by Otto Schafer
Tears filled Gabi’s eyes and spilled down her dirt-streaked cheeks. She shook her head. She reached forward, taking hold of Breanne’s hand.
Breanne dropped to one knee as a memory forced itself into her mind. She was in a large cavern with a dragon and a giant. Sarah was there with others, and all around her people were screaming and running. She could hear herself screaming too. “Mamá! Papá!” A woman pushed something into her hand. She looked down and saw it was a familiar chain, her own father’s chain, and on it was a wedding ring with a small diamond. The woman, she knew somehow she was Gabi’s mother, turned and ran away… and died.
Breanne grabbed the girl by the shoulders. “Oh, Gabi! I’m sorry!”
Gabi shook her head and said in a voice that was barely a whisper, “Gone. They are all gone.”
Breanne hugged the girl to her chest and squeezed her with all she had. She knew this vision wasn’t hers. It felt different and, besides, she had never seen a vision of the past before – only the future. She had no idea how the girl had shared this memory with her, but she knew what she had seen, and she knew what gone meant. Her brother was gone. Her mother was gone and her father… she didn’t know. God, she didn’t know. She didn’t know about Garrett or the others, were they… gone? This girl, this little girl, taking her hand in hers did something to Breanne. This young girl Sarah had talked about. The girl who was to be like a little sister to her when she was able to join the dig during breaks from college. Now they were together fighting for their lives. She couldn’t speak, didn’t know what to say if she could, but then it was Gabi who spoke.
The girl pushed herself back far enough to look at Breanne. She was holding the chain with her mother’s ring. “This chain was your father’s?”
“Yes. Did Sarah tell you?”
“No, you told me.”
Breanne frowned – she hadn’t said anything.
Gabi started to slide the ring off the chain when Breanne put her hand on top of the girl’s. “Hang onto it for me? Please?”
Gabi forced a weak smile. “Thank you,” she said, stuffing the chain and ring back into her front pocket before wiping her eyes with dirty sleeves. She looked away and pointed behind Breanne. “There is a town, but it is over an hour’s drive. The road isn’t that far though, and there is a farming village a few miles down once we get to the road. That’s where Fredy hired the laborers from. We will have to cross back through the gorge though. If we don’t, we will get lost for sure.”
With their hands clasped tight together they began to walk. “Okay, listen to me Gabi. We are going to go wide on the far side of the gorge. Did you see that bluish fog?”
Gabi shook her head side to side. “No.”
“Well, I think that is what’s making the ants and the monkey and god only know what else grow. If we see that fog, we have to avoid it and anything else we might see.” She stopped and pulled Gabi toward her, hugging her again. “Just stay close to me. We are going to get out of here, Gabi. I promise.” And she meant it. She meant it from the bottom of her heart. “Come on, we need to get to that road before the sun sets.”
Together they raced down deeper into the gorge, crossed the worn dirt path that led back to base camp, and over to the far side until it became too steep and thick to traverse. From there they began working their way along the gorge, horizontal to the trail. As they moved, they heard buzzing insects too loud to be normal. They foraged some long branches to use to bat any that came too close but so far none did. They did see more ants, some large beetles, and one butterfly the size of a dinner plate. They stepped carefully and as quietly as they could, always giving the insects a wide berth.
“Breanne! Look!” Gabi said, pointing.
They had come upon a utility truck, or what was left of it. Some of the cab attached to a twisted frame and one wheel was all that remained of the upside-down vehicle. It had torn a pretty good path through the jungle heading back toward base camp.
“I remember, Sarah jumped into this car right before I blacked out. Ogliosh told me she ran away.”
Breanne ran to the cab and squatted down to peer inside through the busted window. There was no sign of Sarah, but there was plenty of blood. “She’s not here but stay back and keep an eye out,” Breanne said instinctively, not wanting the girl to see the blood. She crawled into the cab, searching for anything useful but finding only a khaki work shirt, a wide brimmed hat, and half a bottle of water mixed among a scatter of other debris. She lifted the door to the glovebox and reached in to find a pistol stuffed into a leather holster with a spare magazine and a plastic box of 9mm ammunition. She grabbed it all and scooted herself backward out the window of the truck. She emptied the box of rounds into the cargo pocket on her thigh and clipped the holster onto her waistline. She didn’t want to shoot the gun, but not because she was afraid to or didn’t know how. Her brothers were military and they’d insisted she knew how, but she didn’t want to draw attention. Better to have it and not need it.
“Gabi, when the sun goes down it’s going to get cold,” she said, draping the shirt over her shoulders and placing the hat atop her head.
Gabi pushed her arms into the long sleeves of the oversized shirt and adjusted the hat. “Maybe Sarah is okay?” she said with a slight glimmer of hope.
“Maybe,” Breanne said, less hopeful. There had been so much blood. Too much. “Come on, let’s get to the road.”
They were cautious as they crept along, barely daring to speak as they made their way through the dense jungle gorge. Once they were off the mountain, they followed the same narrow trail that had been blazed to get the vehicles to base camp. The trail ultimately broke free of the jungle to a single-lane dirt road where they were able to jog. When they were too tired to run, they walked as fast as their tired legs would carry them. As they slowed Gabi began to tell Breanne everything about her time with Ogliosh. Once she got started, she didn’t stop until it was all out. She told her about the promise he had made her, and all the lies. She told her how after she saw the Sound Eye, she could get in Ogliosh and Apep’s heads, feel their emotions, listen to their thoughts. Then she told her about Apep’s plan, and Ogliosh’s army.
The inner earth? Middle earth? The same inner earth the space alien nuts talk about? Breanne thought.
“Yes, the same one. I know how it sounds. But he said there’s an army that’s been waiting and multiplying over thousands of years, a race of half-breed giants like the skulls we found on the tzompantli skull racks in the circular chamber—”
“Wait a minute, Gabi, are you listening to my thoughts?” Breanne asked, stopping to face the girl.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it, Bre.”
She hadn’t told Gabi she preferred to be called Bre over Breanne. “Can you control it?” Bre asked.
“I don’t know. I’m really sorry.” Gabi looked at the ground.
“Don’t be sorry for something you can’t help.”
She looked up and smiled shyly. “I’m really glad you’re here, Bre.”
Gabi threw her arms around her and hugged her so tight Breanne could feel the girl’s soul. For the first time she didn’t feel doom and sorrow. For the first time she felt hope. And for the first time, as strange as it was, and as bad as she missed her father, her brothers and, oddly, the boy Garrett who she had only known for a few hours, she felt like she was where she was supposed to be. Gabi needed her. She had to protect her. Now she just had to figure out the rest of it. “Now go on, Gabi, tell me about the army.”
They began to walk again. “Sarah said some of them could be as big as twelve feet tall, maybe even bigger! Don’t you see, those skulls on the racks were part of his army before they were killed, and Ogliosh was put to sleep by the mages. He lied and told me it was the dragons, but it wasn’t, it was us. Humans imprisoned him and now Ogliosh’s army, Apep, and the dragons are gathering to open the gate back to their planet. Apep said he is going to overthrow his father, but I was in his head – he wants mor
e, he wants to rule everything. He wants to be a god. And this place, Bre! This place, this mountain – it’s a pyramid. The whole thing is a pyramid bigger than any on earth and, even worse, it’s the portal!”
Ahead they saw a dark tree trunk lying across the road. Except this tree trunk was moving. “What the hell is that?” Breanne asked. Then beside them, just off the road, they heard the hiss.
Before Breanne could reach for the gun or even react, the giant snake darted forward from its hiding place and struck Gabi in the face. Gabi flailed and tried to scream but she couldn’t. The snake retracted, dragging her body back into the jungle as it coiled around her. Breanne’s body began to shake uncontrollably, and her vision narrowed. In the broken part of her mind, Christmas music played, a car crashed, and her mother died.
53
Farewell, Prince
Saturday, April 16 – God Stones Day 10
Petersburg, Illinois
“What do you mean trees are moving?” Lenny asked. “What kind of moving? We talking swaying back and forth or walking around?”
James shook his head. “Not walking per se but dragging themselves. And it’s not all of them. It just seems to be the big ones or maybe the older ones. Look, no one has seen them move, but trees are out of place and they leave a trail of churned-up earth.”
“How?” Garrett asked.
“We think they are pulling themselves along by their roots.”
“No, I mean how in the hell can trees be moving?”
“Oh, simple, it has to be the God Stones. They are altering things,” James said.
“Have you asked Coach about it?” Garrett asked.
“Well, oddly enough, he only woke yesterday. I tried to talk to him, but he said he would only talk to you and to leave him be until you woke. Except his language was a bit more – colorful. I thought about torturing him and perhaps if you hadn’t woken up today, I might have lost patience and ripped off one of the bastard’s pointy ears,” James said flatly.
Garrett looked back over his shoulder at Lenny, who held out his palms and shrugged.
They came to a room with two guards standing on either side of a large steel door. The guards dropped to their knees and bowed immediately upon seeing Garrett. Garrett recognized one of the guards as Darnell, but he went by Yogi. Yogi was several years older than Garrett and had always been a complete dick; now he wondered if that was all part of the plan. Part of his training? Another lie to add to the long list of deceits. Either way, he didn’t like the older boy bowing to him. He paused at the door before entering. “Please stand up, guys.”
The men stood. Yogi, looking at the floor, shoved a key in a padlock, and unclasped the door.
The smell of moldy basement, damp and cold, hit Garrett’s senses as soon as he entered the room. There were some folding chairs, a crate like the one Garrett had in the small room he woke up in, and the cot Coach lay across. The walls in this room were stacked stone, and the ceiling had rough-hewn wood beams. It wasn’t that the room looked old, just rough, like it was intended to be a food cellar or a horse stall, not a bedroom. Garrett let his gaze fall to Coach. Even in the unfamiliar elven form, Garrett could see he looked bad, really bad.
“Coach? Can you hear me?” Garrett asked.
No response.
Garrett approached the cot. Now that he wasn’t fleeing for his life, he had time to actually take in the strange appearance of the creature. He was so different, with his blue-grey skin and strangely shaped eyes and ears. They looked as though they belonged to a wolf not a human. Even stranger were his eyelids, shaped like a sideways s, that swooped out and faded away where his crow’s feet should be. His eyebrows, nose, and jawline were defined, with hard edges. He didn’t look particularly like any elf Garrett had ever seen in movies or books. He was very tall, not short, and his skin color didn’t fit that of any elves he had seen depicted either. Only his pointed ears fit Garrett’s conception of an elf.
Garrett leaned forward and touched Coach lightly on his shoulder. No response.
James frowned. “Careful, Garrett.”
Garrett frowned back and shook Syldan gently. “I’m here, Coach. I’m here.”
Syldan opened his eyes and smiled weakly. “Brick.”
James hurried forward to take up position next to Garrett.
Syldan shifted his golden yellow eyes toward James. “Ah, your… brother… he doesn’t like me.”
The others came forward too.
Lenny offered Syldan a drink from a glass that sat on the crate.
“Thanks,” he said, taking a small pull as he appraised Garrett and cleared his throat. “You look good for a dead kid.” Syldan smiled, weakly. “You know I tried… Garrett, I tried to save you from the worst of it… but I guess your Keepers had it right after all… Whatever was going to happen was going to happen no matter… no matter what.”
James leaned in. “How do you know about the Keepers of the Light? How do you know about the prophecy?”
“Back off, James,” Garrett said, putting a hand against his chest.
“It’s okay, Garrett,” Syldan said fixing his golden eyes on James. “James is a good man… a good brother. You are lucky to have him in this. You need to understand his mistrust. After all, my own brother almost killed him once before. But I am a friend. You see, long ago… I was a friend to Turek … when he walked the earth before the Keepers of the Light ever formed, before the Knights Templar, even before Egypt was Egypt and the word pharaoh was ever spoken. I helped Turek cast Apep into darkness. I placed the Elder Dragons in the seven tombs. I listened as Turek cast the spells that tied his blood” – he pointed a long finger – “your blood, Garrett, to the nephilbock and the dragons.”
James’s eyes grew wide.
“That’s right, James, I heard Turek’s plan from his own mouth thousands of years before you were even a tingle in your papa’s pants. I have been here since the beginning. Not idly waiting either. No, I have lived thousands of human lives on this planet, all the while wondering why the gods wouldn’t let me age, wouldn’t let me just grow old and die.” Suddenly Coach squeezed his eyes shut and grunted out a pained cry.
“Coach!” Garrett shouted.
“The pain will… pass.” He winced, then drawing a few slow breaths, he continued. “By the gods, a death in battle with my men would have been the sweetest death. I have served in thousands of armies and fought hundreds of wars. But as time continued its relentless tick tock… I began… I began to think it wasn’t the gods keeping me here. It was one god, Turek. I started to think he wanted me here for the day Apep finally unearthed the God Stones and broke the spell waking the nephilbock and the dragons. I convinced myself he wanted me here to save you from the worst of it. Now, after what happened and what my brother told me in that temple, I understand the reason I never died and still live now.”
“Why?” James pressed.
“In the tomb, Apep said time isn’t linear and that no time will have passed on my world since the last time the gate was opened. That was over twelve thousand years ago! This means my father will still be alive. My bloodline will still be in power. I am the rightful heir to the throne.”
“I don’t understand,” Garrett said.
“It’s okay, Garrett, in time you will. What I am about to give you, you must believe it… all of it.” He slipped his long-fingered hand beneath his blanket and retrieved a crudely folded piece of parchment. With a shaky hand, he pushed it toward Garrett.
Garrett reached out and gently grasped the paper. As the parchment slipped from Syldan’s hand, what remaining color he had drained from his face and his visage took on a new grimace of pain.
Syldan turned his attention back to James. “You feel… you failed… failed Turek when you could not… save him from… my brother.”
“Of course I do! He died because we couldn’t stop Apep!” James said angrily.
Syldan reached for James. Extending a long arm and finding James’s wrist, he squeeze
d it assuredly. “Let go of it, James. You did not fail… Turek died, but he did so by choice… so that one day his people… led by his descendent… the blood of his blood… the one reborn of dragon… blood and fire, could, with the help of his own chosen sages one day set right… a wrong from long ago. That’s what this is about, James. It’s about taking your people home and fixing the wrong.” Syldan gasped and began coughing uncontrollably as he turned his gaze to Garrett’s hands. In his fit of hacking, blood began to seep from the corner of his mouth, a bright trail of violet making its way down onto his chin.
Finally, bringing the coughing fit under control, he drew in a slow, shaky breath and studied the runes on Garrett’s hands like a medium might study the lines of a person’s palms before telling them their future. “Very good.”
“You know what they mean?” Garrett asked hopefully.
“What do they mean? They mean a great deal… they are dragon runes… that I know of… no human has ever… been marked with… with dragon runes.”
Garrett wanted to scream. He had had enough of riddles with the journal and enough of mystery with the God Stones. He just wanted some straight answers, but Coach was clearly in a great deal of pain.
But Syldan only nodded and closed his eyes. “All of you, listen to me,” he said, forcing his hand to lift, to beckon them close.
David and James knelt down next to Garrett and Lenny, who had already taken a knee. The single lantern lighting the room cast a portentous glow that reflected a strange hue off the face of the elf.
Syldan drew in a long breath and looked at each of them in turn as he spoke. “The prophecy was only the beginning. The ushering in of the events to come. I would never have guessed Apep would assemble the stones so soon. Only two times were the stones assembled. Only two times, but both times they were used to open the gate soon after. Now it seems my brother will use them to do much more. I am not sure how the Sound Eye will react over time on this planet or how this planet is reacting to the Sound Eye even in this very moment. I know what the prophecy says comes next. At some point in the coming months my brother will open the portal home, and you must be there when he does.” He settled his eyes on James. “Let go of your burden, James. You… have a new… burden to bear now. Do for your brother what… I could not do for mine… help him follow his path.”