Eternity

by Matt De La Peña

  Her dog.

  “Again!” someone called out, and she knew right away it was Dak’s voice. One of the men took a couple of steps forward and kicked her dog right in the ribs.

  She howled in pain.

  “What are you doing?!” Sera shouted.

  Dak spun around. He was wearing his green backpack, like he was already prepared to leave. “Sera,” he said, “I thought you were with Galileo —”

  “I’m right here!” she shouted back. “Obviously.” She was so angry, she marched right up to Dak and pushed him onto the ground. The top of his backpack flew open and all of its contents went sliding across the floor, including the golden Infinity Ring and the bag full of Mayan tamales.

  Dak looked up at Sera and then turned to the men and shouted, “Seize her!”

  Sera’s mouth fell open.

  Had Dak really just ordered them to capture her — in flawless Italian?

  As the men in gold-trimmed robes approached her, Sera had an epiphany of her own, not unlike the epiphany Isaac Newton had after watching an apple fall from an apple tree.

  The gold Infinity Ring.

  The gold-trimmed cassocks.

  The gold translation device.

  The cardinal who was so anxious to hear her testimony.

  And most important, the tamales Dak had fed her. The ones that had made her fall asleep on the job. Was it possible that he’d laced them with some kind of sleeping pill?

  This wasn’t the Dak she’d known all her life. Someone had brainwashed him, flipped him onto the side of evil. She didn’t understand who could have done this or how, but she trusted her instincts.

  She was on her own now.

  One of the AB Pacifists reached out to grab Sera’s arm, and she ducked. But he managed to catch the side of her head, ripping out Dak’s gross, earwaxy translation device. Good riddance, Sera thought as she slipped beyond the reach of the rest of the men and hurried toward the back exit, pausing only to scoop up the gold Infinity Ring.

  She booked it out of the courthouse.

  Sera raced back around the building and across the town square, her poor dog limping alongside her and whimpering. The two of them kept running until they were at the end of a quiet, vacant road, where Sera knelt down behind an empty carriage, out of breath, and tried to think. She could hear a very vocal crowd coming her way, but she couldn’t see them . . . yet.

  She stared at the golden Infinity Ring. If it were just Dak, she would try and talk to him. Maybe she could bring him back to his true self. But that was impossible while he was surrounded by thugs. No, she’d have to warp somewhere without him, and she’d have to do it now.

  But where would she go?

  Home wasn’t an option. Her parents were gone, and even if they were sitting on the couch right now, waiting for her return, she didn’t trust them. For all she knew, they were the ones who’d turned Dak against her.

  Finally, it dawned on Sera. The one person she knew she could trust was Riq.

  But where would she go to find him?

  “There she is!” someone shouted in the distance.

  Sera looked up and found Dak racing toward her, followed by his posse of gold-wearing priests. “Stay right where you are!” he shouted as he and his men closed in on her.

  Suddenly, it hit Sera like a ton of bricks. She’d go back to southern Anatolia in 333 BC, just after the Battle of Issus. Riq would still be there on orders from Alexander the Great. Dak had said as much himself.

  But was that before or after he’d turned against her?

  There was no time to run through all the possibilities in her head. She had to act now.

  Sera programmed the Ring as quickly as possible and hugged her wounded dog to her side. Then she slammed her hand down on the ACTIVATE button.

  The last thing she heard was Dak yelling, “No! You’ll ruin the moon!” And she saw him fall to his knees, shouting toward the heavens.

  Then everything began spinning around her, and she was lost inside the warp.

  15

  When It Rains, It Pours

  SERA CRASH-LANDED out of her warp right onto the back of a grizzled Macedonian warrior wielding a shield and spear. He shouted something she couldn’t understand while at the same time battling the two men in front of him. Sera wrapped her arms around his sweaty neck and hung on for dear life. The spear of one of the opposing men whizzed by Sera’s right eye. An arrow stuck in the ground next to her warrior’s feet.

  The action was way too close for comfort, and she let out a scream in the man’s ear.

  Her dog howled in the distance.

  “Daisy!” she shouted. “Ginger! I’m over here!”

  War raged all around Sera. Tens of thousands of men engaged in battle on a cold, rainy day. Hundreds were already motionless on the ground, or in the small Pinarus River that ran right through the fight, clouds of red puffing out in the tide.

  Sera had to get out of the fray or she’d be killed. But how? And why had she warped right into the red-hot center of the Battle of Issus? She remembered from reading about Riq — known as Hephaestion now — that Alexander the Great was leading his army against Darius and his Persian army, which was far superior in numbers. But reading about a war was way different from finding herself in the heat of the battle, surrounded by death and rage and violence. Arrows screamed through the air. Spears clinked against shields. Horses galloped by, with armored warriors swinging lances. But what disturbed Sera most was the sound of grown men screaming.

  She stopped looking around. It was too overwhelming. She had to concentrate on these three men, on getting safely to the ground and picking up the golden Ring, which lay on a patch of wet grass a few feet away. If she didn’t grab it soon, it would be trampled and she’d be stuck here forever.

  Just as she was preparing for her dismount, though, her warrior overtook one of his opponents, sinking his sword into the man’s shoulder and quickly ripping it back out. The man collapsed to the ground, holding his wound and shouting curses in some foreign tongue. The man fighting at his side scurried off to a different part of the battle.

  Before Sera knew what was happening, she’d been flipped over her warrior’s back and slammed onto the ground, and the tip of a bloody sword was aimed at her heart.

  The Macedonian shouted down at her, but she couldn’t understand a word he was saying. “I’m sorry I landed on you!” she shouted back. “I’ll go now!”

  But she was wasting her breath.

  They’d never be able to communicate.

  The man lowered the sword so that the tip was pressing against the white Roman blouse she was wearing — which she knew made her stick out like a sore thumb.

  “Hephaestion!” she shouted in desperation. “He’s my friend!”

  The man’s face changed.

  The pressure of the sword eased up a little, and Sera pulled in quick, anxious breaths.

  “Hephaestion?” the warrior said.

  “Yes!” Sera shouted. “Take me to him! He’ll explain everything, I promise.”

  She knew the man couldn’t understand, but he seemed to get the gist of it because his eyes softened. They were friends with the same man. Hephaestion. Riq. A great man, whatever you chose to call him. Sera and Dak had read about all the amazing things he had done — and would do.

  The Macedonian warrior took the sword away completely and held a hand out for Sera. Her breath caught as she reached up for it. Because she was safe for now. And she’d be taken to Riq. And the two of them could figure out what to do about Dak . . . and her parents.

  Just as their hands met, however, a Persian soldier hurrying past them stabbed Sera’s warrior right in the back.

  His hand went limp.

  His eyes grew wide with fear as he continued staring at Sera. Then they drifted off to the side, and he collapsed ri
ght onto her, dead.

  Sera climbed out from under him and checked his pulse and then screamed up at the heavens. Because what had just happened was all her fault.

  Her dog howled again in the distance.

  Sera pulled herself together, picked up the warrior’s sword and the muddy Infinity Ring, and moved through the battle, hardly thinking now. She just knew she had to find her dog and get off the battlefield somehow. Then she’d figure out what to do next.

  She jabbed her sword in the direction of a few of the warriors she passed, men from both sides, but she didn’t try to hurt anyone. She just wanted to look the part. Mostly, though, people ignored her.

  Sera found her dog pinned under a fallen horse. The dog whined pitifully, and Sera panicked for a moment, fearful that her companion was hurt. She was able to push the horse enough for her dog to wiggle out, though, and she was pretty sure that nothing was broken. The dog danced on her paws and yipped, happy to see Sera but clearly anxious, too, as the battle raged all around them.

  Sera led her down the slick bank, toward the river water, thinking they’d be able to walk along the stones sticking up out of the shallow water.

  “How are we ever going to find Riq in this mess?” she asked her dog as they both struggled along the shore, slipping every few steps. It was impossible. She’d warped to the wrong date. But what was the right date? The history books all said the Battle of Issus ended sometime in November 333 BC. How was she to know what the actual day was if the history books couldn’t be any more specific?

  Warping without having a team of Hystorians behind her was an entirely different experience. Normally, she’d be able to track down an actual Hystorian or figure out a riddle on the SQuare or, at the very least, rely on Dak’s knowledge.

  Today, she was out here all alone.

  About a hundred yards down the narrow, muddy trail, a wounded Persian warrior stepped out from the darkness ahead of her and shouted something she couldn’t understand. He raised his sword in his left hand, challenging her, and Sera saw that his right arm hung limp and bloodied by his side.

  “I don’t want any trouble!” Sera shouted back. “I just want to pass!”

  The wounded man began approaching her, waving his sword threateningly.

  Sera backed up, pulling her dog back by the scruff of her neck. She would have made a run for it, but she was trapped between the water on one side of the narrow trail, and the steep bank on the other side, which was twice her height at this point.

  Rain continued falling.

  Sera shivered in the cold wind as she retreated, never taking her eyes off the man. A part of her wished she was still in Rome, with Dak. She could have pretended everything was perfectly normal, bided her time until she figured out why Dak had been acting so strangely. If she could have just talked to him one-on-one, she was sure she could have brought him back to his true self.

  But then she remembered how Dak had ordered the men in gold-trimmed cassocks to kick her dog. That was the one thing she didn’t think she could ever forgive.

  On cue, her dog barked, and Sera saw that the wounded warrior had broken into an awkward jog toward her. The man was injured to the point that Sera was pretty sure she could take him. He was staggering as he ran, one arm dangling useless. And he’d clearly lost a ton of blood. But she didn’t want to take anyone right now. Not when she already felt responsible for what happened to the Macedonian warrior she’d fallen on.

  Instead of confronting the Persian man, she turned and hurried back the way she’d come, her dog splashing in the water as she ran alongside her.

  They climbed the bank at its shortest point and Sera saw that many of the Persian warriors were retreating, led by a man who had to be King Darius III. It was a strange sight, considering the Persians greatly out­numbered the Macedonians, but Alexander the Great had brilliantly used the lay of the land, broken up by the river, to his benefit.

  The rain came harder as the fighting ceased, and Sera saw the true tragedy of war. There were fallen men everywhere. Many were motionless. Others lay wounded, shouting for help, the mud around them red with blood. Horses wandered aimlessly and a few men staggered past Sera, dragging their bloody swords behind them and staring vacantly ahead.

  In the distance, Sera saw a group of men on horseback gathering up Persian soldiers who had surrendered or been left behind, wounded. And then they turned toward her.

  Sera started backing away as the horses closed in on her. It was her clothes. They thought she was the enemy. She turned to run when they were less than twenty yards away, but there was nowhere to go. A few Macedonian warriors were on that side of her, too, arrows ready in their bows.

  Then one of the men on horseback shouted something in a powerful voice, and everyone stopped.

  Sera spun around to look at that man, and her heart started pounding inside her chest.

  It was Riq. Or Hephaestion.

  She was saved.

  He barked another order at his men, and two of them, both on horseback, trotted toward her. The first one picked her up by the back of her shirt and threw her over the front of his horse. Another man captured her dog in a large net and began dragging her away.

  “No!” Sera shouted. “That’s my dog!”

  But the men didn’t even slow down.

  Sera turned to Riq, horrified, and shouted, “What’s happening? What did you tell them to do?”

  Riq removed his helmet and looked Sera over for a few long seconds. He was a little bit older than when she’d last seen him, taller and broader with a new fierceness in his brown eyes. “I told them to throw you in jail,” he said in a cold voice she hardly recognized. “Because that’s where you belong.”

  “What?” Sera said, a wave of panic spreading through her entire body. “Riq, it’s me. Sera.”

  Riq didn’t even bother answering this time. He tapped his horse with his foot and started galloping away.

  Sera was in shock as one of the men on foot came up to her and wrestled away the golden Infinity Ring.

  “No!” she cried. “Tell Riq — I mean, Hephaestion — I need that!”

  But she knew her words were meaningless. They didn’t understand her, and even if they did, Riq was the one who’d ordered her to be thrown in jail. As the horse she was on began trotting toward the end of the field, Sera wracked her brain to try and figure out what had just happened. The only thing she could think of was that Riq had been brainwashed somehow. Turned against her. Just like Dak.

  And there was only one party who could be responsible.

  Her parents.

  16

  Who Will Do the Honors?

  WHEN SERA heard the guards coming, she stood up and went to the uneven metal bars, and listened to the sound of their footsteps coming down the hall, like she always did. She’d been in the Macedonian jail for five days now, and they still hadn’t told her what crime she’d committed — not that she would have understood the guards’ explanation anyway. Without a translator device, it all just sounded like ancient gibberish.

  What bothered her most, though, was the fact that Riq still hadn’t come to visit her. She was beginning to think there was no one left she could trust.

  Not Riq.

  Not Dak.

  Not her parents.

  She’d never felt so alone in her life.

  “Take me to Hephaestion!” she shouted when the footfalls grew closer. She heard the usual two sets of feet, but this time she also heard a strange dragging sound. One of her prison mates, an old man with long gray hair and a gray beard, shouted something back at Sera. He’d been shouting at her since she’d arrived, and since she couldn’t understand him, she no longer even acknowledged him. There were five other prisoners in the cell with her. Two Persian war prisoners, two Macedonian street thieves, and the old man. She kept as far away from them as possible during the day and
slept sitting against the wall with one eye open.

  Sera backed away from the metal bars as the guards finally came into view. They weren’t bringing dinner like she had expected, though. They were dragging another prisoner toward the cell.

  His head was bowed, and he was wearing a strange Asian robe that didn’t at all match the time period. And then Sera glanced down at this new prisoner’s shoes.

  A pair of checkered Vans.

  Her breath caught.

  She watched the guards unlock the heavy door and swing it open and dump the limp body onto the brick floor. They promptly locked the cell door behind them and disappeared down the long hall.

  Sera stared down at the small body lying by her feet. His oversized robe had flown up over his head, so she couldn’t see his face, but he had on a modern pair of jeans and a T-shirt. And those Vans. Not exactly what you’d expect in ancient Anatolia. But how could this be? She’d left Dak back in seventeenth-century Rome without a time-travel device.

  She slowly kicked the robe off the boy’s face and her entire body went cold.

  It was Dak, all right.

  The old man was on his knees now, shouting up at the roof of the cell and pointing at Sera and Dak.

  She kicked the robe back over her ex–best friend’s face and moved as far away from him as possible, sitting against the opposite wall to try and think. How had he gotten here? And why was he wearing an ancient Chinese robe? And what was wrong with him? And why wouldn’t this old man give it a rest?

  Sera sat there for over an hour, waiting for Dak to wake up.

  The guards brought dinner, a watery stew with some unidentifiable meat Sera refused to eat.

  After they removed the food, the daylight that had been flooding through the small cell window began fading away.

  The rest of the prisoners soon fell asleep, even the old man, but not Sera. She stared at Dak’s motionless body, vowing to keep both eyes open tonight. There was no way she was going to let her guard down now.

  Sera woke with a start and found Dak standing over her. She scrambled to her feet and got into a fighting position, fists clenched, ready to defend herself. How could this have happened? She’d only closed her eyes for a couple of seconds. But the entire cell was lit up by sunlight again. It had to have been longer.