by Aisha Saeed
Diana, Sakina, and Augustus continued flying, headed to the island’s opposite side. As they approached, Diana spotted what seemed like a lit dock stretching out into the ocean. From where they flew, it looked like a line of glimmering silver. As they passed by, Diana could barely make out four men, tall and broad-shouldered, pacing its length. Another dock—this one unlit and empty—lay parallel to it in the distance.
“Are those your docks?” she asked.
“Yes. One of those structures—the brighter one—is more of a runway, though,” he said. “The gods use it to take off and land with their chariots. The one next to it is our regular dock for boats and ships.”
“And those men on the silver runway…” Sakina’s voice trailed off.
“They’re waiting for us,” he said. “I told them I’d meet them there. But we’re pretty high up and far away, so they won’t see us land. I steered us at this precise angle to stay out of their line of sight or hearing.”
Diana glanced at the boy. She still didn’t know if she could trust him, but at least there was this. He hadn’t turned them in immediately.
Suddenly she froze. The chariot was trembling. Until now it had flown smoothly without so much as a bump in the air.
“What’s going on?” Diana asked. She gripped the edge against the sudden turbulence. Her body vibrated along with the vessel.
“Is the spell wearing off?” Sakina asked, glancing around.
“No way.” Augustus shook his head. “I used enough powder for it to fly us three times as far. It can’t be—”
The chariot sputtered before jerking forcefully to a stop in midair. Diana’s head slammed into the glass edge. Skull throbbing, she peered over the side to see what they’d crashed into. But the tree line was hundreds of feet below them. Besides Mira pulling the chariot, there were no other birds or flying creatures of any sort in the night sky. What is going on? Diana turned to Augustus to ask, but before she could say a word, without warning, they plummeted.
Diana’s heart leapt in her throat. Sakina crouched next to her, arms over her head, bracing for impact. The chariot dipped hundreds of feet, careening at full speed toward the ground. Augustus gritted his teeth and pulled at the reins. His face grew red from the effort. Instinctively Diana reached out to help him. She yanked on the ropes with him until the chariot screeched to a stop. They had pulled up in time to hover just above the treetops.
“What—is—happening?” Diana breathed out.
“I don’t know!” Augustus shouted. “It’s never done this before.”
“We need to land it. Now!” Diana said.
“Yes, but—” Augustus’s voice was drowned out by a sharp, splintering shriek.
Diana felt the blood leave her face.
This isn’t happening! she thought frantically. I’m dreaming. I must be.
But it was no dream. Before her eyes, and still hundreds of feet above the ground, the front of the chariot began cracking in two.
“It’s the protective potion at work! The force field!” Augustus shouted over the sound of breaking glass. “It’s the only explanation!”
“You didn’t plan for that?” Sakina yelled.
“I knew it stopped people from leaving. I didn’t realize it could attack people coming in!”
“You have to land this. Now!” Diana yelled as the chariot began shaking and plummeting again.
“I’m trying!” He strained against the reins as the chariot stopped and wobbled roughly from side to side. “It’s not budging. We’re stalled.”
The crack along the front of the chariot grew wider. It split the front of the vessel in two and ripped along the glass floor beneath their feet like a zipper coming undone. Any minute now it would chop the chariot in half, leaving them to fall to their deaths.
“We need to jump!” Diana said. Her heart pounded in her ears. “It’s our only shot.”
“Jump where?” Sakina shouted. “We’re too far up!”
“A tree?” Diana glanced below. “Maybe the branches could stop our fall?”
“Or knock us out.” Sakina shook her head.
“Maybe,” Diana said. “But we don’t have a choice. I don’t see where else we can go.”
But before they could do anything, the chariot pitched forward and then dipped again, dropping dozens of feet until it slammed to a stop in midair. Diana’s stomach hurt. They’d moved farther away from the cluster of trees.
“To your left!” Augustus yelled. He pointed to a grassy stretch below them surrounded by a grove of trees. “If we jump right now from this angle, the odds are good we’ll land on that soft patch of grass.”
Diana hesitated. They were still quite far up. If they didn’t fall exactly where Augustus pointed, they could break an arm or a leg…or worse.
An ear-splitting crunch filled the air. The front half of the glass chariot shattered and crumbled off; the debris fluttered like dust to the ground. A gaping space stared back from where the front of the chariot used to be.
Diana swallowed. They had to jump. There was no other choice.
“Let’s go! Now!” she shouted.
“I can’t!” Sakina’s eyes watered. “We’re going to get killed!”
“We’ll definitely get killed if we let this thing break apart in the sky!” Diana reached over and squeezed Sakina’s hand. “We have to jump. It’s our only chance! One. Two. Three. Now!”
Diana’s heart jammed into her throat as they leapt. Their bodies fell freely, spinning in the air. Mira’s panicked chirps screeched in her ears. The dark scenery flashed by in a blur. Her stomach churned. Would this be the last memory she would ever have? Spiraling through the air to her death?
Within seconds she landed with a hard thump on dewy, damp grass. Diana lay still for a moment, stunned, and slowly pressed herself up by her elbows. She watched as the chariot nose-dived, shattering against a rocky outcrop by the shore. Her body ached from the fall, but looking at the pile of debris in the distance, she shuddered. It could have been much worse.
“That was close,” Diana said softly. She rubbed her arms. They were bruised, but they would heal. Glancing around in the darkness, she squinted to make out the terrain. Light-colored rocks and tall boulders lined the shore’s edge. The rest of the first plane—as Augustus had called it—was wooded, with lush green trees and a hill that stretched up behind them.
“Is everyone okay?” she asked.
“Think so,” said Augustus. He sat across from her, gingerly inspecting his knee.
“Put me down as a solid definitely not okay,” Sakina groaned.
Diana’s eyes widened. Sakina hadn’t been so lucky in her landing. She’d fallen a few steps farther from her and one of her legs seemed to have taken the brunt of the fall. Diana could see it was bent at an awkward angle and swelling fast.
“Don’t move it!” Diana rushed to her friend’s side.
“Couldn’t move it if I wanted to,” Sakina said through clenched teeth.
“Oh no.” Augustus hurried over, pulling a jar from his leather pouch. “Looks like a break. I have a cream that can help. I’m accident-prone; I always keep it on me. Heals bones in a matter of seconds but stings a bit when you apply it.”
“And how do I know your potion won’t put me to sleep…or worse?” Sakina eyed the jar suspiciously.
“I—I don’t blame you for not trusting me. Not sure I’d believe me either if I were you,” Augustus said quietly. He pulled out the jar and dabbed some of the white cream on his own arm and then held it out for her. “The bones burn as they fuse back together and heal, but it won’t harm you. I swear on my life.”
“Fine.” Sakina gritted her teeth. “Whatever makes this pain stop, I’ll do it.”
Her expression was pinched as he kneeled by her side and applied the cream.
“Give it a few seconds,” he said. “It’s fast-acting. But I can apply more if it doesn’t take properly the first time.”
They watched and waited. Sakina’s expression grew flushed as she struggled against the pain. But then she exhaled. Before their eyes, the swelling began to go down.
“It worked.” She stretched her leg out. Gingerly, she stood up and put her weight on it. She looked at Augustus. “That’s incredible….Thank you.”
“Glad I can help,” Augustus said. “It’s the least I can do.”
The clouds shifted, covering the moon’s rays and enveloping the three of them in near-total darkness. Gone were all the visual markings. Even the trees were hidden beneath the blackness. The entire island looked like it had been dipped in ink.
“We should get a move on,” Augustus said urgently. “If it stays this dark, it’ll take us double the time to hike to the top plane.”
“What’s the best route?” Diana asked.
“There’s only one direction to go,” he said. “Up. But I think if we veer right, it’s less likely to be muddy.” He took a step back and pointed. “It also…”
The rest of his words died in his mouth.
His eyes grew wide. He tipped backward.
And suddenly he was gone.
At first Diana thought she’d imagined it. People didn’t disappear into thin air.
Or did they?
“Augustus!” Diana called out. She scanned the darkened hillside and unfamiliar land.
“What happened?” Sakina said slowly.
A faint voice cried in the darkness.
“Down here! Help!”
“Augustus?” Diana glanced around. “Where are you?”
“Below you!”
She took a step forward and stopped with a start. The dirt beneath her feet crumbled, loose and soft.
“There’s some kind of hole here,” Diana whispered.
“Can you shine a light for us, Mira?” Sakina asked the bird.
Mira swooped down and settled on Sakina’s shoulder. She blinked rapidly until her silver eyes lit beams into the darkness.
At the edge of Diana’s feet lay a gaping pit. And there, at the bottom, was Augustus. He was coated in dirt. His eyeglasses were bent at an angle. He looked up at them with unmasked fear in his eyes.
Diana dropped to her knees and reached out her hands. The pit wasn’t terribly deep, but it extended far enough that he’d need them to lend a hand if he was going to try to climb out.
“Can you grab my arm?” she asked him. “I’ll have you up in no time.”
“Can’t…move…,” the boy whispered.
“Why not?” Diana asked. But then she gasped.
Spiders. Enormous ones. They teetered on spindly legs and looked like large, furry coconuts. There were at least forty of them. They swarmed the pit and surrounded Augustus.
“These—these are rapting spiders,” Augustus said tensely. “A-any part of your body they bite gets infected and dies off….There’s no known antidote.”
Three of the spiders lurched closer to Augustus. Diana’s stomach turned.
“Can you talk to them?” Diana asked Sakina. “Tell them to stand back.”
“I can try,” Sakina said slowly.
She leaned down and clucked her tongue. She snapped her fingers. Looking down, she paused to listen. Then she clucked again and snapped louder.
“Well, I can talk to animals—but that doesn’t mean they always listen to me.” Sakina’s expression was pale beneath Mira’s silvery gaze.
“What did they say?” Diana asked.
“I told them to leave him alone. They said they were dropped here hours ago. A creature promised them they would receive a boy for a delicious meal so long as they left alone the girl he’d brought with him.” She looked down at Augustus. “Is there anything else on the island that the spiders like to eat?”
“C-caribou,” Augustus said. His voice shook with terror. The spiders stood close to him now, their legs brushing against his feet.
“Perfect.” Sakina leaned down and spoke again. Diana watched tensely as the spiders hissed back at her. Sakina shook her head and bit her lip.
“What’d they say?” Diana asked.
“I told them there’s a dead caribou over by the dock. They got excited but said the boy would make a fine appetizer before they went there.”
“Let’s pull you up. Now!” Diana insisted, extending her hand toward the boy.
“No!” Augustus shook his head quickly.
“I know it’s risky. But it’s better than being eaten alive!”
“They bite with lightning speed. If they get any idea I’m even thinking about it, it’ll be over.”
Diana watched more spiders creep closer and closer to Augustus. She’d never known spiders could grow so big. Or look this sinister. Themyscira didn’t have vicious creatures like this. She wondered what other horrors lay in wait for them on this new, strange island.
Mira perched on Sakina’s shoulder. Suddenly Diana jolted.
“Sakina!” Diana exclaimed. “Can you tell them that if they don’t get to the caribou now, Mira will beat them to it?”
“You think they’ll buy it?” Sakina eyed the bird. “She’s kind of, um…small.”
“She might be tiny,” Diana said. “But what about her whole crew of birds flying fast toward the island? Together they can eat the caribou in a matter of seconds.”
Sakina smiled. “A trick within a trick. I like it.”
Sakina spoke again. Urgently, she pointed to the bird. The spiders clicked and snapped.
Diana held her breath. Would it work?
Abruptly, the spiders turned from Augustus. Forming a line, they clicked their jaws and climbed up the other side of the pit. Then, one by one, they disappeared into the night.
Diana’s body felt weak with relief. It worked.
“Hurry!” Augustus called out. “They’ll be back, and when they are, they’ll be angry.”
Both girls held their hands out. He grasped their palms, and then, his feet digging into the dirt walls, he made his way up and out of the shallow pit.
Stumbling onto the grass, he bent at the waist and gasped. His body trembled.
“I thought I was d-done for,” he said shakily. “You both saved my life. Thank you.”
They started heading toward the nearby tree line. “Why would someone dig this up in the middle of nowhere?” Diana asked.
“It’s new,” Augustus said. “I know every inch of this land. There’s no way it was here before tonight.”
“Fits what the spiders said about being dropped here just hours earlier,” Sakina told them.
“We’ll need to be careful,” Diana began as they entered the cover of trees. “There could be more of them and—” She startled. Just ahead, over Sakina’s shoulder, a thick net of rope sewn into a spiderweb-like design swung toward them like a catapult. “Duck!” she shouted.
Instantly, they dropped flat to the ground. The air swooshed above them, the contraption missing them by a hairsbreadth.
The three of them stared at the net, swinging loose in the air behind them.
“And that was not there before, either,” the boy said flatly.
Sakina gasped. “Is that a spiderweb from the spiders we just tricked?”
“Rapting spiders don’t weave webs of rope.” Augustus shook his head.
“Traps,” Diana said slowly. “The demon set out traps.”
“He didn’t do it himself,” Augustus said. “The knotting on it—those are triple knots—the same as the ones we use on our specialty chariots. He enchanted my people to do his dirty work while I was gone.”
“How many traps could he have laid out for us?” Sakina asked, glancing around.
“I
haven’t been gone all that long,” said Augustus. “It can’t be all that many….”
His voice trailed off because just then the clouds parted slightly. Enough for the moon to reveal the island stretching into the distance before them. Looking around, Diana gasped.
“Are those…bear traps?” Sakina asked, her voice a whisper. She pointed to a metal claw partially buried beneath the dirt just steps away.
“Not only bear traps,” Augustus said softly, gesturing to the hillside.
Panic flooded through Diana as she followed his gaze. Some of the traps were covered haphazardly with fallen leaves and branches, but it was impossible to miss most of them: Freshly turned earth, betraying more pits. Nets tied to trees. Metal teeth opened wide and scarcely hidden. As far as they could see—the entire perimeter of the island leading to the second plane was filled with traps.
For her.
Silently, they took in the hillside before them. Two tightly coiled nets lay fastened to the ground near their feet. Metallic edges of other entrapments and contraptions stretched across the rocky, tree-lined mountainside.
“There are hundreds of them,” Diana said slowly. “They’re everywhere.”
“He must have had everyone on the island working on it while I was away,” said Augustus. “There’s too many of them laid out. There’s no other logical explanation.”
It was hard for Diana to wrap her mind around how one person managed to control so many people simply with what he said and how he said it. Her lasso could reveal the truth, but it didn’t compel people to commit heinous acts against their will. The demon had a power more dangerous than any sword or weapon.
“We’ll have to be extra careful,” Sakina said. “I can offer to be— Whoa!”
She leapt back.
“My foot started sliding!” she exclaimed. “Is that…Is it a rope…with blades?”
Looking at the ground, they saw that, indeed, a rope lined with sharp spikes lay tucked among pine needles mere steps from where they stood.