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Dealing in Shadows

By Gloria Clover

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Chapter One

"Beware that a feeling of superiority doesn't seduce you."
The remembrance of the King's words mocked Mitch's insecurities. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and peered into the jungle depths of his new home, the imprisoned isle of Karoo. An attitude of superiority might attempt to sneak up on him later. At the moment, he couldn't imagine being more out of his league.
Nature had never been his strong suit. Particularly wild nature. On the occasional Saturday, he might venture into a city park and pick up an odd game of chess or cricket, if there weren't any females present.
Mitch stared closer at the jungle's shifting wall of green and brown. Was that an Ateles geoffroyi? He blinked to verify that the monkey hanging upside down by its tail didn't disappear. Crazy. Ateles geoffroyi had been extinct for more than one hundred forty years, yet the creature stared back at him in calm curiosity.
"Hullo," Mitch offered. "How do you do?"
The spider monkey tilted its head.
"I don't suppose you know where I can find the people?" The King loved to be vague when Mitch thought a little clarity would go a long way toward giving him necessary courage and fortitude. Supposedly, vagueness had something to do with building faith. Or once his faith grew, he would have more ability to grasp the King's subtleties. It was probably one of the King's mysteries that worked both ways.
The monkey quivered and swung upward, scampering into the higher branches and darting out of sight.
Mitch blinked. No surprise he'd scared off his first potential friend. Probably a female.
A flock of birds burst into flight from the tops of the trees.
Tension slid through his gut. What had frightened the animals? He twirled slowly on the path, looking high and low. Lush, green trees towered over him. A scattering of bushes and bamboo colored the jungle depths on both sides of the worn dirt path.
He'd barely traveled a kilometer from the shore where the King's ship had docked. He could still see the glow of sunshine at the end of the straight path, but now shadows shifted across the trail. Darkness expanded beneath the trees. Sweat dampened his shirt.
Come on, man, it's just the sunlight dancing through the branches. An illusion shaped by the wind in the tops of the trees.
A piercing scream rent the air.
Instinctively, Mitch hit the dirt and rolled into the underbrush. Adrenaline surging, he held his breath and scanned what he could see through the upper canopy. Tree tops swayed and bent. A shower of seeds rained down around him, and a huge, winged, black shadow passed overhead.
"King of all glory." His breath hissed out of him. "What was that?" Without another thought, Mitch grabbed the medallion around his neck and fell into his Master's presence.
"Mitchell, my mighty explorer!" The King's jovial voice greeted before he left the throne to help Mitch to his feet.
The King's grip brought peace. Mitch drew a steadying breath.
"What do you think of your princess?" the King asked with what Mitch could only call unnecessary enthusiasm. Trust the King to bring up the one subject that terrified him more than an unknown flying beast.
"I haven't met her yet, Sir. I haven't met anyone."
The King drew him into a comfortable one-armed hug. "Son, you know the only way to conquer your fear is to trust me. I'll be with you."
"It wasn't ... it isn't…." He wanted to say this was a different fear, an unexpected one, an honest-to-goodness monster, not childhood cling-ons, but what did he know? A dragon from the past? A flying lizard? An ancient bird as alive as the supposedly extinct spider monkey?
"Mitchell." The King's voice firmed. "I am with you. Be about your mission."
"Yes, Sir." The Sovereign of the universe didn't leave room for argument. Once a person was in, he was all in, or he might as well resign his commission and return to the world.
"All in," he muttered to the silence of the underbrush where he found himself once more. The power of the medallion bent to the King's will and words. Mitch had returned to his mission.
Whatever had flown overhead appeared to be on a straight course, so Mitch rolled back onto the path, jumped to his feet, and brushed down his clothing. Buck up. He hadn't taken a detour or a wrong trail. There had been only one. And the King was with him.
Mitch sped up his earlier meandering pace and set off down the path at a jog. That lasted for barely a hundred meters before his chest tightened. He tried to walk it off. At least keep moving. The farther into the forest he traveled, the more the trees thickened, and the shadows merged.
The tension tightened his muscles. This was foolishness. Absurdity. He was the King's man. The King was with him every step of the way. Besides, Mitch liked silence, solitude. Though he usually found it in his office, among the facts of ancient history, not in the wild with living, breathing, moving things.
Suddenly, the forest came alive around him. Birds chittered. Monkeys squawked. Insects buzzed in the blossoms and berries. Mitch's stomach growled.
Too bad. He wouldn't eat anything wild without the natives assuring him of the food's safety. Really too bad that he still hadn't met any natives.
Mitch trudged on for another hour, forcing himself to stay alert so he wouldn't miss any signs or side trails. He saw an opossum and squirrels, a couple ofyellow-footed antechinus, and what might have been a jaguar. The flash through the undergrowth hadn't helped settle his belly.
Still no people.
His studies of Karoo had indicated a small island made up of two-thirds desert and only one-third native forest. For him to be in that forest so long either meant the trail meandered, or he slogged through the longest part. That actually seemed better than hunting for people in the desert. Surely they lived in the forest. Though unaccustomed to either climate, he preferred cool shadows over blazing sun.
As if thinking about it had conjured the sun, Mitch left the shelter of the forest, followed the path in the shade of the trees for another half kilometer, then met the overhead blaze full on. The grass survived on both sides of the path for another couple of hundred steps. Then sand. Rocks. Tufts of hardy weeds.
Mitch straightened his collar and pushed forward. Could he get more exposed? He pulled a slightly crushed straw hat from his backpack and tugged it low onto his brow. Sweat dripped down his temple, and this time it had nothing to do with tension. Or did it? After the hum of the rainforest, the desert seemed unnaturally quiet.
Did the feeling stem from his expectations? Or was it unnaturally quiet? Deserts had creatures, too. Birds. Insects. People. Where were the blasted people?
How could he teach them the ways of the King and free them from their prisons of self-deception if he couldn't find them?
In another kilometer he realized he'd lost the path. Great. Now he had no goal. Mighty explorer nothing. The King was so full of it.
Mitch grabbed the unexpected thought and handed it to the King. Figuratively. Obviously not mine, Sir. If it came back, he'd literally go to the throne room and deal with the intrusion. King, you always know more than I do. If you want me to be an explorer, I'll be an explorer.
The King's peace settled over him as truly as if Mitch had gone to the throne room. So, the King was with him. He could do this. He would find—
Out of nowhere that shrill scream once more pierced his eardrums.
Mitch hit the dirt again, except the desert had no underbrush to shield him, and he ate a mouthful of sand. Flat on his stomach, he raised up enough to see a huge, shifting shadow skimming across the dunes. He rolled to his back and shielded his eyes. A winged lizard flapped against the sun. Had it seen him? Was it coming for him?
Mitch scuttled into the sand even as he acknowledged his foolishness. King, be with me. Hide me in the shadow of your wing.
In truth, he didn't know if the thing was evil or dangerous. It could—
Sqwaaack!
But its call chilled his blood.
"Oh, gameballs," a young voice muttered from surprisingly close. "It sees you. Come on!"
Mitch yanked his gaze from the sky toward a pile of rocks, about twenty paces from where he groveled in the sand. In the flashback of staring at the sun, he could make out the outline of a young Indiana Jones stepping out of the protection of the rock edifice.
"Come on, mister. He'll blister your backside." The kid pulled his fedora low and took another step into the sun. "Run, man, if you want to live."
Suddenly, that seemed like sane advice. Spitting sand, Mitch pushed to his feet.
Sqwaaack!
The creature sounded closer than a minute ago, but Mitch didn't look up. He ran toward the kid. King, I hope you have a plan!
The kid jerked, and a u-shaped weapon flew from his hand. Tiny. Fragile in comparison to the beast it engaged. Almost a kid's toy. A simple boomerang.
Mitch hit the rocks and turned to see if the boomerang would explode or shoot bullets. It circled the monster, tugging its attention away from them.
"Get in!" the kid insisted with a shove that sent Mitch into a cave and back to his knees. Only this time cold rock sliced through his pants and into his skin.
He caught his weight on his palms, thankful he'd saved his chin.
"Watch out." The kid jumped into the cave, stepping on Mitch's calf. "Keep moving. He's on our tail!"
The pile of rocks shuddered.
The screech blared over them. Mitch scrambled forward on his hands and knees. The kid grabbed his underarm in a surprisingly firm grip and yanked him to his feet. "Run!"
Then, without looking back, the boy darted down the dark passage.
Mitch stumbled along behind, unsure of his footing, unable to see in the dark. Another scream drew his gaze back toward the opening. Flames shot into the cave.
Mitch turned and ran. "Are you kidding me, King?" He kept his hands out in front to save his face from further smashing. "Superiority?"
He couldn't even keep pace with a kid.
***
Jogging down the dark passage, Kylie Laperouse clipped her boomerang back on her utility belt. The stranger fell behind, but he was away from harm. The flying worm would spit a few sparks and return to the sky.
Now, what should she do with the man? She hadn't recognized the floppy hat or his stature as he'd scrambled about in the desert. She'd watched him for a good ten minutes before the worm screeched, but she hadn't gotten a good look at his features. He might be a guard. He had to be a guard. She knew everyone else.
Even being on the run for two years, she would still recognize someone his age from the community. She slipped into a crevice and unclipped her boomerang.
She heard him long before she saw him, stumbling over rock protrusions. "King, have
mercy," he muttered every time he regained his footing. "Where'd that kid go?"
This was going to be like taking tricks from a toddler. She stepped into his space, shoving him against the cave wall with her left hand while circling his neck with her boomerang in her right. "Don't move or I'll behead you," she growled.
He stiffened.
"Don't think I don't know who you are, guard." Now that her reasoning had caught up with her innate compassion, she'd have to kill him. "I should have let the worm fry your backside." She hated to kill people. In fact, she'd never actually killed anyone eyeball-to-eyeball.
"Thank you for concerning yourself with the temperature of my backside." The man swallowed against her pressed knuckles. "That screech is enough to terrify. I'll hate to have to fight that thing."
The sigh in his voice suggested he knew someday he would have to. Bizarre. Kylie relaxed her hold. "You?" She attempted to sneer because no one had ever fought the worm, but the word came out an incredulous gasp.
"I am the King's man." This time he sighed audibly. "Come on, kid, let me go. You didn't save me from your worm to kill me in the dark."
She shoved the edge of her boomerang into his neck. "Who are you?"
"Mitchell Chifley Monroe. At your service." He jerked forward the slightest as though he'd somehow thought to bow then realized she had him pinned to the wall. "Prince of the Most High King."
A prince! Kylie struggled to pluck her glow-stone from her belt with her left hand. She tightened her hold with her right and shook the glow-stone into a hazy green. She shoved it near the man's temple to get a better look.
With his straw hat crushed against the back of his head and his wide, owlish eyes blinking through the thick lenses of his glasses, his face appeared round and pale. Brown hair stuck out in tufts around his head.
This was a prince? It wasn't the man from her visions. So maybe his King was the one who had been visiting her in her dreams.
"No way." The man moaned. "You're a girl."
Highly perceptive, too. She shook the glow-stone for a little more light. He couldn't be a guard. The guards all looked the same with their chiseled faces and reflective sunglasses, muscular bodies and unsmiling lips. "How did you get here?"
"I disembarked from the King's ship this morning. I took the path through the rainforest and ended up in the desert. I was looking for people."
People. "What people?"
"The people of Karoo. I've come to set you free."
As if it could be that simple. Yet her spirit thrilled at the idea. She grinned before she could force her lips into her more trained scowl. "Lucky for you, I know some people who would love to be set free."
He smiled in return.
Kylie pulled back, but kept her boomerang ready. "Okay, Mitchell Chifley Monroe, I'll take you to my people. But if you betray us, we will kill you."

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