by Dima Zales
I swat, punch, and kick, and so does everyone else.
The ocean floor around us starts to look like the night sky with all the lights lying around.
My arms are aching from swatting by the time we finally make out the shimmer of the gate.
We redouble our monster-hitting efforts, and when there’s a lull in their attack, we speed into the gate.
Chapter Forty
There’s no water on the other side, and it’s bright—so bright that even with the visor, the sudden change momentarily blinds me.
When my eyes adjust, I see that our surroundings look like the inside of an active volcano—except even the sky is on fire.
Is this the firebird’s home world or the inspiration for the descriptions of fiery hells?
Whatever the answer, I break into a run, and so do my friends.
“We need to move faster, or we’ll risk igniting,” Itzel gasps out, taking the lead.
Ariel and I overtake her and leap into the next gate just as my skin starts to burn.
Felix and Itzel join us a moment later, with Itzel berating herself for ever agreeing to help us and Felix panting inside the helmet like a dog.
As I catch my breath, I look around warily. This is the last world before we reach our destination, so with our luck, it might be the most dangerous.
Not spotting any immediate danger, I begin walking.
Our surreal surroundings look strangely familiar.
There’s a silver Grand Canyon-like mountain ridge in the distance that I could swear I’ve seen before, and same goes for the alien star formations in the sky. Ditto for the seven differently shaded moons.
When I see the magnificent aurora borealis, it finally clicks. “Nero has a painting of this place hanging in his office,” I say, picking up speed as I head for our destination, the blue gate.
“He’s clearly been here,” Felix says, matching my stride. “Which isn’t surprising, seeing how it’s his map we’ve been following.”
“Does that mean it’s a safe world?” Itzel asks, taking the lead again. “I mean, would anyone stop to paint a landscape if it wasn’t?”
“Nero might,” Ariel says. “For all we know, he can waltz through the worlds we just passed without breaking a sweat. Maybe even the fiery one.”
“Right.” Felix slows down and looks my way. “Nero might be able to, but what about Rasputin? Did he also use a space—”
We don’t hear what Felix says over the booming roar that shakes every root of my hair.
We break into a sprint.
Images of giant bear-dinosaur hybrids flit through my head, but as I throw a panicked glance over my shoulder, I spot something bird-like in the light of the aurora.
Whatever it is, it’s massive, and it’s diving for us.
I speed up.
The roar feels nearer.
I push the suit and my muscles to their limits once again.
When we’re a few feet away from the blue gate, the roar shakes the ground once more, and—though it could be my adrenaline-overloaded imagination—I could swear there are human words embedded in the sound.
Ariel jumps into the gate, with Itzel and Felix following.
I’m about to follow them when I feel my seer intuition go into high gear. Almost on autopilot, I reach for Headspace.
Finding myself floating without a body, I congratulate myself on accessing Headspace under the most extreme circumstances yet.
When I metaphorically look around, not surprisingly, I find myself surrounded by shapes that exude music worthy of a Halloween soundtrack.
Not good.
Something truly awful must be about to happen, even worse than cannibal gnomes or the Godzilla-sized dinosaur—since I didn’t get any warnings those times.
No, wait. That could’ve been Itzel’s fault. Her nature messes with my powers. And since she left this Otherland, my powers finally got a chance to help me out.
Come to think of it, I felt a faint warning on the sky-squid world, too. It’s just that the mental attack the monster hit me with made it impossible to go into Headspace.
All right. The good news is that it worked this time.
I wonder what it is that’s chasing me. Another giant dinosaur, like a pterodactyl but much bigger? Or is this the legendary roc—the bird that Kit turned herself into on Buyan and that Hekima showed us at the most recent Orientation?
Actually, since birds are the descendants of dinosaurs, those two options pretty much boil down to the same thing.
Almost.
In any case, maybe this is the danger my visions are warning me about.
I examine the shapes in question and can’t help but notice how unnaturally homogenous they all are. A lot like the time when I was trying to crack Nero’s safe using my powers.
If I’m right, my best bet might be to see all these visions at once, just like I did on that day, and hope that one will contain the information I need to save myself.
Thus determined, I reach out to all of them at once and prepare for a bunch of visions in a row.
A talon rips into my suit from the back, slices through me, and exits from the front with a fountain of blood.
It happens so fast I don’t even get a chance to turn and see what did it. I just experience the mother of all pains in my chest, hear a bone-shattering crunch, and then my ripped-apart heart stops beating as I promptly die.
I tilt my body an inch to the left—and this time, when a talon rips into me, I get to feel the horrific pain for an extra second before I perish.
I twist my body even further to the left.
The talon still rips into the suit. I just get even more agony for my efforts.
A hundred nearly identical visions follow—the only variables being how much I move left, how severe the pain is, and how quick my demise.
Then another set of visions follow, all identical to the first batch with only one difference—I try moving to the right this time, with the same results.
I fall to the ground and roll a few inches to the right, then a few to the left. A claw pierces the ground but misses my torso by half an inch.
The roar sounds angry this time, but I ignore it, twisting my body once more before I leap to my feet and jump successfully into the gate—
I witness a hundred visions where I fall to the ground, but roll the wrong number of inches to the right or to the left—with a deadly result each time.
I back away from the gate—and right into a talon that rips into my back.
There’s a searing pain in my chest, then blackness—
I’m back outside Headspace, in my body—at least my intuition tells me that I am.
My still-beating heart is hammering against my chest as I prepare to execute the only set of actions that might save me.
Chapter Forty-One
I fall to the ground and pray that my rolling is just the right number inches to the right.
When I find that I’m still alive, I roll a few inches to the left—again hoping against all hope that it’s just the right number of inches.
The claw pierces the ground half an inch from my torso.
Yes!
The angry roar is music to my ears as I twist my body and leap to my feet.
Triumphantly, I jump into the gate—smack into Ariel’s back.
“I’m alive,” I mumble, over and over. “You guys, I’m alive.”
“I doubt that will last long.” Ariel steps away so I can see where we are. “We may want to go back.”
My breath catches as I look around.
She’s right.
If we stay here, we’re toast.
Chapter Forty-Two
Despite the mortal danger facing us, our surroundings are beautiful—especially the flying island that takes center stage among the clouds. No doubt supported by powerful magnetic fields—or magic—the floating chunk of rock would feel at home in the movie Avatar, especially if one ignores the medieval castle perched on its surface.
The castle looks like it was designed by the same architect as the one where the NYC Council meets, only scaled up to skyscraper size and painted crimson red.
Oh, and speaking of that color, there’s a red river cascading from the floating island onto the ground. It looks like a literal river of blood, but I’m hoping it’s just iron-rich rain water.
The ground we’re all standing on has a reddish tint as well. At least I assume it’s the ground. For all I know, I’m standing on a floating island that stretches to every horizon.
“Are you gawking at our surroundings?” Ariel asks sternly. “We have to decide; do we go back into the gate or not?”
Her words refocus me on our impossible situation: an army that surrounds us on all sides.
I spot archers and swordsmen among them, but the majority look like the monks who work for the Council—except these guys are holding wooden staffs.
Every single man is staring at us with warlike ferocity, but I still hope they mean us no harm. That bubble bursts in the next moment.
The archers shoot a cloud of arrows our way.
We break into a run, and the arrows pepper the ground behind us, barely missing our suits.
“I think they’re herding us away from the gate,” Felix pants as he slows down.
“That’s fine.” I swallow my heart back into my chest. “We don’t want to go back. The thing in the previous world is worse than this lot.”
“I say we attack the monks,” Ariel says and takes the lead. “The archers might be reluctant to shoot if we’re close to their brothers in arms. We could fight our way to some other gate, jump into another world, and regroup from there.”
“That might work,” Felix says uncertainly. “I mean, how much damage can someone do with those sticks?”
That must cinch the deal for Ariel, because she picks up her pace, heading right for the thousand monks that separate us from the nearest gate.
“Wait, let’s analyze this further,” Itzel says, but it’s too late.
Ariel charges ahead with a fierce cry that only we can hear inside our helmets.
“That’s that,” I say and follow Ariel—who smashes into the sea of monks like a bowling ball into a rack of pins.
Four monks are knocked down right away. Another monk tries to hit Ariel with his staff, but she catches it mid-swing and crushes it into woodchips with her hand.
Seeing what happened to his weapon, the monk retreats—but not fast enough. Ariel kicks him, and he flies into the others, knocking them over.
“The sword guys are heading for every nearby gate,” Itzel complains. “We need a new plan.”
Ignoring the gnome, I pick a monk at random and punch him in the face.
The monk drops like a sack.
Damn, I love the boost the suit gives me. Also, Nero had better give Thalia a big raise for all the fight training.
A staff crashes into my helmet from the back—but all it does is irritates my ears with the resulting noise.
This fight might not be as hopeless as I feared.
Another staff rams into my shoulder, and that hurts, bringing my expectations back to earth.
Felix yells something, and I turn to see him tossing two monks to the ground.
Even Itzel is fighting now. She grabs a monk by his staff, rips it out of his hands, and bashes him on the head with it.
I kick one monk, punch another, then suck in a breath and rattle out, “Itzel, I assume the suits can’t protect us from an arrow or a sword slice, right?”
“That’s right,” the gnome huffs. “They can’t.”
Then we’re screwed, I realize as a staff slams into my midsection.
Gasping for breath, I punch the guy responsible, then dodge a staff-to-ankle attack—only to get hit on the shin two seconds later.
Definitely screwed.
Suddenly, someone blows a horn, and the monks in front of us scatter, as if to make way for reinforcements.
I wonder why they’d bother. They’re probably minutes away from beating us to death with their staffs, and that’s assuming the archers and the swordsmen don’t get tired of watching passively and turn us into kebabs.
To my surprise, a single man is coming toward us. He’s also dressed like a monk, but he’s taller and much paler than the others. His robes are fancier, and he walks with the authority of a cardinal—which is what I mentally dub him.
Facing us, he says something in a foreign language and looks at us expectantly.
“Sounds like Hebrew,” Itzel says. “But not one that’s currently spoken. The H sound is throatier, like in Arabic and Maltese, and—”
“Thanks for the linguistics lesson,” Felix says. “How about you tell us what he actually said?”
“I think it was ‘heed my words, you false gods from hell,’” Itzel says. “Or something along those lines.”
We all face the monk to show him that we’re listening, and Itzel even says something in what sounds like a similar language through her external speaker.
Everyone but the big-shot monk steps back.
The cardinal theatrically raises his arms to the sky and says something else.
“The one true god is Lilith,” Itzel translates. “Blessed be her name.”
“Lilith?” Ariel says. “Why does that sound familiar?”
“I’ve heard her mentioned during a couple of Orientation lessons,” I say, racking my brain for the details.
“Oh yeah,” Ariel says.
“Right,” Felix says. “She’s a powerful Cognizant who once lived on the Otherland known as Earth,” he says in a great imitation of Hekima’s professorial tone. “She took over a world to force the humans there to worship her as a god, thus boosting her powers beyond—”
“That was it,” I say. “Also, if I recall correctly, she has rare double powers—a vampire and a probability manipulator, I think it was.”
“There was also the part about her being a jealous god,” Felix says. “Which might explain the welcoming committee by the gates. I doubt she likes other Cognizant showing up here.”
The cardinal shouts something else at us as I examine the army with a new appreciation.
Yep. Those expressions can be explained by religious fanaticism—and that reduces our already poor chances of survival to zero if we continue to fight.
“Follow my lead,” I say to the others.
Falling to my knees, I raise my arms toward the flying castle and shake them with what I hope looks like religious fervor.
Boy, do I wish Itzel wasn’t here so I could use my powers to see how this will play out.
Though they don’t move with as much enthusiasm as I fake, my friends mime my movements while complaining in their helmets the entire time.
The cardinal stops his tirade and looks at us with unabashed curiosity—as do the soldiers and the monks.
“Itzel,” I hiss. “Tell him we came here on a pilgrimage to honor the mighty goddess Lilith, the one and only true god.” I’m glad the visor hides my expression from the cardinal. I can’t suppress a mischievous grin as I get into the spirit of my deception. “She’s been recognized as the goddess among us, false gods, and though we’re not worthy, before we are cast back into hell, we’d like to see her with our plebian eyes so that we can bask in the glory of her light.”
“So that we can talk to her instead of her fanatical followers,” Felix chimes in dryly.
“Don’t translate Felix’s part,” I say just in case. “But that’s the idea, yeah.”
“I’m not sure that’s such a great plan,” Ariel says, but Itzel must like it more than our prior plan of fighting to the death, because she starts translating my words.
Given the cardinal’s expression, my plan might actually work—at least part one, getting an audience.
With great pompousness, the cardinal says something to us.
“You must be bound,” Itzel translates. “Like the beasts that you are.”
“I really don’t like this,” Arie
l says.
“This at least gives us a chance,” Itzel says. “A single nick of an arrow or stab with a sword would mean we can’t go back. Lilith is a Cognizant. Hopefully, she remembers that she’s not really a god and will at least hear us out. Maybe we can somehow reason with her.”
The cardinal yells at his minions, and four monks walk out of the crowd, holding ropes. One pantomimes putting our hands behind our backs, and I volunteer to comply first.
When he starts binding my wrists, I tense up and wonder if this was a grave mistake.
The others are tied up next; then the cardinal barks out a few orders and leaves the way he came.
The monks lead us through the crowd, and as they do, even Ariel must see the futility of our earlier fight.
There are literally thousands of soldiers here—and behind the army, countless people are kneeling, no doubt worshiping Lilith.
We continue toward the floating island, and near the bank of the let’s-hope-not-literally-blood river, I spot something Hekima just showed us at Orientation: giant birds of the roc variety.
Was this what attacked me on the previous world? Though huge, these birds don’t seem nearly large enough. Then one of the birds produces a mighty squawk, and I become certain this isn’t the culprit.
The roar I heard was completely different from this.
“The birds have saddles, like horses,” Felix says warily.
“Do you see a ladder up to the castle?” Itzel asks him sarcastically. “Or did you expect to take an elevator?”
They bicker as the monks place us into the saddles and climb up behind each of us.
With a flap of giant wings, we launch into the air.
Wow.
Despite our prisoner status, I can’t help but gawk at our surroundings.
I had the right idea earlier. What seemed like the ground turns out to be a floating island that’s much bigger than our destination. It also appears to be some sort of pilgrimage destination for the citizens of this world, because all space not taken up by the army is covered by the kneeling people, their hands outstretched toward the red castle.