Destiny Series Boxed Set

by Bronwyn Leroux

  The gliders’ twittery conversation picked up, their pitch rising as they became more animated. They gestured markedly with their heads at the tallest of the towers, their chattering continuing unabated.

  “My guess is they recognize this place,” Kayla said.

  The boys nodded. But it was several minutes before the bats concluded their lively exchange and deigned to confirm the teens’ suspicions.

  “This place is familiar to us,” Taz said when their jabbering ceased.

  “But we aren’t sure how or why,” Han babbled. “Jaden, will you pull up your map, please? It may hold some clue.”

  Jaden obliged, the map springing up around them. But, to the glider’s supreme disappointment, it was unchanged. Their gliders continued circling as they pondered the area’s significance.

  Kayla glanced at Jaden, but he seemed as helpless as she felt. Miserably, she waited while Taz circled until Kayla could take it no more.

  “Do something!” Kayla mouthed at Jaden.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Jaden shrugged. He wasn’t sure there was anything he could do. But after several minutes passed and they still hadn’t left, he said, “I don’t think we’ll get any closer to an answer by staying. And the sun travels its path. Shouldn’t we move on?”

  Reluctantly, the gliders agreed. There was no doubt their failure to identify the reason for their attraction to the area unsettled them. Quiet and withdrawn as they resumed their journey, they didn’t fly as fast as before. In fact, their pace was downright sedentary. Jaden considered saying something but vetoed the idea. The area had made an impression on them, and they appeared absorbed in their own thoughts and memories as they tried unraveling the mystery.

  The strange formation was scarcely behind them when Jaden felt the telltale chill at the back of his neck. His head whipped around, his eyes meeting Kayla’s. She felt it too. Bam! A Gaptor cut across their path. Jaden inhaled sharply. Instinctively, he backed away from the threat, bashing his head on Atu’s cheekbone.

  “Ow! Steady on!” Atu warned.

  Jaden ignored him. He eyed the Gaptor as it blasted past, disappearing off to his right. Then he blinked. The Gaptor was heading back to them. How did it change direction so fast? His brain churned sluggishly, computing the conflicting variables. His eyes, scanning the skies, picked up on the anomaly. There was a second Gaptor! And before he comprehended that fact, a third sliced up in front of them. Blast! Slurpy’s found a way to send more Gaptors through.

  “Two!” Jaden yelled, hoping Taz and Kayla understood.

  They did. Jaden breathed again when the girls shot off laterally. The gliders snapped out of their slump. Han responded to Jaden’s command as quickly as Taz, tucking his wings and plunging them downward. A cone speared up, threatening to impale them, and Han unfurled his wings, taking evasive action. They skimmed past the vent, missing it by less than an eighth of an inch, then straightened out. Han wasted no time increasing their speed. Jaden scanned for the girls.

  “They’re ahead of us,” Atu said, pointing to them, racing on a parallel course above.

  “Perfect! Could you tell how many Gaptors there were?”

  “I only saw three, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t more.”

  “Let’s hope there aren’t. Han, can we outrun these beasts?”

  “Yes, provided we don’t have to outpace them for long. If they persist in pursuit and we can’t lose them in the canyons or find a suitable hiding place, we might be in trouble.”

  Jaden swiveled, wanting to assess how far back the Gaptors were. He couldn’t find them. But that didn’t mean they weren’t there. Something hurtled up from below. Teeth snapped, snatching his attention. Jaden gasped, horrified.

  Dropping back down from its leap was a rat gigantic enough to be mistaken for a horse. Its hind legs were exaggerated—long limbs with powerful haunches designed for jumping. What sort of abomination is this? It hopped behind them disturbingly fast, sniffing the air, verifying their position. When it lifted its head, it bared its six-inch, spear-like, yellowed teeth in a snarl.

  Jaden gagged. “What is that thing?”

  “A kangaroo rat?” Han supplied, chuckling at his own joke.

  “Hilarious! Kangaroo rats don’t look like that, and they aren’t that size!”

  “Not where I’m from either.” Atu dug his fingers into Jaden’s arm as they veered wildly around another obstacle.

  Before Jaden could revive his line of questioning, something else caught his eye. Slinking around the vent they had just avoided was a mechanical snake, the size of a giant anaconda. But, instead of millions of tiny scales, this one had singular, hefty, c-shaped scales, each one twice the size of his hand. Their surfaces shimmered with a polished, steely brilliance, the scaly partitions lifting, flattening, and then dropping as the serpent slithered forward. Sickened, Jaden watched as the snake rounded on the unsuspecting rat and gobbled him up in one bite.

  “Ugh, that’s gross!” Jaden exclaimed.

  “At least it ate the rat and wasn’t after us,” Atu said. “What’s with this place and these grossly oversized, unnatural creatures?”

  Jaden wished Atu hadn’t asked. An unbelievably hairy, fire-engine red spider clung to the side of an upcoming vent. It would’ve been fine if the spider’s hair was actually hair and not sparking, electrified wires sticking out of its body, or if it wasn’t the size of a beach umbrella!

  Its bulbous body hugged the steep shaft effortlessly, and the silvery liquid filling its abdomen glinted portentously. The monster lifted its abdomen and spewed a thin strand of silk from its spinnerets. Only it wasn’t silk. It was high-tensile steel, thicker and stronger than any cable. It whipped in front of them, cracking the air as it attached to a cone opposite the spider. If Han hadn’t reacted so swiftly, it would’ve sliced their heads off.

  “Better watch out for webs,” Atu said. “We wouldn’t want to fly into one of those.”

  “Maybe lifting out of this valley is a better option?” Jaden asked.

  Han obliged. Up here, catching up to the girls was easier. Drawing alongside, Jaden glanced back again, hoping to spot the Gaptors. But there was still no sign of them.

  “Are you alright?” Kayla squeaked, her lips drawn in a thin, tight line. “We saw those mutant creatures down there—what were they?” Kayla asked when Jaden didn’t answer her first question.

  “We’re fine, thanks,” Jaden answered, eager to smooth the worry from her face. “And mutants about sums up what I can say about those creatures.”

  “They’re deformed versions of themselves, like something’s corrupted them,” Atu remarked thoughtfully.

  Jaden caught the meaningful glance passing between their gliders. Neither Kayla nor Atu noticed, apparently too preoccupied with thoughts of the mutants to pay attention to much else. That changed when a mammoth structure sprang up on the horizon, rising suddenly and noticeably above the rest of the landscape, clearly not part of the natural environment. It was impossible to ignore.

  “What is that?” Jaden marveled, forgetting to ask the bats about what he’d witnessed.

  “I don’t know,” Kayla said.

  “I have a feeling that’s where the map’s leading us.” Jaden threw the map out and proved himself right.

  Their two-dimensional map with its compass-like “X” was gone, replaced by a three-dimensional image of the area they were flying over. The blinking dot was back, its position corresponding to the structure. Jaden twisted the map back into its compartment as they surged forward.

  Before they could celebrate, a Gaptor blocked their path. Automatically falling into rolls that separated them, the gliders dove toward the canyon floor. The uneven landscape was advantageous. The Gaptor faltered for an instant as it chose its prey, then it darted after the boys.

  With one eye on the beast and one eye on the girls, Jaden gave the signal. Kayla flashed a thumbs-up, accepting the play, and the game was on. This configuration relied on the Gaptor
maintaining its lower altitude while chasing the boys, allowing the girls to take up a position above and behind, placing the Gaptor within range of the relic stones’ power.

  The play took less than a minute to execute. The girls were overhead and lined up before the boys felt any pressure. Jaden waited, sure the Gaptor would sense their offensive and curl away, but it continued its dogged pursuit. The girls dropped, and Kayla lifted her arm. Jaden did likewise. In a brilliant flash and with a thunderous sound, the Gaptor disintegrated.

  “That was almost too easy,” Jaden muttered.

  “Take the win, bro—” Atu began.

  Three more Gaptors materialized in front of them, cutting off the rest of his sentence.

  “You were saying?” Jaden said.

  “Never mind! How do they keep doing that? They’re not there, then they are!” Atu seethed.

  “That’s irrelevant,” Han snarled, frustration coloring his tone. “We need to find cover!”

  The girls must’ve reached the same conclusion.

  “Head for the ruins!” Kayla yelled, as she and Taz nimbly ducked under the imposing barrier of Gaptors ahead of them.

  Han, guessing the Gaptors would expect him to make the same move, went over instead of under. The monsters’ wings faltered as they passed, confirming they had been ready to drop. The creatures struggled to realign themselves so they could give chase. Jaden smiled. Although fearsome adversaries for strength, they lacked mental acuity.

  Drawing level with the girls, who had held back in case the boys ran into trouble, Han and Taz put on the speed necessary to outpace the Gaptors.

  The structure loomed larger, the ruined remnants of a once magnificent edifice, some finer details now visible. What Jaden had initially taken to be smooth sides were in fact stepped ridges, reminding him of the ancient pyramids.

  Unlike those fabled structures, though, these ruins displayed two major variations: most notably, the structure did not rise to a triangular apex, and there were many openings along the vertical sides, serving as multiple entry points.

  Shaped like a crescent moon, the structure rose in both height and width from each of the two pointed ends until it reached its apex at the center of the outer curve. Here, tapered edges rose, forming a thin ridge that climbed to a lone lanky tower. Stretching up into the sky like a skinny finger, the tower beckoned.

  “What’s the bet that whatever we have to find, it’s in the tower?” Jaden predicted.

  Atu grinned. “A wager I’d be willing to take if I were a betting man.”

  But there was no time to validate their theory. With the Gaptors still pursuing, their small group raced toward the tower, the distance between the two groups gradually increasing. Closing in on the tower, Jaden was dismayed to discover no obvious shelter. For one thing, the tower was too narrow to accommodate their gliders. For another, the entrances, although many, would barely allow the voyagers to pass through, let alone their massive companions.

  “We must find another way in,” Jaden thundered, stating the obvious.

  “There might be a wider entrance lower down where there’s more space,” Kayla hollered back.

  Without questioning the suggestion, their gliders tucked their wings and dropped on the far side of the crescent, along its inner curve, away from the pursuing Gaptors. Skirting the lower levels, they reduced their speed.

  “There!” Jaden pointed at an entrance considerably larger than the others, about two floors off the ground in the middle of the structure with a ramp leading up to it.

  Han and Taz adjusted their course. To their surprise, the entrance allowed them to coast right in without having to dismount or land beforehand. As the gliders settled on the stone floor, the teens leaped off and turned back toward the entrance, ready to face any pursuing Gaptors. But there were none. In fact, when Jaden cautiously poked his head outside and scanned the sky above, they weren’t there either.

  “Where are they?” Jaden muttered. His brain ran probabilities on the most likely strategies the Gaptors would use. “Do you think they entered on the other side?”

  “It’s possible, but why would they? They have the advantage in the air,” Kayla pointed out.

  “That’s what we’ve always assumed,” Jaden said. “We’ve never seen them fight on the ground before. Maybe they’re just as dangerous.”

  “No, Kayla’s right. The air is their preferred battleground,” Taz confirmed. “They avoid ground combat. Their cumbersome frames are too large a target.”

  “Great! So where are they then?” Jaden repeated.

  Atu and Kayla stepped up beside him, craning their necks. Atu spotted them.

  “There!” Atu said, pointing out three specks in the distance.

  “Why are they so far away? I didn’t think we had that much of a head start,” Jaden said, worried.

  “We didn’t,” Han replied.

  Eyeing the Gaptors warily, Jaden noticed the beasts came no closer.

  “Something’s keeping them back,” Taz eventually decided. “Watch—there’s some line they can’t cross. As soon as they fly into it, they’re thrown upward by some vertical force.”

  Kayla scrunched up her eyes. “Must be your bat vision. I can’t see that!”

  Han chuckled. “I thought bats were supposedly blind in your world.”

  “Well, you’re not exactly from our world, now are you?” Kayla countered. “It’s possible super-sized bats have super-enhanced vision!”

  Han laughed out loud, the sounds rumbling through the air melodically.

  But Kayla’s words reminded Jaden of something. He snapped his fingers. “Hey, remember Sven added magnification and night vision capabilities to our goggles? Try that!”

  The teens quickly engaged their goggles manually, pressing on the tiny magnification button the moment it covered their eyes. The Gaptors’ frames invaded their view, larger than life. The teens could finally see for themselves.

  Using varying tactics, the Gaptors stormed the invisible barrier, only to be thwarted the moment they reached it. Usually, they were tossed upward, but occasionally, they nose-dived—much to the teens’ delight.

  “Well, we’re safe for now,” Jaden decreed after a few minutes. “Let’s not waste the advantage. Time to find our treasure!”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The entrance kept its roomy dimensions as the gliders and teens moved deeper into the structure. Kayla marveled at the elegant proportions, the intricately carved stone sculptures adorning the entryway, and the unbelievable scale of the building.

  Unable to contain her amazement, she voiced her thoughts. “How on earth did they build something like this so long ago without modern engineering or heavy equipment?”

  “Pyramids give you a clue?” Atu grinned.

  Kayla rolled her eyes. “Smart aleck! That doesn’t answer the question. Doesn’t it fry your brain thinking about how they accomplished this? It must’ve taken decades to complete. How did they keep the dimensions straight? I mean, you saw how perfectly shaped it was from the air . . .”

  “Come and look at this,” Jaden interrupted.

  Kayla and Atu strode to him, a short way from the entrance. Late afternoon sunlight slanted in, illuminating the walls. Jaden directed their attention to the faded symbols and badly eroded markings etched on one of the side walls. “What do you make of these?”

  Kayla studied them, then shimmied over to the opposite wall in what was turning out to be a long, rectangular tunnel leading away from the entrance. “I don’t know, but someone painted pictures over here.”

  “Maybe a history?” Atu suggested, staring at the symbols and carvings as Jaden passed Kayla and disappeared further down the tunnel.

  “Mmm, could be,” Kayla agreed, crossing back to Atu. “But I think they’re more than that.” She ran her fingers over the worn carvings and symbols. “There seems to something missing here,” Kayla murmured, half to herself.

  Jaden’s sharp cry had them jerking their heads. The
y ran toward the sound but couldn’t locate him in the growing gloom.

  “Jaden, are you okay?” Kayla blurted, her heart in her mouth, anxiety curling through her gut. Where is he? Why is it so dark in here? She had to find him. Before her growing concerns could spiral, Jaden grunted.

  “Yeah, I’m alright, but watch out for the yawning hole in the floor as you exit the tunnel. I almost fell in. You’d think they’d have some warning if the floor was going to just open up under you!”

  “Maybe that’s what those markings on the wall were,” Han suggested as the rest of them crept forward.

  “Yeah, yeah, funny boy,” Jaden said. “Fine for you—you can see in the dark.”

  “There are stairs going up as well,” Atu commented, ignoring Han and Jaden.

  Jaden huffed. “And how would you know that? I can’t even see my hand in front of my face.”

  “Uh, weren’t you the one who reminded us not five minutes ago of our night vision goggles?” Atu chuckled.

  Kayla heard Jaden’s goggles click just as hers did. She wasn’t the only one who hadn’t thought to engage the feature.

  “Ah, much better!” Kayla sighed, even more relieved when she saw Jaden in front of her, whole and healthy with no apparent signs of injury. Unable to resist, she gripped his hand, not daring speech for fear her voice would betray her emotions. Jaden turned and looked at her, smiling faintly as he squeezed her hand. Oh, I’m so happy to see that smile!

  Not releasing her hand, Jaden lifted his head and admired the room they found themselves in. If that was even a term they could use. “Wow! Magnificent!”

  Awestruck, they gawked at the impressive reception area. The tunnel had opened into an enormous, round rotunda. On the far side, a long, imposing hallway marched off into the distance, crafted by the skilled placement of two parallel lines of elegant Grecian-style pillars.

  At the far end of this hallway, barely visible, were two enormous stone chairs resembling thrones. Exits dotted the length of the hallway at regular intervals, hinting at other, lesser rooms off to the sides.