Double Life - Book 1 of the Vaiya Series (41 page)

But the men only found his words amusing and
broke out into hearty laughter.

After several moments, in which they quieted
down somewhat, the apparent leader, staring at Ian, interrupted
their raucous clamor, “Do you know where you are, boy?”

“On a beach of some sort,” replied Ian
hesitantly, as he keenly noted that these men resembled pirates,
just the sort of men that Azadar would lock up in a heartbeat.
Scanning the waters, Ian noticed an obvious pirate ship anchored
there. How could he be so deaf as to not hear it coming?

Seeming to find amusing in the situation, the
leader smiled more forcefully as he answered his own question.
“This is our cove. Only pirates are allowed here.”

Ian’s mind raced as he remembered the name of
the nation with pirates. “So you’re from Verandur then?”

“Aye, you’re a quick one,” said the captain
mockingly, as his men flew into another laughing fit.

Looking at the captain pointedly, becoming
rather annoyed with his sarcasm, Ian spoke with sincerity, “Let me
go and I’ll leave your area immediately. I wasn’t aware I was
trespassing.”

None of them seemed to gain his seriousness.
“We can’t do that, lad; that’s against our code.”

“Then what do you want with me?” shouted
Ian.

“We are in need of more rowers,” said the
captain, who paused for a while but then decided to share more.
“Three of our men were recently imprisoned by an elf lord and his
followers and won’t likely ever be rejoining us.”

Thinking quickly, wanting to get on the
captain’s good side, Ian murmured, “Does this elf lord go by the
name of Azadar?”

“Yes, he does,” replied the captain, not able
to hide his amazement at Ian’s knowledge. “And you know this
because …?”

Maybe some more small talk would warm the
captain up to him. “Because I was recently captured by him myself,”
began Ian. “He was going to haul me to the dungeon but--”

“You escaped?” asked the captain, as his eyes
sized up Ian again, gaining more respect for him by the minute.

“Yes, that was the easy part,” replied Ian,
smirking. “It just came so naturally to someone as talented as I
am.” He paused, and then, although he knew he’d hate himself for
saying this, he proceeded further. “Your crew needs me; I can
rescue your companions.”

Now the captain started laughing again, and
so did his crew. When he calmed down enough to speak, his words
were those of a jester. “You? You can’t even get out of our
net.”

Feeling that he’d lost the battle, watching
the pirates all scoff and jeer at him, Ian suddenly hit upon a
brilliant idea. He wasted no time in vocalizing it, his tone now
cocky and scornful. “I was unaware that pirates had no need of a
Chardin.”

This stopped them all in their tracks. Not a
laugh was heard; all their faces grew serious. “Now’s not the time
for jokes,” cautioned the captain. “Everyone knows that Chardins
would never venture so far away from the academy.” Now his
countenance darkened with anger. “Don’t lie to me. I’m not so
stupid as to believe the words of a Sarithian.”

“And what makes you think that’s my
homeland?” asked Ian, liking the irony of the situation, and the
fact that he knew the truth while they didn’t.

They all examined him closer now, and none of
them seemed to come to any conclusions.

Knowing his next words could prove to be
either useless or fatal, Ian spoke with some hesitance, “If you
don’t believe me, then test my claim. Surely you have something in
your ship that could prove whether I’m a Chardin or not.”

The captain looked stunned for an instant
before turning aside and whispering to his men. Once they’d agreed
upon something, the captain spoke, “We do have a jar of Tajai Fire
which is said to have been made by the Verandel wizards long ago.
If anything were magical, it would be this. Repel it, and you’ll
gain wholehearted acceptance into the Jewel Raiders. Fail, and
you’ll be as dead as a cooked crab.”

Now why did he have to open his mouth? “On
second thought, forget this idea,” muttered Ian, as fear shone in
his eyes just imagining himself being doused in magical fire and
burnt alive. “I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“Oh, it’s too late to turn the ship around
now,” said the captain with an evil grin. “Your fate is with the
desert now.” He turned to one of his men. “Row the skiff back to
the
Emerald Envy
and ask the boatswain for the Tajai Fire.”
No further words were needed. The chosen pirate hurried off to one
of the six small boats beside the water and began rowing towards
the pirate ship.

Apparently, in the process of proving whether
Ian were a liar or not, the pirates had no need of him and
conferred among themselves, too quietly for him to hear what was
being said.

While they were distracted, Ian nervously
tried to think of anything that could free him from this
net--nothing clicked. Even if he had a knife, the sound of sawing
through the net would alert the pirates. No, as much as he hated
it, he had no choice but to remain still and fervently hope that
his magical immunity hadn’t worn off, and that, as he had resisted
all the Elayan’s spells, he would resist this as well. If not, he
was as good as dead.

About ten minutes later, torment filling
Ian’s mind, the pirate returned with a glass flask filled with a
bubbling red liquid. By now, Ian’s heart was racing and he
thoroughly regretted telling them that he was a Chardin. If he’d
simply not spoken, he would’ve merely been a rower. Even if he were
treated like a slave, this would be far better than the fate he
faced now.

Watching the captain approach him, Ian saw
his eyes gleaming with mockery.

“Time to prove if your words sink like an
anchor or float like a barrel of rum,” said the captain jeeringly,
as he took the flask from the pirate’s hand and held it up,
examining it. He’d looked at it for only a scant second before he
spoke again: “Better hope this doesn’t work like in the
legends.”

Before Ian had time to consider what these
legends told, the captain hurled the vial at one of the lead
weights attached to the net. Upon impact the vial exploded, a
column of fire engulfing the net completely and shrouding Ian’s
body in ten feet of reddish flames.

Yelling in startled terror as the flames
swept over his body, Ian suddenly stopped, as he noticed that the
flames didn’t hurt him at all, or even burn through the nets, and
that he could actually see through them. The sensation he felt at
that moment was one of amazement, as if he’d just found out that he
had superpowers. Watching the pirates staring at the wall of fire
in suspense, he heard the captain shout:

“What’s happening in there?”

But before one of the other pirates could
reply, Ian felt a volt of electricity instantaneously course
through his veins as a blazing light enveloped his vision.
Underneath his shoes, he felt the sand become more solid, gradually
turning into hard tiles. Soon the brightness faded and he could see
clearly again. He was once again in the bathroom at Shadowcrest
Manor--all alone as before.

Leaping off the floor in an excited daze,
adrenaline rushing through him, Ian ran towards the sink hurriedly,
intent on fixing his hair, cleaning his face, and brushing the sand
off his shirt and blue jeans before anyone could see him.

Heart pounding with frantic anxiety, he
quickly stuck his hands next to the faucet, activating it, energy
coursing through him like a power plant, and looked into the
mirror.

But what he saw nearly made him fall
backwards--a shock of startled terror jolted through his whole
body. His knees buckled. His heart fluttered as if it were filled
with luna moths. There was no way he was this handsome. Only movie
stars looked this good. 

Everything about him had changed: his hair
texture had thickened and become much fuller; his slightly crooked
nose had completely straightened out; his pimples, two of which had
been a constant bother to him this week, had vanished, as had his
faint blemishes; his slightly thin eyebrows had thickened and grown
darker; his complexion had become much softer and smoother, his
slight wrinkles had all vanished; his dark brown eyes had gone from
being somewhat sharp to being very attractive; even his teeth had
become whiter and straighter. It didn’t take any stretch of his
imagination to envision Hazel calling him Prince Charming now, and
if she said it this time, she’d be right.

Hands pulsating and sweaty, eyes twitching
with agitation, he racked his brain for answers to this madness.
After half a minute of debating pointless theories and
speculations, he suddenly remembered the poetic words of the
mermaid Taeria and everything clicked. Now he fully understood why
she’d said his face looked like a pearl shining in pale moonlight.
It made way too much sense.

Panting, he nervously cupped his hands under
the running faucet, before splashing it onto his face, desperately
hoping to remove the magic liquid. Not that he hated his new
appearance; far from that, he loved it. But having to explain
himself to every person who asked was way too much for him to
handle, as he couldn’t tell them the ridiculous truth, and coming
up with a believable lie would be anything but easy.

Rigorously scrubbing his face with his hands
until it turned red, he peered up into the mirror, gasping at the
uselessness of his task. He might as well be trying to build a
sandcastle to the moon or trying to dry up the Niagara Falls.
Besides the redness, his face hadn’t changed at all, not one
bit.

Drying off his face with some tissue papers,
his heart pounding even faster, he quickly surveyed his
yellow-collared shirt, blue jeans, and white tennis shoes. He
brushed the white glittery sand off the back of his jeans and
shirt, gave the mermaid’s necklace a deeper shove, making sure it
stayed hidden in his jean’s pocket, and observed his other pocket,
noticing that the stone jar of beauty cream given to him by Rai
didn’t make his pocket bulge out too much.

A little bit of sand on him, the hint of a
necklace sticking out of his pocket, the jar somehow falling out of
his pocket … any one of these occurrences would hang extreme
suspicion on him, and if he couldn’t think of any good responses to
the questions he’d likely be asked if one of these things were to
happen, he might as well say goodbye to his reputation.

Done examining himself as he’d fixed
everything that could be fixed, he sighed in bitter relief; at
least everything else about him looked normal. Fortunately, the
magical fire didn’t even singe him and there was no smell of smoke
anywhere. Having to explain this on top of everything else would
simply be a disaster on top of a chaos.

Finished preparing himself for the dreaded
encounter as best as he could, Ian hurried out of the restroom to
get back to his friends, his chest heaving within him as he
imagined what they’d say to him. It wasn’t fair. Nobody should have
to deal with these awkward situations. How could he walk up to his
friends and pretend that he’d merely washed off the barbecue stain
on his clothes when so much more had happened? He couldn’t.
Blocking all these thoughts was a lost cause only a Hollywood actor
could pull off.

Breathing deeply, hoping that he didn’t smell
like the ocean and that his unnatural vanilla-scented breath wasn’t
that noticeable, Ian slowed down his pace as he gazed at Hazel,
Tianna, Amanda, and Eddy, sitting on the booths and chatting with
each other, smiling and laughing like they were having a great
time. Jimmy, interestingly enough, was absent.

Approaching his friends with a weak smile, a
wave of nausea sweeping over him, Ian was half-tempted to just run
back into the restroom and wait there for a few minutes to see if
his face changed back to its normal state. But that was the timid
approach. Deep down, he knew his face wasn’t going to change any,
and so he might as well face his fears sooner rather than
later.

So, taking a deep breath and putting on a
cool composure, Ian slid onto the booth next to Eddy and chuckled
softly. “Hey, I’m back. Miss me?”

But the girls just gasped, unable to pry
their eyes from him, their eyes widening utter amazement, their
mouths falling open in astonishment.

As soon as Hazel had recovered enough to
speak, she wiped her hands nervously on her napkin and looked up at
him sheepishly. “What’d you do to your face, Ian?”

A lump arose in his throat. “What do you
mean?”

“I mean...” she stammered, her own face
turning the hue of a salmon crayon. “How do I put this … you--”

“I what?” Biting his lip in agony, he fought
back the fear that sought to devour him, feeling he might gag. He’d
never seen her stutter before, yet here she was stumbling over each
word. This was definitely a bad sign of things to come.

As he waited anxiously for her to respond,
she twirled her long blonde hair in her fingers as her light blue
eyes narrowed in fright, her sweet voice weak and uncertain. “I
think...” she finally murmured, before breaking up and starting a
new sentence. “Um … did you put on some kind of makeup just
now?”

“Makeup?” A flush of red swept over his whole
face. First, he was accused of wearing a dress, then wearing
perfume, and now this. What was he becoming … a girl?

“Yes, makeup,” here she trailed off again,
unable to continue, as she looked up at him and blushed. “It’s
just...” she continued, her words soft and nearly inaudible, “you
look so cute now.”

His head spun into the clouds. This was even
more humiliating than the time his sister had tricked him into
putting red lipstick on and he’d gone to school unaware of how he
looked. Sure, he’d been called a girl for weeks afterwards, but at
least he had a valid reason for why he’d done it--it was his
sister’s fault. Now, however, he couldn’t think of even one
realistic explanation for why his face looked so different, and in
spite of his preparation, his face continued to burn hotter.
“Cute?” he murmured, somewhat angrily. Only a girl should be called
cute.