Witch Doctors Inc: SEASON ONE (Completed!)

Part 5.16

My heart sinks into the ground. A spark of blue flame ignites at my fingertips, but Ruby holds her fist up and laughs quietly. Gold fire swirls around her arm, slow and snake-like.

I quickly call up a wall of ice.

There's a bone-shattering boom as the gold fire slams into the ice, sending me and Addy flying backwards. Two ropes of ice shoot from my hands, one wrapping around my waist, the other yanking Addy back before she can hit the wall.

The ice ropes lower us to the ground, then mist apart into the night air.

Ruby is gone.

"What...what was that?" Addy stammers. "Ruby has...magic? Is she a witch?"

I shake my head. "I don't think that's Ruby," I say. "It's Ruby's body, but the thing that spoke to us isn't Ruby."

Addy's gaze falls on the body in front of us. She looks away quickly. "You're right, Lil. Something's controlling her. Do you think she...those other people...?"

I sit down on the cold concrete. Exhaustion swamps my body, and not the kind of exhaustion that comes with physical exertion. "I think so, Addy."

I see it now. All of it. The victims, all within walking distance of the hospital. The nurse, hit with a metal rod outside the bathroom.

"I'm only allowed to leave my room to use the bathroom. It's dumb..."

The tree.

The bells.

Rikamu.

Addy sinks to the floor beside me. "What are we going to do, Lily?"

I don't know.

I don't fully understand what's going on. Ruby was sick, made a miraculous recovery, acted like her usual self. And all the while she was killing people, draining the life energy from their bodies and leaving them to rot.

"He has returned...Amitabh has returned..."

I square my shoulders.

My heart hardens.

I may not know what's going on, but I know someone who does.

*

I barely feel the whiplash this time. I rematerialize in the Forbidden Place of the Forest of Sorrows, where Rikamu hums and mumbles to herself, glancing every now and then at the heart-strewn canopy.

"Rikamu," I call. "I need your help."

Rikamu startles, as if woken from a dream. She squints at me. "It is her," she says, "the soul with many hearts. The shadow that does not die."

"Yeah yeah, okay. That's great. I need to talk to you about what you said before."

Rikamu blinks. "What Rikamu said before," she repeats. Her red eyes flicker strangely in the light of an overhanging fire lily.

"Yes," I plough on. "You said Amitabh has returned. You said he was gone from the Forest of Sorrows."

Rikamu considers this. "Yes," she replies. "Amitabh is gone, because of you."

I don't have time for this everything-is-Lily's-fault rubbish. "Rikamu, listen to me. I met Amitabh in Zilitron. He's killing people, and he's in my friend's body."

"Yes," Rikamu mutters. "The girl who hungered for answers. She came here because of you."

I want to throw something at Rikamu right now. I need answers, not psychobabble.

"Rikamu, you need to tell me...what is Amitabh?"

The flames of the fire lily die down. Rikamu's eyes are dark now, like the leaves whispering at her side. "Amitabh," she says, "is like Rikamu."

Okay. How to say this politely?

"Um...Rikamu, no offense, but...what are you?"

"Rikamu is the Light One, and the Light One and the Dark One are both the One."

"What?"

Rikamu regard me with exasperation. "In the beginning, there was the One. The One was all-powerful, but the One could not be everywhere at once, so the One split into two - The Dark One and the Light One. But the Dark One and the Light One could not be everywhere either, oh no, so they became several. They are..." She frowns, frustrated. "They are leaves from the branch. From the one tree. They are the Dark One's children and the Light One's children."

I go over everything I know about the Light One in my head. When the First Witch came to this planet a thousand years ago, the people she stayed with worshipped a deity called the Light One, but none of them had actually seen the Light One themselves. Amarat, the First Witch, even went so far as to say the Light One didn't exist at all.

Yet here was Rikamu saying she was made from the Light One. That would make her a goddess.

"You're saying the Light One's children were born because the Light One split himself up into several entities. You're one of the Light One's children?"

A smile tugs at Rikamu's lips. "She is surprised. Yes, Rikamu serves the Light. She has always served the Light."

"Where is the Light One now, Rikamu?"

Rikamu points to the earth, where the air ripples with the sway of invisible toadstools. "The Light One is sleeping," she says.

"I still don't understand."

Rikamu reaches a gnarled hand towards me. "Rikamu cannot tell, no," she says. "Rikamu must show."

Her palm, rough as old bark, presses against my forehead. A surge of power rushes through me.

"Wah!"

I'm standing with Rikamu in a nebulous abyss. Not floating, mind you - standing. Yet there's nothing solid below my feet, and it's freaking me the heck out. The only other thing here is a deep purple nothingness.

"Do not be scared," Rikamu says. "This is the World Between Worlds."