Down a Lost Road by J. Leigh Bralick Read Free Book Online

over the sand.
    Where was Yatol?
    The minutes slipped by. I didn’t know what
to do. A flash of panic seized me, but I forced it back. I knew I
was in deep trouble – no water, no destination, no bearings at all
– but panicking wouldn’t solve my problems. I just needed to take a
few minutes to think, and maybe something would come to me.
Right.
    I drew a hand across my blistering lips,
watched a shadow pass over me. It stretched on, longer and darker,
until it blanketed me.
    A shadow.
    Yatol?
    I lurched upright, a cry of joy forming on
my lips as I twisted around. It faded into a gasp of terror.
    I couldn’t see the face. The hood of the
cloak concealed it. But I knew it wasn’t Yatol. I knew it even
before it lifted its head and showed its dead eyes, gleaming with a
hollow red light. Its dark robe undulated in the windless air,
passing right through the space its body should have occupied. It
didn’t seem to have any legs, but thick metal boots pressed into
the sand, like they magically appeared where the cloth stopped. It
had hands too, long and black, rotten, with bits of flesh drooping
from moldy bones.
    They moved, suddenly. Reached out toward
me.
    That thing is real . I’d been sitting
there staring at it like I was watching a movie and – oh, God. It
was real.
    A low long whine escaped the lipless
mouth…speaking, commanding, cajoling…
    I couldn’t tear my gaze from the noisome
head, the cold empty eyes. I tried to move, but my legs pressed
into the sand, heavy and numb. It took one pace toward me, and I
did the only thing I could think of. I threw all my weight
backwards. I felt myself flipping over, saw the shadow disappear,
the terrible eyes disappear, the land disappear. It all gave way to
reeling cloudless blue. My legs uprooted, kicking up a cloud of
sand as my back hit the ground with a jarring thud. As soon as I
landed I writhed onto my stomach, trying to gain my footing,
frantic to get away.
    The most horrific feeling shot through me,
shocking me like a surge of electricity. My back arched violently
and I crumpled back onto the sand. It felt like the moldering
fingers were stabbing into my head, clawing at my mind. I could
almost smell the death-rot, see the curling grey nails picking at
my thoughts. I heard a cry of anguish – mine. The eyes gleamed into
my soul. I struggled to close my thoughts, scraping fingers against
my forehead as if I could dig his voice out, but still his words
wormed into my mind. I screamed in rage and scrambled to my feet.
And I ran as hard as I had ever run.
    Shadow fell over me.
    * * *
    The first thing I sensed was a faint, musty
smell, then warm stone beneath me. I opened my eyes against searing
pain, and a strange rusty cloud receded to the edges of my vision.
I could barely see, but then, there wasn’t much to see. Just
a pile of rank straw-like bedding, high grey walls, a barred window
admitting slats of dusty light. Everywhere silence. And stench. The
air reeked, metallic like rust and old blood, putrid like rotting
flesh. I gagged and covered my nose with my hand, trying to breathe
through my mouth without smelling.
    If I tucked my chin, I could just see an
iron grate in one wall, revealing a narrow corridor of roughhewn
stone and shifting shadows. I was in a cell . Like a real
dungeon cell, only the sight of blue sky through the window told me
I wasn’t underground. I groaned and put my hands to my throbbing
head. After a moment I managed to pick myself up and move to sit
against the wall, too numb from pain and shock to feel any fear. I
was just glad to be alive.
    My face flamed suddenly with pain, and I
dabbed at the skin. It felt stiff, mask-like, and when I withdrew
my fingers they were covered in moist, sticky blood.
    Blood. How had I gotten bloody? I closed my
eyes, made the painful effort to recall what had just happened.
    Mr. Dansy. “So, you’ve chosen.” His
words echoed in my thoughts against a sudden rush of images. A
golden haze, tumbling