Darren Shan - Vampire Destiny Trilogy

“Later!” Harkat snapped, pushing me towards safety.

Suppressing my questions, I stumbled to the bank and crawled out of the mucky water of the moat. Evanna caught me by the back of my shirt and hauled me to my feet, then grabbed Harkat’s robes and pulled him up too. “Come on,” she said, retreating. “We’d best not be here when their sight clears. That toad has a nasty temper and might bound after us.”

Harkat and I paused to consider what would happen if a toad that size leapt upon us. Then we hurried after the departing witch as fast as our weary legs could carry us.

Evanna had established her camp on a grassy isle a few hundred metres from the island of the toad. A fire was burning when we crawled out of the swamp, a vegetable stew bubbling in a pot above it. Replacement clothes were waiting for us, blue robes for Harkat, dark brown trousers and a shirt for me.

“Get out of those wet rags, get dry, and get dressed,” Evanna ordered, going to check on the stew.

Harkat and I stared from the witch, to the fire, to the clothes.

“This probably sounds like a stupid question,” I said, “but have you been expecting us?”

“Of course,” Evanna said. “I’ve been here for the past week. I guessed you wouldn’t arrive that soon, but I didn’t want to risk missing you.”

“How did you know we … were coming?” Harkat asked.

“Please,” Evanna sighed. “You know of my magical powers and my ability to predict future events. Don’t trouble me with unnecessary questions.”

“So tell us why you’re here,” I encouraged her. “And why you rescued us. As I recall, you’ve always said you couldn’t get involved in our battles.”

“Not in your fight with the vampaneze,” Evanna said. “When it comes to alligators and toads, I have a free hand. Now why don’t you change out of your damp clothes and eat some of this delicious stew before you pester me with more of your dratted questions?”

Since it was uncomfortable standing there wet and hungry, we did as the witch advised. After a quick meal, as we were licking our fingers clean, I asked Evanna if she could tell us where we were. “No,” she said.

“Could you transport Darren … back home?” Harkat asked.

“I’m going nowhere!” I objected immediately.

“You just narrowly survived being … swallowed by alligators,” Harkat grunted. “I won’t let you risk your … life any –”

“This is a pointless argument,” Evanna interrupted. “I don’t have the power to transport either of you back.”

“But you were able to … come here,” Harkat argued. “You must be able to … return.”

“Things aren’t as simple as they seem,” Evanna said. “I can’t explain it without revealing facts which I must keep secret. All I’ll say is that I didn’t get here the way you did, and I can’t open a gateway between the reality you know and this one. Only Desmond Tiny can.”

There was no point in quizzing her further – the witch, like Mr Tiny, couldn’t be drawn on certain issues – so we dropped it. “Can you tell us anything about the quest we’re on?” I asked instead. “Where we have to go next or what we must do?”

“I can tell you that I am to act as your guide on the next stretch of your adventure,” Evanna said. “That’s why I intervened—since I’m part of your quest, I can play an active role in it, at least for a while.”

“You’re coming with us?” I whooped, delighted at the thought of having someone to show us the way.

“Yes,” Evanna smiled, “but only for a short time. I will be with you for ten, maybe eleven days. After that you’re on your own.” Rising, she started away from us. “You may rest now,” she said. “Nothing will disturb your slumber here. I’ll return in the afternoon and we’ll set off.”

“For where?” Harkat asked. But if the witch heard, she didn’t bother to respond, and seconds later she was gone. Since there was nothing else we could do, Harkat and I made rough beds on the grass, lay down and slept.

AFTER BREAKFAST, Evanna guided us out of the swamp and south across more hard, barren land. It wasn’t as lifeless as the desert we’d crossed, but very little grew on the reddish soil, and the animals were tough-skinned and bony.

Over the days and nights that followed, we slyly probed the witch for clues about where we were, who Harkat had been, what the gelatinous globes were for, and what lay ahead. We slid the questions into ordinary conversations, hoping to catch Evanna off guard. But she was sharp as a snake and never let anything slip.

Despite her annoying reluctance to reveal anything of our circumstances, she was a welcome travelling companion. She arranged the sleeping quarters every night – she could set up a camp within seconds – and told us what we could and couldn’t eat (many of the animals and plants were poisonous or indigestible). She also spun tales and sung songs to amuse us during the long, harsh hours of walking.

I asked her several times how the War of the Scars was going, and what Vancha March and the other Princes and Generals were up to. She only shook her head at such questions and said this was not the time for her to comment.

We often discussed Mr Crepsley. Evanna had known the vampire long before I did and was able to tell me what he’d been like as a younger man. I felt sad talking about my lost friend, but it was a warm sort of sadness, not like the cold misery I experienced in the early weeks after he’d died. One night, when Harkat was asleep and snoring loudly (Evanna had confirmed what he’d already suspected – he could breathe the air here – so he’d dispensed with his mask), I asked Evanna if it was possible to communicate with Mr Crepsley. “Mr Tiny has the power to speak with the dead,” I said. “Can you?”

“Yes,” she said, “but we can only speak to those whose spirits remain trapped on Earth after they die. Most people’s souls move on—though nobody knows for sure where they go, not even my father.”

“So you can’t get in touch with Mr Crepsley?” I asked.

“Thankfully, no,” she smiled. “Larten has left the realm of the physical for ever. I like to think he is with Arra Sails and his other loved ones in Paradise, awaiting the rest of his friends.”

Arra Sails was a female vampire. She and Mr Crepsley had been “married” once. She died when a vampire traitor – Kurda Smahlt – sneaked a band of vampaneze into Vampire Mountain. Thinking about Arra and Kurda set me to pondering the past, and I asked Evanna if there’d been any way to avoid the bloody War of the Scars. “If Kurda had told us about the Lord of the Vampaneze, would it have made a difference? Or what if he’d become a Prince, taken control of the Stone of Blood and forced the Generals to submit to the vampaneze? Would Mr Crepsley be alive? And Arra? And all the others who’ve died in the war?”

Evanna sighed deeply. “Time is like a jigsaw puzzle,” she said. “Imagine a giant box full of billions of pieces of millions of puzzles—that is the future. Beside it lies a huge board, partially filled with bits of the overall puzzle—that is the past. Those in the present reach blindly into the box of the future every time they have a decision to make, draw a piece of the puzzle out and slot it into place on the board. Once a piece has been added, it influences the final shape and design of the puzzle, and it’s useless trying to fathom what the puzzle would have looked like if a different piece had been picked.” She paused. “Unless you’re Desmond Tiny. He spends most of his time considering the puzzle and contemplating alternative patterns.”

I thought about that for a long time before speaking again. “What you’re saying is that there’s no point worrying about the past, because we can’t change it?”