The Secret Fire (3 page)

        
FACT:
Urns are some of the oldest relics that archaeologists have discovered. They were often used to hold cremated remains. In ancient Greece they were used to hold oil, and in early Anglo-Saxon tribes, a dead king's heart was sometimes placed in an urn.

In modern mathematics, an urn problem is a thought experiment in probability theory. What that means is the experimenter comes up with a possible action, then explores the potential consequences of that action. It's a mental
exercise, so the action doesn't have to be taken. You just have to think it through. I like thinking things through.

W
e couldn't save Jax, not yet. Tyler needed to go to the Realm of the Gods and ask Zeus for help.

Well, actually, Tyler wanted to make a trade with Zeus—if Zeus agreed to help us free Jax, Tyler would tell him where to find Ricardo. Tyler wanted to barter with a god.

How many consequences could that action have?

Roadside assistance showed up an hour later with a container of gas. Even though our portal to the gods wasn't far, I argued that we should stop at the first station to fill the rest of the tank. The way things were going, we never knew when we were going to end up in a car chase. During this whole trip I'd been in the backseat, acting as the map reader. That's what I'm comfortable with, looking up things on my phone. The fact-checker. The reader. But now I sat in the front seat, cradling the small red urn.

A long time ago, Zeus had filled the urn with love. It was a gift, given to Pyrrha. If she was
feeling sad, she could open the urn and surround herself with love. He'd also given her urns filled with hope and faith. But the urns had been ruined by Pyrrha's father—the man we'd come to know as Ricardo. He'd opened the urns and had tainted them with wickedness and jealousy. So love escaped. As did hope and faith. The urns had been lying empty and abandoned for centuries. And as time passed, they began to crave love, hope, and faith the way a thirsty person craves water. They wanted to be filled again. If opened, they would steal love, faith, and hope from anyone standing nearby, ripping those feelings right out of a person's soul.

If I opened the urn of Love, everyone at the gas station would become its victim. What would it be like to be emptied of love? To see Mom and Dad and feel nothing. To watch Jax drive away and feel nothing. To watch Tyler collapse when the urn of Hope was unleashed on him and feel
nothing
.

It was a horrid thought.

Tyler was losing his temper again. “Why doesn't this fill faster?” He tried to shove the nozzle deeper into the tank. Gas fumes drifted in through the window.

I wasn't going to tell him to calm down. The
situation was crazy. He was filling the tank so we could drive to a portal that would take him to the Realm of the Gods. Which was located in another dimension. I was so nervous, I felt like I might cry and laugh at the same time.

I gripped the warm urn.

“We have to save Jax,” I told him when he finally got back into the car.

“I know we have to save Jax! Tell me something I don't know.” I could have told him lots of things he didn't know. My brain was a fact machine. But now was not the time. He started the engine, then drove back onto the road.

We didn't have far to go. It only took ten minutes to reach Boston Common, but it took ten more minutes for Tyler to find a parking space. It was crowded and despite his ability to calculate the position of figures and the properties of space, he was the worst at parallel parking.

“What are we going to tell Mom and Dad?” I asked.

“We tell them
nothing
,” Tyler said. The scent of gasoline stung my eyes. In his hurry, he'd spilled some on his hands. “We lie.”

“Lie?” I didn't think my stomach could clench any tighter. But it did and I wondered if I was too young
for an ulcer. “We can't keep lying.”

“Au contraire, little bro. We have to keep lying.” He frowned at me. “Seriously, what would be worse? To get caught in a lie, or to never see Jax again?” It was a rhetorical question, of course. He grabbed his phone off the dashboard. “I'll text Dad and say we're having car trouble and we need to stay one more day.” He shrugged. “It's partially true. We did have to call roadside service.”

“You think we can do this by eight a.m.?” I asked.

“Jeez, how am I supposed to know? I've never traveled to another dimension before. Well, I have, in my game.” Tyler and two of his friends had been creating a game called Cyclopsville that takes place in the Realm of the Gods. As far as coincidences go, this one was pretty weird.

“They expect us home tonight,” I reminded him. It was Sunday. Mom was away on a business trip, but Dad had let us drive to Boston to attend a comic-book festival. He's a big comic-book fan. Our parents knew nothing about the urns, or Ricardo. “I'll pretend my battery is dying,” Tyler said as he began to text. “I'll tell Dad not to worry and that we'll call tomorrow when the car is fixed and my phone is recharged. I'll tell him we're going to spend more time at the festival.”

It all sounded good. Dad wasn't a worrier. He'd want us to have fun at the festival. Mom worried mostly about the amount of time Tyler spent on the computer in the virtual world with his friends, and the amount of time I spent in the real world
not
making friends. But in this case, Tyler wasn't on his computer and I was being social. Maybe Mom would see the extra day as a positive.

If there was one person who could be given the title “worrier,” it was me. I was making a mental list of all the things that could go wrong. We had no idea what traveling to another dimension might do to Tyler's body. Was gravity the same? Did they have the same oxygen-to-carbon ratio we had here? Were there odd diseases that Tyler hadn't been immunized against?

“Done,” Tyler announced. Then he shoved his phone into his pocket. It was dinnertime and Tyler hadn't mentioned food, which was unusual. His stomach was like a black hole. “Aren't you hungry?”

“No.”

“Don't you want a burger or something?”

“Nope.”

I was stalling. “Shouldn't we talk about this more?” I pleaded. Both my palms were sweating so
I set the urn on my lap. “Shouldn't we try texting Ricardo again, just in case?”

Okay,
Tyler typed,
Do not hurt Jax. We're going to get your urns.
But, just like last time, the text went undelivered. “Ricardo doesn't want to give us any power,” he said. “We have to wait for him to contact us.” Tyler looked at the urn and his expression turned stormy. “We
will
save Jax.”

“How?”

“I don't know. You can't always have a plan, Ethan. Sometimes you just have to go for it.” He opened the door.

I didn't like not having a plan.

Welcome to the Game.

You are logged in as Tyler. You are seventeen years old, in excellent health aside from a few hunger pangs. Aside from the urn of Love, which you should not open under any circumstances, you are unarmed and there are no weapons currently available. Your strength resides in your superior intellect.

Your objectives: Deliver the urn of Love to Zeus so that it can be destroyed. Convince Zeus to help free your cousin, Jax, from the clutches of the archvillain Ricardo, aka Epimetheus.

And finally, save Pyrrha, the girl of your dreams.

This is a solo mission.

Your location is a portal through which you will enter the Realm of the Gods.

You have until eight a.m. tomorrow morning to complete your mission.

Start Game.

        
FACT:
We exist in three-dimensional space. We can move up and down, sideways, we can step in and out. The space we move in can be measured. But the English philosopher, John G. Bennett, thought that there were three more dimensions that we couldn't see and one of these was called eternity. Eternity was a timeless time, immeasurable, and that's where Tyler was going.

B
oston Common was a large public park in the middle of Boston. Even though it was dinnertime,
the park was filled with people. A group of Peruvians were performing on their flutes and selling CDs. A professional dog walker nearly ran us over as her pack of mutts spotted a squirrel. A family walked past. The little boy was carrying a plastic sword and attacking the bushes. I thought of Tyler's sword collection. Tyler, who was walking quickly, didn't seem to notice the kid. I guess I was looking for distractions—anything to keep my mind from focusing on the facts.

I followed Tyler down a path to a fountain. It was called Brewer Fountain. Four large bronze statues sat at the base, water spouting past their shoulders. Tyler had told us their stories. The young man and woman had been in love, but a jealous Cyclops had killed the man, smashing him with a boulder. So much blood ran from his dead body that it formed a river, which was named after him. The Acis River. The older pair was the god of the sea, Poseidon, and his sea-nymph wife. Yesterday we'd watched Pyrrha stand in front of Poseidon and disappear into thin air. She'd reappeared a few hours later, her hair in a different style and dressed in new clothes. I know this is a cliché but I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own two eyes.

The Poseidon statue was a portal of some sort, leading to the Realm of the Gods. Pyrrha told us that she'd traveled through the portal and that she'd given the urn of Hope to Zeus and that it had been destroyed. It was great news, especially for Tyler, who'd been a victim of the urn. Then Pyrrha surprised Tyler with a gift—a small vial of green liquid. Even though Tyler had insisted that he'd recovered from the effects of having hope drained from his soul, Pyrrha had sensed that some sadness still lingered. Tyler drank the elixir and he was back to his old, snarky self. That's when I really knew that it wasn't a magic trick. Pyrrha was the real deal.

Just when we reached the fountain, Tyler's phone buzzed. “Is it Ricardo?” I asked, my heart skipping a beat.

“It's Dad,” he said, reading the screen. “He says, ‘Glad you're having fun. I'm working on a project at the office. Call tomorrow when you're on your way home.'”

It was a huge relief to know that Dad wasn't worried. We were in the clear for one more night. But I wished that we'd hear from Jax.

Tyler texted back,
Thanks.
Then he stared at the fountain. “Okay, so I'll go into the portal and tell Zeus what's going on.”

“And then what?”

“I still don't know,” he said. “Hopefully he'll help us. Maybe he'll come back with me and deal with Ricardo face-to-face. But in any case, I'll meet you here as soon as I can.”

He didn't seem one bit nervous. He was acting like this was an ordinary outing—like he was going into a Starbucks to get a latte. But he was about to step into a world populated by mythological creatures! “What if it's not that easy?” I asked. “Zeus is the king of the gods. What if he's too busy to help? Or doesn't care about finding Ricardo anymore?”

Tyler scratched his chin. “Well, if he doesn't care about Ricardo, he might still care about Pyrrha. I'll tell him that she's in danger. I'll tell him that she's been kidnapped.”

“You're going to lie to Zeus?” My stomach was clenching again. Technically, Pyrrha hadn't been taken hostage. She'd volunteered to jump into Ricardo's car.

“Do you want to save Jax or not?” he snapped.

I didn't need to answer that question.

He handed me the car keys. “Just in case,” he said.

“Just in case what?”

“In case I don't make it back.”

I gulped. Then I took the keys. He didn't bother rolling up his jeans, or taking off his shoes. And he didn't look around to see if anyone was watching. He stepped into the fountain.

“Hey,” I said. “Now that I think about it, shouldn't we both go?” I didn't want to go, but I didn't want to be left alone, either. “I mean, what if you need my help . . . over there?”

Over there. In another dimension. This was crazy. Should I bring a suitcase? Should I bring an extra inhaler, in case I'm allergic to Pegasus dander? Who knows what kind of pollen floats around in eternity?

“You'd better take this, too.” He handed me his phone. “I doubt the gods have cell towers.” I laughed, but I was so nervous, it came out as a strangled squeak. I clutched the phone and keys in one hand. My other hand was still cupping the urn of Love. “If I don't come back, you'll be the only person who will know what happened to Jax,” Tyler said. “And what happened to me.”

We looked at each other. Tyler and I had never been super close. He wasn't the kind of older brother who'd held my hand when I was a toddler. Or who'd included me in any of his activities. He'd ignored me, much of the time. Though we lived in the same house, we'd lived very separate lives. But the events of the
summer had brought us closer. Because of the urn of Hope, Tyler had almost died and that had been the worst thing I'd ever experienced. But now here we were, talking about the possibility of never seeing each other again.

Having me stay behind made perfect, logical sense. I was the only link between Jax, Ricardo, Tyler, and Great-Aunt Juniper. If both Tyler and I disappeared, Mom and Dad might never know what became of us.

“Hey, kid, there's no swimming in the fountain,” an old man called.

We ignored him. “How long should I wait for you?” I asked.

“I don't know. As long as you can. You might have to lie to Mom and Dad some more.”

“Be careful,” I told him. No one had to remind
me
about not taking unnecessary risks. But Tyler and I were as different as night and day. He stepped in puddles without considering their depth. He walked right into the middle of a crowd without making sure there were nearby exits. He even used public ketchup bottles. Risk aversion was definitely not part of his DNA sequencing.

I handed him the urn of Love. Without another word, he turned away and started walking across the fountain, toward Poseidon. I wanted to offer him
some advice. But what could I say?

“Try not to make Zeus mad!” I hollered. Tyler was good at many things, but he was an expert on annoying people. Most of the gamers I'd met were annoying. They had opinions, and if you didn't know what obscure fantasy character they were referring to, or a particular episode of
Doctor Who
, they acted like you were stupid. If Tyler and Zeus got into a conversation and Zeus didn't know anything about online, multiplayer formats, Tyler might insult him. “And don't lose the bag or you can't get back!”

Tyler whipped around. “The bag!” he cried. “I left it in the car!”

Oh. My. God! “I'll get it!”

I ran as fast as I could. It took me exactly 3.3 minutes to get to our parking spot. I unlocked the car and grabbed Pyrrha's leather bag. I relocked the car and ran, the bag slung over my shoulder. By the time I made it back, I was completely out of breath. Luckily, no one seemed to care that Tyler was still standing in the fountain. “Hey!” I called, holding up the bag.

Unfortunately, the Peruvian band was now standing on the pathway, quite close to Tyler. The drums were loud enough to drown out my voice. Tyler stared at Poseidon like he was in some kind of trance.
Trying not to think about the fact that some of the worst diseases that inflict mankind are carried by filthy water, I climbed into the basin, and sloshed up to him. “Here!”

He pointed at the statue. “Look.”

Like the other three statues, Poseidon sat on a ledge. He wore a laurel wreath on his head. His beard was long and wavy, and his chest was bare. He sat with his hand resting on his knee, his face turned toward his sea-nymph wife, who sat on another ledge. What was I supposed to be looking at? Nothing seemed unusual.

“There!” Tyler said, his finger jabbing the air in front of Poseidon's eyes.

A slight flicker of light came from inside the bronze eyes. I shivered.

Then I looked at the bag. The golden trident had begun to glow. The bag was vibrating. I shoved the car keys and the phone into my pocket. Then I yanked the bag off my shoulder. “It's starting to do something!” I hollered as the flute-playing reached an obnoxious volume. “Take it! Hurry!”

Tyler grabbed the bag but before I let go, the ground disappeared and I fell into darkness.