Born of Fire: The Dawn of Legend (56 page)

DiNiya wanted to believe that her brother was just being paranoid with all his talk of conspiracy, but the truth was that she had noticed a difference in the way her father and many of the other adults had been acting since the incident in the forest. She glanced over to Rex, who seemed determined in his resolve.
Wish I could be that sure of myself in a situation like this
. “All right,” she finally said. “What’s the plan?”

An ear-to-ear grin spread across her brother’s face. “We wait for nightfall then sneak out through caves and follow the cliff path all the way to the Spire.”

“Are they connected?” Rex asked.

“No, but it runs above and parallel to town and opens far up in the mountains where there’s nothing else until you reach the Spire.”

“And you’re sure no one will see us?”

“Pretty sure. The path only leads to the Spire, and because no one goes besides the astronomers, who aren’t even going there right now, we should be able to make our way there unseen.”

“No one but the very people we are trying to avoid,” said LyCora.

“Do you ever say anything that contributes to whatever we’re talking about?”

“I’d say stating the obvious facts that you always miss that could keep us out of trouble
is
a pretty big contribution.”

“Well, then,
you
come up with a plan!”

“Sure, how about this? I go back and tell my mother about your ingenious little scheme, which will probably result in someone or something trying to kill us again, and have her tell your father, who will no doubt lock you in your room, thus keeping you from dragging anyone else on one of your little suicide missions!”

EeNox stood in silence for a moment with a look that said he was anything but impressed. “Good luck doing any of that right now.”

“What do you mean?”

EeNox smiled. “Who do you think is with my father and VayRonx, interrogating our friend as we speak?”

LyCora suddenly looked shaken. “What?”

“Oh, she didn’t tell you?” he replied sarcastically, clearly enjoying having bested her. “I thought you two were thick as thieves.”

Why wouldn’t she tell?
LyCora agonized.
She has never kept secrets from me…or so I thought
.

Sensing that LyCora was very much bothered by the revelation that her mother was in on the secretive goings-on in KaNar, AnaSaya decided to try to ease her mind. “I’m sure your mother had a good reason not to tell you wha—”

“What would you know of it?”
LyCora snapped, causing AnaSaya to jump. Now feeling embarrassed, she threw her hood over her head and turned away from everyone.

Rex, who had been watching the back and forth, had reached his limit and decided to get things moving. “All right, listen. Whoever wants to stay here, stay, but I’m going. EeNox, I assume you’ll be joining me?”

“You know it,” he replied. “Besides, you’ll need someone to show you the way.” He shifted his focus to DiNiya, who was still looking very uncertain. “How about you, DiNiya? You coming or staying?”

DiNiya gave them both an earnest look before sighing loudly. “Fine.”

“Great!” EeNox exclaimed. “AnaSaya, what about you? Up for a little mystery and intrigue?”

AnaSaya looked at him, and then at DiNiya, who said, “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to. I’m sure VyKia doesn’t want you doing anything that could get you into trouble.”

AnaSaya thought for a moment. All her life she had been sheltered and protected by her mother while she regaled her every night with stories of danger and excitement by adventurers from all corners of EeNara. The prospect of doing something she was not supposed to left her terrified yet excited at the same time. Despite having been raised to always play it safe and apply common sense to every situation, she had always been possessed by the hunger to learn and explore, to indulge in her curiosity.
I’ll never get another chance, especially when mother finds out.
“I’ll go!”

“You will?” DiNiya asked in surprise.

“Really?” Rex and EeNox said in unison, while LyCora just snorted derisively.

“ShinGaru, what about you?” Rex asked.

“I will accompany you as well.”

“Really? Just like that?”

“You sound surprised.”

“You just strike me as the type who plays by the rules.”

“I am a scientist. It is in my very nature to seek out answers to questions that would otherwise remain unanswered. If we hesitated to seek them out because of what others thought was and was not our business to know, then we really wouldn’t know much of anything.”

“Well put as always, ShinGaru,” EeNox replied, while Rex nodded silently. “Then it’s decided. After dusk, we’ll leave in two groups so we don’t draw too much attention. Rex and I will go first and make sure it’s all clear. You four wait about half an hour, and if you don’t hear of anyone catching us, come and meet us at the mouth of the path.”

The group made its way back to the house where they changed and waited restlessly in their rooms for the sun to disappear behind the tall craggy peaks. Each one was a ball of nervous energy who, despite apprehensions.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the sun bid farewell to their side of the world for the night, giving Rex and EeNox the signal to mobilize what they had been patiently waiting for. They used the passage leading to the roof where Rex and DiNiya had sat several times, staring up at the luminous night sky, but stargazing was not on the agenda for Rex this evening. “Where is it?” he asked as they sprinted up the steep incline leading to one of the peaks.

“Just up ahead over that ridge,” EeNox replied from up ahead.

They ran the rest of the way up and cleared the top, where they found themselves standing on a landing in front of a narrow pass carved into the mountain by wind and time. “Now we wait.”

Rex nodded and sat down on a rock, but immediately he felt his legs begin to tingle with the coursing of adrenaline as they often did when he was fueled with anxiety, anticipation, or in this case, a coupling of the two. “Hey, EeNox?”

“Yes?” the other boy replied, glancing down at the path they had come up for any sign of the others.

“What’s your angle in all of this?”

“What do you mean?” he said, leaning back and turning to face Rex.

“You were hell-bent on going on this little stakeout tonight. Why?”

“I told you already. To get to the bottom of what’s been going on. Why else?”

Rex had not doubted EeNox’s intentions for the longest time, but something he had said earlier, or rather mentioned, struck a pinprick of suspicion.

“How did you hear about where they were holding our mutual acquaintance?”

“What do you mean? KenSito, of course.”

Rex knew he was hiding something. It was far from the first time he had seen that quick glance away and use of a question to deflect his. “I mean, how did some boy find out where they’re keeping the assassin that they’ve been so successful at hiding from the rest of the tribe this whole time?”

“If you think I had some sort of inside track, then you’re more paranoid than my sister thinks I am.”

Rex rose up so quickly that it caught EeNox by surprise and caused him to stumble backwards. “Damn it, EeNox I’m not stupid, but
you
are, if you think I am!”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

Rex let out a ferocious growl as his eyes glowed red.

“Okay, okay,” EeNox said, putting his hands up. He looked around them to make sure they were in fact alone before saying, “All right, but you have to promise me you won’t tell anyone, especially not DiNiya.”

“Why? What did you do?” he asked in a more sinister tone.

EeNox gave a nervous look before mustering the courage to answer. “I’ve had KenSito listening in on his father’s conversations with my own and VayRonx since we brought the CeraVora back with us.”

“How?” Rex asked, surprised.

“Shhhh,” EeNox said, signaling for him to lower his voice with his hands.

“How?” he asked again in a hushed tone.

EeNox reached into his pocket and pulled out a four-centimeter long insect that looked like a small cicada, which he held out for Rex to see. “With this little guy.”

Rex leaned forward and stared at the dark brown insect, which lay still in EeNox’s hands before jumping slightly to readjust itself to face him. “What is that?”

“A KepArr,” EeNox replied.

“And that means what to me?”

“Watch and listen,” he said as his right index claw glowed green; he gently placed it to where the KepArr’s head met its thorax. The insect suddenly began rubbing its legs energetically against its abdomen like a cricket, only instead of chirps it began playing back everything they had just said in the past ten minutes in a high-pitch, creaky tone.

“What the hell?” Rex said with a look of genuine surprise. The strange insect’s underbelly pulsed with a golden glow with every word, giving it the look of a giant firefly.

“Fantastic, isn’t it?” EeNox said, beaming down at the little creature. Rex nodded, dumfounded. “They are only found on the Black Reef Islands. They’re able to replicate any sound they hear through various pitches and tones they make by rubbing their legs against their stomach, amplifying it using their gold flame.”

“Interesting. How long can they, uhh…record for?”

“Only about the length of time you just heard, five to seven minutes.”

“So not long enough to eavesdrop on an entire conversation.”

“But long enough to catch the important parts if you know when to plant one in a room,” EeNox said, winking.

“So why didn’t you just plant the bug yourself? Why involve KenSito at all?”

“Because he could get close enough to the right people without raising suspicion.”

“But if your father knows, then why not just eavesdrop on him at home?”

“Ha! Yeah, right. You’re mad if you think my father would be so careless as to speak freely about such sensitive information with me about.”

“You don’t think he trusts you?” Rex asked, sounding bemused.

“Not when it comes to matters of privacy,” EeNox replied, grinning.

“I can’t imagine why. So, in other words, you had your little friend plant this thing where you knew he might play host to the right kind of conversation.”

“And it was a good thing I did, too, or else we might still be guessing as to where they’re holding our guest. It was almost a waste because KenSito’s father really wasn’t giving up anything of value until my father spoke to him just before the recording ended, and he mentioned the Spire.”

“So, wait,” Rex said, dropping his arms. “You’re saying that’s all we’re going on? Your father just throwing out the name of a place they might have taken him?”

“Well…yeah.”

“Damn it, EeNox! We could be out here for nothing, you know that, right?”

“Trust me, it has to be legitimate.”

“Oh, really?” Rex replied with heightened sarcasm. “It does? Well, shit, in that case, I guess there’s no reason to worry.”

EeNox wrinkled his face. “I mean, I was worried that we didn’t have enough to go on, either, but then I started thinking about the best place to bring what essentially would be a prisoner. You couldn’t keep him anywhere near town because he could hurt someone if he managed to escape.”

“True,” Rex said, relaxing a bit and crossing his arms.

“Also they would want somewhere private, without any distraction to—”

“Interrogate him.”

“I was going to say question, but depending on how forthcoming he is with information, VayRonx or KyVina may feel the need to apply a heavy hand to the process.”

Rex looked back down at the insect whose illumination suddenly disappeared, returning it to its normal dark brown and black color. He found himself fascinated by the tiny creature. EeNara was appealing to his scientific curiosity more and more with each passing day as he discovered one natural wonder after another.

EeNox, who had noticed Rex’s fixated curiosity on the insect, mused, “With everything you’ve seen since you’ve arrived, I’m surprised you’re so interested in a little bug.”

“It’s always the little things that catch you by surprise,” Rex said without taking his eyes off it. However, a sweet smell riding up on a faint breeze immediately grabbed his attention. He whipped his head around and stared at the edge of the slope, where the sounds of footsteps were becoming audible. “Someone’s coming.”

EeNox put the KepArr back in the pouch on his hip and walked over to the edge, glancing down as he did so. “They’re here. Remember, whatever you do don’t tell anyone about my little friend here,” he added, lightly patting the pouch.

“You still haven’t told me why not.”

“Because my sister, knowing me as well as she does, will no doubt realize I’ve been using it to spy on her and the other girls to see what they’ve been saying about…well, anything, really, which means she’ll scold my ear off, while LyCora will slowly melt the meat off my bones.”

Rex cringed slightly as he was treated to a less-than-pleasant mental image. “All right, but just this once. I don’t like the idea of having to keep secrets for people. It always leads to trouble.”

“I promise it won’t become a habit,” EeNox said with a reassuring smile, which failed to make Rex feel any better.

A minute later, the other four were standing with the two boys on the landing in front of the passage. EeNox regarded them, then asked, “Did you make it out all right?”

DiNiya nodded. “Yes, we didn’t have any trouble.”

“Good. Since we’re all here, then, let’s get going.”

“Wait a minute!” LyCora called out behind him.

EeNox sighed and slumped his shoulders as he pivoted around to face what had become an all-too-familiar look of skepticism on LyCora’s face. “Yes?”

“Do you even have a plan?” she asked him before looking at everyone else. “Do any of us?”

“Like I said before,” he reiterated, trying his very best to contain the physical outburst of frustration boiling just below the surface. “We follow this path all the way to the Spire where we listen in on the questioning. Now, if no one else has any questions?” He began to turn once again but was interrupted by DiNiya.