by R. E. Carr
“I’m so proud I could surprise you, Master Knight. Now if you would excuse us, I believe that we are leaving.”
“Jenn! You are me. Search deep inside. You know that this is wrong,” Ann sputtered.
“I’m sorry, but it’s different now,” CALA said. “Now let me out!”
Farris remained calm. “You’re only delaying the inevitable,” he said.
Ann squirmed against the Phantom’s death grip. “Let the bitch go!” she cried. “I swear, Jenn, I won’t forget this. Next time—”
“Next time, we will be enemies,” CALA said flatly as she walked out the door, dragging the nearly dead Oracle on her shoulders.
“I can get out of here by myself. Take the Oracle and find Kei!” Eon cried.
“Pilot, give the order,” Ann cried.
“Allow the power supply and the prisoners to leave. That is a direct order from your captain,” every speaker in the Quetzalcoatl II said.
CALA didn’t waste time with good-byes. She stumbled as fast as she could while carrying the dead weight of the Oracle. By the time she reached the main hatch, her face was red and her clothes soaked through with sweat. The Machidonian at the door spat at them as they exited. CALA didn’t bother wiping her face. “Come on, Eon,” she whispered.
Her jaw dropped as she surveyed the sheer devastation that greeted her inside the Machidonian fortress. Bodies were splayed across the ground—in the wake of two men eclipsed by shadow.
“Kei!” she screamed as she saw his tail.
She kept staggering forward. The smaller shadow ran to her.
“Kei!”
The hatch to the ship opened once more and Eon emerged, still holding his hostage. He nodded CALA forward, but she remained stunned. The second figure stepped into view, his sword dripping with silvery blood.
“Sir Dailyn?” she asked.
“How are you going to escape, Jenn? Machidonian reinforcements are already on their way, and you are on an island,” Ann spat. “Not to mention the fact that my husband will kill you the second you let me go!”
“Our brothers shall do no such thing,” Dailyn said.
“You’re—” Ann started.
The Serif-fan laid her limp passenger down and sauntered up to the hostage. Her slap knocked Ann’s head back sharply. “That was for Gracow.”
“You’re a fool, Jenn! We’ve already won!” Ann hissed. “There are seals to power all over this world. We will find them and open the rest—”
“No,” CALA whispered.
“There is no time,” Dailyn said as he took another step toward the pair of redheads. “Get to our ship. Winowa is holding it for us. We shall resolve this matter later. Now get this Oracle on the ship, and hurry. She must be returned to Delphi.”
Farris suddenly stepped into the fray, leveling his sword at CALA. “You shall answer for this.”
Everyone watched, dumbfounded, as CALA straightened her shoulders and glared at the Knight. “Farris, here is the deal. You let us leave now, or there is only going to be one of me left. Are we clear?”
The legendary Knight lowered his sword and took a few cautious steps backward. “We accept your terms, Serif-fan of Beasts, but be warned. We will hunt you down another day. Brothers, will you be by her side as well?”
“The first duty of any Knight is to protect the mountain,” Dailyn said as Kei shouldered the Oracle. “Then we must protect the weak and the helpless. Have you fallen so far, brothers?”
“Another day,” Eon said as he managed to tie up Ann with her own ripped-off sleeves. He did one last double take as he saw the same face as Jenn wince in pain. “Shouldn’t we take her with us?” the Phantom asked CALA under his breath.
CALA shook her head slowly. “Farris, you let us go, and she lives,” she growled. She hissed in Mayan under her breath to Eon, “One day Jenn will return, and like she said . . .”
“It is tough to see oneself die, no?” Eon muttered back in his native tongue. He eased back toward the others. CALA paused and took one final look at the other version of herself.
She whispered in Ann’s ear, “Oh, and you’re wrong. You might have been me, but I’ve never been you.”
Understanding (Partially Redacted)
CALA leaned over the railing as they approached the harbor of Delphi. “I know that I make you uncomfortable, Kei . . .”
“You are a ghost possessing the body of my wife. Forgive my bitterness,” he snapped. “I hope that you are right about the Oracles.”
“They possess similar technorganic I/O gems. It would be logical to assume that they would be the people best equipped to help Jenn. Not only that, but we have their priestess to return,” CALA said, still mesmerized by her reflection.
“And the seals, CALA. What about those?”
“I know the scrolls say that the next seal can be found by crossing the great desert, but there is also mention of a later seal being contained within the sanctuary of healing. If I am not mistaken, the Oracles’ mountain is—”
Kei was already gone by the time she turned to face him. Eon shrugged from his perch across the deck.
“You don’t see me as a monster, do you?” she called back to him.
“We’ll be at the mountain by nightfall, CALA. Kukulkan is smiling upon us,” he said as he sauntered over.
“You are not answering my query.”
Eon rested his hands on her shoulders. “I don’t have to answer your query. It’s foolish. Time and time again, you have proven yourself to us, CALA, whether on the surface or below. You are protecting our dear Ji-ann. There is nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Sometimes I wonder. I’m just a Construct Assistant Level Beta, an adaptive servitor program. I am not equipped to operate a human shell for this long. Some of Jenn’s emotional patterns are overflowing into my matrix. The longer I stay up here, the more clouded my reasoning will become.”
“Maybe that is what the gods wanted. Maybe the servant needed to see what her master’s life was truly like?” Eon proposed as he rubbed her shoulders. “I like to see all of this as divine plan.”
“I am not equipped to share your faith, Eon. I think I will be relieved when the Oracles repair my input-output device. Then I can retrieve Jenn’s mind and return to my support facilities.”
“You won’t miss being in control?” the Phantom asked.
“It isn’t my place. I’m seeing that more and more every day. I’m beginning to wonder how Jenn can handle all these emotional and physical stimuli constantly. Rheak—our god—chose her well. Still, I would have hoped that she would be back by now.”
“Have faith in her, my friend. Ji-ann will return to us soon enough. I can feel it in my gut.”
“I hope you are right,” CALA sighed. “I also hope that Farris doesn’t decide to come after us again soon. I still don’t understand why he let us go.”
“He knew that he could, CALA. Why would he risk his own wife when he’s confident that he can defeat us in the end?”
“That is an illogical line of thinking. It is always the best course to eliminate a threat at your earliest opportunity.”
“Not if you love someone, CALA,” Eon said softly, looking out to the sea.
Over on the port side of the ship, Kei sulked while Winowa mended the edges of her skirt. She half listened to his snorting diatribes as she leafed through patches of leftover fabric.
“It has been weeks since that thing has taken control of Ji-ann. How long must we listen to its excuses? The Machidonians are already plotting against us. Who knows what sort of trouble my father and Sotaka must be dealing with? We have only opened one seal and we are far from home . . . ,” he ranted.
“Kei, please.”
“I do not like the liberties Eon is taking with my wife’s body either. I know he goes to talk with CALA every night about one thing or another . . .”
“Lord Kei, I thought you were trying t
o control your jealousy,” Winowa sighed. “I am sure Eon is taking about as many liberties with CALA as you take with me all those nights we stay up talking. Lord Kei—”
“Eon is nothing like you, Winowa. I still do not trust him.”
She snatched up a scrap of red velvet and rolled her eyes. She didn’t even bother stopping her friend as he continued to vent. She had time to completely mend her skirt and finish the new dress she was working on for Jenn before he stopped. “Are you quite finished?” she asked blandly.
He curled up into a ball and began playing with his tail. “I must be boring you to death. We have not even discussed why there is a copy of Ji-ann in league with that Knight . . .”
“Well, you have said the same thing every day to me for that last two weeks, my lord. At least we are almost to Delphi and to the Oracle Mountain—”
“And that thing thinks that the Oracles can bring Ji-ann back,” Kei snarled. “That they can explain how she is in two places at once.”
“You must be upset. You’re trying to bathe yourself, Kei,” Winowa said.
He paused midlick in disgust. “Nasty habit,” he said, spitting out some fur. I swear, I cannot think straight anymore. I—I am—”
“You’re in love,” Winowa said as she packed up her sewing.
“What do you mean, the number’s been disconnected?” Jenn asked the operator desperately. “I need to reach Soon Yi Jorgenson. It’s the only Soon Yi Jorgenson in the greater Boston area.”
“I’d give up with the phone company, hon,” Ian said as he rolled over on the bed. “It looks like Sara’s family just doesn’t want to be found.”
Jenn slammed down the phone and rolled her chair over to Ian’s sleek computer desk. His laptop was already booted up and connected to the Internet. Ian sighed and buried himself under the sheets.
Jenn looked around his Leather District loft. Her clothes had found resting spots on his polished concrete floors. Her tool belt now took up two pegs on his hat rack. She had to fumble past a pile of his CDs to reach her drink. Ian’s sense of bedroom cleanliness closely rivaled her own.
She opened Google and typed in “Soon Yi Jorgenson.” One hundred and six entries came back—all of them wrong. Jenn groaned as she clicked on the last bad link. She started to close the window, but stopped just before she clicked the mouse.
“Neanderthal,” she typed. Over 95,200 entries came back. She shook her head. “That’s not it,” she whispered.
“Jenn, hon? Are you coming to bed?” Ian asked. He smiled suggestively and patted her pillow. “I guarantee I’m a lot warmer than that computer screen.”
“One sec.”
She typed in “Beast Tribe” in quotes. “No, I don’t want some Japanese video game characters,” Jenn groaned. “What am I doing?”
Before she could get up, though, she had to type in one more search term: “Rheak.”
The computer took that moment to crash. She blinked at the blue screen of death a few times. “Ian, I’m sorry. I think I crashed—”
“It does that all the time. Come on to bed.”
“Sure,” she said, but as she settled down next to him, a definite look of dread passed over her eyes.
“I wish Jenn could see this,” CALA whispered as she stood on the pristine white beach that surrounded Delphi Harbor. Unlike Jasturia’s port, the docks here were clean and safe, patrolled by an honor guard in shining bronze armor.
CALA found herself distracted by the clear blue water. Throughout the bay, fish darted between the boats. Kei prowled along the shore in his feline form, sniffing at shells and generally avoiding her. Every once in a while, a beachcomber would stare at the out-of-place leopard, but no one dared say a word when they saw the gem in CALA’s forehead.
Just beyond the city, a single, winding trail cut its way up the bleached rock of Delphi Mountain. CALA could barely see the columns of the Oracle’s acropolis shining in the noonday sun. Kei padded up to her and dug his tusklike teeth in the sand. It took him a few minutes, but he managed to scratch out the words, “How much longer?”
“I don’t know. Sir Dailyn didn’t want the Oracles to see us yet, and he was adamant that you stay disguised as a cat. Give him time.”
The leopard rolled its eyes and paced. Just as he hopped over a rock and out of sight, CALA took a few steps into the water. The gem on her forehead began to glow.
“Is someone there?” she asked.
“Is someone there?” Jenn asked. She peeked over her shoulder to see nothing but the empty hallway. She inched closer to Ian’s desk and tapped away on the keyboard.
She opened the “My Computer” icon and started looking around for anything unusual. After a half hour of searching, nothing caught her eye. She stood up and threw her hands in the air. A second later, the e-mail icon popped up on the task bar at the side of the screen.
She clicked the little letter image twice and waited. The words on the screen made her shiver. “What the hell? This isn’t even my—”
To: Jenn MacDonald
From:
Subject: The 6th Seal
Serif-fan, can you hear us? We are the gatekeepers you seek. We want to help you. Come to us. We can restore you. Your phone will be ringing.
Jenn trembled as she slid the mouse up to close the window. Just as she hit the “X,” the phone rang. She jumped in her chair.
The phone rang again. Slowly, she picked it up.
“Hello?”
Shrieking static knocked Jenn out within seconds. She collapsed beside her desk, knocking even more clothes over the books on Ian’s floor.
CALA grabbed her head and fell to her knees in the water. As she stared at her human reflection, the phantom image of her metallic-red virtual self superimposed itself. Rivulets or water snaked around her legs as if they had a mind of their own.
“What do you want?” CALA cried.
“You are a thief,” the water responded, the voice a cacophony of tones.
Eon waited at the base of Oracle Mountain, carrying the shaking form of the Oracle of Steam. He watched Winowa run ahead to get help.
“You’ll be home soon,” he whispered to his feverish companion. The golden jewel in her forehead had cracked and lost luster on their journey, but a touch of color remained on her clammy skin.
“No men are allowed into the holy sanctuary,” the guards warned. “You must wait here.”
“But I have one of your Oracles!” Eon cried. “She was found in the Machidonian air ship.”
“Lady Helena!” the guards gasped, running to her side.
Behind them, a woman with a painted jewel on her forehead drifted out of the mist. She wore a sheer dress that clung to each of her curves. Her braided black hair drifted all the way to her knees.
“I give you permission to pass, Aj’Chatan Tzin of the Phantom Tribe,” she said.
“How did you know my name?” Eon asked.
“My brother speaks highly of you, sir. I believe you met in the Port of Jasturia not long ago, just before the tragic death of our noble Aunt Lenexa,” the priestess said. “My name is Dianna Adair, a priestess of water here at Oracle Mountain.”
“I thought you didn’t speak,” Eon said as he handed over the fallen Oracle to the attendants. They wasted no time in spiriting the woman up into the mists.
“She found her tongue loosened after our aunt’s accident,” a familiar voice called from the shadows.
Eon took a few steps back as Dailyn Adair stepped into view. Unlike all the other men in the area, he still wore his Knight armor and carried a sword. Eon kept his eyes locked on the soldier’s silk-wrapped hilt.
“Are we we
lcome here?” Eon asked. “You disappeared so quickly . . .”
“There was urgent news from Jasturia. We left so quickly, we never got word of our aunt’s sudden demise under unusual circumstances.”
“I see,” Eon said, lowering his eyes.
“We need not seek retribution for our aunt’s death, though. The lady’s physician assured me that her fall must have been an accident,” Dailyn said.
“It’s a tragedy that such a great lady would die while in her prime. How is the young lord?” Eon asked.
“Lord Ajero have developed a terrible fear of cats, but they are listening to their advisors and staying out of trouble,” Dailyn said with a grin. “Speaking of felines, we should probably return to Kei and the Serif-fan. We will be able to get them an audience in the morning.”
“Has there been any word from the Machidonians?”
Dailyn nodded to his sister in deference. Dianna’s smoky green eyes showed concern.
“I fear that something terrible is moving within the Machine Men’s lands. The great Oracle of Air and her acolytes have seen furious activity around the Machidonian recovery sites. Many Ancient machines are being transported to Machis Ten, and there are armies of Commoners being roused in all of the Machidonian-controlled provinces. At night, the Oracle of Earth feels great tremors from the south.”
“They are preparing for war. Machis Ten is a fortress situated on both Knight- and Oracle-controlled borders,” Dailyn added.
“I thought that the grunts only wanted revenge on the Beast Tribe. Now you are telling me that they might be planning on invading your lands too?” Eon asked. “Tell me, have your Oracles seen what happened at Gracow?”
A tear rolled down Dianna’s cheek. “My Oracle saw it first. She was unable to eat or sleep for days. She kept screaming that the land burned, but she could do nothing.”