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“Welcome,” said Jix, a little bit proud, and a little embarrassed, “to the City of Souls.”
No one who has seen the City of Souls is ever the same. There are sights and sounds to boggle the most worldly mind and fill it with both elation and terror. Spirits with the colorful wings of parrots soared overhead in formation, dancing in the sky, while on the ground below, Afterlights adorned with gold, jade, onyx, and impossibly bright feathers engaged in all sorts of joyous activities. Troops of dancers stomped and gyrated in circles everywhere. Crowds moved in swarms, seeming to have no purpose other than moving and swarming. Magicians performed amazing feats and jugglers hurled balls of flame high into the sky. The entire city was a single massive party that had raged for eons and showed no signs of slowing.
“As I told you,” Jix said, “the king likes excess.”
“Right. More is more,” said Mikey.
“No,” said Jix, “as far as His Excellency is concerned, ‘more’ is not nearly enough.”
ER 43
The City of Souls
From: [email protected]/* */
To: [email protected]/* */
Subject: 2 down
Hi, it’s Allie skinjacking. Milos and Moose are dead. Jill, are you there? We need those other names! Jix, I hope you made it to the City of Souls, and that you’re all okay. Tell Mikey and Nick hello. And be careful, all of you!
Allie
Back on New Year’s Eve—the same day that Allie and Clarence first boarded the plane to Baltimore—Nick, Mikey, and Jix sailed for Chichén Itzá. They took the smallest of the Everlost racing yachts from Corpus Christi Marina, solemnly passing the hull of the doomed boat, which still floated upside down. They sailed southwest across the Gulf of Mexico, toward the Yucatan Peninsula. That first day, and all through the night, Mikey stood at the yacht’s bow. The sun rose to his left at dawn, and he felt it shine through him, adding golden accents to his natural afterglow. Their boat did not pitch and roll with the motion of the sea; rather it glided as if skating on ice, regardless of what the living sea did around it, leaving no wake to mark their passage. Their journey offered no bursts of sea spray, no bow lurching to meet the waves. It was an indignation of Everlost that ocean voyages were stripped of their drama.
This was the first time Mikey had been at sea since his days as the McGill, and he couldn’t help but feel a little nostalgic. Back then, his greatest pleasure was to be miserable in every possible way. Things were so much better now, but he did occasionally have an urge to wallow. This sleek sailing yacht was nothing like the dank rusty bulk of the old steamship, the Sulphur Queen. He couldn’t say which he liked better: the rude character and brute force of the old vessel, or the sleek majesty of the yacht. Perhaps he’d be most at home with a combination of both. If the yacht’s sails were wind-tattered, if its polished brass and varnished wood were scarred from a hundred successful voyages, it would have suited him, because character should always come before beauty.
Jix, who knew full well what was in store for them, chose not to brief Mikey and Nick until the fourth day, when the Yucatan shoreline was already visible on the distant horizon, and changing their minds ceased to be an option. Then he sat them down in the galley, and told them all they needed to know about the City of Souls and His Excellency, the Supreme King of the Middle Realm.
“It is a very old city,” Jix told them. “And he is a very old soul. From a time when things were very different. When we arrive, you will be formally announced and I will present you.” Then Jix paused, knowing the next part would be difficult to swallow. “I will be presenting you to the king as gifts.”
“Excuse me?” said Mikey “Did you say ‘gifts’?”
“It’s the only way to get you into his court. Otherwise you will be confined to the ripening caves for years, until you forget your past and remember nothing but the City of Souls.”
“I’m nobody’s property,” grumbled Mikey, growing himself a pair of inadvertent fangs that he drew back once Nick glared at him.
Jix showed no emotion in his response. “If you wish to stop your sister, then you will do as I say. The king will become your ally only if you approach him with absolute humility, then win him over.”
Nick sighed. “Then we’re in trouble. Mikey doesn’t do humility.”
“If all goes well, you may not be palace slaves for long.” Jix thought for a moment, pondering what he should say and what he shouldn’t. “His Excellency has another name,” Jix told them. “They call him ‘the Unremembering King.’ It has to do with his memory. The things he remembers and the things he doesn’t.”
“So he forgets things?” scoffed Mikey. “Big deal. Who isn’t forgetful in Everlost?”
“No,” said Jix patiently “He’s not forgetful, he’s unremembering. There’s a big difference, and you will know that difference. It is the very core of his power.”
“What does that mean for us?” asked Nick
“It means that he will have a very short attention span for you,” Jix explained, “and when he tires of treating you as playthings, he may unremember you into a position of power. But take care, because there are others who seek power in the City of Souls. . . .”
“Like you?” asked Mikey, almost an accusation.
“I,” said Jix, “will be the least of your troubles.”
Upon seeing the approaching yacht, winged messengers went soaring over the forest toward the city, and by the time the yacht neared shore, an army numbering a thousand was there to capture the intruders, whoever they were.
“His Excellency believes in excess,” Jix told Nick and Mikey, as they sailed closer to the waiting army.
