The Yanti (19 page)

“You want the Yanti, you take it!” Even as she swore, she accelerated along the ceiling of the cavern, away from the dragon, and tried to fly past him. However, he was not a king for nothing. He was shrewd, he anticipated the move, and let loose a blast against her and the wall of the cave that her field barely repelled.

The tight surroundings did not favor her. Adding strength to her field, she pulled away from the stream of burning plasma, and then, dropping low, near the water level and Kashar’s legs, she blew out a harsh breath and smashed her palms together, using her most potent voom ever.

The sonic wave hit his webbed feet hard. He let out a cry of pain, but he blasted her again, and she was forced to dive beneath the water, the last thing she wanted to do. For underwater she could not fly, nor use voom; and the water weakened her magnetic field as well.

Yet, as the water above her suddenly turned red, and exploded in a shower of steam, she saw her last move had probably saved her life. But it was to be a brief respite. She could not fly around a dragon and continue to trade punches. Not with a dragon as powerful as Kashar. His fire was too hot. Her field would inevitably fail as her strength gave out.

Through the steam, Ali saw him raise a thundering foot.

He was trying to crush her!

Bursting to the surface, through a cloud of steam, Ali did a midair flip that took her within a few feet of Kashar. But with
the dragon distracted—he was still trying to find her under the water and squash her like a bug—she was able to spread both her palms in front of his eyes and let her full power run down her arms. Fire shot from her palms. She scored a direct hit in his right pupil. The red triangle turned an ugly black, and she knew, for a time at least, that he was half-blind.

Yet even had Kashar been totally blind, he now knew where she was. Howling in pain, he blasted the air directly in front of him. To escape, Ali was forced to take the most dangerous route of all.

She flew
at
him—at his burning nostrils, ducking at the last instant beneath his chin. His flame missed her by inches. It caught more of her hair, though, and she heard it crackling. The smoke smothered her, along with the stench of the gases that came off his fire. Practically hugging his hideous hide, she watched him sniff the air, searching for her.

Obviously his eye hurt. Yet it was not enough just to hurt him.

She had to
kill
him, and she did not have the power.

Or did she?

Since Ali had spoken to Sheri, she had thought long and hard about why her sister wanted the Yanti so badly. The woman had said it was to be used to shoot down nuclear missiles that humans might use against the elemental army, and Ali had sensed truth in the words. At the same time, Sheri had made elusive references to something called the violet ray. In her anger, the woman had spouted many strange phrases.

“It’s a powerful tool. Besides, it should have been mine. You must recall—before you brainwashed him with your constant whining—that Father was going to give it to me. You know as well as I do that it’s wasted in your hands. You don’t even know how to use it as a weapon . . . Even if you somehow discovered how
to reverse the Yanti and invoke the violet ray—which you can’t do, not without my help—it’ll make no difference . . . Admit it, you’ll never unleash the violet ray and risk killing millions . . .”

Certainly, Ali had no wish to kill millions.

Right now she would be happy just to kill one dragon.

But how to reverse the Yanti and invoke the violet ray?

Ali felt that was the key word—
reverse
. When she had first found the Yanti, she had instinctively repeated the secret name Nemi had given her,
Alosha
, while envisioning what she wanted to happen. In time—from Nira of all people—she learned a deeper level of control of the Yanti. While using the secret name, if she touched the talisman first to her forehead, to her heart, and then to the top of her head, she could invoke greater power. For example, she needed the formula Nira had taught her to open and close the seven doors.

Taking Sheri’s words as a clue, Ali wondered if she reversed
everything
when it came to using the Yanti, would she be able to invoke the so-called violet ray? Before she had left Earth, she had wanted to experiment with the idea, but she had been hesitant to unleash something she couldn’t control. But now she was out of options. Kashar was going to kill her. Her field could only take one more concentrated blast.

Kashar noticed she was hanging onto his throat, and snapped at her with his teeth. Darting into the air in front of him, she floated a mere ten feet from the tip of his nose. He stared at her with his one good eye, gloating.

“So ends the great and glorious Geea!” he said.

Kashar sucked in a mighty breath. Swiftly, Ali grabbed the Yanti from beneath her shirt and went through Nira’s moves in the reverse order—top of the head, heart, forehead—all the while chanting Alosha three times, backward:
“Ah-sola, Ah-sola, Ah-sola . . .”

Kashar’s fire hit her with resounding fury, bent her field to the max. Her clothes began to smoke, as she was pushed backward like a fly swatted by an angry housewife. Her world spun, the water below steamed, and the fire . . . Oh God, the dragon’s flames engulfed her.

Yet she was able to take it all. For her field held, and she lived, and Kashar was going to have to try again. But even as he sucked in another breath, to finish her off, the Yanti began to glow with a soft violet light.

The fact caused them both to pause. She stopped tumbling, he stopped huffing and puffing, and they both . . . watched. The violet light was fascinating—one could even say it was enchanting. Neither of them could stop staring at it. Ali would have gone so far as to say it
charmed
her. Certainly it didn’t feel dangerous, or hot . . . even as it switched from a mild glow to a rather bright one.

Yet she wanted it to turn hot. Into a flame.

She wanted it to
burn
, to
kill
.

No sooner did she think
those
words, when it grew hot. So hot it made Kashar’s worst flame feel like a garden hose. And in that instant, Ali knew Sheri had tricked her. She had fed her the clue on purpose, so that her darling sister—in a critical moment such as this—would try to invoke the violet ray. The horror of Ali’s blunder swept over her with the same force as the mysterious ray.

The light went beyond heat and smoke and fire.

The violet ray was pain itself. Blinding pain.

And she could not let go of it. The violet ray would not let her.

Ali shut her eyes as it swelled in power and still the ray pierced her skin and let her see—no, it
forced
her to see—her clothes as they caught fire, and her skin as it began to redden,
and her long red hair as it was transformed into a burning halo. She did not just catch fire—it was as if every cell in her body changed into its own tormented supernova. She felt as if she were melting, and in the midst of her agony, she heard Sheri’s curse inside her head . . .

“You know nothing!”

Yet, then, right then, finally, Ali knew what her sister meant.

This was beyond pain. This transcended all suffering. This was hell.

Something, a sound that did not belong to her, made her open her eyes. Kashar stared at the Yanti with an expression of lust. Again, he demanded . . .

“Give it to me!”

Maybe it was his desire for it, Ali did not know, but suddenly she was able to get rid of it. She threw it right at him, and the dragon, with unmistakable glee, reached for it with an open mouth, his many sharp teeth visible in the violet radiance. Then the Yanti vanished, for a few seconds, as he swallowed it, and the look of satisfaction on his face was as disgusting as the swelling scars on the entire front half of her body. Her skin was charcoal. Her old ally laughed at her.

“Fool Geea! A fairy should never play with a dragon’s fire!”

Then he stopped laughing, and glanced down at his scaly throat and armored belly. He seemed concerned, for the violet light continued to grow in intensity. For even though it was buried inside him, and a dragon was made up of thousands of tons of muscle and bone, the violet ray began to shine
through
him. He began to glow from the inside out, and the heat of the Yanti shocked him as well.

Because the violet ray was not really made of fire.

It was composed of
something else
.

Something neither fairy nor dragon had experienced before.

Kashar caught fire. It started on the inside, but it spread quickly to his exterior. There was nothing to be done. He tried drowning himself in what was left of Tiena, but the violet ray shone through the waters, and then they themselves were changed into jets of steam. The dragon started to thrash in agony.

Ali had to duck as his barbed tail struck the wall, and cast down more stone. If she could have helped him, she would have, because even though he was trying to kill her, she knew his pain; and no one deserved
that
, whether they be friend or foe. But the truth was, she could not help herself, much less him.

As he disappeared beneath the river surface, in a globe of light so bright she had to put her arms over her eyes to keep from going blind, she heard him weeping, the sound so sorrowful it chilled her blood even as the rest of her burned. Fountains of steam continued to flood the cavern, like prehistoric geysers that had long ago consumed the dinosaurs. The glare would not permit her to see, but she knew her foe was dead, and that she was close to following him into the same infernal grave.

D
rash brought Ra the news of Ali, while he was resting in the fairy stronghold, high in the Youli Mountains. Ra had done little more than sleep since arriving at the secret hideaway, for, unknown to Ali, he had barely slept since he had met her in his uncle’s cave on Mt. Kilimanjaro.

During their first night together in the green world, not long after they had met Drash, Ra had stayed awake most of the night to guard the koul’s temporary home—a cave that overlooked Lestre. Ra had been awake, and had followed Ali, even when she had gone to watch Drash’s first step in his transformation into a dragon.

Even when they had reached the Crystal Palace, he had stood guard at her door, and had barely slept that night. He could not explain why, but he felt an overriding need to take care of her. The thought of anything bad happening to her made him feel ill.

So he had gone three days without sleeping, and when he had reached the fairy stronghold—which Trae, Ali’s advisor, called
Yom
—he had found a bed and curled up in it and had
blacked out for long hours. Twice he had gotten up to pee, and to have a glass of fairy water—which was delicious, by the way—but then he had gone back to bed.

If asked, he could have barely described the place. On Earth it would have been called a bunker; however, Yom had none of the claustrophobic feel of a hideout. He’d seen the dining area, where a few fairies were quietly eating, and it was lit with beautiful golden globes that hung from the ceiling. Plus there were green plants everywhere, and delicate vines that nevertheless appeared to be an essential component in holding up the walls of Yom. To Ra, it felt more like a natural cave than an artificial bomb shelter.

However, now that Drash had come, everything else was forgotten.

Drash had not really entered Yom. He was too large to fit inside. Paddy, the leprechaun, had come running to say the dragon was back with possible news about Ali. Paddy was excited as he spoke; his large green eyes danced with sparks of gold, and he could not stop his huge green skull from shaking.

“Ra! Ra!” he cried as he burst into the bedroom. “Wake up! Drash says there is fire and smoke in the south! He says steam and more smoke are pouring from the Crystal Palace at Uleestar!”

Ra was up in an instant, reaching for his bow and arrows, and a sword Trae had given him as a gift when they had reached Yom. The gold hilt was studded with jewels, the silver blade was razor sharp. Ra had practiced with it a bit, before sleeping, and had discovered it could cut stone as easily as if it were butter. The odd thing was, the sword felt familiar in his hand, and when he had told Trae that, the wise fairy had merely smiled.

“Has Drash seen any other dragons?” Ra asked, as they headed for the door. The room was simple but comfortable. The walls were made of stone, laced with green quartz, although the floor was wooden, and smelled of fresh cedar. Although they were far beneath the ground, fresh air came into the room via a small opening in the ceiling. Ra did not know how the ventilation system worked, and frankly did not care.

“Drash said he saw many dragons in the distance!” Paddy exclaimed. “They were chasing someone!”

“Who?” Ra demanded, his heart pounding.

“Drash was not sure. But whoever it was, he says the person led most of the dragons underground, near Tiena’s harbor.”

“It must be Ali,” Ra said, as he hurried up a flight of steps that led to the outside. Besides grabbing his weapons—before exiting Yom—he put on a long coat made of light wool that somehow kept him warm in the face of the bitter mountain air. The Youli peaks rose up high, and Ra knew of Drash’s propensity to soar far above them.