And then Aly decided to turn to me.
“You, too, Jack,” she said. “You especially.”
It wasn’t exactly like gardenias dropped from heaven, but when she put her arms around me, I didn’t squirm away at all. I closed my eyes and wished it would last until the twenty-first century.
We all jumped back when a broad-shouldered woman in a thick, official-looking tunic thundered down the prison corridor, banging on the metal bars with a stick. She grunted something in Atlantean and shoved a wooden plate under the gap at the bottom of the gate.
On it was a half-eaten cooked fish, charred beyond recognition, with its head, tail, and fins intact. Flies swarmed around it, buzzing angrily at our interruption of their dinner.
“Now that is totally . . .” Marco glanced at Cass.
“Gnitsugsid?” Cass said.
“Exactly,” Marco replied.
I caught a new whiff of stink, as if it had been freshly sprayed into the room. From the corners, the two other prisoners were approaching us. The sight of their emaciated bodies was so sad, I felt like crying. Having G7W would have been mercy for them.
I knelt to pick up the fish, but stopped when I spotted some sharp, strong-looking bones that jutted from its midsection.
Lifting the putrid thing, I plucked the bones with my fingers. They were as hard as plastic. And that gave me an idea.
“Can you filet this, Marco?” I said.
“Say what?” Marco replied.
Aly and Cass looked at me as if I’d just grown another nose.
“We need these bones, separated and intact,” I said. “I’m good at contraptions, but if I tried to extract these from the fish body, I’d leave a mess.”
“Me, too!” Cass piped up, his lips curled in disgust.
“Yup,” Aly said.
“But—” Marco sputtered.
“Hey, G7W gives you the ability to do awesome stuff with your body. Your fingers are part of that body, right, Brother Marco? Use them to extract the skeleton from that fish. You can give the meat to those two prisoners.” I turned to Aly. “You can hack anything, Aly—fix anything, figure out anything. Can you pick locks?”
Aly cocked her head. “Well, yeah . . .”
“Do it,” I said. “With fish bones.”
“What?” Aly shot back.
“I forgot my bobby pins back home,” I replied. “If you can’t do it, that’s fine. We’ll stick around here until this building sinks into the earth.”
Marco went to work, his thick, powerful fingers somehow freeing the flesh from the fish skeleton with ease. “And . . . presto change-o, fish-o . . . Got it!”
He held up a perfect fish skeleton with nice, long spindly bones. One by one, he began carefully snapping off the thick, plastic-like ribs. As he gave the rest to our fellow prisoners, Aly collected the bones in her palm. “Here goes nothing,” she said.
I turned to Cass. “You,” I said, “are the one who’s going to find a way out of here.”
“Uh, dude, we came in blindfolded,” Marco reminded me.
Cass shot him a look. “Dude, I’m Cass.”
Eloise was leaning against the prison bars, arms crossed. “I guess I’ll . . . you know, look out for videocams. Or play with the rats. Because that’s all I’m good for.”
I knelt next to her. “Eloise, I saw the way you handled a vromaski when Marco was training you. I’ve heard you speak Backwardish faster and better than your brother. I’ve seen you stand up to a Mu’ankh and survive a trip through the rift. You’re just starting to be a Select. Sometimes even when you’ve been one, you don’t know what you have. But my gut feeling is, yours is the most awesome ability of any of ours. Look at me.”
She looked away.
“In the eyes, Eloise.” I waited for her until she finally caught my glance again. “I didn’t know what I had either. I have watched your brother and Aly and Marco do all the things I wished I could do. It took me a long time to know that I had anything special—anything at all.”
Eloise shook her head. “Come on, Jack . . . it’s so obvious,” she said. “You’re the one who decides. You make all the other abilities mean something. That’s the best thing of all.”
I smiled. I felt a little lump in my throat, and it wasn’t the nausea.
“Wait . . .” Aly said, working a complicated arrangement of bones into the keyhole. “I got it. I think I . . .”
With a teeny snap, the whole bone pick fell apart. “Arrrrrgh!” Aly groaned.
Eloise sighed. “Okay, Jack, maybe I take that back.”
By the time Aly picked the lock, all that was left of the fish was a head and a tail. She also had to use the prong in Marco’s belt buckle, which wasn’t real easy to pull apart. It also meant Marco now had to tie the belt around his waist to keep his pants from falling down.
But we were out.
We stuck to the walls, tiptoeing down the dank stone hallways. From other prison cells, I saw pairs of bloodshot eyes peering from shadows, but no one seemed to care enough to make a noise.
“Okay, we make a left at the end of the next corridor,” Cass whispered. “Eloise?”
On cue, Eloise raced to the corner, her step so light she didn’t make a sound. She peered around, then signaled us a thumbs-up. “Maybe she’s not so gniyonna after all,” Cass whispered.
Left . . . right . . . right . . . up. We made it through a maze of cells, then up a musty flight of steps. The steps were just inside a castle wall. Our landing opened to a hallway that led to a huge wooden door. “That’s where we came in,” Cass whispered. “If no one’s there, we’re free.”
Eloise raced ahead. She didn’t even make it all the way before running back. “How do you do that so quietly?” Marco asked.
“I weigh negative five pounds,” Eloise drawled, rolling her eyes. “Anyway, I heard voices. Like, ho-ho-ho-I’m-a-big-bad-prison-guard-with-muscles-and-a-sword kinds of voices. We can’t do it.”
Cass exhaled. On the other side of the landing, a door led into the castle chambers. “We’re going to have to go through the palace,” he said. “Let’s just hope they’re all busy running around worrying about the attacks and the weather.”
Eloise pushed the door open a fraction of an inch and peered inside. “Looks empty to—”
The door swung open all the way, pulling the handle from Eloise’s small fist. She screamed and jumped away.
From the other side of the door stepped the tall, powerful figure of King Uhla’ar of Atlantis. His bronzed, craggy features twisted into a smile.
“Scooby-Dooby-Doo, where are you?” he said.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
UHLA’AR’S REVENGE
THE SURPRISE BLEW us all backward. I don’t know how I kept myself from falling down the stone stairs and dying before I was born.
Aly’s face was bone white. “Uhla’ar, please . . .”
The king looked back into the chamber. I thought he was going to order us inside and set up a nice, impromptu bow-and-arrow firing squad. But instead he forced us back into the stairwell landing.
As Uhla’ar shut the door behind us, he turned his back. I could see Marco quickly unwrapping his belt. I could tell he had some crazy plan. Did strangling a king count as changing the past?
As the king turned, Marco lunged forward, the belt stretched between his hands. But his pants fell straight down, bunching around his ankles, and he fell to the floor.
The king gave him a baffled look. From behind his back, he produced the Loculus of Language and handed it to me.
“I refuse,” he said, “to speak any more English than I just did. Rise, young man, and adjust your garment.”
I nearly dropped the Loculus from shock. “H-h-hands on, everyone,” I squeaked.
“Great idea,” said Marco, his face three shades of red darker.
King Uhla’ar waited, staring at us with stony features as Cass, Aly, and Eloise all touched the Loculus. And Marco, after his belt was tied.
Final
ly the king continued, nearly spitting his words: “You all fought me, on the other side of the rift. You nearly destroyed me.”
“Um . . . sorry,” Cass said.
Uhla’ar whirled toward him. “Are you?” he snapped. “Because I would have expected no less of a warrior than to fight. You are small and slight, yet you stand your ground.”
He was looking at Marco now. “I know what will happen in this world. I have lived a great long time. I have stood centuries in one place and observed much. I have watched arguments and killings, and I have seen families grow and die.”
Marco swallowed. “Yup . . . well, there’s a lot of good stuff on TV these days. . . .”
“You mock me,” Uhla’ar shot back, but his voice seemed more hurt than angry. “As did Massarym, forcing me to live in that wretched town in Greece. But here is the conundrum—you also freed me.”
“We did!” Cass quickly agreed.
Uhla’ar looked at him quizzically. “When I fought you on the other side of the rift, I wanted one thing: to return to my kingdom and preserve it. But I have learned so much since returning. Because I look at everything through the eyes of a different Uhla’ar. Having seen the future, I know now that it is too late to reverse what Qalani has done. The time for Telion has passed. The energy gave, and now it takes away.”
“We could try to come back earlier in time. . . .” Cass said.
“There are reasons we are here, now,” Uhla’ar said. “This I believe. For centuries I scorned the inferior life that I saw when I was stuck in Greece, the pettiness and greed. In the wild intensity of joy, in the moaning depth of tragedy, I saw only weakness. Before my eyes civilizations surged and fell, none as pure and perfect as Atlantis. Weakness!”
He took a deep breath. “But now, coming back here, I see more clearly. I was a fool. In that ragged humanity, progress was blindingly swift. It was not concentrated in one spot, one kingdom. It did not turn its back to the rest of the world. I see now that the passing of Atlantis was far from the end of civilization. That perhaps Telion was no longer our private domain, but that it was being spread across the world in smaller doses, for all people.”
“Hate to break it to you,” I said, “but that Telion is not as well distributed as you think.”
“Ah, but it can be,” Uhla’ar said. “And that is why my son Massarym’s quest is a fool’s errand. He would hasten to destroy his own land—in a quest to build it elsewhere artificially. Nonsense. Your world may be full of strife, my friends. It may seem hopeless to you. But the world of Atlantis was not equal. Yours at least has the potential to be that way. If we can stop Massarym now, there is no telling how much better it will be.”
“So wait,” Cass said. “You’re . . . on our side?”
I nodded, remembering the visions I had of Massarym and Uhla’ar’s massive battles. “In the Dream . . . you were fighting Massarym. You did try to stop him.”
“Whoa, whoa, so if you’re on our side, what was all about in the caldera?” Marco said.
“Confusion . . . frustration.” Uhla’ar smiled at Aly. “My mind was—how you say, fried?—when I arrived through the rift. I didn’t know what to think anymore. But this dear girl helped me. By listening. By forcing me to become a leader again. By leading me away from force and toward wisdom.”
Marco shook his head. “Okay, we’re getting there, Ooh. Little by little. But today, back in the woods, you were so on Massarym’s side. . . .”
“A little trickery I share with Karai,” Uhla’ar replied. “Massarym had hidden six Loculi. I have been trying to gain his trust, as he suspects my loyalties. Now, of course, because of your arrival, the Loculi are ours—except for one.”
I smiled. “The Loculus of Strength. The one you brought through the rift.”
“When you brought it through, did Massarym’s disappear?” Cass asked.
Uhla’ar put his finger to his lips, then ducked back into the chamber. When he came out, he was holding a heavy box made of iron. Setting it on the floor, he yanked it open.
The Loculus of Strength nearly blinded me with its forceful glow.
“That’s it, all right,” Marco said, turning away.
“Karai and I have a plan of our own, a simple one,” Uhla’ar said. “It is to happen at nightfall, in about two hours. You have proven your resourcefulness to me thrice—in Greece, in the volcano, and in your escape from the dungeon. I would be a fool not to think it would be useful to have you with us.”
“What’s the plan?” I asked.
“To smash the Loculi to bits, and with great joy,” King Uhla’ar said. “As quickly as possible, right here in the dungeon.”
I shook my head. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?” Eloise said in disbelief. “We have a chance to save the continent!”
“If the Loculi are destroyed here, in the past, before they leave the island,” Aly piped up, “G7W will not mutate into a killer.”
“Dude, all those Selects, those unexplained deaths of thirteen-year-olds through history?” Marco said. “I mean, nobody heard about most of them, but there was that big one in the news—the kid who dropped dead in the bowling alley? Randall Cromarty! He lives. We live.”
“Think about it,” Cass added. “No big fight between the KI and the Massa. Herman Wenders will never discover the island because his son will be fine. He’ll spend his life as a happy shoe salesman in Düsseldorf. And a couple of centuries later—we’ll all have our fourteenth birthdays!”
I put up my hands. They weren’t understanding me.
“Guys—I’m down with all of that!” I said. “What I mean is, we can’t do it here in the dungeon. Karai was specific. He said the Loculi had to be destroyed in the Heptakiklos where they first drew force.”
I looked at Cass, who looked at Eloise, who looked at Aly, who looked at Marco. We all looked at King Uhla’ar.
“I shall call my carriage and notify Karai,” he said. “I defer to his wishes.”
For a king, it was a pretty modest carriage. But that was because Uhla’ar did not want to be noticed. One lazy horse pulled us through the woods in a creaky old dray with a stretched animal skin covering over the top. We jounced on every hole in the road.
“Feels like we’re back home and Torquin’s driving,” Aly murmured.
“The island,” I reminded her, “is not home.”
Uhla’ar and Karai were disguised in dirty, loose-fitted smocks. Karai had managed to find rags for us all, and we covered our heads with thick kerchiefs. We’d draped an enormous blanket over the chest with the Loculi—except for the Loculus of Language, which I held swaddled in a blanket as if it were a baby.
“Guys,” Cass said excitedly, “do you realize this is the first time all seven Loculi have been together?”
I nodded. “We thought this big moment would happen in Mount Onyx.”
Aly leaned her head against me. I couldn’t help it, but I sprouted goose bumps all over. “What’s going to happen?” she said.
“Wh-what do you mean?” I asked.
“When it’s all over,” she said. “How do we get back? What if we can’t?”
We all wanted the answer to those questions, but no one knew enough to give them.
So no one did.
As we arrived at the clearing, I thought the cart had hit the biggest pothole in the world. It took me a moment to realize it was not a hole at all, but a sharp ground tremor. About fifty yards to our right, a tree let out a groan like a dying beast as it split down the middle and fell. The lightning was coming from all sides now, like an out-of-control electricity class in some sky-based school for the gods.
It was happening, and we all knew it. Atlantis was starting to destruct.
We had to shout to be heard. “Let’s do this fast!” I said.
The cart’s axle was broken, the horse shying and neighing in fear. We jumped out. Karai and Uhla’ar hurried the chest from the cart to the Heptakiklos.
Around the sword Ischis, smoke
billowed out. The crack bubbled open a half inch as we watched. “It’s going to blow,” Marco said. “I can feel it.”
Aly and Eloise pried open the chest. The Loculi of Flight, Healing, Underwater Breathing, Strength, and Teleportation all glowed up at us. I put the Loculus of Language inside, and I could hear it bumping up against the Loculus of Invisibility, which was, as always, invisible. “Let’s get them into the Heptakiklos!” I shouted, turning to Eloise. “Youngest Select goes first!”
She reached in and took the Loculus of Language. She looked for the bowl that had been dug for it in stone—the one with the carving of the Great Pyramid. Carefully she placed it inside.
Aly grabbed Invisibility and vanished from sight, only to reappear as she set it into its bowl.
One by one the Loculi took their positions in the Heptakiklos, where Qalani had built them.
“So, how do we nuke these guys?” Marco shouted over the rain.
I kept one hand on the Loculus of Language so I could understand Karai and Uhla’ar.
“Jack, Marco, Cass, Aly, Eloise, Father, and me—seven royals!” Karai shouted back, squinting his eyes as the water pelted them. “A perfect number! Okay, this must be done with precision. According to my calculations, the Loculi must be destroyed all at exactly the same time—otherwise they simply repair each other! As one goes down, another comes up!”
“Sort of like Whac-a-Loc!” Marco said.
“What?” Karai shouted.
“Never mind!” Marco replied.
“We will use these.” Karai produced from inside his garment seven gleaming metal-forged wedges and spilled them onto the wet soil.
“Cool!” Eloise said.
“They represent the kopadi, the Atlantean word for a flock!” Karai announced. “Designed to pierce the Loculi with the appropriate force. But remember—it is crucial that this be done in one blow! By all seven of us.”
As I translated for my friends, a maniacal shout came from the woods. We all looked up toward the ridge, shielding our eyes from the storm. Massarym emerged from the trees, his dagger pointed at the head of a captive.
The Legend of the Rift Page 25