tail swishes at the water playfully, coming out of the stream and onto
the bank across from where the three of us stand.
“What is she?” My mouth is open.
I’m expecting her to neigh, but her mouth is a bird’s beak. Her
black eyes are a stark contrast against the gold contours of her face.
She is like the pure light of the sun, and I can’t stop looking at
her.
“She’s a centaur,” Kai says. Then leaves a pause for the obvious:
but she’s got a beak .
The centaur gallops in a circle, then stops to bow in my
direction. She spreads her arms wide, then up to the sky. The water at
the base of the tree is rippling, the light as bright as the stars,
swirling into a funnel. And I can see it. The golden head of the
trident. A thin spark of lightning shoots from the prongs and up into
the velvet blue sky. The sparks rain back down in a drizzle of lights.
Insects buzz, vibrating their song into the breeze. I head straight
for the trident like my feet are possessed.
Then the oracle cries out, sharp like a falcon. A shadow springs
from behind the great tree, jumping on the centaur’s back. His massive
arms wrap around her throat. She can’t move. His weight makes her legs
tremble and give out.
“I knew you’d make it, brother,” Archer says.
He’s got her arms pinned down, a muscular thigh across her body.
She kicks out and pecks at him until he lets go. He hits her hard and
she falls down.
“The trident,” Kai yells behind me.
The head of the trident spins inches over a tiny whirlpool.
I push off the ground as hard as I can, but so does Archer.
The air around us is a vacuum, sucking the trident back into the
dark water. Archer splashes in first. I kick and pull myself out of
the spring. I roll over onto the dry grass and shout at the oracle.
“Where did you send it?”
Archer lunges at me. Birds cry and flutter away. The tree sheds a
torrent of leaves. He’s got one hand on my throat and one on my wrist,
pinning me to the ground. I’m holding my scepter with all my strength,
using my other arm to grip his neck, but it’s like trying to squeeze a
baseball bat.
I bring up my knee, but even though I hit him where it hurts, all
he does is grunt the pain away.
He lets go of my throat and grabs my scepter. The effect is
instant. His skin burns, blackening where flesh curls into itself. His
scream is terrible, and as he drops it, I smile. It’s a stupid thing
to do because that’s what he wants. Every part of my hatred and anger
feeds him.
Archer rights himself, panting. He holds his palm up. The black
blood dries on his palms, healing instantly.
Gwen and Kai form a barricade in front of the oracle, but Archer
smacks them away. Even Gwen’s outstretched fingers sizzle, powerless.
“Where did you send it?” Archer is a wild thing, grabbing the
oracle around her middle and bringing her down. I run behind him and
use my scepter as a bat. No, no, no. He can’t hurt her. He can’t.
He turns to me and hits me right in the gut.
I fall to my knees. Need. Breath.
He holds his arms over his head, the crooked curves of his dagger
facing down.
I step forward.
“Death sets fire to the eternal well, brother.” A slick wet sound
fills the air.
“I am not your brother!” When my hand closes around my scepter, a
great bolt of light shoots out into the sky. Then the sky spits it
back in tiny balls of fire that singe the dry earth.
The oracle is slumped behind Archer. Her blood is red fire,
dripping over her and into the ground. The flames sizzle, consuming
and spreading all around.
I pull out my dagger and drive it through Archer’s chest. He
groans at first, but then he returns it with a right hook. “Mother
wishes to see you, so I can’t hurt your face too badly.”
He cocks his head to the side, predatory and seductive. Then he
looks to Gwen and Kai and seems torn. Like he can’t decide which one
he’s going to attack. “We will all be a family soon.”
Then he plunges into the black pool beneath the tree.
Smoke fills the sky, which feels too low and the land too small.
Dry earth breaks off in chunks and sinks into the encroaching
blackness. Eternity.
Frogs and even birds dive right into the mouth of the pond beneath
the tree.
Something is quivering inside the trunk.
“ Kai ,” I say, in warning. Everything, the earth around us, is
consumed by a black void, breaking off into space.
“We have to go.” Gwen sinks one foot into the spring. “Now.”
“We don’t know where that leads,” I say.
“The only other options are getting sucked out into a nothingness
or burning up,” Kai shouts.
Birds and butterflies fall right from the sky, dead all around us.
The leaves of the tree have caught fire. One lands right on Kai’s
shoulder. It leaves an angry red blotch.
“Come on!” Gwen pounds the ground. It cracks beneath her fist,
spreading under Kai. She slips and I scramble to my feet and yank her
onto what’s left of solid ground.
The gnarled old tree stretches up again, and this time the
branches pierce the sky. A branch reaches up and touches a star. The
flame ignites and courses down the dry bark.
Gwen jumps into the pool.
I hold Kai’s hand and we run in together, sinking like stones down
a black tunnel. But I keep my eyes open, skyward.
Even the sky is on fire.
The spring leads us back to the sprawl of shipwrecks and geysers.
The same fish. The same light. As if nothing has changed since we
left.
But that isn’t right. Everything is changing.
I sift through patches of grass and try to find the door again but
it’s gone. In its place is turned-over grass. I use my scepter to
blast at the ground, showering us in slow-settling clouds of rock and
sand.
Over by the biggest ship, in front of a sea garden of colorful
plants, Kai kneels. She presses her forehead to the sea floor. Fish
swim around her like a kindness of ravens around a graveyard.
“What should we do?” Gwen swims beside me.
“I think someone should go back to Toliss. Tell my grandfather
everything that’s happened.”
“He won’t like that we’ve been to the spring. Or that it’s-gone.”
I groan, which sounds like gurgling. “It doesn’t matter. He needs
to get the island prepared in case of an attack.”
Kai swims in circles around us as if she senses something in the
water. “The fish, Tristan. They’re gone.”
I see him from the corner of my eye. The merrow has a long red
face, eyes like ink smudges, and tiny rows of black teeth. Long red
thorns protrude from his arm. In one sling, they shoot out at us. Kai
swims to the right, but a thorn tacks her tail to the wood of the
ship. She pulls, ripping the flesh bloody. In seconds, it mends again.
The merrow is about to blow on the golden conch hanging from his
chest, when he goes into a frenzy at the scent of her blood. He swims
after her and Gwen holds out her hands. A bright light bursts from her
palms, throwing him backward. He spins and dives back for them. I
throw a rock at his head to get his attention. The power of the
scepter surges through me. Anger, that’s the trigger. Right now, my
anger is all consuming. The quartz lights up, and as quick as
lightning, I hit the red merrow in his chest. He explodes in black
chunks of meat and red scaly flesh. They float everywhere,
contaminating the water around us.
Kai picks up the conch with her delicate fingers. She brushes off
the black sludge and slings it around her shoulder.
I make a face and she says, “These are really useful.”