The Search for Truth (12 page)

“It was weird.” Erec wasn't sure how to explain. “I did see something, but I couldn't tell what it was. There was a lot of noise and a big explosion. Something really bad was happening, I know that.”

The Hermit nodded. “You did very well. But in order to see more, you must conquer your fears of the future. Next time don't run away.”

Erec noticed that the food on the terry-cloth towel was gone. “What happened to the food?” he asked.

“I ate it.”

“Why? Did it have something to do with my dragon eyes?”

“No,” the Hermit said. “I was hungry.”

It was easy for the Hermit to sit in the sun, munch on snacks, and talk about Erec conquering his fears. But if he had felt what Erec had when he looked through those windows, he might have run away too.

 

Over the next few days, Erec worked with the Hermit on using his dragon eyes. He got used to going into the dark rooms in his mind, looked forward to it even. But every time he looked through the windows at what his dragon eyes were showing him, he was filled with terror. One time he made himself keep the shades open and watch a little longer. But all he saw was people screaming and concrete flying. Chaos. It was like a confusing nightmare. After watching a minute and not understanding what he was seeing, he pulled the shades down and left the room.

The Hermit was patient but insisted that he just needed to conquer his fear.

“But I looked for a while, and it was a confusing mess. And it wasn't good, either. I don't think watching longer would have helped.”

“Maybe watching calmer would. Pretend you're at the movies with a tub of popcorn.”

Yeah, right, Erec thought. Great flick.

Rajiv and Sunita started thanking Erec and Bethany more and bowing to them lower and more frequently. One evening, after many bows, Rajiv said, “We cannot ever repay you for this. You are bringing great luck upon us by staying here.”

“We are?” Bethany asked. “Why is that?”

Rajiv pressed his palms together and dipped his head up and down. “You two were led to Swami Parvananda by the great powers of the universe. Now a holy man has been brought to you. We can see him working with you. I have seen you. You walk across a pile of sticks without making any noise. And you are letting us keep you in our house while you are here. That will bring us very good luck. We will be opening our guest house for tourists in a few weeks, and we can use that luck.”

Erec hoped that Rajiv and his family got all the luck they needed. And he hoped he would have some luck of his own soon seeing the future with his dragon eyes.

 

“How long do I have to do this before I can talk to the Fates through the Oracle?” Erec asked the Hermit as they sat on their usual perch by the stream.

“Well, we could go now. I can see into the future, you know, so I could be the medium for you.” The Hermit's eyes twinkled.

“What?” Erec blinked. “Why didn't you tell me that before? I told you I needed a medium.”

“And I told you I needed a rare and a well-done. Remember? But you weren't so concerned about that then. Who do you think went with King Piter when he needed to go to the Oracle in the past? I did. Well, his AdviSeers Ruth and Balthazar did too, sometimes.” The Hermit folded his arms and legs into tangled twists in front of him and sank into meditation.

Erec tapped on the Hermit's shoulder until he opened his eyes.

“What is it?” the Hermit asked. “You know how to practice on your own now.”

Erec's eyes narrowed. “If you can be the medium for us, let's go now. I need to find out what this next quest is.”

The Hermit's eyes crinkled. “Patience, young man. Patience. Are you really sure you want to run off on another quest before you know what your eyes are trying to show you? Try to do a quest when you're not in control of yourself? If you are in such a hurry, then learn this more quickly. Also, the Oracle will work better for you if you are the medium, not me. It will answer you directly then, and that is always best. Trust me, you need to learn to use your eyes better first.”

Erec squirmed. The problem was, he didn't actually
want
to see
what his eyes were showing him. It was just too terrible. That's when he realized that the Hermit was right. He really was afraid to see. And he would have to face his fear. No matter how bad the thing was, it was in his own future. If he didn't know what was coming, how could he ever fix it?

That was it! Warmth flushed through Erec's face. He could stop whatever the awful thing was that would happen. Aoquesth had told him the future could be changed. Patchouli had even changed it to let Erec save Bethany in time. So Erec could change it too. He would find out what awful thing was happening in the future, learn all about it, and figure out how to stop it from happening.

Once Erec realized that he had control over it, he was excited to get back in, open the shades, and let the box go. Show me your worst, he thought. And then watch out.

E
REC LAY ON
his stomach on the warm rock, as he had seen Aoquesth and Patchouli do. He closed his eyes and listened to the rush of the stream. A stray breeze rustled the broad teak leaves.

Then he focused. Soon he was entering the small room in his head, then the smaller one, than the smallest one inside of the rest. The rooms were inviting, comfortable. But unlike before, he couldn't wait to see what the box had to show him.

He found the small table and touched the thing on it that held the visions of his future. How lucky he was that he knew how to work it! It felt alive, pulsing, strong.

It was time. He focused on the box, took a deep breath. Then he opened the shades on the two windows and watched.

There were screams, terror. But this time, instead of running in fear and averting his eyes, Erec relaxed. He focused on the windows like he was watching a movie. People were scrambling in all directions. There was a loud blasting noise, then a louder boom. It looked like something huge was crumbling around them.

The image he saw through the windows looked like a camera panning across a scene. Like eyes scanning a crowd. Erec remembered the windows were eyes—his eyes. And that was when he noticed that he could control them.

If Erec turned his eyes to the left, he found he was still looking out the windows, but the view from the windows swung to the left. He could move his eyes up, down, in any direction, and make the windows show him what was happening in those places.

Fear still surged through him as he took in the scene. He realized it was the fear that he felt in the future, when the explosion was happening. But another strange feeling was mixed with the fear. It was a good feeling. Surges of power. He was strong, invincible, even though he was terrified.

A building was collapsing—he could see that now—and people were fleeing from it. He just could not tell where it was. Destruction wreaked havoc everywhere he looked.

When he was finally satisfied that he had seen all that he could, he pulled the cord to shut the shades and left the room.

When he opened his eyes to the light of day, he was exhausted. He glimpsed up at the Hermit grinning at him, then fell asleep.

 

Erec awoke alone, still on the rock by the stream. He had just had the dream again, the nightmare he always had about his father. It didn't bother him as much anymore, now that he knew that it was not his real father, just a fake memory of somebody else's father. The memory chip he had been given when he was little. Still, the guy in the dream was so familiar and creepy.

Bethany was tossing clothes into her backpack in the guest house. “We're leaving now!” she said with a grin. “The Hermit is taking us to the Oracle! And Sunita gave us both extra clothes.”

Sunita walked in with a huge basket brimming with food. “Please. From us. Tell me anything else you need.”

They thanked her, but she stopped them. “No, no, no. Thank
you
. And please come back anytime.”

Erec was a little stunned when they found the Hermit waiting outside for them. “Does this mean I'm a medium now?”

“Yes.” The Hermit nodded. “You are no longer rare. You are medium like me.” He giggled, and Erec had to smile.

“But how will we get to Delphi?” Bethany asked. “Greece is so far away from central India.”

“The same way I got here. Through the Castle Alypium Port-O-Door.”

“What?” Erec said, filled with relief that they had a way to get around easily. “Where is it?”

“In the tool shed.” The Hermit thumbed toward the small shack. “Ready to go?”

They thanked Rajiv and Sunita one more time and said good-bye to Shreena and Sunil. Then they followed the Hermit into the tool shed.

“You realize how strange this will look to Rajiv and Sunita?” Bethany asked. “We say good-bye, walk into their tool shed, and vanish?”

“That is good,” the Hermit said. “This will bring them more luck.”

“How could that be?” Erec asked.

“Because they will believe that something special happened. If they believe they are lucky, then they will do things to make themselves lucky.”

Erec hoped that was true, because Rajiv and Sunita deserved it.

 

The Hermit punched the code numbers into the wooden Port-O-Door and turned its gold doorknob. They followed him into the vestibule and shut the door. On the other side was a door that, if they opened it, would lead straight back into the castle. But that was not where they were going.

A screen was divided into four colored squares: a white
ALYPIUM
section, a blue one saying
ASHONA
, a red one saying
AORTH
, and a yellow square labeled
OTHERNESS
. Erec looked fondly at that square, remembering his Cyclops, Hydra, and Valkyrie friends in Otherness, especially Tina.

Under the four big sections, the Hermit's finger tapped a thin orange stripe marked
OTHER
. A world map popped onto the screen. The Hermit poked the European continent, which grew larger, then larger again as he tapped near the Aegean Sea. A map of Greece blossomed before them. If Greece was a tadpole with its tail waving to the north, he touched again somewhere near its mouth, just north of Athens.

A map of Delphi sprang before them. The Hermit's hand glided past the Delphi Museum, a library, several resorts, and a lot of green space, then pushed a spot titled the Temple of Apollo, right next to Mount Parnassus. A detailed map appeared. It was an overhead sketch showing the Temple of Apollo on the side of the mountain, with the Oracle nearby.

The Hermit chose a crevice in the mountainside surrounded by trees. “This is the best place, right here. Good not to walk out into plain view. And it's close, so we don't have to pay to get in. It's earlier in Greece than in India, so it's still open to the public.” It had not occurred to Erec that a mystical place like this might have tourists wandering around and an admission fee. He somehow had imagined they would be alone.

The screen said
LOCK
, and Erec heard the doorknob click. They opened the door out of the side of a hill that led down to a lush valley. No houses were in sight. A falcon swooped overhead, and a warbler's whoop tumbled through the sky. From their perch they could gaze down on fields and olive groves—a completely different look from Tadoba Park in India, but just as beautiful.

As they walked uphill, a spectacular sight appeared before them. Ancient ruins covered a plateau. Statues, altars, columns, and remains of stone walls decorated with ornate carvings stood as they had thousands of years ago. Erec and Bethany followed the Hermit through the ruins, tourists wandering around them. Something scuffled in the bushes behind Erec, but when he turned around nothing was there. He figured it must have been an animal.

“This path is called the Sacred Way,” the Hermit said. Erec could see why. Spectacular sun-bleached columns lined the path, remains of Ancient Greece. Of course the Hermit was familiar with this place. He had been here many times with King Piter. “And this was the Treasury of Athens.” The Hermit pointed at an impressive stone monument lined with columns in front. “It was where the ancient Greeks left money and treasures for Apollo.”

What was left of the Temple of Apollo made Erec feel tiny. Six humongous stone columns still stood, ripples carved along their edges. Ancient foundation stones lay nearby, remainders of the huge temple. It must have once looked spectacular, with breathtaking
mountains around it and hawks soaring overhead. Even now it looked otherworldly—maybe what Mount Olympus was supposed to be like.

When they followed the Hermit to the “theater,” Erec heard more scuffling behind him. Was somebody trailing them?

The Hermit did not seem to notice. He pointed out how five thousand people could sit in the theater, a perfectly preserved horseshoe of stone seats built into the hillside around a center stage. Erec had never seen him in tour-guide mode before. It wasn't like the Hermit, he thought.

“Is the Oracle in the Temple of Apollo?” Bethany asked.

“No.” The Hermit pointed the way they had come. “It's that way. Near the mountainside. Most people think it's part of the Temple, but the real Oracle is not.” He looked around. “We can go there now.”

As they walked down the path, this time Erec was sure somebody was behind him, following. The Hermit seemed to know it too. He did not turn around, but instead of going straight to the Oracle, he turned to show them another sight. Erec wondered if the scuffling sound might partly explain their guided tour. He glanced at Bethany, but she did not seem to notice anything unusual.

Soon there was another movement behind them and another. But when Erec looked, there was nobody there. It sounded like the noises were coming from more than one place. Were there several people hiding around them?

Who would know they were here? Then the answer hit him. Everyone. Jack knew they were headed to see the Oracle. He must have told Oscar, so Baskania would have people waiting. They would alert him when Erec arrived.

Erec grabbed Bethany's wrist. “They're here.”

She froze.

The Hermit pointed toward the massive ancient stadium, stone seats around its huge dirt enclosure. He said loudly, “This was for the chariot races.”

“What are we going to do?” Erec whispered.

The Hermit winked at him. “I've been watching. You have two followers so far. Maybe more soon. There was a third, but he didn't recognize you. I think he was looking for someone to go right to the Oracle. He was thrown off by our little walk around.” He glanced over Erec's shoulder. “By the looks of these two, you can still talk to the Oracle. Better hurry, before we gain more company.”

He led them to the edge of the mountainside, through some trees. A stream splashed by, hurrying away from the split in the rock where it burst into the light. “The Oracle is here, in the Castalian Spring. These waters connect to the home of the three Fates, like Al's Well and Ed's Well. But the properties of the Oracle will let you talk to the Fates from here.”

He led them to the edge of a steep rise in the mountain. A still pond formed at the side of the stream. Near the edge of the pond sat a small stone well. As they approached it, the singing crystal in Erec's backpack began to chime, and then it quieted. The three of them looked over the circular wall into the water below.

“Why would there be a well by a stream?” Bethany asked. “Aren't wells made so people can get water?”

“Not this well.” The Hermit laughed. “This is the Oracle. It was made for chatting.”

The water in the well looked deep. Erec had the feeling that it led straight to the center of the earth. “I heard some tourists say that the Oracle is in the sanctuary of the temple.”

“Good thing they think that,” the Hermit said. “Keeps them away from here so we can do our business.”

“I can talk to the Fates here?” Erec asked.

“You can now that you are a seer.”

Erec had not thought of himself as a seer before. It was Bethany who was supposed to learn how to do that. He thought he saw her face twitch with disappointment, but maybe that was just him feeling guilty.

The Hermit explained, “If you had not learned to use your dragon eyes, I would have to ask the Fates your questions for you. They would see you when I stepped away, and answer to you. But they would not hear you then if you had more to ask. This way will be far easier.”

“Can I talk to them now?” Erec heard more rustling behind him, and now in some nearby bushes in front of him too.

“First you must go into the little dark room in your head and open the shades. Look into the well. When the light from your dragon eyes shines in, the Fates will know you are here.”

Erec nodded. He had practiced that enough. He leaned over the side of the well, which was as high as his waist, and looked in. Then he closed his eyes.

His imagination took over. He saw himself entering the small pitch-black room in his mind. A warm, comforting feeling spread through him. Then he passed through the next door and the next. There on the table was the small box. A ripple of fear stole over him before he pulled the shades open. He knew what he was going to see would not be pleasant. If only he could figure out what was happening, what building was exploding in the future, he could stop it. He knew that. But how?

Then it hit him. He was at the Oracle. He would ask the Fates! Surely they would know what terrible thing he was seeing.

With greater confidence, he opened the shades covering the windows. Before his eyes, people were screaming, running. Chunks of a building were falling, shattering all around him. Terror surged through him, along with another feeling. A strange confidence, pleasure, control. Power. It filled him with energy.

Erec turned his eyes one way, then the other, looking all around the scene. When he felt he had seen enough for the Fates to get an idea of it, he stepped out of the dark rooms and opened his eyes.

As usual, he felt his eyes swivel in his head, so he knew his dragon eyes had been out. It took a moment to adjust to the brightness outside. He was tired, but excited to talk to the Fates. Now he had two things to ask them: what the rest of his third quest was and what the horrible vision was that he was seeing in his future.

Then Erec smiled. Why stop there? There were so many other things he wanted to know about himself, things that were mysteries to him. He couldn't wait to find out everything.

Below him the water was changing. It began to swirl into a whirlpool of amazing colors, metallic shades, pastels, dusky ones. For a moment the water bubbled up like it was boiling, and then the surface became glassy smooth and dark, so that Erec could see his reflection.

What would the Fates sound like? Erec braced himself. Their voices were probably bone-chilling, inhuman, ghastly. The Hermit gestured him toward the water, and he leaned closer. “Fates? This is Erec Rex. I have a few questions for you.”