Kayla gaped at Atu. “You healed his ribs. How did you do that?”
Atu smiled. “Don’t focus on how I did it, just be thankful that I can.” Addressing Han, he said, “Any other injuries I should attend to before you leave?”
“Healer, you have truly lived up to your name today. I thank you! And no, I have no other injuries that need tending. It’s time for me to reunite with my voyager.”
“It is,” Pallaton agreed. “Swiftness is key; return to your voyager without delay. Avoid unnecessary confrontations. We will follow you as soon as possible and clean up any laggards.”
Dipping his head in farewell, Han sped away. He took Kayla’s heart with him. Please, Jaden, be alright. Please, Han, get to him before he comes to harm.
In a split second, Han was a speck on the horizon. Atu faced the others. “Alright, who’s next?”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Jaden clung to the needle, the inferno in his leg creeping inexorably higher. The pain was muddling his thinking. Making a concerted effort, he gathered his scattered thoughts and focused on the four-sided pyramid in front of him. Constructed the same way as the tower, the only difference was these stones were far more delicate, a petite version.
Leaning closer, Jaden examined the join connecting the pyramid to the needle. Demarcated by a thick, gritty line and darker than the other material cementing the stones together, it circumvented the base. An idea flitted across Jaden’s consciousness. Tapping the stones immediately below the pyramid, he worked his way lower until he heard it, a hollow section right under the pyramid. Pushing softly on the pyramid, Jaden tried sliding it. It didn’t budge. Shoving harder had no effect either.
A welcome gust of wind lifted his hair from his sweaty forehead. Duh! Whoever had designed the pyramid must have factored in the wind speed up here. There must be a switch or lever preventing the top from being blown away. Running his fingers over each layer of rock, Jaden poked and prodded at anything resembling a switch. Although he jiggled several stones, he couldn’t dislodge them or release the pyramid from whatever glued it to the needle. Five minutes later, Jaden had exhausted his options. He stared at the pyramid, perplexed.
Detecting movement far beyond the tower, Jaden squinted into the dark sky. The inky blackness was getting denser by the second. He activated his magnification lenses, then cursed inwardly when he identified two Gaptors. Were his friends alright? Choosing to believe these Gaptors were just lucky enough to have slipped past them, he drew his DD and waited.
When the Gaptors were in range, Jaden flicked his wrist. The first Gaptor disintegrated amidst the usual light and sound show, made more spectacular by nightfall’s backsplash. By the time Jaden’s eyes readjusted, the second Gaptor was almost upon him. Hastily, he flicked his wrist. But the shard of sizzling light slid harmlessly past as the Gaptor dodged it. Huh, they’re getting smarter. Does it also know we can use the DD as a sword?
Apparently, it did. The Gaptor swept in at an angle, tilting its huge frame so it exposed only a tiny fraction of its extensive body. Swatting at the beast, Jaden only nicked the minuscule target. But the beast, curling away from his DD, was more successful.
Jaden howled as talons raked across his back, sending tongues of fire racing up and down the ragged incisions. Momentarily faltering as he absorbed the pain, Jaden gripped the pyramid. Taking a moment to steady himself, he rotated his arms carefully. Although the tears along his back screamed, he could move without mind-numbing pain incapacitating him. The cuts couldn’t be that deep. Not so lucky, you brute!
Turning, Jaden searched for the Gaptor. There it was, amping up for another run at him. Twisting his wrist, Jaden tucked his DD behind his arm, hoping his body somewhat hid the glow. This time, the brute wouldn’t see his death until it was too late.
Jaden hunched over, pretending his injury was worse as he waited impatiently for the Gaptor to close the distance. It lumbered forward, unsuspecting. When it was only two yards away, Jaden suddenly straightened, lifted his arm, and cracked his wrist. The sliver of glowing death only had to travel a short way. With no time to react, the Gaptor was toast. Jaden smiled, satisfied.
At shrieks behind him, he whirled defensively. Another Gaptor closed in from the opposite direction. Blast! I should’ve known there would be more than just two. Using the pyramid as leverage, Jaden pitched his body around the tower, wincing at the pull on his back. He couldn’t feel his leg anymore. It dangled uselessly off to one side. He didn’t know if that was bad. Squarely facing his attacker and not waiting to fortify his position, Jaden snapped his DD. But the atrocity expected this. It veered sideways, avoiding the electric sizzler. Provoked, the beast sped up. Jaden readied his DD.
The Gaptor maintained his course until a fraction of a second before he would’ve been within reach. Then he abruptly swerved sideways, away from the blade, deliberately whipping his tail under him at the last moment.
Jaden, too focused on sinking his DD into the beast’s belly, didn’t see the move coming. The tail smashed into his injured leg first, sending agonizing rivers of pain through his veins and weakening his hold on the tower. When the stinger connected with his other leg, the impact knocked him loose. Jaden fell.
He thought of Kayla. Had she and Atu survived their encounter with that horde of Gaptors? If only he could see her one last time. He had things to tell her. Why hadn’t he been more proactive? Now she would never know. And she would have to complete this terrible mission without him. All because he couldn’t keep his hold on the tower. His only consolation was that Atu was with her. And the gliders. They would have to protect her. He had failed. That thought galvanized him into action.
Clawing at the tower rushing past, Jaden desperately tried to find something, anything, to latch on to. But he was too far away. Spinning head over heels, he thought he saw Han torpedoing in at an untenable speed. What is Han doing back here? And why aren’t the others with him? Jaden stretched his arms, hoping to steady himself long enough to authenticate what he thought he had seen. But human arms weren’t made for flying, and he continued somersaulting toward the ground. Then he hit something. Hard.
Pain erupted in every bone, muscle, tendon, and tissue. His leg went numb. His back ran with fresh streams of blood. His vision blurred as he blinked back tears. Struggling to breathe, the wind knocked out of him, Jaden wriggled up, ready to defend himself—and found himself on Han’s broad back.
“Ow!” Han muttered.
“Han! You’re alive! You came! You saved me!” Jaden wheezed.
“Of course I came. We’re a team.”
Jaden leaned down, stretching his arms around his glider’s neck as far as his injured back would allow. “Thank you!” His heart cringed as he debated asking. Hope tempered his trepidation. “And the others?”
“They’re safe. Just as you are,” Han assured him.
Jaden laughed, unable to hold back the relief. She was alive! His spirits soared. “Yes, I am. Thanks again for catching me and sorry for the crash landing!”
“You’re welcome.” Han smirked. “But if you land like that next time, I’ll let you fall.”
“Sure you will.” Jaden grinned. “Now, let’s finish that freak.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Han asked, cocking his head and raising an eyebrow.
Under the lighthearted comment, Jaden recognized his concern. Han must’ve noticed his injuries. Jaden could almost see Han calculating how much blood he’d lost. But neither of them could do anything about it. Considering Han’s question, Jaden chuckled, trying to ease some of Han’s concern. “I’m guessing we won’t get very far without my DD?”
Han’s laugh rumbled out. “I guess not. Lucky for you I know where it fell. Are you able to jump down and retrieve it?”
“Absolutely,” Jaden said, although he wasn’t sure if his injured leg would take the landing.
Han dipped toward a ledge sticking out further than the others. “It’s over there, just behind that ridge. Do
you see it?”
Jaden nodded. “Yes. Ready when you are.”
Han angled closer, and Jaden slithered off. He landed awkwardly, favoring his injured leg, which refused to cooperate and hurt more than ever. But he could put weight on it without falling over. He limped over to his DD. Snatching it, he turned, ready for Han’s pickup. Han swung past, and they were back in business. It was bliss having his weight off his leg again. They gained altitude. To Jaden’s dismay, he noticed two more Gaptors had joined the Gaptor who had knocked him off the tower.
“Have you recovered what they hid at the top of the tower?” Han asked.
“No, there wasn’t time before I fell. But I’m almost certain it’s under the pyramid. I just couldn’t figure out how to pry the pyramid off the needle.”
“We have to go back there then?”
“Yes, but we must deal with these Gaptors first.”
“I agree.”
Han inclined them toward their enemies, then barreled down on the monsters at high speed. They obliterated the first Gaptor before the others could react, the beast disintegrating when the sliver of light peeled into him. Screeching raucously, the remaining two arced away in opposite directions. Han instantly chased after one. Within seconds, it too was gone. That only left the third.
Han circled upward, seeking the height that would give them the advantage. Unfortunately, the third Gaptor found it first, and he had backup in the form of a new arrival. The rapacious pair fell on Han and Jaden in a frenzy, beaks gnashing, wing-blades spinning, and tails crackling.
Jaden’s smart suit, able to react now that he saw the danger, snapped him away from each new attack while Han’s teeth and talons ripped chunks off the Gaptors’ bodies. Jaden lashed out at the closest Gaptor with his DD. The blade shattered the beast’s hard exoskeleton, and it fell.
Jaden whipped his head about, searching. “Where’s the other one?”
“The coward ran back to his mates.” Han snorted in disgust, lifting his chin to point out a rapidly retreating shape.
Jaden fumed as the Gaptor scurried toward a dark cloud growing in the distance. More Gaptors.
“There’s no point wasting valuable time chasing him,” Han said. “Our priority is finding the object the map led us to. The others will settle that weakling’s fate.”
“Others?” Even as Jaden voiced the question, he spotted another mass to the right of the Gaptors and headed their way. This group was substantially larger. It was also somehow different, but he couldn’t readily ascertain why.
“Did Kayla ever mention the prophecy Taz told her about?” When Jaden nodded, Han continued. “Turns out it was true. We found the lost legion of gliders Zareh kept on your world.”
Jaden practically bounced on Han’s back with excitement. It suddenly made sense. “That second group—they’re gliders?”
Han grinned. “Every last one of them.”
“Alright! Where were they?”
“Hidden in that place we flew over earlier today—the one Taz and I thought was familiar but couldn’t establish why.”
“You’ve been there before?”
“No, but I don’t doubt Zareh put a picture of that place in our minds, signifying its importance, yet not giving any sign why. It came together when we were fighting the Gaptors just before we left you. It wasn’t like I worked it out. The knowledge was mysteriously just there.”
“Sounds like Zareh,” Jaden muttered. He glanced over Han’s shoulder. They were suspended over the needle. “Question now is how do we get that wretched pyramid off the tower?”
Han grinned. “Thanks to Zareh, I know exactly what we have to do.”
Jaden stared. “You do?”
“Yes. Have your medallion handy?”
Jaden pulled it from the zippered pocket inside his smart suit. “What now?”
“Place it in my arcachoa.”
“What?” Jaden blurted.
“You heard me,” Han answered softly.
“You said that was dangerous and to never do that.”
“It is dangerous. And that’s why Taz and I gave you the dire warnings we did. But now is the time to use it.” When Jaden hesitated, Han growled. “Jaden! Time is against us.”
Jaden still wavered. “What will happen when I do?”
“There’s no time to explain!” Han barked, exasperated. “Don’t be afraid. We’ll need the illusion it generates to solve this puzzle.”
“But you said we could get stuck there—”
“Jaden Jameson, put your medallion in my arcachoa. Now!”
With trepidation, Jaden did as ordered, placing his medallion in its holding space between Han’s ears. Instantly, light blazed, settling into a gaping, glowing circle ahead of them. Wind swished past Jaden’s ears as the dark tunnel encapsulated by a light tube sucked them in.
Crossing the threshold of the radiant circle, all sound vanished. Air still raced over Jaden’s skin, cooling it, but no sound accompanied it. As it thrust them downward, the dark space of the tunnel swirled with the light of the tube, accosting Jaden’s eyes and making him dizzy. Just when Jaden thought he couldn’t handle another second, the light became all-consuming, swallowing the black tunnel and becoming a second circle of light, marking the exit. With a whoosh, the tube spat them out. Sound rushed back. No longer under the tube’s driving influence, they stopped abruptly. Jaden yelped as his wounds protested the painful end to their journey. They had arrived.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Staring wide-eyed at the scene laid out before them, Jaden tried making sense of it. They were almost precisely where they had been before he’d put his medallion in Han’s arcachoa, but it was all different. It was day again. Or perhaps late afternoon? Way down below, an immense crowd assembled in the courtyard at the base of the temple. Almost directly ahead of them was the triangular room at the top of the tower. A tall, bony man stood on the balcony. Dressed in long, elaborately decorated robes, his face covered by a grotesque mask, he addressed the throng in a strange language.
Comprehension filtered through Jaden’s sluggish mind. They had most definitely been transported back in time. There was no sign of anything modern anywhere. Fiery torches burned in the triangular room. The people gathered in the courtyard wore simple clothing made from rough cloth, lacking color. The land surrounding the tower wasn’t the rocky wasteland of the future. Instead, fields lush with crops stretched away from the temple. Rudimentary farm implements lay scattered where the people had left them when they went to gather. Herds of cows, sheep, goats, and donkeys grazed lazily within the confines of crude wooden fences in expansive open areas between the fields. These people were a civilization unto themselves. They appeared wholly self-sufficient.
Jaden turned back to the room at the top of the tower when the man, presumably some form of priest, suddenly stopped talking. What they were witnessing was some ancient ceremony.
“Take heed, Voyager,” Han commanded, “and you will see what it is you have to do.”
Jaden nodded, observing as the man walked back into the center of the room and knelt. This basic act highlighted a glaring omission.
“Han, there’s no medallion on the floor!” Jaden hissed.
“Hmm, so I see,” Han answered, making no effort to keep his voice down.
“Shh, they’ll hear us!”
“Seeker, they are oblivious to our presence. The arcachoa makes us invisible to those in the alternate timeline.”
“Great, something else I didn’t know,” Jaden mumbled.
“Pardon me?”
“Nothing. We should pay attention.”
The man appeared to be pressing something into the stones, but they were too far away for Jaden to be sure. “Can we get closer?”
Han obliged, but it didn’t help. The man had his back to them, obscuring his actions. The only way to establish exactly what the man was doing was if they were on the other side of the room. And there was no opening on that side.
Movement n
ear the stairs leading into the room drew Jaden’s eyes like a magnet. Two men herded a prisoner into the room like an animal. They dragged him forward by the rope tied around his neck, making him stumble, his movements further hindered by the shackles binding his hands and feet.
Jaden’s gaze flitted back to the altar, piled high with wood. Next to the altar, buckets brimmed with a dark, viscous liquid. And on a small side table, beside a perfectly folded, silky, jet black cloth, a jeweled dagger sat prominently displayed in its holder. There was no doubt. This was a human sacrifice. Jaden’s stomach turned.
“Han, do we really have to watch this part too?”
“Possibly.”
Jaden focused on the prisoner. He blinked. Now he was imagining things. “Han, tell me you’re seeing what I am?”
“I am, and I have no explanation,” Han breathed.
There was no mistake then. The prisoner Jaden had so blithely ignored upon first glance was unmistakably himself. His mind clicked through options furiously as he considered the implications. They towed his doppelgänger to the altar. With more illumination in that part of the room, Jaden could now see the multitude of cuts and bruises all over the young man’s body. What did they do to him?
The guards yanked their prisoner toward them, pulling away bits of raw skin at his wrists and ankles as they removed his shackles. The man slumped vertically. Either the process had been painful, or the young man was very weak—or both. The guards caught the falling man, tossing him onto the unlit pyre. Working quickly, they tied him down. Get up! Fight! But the young man did not move. He just lay there, either unconscious or resigned to his fate.
The priest straightened, drawing Jaden’s attention. He stalked toward them, past the bound prisoner, holding an oddly shaped stone in front of him. When he reached the balcony, he stepped forward ceremoniously. As soon as he was within sight of the people in the courtyard, a hush descended. The hideous mask whipped from left to right and right to left as the priest inspected his audience. Evidently pleased with what he saw, he lifted the rock above his head and launched into some long incantation.
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