The Death of Yorik Mortwell Read Online Free PDF Page B

time you disobeyed a Family command.” Yorik watched her eyes cloud over and then swirl away into empty voids of deepest dark.
    “Yes,” he said, staring straight into the voids. “But I don’t think you’re really Family.”
    Mistress Doris scrambled up to Yorik until her furious white face was only inches from his. “Yesss,” she hissed. “I’m Missstresss Dorisss.”
    “No, you’re not,” he said clearly. “I can see things as they are now. And you’re not really Doris.”
    “Ifff I’m not Fffamily,” she whispered, “then what am I?”
    Yorik remembered seeing that emptiness before, in the darkness of the water garden and the trees beyond the topiaries. He looked at the glowing bite marks on Doris’s ankle. “You’re a Dark One,” he said.
    The thing gave a harsh chuckle.
Not ONE
, it rasped.
MANY
.
    Mistress Doris’s face became dry and hollow. The skin smeared and faded. And just before the image of the girl disappeared, those black void eyes cleared and became a girl’s again, and a tiny, distant voice, the voice of Mistress Doris, pleaded, “Yorik—help me!”
    Then she was gone.
    In her place sat several things, or not-things, presences that were there and not there. There were more than he had sensed before—perhaps five. They were each a little blob of midnight, plump like large pears. He saw that there were a few more up in the trees, squatting on branches. They did not seem to have eyes or any other features, but Yorik sensed that all of them were looking at him, and in that look he sensed a vast, terrifying hunger.
    Revenge
, they chorused. Two Dark Ones dropped from a tree and slid closer to Yorik.

    “No,” said Yorik, leaping up.
    The two stopped.
Revenge
, they said in their rasping whine.
Revenge on the one who killed you. Revenge on his family
.
    “No!” said Yorik firmly, shaking his head. “No revenge.”
    Then we will take you
, they chorused.
We will take you like we took the girl. Like we are taking her brother
. They slid toward Yorik, and despite his desire to show courage, he stepped backward. An unfamiliar panic seized him, a wild fright as he imagined the Dark Ones consuming him, and Susan’s death at the hands of the evil Master Thomas.
    The two nothings sprang toward his shoulders.
    Then there was a terrific whoosh, and two objects flew past Yorik. They caught the nothings in midspring with a tremendous
thump
. Yorik thought it sounded like someone had punched a ball of dough. The objects sped onward, taking the Dark Ones with them.
    Suddenly the vast hunger was no longer focused on him, but on something behind him.
    There in the path crouched the tiny sticklikefigure of Erde. As Yorik watched, she reached her little clawlike hands into her mouth. They emerged with two dripping mud-balls. With a snapping twist of her body, she threw the mud-balls, and two more Dark Ones went flying from the bench with a magnificent
thump
.
    Instantly the Dark Ones abandoned Yorik and clustered around Erde. More appeared in the trees above her. He could sense waves of ravenous hunger washing from them to her, far stronger than their craving for him. And Yorik could sense something else. He could sense their triumph.
    Erde twisted and whirled, but there was no escape. She curled down and made two more mud-balls and threw them, but there were too many of the hungry voids. They pressed close to her, dropping from the trees, growing larger as they neared, as though opening their voids to devour her.
    With a rushing leap, Yorik jumped over the cluster. He landed in the tiny gap between them and Erde and reached for her. He felt her long fingers wrap twice around his fist, clenching so tightly it hurt. He looked into her eyes and sawsheer and abject terror staring back from their deep brownness.
    He lifted Erde into his arms and ran. The girl weighed almost nothing, and the world flashed by—carriage path, riding lane, forest, fishponds, shooting range, and then the aviary glade.
    The