“I won’t,” I said, still staring at the pearl. “Thank you. This is amazing.”
“I have one more thing to show you. You said the water sprites brought you here, and I believe I have figured out why.” He led me through an open doorway and out into a garden surrounded by water. It was stunning. There were water sculptures everywhere.
Every plant that grew in water was in the garden, and the water itself danced and sparkled over everything. It almost looked like a play. Water would shoot out of one fountain and hit a stream of water from another, forming rainbows and making the water splash on everything. I could hear the sound of tinkling bells and stopped to listen. It was beautiful, but then everything went silent.
I looked at the king, “What happened?”
“Wait for a second.”
Suddenly out of all the plants and even from in the water, sprites started pouring out. They circled me, and some even landed on me. I was trying to look at all of them when I lost my balance and fell. The king grabbed my arm and helped steady me. The water sprites tittered at me disapprovingly.
“I’m sorry.”
“Hello, everyone. This is Sally. She is the one who lifted the curse.”
The sprites clapped and laughed and flew around me faster. One of them came right up to my face and looked at me. She looked just like the one from my dream.
“How are you?” I asked.
She tilted her head side to side and then spoke slowly to me in ancient, “Thank you for helping us. Without you, we would have been lost.”
“What did I do?” I was confused. I hadn’t even seen the sprites till now. How could I have helped them?
“You stopped the curse. From what we can tell, the curse was put here in our garden long ago, but it was hidden from everyone. No one could see it or even sense it. When the king’s staff was stolen, the curse came to life and was able to get to him. We were trying to slow it down, but it was overpowering us.”
I had been following her down one of the paths. She stopped and pointed. In the middle of the garden was a circle of dead grass. It was almost ten feet across.
“The curse kept growing and was killing everything it touched. We almost lost two of our own when they tried to get inside the circle to attempt to stop it.”
“I’m sorry your friends got hurt. Are they all right?” I asked, worried about such small beings.
“Yes, they are,” she smiled. “You have a kind heart. That’s why we were sure you could help. We knew the king would be awful because of the curse, but we thought you would still care enough to help, and we were right.”
“It was you who left the note?”
“Yes.”
“Why couldn’t you tell me?” I asked.
“We are not allowed to interfere with humans. As it is, what I did could get us in trouble, but I didn’t feel I had a choice.”
“How would you get in trouble?”
“The shadow king.”
“I don’t think I like him,” I said.
The water sprite laughed, “You don’t have to like him. You just have to listen to him. He makes the rules and we follow, or at least try to. He did it for good reasons. Humans and magic don’t always get along so well.”
I tried to protest.
“Look at the Pulhu,” she said, and I shut my mouth. She was right. If the Pulhu didn’t have magic, they wouldn’t be as much of a threat.
“Even elementals can make the wrong choices, like the princess and her followers, though it doesn’t happen often. It will get harder and harder for the Pulhu to control themselves, and many will choose to follow them the closer the darkness comes. You will need to be very careful. I will be with you from now on. We have talked and decided you need one of us to help you. I was chosen for this task.”
I stared at her blankly, not truly understanding. “Unless you would prefer someone else,” she said, crestfallen.
“No, no, I am definitely happy you will be with me. I’m just not sure how to process this all. It’s a lot of information,” I told her.
She laughed again. “We will talk later,” she told me and came to rest on my shoulder.
“Come now. It’s time for you to meet with your friends and head back to the human realm,” the king said. “The Pulhu will be after you when you get back. You need to get somewhere safe quickly.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
He walked me out to the hall and said we would meet in thirty minutes to go home. I went back to the room and woke my friends up. We headed down to the hall that would lead us to the entrance.
The king and Hilail were waiting for us. We followed them down to the archway, and the king began to chant in the ancient language. “Go,” he said when he finished chanting. We jumped through the arch. I looked back one last time and watched as Hilail and the king disappeared. I swam up through the water and quickly climbed out.
“Hey, guys. What are you doing? I thought you wanted to search this area,” Gary said.
“We already did,” Richard said.
“You just went down there. You couldn’t have searched very hard,” Gary said skeptically.
“They found what they were searching for. I’m Adam. Who are you?”
“What? How? Who?” Gary asked, shocked.
“This is Chet’s missing grandson. We were down there for a while, but the water elemental king moved time back for us. Otherwise, we would have been gone months. Time moves differently there. We need to leave. The Pulhu are coming. And we can’t let them catch us here. We can’t let them find out where the elementals are,” I explained to him.
“How do you know that?”
“Trust me, and let’s go.”
We ran for the path back to the car.
“Wait,” shouted Gary, “if they really are coming, they will come from that way. We need to take a different route.”
“You’re right,” I said. “Which way do we go? Do you know a different way?”
“Yes, but it’s going to take longer. We need to stay closer to the shore and then cut inland. Hopefully, that will throw them off our trail.”
“Let’s go,” I said. We walked past the lake and headed along the shore, keeping a steady pace. It would be easy to break an ankle on the loose stones if we ran.
Soon we saw storm clouds gathering behind us.
“It’s the Pulhu. Keep going,” Gary said.
We picked up the pace. I almost lost my footing a few times but managed to right myself before I fell. I looked back and saw the storm clouds getting closer. The lightning started to crackle across the sky, pointing in our direction. Soon it would be on top of us.
“We are aren’t going to make it,” Tider shouted over the roaring wind.
Gary left the shore and turned inland. There was no cover, and as we reached the top of a hill, I looked back and saw a group of people running towards us.
“They’ve seen us. There’s no chance of getting past them now. We need to fight,” Tider said.
“Not yet,” called Gary. He opened his phone while running and spoke into it. “Back up is on the way. They will meet us in ten to fifteen minutes. We need to keep going until we meet them, then we can fight.”
We stopped talking and focused on running. All I could hear was our labored breaths and the wind rushing past, bringing the storm closer. At the top of the next hill, I could see two figures running towards us.
“Gary,” I pointed, “is that our backup?” I asked with a sinking feeling in my gut.
“Yep, that’s them,” Gary said.
“That’s all?” I couldn’t stop myself from screeching. “We can’t fight them with only two more people.”
“Trust me, they are the best we have, and they are the only ones close enough to get here. Everyone else is thirty minutes or longer away. We’re lucky I have been keeping these two nearby.”
“Keep going,” Adam yelled. I looked back and saw the Pulhu coming. Somehow they were moving faster than us. They had to be using magic. A
t this pace, they would catch us in no time.
“We need to fight. Get to the next hill. We need the high ground, and there’s a small lake on the other side of the hill so you can pull more water magic if you need it,” Gary yelled.
“What about the storm?” I asked.
“Don’t worry. One of my guys can try to counteract it, but we need to get the one controlling it out of the fight as fast as we can.”
We turned around once we were on the top of the hill and watched as the Pulhu closed in. There were over a dozen of them. I looked up as the storm stopped moving closer. One of Gary’s guys had a strained look on his face. I figured he was fighting the weather, and I looked back at the Pulhu. I noticed a guy toward the back that had a strained look too.
“There,” I pointed. “That one with the green shirt. He’s the one controlling the weather.”
“I’ll take him out,” Gary shouted. “Everyone else, give them everything you’ve got.”
“Sally, be careful,” Richard said from right beside me.
The Pulhu were close enough to start hurling magic at us. Gary and the other security guy quickly moved forward to fight. I watched as Gary used earth to batter one of the Pulhu while the ground fell out from under another one.
The other security guy threw fireballs at three of the Pulhu. He was able to hurl the fireballs faster than the Pulhu could stop him. It kept them busy, but there were still a lot left. They turned their attention to us and started forward.
I didn’t even see the first one throw a blast of water at me. I flew through the air and landed hard on my back. The wind was knocked out of me, but I struggled to my feet. My friends were now fighting the Pulhu with everything they had.
I pulled my magic towards me and did the same moves that Hilail taught us. We would need all my power, and after having Hilail help us, my water magic was the most powerful. The water came naturally to me, and I let it know what I needed it to do instead of forcing it. The water flew away from me and quickly engulfed one of the others. A little air bubble had formed around his head so he could breathe, but he was no longer a threat as long as I had the energy to hold him.
I could barely even feel a pull on my energy, and I silently thanked Hilail for teaching me a little about how to use my water element better. I turned to the next guy and saw a blast of fire leave his hands and head straight towards Abby, who had her back turned while she tried to heal a cut on Tider’s arm.
“No,” I yelled. Water flew out from the lake and swirled around the flames, smothering them right before they hit her. The man turned to look at me and grinned triumphantly.
“You are ours now,” he yelled to me.
“Never,” I yelled back and sent a wave over him. When it settled back down, he was still standing there grinning, steam rising off of him.
He tried to throw his fire at me. I dodged to the side at the last second and flung a rope of water at him. It grabbed his legs first, causing him to fall. Then it wound around his arms and upper body. I looked to make sure the other guy I had stopped was still in his bubble of water.
I breathed in relief when I saw that he was. There were only a few more Pulhu left. The rest had been immobilized. Gary had finished off his two and was now fighting a different guy. The two he had fought were covered in dirt, and they looked unconscious.
Our security guy had also beaten two of the Pulhu and was working on a third when the air behind the Pulhu shimmered, and three more people suddenly stood there. They looked around at everything happening, and then the guy in the middle looked directly at me. I knew him. He was the guy at the airport. He pointed at me, and the other two with him turned their attention to me.
“Guys,” I yelled. “We have a problem. Richard, it’s the guy from the airport.”
My friends looked at the newcomers, and Abby turned white, “That’s him. That’s the guy that questioned me, Mr. Damon.” She was trembling. I felt a rush of anger toward the man that had hurt my friend. I looked back at the guy and saw a cruel smile on his face. This guy needed to be stopped.
“Don’t worry, Abby, we won’t let him touch you again,” I told her. I turned towards the guys. “Tider, Richard, we need to stop that guy,” I said, pointing. “He hurt Abby.” They both turned towards Abby and saw how scared she was
“We won’t let him get anywhere near you,” Tider growled.
We didn’t have any more time to talk. Adam was trying to take care of two of the Pulhu, so there was no one left but Tider, Richard, and myself to deal with the newcomers. I wasn’t sure we would be able to beat them. The guy to the right pushed his hands out, and a wall of dirt flew towards Richard. Richard used his magic to create a mini-tornado that took all the dirt and threw it back at the man.
As the two of them fought, the man on the left went for Tider using air to lift Tider off the ground. Tider sent icicles through the sky. One hit the man on his leg, and he lost his concentration. Tider fell out of the sky but used water to slow his descent. As soon as he landed, he was throwing ice at the man, trying to find a way to immobilize him. It took only a few seconds for all of this to happen, but I was so caught up in it that I hadn’t realized Mr. Damon was almost to me.
Abby yelled, making me snap my head around, and I threw a protective barrier around both of us as Mr. Damon sent lightning down for me. Shocked, I looked at him, and he smiled again. I wanted to be sick. He looked super creepy.
“You can’t protect yourself from me,” he said, sending more lightning to hit my shield. I was pretty sure I could hold the shield for a while, but then he put his hand right on the shield and began murmuring. My shield started turning a gray color and began to fall to pieces. It would only last another minute.
I grabbed Abby’s hand, “Run to Gary. He’s almost done with that guy so he can protect you.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be fine,” I told her.
I looked around one more time. Richard and Tider were both still fighting and didn’t seem to be able to take these Pulhu down. They were much stronger than the first group that had attacked us. Gary and the security guys were still fighting too, and Adam looked to be in pretty bad shape. I was on my own. As soon as the shield fell, I pushed Abby in the direction of Gary and turned to face Mr. Damon.
“What do you want?” I asked him. “Why won’t you leave me alone?”
“There is something different about you. I will figure out what,” he said.
“There is nothing different about me. You have had people following me since I got to the school. You would know if something was different.” I was hoping to keep him talking so my friends could come help me with him.
“That’s just it, no one has seen anything but the teachers seem to be trying to protect you. You must be hiding something, and it’s my job to find out what.”
“Who do you work for?”
“Come with me willingly, and you will find out. You can be on our side. The right side.”
“I don’t think so. Your side is definitely the wrong side. You want to hurt people without magic.”
“Once they learn their place, no one will get hurt.”
“Their place?” I was having trouble controlling my temper, and I started to pull my magic to me.
Mr. Damon looked questioningly at me for a minute. “They are inferior. They don’t deserve to tell us what to do. We will rule over them, and they will do as they are told,” he paused. “I can see that you aren’t convinced. Obviously, you’ve spent too much time around them to understand,” he sneered and threw his hands up.
A cage of lightning started to fall over me, but I pushed a water bubble over my head and rolled out of the way as the lightning hit. Steam covered the area between us, and I took a second to try to figure out what to do. He was much stronger, and he knew what he was doing. I needed to keep him occupied until someone could help me.
Another blast of lightning hit my water bubble, and a burst of wind lifted me off the ground and car
ried me high into the sky. Mr. Damon lifted himself off the ground and hovered in front of me, his hands crackling with power.
“Are you done with this now? Are you ready to come with me, or do I need to knock you out?”
“I will never come with you,” I told him. I tried to call water to me so I could get away from the swirling wind, but something was blocking it. I could see the same gray color that had been in the elemental’s dungeon strung through the air around me. The only spot that wasn’t covered by it was where Mr. Damon was standing.
I strode forward, “I said I will not come with you. Now let me go,” I yelled as I walked up to him.
Mr. Damon didn’t say anything and closed his eyes. I felt my barriers go up in my mind and shut my eyes to see what he was doing. Thousands of snakes lay outside my barrier, trying to get in. Many of them were spitting poison at the barrier, and I could feel it weakening in many places. I threw another barrier of steel up, but one of the snakes managed to get in.
I used air to push the snake against the barrier and put a glass barrier up too. The snake was stuck between the two barriers. The metal was being eaten away by the poison from the other snakes. I put up a few more glass barriers and then opened my eyes, hoping they would last long enough to distract Mr. Damon.
I walked closer to him even though I didn’t want to, but I needed my magic, or he would be able to take me wherever he wanted. As soon as I was within arms reach I could feel my magic again. I couldn’t pull enough water out of the air to do much damage to him, so I called on wind instead. I pushed air out at him in a concentrated burst, and he flew through the air, barely righting himself.
I flew out of my prison of wind and quickly headed for the ground below.
“Sally, watch out,” Abby yelled.
I turned around and saw Mr. Damon behind me. He was gaining ground and had what appeared to be a coil of lightning in his hands. If he got that thing around me, it was going to hurt, a lot. As he reached me, Richard flew up. Tider used water to raise himself up to my level too. Thankfully we were almost over the lake, or there wouldn’t be enough water for him to get this high.
Lost Tides: Elemental Seekers Series Page 26