Chapter 10 - Beware Rainbows
“Ihate this river.” I spat as I hauled myself out, pulling the knife from my shoulder with a grunt. At some point during the swim, the hat and elastic Allie had insisted I put on had both washed away.
Almost disappearing through the mist, the steamboat sailed off and away down the river continuing on its cruise as though nothing had even happened.
Panting as she dragged herself onto the shore, Allie shot me an incredulous look. “What was your plan exactly? You thought you were going to fight all of them off? You shouldn’t have attacked that one guy.”
“Good thing you kicked him in the nuts. Save him that misery,” I huffed, not understanding her concern. I may not have had my magic but I was certain I was still at least three times stronger than any of The Dodo’s pathetic thugs.
“I had to do something,” Allie pointed out. “You couldn’t just go around breaking people’s arms.”
“I wasn’t going to break his arm,” I corrected. “I was going to kill him.”
Allie groaned. “And what else, oh great and deadly assassin? You didn’t want to torture him first?”
I shot her a look. “We didn’t have time for torture.”
“Oh, of course! How silly of me.” She shook her head in disbelief. “This is just great.” She wrung out her hands, her drenched outfit still dripping.
Clutching at my injured shoulder, I groaned at the sting. “For god’s sake, help me,” I rasped in annoyance as blood ran onto my clothes, diluted by the fresh river water. “Aren’t you a doctor?” I gestured to her lab coat.
“Oh, hell.” Allie threw her hands up. “I’m not that kind of doctor!”
Grunting again, I pressed my hand against my wound. We were still too close to the river for my magic to awaken. We were both soaking wet. I glanced distastefully down at myself. “We’re going to need to get out of these wet clothes.”
Allie made a big show of turning to give me an incredulous, wary look.
I knew exactly what she was thinking. “What?” I prompted again in exasperation. “I just meant so we don’t catch a cold. How do you propose we get dry otherwise? By running around in circles?”
“For a moment there, I thought you were trying to pick up where we left off when we were—how did you say it?” She tapped her finger on her chin. “Trying to sneak in a moment of pleasure.”
I sneered. “Do you think I’m still trying to seduce you, Mary Ann? I told you I don’t have feelings like normal humans.”
Allie still looked in disbelief. “Oh and what? Are you saying you were never attracted to those pretty women companions that visited you night after night after night for all your nocturnal activities?”
“I never had feelings for them. Attraction is different,” I told her. “It just makes achieving release easier. But even that is not necessary.” I dismissed her ridiculous tangent with a shake of my head and struggled to straighten up. “We need to get much further away from the river if I am to regain my magic.”
She eyed my gait. “Are you sure you can walk? I think you lost a lot of blood.”
I hissed at the sting in my shoulder. “Don’t have much choice.”
Allie’s face still looked like she’d eaten lemons.
I rolled my eyes. “Wipe that look of pity off your face.” I wanted to saunter away but with my first step, I already had to grunt in pain.
Allie caught my arm before I stumbled. “Jeez, Rabb. For a fearsome, daunting guy, how can you be such a big baby?”
The veins in my neck bulged in protest. I was the most goddamned powerful sorcerer on Wünder. Before Allie, things like this never happened to me on a daily basis. This was all her fault!
Of course, I couldn’t choke the life out of her. I couldn’t hold her head under the water and watch the bubbles slowly dissipate as she fought for breath. At the moment, I could barely keep my body upright.
I blew out all my pent-up frustration in a loud, aggravated, resigned sigh. And all I could do was make a face and mumble under my breath in my defense, “Am not.”
As we went on, the sandy ground from the riverbank turned into more solid soil beneath our feet. Soon, we were on a distinctly well-trodden path in the middle of a rainforest.
Still supporting the crook of my arm, Allie glanced over her shoulder as we passed a wooden sign by the side of the path. “Why does that say ‘Beware rainbows’?”
I gave her a flat look. “Rainbows are dangerous things. Don’t you know anything?”
She tilted her head. “Why? What’s so dangerous about rainbows?”
I sighed again to explain. “If you are unlucky enough to walk into a rainbow, you might reach its end where it may grant you the greatest wish of your heart in that moment.”
“You’re kidding. Like a treasure?” Allie gaped. “You’re telling me there’s really a treasure at the end of rainbows?”
“That’s what I said.” I groaned again. “It’s pointless.”
“It’s brilliant!” Her eyes lit up like an epiphany. “Do you think if we found a rainbow, it could show me a portal to get back home?”
I stopped short. I hadn’t considered that. I hadn’t considered that we would encounter a rainbow either. If the rainbow did indeed show her a way home, my entire plan would fail. I needed to dissuade her from engaging the rainbow. Not that I really needed to try. In my experience, rainbows were atrocious things.
I cleared my throat. “Perhaps. But rainbows are tricky. Often it will interpret your wish in an unexpected way, or give you a mere one part of something even when you wished for a whole thing. They’re highly unpredictable and very dangerous.”
“Are you kidding me?” She dropped my arm to wander around as if on a hunt for it. “If it could give me a way to get out of this place? Worth a shot, I’d say.” She walked backward, casting her gaze around the clearing. “So, where is this illustrious, magical rainbow that’s supposed to be around here somewhere?”
I furrowed my eyebrows almost in mocking. “I thought you were a scientist? Don’t you know you can’t have a rainbow without—”
A crackle of thunder interrupted my sentence and a drizzle began to fall from the gray clouds that were rolling.
“Rain!” Allie exclaimed. Her face lit up with a childlike joy as she tilted her chin up to the sky. She closed her eyes for a moment as if to savor the sensation of the droplets falling on her face.
One corner of my mouth turned up ever so slightly.
Ignorance must indeed be bliss. Allie had absolutely no idea she was summoning one of the most treacherous things in all of Wünder. She even seemed…carefree, relaxed.
She smiled. “Mmm…That feels so good.”
My mouth twitched. “Be careful. You’re beginning to sound like those women again who keep me company at night.”
Allie’s laughter was as delicate as the rain. “I wasn’t even trying before. Shall I do another one? Here.” She let out an exaggerated moan—except she sounded like a cow about to be slaughtered.
I cringed. She sounded wholly ridiculous. But quite unexpectedly, I was unable to help letting out a short cough of amusement.
Allie’s eyes widened larger than Chez’s in abject surprise.
I supposed she didn’t even know I could make that noise.
“Did you just…” She turned to face me. “That sound just now—was that actually laughter?”
There was an undeniable lightness in my chest. The prospect of finding a rainbow and potentially a way home must have triggered great joy in Allie. And it made me…laugh.
She continued to peer closely at my face. “Are you going to do it again?” she coaxed. “Come on, Rabb. Do you want to hear a joke? A limerick?” She cleared her throat. “There once was a man from Nantucket…” She paused in hesitation. “Something about a bucket that could suck it. I think he had a daughter named Nan. Who took the cash in the bucket—wait. Did he go down a well?” She stopped to think before starting again, “Wait, wait, wait. I think I have it.” She waved her hand as if in ceremony. “There once was a man from Nantucket. Whose john was so long he could s—”
“Stop it.” I shot her an absurd look, even though I was struggling to contain a smirk from the ridiculous look on her face. “Stop trying to make me laugh.”
Allie was finding the situation entirely too amusing. Her melodious laughter rang in the air. “I wonder if your rainbows have the same colors as the ones I know. Red, yellow, orange…” She cast me a glance. “What’s your favorite color?”
I glared at her again. “Black.”
She pursed her lips. “That’s not a color.”
“Of course it is.”
Allie shook her head. “Well, no. Technically, black is the absence of all color. Which is interesting because it’s also the presence of all the colors, I suppose…”
A streak of sunlight broke through the lingering clouds above us and an arch of vibrant hues emerged. The rainbow glistened in the air, an ethereal bridge connecting the ground to the skies. The phenomenon put a halt to her rambling.
Allie’s breath caught in her throat. “There it is!” Running to the bow, she screeched to a stop and put her foot on the edge that touched the ground to test its stability. Her toe bounced on the multi-colored lip before the first step. “Huh. Springy.”
Frowning, I put my hand up. “Be careful.”
She stepped forward, following the trail of patterned colors, in no way apprehensive. I could feel her eagerness to see the end, to see the treasure. The hope in her heart that she should find a way home was making her heart thump again.
I followed behind her on cautious alert.
I had heard of people surviving rainbows before so it wasn’t entirely impossible. But it was better to be safe.
The haze of the rainbow was masking the dimness of the forest. The path to the end was now lined with fluffy white clouds, adorned with sparkles, daytime stars, and bright light.
Allie was looking around in marvel. “Wow! Would you look at all these things?”
I squinted at the appearance of objects lining the rainbow lane. Wooden chests of gold coins and jewels, a selection of glittering dresses and shoes, shelves full of books, and a wide array of delectable food flanked us.
I pursed my lips. “Don’t touch anything. That is the test of the rainbow. If you really want the thing you seek, the one treasure at the end, you must resist being tempted by anything else.”
Allie raised her hand to shield her eyes from the bright light as we neared the end. “I can’t tell what it is. It doesn’t look like a portal or a doorway. It’s too small. Is that…”
I narrowed my eyes, already in incredulous suspicion at the strange object hovering at the end of the lane. It was a small package, rolls of pristine white bandages, little jars of ointment, and brown bottles of medicine. “What the hell is that? Is that a…?”
Allie’s mouth had dropped open like she couldn’t believe it either.
No way.
The rainbow was gifting Allie a healing burlap.
Her hazel eyes met mine before her gaze drifted down to my injured shoulder. “Did you ask for this?”
“Hey, you’re the one who stepped on the rainbow first,” I reminded her. “Did you ask for that?” I couldn’t help the mocking in my tone.
She threw her hands up in dismay. “Well, this is so wrong! There’s no way I wished for this. There has to be some kind of mistake.”
I tilted my head to regard her with a mocking look. “Are you sure? The deepest wish of your heart isn’t to heal my shoulder and coddle me until I get better? You said I couldn’t but perhaps I already have succeeded in seducing you.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re ridiculous. That’s preposterous. And anything is better than that stupid thing.” Turning on her heels, her eyes caught something by the side of the path. “Oh my god, look! It’s a laser micro-scalpel—and that—that’s an electron microscope. I’ve wanted one for ages!”
Allie’s hand reached out to the microscope as if in slow motion.
Eyes widening, my stomach hollowed. “Allie—NO!”
The moment her fingertip touched the eyepiece, a gust of wind rushed past as a tangle of sinewy, twisting vines shot out from behind us.
Allie’s yelp of surprise was cut short as tendrils coming from the rainbow’s end, moving with a deceptive speed, reached out to ensnare her body, entwining around her with a serpentine agility.
The rest of the rainbow shrugged me off its shimmering path and I staggered back to the forest floor.
“Ah, hell—” Cursing out loud, I wrung my arms out to cast a repellent spell but my powers still had not returned. Damn that river! Straightening up, I assessed the vicious vines in concern. “Allie!”
“Ah, dammit!” Allie’s face twisted in the effort as she tried to tug at the leafy cords wrapped around her arms. “It’s fine!” she called out to dismiss. “It’s just a plant. I can get myself out.”
The tangle of vines rose higher from the ground with Allie in its grasp, her legs dangling beneath her, suspended nearly as high as some of the trees around us. Then this bramble of vines, slowly but surely, began to crawl along the forest floor.
I stepped back, preparing to get some momentum to take a run at the vines—but instead, I collapsed to one knee. I clutched at my throat as it threatened to close up. I shot the menacing plant a dark glare.
With an almost sentient malevolence, the unrelenting grip of the leafy vines around Allie was constricting tighter in a coil. She was starting to suffocate.
The rainbow was showing its true colors. It was a beast that lured its prey with the sweetest of honeys before it devoured them, a predatory trap for those with flights of fancy. Its shadowy monstrous form swelled from the ground with Allie still in its python grip.
She choked out a cry and I groaned at the same time as the monster squeezed harder.
It was like I was in a vise. Large red welts forming on my arms began to sting like hell.
Allie cried out again.
I hissed as I tried to keep up. My eyes could only widen as the menacing vines began to sprout a nightmare of thorns all over. Telltale bleeding cuts were forming on my arms. If this went on, I would lose my strength too.
Allie’s next whine was fainter. The mere sound tore at my insides.
Almost with a shout of outrage, I forced my body straight, darting back to bound off of a nearby tree so I could pounce on the rainbow monster’s elevated tangle of vines.
Coming to reach Allie, I clawed on the rough tendrils constricted around her even as the monster rumbled on, possibly looking for somewhere to quietly digest its meal.
Allie’s eyelids were drooping. She was about to lose consciousness. I didn’t have much time.
A surge of energy shot through my body as my magic reawakened. I blinked in realization. The monster must have finally moved us far enough away from the river.
With my renewed strength, I tore at the vines again. This time, they disintegrated under my hands. I scooped Allie up in my arms and shot off to fly us away.
But the darkness of the monster’s insides had taken over the bright colors surrounding us. It was sucking us in and was going to swallow us whole. No matter how fast I flew us upward, we couldn’t seem to escape its pitch-dark clutches. I could barely even tell if we were flying out or getting sucked in deeper.
Dammit!
Slowly regaining consciousness, Allie mumbled a complaint in my arms.
“I told you rainbows were dangerous!” I couldn’t resist pointing out.
Her face was still sour but as she got her bearings back, her grip around my neck tightened. “Oh, come on. I thought you were the most powerful sorcerer in Wünder?”
“Sorcerers are one thing. Beasts are another,” I pointed out, struggling to keep up our pace.
The wind whipping past her face, her eyelids seemed to droop again. She still seemed halfway lucid. “Kill it. Kill it with fire.”
“What?”
Fire magic was a tricky thing to conjure, perhaps the trickiest. Wary of the considerable drain on my powers, I would likely only have one shot at the beast. It was too big for me to stab with my dagger.
“I have a theory,” Allie proposed.
I barely stifled the urge to groan. Oh, here we go again.
“No, listen, it only makes sense. Rainbows are light reflected in water droplets. Subjected to extreme heat, if those drops were to evaporate, there would be nothing for light to pass through, so—”
Screw it. I didn’t bother waiting for her to finish. I had to try something.
Gritting my teeth, I waved my hand to conjure a fire to repel the beast. A bright orange flame from my hand grew larger and larger until it enveloped Allie and me. I squinted at my hand. This fire was somehow more intense than I’d ever conjured before.
Not stopping to analyze my surprise, I took a deep breath and flicked my wrist to disperse my fire at the beast.
The monster’s roar was loud in my ears. The dark gooey plasma around us wobbled and shook as my fire spread across its entire form. Heat seared my face but I tucked Allie’s head in my chest as I flew us up faster and faster, until soon, I could see the light at the end of the whorl of burning beast, like a tunnel.
Shooting out of the rainbow’s maw, we arrived back in the forest. I grasped the nearest tree to catch us, its trunk nearly swinging at the force. With a precarious grip on the branch we’d landed on, I glanced back in time to see the dark beast explode into a million shimmery pieces with a devastating gust of wind that raged across the forest. The intensity of the explosion gouged a blackened impact crater on the ground.
The rainbow was completely obliterated.
Allie peeked out, her eyes still wide as she gazed at all the fallen trees around us. “Whoa. Did you just…?”
For once, I was at a loss.
I hadn’t meant to do that. I didn’t even know destroying rainbows was possible. Then again, I’d never had to fight a rainbow before. I would’ve never had cause to do so before and they weren’t that prevalent on my side of the river.
But surprise was secondary to the load of relief in my chest and then—fury. I glared at Allie in disapproval. “And just what in the hell were you trying to do?”
“I-I’m sorry.”
I set Allie down on the semi-wobbly thick branch beside mine. “I honestly can’t tell if you’re really brave…or just really dumb.”
Rubbing her arms, she wrinkled her nose. “I was curious.”
I groaned again. If I had a Heartfire ember for every time Allie said that. “Haven’t you heard of that saying, like what happens with cats and curiosity?” I ran my hand over my face in frustration. “You should ask Chez. More than a couple of his lives were lost thanks to curiosity.”
“I said I was sorry.” Allie pouted as she adjusted her clothes.
A cat’s head popped up right by my shoulder among the leaves.
Allie almost jumped back into my arms in her startle.
“Someone mention my name?” Chez grinned as the rest of his fuzzy purple body slowly followed to appear.
Half in relief, Allie clutched at her chest. “Chez! How did you get here?”
“I’m a Cheshire cat. I can go anywhere I want.” He stood on his hind legs and mocked a formal bow. “Besides, I’m here to escort you to the Duchess’s humble abode.”
Scooping Allie back up, I flew us back to the ground and set her down on the grass.
Teetering slightly on her feet, she winced. Her white coat had bleeding punctures from the thorny vines. I was sure she had the same red welts I did. It was lucky we managed to escape before the beast could injure her more seriously.
Chez looked from her to me with a shake of his head. “Jeez, you guys look horrible. Allie, are you sure you’re okay?”
She was nursing her arm with one hand. She shook her head dismissively but her nose was still wrinkled. “It stings a little but I’ll be okay. I think Rabb got me out in time.”
The purple cat popped up ahead of us on the grassy path. He craned his neck back to muse, “Hey Rabb, saw what you did just then with that rainbow monster. That was pretty impressive.”
“Of course it was.” I dismissed him, but as soon as I strode after him, I winced at the throbbing pain myself. Now I had a stab wound in my shoulder and bleeding thorny cuts all over. I hissed under my breath as I tried to conjure a healing spell to no avail.
Juuust great…
My magic was sapped. I couldn’t heal myself.
Hobbling along, Allie frowned as she looked me up and down. “You know, for a bad guy, you have an incredibly incorrigible hero complex.” She shook her head in disapproval. “You were already hurt and you jumped in like that. You probably tapped out your mystical core all over again, didn’t you?”
Whirling around, I growled in her face. “I had to! How the hell else would I keep you safe?”
She winced, leaning away, and let out an exasperated sigh. “You keep saying that. Is my life that important to you?”
Leveling my gaze with hers, I was sure my tone was as grave as anything. “I told you it’s as important as my own life.”
Blinking, Allie studied my eyes for a silent moment. It was as though, despite my having told her the same thing on multiple occasions, it had only finally sunk in. She pursed her lips after a pause. “Well then, you’d better take better care of yourself. Or how else are you going to have enough strength to step in to save me again next time?”
Flinching in annoyance, I fumed. “Next time?”
Allie couldn’t help bursting out with laughter, even as she had to stop short to clutch at her sore torso. “Oh, ow—I’m just kidding.” She shook her head again. “You’re such a downer.”
Chez chuckled to himself as he led the way down the lane. “Come along then. When we get to the Duchess’s, you’ll both be set right.”