The Yanti (24 page)

Another gap of time ensued. It seemed to last. The blood surrounding Tulas’s body dried up. Rigor mortis came and went. He began to decay . . .

Then Doren came rushing in the chamber, to Tulas’s side, picking up his headless body. Her grief then . . . Ali had only to recall Jira’s death to know what she must have felt right then. Whatever her faults, no one could ever have doubted her devotion to Tulas. Doren screamed at the Entity.

“What have you done?”

The Entity replied calmly. “Tulas came to destroy our contact with this world. He had to be stopped. We merely caused his weapons of destruction to backfire.”

“But you killed him!” Doren wailed.

“True. But we can bring him back to you. If you wish.”

There ensued the most painful pause.

“How?” Doren asked meekly.

“Obey us. Do as we command and accept the implant. Take up the destiny that awaits you. Allow us to give you the power to take control of this world, and the yellow world, so that they may survive.”

“And serve you?” To Doren’s credit, there was bitterness in her voice.

“Yes, you are to serve us by obeying us.”

“How will you bring Tulas back to life?”

“That is not your concern. We will keep our promise and place you two together once more. You need not worry.”

Doren gestured to Tulas’s headless form. “But here—in this chamber—the ice maidens can’t reach him. Or else they would have come already. I’ve been searching for him everywhere. You’ve had your door locked.”

“It is not our plan the ice maidens should take him.”

“But . . .”

“But if that is what you wish, then take his stiff torso and his shattered head outside the chamber, and perhaps they will come for him now.”

Doren let go of her lover, stood trembling. For a long time she seemed indecisive. “You swear you’ll bring him back to life?” she pleaded, and her tone was so pathetic, it broke Ali’s heart to hear it.

“He will be brought back to life and you will be with him. Now sit and accept the implant.”

Still shaking, Doren did what she was told. The amethyst descended from the invisible ceiling. This time it came in low, and touched her head. A purple beam, like a laser, burst from the device and sliced a narrow red line in her forehead. It bled slightly—possibly because the heat of the beam cauterized the nearby blood vessels. Then the beam halted and a purple crystal floated from the headset and was implanted in her forehead.

The beam flashed again. The wound instantly sealed. There was no scar.

With Doren still in the chair, barely beginning to reopen her eyes, the six crystal cubes began to glow and hum, and the sound and sight of them seemed to make Doren ill. She began to cough, gag. Tulas’s body started to smoke.

Tulas caught fire. Doren tried to jump from the chair, to run to him, perhaps to try to put out the flames so that there would be more for the ice maidens to work with while he was in-between lives. But the Entity had her nailed to the seat. The flames were fierce. They consumed him in seconds, and left only a pile of ash behind.

All Doren could do was weep. “Why? Why?” she begged.

“As promised, you will see him again, on Earth. You are going there, and staying here. Unless your sister agrees to join us, we will need you alive in both worlds at the same time.”

Doren shook her head. “That is not allowed.”

“We will decide what is allowed,” the Entity replied.

With the story told, the six screens turned momentarily dark.

Ali sat without speaking. Waiting for their threats, their games.

For some reason, she was no longer afraid. Her anger had washed it all away. How proud they were of what they had done to her sister! They thought they just had to give her a lesson and she would behave, and join them.

“We have answered your question about your sister,” the Entity said finally.

“There was a reason behind your answer. It contains an implied threat. If I don’t cooperate—agree to have a stupid piece of glass put in my head—I’ll be incinerated like Tulas. True?”

“Again, we note your sarcasm. Although we would not put our offer to you in such crude terms—yes, you are essentially correct. You either join us or you will be destroyed.”

“Any other options?”

“No.”

“You destroy me and you will never know how to work the Yanti.”

“We will have it in our possession. We will figure out a way.”

“Somehow I doubt that. I doubt you would even be able to touch it. Tell me, Entity, Sheri Smith, the Shaktra’s earthly counterpart, wanted me to turn over the Yanti to her. Was that your wish? That she wield it?”

“We would prefer that you use it.”

“To help the elemental army in its fight with humanity?”

“Yes. It would—so to speak—help even the odds.”

“Why do you prefer me over Doren?”

“You have a stronger connection to the blue light.”

“You’re saying I’m more powerful than her?”

“Yes.”

“If I agree to help you, will you place me in command over her?”

“Yes.”

“But you have already promised her command.”

“We have the freedom of choice to change our minds.”

“But that would mean breaking your deal with her.”

“That is irrelevant.”

Ali remembered how Jira had only appeared to be inside the chamber minutes before he had started screaming. Yet she had been in here awhile . . .

“Tell me, Entity, does time flow at a different rate inside this chamber than outside?”

“Yes. To your friend outside our door, it is as if you have only been inside here a few seconds.”

Time had been interrupted at the police station. It was being affected here now. Ali found it an interesting coincidence. At the same time the Entity was insisting that she was more powerful than Sheri. Had Sheri been acting out of her own desire when she had demanded the Yanti for herself?

Ali felt as if all these points were connected. Somehow.

“Speaking of my friend outside, the last time he was in here, in another body, as an elf, you drove him insane. Why did you do that?”

“We did not do that on purpose. It was his resistance to our energy—his inability to cope with the high level of energy inside this chamber—that drove him insane.”

“He killed himself later. Did you know that?”

“That information is not relevant to our discussion.”

“I see,” she whispered. Even though time was not passing outside the chamber, she knew she had very little time left inside it. On the other hand, she did not feel despair, even though
sad thoughts of Jira plagued her. From out of nowhere, a warmth had entered the center of her chest. It was familiar; it tried to soothe her in the midst of this trial. Indeed, it was as if the loving warmth was trying to tell her where she could always go for comfort.

Nemi?

Was he near?

“We appear to have reached an impasse,” she said.

“You will not join us in our effort to save your worlds?”

“I would join you if you were not determined to seize control of our worlds.”

“We have explained. Without setting up a hierarchy of control, your people will continue to act selfishly. It is their nature, and you are not going to change human nature simply because you want it changed. The selfishness is inbred in your species. Human beings are what they are. We are what we are.” The Entity paused. “We are not so very different from you, in reality, merely further along the path of evolution.”

“Your path of evolution disgusts me. It’s devoid of all love, of all mercy. It was interesting to see how casually you burnt Tulas to ash, then manipulated Doren with your lies to join you.”

“At no point did we lie to your sister.”

Ali felt a sudden bright light inside her chest, on top of the loving warmth.

It gave her unlooked-for strength, and confidence.

Nemi was definitely in the chamber with her!

“Your lies are the lies of omission!” Ali snapped. “There’s another way to save my worlds and I’ll find it. As far as my father joining you, what nonsense. He’s the exact opposite of what you’ve become. He
is
love. I feel his love now as I speak to you.”

“You are mistaken. You are alone with us.”

Ali chuckled. “I’m not surprised you’re unaware of him. He recently taught me something. He said love is the only way to be certain about anything. I doubted him at the time but I’ll never doubt him again. You see, I have faith in him, another concept you would never understand. I know he is going to help me escape from this horrible place.” She stopped and spoke directly to Nemi. “Just tell me what I need to know to free Amma and the others and I’ll go.”

The Entity spoke. “It is foolish of you to blindly call upon your father for help. In this place, we have complete control over everything . . .”

The Entity’s voice was suddenly interrupted.

The amethyst above her head jerked several inches higher.

Ali stared at the words on the screen directly in front of her.

The screen had turned violet. The words were white.

“Hello, Ali. Looks like you are having a busy day.”

Ali stood away from the stool. “How long can you keep them at bay?”

“Not long. Grab two of those plugs atop the cube. The races that make up the Entity are ancient, but not creative. They won’t understand what I am about to tell you. Listen closely to my riddle. The original species that started the expansion of the Entity across the galaxy had six fingers—three on each hand. But they did not have lockers like you do at school. When they locked things, they had a tendency to do it backward from the way we do. Take a number, say six-zero-two, and go play with it.”

Ali picked up two plugs, the ones with the wires and crystals attached.

“Anything else I need to know?” she asked.

“Reflect on my earlier advice. Now run!”

Ali raced toward the door. Even as she did so, Nemi’s words
faded from the screens. The six crystal cubes began to glow and hum—the same way they had before Tulas’s body was incinerated. Ali began to cough and gag on the awful sound and light. It took her last ounce of strength to throw the lever that loosened the lock that caused the rope and pulleys to pull aside the stone barrier. Her strength almost failed her. Reaching for the outside, her knees buckled and her scalp burned, and she smelled smoke on the back of her robe.

Yet Ra pulled her free of the hideous cavern. A moment later she was in his arms, and trembling, as she watched the rock door swing past, like an evil pendulum, and close. She whispered a prayer that it should remain shut forever.

Ra stared at her anxiously. “What happened?”

“How long was I in there?”

“Seconds. Did you see anything?”

Ali took his hand, although it hurt her skin to touch or to be touched. She didn’t care, she wanted to feel him near. Leading him back toward the creaky elevator, she told him, “I saw more than I bargained for.”

A
li did not tell Ra and Drash where they were going until they were high in the sky above the green sea, heading back toward the elemental mainland. The air was fresh and clear, rich with the many and varied aromas of the green world. Looking down, Ra could tell Ali was happy to see the schools of whales and dolphins playing in the pristine water. Well, at least they looked like whales and dolphins. They were on the whole larger, had brighter eyes, and were all the colors of the rainbow. So beautiful . . .

Yet her answer to their questions shocked them both.

“We’re returning to the kloudar where we were attacked by the Shaktra.”

“Why?” Ra asked, dismayed.

“I spoke to Nemi before I reentered the green world. I told you about him. I asked, if I go to the Isle of Greesh will I learn everything I need to know to stop the war? He said no.”

“Drash does not think the war can be stopped,” the dragon muttered.

“Shh. It’s possible to stop it on the Earth side.”

“Nemi told you this?” Ra asked, not a hundred percent sure
who Nemi was. Ali had told him little about the guy—only that she had talked to him inside a tree, and beside a pond.

Ali smiled, or at least tried to do so with what was left of her lips.

“Nemi is fond of riddles. Sometimes they drive me crazy. But he might have a reason behind his new ones. One of the times we talked, it was on my computer, and I’m not sure he felt we had total online privacy. Anyway, this is what he said, ‘This war exists in two dimensions at once. You are only one girl. You can only be in one place at a time, and you’re trying to defeat an enemy that moves in both worlds at the same time . . . Think as your enemy thinks.’ ”

“Which means?” Ra asked.

“I keep running around this world like some kind of big shot. Fighting dragons here, killing scaliis and scabs there. But none of this is stopping Lord Vak’s army from moving closer to Earth. The reason is simple, and Nemi was asking me to show some humility and recognize it. Despite all the powers I’ve gained over the last few weeks, I’m still Ali Warner. A thirteen-year-old girl from planet Earth. This is not my world. Earth is where I belong. Geea belongs here, the real Geea. She’s queen of the fairies, not me. She’s the one who should be calling the shots.”