by T. S. Hall
“I see you haven’t mentioned me to your little friends here. Is the rebellion so desperate that they would resort to using kids to fight their battles?”
“He be no brother of mine,” Sas said.
“Oh, come on,” Barmanu said, arrogantly striding in front of them. “You see, kiddies, I was kicked out of the family.”
“You arrogant fool!” Sas said. “You be the one who massacred those dryads.”
Barmanu turned, his face becoming fierce. “Those dryads were responsible for Father’s death! I was avenging him!”
“It was never proven to be them,” Sas said defiantly.
Allora could tell Barmanu was becoming more agitated.
“Give me your balloon glue,” she whispered to the other three.
“Why?” Tanner asked.
“Just do it,” she replied.
They handed the balls of balloon glue over behind their backs, and Allora took them in her palm, waiting for the right moment.
“You disgraced our family,” Sas said. “You deserved much worse than being banished to the southern jungles.”
“Enough!” Barmanu yelled. His deep, angry voice reverberated against the steel walls. He stomped in front of Sas, staring at him from a safe distance, knowing his brother’s skill. “Take them prisoner.”
“But, sir,” one of the older-looking drow elves said. “We should kill them now.”
“No. They are hostages and leverage against any guardians who dare to try to retake the base.”
Allora spun around as a few elves marched forward. She lit the balls of glue in purple hadrons and smashed them into the ground at the base of their feet. The balloon glue exploded just as Allora shot a large hadron burst into the group of elves. The force of the burst pushed the large ball of glue down the sloping chamber floor. A flurry of arrows pierced the top of the purple balloon ball but couldn’t go much farther than a few inches. The ball looked like a porcupine with arrow shafts sticking out all over it. As it rolled, the wooden arrow shafts split and broke. The slight downgrade of the main chamber allowed the four plus Sas, Yeti, and Abe to pick up speed, rolling down the long, narrow hall.
“Get them!” Barmanu yelled.
A horde of elves ran after the rolling ball of glue, but it was going too fast for them to catch up. Within the balloon glue, the seven of them held their breath, unable to get air within the enclosure. They began rolling faster, escaping the pursuing horde. Allora wiggled her hands, pushing them outward against the sticky substance that imprisoned them. She again focused hadrons into her palms and performed the necessary motions that Mrs. Ferris had taught her in order to condense the balloon glue. One last spark, and the seven erupted from the ball and crashed into the ground, sliding and tumbling down the declining chamber floor. They skidded to a stop and moaned from the harsh landing.
Allora looked back at their pursuers and felt a rush of adrenaline surge through her.
“We gotta go,” she said, pulling Katie up by her arm.
“Couldn’t you have thought of a more elegant way of getting us out of there?” Katie said, rubbing her backside. “I’m going to be bruised all over.”
“Better bruised and dizzy than dead,” Tanner said.
“Good point.”
They ran down the chamber and took a right into a long hallway that spiraled down.
“Where are we going?” Dax asked.
“We have to find Polyphemus,” Sas said. “He is the only one who will know what happened here. I need to know how Barmanu got access.”
“Why is that so important?” Allora asked.
“Because all of our defenses on Earth rely on complete secrecy. If they’ve infiltrated Mt. Olympus, the king’s army could penetrate our other outposts and even Shangri-La itself.”
“If we lose Shangri-La, we may lose Earth,” Abe added.
The spiraling ramp straightened out. On either side of them, twenty-foot cannons pointed out square windows. It was like running through the belly of a pirate ship. Two large coils were situated on either side of the base, with tubes running in a spiral along the long barrel.
When they got to the end of the corridor, Sas motioned the other two warlocks over to the last cannon. Reading his body language, they knew exactly what he had in mind. Getting on either side, they lifted the cannon, spinning it counterclockwise and pointing it down the corridor they came from. The sound of footsteps and steel blew through. Sas pulled open a screen. A strange glowing ball appeared. It was a hologram. Sas put his fingers into the image. The ball of light turned with his motions, which caused the long barrel to lower toward the ramp.
Yeti grabbed the four, and they backed up to an arching doorway. Behind them, the floor gave way into what seemed to be a slide.
“I’d cover your ears if I were you,” Yeti said.
Everyone complied just as twenty drow elves appeared in the distance. Sas slammed down on a button to the right of the glowing ball. The pursuing guard stopped running, but the others pushed forward, unaware of what was going on. Yellow light at the base of the coils spun around, quickly flowing into the spiraling tubes. The cannon fired, sending a ball of yellow energy down the corridor. The ramp exit exploded, collapsing the roof and burying their pursuers.
“That should give us a little more time,” Sas said.
They all jumped down the slide, coming out into a dark chamber filled with prison bars. The room smelled of salt and blood. Behind the bars, heads began to pop up. Slowly, the prisoners got to their feet, laboring with every motion. The faces of those imprisoned were sullen, defeated, and sad. A few remained lying down. Allora looked closely, seeing the white faces and distant looks of the dead.
Abe and Yeti took off to find the central panel that controlled the prison doors. Sas searched the cells in hopes of finding someone specific. Finally reaching the end of the row of cells, Sas swung the door open.
“There you be,” he said.
The small gnome got to his feet. He was covered in bruises and cuts. Sas knelt by the old gnome and gently placed his furry hand on his shoulder.
“ Gimnock,” Sas said. “You all right?”
“I’ve been better,” he said.
“What happened?”
Gimnock coughed and spit blood onto the cold rock floor. “No one knows,” he said. “They came at us in all directions without any alarm or warning.”
“How can that be?” Sas said. “Mt. Olympus has never been compromised.” Gimnock shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. “Where is Polyphemus?”
Gimnock pointed toward a large steel door at the end of the prison cells. Sas went to the door, opened it, and walked into the large room with no windows. In the middle was a very large man, strung up and stretched out by his arms. His head was slumped down, and his feet dangled with bent knees. Sas ran to the contraption that imprisoned the large man and pulled the steel braces from the posts. The shackles crashed to the ground, and Sas eased the oversized man down. Reluctantly, Allora walked closer. The man had very muscular arms and a huge head, and in the middle of his forehead was one closed eye.
“Polyphemus,” Sas said, gently shaking the cyclops. He pressed his ear onto its chest, listening for signs of life.
“Abe. Yeti. Come quick!”
They stopped short of the cyclops, their faces giving away their sadness.
“We have to get him out of here.”
“ Sas, I want to save him as much as you, but we can’t just port out of here,” Abe said.
“I know that, but we aren’t just going to leave him here,” Sas replied.
“Abe’s right, Sas,” Yeti said.
“No!” Sas yelled. Allora stepped back. His anger burst out. The incident with his younger brother had had an obvious effect on the warlock. Sas breathed in deeply, forcing himself to calm down. His determined stare gave Allora chills. Every muscle in his body was tense.
“All right, Sas. We got him,” Abe said.
They pulled the cyclops’s tr
ee trunk–sized arms over their shoulders and dragged him through the steel doorway. Sas closed his eyes, trying in vain to regain his composure. Allora gently placed a hand on his back. He looked at her with the saddest eyes she had ever seen.
“Thank you,” Sas said.
Allora nodded. Sas went back into the prison room and helped the rest of the military personnel from their cells. The faces were bloody, bruised, and sullen from defeat. A few of the gnomes didn’t make it, so they covered the bodies with blankets. They all crammed into the large elevator while Sas fiddled with electrical wires in a panel on the wall.
“How are we going to get out of here?” Yeti asked. “They’re going to have all of the exits blocked.”
Sas pulled out a red wire and a blue wire. Then he bit off the ends and sparked them, tying the copper wires together.
“Not we,” he said, stepping out of the elevator. The floor gave a shudder and then descended. “You.”
Allora jumped over the ledge just as the double steel doors of the elevator closed.
“What are you doing?” Sas said.
“I need to get to Zeus’s chamber,” she said. “That is why they are here, and why they were torturing the cyclops.”
“I must find my brother and stop him.”
Allora grabbed his furry arm before he could leave.
“This is far more important,” Allora said, realizing that anger was blocking Sas’s reasoning. “Please. If we don’t find the destination cube, Salazar will have everything he needs to destroy this world.”
The elevator doors were shut, and there was no way out but back through the fortress. He grabbed her shoulder and gave his nod of approval. They ran through the other side of the prison room.
“Now what?” Allora said.
“Zeus’s chamber is at the top of the main chamber,” Sas said as they ran. Every ten feet there was an opening, which was meant for a window defense. The remnants of a guard’s lunch or a discarded sword or pistol were scattered along the corridor. The repetitive buzzing of the overhead lights went in and out as the two of them got closer to the main chamber. Occasionally they would pass a dead body, slumped up against the wall, blood covering the floor. “First we need to give them enough of a distraction so that Abe can lead them far away from Olympus so that they can port everyone out of here.”
“Distraction?”
Sas glanced down at Allora and smiled, pulling out two crystal orbs.
“The explosive kind,” he said. “Now when these go off, they are going to storm our location.”
“What’s the exit strategy once we get to Zeus’ chamber room?”
“The roof. There should be an access hatch that will take us to the top of the mountain, and we’ll have to jump from there.”
“Great,” Allora said sarcastically.
At the end of the corridor was a flight of stairs. Sas pressed a few spots on the crystal orbs, and they lit up as if counting down.
“You ready?”
Allora pulled the bow that was across her chest, retrieved an arrow out of the quiver, and notched it in place. She nodded her head, and they ran up the stairs and into the main chamber. Sas tossed the crystal implosion grenades to the sides while Allora took out a drow elf that had spotted them. She notched another arrow and sent it shooting into another drow elf on the third-floor balcony. Allora notched two arrows this time, turning her bow sideways and launching them toward a pair of attacking royal guards. One of the arrows missed its mark, but Sas took care of the rest. Just as he threw the guard into the wall, the crystal balls exploded. The force knocked everyone to the floor, and the explosion shook the entire mountain. The blast cracked the upper walls, collapsing a couple floors down into the main chamber. The dust from the explosion choked the air. Sas pulled Allora from the floor.
“That should get their attention.”
They ran down the chamber as a flood of elves filled the balconies. Their diversion had worked, but they were running out of room. Arrows zipped past them, bouncing off the marble pillars and floor. Allora kept looking up at what seemed to be endless levels.
“How do we get to the top?” Allora asked while shooting another arrow into an elf on the second balcony.”
“You remember how to bubble jump, right?” Sas answered, launching a hadron burst into a group of oncoming elves.
“Oh, yeah.”
Allora pulled in the hadrons around her, focused them into her abdomen, pushed the energy into her legs, leapt forward, and then shot the energy through her feet, bubble jumping four floors up. She flew to her right, shooting an elf that was poised to attack. Allora grabbed the railing, swung the bow across her chest, and lifted herself onto the balcony. Behind her, the elves had their swords out, ready to attack. Allora shot two hadron bursts into them, bowling them backward. Then she took off running and did another bubble jump onto the third floor. Sas kept them busy while Allora continued her ascent. By the time she reached the fortieth floor, she had no more energy. She could only focus enough hadrons to keep herself standing. Sas managed to make it up with little effort.
“Probably should have taken the elevator,” Allora said.
“I blew them up,” Sas replied, laughing while he helped her to the circular stairway that led to a grandiose, pillared room lined with elegant life-sized statues.
They ran quickly on the carved marble floor toward two large double doors. Sas placed his hand on top of a round stone on a waist-high pillar near the side of the doors. Once sparked, the doors opened toward them, and they sprinted inside as a large group of elves slammed into the closing doors.
“That should keep those out for a little while,” Sas said, placing a large shelf in front of the doors. “We got about ten minutes. What we be looking for?”
“I have no idea,” Allora said, scanning the expansive room. At the center was a large golden desk that shined as if it were brand new. At the back of the room were the golden-framed remnants of a bed. Along the walk, sculpted artwork depicted epic battles. On the ceiling, there were paintings of jungles, deserts, seas, and cities, each with amazing creatures of all kinds. “Just start looking around. It’s gotta be hidden somewhere, so look for anything that seems out of place.”
Allora checked the bed, desk, shelves, and bathroom. Nothing stood out. She closed her eyes and thought back to her dreams. The pounding on the doors got louder.
“We don’t have much more time,” Sas said, pushing another shelf against the doors.
Allora walked to the wall, running her hand along the convex sculpture. Suddenly she noticed something familiar. It was the same symbol that she’d seen in the ancient pyramid at Shangri-La. The triangle with the circle and eye was barely visible in the crevice between proud a warlock and battle-torn warrior.
“We’ve gotta go, Allora!” Sas said, hearing the familiar beeping of an active grenade.
Allora sparked the symbol, which opened up a compartment to her right. She quickly looked inside and found it empty. Sas grabbed her arm and jerked her toward the back of the room, where a spiral staircase led to an escape hatch in the ceiling, just as the explosion blew out the double doors. Like the top of a submarine, Sas spun the wheel and pushed the metal hatch open. The wind pushed back, howling against the intruders. Snow and ice stung their hands as they pulled themselves onto the roof of Mt. Olympus. Leaning forward, they fought against the wind, trekking through the snow along the top of the mountain. Through the dark night and mist, a figure materialized in the distance. A dark silhouette appeared, tall and foreboding. Brandishing his sword, Sas pushed Allora behind himself.
“I see your little kiddies are much more resourceful than I had anticipated,” the figure said, coming out of the fog.
“Leave them out of this,” Sas replied, inching closer to his foe. “This is between you and me.”
“I need what you found in that chamber.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Allora yelled through the rushing wind.
Barmanu unsheathed his sword and approached his brother.
“Have it your way,” he said, pulling the sword above his head and attacking downward. Sas blocked the sword and pushed back against the steel. He parried in the snow, moving his right foot back to launch himself into an attack. Allora stood back and watched the two warlock brothers fight. The clash of steel sent sparks into the darkness. Sas came down hard, breaking his brother’s sword. Barmanu shot Sas with a hadron burst, knocking him into the snow. He leapt high, but as he came down, Sas shot his own burst upward. The force flung Barmanu sideways. He slid along the ice to the edge of the cliff. Sas picked up his sword and walked through the snow to look down on his brother.
Just as Sas brought his sword up to finish off his brother, Allora felt something hit her in the back. One of the elves had figured out a way to open the hatch and had fired off a shot. The burst was weak but enough to knock her toward the edge of the mountain. Off balance, she fell onto her back, slid along the slippery surface, and flew off the cliff.
“Bye, bye, birdie!” Barmanu said, laughing diabolically.
Sas ran toward the edge and jumped off. He pulled his legs and arms close to his body, trying to make himself as aerodynamic as possible. Through the darkness and wind, he could see a body flapping and spinning wildly. Sas crashed into Allora, flung her around his neck and onto his back, somersaulted, and then pushed hadrons downward just as the ground appeared. The cushion slowed the fall, but the impact still hurt. Allora and Sas slid down the snowy glacier, rolling and spinning as they fell. Allora pushed through the snow but couldn’t get to Sas. She screamed his name, but the impact had knocked him out. She tried digging into the ice, but the effort was futile. Through the night, there was a void ahead. Complete blackness indicated the edge of another cliff. She screamed as both bodies fell off into the darkness.
Twenty-Two
CYCLOPS
A hollow scream echoed in the dark. Allora walked forward, glancing around at the familiar red lockers of Sandy High School. The hallways were empty. A soft mist rolled along the carpet, and the smell of fire wafted throughout the cold, dark school. In the distance were the double doors of the front entry. An orange light glowed through the narrow windows, casting an eerie aura. The scream grew louder as she got closer to the lobby. Allora took a deep breath as she grabbed the cold metal handles and pulled open the double doors.