The Sphere (The Magi Series #2) (29 page)

Paul shook his knee agitatedly.  “Moving along…”

Hannah looked embarrassed.  Elijah thought briefly about
validating her point to make her feel better, but he continued.  They were,
after all, on a deadline.

“The Maliphists have found it,” Elijah said.

“Are you serious?” Becca asked with wide eyes.  She looked
like she was about to stand up from her seat.

“Yes,” Elijah said.  “Olivia got word just before she left
Savenridge.  But there’s more.  Inside the sphere are four compartments that
hold four cubes the same size.  Each cube holds one of the four elements. 
Apparently, in order to make the cube work, these four cubes need to be
inside.”

“I’ve never heard that,” Becca said.

“No one has.  At least, not that I know of,” Elijah replied.

“Then how do
you
know?” Paul asked.

A booming voice bellowed from the back rooms.  “Because we
shared it with him.”

Everyone jumped as Phinneas walked into the room.  He looked
as lively and clear-minded as Elijah had ever seen him.  His blue eye, not
covered by the patch, was positively gleaming.

“What Elijah is telling you is the truth.  You are being
told privileged information because Elijah trusts you.  He knows because Olivia
and I trust
him
.”

Paul looked like he had just been belted.

Elijah thanked Phinneas with a slight smile and a nod.  “The
point is,” Elijah continued, “no one knows about the cubes except us.  And
Olivia.  If we can find the cubes before the Maliphists figure out about them,
we can stop them even though they have the sphere.  And that’s what we’re trying
to do.”

Paul looked like he wanted to say something but he looked at
Phinneas and settled down.  “So why do you need us…with all due respect…sir.”

“I need help,” Elijah said.  “Olivia is missing.  She went
out to find one of the cubes about two months ago and hasn’t returned.  I think
we need to help find her and then find the rest of the cubes too.”

“How many do you have already?” Hannah asked.

“One.”

“Where?” Becca asked.

Elijah took a deep breath.  “My parents had it.”

“What?” Isaac said in surprise.

“Your
parents
?” asked Becca.

“I thought you were new here,” Paul said.  “How did your
parents have it?”

Elijah shrugged.  “Apparently, they were Magi, but other
than that, I don’t know.”

“That’s crazy!” Isaac said.  “How did you find out about
that?”

Elijah looked at Phinneas who gazed at the floor, unfazed. 
Elijah wondered if Phinneas was slipping back into his previous state.

“My uncle,” Elijah answered.  “He told me last year, but I
didn’t know anything about the cube until Olivia told me.”

Everyone sat silently for a moment.

Paul, looking uncomfortable with the silence, finally said,
“So the Maliphists have a sphere that could kill us all, but in order for it to
work they need to find the four cubes that go inside.”

“Yes,” Elijah answered.

“And our job, the quest you’re including us in, is to find
the cubes so we can hide them or destroy them or something to keep the
Maliphists from being able to use the sphere.”

“Yes.”

“But you don’t know where the cubes are,” Paul stated.

“Correct.”

“And Olivia’s lost looking for one.”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t even know where to begin looking.”

Elijah nodded, then said, “That’s correct.”

Paul snorted.  “How the heck are
we
supposed to
help?  We just learned about all this just now!”  He glanced at Phinneas. 
“Sir.”

For several minutes, no one spoke.  The wind outside picked
up, and even as it bellowed against the side of the house, no one uttered a
sound until Becca finally said, “Well, we’re not exactly starting from
nowhere.”

“What do you mean?” Elijah asked.

“Olivia is
somewhere
, right?  She wouldn’t go there
to look without actually having a place to look.”

Elijah thought for a moment.  “Here.  Follow me.”

He took them to the back room where Olivia and Phinneas had
collected all of their information on the possible locations of the sphere. 
Everyone else looked around the room stunned.  Elijah pulled out a few of the
maps.

“She said something about going to some place called Sierras
de…something.  She said it’s in Spain.”  He found a map of Europe and searched
for it.  “I can’t find it.”

Everyone gathered around the map over candlelight.  They
searched the area.  Adam called out first.  “Is that it?”  He pointed to a
place in modern day Spain called Sierras de Cazorla.

“Yes!  I think so,” Elijah said.  “I’m pretty sure that’s
where she was going to start looking.”

“So let’s just go there,” Paul said.  “At least it’s a
start.”

“And then go missing just like Olivia?” Becca stated. 
“We’re going to need more than that.  Elijah, are we on a rescue mission or on
a hunt for the cubes?”

“Both, I think,” Elijah said.  “But I agree with Paul.  We
should start here.  At least if we have Olivia, we’re better off.”

“I don’t agree,” Becca said.  “I mean, having Olivia, yes. 
But we need more information.  We can’t just go to this de Cazorla place and
start searching.  What are we going to do, get off a boat and start calling her
name and asking everyone if they have seen a small cube filled with…whatever
it’s supposed to be filled with?”

Elijah shrugged.  He remembered feeling the same way when
Olivia told him about the cubes.  “So what are you suggesting?” Elijah said. 
“I’m out of ideas.”

Becca looked back at the map again.  “We just need to narrow
it down.  Can we at least stop to think before rushing out?”

“I’m not sure we
can
narrow it down,” Elijah said
solemnly.  “We might just have to go there and call her name.”

“No, no.  There’s got to be more.  You said your parents
were searching for it.  Did they give you any information?”

“There’s a big book of archives they had,” Elijah said. 
“That might give us a clue.”  Elijah asked Phinneas for the book.  Phinneas
left the room and walked back with the large book in his arms, carrying it like
a newborn.  He gently laid it on top of the maps.

Elijah gazed at the book in anticipation.  Finally, here it
was, ready to be read with no limits.  No holds barred.  He breathed in the
musty smell.  Ran his fingers over the rough edges and tattered spine.  His
heart rate accelerated knowing that he could at last be included in all the
secrecy.  He turned to the first page, listening to the spine creak and the
thick paper give way.

Elijah and his friends began reading it aloud very slowly,
from page to page, covering everything they could see from the words on the
page to the sketches and notations drawn and written on the side.  Each line
was analyzed.  Each phrase dissected.  Each word pondered.  But after hours of
reading, only a few things were clear:

For the first few hundred years, the book only had a couple
of authors.  Each author was very careful not to give any personal information
or clues, which was quite frustrating.  The first two authors detailed the Magi
Wars, which led into the exodus of the Magi from the common cities and villages,
and eventually explained, in surprising detail, the cubes being scattered about
the globe.  In fact, it seemed as if the author who detailed the distribution
of the cubes—the second author—was actually a member of the noble family who
was chosen to hide one of the cubes.  However, no details such as the actual
cube, location, or names were written down.

Another thing that was quite clear was that a period of
about 300 years passed before the cubes were mentioned again.  During that
time, twelve authors penned at least one entry, which at this point had turned
the book into more of a narrative on the Magi resettling into their new lands
and cities.

“Obviously, they didn’t have anything to fear at this
point,” Becca said when Paul was frustrated at the frequent change of
narration.  “As far as they knew, there weren’t any more Maliphists.”

Hannah looked perplexed.  “This is fascinating, but what
exactly is it?  Does this book belong to a family or maybe the head of the high
council?”

Adam was the next to pipe in.  “It couldn’t be the head of
the high council because look at this.”  He turned back a few pages.  “Look at
the writing.  It looks—childish.”

They examined it.  “Oh yeah,” Hannah said.  She pointed to a
few misspelled words.  “It
does
look like a little girl or boy may have
written this.  At least this entry.”

“So then maybe this belongs to a family,” said Elijah.

“Well, your family had it,” Paul said to Elijah.  “Was it
yours?”

“I honestly don’t have a clue,” Elijah said.  “My dad and
uncle were orphans, so it couldn’t have been his.”

“What about your mom?” Isaac asked.

“She didn’t know her parents,” Elijah answered.

“So how did they get this?” Paul asked.

“I told you, I don’t know.  I’d love for them to be here
right now so I could ask them, but I can’t.”

“Okay, okay, easy,” said Paul.  “I was just asking.”

“Let’s just read some more,” Becca said.

They continued through the archives reading about the
different places the authors settled.  They narrated from Tyrus, a city in
northern Egypt, to Percicus, a village in Western Europe, to Junhi, a
settlement in Asia that none of them could find on any of the maps, and finally
to Savenridge.  It wasn’t until the book was in Junhi that the questions of the
sphere and cubes began to come up again.  According to what they assumed by
reading, the Maliphists began attacking Magi cities again in the late 17
^th
century, especially in Europe, and the Magi living in Junhi began to panic.

Suddenly, as they were turning the pages, Elijah saw
something.

“STOP!” he shouted.

“What the heck are you doing?” Paul asked.  “Trying to give
us a heart attack?”

“What is it, Elijah?” Becca asked.

Elijah stared at the top corner of the page.  Was it just a
coincidence?  Or was it nothing?

“That.  Right there.”  He pointed to a small symbol in red
ink. It was the symbol of water.  “Turn to the back,” he demanded.

Becca carefully turned the large, thick pages until the very
last entry.

“Do you see?” Elijah said.

Adam looked at it curiously.  “It looks like the same
writing with red ink.”

Hannah looked at Elijah softly.  “Your parents wrote these
last entries, didn’t they?”

Elijah nodded.  “This is no doubt their handwriting.  My
dad’s, I think.  He wrote in all capital letters just like this.”

“So why did they write on that other page?” Paul asked.

Becca flipped back to the page with the symbol in the middle
of the book.  The red symbol of water was neat and tidy and looked rather out
of place next to the blotchy writing of the entries around it, all in black. 
“Does this mean something to you?”

“I’ve seen this type of thing before, but I didn’t
understand then,” Elijah said.

“Huh?”  Paul replied, confused.

“Sorry,” Elijah said, still under the spell of the symbol.  “During
the summer, just before we had to report to the barracks, I went with my uncle
to get this key from his old place.  The house turned out to be used by
Maliphists, but I was able to get the key.  It was inside this old mystery book
that he owned.  Anyway, I saw this same thing scribbled on the top of the page,
just like this book.  Only, I think it was wind instead of water.  But who does
that, anyway?  It can’t be just a coincidence!”

“Do you think your uncle put it there?” Becca asked.  “In
the mystery book, I mean.”

“It was his book,” Elijah stated.  “That’s what I would
assume.”

“So do you think your uncle drew the symbol here too?” Becca
asked.

“I don’t think so,” Elijah said.  “He told me he didn’t know
anything about this book.  Only that it was important.”

“Do you believe him?” Paul asked.

Elijah felt himself stiffen.  Then he considered the
question.  He thought about Kyria’s diary.  He had carried that around for
months before even attempting to look through it.  Kyria’s death had been such
a sensitive wound that reading her thoughts would have been such a painful
experience, so he kept it unread.  Even if his uncle knew what the book was,
reading it would have been painful.

“Yes,” Elijah answered.  “I do believe him.”

They stayed silent for a moment, thinking about the symbols
and the book.  It was as if they all knew there was something important about
these things that they were missing.  Elijah thought through everything.  The
ink.  The symbols.  His parents.  His uncle.  What was missing?

“There’s something else here,” Becca said, looking closely
at the red symbol on the top of the page.  “What is that?”

At first glance, Elijah thought that Becca pointed to a
spilled blotch of ink inside the symbol.  Then, he looked closer.  Sure enough,
inside the symbol was an extremely small notation.  It said:

“AM6042.3”

“What
is
that?” Paul exclaimed.

“It looks like a code,” Becca said.  “Or a serial number.” 
She looked up from the book.  “Elijah, this is a message of some sort.  There’s
no way this is just a random series of events.  Someone is trying to
communicate a message here.”

“Does this mean anything to you?” Hannah asked gently.

Elijah was stumped.  His mind hurt.  He was frustrated and
confused.  A shake of his head was all he could manage.

“If
you
don’t know anything, the rest of us are
pretty much stuck,” Paul said.

“Then let’s talk it out,” Becca replied.  “What do we know? 
Or what can we assume logically?”

“We know there is a message, or at least it looks like a
message, written by Elijah’s parents,” Isaac said.

“Why?” Paul insisted.

“We’re not there yet,” Becca stated.  “Don’t get ahead or
it’ll confuse us.”

Paul grunted.

“So assuming both of these were written by Elijah’s
parents,” Becca said, “and that this is some sort of message, the next question
is to whom is the message written?”

“Wouldn’t it be written to Elijah?” Isaac asked.

“Perhaps,” said Becca.  “Which in that case, Elijah, does
that symbol or do those numbers mean anything to you?”

Elijah felt like his brain was drowning in information.  He
searched his memory for the numbers.  He couldn’t think of anything.