Crystal Doors #1 (27 page)

Seeing himself outnumbered, the treacherous apprentice held tightly to his stolen scrolls and parchments and bolted toward the arched laboratory doorway. Gwen cried a warning, but seeing that they were hurt, Sharif stopped to check on Rubicas and then on her. “Are you all right?”

“Don’t let Orpheon get away—” Gwen began. Moving with inhuman speed, the apprentice was already out the door and running down the corridor.

Sharif didn’t go after him, though. He had an emergency of his own to report. “The city is under attack, Master Rubicas! A great battle kraken is smashing the harbor.”

The old sage shook his shaggy head and hauled himself to his feet, groaning as if he had a terrible migraine. “I have never experienced such a stun spell.” He sat up, remembering what had happened. “Orpheon! This is not a magic that I have seen before — but I have heard of it. Merlon magic.”

“Orpheon is working with the
merlons?.”
Sharif asked in disbelief, helping Gwen to her feet. “My people say, ‘Misplaced trust may blind an honest soul to the truth.’”

Gwen remembered seeing the other man’s features shift at the last moment. Could Rubicas’s own apprentice — who had worked with the sage in the laboratory for more than a year — be some kind of a spy for the sinister ocean kingdom? More thoughts tumbled into place. Had
Orpheon
been the one who sabotaged the aja array, preventing Gwen and Vic from opening a crystal door for Dr. Pierce? And if so, why?

She and Sharif looked around the laboratory chamber. She saw to her dismay that one of the large curved resonance lenses had been shattered, the jagged shards strewn across the floor. The transparent crystal rods were broken.

“I have to think!” The sage rubbed his throbbing head. “What could Orpheon have been after? Why did he do this? What did he have to gain? Why is it so dark in here?”

Piri’s light shone brightly enough for Gwen to see that the glow eels lay dead on the floor. The aquarium had been smashed. It was pure malice. Why would anyone want to do
that? Gwen frowned at the dead glow eels, the ruined aquarium, the puddles of water spilled on the floor, ruining many of the old scrolls. The four aquits lay drying out at the bottom of one tank, huddling together for survival in shallow puddles. The small sea creatures lifted their tiny arms, begging for water in which to immerse themselves.

Alarmed, Gwen hurriedly looked around. To her relief, she spotted the trickling water clock in the corner of the room. She and Sharif gently lifted the aquits two at a time from the damp floor of their broken tank and dropped them into the water clock’s reservoir. The bowl was crowded once they got all four aquits inside, but the creatures stood gratefully under the trickling flow as if it were a miniature waterfall. They splashed each other, gasping with relief as the moisture revived them. Although they preferred salt water, this would have to do for now. Too many emergencies were happening at once.

Looking anxious, the boy from Irrakesh said, “Master Rubicas — the battle kraken! We need your help.”

“Mmm. I must find my spell scrolls.” The sage looked down at his worktable and groaned. “Oh, no!”

All of the draft spell parchments had been taken, even the crumpled discards that Gwen had rescued.

“My prototypes of the shield barrier spell are gone. Everything!” He hung his head. “The scraps, the drafts, the iterations.”

Gwen was ready to strangle Orpheon if ever she laid eyes on him again. No doubt, Rubicas could remember the basics, but it would take him a long time to re-create all the work —
certainly not in time to use any of it against the monster currently attacking the harbor.

She realized the second terrible thing. “Not only did he steal your spells from us, but now he can give the secret of the shield barrier to the merlons! We have to find him!” She ran to the window, pushed aside the newly grown grapevine leaves, and looked at the brightening dawn. “He can’t have gone far!”

Sharif held up his embroidered carpet. “Fortunately, we can go faster.” Piri’s eggsphere rippled through a spectrum of colors, in empathy.

The old sage stood on wobbly legs. “Orpheon knows everything I was working on! He knows our defenses, my methods, and so much about Elantya.” Rubicas grabbed Sharif by the shoulder. “You and Gwenya must find him. If Orpheon escapes, then the merlons will know everything! Go!”

He didn’t have to tell them twice.

THE AIR SMELLED SO STRONGLY of the merlons’ rank body odor that Vic could barely draw a breath without gagging. Even cafeteria fish sticks smelled better than this.

In the harbor, another guardian galley circled around to pummel the kraken. From the damaged pavilion on the monster’s head, the remaining merlon general shouted commands trying to direct the massacre. The squidlike beast smashed together two small fishing dinghies. Merlon invaders splashed toward shore carrying their scallop-edged scimitars and sea-urchin clubs. The Elantyan guard forces and citizens armed with makeshift weapons rushed down to the harbor to defend the island.

With a groan, Vic slapped his forehead. “Why couldn’t I have thought of this
before
Sharif flew away? It would work, I know it!”

Lyssandra looked at him. “What is it, Viccus? Do you have an idea?”

“Yup. A way to use those mirrormills you showed us. But we need to get into the air. I don’t suppose Elantya has an air force — balloons or something?”

“No.” The girl raised her eyebrows. “But we do have pedal-gliders.”

“That’s right!” Vic wanted to give her a hug. “Can you fly one? Do they seat two people?”

“Of course, and of course.”

Tiaret ran up, panting, her clothes and hair in disarray from fighting the merlons that climbed up onto the docks. Oddly, she was grinning. “Fifteen so far! The merlons have learned to stay away from me — which means I must now run after them.”

“Viccus and I are going to attack from the sky.”

Tiaret accepted the comment without question. “And I will continue the fight on the ground.” The wiry girl from Afirik swung her teaching staff with a swish, and droplets of merlon blood and slime flew off.

BY NOW MORNING’S WATERY light lit the island. From the air above the harbor, the carnage looked even worse than Vic had imagined.

Lyssandra easily piloted the small, lightweight craft. The fluttering glider did not feel stable or safe, but riding it was certainly exciting. Breezes through the open framework rustled the fabric sides and flaps. Apparently, even Elantyan children played with the little vehicles.

“You see, we already know the merlons don’t like bright light,” he explained. “And I remembered you telling Gwen how your mirrormills magically store the power of sunshine in special battery jars. So why not —”

Still pedaling the glider over the mayhem in the harbor, Lyssandra kept her attention on flying. “Now I understand.” She nodded. “I thought it strange when you asked for the luminous jars from the mirrormills.”

He reached down to untie the first of several cloth-wrapped pouches dangling from a strut in the flying contraption’s framework. “Take us over target number one!”

Lyssandra navigated them above a group of twenty merlons that had moved in their soft-jointed gait onto the gravelly shore. Seeing them flying high overhead, the merlons raised their clawed hands and angrily swung scallop-edged scimitars at the unreachable opponent.

“Ready? Bombs away!” Vic undid the cord and, careful not to touch the hot glassy surface of the storage jar, released a silvery-white cylinder over the merlon soldiers. “These guys don’t know what’s coming.”

The undersea invaders looked up at the tumbling luminous jar. When the mirrorglass cylinder struck the rocks, it burst in a blaze of light and hot crackling fire. Sparks and sunshine flowed out in a wave that left the merlons smoking, blistered and senseless. Blinded, the aquatic attackers ran into each other searching for relief and finally crashed into the seawater, producing bubbles and hot steam.

Lyssandra laughed in delight. “The magic of sunshine!”

Vic blinked the bright spots from his eyes. “You’re not kidding.”

Lyssandra pumped the glider’s pedals. From far below, they could hear the cheers of Elantyan fighters who had seen the dazzling blast. “Hurry, Viccus. We have five more jars.”

He unleashed three more sunshine bombs in quick succession upon merlons who emerged onto the shore. The scaly army had no defense against the blasts of light and sunshine, and many of them staggered back into the cool water, burned and defeated.

Next, Lyssandra guided the small aircraft out over the battle kraken itself. “I’m going to use the last two at once,” Vic shouted above the noise from below. Then, switching to a fake Jamaican accent, he said, “Time to fry some calamari, mon!” He let go of the remaining pair of luminous jars, dropping them onto the barnacled back of the sea monster.

The bright flashes sent the creature into a thrashing fury. Enraged, its back smoking from large burns, the kraken collided with another entire dock, then sank a newly painted yacht. Elantyans fled from the deadly tentacles.

“That’s all folks!” Vic wished he had more of the sunshine bombs. There hadn’t been enough to finish the job. Lyssandra turned the glider about and headed back toward the city.

The battle kraken remained unstoppable.

SHARIF WASTED NO TIME. As soon as Gwen grabbed the fringe tassels, the flying carpet soared away faster than any athlete could run.

Peering down into the frantic streets, Gwen said, “Orpheon’s taller than most people, and he’s probably still wearing the short apprentice’s tunic he used when helping Sage Rubicas. Even so, how are we supposed to spot one person in all that chaos down there? Everyone is rushing toward the harbor.”

“It should be easy, Gwenya,” Sharif said with a quirky smile. “He will be the only one running the opposite direction.”

With the city alarms blaring, people scrambled out of their houses, cinched their robes tight, and gathered homemade weapons. At intersections, streetcrystal lamps blazed with golden or sapphire light, crackling with magic energy.

Sharif banked the carpet sharply. “If Orpheon is working with the merlons, he will want to get to the sea as fast as possible. Perhaps he has arranged for another merlon spy to meet him at the water.”

As far as Gwen could tell, none of the running Elantyans below looked like Orpheon. “Why would any person shift his allegiance to the undersea people? What could a human hope to gain from the merlons?” The apprentice had always rubbed her the wrong way, sneering at her, blaming her for the accident with the aja crystals when he must have sabotaged the array himself.

Sharif clenched his jaws, clearly upset. “We can ask those questions when we catch him. Irrakesh reserves its most unpleasant prison cells for traitors. I hope Elantya has similar accommodations.”

Gwen leaned forward, trying to ignore a brief flash of dizziness from being so high up — and saw a tall man duck furtively into the shadows. The man was working his way along a sheltered street, moving from doorway to doorway, away from the harbor.

“Sharif! Circle around.” Gwen pointed to the alley. “I think I saw him!”

As the flying carpet banked, the sneaking stranger looked up in surprise. As soon as he saw the carpet and its riders, Orpheon bolted. He raced with long-legged strides away from the buildings toward the hillside vineyards on the island’s outer highlands.

“Follow him with your eyes, Gwenya,” Sharif said as he concentrated on guiding the carpet.

Holding on, she shouted, “Orpheon! We know what you’ve done. Stop, or you
will
face the consequences!”

Sharif gave her a strange frown. “What consequences can you and I impose?”

Gwen shrugged. “I was hoping to intimidate him.”

The traitor wasn’t intimidated, though. He put on a burst of speed and ran under an ornate arch topped with baskets of hanging flowers.

The flying carpet sped onward, cruising low, but the apprentice sprinted inhumanly fast. Seeing the pursuit close in, he left the whitewashed dwellings behind and headed toward the sea.

From the carpet, Gwen could hear the crashing surf. “Hurry! We don’t want him to get to the water.”

“There is no shore up here, Gwenya. Only cliffs.
High
cliffs. He will be trapped.”

Orpheon raced up a steep rocky path bounded by grapevines tied up on posts. The assistant moved so swiftly that his pumping arms tore away dark-green leaves. Gwen wondered if the merlons had provided the apprentice with some kind of stimulant or enhancement to give him such a boost of speed. “That would be just great,” she muttered. “Spies on steroids.”

As the carpet got even closer, she saw that Orpheon had strapped five or six scrolls to his belt and carried three others rolled in his hand — the stolen shield spell scrolls!

Kicking up dust with each step, Orpheon ran through the vineyards, but Sharif did not relent, chasing him toward the high cliffs. After two years on the island, Rubicas’s apprentice must know there could be no escape in this direction. According
to Sharif, the gravel path would hit a dead-end up ahead.

“Trust my carpet, Gwenya. We will catch him. He has no place to go.”