Across Carina (17 page)

I nodded, trying to convince myself that this would all be worth it.

At least I’m not alone.

As if he’d read my mind, Sal started to sit down beside me.

He had barely touched the boulder when we heard something growl. My heart about stopped. We jumped to our feet and turned to see what had made the sound.

The desert was empty. Aside from rocks, dried grass, and dirt, there was nothing.

But then the growl came again.

“Sal?” I whispered.

I squeezed his hand. He pressed a finger to my lips and shook his head. I closed my mouth, quietly inhaling.

Across from us, there were two boulders. They were separated by a few feet. Something rustled behind the boulder on the right, and then a fat snake whipped out from behind it. It hissed at us, baring its fangs and somehow slithering through the air.

I lurched forward. “Holy—”

Sal grabbed my arm. “Stay put,” he ordered.

“What are you doing? We can outrun a snake,” I insisted, wriggling out of his grasp.

We looked again, and the snake was gone.

Then came the third growl. A puff of smoke floated up from behind the boulder.

“That’s no snake,” Sal said.

It certainly was not.

The creature showed itself, throwing two paws on top of the boulder. It was a lion standing tall on its hind legs. It had a coat of tawny fur and an extensive, coarse mane. Its eyes were large and black, sitting between crescent-shaped ears and a wide nose. It growled again, baring four sharp canines.

The lion jumped onto the boulder, now standing on all fours. It loomed over us, and it was not alone. From its back protruded the head of a goat with eyes that blazed deep purple. The goat had a thick beard and horns that curled into rigid hooks.

The lion began to thrash its tail. And that’s when I realized its tail was the snake. It was a thick snake, hissing at me with its forked tongue.

I stood there, paralyzed, without a plan. I had never fought anything larger than a neighborhood dog. And judging by Sal’s eyes, I guessed that neither had he.

“Any thoughts?” I asked.

The lion’s claws unsheathed against the rock.

“Well I don’t think we should run,” Sal mumbled through his clenched jaw.

“Maybe we should play dead,” I mumbled back.

“Not with this. It’ll think we’re dinner.”

“I think it already thinks that.”

I wondered which of the gods had made such a monster and for what purpose. Its six ravenous eyes suggested an appetite for people and not much else. We would fit all too well in its stomach.

Neither Sal nor I moved. I merely allowed my eyes to scan the area for potential weapons. I knew that Sal had knives in his bag, but it was too late to dig them out, and they were probably too small anyhow.

The lion pounded the boulder and roared, expelling a circle of fire around us. We cringed at our sizzling skin, made so much worse by the sun.

The lion jumped down from the boulder, licking its lips. It began to march toward us, one paw determinedly in front of the next. The fire dispelled and left us as prey, betraying us like the rest of nature. Even my heart was battering my chest.

The snake hissed, then, so deafeningly that I lifted off, and I was seeing through telescopic eyes. I watched the goat spin its head around—all three hundred and sixty degrees—and then it sprang out of the lion’s back like a jack-in-the-box.

Sal couldn’t run, but he couldn’t play dead. He just stood there; and I watched him, light and dizzy.

The lion paused a few feet away from him. Slowly, it began to drag its claws through the dirt. I didn’t know whether it was marking its territory or about to charge. Either way, I figured that Sal would take the warning and step back.

He stepped forward. He screamed at the lion, his mouth open so wide that I could hardly discern his jaw. He puffed up his chest and pounded it.

“Have you lost your mind?” I heard myself shout.

The lion whipped in my direction.

“Do the same!” Sal ordered.

“What?!”

“Do the same!”

Everything in my field of vision began to slant. The lion roared again, and I fell on my back. Sal screamed as a distraction. The lion and the goat turned to look at him, but the snake stayed on me, slicing through the air in my direction. It hissed until the others remembered that I was still on the ground, helpless and ready to be eaten. Now all three heads were on me.

I’m going to die
.

The thought pulled me to my feet. Sal tossed me a knife that he’d managed to retrieve from his bag. I caught it by the blade, cutting myself, and a drop of my blood hit the ground. The lion sniffed it and moved closer, spewing hot air from its nose. My hair blew in every direction. It was too late to worry about making the creature mad. It
was
mad, and thirsty for my blood. Sal flailed his arms, trying to dissuade the lion off my path, but the lion ignored him. It was fixated on my hand.

I was exhausted. In four months, I had lost my family, my friends, and my emotions. I thought of everyone who had told me what to do and how to feel. Now this beast was threatening the last thing I had left—my own life. Sal was right. I couldn’t surrender. I had fought too long for my life to just end in Carina, light-years from home.

Fueled with wrath, I wielded the knife and took a wide stance before the lion. Even on all fours, it stood at least seven feet tall. It roared, and I replied with a demonic growl that I didn’t know existed within me.

“You think you rule me?” I bellowed.

I stepped forward, waving my knife. The lion snapped at me, but I kept just out of its reach. I stared at it, nearly going cross-eyed, and my skin began to tremble. But it was not a trembling of fear. It was a trembling of rage.

“I will cut you into
pieces
,” I hissed.

The goat twisted its head, in fearful cries. Its purple eyes drained of color. I had finally gotten under its skin. The lion and the snake, however, were not afraid. They were still watching me.

I stepped closer to the lion, refusing to blink or look away. Its eyes swelled into black discs. It breathed heavily, its chest expanding and contracting in my face. And then it blew out the tiniest puff of smoke. The smoke drifted over me, taunting. The lion was prolonging its attack.

In my peripheral vision I saw Sal inching toward the back of the lion with his own knife in hand. Motionlessly I waited for him to strike, but the goat bleated, having seen him. The lion and the snake turned to look, and I, distracted by all the sudden movements, dropped my knife.

The moment I bent down to retrieve it, the lion pounced. I was flattened in less than a second. Several of my bones broke, warping my body on its way to the ground. I lay there, winded and cracked.

Sal plunged his knife into the lion, but the snake bit him before he could twist his knife any further. The lion turned from me to Sal, momentarily blocking my view of him. I heard the lion breathe, and then Sal screamed. I looked; he was on fire.

I couldn’t stand. I couldn’t help him.

The lion returned to me, slashing my face again and again. I closed my eyes to at least spare
them,
but there was no point in fighting back. I might as well have been paralyzed. And so I waited to die.

In waiting, I lost all my senses.

First went my sight. My eyes were already closed, and they were heavy, but I could feel the sunlight drift off of them and fade into oblivion. Now things were even darker, and it was then that my eyes felt the heaviest. It had not been the sunlight that was the weight, but the darkness.

Next went my hearing. The roars, the bleats, the hisses . . . my screams . . . they merged into a sphere of chaos. It filled my head, knocking on my skull for more room, more power. It was more than I could handle, and my body ejected it, leaving only silence.

Then a wind came, and it carried away the lion’s breath. I could no longer smell its fire or my sweat.

The only taste I had to lose was that of my own saliva, and fear alone dried my throat.

All that remained was my ability to touch. But I didn’t want to touch or be touched. Without thinking, I raised an arm to shield my face from the lion’s claws. My chest was now completely exposed.

The lion trampled me. I sucked in my breath and held it. I thought that I could numb myself if I momentarily stopped breathing. I meant to exhale, but before I could, my world turned quiet and black, and there was no more.

I woke up wheezing. All I could see was the lion’s face. It was transparent and drifting, like part of a dream.

I tried to sit up, but was overcome by dizziness. I pressed on my chest. It was stiff as a plank. Though I could feel my heart, and I was awake and alive.

Someone laid me down. I looked up to see a familiar face covering half of the cloudless sky.

“Rest.”

It was Artemis.

Sal was beside her, claiming the rest of the sky. His cheeks were burnt, but he wasn’t ash. I was so happy to see him.

He smiled at me. His lips were dirty, trimmed with cuts and bruises. I felt my own bruises and then traced my cheek where the lion had clawed me. There was a thick, uneven gash reaching from my chin to my eye, which was sealed with crusted blood.

“How are we alive?” I croaked.

It hurt to speak in such quick and shallow breaths. As worn as I was, my body would not relax. My head rolled from side to side as heat seared through me. My eyelids fluttered. I was deliberating between a long sleep and running far away.

“Artemis saved us,” Sal said. “The Chimera is dead now, killed by her arrow.”

“Ch—” I paused, trying to breathe deeply. “Chimera?”

The stench of a fresh kill wafted through the air. I lifted my head enough to see a half-ton mound of fur. It was lying on its side in a crimson pool. I couldn’t see the lion or the goat, but the snake had died with its mouth wide open and its fangs exposed.

Two birds flew into the desert and aimed for the carcass. I looked away and tried to focus on Artemis. She had started to massage my legs, and I could feel my bones snapping back into place. It wasn’t painful at all, and I knew that I owed that to her. She—a goddess—was taking the time to heal me—a mortal. I would never forget it, and I wished I had the energy to tell her so.

“I was on my way to the forest when I saw your struggle,” she said. “Your integrity so impressed me the other night that I could not leave you here.”

“We’re very grateful,” Sal said.

Then he looked at me. “Thanks to Artemis, we will soon have our strength back. We are forever indebted to her.”

“Just live as you have, and I shall be happy,” she said.

She kissed my forehead and then stood, leaving me so that she could tend to Sal. I watched her kiss away the burns on his cheeks and the blood on his nose. I watched his bronze skin revive. He was glowing brightly now, and his skin—it was a perfect match for his golden eyes.

“We were coming to find you,” I said, suddenly remembering our mission.

“Find me?” Artemis asked.

She brought Sal’s hand to her lips and began to suck where the snake had bitten him.

“Yes,” I breathed, clutching my chest. My heart rate was finally slowing. “We are not from Getheos.”

“I know,” she said.

“It’s beautiful here,” I went on. “Your world is beautiful.”

“Yes,” she said.

But I wasn’t finished. “We can’t stay. I’m sorry. We have to get home. Please, please don’t take offense. I don’t mean any.”

I sighed heavily, having reached my limit for words.

“Sal,” I urged.

Artemis was knelt over him, still tending to his wounds.

“Jade says the only way for us to return home is to get a message to our creator,” he said.

“And who is your creator?” Artemis asked.

“El.”

The name resonated within me. I couldn’t remember hearing it before, but I felt like at some point I had. It was familiar. Simple, too. I wondered how Sal knew our creator’s name and I did not.

I tried to sit up, but I was still too weak. Artemis appeared behind me and helped ease me upright. She pressed her hands softly on my chest, and my tension began to dissipate. I was almost back to normal.

“El?” I asked.

“Yes, our creator,” Sal said.

“How do
you
know his name?” I asked.

“I’ve heard it before,” he said. “It’s no secret. People don’t often say it—out of respect—but when I’m speaking to one god about another, I have to distinguish them somehow.”

It made a sort of sense, and Artemis nodded in agreement, so I let it go.

Then she spoke. “I believe Eris mingles with your El. She has mentioned him before.”

“Who’s Eris?” I asked.

“My half sister,” she said. “She’s absolute chaos. She doesn’t fit in with the other gods.”

“But she knows El?” I prodded.

“Oh yes.”

Artemis slid her hands up my chest to my neck and ears. Each touch felt like a full body massage. I teetered on weightlessness.

“Eris is a traitor,” she said, rubbing my earlobes. “She frequently leaves Getheos to gallivant around with the gods of other worlds. She’s bitter toward us and causes mayhem for anyone who offends her. Mind you, that’s anyone who dares to speak in her presence. One time she wasn’t invited to a party, and she started a war! She has all of these powers at her disposal, but they’re not enough for her.”

It was surreal to hear Artemis chatter on as an annoyed older sister. I realized that she was more like a glorified human than anything else. Maybe Sal had been right about the gods’ inconsistencies and interferences.

“This is who we need to find?” Sal asked.

He was sprawled on his stomach, sharpening his knives against a rock. There wasn’t a blemish on him.

“I imagine so,” Artemis said. “The other gods here wouldn’t know where to find El. They don’t seek outside company like Eris does. If you two can gain her favor, then she may offer you the information that you need.”

“What does Eris like? Maybe we can barter with her like we bartered with the chariot drivers,” I suggested.