by E. G. Foley
Immediately, he remembered from Sir Peter’s tour that beyond those curtains lay a set of narrow wooden stairs that lead up to the gallery, where the public was usually allowed to sit in and observe the proceedings.
The fact the curtains were lowered right now signaled that this particular session wasn’t open to the public. Which wasn’t a surprise, with all that was going on. But Jake still didn’t see why Stick should be allowed to go and hear the information and not him.
Maddox’s mother had returned, true, but both of Jake’s parents were still missing, taken by the Druids, if Fionnula Coralbroom was to be believed.
They certainly hadn’t been in their coffins.
I’m going up there, he decided. Hang the rules; he was part of this. But he’d need a little assistance to pull it off.
Nixie looked askance at him, also noting the red-curtained passage. Archie glanced over at both of them, his dark eyes full of resolve behind his spectacles.
Well then, at least we’re in agreement. He could see in their faces that they were thinking the same thing he was.
Of course, Jake knew better than to expect either of the geniuses to join him. Archie was not that much of a rule breaker, and Nixie would never risk her role as Aunt Ramona’s only pupil. For the sake of her magical studies, she had to keep her nose clean. Jake could certainly respect that.
As soon as they gained the lobby, the gnomes left them alone. The three of them drifted a few paces away and congregated nearby, exchanging conspiratorial glances.
“I need to know what’s going on in there,” Jake murmured. “I’m going to sneak up into the gallery.”
“How?” Archie asked.
Jake glanced at the witch. “Nixie, how’s that invisibility spell you’ve been working on?”
“Are you crazy?” she whispered. “No way! Not for this. Spying on the government? Sweet Hecate, I’d get in way too much trouble.”
“Well, I need some sort of distraction.”
Archie leaned his head closer. “Use your telekinesis, coz.”
Jake considered this, glancing casually back down the hallway. His gift had been wonky lately, but with Red back, it ought to be back to normal now.
“All right. You two just stand there and pretend like we’re talking.”
“We are talking,” Nixie mumbled.
“Let’s drift a little closer to the hallway,” Jake said in a low tone, glancing toward the corridor. “I’m going to distract the gnomes and make a run for it. I just need to get through those curtains, then they won’t see me.”
“Clever,” Archie said with a slight blanch. Unlike Jake, he did not enjoy defying authority, but he could be led astray on occasion.
They pretended to be having a delightful conversation, walking slowly as they talked, but it was just gibberish; they went as close as possible to the edge of the hallway, acting like they’d barely even noticed they had moved.
Some of the gnomes watched them suspiciously, but others paid no attention.
In truth, Jake was surprised any of them bought it, because, personally, he had never seen two worse fakers. Archie was famous for being a terrible liar, and Nixie had the most unconvincing fake laugh Jake had ever heard.
They never would’ve made it as pickpockets, these two, he thought as they drifted to another halt, still chitchatting about nonsense and laughing.
For his part, Jake kept an angelic smile pasted on his face, especially since he was the one facing the gnomes.
Sizing up the situation, he counted a dozen little Beefeaters guarding the entrance to the hallway. Once he’d distracted them, he only had to dash about fifteen feet down the corridor and then slip through those red curtains on the right.
He recalled that the cramped wooden staircase up to the gallery had been old and creaky, though, so he’d have to be careful not to make too much noise climbing it.
“You will let us know what you find out?” Archie murmured.
“Of course,” Jake said, smiling widely. Then he grew more animated, telling them a story that required a lot of hand gestures. “So there’s this new American game called baseball. Have you ever played it?”
His listeners eagerly said that they had not while Jake summoned up his telekinesis, praying it wouldn’t go wonky.
“Well, it’s kind of like cricket, only not as boring. You have two teams, y’see, and an umpire, with bases all around.” He waved his hands to and fro, pointing and demonstrating everything as he talked. “Each team chooses a pitcher, and he throws the ball—”
Suddenly, a large portrait of one of the founders clattered off the wall and banged down onto the floor.
The gnomes whirled around to see what had happened. Why, he’d nearly scared them out of their little red britches.
Jake bit the inside of his mouth again to keep from laughing as a few of the gnomes glanced at him suspiciously, but the rest were peering down the hallway, their backs turned.
“Then the batter has to hit the ball—”
A second painting mysteriously crashed to the ground as Jake pretended to swing a baseball bat.
“If he makes a good hit, he’s got to try to run. Run around aaaall the bases.” He circled his finger in a wide ring, and, with a slight zing of power, a third portrait farther down the hallway plunged off the wall.
The gnomes, unnerved now, began running down the corridor to investigate.
“Go!” Archie whispered, waving Jake on.
He went. Already in motion, he dashed into the hallway, quick as a thief.
Five silent, speedy paces hugging the wall, then he dodged to the right, whisking through the red curtains while the gnomes were still trying to figure out why the portraits had fallen—as if it might be a sign of some sort.
As the red curtains stilled behind him, Jake was already lunging up the steps two at a time, landing as lightly as possible, ignoring his aching thighs. To his relief, the ancient stairwell quickly crooked to the left.
The moment he rounded the corner, he felt that his chances of not getting caught improved. At least now he was out of sight.
He kept climbing the creaky stairs, trying to keep his footfalls quiet—and hoping that the geniuses had had the presence of mind to get out of the lobby.
It would only draw the gnomes’ suspicion if they returned to their posts and found that one of the three kids who’d been standing there a moment ago had disappeared, while the other two remained. Much more convincing if all three appeared to have moved on.
I do hope I didn’t damage those painting. In hindsight, he supposed that knocking the founders’ portraits off the wall might seem a tad disrespectful if he got caught. He winced. A bit late now to realize that.
At least it had worked. That was what mattered, he supposed. That, and not getting caught. Well, Isabelle was the virtuous one, not him, Jake thought with a huff. The gnomes shouldn’t have tried to keep him out.
A moment later, he reached the shadowed gallery at the top of the stairs.
He ducked down at once, not wanting to be seen by anyone in the auditorium below. It was noisy down there right now compared to the hush that had fallen over the crowd during Ravyn’s speech. He could hear many voices arguing.
Eager to get a clear view down into the chamber, he crouch-walked forward past the few rows of empty wooden benches provided for the public, advancing to the solid half wall that overlooked the formal chamber below.
Tingling with the knowledge that he could get in serious trouble for this, Jake poked his head up just an inch or two, carefully peeking over the edge of the railing.
Then he watched and listened for all he was worth, determined to find out what was going on.
CHAPTER 28
Revelations
Guardian Ravyn Vambrace looked like a different person this morning compared to the wild and grimy warrior woman who had burst through the portal last night.
That was the first thing Jake noticed.
Today she looked entirely r
espectable, even ladylike, in her long brown bustle gown, her jet-black hair pulled back in a tight bun. She must’ve just finished her speech, because she was walking away from the podium.
But whatever she had said, Jake wished he hadn’t missed it, for it was important enough to have set all the delegates at odds.
Across the chamber, members of the magical parliament were squabbling and pointing at each other, arguing amongst themselves, and shouting questions at Ravyn.
For her part, the weary Guardian was looking peaked and overwhelmed. Jake was startled to notice that she seemed unwell.
And, to be sure, her speech had caused a ruckus. There were boos and ayes flying all around the chamber. Unfortunately, the vaulted ceiling of the high Gothic hall made the voices blend and echo. From up in the gallery, it was hard to follow any one discussion—even for an experienced sneak.
Jake perked up when he saw Aunt Ramona hurry up onto the dais, lifting her hands.
“Order in the chamber! Come to order! Ladies and gentlemen, please!” The Elder witch rapped her wand sternly on the lectern. “Guardian Vambrace is still recovering from her ordeal! She’s told us all she knows. Leave her be. We owe her a deep debt of gratitude for her courage and endurance. Ravyn, thank you. That will do for now. You may take your seat.”
Ravyn bowed to Aunt Ramona, then continued down the aisle, apparently headed to join Maddox in the pew where he was sitting.
But then a startling thing happened. Ravyn’s usually taciturn son rose to his feet and began clapping loudly for her.
“Well done, Guardian Vambrace!” Maddox shouted, much to Jake’s amazement.
Others joined in, giving the fighter a well-deserved round of applause for her sheer survival grit.
Ravyn waved it off with a self-conscious smile, then hurriedly slid into the pew beside her son, embarrassed by the applause. Maddox put his arm around his birth mum’s shoulders and gave her a proud kiss on the temple.
Jake could barely believe his eyes. It seemed his friend had finally learned his lesson about appreciating the woman.
Thankfully, the round of applause also helped dispel some of the tension in the room.
“Settle down, please!” Aunt Ramona said primly to the crowd. “It’s time for our next speaker. Ladies and gentlemen, Agent Josephus Munroe will be the next to give a brief report.
“But first, if I may, I must interrupt the proceedings to share some wonderful news Sir Peter has just brought to my attention. I know we all could use it right now.” She beamed at the crowd, glancing around. “It seems my clever nephew, Dr. Archie Bradford, has just succeeded in retrieving the djinni Aleeyah from her smoke form.” Aunt Ramona gestured toward the new arrival seated in a distant pew. “Welcome back, Aleeyah!”
The audience turned around and looked at the djinni with exclamations of surprise. Aunt Ramona started a round of applause in Aleeyah’s honor, and the crowd joined in.
Aleeyah waved to them, half rising from her seat, but still looking nearly as weak and exhausted as Ravyn had.
Meanwhile, Tex limped up onto the dais, injured and walking with a cane, but clearly refusing to be daunted.
The red-haired cowboy had curled the ends of his handlebar mustache and donned his best duster coat to appear before the magical parliament. Ten-gallon hat in hand, he hobbled over to the podium and leaned against it.
Aunt Ramona backed away to give him the limelight.
Tex took a long, slow look around at the crowd. “Howdy, y’all.”
“Howdy, Tex,” a few in the crowd called back, chuckling, though many frowned at his unstatesmanlike language.
Jake grinned.
“Ladies and gents,” Tex began, “y’all know the enemy’s long had a hankerin’ to make their own twisted version of our Flower of Life device.” The American Lightrider held up his left arm where he bore the implant, just like Finderool, then he lowered it to his side.
“Again and again, they’ve tried and failed to reproduce one o’ these here doodads—and thank the good Lord above for that. But you know that bunch. Once they set their minds to something, they don’t give.
“Well,” he drawled, “since they couldn’t figure out how to make their own Flower o’ Life, they resorted to stealin’ ours, that dirty pack o’ thieves. That’s why they took me captive. Turns out they’ve been abducting Lightriders for a long time now. O’ course, we all know Lightriders have been disappearin’ and dyin’ under mysterious circumstances for a while now. Ten years, I reckon. And from what I just witnessed, maybe even longer.”
At this revelation, Jake thought immediately of his parents. He hung on Tex’s every word.
“In the place where I was kept, they had scores of Lightriders—I didn’t get a good count how many. Dozens, I’d guess. Maybe a hundred. Each one was confined in a sort of glass coffin. This took place in some huge chamber in the basement of the Black Fortress. A scientific laboratory.”
He took a deep breath and continued. “I was kept in a dream state of some kind, comatose, with my arm rigged up to some weird machine that pumped m’blood and made my heart beat and kept me alive. Fed me by tubes inserted in my arm. It wasn’t pretty,” he said with a grim half-smile.
“They were careful not to kill me, though. They must’ve figured out by trial and error that once a Lightrider dies, the Flower of Life in his arm dies, too. Then it’s of no use to ’em.
“It’s not us Lightriders ourselves that they want, y’see. It’s the Flower of Life. Why? Well now, that’s hard to say.” Tex glanced at Aunt Ramona, then at the crowd again, but Jake was reeling, wondering if this had been done to his parents, too.
Moreover, what Tex was describing sounded exactly like the vision Archie had confided in Jake that he was having back in Sicily…
“The best we can reckon,” Tex continued, “they plan to open as many portals as they can all at one time and launch simultaneous attacks in multiple locations, sendin’ that army through the Grid that Miz Ravyn just mentioned to y’all.”
Jake stared, holding his breath.
The hall had gone utterly silent.
“That’s about all I know,” Tex concluded, giving the parliament a modest nod.
At once, Aunt Ramona glided over to him, taking the injured Lightrider by the elbow. “I know you all have questions,” she addressed the crowd, “but we must let Agent Munroe rest. He’s been through a terrible ordeal. For now, he’s shared the essential points for our discussion.”
Shaken as they were by his revelations, the delegates began clapping for Tex.
That pleased him, the ham. The cowboy tipped his hat to the crowd as he put it back on, and even managed to regain some of his Wild West swagger as he limped off the stage. “Thank ya, folks. Mighty kind.”
Sir Peter helped him down the few steps from the dais, and Aunt Ramona returned to the podium.
“Very well, ladies and gentlemen, we have been given serious matters to think about. However, I suggest we now take our break for lunch to let the information sink in. When we return for the evening session to continue our deliberations, we shall begin to formulate our response to these findings.”
“Wait!” someone shouted near the back of the auditorium.
Everyone turned.
Jake looked over as well, still in a state of shock from all he’d heard. He saw Aleeyah rising from her seat. The weakened djinni spy pushed herself up to a standing position and leaned on the pew in front of her.
“I, too, have news!” she said in a loud voice. “And you might as well hear it now, because I don’t know if Archie’s work will hold, or if I might still revert to smoke form. It’s too important to risk waiting.”
Aunt Ramona squinted at her. “Do you wish to come up to the podium, Aleeyah?”
“If it’s all right, my lady, I would rather stay here.”
“As you wish. But do speak loudly.” Aunt Ramona gestured at her to proceed.
Aleeyah nodded, cleared her throat, and looked around at t
he assembly. “When I was trapped in my smoke form, I decided to make the best of my situation by gathering intelligence for the Order inside the Black Fortress while our wizards and scientists worked on the problem.
“Some of you may know that, as a djinni, I can blink myself into any place I’ve visited before, simply by picturing it. It’s rather like our mages’ conjurations. So even though I did not know where in the wider world the Black Fortress sat, I could nevertheless insert myself inside the building since I had been there before.” Then she added an explanation for those who didn’t know: “I was part of the rescue team months ago that recovered Guardian Stone and Dr. Celestus. That’s how all this started. Wyvern hit me with a spell while I was mid-blink, and I’d been trapped ever since.
“In any case,” the djinni continued, “with all the dark enchantments on the castle, it isn’t safe to stay for more than a few minutes at a time, even for me. Moreover, not until now could I share with a single soul what I had learned.
“But, thanks to young Master Archie and Miss Valentine, I can confirm that everything Guardian Vambrace and Agent Munroe just told you is true. However, there is more.”
Aleeyah paused.
As Jake peeked over the railing, he saw her gaze linger on Aunt Ramona up on the dais. The lovely djinni shivered in her light, scanty clothes, looking spooked by whatever was on her mind.
“Tell us, dear,” the Elder witch encouraged her.
Aleeyah visibly steadied herself. “Most of you have heard of the dark elf, Duradel. The blind prophet of our enemies. The Drow priest is a great seer, though his talents have long been dedicated to evil.”
The delegates sitting around Aleeyah nodded. She nodded back, as though reluctant to finish her tale.
But she couldn’t quit now, Jake thought. The whole parliament waited on tenterhooks to hear her news.
“It seems that Duradel has given the Black Brotherhood a new prophecy. I’m afraid I…I barely know how to say it. For it concerns one of our own.”
A ripple of alarmed murmurs ran through the ornate space. Jake stared down over the railing, riveted.