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“You creatures have caused me a great deal of trouble,” gasped Lord Dogknife. “Freeing these ghosts has cost me my ship, and the Lorimare invasion.”
“And FrostNight?” I asked.
He turned and looked at us then, and the swarm pulsed more brightly. One tiny light parted from the whole and skimmed toward Dogknife’s face, raking down his cheek. Dogknife almost seemed to stumble, and then pulled himself back to his feet and growled, “No. FrostNight will continue on schedule, whatever happens to me.”
There was a shudder and a crash as something below us fell apart. That was happening more and more lately.
“Why are you here?” I asked. “Shouldn’t you be in a lifeboat or something by now?”
It was like the bellow of a bull or the growl of a tiger. “Cannot you see, boy? This ridiculous simmered-up ball of spirits has me caught.” He groaned and heaved, trying, vainly, to pull away. The firefly-green light burned more brightly. It began to spread up his arms, oozing like slow green oil. It made sense. If he’d had me imprisoned in a glass bottle for years—having first had mind-mashing amounts of pain inflicted upon me, to help me “focus”—I know what I would have wanted to do. I would have wanted to hurt him, just like he hurt me. I would have kept him on the ship until it blew or crashed or did whatever sabotaged ships did in the Nowhere-at-All.
Josef touched my shoulder. “Joey? This is your deal. Whatever you’re going to do, you need to do it fast.”
I nodded. Took a deep breath and walked forward. I faced those eyes, eyes that were the color of cancer, of bile, of venom. I looked into them, even though every cell of my body was telling me to run, and I said, “I want my mudluff back.”
His huge hyena face twisted briefly into an expression of amusement. I could see him calculating, realizing that he had something I wanted.
“Ahhhh. You didn’t come all the way back here just to witness my death. You want the creature, then?”
“Yes.”
A light flashed brightly in the swarm of souls, and Lord Dogknife flinched. “Then get me out of here, and I’ll give you your little friend back. But you must free me. Right now I couldn’t even get the prism if I wanted to. My hands are somewhat occupied.”
“Why should we trust you?” called Jakon.
“You can’t trust me. Nor should you—” He paused then, grunted and seemed to concentrate. Then he moaned. It was the closest I ever heard Lord Dogknife come to making a sound of weakness, of pain. I had to admit, it didn’t give me as much satisfaction as I might have hoped. Still, I was a long way from feeling sorry for him.
“If you want your pet back, then for the sake of all you hold holy,” he said, “help me. I will not last much longer. The pain is more than I can bear. And I can bear much pain . . .”
I hesitated. “I don’t even know if I can help. What if we just took back the prism?”
“Then,” he panted, “you would have a prism with an ouroboros imprisoned in it. You need me to open it.”
The ship gave a sudden lurch, and suddenly everything was at forty-five degrees. I lost my footing on the slippery wooden floor and slammed against the wall. I rolled out of the way barely in time to avoid Lord Dogknife, who hit the same spot, only a lot harder. He groaned and pulled himself back to his feet.
Tentatively, I put out my hand and pushed into the glowing light.
Hate.
Hate filled my mind.
The desire for revenge.
Each of the spirits, and there were hundreds of them in that swarm, still roiled and reeled and writhed in pain. They were full of hate; hate for the ship, hate for HEX, hate for Lord Dogknife, hate for Lady Indigo; hate was the only thing they had to distract them from the pain.
It was horrible. All over my mind, hundreds of versions of me were screaming.
I had to stop it.
“It’s over,” I told them, hardly knowing what I was saying. “No one’s going to hurt you again. You’re free. Let go. Move on.” I tried to think of good things to back up the thoughts I was sending them. Hot summer days. Warm winter nights by the fire. Thunderstorms. After a while I ran out of commonplace touchy-feely things and concentrated on family memories. The smell of Dad’s pipe. The squid’s smile. The stone around my neck, the one that my mother gave me before I left.
The stone . . .
For no reason I could name, I reached in my shirt and pulled it out. It hung in my hand, reflecting the flickers and pulses of the souls. And then I noticed something peculiar: The stone wasn’t just echoing the lights; it was resonating with them, harmonizing with the flickering colors, somehow. And I could see the firefly lights were changing; beginning to pulse and flare in sync. If it had been sound instead of light, I would have been hearing two contrapuntal melodies that were slowly merging.
They were almost ready to believe me. I knew it, somehow. Almost, but not quite.
“Stop fighting them,” I told Dogknife.
