by Bryan Davis
“I suppose I will,” Shiloh said. “I’ve never been known as the shy sort.” She set her folded hands on her backpack, now crumpled in her lap. “My father is Patrick, a former dragon named Valcor, who became fully human over fifty years ago. Gabriel was involved in Valcor’s transformation, so I’ll tell that story first. You see, Morgan was threatening to kill my mother, a beautiful woman named Ruth, who also had a very interesting life, but I’ll get to that later. Anyway—”
“Hello?”
Everyone turned toward the sound, a soft voice coming from the tunnel. Sapphira hissed at the lantern, “Lights out!” As darkness flooded the hovel, she jumped to her feet and felt her way toward the exit.
“I saw a light,” the voice said. “Is anyone down there?”
Now close enough to look through the exit passage, Sapphira craned her neck, trying to find the source. The voice seemed oddly familiar—feminine, cautious, maybe even nervous.
Suddenly, a light flashed into the hovel, so bright it blinded Sapphira. She staggered back, rubbing her eyes. Several hands caught her and held her up as she refocused on the exit hole.
“Are you okay?” Bonnie whispered.
“Fine. Shhh.”
Within the shaft of light, two boots slid down, followed by two bare legs with a cloak and white dress riding up toward the girl’s hips. She then dropped to their level, one hand holding a ball of white flame, illuminating her equally white hair.
Chill bumps ran along Sapphira’s skin as she took a step toward her. “A … Acacia?”
“Sapphira?” Acacia’s chin quivered. Her flame dwindled to a bare spark.
Sapphira spun toward her lantern, pointed at it, and shouted, “Ignite!” A bright yellow light flooded the room. She spread out her arms and squealed, “Acacia!”
They rushed into each other’s arms. Crying so hard she could barely speak, Sapphira massaged Acacia’s back. “Oh, my dear sister, I can’t believe you’re here! Flesh and bone, and not a phantom!” She wept, burying her eyes in Acacia’s cloak.
Acacia pulled back and set her hands on Sapphira’s cheeks. Tears flowed down her own cheeks as her bright blue eyes danced. “Dearest, darling sister, so much has happened, but there is no time to tell you the half of it.”
“How …” Sapphira swallowed through a lump, trying to steady her voice. “How did you get here? Did Yereq let you in?”
Acacia shook her head and let her arms fall to her sides. “I came from Second Eden through a volcano portal that dropped me off at the tree in the museum room. Elam sent me to—”
“Elam sent you?” Sapphira grabbed Acacia’s wrists. “Where is he? How can I get to him? Can I go through that portal?”
Acacia laughed. “Calm down. All in good time.” As she swept her gaze across the other girls, Acacia’s eyes brightened. “Ah! Bonnie and her mother are here. I have seen both of you through portal viewers.” She shifted to the final girl. “And you must be Shiloh, Bonnie’s duplicate.”
Shiloh grinned. “I believe she is my duplicate, if you don’t mind me saying so. I was born first.”
Irene stepped forward and set a hand on each of the Oracles. “You two are identical! Now we have two sets of duplicates.”
“Hey!” a muffled voice called. “Let a guy in on what’s going on over there.”
Shiloh picked up the lantern. “I’ll go fetch the male of the species.”
“Are you sure you can find his chamber?” Sapphira asked.
“Not a problem. I found his pad when I searched for the water closet. He pointed me in the right direction.” Shiloh climbed through the hole and disappeared.
As the light faded, Acacia ignited a new flame in her palm. She stared at the others through its shimmering glow, shadows now covering her eyes. “Second Eden is in great danger. The dragon Goliath has come back from the dead, and he has allied himself with a rebel in that world. They are gathering an army that will attack Abraham’s people.”
“Abraham?” Irene repeated. “Are we supposed to know who that is?”
Acacia shook her head. “He was once Arramos, the very first dragon and father of Makaidos. When the devil stole his body during the flood, God put the soul of Arramos into a human body and set him in Second Eden to begin a new world.” She took a deep breath. “Are you with me so far?”
“This is just too much to take in,” Irene said, “but keep going.”
“I really can’t tell the entire story. I have no way of knowing how much time elapses there while I’m here, so I have to hurry. What you need to know is that we are asking all former dragons to come to Second Eden to protect the people from an attack. There is a garden there that will regenerate you and make you into a dragon again. It’s already worked for Clefspeare and Roxil. It even gave Billy his fire breathing back.”
Irene looked at her ring and rubbed the white gem with her thumb. “I see.”
Sapphira glanced at Bonnie, but she gave no hint as to how she felt about that revelation. She just looked on with wide eyes.
“So,” Acacia continued, “we need to contact the others and call them to the portal in the museum room.”
“What if they don’t want to come?” Sapphira asked. “Maybe they don’t want to be dragons again. And can they revert to human form once the crisis is over?”
“We haven’t figured that part out yet, so the risk of staying in dragon form is very real. Of course, the choice to go to Second Eden will be up to them, but it is the real Arramos, the king and father of all good and noble dragons, who calls for their help. When they realize that, I don’t think they will refuse.”
“I will go,” Irene said. “I see no other option.”
Bonnie took her mother’s hand. “Count me in, too.”
“To get new wings and fly?” Acacia asked. “Or do you still have them?”
“I’ve been instructed to keep that a secret, but …” She dipped her head and smiled. “Billy’s there. I’m not going to let him fight Goliath without me.”
“Now it all makes sense,” Sapphira said as she picked up Shiloh’s backpack. “Enoch will want Shiloh to go with you.”
“As a decoy?” Irene asked.
“That’s what I’m thinking.” Sapphira propped the pack on her own back. “If someone thinks she’s Bonnie, she would make good slayer bait.”
“But it could be very dangerous,” Irene said.
“Somebody call me?” Shiloh slid into the hovel and pointed at herself with her thumb. “Dangerous is my middle name.”
Gabriel dropped down beside Shiloh, the lantern in his hand. “Dangerous is right. She tripped over me and burned my leg. That’s why I’m carrying the lantern.”
Acacia blew out the flame on her palm. “Did you hear what we were talking about?”
“I heard enough,” Shiloh replied. “I’ve already done the decoy bit once when I tricked Morgan into thinking I was Bonnie. I’m a pretty good actress if I do say so myself.”
“So how do we let the others know?” Sapphira asked. “I’m not sure if Enoch would want any of us to go to the surface.”
Gabriel raised his hand. “I wasn’t drafted. I’m just a subterranean volunteer, so I leave whenever I want. Just let me know how I can find everyone, and we’ll see how many dragons want to join the party.”
“Wait a minute,” Sapphira said. “This is all moving way too fast. Let me think.” As she looked at the pairs of eyes staring at her, she tried to remember the reasons each person was there. For one thing, the slayer was topside, hunting for Irene and Bonnie. She and Shiloh were there to comfort them in the lonely darkness, but wouldn’t that mean Enoch expected them to stay for a long time? Gabriel could have been chosen to go and get the other former dragons, so that made sense. Since Devin probably wasn’t having much luck finding Irene and Bonnie, he might be hunting for the others now, so the underground mines could be a good hideout for them, too. Maybe the time it would take to gather the dragons together, perhaps several weeks, equaled the time Enoch e
xpected them to stay. Then they could all go to Second Eden together.
“Okay,” Sapphira said. “Let’s send Gabriel out to call the former dragons to Second Eden. He can visit Mrs. Bannister and give her an update, and maybe she and Larry can help him find everyone. Acacia, you can go back and tell Abraham that we’re gathering his troops. When we’re all ready, we’ll go through the portal together.”
“Bonnie and I could go now,” Irene said. “She … I mean, we would be out of danger from the slayer, and maybe we could help Second Eden right away.”
“And me, too,” Shiloh said. “We might as well plan our decoy maneuvers. Why wait?”
Sapphira looked at each face again. Enoch had said that she, herself, wasn’t allowed to use the portal at the tree, but he didn’t say others couldn’t. Then, if Irene, Bonnie, and Shiloh went with Acacia to Second Eden, and Gabriel flew away to search for the other dragons, that would leave only one person in the mines, the one person who could open the portal from this side to lead the dragon troops to the battlefront. That one person? Sapphira Adi. … Alone. … Again. But that didn’t matter, did it? Her own feelings weren’t important.
She let out a long sigh. “I think that might be the best plan.”
“There’s only one problem,” Acacia said. “We will appear in Second Eden in the magma pipe of a volcano. I’ll need a rope to throw to Billy when I get there. It’ll be tricky, but if I can do it, the others probably can, too.”
“The rope in the old elevator?” Sapphira asked.
“That’s what I was thinking, but we’ll have to cut it.”
Gabriel pulled a dagger from his belt and handed it to Sapphira. “You can use this.”
“Morgan’s dagger?” She reached it back to him. “I … I don’t know about that. It’s a murder weapon.”
He held up his hands, blocking the dagger. “Use it. It’s just a knife. Jared Bannister killed Naamah with it, and I stabbed one of the Nephilim, so obviously it can be used for good.”
As she held the gnarled hilt and passed her finger over the primitive stone blade, her skin tingled, almost as if the dagger vibrated, but it had to be her imagination. “I guess it’ll be okay, as long as we’re doing what we’ve been told to do.”
“Exactly. It should be perfectly safe.” Gabriel bowed. “Since you ladies have everything under control, I’ll head for the exit tunnel and see if Yereq will move the stone for me.”
Acacia handed him the lantern. “You’ll need this more than we will.”
“And Walter’s cell phone.” Sapphira dug it out of her pocket and gave it to him. “It’s useless down here. Even if I could get a signal, the battery won’t last more than another day or two, and I can’t plug it in to recharge it. ”
“Got it!” Keeping his wings tucked, he crawled out, taking the light with him.
Acacia snapped her fingers and created a new ball of flame in her palm, this one pale blue. “Ready to go, Sister?”
Sapphira stared at the dagger—a staurolite blade, Merlin had called it. Tiny crystals glittered in the stone, looking like little crosses burning with blue fire. “I guess so, but there’s no use wasting your energy.” She reached into her sweatshirt pocket and withdrew the ovulum. Its red glow mixed with Acacia’s blue and bathed the room in violet.
Acacia extinguished her light. “Then we’ll let Enoch lead the way.”
All five climbed out of the hovel and hiked to the old elevator shaft, Sapphira in front with the ovulum in one hand and the dagger in the other. When they arrived, the platform they had stood upon when calling for Chazaq to lift or lower them to their destination was no longer there, just a rope dangling from the darkness above.
“I’ll try it,” Shiloh said. She stepped past Sapphira, grabbed the rope, and, after testing her weight against it, swung out to the middle of the shaft. Then, yanking the rope, she jerked her body up and down. “Seems strong to me,” she said as she swung back.
Acacia knelt by the shaft and peered down. “I see plenty of rope. Pull up about twenty feet. That should be enough.”
“Let’s get more, just in case.” Shiloh reeled the entire length of the rope and coiled it on the stone floor. “That should do it. Let’s cut a fifty-foot section and leave the rest.”
Sapphira lowered herself to her knees, set the ovulum next to the coil, and pushed the edge of the blade against the rope. She forced her arm to stay steady. Were they really doing what they were told? Enoch obviously wanted something to happen with the tree of life before they could go anywhere, otherwise he wouldn’t have asked her to dissolve the bone and cover everything with the Bridgelands soil. Yet, maybe what he wanted to happen already took place and she didn’t realize it. Still, in the past, anything associated with the tree of life always took longer than she had hoped. When dealing with Enoch, waiting seemed to be a way of life. Why would this be any different?
“Is something wrong, Sister?” Acacia asked.
Sapphira jerked the dagger back. “I … I’m just not sure about this whole plan. I don’t know what Enoch wants us to do.”
“The ovulum is here.” Acacia pointed toward it with her foot. “You could ask him now.”
Sapphira picked up the ovulum and again held it in one hand and the dagger in the other. As she stared at the billowing mist inside the egg, a river of thoughts rushed through her mind. Why should she ask Enoch? Hadn’t he already given his instructions? Wouldn’t he be disappointed that she couldn’t follow the simplest commands without bothering him with trivial details?
After all, going to Second Eden was for a noble cause, to save lives, so Enoch would be delighted that they would risk their own lives for others. And besides, she certainly wasn’t helping Irene and Bonnie and Shiloh leave for her own sake. She would be all alone again, forced to stay there to wait for the other dragons to arrive. This was a sacrifice, not self-serving at all. Wouldn’t insisting that they stay with her be the most selfish act possible? Why should she bother Enoch with such an easy question?
She set the ovulum down, pushed the dagger’s edge against the rope, and cut through it. “There.” She threaded about fifty feet of rope through her hand and sliced again. “Now go,” she said, handing one end to Acacia. “And please hurry.”
Acacia took the rope. “Are you sure? You’ll be all alone.”
“I know.” Still on her knees, Sapphira drooped her head, trying to hide her emerging tears. “Please. … Just go. I’ll be okay. I’m sure Gabriel will be back soon enough.”
“I’ll have to make at least a little light.” A candle-sized flame rose from Acacia’s fingertip. She stooped and kissed Sapphira on the cheek. “I’m sure we’ll be together again soon.”
As Acacia rose, she waved to the others. “Come on, girls. I think she needs to be alone.” She brushed her lips across Sapphira’s cheek and whispered, “I love you, Sister.”
Sapphira blinked but didn’t look up. Other hands patted her back or squeezed her shoulder, and soon, the scratching and pattering of shoes on stone quickly faded. Then, as Acacia had said, Sapphira Adi was alone.
Sitting now with her head between her knees and her arms locked around her legs, she let the dagger dangle from her fingers. Then, it slipped away and clattered to the stone.
The ovulum’s glow strengthened, sending ribbons of red across the floor. She lifted her head and stared at the pulsing egg. What did Enoch want to say? Scold her for using the dagger, something she knew had been a murder weapon? Give her a tongue-lashing for sending Bonnie and Irene away, the very people she was supposed to watch over in the mines? Rebuke her for giving in to pressure? Everyone seemed to think they should jump at the chance to do something that was obviously good and noble, yet wasn’t exactly in line with what they had assumed to be true. Should she have listened?
Now with the light washing over her, everything seemed so clear. Her decision was stupid. She was the one who heard Enoch’s commands. She was the one who should have stood her ground and said no. And now s
he was getting exactly what was coming to her.
An ignorant slave girl deserved to be whipped, but a child of God who should have known better deserved to suffer even more. And she would suffer, separated from friends and from God in isolation, loneliness, and silence. That was the worst part of all, the silence.
Sapphira began to weep. Did anyone really understand? Had anyone ever suffered so much? No one in history had to live alone, day after day after day, with no one to talk to except herself and an invisible God she so desperately tried to believe in as another thousand sunsets passed by in the unreachable land above.
As she etched marks in the stone for every lonely day, wondering if her perception of day and night even mattered, she had watched her skin grow pale, and had wandered through the dark tunnels in hope that someday, if she ever did again see the sun, her muscles wouldn’t be so atrophied that she would have to crawl.
Yes, it was true. No one could ever understand her suffering. Nothing was worse than centuries alone—not disease, not torture … not even death.
A strange scratching noise perked her ears. She tipped to the side and, bracing her body with one hand, looked at the ovulum and dagger sitting on the floor, almost touching.
The scratching seemed to come from the dagger, increasing in volume and taking on a static-filled voice, like an announcer on a too-distant radio station.
“Mara, daughter of the Earth.”
She shifted to all fours and peered at the stone blade, awash in the ovulum’s glow. In the red light, the crystals now appeared as crisscross-shaped droplets of blood.
“Enoch?” she said. “Is that you?”
“No, Mara.” The voice grew louder and clearer. “Pick me up. Hold me close. If you want to escape loneliness, I will tell you what you must do.”
She slid her hand under the hilt, now as warm as one of the rocks in the hot springs, and held it close to her chest. “Like this?”
“Closer.”