Rubic’s eyes pop open. They’re swollen with the telltale markers of agony.
Good.
“Unhand that man!” yells a small voice from the dark. Jibbawk looks toward the voice.
Mizzi steps into the light, holding a contraption that looks like a five-barreled machine gun.
“I’m not afraid of your funny looking gun.” Jibbawk presses its claw deeper into Rubic’s chest, spreading out his ribs and letting warm blood run over its claw.
Rubic cries out. Then he croaks, “How about my useless gun?” Jibbawk looks at Rubic then down to the alien gun pressed into its chest. Rubic pulls the trigger.
The blast of light slams into Jibbawk, throwing it back. Its chest feels like a sledgehammer had pounded it. Jibbawk lets its hands fall to the ground to catch itself.
Rubic crumples to the ground, obviously in grinding, spasming pain. He manages to lift the gun anyway. He aims and pulls the trigger.
Jibbawk doesn’t have time to jump. The bolt of light hits it in the head. It falls back, struggling to breathe. Rubic fires again, then again, then again.
Jibbawk stumbles back with every shot until its foot steps into the pit. Its eyes widen and its beak snaps open as it falls.
The hole is deep and dark. But the bottom has a surprise. It has a hundred poison thorns pressed into the dirt. Dozens pierce Jibbawk’s skin and pain explodes in every nerve.
###
“EEAAAHHHHOOOOWWWW!” Jibbawk wails.
Rubic collapses to his knees, clutching his chest. He has never felt such blinding pain. It’s worse than being burned, worse than being crushed.
From behind, Mizzi plunges a needle into his neck, and the pain subsides immediately. Rubic lies on his back and catches his breath. He sees Mizzi scuttle to Allan, followed by the longest tail he’s ever seen, and gives Allan a similar shot.
“AAAAAAAHHHHHHSSSSSSSSS!” Jibbawk shrieks from deep in the pit.
Allan wakes, his eyes bulging and red. He sees Mizzi and smiles. “Is Rubic okay?” he says through gasps.
“Yes, he will be fine,” Mizzi says and pushes Allan closer to Rubic.
Rubic sits up, holding the puncture wound on his chest, stopping the bleeding. “Yeah, buddy. I’ll be fine. That hurt like a mother…”
Rubic and Allan move to the edge of the hole and look down. “Got you, again. Man you are bad at this,” Allan croaks.
Jibbawk lies at the bottom of the hole, pierced by dozens and dozens of poison thorns, unable to remove any of them from its body. It’s writhing in pain, tasting a similar fate it had brought to thousands of others throughout its life.
A year ago, Allan had been stabbed in the neck by one of those same thorns. It was the night he’d arrived at Lan Darr. After the balloon-like Lorebs dropped him into the river, he found a place to pee on the great wall. The plant defended itself and shot him with the thorn. Excruciating pain filled his body and didn’t quiet down until he’d removed the thorn. Now, with the small thorns piercing Jibbawk’s body, it will never be able to get them out. The thorns will hold it there, in a fiery limbo, until it dies.
Mizzi walks around to the fallen soldiers. He touches some lightly and whispers words to them. A few are alive but unconscious, others are moaning and in pain, and some are dead. Mizzi takes a long syringe and injects the survivors with the same antidote to Jibbawk’s poison. He reassures them before moving on to the next victim.
After he finishes, Mizzi sits next to Allan and Rubic and coils his extremely long tail beside him.
“EEAAAHHHHOOOOWWWW!” Jibbawk wails one last time before it goes silent and limp.
Rubic looks at Mizzi. “And who are you?”
“Hello, Rubic. I am Mizzi.” Mizzi shakes Rubic’s hand with his small, long-fingered paw.
“I remember your name,” Rubic says. He points at the hole. “How did you know to dig a trap right here?”
Mizzi scratches his furry snout, which is as long and fat as a loaf of French bread. “We’re monitoring the entire area. We detected the Hubbu gate Jibbawk created. Through the scope I saw Jibbawk. I did not see you.”
“Yeah, I was hangin’ back,” Rubic says, rubbing his thumping head.
“How did you know to make chest shields?” Allan asks, removing the woven square from under his shirt.
Rubic shrugs, and winces in pain. “I admit, I didn’t know Jibbawk was the bad guy at first. It told me some lie about wanting to bring you to the council or something like that. But I figured it out. Jibbawk showed me its true self over and over. I just had to see it.”
Mizzi takes a roll of gauze from his pack and pushes it under Rubic’s shirt and presses it to the chest wound. “Hold this in place until the bleeding stops,” Mizzi says. “Jibbawk is a shadic. They are quite ruthless in their pursuit of power or revenge.”
Rubic’s eyes brighten. “I know what a shadic is. I heard a story about them a long time ago.”
Allan remembers the fishing trip before he traveled to Lan Darr the first time. “You told me the story of how the old man gave a shadic the key to immortality. Then Alice’s dog came out of nowhere and scared us to death.”
“Yeah, I remember that dog.” Rubic smiles. “I made the part up about us meeting the ol’ man. Truth is, I just heard the story from some fisherman ten years back.”
Mizzi looks down into the hole, checking on Jibbawk. “The shadic had discovered immortality.” Mizzi turns to Allan. “That is how Jibbawk was able to possess the beetles. I’m still trying to figure out how it was done.”
“I remember you telling me about the beetle creature,” Rubic says. “I only wish I’d remembered it was Jibbawk.”
Allan shivers. “The beetles made a wet kind of clicking and snapping sound when they moved.”
“That’s creepy,” Rubic mutters. “But I gotta say, Jibbawk with its paper-thin, black skin and needle-sharp quills is pretty freaky, too.”
“I need to make sure it stays dead this time,” Mizzi says, while watching Jibbawk’s lifeless body. “It will be buried where it is under steel and stone, just to make sure.”
The wind whistles through the trees, and the surviving soldiers who built up Allan’s fire are huddling around it, keeping warm and mumbling to themselves. Some are cleaning their rifles.
Rubic checks his chest wound. “So there are more shadics out there?”
Mizzi nods. “Yes, many live with us and are peaceful. They are shadic-lyue. Purebred shadics control some worlds but are not allowed on Lan Darr. Jibbawk was very powerful here once. Jibbawk claimed to have created many creatures on this world through science and spell, but I have my doubts. Shadics say so many things in order to take power over others. Even Killian Crow fears the shadic.”
“Well, that’s crazy that there are stories on Earth about aliens that are true. Who could have known?” Rubic says.
“You know how the kids at my school taped the pages of the children’s book, Morty’s Travels, on the van?” Allan says.
Rubic nods, realization covering his expression like opaque paint.
“Yeah, that was written by Adam Boldary, and the creatures in there are real, every one of them. He traveled by Hubbu and even brought English to Lan Darr along with textbooks and manuals.”
Mizzi adds, “Yes, Adam Boldary is very popular here. He gave us the knowledge that lifted us out of a dark age.” A soldier cries out, and Mizzi rushes off to help.
“Wow,” is all Rubic says. He is speechless for a long while. “Why do I feel like I’m dreaming?”
“I know what you mean,” Allan says. He tosses his shield into the fire. “I’m glad you are here with me now. We can’t both be in the same dream. That proves this is all real.”
Rubic feels tears come to his eyes. “I’m glad I’m here too. I’m sorry I didn’t believe your stories about this place.”
“It’s okay. I wouldn’t believe me either.”
Rubic hugs Allan again. Allan feels flushed, pale, and weak. He’s ready for a bath and a bed, h
is bath and his bed. The roller coaster he just got off nearly shook him to death. It was just an hour ago that Asantia had left Allan by the fire, alone. She was heading off for war. Allan thought he’d never see her again, and it made his heart ache. Then Mizzi came out of the dark night, leading a squadron of men. Allan wanted to jump with joy. But Mizzi brought bad news. He’d seen Jibbawk hiking toward Allan. Allan’s excitement plummeted. Mizzi and the soldiers set up the trap, and Allan’s excitement rose. Then Rubic came out of the dark! Followed by Jibbawk. It was too much. Now Allan feels like melted ice cream. He wonders how fast he and Rubic can get home.
“You want to go home?” Rubic asks, reading Allan’s mind.
“Yes. I just might sleep for a week.” Allan leans back in his chair and looks at the starlit sky and the three moons.
“Me too.”
“I just want everything to go back to the way it was.” Allan doesn’t even care that he is the laughingstock of the whole school. It doesn’t matter one bit. He doesn’t care what anyone else thinks about him anymore.
Rubic puts a hand on Allan’s shoulders. His eyes shimmer with sadness. “Uh, buddy. I’ve got bad news.”
“I can’t take any more bad stuff.” Allan shakes his head, willing his ears to not work.
“I know, but it’s Laura.”
Allan sits up, his emotional roller coaster diving once more into a bottomless pit. “What? Tell me.”
“She’s missing. Her and her mother went up to the mountain to look for you and vanished.”
“Missing?” Allan says. “Laura knows that mountain as well as I do.”
“I found two coffees and a smashed cell phone. Even her mother’s car is gone. The police set up a command center at her home. They think they’ve been abducted. Laura tried to get in touch with you, but you didn’t get the text.”
“We gotta go home to find them, now!” Allan wants to leap out of his skin or at least out of his damn chair!
Mizzi, who had been helping a soldier drink water, walks to Rubic and hands him the end of his tail. Rubic stares at the tail. “Some tail you got there.”
“Jealous?” Mizzi says. “Hold it tight.” Rubic complies, and Mizzi lowers himself into the hole. Rubic braces against Mizzi’s weight, but he’s very light, like a dog. Mizzi comes back out of the hole holding Jibbawk’s backpack. He wrangles the bent lid off and takes out the can with the Hubbu pollen. “Sounds like you’re in a hurry,” Mizzi says.
Rubic takes the pollen and hands Allan the backpack. “Ready?” Rubic asks. “Let’s go get your girl.”
Allan nods. “My best friend. We’re not going out.” Allan says, though he knows in his heart that he likes her more than just a friend. The thought of her in the clutches of someone evil physically hurts him. It’s not the same kind of pain that Jibbawk’s poison inflicted, but just as agonizing. It’s the difference between fire and ice, but they both can burn. “You know how to use the pollen?”
Rubic laughs. “Yes. It’s not a fun ride, but I love its simplicity.”
“Yeah, and I love its speed. Let’s go. I’m sorry we can’t stay longer, Mizzi.”
Mizzi smiles, his friendly eyes radiate his good intentions. “Do not worry, Allan. Go and take care of your heart.” He bends close to Allan. “I was wondering, did you have a dream about Jibbawk escaping from Plethiomia?”
“I did. Six months ago. Asantia crashed through my window and came to me with a box. The box had a recording of Jibbawk meeting aliens in a large white ship. It stole a landing craft from them,”
“And tossed them out the bottom hatch. The large craft resembled an egg, and the aliens were thin and had gray skin,” Mizzi recounts.
Allan isn’t sure he understands what Mizzi is saying. “So, how do you know what I dreamt about?”
“Because I had a similar dream. Asantia wasn’t in it, it was my friend, Telhoon, that came to me. But I saw the video in the box recorded by a Calibrut.”
“Whoa, what are you two talking about?” Rubic asks.
“That’s impossible.”
“I have a theory,” Mizzi says and rubs his paws on his long snout. “The aliens are an advanced race, more advanced than all the worlds we know of. They might have been able to send us the dreams.”
“As a warning?”
“Yes.”
“How can some alien race send a dream across light years,” Rubic snorts.
“How can pollen create wormholes in space?” Allan replied.
“Good point.”
Mizzi nods. “I’ve sent out emissaries to try and find the race. We need to know more about them.” Mizzi shrugs. “It probably was their doing, and if not, that’s okay. However we got the word that Jibbawk was able to escape, it saved us all. I was able to prepare for his arrival.” Mizzi backs away. “I know you have to go.”
“Let me know if you find them,” Allan says. He only thinks about the dream and how an advanced race could communicate over vast distances for a moment. Then he returns to the problem at hand. Laura needs his help. There is plenty of time to unravel the mysteries of the galaxy.
The Westerfields say good-bye to Mizzi and thank the soldiers for their sacrifice. Rubic takes a pinch of the orange pollen, wraps an arm around Allan’s shoulders, and sprinkles the pollen above their heads in a spiral movement. The sparks snap to life like the ignition of black powder and create an egg-like sack over the two. The sack folds on itself, popping like a soap bubble.
Chapter 23
The Heart and the Molten Rock
Laura stands at the edge of a river of molten lava. Volcanoes on Earth spew sulfuric acid, which can suffocate anyone that stands close, but Laura only smells a molten glass smell. The river boils and burps as it slowly moves down the mountainside.
She tries to hold a long root across the river to Alice, but the root wilts under the heat and drops into the lava. It floats downstream at an easy pace, burning to ash and melding with the glowing, liquid stone. The river diverts around a rock outcrop, leaving an island for Alice to stand on. Alice has to jump eight feet to safety and knows she wouldn’t make it. The mouth of the volcano spits up more lava, and the river widens.
“You have to try and jump!” Laura screams. “It’s your only chance!”
“I… can’t! I’ll fall in!” Alice sobs. She has lost the tough exterior she built up around her. Now, she is only a woman to Laura, a woman who needs help.
Laura searches for another root, but only finds small ones. She heads farther down the mountain, but Alice screams, “Don’t leave me!”
Laura returns to Alice. “I’m sorry, I have to go find something to help you across. I’ll only be gone a few minutes!”
“No, no, I don’t want to be alone. I know I’m going to die here. I… I just don’t want to die alone.” Alice isn’t crying anymore. She’s staring at the glowing river.
“I’m not going to sit here and watch you burn up in lava!”
Alice sniffs. “After what I did to you, why would you even want to help me? I hurt you. I hurt that woman from the flower shop. This is what I deserve.”
Laura grabs a large rock, uses all her strength to pull it from the ground and tosses it into the lava. She hopes it will float long enough for Alice to use it as a stepping-stone. But it sinks instantly. “I need a bigger rock!” Laura tosses more and more stones into the edge of the lava, but every attempt to narrow the distance Alice will have to jump fails. The stones sink or are pulled away by the current.
After a while the volcano stops throwing more lava down the hill, but the river doesn’t narrow. Laura sits a few feet away, far enough for the heat to not melt her skin off. She’s dizzy with heat exhaustion and reddened like she has a sunburn. “Look, we’ll just wait here. The volcano has stopped erupting so the river should get narrower, not fatter.”
“Okay,” Alice wipes her runny nose on her sleeve. “My skin is so hot it hurts.”
“Stay in the middle.” Laura forgives Alice for everything. Losing a da
ughter is hard enough, but having her disappear almost in front of her eyes is maddening. Alice went crazy in the grief and confusion. I would snap, too, if the same thing happened to me, to my child.
Laura thinks about her parents. How they are missing her now. They are going mad, losing a piece of themselves. Every moment Laura is missing sends them closer to the same dark place Alice lives in. Laura wishes she could talk to them, reassure them she’ll be okay. She feels the absence of her cell phone in her back pocket like a missing limb.
Alice sobs and so does Laura. Hours pass. It is still night, though the sky in the east gets brighter. If it’s a sunrise, it’s the slowest sunrise Laura has ever seen.
Alice calls out. “Laura?”
“I’m here.”
Alice stares toward the sunrise also. “Do you think my daughter came here and got melted by lava?”
Laura wonders for a moment. “I hope not. I didn’t land where you landed. It seems that the Hubbu pollen drops you wherever it pleases.”
“She could still be alive then?” Alice asks. “Here on this strange world?”
“Yes. I think she could have survived. There is a city here, Dantia. Allan said it’s pretty big.” Laura said there was a possibility, but she didn’t think so. What kind of baby could survive a world like this without the ability to walk or talk? Unless someone found her and cared for her. That’s a possibility.
A bubble of lava burps from the stream and splashes on Alice’s pant leg. She screams and uses a rock to push off the lava. It leaves a huge hole in her pants and burns her skin.
“Find her,” Alice says. “Find her for me.”
“You’ll find her yourself. The lava is lowering. Just an hour more and you’ll jump across, and we can go home.” Laura wipes sweat off her brow.
“She’s here. I can feel it. Find her!”
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