by Mark Russo
“And how do we travel instead? If we can’t use the portals, I mean?” Maria squeaked.
Everyone looked at James, as if we had rehearsed it.
“Okay, okay. I get it. We’ll use one of my boards.”
James, Maria, Emma, and Vaim moved a few meters from the edge of the precipice as the Scottish guy summoned his noisy means of transport.
Valu followed them, but I grabbed his elbow. When he turned his almost startled face, I said, “Please tell me you have nothing to do with this.”
He looked at me sideways. “No. Even if I would’ve wanted to, I’d have no idea of how to merge two planes.” He turned and approached the others without allowing me to respond.
When I reached them, Valu took place on the opposite side of me, next to James.
The former students were still very talkative, and, if I hadn’t known Vaim was a robot, I would have thought he was one of them.
James pushed the board forward, and its grinding sound covered the young voices around me.
I saw Valu giving directions to James. The Reds’ forefather held one of his gadgets in his right hand, which I assumed was probably a compass, but they were too far from me to ask them.
Emma stood beside me with her arms crossed, so I avoided talking to her. She was staring at the tips of her sneakers, as if she was waiting for her turn in a doctor’s waiting room.
I focused on what my eyes saw instead. We were cruising at top speed, but my heels felt glued to the piece of rock. The city had almost been razed to the ground; some buildings though remained completely intact for reasons that baffled me. Even the asphalt had big potholes, as if someone had bombed the area. Above me, the sky shined in a sick mixture of blue and green, fading into each other here and there and making it quite hard to ascertain if it was day or night.
I spotted a small group of itchlings gathered at a crooked lamppost. The absence of the local beacon made them incapable of doing anything.
We passed an area with large, demolished highway bridges
“Laura, can I ask you a question?” Emma asked eventually.
“Go ahead.”
“Where is Vagras now?”
“He stayed in the Red Vault. He talked with Valu about it, but I do not know what they agreed on.”
She nodded with an unclear expression.
Maria, probably bored with not being part of the chitchat, asked, “You are Path of Time too, right?”
“Yes. I belong on the same path as you. I would say that happened many years ago.”
Her eyes brightened. “Was Akko your trainer as well?”
“Yes, he was. He’s nice beneath the gruff exterior.” When I raised my eyes, I was sure I saw him standing on the side of the road. “James! Stop!”
He did not hear me.
Emma and Maria joined me in a little screaming context.
The board slowed gradually then stopped almost a hundred meters from where I had seen him.
“We have to go back. I saw someone.”
“We can’t pick up everyone along the way,” James said, opening his arms.
“Trust me, this one, we need.”
He agreed and plowed the ground again with his magic skateboard.
When we were close enough, I could see him—that was Akko; he was there with us.
James stopped his vehicle, and Maria jumped off it in no time and ran toward our mentor.
As I walked there, she kneeled and made a lot of sounds.
He didn’t react much to her being all jumpy and noisy, but I did not complain.
“Hello, Akko.” I bowed. “It’s such a pleasure to meet you.”
“I wish I could say the same, Karat,” he hissed.
That went quite well.
“I’m so happy to see you. Why did you come here?” Maria asked.
Akko’s face became as grim as it could get. “They came into Aeg. They attacked the tree, Maria. That caused the planar collapse.”
The others gathered around us.
“Who did that?” Maria asked, still kneeling before Akko.
“The Communion, Maria. Karat’s friends.” He pointed at me with that knobby stick of his.
They all looked in my direction, so I had to say something. “You know it’s not as simple as that. I’m helping them now, only that matters.”
He came closer. “I’ve been helping them all along. Who do you think tore down the beacon in Paris, uh?”
“Happy to see you, Akko. It would be great to chat a bit, but we have a lot of things to do. We have to get going,” Valu said behind me.
The Grand Master in the Path of Time nodded in his direction. “Maria, come with me. You and the other girl. We have to take care of one thing. I’ll explain on the way. Valu and the others can go hunting beacons.”
“I knew it. He’s around for one minute and already bossing us around,” Maria said with a groan.
“How do you expect to be faster than us, Akko?” Valu asked again, puzzlement in his eyes.
“We have our means. We’ll meet in Stuttgart. You’d better get going. You have quite a lot of ground to cover on that piece of rock.”
“No one asked me if I was okay with this,” Emma grumbled while passing me.
We exchanged a few more irrelevant words and parted ways.
A second later, we were speeding again toward that city whose name I could not recall. I stood in the back, with James and Valu before me. The device he was holding resembled an oversized pocket watch. I didn’t bother asking him for explanations, as he was pointing straight in front of us while addressing James. We left the city ruins behind us and sprinted to the middle of a pillaged corn field when I emerged from my thoughts again. It all happened in one instant.
The board came to an abrupt stop, and we all flew through the air, our bodies twirling above ground. I was expecting to hit it hard, lose consciousness, or die, probably.
Vaim pulled another ace from his sleeve as one of his invisible shields wrapped us and protected us from the impact. The same intangible barrier surrounded us as we rapidly got to our feet. We all were all on guard, ready to fight.
Valu reached for something in his pocket. No one was around us; none I could see, at least.
“Something’s there, behind those bent corn plants,” Vaim whispered.
“Where? I see nothing,” I asked in a mumble.
“He has an improved vision, better than the one these human suits have,” Valu clarified.
“One day I’ll ask you to explain how you two guys met,” I said.
We trudged forward, each stride moving with care. As we got closer, the scene became clearer. A humanoid body was laying on the ground, belly up. The thick brown skin on his hands and face did not make me think of a human being.
“This guy does not belong to Plane K,” I told the others behind me. Whatever it was, it was dead.
“I know what this is,” Vaim said.
Both Valu and I gave him a questioning look.
“I think you should elaborate on that, honey,” I said, doubting he would get my sarcasm.
“You are right, Laura. This individual is not from Plane K. He is a Marcovian.”
“A Marcovian?”
Valu’s face brightened, and he kneeled by my side. He thoroughly frisked the corpse.
“Can you two explain, please?”
“You wanted to know how we two met, right? Plane Marcov is the answer.”
I had many more questions, but I realized James had been silent this whole time.
“James, are you okay?” I asked while Valu was still very busy at defiling the poor guy’s dead body.
“We should get going. We can’t waste time like this,” he said.
“Believe me, James. We are not wasting time,” Valu almost shouted. “I knew I would find one of these.” He raised an iron necklace and looked at James. “This is exactly like the one you have.”
“I don’t have it anymore. I gave it to Maria. She wanted it quite badly.”<
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Valu remained silent for a moment. “I guess it’s okay. Aaragul has enough power for the both of you.”
“Are we finished ransacking the dead?” I finally asked.
“Yes, Laura. This will help us greatly in our fight.”
“What was it that threw us in the air?” James asked.
“I assume their plane merged with ours as well. I think he used a weapon on us, but I don’t see it here.”
“Maybe it was someone else who fired it, to kill this guy, and we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
The others stood and readied for a fight.
I jumped in a temporal series and ran in circles around the area. If someone had been around there, he had fled the scene. “I didn’t see anyone around here. These Marcovian guys of yours, how dangerous are they?” I asked Vaim when I returned.
“It was a long time ago. I have no idea how much their technology has developed. Remember, most of our artifacts are actually—”
“We do not need to spill all the beans at once,” Valu interrupted.
“I think you got the gist of it,” Vaim added.
“Valu, we really need to talk.” I raised my voice a little.
He blew me off and asked James to ready another board. If that was what he called clear communication, we had two very different opinions on that.
23
James
The road was long and winding with all the patches of mixed soil. Each time we would pass over Plane K soil, the board would bump.
Valu had been silent for some time, and I was thinking something was wrong.
“James, did you notice any changes in your abilities?” he asked me, eventually.
“Nothing peculiar got my attention.”
“Can you please try to push the board faster than this?”
“We are already going fast.”
“Just try it. Let’s see if it works.”
I imagined the stone board to move faster, and it just happened. Despite the high speed, the air on top remained still so it would not blow us away.
“Very good, James. Now, let’s raise the bar a bit. Try to do something else. Think about something and just do it.”
Think about something and do it. Okay. A massive stone wall erupted fifty meters ahead of us. I stopped the board with a sudden move.
“James, it’s good we cannot fall from this thing,” Laura complained behind me.
“Okay, maybe you should ponder more what you wish for.” Valu laughed.
He was right. I had just created a small mountain before us. That would mean a brief detour. “All I thought was I want to summon the biggest stone wall possible.”
“Yes, maybe that is a little too much,” he replied kindly.
We moved around the giant mass of rocks I had just created and got back on the road.
One of the weird things about the planar collapse was I could no longer distinguish the weather conditions. It was always sunny, foggy, and slightly rainy at the same time. The same applied to the landscape before us. The open field resembled a collage of different patches of colored fabric randomly sewn together. When I looked better, I saw one of the soil plots appearing darker than the surrounding others. I focused harder, and I noticed another very relevant thing. Something was approaching us.
Vaim and Laura popped up by my side. “Can we avoid that thing moving toward us?” Laura asked.
“No, we cannot. That looks like a Marcovian tactical squad. They are coming for us,” Vaim said.
“What do we do then? What are they, an army?” I asked.
“The best you’ve ever seen,” the robot said.
The platoon marched toward us at a steady pace.
“I still don’t see how they will get us,” I said to Vaim.
Something above our heads exploded and threw me off the board and onto the field’s soft grass. My entire body turned to stone. Moving cost me a lot of effort. I summoned a smaller stone wall and took cover behind it. I checked myself but didn’t find any open wounds. My clothes though were completely trashed.
Another loud bang deafened me for a second. I took a quick look around but didn’t see any of the people who were traveling with me. Think James, think.
I heard two separate roars in the air. I peeked over the wall’s edge and saw two stone worms charging at full speed toward the Marcovians. The group of soldiers seemed still very far from me. I lifted my heavy limbs and leaned against the cold of the rock.
Another explosion shook the air, but it was far from me. Judging how slightly the ground shook, I figured it didn’t take down the two beasts I had summoned. I had an idea. Maybe it would work. The wall merged with a stone board, exactly as I planned. I surfed on the makeshift cuirassed vehicle so fast I did not manage to see if any of the others were still there.
They attacked me. Two other blows hit the other side of my stone shield, but they did not manage to shatter it. The world on my sides moved so fast it felt like being on a bullet train, looking out the window. Both of my underground beast appeared by my side, and I ordered them to charge whatever came in their line of sight.
I jumped backward off the board without stopping. My feet landed heavily on the soft ground and sank in. My body was much heavier than usual. After my board had distanced from me enough, I had an unobstructed view of the field and my attackers.
Both stone worms were close to the enemy. They really resembled humans, except their skin was brown and deeply wrinkled. They held long metal tubes I assumed were rifles. One of them fired at a worm, releasing a loud explosive sound. They were shooting at me with the same weapon. The hit decapitated the creature with no effort; it clean cut the beast’s jaws and forehead like a knife would through butter. My stone worm collapsed and laid motionless on the ground.
The other plunged enragedly into the ground then reappeared a few seconds after, bursting from below in the middle of the Marcovian team.
One of them was flung as the worm’s mouth grabbed it midair. Dozens of teeth ground through his skin and hurled his limbs meters away. The rest of the troop surrounded the monster, enlarging their formation. Two of them pointed another much smaller weapon at the worm and fired two shots. I didn’t see what happened, but it was enough to knock it out. Once the subterranean giants were down, the Marcovians pointed their guns at me.
I rushed to summon another rock wall. Their invisible bullets pierced through the stone and got to me. A large circular wound opened in my chest. To my surprise, the inner part of my chest turned to stone too.
They fired their weapons again. That time, the barrier in front of me didn’t help at all. A violent blow hit my right forearm, pulverizing it. Another hit the knee on the same side of my body. My kneecap flew a slight distance before landing in a spot of grass.
When the last piece of the now thin wall before me plummeted to the ground, the Marcovian troop was before me. They covered a lot of ground in the blink of an eye. They drew even closer. One of them, wearing slightly different clothing from the others, pointed a small gadget that looked nothing like a gun at me.
A vast hole appeared in the middle of my chest. He had hit the same spot as they had before. Rocks poured from my broken skin; even my guts had become stone. I fell to the ground, face first. The bruised knee abandoned, and the leg broke. I lifted my face and looked at them.
They stowed their weapons and drew closer.
My body shook like I was having a seizure, but I was fully aware of what was happening.
The big black Marcovian eyes stared at me.
Something lifted me up. My wounds healed, and my arm grew back. My skin thickened, and I realized my body was growing.
The soldier lined up behind me stepped backward.
My body size augmented even more. I could look down on them. It just wouldn’t stop. I stepped forward, and that proved I could walk.
The Marcovian now stood at least five meters below me; I was a stone giant. A few ran away. A couple stood and sw
iftly reached for their weapons.
I didn’t know what I was thinking, but I attacked them.
Their blows hit me first. They pushed me back, but that was as far as they got. I was onto them.
The first punch I threw missed the target. My hand penetrated the ground. When I removed it, my fist was twice as big as before. I swung another blow at my aggressors. I hit them both, a very literal interpretation of catching two birds with one stone. My colossal fist flung them much farther than I had anticipated.
One of them did not get up. The other tried to crawl away.
I grabbed a piece of debris from what once was a rock wall and threw it at him. That stopped him from trying to escape. I stomped toward him.
He attempted to wriggle from my grasp but failed.
I grabbed his head; it cracked a bit but not enough to kill him.
He cried as loud as he could anyhow. When he opened his mouth, I noticed he didn’t have any teeth.
“Talk!” I yelled into his face.
He didn’t, so I shouted again.
“It can either be slow or fast. If you talk, it’ll be fast.”
The guy hanging midair squirmed like an animal caught in a bear trap. “Thief!” He didn’t have any weird accents.
“I do not know what you are talking about.”
He tried to move my fingers from around his cranium but failed. “You stole from us.”
“It’s the first time I’ve seen you. How could I have done that?”
He went for his gun, so I just ended him.
I looked around but didn’t see any of the others. If they had seen me at that moment, they probably would have run. So, it was just me, two Marcovian corpses, and ruined corn fields for as far as I could see.
24
Maria
That tiny old monster. He had us walking for hours and didn’t even give us any semblance of an explanation.
“Isn’t that James’s pendant?” Emma asked distractedly.
“Yes, it is. He gave it to me. Valu said we should both use it.”
She nodded while shrugging.
“That thing will kill you if you wear it too much,” Akko spat, scampering before me.
“How long is too long?” I asked.