Chapter Thirty-Four –

Chapter Thirty-Four –

The cold, gel-like substance surrounded me. I had no idea where I was headed, but there was no time to imagine the places I could end up. All I could think about was that dark alley, the sound of the mob filling my ears and competing for room there with the silence. The closeness and the warmth. I held it there, that feeling, that pure thought. With my eyes squinted shut I pushed forward. I had no idea if any of them had followed, but I couldn’t open my eyes to see and I couldn’t spare the time to think of it.

My lungs were filling with the thick liquid, clogging me up. I was drowning, but I didn’t even care. I kept walking, fighting for it. And then I stepped out somewhere and I fell to the ground and coughed up the clear stuff that was all over me and plastering my hair to my face. It evaporated almost instantly as it met the air around me. Just like the last time.

I crawled forward a bit, still not looking at where I’d ended up. Oriel was spat out next, and she landed over my legs.

“Get off, would you?” I said, trying to get up.

“Sorry,” she said, sounding like she was hacking up a lung.

I stood up and looked around, expecting someplace familiar. It was a room full of mirrors. I had no idea how big it really was, and spinning around in circle didn’t give me any better of an idea. Slyla was nowhere to be seen.

I stepped back a bit and waited for the others to come through. The sword was at my hip, ready for what was about to happen. There was no one to directly save this time, only memories. Only something that had been lost the whole time. I watched the walls of mirror closely.

“Corbin Lisle,” his voice finally whispered from my left. “It seems you’ve discovered you didn’t find what you thought you had, hmm?”

I didn’t answer him, just unsheathed the sword and held it at the ready.

“Answer me, boy,” he threatened, stepping closer to us.

“Yeah,” I said. “We figured it out. After all those roundabout clues that meant nothing at all we figured it out.” I set my mouth and drained my features of any emotion. I saw Slyla twitch with worry.

“So would you like the memories, Corbin Lisle? There may be things you wouldn’t like the girl to remember.” He smiled, thinking he had won with that little comment. As if I were that gullible.

“That’s not for me to decide,” I growled, raising the sword.

“Very well, then, Corbin Lisle.” He smiled at me again, showing off those sharp teeth. “We shall duel if that is what you would prefer.”

“Prefer to what?” Oriel butted in, stepping up and grabbing my elbow, worried.

“To nothing at all, Oriel Maine,” Slyla said, turning to her and holding out his hand. He pulled it back as if there was something in it.

She had no idea how literal he was being.

I looked down at Oriel and she was staring at me curiously.

“You again?” She said bitterly. “Would you stay away from me, yeah? Where have you brought me this time?” She looked around at the mirrors.

“Corbin Lisle?” Slyla asked, laughing a little.

“Slyla the Vengeful?” I raised an eyebrow at him. To Oriel I said, “Shut up for a bit and stand over there, would you?” She glared at me and went to stand with the others.

“Did he get all of you, too? Hunter? Isn’t this kid weird? How’d he get us here?”

I wanted to talk to her, but before I could do anything I had to get her back. That wasn’t Oriel. You can’t be the person you really are if you don’t remember where you’ve been. Because where you’ve been and what you’ve done makes you who you are. It’s as simple as that.

He came at me quickly, which I had been expecting of him. He didn’t have a knife, just his fingers. He was going to steal my soul and Oriel’s memories if I lost this. I’d have nothing at all and neither would she. I braced myself and brought the sword around into his chest. His scream filled my ears, high and piercing like those shadow things. His face contorted and the place the sword had touched turned a sickly, oozing black and rotted away so I could see through him.

I pulled the sword out as he backed away a bit, planning his next attack. Without warning he disappeared. I whirled around, watching each mirror for any sign of movement.

There. Behind me, but nowhere else. I ran at him, since he was just watching me. Through the mirror I plunged, and that sick feeling you get from high elevations took me over for a second until I emerged on the other side.

“Corbin Lisle, are you afraid?” He asked me calmly.

“You’d like to know, wouldn’t you?” I wanted to say. But I didn’t.

I knew what would happen if I let him see into my thoughts, into my emotions. Every move I made would be seen before I completed the thought of it. I’d lose. I knew what he was up to. It was a trick last time and it would be again. Drop my shield? I think not.

I started forward, not waiting for him to make another comment. I raised the sword above my head, ready to bring it down with all my strength. He stepped out of the way in time, so I just cut his arm. Black poured out and slicked the ground. He writhed in pain.

I wanted to say something witty, something mean to get him going. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t say anything at all.

I didn’t wait for him to recover and move. I just hit him again and again with the flat of the blade, getting hisses in response. Wherever the metal touched rotted away again. Soon he’d be nothing but a shell.

Then I paused for a moment, careful not to let the fear show in my eyes.

“Where’s the locket, Slyla?” I asked him calmly as he shuddered to the ground.

He looked up, relishing the moment. “Where it should be.” He grinned evilly.

“Which is where, Slyla? No one knows how your mind works.” I pointed the tip of the sword at his kneeling figure.

“I think you know, Corbin Lisle. Mirror, mirror on the wall, where are her memories to fall?” He chuckled, but the laugh turned into a gurgling sound as the black bubbled up from his phantom throat.

“You are brave, Corbin Lisle, but you need to follow the rules. It has been a pleasure knowing you.”

And then he was gone. Slyla the Vengeful was gone forever and he wasn’t coming back. I looked back through the mirror behind me at the worried faces.

Mirror, mirror…

Hunter’s theory of evolution by mirrors had turned out to be important? And people say there aren’t miracles anymore.

I walked back slowly, taking my time before going through the mirror again. The sick feeling was stronger that time and I almost puked when I appeared in front of them all again.

“Hunter,” I said, holding my stomach even though the feeling was gone. “You’ve got something?”

She looked up at me, meeting my eyes with her green gaze. She reached up under her hair and worked her fingers around something. Then, from around her neck she pulled the shell locket.

“My grandmother gave this to me,” she whispered when she stepped forward to give it to me. “I wrote that song, and this shell told the story.” She laid the locket in my palm.

I sighed and walked over to Oriel. Hunter had had the locket the entire time. The one we had found on the beach had been planted there for us – a decoy. Just something to spout riddles at Oriel and make her think she’d gained something she’d lost. And it had been there all along, on Hunter’s neck. Why hadn’t she said anything? Was she completely and utterly daft?

I fastened the necklace around Oriel’s neck and the little charm glinted at her throat. She smiled like nothing had ever been wrong. She had everything then, everything she ever needed to be herself.

Too bad I still had nothing. I had memories, and I had the Island and I had these people… but what did I really have? It’s easier to say what I don’t have, really.

“So this is what I was missing?” She said, smiling up at me.

“I don’t know,” I said. “What are you thinking of?”

“I’m not thinking.”

She stood on her toes and kissed me lightly, with smiling lips. Her arms wrapped around my neck and it was like everything around us disappeared.

Then she looked away from my face and gazed at our surroundings.

We were back on the alternate Island, watching waves crash on the shore.

“Can we stay here this time?” Trida complained. “I’m so sick of that castle.”

“Do what you want,” I snapped. “I won’t miss you.”

“Corbin!” Oriel scolded.

“I only speak the truth,” I stated calmly, then turned away.

Zan stood off to the side, watching the horizon with a melancholy face.

“You’ll need this back, won’t you?” I asked him, trying to hand the sword back to him.

“No. I stole it; you earned it, Corbin Lisle.” He smiled a little.

“What are you going to do now, then?” I asked him.

“I’m not really sure. Bo and I will find something to do, I should think.” He chuckled a bit. “But I don’t think our encounters are quite over, Corbin.”

“Really?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Truly.” He looked back out to the sea and I left him alone.

“I guess we should go back?” I said to Oriel and Hunter. “Since this is over and all.

They were talking like they had never fought in their lives. I guess it was for the best that they were friends again, but it just seemed too unnatural to me for them to go from hate to perfectly fine in so little time.

“I suppose,” Oriel whispered. She looked around one more time, then took my hand.

Nothing happened.

She looked up at me, worried. Hunter looked scared as she stared at me, her eyes wide.

Oriel let go and then tried again.

Nothing.

“You’re kidding me,” I muttered, closing my eyes and tilting my head back to look at the sky.

It was cloudy and grey, and as the wind picked up my hair blew around my face angrily, like tendrils of fire.

Something small landed on my shoulder.

“This is far from over, sir,” an accented voice said calmly.

I opened my eyes and surveyed the world around me. It was so familiar and yet so different.

“Or should I say ‘sire?’” The bird cocked his head at me and all went silent.

And that is the end of the story, for now…