Chasing the Prophecy (Beyonders)

by Brandon Mull

  The tensest moment so far had come when Thag had rowed the bucket of orantium goo away from the Valiant. A single orantium globe was submerged inside the bucket, and he had crushed the sphere with a gloved hand.

  He hadn’t blown up.

  Now a team of three drinlings was aboard a launch, rowing toward shore. Sails angled to make use of the light breeze, the Valiant was sailing away to the east in order to put some distance between the ship and the possible explosion. If a little pebble of orantium could blow apart a mangler, and a piece the size of a racquetball could demolish a castle gate, how big would the bang be if this plan worked?

  Among other concerns, Jason was seriously worried that if the trick succeeded, Thag and the other two drinlings going ashore might wish it hadn’t. Although the landing party was supposed to try to row away before the fireworks began, the drinling squad was very likely on a kamikaze mission.

  As the ship glided farther from the shore, Jason watched the mission unfold through his spyglass. Framed within the magnified circle, the Maumet appeared on the beach before the launch landed. It looked to be made of stone, but it was hard to be sure. It might have been gray wood.

  The tall figure held still as the launch landed. After securing the launch in the shallows, two of the drinlings splashed forward and attacked the Maumet. Thag hung back with the bucket of goo containing the orantium pebble.

  Dodging a blow from a long arm, one of the drinlings slammed the Maumet with a mace, but the creature immediately turned to iron, taking no damage. Body shrieking, the Maumet brutally dispatched the drinling. Thag and the other fighter retreated hastily to the launch, leaving the bucket on the beach near the water.

  The idea was to make the bucket look accidentally abandoned. Selling the ploy had already cost one life and might cost two more. Thag and the other drinling rowed away from the beach at maximum speed.

  The Maumet stalked up and down the beach near the water, iron joints squealing. Then it paced over to the fallen drinling. Crouching, the Maumet extended a hand and changed color.

  “Bronze,” Farfalee said, peering through her own telescope. “He touched the ring.”

  Each of the drinlings had worn a few trinkets of diverse materials in case they fell in combat, to hopefully get the Maumet in a mood to sample substances. Jason knew the transformation was a good sign.

  “Now obsidian,” Farfalee reported as the Maumet became a glossy black. “The pendant. And now brass, the buckle on his knife belt. It went for everything we planted. Now it’s moving toward the bucket.”

  “We can see that much without lenses,” Drake murmured.

  Jason swiveled his attention to Thag and the other drinling. Was the other survivor called Fo? Or had that been Fo back on the beach? They continued to row hard and had already put a fair amount of distance between themselves and the shore. Jason aimed the spyglass back at the Maumet.

  Standing upright, brass body partially reflecting the water and the white sand, the creature stood over the abandoned bucket. Crouching, the Maumet touched the side of the bucket and turned to brown wood.

  Jason held his breath.

  “It’s reaching into the bucket,” Farfalee announced.

  Jason lowered his spyglass, worried about the flash. Thag and the other drinling fell flat in the launch. Jason crouched, barely peeking over the side of the ship. Would it happen?

  “He’s thinking about it,” Aram narrated hopefully.

  Jason covered his ears, watching through squinted eyes. Would it happen? Would it happen?

  Flaring a brilliant white, the Maumet erupted violently—a large primary blast followed by an enormous secondary explosion. The tremendous detonation sent vast quantities of sand and seawater spewing skyward. The concussion wave heaved water and sand outward and made the ship lurch, knocking Jason onto his backside. Even with his ears covered, the thunderous roar was painfully loud.

  Regaining his feet, squinting as a peppering of debris began to rain down, Jason marveled at the steam and smoke mushrooming up from the blast site. Seawater surged to fill the gaping void of the blackened crater. Most of the white sand beach was simply gone, along with a great deal of the vegetation behind it.

  The plan had worked! The Maumet had taken the bait, temporarily becoming orantium until the immediate consequence followed.

  Thag and the other drinling stood up in the launch, pumping their fists in the air. Raucous cheering broke out aboard the Valiant. Drake hugged Farfalee, lifting her off her feet and twirling her around. Drinlings pantomimed the explosion and pointed at the churning smoke above the devastated beach.

  Jasher clapped Jason on the back. “You just saved us all.”

  Jason could barely understand the words, because his ears were still ringing. “We owe the drinlings who delivered the orantium.”

  “They deserve thanks and praise,” Jasher agreed. “But the idea had to come first. You’re quite the trickster.”

  “I’ll second that,” Aram exclaimed as heartily as his small frame would allow. “I’ll take cleverness over strength every time!”

  Farfalee embraced Jason tightly. “You marvelous, brilliant boy!”

  He had never seen Farfalee so unreserved. Nor Drake smiling so broadly. Jason hugged her back, enjoying the triumph of the moment.

  Others pressed to congratulate him. Everyone was jubilant. The crew seemed even happier than when they had escaped the harbor. Hats were thrown high, some of them landing in the sea.

  Jason realized that the threat of the Maumet had been hanging over them more heavily than any other concern. From the outset they had all known that this obstacle would probably end their lives. But now they had destroyed it with relatively few casualties. One massive blast and the threat had been vaporized.

  Whooping and shouting along with the others, Jason managed to lose himself in the moment. There might be plenty of hardship still ahead of them, but right now they had a worthy cause for celebration.

  CHAPTER 14

  THE MAUMET

  As the Valiant gently swayed and creaked, Jason sat in his cabin studying the prophecy. While reading and pondering, he munched on a thick burrito improvised out of flatbread and fish meat. Sunlight streamed through the porthole. Since she had memorized the prophecy, Farfalee had written down all the words spoken by the oracle, so that he could examine them. Jason had been insistent, because he felt their current plan would get them all killed.

  After much debate, their best strategy involved circling the island, leaving a number of landing parties offshore at different points. A pair of squads at the far end of the island from the library would go ashore first, not advancing too far inland. If the Maumet attacked them, they would detonate an orantium sphere. At the sound of the explosion, squads would move in from the north and south to further delay and distract the Maumet. Teams on the eastern side of the island would race to the library in order to get the information and escape before the Maumet returned and killed them all. Jason, Farfalee, Aram, Jasher, and Drake would be members of the eastern teams.

  That plan outclassed the others mostly because it sought to dodge the Maumet rather than defeat it. It amounted to a high-stakes game of steal the bacon. But the strategy had many flaws.

  Farfalee had warned that it might take hours, days, or even weeks to find the desired information, depending how effectively the enormous library was indexed. Any major delay in finding the location of Darian the Seer could result in a fatal confrontation with the Maumet. Furthermore, the plan assumed that the Maumet would react to multiple intrusions by storming around the island and battling all the trespassers. However, if the Maumet was smart and meant to guard the library, it might react to the invasion by falling back to the library and slaying all comers.

  Jason felt certain that if the plan was implemented, they would fail to get the information, and they would all die. Quest over. War lost. Just because their current strategy was the best they had devised did not make it the right plan. They would be rely
ing on stupidity from the Maumet and a whole lot of luck finding the information swiftly.

  Rubbing his eyes, Jason tried to force his strained imagination to deliver better options. The oracle had seen a way they could succeed. The thought would not quit pestering him. Out of all the possible futures, there had to be one where they survived the Maumet. There had to be a strategy that would work. They simply hadn’t found it yet.

  Jason stared at the freshly drafted parchment. Farfalee had warned that prophecies seldom gave many specifics. They did not lead you step by step, strategy by strategy, to your desired end. But Jason didn’t need a full explanation of how to handle every upcoming problem. He just needed a clue.

  Most of the words were inapplicable. Much of the prophecy specified who should go where and when. Much of it dealt with Galloran’s attack of Felrook. He focused on the lines that seemed to have the most relevance.

  The last abode of Darian the Seer can be learned at the Celestine Library within the Inland Sea. The line referenced this part of the quest, but lacked details pertaining to their current problem. Jason knew where he needed to go. The trouble was how to get there.

  Several utterances toward the end contained some potentially useful statements. The parallel quests must succeed. Many present will perish. You must stand united. Maybe many of them had to die in order to get the info from the library. Maybe by working together and sacrificing heavily they could pull it off. That line of thinking supported the current plan.

  The most mysterious and potentially useful predictions were among her final words. A secret from the past can ransom the future. That seemed to hint that the information they would get from the seer could help them win the war. But maybe it meant a secret from the past could teach them how to defeat the Maumet and access the library. Farfalee, Jasher, and Drake had all lived a long time. Maybe one of them had forgotten an important detail.

  The servant will betray the master. That one was hard to pin down. It could refer to anyone. Was it possible that the Maumet would betray Zokar and allow them access to the library? Was there some way to appease the guardian and win it over? The prospect didn’t seem likely, but Jason was ready to consider any option.

  The pleasant paths have crumbled. Lyrian must be purchased with sacrifice. Those lines seemed to justify throwing lots of people at the Maumet from different directions and hoping a few survivors would escape with the information. But Jason still disliked that plan. He couldn’t picture any survivors. Sacrifice might be essential to their success, but success would not automatically spring from reckless, wasteful sacrifices.

  The last lines sounded more like clues than any other part. Our hope is red, like the blood of heroes; black as the bowels of the earth; and white, like a flash of orantium. The mention of blood seemed to once again emphasize sacrifice. Jason found the other two lines more intriguing.

  The bowels of the earth could refer to caves. What if a secret cave granted access to the library? Perhaps a cave that started underwater or had an entrance hidden on the island? A secret tunnel that would let them sneak to their goal unnoticed?

  Although he considered the possibility worth mentioning to the others, the idea failed to spark much excitement in him. If an entrance like that existed, it had stayed hidden for hundreds of years. It would be extremely hard to find. And the only reason to believe it might exist was a vague hunch. The line in the prophecy could easily refer to something else entirely. It might just mean a black object. Or the line might have nothing to do with this portion of the quest. Besides, just because they gained access to the library by a secret way didn’t ensure the Maumet wouldn’t catch them. The guardian had no visible eyes or ears. If it was like a lurker, the Maumet might notice their presence with more than the five normal senses. But a hidden passage would be much better than a wild game of capture the flag.

  What was white like an orantium flash? That kind of intense bright white was only really available from an orantium flash. What else came close? Sunlight on snow? Maybe an angel? Jason doubted a choir of angels would swoop down and rescue them.

  Could orantium itself be the key? If the Maumet was made of iron when impact occurred, the answer was no. Jasher had hit it with orantium to no effect. But what if the Maumet had been made of tooth enamel when the orantium had detonated? The explosion might have pulverized it. The tooth fairy would have been cleaning up bits and pieces for weeks.

  Was there a way to ensure the Maumet would be made of a fragile substance when the orantium hit? Strategically, tooth enamel had been an odd choice. The Maumet had been hit by iron weapons before it touched the tooth. It could have turned to iron at the start. It seemed to have selected tooth enamel out of curiosity. The others speculated that it had only assimilated the torivorian steel once it felt seriously threatened.

  Would the Maumet feel threatened at the start of any conflict from here on out? After the skirmish, it had experimented with different substances, becoming skin and leather and iron. If they could just hit the guardian with orantium when it was fragile, the problem might be solved.

  Jason resisted crumpling the parchment. Was he dwelling too much on orantium because it was their best weapon? The prophecy seemed to suggest orantium would be important, but it had already served them well. And certainly it would be important as Galloran attacked Felrook.

  The Maumet could transform instantly. What if they threw an explosive sphere, and the Maumet changed to crystal as the globe connected? It would be blasted into glitter. Might the Maumet arbitrarily change into crystal on contact? Or was it too smart? The Maumet had lived a long time. It knew how to survive.

  What if they attacked it with crystal weapons? Or weapons made of a brittle substance? Then if at any point the Maumet transformed into the brittle material, they would bombard it with orantium. The others had considered a similar strategy. But it relied on the Maumet being stupid. The creature had shown a single hint of recklessness. The Maumet had become tooth enamel and had lost a foot as a result. Could banking on a similar mistake be their best hope? Was that realistic?

  What would be the ideal material for the Maumet to become? Glass? Crystal? Jason chuckled. Orantium would be nice. It would blast itself into nothing. But there was no way to even bring the creature in contact with orantium. Once exposed to air or water, the mineral immediately exploded. After a globe broke, the mineral would detonate before contact.

  Wait.

  There was an exception.

  For the first time in quite a while, Jason found himself unable to resist a smile.

  * * *

  Within two hours they were ready to implement the plan. Gripping a collapsible spyglass in both hands, Jason felt he might burst with nervous excitement.

  The tensest moment so far had come when Thag had rowed the bucket of orantium goo away from the Valiant. A single orantium globe was submerged inside the bucket, and he had crushed the sphere with a gloved hand.

  He hadn’t blown up.

  Now a team of three drinlings was aboard a launch, rowing toward shore. Sails angled to make use of the light breeze, the Valiant was sailing away to the east in order to put some distance between the ship and the possible explosion. If a little pebble of orantium could blow apart a mangler, and a piece the size of a racquetball could demolish a castle gate, how big would the bang be if this plan worked?

  Among other concerns, Jason was seriously worried that if the trick succeeded, Thag and the other two drinlings going ashore might wish it hadn’t. Although the landing party was supposed to try to row away before the fireworks began, the drinling squad was very likely on a kamikaze mission.

  As the ship glided farther from the shore, Jason watched the mission unfold through his spyglass. Framed within the magnified circle, the Maumet appeared on the beach before the launch landed. It looked to be made of stone, but it was hard to be sure. It might have been gray wood.

  The tall figure held still as the launch landed. After securing the launch in the shallows, two of
the drinlings splashed forward and attacked the Maumet. Thag hung back with the bucket of goo containing the orantium pebble.

  Dodging a blow from a long arm, one of the drinlings slammed the Maumet with a mace, but the creature immediately turned to iron, taking no damage. Body shrieking, the Maumet brutally dispatched the drinling. Thag and the other fighter retreated hastily to the launch, leaving the bucket on the beach near the water.

  The idea was to make the bucket look accidentally abandoned. Selling the ploy had already cost one life and might cost two more. Thag and the other drinling rowed away from the beach at maximum speed.

  The Maumet stalked up and down the beach near the water, iron joints squealing. Then it paced over to the fallen drinling. Crouching, the Maumet extended a hand and changed color.

  “Bronze,” Farfalee said, peering through her own telescope. “He touched the ring.”

  Each of the drinlings had worn a few trinkets of diverse materials in case they fell in combat, to hopefully get the Maumet in a mood to sample substances. Jason knew the transformation was a good sign.

  “Now obsidian,” Farfalee reported as the Maumet became a glossy black. “The pendant. And now brass, the buckle on his knife belt. It went for everything we planted. Now it’s moving toward the bucket.”

  “We can see that much without lenses,” Drake murmured.

  Jason swiveled his attention to Thag and the other drinling. Was the other survivor called Fo? Or had that been Fo back on the beach? They continued to row hard and had already put a fair amount of distance between themselves and the shore. Jason aimed the spyglass back at the Maumet.

  Standing upright, brass body partially reflecting the water and the white sand, the creature stood over the abandoned bucket. Crouching, the Maumet touched the side of the bucket and turned to brown wood.

  Jason held his breath.

  “It’s reaching into the bucket,” Farfalee announced.

  Jason lowered his spyglass, worried about the flash. Thag and the other drinling fell flat in the launch. Jason crouched, barely peeking over the side of the ship. Would it happen?