Crisanta Knight: To Death & Back

by Geanna Culbertson

  After that came the attack of the blue spider crabs, which, I hope you don’t mind, I’d rather not relive through retelling. Let’s just say they were furry, the size of bulldogs, and more than enough reason for me to never eat seafood again.

  When that assault was over, I had to thoroughly wipe crab gut from the blade of my spear and scrape crustacean carnage from my boots. And just when I’d finished drying off from the lake too.

  What a lousy time to not be wearing an SRB.

  “Whoa, is that a wormhole?” Jason exclaimed from ahead.

  I glanced up and saw a glowing red circle of energy floating in the air a half dozen yards away. It was a wormhole. A counterclockwise wormhole that would lead to Neverland. The wormhole flashed at us tauntingly and made me think of Peter and Arthur. I hoped the Gwenivere Brigade had gotten to them by now. I hoped they were all safe and that we would see each other again soon.

  The wormhole suddenly shrunk and disappeared, closing the tear between worlds. When it did, our eyes nearly bugged out when we saw what had been hiding behind the portal. It was a sword shoved into a stone.

  Holy bananas, is that …

  We raced forward.

  Sticking out of a smooth boulder right in front of us was a beautiful sword. About half of the weapon was stuck in the rock. The hilt was dark gray leather and the guard was silver. The blade itself gleamed with an onyx glint. I was over the moon until I tilted my head sideways and saw two words engraved in tiny letters on the flat of the blade.

  “Gladius Cordis,” I read.

  “That’s Latin,” Jason responded. “I think it roughly translates to Sword of the Heart.”

  “Exactly how much Latin did you learn when you were prepping to come on this quest?” I asked.

  “He switched his language elective to it,” Daniel responded.

  Jason shrugged. “I’d already learned mountain troll and gnome last year. And I like to be prepared.”

  I gazed back at the sword. “Well, I guess this isn’t it.”

  “Then what’s it doing here?” Daniel asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s a test or a trap,” I replied. “Like when we went to the Cave of Mysteries and there were all those other enchanted knickknacks trying to distract us from what we were after. I think we should stay away from it.”

  I moved past the strange blade and so did the boys. However, it seemed the sword was not so keen on being forgotten. Fifteen minutes later we passed through a tunnel and when we exited the other side, there it was again, stuck in another stone ahead of us.

  “Did we go in a circle?” I asked, glancing around at our surroundings.

  “No, I don’t think so. Nothing looks the same,” Jason replied.

  “Except for the sword,” I remarked. I kept my eyes on it as we moved away.

  Another ten minutes went by. Then at the top of a gravelly slope, I stopped in my tracks.

  “There it is again,” Daniel said.

  Gladius Cordis was shoved in a rock on a ledge to the right. I was about to comment on the sword when the air beside us began to shimmer. I backed up against Jason and Daniel. A new wormhole opened up. This one was orange, which meant it went clockwise in the Wonderland sequence.

  “Another one?” Jason commented.

  “Merlin said that because of the magic instability during the Vicennalia Aurora, wormholes would appear more frequently as the day goes on,” I said.

  “But we saw the other one barely twenty minutes ago,” Jason replied.

  I dipped my fingers into the swirling orange magic of the dazzling portal. “By tonight they’re supposed to appear every few minutes, maybe seconds. We might not have seen any wormholes until now, but the Aurora must be affecting the Isle of Avalon faster because it has a higher concentration of magic. After all, it is home to Excalibur, the Four Waters of Paradise, the Lady of the Lake, and who knows what else.”

  Daniel reached over and gently pulled my hand out of the portal. “Don’t want you to fall in,” he said.

  The three of us eased away from the mystic wormhole and continued. A few minutes later, the path we turned onto became fascinating. It was flanked by immense shards of red and blue glass. They stuck out of the sand hazardously like someone had shattered a giant stained-glass window and forgotten to clean up the pieces.

  “What is this?” Jason said in awe.

  “It must be Avalonian glass,” I replied. “I learned about it when I was trapped in Bluebeard Tower. Mauvrey also mentioned it once too. Depending on how it’s forged, it can serve a lot of purposes related to magic, like absorbing or containing it.”

  Extra purposes aside, the immense shards were super sharp, so we were careful as we made our way down the path. No one wanted to slip, fall, and accidentally slice off a limb.

  The route was completely walled in by the glass. Between every few shards, however, there were these weird, door-sized walls of dark gray energy. They kind of reminded me of portals, but they gave off a seriously eerie vibe. I did not know where they led, and I did not care to deviate from our mission to find out.

  We wandered through the glass-laden trail with our reflections following us in the shards for a few minutes until Daniel started to sink again. It was more quicksand. He yanked his foot out before he was past the point of no return. On closer inspection, the quicksand was slightly darker than the regular sand on the path, but not by much. We were really going to have to watch ourselves.

  As the boys continued, I paused for a moment to inspect a particularly thick piece of blue Avalonian glass. Something about its sheen and radiance tickled a memory, but I couldn’t place it. I put my hand against its smooth surface and gazed at the entrancing substance, my reflection watching me vigilantly.

  I drew away from the shard and admired the pathway as a whole. My friends were a bit ahead now, about to turn a corner. I’d catch up with them in a moment. The sun reflected off the glass, casting beams of unintentionally sharp light on the ground. That’s when I noticed one of the energy walls shimmering. It was three feet to my left. The disturbance only lasted for a second, like a hiccup in the grayness.

  What in the—

  Two shimmering wires abruptly shot out of the gray and wrapped themselves around my wrist. An electric shock came a split second later and zapped me so hard that I dropped my spear. The wires pulled me forward.

  “Daniel!” I managed to yell.

  I was yanked through the energy wall, which was, in fact, some kind of portal. A second later Arian’s hand was around my neck, choking me.

  “Did you really think I’d forgotten about you?” he asked.

  I couldn’t answer; his hand was crushing my throat. My eyes darted around. We were in some sort of cave. I’d seen no signs of caves on the isle a moment ago. I figured that the energy wall was a portal to an obscure pocket dimension—a hidden fold of space on the isle.

  Why not? We’d encountered weirder.

  The wires around my wrist recoiled and Arian threw me to the ground. I tried to pick myself up, but Mauvrey pushed her purple ankle boot against my chest and pinned me down.

  Arian stood a few feet away. The cave around him had a low ceiling full of sleeping bats. Just like in Merlin’s cave, indigo boulders and luminescent moss clumps were everywhere. Meanwhile, embedded in the stone wall of the cave behind me was a kind of window that looked out onto the Avalonian glass pathway where I’d come from.

  This must’ve been the energy wall I’d been pulled through. There were two additional windows further down that were apparently energy walls connected to this cave too. I saw Jason and Daniel run past them. They didn’t see me. They hadn’t seen which energy wall I’d gotten yanked through.

  Argh.

  I cringed at the weight of Mauvrey’s heel digging into my chest.

  “Each energy wall leads to a different pocket dimension hidden on the isle,” she explained, watching my eyes and confirming my theory. “On this side they all lead back to the same place. Daniel and
Jason will never find you unless they guess the right one. Not that you will be alive even if they do.”

  Mauvrey raised a hand. She aimed the dual wires of her glove at my throat and fired, but this time I grabbed them out of the air before they reached me and yanked back with all my strength. Mauvrey was thrown forward and landed face-first on the ground. It was a small win, but Arian was standing above me with his sword drawn before I got any farther. My eyes widened in fear. His arm hinged back, but he faltered when a familiar voice came through the shadows.

  “It’s not here,” my brother said as he emerged from the depths of the cavern. “Let’s keep—”

  Alex froze when he saw me. I used the interruption to my advantage.

  I boosted off my hands and rear foot and kicked Arian’s sword away—spinning to my feet and kicking Arian in the chest. The moment my boot jolted him back, I whirled around and dove through the energy wall. My boots skidded against the sand and I scooped up my spear just as Arian came through after me.

  I lifted my weapon and blocked his strike. He spun around my side but I pursued him and countered his next move. My right foot rammed his knee inward, pushing him down. Mauvrey darted through the energy wall next. She was close enough that I was able to spin my staff and thrust the blunt end into her chest—knocking her back into the pocket dimension. I swiftly reversed the staff and jabbed Arian.

  That’s when Jason and Daniel emerged from their own energy wall. They must’ve been looking for me inside a different pocket dimension. Daniel immediately began to clash swords with Arian. Mauvrey emerged with Alex by her side and Jason rushed to engage them. Jason swept low with his axe, but my brother jumped over the strike. He brought down the bottom of his sword to hit Jason in the lower back. I intervened and kicked Alex in the ribs.

  Mauvrey fired both her metallic gloves. Wires shot out—one set at me, another at Daniel. I dodged, but Daniel didn’t see them coming. As they connected with his arm, Mauvrey crossed her pointer and middle fingers and electricity surged through the wires, shocking Daniel. He dropped his sword but didn’t go down. Arian took a shot at him, which Daniel managed to evade. However, when he tried to reach for his sword, Arian kicked it away.

  I ran to help. Arian swung at my chest, but I side-stepped and elbowed him in the head. Arian faltered for a second but took a page from my playbook and kicked me in the stomach. I thudded roughly against a shard of Avalonian glass, cracking it.

  Mauvrey reeled in her wires, which were still attached to Daniel. He jerked forward. Arian kicked him in the spine and my friend slammed into the sand. The wires returned to Mauvrey and she and Arian stood over Daniel. Mauvrey clapped her hands together and her gloves sizzled with electricity. Knowing what came next, I charged forward and plowed into Arian, using the full force of my body to ram him off his feet and straight into Mauvrey’s electrified hands. The gloves were pushed against Mauvrey’s chest and shocked both my enemies simultaneously. The two of them fell to the sand. Having been electrified by the gloves before, I knew they would need a beat to recoup.

  I helped Daniel up and turned to collect his sword, but it wasn’t where it had fallen. Narrowing my eyes, I spotted the hilt disappearing into the ground. It had been swallowed by the quicksand!

  “Oomph!”

  I whirled around. Alex had coldcocked Jason in the face with a hard punch. Good thing my friend knew how to take a hit. He recovered, blocked Alex’s sword with his axe, then swung at Alex’s sternum.

  My heart stopped for a moment. Alex jumped back and I exhaled.

  Ugh. I hate that I still care for him.

  I realized I should be helping Jason, not gawking. That’s when I noticed the sand behind my brother was slightly darker in color.

  More quicksand.

  The boys exchanged blows, but Jason was on the offensive and driving Alex back. I took advantage of this, skidding to the ground at his feet and sweeping his leg out from under him. My brother fell backward and landed in the quicksand. He immediately began to sink. I stood over him triumphantly and watched him struggle.

  “Are you just going to leave me here?” he asked.

  “Let your new friends help you.” I pointed my spear at Arian and Mauvrey, who were slowly getting up.

  I raced to join Jason and Daniel. “Come on. They were searching inside the pocket dimensions through the energy walls. Excalibur must be in one of them. Let’s move.”

  We leapt through the nearest energy wall and into another cave. It was a lot like the one I’d just been in, but much smaller. We were able to search the entire thing in less than fifteen seconds.

  “Next one!” Jason said, waving us back to the cave wall that faced the Avalonian glass pathway. Looking through the energy walls, we saw that Arian and Mauvrey were trying to wrench Alex free of the quicksand.

  “Hold on,” I put my hand in front of Jason. “They may not be able to see us, but they know which energy wall we went through.” I pointed at three other energy walls along the side of the cave that connected back to the Avalonian glass pathway. “We should jump out of a different opening at the same time they jump through our original one. That way we can better evade them.”

  “Fine, but since multiple energy walls lead to the same caves, how will we know which ones we’ve already checked?” Jason asked.

  “Here,” Daniel responded. He picked up a piece of indigo rock. “This looks like the same stuff Merlin used to draw with.” He bent down and slashed an X against the ground; sure enough, it worked like blue chalk.

  I looked up to see that Mauvrey and Arian were nearly done pulling Alex free.

  “Should we split up to cover more ground?” Jason asked.

  “No,” I replied. “Let’s stick together if we can help it. Now let’s jump.”

  Just as our enemies rushed through our original energy wall, we exited through one farther down then immediately darted across the Avalonian glass pathway into a different pocket dimension.

  “I guess it’s a race now,” Daniel said as we started to search the new cave.

  “It’s going to be complete chance who finds Excalibur first,” Jason said.

  “This whole quest has been complete chance,” I replied. “At least in this case we know it’s going to end one of two ways.”

  We finished a sweep of the new cavern and found nothing. Before we left, we paused for a moment as we watched Alex and company exit one energy wall then run twelve feet down the Avalonian glass pathway to leap through another.

  They no longer appeared to be chasing us. It seemed that after their initial pursuit, Alex, Arian, and Mauvrey had come to the same conclusion we did. Fighting it out was not the most important thing right now; the race was. Finding Excalibur was the number one priority for everyone. This entire storyline had come down to this head-to-head match.

  Daniel marked a quick X on the floor, and the boys and I moved on to check other four pocket dimensions while keeping an eye out for our enemies. The sixth cave we checked was the largest by far. The ground was flat at the entrance, but immediately dropped into a steep descent. We took the slope in a run. Gravel scraped beneath my boots as I bolted down. Daniel was in the lead by about ten feet. Jason and I followed, all of us going dangerously fast. It was unfortunate, because all of a sudden, a bright orange light erupted in Daniel’s wake and Jason and I were moving too rapidly to stop or swerve. We fell headfirst through the clockwise portal and into the realm that lay beyond.

  No, no, no!

  fter plummeting for a few seconds, Jason and I dropped onto a fluffy, light pink cloud that smelled like rosewater. Instead of falling through it, we ricocheted into the air. The cloud looked fluffy, but it was actually springy like a trampoline. We bounced several more times before we were able to find our feet. Thankfully Jason’s axe had been in its sheath at the time of our fall and I’d retained my grip on my spear.

  I took in the mystifying surroundings. There were clouds everywhere. Some were light pink like the big one we’d landed o
n. Some were golden. Others were white with silver linings. And that wasn’t me being optimistic. Glowing silver outlines literally encased some clouds, and silver lines cut across them like zippers.

  All the clouds floated through a sky swirling with baby blue, royal purple, and fuchsia. Tiny sprays of stars stood out against the darker parts of the sky. Gleaming silver ravens darted across overhead and it looked like it was raining glitter. I held out my hand and itty-bitty gold flecks touched my skin before popping like bubbles.

  “Cloud Nine,” Jason thought aloud. “That’s the realm that comes next in a clockwise rotation of the Wonderland sequence. Orange portals from Camelot lead to Cloud Nine.”

  I nodded, remembering the path now. “Then Oz, then Limbo, then the Portalscape.” I looked around to find the portal we’d come from.

  “There it is,” Jason said, pointing at a hefty pink cloud thirty feet above us. The portal we’d entered through floated over it. On this side the portal was red, as it led back to Camelot, which was a counterclockwise move in the Wonderland sequence.

  The portal flashed for a second and then Daniel’s head poked out.

  “We’re down here!” I shouted.

  Daniel leaned forward like he was about to jump through.

  “No, keep looking for the sword!” I shouted. “We have to get to it before Alex. The two of us will find a way back to the portal.”

  “You said we shouldn’t risk splitting up.”

  “I said we shouldn’t split up if we could help it. We can’t now. You need to keep looking for Excalibur. We’ll catch up.”

  “What if the portal closes before you—”

  “Daniel, don’t argue with me. Just go!” Since his sword had been lost to the quicksand, I realized that he needed a weapon in case he ran into our enemies. I glanced at the staff in my hand.

  “Here!” I stepped to the edge of my cloud, drew back my arm, and hurled my spear upward like throwing a javelin. Daniel caught it with great dexterity.