Transcending the Legacy (31 page)

Lathan
answers, “To help Seth and Cale!” He rushes in a blur from the cavern and disappears around the corner.

I frantically list names as Ira keeps me from running. “Roan, Delilah, Bethany, Elisha, Nick, our guardians...where are they?”

Sebastian answers, “They are alive, but I don’t know how much longer we can fight them. The only way you can save them now is by fulfilling the legacy, Jesca. That is the only way any of us will survive now!”

All of a sudden, Ms. Olivia appears in the opening to the cavern with Luke by her side.
The moment I look at her, I feel the relief that only she can bring my spirit. From the moment I met her in Florida, she has been my relief. Ira let’s me go and I rush to her. She opens her arms and wraps them around me.

I sob, “He is gone.”

“I know,” whispers Ms. Olivia tenderly.

Franti
cally, I look back at Sebastian. “I haven’t seen all of the vision! I don’t know the ritual! I don’t know what to do!”

Ira’s speaks over my frantic rant.
“The messenger among you will guide you.”

I feel the world around me caving in as I think of Ira telling me in Tom’s compound that the messenger, the one that would do the ritual was among us. The image of Elisabeth convulsing in Sebastian’s arms revisits my mind. Her knowing the legacy, my
telepathy only working with her, she was the messenger.

“It was Elisabeth! She was the messenger, but she is
gone!”

Ira shakes his head and approaches me, “No.”

His eyes dart to Ms. Olivia and he says, “She is the messenger.”

Ira approaches her and asks, “You are Creek Indian, yes?”

Ms. Olivia nods and says quietly, “Yes, I am.”

Ira probes knowingly, “Your father was a shaman, just as his father, and his father before him.”

Ms. Olivia nods keeping her eyes on Ira.

Ira
closes his eyes and speaks, “Before he passed, you were called by your dreams to fulfill your purpose as a shaman.”

The way he speaks and the concentration on his face, it is like he is seeing it behind his closed eyes as he continues to speak.

He continues, “You are a wound healer, Olivia. You have healed many like your father and his father. This is how you are linked with Jesca’s legacy. Will you perform the ritual?”

Another quake shakes the ground beneath us, sending splinters of dust and rock upon us from above.

With tears in her eyes and her lips quivering from emotion, Ms. Olivia says, “My father, he has visited me. He told me to come here to fulfill my purpose.”

As she speaks, I picture her father like the
shaman I have seen in my visions.

Ms. Olivia looks at me wearily. “He said that I had to guide a ritual that my heart would not want me to do because of my love for the one that will be sacrificed.”

“The sacrifice of one for the survival of all,” says Ira somberly.

Ms. Olivia can’t contain her sadness and Luke pulls her into his arms as her whole body trembles. Her small voice quakes, “I’m sorry
, Jesca.”

I don’t look at any one person in the room as I think about Ms. Olivia’s sorrow. Her sadness, her apology makes it
sink in; Onawah living beyond my vision was never going to be my fate. My fate in the legacy is death in order to save humanity.

Another explosion rocks the earth beneath us sending all of us except Ira to the ground.

Sebastian calls to me,
“We have to go, Jesca.”

I follow Sebastian’s lead numbly as I process what is happening.
Wait, Nate and Xander!

I stop walking and turn to Ira and plead with him, “Please go after Nate and Xa
nder. Keep them safe until…it is done.”

Ira’s golden eyes brighten with fresh tears threatening to drop. He bows his head, then leaves the cavern in a blur.

Daniel comes to Sebastian’s side and whispers, “I will check on the children.”

Children.

I think of Marcus and Emelie somewhere unsafe with the attack going on outside. “Where are they? Who is watching them?”

Then her face flashes in
my mind. Panicked, I grab hold of Sebastian’s arm sleeve. “Tessa? Where is she?” I ask urgently.

Sebastian, “They are all fine. Emelie is watching over the little ones deep in the caverns.”

The mound shudders beneath my feet again, dropping slabs of stone from the walls of the cavern.
The lumps of rock crash around us, spur us to react. Running out as fast as we can before a collapse, Luke leads the way out with Ms. Olivia, Sebastian, and me right behind him. In the tunnel, my eyes are drawn to the flashes of light coming from one end.

Sebastian tries to pull me along, but I realize that I have seen this passage before and I need to see more.
I look to my right and in the distance, I see the source of the light; white flashes of lightning and the peppering of gunfire. The combined flashes of light spellbind me, beckon me as I remember seeing this. This is the tunnel from my vision. Suddenly, a flash of lightning, blinds me.

The bright light fades slowly, but the imprint it leaves on my eyes is makes it hard to see. I close my eyes and wait for my sight to return to normal when a hand takes hold of mine roughly and pulls me away. The sound of the world beyond the tunnel fades as I’m being led. I expect to see Sebastian when I open my eyes, but I don’t. Beyond my refracted sight, I see a woman leading me. A woman with long, dark hair leading me through the tunnel. She turns back and looks at me, then speaks in her native tongue insistently. It’s Onawah’s mother.

Onawah turns to look back at the tunnel and I see the uniformed man from the hut, the one that led us here to the mound.

*
* *

“Jesca, are you alright?”

In the blink of my eyes, I am no longer walking behind Onawah’s mother, but rather Sebastian. As we continue to walk, he turns his concerned gaze on me, “Jesca?”

“It’s alright. Just a vision,” I say as I keep my brisk walk behind him.

He slows his pace and his eyes widen as he asks,
“Right now?”

I nod my head.
“Yes.”

Another tremor hits, knocking all four of us
into the wall of the tunnel. I notice an outlet to the right and another ahead on the left. The passage is lined with lanterns set intermittently along the wall. Which tunnel did Nate take? Both Sebastian and I push off of the wall and take hold of a lantern. As Luke helps Ms. Olivia up, I notice a gash on his forehead.

“Your head,”
I announce.

Ms. Olivia instinctively places her hand on the wound and bows her head. Within seconds, she pulls her hand away and the wound is completely gone.
Without wasting another minute, she takes hold of a lantern and leads the way through the main passage passing first the outlet on the right and then the one on the left. I slow my steps to look down the tunneling on the left. I see cavities branching off on either side of this vein of the mound.

Nate could be anywhere...or no
where. What if Xander catches him? What will Nate do? What if the hybrid kills them both?

I try to push those thoughts from my mind and stride to catch up with Sebastian.
Ira has gone after them. He will find them and keep them safe until the ritual is done.

The earth beneath us rises as we walk on behind Ms. Olivia’s lead; we are on an incline. Curious about Ms. Olivia’s lead, I wonder how she knows where she is going.

Without me saying a world
, Ms. Olivia answers my thought, “When I got to the mounds. I could feel the pull within me, leading me to the kiva, leading me to my purpose. There was a blockade of timber logs in front of it, barricading the sacred place from the rest of the mounds passages.”

The passage breaks to the left as the incline
levels out for a few strides. Then, another slanted ascent has us rising again. Curious as to why Daniel or any of the others never tried to enter the kiva, I ask, “Why didn’t they take down the logs? Go inside?”

The slope of the ground
levels out again just as Sebastian stops walking. I look ahead of him. So has Luke and Ms. Olivia.

“The kiva is a sacred place and this was the most sacred and coveted by our ancestors,” she says as she holds up her lantern and
points to the passage wall on the right.

The illuminating lantern lights both the wall and beyond, an opening.
Ms. Olivia motions for me to come to her. Silently, I move past Sebastian and Luke and closer to her. Before us, displayed on the wall, is a scene with rudimentary figures in motion divided in sections, scenes.

Ms. Olivia points to the one at the far left and says, “This is where it starts.”

The first set shows a figure holding a bundle in its arms, a small face peeking out from the bundle; a baby. Around the figure and baby, is a scene of war; figures battling against each other. A dividing line separates that scene from the next. In the next one, the same figure from before is holding the hand of a smaller figure, a child. In the distance is a drawing of the mound with a thatch-roofed hut atop it. Smoke is rising from the top of the mound into the sky into a thin layer of what looks like clouds. Above that, three stars aligned just as I had seen them in my vision. The next set of images show one figure, a man, sitting across from another smaller figure with long hair. A fire separates them from each other.

As I study the scene, and remember my vision detailing Onawah’s ritual, I mutter, “It is the scene in my vision. This is the shaman and Onawah.”
My eyes dart to Ms. Olivia. “Is this the ritual?”

Ms. Olivia’s eyes meet mine. “It is the ritual Onawah, your ancestor, did to summon the legacy
onto her tribe, forever branding their bloodlines.”

Ms. Olivia motions with the lantern toward the final scene in the mural.
A figure of a man standing at the opening of the kiva, spear and tomahawk in hand. Words below written in a foreign language.

I ask, “What does it say?”

“It says that only those with original bloodline of this legacy may enter,” says Ms. Olivia as she turns away from me and moves into the dark opening beyond the mural.

Luke follows behind her, but Sebastian waits for me to enter.
I move ahead, but I’m stopped by Sebastian’s hesitant words, “Jesca, I cannot enter.”

I look at him, shocked. “Why?” I ask.

He lowers his lantern by his side. “I can’t watch you…leave.”

His voice catches on the last word as he draws in his breath. His eyes wrinkle and his mouth tightens as he tries desperately to keep his mourning from spilling over. “I’m sorry.”

I hold my breath, careful not to let my own feelings overflow and nod quickly. I turn away from him before the mixture of my own emotions slips from me. Ahead of me, through the passage, I see Luke and Ms. Olivia waiting, their lanterns raised, giving light to their surroundings.

Slowly, I cross the invisible threshold between the tunnel and the passage to the kiva, walking toward them. Ms. Olivia walks around the two
cylinder legs of a ladder cresting an opening in the rock below our feet. Standing next to the opening now, I watch as Ms. Olivia holds the lantern in one hand and takes hold of the wooden legs with the other as she lowers herself step by step into the hatch.

“I will follow,” says Luke as he reaches for my lantern, takes it from my hand, and lowers
it to the ground. He continues, “I will be right behind you.”

I look at him wearily as I come around the ladder and place my hands on the two legs
of the ladder and step down. As I lower myself into the kiva, I angle my eyes to the passage opening hoping Ira has found Nate and Xander.

I run through the main vein of the passage, just in time to see Nate topple over two of the lit lanterns before turning left down another passage.

“Nate!”

He doesn’t e
ven flinch, just keeps running.

Running hard and staying close behind him I call to
him, “Nate, I know you can hear me in there!”

He picks up speed and pulls away from me, just as my footing begins to slip.
Damn it, I’m sliding! As the ground beneath me shakes pulling the gravel out from under me, I fall into the stone wall, hitting my shoulder against a jagged edged boulder. The pain shoots straight through my arm and into my neck. I breathe through it, get my footing and stumble along the passage. Another aftershock knocks me against the wall, hitting the same shoulder again and sending another wave of nauseating pain into the core of my arm, numbing my hand. With my breathing coming faster because of the spike in pain, I feel the dizziness set in. I look down at my arm handing limply from my body. Dislocated, great! I lean my back against the tunnel wall and with my eyes I follow the sporadic lighting from the lanterns ahead.

One, two, three, four outlets from the main vein. I notice two lanterns have been knocked over
. Hell, he could be down any of them! The earth behind me begins to tremble just as Ira appears at my side. His eyes are targeting all of the passages. “Which one?”

I grunt through the pain, “He disappeared ahead of me. I don’t know. Wait, why are you here? You should be with Jesca!”

Ira looks down at me, taking inventory of my pain. His eyes hone in on my shoulder and he steps toward me.

I tense at his approach and ask, “What are you doing?”

Ira’s golden eyes rest on mine. “Healing you.”

He places one of his hands on the back of my shoulder, then rests his other on top of my collar bone.

“I didn’t know that Rephaim had the ability to heal,” I tell him as I close my eyes and wait for the warmth of healing.

Suddenly, the contortion of my shoulder is raised and popped back into its place in one swift motion.
The pain follows, bending me in half. “Ahhh! Damn it, Ira!”

As I rise back up, I notice Ira has disappeared.

“Ira?”

Crap, where is he going?

With the pain beginning to subside, I roar, “Ira!”

Ira is at my side again growling, “He isn’t in these passages.”

With the feeling coming back to my hand, I flex it to get the blood pumping through it again. “He was here. This place is like a labyrinth!
I need to get into his head just long enough to track him.”

I close my eyes and let go of the block fastened and fixed on my mind.

Silence.

Ira groans, “What are you doing?”

Agitated with his interruption, I open my eyes and glare at him. “Trying to find him. If even the smallest part of Nate shows itself while under the hybrid’s control, I will be able to find him.”

I close my eyes again and open my mind and think,
“
C’mon Nate. Fight it cousin.”

Silence.

C’mon!

Silence.

“I won’t let it take her, Xander. If it means my death, so be it.”
Nate’s thought comes to me so strong, I expect to open my eyes and see him standing right in front of me.

In front of me.

Locked onto his presence now, I open my eyes and walk straight ahead passed the first two outlet passages.

I look back at Ira standing hunched over in the passage waiting for me to give him direction. “This way.”

I walk straight ahead as I send Nate my thoughts.
“Nate, you don’t need to runaway. Ira is here with me. We won’t let the hybrid Dweller take Jesca or you.”

I feel his presence stronger to my right just as I come up on the third outlet. I run quickly through the passage, Ira striding just behind me.

I hear Nate think,
“I can’t let it take her.”

Is he not hearing me? I think,
“Nate! It won’t take her! None of us will let it take her! I won’t let it take either of you! I promised! I won’t break that promise, cousin!”

I feel Nate’s presence getting stronger as he thinks,
“I won’t either.”

Instantly,
his presence lifts, shrouded once again in silence.

I stop walking and hiss, “Damn it!”

“What happened?” asks Ira.

“I lost him,” I say
as I kick the dirt under me, sending a rock tumbling along the passage. Watching it roll, it ricochets from two fallen lanterns.

Two fallen lanterns.

The main tunnel entrance.

I move toward the lanterns as I think over what I said to Nate.
“It won’t take her. None of us will let it take her,”
and what he said in return,
“I won’t either.”

The flash of lightning and roar of thunder pouring through the tunnel opening in the distance has me fixated as I remember when I had seen this very tunnel before, in a vision.

Walking through the tunnel.

The princess in the kiva.

As I let the images set in I turn around to face Ira, tell him what I have seen, when I spy Sebastian leaning against the wall of one of the outlets, head tilted back against the stone wall.

Feeling my legs weakening from where my thoughts are taking me, I stumble toward him and ask harshly, “Sebastian, where is Jesca?”

The words don’t sound like my own. They are tearing, breaking, falling apart, like me right now.

Sebastian lulls his head toward me and his expression becomes panicked.

He pushes his body from the rock wall
as I grab his shirt and meet him eye to eye, “Where is Jesca?”

He points down the main passage into a opening at the other end and says feebly, “In the kiva.”

I let go of his shirt as it sinks in.

“Nate is going after her,” I whisper breathlessly.

Temporarily suspended in a state of shock, I shuffle a few feet down the tunnel. The passage seems to stretch forever before my eyes, the other end so far away. I tell myself to run, but my legs feel like they are weighted down with lead as I continue to sludge down the passage.

“No, Xander! The ritual has already begun.” Sebastian’s words pull me from my stupor. I run as hard as my body will carry me through the passage to get to Jesca and Nate.