Asceranon came closer, until he was an arm’s length away. The twins had to tip their heads back to meet his eyes.
“We need to find our mother, Alexandra,” Milo said, “before they do something to her.”
Asceranon thought for a moment. One of his bushy eyebrows twitched a few times, and then stopped an inch higher than the other. “Maximus and Zandra are your parents. Incredible. That makes you two very special where I come from. It’s the reason those men were after you. What are your names?”
“I’m Milo.”
“And I’m Emma.”
“And I,” the man said, “am Asceranon. But everyone calls me Ascher.”
He let out a sigh that blew Milo’s hair back.
“Maximus was like a brother to me. I’m sorry to hear of his passing. The blade and the blood that killed him are very hard to come by, but it’s the only combination capable of piercing the skin of a Sargonaut, even one as strong as him. I’m terribly sorry.” His voice wavered. “If you’ll excuse me, I—I need a moment.”
He strode past them and kept going until he was a small shape in the distance. He seemed to shrink as he sat—or fell—to the ground. Milo thought he saw the man’s shoulders heaving, but he couldn’t tell if the man was crying. If so, then he was doing it quietly.
Milo and Emma were sitting side by side when Ascher returned. He grabbed the lantern out of the carriage and approached. They stood to face him.
“Milo, Emma, listen to me. The world you grew up in is no longer home. Do you understand? Kovax and his men can find you down here, and if that happens, they’ll take you to the emperor to be enslaved or killed.
“Your parents saved my life once, as they saved the lives of many of my soldiers before and since then. I owe them more favors than I can count. But that’s not the only reason I’m doing this. The two of you are very special, more than you can possibly understand right now, so I need you to come with me and do as I say.”
He gave them a stern look. “I mean that. Follow my instructions from here on out. The men who killed your parents are very dangerous, and they won’t stop until they get what they want.”
The twins nodded.
“I trust you,” Emma said.
Ascher studied Milo. “And you, boy?”
“Okay. But only if the plan is to save my mom. I won’t spend the rest of my life hiding from them.”
“We’ll talk about plans later. I promise.”
“Where are we going?” Emma said.
“To my ranch. It’s an orphanage my wife and I started for Godkin children, including those like you, who grew up down here. You’ll be safe there. My kids will make you feel right at home. And you can meet my levathons. I’ll even teach you to ride them.”
He wagged his eyebrows at Emma. Her face brightened.
“I get to ride one of those horses?”
“It would be my pleasure to teach you,” he said. Then he whispered, “And don’t call them horses. It offends them. Now, it’s late, and we must go.” He raised the lantern, and the yellowish light against his broad face made him look like a ship’s captain about to carry them off to sea.
As the twins followed Ascher, Emma voiced a question that had also been on Milo’s mind.
“Are you sure they won’t hurt my mother?”
“They have no reason to. If they had wanted to kill her, they would have done that here, so there would be no remains. Look at it this way, little one. Your mother is a hero of legend, a warrior Acolyte who has fought in more wars than I can name. She’ll take care of herself as she has done for thousands of years. So, try not to worry too much. When I tell the Forge she’s alive, they’ll come back stronger than ever. They’ll send an army to save her.”
“That’s the plan?” Milo said.
“That’s the plan.”
He helped them into the backseat. Once Ascher stepped inside, the entire carriage dropped a few inches. Feeling more cynical than normal, Milo wondered how a fat old man like this would keep them safe in a world where men like Kovax had all the power.
“Got your seatbelts on?” Ascher asked when he was properly seated.
Milo searched for his. The parts were made of metal and came together with a hard clack.
“Now the top parts,” Ascher said. He reached back to help them with overhead belts that reminded Milo of the safety harnesses one might find on a fast-moving carnival ride. “There we go.”
Facing forward again, Ascher whipped the reins. The levathons sped into action, clomping across the field. Milo held on tight. A moment later, the thumping of their hooves went silent as four pairs of wings launched the carriage into the air. Within minutes, they were above the clouds.
Ascher glanced back at the twins, his hair and beard trailing like white fire. He nodded as if to say, Get ready, and then he swiveled the central steering pole accompanying the reins, a movement which caused the levathons to lift one wing and lower the other. The carriage veered.
He then pulled something out of a pocket in his robe. His billowing sleeves flapped as he held it out and pointed it up at the sky. A beacon crystal, like Milo’s, except this one was white and semitransparent, like an icicle. He spoke a few words that were lost in the wind. A ray of light shot forth from the crystal and cut a jagged white mouth across the sky.
The seam opened, revealing light that shone as if Heaven lay on the other side. There were things to be seen in that light—huge, colorful things that were hard to make sense of because it was all so bright where they were going. Milo tried to make it out. It looked like mountains and rivers, spread across an enormous landscape, glittering in the sun’s light.
“Astros,” Ascher shouted back at them, “realm of the gods. I think you kids will fit right in.”
They passed through the rift, leaving behind the darkest of nights to face a new day in another world—a land of gods and magic, and mountains that looked carved from gold.
PART III
LOST CHILDREN OF THE GODS
CHAPTER 19
Emma awoke to a cool breeze caressing her face.
Ascher sat at the front of the carriage, eating from a small bag on his lap. It made a crunching sound as he chewed. Around them, there was nothing but clear blue sky. Emma took off her harness and pulled herself up so she could look over the edge. She tried not to disturb Milo, who was snoring next to her with his hands up by his face.
The carriage was so far above the ground that all she could see were mountains and endless green fields split here and there by thin blue wires of river. A flock of birds passed beneath her, as small as a handful of white sprinkles. She gasped and fell back against her brother, who awoke with a start.
“Dad?” Milo said, blinking and looking around.
“Sorry. Just me.”
He didn’t seem to notice Emma.
“It wasn’t a dream,” he said, taking his harness off with hurried movements. He pushed himself up so he could peer over the carriage, then let out a gasp much as Emma had done and fell back in his seat.
Ascher let out a good-natured laugh. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of heights.”
He pulled the reins, turning the carriage in a forceful way. The twins felt their insides shift as they veered onto a different course.
“We’re running a little late,” Ascher said over his shoulder. “We’ll have to take the highway.”
Strapping their seatbelts back on, Emma and Milo both said, “Highway?”
The experience of getting onto the highway was one they did not want to relive ever again, at least not with Ascher driving. He shifted the reins over to one hand and used the carriage’s steering rod—a long pole connected to the levathons’ harnesses—to make them fly at a downward angle.
The carriage joined what at first appeared to be six long lines of multicolored boats. The lines ran parallel to each other and were going in opposite directions, three on each side. The closer they came, the more Milo understood Ascher’s use of the term “highway
.” This was indeed a highway, but without roads or signs. Levathons pulled small and large carriages, many of which were outfitted in bright colors and patterned fabrics.
Ascher joined one of the lines, but not without causing some of the other drivers to shout in protest. His carriage swung left and right, trying to squeeze through the tightly packed crowd, and as he sped up, passing the others, Milo and Emma held on tight and took in their surroundings.
The drivers looked like ordinary humans, except many of them wore robes and hoods or, if they were younger, colorful cloaks and neckbands. Metal circlets resembling crowns of leaves glittered on the foreheads of white-skinned young people with fair hair. A few of the carriages were richly adorned with golden vines against white, silky tapestries that flapped in the current.
Some of the poorer carriages were made of wood, and the levathons were skinnier. The men driving them wore simple cloaks and tunics. Rich or poor, they all wore fabrics that flapped in the wind like a thousand flags. There seemed to be many more poor than rich.
“Greetings,” Ascher shouted, waving one of his giant hands. He was waving to a large woman with extravagant, light brown curls. Her carriage, in all of its shapely extravagance, was straight out of Cinderella.
“Why, hello, darling,” the woman called over the wind. Loose skin hung from her arm and swished back and forth as she waved.
They flew like that for what felt like an hour, and then, suddenly, the carriage veered to the right, away from the highway.
“How much longer?” Emma shouted into the wind.
“Not long,” Ascher said. “I had to open the rift far away from the ranch in case we were being followed. Don’t worry, though. We’re safe.”
The air was clear and they could see for hundreds of miles all around. A mountain range stretched along their left; a dense and jagged accumulation of rock so immense that it seemed as though a planet had been broken up into sharp pieces and pressed into the earth. To their right lay an endless ocean of pure, sunny blue.
The mountains and the ocean were not as impressive as what lay directly ahead.
Back home, Milo had seen pictures of Rome with its domes and arches and pillars, and had always been fascinated by the city. He used to tell himself that when he had his own money and freedom, he would take a trip and explore every last bit of architecture, every sculpture, every painting that Rome had to offer.
But this wasn’t the Rome he’d seen in pictures. As he gazed down at the massive, sprawling city, he felt something leap in his chest. The sheer size and complexity of it—the countless buildings, the neat grid of streets, the aqueducts running throughout—made him gasp in awe. Emma noticed and also let out a breath of sheer admiration.
“It’s beautiful,” she said.
“So white,” Milo said, “and big.”
At the center of this massive, gray-white city sat an elliptical amphitheater, much like the coliseum in Rome and sort of like the football stadiums back on Earth. It was a giant, circular building made of concrete with tiers of seats around a central open area, and looked big enough to seat a million people.
The carriage was headed right for it.
“Where are we going, Ascher?” Emma squinted at the man.
“The Elysarian Amphitheatre,” Ascher said, chest puffing up with emotion. “Used to be the pride of Astros.”
“Used to be? What do you mean?” Milo said.
Ascher gave him a hard look and a nod. “Look down, boy. What do you see?”
They were flying over the city now. Milo and Emma peered over the side of the carriage and examined the roads and buildings. Something was very wrong, and the twins felt a plummeting in their stomachs.
“It’s empty,” Milo said.
“All of it,” Emma said. “There isn’t a single thing moving down there.”
Ascher made a hmmph sound. “You have good eyes. Both of you.”
Milo felt they were being shown this city for a reason. He thought of all the shabby carriages and grimy levathons he’d seen on the highway, the drivers obviously very poor. All was not well with Astros. He tried to remember what his father had told him about racial tension and the gods disappearing. This was all so new to him, however, that he didn’t have the faintest idea what could be wrong.
He knew one thing, though: the city beneath the carriage had fallen into ruin, and there was no construction anywhere, no sign that it was being rebuilt.
Ascher’s voice was gruff. “There’s a war raging in Astros, a war between those who support the Leonaryx Empire and the rebels who want to dissolve it. The city below us is called Formania, and it was once the capital of Taradyn, as well as one of the greatest cities in our history. During the war, the emperor and his low-mage cousin unleashed a plague that ate away at the stone, making it brittle and useless. Now Formania is home to scavengers and bandits, mostly—people who don’t mind breathing air laced with death.”
Milo examined the destroyed aqueducts and crumbling buildings. Massive chunks of stone lay in the streets. Entire sections of the city had been reduced to rubble with not a single edifice upright.
“Why don’t they come back,” Emma said, “and replace the stone?”
Ascher gave a sad sigh. “Maybe someday. But our people and our economy aren’t strong enough for such an undertaking. Our emperor only cares about defeating the High Republic of Theus and amassing more territory.”
A gust of wind shook the carriage. Ascher jerked the steering rod and made a shushing sound to calm the levathons. The creatures righted themselves, wings resuming their steady beat.
As the carriage took them closer to the heart of Formania, Milo was able to get a better look at what Ascher had called “the pride of Astros.” The amphitheater was mostly intact, though the countless tiers of empty, broken seats and the infestation of weeds overrunning the arena made it look ancient and abandoned.
“Why are we here?” Milo said.
Emma looked away from the ruins. “I don’t like this place. It’s—sad.”
“I like it even less,” Ascher said. “We’re here to pick someone up. Hopefully this won’t take long.”
CHAPTER 20
T he carriage landed in the amphitheater’s arena in much the same way a plane lands on an airstrip. The levathons touched ground and ran, fanning their wings to reduce momentum until they came to a steady trot.
At the far end of the arena, a gathering of white birds pecked at the ground. They looked bigger than the birds Milo knew from back home. A few took flight, shooting up into the air with a quickness that seemed extraordinary, considering how long and lanky their bodies were. Their mouths sparked.
“What are those?” Milo said, narrowing his eyes at the creatures.
“We call them Firetongues,” Ascher said. “Take a good look, you’ll see why.”
Milo and Emma squinted against the sunlight pouring into the amphitheater. It was not so easy to see the fire darting from their tongues, but after a few moments, it was clear what was happening. The birds were spitting fire at the ground.
“Why are they doing that?” Emma said.
Ascher smiled at her. “See all the beetles and insects on the ground by your feet?”
“Uh huh,” the twins said, studying the ground and its diverse collection of wildlife.
“Well, humans aren’t the only creatures that like barbecue.”
Ascher went back to the carriage. Milo heard a rustling noise and looked back to see him lift a small, golden telescope from a bag located somewhere inside. He put the telescope to one eye, closed the other, and began inspecting the seats.
“Hmmph. He’s probably passed out again,” Ascher said.
Milo looked at Emma. “Did you hear that? He said passed out. I wonder what’s going on.”
“Maybe it’s one of his kids.” They were both speaking in whispers now.
“Yeah, but why would he be passed out? That’s what happens when you drink too much alcohol. And you heard Ascher. This c
ity is full of bandits.”
A sharp ffft sound cut through the air, startling the twins. A moment later, one of the birds fell to the ground with an arrow sticking through its throat. The rest of the birds took flight with a great flapping of wings, flames sparking at the tips of their beaks.
Milo stood before his sister to protect her.
“It’s okay,” Ascher said. “He won’t hurt you.”
The twins looked around to see who had shot the arrow. The bird had been flying near the center of the field, and if the bowman had taken his shot from the stands, which seemed to be the case since there was no one else in the arena, he would have been aiming at little more than a speck in the distance—and to have gotten it in the throat, no less…
A cocky, boyish voice called out from the stands.
“You brought fresh targets. I hope they can run faster than these birds can fly.”
Milo looked to his right. There he was, a distant figure dressed in white with brown skin, standing tall and proud, like he owned the place.
Ascher cupped his hands around his mouth. “Boy, get down here!”
The boy laughed. He held a bow that was almost as tall as he was. With a series of quick movements, he slung the bow across his back, squatted, and sprang forward. Milo was stunned by the sight. The boy’s legs had catapulted him way up, sending him sailing through the air with his knees raised and his arms outstretched, like a skateboarder doing a massive jump.
“Whoooooooo-hoo!”
At the peak of his jump, the boy seemed to hang in the air for a moment, a small, dark silhouette against the sky, reminding Milo of his father saving Holly Gerald, and then he began to fall, somersaulting and twisting like a diver. The arc of his flight was more than impressive—it was not humanly possible.
He landed in the center of the gathering of birds, which had collected as if in mourning around the dead one, his sandals heavily slapping the ground. The birds screeched in terror and burst upward once more, dropping feathers all over the grinning boy.
He was closer now and easier to see. Brown skinned with a shaved head, his musculature gave him the appearance of a seasoned athlete.
Savant & Feral (Digital Boxed Set): Books 1 and 2 of the Epic Luminether Fantasy Series Page 13