Volumes 9 and 10 - Dark Calling/Hell’s Heroes. Darren Shan
my lungs strain for air that isn’t there, my limbs go still and a calm wave spreads through me. In a way this is fitting. I was always a lonely child. I often felt out of place, not in sync with the people around me. Now I’m going to die in true isolation, more alone than any human has ever been.
A gloomy mist crosses my eyes. I think it’s the shades of death drawing over my face, but then I blink and realise it’s a dark green window which has opened ahead of me. As I stare at it numbly, a ball of light shoots through and envelops me from head to toe. I’ve just enough time to marvel at the warmth it brings. Then my eyelids flutter and I fall unconscious.
→I awake on a grey, cold, ashen world. I sit up, groaning. My skin is blistered. Parts feel raw. But I’m alive.
Something moves nearby.
“Art?” I call.
“No.” A tall black man steps into view. He’s fat, with very dark skin, dressed in an expensive-looking suit.
My eyes widen. “Raz?” I gasp.
“Only in appearance,” the man says solemnly.
“I don’t understand.” I start to rise, but pain prevents me. Grimacing, I frown at the fat man. Raz Warlo was a Disciple. I met him when I first joined Beranabus. He was killed during the quest to find my baby brother. “Why change?” I wheeze.
“The one you knew as Art is dead,” Raz says. “Although shapes mean nothing to us, we know you need them to make sense of the universe. We felt it would be easier for you if I took a different form.” He looks down at himself and frowns. “The suit was a difficult touch.”
“What happened back there?” I ask.
“The panels of the Kah-Gash reacted to your presence,” Raz says. “The demons attacked. We managed to get you out before they killed you.”
“And the panels? Did they stop?”
“The fact that we still exist makes me think so,” Raz says drily.
I nod slowly, then clear my throat. “Art sacrificed himself to save me.”
“Evidently.”
“And you placed your life at risk by coming after me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?” I groan. “Why take me to the Crux and risk your lives for my sake?”
“That will become clear very soon,” Raz says and nods at a rock behind me. “That is a lodestone. It is the reason I brought you to this world. I suggest you use its power to heal yourself before we continue.”
Now that I focus, I realise there’s a strong current of magic flowing around me. I tap into it gratefully and set to work on my wounds, patching up the holes burnt in my flesh.
As I’m sealing the last of the gashes, Raz looks around at the dead land, then says, “Did you ever plan to have children?”
The question throws me and I squint at him. “I hadn’t given it much thought. Probably not. It’s hard to bring up a child when you’re busy battling demons.”
“The Old Creatures can’t reproduce,” Raz says. “It didn’t matter in the original universe, since we were immortal. That changed when the Kah-Gash fractured. Now every creature ages. We are captives of time and the price of our captivity is death.”
As Raz speaks, I stand and stretch. My stomach rumbles. I’m ravenous and thirsty, but there’s nothing to eat or drink, so I do my best to ignore the cries of my deprived body and focus on the Old Creature’s lecture.
“We accepted our mortality,” Raz continues, “but the Demonata craved a return to the way things were. They wanted to live forever. So they set about thwarting the hold of death.”
“How?” I frown.
“As long as the new universes exist, death will claim us all,” Raz says. “But if those universes are eradicated… if the Kah-Gash is reassembled and the old laws are re-established…”
I start to tremble. “Beranabus said the Kah-Gash could destroy a universe. But you’re saying it could destroy both?”
“Yes. The Kah-Gash could draw everything back through time to the moment of the Big Bang, eliminate all that has happened since and restore the original universe.”
“What would happen to us?” I gasp.
“You would have never existed,” Raz says. “Time would be reversed. All the creatures and planets of the new universes would be wiped out. Only the Old Creatures and the Demonata would survive.”
“Why wouldn’t you be killed too?”
“We think we would be protected, as we were when the Kah-Gash exploded. If we are correct, even the new Demonata – the spawn of the original beasts – would be spared, since they carry the genes of their parents.”
“Then why not us?” I ask hollowly.
“You are not our offspring,” Raz says sadly. “New life was created when this universe was born. We have guided many species and helped souls develop. But you are not ours.
“We must go,” Raz says abruptly. “You need to eat, so we will move on.” He sets to work on the tiny patches of light in the air around us.
“What world of wonders are we heading for now?” I ask.
“We’re not going to a world,” Raz says. “We are going to a spaceship.”
→I wanted to be an astronaut when I was younger, walk on the moon, fly around in a rocket, zap aliens with a laser gun, teleport across galaxies. I’ve done a lot more than that in the years since, boldly going to places where no man would ever want to go. Still, that love of spacemen and rockets remains, and when Raz tells me we’re heading for a spaceship, I fill with excitement. But when we slide through the window, it’s into a large room of concrete walls, boxes stacked neatly at the sides, fluorescent lights overhead. There’s a small garden in the middle of the room.
“This isn’t a spaceship,” I grumble. “Spaceships are made of metal, full of stuff like…” I stop, realising how ridiculous that sounds. Spaceships in movies and comics might be like that. But in the real world, built by beings of another planet, why should they be?
“Precisely,” Raz says. “This is a massive craft designed to navigate the vastness of space. It is the size of a city, home to two million creatures. They fled their dying planet long ago and have sailed among the stars ever since.
“Now eat.”
“Eat what?” I ask, looking around.
“Anything,” Raz says. “The crates are packed with nutritious substances. And there are bottles of liquid in those.” He points at the boxes to my left.
“Won’t anyone mind?” I ask nervously, not wanting to get on the wrong side of short-tempered aliens.
“These are excess supplies. Nobody will notice.”
I shuffle over to the crates and lift off the lid of the nearest box. There are large plastic bottles inside. The liquid in them is an unpleasant green colour. The stench, when I snap the top off, is vile.
“Are you sure this is safe?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Why aren’t you drinking any?”
“I don’t need it.”
Sceptical, I raise the bottle and take a sip. It’s disgusting! I spit it out and grimace, then reluctantly drain a mouthful and swish it around. The taste doesn’t