Xan glanced at his companions, who shook their heads.
“Athen mentioned he dropped the Book of Spells back in the wilderness,” Falon said. “We should find it. Hathor will need it to locate the queen.”
“I agree. We need that book,” Jaz replied. “It may not lead to a solution to your problem, but we can find Queen Ann, and after she hears of your predicament, she will want to talk to the Olympians. They tend to do whatever she asks. I am sure she will try to find a way to make the copy of their stone that you desire.”
“We are deeply indebted to you for your aid,” Xan said, a smile growing wide across his face.
“Hold that thought until we find the queen,” Falon replied, and Jaz could tell he was just as happy to help them as she was.
They made their plans to track the book down.
Chapter Twelve
In the Wilderness
Planet: Lone
At sunrise, Ann and Hathor left the cave to find the lake the Augurs told them to go to.
“Gaius said to follow the lilacs. They will direct us to the lake,” Hathor told Ann.
“I shouldn’t be surprised Gaius didn’t explain why we need to turn into merpeople and meet them at the bottom of the lake,” she wryly said. “Should we get the Book of Spells first? Athen lost it when we jumped out of the spaceship.”
He grimaced. “Did the Nicals or Pallid have it?”
“I don’t think so. At least, they never mentioned it.”
“From the way Gaius talked, it sounded like meeting him was a priority. We’ll just have to hope no one finds the book before we’re able to come back for it.”
She nodded.
They walked through the forest, weaving around the trees and stepping over tree roots.
“I’m glad the Royal Palace is located in the valley,” she commented after nearly tripping on another tree root. “I’ve had enough of trees to last me a lifetime.”
He grinned. “You don’t love these wonderful obstacles?”
Laughing, she said, “I won’t justify that with a response.”
He reached out and squeezed her hand. “I’ll catch you if you fall.”
By the time they found the lilacs, the suns were high in the sky. Ann guessed it was mid-day. Her growling stomach was a constant reminder she needed to rest and eat.
“I need to stop,” she finally said. “Do you know if there’s anything edible to humans on this planet?”
He paused. “I wish I knew more about this place. The Nicals did a good job of hiding their identity from the rest of the galaxies. There must be food we can eat because the gold fish are edible.”
She studied their surroundings. She watched a squirrel run up a tree. A bird flew off one of the tree’s branch. The animals looked just like Earth’s animals, but she hadn’t eaten squirrels or birds on Earth, and she wasn’t thrilled with the idea of starting now. A few insects crawled over a moss-covered tree in front of her. She didn’t want to eat bugs either. She shivered in disgust. Apparently, she wasn’t as hungry as she thought.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, letting go of her hand.
She watched him as he ran down the hill until he came to one of the many trees. He quickly climbed up it.
“Where does he get so much energy?” she murmured.
She was doing well to keep walking. Her side still ached from all the running she’d done the day before. She glanced at the ground apprehensively. She didn’t really want to sit on the dirt and fallen leaves, but her legs were crying out for relief. Sometimes being a queen wasn’t fun, and this was one of those times. Reassuring herself she would throw her clothes out as soon as she got back to Raz, she reluctantly sat down. She recalled how she didn’t mind being on Forestaria on her journey to Raz to become queen, and Forestaria was full of trees. But then, Forestaria wasn’t as dirty or filled with creepy insects as Lone was. Or maybe it was simply because she was five years older now and beginning to notice these things. Either way, she was glad Hathor was with her.
When he returned, he carried as many apples as he could in his arms. “This is the best I can do unless you want me to cook up a squirrel or a rabbit. I don’t see any other animals out here, though I know they exist on this planet.”
“No, that’s alright,” she said. “These apples will do. Besides, we need to save some room for those gold fish at the lake.”
“These should tide us over until then.”
“I wonder who Pallid is,” she reflected after she swallowed a bite of her apple. “I can’t help but think people enjoy trying to kill me. First Omin, then his clone, and now this guy. Does the Queen always have this problem?”
“My mom did when she was queen. I think it goes with the job. That’s why one of the king’s jobs is to protect the queen,” he replied. “It’s a good reminder to appreciate what you have while you have it.”
She stared at her half-eaten apple. “That’s true.”
“You’ll be alright. Gaius said Amanda would be born. That means you will make it through this.”
“Does he really know the future? I mean, is the future fixed, or is it something you can change by a single decision you make? If Amanda is going to be born regardless of what any of us does, then why is Pallid trying to kill me before she is born?”
He let his apple fall to the ground. “I’ve lost my appetite.”
“I know you don’t want to think about it.” She hugged him. “You’re here. That means you’re going to make sure I’ll get through this.”
He smiled. “I’ll do what I can.”
“I know you will.”
Sooner or later she was going to have to confront her enemies without him. The thought was sobering. Would she be ready when the time came for her to do it? Was this going to be the time she would have to do it?
“Are you ready to continue?” he asked.
“No. But I know we have to,” she replied.
Carrying a couple apples, they continued to eat while they followed the lilacs.
***
Athen ate the oranges and apples, famished after spending the entire night walking through the forest. The man in white was anxious to find Queen Ann, and Athen couldn’t help but wonder why it was so important for this man to kill her. What threat did her future child pose to him?
When the strange man left them for a few minutes, Optima whispered to Athen and Dour, “He’s probably talking to the same person he talked to in the library.”
“I wonder if I should follow him. It would be good to know what he plans to do,” Dour said, keeping his voice low.
“It could be dangerous,” Athen argued. “One slight turn and he could see you.”
“Yes, but we have a stone that makes us immortal, which means he can’t kill me if he happens to catch me eavesdropping.”
“True. However, just because you’re immortal, it doesn’t mean he can’t inflict a wound that would hurt.”
Dour hesitated then said, “I need to do what is best for everyone. I’ll have to risk it.”
He nodded, understanding Dour’s desire to figure out the man’s next move so they could plan for their reaction to it.
After he left, Optima smiled at him. “He’s a terrific ruler. We lost the ruler before him in the virus that swept through this planet.”
Noting the sadness in her voice, he asked, “What happened?”
She sighed, her hair turning blue. “It’s a long story, so I will try to tell it as briefly as possible. Twenty-four years ago, the last Nical was born. Shortly after his birth, we realized we had all become sterile. We don’t know what caused it. Even after all these years of searching for the cause, we still don’t know. We worked on finding a solution that would make us able to reproduce again, and we thought we found it. To our delight, children were born and everyone was healthy. All we had to do was take a series of injections. We had hope again. Then one male Nical had a bad reaction to the injections and developed a virus we later called the Eradicator. The
virus invaded the entire world so fast that we didn’t have time to stop it. It took two years, but the virus has wiped out all but thirty-seven of us. We are between the ages of twenty-four and thirty-five. I am twenty-nine. We were all getting sick with the virus when we went to Olympia.”
“Where you stole their immortality?”
“We never intended to steal the power from that stone. We only meant to copy its immortal ability. We were devastated when we learned what had really happened. The man promised to protect us. He said you and your friends came to destroy us.”
“We didn’t want to destroy you. We only wanted to give the Olympians their immortality back. We would have listened to your case. Surely what you have done does not deserve death.”
A tear fell from her eye. “Really?”
“Yes. You must have been terrified. You had nothing to fear from our arrival. We would have contacted you before arriving here, but you have no means of communicating across galaxies.” He reached out to touch her hand, hoping to comfort her.
She blushed at his touch, her hair turning pink.
He cleared his throat as he withdrew his hand from hers. He had not meant to be so forward with her. He recalled how Sando had said she was all he had left. Athen assumed that meant they were either married or engaged.
“We will do all we can to help you,” he softly assured her. “We can find a way to either give your people your reproductive abilities back or we can make a true copy of the Olympians’ stone.”
“We would be happy if we could just eliminate the virus and have children again.”
He was touched by her sincerity, and it was even more appealing from someone so lovely to look at. Now it was his turn to blush. He couldn’t entertain such thoughts of a woman who belonged to someone else.
Dour quietly returned. “He was talking to that person, just as we thought. It doesn’t look good. He’s going to have us eat the gold fish so we’ll turn into merpeople. There’s a city at the bottom of the lake he’s taking us to. He expects the queen to be there as well.”
“There’s a city at the bottom of our lake?” Optima asked. “Why didn’t we know about this?”
Dour glanced over his shoulder. “Here he comes.”
They grew quiet as they watched the man return.
“Are you done eating?” the man asked.
They nodded.
“Good. Get up and let’s continue our journey,” he replied. Without waiting for their agreement, he walked away.
Glancing uneasily at each other, they followed him.
***
Atlantis
Planet: Earth
Stacey yawned as she got out of her small bed. She squeezed past the other beds and got dressed in another outfit that hung in her small closet. She was alone for the moment. She never realized how much she enjoyed her privacy until she was surrounded by other people most of the time.
After she finished dressing, she went to the small kitchen so she could get something to eat. On her way there, Kent ran up to her.
“You’ve got to see this!” he exclaimed, grabbing her hand and leading her to their research room.
She laughed at his enthusiasm. “Slow down! You’re going too fast.”
When they got to the room, he smiled at her. “This is incredible. You’ll never guess what these people had in their possession.”
“Well, don’t keep me in suspense. Tell me!”
He took her to a computer where they could see their probe scanning a large room.
She squinted. It was hard to make out the details with the fuzzy reception they were getting, but she saw a large screen that resembled a TV. She shook her head. What was so special about that?
“This thing revealed the future to them,” Kent whispered. “I translated some of their words. Do you see what those controls say?”
She leaned closer to the computer monitor and studied the controls on the large TV-like object. Her eyes grew wide. “They say to pick a future date. Over there is a pad for someone to put their hand on.” She pointed to the outline of a hand on a dark pad.
“Yes. The handprint probably told a specific person their future,” he said.
“And look over here. It says ‘What Could Have Been.’ So they could probably answer the age-old question of what things could have been if they had chosen a different route in life. Can you imagine what a gem this was? You wouldn’t end up making the wrong choices. I wonder if they saw their own destruction.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.” He paused as he considered the possibility. “What would you do if you foresaw the United States sinking into the ocean?”
“Move to another country.”
He turned back to the monitor. “I wonder if that’s what they did. Have you noticed there are no human remains anywhere in this place?”
“No, but now that you mention it, it is odd.”
“It’s as if the city has been put on hold until its inhabitants can return.”
She shivered at the thought. She didn’t know why it gave her a spooky feeling, but it did.
“Anyway, I wanted to tell you before I told anyone else. This is your project, so you have priority,” he said with a wink.
She put her hand on his arm. “Thank you, Kent. You have been great through all of this.”
He kissed her. “I’m proud of you. I’m just glad I can help you.”
She kissed him back, grateful to have him there. Not many men would be willing to support their wives in such a long endeavor. He was one in a million.
Chapter Thirteen
Lake Solitaire
Planet: Lone
By the time Hathor and Ann arrived at the lake, it was close to evening. Hathor could see how tired Ann was, so he offered, “Why don’t you sit down while I cook the gold fish so we can eat it?”
She smiled. “Thanks. You’re a wonderful husband.”
He beamed at her. She had a way of making him feel as if he was the most important person in her world. He certainly felt that way about her. He had thought that after marrying her, his desire for her would calm down, but it only grew as the years passed. Even with her messy hair and the dirt covering her, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
Pushing aside his thoughts, he turned to the lake. He was acutely aware the man they called Pallid was somewhere in the forest tracking them down, and the area surrounding the lake didn’t have a single tree on it, making them easy targets for their enemies.
Once again, he was thankful for his upbringing. His training had prepared him for moments such as this. He set down the tree branches he had collected and stepped into the warm water until it was up to his knees.
The fish weren’t very big. The largest one he saw was seven inches long. He wondered how many they should eat. It probably didn’t matter since Gaius hadn’t mentioned that detail.
He spotted a gold fish swimming among a school of pink fish. He reached in to grab it, but it slipped out of his hands. He found another gold fish and quickly grabbed it. Though slippery, he was able to catch it.
“How many do you want to eat?” he called out as he threw the fish to the ground.
Ann stopped washing her face and turned her attention to him. When he pointed to the fish flipping around on the grass, she said, “Two.”
He nodded and continued to hunt for the fish. As soon as he managed to gather five more fish, he worked on setting up a campfire.
“It’s a good thing you know how to do this,” Ann said as she walked over to him. “You would have been a great Boy Scout.” She sat next to him and watched as he rubbed two sticks together over the tree branches he had broken up and placed in a pile.
“Boy Scout?” he asked.
“It’s a group on Earth. The boys learn how to go camping and survive in the wilderness.”
“My education did involve this. The queen can find herself in many predicaments.”
“Did your education ever involve having fun?”
He
glanced at her. “If you mean was there time to play, the answer is no. I didn’t get to play out in the yard like our kids do.”
“Are they going to have time to play when you’re teaching them?”
He paused. “I just figured I would give them the same training I received, but now that I think about it, the reason my training was so intense was because I was the only child. Since we have more than one, I suppose the pressure won’t be so great for them. I will probably focus my efforts more on Amanda since she’ll be the next queen, though.”
“How did Gaius know we would pick Amanda for a name?”
“It’s one of those weird Augur things. They seem to know everything. To be honest, I don’t like it.” He looked at her. “Some things are private, and I prefer to keep it out of that mirror of theirs that tells the future. I know I should be grateful they can see the future, but I also wonder what else they know about us.”
“I agree. It’s like someone read my diary.”
“You keep a diary?”
She grinned. “Not anymore. I did while I was growing up.”
He focused on the small fire he started and blew on it so it gained more strength. “There we go! Now we eat and turn into merpeople. I’m sure this will be an interesting experience.”
He put one of the fish on a long stick and held the fish over the fire. “If I had a knife, I could gut them, but I left Raz in a hurry. I was overcome with desire to see you.” He winked at her.
She chuckled. “You sure were.”
He relaxed. He didn’t realize how tense he had been, worrying about Pallid. Putting his arm around her shoulders, he drew her closer to him and kissed her cheek. Sighing in contentment, he enjoyed the comfortable silence between them as he cooked their fish.
***
Athen followed the man in white. Dour and Optima walked behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and noticed Optima’s discomfort.
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