The Obsidian Crown, page 25
Kieran quickly sent another stealth fireball hurtling down the tunnel. We dove out of the way and braced ourselves against the oncoming blast. “Shields up!” I cried out loud to be heard over the roar of the overhead inferno. But this time there was nothing, it just passed us without shedding its cloak of swirling soot.
I wasn’t sure what to think of it. We looked at each other, wondering what happened to the fireball. Was it a dud? Whatever it was, it didn’t work.
We all turned to face the common enemy. “Looks like even the evil genius can come up with a dud fireball!” I chided Kieran.
But none of them laughed at my joke. None of them even acknowledged I said anything. I looked at the hooded figure who came to Kieran’s rescue. The figure was standing sideways where the cowl covered the face entirely. There was just something about the robed figure standing there, calm, collected, almost stoic, that gave me such a sense of déjà vu.
This is no time to think about that, Abigail, I chastised myself.
My thoughts returned to Kieran. I couldn’t fathom any kind of reasoning that would make someone go to such lengths to gain something so intangible as power. “This is crazy, Kieran. Why are you doing this?” I asked.
Slowly, the hooded figure turned away, but Kieran spoke up and said, “ Isn’t it a nobler act to sacrifice the few to save the many? To get the right result despite how you get there? It may not be the perfect way to do it, but in the end, we want the same thing. I do it for that reason and because I am appreciated here. You guys were never going to give me a chance.” He kept talking, but it must have been my total distrust of Kieran that I let his voice trail away and focused on the way his right hand was being kept well hidden behind his robes. The hooded figure was still obscuring part of Kieran’s body from my line of sight. But I was not going to let Kieran trick me again. As soon as the hooded figure stepped aside, I saw him extend his right hand towards the tunnel. I followed the direction of his hand, expecting some kind of weapon to fly out, but he had nothing in his hand, and there was only darkness in the tunnel.
I turned my head to look at Kieran again, confused about what he was trying to do, when I saw Kieran’s face screwed in concentration as he was muttering some kind of incantation. He lowered his hand, and he nodded at the hooded figure. I knew something was about to happen, and I braced myself for it. But there was no way anyone of us could have prepared for what happened next.
There was a flash of light in the tunnel, followed by a massive explosion. It sounded like thunder crashing against the night sky. Hailey dropped to the floor over my parents to protect them from the blast. Taylor flattened herself to the ground, and I jumped to the side of the mouth of the tunnel, getting away from the line of fire.
After a few seconds, I looked down at the cave tunnel where the blast came from, and to my horror, the entrance to the tunnel had collapsed. A moment of clarity hit me in the midst of the crumbling exit; a time-delayed blast from a stealth fireball. That’s how Kieran managed to hit Blaise and himself with his own fireball. No sooner did I get to entertain that thought before the sharp ringing in my ears snapped it out of existence. It was immediately replaced with the reality of our predicament.
I ran into the tunnel and realized our escape route into the Broken Mansion’s sitting room was now sealed.
Taylor got up and started to run to the rubble.
Hailey rose from her crouching position and stopped Taylor. “Stay here with them.” She inclined her head towards my parents, huddled on the floor. She looked at me and said, “Cover me!”
I nodded and placed myself between them and the Sorceress and her followers.
She walked past Taylor, who decided to put her arms and body to protect my parents from the flying debris. My mom caught my hand as I was going past. “I’m not afraid, Abi. We trust you.”
It took all I had to not break down into a heap of worthless goo. “I am so sorry, Mom. I should have been there.”
She squeezed my hand. “We will get through this.”
I pulled her hand to my face and gazed at her brown eyes. I just want to be sure she really was still there with me. I shook myself back to reality and asked my dad to take care of her.
CHAPTER 33
The Last Stand
I prepared myself. I needed to protect this tunnel. Nothing must come past me while Hailey and Taylor found us a way out. I would have to buy them as much time as I could.
I found a stalagmite on the ground and hid behind it. In a loud voice, I asked, “I want to talk with the doctor. What have you done with her?” I moved to another one to hide.
“What did you think we did with her?” Kieran’s voice screeched out, and as I suspected, he followed my voice and sent several volleys of fireballs where I was. When he didn’t find me there, he let out a round of laughter. The sound of his amusement grated on me. The more I heard it, the more I hated myself for trusting him.
The doctor’s voice answered, “I’m here.”
“Are you ok?” I asked as I jumped down to a lower foothold by the chasm where I wouldn’t be seen.
“I’m alright. But—Abigail, there is no way out of here. I’ve tried. You need to give yourself up. Your parents and your friends are all in danger if you don’t give yourself up,” the doctor said in a pleading tone.
Kieran’s laughter echoed throughout the cavern. “Oh, this is fun! Come out, come out, sacrificial lamb!” He laughed again.
“Don’t worry. If we get out of here, we will come back for you.” I rolled over to another boulder closer to the tunnel.
“There is no way out,” she responded.
Kieran’s sinister laughing continued echoing through the chasm.
I heard Hailey behind me, deep in the tunnel, moving debris to reopen the route. “I’m almost there! I can see the light!” I heard Hailey say.
A guttural noise emitted from the Sorceress. Then in a voice full of controlled frustration, she said, “Let’s go, Abigail. I know it’s painful to lose but don’t think of it as losing. Think of it as fulfilling your destiny.”
I heard my mom’s voice pleading with my father, “Just leave me. I am in so much pain. I will hold you back.”
“No, please try. Here, take my arm.” My father’s voice was coming in loud and halting whispers.
I must buy more time.
All of a sudden, the Sorceress soared up about ten feet into the air, then swooped so close to the tunnel where I was, that I had to back into the wall of the tunnel to hide.
“Stop this nonsense! I will not continue to play this hide and seek! We don’t need to explain anything to you!” the Sorceress bellowed as she swooped, and her robe covered what little light was illuminating the cavern as she descended back down to the ground like a gigantic bat.
As if trying to solidify her decision, she glided a few inches off the ground and began to sway over the dirt back and forth. The pebbles and small stones quivered and trembled as her magic passed over them.
I looked from behind the boulder I was hiding from. But she was ready for me. She was facing me as if she knew exactly where my eyes would be. Something happened I couldn’t really explain. I was mesmerized.
The Sorceress was a fathomless blackness. The deeper I looked into the hood, the more I felt sucked into oblivion. I tried to fight it, but I felt my mind becoming unhinged. I should be afraid, I should be panicking, but there was nothing. As if the darkness within her had pulled my brain into separate and distinct molecules barely in one piece. If I stared anymore, I would lose myself, quite literally. I was beginning to feel the pull, the comforting feeling of letting go, the mental relief from the strain of fighting, and the coziness of the thought that I had done all I could, before giving up. I wasn’t sure if she knew what I was thinking, but at that moment in time, it seemed to not be so important. What came to my mind as the overriding truth, was that I was able to come back from the brink of that void; and that as hard as the struggle may be, it was the only right choice for me. I tried to break eye contact from that depth of darkness. I willed myself to look away, and bring back that part of my mind and soul I inadvertently shared with a faceless monster. To my surprise, my attempt to pull away was abruptly ended by her turning her head and breaking away first.
“So be it!” She boiled over in frustration.
She nodded to Kieran and raised her right hand towards me. A bluish-white light formed on the palm of her hand; she raised it. She glided to the right of me in a diagonal direction. I moved to block her attack, but as I did so, Kieran pushed the other hooded figure aside and went to the left. I tried to block him too, but I saw that the Sorceress was twirling the ball, ready for release. I moved ahead closer to the Sorceress to prevent her assault. With a twirl of her fingers in anti-clockwise motion to create momentum and build force within the throw, she released it straight at me.
The ball of white light went hurtling straight towards my face. I couldn’t stop it. There was no time for a shield.
“Duck!” I threw my body to the side of the tunnel mouth, craning my neck back to follow the trail of the fireball.
Between the time I turned my head and opened my mouth to yell my warning, the blinding light hissed just inches from my cheek. I had barely enough time to move away as it singed some of my hair. I looked up to see Hailey still trying to move rubble away from within the tunnel. I screamed, “Hailey!”
But it was too late. The ball hit her squarely in the back, throwing her body against the rubble. The blast was so hard that it shook the ground under our feet. I lost balance and fell back down to the ground.
Then I heard Taylor screamed, “No!”
Two figures soared above our heads, and to my dismay, I realized those were the flailing bodies of my parents trying to fight an invisible force. They were being yanked so hard, without respect or regard to them as human beings. Their bodies hit the serrated edges of exposed stones and sharp dead tree roots on the roof of the tunnel. Random fires were was still lapping at the exposed overhead kindling.
I involuntarily joined Taylor’s agonized cry. I got up and ran after the bodies, but I couldn’t catch up. They were well behind the Sorceress and her followers before anyone could do anything.
I shook my head from the frustration, exhaustion, and desperation. I didn’t know what I was going to do. Hailey’s body was sprawled on the rubble. Dirt was mixed with blood on her torn clothes and matted hair. She groaned as the rubble continued to pummel her body with dislodging debris. Then she stopped moving.
The horrid spectacle of Hailey’s body, limp and now still, lying on the wreckage, seared my brain. The grotesque vision was only broken in places by my parents’ bodies being hauled away, whipping against the roof and walls of the tunnel against the backdrop of a fiery inferno. Two figures were being sucked back into the cavern as they were nothing more than just lifeless mannequins. My parents’ eyes bulged in surprise. Their arms and legs flailed in the sudden loss of gravity underneath their feet. With a thud, Kieran unceremoniously dumped their battered bodies on the ground in front of the bonfire. I heard my mom’s cries and sobs as my father ran to her.
I felt a sense of embarrassment and guilt at the sound of their voices and of their cries. I couldn’t believe that I didn’t see it, that while I was busy trying to figure out how to trick the Sorceress, they had already planned on not letting any one of us go.
What a fool I’ve been! Did I really think that I could trick someone so evil, so cunning!
I ran back to Hailey.
“I’m so sorry, Hailey. Are you ok?” I felt suddenly stupid for asking.
“It hurts. My back,” she groaned.
“Taylor, Taylor! You take her out of here!”
“We can’t leave you!” she protested.
“You need to get out of here now and you need to get help for Hailey,” I begged. “Go. Please go!”
“Don’t be crazy! You need to go with us. We can come and fight her when we are ready!” cried Hailey through gritted teeth.
I looked at Taylor. I hardly recognized the once-upon-a-time princess of Thurgood Prep, gashed and disheveled, hands quivering from the energy coursing through her. But that’s not what grabbed my heart and threatened to squeeze the life out of it. I saw her eyes, and in them, I realized that somehow the joyful and carefree Taylor was gone. There stood in front of me a girl who had grown to maturity, someone whose conviction solidified and smashed through her innocence. I saw in her strength and power, but never again will I see, the fresh perspective borne from youthful inexperience and naïveté.
“Yes you can and you will! Please, I can’t leave my parents here. And I can’t have your and Hailey’s deaths on my conscience as well. I can’t go on. This must stop, here and now. Please!” I begged her.
Taylor got quiet, and she took my face into her hands. “None of this was your fault. Hailey and I chose to be here with you as your friends. Don’t ever think we would hold you responsible for the action of a crazy witch and her minions. You stay safe.”
I watched the two of them make their way through the rubble. Then I prepared myself for my moment of truth.
CHAPTER 34
Facing The Music
“Abigail, if you are remotely considering leaving with your friends and abandoning your parents here, I wouldn’t advise it. You have tried my patience far too many times. But I am not a monster, I will give you time. Do what you need to do. See your friends to safety, make your peace with your God, I don’t care. But you only have an hour to get back here. At the stroke of the hour, I will kill both your parents if I don’t see you in front of me. Don’t test me again.”
Then, there was silence in the caves.
I wandered back into the tunnel very slowly with no particular plan. I absentmindedly picked up Hailey’s backpack from the rubble and continued my listless walk deeper into the cave. I had nothing left in me. I was completely spent. All my bright ideas, all my shiny hopes, all my youthful courage, they were all gone. All the fight seemed to have evaporated, leaving a deflated shell of someone who somewhat resembled me.
I watched as Taylor and Hailey’s silhouette became smaller and smaller against the tiny ray of light coming from what I hoped was the mansion’s sitting room. But it was too dark in the tunnel. Soon, I couldn’t see anyone, anymore. Ahead of me, I could barely find the bonfire. It seemed, it too, had expended most of its energy during the fight. Even the fire from up above was dwindling to a few small, scattered root systems.
I knew I’d been reckless at times, but things always seemed to go my way until now, when it really counted. There were many times when I used and manipulated other people to get what I want. And when I didn’t get it, I used losing my temper to end a fight or get my way. But that was not going to work anymore.
I found an opening on the side of the tunnel where the rocks gave way from the hit of the blast. Without thinking, I inserted my body into the crevice for no particular reason except maybe to hide from my own self-loathing. Or perhaps it was just a physical and natural response to one’s impending death, I don’t know. I curled up inside and made myself as small as possible. I just wanted to, not exist. I didn’t want to be here anymore. I just wanted to be gone.
“You have thirty minutes!” echoed in the darkness.
I reran the scenes in my head over and over. I couldn’t stand the shock in my mother’s eyes as she got sucked back into the cave—The cry of helplessness from my father’s voice. My head pounded from the pain of knowing they suffered so much, and it was because I let my guard down. As if it wasn’t enough, Hailey’s cries of pain flooded my thoughts. I asked myself how many more will need to suffer to save me. Doctor McGrath, Blaise, Hailey, Taylor, my parents, Uncle Jake, had all made their sacrifices.
I suddenly became aware of my hands trembling on my lap, maybe from the backpack’s strap that was blocking blood circulation or maybe from fear of certain death. I examined my hands for reasons that escaped me. I wondered if possibly there might be something there, something I missed, something I had forgotten that could help me now, because other than what’s left of my own will, I had lost everyone. I needed a Hail Mary pass, but I don’t even know where to begin. I crawled deeper into the cave and found there was a chamber beyond. I pushed myself in and dragged the backpack inside. It was a very small space, but it was enclosed on three sides, and there was a small hint of light coming from the smoldering remains of the fight. I suddenly felt a small measure of relief that being alone in this cage, there was no one to threaten me, and I was no threat to anyone I love.
But it was foolish of me to allow myself to think that, to enjoy a sense of safety, however short. Because the next thing I heard was, “Please, Abigail, you need to give yourself up. I will make sure your parents and friends are not harmed if you do.” Doctor McGrath’s voice reached me. It echoed against every surface with in the cave. The message reverberated and shook me to my bones.
It was all I could take. I dropped the backpack and my body followed it involuntarily. I heard the thud of my knees hitting the hard ground. My already raw skin scraped the grit and gravel. Warm, wet blood trickled from my wounds. I stared at the black liquid mixing with the sand and dirt. It hurt, but somehow it felt good that I was losing blood. Why should I give it all to them to carry out more horrendous acts. I pinched my wound to make it bleed more. “If this is the only way I can get back a little of my own,” I told myself. I pinched it again with a defiant resolve, knowing that the act was like standing at the beach, boldly and bravely facing an oncoming tsunami.
