Secrets of Yden (11 page)

****

On Monday Jon got his math quiz back marked with an A. The good grade made him feel guilty, as if he'd cheated somehow by getting extra time.
What am I supposed to do? Inform Mr. Glaser there was an anomaly during the test and therefore he should deduct points from my score?
Probably not a good plan. And although he was worried some of his classmates would razz him about the Sunday newspaper article, no one mentioned it.
So much for raising my profile. I guess stories with a positive spin don't attract as much attention as the nasty ones.

After school, Jon brought Casey up to date on the most recent anomaly and enlisted his help with research the next weekend.

"I'd like that," he replied. "I'll get to see Mo."

"Kira and Finn are doing research, too. And Brett. We discovered she can read runes without trying. Apparently the ability runs in the family."

"That's handy. I wish it worked that way for my Latin class."

"Oh, and by the way I've got a date for homecoming."

"Huh?"

"I'm taking January to her homecoming dance this Saturday, and she's coming with me to mine."

"Wow. How'd you manage that?"

"I made a deal with the devil, I think." He paused. "I just hope I can hang onto my soul."

****

When he arrived at school the next morning, Jon stared at his locker in dismay. The metal was splashed with a pinkish paint, and his first thought was someone had vandalized the entire school. As he glanced around, however, he didn't see any other damage except to his locker. After he opened the locker door, he realized whoever had wielded the paint had made a big effort to blow as much as possible inside through the vents at the top. The vandal must have used a straw because the interior resembled an abstract painting. The paint was still tacky, so Jon used paper towels from the bathroom to wipe off as much as he could. A lot of his books and gear were ruined, but that was just a minor annoyance. He knew he could clean the paint off at home with the help of the vanyean seed and a spell, but it seemed pretty clear someone at school was holding a grudge about something — probably Sunday's article, if he had to guess.
And I thought no one had seen it.

Mr. Lloyd strolled through the hallway while Jon was wiping the inside of his locker with a wad of paper towels. Taken aback at the mess, the principal paused. "A little extra arts and crafts, Mr. Hansen?"

"Hello, Mr. Lloyd." The hallway was crowded with students at that point and Jon didn't want to be overheard being a rat. "I had a paint spill."

The principal gave the locker a shrewd look. "Voluntary, or involuntary?"

"Er… I'll get it cleaned up, sir."

"I'll send the janitor over." Mr. Lloyd examined the locker one last time and shook his head. "You're a talented kid. You can probably expect a little pushback."

"Yes, sir," Jon replied, confused.
Pushback from what?

Several paper towels later, Fred appeared, grimacing at the mess.

"Dude, what happened? Did a bottle of stomach medicine explode in there?"

"Either that or somebody doesn't like me much.
"

"It's probably because of the newspaper story posted on the school bulletin board next to the quad."

"They put that thing where everyone could see it?" Jon asked, horrified.

"Oh, yeah. I saw a bunch of girls reading it and gazing lovingly at your picture." Fred batted his eyelashes and gave an exaggerated sigh. "If I didn't know you, I'd want to smear you with paint myself."

"That picture isn't me at all. The photographer airbrushed the whole thing."

"Doesn't matter. There's bound to be some fallout. Don't worry, though. I'm there for you." Fred pantomimed a boxing stance.

"I don't want anyone fighting my battles for me, but thanks." Jon chewed his lip. "I'll go by the bulletin board on my way to English class and tear the article down."

"Good luck. If you hadn't noticed, the bulletin board is behind a locked pane of glass. Unless you've got your magic mojo seed, it ain't gonna happen."

That's just peachy.

At lunch, Brett chided Jon for not mentioning the exhibit.

"It's not a big deal," he said.

"Of course it's a big deal. Everyone's talking about it. A bunch of us are planning to go after it opens. Did you tell Kira?"

"Why would I tell her?"

"Oh, I don't know… maybe because she's
in
it?" Brett retorted. "
Warrior Princess!
"

Jon shrugged and made a noncommittal response. If Kira found out about the exhibit, it wouldn't be from him. Besides which, a visit to the museum would make a
groovy
date night with Davy Thyssen, and Jon wasn't about to give him any ideas.

****

After Jon finished his homework that night, he locked his bedroom door and quietly selected a dark magic scroll from his secret stash. A tingling sensation raised gooseflesh on Jon's arm as he read. The scroll detailed how to cast illusions, evil illusions about the most morbid of fears. The spell was an instrument of torture called a night terror spell, and when Jon finished it, he was appalled. The whole concept reminded him of his nightmare about Guinn and the portal.
Maybe Quixoran is right to keep these dark-tipped scrolls locked away.
If the next scroll was anything like the first, he wasn't sure he'd be reading many more of them.

Jon's eyes darted back and forth as he read the second scroll, which contained the binding spell Efysian had used to hold wizards captive. Jon well remembered its effects; he'd been unable to move while Efysian tapped into his life energy like a sadistic six-foot mosquito. The Wolf Clan wizard had siphoned enough juice to transform himself into a teenager. At the time, it had mystified Jon why he and his father hadn't aged from the loss of energy like the other wizards who had withered away during captivity. Now that Jon knew he'd inherited his father's healing ability, the whole thing finally made sense.

Since the binding incantation might come in handy in the future, Jon memorized it. If he'd known how to
bind
Guinn, maybe he could have stopped him before he'd opened that dangerous portal. Consumed with regret, he squeezed his eyes closed as if to shut out the guilt. If only he'd known more magic, perhaps he could have prevented the anomalies now threatening Earth. As penance, he stayed up late scouring the remaining scrolls, desperately searching for anything else he could use.

I'm literally running out of time.

****

Casey came over to Jon's house for dinner Friday. He'd told his parents he would be in a marathon study session until late Sunday, but Jon was actually transporting him to Yden to help with the research. Mrs. Hansen made Casey's favorite — beef tacos. They were big tacos, and Casey polished off three, to Jon's amazement. Casey was so skinny; Jon wasn't quite sure where he was putting the food. By contrast, Jon could only manage to eat one, and he was hungry. Thus fortified, Jon and Casey transported to Dragon Isle — just in time for dessert.

The research team met in the library after breakfast the next morning. Before anyone had the chance to say anything, Casey pulled out a calculator and some graph paper and began plotting points.

"What are you doing?" Jon asked.

"Quixoran said we didn't have enough information to see a pattern, and that's true," Casey replied. "But here's my hypothesis so far—"

"Your
what?
" Finn interrupted.

"My theory," Casey replied. "One possible theory, anyway. Acknowledging, of course, that the recordation of the data was anecdotal, and also at this juncture we have insufficient data points to accurately—"

"Spit it out," Jon said.

"Okay… the first anomaly was less than a minute. The second was about ten minutes, by Jon's estimation. That's a tenfold increase."

"Where are you going with this?" Brett asked.

"The events were twenty days apart. So it's possible the next event window might occur twenty days later and last roughly ten times longer."

Jon did a quick calculation in his head. "That's one hundred minutes. Are you saying we're looking at an anomaly of an hour and forty minutes?"

Finn, Brett, and Kira gasped.

"Er… and so on," Casey said.

Jon gripped the arms of his chair. "What's that mean —
and so on?
"

"Twenty days thereafter we might see a time freeze of one thousand minutes," Casey said. "But this is all just gross speculation."

"Wait a minute." Brett grabbed Casey's calculator and punched in some numbers. "One thousand minutes works out to be over sixteen hours!"

"And the length of these freezes could continue to grow exponentially," Casey added. "In other words, very quickly." He drew a line between the points and held up his graph for everyone to see. It resembled a hockey stick and Jon felt sick to his stomach.

"Or it might not," Kira said. "Nobody knows."

"True. I don't want to scare anybody since it's just one theory. When we have more information, I'll adjust the theory to fit the data," Casey said.

"Yikes." Jon let Casey's words sink in for a few heartbeats. "What did you mean before by 'event window'?"

"Well, we can only make a general guess at when the next anomaly might occur," Casey replied. "If this theory pans out, time will virtually stop on Earth within months."

Jon sat back in his chair, certain the stunned expressions of his friends mirrored his own. "Okay. Let's get cracking and fix this thing."