Armadron: The Otherworld Series: Book 1

by Corey Tate

  “All right, Scott. Let’s go. The faster we find Seth and get outta this place, the better,” Nick said. “See you guys in a bit.” He waved at Claire and Sam.

  Suddenly, Nick twisted his body to look back at Sam.

  “What about you, Sam? Where did you end up when the telemine dumped you out?”

  “I was . . . um . . . like ten feet from Claire?” she answered oddly.

  “Was that a question or a statement?” Nick asked, crossing his arms.

  “Yeah,” Claire confirmed. “She took the bolas off my neck.”

  “Oh. Okay,” Nick said. “Just checking.”

  He took the first step, then turned around and looked at Scott.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you,” he joked.

  “That’s what I’m worried about,” Scott replied.

  “Oh, come on,” Nick said. “They don’t call me an Icranu for nothing.”

  “Remember,” Claire said to Scott, who turned around, “mind over matter.”

  She tapped her head and winked at him.

  “Wow. That was random and weird,” Nick interjected. “Thank you for your words of wisdom. Can we go now?”

  Nick didn’t wait for a response. He just looked at Claire’s appalled face and turned around.

  They entered the Infinite Cave with Nick’s chuckles ringing against the walls.

  Into the Hole

  Seth had never felt so helpless in his entire life. He had been walking for hours through lava spurts, and now Inno Mountain was only about three miles off in the distance. He recognized it because he had seen pictures of it in books. The active volcano emitted a never-ending slow flow of molten lava, so that much of the mountain remained engulfed in liquid fire.

  Not all of it, though. There was an overhang that diverted the fiery flow right and left, and below the overhang was a possible entrance into the mountain—and shelter until Seth could figure out his next step.

  Seth’s problem was that Inno Mountain was on the other side of the planet from where he and the others had teleported, and he had no idea how to get back to his friends in time—even if he had the slightest clue where they had landed. With every grueling step, he turned over in his head the details of his trip through the telemine as well as many other mysterious things that had happened in his life.

  While telemining, someone in their group had accidentally shoved Seth’s hands off Nick’s shoulders, and a second later he had ended up here. That meant that wherever everyone else was, they were probably together. That was good.

  Still, he was alone.

  But he believed Claire would find him. She could locate him with her curse, and the team would track him down. Unless the rest of the gang had somehow teleported to Terminus’s Coliseum. Or worse, his castle. But the odds of that were low.

  Seth pulled out his Bastum and tried contacting Nick. It was the third time he’d tried since they’d teleported. Still no luck. He’d hoped that, as he gained elevation closer to the mountain, he might have a better line of sight to the other Bastums so he could contact his friends. And if not them, perhaps another nearby team of Icranu. According to Thaught, there were teams all over the world. For now, he put the Bastum back in his pocket and kept walking.

  He was nervous, too. He hadn’t been topside in a while. Being above ground on Armadron was risky business. Poachers, blockers, and Conjurers could nab him at any moment. Not to mention sickness, if he were exposed to too much radiation directly beneath the never-ending purple storm clouds. Then there was Terminus’s Coliseum and, even worse, his castle.

  Seth had been told stories about Terminus’s castle. He had heard that since no naturally-born animals from Earth could survive on Armadron, Terminus was in the process of creating new species. He’d also heard from Artam that Terminus wanted to combine Armadronian DNA with Earth animal DNA. That would not be good. There were already rumors that Terminus had created a monster and released it into the Unknown Waters. Other rumors were that he had released not one but dozens of these things all over the planet. And according to Artam, there were even more on the way.

  A random, loud fizzing sound came from the ground right under his feet. He looked down and saw that he was standing directly over a four-foot-wide lava spurt.

  Sweet Jesus, help me.

  The lava erupted from deep inside Armadron and rose to the surface in less than a second. With no time to waste, Seth Accelerated and shot out his hands, slowly stepping back. He was keeping the lava down with his curse, but the pressure was growing.

  The back of his head started to buzz and he felt faint.

  When he was as far away as he needed to go, he released the tension. The second that he did so, the lava was sucked back down into Armadron.

  Weird, last time it—

  Boom!

  Craaaaaaackk!

  A lava spring just a few feet behind him exploded. Lava shot up higher in the air than Seth had ever seen. It was even higher than the lowest black cloud.

  He started screaming and running for his life. He ran as fast as he could, digging his heels in. If even a small splash of lava landed on his clothing, he would have to stop and strip down before it burned through. He didn’t have that kind of time.

  He ran from the fiery furnace as fast as he could. Inno Mountain was only about a thousand yards away now. He looked up behind him for a split second and instantly wished he hadn’t. The amount of lava that had been released from that one burst had been enough to burn through all the clouds nearby. Sunlight shone through the break and warmed his skin for the first time ever on Armadron.

  He almost stopped to take a break but noticed that he wasn’t tired anymore. He felt unstoppable! Before he could question why, he shot fire out of his left hand. It came out much more powerfully than usual. The force of that one burst of fire lifted his whole body about ten feet to the right. Seth extinguished the fire and fell flat on his face.

  He twisted himself up and started running again, all in one smooth motion. A fireball the size of a large farm animal landed on the spot where he had just been, marking where he could have died. He turned back around. He was getting closer to cover. He was now close enough to see a place where the slow ooze of lava on the mountain was diverted around what looked like an entrance a little above the base of the huge mountain.

  Another volcanic bomb almost got him on the right, this one much larger than the last. Barely having to glance at the sky, he saw the shadows of incoming fireballs covering the distance all the way to Inno Mountain. Who was he kidding? Seth would never be able to outrun the falling lava bombs without being roasted. Unless . . .

  Seth aimed his hands behind him. He was about to try something he’d seen on a cartoon on the Nickelodeon channel back on Earth.

  Fire exploded from his hands, and he kept the flow going. Now he was running with his hands behind his back, the thrust of the fire streams propelling him forward. It still wasn’t enough, though. Fireballs were raining down on him from everywhere, and the noise was deafening.

  Seth was still roughly a hundred yards from the entrance. He had a crazy idea, one that could kill him if he did it wrong or save him if he did it right.

  Laughing maniacally, he jumped into the air, aiming the streams of fire from his hands downward.

  He concentrated on his legs and screamed. They were covered in flames but somehow not burning up. Still unable to land anywhere, he shot his hands out by his sides and soared higher.

  Seth was flying for the first time in his life. His favorite pair of shoes burned off and fell to the ground.

  “Yes! Ha-ha! Ha-ha!” Seth would have punched the air, but he could literally kill himself by doing that.

  His happy mood was cut short when he discovered the entrance he was aiming for was not a real entrance after all. It was just a small crevice that ended a few feet inside the mountain. To make matters worse, the giant lip diverting lava was just an illusion. The lava was diverted, but simply from the naturally-occurring shape
of the volcano. The crevice offered no ceiling to protect him.

  He paused in front of the false entrance, levitating in the air with fire.

  Now what?

  His question was answered courtesy of a gigantic fireball falling in a vertical drop straight toward him. It was the size of a big rig! Seth couldn’t fly left because the mountain jutted out and blocked his path. He couldn’t go right for the same reason. Flying back away from the mountain would mean having to dodge even more fireballs falling behind him.

  He flexed his feet and arms downward as far as they would go and blasted into the air. He was headed straight for the falling lava bomb at a speed that would have impressed a rocket scientist. Propelling himself a safe distance from the surface of the lava oozing slowly down the mountainside, he continued his straight shot upward, aiming for the gap between the falling fireball and the lava on the side of the mountain.

  He was thirty feet away when Seth told himself he was going to die. The fireball was falling too close to the mountain. He might squeeze through, but not without his body brushing against the lava.

  Seth spotted his chance, though. The fireball was spinning slowly as it fell. Rotating toward Seth was a dark spot on the fiery surface of the burning globe. A cool point.

  A heartbeat before impact, Seth made his move. He flew upward, just between the fireball and the mountain. He began to doubt himself, then grinned. The patch of hardened, cool lava rotated around on the fireball. A slight indent in the mountainside gave Seth even more room to maneuver. He willed himself to fly higher and just barely brushed the cooling portion of the lava ball with his stomach and knees.

  He shot into open air, and the fireball crashed into the side of the mountain below. Seth was forced to keep going up. More fireballs were on their way. He rocketed up the side of Inno Mountain, dodging the flaming lava bombs the whole way.

  He soon realized that even though he was going to a higher elevation, the air was getting hotter.

  Seth dodged the last fireball as it crashed into the side of the mountain. Flying upward past the peak, he looked down into the mouth and throat of the volcano.

  It was one of the most amazing sights of his life. The mouth of the volcano was several miles in diameter and brimming with bubbling molten magma.

  Suspended just above the deadly lake of magma were bridges, houses, hospitals, and schools—all made entirely out of jet-black rock. Still, the most amazing thing of all was that Seth saw kids and adults walking around as if the magma didn’t faze them. Some people were actually covered in the magma. Or literally walking around on fire.

  Personally, Seth didn’t feel heat. However, his body did feel pain from the heat. If he was close to something hot, he didn’t notice. One time his head was on fire, though, and he had felt a nauseating, searing pain. His hands sparked with electricity from the memory.

  He looked around and saw people using their abilities. One woman drew purple lightning from the sky and collected it into a ball of energy. She took the ball over to a house, and a man opened the front door. He let the woman in, and the door closed again.

  Seth realized he was still hovering above the volcano.

  He slowly decreased his fire output, and his body began descending. As he got close to the rocks on the outskirts of the crater, he halted.

  “Hey! What is your name, son?” someone called.

  Seth turned in the direction of the voice, which had come from behind him.

  He immediately saw four Accelerated, heavily built men. In Armadronian years, they each looked to be in their mid-twenties. They were all at his level: ten feet above the rocks below. They were floating like he was, with their hands outstretched and their legs pointed down with currents of fire streaming from them. In short order, all four had covered the distance to Seth, effectively surrounding him.

  Seth looked up and down for a way out—and saw two more men. The one above had strong pulses of lightning keeping him in the air. The one below was the scariest of all. He was standing on a four-foot-wide, thinly layered disc. It was made entirely of shriveling, hissing blue fire.

  Seth gulped.

  “Hi. I’m Seth. I’m new around here.” He let the statement hang in the air awkwardly.

  “Hello, Seth.”

  Seth looked down to see the man on the blue-fire disc talking but not looking up at him. “We are the guards of Inno Mountain. I am sorry to inform you that just yesterday we had an encounter with a rather nasty shape-shifter. Tensions are high, and due to these recent events and increased security protocol, we must bring you in for questioning. Will you come quietly?”

  The other guards tensed a little, and their eyes shifted to one another.

  “Yeah, but I have a question,” Seth said.

  “Ask it,” one of the guards said.

  “You said that you’re gonna bring me in for questioning. Where exactly is in? Scientifically speaking, the magma should run through the entire mountain. So how can there be more than one level here?”

  “Exactly.” The man above him grinned wickedly.

  “What? That doesn’t even—”

  “Seth”—it was the man below him again—“may we continue this discussion on foot?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Seth let his curse die down, and soon enough his feet touched down on solid rock. Three of the guards instantly landed in front of him, and three of them landed behind. They all Decelerated, as did Seth.

  “Let’s take a walk,” said the guard closest to Seth.

  Seth felt nauseous, but he nodded his head.

  They walked on a pathway made of stone that appeared suspended over the magma. It was about three feet wide, so they walked single file. One false step and Seth would experience a quick and painful death.

  The guards walked in perfect sequence. Seth felt clumsy and childish among them. He looked down at his feet just when the guards stopped. He walked right into the guard in front of him, almost knocking him over.

  “Oops, sorr—”

  “Watch where you’re going!”

  Seth looked up and saw that they were standing on the outskirts of the village. He now saw that the village had been built on a huge circle of rock connected to other circles of rock by stone pathways like the one they had just traveled. There were plenty of people from all walks of life up here, all staring him down.

  Something was going on with the guards. He noticed that several had Accelerated again and had their palms turned toward a particular spot in the boiling magma. The guards tensed at the exact same time, and the magma parted like the Red Sea to reveal a flight of black steps leading down into the volcano.

  The guards began walking. Seth did too. As they descended into the stairwell, Seth gazed at the beautiful walls of suspended magma on either side of him.

  At the bottom of the stairwell was an alcove. In the floor before them appeared to be a dark hole, or perhaps the entrance to a vertical shaft. Seth looked up and saw that the magma was floating high above their heads.

  “Keith. Gurner. Go up and work surveillance. We’ve got it from here,” one guard barked. He appeared to be the leader of the group.

  The guard directly in front of Seth turned around and flew up the stairs, propelled by streams of fire from his hands and feet. Seth turned his head and saw the guard at the back of the line do the same thing. Ten seconds later, he heard a shudder from above. He looked up and saw the magma drop into the mountain a little bit.

  Now there were two guards behind him and two guards in front. The remaining guards walked toward the hole in the ground, and because he was sandwiched between them, Seth went too. The lead guard placed his palm on a square panel on the rock wall of the alcove. It lit up red.

  “Back up!” he called.

  They stumbled backward. Seth could hear something coming up the hole. It sounded like the heavy rustling of feathers, or maybe the sound of crackling fire.

  The shaft lit up with light. Yup. It was fire.

  A little
boy flew out of the entrance at a fast speed, laughing. He saw the guards, stopped laughing, and landed with a hiss as his fire went out. Another little boy about the same age flew out even faster and couldn’t stop in time. He was about to smack into Seth when a guard stuck out his hand. The boy’s fire was killed midflight, and he flipped through the air with a surprised yell. The guard caught him with astounding agility and set the boy down abruptly.

  “Martin! Curtis! What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” the lead guard yelled at them as soon as he set the boy down.

  “We were, um . . . coming up here to get something for—”

  “Don’t lie to me, Martin,” the guard warned. “I know your mother.”

  The boy shut his mouth. The other boy, Curtis, didn’t.

  “Mr. Cameron, sir,” Curtis said, “um . . . we were kinda playing a game of tag. We’re sorry that we . . . um . . . flew too fast.” He lowered his head.

  The guard whose name was Cameron walked between the boys. Martin ran around him in order to stand next to Curtis. Cameron turned around in Seth’s direction with his eyes ablaze. Literally.

  “You’re sorry you flew too fast?” he spat, his eyes shooting blue flames.

  How is he doing that? Seth thought, completely amazed. I’ve never seen that before.

  The boys cowered so much that they seemed to shrink.

  “You’re not supposed to fly without an adult with you! You could have seriously hurt someone. Now I’m going to have to tell your mother, Martin,” Cameron warned.

  “Noooo! Pleeeaase! Don’t—”

  “Nelson!” Cameron interrupted Martin’s pathetic cries and looked behind Seth. “Take your son home and take Martin to his mother. Tell her what he did. They will need to be supervised. I’ll reach you when I need you.”

  “Yessir!” said the guard behind Seth.

  Nelson came forward and grabbed the boys by their arms.

  The boys instantly started screaming and whining. They tried to pull away, but Nelson wouldn’t have it. His brow furrowed, and an electric jolt escaped from every one of his fingers. The boys were instantly knocked out. In two fluid motions, he plucked the boys onto his shoulders and jumped into the air about five inches. Lightning crackled under his feet, and he flew up the stairs.