by Rain Oxford
“We wouldn’t have left you.” Yuri and I pulled at the chains, but there was no end or beginning. “How did he do this?” I asked.
“He had some kind of metal manipulator. He called it something dumb, though.”
“What do we do?” I asked Merlin. The roar of the train was getting closer.
“Magic.”
I pointed my staff and focused my mind. “Break the chains.” Magic shot through me and into the chains, which rattled a little and then settled back into place, unbroken. I tried again. “They’re magic-resistant.”
“You can make her impervious,” Yuri suggested worriedly.
Obviously, he was no longer channeling Zuras. “That wouldn’t protect her bones from being crushed.”
“I don’t want my bones crushed!” Adel insisted.
At that point, the train rounded the corner. It was the size of a house and it was moving faster than the car had. Merlin latched onto my robe and tried to pull me out of the way, but I grabbed the chain. “Yuri, take him and get out of the way.”
Yuri did as I asked without arguing, although Merlin was not easy to move. He probably knew I had an idea, but he also knew that if my idea didn’t work, I was dead.
The instant Yuri and Merlin were far enough away from the tracks, I grabbed Adel’s hand and concentrated. I concentrated as hard as I ever had before. That was a difficult thing to do when the train was advancing on me with horrifying speed. I felt it in the track. Adel was screaming.
I focused with everything I had and my magic finally enclosed us.
It took too long. I didn’t feel any pain, but transporting myself never took this long. I couldn’t hear, see, or feel anything except the veil of magic over me and Adel’s hand, which was no longer squeezing mine.
I had enough time to panic; enough time for a hundred different horrifying scenarios to cross through my mind. I hadn’t concentrated enough, I didn’t have the strength, I got unlucky… any number of things could have caused it. Transportation was dangerous, so I used it as rarely as possible.
There was no doubt in my mind that something had gone wrong and that I was dead or about to be. At least it was painless.
I had enough time to wonder if I was a ghost before light returned to the world and my magic dispersed, leaving me kneeling over Adel in the grass.
We were both alive.
Behind us, the train was still going, blocking us from seeing Merlin and Yuri. “Merlin, we’re safe,” I said in Merlin’s mind.
His response was to describe exactly what he would do to me when he got to me and if I ever put myself in harm’s way like that again. It was both terrifying and disgusting, and I was pretty sure it was also physically impossible for him to pull off without thumbs. All I knew was that I was glad there was a train between us at that moment.
By the time it passed, Merlin’s anger had cooled. Adel had thanked me repeatedly. She and Yuri wanted to know all about what I’d done as we made our way to the car. Although wizards could transport themselves, Yuri hadn’t ever been taught to.
Merlin insisted he drive so that I could rest. I didn’t think it was necessary, but before Merlin could even get the car started again, I fell asleep in the seat next to Adel.
* * *
I woke as we reached the caves. Yuri and Merlin were whispering so that they wouldn’t worry me, but they were clearly concerned. The carts weren’t in the water. Then again, it wasn’t like the carts could take us up the mountain.
“What do we do?” Yuri asked.
“Fly, I suppose,” Merlin answered.
Yuri tried to wake Adel, but she just groaned and swatted his hand away. At that point, he noticed I was awake. I got out of the car and Merlin and I began discussing the best way to reach the mouth of the cave high on the cliff without being eaten by the flying reptiles. I suggested flying the car, but Merlin assured me it would make me as sick as flying a boat did. He suggested I simply levitate us while Yuri used his sword to protect us. I was not comfortable being that high up, suspended in midair. We finally decided I would summon my dragon to fly us, since there was plenty of clearance for his wings.
“Hey, Ayden?” Yuri called. He was pointing to a lever in the mouth of the opening we had come out of. “There’s a lever here that says up and down. What do you think will happen if I switch it to up?”
Merlin and I looked at each other. “Go for it,” I said.
He pushed the lever up and two carts rose out of the water on the same metal track. Their levers and seats were facing towards the cave. “Oh, no, not this again,” the prince moaned.
“Fantastic,” I responded enthusiastically.
Merlin mimicked throwing up.
* * *
The ride up was a lot slower than the one down had been, but it was enjoyable nonetheless. Merlin and I were in one car while Yuri and Adel fit comfortably in the second. She only woke once we reached the top. There was no damage, injured people, or evidence of ridiculous “inventions.”
“Are we sure he came through here?” Yuri asked.
“Do you sense the egg?”
“No, but I wouldn’t if he escaped.”
While Adel was being treated for her head wound, we found our way to the mirror room. The mirror was still there, and it was intact, which made me wonder where the broken glass on the floor had come from. Merlin said some rather inappropriate things when he saw them.
“I take it we’re too late to follow him through the portal,” I said.
“We would not have made it even if we were right beside him,” Merlin answered. “He smashed the mirror from his side.”
“So, we’re trapped here?”
“No. We can return to Caldaca through a standard portal. However, if our goal is to go after him, we need a different plan.”
“Well, I think I’ve got one.”
* * *
Adel was given medical aid and we were given… food… unfortunately. I explained my plan to Merlin and Yuri as I tried to calm myself. It was not easy to sleep when my mind was racing, so when I explained my plan (and predicament) to Adel, she gave me tea. It was not the same tea as I had been given earlier. I could barely keep my eyes open long enough to finish it.
My dreams at first were full of fear; primarily due to my mother, but also with some of Baltezore mixed in as well. No matter how much I focused and told myself it was just a dream, I couldn’t control my surroundings.
Then Merlin appeared, in his person form, and I knew he was dreamwalking. We probably should have practiced this over the months since we defeated Baltezore. We were suddenly standing by the creek near Magnus’s castle, which I considered the most serene spot on the planet.
Merlin kept the fear away so that I could focus on my objective. I visualized a pen, bottle of ink, and scroll, as Merlin had taught me to. After a while, I was able to clear my mind enough that I could see them perfectly. I could feel them in my hands.
Trying to restrain my own urgency, which would have broken my concentration, I wrote out a quick letter.
Zuras broke the mirror from his side so we can’t follow him. We need help.
I signed my note and hoped it was enough. I had doubts she could even find us, but if she couldn’t, she wouldn’t have been much help anyway. Although my backup plan was to send a message to my father, I was more likely to be cursed by him than I was to receive help. Assistance was one thing my father would never give me.
With the letter in hand and my mind trying to wander, I imagined the mirror I saw in Alice’s home, which we had used to get to the black-and-white world. I recalled every detail I could, with Merlin’s help. Once it was as close as I could get, I rolled up the scroll and threw it through the mirror.
Then I woke with a jump when I heard a terrible sound. The room was shaking and dust was falling free from the ceiling. “Merlin?” I called when I didn’t see him.
“I am here,” he said, waking from his position next to me.
Before I could figur
e out what was going on, Alice appeared in front of us and the shaking stopped. “You better have a good reason for waking me up.”
Unlike the previous times we had seen her, she looked annoyed. She also looked adorable in her white dress with pink, fluffy hearts.
“Like I said in my letter, we need help to go after him.”
“Couldn’t you call someone else?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Can you teach us how to open a portal?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m grounded. I’m not even supposed to be here.”
“What did you get grounded for?”
“Making a world.”
“Making a… world?”
“Yes. My dad said I’m too young. My brothers got away with whatever they wanted when they were my age but I’m too young.”
“So, even though you’re powerful enough to… create a world, you sent us after Zuras because you didn’t want your father to punish you? That seems like a stretch.”
She shrugged. “Well, it’s also because I was planning on Yuri being a protector of magic on my world.”
“I’m not going with you,” Yuri said.
“Not now, no, but you will. Right now, you are needed on Caldaca.”
“Are you working with Zuras?” I asked.
“How should I know? I work with a lot of people. I don’t always get their names. Nobody who knows how powerful I am wants to give me their name.”
“Why not?”
“There is a lot of power in a person’s name. Merlin should have taught you that.”
“I have said those exact words to him a dozen times,” Merlin grumbled.
I didn’t remember hearing it, but that just meant I didn’t write it down.
Alice motioned to the mirror and it turned black. “Hurry. I have to get home. And if you see my kitty, let me know.”
Chapter 11
As soon as we stepped through the mirror, the cold hit me hard. I had adapted to the warm and humid jungle. We walked for a long time, each step a little slower than the last. The cold seeped under my robe and tried to make me feel hopeless.
After a while, Merlin told us stories of the mischief he and his childhood friend used to get into. I didn’t mention to Yuri that Merlin’s friend was Gmork, a malevolent wizard who betrayed Merlin and held the love of Merlin’s life prisoner. It was enough of a distraction to keep us from getting depressed.
The invisible monster didn’t attack us, so I figured it had moved on. Finally, Yuri stopped in front of a mirror. Through this one, I saw a white curtain.
On the other side of the mirror, I entered into one of the smallest rooms I had ever seen. The mirror consumed an entire wall. On the wall to the left of it, there was a bench and hanging above that were two metal hooks. There was no wall across from the mirror, only a white curtain. I could hear women speaking on the other side of the curtain.
Merlin and Yuri joined me, filling every crevice of the tiny room. “How are people supposed to sleep here?” Yuri asked, on the verge of disgust.
“This is not a bedroom,” Merlin answered. “This is going to be a tough one.”
“A tough what?”
“Both of you will need to listen to me carefully and if I say to run, you do it without arguing.”
“Run where?”
“We need to run?” Yuri asked.
“If Merlin says so.”
“If we are where I suspect we are, you are both going to see some things that you have never even imagined. The best way I can describe it is that it is magic from a new world. It will be more shocking to you than the monochromatic world or Soenus, and you both have to act like everything is completely normal. You have to pretend that you have seen it all before.”
“You’re worrying me, Merlin. Where do you think we are?”
He hesitated, as if he couldn’t bear the thought. “I believe we are in a shopping mall.”
* * *
Merlin insisted there was no way to prepare us for what we were about to see and said it was best just to get it over with. We knew we had come through the mirror closest to the egg, so Zuras was probably just as close.
“Yuri, whatever we may see or fight out there, you have to stay focused on the egg. Don’t get distracted or… killed. Merlin seems really concerned.”
Yuri, being reasonable, drew his sword.
“That is the last thing we need right now,” Merlin said.
“No swords, then?” I asked. I had been just about to transform my staff into a sword. Merlin shook his head and I told Yuri to sheath his weapon. He did so, confused. We exited the room into a larger room, which had another mirror, seven more curtains, and a door.
“No dawdling, no taking in the sights. Go, now,” Merlin said with great urgency.
I gently shoved Yuri and the three of us rushed out into…
Chaos.
Absolute chaos.
It was obviously a dress shop, but the dresses were on display all over the shop and it was crowded with women and loud noise was blaring from the ceiling. One of the women saw us enter the shop and shouted insults at us.
We left quickly, but what we met outside was even worse. It was a hallway, larger than any hallway I had ever seen in my life, filled with people who were clearly in a hurry. These people came in all shapes and sizes, wore the strangest clothing made of the strangest materials, and carried items I couldn’t even comprehend. There were bags I could see through. There was glass everywhere, and windows into shops. Windows indoors!
Even the ceiling was glass. In the shops, the ceilings were white, but there were beams of light in them, keeping them brighter than they needed to be. I could see this through the indoor windows. The floor was some kind of shiny white stone with perfectly straight black lines, while the walls were less shiny white stone with less obvious black lines. It had more white than Magnus’s castle, yet that didn’t convince me it was a place of light magic.
The noise alone was enough to put me on edge. I could handle the noise a crowd made, even when they were yelling. This crowd included numerous sounds not made by man or instrument. I asked Merlin what they were and he explained that aside from chimes, beeps, and alerts, every store seemed to be playing a different song. I argued that whatever was being blasted from the stores was a weapon to a person’s senses, not music.
If that wasn’t enough to give me a headache, the smells were. Many were good, many were bad, but all of them together smelled like rotten berries.
A woman passed in front of us and Yuri had to jump out of her way. The unfortunate woman must have been extremely poor, for her sparkly pink shirt did not cover her stomach and her blue trousers were cut off at mid-thigh. I couldn’t imagine not having enough money to fully clothe myself!
“She’s naked!” Yuri shouted, earning a glare from the woman in question.
The woman seemed to be more interested in the object she held to her ear, though, than explaining her nudity to a stranger. The object looked like a sheet of obsidian; black and reflective.
“She is naked by choice,” Merlin explained.
“Well, that makes no sense.”
“I believe some women do that either to attract a mate or to show males of her species that her body is hers to do with what she will. I never could figure out which. From my dreams, I have deduced that it has more to do with her father than money.”
“So, you haven’t been here before?”
“I have seen it in dreams, but I have never dared to go to a place like this because their… technology does not mix well with magic. Most importantly, you must not use magic in front of anyone unless it is to save their lives.”
“No magic? Why not?”
“We got lucky on the last two worlds. On worlds like this, magic can get you killed. I have been to planets with even greater technology than this where magic is not outlawed, but they are rare and have thei
r own adversities. Focus on finding Zuras.”
I turned to ask Yuri where we should go, but he was already gone. We quickly spotted him on the other side of the hall, standing before a bar, which was not made of wood but some kind of colorful material. I dodged people as politely as I could to reach him.
“We have to find Zuras.”
“They have food. Don’t you smell it? It smells really good.”
“We can get food later.”
“It won’t take long,” Yuri insisted.
“No, but it does take money,” the proprietor said. I hadn’t even given him a real glance, but when I finally did, my attention was drawn to his head.
“What’s wrong with his head?” Yuri asked, shocked.
“It’s a hat,” the proprietor explained, obviously insulted.
I disagreed. The red paper, which was folded to mimic a boat, could not possibly be confused with a hat. Hats protected people from sunlight or rain. This was made of paper. It was for writing on. Unless he wrote on his head, it had no business being there.
“You two aren’t from around here, are you?” he asked. I shook my head and his expression softened. “How old are you? Do you have parents?”
“Doesn’t everyone have parents?”
“How long has it been since you ate?”
“Food?”
He rolled his eyes. “Yes, food.”
“It’s complicated.”
He grabbed a sheet of translucent, white paper, opened a glass crate, and retrieved a piece of bread. “On the house. This time, only, though, as a welcoming to our town.” He held it out.
I took it, wondering why he had wrapped bread in paper as if it was cloth, and asked, “What’s on what house?”
He laughed. “You’ll fit in fine here.”
“I really doubt that.”
“Give it a chance. You’ll never find another place in the universe like White Hills.”
Yuri and I thanked the strange man and refocused on looking for Zuras.
“What a strange place,” Yuri mused after a moment. “They use paper for hats and plates.”