Joshua and the Lightning Road (12 page)

I pressed ever so slightly on the golden box. Heat pierced my fingertips, but it didn’t burn. Tiny writing wrapped around the edge of the box. Leandro read it. “For whoso travels with the power of my lightning, must bow in my honor or face banishment and the labors of arduous journeys to come.” He paused then said, “It’s signed by Zeus, king of the gods.”

The power of Zeus filled me, but I pulled my fingers back.

“Power. Like in you, Joshua.” Leandro flattened the box, and slid it away. The gold disappeared. “Time to go, boys.”

And with that, powered by strange food, sleep, and a sliver of hope, we went out again into this other world where the misty blue sun rose on another new day.

We were determined to keep away from the main village of the Lost Realm and trotted in single file through the thick woods. The trees pressed up against me. Their branches snagged my clothes and scratched my hands, blood oozing from tiny cuts. I wiped it away and focused on Leandro’s back ahead of us.

The never-ending quiet consumed me. It was more quiet than even the mountain where Bo Chez took me camping a few times. Even in that peaceful place eagles shrieked, hikers chatted on the trails, music floated to our campsite, chainsaws buzzed cutting wood, and campers came and went on vacation in their cars. Here, no animals chattered or birds sang. Here, the quiet was dead.

Leandro stopped suddenly and put up his hand, holding us off in silence while he scanned the area. He pointed, and we followed his finger to see a cottage, camouflaged amongst the trees. Smoke drifted from its chimney. He motioned us to crouch down behind a bush.

Humming burst through the silence as a woman came out of a door on the side with her back to us. She carried a basket with lumps of white to a canopy, and began hanging up clothes on a line under it, her dark blond hair falling in waves down her back over a long aproned dress. She tapped a foot to her song that filled the air with merry cheer in contrast with the gloomy land she lived in. Leandro drew in a sharp breath. He stood up.
What was he doing?

Sam, Charlie, and I shrugged at one another. My calves cramped up, but I held my position, breathing shallow.

“Could it be?” Leandro whispered.

As if she heard him, the woman stopped her work and turned to the side. My neck stiffened, and my eyes hurt to stare at her without blinking.
Don’t see us!
Leandro’s shoulders fell and he squatted down again.

“It’s not her,” he said.

“Who?” I whispered.

“My wife. It’s been so long. I thought I would know her the moment I saw her again. I don’t want to forget what she looks like.”

I didn’t know what to say, and Sam and Charlie didn’t either as they remained silent. Leandro’s task of finding his family weighed heavy in the air.

We waited until she went back inside and then we crept away from the cottage. None of us spoke for quite some time until we stopped for a drink at a tiny burbling spring and Leandro and Sam filled up their water containers.

“Who was your wife, Leandro?” I said as we continued on and navigated around a tight cluster of trees.

He didn’t answer at first then said quietly, “She was a mortal in the adult camp, having been taken from Earth as a child, and held as our captive. But we fell in love and married ourselves in secret.” He paused and sighed. “Her name was DeeDee.”

“What happened to her?”

“She was taken away, along with our baby son, as punishment for my involvement with a mortal.”

“Where could they be?”

“I don’t know. I deserted my post to travel from land to land to find them.”

He was so determined. With danger at every turn, how long could I continue searching for Finn?

“What’s your son’s name?” I said.

Leandro slowed and then stopped, looking up into the purple sky. Charlie took the stop as a sign to throw himself down on the ground, and I was thrilled for another break.

“Evander,” Leandro finally said. “He had hair so blond it was almost white and a birthmark on his forearm like a flame, the noble ancestral mark of the hunters of Arrow Realm.” He turned and looked at my arm as if expecting that birthmark to appear, at my hair as if my boring dirty blond would suddenly bleach white. “He would be a year or so older than you.”

He pulled a miniature bow from his satchel a third of the size of his own bow.

“I made this for my son before he was born,” Leandro said, running his fingers over its polished arcs. “I had hoped to give it to him when I found him.” He slid the bow away.

I clenched my jaw, biting my lip by accident. Blood and pain welled. What if I couldn’t find Finn, like Leandro couldn’t find his son? Failure was not an option, or staying here for years and never seeing my friend again, fighting for survival, or forgetting what Finn looked like—and Bo Chez.

Leandro said no more, and we took off once again with me in front, leading the way as if I knew where to go.

***

It wasn’t long before the delicious smells of fresh baked bread, roasting meat, and gooey desserts filled my nose. A crooked, black building stuck out from the mist and smoke sputtered thick at the top of its several chimneys. We’d reached the bakehouse.

I looked at Sam. “How are we going to get in there and search for Finn?”

“I know where the hidden tunnel entrance is,” Sam said.

“I’m going with you.”

Sam cocked his head as if wondering if that was such a good idea then he said, “This way.”

“Wait, what if we’re seen?” I said.

“I’m the king’s son. No one questions me. The servants may not know I’m wanted yet. They certainly won’t know you; and besides, the boys and girls working in the bakehouse pit are half awake, cooking the king’s breakfast. They deliver it by tunnel to the castle on powered carts.”

Carts we power
.

“We’ll wait here for you,” Leandro said.

Sam pointed. “The old tunnel entrance is just past that rock.”

Charlie seemed unsure about us leaving him with Leandro. “How are we going to know if anything’s wrong, Prince-man?”

“You’ll know if something goes wrong,” Sam said. “An alarm will sound.”

“I’ll call the kernitians to come fly us out of here,” Leandro said. “Let’s hope they’ll help again.”

“Come back in one piece, please,
mon ami
?” Charlie looked at me and sagged his shoulders, shifting about on his feet.

I nodded, and then Sam bent down and moved some brush aside. Beneath it was a rusty round cover that blended into the earth. Sam pulled it up by a hook. Rungs set into the side of the circular shaft led down into blackness. Sam climbed down and I followed into the stuffy dark, peering one last time up from the black hole. Leandro stood expressionless, watching.

“Be safe,” Charlie called. “
Au revoir
.”

***

The blue glow of the lightning orb provided enough light for us to run through the cool tunnel. Squeaks sent shivers up my spine. Monster rats or some new monster? We ran faster. Finally, we came to a solid wall and stopped. The wall had a door—we had arrived.

“Don’t speak,” Sam instructed. “Just follow my lead.” He lifted the latch and pushed open the door. The scent of sausages attacked my nose and my stomach shriveled. We’d entered a room with shelves piled high with bags of flour, jars of strange things, and vegetables.

We tiptoed through the storage room toward light and noise as heat from the kitchen warmed my face. Ahead of us dishes clattered, pots banged, and kids jabbered. Breakfast was in progress. I was crazed with hunger for a real meal and could barely think. Sam was better off—he nabbed two white aprons from hooks, and we hunkered down in a corner behind a pallet of flour and put them on.

“The bake servants may think we work here, too,” Sam said. “I just don’t want to run into the head chef. He knows me.”

He took something that looked like a pumpkin and I grabbed a bag of potatoes, yearning for mashed ones with gravy.

“Act like you’ve got somewhere to go,” Sam said.

Man, did I have somewhere to go, but it wasn’t in here. Boys and girls in white aprons bustled around the kitchen. Soon we were among them in the hot room where fires blazed in hearths that held meaty birds roasting on spits, their juices sizzling on burning logs. The heat felt good at first, compared to the damp tunnel but then became sweltering.

“See your friend?”

No such luck. Sam grabbed one of the bake kids, a tall girl with chopped short hair. “Hey, any new boys come in here lately?”

The girl shook him off. “Not since two weeks ago.” She ran off carrying a smoking dish of bacon. My stomach lurched in response. My last hot breakfast was days ago.

Sam ducked behind a curtain and pulled me with him. “The head chef,” he whispered.

We were inside another storage area. The curtain didn’t go all the way to the floor. Skinny legs ran about in the kitchen except for the fat, bowlegged ones heading straight toward our hiding place. We gripped our food. Drops of sweat rolled down the side of my face and I swiped at it with my arm. Light burst bright before us as the curtains were flung open.

“Aha!” The fat chef glared down at us with a red face. “I just heard there were outsiders in here. Thieves! And you, Sam, a traitor. Hekate wants you for questioning. You better turn yourself in. She may be the one we all answer to soon enough if she delivers on her promise.” He tried to seize us, but Sam threw his pumpkin at the chef’s stomach so hard that he fell on his butt. Sam ran past him with me right behind. As the chef struggled to rise, I dumped my bag of potatoes on him, sending him back down. Chubby hands clawed at me, but I pushed him away and ran past as fast as my aching legs would go.

The bake kids looked on in surprise as we flew by them back to the tunnel, but no one tried to stop us. The girl with the chopped off hair stared at me, then gave me a slight nod as if saying ‘good luck.’ I looked behind me once to see the chef scramble up, only to roll on a potato and fall on his butt again. It would be funny if the terror of being caught wasn’t at our heels. I pulled out the orb, ready to battle. A bell gonged.

“Joshua, catch!” Sam stole a hunk of steaming meat off a platter and threw it at me.
Nothing to lose now.
The slippery mass warmed my chest with its tempting juices. Sam grabbed a loaf of bread and a pie, balancing it as he ran. We tore through the first storage room and re-entered the cool tunnel. The orb lit the way.

Faster we ran while the greasy meat tormented me with its smell, but we couldn’t stop. The bell screamed out our crime.
Please let us get back to Leandro and Charlie.

Shouts burst from behind us. My legs couldn’t move any faster and my chest felt cracked in two as my lungs ached with their effort. Finally, Sam pulled himself up the rungs to the world above.

He pushed up on the hatch door. “It won’t open!”

The thumping of feet behind us vibrated the rungs my shaking hands clung to in desperation. “Hurry, Sam!”

“Got you, Reekers!” Guards stood a few feet away from us, torches in hand. One held something else as well. A vape. Pointed right at us. Hissing angrily.

We were done for.

Light splashed from above. Leandro hauled us out and slammed the hatch back down, turning the handle tight. The guards banged on it, yelling.

“Run!” Leandro pulled us toward the waiting kernitians.

“Finn?” Charlie clutched me.

“No! Just run!”

The cover to the tunnel shook with angry thumps. Muffled voices protested below. We leapt onto the kernitians and galloped into the air.

Higher. Higher.

The meat spread a greasy stain on my apron. Up to the trees we raced, and once we reached the tops, the kernitians slowed to a trot. The heat of the bakehouse left me as a soft breeze tickled my skin, and I breathed cold, soothing air.

Sam ripped off a piece of bread, threw it at Charlie, and dug into the pie. “Finn wasn’t there, but we got food!”

Leandro laughed. “By the gods! Good thinking, boys.”

About time this meat was mine
. I pulled off a chunk and threw it to Leandro. We tore into the food like a Thanksgiving feast and forgot about scary creatures attacking us and guards vaporizing us with snake heads. There was only good food going down into our empty stomachs. Poor Lo Chez couldn’t eat any of it.

“The best agrius beast there is,” Sam mumbled, his mouth full of food, pointing at the mystery meat.

Whatever agrius beast was, it sure tasted good. Better than gurgle soup. We ate until it was all gone, passing food back and forth in the sky. Charlie let out a huge burp that startled his kernitian, and it kicked its legs up. We all laughed, and even Leandro chuckled with his deep rumble. With our stomachs full, we glided along as if on a summer afternoon bike ride, except there was no yellow sun here to warm us, only a blue, frosted one.

“So, where to next?” I said to Sam.

“The castle. And the greenhouse is on its grounds. It’s not far, but our most dangerous stop. The Lost Realm guards have been training extra slaves to guard the king, and Finn might be one of those. The king has been paranoid about a takeover, and if that were to happen, my days would be numbered here, which is why I needed to escape now.”

“Then the rumors are true,” Leandro said.

“What rumors?” Charlie said.

“Hekate’s plan to overthrow King Apollo. And the people of the Lost Realm are ready for change.”

“Even an evil one?” I shook my head.

“The Lost Realm is cursed, first by Zeus and now Hekate, and could soon be plummeted into the darkest of ages again,” Leandro said, spreading a hand out across the treetops. “You can already feel the chill in the air and inside folks.”

“Even my father is afraid,” Sam said. “It’s why he’s had me working at the power mill and sending back reports. He was once a reasonable man, but now I fear him as much as I do Hekate.”

“Because she’s an immortal evil?” Leandro said.