He banished Delloreen to the back corners of his mind and pondered momentarily what the use of the Elfstones meant beyond the obvious. Why had the magic been summoned now? There didn’t appear to be any point in it.
But then it occurred to him that perhaps it was a way of letting him know how matters stood—that the boy was back and the Elfstones recovered. The message might be that it was time to prepare for the jaws of his trap to close. Once the Loden was employed and the city and the bulk of its population imprisoned, it would be time for his army to complete the eradication process.
Still, it seemed an unnecessary use of the magic. He would know that it was time to act, after all, when the city and its population disappeared. And there were other ways for his ally to inform him of his return.
Why allow the boy to invoke the magic and risk its detection?
Vaguely dissatisfied, he stood alone without moving for a long time, carefully avoided by his followers as he pondered the matter, his ancient visage dark and troubled.
SIX
“W ELL, DON’T JUST SIT THERE! Tell us what happened!”
Panther was agitated, impatient. His hands gestured to emphasize the urgency of his request; his dark face was flushed. “Why aren’t you dead, Bird-Man? We thought you went over the wall and into the light and you was dead! Now you just walk out of nowhere and look like nothing ever happened! Talk to us, damn it!”
Owl, seated in her wheelchair with Candle in her lap, smiled despite herself. It took something to get Panther this worked up and then to let it show. But the others were anxious, too. It reflected on their faces, bright and eager in anticipation of hearing a new story, this time one that Hawk was going to tell.
They were gathered in a circle in a field not far from the side of the freeway, the AV and the wagon drawn up next to them. Twilight had departed and night had settled in, a dark blanket of still air and quiet expectation. They had not started a fire or eaten a meal. There was no time for that when there was so much catching up to do. Moonlight brightened the faces of those gathered—the Ghosts and Cat on the one hand and Hawk and Tessa on the other. Cheney lay off to one side, his shaggy bulk just visible in the pale light. He had greeted them all in his typically aloof way, sniffing momentarily at Cat to make sure of her, glancing at Rabbit—which was more than enough to send the terrified feline scrambling for safety—and then slouching over to where he was settled now. As far as the big wolf dog was concerned, nothing much had changed.
But everything had changed for the rest of them, she thought. Hawk was back. The boy with the vision was back to lead his children to the Promised Land.
“Tell us, Hawk,” she urged gently.
He looked at her, a flicker of uncertainty in his green eyes, an unmistakable hesitation in his effort to respond. “I’m not sure where to start,” he said. “I’m not even sure how to start.”
“Start with what happened at the compound,” Sparrow suggested. “I saw that strange light flash from where I was standing on the rooftop just before I went down the ladder and found Panther and we had to run from the Croaks to . . .”
She stopped, smiling sheepishly. “Start there,” she finished.
“Where did you go?” asked River, dark eyes already wide with wonder.
“I went into these gardens,” Hawk said. “Tessa and I were thrown from the wall and everything was suddenly blinding and I must have lost consciousness. Then I woke up in these gardens and there was this old man. Real old. He said he was a Faerie creature.” He caught a glimpse of Panther’s smirk. “I know, Panther. It sounds crazy. I thought so, too. But that’s what he said, that he was a Faerie creature. He called himself the King of the Silver River. He said the gardens were his and that he had brought me there to learn about myself. He saved me because he said I had something I needed to do.”
“You went into the light, is where you went,” Panther insisted. “I heard about people doing that. You died and came back, is what you did.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Hawk replied, shaking his head. “I don’t know for sure where I was. But the old man didn’t seem to think it was anything big. He told me the same thing Logan Tom told me in the compound cells—that I was a gypsy morph, that I was made out of a kind of magic. But I was a boy, too. Just like everyone else,” he added hastily. “Except that I had to do this thing. I had to come back and find you and all these other kids, and then I had to take you to this place where you would be safe.”
“Safe from what?” Panther wanted to know at once.
Hawk hesitated. “From the end of the world.”
“The end of the world,” Fixit repeated.
“Oh, man,” whispered Chalk.
The others muttered similar pronouncements, glancing uneasily at one another and then back at Hawk. This caught even Owl off guard. “Are you sure about what he told you?” she asked him.
Hawk nodded. “It gets stranger. He told me that others would be coming with us. I mean, besides the children. He said there would be Elves.”
For a moment, no one spoke.
“Sure there will,” Panther declared, nodding soberly. “Probably trolls and pixies, too. Maybe some dragons. Just like in that book Owl read once, the one with all those magic things.”
“He knows what he was told,” Tessa insisted, coming to Hawk’s defense. “This isn’t what you think. He’s serious about this.”
“You saw all this?” Panther pressed.
She shook her head. “No, I was asleep. When I woke up, we weren’t in the gardens anymore. We were on the banks of the river south of here—Hawk and Cheney and me. But if Hawk isn’t telling the truth, how did we get there? How did Cheney end up with us, for that matter?”
“How did you get here?” Owl asked, steering the conversation in a different direction while everyone was still calm enough to listen.
“We just started walking,” Tessa answered. Her dusky face lifted into the moonlight and her eyes shone. “Then we found this camp with all these children and their protectors. Hundreds of them, come up from somewhere south, fleeing an army that had killed everyone else. Hawk took them across the river, over a bridge.” She hesitated, as if she might say something more about this, but then decided against it. “After we were across, he told the others to wait for him there until he returned with his own family. Then we came looking for you.”
“You knew where we would be?” Owl said.
Tessa nodded. “Hawk knew.”
Owl and the others looked at the boy. Hawk shrugged. “I just did. I can’t explain it. It has something to do with the magic.”
Panther looked off into the night. “I’m not calling you Bird-Man anymore. I’m calling you Magic Man. Or maybe Crazy Man.”
“Panther.” Tessa spoke his name firmly and waited until he looked at her. “Don’t call him names. You haven’t seen what I’ve seen. He isn’t the same as you remember. He’s something else now, something special.”
“Tessa, don’t,” Hawk said. “I’d say the same thing as Panther if he were telling me all this.”
“So tell us more about the world ending,” Chalk urged, brushing past the rest of it. “Is this for real?”
“The old man said so. He said it was all ending, and we had to get to someplace safe until everything got better and we could go out into it again.” Hawk shook his head. “I asked him if he was serious, if he was sure about this, and he said he was. He said it’s all gone too far and everything’s ending. I guess I believe him.”
“Look around you,” Cat said suddenly from one side, the scaly patches of her mottled face reflecting the moonlight. They all turned to look at her. “I don’t know about this old man, but I know enough to believe what he says about the world. It’s already ruined. Anyone with half a brain can tell that. Why should it be so hard to think it’s going to end?”
“She’s right,” agreed Sparrow. “Giant centipedes and armies killing off the compound people. Croaks and Lizards and all the rest. I think it’s ending. What
do we do, Hawk?”
“We go back and join the children I left behind, and then we head east to wherever it is we have to go to be safe.”
“But you’ll know where that is?” Sparrow asked.
“The old man said I would.” He paused. “I’ve been thinking about what that means. I think it has something to do with the gardens. He said that was where I was conceived. It was where he kept me until it was time for me to come out into the world and become who I am. Maybe there is a connection. Maybe I am supposed to find my way back again.”
“How you gonna do that? You couldn’t do it before! Didn’t even know they existed!” Panther threw up his hands. “You better be Magic Man or we’re gonna be lost out here forever!”
“I think it makes a difference that I didn’t know about the gardens. I don’t think I was meant to find them before this. I think that’s what the old man intended all along.”
“Oh, sure. Now you know, so nothing to worry about.” Panther shook his head. “Listen to yourself. Then look at who we are. Kids! A bunch of kids! With more kids waiting to join us? Hundreds of them? So this bunch of kids and some Elves and some other people are supposed to hike off into the wilderness to somewhere that no one but you know, and even you don’t know it yet! We’re gonna hike to someplace we’ll be safe, even though the rest of the world is gonna buy the farm? Does anyone but me find this a little weird?”
“How many times have you listened to the story of the boy and his children, Panther?” Owl gave him a warm, reassuring smile. “Didn’t you believe in that story? Isn’t that why you stayed with us? You knew about Hawk’s dream. His vision. That was his story, the same as now. We all understood that. We were all waiting for it to happen, ever since we were together. We all believed in it then and I think we all have to believe in it now.”
“Yeah, Panther,” Sparrow agreed. “Where’s your faith?”
“Where’s your brain?” Panther snapped back. “A story’s a story. It ain’t necessarily the truth. What’s real is what counts. What’s real is what’s out there waiting to chew us all to bits!”
“You think we might be better off if we didn’t believe Hawk?” River asked quietly. Her dark eyes fixed on him. “Are you saying we should turn around and go back? That we should find some other city where we could make a home? What are you saying? If you tell us that Hawk’s vision isn’t true, what’s left for us?”
Panther stared at her. “I don’t know. I’m just saying we have to be careful of things. We have to watch out.”
“How is that different now than it was yesterday?” River pressed. She pointed at him. “You do what you want. But what matters to me is that Hawk is back, and I’m going wherever he takes me.”
Owl was surprised and pleased. River hadn’t said more than two words since her grandfather’s death and her recovery from her bout with the plague. To hear her speak like this, sounding strong and self-assured again, was a small miracle.
“River’s right,” Sparrow echoed.
“How are we gonna protect ourselves?” Panther demanded, unwilling to give it up. His face was dark with anger. “Tell me that!”
“Where’s Logan Tom?” Hawk asked. “He was sent to protect us. He can help.”
“He can’t protect no one!” Panther sneered. He brushed angrily at the air in front of him. “Why do you think he’s not sitting in on this, O mighty one who sees and knows all?”
“Watch your mouth, Panther Pee!” Sparrow snapped at him. She was on her feet, her fists clenched.
“Watch your own mouth, birdbrain!” Panther rose, as well.
“Oh, sit down and grow up!” Cat growled from back in the shadows. Rabbit hopped out of her lap and hissed. “Go on, little children! Sit down!”
She said it without shouting, but there was an edge to her words that stopped both where they were. Glowering at each other, they sat.
“Logan is in a coma,” Owl interjected before Panther and Sparrow could start up again. “He was in a terrible fight, and he was almost killed. Panther and Catalya rescued him, but he’s been unconscious ever since. We’ve done what we can to help him, but he won’t come awake.”
“Might not ever come awake,” Panther muttered, giving Sparrow a hard look.
Quickly Owl said, “Why don’t all of you tell Hawk and Tessa what happened to us after they disappeared?”
The others were eager to do so, and for a time the conversation turned away from the end of the world and the journey ahead to a recounting of the escape from the city and the trek south in the wake of the invasion off the harbor. They told about the attack on the compound; about the boy with the ruined face and the death of Squirrel; about the encounter with the “Creepers,” as Panther had named them; and about the attack on the camp by Croaks that had led to Candle’s kidnapping. Everyone shared a piece of the story. Even Catalya took part, relating how she had encountered Logan and taken him to the Senator and what had happened afterward.
Owl let the others talk without joining in, content to watch how they interacted, paying particular attention to Hawk. She was still getting used to the idea that he was alive. It wasn’t that she had believed he was dead. It was mostly that she had lived for so long with the possibility of it. Having him back was such an enormous relief that she was overwhelmed by it.
She found herself thinking about how much the members of her little family had changed since they had left their city home. They had grown, some differently than others, but all in one way or another. She was pleased that River had come back from the loss of her grandfather, her dark despondency and apathy faded into the past. Fixit was better, too. He no longer talked about his failures and his shortcomings. He no longer agonized over his part in the death of the Weatherman. Even Cat was beginning to feel like one of the family. Slowly but surely, the others had accepted her, in small ways first, then in large measure. Panther was especially attentive, as if what they had shared in rescuing Logan Tom had forged a bond between them.
Maybe we can’t make this journey Hawk wants us to make, she thought. But it doesn’t feel that way. Not to me.
“So we got out from under the stands,” Panther was saying. “All these Krilka Koos stump heads start running for their lives. Logan, he was throwing fire at them with that black staff, yards of it, everything burning. It was something! But we got to him, me and Cat—he didn’t burn us—and we got him out of there and back up to the freeway. That’s where the Ghosts found us.”
“I brought the AV back to get them,” Fixit said proudly. “I told Owl we couldn’t wait anymore to see what was going to happen, that we had to come back for them. We would have gone right into that camp if we’d had to! Wouldn’t we, Owl?”
He stopped suddenly, staring at her. “What’s wrong?”
They were all looking at her, and she realized that she was crying. She wiped at her eyes, knowing she couldn’t explain why. “I was just thinking about Squirrel,” she lied. “Go ahead, keep talking.”
They hesitated for a moment, not sure what they should do, then gave in to their excitement and went back to their story. Owl took a deep, steadying breath. Fixit had been so unexpectedly brave, telling her he had to go, wheeling the AV around with only Chalk and Sparrow for company, leaving the rest of them to wait. Had to be quick and mobile, he had told her, so the wagon and the other Ghosts had to stay behind. She was afraid for him, but she knew that he was determined and that what he was doing was the right thing. Chalk was his reluctant companion; he went because Fixit was his best friend and they did everything together, even the things that one of them didn’t want to do. Sparrow went because she knew how to use the Parkhan Spray.
“We been heading south ever since,” Panther finished up. “That’s how you found us, coming down the freeway to find you.”
“Logan Tom is still unconscious?” Hawk asked him.
“Ain’t said a word or moved a muscle since we got him out.” The other boy gave him a dark look. “So what’s to keep us from b
eing sliced and diced out there on the trail once you take us to wherever, Bird-Man? We ain’t got Mister Knight of the Word anymore. We ain’t got anyone with real skill in the staying-alive way. We got some firepower with the flechettes and the sprays, but nothing like that black staff.”
“Maybe we do,” Hawk said quietly.
They all looked at him, Owl hardest of all.
“Hawk, don’t . . .,” Tessa started to say.
He held up one hand quickly, like he knew what she was going to say and didn’t want her to, Owl thought. Tessa, in turn, it seemed, was afraid he was going to reveal something that he shouldn’t. Owl didn’t know what it was, but she was pretty sure it had something to do with the way he had changed on finding out the truth about who and what he was. She could sense that change, but not yet define it. She watched him closely to see what he would do next, searching for the answer.
Then all at once Hawk was staring right at her.
“Can I have a look at Logan Tom?” he asked.
OWL LED THE WAY, wheeling herself with help from Candle, who climbed down off her lap and walked beside her. The others trailed along behind, whispering among themselves. The night had gone deeper and darker, and while the stars continued to fill the sky with their pinpricks of light, the moon had disappeared. In the distance, lost in the blackness, a dog howled.
Cheney, who had risen from his repose to follow Hawk, never even so much as glanced in the direction of the sound, his dark muzzle swinging from side to side in that familiar way. Hawk was watching Owl again, thinking that she recognized that something was different about him and was wondering what it was. She was too smart not to pick up on it, too connected to him. She knew it was real; she just didn’t know yet what form it had taken because it wasn’t something she could see.