Kilenya Series Books One, Two, and Three (40 page)

“How’d they get here so fast?” Jacob asked.

Something banged hard on the door. It pushed inward, and Jaegar and Matt jumped to hold it shut. Another bang, and one of the hinges broke off.

“The woman has brown hair!” Aldo shouted. “Facts and non-facts! Now!”

Jacob ran to a tall bookshelf and tried to push it in front of the door, but it didn’t budge. “Aldo!” he yelled. “Come help me!”

Surprisingly, the old man ran to obey him. Together they pushed and pulled the shelf. It started moving, but not fast enough.

A deafening roar split through the air. Was that Lirone? Jacob didn’t remember the sky monster roaring. If not, what in the world made a sound like that? Jacob looked to Jaegar, suddenly wishing Akeno were there. He’d know.

Then every glass object in the room shattered—the windows, the cups, the glass in the picture frames—and the people in the cabin were pelted with shards. Aldo began howling and stomping his feet.

“A Bald Henry!” Jaegar screamed. “We have to get out of here
now
!”

Dusts started climbing through the window frames. Another deafening roar.

Seconds later, every metal object in the room pulverized, including the hinges on the door. Little fragments were all that remained, and the air was full of metal dust.

“He’ll target another material next!” Jaegar yelled. “We have to use the Key before the door gets destroyed!” He and Matt pushed the Dusts and Molgs back out the windows while Jacob searched for a way to escape.

The shelf was partially blocking the door, and Jacob wasn’t sure he could get everyone through before the group outside forced their way in. Dusts were already using their hands as knives, cutting through the wood.

Another roar as Jacob spun around, heading to the door to Aldo’s room. Every brick was destroyed, showering them all with rocks and mortar. The boys called out in pain, and Aldo shrieked like he was being murdered.

Jacob and his friends were exposed to the army outside. The Molgs and Dusts froze, staring at them. Then they surged forward, climbing over the rubble that used to be Aldo’s walls.

Jacob whipped out the Key, his hands shaking, while Jaegar and Matt beat off the Dusts and tried to keep the Molgs away. The Molgs were too powerful, though, and Jacob had to push one away from Jaegar before he was able to face the door again. There wasn’t a keyhole.

He panicked. “There’s no hole! There’s no hole for the Key!”

“Put it closer to the door!” Jaegar yelled, wrestling three Dusts who had knives for hands. “It’ll come.”

Jacob held the Key near the door and shouted with excitement when a lock appeared. He shoved the Key into it and yelled, “Kenji’s house!” He then popped the door open, grabbed Matt, Jaegar, and Aldo, and pushed them through. He kicked several Dusts away, shoved a Molg—causing it to fall backward—and jumped into Kenji’s front room. Another ear-splitting roar. The wooden things around them splintered and shredded, and he slammed the door shut. He held it tightly. It vibrated for a moment, then stopped.

Jacob slid to the floor, panting from the exertion. His ears rang, and he hurt all over.

The group of Makalos in front of them had frozen in shock. Ebony’s mouth hung open, Brojan had a bunch of books in his lap, Kenji’s held a towel, and Akeno was mid-step, heading toward the back room.

Aldo broke the silence—apparently he recognized the Makalos. “Pearl!” he yelled, rushing to Ebony, grabbing her shoulders, petting her head. Then he saw Kenji and ran to him. “Apples and flies!”

He turned to face the room, an excited expression on his face. “Stars? And moon?” He ran to a window, looking out. He paused, then hurried back to Kenji. “Stars? And moon!”

“I think he recognizes us!” Ebony burst into tears. “Oh, he must recognize us. He’s not gone.”

“You might be right,” Kenji said, watching Aldo. The man picked up a chair and looked at the underside of it, repeating his question about the stars and moon. “But he doesn’t seem to have all his faculties with him yet.”

Aldo grinned, put the chair down, then stood on top of it. “Numbers were planting babies. Oh, what a way.”

Matt and Jacob exchanged glances. Maybe Aldo recognized the adults, but he was still crazy.

Then Kenji turned to the boys, his face red. “What were you
thinking
, trying to get to him on your own? I heard that roar. A Bald Henry was part of the army, and if you’d stayed around here even a
minute
longer, you would’ve known that!”

“And they’re bleeding!” Ebony said, rushing forward. She grabbed Jaegar’s arm. “This is going to take some time to fix. All right, the three of you, to the table this instant.” She led them to seats, then pulled out a pair of tweezers from a drawer near the sink and began plucking debris out of their arms.

Kenji paced in front of them. “Bald Henries are extremely dangerous. If you hadn’t gotten out of the cabin when you did, you wouldn’t have made it. The next thing it would’ve targeted is flesh. They follow a pattern. Glass, metal, rock, wood, flesh.”

Jacob winced as Ebony pulled a particularly large piece of glass from his wrist. “But I looked and didn’t see anything.”

Kenji sighed and sat down, rubbing his face. “Of course not. They’re invisible. No one even knows what they look like.”

“Where did they get the name ‘Bald Henry?’”

“The legend says that several hundred years ago, a person traveled through a link to your world and encountered a king named Henry, who was particularly atrocious and bad-tempered. There isn’t a specification anywhere as to whether or not he was bald, but everyone started referring to Bald Henries that way, and the name stuck.”

“Why haven’t they destroyed everything in sight?”

“They’re usually peaceful creatures. They avoid other animals, stay in the same location. And their roar only has a range of perhaps five yards. The Lorkon brought them and used them a few times during the last war. We learned a lot.”

Aldo traced the silver lines in the wall. He grinned at the group, and Jacob wondered if the old man had lost another tooth. There seemed to be a larger gap on top.

“What are we to do with you, Aldo?” Ebony asked. She’d mixed together Kaede Sap to heal the boys’ cuts, and was wrapping Jacob’s arms.

Aldo beamed at her. “You’re not here with that old bag. The disconcerting books hate Friday.”

She looked at him thoughtfully, then wrapped Matt’s arms. “We could have him stay in the tree until we find a permanent residence for him.”

Kenji nodded. “That’ll be perfect. He seemed fine alone in his cabin.”

Brojan stood and excused himself, leaving the house.

Jacob had almost forgotten the patriarch was there, he’d been so quiet. And—Jacob noticed with surprise—Akeno had slipped out of the room too.

“Where’s September been?” he asked. “Only Early comes now.”

“He doesn’t spend much time around Taga Village, and he only obeys Kenji now,” Ebony said.

“He always was a very temper mental Minya,” Kenji said. “Don’t worry about it—he goes through phases like this all the time.”

Jacob waited for Ebony to finish up with Aldo’s wounds, then Keyed the elderly man to the tree.

When he returned, Ebony looked up from where she was working on Jaegar’s arms. “I wonder what Brojan thinks of the Molgs being part of the armies. This means they’re out of their caves.”

“And that’s bad, right?” Jacob asked.

Kenji got to his feet and began pacing. “Yes. Very.”

Ebony finished with Jaegar’s bandages. “It’s too dangerous to have them wandering around.”

Jacob’s mind returned to the experience in Aldo’s cabin. “Why didn’t the Key get destroyed when all the other metal objects did?” Jacob asked.

She shrugged and walked to Jacob, unwrapping his bandages and throwing them into a box in the corner of the room. “Magic.”

Jacob nodded. That’s what he’d guessed. Then he remembered something else. “Weren’t we going to have a meeting tonight? About getting Aloren back?”

Ebony paused. “Yes, we were,” she said, then looked at Kenji.

“We decided to put it off,” Kenji said, “due to the army’s attack on Aldo.”

Jacob shook his head. “I’m not waiting anymore. We need to put a plan together.”

Ebony looked at him. “It would be best if you boys rested first.”

“No, we can rest later. This is more important.”

Ebony and Kenji met eyes.

“Please?” Jacob asked. “We can’t leave her there any longer.”

“Then you’d better go get the Fat Lady,” Ebony said, “so we can have our meeting.”

“I’ll send a Minya to tell her you’re on the way, and another to call Brojan,” Kenji said and left the house. He returned moments later, indicating it was okay for Jacob to head to her cabin.

Jacob made sure the door behind him clicked loudly when he shut it to alert the Fat Lady to his presence. “Hello?” he called out.

“In here, Jacob, in here.”

He walked down the narrow hallway, through a cluttered living room, and into a dark little kitchen, following the sound of the Fat Lady’s voice. She filled the entire area, with barely enough room to move around. He cleared his throat.

She turned and grinned—her odd assortment of teeth shining at him. The top ones were nearly all gone; the bottoms were pearly white and straight. She fingered the piercing in one of her ear lobes—stretched out so far one of her pudgy fingers would have fit in the space—and Jacob tried not to cringe.

“Good to see you, good to see you,” she said. “Give me a minute to finish.” She turned to the sink, hand still on her ear lobe.

Jacob didn’t want to know what she was doing, so he stepped back into the living room, shoved papers off a section of the dusty orange couch, and sat down.

After a few moments, the Fat Lady shuffled through the room, beckoning him to follow. “Let’s go get this shindig planned.”

It took several minutes for everyone to settle down enough for the meeting to begin. Jacob was nervous—he couldn’t wait to find out what the Makalos would say about getting Aloren.

The Fat Lady grinned at Matt when the introductions were made, and his jaw dropped—probably at the sight of her teeth.

Brojan started by asking the Fat Lady about her potion.

“It’s the same one Akeno and Aloren took on the way to Maivoryl. It’s called Malono, and prevents people from experiencing the negative effects of the Lorkon magic.”

“And you recommend everyone takes it before entering Maivoryl City?”

The Fat Lady nodded. “Definitely. We have no idea what would have happened to Akeno and Aloren if Malono hadn’t been in their system. The air may have been polluted in some way.” She leaned forward. “I found an extra vial. It will only be enough for one person, though.”

Jacob watched the adults conversing, feeling somewhat like a third wheel. “Okay, what’s the plan, then? When can we go get Aloren?”

Brojan looked at Jacob. “As soon as everyone who’s going has taken this potion.”

Jacob turned to the Fat Lady. “How long until the potion is ready?”

She shrugged. “I’d guess six weeks. It may even be longer.”

Jacob sprang up, causing everyone to jump. “Six weeks? No way! I’m not waiting that long!”

Matt pulled his brother back into the chair. “Calm down, Jake.”

“You have to wait,” Brojan said. “There isn’t anything else we can do. You heard what she said. And six weeks is being optimistic.”

His beard masked half of his face, but Jacob could see the displeasure in the Makalo’s expression. Why was
he
frustrated? He wasn’t the one whose friend was stuck in some city in the middle of nowhere!

“Brojan is right,” Ebony said, then waved a hand toward the Fat Lady, who listened with her arms folded. “Her potions are necessary. We can’t help you without them.”

“But she said there’s an extra vial—Matt could take it. He and I could go together!”

Matt nodded in agreement. “And this time, it’ll be simple—we’ll be careful.”

Jacob motioned to Matt. “See? You don’t know my brother. He can do basically anything!”

Kenji shook his head. He looked exhausted. “No. You’ll need more people with you. Bald Henries aren’t the worst thing you could come across.” He paused, facing Jacob fully. “Think about it. If you fail to get Aloren, you might endanger her life by putting the villagers on extra alert or by scaring the people who are keeping her with them.”