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“Does this mean The Evil knows where we are?” Kyle asked.
Jack hadn’t wanted to raise that possibility. Any small part of The Evil was connected to the rest, so whatever the bug had seen, the rest of The Evil knew it now, too.
“I think we should save our breath for keeping up with Tara,” he said.
Kyle grunted and put the umbrella up again. As they passed over a stony surface, he reached down and picked up two pebbles.
“Here,” he said, giving one of them to Jack. “Suck on it. It’ll stop you from feeling so thirsty.”
Jack warily put the stone in his mouth. It was hot and tasted like ash.
“You learned that in Scouts, too?” he asked.
“Yes. Here’s hoping it’ll work on an alien planet.”
* * *
They killed four more bug things before they reached the base of the “city.” Two were Evilflies, as Kyle dubbed them, with scissorlike pincers. He smacked one of them out of the sky with his oar. Jack burned the other. Another consisted of a long wormlike thing with dozens of legs that rose up hissing from the ground in Tara’s path and that she squashed before it could bite her. She called it an Evilpede. The last looked like a small tumbleweed that had rolled across their path, and hadn’t seemed alive until it had unfolded in front of Kyle and tried to grab hold of his leg with razor-tipped, twiglike legs. Tara sliced the “Evilweed” into bits, revealing two Evil eyes at its heart. Several Evilweed flocks lurked in the distance, shadowing them, but none had approached any closer, perhaps warned off by the death of the first.
Behind them, the black cloud was looming larger and more threateningly than ever.
“We made it,” Kyle gasped as they staggered toward the base of the nearest “building.” There was one opening at ground level. Jack headed for it without hesitation.
Tara pulled him back. “Shouldn’t we at least check to see what’s in there first?”
“I can see just fine,” he said. “The light’s bright enough. There’s nothing waiting for us.”
“Maybe you can see,” said Kyle, “but it’s pitch-black to me.”
Only then did Jack realize that his Gift had returned, which was a surprise because he was normally least powerful during the daylight, and here, with three suns, there might never be full dark. It was also surprising because he hadn’t stopped to wonder if his Gift would even work in the Evil Dimension. If he had, he would have assumed it wouldn’t have worked, with the rest of the Wardens so far away.
That was a relief. But his friends would remain in the dark if they went any farther, reliant on him to guide them around.
“Grab some branches,” he said, pointing at one of the dead trees they had passed. “They look like they’ll burn. I’ll light them and then you’ll be able to see.” One of the items he had retrieved from the sand was a yellowing magnifying glass that focused light much more intensely than a clear one.
His friends did as he suggested, Tara hacking at several thick limbs with her sword, and Kyle putting them in the pockets of his enormous coat. Jack lit two, and when the brands were burning with a crackling, red light, they went inside.
What they found was a vast space crisscrossed by ramps and landings with few level floors. It looked more grown than built, and there were signs that it had once been inhabited by something very much like people … so it wasn’t a hive for giant ants. There were seats and tables carved into the walls, and several knobby things that might have been tools scattered on the uneven floors. Of the owners, there was no sign.
Several levels up, in the cool heart of the vast structure they found a chamber filled with living plants, where condensation dripped down tall, funnel-like rock chimneys into narrow channels that led from planter to planter. It had once been a garden, perhaps a farm, but now it was a jungle, containing hundreds of drooping, thick-stemmed plants that looked more like cactuses than trees. Some had thorns, some flowers. Bulging, brightly colored fruit hung rotting everywhere they looked.
The smell was awful.
“But water, that’s good, right?” said Jack.
“If we can drink it.” Tara ran her fingers along one of the gutters and used the droplets she collected to barely dampen her lips. She made a face. “I’ve tasted worse. But there’s not much of it.”
“It’s all around us.” Kyle went scurrying between the planters, looking for a particularly fat stem. “Tara, cut this one, right here.”
As Tara approached with her sword, the plant began to twitch and rock, bringing branches down in an attempt to enclose them.
“Stop that!” Kyle bashed it with the burning brand. The tree hissed and growled. “Stop being so Evil!”
“You are trying to chop it down,” said Jack, unsure why he was defending a plant growing in the realm of The Evil. Maybe because it was powerless and couldn’t help if The Evil had taken it over.
“Not chop it,” said Kyle. “Tap it.”
He put his finger where he wanted Tara to use the sword, and she drew the tip along its skin, revealing thick, green flesh that dripped moisture.
“Now drink,” he said.
“Are you sure it’s safe?” Tara asked.
“No, but we have to drink, and plants like this filter out all the bad stuff. Who would put plants that didn’t in their home, anyway? If you want to, though, we could find a pot and boil it —”
“No, it’s okay.” Tara bent over and took a deep sip from the weeping plant. “Mmmm, it’s sweet.”
They took turns, and when the flow began to lessen, they went to another plant. Around them, the jungle clicked and swayed, and Jack knew their presence wasn’t welcome. When Tara declared that they had to move on as soon as they were full, Kyle complained about being tired, but Jack knew she was right.
“We’ve seen plants and bugs,” he said. “There could be much worse out there.”
“If there is, why hasn’t it attacked us?”
“I don’t know. Because it’s getting ready?”
“I’m not sticking around to find out,” said Tara, picking her brand up from where she’d stuck it in a planter’s black soil.
“But where are we going to go?” asked Kyle.
“Let’s take a look. There must be a window around here somewhere.”
They wound their way through the jungle until they saw a gleam of daylight in the distance. It was a window, and they crowded up to it to see what lay across the desert, if anything lay there at all.
“Uh-oh,” said Tara.
Jack’s stomach sank. An army of Evilweeds, Evilpedes, and Evilflies was massing at the base of the “building,” rolling, crawling, and flying in from all directions to fo
rm a semicircular wall that was already several yards deep. Sickly white eyes gleamed from every one of them. Many of the creatures had merged to form larger agglomerations — creatures as large as dogs with six legs, shapeless blobs that extruded tentacles to roll themselves along, even two-legged monstrosities with multiple heads and arms. Insect limbs clicked and chattered as the host assembled.
“I’m sorry,” Jack said.
“Sorry about what?” said Tara.
“Sorry you’re here. You shouldn’t be caught up in this. Even if we can escape The Evil here, we’ve still got to get home before Project Thunderclap does its thing. If Jaide and I hadn’t ever come to Portland —”
“We wouldn’t be having this much fun,” Tara said fiercely, slapping the flat of the sword into the palm of her hand. “Ouch,” she added.
Kyle laughed, and said, “Yeah, this is way better than school.”
“Do you think it’s daytime back home, too?” asked Tara. “That’s what I think.”
“It’s always daytime here. Maybe that means there’s always school. No wonder The Evil’s so grouchy.”
Jack forced a smile. He suspected his friends’ jokes were intended to make him feel better, and was grateful for it. Tara might not be faking her new bravado, but he knew Kyle was as nervous as he was. Kyle’s gaze kept flicking back to the window and the view outside.
“Looks like The Evil is going to wait us out,” said Jack. “It thinks it has us trapped.”
“Doesn’t it?” said Kyle. “Eventually we’ll need food, and not even my scoutmaster could tell me anything about which alien plants are safe to eat.”
“I’m not giving up,” said Tara fiercely. “They’re only bugs.”
“Yes, but there’s lots of bugs,” said Kyle, swallowing. “How are we going to fight a planet full of them?”
“With our brains,” said Jack. “We have three heads to The Evil’s one … err … I guess it has a lot more, technically, all joined together. But we’ve got smarter brains.”
“And we have all the stuff we collected from the wreckage,” said Tara, jingling her sack. “Don’t forget that. The Evil will rue the day it messed with us.”
