Rise of the Shadow Page 3

  Okay. That was what he’d do. Stay put.

  He sat. The damp cold seeped through his pants, which did nothing to make him feel better. He focused on his breathing, calling out for his sister after every tenth breath. But she never answered. Or maybe she was shouting his name somewhere close by, and he just couldn’t hear her. The clinging, sticky fog swallowed every sound.

  And that was why Alex never heard the leviathan until it emerged from the swirling mist inches from his face.

  Okay. This was obviously a hallucination. Alex had heard that if people stayed in complete darkness for long enough, they started to see made-up things floating all around them. Staring at blank gray mist probably did exactly the same thing.

  Nevertheless, Alex scuttled backward like a crab on his hands and feet. And bumped into something furry and warm.

  Soft paws grabbed hold of him. Alex twisted around, coming face to face with a furry monster with long ears and a twitching pink nose. He would have screamed except for the fact that the creature was wearing his sister’s sweater.

  If this was a hallucination, it certainly had some odd details….

  “It’s okay, Alex” came a voice out of the mist.

  Emma appeared at the creature’s side, smiling reassuringly.

  “It’s only Pimawa,” she told him.

  Only Pimawa. Of course it was. How silly of him. Rabbits generally grew to the size of ten-year-old boys, walked on their hind legs, and addressed him as…

  “Master Alex, please pardon my current state of attire,” said Pimawa, pulling the sweater closed over his thick white fur. “I understand much of this is quite overwhelming. However, we do not, in the present environment, have time for lengthy explanations.”

  Alex’s jaw opened and closed without making a sound.

  “Master Alex?” the rabbit repeated. He looked concerned. His ears twitched.

  Emma lightly punched Alex’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. Pimawa’s cool. I mean he was awesome before, but look. Now he’s really awesome!”

  Pimawa waved one paw, as if embarrassed by the praise. “Down to business,” he said.

  “Hang on a second,” said Alex. He raised his voice a little. “What’s going on?”

  A furry white finger pressed against Alex’s lips.

  “We’ve escaped the Shadow Conjurer for now, but he’s still chasing the Eye of Dedi,” Pimawa said in a low voice. “I’ll explain everything about the Conjurian later. Right now I’m under strict orders from your uncle, and the first priority is to get both of you someplace safe. Follow me!” Pimawa took off at a quick pace on his gigantic white feet.

  “Follow the rabbit, Alex,” Emma said with a grin. A grin! The world had turned upside down, nothing made any sense, and she was grinning! Plus, she wanted them both to follow a talking rabbit! Did she think she was Alice in Wonderland?

  Emma grabbed Alex’s sweatshirt and pulled him along after Pimawa. Alex only let himself be dragged because he couldn’t think of anything else to do. He could glimpse the rabbit’s furry back and the fluttering of Emma’s pink sweater a few feet ahead. Pimawa led them up and over a rocky slope. As the ground flattened out, he stopped, lifting a paw to caution them.

  “No sudden movements,” Pimawa whispered.

  Alex gasped.

  There were swirls and flickers in the mist ahead of Pimawa. Alex struggled to focus his eyes and realized he was seeing more giant fish, just like the one that had startled him earlier. They drifted and darted through the fog as if it were water, and Pimawa carefully crept closer to the nearest one.

  The fish eyed him doubtfully and seemed about to dash away into the mist. But when Pimawa reached out a gentle paw and began to stroke the fish’s silvery scales, just above the fluttering gills, it relaxed. Its fins drooped, and it inched closer and closer to the ground.

  “Once they know you mean them no harm, Myst fish are as docile as lambs,” Pimawa said.

  Emma edged up next to Pimawa and reached out to pet the fish as well. Alex hung back. The animal might have looked peaceful, but it was also huge. It could bite off an arm with one quick snap if it wanted to.

  Emma didn’t seem to have thought of that. She never did think logically. “What’s a Myst fish?” she asked.

  “One of a plethora of creatures that live in the Mysts,” said Pimawa. “Also, our ride out of here.”

  “We’re going to ride that?” Alex did not move closer.

  “Yes, and the sooner the better.” Pimawa cupped his paws together and nodded at Emma. She stepped onto his paws, and he boosted her up onto the hovering fish. “Your turn, Master Alex. Kindly hurry. Remember what may be pursuing us.”

  Alex shook his head.

  “I already figured it out,” he told Pimawa. “We’re hallucinating. That’s what this is. Moldy flour in our pancakes or something like that. I just have to wait it out, and I’ll wake up. Soon.”

  Something off in the fog howled. Pimawa’s ears twisted, homing in on the sound.

  “On the fish, now!” he ordered. “If you please.”

  A second howl sounded closer. Alex was pretty sure you couldn’t get hurt in a hallucination. Still…

  “Now!” Pimawa ordered.

  Alex closed the few feet between them, put his foot onto Pimawa’s paws, and jumped. Emma grabbed one of his wrists and hauled him up the slippery side of the fish. Alex was pleased to discover that the thing smelled of wet moss as opposed to, well, a giant fish.

  Pimawa sprung up in a single bound. Once the three of them were astride the Myst fish, with Pimawa in front, Emma behind, and Alex squashed in the middle, the rabbit showed them how to grasp the fish’s knobby spine and lean forward to maintain balance. Then he slapped the creature’s side, sending it swishing off into the gray air.

  * * *

  —

  “Your name is Fornesworth?” asked Alex a short time later.

  “Yes,” said Pimawa. “Pimawa Fornesworth, at your eternal service.”

  “So, you’re like…Uncle Mordo’s butler?” asked Alex. This hallucination was certainly complicated.

  “May he rest gloriously on the Isle of Dedi,” said Pimawa, closing his eyes for a brief moment.

  “Wait,” Emma broke in. She twisted around to look at Pimawa. “May he rest gloriously? Is that like…rest in peace?”

  Pimawa nodded. It was hard to see how a rabbit’s face could look grief-stricken, but Pimawa’s certainly did.

  Alex felt his stomach lurch, and not because the fish had taken a sudden dart to the right to go around a mossy hillside. “You mean Uncle Mordo is…”

  “Your uncle would not have entrusted you to my care if there were any chance he would stay alive to watch over you himself,” Pimawa said. “No. He sacrificed himself to slow the Rag-O-Rocs down, giving us all the chance to escape from…” His voice grew quiet and apprehensive. “The Shadow Conjurer.”

  “Oh,” Emma said in a small voice. She faced forward once more to stare at the mist surrounding them. Her face was hidden from Alex, but he could tell that tears were slipping down her cheeks.

  Alex felt his stomach churn with confusion. Uncle Mordo, the tyrant. The dictator. The man whose rules and orders had driven Alex crazy for years. This was the same man who’d died trying to save Alex and his sister from monsters?

  Good thing this was a hallucination or some kind of wild dream. Otherwise, that would be a really horrible thought.

  Pimawa glanced at both children and then continued talking.

  “And that is as he would have wished it,” the rabbit said gently. “As for me…butler, no. I am a Jimjarian. We were created to serve magicians. At least those of us fortunate enough to be chosen. And I,” continued Pimawa, puffing his chest out, “was chosen by Mordo the Mystifier.”

  “Mordo the Mystifier?” Alex repeated. H
e still felt horrible at the idea that Uncle Mordo was…dead? Could that actually be true? But he could not stifle a disgraceful urge to laugh. “Sorry. It’s just hard to picture Uncle Mordo as a magician. Or doing anything remotely entertaining.”

  Pimawa patted the fish’s head. “Good boy. Straight on for a bit and you shall be free to go about your business.” He leaned close to both the children, waving his paws with a dramatic flourish. “Entertaining? Master Alex, you do not understand. Your Uncle Mordo could steal thoughts from your head as easily as plucking cotton candy from a paper cone. He made giraffes vanish for kings, walked through walls for emperors, and levitated diplomats.”

  “Wait. What?” Alex said. “Uncle Mordo did magic tricks for kings and emperors?”

  “Not magic tricks, Alex,” Emma said impatiently. “Don’t you get it? He did real magic. Magic is real!”

  Alex stared at the back of Emma’s head in alarm. His sister clearly thought she’d walked into the pages of one of her beloved fantasy novels. He had to bring her back to reality, and fast.

  “Emma,” he said as patiently as he could, “things are weird, sure, but you know that magic isn’t real.”

  “Alex,” she said, echoing his tone of strained patience, “you are riding a giant floating fish.”

  Pimawa cleared his throat.

  “Miss Emma is quite correct, Master Alex. And your uncle’s abilities were extraordinary. For these days, at least. In the past, they say, many magicians had far greater powers—but not now.”

  “Why not?” Emma asked.

  Pimawa went on as though he had not heard her. “As for your parents, well, in my humble opinion, their magic show was truly special. The love they had for each other—the audience felt it. Every time they produced a dove, or materialized a tiger from thin air, or escaped from a burning stake, they were performing for each other as much as they were for the paying customers.”

  “What are you talking about?” Alex asked, bewildered. “Our parents were archaeologists, not magicians.”

  “They were archaeologists, and magicians as well,” said Pimawa. “That is why Master Agglar recruited them for MAGE.”

  “What does that mean?” Emma asked.

  “Magic Antiquities Guardianship and Enforcement,” Pimawa answered. “Bit of a mouthful. Your parents traveled the world, dazzling audiences with their magic. One time, I remember, they made the crown jewels of England vanish. Caused quite the ruckus until they returned the priceless gems to the Tower of London. But everywhere they ventured, they were secretly recovering lost Conjurian artifacts.”

  “What kind of artifacts?” Alex asked. He was starting to feel dizzy. Every answer Pimawa offered seemed to simply add a new layer of confusion. Maybe I should stop expecting a hallucination to make sense.

  “Many kinds. But the one they were searching for most assiduously was, of course, the Eye of Dedi.”

  “What the heck is that?” Alex asked.

  Pimawa sighed and shook his head. “There is so much you do not know, Master Alex! How am I ever to explain it all? Every child here in the Conjurian knows the tale of Dedi and his Eye.”

  “Well, we don’t,” Alex said impatiently. “So tell us.”

  “The entire tale? Time is short. For now I will simply say that it was the Eye of Dedi that created this world. The Conjurian. The world of magicians.”

  Alex shook his head. “This is another world?”

  “Surely, you did not think, Master Alex,” Pimawa said patiently, “that we were simply in, say, Omaha, did you? Or Tamil Nadu? Or Antarctica? Look around you.”

  “Obviously this is a different world, Alex,” Emma chimed in.

  “Probably I’ve just gone insane,” Alex said irritably.

  “Well, I haven’t,” Emma snapped. “And I want to hear Pimawa explain things. So stop interrupting him. Were our mom and dad looking for that Eye of Dedi thing because it’s so powerful, then?”

  Pimawa nudged the fish with his left foot, steering it wide around a clump of dead trees. “They were after the Eye of Dedi for many reasons. Power, however, was not one of them. Your parents believed that the Eye would restore magic to the Conjurian.”

  “I though you said this was a world for magicians. There’s no magic here?” Alex demanded.

  “Let him talk, Alex!” Emma scolded.

  “Thank you,” said Pimawa. “Magic is almost gone from our world. There are those who think the Eye might hold a way to return it. And there are those like”—he shuddered—“the Shadow Conjurer, who see the Eye as a chance to become the most powerful magician who remains.”

  “The Shadow Conjurer.” Emma shivered too. “He’s the one…with the scars on his face?”

  “Exactly,” Pimawa said.

  “It seemed like he was kind of…after us?” she asked tentatively.

  “You are correct, Miss Emma. He wished to capture you. In his mind, that would bring him closer to the Eye of Dedi.”

  “Why? Because he thinks that we know where it is or something? But we don’t!” Emma protested.

  “I know that. But the Shadow Conjurer does not,” Pimawa answered.

  “So I guess…” Emma’s voice trailed off thoughtfully. “I guess we should try and find it, then. Before he gets it.”

  Both Alex and Pimawa stiffened in shock.

  “You shall do no such thing!” Pimawa said sternly. “If your parents did indeed find the Eye—and we do not know that they did—they hid it to keep it out of the hands of magicians like the Shadow Conjurer. To keep it safe. They wanted to keep you safe as well, which is why they left you with Master Mordo. And my mission is to keep you that way by delivering you both to Master Agglar.”

  “That’s where we’re going? To Agglar?” Alex asked. “How’s he supposed to keep us safe? He’s just an antiques dealer like Uncle Mordo! Oh…except I guess you’re about to tell me he isn’t.”

  “Correct,” answered Pimawa. “Christopher Agglar is the head of the Circle.”

  “Come on. Tell us what the Circle is,” Alex said wearily.

  “The Circle rules the Conjurian. It is a council of the most powerful magicians we have left,” Pimawa answered.

  Agglar and the others had been talking about the Circle, Alex remembered. Agglar had told Derren that if he left the house, he’d be thrown out of the Circle—and Derren had gone. Wait…so Derren Fallow was part of the Circle, too? Or he had been?

  “Master Agglar will keep you both safe, Dedi permitting,” Pimawa went on. He glanced over his shoulder nervously. “If only we can reach him.”

  “First of all, safety and Master Agglar should never be used in the same sentence,” Alex told the rabbit, his words slipping out rapidly to hide how hard he was thinking. “He once told me he and Uncle Mordo needed privacy and to go play with the medieval ax collection in the basement.” So Derren was part of this weird world too? And Derren didn’t like Agglar. Didn’t trust Agglar. “But yeah, Emma, Pimawa’s totally right. This isn’t one of your fantasy novels. We’re not going off on a quest to find some Eye thing and save the world, okay?”

  “Maybe you’re not,” Emma snapped.

  “Listen to your brother,” Pimawa told Emma. “And—”

  His long ears twisted, as if he’d caught a sound. Then he kicked the fish hard, driving it to the right.

  More fish burst from the mist behind them, an entire school swimming as fast as they could. In seconds they had overtaken the fish that Alex, Emma, and Pimawa were riding upon and had disappeared into the fog once more.

  “They’re in a hurry,” said Alex, twisting around to try to see what might be behind them. “Usually a group of animals all running in one direction means—”

  “Bandiloc!” yelled Pimawa as a furry head on a huge, snakelike body lashed out at them from the mist. Fangs raked at the fish’s tail. T
he creature panicked and swerved hard to the left, flinging all three riders to the ground.

  Pimawa scrambled to his feet, shoving the children behind him as the fish vanished into the mist. The furry gray head, like a rabid wolf’s, drew back for another attack. “Run!” the rabbit shouted.

  Alex wasn’t sure if he could. The Myst fish had been weird, and the Rag-O-Rocs had been creepy, but this—this was terrifying. Fear seemed to have grabbed hold of his entire body, and his legs didn’t want to move.

  He gripped Emma’s arm, hypnotized by the monster’s green eyes.

  Pimawa leaped at the bandiloc’s head. In midair he twisted, so that his powerful hind legs bashed the creature’s nose. “RUN!” he bellowed.

  Yes! Run! A great idea! Alex’s legs sprang to life, but it was too late. A loop of the bandiloc’s silvery snakelike body flung itself over Alex and Emma, crushing them together. At the same time, the monster shook its head, sending Pimawa flying.

  Then the head swung back to Emma and Alex. Its lower jaw opened wide and, with a strange, stomach-churning movement, dropped free from its hinge. Only stretchy skin now connected the lower jaw with the upper. The mouth sagged wider than should have been possible. Wide enough to swallow both Alex and Emma whole.

  A flurry of white fur swept over Alex’s head as Pimawa leaped onto the bandiloc’s snout. The snarling head snapped backward, sending Pimawa soaring for a second time.

  The snake’s body cinched tighter around Alex’s rib cage, and black spots burst in his vision. He couldn’t draw in a full breath. He could, however, make out the fangs, inches from his face, dripping with wet clumps of venom. The smell of dead fish overwhelmed him.

  Somewhere Alex had read that your life flashed in front of you before you died. But all Alex could see at the moment were the books in Uncle Mordo’s library. Row upon row of them, holding what he used to think was all the knowledge in the world. But none of that knowledge was going to save him from being devoured by a wolf-headed snake.