Sonora, and the Scroll of Alexandria

by Travis Hall

  “I see that you still have some fight left in you,” a voice said from a shadow at the right of the room. “It’s admirable but futile.”

  Almas stepped out from the corner, stopping next to Barmanu with his hands behind his back. He stood tall, grinning victoriously at his captives.

  “You bastard,” Milly said, struggling in her chair. “I should have known that you were the traitor.”

  “Ah, but you didn’t,” he said, leaning in toward Milly and smiling even more maniacally. “I played all of you like fiddles. And traitors are only titled by the winners. To the Titans, I’m a hero and will be welcomed as such.”

  “You took an oath!”

  “Yes, I took the guardian oath, which says that I will protect this world against the onslaught of those who try to destroy it, which I am doing.”

  “By helping Salazar?” Milly asked.

  “The humans are an infestation on this world. They are destroying it, and I intend to wipe them from the face of this planet so that it can thrive once more.”

  “You would murder billions of creatures?” Allora asked.

  “Yes!” Almas yelled, leaning on Allora’s chair and pushing his face in front of hers. “And because of you, I almost didn’t complete my mission.”

  “That was you at Alexandria, wasn’t it?” Allora said, unintimidated by the snarling warlock.

  “Yes,” he answered happily, pulling the stolen jade orb from his satchel.

  “And the shadow gang in Shambhala?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the sphinx?”

  He responded with a grin.

  “So you’re the one who betrayed my brother?” Milly said, her face turning red with anger.

  “Ben was integral in finding the path toward the ancient city of Alexandria,” Almas said, walking around the center podium, surveying the room. “He was my pupil, and I considered him a friend, but when he got too close, I had to take steps to protect my identity. I had no choice but to order his assassination.”

  Milly fought the restraints hopelessly. The chairs were designed to keep even the strongest from escaping. The confident soldier was reduced to a powerless observer.

  “If it’s any consolation, I thought that he was one of the finest agents I have ever worked with. I made a grave mistake when I had him killed. You see, we were on the same quest to find the Scroll of Alexandria, and when he found the ancient city, I thought that everything was set. I made a miscalculation. The original gods of old were far more intelligent and savvy when they hid the scroll. What I learned when we found the city was that Alexandria was a ship, not a city, and the key to finding it was in the shipping manifest, which Ben hid from me when he learned of my involvement with Salazar. Unfortunately, when he died, he took all of the information with him, and I was left trying to pick up where he left off. That is where you came in, Allora.”

  “Why did you try to kill me if you needed me to find the scroll’s location?”

  “I didn’t try to kill you. I was trying to capture you,” Almas corrected, gently brushing Allora’s cheek with the back of his hand. “I had no idea that you’d be this difficult.

  “Don’t you dare touch her,” Tanner commanded, writhing in his chair.

  Allora struggled and then spit in his face. Almas pulled back with a shocked, angry look. He backhanded her face, cutting and bruising her cheek.

  “I’m going to kill you!” Tanner yelled, shaking uncontrollably.

  “We’ve wasted enough time with these five. I need you to terminate the exterior shield to allow us to leave.”

  Barmanu paused and then went over to the other side of the room. Allora thought it odd because it was where the screen that projected all of them to the outside chamber was located. She stared at Barmanu, who looked at her and winked.

  Almas pulled out the jade cube located in Allora’s pocket and placed it in the indentation on the other side of the orb. The cube lit up around the edges and melted with the jade, forming a perfectly round orb. He then placed the object into the concave indent in the center podium of the round table. A light escaped the interior, forming a golden outline of the earth. The continents were slightly different, showing how Earth looked over five thousand years ago. A glowing light appeared at a spot in Egypt, an obvious reference to Abu Simbel and the city of Alexandria. Then the light made a path across the globe, showing the flight trajectory of the ship as it left the city. It made an arching curve across the Atlantic Ocean and then left the upper atmosphere, where it flew in orbit around the earth for many cycles. After a few minutes, Almas became agitated, uneasy with how much time it was taking.

  “Have you been able to access the exterior shield yet?” Almas asked as Barmanu turned around.

  “No. The codes have been changed,” Barmanu said. “They are different than the ones I got from the sphinx attack. I need more time.”

  “Well, hurry up,” Almas said, still watching the lines of light passing across the golden earth. “There is no telling when that Boy Scout of a captain will find us.”

  “Theus is going to gut you when he learns who you really are,” Milly said.

  Almas stomped over and snarled. “And who am I?” Almas stared her down. “Say my name.” Milly just glared back, clenching her fists within the confines of the glue that bound her. He pulled out a knife from within his side belt strapped to his thigh and held it against Milly’s neck. The blade ripped into her skin as she strained her head back, trying to pull away. “Say it!”

  Barmanu found what he was looking for, turned around, and nodded at Allora.

  Just then the Alexandria descended from its orbit. Hades watched as the line of golden light dropped down into North America. It zoomed into a spot near the Pacific Ocean. It was a very familiar location for most of those in the room.

  “It was right underneath us the entire time,” Allora said, watching the light stop right at the geographical location of their school.

  “I don’t understand. We already searched down there,” Tanner whispered. “Also, there is no way we can go back. It’s filled with water.”

  “There must be another entrance,” Allora said.

  Hades was transfixed with the light, finally able to look upon the location of what he had been searching for so long ago. He didn’t have much time to revel in the achievement. The skylights above shattered, raining glass down onto everyone in the room. Battle-clad security personnel took out the other guards as the windows around them exploded.

  Sas and Mr. Swan came forward as Hades got to his feet. He faced his opponents but didn’t notice that Barmanu had come around the back of the podium, right behind him. Before he could do anything, he felt the horrid pain and pressure of something hit his back. Then he looked down at the blade protruding from his stomach.

  “This is for my father,” Barmanu said, pulling up on the blade and then jerking it from Hades’s back.

  Hades screamed, turned, and stared down his killer. “Apollo,” he gurgled, blood pouring from his mouth as he collapsed against the wall and slid down onto the ground in a sitting position, his head leaning on his shoulder.

  chapter

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Escape

  Mr. Swan released them from the chairs. Sas stood above Almas’s body. He then looked to his younger brother and gave him a long hug.

  “You did it,” Sas said.

  “We did it,” Barmanu answered, holding his brother’s forearm and smiling.

  Allora rubbed her bruised jaw and got out of the chair. “So you were the agent they had inside Salazar’s army?”

  “Yes,” Barmanu said. “I’m sorry about the cliff. I didn’t realize how slippery and windy it was up there. I had to sell it, though. My soldiers were watching, and it was the only way that they would believe that I was one of them. It was the only way that I could get this close to Hades.”

  “You knew that this was going to happen?” Milly said as Mr. Swan released her constraints. “Why didn’t you w
arn us?”

  “We had to let it play out, or else we would have never found out who Hades was,” Mr. Swan said. “This was my call.”

  “You used us as bait?” Tanner asked.

  Milly swung her fist, connecting with Swan’s chin and knocking him to the floor.

  “The next time you try a stunt like that, I’ll kill you myself,” Milly said, standing over Mr. Swan, who was grabbing his chin and blinking with raised eyebrows.

  “You fools,” Almas said while spitting up blood. His gurgled laughter was chilling. “Your precious city….” He coughed repeatedly, trying to stay alive long enough to have the last word. “…will still die.” On his forearm, his bracelet lit up. He quickly punched a couple of glowing buttons before anyone could stop him. He then let out his last breath as his body slumped to the ground. His eyes were staring into the dirt, and a dark pool of blood covered the bottom of his body. They walked over to see a clock ticking down from fifteen minutes.

  “There is a hadron hydrogen bomb somewhere in the city,” Barmanu said.

  “How do you know?” Milly asked.

  “It was a fail-safe in case we weren’t able to get the exterior shield down and take the city,” he explained. “I only got details right before we got here. I wasn’t able to get a message to Sas and Swan before I had to be ready to go.”

  “How are we even going to find this thing?” Katie asked. “The city is huge. We need to evacuate everyone.”

  “Not enough time,” Sas said, knowing the exact timing of previous evacuation drills from being on the safety protocol committee earlier in the year. “We’ve got to find that bomb. If it goes off, any chance we have of stopping a Titan invasion will be destroyed.”

  Allora grabbed the jade orb from within the podium while Barmanu grabbed Almas’s bracelet indicating how much time they had.

  “Maybe it’s at the university where he worked,” Allora said.

  “Not enough time for a maybe,” Sas said.

  “It’s gotta be somewhere in his house,” Katie said.

  “No,” Mr. Swan said, hanging on a strap near the back of the transport. “I studied Hades for years. The spy I knew was arrogant and overconfident. He’s not going to hide this thing. He would have put it somewhere that was right under our nose, just to shove it in our face.”

  It was silent for a minute as they thought about where the bomb could be. The time on the clock was now down to ten minutes left.

  Allora’s eyes grew wide, remembering her first visit to Shangri-La. “The statue! He made a tribute statue that he put in the main lobby of the acropolis.”

  “Of Zeus,” Mr. Swan added. “You’re right. It’s got to be inside the statue. It’s perfect. Zeus was the epitome of everything that Hades despised. Allora, you’re a genius!”

  “Duh,” Katie remarked.

  “Shut up,” Allora replied.

  “Theus, come in,” Milly said over her intercom as they all left the conveyance room through the blown-out windows and packed into the transport.

  “This is Theus. What’s your status?” a voice said, projecting throughout the transport.

  “Almas took us captive. He turned out to be Hades, and he’s planted a hadron bomb in the center of the acropolis, which will go off in about ten minutes.”

  There was a slight pause.

  “You’re kidding, right?” he replied.

  “Negative. We are coming in with a transport. We’ve got to load that thing in and get that thing as far away from the city as possible.”

  “That might be difficult,” Captain Theus answered, sounding completely exhausted. “We’ve neutralized the interior threat, but they’ve amassed a large air force that is hovering on the outskirts of the mountain. The entire city just went on full lockdown. The override would take twenty minutes just to bypass.”

  Milly breathed in deeply through her nose and closed her eyes. “Now what?”

  Sas looked toward his brother and said, “The falls.”

  Sas’s brother backed the transport through the main archway in the acropolis, a foot away from the large monument of Zeus. Mr. Swan lowered the back ramp, and a group of security forces walked around. Sas’s brother unhooked his seatbelt and walked to the back, which prompted an immediate response from Captain Theus and his men. Their eyes grew wide as they drew their pistols from the holsters on their sides.

  “Hold it right there!” Captain Theus yelled, aiming the weapon right at Barmanu’s chest.

  Sas walked in front of him and held up his furry hands. “Don’t shoot. He’s not who you think he is.”

  “Yes, he’s exactly who I think he is. A traitor and the enemy. I don’t care if he’s your brother.”

  “I have been working undercover as an agent of the SSS as code name Apollo. Everything I did was for the guardians and the rebellion.”

  “Theus, we don’t have time for this,” Milly added. Captain Theus and his men kept their pistols trained on Barmanu. “Stand down now!”

  Captain Theus lowered his weapon and holstered the pistol, motioning his squad to do the same. Barmanu went back to the pilot seat to back the transport closer to the acropolis, while everyone else helped to lower the statue. They placed the large limestone figure onto a hover pad and pushed it into the back of the transport ship. Milly nodded to Captain Theus as the ramp moved up and closed.

  “You really think that you can navigate the falls?” Milly asked.

  “I’ve done it before,” Barmanu said as he flicked a couple switches on the overhead dashboard and lifted the ship up into the air.

  “And you made it through?” Milly asked, as the acceleration pulled her backward.

  “No, he definitely crashed the thing and ended up falling three hundred feet off the falls and almost killed himself,” Sas said, causing everyone to stare at him. “Well, you got a better idea?”

  “And what happens if we get out of those tunnels?” Milly asked, unsure about this plan. “Theus said that they have an entire fleet out there just waiting.”

  “We’ll have to jump,” Mr. Swan said.

  “Jump?” Katie squealed.

  “Sas, can you make a targeted portal in midair?” Mr. Swan asked.

  “Are you insane?” Katie said.

  “I can do it,” Sas confirmed.

  Barmanu pulled back on the throttle as they got closer to the large waterfall that cascaded into the city.

  “Please fasten your seatbelts. This may get a little dicey,” Barmanu said over the intercom. Allora jumped into the front, placing herself in the passenger seat next to the pilot. “Are you sure you want to watch this?”

  “I hate not knowing where I’m going,” Allora said, clipping in the strap across her chest.

  “You may regret that decision.”

  At the top of the waterfall, there was a small, dark opening where the water poured out. Barmanu flipped on the outboard lights, which flooded the dark opening with light as they shot through the cave opening. The interior icy water glistened in the light as they skimmed across. A hundred feet ahead, there was a wall of water. Allora glanced at Barmanu, who was clutching the joystick. His whole body was tense and rigid. About five feet from the wall of water, Barmanu pulled up vertically, flooding the glass windshield with cascading water. He started counting out loud as they flew upward. After seven seconds, he turned his whole body right and then pushed forward, accelerating the transport over an arching outcrop. The windshield cleared of water, showing them a small opening in the cavern ground, like that of a large well. The ship glided in the air as the back went upward, with the front pointing down. As they got closer, Barmanu hit the throttle, and they took off straight down into the black hole. Allora was hanging onto the seatbelt, watching the passing rock, like traveling through a wormhole. With no room to move, Barmanu held the stick steady. Any deviation from the current trajectory would cause the transport to clip the side of the rocky tube.

  “Everyone, hold on,” Barmanu said over the intercom. “This n
ext part is kind of a doozy.”

  Before anyone could respond, he pulled back on the throttle, causing the transport to lurch back. Then the tube opened into a field of enormous icicles, hanging randomly throughout the area.

  “No time to take this one slow,” Barmanu said, pushing down on the throttle. The lights glimmered on the ice, reflecting a multitude of eerily beautiful images in the dark cavern. “Hold on!”

  He took a sharp right, passing around an icy cylinder, and then dropped down under an ice shelf. The transport veered to the left, barely missing the pointed end of an icicle, and then Barmanu had to slam down on the steering wheel to avoid crashing into a falling sheet of ice. The transport skimmed on the bottom, causing a screeching sound similar to nails on a chalkboard. Barmanu turned right, pushed the throttle, and inched under the ice sheet.

  “That was freakin’ close,” Allora said, clutching the arms of her seat.

  Barmanu didn’t even get through exhaling before the entire cavern shuddered. His eyes widened as the entire roof of icicles descended from its locked position. Barmanu pushed the throttle harder, maneuvering through the falling ice like a slalom skier. In the distance, Allora could see a very small light, covered in snow. She bit down hard, thinking about their exit from the icy tomb that seemed to want them dead. With only two hundred feet to go, a large chunk of ice hit the transport, spinning it to the left. They spun rapidly out of control. Barmanu tried to negate the spin, but every move he tried made it worse. With the current trajectory, they would slam into the rock. A second from crashing into the wall, the entire transport seemed to jump upward, moving it right in line with the small opening. The transport exploded the snowy cover, releasing it into the open air. Allora glanced back, where Milly had her arms out and her eyes closed. There was no doubt how they had missed certain death.

  Barmanu was able to get the transport back into his control, and they popped out of a fog, revealing a speckled sky above the Himalayas. Now they knew what had caused the sudden earthquake. Allora’s jaw dropped at the amazing yet terrifying scene laid out in front of the small transport. The sky was covered with floating ships of varying size and shape, hovering above like vultures circling an animal, waiting for it to die.