“Ds!” shouted Thomas. He stumbled past Yorik.
“Oh, Thomas,” moaned Doris. “You shouldn’t have come. Neither of you should be here. The Dark Ones will return at any moment. You have to flee.”
Thomas kept toward her. “You mustn’t touch me,” Doris said, shrinking away. “I am filled with darkness.”
“Doris,” said Yorik. “Tell me what happened. What did Thomas do? The Dark Ones made him open these passages, didn’t they?” Thomas stopped below his sister, moaning, ghostly tears streaking his face. “Mm s—”
Doris spoke quietly, her voice weak. “I know you’re sorry, dear Thomas. I know it was hard. I saw things better after I died. I saw how Father expected of you things that you couldn’t give. I saw all your sadness and pain. I wish I had been kinder to you while I lived. But now there is nothing to be done. You must run.”
Yorik did not see any Dark Ones in the high, arched cavern. But he did spy a blackness in its center. He walked closer. There was darkness here, a floating void that reminded him of a Dark One. Something was inside it. A scent wafted out, of rotting vegetation.
“Yorik, no!” said Doris in alarm.
Beside the void was an old stone tablet, broken in half. Beside the tablet was a sledgehammer.
There were two runes carved into the tablet, carved so deeply that they would survive centuries, even millennia. The runes were dyed red with blood, and as Yorik studied them, he felt a warm thrill course through him. He could see that if the broken tablet were whole, it would completely cover the void.
“This tablet,” Yorik said. “It blocked this portal. The Princess told me that there was only one Dark One here, until recently. Then the others found a way to come through. This is how they did it, isn’t it? The single Dark One made Thomas come here and break this seal.”
“Perceptive, Yorik,” said Doris softly. “Our ancestors made this seal long ago, and our family has guarded it for millennia. Over the long centuries, we forgot our duty. Now my father is the only thing holding back the horde, though he is unaware of the true depths of the struggle. But his will is fading. You have only moments left. Please take my brother and run.”
“Can I repair the seal?” asked Yorik. His ghost hands passed through the stone, tingling as they did.
“No, Yorik, you can’t,” replied Doris. “And your time is gone.” Behind Doris, Yorik could hear Thomas’s burbling cries.
Yorik thrust his head into the portal. Doris screamed.
A warm stench blew over him as he blinked in a sudden wash of raw blue light. Confused at first by what he saw, the images slowly came into focus. All around him, for what seemed like thousands of miles, was a vast blue expanse. The light was not blue like the sky, but blue like the color of cold flame. Floating everywhere were rich green masses, stinking like rotting plants dug up from loamy earth. And there were Dark Ones, millions of them, numbers beyond counting. Some were small like the ones he had already seen, and some were as immense as mountains or moons.
Yorik pulled his head from the opening and turned. “Doris,” he began.
But Doris was no longer there. In her place stood Dark Doris, the girl he had met on the stone bench, the girl with the beautiful dress and expensive hat and perfect shoes. The girl with the proud laugh and flashing eyes, behind which Yorik could now see lurked the Yglhfm.
And behind her, filling the mammoth graveyard, perched on ribs and skulls and spines, were countless Yglhfm, thoroughly blocking the passage out.
This land was once ours, said Dark Doris. Now we will possess her again.
“She is dying,” said Yorik. “If Erde is dead, you can’t possess her.”
Dark Doris chuckled. She is not dying. She is only returning to our service. Now you will serve us as well. Come, Yorik.
Dark Doris drifted raggedly toward Yorik, her body dragging like a marionette on a string.
Yorik backed away. But there was nowhere to go. The Yglhfm were everywhere.
Then Thomas, crying, waddled toward his sister.
“Ds!” he cried. “Ds!”
“No, Thomas!” shouted Yorik. “Don’t touch her. You can’t—”
Thomas grabbed his sister’s shoulders.
Blue flame coursed over him, and he staggered. When he straightened, his neck cracked into place and his eyes flashed with the cruel, angry look Yorik had last seen when a large rock came hurtling at him in the elm.
Yorik, said Master Thomas. It is time.
Chapter Thirteen
A wave of chittering laughter swept over the Yglhfm horde. As Yorik listened, he felt a tremor in the air, and a lambent blue light flickered through the cavern.
Come, Yorik, said Master Thomas, sweeping forward. Lord Ravenby has broken at last. Everything changes now.
Dark Doris approached too, murmuring sweetly, her teeth bared in a maniacal smile. She and her brother glistened with new strength. The darkness beyond, full of Dark Ones, was deepening. There were more and more of them each moment, the floor of the cavern slowly filling like a pond in a downpour.
Dark Doris reached her small white hands for his.
Then Yorik spotted a faint red glow, a space on the floor of the cavern where there were no Yglhfm. The broken stone tablet lay there.
With a leap, Yorik was astride the tablet, one foot on each broken half. Power tingled in his feet.
Master Thomas chuckled, then cleared his throat. When he spoke, he sounded almost human again. “Give in, will you, Yorik? My father has. Let us take back what is ours.”
“Erde isn’t yours,” said Yorik. “And you’re not Thomas.”
Dark Doris’s pretty laugh echoed through the cavern, piercing the sea of Yglhfm whispers. “Oh, dear Yorik. Erde was ours for many millennia, more than you can imagine. Long before the humans came and spoiled things. For ten thousand years, we longed to draw her back into us, to embrace her, to drain and diminish her, to bring her back into bondage.” She licked her lips. “And now we have.”
“You can’t take her completely,” said Yorik, his eyes casting about for a means of escape. “You’re still scared of the Princess.”
“Dear Yorik,” sighed Dark Doris. “Our masters have nothing to fear anymore. Look!”
She gestured to the portal. Yorik saw that it was no longer small enough to be blocked by the tablet. Now it dwarfed even the mammoths. With faint pops, giant Yglhfm were bubbling out, one after another. Ignoring Yorik, they rumbled toward the cavern entrance, stretching to fill it completely with their vast bodies, squeezing up toward the surface.
Thousands more of the tiny Yglhfm surged around them. The cavern was filling, pools of Dark Ones flowing in swift currents all around the tablet but never close enough to touch it. He felt their hunger grasping for him, as it had outside the mews. And as before, he felt a crawling sensation of panic and fear. His head filled with nightmare images of Erde enslaved by the Yglhfm, her defenders lying dead around her.
No, Yorik thought. It’s them. The Dark Ones do this. He concentrated on Susan and the clear lament she’d sung in the attic. He hummed a few bars, and the nightmares receded.
Master Thomas growled and edged closer, grimacing as he eyed the tablet.
“Yorik,” he began—but Yorik darted forward with ghostly speed, his right hand flashing into Thomas’s pocket. Then he was back on the tablet. He opened his hand and revealed Erde’s last two mud-balls.