“That depends on what their enemies are attacking with,” Emmanuel said.
“Of course, but if I could learn the fireball spell in a week, think of all the other spells I could learn in another year.”
Emmanuel sighed. “I’m no battlemage, Milo. There are limits to what I can teach you.”
“Yes, but you’ve also been teaching me how to teach myself. With the resources in the library, I’m sure I could do a lot on my own. Besides, I won’t have this opportunity again. Once we leave Taradyn, we leave the vault and the engines. Any time I spend learning magic will be time Kovax and his men will have to catch up to me before I’m ready.”
Milo was looking at him with those wide, introspective brown eyes he’d inherited from his mother. Emmanuel felt powerless before the boy’s request.
“By the gods,” he said. “You’re absolutely right.”
Another thought entered Emmanuel’s mind: his cloaking spell would make it almost impossible for vehicles flying overhead to see the ranch without magic. Any attack would have to come from the ground, which meant traveling through the forest on terrain that Ascher and his men knew by heart.
Plus, Ascher had some surprises of his own. He wasn’t exactly Humankin like he claimed to be…
“You’ve convinced me,” Emmanuel said. “But you realize how difficult I’m going to make it for you. We can’t waste a moment on anything other than spellcraft.”
Milo stood up. Emmanuel followed suit, though not as gracefully.
“I’m ready,” Milo said.
“I’ve heard this before.”
“I was ready the last time, and I’m ready now.”
Emmanuel smiled. “You’d better be.” He motioned to the area behind him with his thumb. “I’ll freshen up the dilation spell. Get some food in your stomach. We’ll meet back here in an hour.”
Chapter 63
Emma was having the strangest dream.
In the dream she saw her brother in a jungle with a man wearing a white shirt tucked into gray slacks. He wore coin-shaped sunglasses and was standing with his arms crossed, one hand stroking his chin. But there was something off about the jungle; when she looked up, she saw not a natural sky but a bluish dome that pulsed with beautiful blue light, and over the dome there was a film of moving colors that gave off the impression of clouds passing overhead.
It was a real jungle with a fake sky. Or was it all fake? She had no way of knowing for sure because everything in the dream was so blurry.
No—not blurry. It was moving.
Milo and the strange man in the gray pants were zipping about at ultra-fast speeds. One moment, they were sitting across from each other on the grass—the next, Milo was holding a ball of fire in his hands and the man was circling him, faster than humanly possible, zip zip zip, like a video on fast-forward. The jungle darkened as artificial twilight took over. Milo and the strange man remained, casting spells and talking and referring to books that kept flashing in and out of their hands.
Darkness fell in the jungle, and Milo and the strange man disappeared. Emma opened her eyes.
It was getting dark outside. The bedroom had been lit with small lamps, and she could see her reflection in the window glass. She was still hanging over the bed, this time surrounded by three people only. Sevarin sat by the window, gazing out at the darkened landscape beyond. Oscar had fallen asleep curled up on an armchair next to the door. Ascher stood against the wall with a distant look in his eyes and one hand stroking his beard. Somehow he sensed that Emma was awake.
“There you are,” he said, coming to her side. “Do you feel any pain?”
Sevarin was off the chair in less than a second. He stood at the foot of the bed and waited for her response.
“No pain,” Emma said.
“You were having a dream. Do you remember it?”
It took Emma a few moments to decide what to say. After all, the dream had made no sense. Her visions couldn’t tell the future; that much she knew for a fact. Which meant that if the dream had indeed been a vision, Milo and the strange man had been in the jungle recently or were there now.
But that was impossible; Milo was here, on the ranch somewhere. He wasn’t in some fake jungle casting spells that would have taken him months, or maybe even years, to learn. She had seen him only yesterday morning.
“It was just a dream,” she said. “I don’t really remember it.”
Ascher tilted his head a little and gave her a worried look. “Are you sure?”
Emma tried to change the subject. “How long have I been like this?”
“You slept all through the evening. It’s past midnight.”
Sevarin reached up and put a hand on hers. “Your wounds are almost healed. You know you heal like a Sargonaut. It’s pretty amazing.”
“He’s right,” Ascher said. “In a few hours, you’ll be good as new.”
“And my wings? Will I be able to fly?”
Ascher chuckled. “Not for a while. Right now, you’re like a baby bird. But at your rate of development, who knows? You could be in the sky a year from now.”
Emma smiled at Sevarin. He smiled back, and his eyes crinkled at the edges. He looked funny when he did that, almost like a little boy smiling before a large, intimidating crowd. It gave her the sense that he was a bit afraid of her. It also made her want to give him a big hug.
A light thumping sound rose to her left. Oscar was still asleep, but the tip of his tail was banging against the carpet. Thump thump thump thump, like a dog’s. He must have been dreaming.
“Poor kid,” Sevarin said. “Says he feels like an alien here. So far, he hasn’t shown any signs of shapeshifting ability.”
“Give him time,” Ascher said. “He’s a late bloomer.”
Ascher looked at Emma. “We’re going to take off those straps and let you go. This won’t hurt much, but it’ll be uncomfortable. Are you ready?”
Emma gave a small nod.
“Sevarin,” Ascher said. “Give me a hand.”
Ascher and Sevarin went to work unfastening the straps. Ascher explained the whole time that at this stage in her development as an Acolyte, her wings were very fragile and could easily grow crooked if she wasn’t careful. Since her skin and muscle had healed so quickly, however, she wouldn’t have to worry too much. The feathers were still soft—almost transparent in their thinness—but that was OK. In a few days she would begin to shed them away, and new, stronger feathers would grow in their place. This would happen several times over the course of her life.
And because she was a demigoddess, someday she would learn how to hide her wings using magic, as her mother had done all those years living in the human realm.
There was a full-length mirror in the corner of the room. With Sevarin holding her by the elbow, she shuffled over to it. Her bare feet padded against the carpet. She was anxious to see this strange new thing growing on her body, but she was also afraid of it being ugly and wrong.
Her eyes filled with tears when she saw the golden wings rising behind her shoulders. With minimal pain, she was able to stretch them out. They were small, only a fraction of the size her mother’s had been.
“My wings,” she said, and this time, instead of fainting, she took a deep breath and let out a high-pitched squeal followed by a giggle.
Oscar woke up with a start and scanned his surroundings. When he saw Emma laughing, he relaxed, sank back into the armchair and dozed off again.
Sevarin and Ascher glanced at each other in amusement as Emma danced around the room, flapping her wings and squealing.
“I can’t wait to show Milo! He’s going to be so proud!”
Chapter 64
The next day, after a whole evening spent packing up the ranch and looking for Milo, Oscar suddenly had to use the bathroom. He jogged down the plant-lined corridor, hand pressed to the side of his belly.
“Bathroom, bathroom, bathroom,” he said in English. He’d been practicing vocabulary every day using techniques he’
d learned at the English school in Cartagena that his father had made him attend (“To open doors in life,” he had explained.)
He found the door and entered the enormous misty chamber. When he saw the calm blue waters of the pool he felt more at ease. It was dark beyond the windows and skylights. The only light in the room came from sconces in the walls, and only half of them were lit. The water gave the air a fresh smell, enticing him to dive right in.
He heard humming. Someone was in the pool.
Oscar walked past a line of pillars and saw his father sitting on the rounded steps leading in, up to his bare chest in water. Instead of swim trunks, he wore his work pants, which were usually stained with oil or grass. Now, because of the water’s ability to clean anything, the pants were a pristine white. They formed a sharp contrast against the brown of his skin.
“Papá,” Oscar said.
His father stopped humming, opened his eyes and sat up.
“Oscar, hi,” he said in Spanish. “I was just resting. Have you been watching over the angel?”
“Dad. Wait. I’ll be right back,” He ran into the bathroom, relieved himself, and came back. His father was smiling at him. “She’s not an angel,” Oscar said, pulling his sandals off and sitting at the edge of the pool so he could dip his feet. “She’s an Acolyte.”
Andres smiled. “She’s an angel. You’ll see.”
“If she’s an angel”—Oscar grabbed his tail and held it up—“am I a devil?”
His father frowned and swam over. “I should slap you for saying that.”
“You’ve never slapped me,” Oscar said.
“I’ve never had to. But keep calling yourself a devil and you’ll see.”
He splashed water at his son. Oscar laughed and shielded himself.
“This is vacation,” his father said, looking up at the vaulted ceiling through which he could see moonlit clouds beyond the skylights. “Or this is Heaven. I believe we’re in Heaven. Don’t you?”
Oscar looked up at the skylights. All he saw was Calista’s face before his mind’s eye. The girl terrified him, with her fiery eyes and her ability to change into a cat or a bird whenever she wanted—and her beauty, which was as exotic to him as Astros. He’d never seen a girl with such white skin and fiery orange eyes.
Oscar wished he could change into an animal; a big yellow lion, or a puma that could run faster than any other creature, just to see the admiring look on Calista’s face.
The fabric of reality rippled, and it hit him like a punch in the stomach. A feeling of wrongness in the core of his being.
He got up.
“What’s wrong?” His father said, climbing out of the pool after him.
Oscar pointed. “There.”
He stared at the wall, which probably seemed strange to his father; like he had the ability to see right through it. His tail made lashing motions behind him.
“What is it?” Andres said.
The windows were high up along the wall, too high for any normal person to reach. But Oscar had spent the past few months climbing trees and hillsides, looking for a challenge. He had finally found it.
He ran around the pool, jumped, and kicked his foot against one of the pillars. This sent him flying up toward the ceiling. He stretched his arms and grabbed the windowsill. Then he yanked himself up so fast that he hung suspended in midair for a moment before his hands and feet shot outward to latch his body in place.
“Oscar?” His father’s voice echoed in the cavernous room. “Where are you?”
“Up here!”
His father ran over and looked up. “You didn’t make a sound! I thought you had vanished using magic.”
“I’m no Savant,” Oscar said, scanning the darkened landscape beyond the glass. He knew the ocean lay to his left, and to the west—his right—the mountains rose like glaciers in the moonlight. But the vibrations he had felt were not coming from east or west.
No, the presence he had sensed was on the ground, approaching the ranch from the south. It pounded the earth, but not the way human feet do. An ominous thought.
“Oscar, come down from there.”
“Papa, wait. Something’s coming.”
His father was struck speechless. After a breathless moment, he regained his voice.
“We have to tell Ascher.”
Oscar peered out into the distance but saw nothing. They wouldn’t use lights. Not this close to the ranch. It was supposed to be a surprise.
But how did he know all this? He closed his eyes. It felt as if a tiny light was blinking in his mind—and he was sharing it with something else…
SMACK! Oscar flinched. A bird had crashed into the glass, feet first, not hard enough to hurt itself, but hard enough. It was a crow or something like it, with oil-black feathers and eyes like tiny black beads. It squawked at Oscar and fluttered its wings as if in the grip of a seizure. Then it took off into the night. The light in Oscar’s mind blinked off.
“They’re coming,” he said.
He let go of the windowsill, dove through the air, and flipped twice before landing catlike on the marble tiles. He hadn’t made a sound.
“Mother of God,” his father said, watching him rise gracefully into a standing position.
“We have to go,” Oscar said. He grabbed his father’s hand and pulled him along. “We have to warn them!”
Chapter 65
Ascher huddled the orphans together in the center of the dining room.
Everyone was there except Milo, who had been missing since the previous morning. Oscar had interrupted Ascher’s men during a massive search of the boy, claiming that danger was coming, and now all of Ascher’s soldiers were guarding the ranch, hoping that Milo wasn’t out there alone in the dark.
Sevarin stood apart from the other orphans, looking up at the darkened windows with his shoulders squared and his hands balled into fists. Sweat coated his face. He was breathing hard but trying to hide it. He’d spent the past ten hours calling Milo’s name and running around the forest and fields looking for him.
Oscar stood perched on the dining-room table, which gave him a higher vantage point. His head was tilted back, and he seemed to be listening to something vastly far away that only he could hear.
Emma crouched near the floor with her arms around a half dozen of the smaller orphans, her wings pressed together behind her shoulders. She ignored the pain caused by their little hands grabbing at her feathers. She was biting her lower lip and looking up at the windows.
Lily stood by Ascher, so small against his hulking frame. Her eyes were closed and she was moving her hands around in some sort of spell. Her lips moved without making a sound. The words were: Where are you, Milo? Send me a message. I hope you’re OK.
Calista had thrown her arms around Barrel’s frail shoulders and was crying into the neck of his robe. Her tail curled around one of her legs. Barrel patted her arm and kept his other hand on something inside the pocket of his robe. He took it out and inspected it—a potion inside of a glass bulb. It shimmered in the low light. Satisfied, he slipped it back into his pocket.
Owen and Gunner stood with a few of the other Humankin boys. They spoke in low whispers.
“It might be Elki,” Owen said. “Oscar said he heard a pounding sound. Unless they’re riding levathons, what else could it be?”
“Don’t say that,” Gunner said. “Gods, I hope it’s not Elki. Did you bring the knife?”
“Got it right here,” Owen said, patting his pocket.
Lano spoke up. “Maybe you’ll finally kill that Elki you keep bragging about.”
Sticks gave a low giggle.
“Shut up,” Owen said. “This isn’t the time.”
“If it’s Elki,” Gunner said, “you’ll be lucky to have arms and legs when you go to sleep tonight.”
Sticks and Lano shut right up.
Ascher kept his eyes on the four soldiers fumbling with a rope-and-lever contraption in the corner of the room. Several different worries ran through h
is mind: the wall fortification system had never been used—what if it was broken? Was he really going to drop the walls without Milo?
He knew what decision he would make. He also knew that Milo would understand, wherever he was. Ascher’s first priority was to protect his children. If they really were being attacked by the king’s men and who-knew-what-else, then the walls would have to come down.
Coral crouched a few feet away, comforting several of the younger orphans and trying to explain to them that everything was OK, that this was just like the fire drills they had practiced a hundred times. Oscar’s father assisted in keeping the children calm.
“Ashy,” Coral said, “we can’t drop the walls. What about Milo?”
On hearing her brother’s name, Emma perked up. “What walls?”
Lily opened her eyes and spoke in a breathy, calm voice. “Milo is safe.”
“Say that again,” Ascher said.
“Milo. He’s safe. I don’t know where he is, but he’s being protected by magic. Emma, do you feel it?”
Emma searched deep within herself, trying to find that mysterious string that had always connected her to Milo. The string was not vibrating. He was OK. He had to be.
“I feel it, too,” she said. “We should worry about ourselves.”
“Then we drop the walls,” Ascher said.
Owen and Gunner looked at each other.
“It’s bad,” Gunner said.
Owen nodded. “Yeah, it is.”
On Ascher’s command, the four soldiers struggling with the rope wheel began to work in earnest, and soon they were able to get it to move.
Ascher shouted, “Release it!”
The orphans covered their ears as a loud metallic clacking came from above. The ranch seemed to tremble as panels opened in the ceiling and along each wall, and allowed something big and heavy to roll out and crash to the ground. It looked like a black spider’s web made of iron bars.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Four of the metal nets hit the floor in succession. The orphans screamed. Each wall was now covered by a black metal net.
Savant (The Luminether Series) Page 36