Lor Mandela - Destruction from Twins (30 page)

Darian was too engrossed by the news to be
put off by Grayden’s intrusive entrance. He glanced briefly at him,
and then back to Omer for his input.

Omer stammered, “Y . . . yes, they think
they've found both of them.”

“They think . . . they think?” he quizzed
impatiently. “What do you mean they think? How would Jonathan and
his daughter have gotten to Drolana?”

Grayden stepped up and stared Darian in the
eyes. He showed no sign of intimidation whatsoever. “They didn’t!
Ultara is insane! The girl that the Trystas claim to be the atoh is
at least seventeen or eighteen years old.”

“What? That's impossible,”
Darian exclaimed. “They
must
be insane!”

Omer shrugged his shoulders, “Atoc, the girl
did have black hair and blue eyes.”

“Those fools!” Darian threw his hands in the
air and began pacing. “It isn't unheard of to have black hair and
blue eyes on Drolana!”

All of a sudden he stopped and became
pensive and a mischievous smile oozed across his handsome face.
“Were they successful at placing receptors, Grayden?” he asked. The
fires in his eyes flickered wildly.

“Only partially,” Grayden
decided to play with him a bit. He was the only one in the
Brashnellan Empire who was not scared of Darian. They were
approximately the same size and build, but he had
real
magical powers.
Darian could only perform his magic out of spell books.

Darian responded with a “don’t you dare”
expression.

“Actually,” Grayden continued, “they were
only able to get a single receptor onto her. As I'm sure you know,
Atoc, it would take five or six to have enough stability to pull
her back to the right person . . . and to keep her here long enough
to get more receptors on her. We’ll just have to keep our eyes out
for this girl. She could show up anywhere!”

“Yes, my
confident
friend,”
Darian glared at Grayden, “I am aware of this.”

Omer, who did not want to get involved in
their intense banter, had kept quiet, but suddenly cleared his
throat to interrupt. “They placed one, Atoc,” he explained, “and I
was also able to place one.”

Both Darian and Grayden looked at Omer in
complete astonishment. Darian was clearly impressed. “You, Omer?
You placed one of your receptors on her?”

Omer smiled. “No, Majesty. The receptor I
placed belongs to someone else.”

Darian normally would have been upset by his
indirectness, but Omer so rarely impressed him, that he decided to
allow him to enjoy his moment.

“Well then, Omer. Whose receptor was
it?”

Omer saw a hint of tension rising in
Darian’s face, and knew he'd better get to the point. “When I
spotted the Travelers, Milord, I decided to join them and see if I
could find out what they were up to. I had to be careful not to be
recognized, of course. I approached a Traveler I hadn’t seen before
and asked if they needed any help. He said that they already had
the Travelers they needed, but told me that they were off on some
fool mission to put five receptors on the atoh and the atoc, who
had been found on Drolana. He didn’t seem too thrilled about the
mission and was all too eager to fill me in.

“I came back here, grabbed the receptors
that I thought would do us the most good, told Grayden to come with
me, and re-joined the Trystas. The receptors I took were your son's
. . . Ryannon’s.”

“Ryannon’s?” Darian repeated excitedly; the
fires in his dark eyes glistened. “Oh, General, that’s delightful.
Does he know?”

“Yes, Sire, I’ve just told him that he may
have an unexpected visitor.”

“This is excellent! You've seen my son.
Women find him quite . . . um . . . irresistible. He’ll have no
trouble getting this young lady to fall for him. Then . . . .” He
started pacing again, and no longer addressed his generals
directly. He plotted out loud, to himself. “Yes . . . then . . .
even though she is not the atoh . . . we'll convince the Mandelans
that their beloved Audril has been brought back to us! We’ll make
up some story about a time warp between here and Drolana. It
shouldn’t be difficult to convince these idiots. Then no one else
will be looking for the real Child of Balance, the one I need to
become . . . .”

He turned on his heels,
and without finishing his previous thought, barked, “Grayden, Omer!
Let it be known that the reward has just tripled for anyone who
brings me this
Atoh
Audril
alive! Go!”

Omer bowed and Grayden nodded, and then they
headed off to make the announcement.

“Excellent . . . excellent . . . Ryannon’s!”
Darian chuckled, “it seems that having a Trysta for a son is
finally working to my advantage.” His thin, evil smirk seemed even
more malicious than usual. “I think I need to go have a little chat
with my son.”

M
aggie walked slowly toward the cafeteria, trying to figure
out how to explain her sudden “disappearance” to Bridgette and
Lorrine. She had run through several different scenarios in her
head—including the truth—but decided she had better just stick with
the “I got sick” excuse.

“Oh! Maggieeee!” Bridgette ran toward her,
grinning, wide-eyed, and pulling Lorrine along by the arm.

“Hey, Bridge. Hey, Lorrie.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw an arm
slowly reach out from behind Bridgette and steadily wrap itself
around her waist. All at once, blonde curls sprung up from behind
Bridgette's head, followed by the inane grin that had become all
too familiar.

“Oh, and erm . . . hey, Holden?” she
stammered.

Bridgette glanced over her shoulder at
Holden and giggled sheepishly at Maggie’s stunned reaction to him.
“Hey, Maggs. Holden’s been telling us all about your awful morning!
Are you okay, sweetie?” Bridgette questioned.

Maggie gazed from Bridgette—who was staring
at her blankly and grinning ear to ear—to Lorrine, who was rolling
her eyes, and then, to the wacky new kid, Holden whose mouth was
twisted up in a playful little knot.

She raised her eyebrows at him and whispered
an annoyed, “What?”

“Man,” Holden looked away
from her, and directed his focus on Bridgette. “Ya know, Pretty
Dude, I hate pukin’. Nothing worse! ‘Cept maybe a Neptune Cocktail
after a particularly gnarly wipeout. It’s like
whoa!
” He stumbled dramatically.
“Fierce! But then ya usually puke anyway,” he chuckled, and
Bridgette giggled again.

Maggie grimaced and caught Lorrine doing the
same.

Lorrine shrugged her shoulders and glared at
Bridgette. “Ugh! Come along, Margaret. Let’s go get something to
drink. I suddenly feel an acute case of nausea coming on!”

“Yeah, um okay . . . sure,” she answered
slowly. She glanced, perplexed, at her best friend and her strange
new buddy as Lorrine guided her away. “What's up with that?” she
asked.

Lorrine stopped walking and spun to face
her. “Positively unfathomable! What absolute imbeciles! They’ve
known each other barely ten minutes, and it’s ‘hee hee hee,’ ‘ho ho
ho’ ‘giggle giggle giggle’. Entirely embarrassing . . . that is
what it is!”

Maggie was well aware that the whole “giddy
girly” thing was extremely annoying to Lorrine. She was what most
teenagers weren’t—serious, refined, and totally into school. She
dressed like a sophisticated business woman most of the time—suits,
briefcases and all—and wore studious glasses despite her perfect
vision. Her shoulder-length, mousy hair was always twisted into a
conservative ponytail at the nape of her neck. She was also quite
fond of using large words like ‘unfathomable’ and insisted upon
calling people by their given names—no nicknames or
abbreviations.

“What happened? I mean,
I
just
saw him in
the hall right before the bell rang. How’d they get to know each
other so fast?”

“Oh, well . . . he just walked up and
started talking to her. At first she remained appropriately aloof,
but by the time he got to, ‘Whoa, Pretty Dude, your eyes are like a
shiny new penny, sprayed with that glittery spray stuff,’ she was
blushing and giggling like a lunatic!”

Maggie nearly choked. “He said that?
Really?”

“I am afraid so.”

“Wow. That is one of the stupidest lines
I've ever heard! I can’t believe she fell for it.”

“Hook, line, and sinker, my friend.”

Maggie and Lorrine bought a couple of sodas
from a vending machine, and then—disgusted or not—sat and watched
Bridgette and Holden schmooze and giggle at each other from across
the cafeteria.

“She is not even aware that we are gone, is
she?” Lorrine shook her head and sighed disapprovingly.

“Uh, nope, I don’t think so.” Maggie
responded, her gaze still fixed on her best friend and this
suddenly omnipresent surfer dude.

“Well, I’ve had quite enough,” Lorrine
sighed. “Come along, Margaret. We should go to Biology early, and
organize the lab stations for Mr. Berg.”

Maggie thought to
herself,
I have the weirdest
friends
, but she went along to Biology
with Lorrine anyway.

Luckily, and much to Maggie’s relief, the
rest of the school day was pretty uneventful.

Bridgette wanted to tell her all about
Holden after school, but Maggie had already put up with a little
more of Holden Guarlo than she’d wanted to in one day. It was bad
enough that he had embarrassed her in Math class, shook her like a
toddler in the drama hall, and had become an instant obsession for
her best friend; but as it turned out, he was in two more of her
classes as well.

“I missed English this morning, Bridge,” she
tried, “I should go back and pick up my work, or I’ll get behind.
I’ll call ya later and you can tell me all about him.”

“Oh, all right,” Bridgette sighed, “but he's
sooo sweet and he really listens to me and . . . oh, my gosh! Did
you see his eyes?”

“Bridge . . . really, I need to go! I'll
call you tonight! I promise!”

Bridgette reluctantly nodded and gave Maggie
a fake peck on the cheek.

Maggie smiled and shook her head, and then
went back inside the school. She wasn’t really that worried about
getting behind in English, but decided to see if her teacher had
any make up work anyway.

She called her dad and asked him if he would
pick her up after he got off work.

It was around four o’clock when Maggie
walked out the big double brown doors and sought out a good spot on
the deserted school lawn to wait for Nathan.

She was never so relieved that a day was
almost over—bizarre, strange, unusual, wacky, off-the-wall—no words
seemed to even come close to describing it.

She decided on waiting in the shade of the
school marquee, and had just dropped her bag on the lawn when she
heard something—a sound surging in and out directly behind her.

She froze. Her heart began to pound. Her
breath seized inside her with a gasp. It was back—the strange
“whooshing” sound! It was happening again!

“Oh no!” she shouted. Instinctively, she
dashed back toward the stone steps, not even pausing to pick up her
bag.

As her foot hit the third
step from the top, an “internal lasso”, just like the one before,
grabbed her abruptly. With a loud
whoosh
and a pop, she was again
standing, dazed and alarmed, in an unfamiliar place.

This time the picture in front of her was
much clearer than it had been before—clearer and more frightening.
She was in a large meadow, but it wasn't like earlier. It was night
this time—dark and eerily quiet.

The still, black canopy above was shredded
by literally millions of jagged stars which, by virtue of their
numbers, should have been far more illuminating than they were.

Across the field was the scariest looking
forest she had ever seen.

All of the trees appeared to be nearly dead
and leafless. Their twisted, gnarled, charcoal branches jutted out
at odd angles creating a chaotic maze of tangled limbs.

A dense murkiness hung close to the ground,
tightly encircling the distorted tree trunks. The muck looked as
though it was trying to strangle away any life that the trees might
have had left in them.

Behind the forest, a small, crooked mountain
protruded up from out of nowhere. It was steep and harsh with a
sharp, angry form. The shadows that were cast by the sadistic stars
overhead played on its crevices and outcroppings, sending demonic
faces rippling across its surface.

The scene was straight out of a horror
movie, and as Maggie took it all in, a chilling wave of fear
rippled through her body.

She attempted to remain calm, but what she
saw next ripped the calmness right out of her and threw it to the
low, howling wind.

There was a faint rustling in the mangled
trees, and then a loud crash as an enormous two-headed creature
burst out and thundered onto the meadow.

“Okay, okay,” Maggie’s
eyes widened with terror. “Don’t panic! Two headed . . .
two headed . . . not real!
”

The creature turned back toward the dark
forest and let out a deafening shriek. Slowly, it paced back and
forth in front of the twisted trees.

In the piercing starlight, Maggie could see
the massive, frightening animal quite clearly. It was unlike
anything she'd ever seen or heard of—a huge, mythical-looking beast
with a thick, muscular body, resembling an enormous horse, but at
least twice a horse's size. It was black and scaly with powerful,
long, prancing legs, and a sleek, full, spiked tail. At the top of
each swaying reptilian neck was an oblong, hooded head, similar to
a king cobra's.