Bishop_Betrayal

by Michael D. Young

  “Hey, reinforcements, anyone?” She glanced back and saw that Bruno had used his strength to toss the other three safely to the other side. He now stood on the end of the swinging platform, looking like he was gearing up to jump as well.

  On seeing her, he ran back, his hands outstretched. “Quick. Toss me one of those dogs. Any one of ’em.”

  Hoping Bruno wasn’t just crazy, Nadia reached down and grabbed one of the smaller ones by its tail. Swinging it around a few times she tossed the dog in Bruno’s direction. He caught it with one hand and held it tight. In a few quick strides, he reached Nadia and put an arm around her.

  Before Nadia could blink again, she found herself and Bruno on the other side next to the others. He took the little yipping dog and tossed it back over to join its friends. Nadia fell to the ground, clutching her leg that now throbbed with pain. Grunting, Bruno bent down and pried the jaws off her leg with his bare hands. “Hey, Rich,” he said, motioning with his arm. “Why don’t you take a look at this? I’m not too big on the healing stuff.”

  Rich stumbled over, looking pale. “I don’t know if I can heal the whole thing. I’m running on empty.”

  He knelt beside the bloody leg and passed his hand over it several times. The pain lessened some, and the wounds stopped bleeding, though they didn’t go away. After another pass, Rich lowered his hand. “Sorry. That’s about all I’ve got right now. Do you think you can stand?”

  Rich offered a hand, but she managed by herself. Everyone with the exception of Jezreel got to their feet. Bruno flung the unconscious knight over one shoulder. “Mallory, can you snag the amulet? I hear you can read it too.”

  Mallory tore off the amulet that dangled from Jezreel’s neck and fastened it around her own. “Probably even better than she can. This way.”

  All of them ran after Mallory, and the barking faded into the distance. As they ran, Nadia caught up with Rich and pressed the notebook into his hand. “Here,” she said, trying not to think about those horrible final moments. “Jan wanted you to have this. Said you’d need it.”

  Rich took the notebook and stared at its cover. He started to speak, but then had to clear his throat before trying again. “Uh...thank you. Did he say anything else?”

  “No. Just that you’d need it.”

  Nadia looked over at the book and saw that Jan had scrawled something across the cover. “‘I’m going to find the father,’” she read. “What does that mean?”

  Rich kept his eyes on the words for a few seconds. “I wish I knew.”

  CHAPTER 15: PALE SON, GOLDEN SON

  Rich walked around in a daze, clutching Jan's notebook. How could he be gone? Had this really been an accident, or had one of the dark knights caused this? He remembered Aaron's warning about Jezreel and his mother. She had almost fallen off too, and might have if Rich hadn't been so close.

  He did find himself giving grudging respect to Bruno. Sure, he was a dark knight and kind of rude, but he had stood up to Jezreel and put her in her place. It had taken Jezreel a few hours to wake up, and when she did, she didn't say much of anything—just sulked along at the back of the pack Mallory was leading.

  That seemed to be exactly what Mallory wanted. She marched along at a quick pace, always grinning as though they were walking through the line at an amusement park waiting for a roller coaster instead of deep in the heart of a dangerous labyrinth.

  Sometime during the next day, Rich walked alongside Bruno. "So, thanks for saving my mother. I know you didn't have to do that."

  Bruno sniffed loudly and kept his face forward. "Yeah, I guess I owe her. She always put up a good fight, and she made me the knight I am today. Besides, it's kind of against the rules for a dark knight to take out someone else's paladin on purpose. That should be the knight's decision, and most of us don't want to. You need someone to test your skills against to make you stronger and better. I mean, I don't know Mallory very well, but I'm sure she's taking you for a ride."

  Rich had never thought about it that way. Strangely, he owed a lot of the progress he'd made to the obstacles Mallory had put in his path.

  Rich nodded and asked a question he had been wondering about for a while. "Something about you seems different. Where are you from?"

  To his surprise, this made Bruno chuckle a bit. "Boy, that is a good question. Yeah, you're right, I'm not from around here. What if I told you that there are more worlds than this one? You ever heard anything like that?”

  Rich didn’t know what that meant. Was Bruno saying he was some sort of alien? "You mean you're from another planet?"

  This time, Bruno laughed even louder. "No, no. Not in the way that you're thinking. It's like this world is an island in a great big sea, and if you know how, you can sail out and visit different worlds. Some of them are kind of like this one, but others are about as different as you can imagine. I've seen a few of them, but I can't seem to stay in any one of them too long. When I’ve been away, I start to feel that I'd like to see my home again."

  He shook his head, his pace slowing a little bit. When he spoke, his voice was soft and a bit sad. "Never thought I'd miss that place so much, but it isn't easy traveling around from world to world. You’ve got open these doorways into a big white space that's in the middle of all the worlds, called the Middlespace. I haven't been able to find a door like that in a long time. I used to be a knight where I'm from, but it wasn’t like the knights here. When I found these knights, I sort of already knew what I was doing, so I joined up.”

  These words set Rich’s imagination going. What if he could find a door like that and travel to other worlds? How many more were there to see? It sounded exciting. He wanted to ask Bruno more, but the big knight stopped and pointed ahead. "What do you suppose that is?"

  Rich saw a metal staircase that led down to a large open floor area. In the distance stood a bronze door at least twice as tall as Rich. Around the door were all sorts of bars and gears that looked like they operated as locks. In the center of the platform rose two metal tubes that stretched to the ceiling. It took Rich a moment, but he realized they looked a lot like a periscope or maybe even a telescope.

  "Why would we need a periscope?” Bruno asked. “Maybe the Corridor can go underwater or something."

  "Don't know," Rich said. "Might be the way forward, though. Let's go take a look."

  Mallory led the way down the stairs and onto the platform. As Rich got closer, he could see that under each periscope was a control station that rested on a short column. He ran up to one of them and inspected the different controls, which he found were labeled X, Y, Z, and T. From what he knew about math, these sounded like the lines on a three-dimensional graph, with each of the letters representing movement in one dimension.

  He also knew that time was often called the fourth dimension, and so it made sense that “T” stood for “time.” Next to each of the labels were sets of white numbers on a black background, each set to specific coordinates. He confirmed his suspicions about time when saw that the T was set to September 18th, 1983.

  Curious, he looked through the periscope to see what it was pointing at. As he pressed his face up against the eyepiece, a vision of the night sky came into view. He recognized some of the constellations, including the Hunter, Orion. After that, he couldn’t resist looking into the other one. It was set to March 15th, 1984 and had different coordinates for the location as well. This one also showed the night sky, though it showcased an entirely different corner of the sky. The moon shone down in the corner of his vision.

  “So, what’s in there?” Bruno asked, pushing his face closer to look for himself. Rich stepped back, letting the other knight see. “A bunch of stars. But it looks like you can change what it’s looking at down below.”

 
; The problem was, Rich had no idea where and when he was supposed to point the telescopes. To experiment, he walked over to the first one and entered his birthday, May 4th, and the year he was born. A whirring sound came from within the telescope as though it might be adjusting its position, though he had only changed the time. He looked back through and saw the stars again, though things had definitely shifted. Could he be looking at the night sky on the day he was born?

  “Rich, come over here,” his mother called. “I think you need to see this.” She stood next to the door, studying the various locks on it. Once Rich reached her side, she pointed up at an inscription written across each of the two largest metal bars that kept the door shut.

  The first one read, “Show me a night less bright when pale son sheds its cratered might.”

  The second had something completely different. “Show me a darkened day when the golden son has lost its way.”

  Rich turned to his mother, hopeful that it made more sense to her than it did to him. She kept looking at the writing and muttered softly, “Hmm. Both of them do have the word ‘son,’ which makes me think of the ‘sun,’ but if it were the sun, why wouldn’t it be spelled that way?”

  Rich had noticed that too. The telescopes were aimed at the stars, and so it was likely with two clues that they would have to point the telescopes at something in the sky. But was it some sort of constellation, the sun, the moon, or something else altogether? And why would it have a date setting? There didn’t seem to be anything that pointed to a specific date.

  They called everyone else over and took turns reading the clues, trying to see if anyone else could offer a new idea. “Well, one talks about day and the other one about night,” Angela said. “And about the ‘pale son’ and the ‘golden son.’ That sounds a lot like the moon and the sun to me.”

  She pushed to the front of the group and stared up, rubbing her chin and then playing with a strand of hair. After a few seconds, she perked up. “Hey, I think I get it! But I’m not sure wh—”

  A bellowing roar from behind them cut Angela’s sentence short. They all spun at once to see a trio of Neotaurs at the top of the stairs they had taken to reach this platform. All three of them neglected the stairs and instead leaped down, sending a shockwave through the floor with their mass. The heads folded back, revealing Takka in the center and two other knights to his left and right. Rich didn’t recognize the man on the right, but the man on the left was an entirely different story. He couldn’t keep the word in.

  “Dad!”

  Phillip stared ahead, his eyes as lifeless as a zombie’s. “Surprised to see me? You shouldn’t be. You remember the Gigantaurs. They all had a knight inside. Why should these be any different?”

  Rich blinked several times, hoping this was some sort of horrible illusion. Dread mixed with hunger in his stomach to make a super painful ache. Next to him, his mother collapsed to the floor. He followed her down, letting her rest her sobbing head against his shoulder.

  “You promised me we’d free Takka,” Rich said to his father. “You didn’t say anything about joining him.”

  Phillip used his Neotaur armor to take a huge step closer. “Oh, I didn’t go out looking for this. It found me, and then I found Takka and my old friend Mercurio. It’s practically a family reunion.”

  Jezreel stepped forward, swinging her blade from side to side. “So, this is what you had to come up with to beat me, old man? Do your worst.”

  The helmets all snapped back into place. “With pleasure.”

  CHAPTER 16: TOTAL ECLIPSE

  As the clash between the knights and the Neotaurs roared to life, Nadia had only one thought—Angela. In a battle like this, she was the most likely to be hurt as collateral damage. She was also the person who said she knew the answer to the riddle on the door.

  As Rich and Maria took on the Neotaur that held Phillip captive, Nadia rushed to Angela, who cowered near one of the telescopes, and shielded her with her body. After a few seconds, it appeared that one of the Neotaurs was going to take on Bruno, and one for Mallory and Jezreel. For a moment, they would be distracted, and in that time, someone in their group needed to figure out the door.

  Taking out her sword so she could rely on its energy, Nadia spun on Angela and spoke quickly. “You said you’d figured it out. What did you mean?”

  Angela’s jaw worked up and down for a few seconds, and all she could get out were squeaks.

  "I think it's talking about eclipses," Angela said at last. "There's the pale sun and the hidden moon that have lost their brightness. That would happen during the eclipse. A solar eclipse is when the moon comes in front of the sun, so it's dark for a while. A lunar eclipse is when the moon passes in the Earth's shadow so that the night is darker. That's also something that you could see through a telescope."

  Nadia had to admit it made sense. But then she thought of another problem. "I hope your memory is better than mine," she said. "We’ve got to put in exactly when there was a solar eclipse and a lunar eclipse. But I checked and I don't get cell reception in here—we can’t just look it up on the Internet."

  Angela nodded and was about to speak, but yelped when Rich fell hard to the floor in front of them. He got to his feet, yelling something.

  "Keep away from us!" Nadia cried. "Angela thinks she has the answer, but we're gonna need a second."

  Rich flashed her a thumbs-up sign and rushed back into the battle.

  Angela grabbed Nadia’s arm. "Nadia, do you remember when spring break was last year?"

  Nadia tried to picture the calendar in her head, but it was kind of hazy. "Uh, sometime in the middle of April, I think. Why?"

  Angela tended to the controls, already working on the date. "Because I remember on the first night of spring break, I got together with the astronomy club to look at the lunar eclipse. But I don't remember what day that was."

  "Well, I know it was April, like the eighth or ninth or something. Just start on the eighth and keep trying days in April to figure it out."

  Angela nodded, adjusting the levers and then looking into the telescope only to adjust them over and over again.

  Nadia raised her sword as one of the creatures flung Bruno aside and then turned and caught her in his gaze. It raised both of its arms, wielding enormous sharpened blades, and swung down at her. Not knowing what else to do, Nadia countered with her grandfather’s sword, feeling a second wave of rage overtake her. Her sword glowed blood red and sliced through one of the Neotaur’s arms.

  It stumbled back, holding up its damaged arm as though it couldn't believe what it was seeing. Without thinking about it, Nadia let out a cackling laugh like the villain in some sort of old movie. Her whole body burst with energy, and she just couldn't stop attacking. It was like an itch she had to scratch.

  She jumped for the creature again and lashed out with her sword. The force of her blow knocked it back and sent sparks flying. When she started again, the monster suddenly engulfed itself in electricity, sending a massive jolt at Nadia. She tumbled backwards, suddenly feeling more like herself again, but not too much more the worse for wear.

  Just then, she remembered Angela and rushed back to her side, hoping she was still all right. She got there just in time to see Angela pump her first in the air. "Got it! April twelfth!”

  Nadia looked into the telescope and saw that it was true. It showed the barely visible moon, which now looked deep red. She glanced over her shoulder and saw that the bar with the first clue was already sliding away. "You did it …"

  She felt a strange pressure in her head, and for a minute, she couldn't remember her friend’s name. She wrestled in her mind, trying to come up with something that should've been so obvious. After a good ten seconds, she fin
ally snagged it. "Angela. Quick—over to the next one. Did your club look at any solar eclipses last year?"

  Angela started to run, but Nadia held her back for a moment as Jezreel and Mallory clashed with the closest Neotaur. Their swords didn't seem to have much effect against its metal hide. What made her sword different?

  They launched fire at the metal beast, but that didn't seem to work very well either. Mallory drew the creature away toward the other side of the room, and Nadia saw her chance. She grasped Angela's hand and they ran to the other telescope, and once again, Nadia put her body between Angela and the fighting. Angela's hands hovered over the controls, but she didn't make any actual changes. "I … I don't remember. Not this school year. I do remember there was one last summer, but when..."

  Last summer. That gave them several months to look through, and they didn't have that kind of time. "Try to remember, Angela. Was it around something important like the Fourth of July or someone's birthday...anything?"

  Before Angela could answer, there was an enormous crash right next to them and they saw Bruno tackling one of the Neotaurs, bringing it to the ground and smashing it with his fists.

  It looked like he was doing pretty well, but then the creature released a plume of fire from the center of its chest. Bruno dropped to the ground, rolling around to try to extinguish the flames, but this left him vulnerable. The Neotaur kicked him hard, sending him flying across the platform to lie motionless, still on fire.

  Nadia felt the anger rising her again and whirled to face Angela. "We need that eclipse now!” she cried much more forcibly that she meant to.