Crystal Doors #2: Ocean Realm (No. 2) (23 page)

Lyssandra took her mother’s arm and got to her feet. “Any delay puts my friends, and Elantya, at greater risk.”

She had survived, had made it back to her home and family — which placed a greater burden on her shoulders. Though her other four friends had not been born in Elantya as she had been, the island was now their home, too. Vic and Gwen had Sage Pierce for their own family, and even Tiaret and Sharif had friends and Ven Rubicas to care for them.

A fresh current of guilt rippled through her that she had been the one to escape. Why couldn’t it have been Vic and Gwen — the children of the prophecy? Or even Tiaret or Sharif? Their skills were superior to hers at fighting and leading. It wasn’t fair for her to relax, safe and cared for, while her fellow apprentices remained in such peril. It was selfish, and she owed it to them to keep pushing herself, as tired as she was. She would see that they were rescued. She would tell the Pentumvirate everything they needed to know. She had to put every drop of strength she possessed into doing whatever it took to free them.

When they reached the governmental hall, Lyssandra stood before the five Virs and told them in great detail everything she and her friends had endured. She described the merlon city, the capricious and slightly mad King Barak, and the dark sages, Azric and Orpheon.

“These plans against us are grave, though not unexpected,” said Vir Helassa. “The merlons have long resented Elantya.”

“Azric is provoking them,” Lyssandra said. “I think he has convinced King Barak to mount an all-out war. They have bombs made from pure lavaja.”

“Yes, the freed anemonites are meeting with our best sages to explain the destructive power of these bombs,” said Vir Questas. “Together they will develop a defense. Ven Rubicas believes his protective shield could save us all.”

“Worse, though,” Lyssandra continued, “Azric believes Gwenya and Viccus are seal-breakers. He intends to force them to break open crystal doors and set loose his armies of immortal warriors.”

“Then why did he want you and the other two apprentices?” her father, Groxas, interrupted from behind her. “Were you simply captured by accident?”

At this, Vir Etherya grew pensive. “Lyssandra, do you know the children’s song about the island of Elantya?”

Lyssandra nodded. “The fingerplay? Of course.” She recited, adding the hand movements that went with each part of the rhyme.

Raised from deep beneath the ocean,

Five required to be complete,

Prophecies are set in motion,

Leaving evil no retreat.

Forming bonds from worlds divergent,

Pledged to serve and to protect,

At the time when need is urgent,

Ancient powers intersect.

On the final line, she interlaced her fingers and folded her hands. Only when she was finished did Lyssandra pause to wonder at the Vir’s curious request.

“What does this game have to do with rescuing my son and Gwen and their friends?” Sage Pierce asked.

“That song is thousands of years old,” Questas said.

In his precise, clipped voice, Parsimanias added, “Every Elantyan child learns the rhyme. It is a tradition.”

“Until recently, we believed it to be a quaint verse about the formation of Elantya, but recent events have caused us to question that assumption,” Helassa said. She gripped the rose decision crystal on the arm of her stone chair. “The Pentumvirate now believes that this song is not a history but a prophecy — a prophecy about the five apprentices of Ven Rubicas.”

Lyssandra gasped as alternative meanings for each phrase in the song rushed through her mind. Five required to be complete/Prophecies are set in motion.

Questas smiled at her shocked reaction. “So, you see, we cannot allow the merlons to hold or injure any of you. Or to employ your powers to work evil deeds, as they did with the anemonites.”

Sage Pierce stood up, clearing his throat. “I know I’m not objective about this, but I’d say that rescuing the kids is more important than anything else at the moment. We need to get Vic and Gwen and the others away from Azric, so he can’t use them.”

Sage Snigmythya wrung her hands. “We had hoped that Sharifas would use his flying carpet to aid you in your escape. His carpet . . . Did the summoning rune not work?”

Lyssandra shook her head. “He tried to call it, but the carpet never came. We thought it could not fly under water.”

The five Virs looked at each other in consternation. White-robed Etherya finally asked, “Was the carpet with you when you were captured?”

Lyssandra frowned, trying to remember. “No, Sharifas left it in his chambers when we went to swim.”

Helassa whispered to a young red-robed neosage beside her, who ran from the meeting hall. A few minutes later, he came back, accompanied by Ven Sage Rubicas, the two of them struggling mightily with something that they carried between them: Sharif’s magic carpet, still rolled up and bound with a length of cord!

“It was there all along,” Lyssandra said. “Trying to break free to rescue us!”

“Hmm, yes. Sealed in a cupboard beneath the prince’s bed,” Rubicas said. “After Orpheon stole my most valuable spell scrolls, I had many of our doors and cupboards inscribed with runes of protection to prevent them from opening for anyone not working with me. I never thought anything might need to get out. Hmm, I must work on that.”

The Ven Sage removed the cord and was startled by the vehemence with which the rectangle of embroidered fabric snapped itself flat and sprang free. As if indignant, it hovered in the air, tassels trembling, then shot out of the hall.

Lyssandra grinned. “If you mean to mount a rescue operation, we had best hurry. Otherwise the flying carpet may make the attempt all by itself.”

SIMULTANEOUSLY EXHAUSTED, ANXIOUS, AND grateful, Lyssandra allowed herself several hours to recover. Her mother fussed over her, making a fine restorative meal, and the ravenous escapee finished off every speck of food her mother brought, then fell into a heavy sleep. The moment she awoke, Lyssandra insisted on going to check on the preparations Ven Rubicas, her father, and Sage Pierce were making against the merlons.

“At least drink some more greenstepe,” her mother said.

“I promise, Mother, once my friends are rescued, we will rest as long as you want us to.” Lyssandra accepted the cup from her mother, gulped it, and rushed out of their home. As she sped on sandaled feet down the steep, cobblestone streets past whitewashed buildings, she saw people hurrying in all directions.

Like a stirred-up anthill, the harbor swarmed with activity. Multicolored smoke wafted from the chimneys of various buildings run by the sages, as well as the large laboratories in the Citadel. Everyday activities had been suspended as soon as the aquit delivered its message, and the Elantyans turned their focus toward the war. Now the entire island was on alert.

Lyssandra panted as she ran, feeling the air burn in her lungs — a strange sensation after spending so long under the sea, breathing water. When she made her way to the sheltered cove where the friends had gone swimming, she discovered a small group of neosages peering into the water, hurriedly scribbling documentation and taking notes. The group of escaped anemonite scientists had taken refuge here in the large sheltered lagoon.

Next to the diligent neosages stood a tall, hulking, manlike form made of metal and crystal, its arms and legs operated by pulleys, pistons, and tubes — Sage Polup’s mechanical walking form. But the transparent head-tank in which the anemonite normally floated was empty. Polup had been removed and now burbled about in the safe, tranquil cove with his fellow anemonites.

Out at the breakwater barrier that sheltered the cove from the open sea, Elantyan engineers wearing heavy weights to help them sink, breathed through long hoses as they filled in the breach the merlons had made. Two sages, looking bedraggled and uncomfortable, splashed about and sank beside the engineers, working to scribe protective spells on the stone blocks of the breakwater, so the merlons could not open up another passage.

Lyssandra knelt by the water’s edge, enjoying the exuberance of the jellyfishlike creatures and feeling warm in the knowledge that she had helped rescue them. The anemonites puttered to and fro, swiveling their rings of eyes to observe everything at once.

One of the creatures swam to the edge of the water, and the copper-haired girl heard the bubbling voice of Sage Polup. “Lyssandra, thank you for freeing my people from the terrible merlon masters. Even though these are dire times, I have not experienced so much hope since I first came to Elantya.”

She bowed her head. “It was necessary, Sage Polup. The anemonites were enslaved. My friends and I only did what had to be done, as any Elantyan would.”

Other anemonites began clustering around Polup. Some of their kraega steeds remained with them inside the cove. Two of the jellyfish scientists worked with the sharp antenna scribes to draw patterns on flat slates covered with a glowing algae.

“Elantyans should not need to leave friends behind,” Polup said. “My people and I will not let them be sacrificed for us.”

Gedup, the anemonite Blackfrill had threatened to kill as an example to the others, added in a higher-pitched voice like the whistling steam from a stepekettle, “You did more than free us from the merlons. You deprived them of our knowledge — which we now offer freely and enthusiastically to Elantya.”

The neosages finished copying patterns from the underwater slateboard the kraegas were scribing. “They have provided remarkable designs. Look.” The young neosage wiped sweat from his forehead and extended the sheet of parchment to Lyssandra. “This must be delivered to the laboratory of Ven Rubicas immediately. Shall I summon a skrit?”

“No.” Lyssandra took it. “I will run there myself. Perhaps I can help them.” She saw a drawing of a propulsion system adapted for use on a small, swift boat on the water’s surface. “Who will use this?”

Gedup was still bobbing on the surface of the tide pool. “Sage Pierce has insisted that his speedboat vessel from Earth has the most suitable design. Its motor has no fuel. This can help.”

Polup added, “More submersible bubble ships are being assembled, like the one presented to me at the great celebration. I call them bubletts. With these, we anemonites will not be slow and helpless under the water. We can swim faster than a shark, and will help you to rescue your friends.”

Lyssandra felt a sense of relief. “Wonderful. I was afraid I might need to do it alone.”

“You are never alone, Lyssandra. No one in Elantya is.”

MUCH OF THE FURNITURE had been removed from Ven Rubicas’s laboratory and study rooms, to be replaced by enormous tables, boxes of scrap metal, pipes, cloth, and a clutter of spell scrolls. Lyssandra smelled bitter fumes and the tang of molten metal and mixing chemicals.

Her father was there, hunched over a deep basin of water, his bushy beard tangled and smeared with either ash or chemical powder. He had large stone bowls in which he mixed fine-grained crystals of different colors. Groxas dipped a fingertip into one bowl, touched it to his tongue, frowned at the recipe, and added a handful of one powder, then another.

Rubicas looked extremely preoccupied as he paced from table to table. Including the assembly of the bubletts, Lyssandra counted seven entirely different projects taking place, all under the Ven Sage’s supervision.

Vic’s father was there, too, his eyes looking shadowy and hollow, his dark hair disheveled as he contemplated sketched designs from spell scrolls on the table. In front of him raised up on supports was the purple boat he had brought with him from his world — one of the strangest vessels Lyssandra had ever seen, filled with even stranger equipment.

“Ahh, Lyssandra, you are here,” Ven Rubicas said. “We can always use another intelligent mind, an extra pair of sharp eyes, and two more skillful hands.”

With a smile at her father, she hurried to the Ven Sage and handed him the drawing the anemonites had made. He skimmed it curiously and his eyes lit up. His bushy eyebrows rose up on his forehead. “Fascinating — and practical, too. Perhaps someday it can be expanded to work with large ships, just as I am working to expand my smaller shield spell to protect all of Elantya. I am glad to see that the anemonites are more than just thinkers in this great conflict.”

“They feel responsible,” Lyssandra said. “Some of them have volunteered to use the new bubletts to participate directly in the rescue operations.”

With a flash and a puff of smoke, a miniature volcano of bright sparks erupted from where her father was working. He cried out, stepped back, and flung a thick cloth onto the blazing mixture of powders, smothering it. “There!” Groxas said, grinning at his daughter. “I think that is precisely the right mixture.”

“Are not preparations for a victory celebration premature, Father?” Lyssandra asked in a bewildered voice.

“Oh, these are not sky fireworks, Daughter. I have been working with Sage Polup on a new concept. Did you notice I did not throw water on that blaze to extinguish it? Water would only have made it burn brighter. These are sea fireworks, specially formulated with a chemical and magical composition to blaze brilliantly under water — our most beautiful weapon. We will give those merlons a blinding show such as they have never seen before.” Her father chuckled and Ven Rubicas grinned.