The Search for the Eoz Potion

25. The Evil Spirit

Hailey chose the path that looked the straightest. As she headed down it, however, it began twisting in on itself. Several times she had the feeling that she was heading in a circle, but she couldn't be entirely sure. Finally, she broke off from it and headed down a path that twisted deeper into No Man's Land. As she walked, Tellis followed silently behind her. She did not offer any advice or suggestions about where they should go in the maze. She simply followed where Hailey went, nervously checking around them - up on the land, and up in the sky - as they walked.

Tellis started to feel tired while Hailey walked with excitement and at a speed with which Tellis could not keep pace. Tired, she stopped walking and listened for a moment. She thought she had heard something but wasn't quite sure.

"Hailey!" Tellis called, fear creeping into her voice.

She knew that her failure to respond didn't necessarily mean anything. It was more likely that she was ignoring her than that anything had happened to her. But again Tellis thought she heard a voice, not Hailey's, a different voice, a deep, dark voice that sent chills through her body. But she couldn't be sure. Again, she closed her eyes and dropped her head, breathing slowly and calmly. This time, however, she sat down on the ground. Then, finally, she heard it more clearly.

"Bring the water."

The voice came through the weather. If she had not been listening for it, Tellis would have simply thought it was thunder. But she knew it was the Evil Spirit himself, and when she saw all the devils line up along the edge of the trenches, she knew she was right. There were thousands of them and they all looked just like the two they had seen by the cabin. She had no idea where they'd all come from. Some were older than others, taller than others, skinnier than others, but they all had the same empty eyes. They stood along the banks of the river in a line that disappeared into the distance, each one holding a giant bucket almost as tall as they were that was overflowing with water.

"Now."

More thunder.

In a show of their strength, the devils effortlessly lifted their buckets above their heads and dumped them into the river. Water began to rush into the dry, barren trenches through which Hailey and Tellis were walking. It came at Tellis from every direction and quickly overtook her. She struggled to swim up to the surface as she was whipped about under the water. Finally, she got to the top and gasped for air. She didn't have time to catch her breath completely as she was quickly thrown down one of the smaller trenches and hit a wall of dirt. The impact knocked her out for a second and she started to sink back down into the water. When she came to, she began swimming quickly back to the surface.

She looked around hoping she would see Hailey, but she was nowhere to be found. On the banks of the river, she saw the devils with more buckets of water continuing to throw them in. Tellis was trying to swim against the current in order to stay in place and come up with a plan, then she noticed a small piece of land in the middle of one of the trenches a little bit downstream. She stopped resisting and let the water whip her toward the small island. When she was close enough, she grabbed onto a large, dead tree root that was sticking out from the side. She held on as tightly as her frail, old hands would let her while the water rushed past. Somehow, she found the strength to pull herself up onto the small piece of land and sprawled out onto her back trying to catch her breath.

When she felt strong enough, she got to her hands and knees and looked out at the rushing water. She still couldn't see Hailey anywhere and was becoming more and more worried about her. Once she was able to stand, she looked up toward the sky and held her hands up over her head.

Meanwhile, Hailey was doing her best to fight against the current of the river. She had been washed down one of the smaller paths in the maze where the water was not rushing quite as violently as it was for Tellis. She had managed to get hold of a tree branch that was hanging over the river and held on as hard as she could. Above her, however, the devils were preparing another round of buckets to throw into the river. When they did, the current picked up and pulled the tree out of the ground by the roots. Haiely held onto the tree as she was washed down the river. She was able to pull the top of her body up onto the trunk of the tree in order to stay above water. She noticed, however, a crack across the tree right where she was holding on. She quickly scooted down the trunk so that as it snapped she had a firm hold on one of the ends and could still use it as a raft.

Suddenly, she was ripped down one of the larger tributaries and the force of the water snapped the dead tree again. Hailey was now holding onto a thick piece of tree trunk about the length of her arm, desperately trying to keep her head above water. It was not until she lost hold of the tree completely and was pulled underwater by the current that Queen Gemaline showed up, her presence in the form of a bright white cloud hanging in the sky in front of the darkness.

The Queen held up both arms in front of her, her palms out and open as if she was pushing against a wall. Hailey was struggling to get above water as the current started to slow. When her head broke through the surface, she didn't see the beautiful white cloud in the sky, all she saw was the wall of water forming just behind her. It was as if a clear barrier was moving through the river and pushing the water back so that on one side was rushing waters and on the other was dry ground. Hailey was treading water high above the ground as the wall approached her. It was not until it was right in front of her that she realized the long distance down to the ground once the water was gone. When it passed, she crashed to the bottom of the river in a heap.

It took only a couple minutes before Tellis came running around the corner looking for her. When Tellis saw Hailey, relief overtook her and she ran faster in her direction. She checked to make sure she was okay, and when she saw that she was breathing just fine, Tellis began looking for a way out of the river to safety. While she was trying to lift her off the ground onto her weak, old back, Hailey came to.

"What's going on?" she asked, still a little out of it and soaking wet.

"We need to get out of here before the water comes back."

Unable to carry her, Tellis set Hailey back on the ground. Hailey turned to look upstream and saw the water holding back just a few feet away from them.

"What?" She asked no one in particular as she looked at the wall of water, mesmerized. "How?"

"Come on," Tellis said as she held her hand out to her.

On the other side of one of the trenches, Tellis had seen some of the devils beginning to jump into the dry part of the river after them. Hailey and Tellis ran down the small trenches until they got back to the main river and headed toward the Garden side away from No Man's Land. Already out of breath, they started climbing the bank of the Yllop River. When they were up on land, they ran as far from the river as they could before collapsing onto the ground. Hailey looked up and saw three devils slowly and ominously walking up the side of the river toward them. Tellis put a hand on her shoulder and pointed down the river. The water had been let go and was rushing toward the devils with a greater force than it had when they'd first thrown in their buckets. As the devils were about to make it up onto land, the water whipped them back into the river and far away from Hailey and Tellis.

As Tellis got to her feet, Hailey rolled slowly and ungracefully over onto her side and looked up at her. Tellis had had a chance to dry off a bit while she was up out of the water, but Hailey was still soaked, water dripping in front of her eyes as she watched Tellis stand up. The physical difference between them was not lost on her. She was young, weak, worn out, soaking wet, and in a pile on the ground looking up at Tellis, old, dry, strong, and having just saved her.

"Thank you," she said sincerely, not knowing what more she could possibly say.

"Don't worry about it, Hailey," Tells said, looking about the sky with a concerned expression. "We need to get back to the others."

"How?" Hailey asked as she pulled herself uneasily to her feet.

Just then she noticed something in the sky flying swiftly toward them. She had seen plenty of these griffins in her time in Yllop, but she was never more happy to see one than she was right then. The creature's wings spread triumphantly across the black sky as it soared toward them. It flew gracefully down and touched ground a short distance from where they stood and ran the rest of the way, slowing to a stop just in front of Tellis. Hailely didn't know where it had come from or how it had found them, but she was too relieved by its presence to care.

"The SG has lots of ways of evening the fight," Tellis said with a little laugh.

She remembered when Josef had said the same thing to Evan back at the treehouse when he was complaining about the SG's lack of resources. There was no way Tellis would have known he'd said that, she was in jail at the time. Hailey assumed it was some sort of mantra of the Searchers' Guides, a way of rallying their spirits when the odds seemed too overwhelming.

Standing there in the middle of the dark night, Hailey smiled at Tellis, ready for the ride.