Crystal Doors #2: Ocean Realm (No. 2) (24 page)

“But we cannot destroy the merlon city,” she said. “We would risk hurting my friends.”

With a grim and determined expression, Sage Pierce stepped away from the engine of the purple speedboat he was working on. “We have no intention of letting Vic, Gwen, or your other friends come to harm. But we’re going to need a diversion to keep the merlons occupied so we can sneak down and rescue them. With this new propulsion system, my speedboat should get us to the right spot quickly.”

Rubicas continued, “At dawn, Vir Helassa launches a full fleet of Elantyan war galleys. Between that show of force and a hundred or so sea fireworks in the water around the merlon city, we should have enough of a diversion to allow some anemonite bubletts and Sage Pierce to find them — with your guidance.”

“Sage Pierce? Should he not stay —”

Vic’s father reached into his boat and hauled out an odd rubbery suit and a heavy tank. “I’m the only one who can use this scuba gear I brought along. If Vic and Gwen need my help, then I’m going down there.”

“Hmm, yes. It seems there is little point in arguing,” Rubicas said.

“I would do the same,” Groxas agreed, looking at Lyssandra.

Sage Pierce gave Lyssandra a meaningful, questioning look. “Tell me, how are Vic and Gwen holding up? Do you really think they’re all right?”

“I cannot know for certain, Sage Pierce. I believe they are alive and strong — I feel it — but Azric does have evil plans for them. They need our help, so we must not delay.” She looked around the bustling chamber and saw everyone using their abilities to help in the wartime preparations. All of Elantya was working together on this single operation.

“The aquit’s message granted us a head start, and we will work through the night if necessary,” said Ven Rubicas. “No matter what, we depart with the war fleet at dawn.”

27

FOLDING HIS HANDS AND pressing his steepled forefingers together, Azric greeted Vic and Gwen with a sad smile. “I thought you understood the importance of this project to me. I truly did. I informed you that your friends’ lives would be in danger should you prove uncooperative.”

Separating them from Tiaret and Sharif yet again, refusing to answer what he would do to their friends, the dark sage had taken the two away from the merlon city. The water seemed murky and cold, as if a thick storm were gathering overhead above the sea.

Azric continued in his silky voice, “Yet I failed to recognize that you perceived an equal or greater threat to your friends in Elantya, as well. Such a perception would naturally figure into your decision on whether to escape. In addition, I held back information from you, hoping to use it at a later time to secure your goodwill. This was foolish, of course. I blame myself.”

Gwen tried to jerk away as the deceptively handsome dark sage, the very model of congeniality, slipped an arm through hers and then through Vic’s. “Allow me to show you something that cannot help but interest you. It will change your whole perspective on the idea of assisting me.”

She and Vic had dreaded the moment when they would have to talk to Azric alone after their attempted escape and after Lyssandra had gotten away. The cousins were sure that the telepathic girl was still alive, that she had escaped after all. They sensed it. A strange and undeniable link had developed among the apprentices. They could not hear each other’s thoughts, but Vic and Gwen felt an absolute, gut-level certainty that all of their friends were safe.

At the moment, Gwen shuddered for herself and for Vic, anticipating Azric’s fury. Would he stain them with further agonizing tattoos? Or brand them the way Orpheon had marked Sharif and the hapless great jhanta? Would he hurt or even kill Sharif and Tiaret, just to make his point? The young man from Irrakesh had certainly taken the brunt of the punishment for their two escape attempts thus far.

Gwen knew that she could not let herself cooperate with Azric’s evil plans. The consequences would simply be too devastating.

The dark sage guided them along. He sounded so reasonable. She was convinced he had hatched some sort of scheme to manipulate the cousins. After leaving the city far behind with his fast-paced swimming, they soon arrived at an enormous upcropping of volcanic rock completely surrounded by wild coral growths.

With a firm nudge, Azric pushed the cousins into the ink-dark maw of an underwater cave. With a sharp fingernail, he traced a rune in the wall just inside the entrance, and an eerie puce-colored glow began emanating from the walls above, below, and around them. By this unsettling light, they were able to see that the reef cavern was round, with a perfect domed ceiling. Tunnels led away from the chamber in several directions, including straight up and straight down; all of them had smooth, shiny walls, obviously cut by merlon magic. A pair of electric eels emerged from the tunnel above them and swam along behind Vic and Gwen like intimidating sentries.

“Excellent. All is ready for our visit! Vic, you’ll be especially glad I brought you here.” Azric swam forward with undulating movements of his body. With the electric eels close behind them, the cousins had no choice but to follow.

A faint tingle started at the soles of Gwen’s feet, ran up her legs, tickled its way along her backbone, and spread to the tips of her fingers. “This must be a place of great power,” she said. She could see that Vic sensed it, too. The deeper they swam, the stronger the sensation grew.

By the time they emerged into an enormous cavern filled with bright yellow light and very warm water, Gwen felt as if every nerve ending on her body had awakened. Azric led them straight toward the source of the brilliant glow. “Come along, it’s just up here.”

The curved floor of the cavern formed a basin into which hundreds of golden ovoid objects had been heaped, throwing off heat and honey-colored light.

“Sheesh!” Vic muttered. “Either we found the lair where the goose lays its golden eggs, or we’re somewhere near the hatching grounds on Pern.” Gwen knew she should reprimand him for making jokes in their dire situation, but she actually found it comforting. Vic turned his aquamarine gaze toward the dark sage. “Is that what it is? Dragon eggs, I mean?”

Azric made a slight moue with his lips. “No dragons — not even sea serpents, I’m afraid. They’re bombs. Lavaja bombs, to be exact. Designed for me by your friends, the anemonites. Go ahead, you can pick one up. Since they can only be detonated by a spell, you’re in no danger.”

Gwen bent down and pretended to examine the heap of magical high explosives. Vic put a hand on one, then picked it up. “What are they for?” Gwen asked, though she knew the answer before the dark sage spoke.

“Elantya,” he said in a casual voice. “We learned our lesson after our previous attempt to invade. But we haven’t stopped working beneath the water, excavating tunnels, undermining the very foundation of the island.”

Gwen suddenly remembered the unexpected earthquake that had struck while they filled the aquarium in Ven Rubicas’s laboratory.

Azric reached down, picked up one of the golden bombs, gently tossed it higher in the water, then caught it as it drifted down again. “We’ve been planting these explosives throughout the catacombs, right under your feet. When all is finished, I will speak the detonation spell.” He tossed the bomb upward again. “Elantya will be severed from its foundations and sink forever beneath the waves. Proud fools.” He caught the egg-bomb again and Gwen was reminded of Piri’s transparent sphere.

Poor Piri. Poor Sharif. Azric, Orpheon, and the merlons already had a great deal to answer for. And now they were trying to kill everyone in Elantya. Gwen gritted her teeth. “Why would you tell us about this if you’re still trying to win our support? You’re not exactly making us want to help you.”

Azric spread his hands. “Why, of course I’m showing you this to demonstrate that there’s no point in going back to your doomed island. Very soon, there will be nothing to go back to. And the sages of Elantya have only themselves to blame. They dared to build an island in a world where there was no dry land without asking the native inhabitants for permission.” He gave a short laugh. “By the laws of magic, this world belongs to the merlons, and they have the right to protect it from intruders.”

Even though Azric was probably twisting the truth, Gwen had an uncomfortable feeling. Did she really know everything there was to know about this situation? Could Azric actually have a point? Were the merlons just defending what was theirs? That was probably how King Barak saw it.

“That’s no excuse for murdering everyone,” Vic said.

“To be sure,” Azric said. “To be sure. I have considered saving the brightest and best. Such as two talented seal-breakers like yourselves.”

“We won’t help you kill anyone,” Gwen vowed.

“Nope,” Vic said. “And why did you think I would be especially interested?”

“I’ve saved the best for last,” Azric said with a friendly, almost mischievous smile. “Come along.”

Gwen wanted to scream or punch him or choke him, but what good would that do? And how did one choke an immortal wizard who could breathe underwater?

One of the electric eels butted her from behind, giving her a nasty shock. With a resigned sigh, she followed Azric out of the cavern.

AZRIC GUIDED THEM TO another cavern in the mounded reef. Now, the water grew cooler, which Vic found refreshing. He didn’t trust the dark sage as far as he could spit — which, under water, was very difficult to do anyway — so he stayed alert, trying to expect the unexpected. The youthful-looking dark sage obviously had something up his sleeve.

A trio of eels guarded the second cavern. After Azric traced the light rune, the cousins followed him into a long tunnel, which was narrow and lined with sharp, clear crystals. Vic and Gwen had to be careful not to touch the walls as they swam. The familiar tingle was here again, indicating magical power, but the water grew colder and colder. Even so, Vic wasn’t uncomfortable. For some reason, the power tingle along his arms and legs and back kept both the heat and cold from being anything more than interesting. He glanced around him at the jagged crystals on the tunnel walls.

Gwen gasped, and he snapped his head up to see what she was looking at. Before them was a cavern almost too beautiful to comprehend. The entire chamber seemed to be filled with cut crystal, as if they had ventured into the heart of a giant chandelier. Bright white light radiated from every direction. Millions of sparkling stalactites dangled from the ceiling, while corresponding stalagmites jabbed upward from the floor.

“Whoa. Are those aja crystals?” Vic asked.

“Not precisely,” Azric said, folding his hands and pressing his steepled forefingers together. “This is more of a hybrid. I call it ice coral. A very useful substance, for my purposes at least.”

“We have ice coral on Earth,” Gwen pointed out, demonstrating her knowledge of aquatic life. “But it doesn’t look anything like this.”

“Completely different things, young lady. Somehow this species of coral managed to incorporate aja crystal into itself, producing this. Orpheon and I have not yet explored all of its uses, but it has an amazing cooling capacity and therefore quite useful preservative properties.”

“It’s . . . beautiful,” Gwen said.

“Come this way. I have something you’ve been searching for.” He beckoned them toward a sheet of ice coral several meters in diameter mounted over an alcove in the wall of the grotto. The ice coral here was as flat and shiny as a mirror.

With his finger, Azric drew a rune on its surface and murmured a word. The surface turned clear as water, becoming a window.

“Mom!” Vic cried, overjoyed at first, then concerned, then furious. He rounded on Azric. “You killed my mother!”

The dark sage’s expression did not change. “I assure you, she’s quite alive. She’s just in . . . storage, in a place where she can’t harm my plans.”

“You had her here all along and didn’t tell us?” Gwen said.

“I had hoped I wouldn’t have to use her as a threat, or an example. But, alas, you two have proved quite intractable.”

“What happened? What did you do to her?” Vic demanded.

“I merely asked your mother to break the seal on a crystal door for me, to . . . liberate a world that is of particular interest to me. As I explained before, seal-breaking is a process that requires vast amounts of magical energy, far more than simply opening a crystal door. In fact, afterward a seal-breaker needs to recharge for five years or more before attempting it again. Sadly, Kyara tricked me. Instead of unsealing a door to free one of my immortal armies, she managed to shake off my guards long enough to reach the sealed crystal door to a perfectly useless place, a barely inhabited world with scrubby plants and only a squalid village or two. She wasted her energies on breaking the seal, and rendered herself unable to try again for five years!” His mismatched eyes narrowed, but he quickly composed himself. “I was quite displeased with her.”

Vic swam closer to the clear enclosure that held his mother’s body and pressed himself against its frigid surface, trying to see better. She wore a flowing gown of diaphanous green layers and her dark hair rippled in the water. Around her neck on a fine chain hung a five-sided xyridium medallion, inscribed with a strange symbol, just like his and Gwen’s. He pounded his hand against the ice coral, hoping to wake her up. “Mom! Mom!”

Azric sighed. “As I mentioned, ice coral has potent preservative qualities. It would have taken a cadre of well-trained merlon guards to keep constant watch over Kyara, and that would have been a waste of resources. Therefore, I deemed it wisest to allow your mother to sleep until her powers recharged themselves.”