A World To Lose

by Frances Ellen

  They needed to get information from the soldier. But that didn’t seem to be why they were being summoned now. The television screen was focused on North America. After Lian sat down at the oak table, he took a good look at the screen.

  There didn’t seem to be any more Disciples in North America than there had been in the previous weeks. The only difference between then and now, was that they were all clustered in south-western America. It was too big of a coincidence to ignore that the Grand Canyon was where multiple entrances to the Underworld of North America existed. The King could gather his forces just inside his territory, and a second later spill out onto the Surface.

  The doors to the Board Room opened again and Nathan and Matu stepped inside, followed by Jackson, who looked drawn and tired with concern for his twin brother. The two Asters were still wearing their training gear, and had obviously come from a training session in the arena.

  A blue light appeared near the window, and Sophie and Sky appeared. They silently took a seat, like Nathan and Matu had just done.

  “Good, now that you’re all here,” Axel said. He was standing at the head of the table, waiting for everyone to sit down before beginning to speak. The Spymaster, Felix Hauser, was leaning against the filing cabinets along the wall behind them, while Sylvia Allen was sitting on the desk chair near the door. There was no sign of Nicholas Nelson.

  “Thanks to Sky’s quick response, he was able to bring Percy back here alive. When the soldier has recovered enough, we should get a better idea of what is happening in Brazil,” Axel began. He looked at Sky and gave him a complimentary nod.

  “I still don’t understand why he didn’t call when he was being attacked? Since he could,” Sky said.

  It was true. Percy had been spelled to be able to call for Sky, or he could subconsciously call if he got severely injured. Somewhere during the fight he should have had the time to call Sky. He only needed to shout his name. Even whilst fighting, Percy should have been able to call the Aster of Speed and Flight.

  “That is a question only Percy can answer for us,” Axel said. “As Sophie and Sky have probably already told you, he has experienced not only physical trauma, but psychological trauma as well. We don’t know if this was just from the shock of what he witnessed and therefore it will ebb away with time, or that his panic and fear for magic will stay. Doctor Masalis will be treating him, and hopefully we will get our answers soon.”

  Lian kept his face neutral. If anyone could help Percy Kelly it was her. There was also something to be said about the Small Council appointing her specifically to treat the soldier—just like they had appointed her specifically to treat Sophie. She truly was the best in the business.

  “What about my father?” Matu asked. Lian looked at his brother. Matu seemed calm and composed, but it wouldn’t surprise Lian if his mind was racing. His question might’ve seemed to come out of the blue, but it wasn’t hard to know what he was thinking: his father was leading a rescue team just like Eva Kelly had done. Was it just pure luck that Diallo’s team wasn’t attacked? Or would they be next?

  Axel inclined his head towards the Aster of Strength. “We have given him and the other Queen’s Case teams the instruction to return to home base just on the edge of the Amazon Rainforest. We are pulling them all back until further notice. Your father’s team should be back there in a few days, from where Madeleine will help shimmer everyone back here.”

  Matu shifted uncomfortably in his chair. After what happened to Eva Kelly’s rescue team, Lian didn’t blame him. Sure, her team was weaker because it wasn’t led by an Aster, but that didn’t automatically make Diallo’s team any less of a target, despite what the Small Council might think. Lian knew what it was like to lose a parent – to lose both – and he didn’t want that happening to anyone in this family he had here.

  “That was all from South America,” Axel continued. “Now if you turn to the screen, you will see that the Disciples have gathered in one particular spot in North America.”

  “The Grand Canyon,” Sophie observed.

  “Precisely. They are appearing as much as they are disappearing around one of the entrances to the Underworld there. We are expecting Mitrik to make the Canyon his base before spreading out further across the continent. We have received information that a group of human hikers has gone missing. This might be completely unrelated, but this is precisely why we are sending you now. We want you to go there and identify the Disciples from Mitrik’s inner circle—we doubt Mitrik will be there in person, yet. Your mission will be to drive the higher-ranking Disciples back down into the Underworld; the lesser Disciples will follow suit, or at least will refrain from taking action on the Surface. If they cannot be driven down, you have clearance to kill them. Do what you need to do to put an end to this potential uprising. You will leave tomorrow afternoon. Make sure you get a good night’s rest. Tomorrow, pack lightly. Jackson will arrange for your weapons to be ready for you and you will be fully briefed tomorrow before you leave. You are expected here at four o’clock. We will see you then.”

  The Asters got up and left the Board Room. No one spoke much as they headed for their bedrooms. They had been sent on multiple missions before, dealing with groups of Disciples that had gone rogue, or a small rebellion here and there. But never in the time that they’d been active as Asters had there been a full-scale uprising led by a King; an attempt to reclaim even part of the Surface of the earth.

  And this was it. This would be the first time they’d be facing a King’s Inner Circle. It would be the first time they’d be facing a King.

  Chapter 14

  The following afternoon, Axel, Jackson and Sylvia led the way to the static portals in the castle’s basement. From Sky’s perspective there didn’t seem to be any reason why they were using these instead of his shimmer, but he was stared down angrily by Axel after making his feelings of offence very clear. There was a reason. Sky barely listened to the explanation. Something to do with how the location they were being transported to was already set up for teleportation.

  Jackson was carrying two very large duffel bags filled with weapons, which clanked and clunked with every step he took. Matu offered to take one of the bags, but the Commanding Chief refused.

  As they walked down the last flight of stairs Sky came up to Sylvia’s side. “Any word on Percy?” he asked.

  Sylvia Allen glanced at Jackson Kelly for a moment, but he was in a deep conversation with Matu at the time. They were talking about Matu’s father, who would return to Saluverus in two days’ time.

  Sylvia shook her head. “They put him in a medically induced coma last night so his body has time to heal without him consciously feeling the pain,” she replied. “We won’t know if he’ll actually wake from it when he is healed enough to do so. Olga has been at his bedside all this morning, and won’t leave. She wants to be there to talk to him when he wakes up.”

  Sky was silent for a moment. At the bottom of the stairs, they turned left and headed down the corridor. The lowest floor of the castle wasn’t decorated the way the rest of the castle was. There were no windows here; they were one level below the courtyard outside, and all the hallways and rooms were lit with artificial lighting. No paintings hung on the walls; there was no atmosphere to speak of. The place gave Sky the creeps. It, of course, had nothing to do with the fact that the morgue and pathology labs were down here, which now kept the bodies he and his mother had sent back to the island from the Rainforest.

  “Sophie said he was speaking gibberish when he woke up. Is that normal?” Sky whispered to Sylvia, given that Jackson and Matu had ended their conversation. Sky didn’t imagine Jackson would appreciate them talking about his brother.

  Sylvia cast Sky a glance. “No, it is not,” she answered worryingly.

  Axel opened the door at the end of the corridor. Jackson was the first to step inside.

  “Disorientation, yes,” Sophie interjected, stepping beside Sky and waiting until the rest of the party had filed
into the room. Sky raised his eyebrows at his sister. It shouldn’t have surprised him that she’d been eavesdropping. “Mumbling happens, too. But this was… different. I can’t explain it.”

  “Let’s hope he gets over it,” Sky said lightly. He saw something flicker in Sophie’s eyes before he stepped into the room.

  The Portal Room was a large, narrow, rectangular space, painted completely white. The door they’d just walked into was all the way at the end of one long wall. The other long wall opposite them had seven glass doors. Nothing could be seen through the glass but what looked like billowing clouds. Each door led to a different continent; the name of that continent was written in black calligraphic letters above each portal.

  The Asters walked towards the glass door that had North America written above it, while Sylvia and Axel walked along the opposite wall to stand behind a single computer standing on top of a podium. Jackson stepped towards the Asters and gave Matu and Nathan each one of the weapons bags he was holding. A smaller backpack he shrugged off his shoulder and passed on to Sky, which contained spare vials of their blood. Sky always got this backpack when there was a possibility the Asters would have to separate during missions. It was mostly because it contained Sophie’s blood, which could be used for healing, and because Sky could shimmer to anyone who might need it. The backpack could be fastened extremely tightly to his back and was so compact that it wouldn’t bother him during a possible battle.

  Jackson then stepped back to stand behind the Ambassador and the Consul. Sylvia Allen was busy typing away on the computer; probably filling in those super precise coordinates that Sky would supposedly have shimmered to in the wrong way. Sky forced himself not to roll his eyes. She looked up at Axel and nodded that she was ready.

  They had received their full briefing back in the Board Room, but as Sylvia waited for the signal to start the transporting, Axel briefly went over their mission again. “You will be transported in to one of David Hughes’ cabins. He will be waiting for you there and will update you on the developments in the Grand Canyon. If there are signs of an uprising, you must do whatever you can to stop it, but make sure there are no human or Affinite casualties before you make your stand to push the Disciples back down into the Underworld. Any questions?” Axel explained.

  All five of them shook their heads. Axel nodded in return, and said, “All right.” He turned to Sylvia. “All set then?”

  “It’s ready,” Sylvia announced.

  There was no sign that the portal behind the glass door was ready. It didn’t change colour or consistency, so they would have to trust that Sylvia had entered the right coordinates.

  “Good luck,” Jackson said.

  Only Sophie thanked him. Matu was already sliding the glass door open. He didn’t look back. He stepped through the doorway and into the cloudy nothingness behind. The white clouds closed in behind him and Matu was gone. The thickness of the clouds of the portal shone brighter for a short moment before returning to its duller white. Nathan was next, and then Lian. Sophie followed a few seconds later.

  Sky gritted his teeth. He definitely preferred his shimmer. The static portal made him feel like he was literally being tossed through time and space. With his shimmer there was only that short moment where there was no feeling of ground underneath his feet, and that feeling was gone almost as quickly as it came.

  The second he stepped into the portal, it felt like he was making multiple summersaults. He was spinning through the whiteness until suddenly his body was pulled abruptly back upright, right before he was thrown down onto a very real and very hard wooden floor. Sky grunted as he fought to keep his footing during the landing.

  All his siblings were already there.

  “Next time I’m shimmering,” Sky muttered.

  Sophie cast him a look. “They had their reasons.”

  “Oh, I’m sure they did. Just next time, you all take the clouds, and then just call me, and I’ll shimmer right to you.”

  Sophie rolled her eyes.

  Sky looked around. They were standing in a tiny bedroom. There was barely enough space for all of them. There were two single beds against each wall, and high cupboards lining the wall near the ceiling. There were two bedside tables, and that was about it. Everything was made of wood. And it was dark. A weak lightbulb barely illuminated the space. The red curtains were tightly drawn across the single square window above the two bedside tables. Sky wondered what the chances were that someone would walk by when they portalled here, or if they were just being extremely cautious.

  Sky was closest to the door of the bedroom, and opened it. He stepped into a room that was much more spacious. There was a small kitchen to his left, a rectangular table with six chairs in front of him, and to his right were two leather sofas. And a middle-aged man was sitting on one of them. He was quite tall and looked to be in good shape for his age. His dark brown hair was cut extremely short, and his eyes lit up the moment Sky stepped out of the bedroom.

  “Ah, you’ve made it!” the man exclaimed.

  The other four Asters filed into the living space behind Sky.

  “David Hughes?” Sky asked.

  “Oh, yes, yes, that’s right,” the man prattled, jumping off the sofa, walking over and extending a hand to Sky. “Yes, I am David Hughes, and you must be…?”

  “Sky. Sky Mayne,” Sky answered, extending his hand.

  “Ah, yes, Aster of Speed and Flight. Very nice to meet you, very nice indeed,” David said, shaking Sky’s hand strongly before doing the same with the others. “Ah yes, and miss Sophie Griffiths you must be. Ah, and then of course Matu Madaki, heard great things about you, and your strength. And Lian Fai, no pain, ah yes, very interesting I’ve always found you. And then you must be… Nathan Radbourne. Oh, it’s good to have you here, good indeed.”

  David stepped back and looked at them for a moment. “You all aren’t very good at fitting in with humans, are you?”

  Sky looked at the other Asters and then down at himself. They were wearing fighting gear; very light fabric for the warmer weather, but a good layer of protection in case they were to engage in battle while they were there. Then Sky looked at David. The man was wearing mountain shoes, khaki shorts and a red t-shirt, with a logo of a single brown triangle and a yellow sun around its tip.

  “We’re not here to fit in,” Sky said shortly.

  David laughed. “No, no. I suppose you’re not. Now, come with me. You have heard most of what has been going on here from Axel, I assume.” He gestured to the whole room with his hands. “This will be your cabin, by the way. There are three bedrooms with two single beds each. You can leave whatever you don’t need to bring to the Canyon here. It will be under lock and key.”

  The Asters dropped their bags with their personal belongings, which mostly included a change of clothes, behind the sofa on the floor and indicated to David that they were ready to go. Nathan and Matu also dropped the weapons bags that Jackson had given them, and Sky did the same with the backpack.

  “All right, come around here and I’ll tell you all that I know,” David said, gesturing to the rectangular table. The Asters walked over to the table and Sky noticed that one of the chairs had a bag slung over its back. David took the bag off and sat down. The Asters followed suit and all looked at David expectantly.

  “Right,” David said, suddenly becoming quite serious, the smile vanishing from his face. “There have been disappearances of human hikers in one particular area of the Grand Canyon.”

  David reached into the bag and pulled out a small tablet. He tapped the screen a few times and turned it to the Asters. The tablet screen showed a video of a news broadcast. A female newscaster was sitting at a large desk, and there was a picture of the Grand Canyon behind her. She was talking about the disappearances of a hiking group that had left for a three-day hike four days ago, and hadn’t returned yet. The group was a German family of four; mother, father and two children.

  “This is the only disappearance the local
authorities know about. There are a few others, but we – and by ‘we’ I mean the hiking tour companies around the Canyon – have managed to keep them out of the news for now. It is not uncommon for radio signals to fall out sometimes. Signals are hard to come by in the Canyon. But I can tell you that there is more to it than that. There is Dark energy circulating where all the hikers have disappeared. And it is my company’s priority to find them,” David explained.

  “Yours?” Lian asked.

  Sky was watching the newscaster. She was saying something about the responsibilities of the rescue team of the Canyon Trekking Company. A logo popped up on the screen; a brown triangle with a yellow sun around its tip.

  “Are you Canyon Trekking Company?” Sophie asked, stealing the words right out of Sky’s mouth.

  “I am indeed. We are the go-to rescue team if any hikers go missing in the Canyon for any period of time. We have an exemplary record, you see. The other companies that do tours here entrust us to also find any of their hikers. They know I have the men and women, the contacts, and the means to find whoever’s missing – though they don’t know, of course, that some of those means have a touch of Affinite power to them.” He winked broadly. “And in cases like these, where I know Dark magic is at play, I can call you and we can keep it quiet from the human authorities long enough so that we only have to adjust the memories of those who have gone missing and have seen things they shouldn’t remember,” David said.

  “That’s very smart,” Matu admitted.

  David inclined his head momentarily. “I haven’t gone in myself. I have an electronic map like yours in my study, which tells me more than enough about the Disciples coming in and out of the Canyon. Tomorrow, my sons will take us as close as possible to where one of the entrances to the Underworld is, and you will have to take it from there.”