privacy. The two giftless nits sobbed softly.
“Are you worried now?” Winter asked Geth.
Geth didn’t smile.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Don’t Let the Box Bugs Bite
There are few things as bothersome as being shoved into a small space for any amount of time. Claustrophobia is an ugly condition. Who in their right mind enjoys having no room to move and little or no air to breathe? Imagine being buried alive, or stuck in a heating vent while trying to overhear someone’s personal conversation down below.
Horrible.
I once spent an entire afternoon in a barrel in an effort to elude some pesky assailants. The ruse worked, but I have been even less enthusiastic ever since about volunteering for anything involving barrels or limited space.
It seems as if it would be equally uncomfortable to be shrunk and placed in a tiny wooden box. True, your body would be smaller, but it would still be dark, bothersome, and concerning.
Leven was experiencing just such a fate.
The Want had made him as small as a toy action figure and placed him in a little box for easier transportation. Currently the box was tucked under the Want’s left arm, and the Want was walking with jostling purpose toward the highest roundlands of Lith.
Inside the box Leven stretched his legs, trying to brace himself and keep his body from knocking around. The walls of the box were lined with a soft fabric that made it impossible to get a solid grip anywhere. The smell of something fruity that had occupied the box before Leven was strong and disgusting.
“Let me out,” Leven yelled, knowing that nobody could hear him, but feeling he should at least yell something. “Let me out!”
The box shook even more.
Leven slid swiftly on his back to the opposite edge of the box and hit his head up against the side. His chest hurt from thoughts of Phoebe being locked up and left alone. He reached to rub his head and the box turned completely over, throwing Leven down against the inside of the lid, which still had big globs of fruit stuck to it.
Leven’s right hand pushed into one of the globs. The box flipped again, and Leven dangled from the lid, his wrist caught in the fruit.
The predicament gave him an idea.
Leven reached up with his other hand and scraped off a rotted chunk of fruit. He lifted his right leg and smeared a bit on the bottom of his shoe. He then shook his wrist loose and fell back onto the floor of the box. Leven jammed his left hand into the corner and his right hand into the crack where the sides of the box met up. He stuck his left foot against the other side, wedging himself in and giving him some stability.
“Perfect,” he said.
The idea worked for a few minutes. But the Want was moving too fast, and as the box bounced up and down, Leven was having a hard time staying put in the inside corner of it. His foot slipped first, then his hand, and when the box was flipped upside down again, Leven’s stomach pushed into the mushy fruit on the inside of the lid, smearing bits of it all over.
He hung suspended for a few moments and then began to rock gently back and forth. The fruit snapped and Leven fell to the floor of the box, frantically trying to grab ahold of something to stop him from tumbling about. He rolled from end to end, lightly spreading the rotten fruit with his body.
He was flipped back up into the lid, pushing even more rank fruit out and down. The slick, soft walls made it easy for the decaying food to bleed out.
Leven made the mistake of touching his face.
The box dropped a few inches, and Leven plopped down face first against the bottom of it. His arms and legs were spread-eagled, each of them glued to the sticky fabric. The entire front of him was now adhesive as well, his chest and face pressing into the fabric.
Leven was stuck.
He tried to yell for help, but each time he opened his mouth the taste of putrid fruit filled it. The only good news, if you could call it that, was that he was no longer knocking about the box.
The Want walked faster.
The box spun in the Want’s robe pocket like a pinwheel. Leven could tell from the movement that the Want was moving up some stairs. Leven half wished he was out to climb them himself.
Leven’s face was pinned to the floor, but he could see small dots of white light flashing inside the box. The light increased until Leven felt like he was in center field in an arena where every spectator was taking flash photos. If his arms hadn’t been stuck to the floor, he would have covered his eyes.
As the flashing continued, Leven could see that the pinpoints of light were coming from the open mouths of very tiny bugs. They seemed to ooze out of the walls, opening their mouths to expose their miniscule flashing teeth as they consumed small bits of fruit.
It would have been interesting if Leven had been looking at them under a microscope, but watching them ravenously attack the fruit droppings as they circled closer was a tad unsettling.
Leven felt the first one on his ankle. It bit down with a solid crunch.
Leven screamed, letting the taste of bad fruit fill his mouth. The bugs moved back, startled. A few seconds later they were flashing Leven again.
One reached his arm, and Leven’s ensuing scream temporarily scared them back for a few more seconds.
“Clover!”
A bug bit Leven on his backside, prompting Leven to scream the loudest yet. The box went completely dark.
“Want!” Leven yelled, not knowing what else to call him.
The box was still dark.
“Anybody!”
The box slowly began to flash to life with the advance of more bugs.
Leven closed his eyes.
His gift had not worked ever since he had set foot on Lith, and he didn’t expect it to be any different now. He had closed his eyes simply to avoid seeing his painful immediate future. Even in his state he couldn’t help thinking that everything would be fine if he could just see Phoebe again.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Splinters
The Rove Valley was filled to capacity, creatures and beings spilling up over the rolling hills and mountain slopes that created it. For many months now, Lore Coils and lobs had been drifting across the whole of Foo, subtly inviting any who longed for Reality to take up arms and gather in the Rove Valley.
It looked to Janet as if the message had gotten out.
There were pockets of nits and cogs and palehi and echoes. There were also legions of black skeletons that had come from the mountains behind Morfit. And, of course, there were rows and rows of rants.
Janet had stayed with the echoes and spent most of her time standing near Osck. He was tall and still liked her reflection on his limbs.
The entire valley was buzzing over recent events. The rants were taking on fewer shapes than ever before. It seemed as if the dreams of people in Reality were condensing themselves. Almost every rant now was either half telt, avaland, sarus, hazen, or building. Those rants who were cursed with a left side of brick and mortar were fairly useless and had planted themselves in one large group over by the far end of the valley waiting for someone in Reality to dream of something less heavy.
There was also some movement in the valley. A large group of rants had been sent out weeks ago to gather on the shore below the Sentinel Fields where the gloam jutted out. Since their departure, steady waves of reinforcements had left daily to follow in their tracks and meet up with them.
Those still in the valley were beside themselves with the possibility of something finally happening to reconnect them to Reality.
Osck sat down by Janet on a dead fantrum t
ree. He looked at her large reflection in the side of his arm. In the past day he had grown even more attached to her, talking often of the two of them being more than just friends. Janet had wanted to point out how impossible that was, but it seemed as if impossible things were always happening in Foo anyway, and she rather enjoyed the attention.
“We will leave tomorrow,” Osck said.
“Why?” Janet asked.
“All the echoes are ready.”
“I’ll go with you?” Janet asked carefully.
“Of course. I would stay if you didn’t.”
Janet smiled sadly.
“You’re so odd,” Osck said. “There’s no one here like you.”
“It’s different in Reality,” Janet replied, her whole being so much softer than it had once been. “In Reality there are many like me.”
“Glorious,” Osck exclaimed. “And in Reality we will be free. We will be able to bounce off every surface and texture.”
Janet was quiet.
“Your face is longer than usual,” Osck said with concern.
“It won’t work,” Janet admitted. “I can’t understand how I can see that you will fail when nobody else does.”
“You doubt because you don’t know anything of Foo.”
“I know that if we do make it back, you will drift off into the sunlight and disappear. And I will most likely return to being who I have always been.”
Osck tried to touch Janet consolingly under her chins. “You’ll live there,” he said. “And I’ll sit next to you there like I do here.”
“I don’t want to sit anymore,” Janet said sadly. “I don’t even want to see myself again.”
Janet had been through so much in the past little while. She had seen things of unbelievable complication and beauty. She had also witnessed acts of great selfishness and foolishness. And, even though Osck’s presence was a comfort to her, it was the words of the boulder that had moved her most.
Janet wanted to reach.