by T. S. Hall
“So then you know why we are here.”
“You are here because you seek answers. What I can tell you is a story. It starts with a boy. This boy was banished to this world ages ago. He was the son of a king, but he was dishonored in battle and sentenced to be executed. He escaped his execution and exiled himself on Earth. His name was Zeus. He was a very powerful and gifted young man, but also arrogant and spoiled. He lacked compassion until he fell in love with a human. That love grew. The overwhelming confusion that he felt plagued him, and he eventually questioned his purpose.”
Tanner turned his head sharply, peering out into the dark, ancient city. His eyebrow curved down, and his fist clenched as he took a step toward the archway.
“Kronos, seeing Zeus’s power on Earth diminish, sent in his assassins to rid him of his troubles. These assassins killed Zeus’s love and put him close to death as he tried to save her. After being saved from death, Zeus formed a legion of warriors, outcasts of Sonora who had been exiled on Earth. These warriors included Poseidon, Apollo, Ares, Demeter, Artemis, Hermes, and my creator, Athena. They would join other rebel groups around Earth. A nasty war pushed the Titans from Earth, leaving Zeus victorious. Zeus’s father, Kronos, retaliated, and Earth was consumed in fire. Their only hope was a secret pact with the Titans’ enemy: the Warlocks of Sonora. Kronos had been battling the Warlocks of the north for years.”
Tanner slowly stepped closer to the archway, his eyes squinting in the dim light.
“Dude?” Dax asked, turning to notice his friend’s slow stride.
“With this new alliance, Zeus was eventually able to fight off the Titan invaders and push Kronos near defeat. What they didn’t know was that Kronos had a weapon of immense power. Forged by both science and magic, this weapon had the capability of destroying worlds. The weapon was lost in the destruction of the island city of Atlantis.”
“So that’s what they’re searching for,” Katie said.
“What are you doing?” Dax whispered as Tanner stopped at the entrance to the building.
Allora thought about what the computer had just said, unaware of what the boys were doing.
“What is the Eye of the Titans?”
“It was a device created by an ancient Warlock alchemist and scientist called Ardemus. He meant for it to counter the effects of the weapon used during the Titan Wars.”
Tanner’s eyes widened as he slowly stepped backward. He spun around, his face looking frightened.
“I think it’s time to leave.”
Dax looked over his shoulder and saw numerous smoky shadows moving quickly through the streets.
“So then how do I use it?” Allora asked, unwilling to flinch.
“That data is unavailable.”
“What do you mean ‘unavailable’?”
“All data regarding the use of the Eye of the Titans was either deleted or never inputted into my memory.”
Tanner grabbed Allora by the shoulder and said, “We gotta go now!”
“No, I have one more question.”
“We don’t have time,” Tanner said, yanking Allora from the podium.
Mr. Swan began to stir and moan as distant sounds of rustling echoed into the chamber.
Dax and Katie grabbed Mr. Swan and pulled him up.
“Where is the Scroll of Alexandria?” Allora yelled while being dragged away.
Suddenly a hadron burst exploded the bottom of the platform, destroying the device that displayed the woman. They spun around as a platoon of men dressed in hooded cloaks, smoke billowing from the inside, surrounded their position. The shadow gang had their pistols aimed ahead, prepared to fire. Allora had her hands out to shield against an attack, but the shadow gang just remained steady, not moving an inch. From behind the line of smoky, shadowed men, a tall figure draped in a hooded black robe moved forward. Allora squinted her eyes in the dull firelight, trying to get a glimpse of the person’s face, but the hooded figure was wearing a black ceramic mask.
“Give me the orb and cube,” the hooded figure said in a deep, mechanical voice as if he had a synthesizer manipulating the tone.
“Fat chance, freak,” Dax said, pulling out a throwing knife.
The hooded figure motioned with his right hand, which was covered with a large black glove. From behind him, a very large man moved forward, clutching a girl tightly around her throat.
“Katie!” Dax yelled, moving forward with a glowing green knife pulled back above his head. The line of shadowed men cocked their pistols. Katie wiggled in the large, muscular man’s arms but couldn’t get free.
“Give me the orb and cube now, or she dies!” the hooded figure said, his synthesized voice booming in the ancient domed building.
“And if we do, will you let us go?” Tanner asked, his sword readied at his side.
“You will not be harmed by anyone here,” the hooded figure said, stepping forward with a hand outstretched. “I promise.”
The large man holding Katie pulled out a knife with his free hand. Allora stared at the steely weapon, squeezing her fists. She looked around, trying to formulate a plan, but there was no choice. She went to the platform, pulled the sapphire orb from the activation socket, and stomped back toward the hooded figure.
“Same time,” Allora said, motioning her head toward Katie. Mr. Swan had woken up and was realizing his environment.
The large man walked forward and tossed Katie on the ground next to Mr. Swan as Allora tossed the orb to the hooded figure. He examined the artifact, turning it over with his gloved hands.
“Where is the destination cube?”
“We don’t know,” Allora said, backing up and helping Katie to her feet.
“Where did you find the orb?”
“ Shangri-La,” Allora said after a short pause.
The hooded figure remained quiet, standing ominously for a minute until it turned around and parted the shadow gang with the sapphire orb in hand.
“Leave them,” it said while exiting the building.
The shadowed men slowly walked backward and followed the mysterious figure.
“We have to go after him,” he exclaimed, getting up from his knees and sprinting out of the building. When they got outside, they followed the trail of glowing firelight that was running through the ancient city. Large blocks of stone riddled the ground, and the buildings were broken, like the remnants of a native ghost town. The firelight ahead disappeared, vanishing into a dark room. They turned the corner and saw a blinding light, followed by a force that knocked everyone to the ground. The explosion lit up the expansive chamber. Smoke billowed up to the ceiling.
Suddenly, small cracks began to run up the walls and then burst open. Sand started to pour rapidly into the chamber. Shelves collapsed from the weight of the sand, and statues fell, shattering on the ground. Piles of sand filled the ancient city as more cracks opened up through the protective dome above.
Allora grabbed her ears, which were still ringing from the explosion. Her head pounded as she got to her feet. The constant swishing of falling sand was becoming increasingly stressful as they searched for a way out. They pulled Mr. Swan from underneath the rising sand, trying to revive him. Allora slapped him, causing him to moan. His eyes kept rolling in the back of his head as he tried to regain consciousness.
Shards of rock, stone, and sand dropped from the crater as the entire dome broke apart. They had to dodge the falling shards that rained down sporadically. The city was filling with sediment as the water started to trickle down. First it was in the form of clay and mud, and then came a huge rush of water that crashed down on the center city hall, destroying the buildings with the weight of the newly made waterfall. A wall of water rushed toward them, taking them off their feet. The hole in the ceiling got bigger, dropping everything from above. Allora dove down into the water, trying the escape the falling debris. A large rock fell on top of her ankle, pinning her to the ground. She pulled aggressively, trying to get out from underneath. Panic increased, not all
owing her to focus. Tanner swam down, lifted the rock enough to get her loose, and grabbed her arm, helping her to the surface.
“Thanks,” Allora said, sucking in air.
The chamber had filled halfway now with water, but none of the drains were activated. There was a faint light coming from one of the glowing orbs that floated in the air, but visibility was minimal. They scanned the surface of the dirty water, searching for the others. Dax and Katie popped up.
“Where is Swan?” Allora asked.
“We lost him,” Dax said.
Tanner dove down into the dark water for a minute and then popped up.
“I can’t see a thing down there.”
“Now what?” Katie asked.
“We can’t just leave Swan,” Allora said as they bobbed in the dark water. She ducked into the darkness, her eyes burning from the dirt filled water. “Nothing. What do we do?”
“We have about a minute until the water reaches the top,” Tanner said, grabbing Allora by the shoulder. “There must be some sort of emergency exit somewhere.”
Tanner started to focus his energy just as Mr. Swan popped up out of the water.
“Where have you been?” Allora asked emphatically.
“I forgot that these old cities had their drainage systems hooked up to mercury-powered generators,” Mr. Swan said. The surface of the water was now five feet from the remnants of the dome ceiling. “It took me a few tries, but I got them working. We should be able to take the drainage pipes to the surface.”
“You were down there for, like, ten minutes!” Katie said.
“Oh, yeah. Here you go,” Mr. Swan said, handing them the pharynx glue that he had collected earlier. “Almost forgot about these. All you have to do is swim down and let the suction take you through the pipes and up to the surface, but we need to hurry. Those generators will lose power quickly. Also, make sure to streamline through the pipes. They’re quite narrow.”
Mr. Swan dove down into the water with a glowing orb attached to his hip to light the way. Pulling through the murky water, they followed the glowing yellow orb, which suddenly started to move quicker as they got closer to the bottom. Allora felt the gentle tug of the suction guiding her toward the glowing orb, which disappeared into an open drainage pipe. She put her hands forward into a triangle, straightened her body, and tucked her biceps against her ears as she rocketed down into the dark drain. The suction increased as she shot through the dark pipe at an alarming speed. The water rushed to the right, then curved to the left, and then angled upward. Staring ahead, she saw a small, round light coming at her quickly. Then, like a bullet from a gun, she shot through the small, round opening, through the lake, and up into the air. The drainage had created a geyser, launching everyone down into the shallows of the lake. Allora glanced around to make sure her friends had made it and then crawled through the mud, collapsing in the wet sand on the lake’s edge.
“I hate sand,” Katie said.
“I hate water,” Allora said.
“Anybody ready to go home?” Mr. Swan asked, standing over them and temporarily blocking the sun.
He quickly created a portal, dropping them down through the sand and out of Egypt.
Nineteen
BALLOON
The April showers were perpetual and never ending. Allora stared at the classroom windows, watching the small droplets of water streaking down the glass. She kept thinking about Alexandria. The sapphire orb was now in the hands of the enemy, and there was no way to get it back. The constant beating of raindrops against the roof and windows set Allora in a trance. Time passed quickly. The end of class arrived, and Allora remained staring through the window. Mr. Swan repetitively called her name, but she didn’t notice. He had to come over to her desk and shake her back to reality.
“Hey,” he said, looking down at her with a worried look in his eyes. “You’ve been pretty quiet these past few weeks.
“They have it.”
Mr. Swan knelt down next to her desk. “Yes, but they have no way to access the information without the last cube.”
“Wasn’t that it, though? Weren’t we supposed to find the scroll inside Alexandria? There wasn’t anything there but ruins and more questions. What if they already found it and now have the completed orb?”
“So you want to just give up?”
“No,” she said defiantly.
“Good, because that scroll is out there. Just remember, Salazar isn’t the only one with a few tricks up his sleeve. When hunting a snake, you must put the most succulent bait at the edge of its hiding hole and wait until it pops its head back out. For now we must remain patient, waiting for our snake to show itself.”
Allora grabbed her book bag and got up from her desk.
“I’ve got a sinking feeling that our snake already knows that we’re waiting for it.”
Mr. Swan didn’t have a response. He had been thinking the same thing.
“Oh, before I forget,” he said, just as Allora was leaving the classroom. “Mrs. Ferris wants you all over at her house.” He handed her the directions. “She finally got all of the ingredients for bubble glue.”
“Why aren’t we doing it in the school lab?”
“I think she’s worried about detection. She’s been a little paranoid lately.”
Allora left the room and found her three friends talking near Katie’s locker. Leaving the school, they all ran quickly through the rain toward Tanner’s car.
“So you were named as one of the finalists for May Day Queen,” Tanner said, turning onto a gravel road that led toward a large log cabin that backed into the forest.
“What?” Allora asked, completely surprised.
“We kind of made a campaign to get you elected,” Tanner admitted, smiling emphatically.
Allora smacked his shoulder as he parked the car.
He started laughing. “Katie said that you’d react like that.”
“Why in the world would you do that?” she asked. “Don’t you think that I have enough to worry about right now?”
“Figured you could use it. You’ve been kind of depressed since we got back from Egypt.”
“I thought it was kind of sweet,” Katie said, while smacking her cherry-flavored bubble gum. “You have been kind of a bummer lately. You needed something to snap you out of your funk.”
The cabin was odd. There were no windows, just a wooden wall of differing colors. On the shingled roof was a single spire, and two chimneys on either side. Tanner slid his hand along one of the logs and knocked on it. The log made a metal clanking sound. They walked around the side of the cabin to the only door. Allora knocked on the brown metal. After a minute, the rectangle slit at eye level in the door slid open. An old man’s eyes scanned the individuals. He stared at the four teens for a few seconds.
“What do you want?” the old man asked.
“We’re here to see Mrs. Ferris,” Allora said, looking down at the directions again to make sure that they had come to the right place.
“Hold on,” the old man said, and then he slammed the metal viewing hole.
They were about to leave when the metal door swung back open. Mrs. Ferris stood with a smoking cylinder in one hand and a frog in the other. She wore goofy-looking bug-eyed goggles, a black apron, and bulky clogs that looked too big for her feet.
“Welcome, dearies!” Mrs. Ferris said. “Don’t mind my husband. He’s just an old grouch. Come on in.”
Mrs. Ferris moved aside, and they all went into the house. The walls and ceiling were made of solid steel, but the interior was beautifully decorated with all sorts of paintings, sculptures, and tapestries. It was like walking into a small museum. The hardwood floors bent and creaked underneath their feet as they walked through the living room and into the kitchen, where an old man was reading a newspaper.
“Put that down, and stop being so rude, Manar,” Mrs. Ferris said.
The old man slowly lowered the paper, as if it weighed him down. He had large glasses, white hair,
gray pleated pants, and a starched button-up shirt. His expression was sullen, and he squinted behind thick glasses, studying each teenager. He folded up the paper and gently placed it onto the wooden kitchen table. Mrs. Ferris went through their names as Manar stared at each again.
“So these are the little punks who are going to bring down Salazar, huh?” Manar said, getting up from his chair to further examine them. “Well, you don’t look like much, but I hope you succeed. That bastard took my two boys. I hope he pays.”
Manar turned away and began to cook dinner.
Mrs. Ferris stood up straight, turned, and put on a courageous face. “Sorry about that. You don’t quite ever get over the loss of your children.”
Mrs. Ferris lead them into a hallway to the right of the living room. There was one portrait that stood out from the rest. There were two young men dressed in black uniforms, each with a dark-green T that ran along the shoulders and down the abdomen. Both men had dark, short hair, stern expressions, perfect posture, and emerald-green eyes.
“Minar and Tanus,” Mrs. Ferris said, noticing what had distracted Allora. “They were the most amazing boys. Brave, courageous, handsome, and incredibly stubborn, just like their mother and father.”
“How did they…?” Allora immediately stopped, realizing how inappropriate that question may have been.
“It’s OK.” Mrs. Ferris gently took Allora’s arm and glanced back up at the portrait. “They were a part of the royal guard, tasked to defend the true king. They were away on the night of the coup. Actually, most of the royal guard was away, sent off by a traitorous military general who tried to reduce the amount of security in the palace. When my boys came back to Titanis, the king had been overthrown, and the entire city had been turned over to General Salazar, who had claimed the throne. I think that they blamed themselves for what happened.” Mrs. Ferris choked back tears. “I told them not to go.” She leaned up against the wall with one hand raised toward the portrait, trying to grasp onto a memory, as if doing so might bring it to life.