He felt the blow but didn't go down like I expected him to. Instead he gazed in my direction for three seconds, maybe four. In that short span his metal eye-patch began to glow, and then a crackling flash of light burst forward in
The tree I stood under exploded into flames, and then I remembered that John told me to keep on moving. I ran twenty steps, stopped, and threw another stone. The rock hit Stewart but at the same time his eye flared and the earth blew up under my feet.
From the ground I could see that Pike had turned around. When he laid eyes on me he began to run back
down the hill.
"Go back to the hole!" he yelled at Stewart. But Stewart didn't hear because he was cursing my number and running right at me.
At the same time John came out from hiding and was running toward the hole. Pike turned to pursue but John was moving faster. I hefted my largest rock and crouched down. Then the most amazing thing happened. Pike's body fell away like a shirt that someone had thrown off while running. From the cloth of skin a full-grown, winged Calash flapped its great blue wings, speeding toward the hole. Now he and Tall John were moving near the same speed at their destination.
I couldn't worry about them right then because Stewart was only five steps from me. I hurled the stone with all my might, hitting him on the metal eye-patch. There was a great blue spark that jumped off the torturer's metal eye. He flipped in the air and hit the ground with a loud humph! I threw another stone at the Calash named Wall but missed.
He and John dove into the hole at the same time, it seemed.
I ran toward them with a rock in each hand.
Just when I reached the hole, Wall flew out with a golden ball clutched within his tentacles. I threw both rocks but they just bounced off of his pale hide.
The great black eye turned toward me. In the brief instant that Wall looked at me he seemed to know everything about me. He knew the history that my blood held. He knew every thought and fear I'd ever known.
I knew that he was laughing, laughing at my weakness and ignorance and fear.
And even though the only thing I wanted to do was run away I yelled and leaped forward. I didn't care if I broke every bone in my body, I would still stop Wall from stealing my brother's Sun Ship.
A voice in my head said, "Good-bye, Forty-seven. What I do now will give you the time to prepare for Wall's final attack. And remember, if you think of me I will be there."
Wall must have heard the voice in my head because he screamed then and flew high in the air. He was trying, it seemed, to free his tentacles from the golden ball…
… and then they both exploded in the air like a thousand sticks of dynamite.
I was thrown to the ground, and for a long time there was nothing but darkness.
25.
When I came to I was on my back, looking up at the sky. I got up on one shoulder to see if Mr. Stewart was still where he had fallen. He was gone but a little way beyond I saw the prone body of my brother in light Tall John from beyond Africa.
I tried to make it to my feet but I was too groggy from the explosion. After trying to get up and falling five or six times I settled on crawling to my friend's side.
He was in a bad way. Both his arms and both of his legs were broken. There were a dozen cuts on his face and one deep gash in his chest.
His glassy eyes stared up at nothing. I was sure that he was dead, but I couldn't believe it.
"Where's yo yellah bag, John?" were the first words I said.
Then I put my face on the ground, suddenly made even weaker at the loss of my friend.
"There's no healing this body again, Forty-seven," he said.
I looked up to see him turn slightly in order that he might see me.
"John!" I shouted. "You're alive!"
"Would you please hold up a hand to block the sun from my eyes," he said weakly, and then added, "my friend."
I held my hand to shield his eyes and asked, "What can I do, John?"
"Listen," he said. "I am going to the Upper Level now."
"Where that?"
"It is the river of dreams where we all flow together."
"Like heaven?"
John nodded and coughed and then he said, "I will come to you many times over your life, Forty-seven. I'll come and help you when I can… with your fight against Wall."
"Ain't he dead?" I asked, feeling a prickling along my spine as if the evil one-eyed monster were staring at me at that moment.
"No," John said. "He survived the explosion but he's very weak and will not appear to you again for seventeen years at least. But when you see his evil plans imprinted on the world you must stand against him, even though you will feel small and weak compared to his power."
"How do you know what he'll do if you dyin'?" I asked, even though the question hurt my heart.
"I will come to you," he whispered. "You will be a great hero and I will be the hero's friend."
"You gonna be a ghost?" I asked, fearful of being haunted but even sadder over the loss of my friend.
"No," he hissed. "Do you remember the crystal machine that I told you about?"
"Queziastril," I said, remembering the word through the light in my mind.
"Through her I have spoken to you many times."
"I don't remember those talks, John."
"That's because you haven't had them yet…," he said, and then he took a deep and painful breath. He coughed and moved his head and neck like he was going to get up but instead he fell back, and I knew that Tall John was dead.
When I could stand I dragged John's body down to the pit where Wall and his ghoul had dug up the Sun Ship. I lowered my friend into the grave and used the spade Stewart had used to cover him.
My right foot hurt me some. I guess I must have sprained it running away from Stewart's blasts. So I used the green stem as a walking stick and made my way back toward my friends.
Near the ledge, where we first spied Stewart and Pike, I found John's yellow sack.
Because of my limp the trek took me many hours.
That was the saddest journey of my young life. I was free but my friend was dead. And his passing left a void in my heart where I never knew I had something to lose. At times along the way I'd fall down on my knees and yowl some incomprehensible words to try and express the loss of my pal Tall John from beyond Africa.
I reached the flat rock at just about sunset.
I was sad about the death of John and Mud Albert, about the slaves running in the wilderness and being hunted down by dogs. I even felt sorry for poor Eloise and the death of her father, my one-time master. But the hardest thing would be to tell Eighty-four, Tweenie, that the man she loved was dead.
She cried and caterwauled like a deep forest creature, and her grief called mine forward and I fell to the ground and wept bitterly with her. My friend was dead. He died, I knew, saving all the peoples of Earth.
When night came we moved north into a wood that I knew was uninhabited.
I could tell that the wood was safe because when I gazed hard at the valley of pines a soft gray light washed the images in my mind. I knew somehow that the gift of light that John had given me was telling me that no one would molest us in that pleasant vale.
There we found a cave that we used as a shelter. We stayed for a fortnight, until we were all healed and rested.
There was a rill not far from the mouth of our shelter. In the early morning and late at night Champ and I would steal down there and catch fish with a net I found in John's yellow bag. We had to eat the fish raw because none of us knew if John's little disk machine would keep the slave hunters from smelling smoke.
One afternoon I stole away from the cave and climbed way up into a willow tree. There I sat and thought about my friend.
"Hello, boy," a small, squeaky voice called.
Hearing those words I was so startled that I almost lost my balance and fell from the branch where I was sitting.