Crystal Doors #1 (29 page)

“No,” Vic broke in. “You were just an easier target at Ocean Kingdoms. Anyway, he wanted to kill my mom, too. When she escaped, Dad says she was trying to lead Azric away from us. All I know is she’s still alive. I can’t explain why, but I can feel it.”

“Kind of like Lyssandra feels things?” Gwen asked.

Vic shrugged. “I’m not sure. What do you think about the dreams and prophecies she’s always coming up with? Are they real? I mean, are those legends she quotes really about us?”

“No way.” Gwen was emphatic. “Here’s why: Number one, I’ve just barely gotten used to the fact that we are in another world. Two, there are lots and lots of worlds. Three, we’re finding out that we don’t know as much about our moms as we thought. Four, your dad wanted us here to keep us safe, but we arrived in the middle of some insane war, so —”

“Seventy-seven?” Vic suggested.

Gwen plowed ahead.
“Five,
we’re not really safe at all. We are actually fighting in the war. My brain is already running over with all the impossible things I’m being asked to believe. So, when a telepathic girl with copper hair starts tossing prophecies around, maybe you can understand why I’m not ready to accept that. Six, we’re some sort of chosen ones out of a prediction written thousands of years ago. It’s way too bizarre.”

Vic looked resigned. “According to Dad, we shouldn’t even try to get home. We can bring him here, but only by creating
an impossible door or opening one that — from the sounds of it — is permanently locked. So that’s what we’ll have to do.”

A thought occurred to her. “If it’s permanently locked, how did our moms get to Earth? And Azric?”

“Huh,” Vic said. “Good point. They weren’t there before the Closure, so there must be a way to open a door. We’ll
find
a way.”

“Meanwhile,” Gwen said, “we take classes and fight slimy ocean warriors — eww — and sea serpents.”

“Not to mention giganto-squids and magic-wielding shape-shifters,” Vic added. “And we look for my mom.”

“In other words, our best hope is to work with Master Sage Rubicas.”

THE NEXT MORNING WHEN the five friends reached Rubicas’s chambers, the old sage was deep in thought at his writing desk. The marble floor of the central chamber was strewn with equipment, crystals, and soggy spell scrolls, as if he had ransacked the whole tower for something.

“Wow,” Vic commented, “somebody whose filing system is worse than my own.” Rubicas did not look up.

“This looks worse than the disaster after we came through the crystal door from Earth.” Gwen cleared her throat. “Can we help with anything, Sage Rubicas?”

“Hmm, possible. Very possible,” the old man murmured, again without looking up.

“We will recover,” announced Tiaret. “We will survive. The
merlons have been driven back, their battle kraken defeated, and Elantya remains strong and undefeated.”

Sharif stood at a window, looking out to the city. “Crews are already working hard to repair the harbor. My people have a saying: ‘Great efforts yield great rewards.’”

Lyssandra clicked her tongue. “Orpheon left quite a mess, did he not?”

“Orpheon did a lot more than that,” Vic grumbled. Though the aquariums were too damaged to use, the rescued aquits now swam in a large basin of sea water.

Rubicas blinked at them when Gwen started to pick up some of the clutter. “Hmm, well, not quite. That is to say, my traitorous apprentice caused some of this damage, but I am responsible for my own share of the mess. I have been trying to reconstruct the shield spell, mostly from my own memory. I think it can be done. You see, I pieced together a framework from the fragments Gwenya and Sharifas brought back. Then I used bits of existing spells to fill in some of the blanks.”

Vic nodded as if he understood perfectly. “Like subroutines. You just lifted them out of other spells.”

“Hmm,” Rubicas agreed absently. “I have made a good start, as you can see. Though I could not always find the precise materials I needed. I must have set them somewhere.” He indicated the disorganized pile of spell scrolls at the foot of his marble lectern. “I did not realize how much of my work Orpheon kept in order…”

“Order?
Sheesh, I wouldn’t be surprised if he hid stuff on purpose,” Vic said.

The sage looked forlornly around his laboratory. “I have much work to do, and I no longer have anyone to keep track of all my spells and research.”

“You have us,” Gwen said. In her mind she was already putting together a logical organization system for his writings. The old sage had always piled his work, arranging it by a system only he understood, and then Orpheon had probably “helped” by sorting spells to diminish the sage’s effectiveness. “I’ve got some ideas on how to put all this into a rational and efficient order. First, I’d sort your scrolls and notes. Second, I would catalog all of the finished spells. Third —”

“Oh, great,” Vic said. “Once she starts organizing, I always end up getting sucked into the job.”

“Ah, yes, that is what I wished to tell you. Due to the urgent nature of my work, the Pentumvirate has agreed to grant me the use of several novs. I am convinced that each of you is vital to my success somehow. Lyssandra has had some dreams indicating that you five did not come together merely by accident, but by design. Therefore I told the esteemed virs that I wanted all of you to be my apprentices — if you are willing, that is.”

“If you believe my skills will be of use to you,” Tiaret said, “I am willing. We all have a part to play in the Great Epic, and this will be an important tale.”

Lyssandra’s eyes warmed with pleasure. “Thank you, Sage Rubicas. I accept your offer. I will transfer my apprenticeship from Translation and Diplomacy to you.”

“Of course, it would be my honor to help the master sage,” Sharif said.

When Gwen and Vic also agreed, Rubicas grew thoughtful. “Hmm, if you two intend to help me, first we must know the limits of your potential.”

“You mean you want us to take an aptitude test?” Vic groaned. “I’ve taken those before. Anybody got a Number 2 pencil?”

“Everyone in Elantya has natural aptitudes,” Lyssandra said. “But we may be unaware of what they are. We need to be
shown
our potential.”

Gwen knew that their mothers had great secrets and some kind of power. Fyera and Kyara had pried open a crystal door to Earth, even after it had been sealed off in the Great Closure. Gwen and Vic knew that their five-sided medallions, with their intricate symbols, held some kind of power here in Elantya, but they didn’t understand it yet. If this test could tell them anything about themselves, she wanted the answers.

“Yes,” Gwen said, “we need to know.”

“Usually they test to see if you have the potential to become a Key,” Sharif explained. Piri’s sphere glowed white with pride in the mesh pouch. “My brother Hashim had trained to become a Key, and I scored very high. Now that I know Azric is involved in this merlon uprising, nothing will stop me from using every power I possess to defeat him.” His skin flushed darker.

“I have not been tested yet, either,” Tiaret said.

“We’ve all been kind of busy since you were rescued from the shipwreck,” Vic pointed out.

The girl from Afirik looked at the cousins with her amber eyes. “Then we should waste no more time.” She rapped her
teaching staff on the floor. “It may be useful to know our capabilities before the merlons attack again.”

Gwen’s heart had leapt at the idea of helping Rubicas. What better opportunity could there be to reach Uncle Cap than to work for the man partially responsible for bringing them here? A healthy dose of skepticism tempered her enthusiasm, though. “That’s quite an honor, Sage Rubicas, but Vic and I are from Earth. I doubt we’ll qualify as potential Keys.”

Vic gave her his stop-being-such-a-killjoy look and started talking a mile a minute. “If I had told you a month ago that we were going to come through a crystal door to a magical island where there are real wizards called sages and real spells — not to mention nymph djinnis, and skrits that fetch and deliver things, and giant battle krakens — you would’ve said that was pretty unlikely, too. Why is it any more fantastic to think that you and I might be potential Keys?”

“Okay, Taz.” Gwen held up her hands in surrender. “You’re right. We should just let them test us and see what happens.”

Lyssandra lifted her pointed chin. “I will take them to the testing center, Sage Rubicas. There is no need for you to interrupt your work.”

“This testing… uh… it doesn’t hurt, does it?” Vic asked. “You don’t need a scraping from inside my skull, for instance?”

Lyssandra’s coppery hair rippled as she shook her head. “Your potential is part of you, Viccus. We only need you to be present. The crystals will do the rest.”

Gwen gave a wry smile. Of course it would be based on crystals. Everything in Elantya seemed to have something to do with crystals.

Most important, she wanted to understand the mystery of Kyara and Fyera Pierce. How much “magic” had their mothers given to their children? If the “twin cousins” actually turned out to be Keys, then maybe they could open crystal doors themselves and find where their mothers had come from.

And where Vic’s mom had gone.

Gwen felt an ache in her heart as she thought of all the things she didn’t know about her own mother. Had Fyera kept secrets from Gwen’s father as well? Uncle Cap obviously knew more than he had ever told her or Vic. If she could uncover the answers, the information might be important not just to her, but to Elantya and other worlds as well.

THE CRYSTAL DOORS CENTER was larger and more elaborate than Gwen had imagined. Built and decorated with materials from every world that traded with Elantya, the open structure was supported by ornate pillars that stood like tree trunks throughout the echoing halls. Various wings were filled with offices, writing desks, and ledgers documenting trade routes. Large, intricate charts on the walls showed the locations of all the crystal doors surrounding the island.

Elantyan workers moved about in alcoves, managing stacks of scrolls and identification tablets, which they arranged in racks with numerous cubbyholes like post office boxes. After only a glance, Gwen already admired the strict organization. “This looks like a hall of records.”

“Here we keep all the information about the Keys in Elantya and the crystal doors they can open,” Lyssandra said.
“Any merchant or traveler who wants to go to a specific world must use an appropriate Key. They come to the Crystal Doors Center, where one of our Key assistants searches the records and finds someone capable of opening the desired door.”

Sharif stepped forward. “For instance, if you wanted to go to my flying city of Irrakesh, you would have to find a Key from my own world — perhaps even myself, once I am sufficiently trained.”

“So I’m guessing this is like a bus depot,” said Vic. “Everybody comes here from wherever, and they have to find a ticket to get where they want to go.”

“Some Keys ask a large payment for their services,” said Lyssandra. “Others consider it their duty to keep trade and passage open to Elantya. Most Keys consider themselves guardians, and are very careful about whom they allow through a crystal door to their worlds.”

Pecunyas, the green-robed Vir of Agriculture and Trade, met them at the arched entrance. After Lyssandra explained why Sage Rubicas had sent them, the vir narrowed his eyes. “Yes, three of you,” he said in his nasal voice. “Come into the main gallery. We have the ability to test many at a time, which is useful when large numbers of students arrive in Elantya.”

Under pentagonal skylights with prismatic edges, an airy open gallery had two concentric rings of egg-shaped crystals standing atop delicate pedestals. Pedestals alternated in the inner and outer rings. Gwen studied the geometrical arrangement and realized that if she connected the pedestals in the rings with straight lines, they would form pentagons, a ubiquitous symbol in Elantya. Vic looked around at the arrangement
of crystals, as if imagining ways he could take the equipment apart and reassemble it into something better.

“So what exactly do we do for this test?” Gwen asked.

Lyssandra stepped forward. “It is a simple thing.” She walked to one of the milky crystals and touched it. After only a second, the crystal began to glow with a pleasant orange tint. “This shows that the crystals recognize me, that I have potential.”

Not to be outdone, Sharif went to the next crystal. “And I’ve been tested as well.” He gripped the smooth surface, and the object shimmered a greenish-blue even more intense than Lyssandra’s crystal. His full lips quirked in a smile. “The brightness of the glow is an indication of the person’s ability.” He seemed to imply that as a prince, his light should shine stronger than the others.

While Sharif and Lyssandra kept their test crystals glowing, Tiaret drew a breath, closed her eyes, and lowered her chin as if summoning memories. “My Master Kundu was convinced of my potential. I do this to honor him. I hope I can carry on the work he meant to do when coming to Elantya.”

Completely engrossed in her test, Tiaret held her hand above the egg crystal for a few moments, then lowered her palm to the smooth surface. The crystal remained dark at first. Gwen thought the girl from Afirik was going to fail, until a white light like a tiny spark began to shine from inside the crystal. It grew brighter, and brighter, and finally Tiaret’s crystal shone as brightly as Lyssandra’s. With her other hand, she rapped her teaching staff on the floor in a gesture of triumph.