by David Klass
“Where are the antigravity suits?” I ask my mother.
“There are none,” she says.
“Put your arm around me, Jack,” Dad suggests. “And grab hold of your mom. We’ll make this jump as a family.”
I look back at him. “Excuse me. Don’t take this as teenage rebellion. But are you nuts?”
He looks at my mother quizzically. “I believe it’s a colloquial expression,” she tells him. “Jair is asking if you’re out of your mind.”
“Oh,” he says. “No, I’m quite sane. Come, grab hold. We don’t have time to waste.”
That’s a bit of an understatement. The Dark Army fighters are less than a hundred yards away. They have weapons out and I’m sure they could fry us with their lasers from this distance, so they must want us alive.
“I’m open to the idea of family reconciliation,” I tell my father, “but a nice group hug followed by joint suicide doesn’t do much for me.”
“Trust me,” he says.
I glance down over at the ground far below and then look back into his eyes. “Why should I?”
“Because I’m your father.”
“You’ve never been a father to me. Try again.”
“If we stand here another three seconds, the Dark Army will capture us,” he points out softly. “Take a chance on me now, son, or we’ll all be tortured to death.”
As I look back at him I can hear the approaching footsteps of the thundering horde of Dark Army warriors.
“Okay,” I mutter. “I can’t argue with that one.”
I step to my parents and put my arms around them. My right arm goes behind my mother’s back, and my left arm loops around my dad. Each of them puts an arm around me. We pull each other tight. “And off we go!” Dad shouts.
We jump off the roof. Actually, they jump and pull me off with them.
I can’t say this ushers in a nice moment of family togetherness. We immediately plummet toward the poisonous moat below. I hear myself shouting, “DO SOMETHING!” Then: “YOU SAID YOU WEREN’T CRAZY!” And finally I just find myself screaming, “HHEEEELLLLPPP!” as I wonder whether the impact will kill us, or if we have a chance of surviving the high dive to be eaten alive by the bubbling acid.
Usually when I panic I feel a rush of blood to my brain and start to get hot, but this long leap to my death leaves me cold. In fact, it’s freezing. No, wait a minute. It’s not the plummet that’s numbing. It’s the snow that has begun sifting down out of a cloudless sky.
Flakes as big as hubcaps collect around us in a milky white cloud. They stick to each other, forming ever larger and more complex white starbursts. And then they start sticking to us!
We are falling more slowly. Somehow the Star of Dann has made us part of this blizzard! We are drifting down on the softest of natural parachutes, three human snowflakes, wafted by mountain winds.
My father is on one side of me. My mom’s on the other. The snow is all around us, falling so thickly that I can barely glimpse the land below.
For a moment I am transported by the power of the gem. The snow whirls around me, and blinds me. When I blink and open my eyes I’m atop a glacier, a vast and mighty ice field that stretches as far as the eye can see. Snow geese fly over it, and foxes dart across it.
Then that glacier begins to melt, drop by drop. I see it dwindle before my eyes, as if through stop-motion photography over hundreds of years.
Soon it covers a square mile. Then an acre. Finally that great ice sheet has diminished to a last snow patch.
A gray bear comes shuffling into view. No, he’s a man, in a heavy coat, and he looks a bit like my father, and also like me. But he’s bigger than we are, taller and with wider shoulders even than my dad. Also, this guy in the gray coat looks like he’s suffered as much as it is possible for a man to suffer without completely giving way to madness. My dad’s been tortured by the Dark Army, but I sense that this haggard polar explorer has been doing it to himself.
His eyes glow with sadness. He’s been alone for a long time. Wandering and witnessing. Tromping the earth. Like a monk in an isolation cell, except that his cell is the top of the world. And his meanderings and meditations have brought him to this last pathetic glacial remnant.
He reaches the snow and ice and stands before it, arms folded, as if suddenly overcome with the horror of what he’s discovered. He bends and touches the ice, and then straightens up and lets out an agonized wail of self-loathing. It’s a wordless scream, but the sentiment is clear: “What have we done?!”
And then he falls to his knees.
A few feet from him, something gleams.
At first he doesn’t see it, but then he does.
It’s not a cheerful radiance—not a Christmas light gleam or a wedding candle sparkle. The sudden flash of blue light seems to acknowledge and reconfigure the howl the big man just gave. His wordless question: “What have we done?” is somehow echoed by the pale blue luminescence: “What has been done to me?”
The tall man crawls across the ice, and the blue light washes over him. His tousled hair, his sunburned forehead, his cracked lips, and even his sad eyes begin to glow.
He glimpses something beneath and reaches for it. His hand and his wrist disappear into snow and ice. His fingers close around it and he stiffens, as if hit by an electric current. Inch by inch he pulls the Star of Dann up, and holds it wonderingly in front of his eyes.
And somehow in the blink of an eye, as I fall through the air outside the Dark Army’s fortress, I share that moment hundreds of years ago in the warming Arctic. The rage of a man who understands the suicidal folly of his species. The agony of a very special region of the earth, as the last of its beauty and majesty is stripped away. And I feel the common cause they make together—the desperate, lingering hope that maybe if they join forces the damage can be reversed, and the healing may begin.
The ground is rising up toward us. No, we are floating down to it. We’ve been blown away from the fortress, perhaps a half mile beyond the moat. Fifty feet till we hit the ground. Thirty, and I can see snowcapped rocks. “Roll when you hit,” my father says.
Thump, the impact is much harder than I thought, but as soon as my feet touch I somersault forward the way Eko taught me.
I sustain a few cuts, but I would have to call it a good landing. Dad and Mom also make it safely. We get up and smile at each other.
“Well done, Jack,” my father says.
“Thanks,” I tell him. “Let’s not try that again for a while.”
“Suits me,” he says with a grin. And then his smile fades. “What’s that?”
I look around. The snow is still falling all around us. It’s hard to see or hear anything.
“What?” I ask.
My mother closes her eyes and listens intently. “Five,” she announces, gripping her saber. I see that she’s bleeding badly from the shoulder. The gargoyle’s strike did serious damage. “Whatever they are, they’re large, Simeon. And coming fast, on four legs.”
“Some kind of wild beast chimera,” my dad speculates grimly, raising his sword. “Elephants? Or rhinos?”
I can see their outlines through the curtain of white snow. Lions. A pride of the enormous cyborg beasts! Racing toward us. They spot us and let out ferocious growls, preparing to rip us to shreds.
42
Form a triangle, facing outward,” Dad commands. “We’ll make our last stand here. My darling, how are you?”
“Ready to keep fighting,” my mother answers weakly, and takes her place next to him.
“What good will a triangle do?” I ask them both. “We’re being attacked by half a dozen cyborg lions, and I’m sure reinforcements and killer drones are on the way. Do some other trick with the Star of Dann to save us.”
“I’m out of tricks, son,” my father confesses. “There comes a time when one must accept one’s fate bravely. Stand with us.”
“Yes, Jair,” my mother echoes. “Come over here and join us. Let us be a family this las
t time.”
“No,” I tell them, as the snarls from the approaching beasts get noticeably louder. I catch glimpses of their flashing teeth and billowing manes through the snow. “No, I won’t join you,” I repeat, more forcefully. “We’ve never been a family, so why start now?”
My father observes sadly, “What terrible hardness is in your heart, my son.”
“The hardness that you put there,” I tell him. “You made all the choices. You led me here.”
“But don’t you understand that people carry burdens that dictate their lives and choices? And that the burden a king carries is sometimes hard to bear?”
“No, I don’t understand that,” I reply, switching on my blue scimitar. “You make your last stand with my mom. I’ll die as I lived, alone.”
“I forgive you your anger, Jack,” Dad whispers.
“Well, I’ll never forgive you,” I tell him.
Forgive me for throwing my two cents in, Your Majesty. A familiar telepathic voice suddenly shoehorns into our father-son squabble. He’s a fine young man and I’m quite fond of him, but he’s always been like this. He carries grudges the way a sheepdog carries fleas.
I peer through the falling snow but all I see are the approaching lions. Gisco?
I believe it comes from not spending enough time around noble role models in his formative years, Your Highness. By noble I of course mean yourself and my beloved Queen, although I would also humbly include that most loyal and selfless of animal species—the canine.
Gisco, where the hell are you? I demand. Stop spouting drivel and get us out of this mess.
Hello, Jack. Welcome to the world that is, but doesn’t have to be. Kidah also sends his regards.
I notice that one of the lions is closer to us than the others, and is in fact galloping at us from a completely different direction. As I squint through the curtain of white, I can see that he doesn’t have a tufted tail, a flowing mane, or a sleek, muscled feline body. In fact, he has a tail like an old whisk broom, a shaggy coat like an alpaca, and his rotund body more closely resembles a stampeding water buffalo than a charging lion.
I’m glad Kidah is well, I respond telepathically, but we’re about to be devoured by a pride of cyborg lions. This isn’t exactly the moment to exchange small talk about old friends.
There is always time for civil discourse, our one-dog rescue party declares, drawing near.
True, faithful servant, my father agrees, joining the telepathic exchange. But there is also a time to act expeditiously. Along with his salutations, did Kidah send anything potentially useful?
As a matter of fact he did, Your Highness, Gisco announces. Here, catch.
The mongrel carried something in his jowls while he ran, and he now flips it to my father.
Dad catches it neatly. It’s a small red disc—the size and shape of a checker piece. He touches the edges of the checker with his index fingers and slowly draws them apart. The red disc stretches out in all directions. It enlarges till it looks like one of those cherry-colored plastic saucers that kids sled down hills on. In a few more seconds its circumference is equal to Dad’s full arm span. And then it’s expanded to a bright red ten-foot circular one-dimensional lifeboat.
“Get on,” Dad orders.
I hesitate for a second.
The nearest lion is twenty-five feet away and coming fast. I can see the snow fringing his magnificent mane. He opens his mouth and roars at us.
I hop onto the red disc with my parents and Gisco. Maybe this is the time for a family reunion after all.
The large disc starts to slide across the snow. It is a sled! But not much snow had a chance to collect from the storm, and our red sled drags over dirt and rocks.
The lion leaps at us.
Dad fends it off with a whistling sword swipe. The beast dodges, recovers its footing, and jumps at us again. Two more lions charge at us from different directions, as if cutting off the angle on a fleeing gazelle.
But we’re gathering speed. The drag of the rocky ground has somehow released. Then I see that we’re several inches in the air! We zigzag around the lions as they futilely wave claws at us. They’re fast but we’re much faster. They snarl and try to knock us off the sled with their paws, but they might as well be waving goodbye.
I hear a whining sound high above and look up. A giant steel mosquito appears in the distance—a Dark Army drone! It streaks toward us as we accelerate in the other direction. We’re soon moving at such a clip that I have to lie flat. I find a handhold and grab on tight.
Ouch, that’s my tail. Let go!
Sorry, Gisco. I was falling off the sled. It’s every man for himself.
And every dog for himself, he responds. I’m also falling off, and he locks his jaws around my ankle.
The drone comes right after us, anticipating our twists and turns. It fires energy bolts that streak down and incinerate massive boulders.
I steal peeks over the edge of the sled and see the mountainous terrain beneath us whirl by in a blur. We are taking evasive action at an incredible rate. We flit around massive crags and flash through deep gorges.
The drone matches us turn for turn. It hasn’t hit us yet with one of its lightning bolts, but it’s steadily gaining on us and we can’t seem to shake it. A lucky shot will soon end the chase.
We dive into a particularly deep and narrow valley, and the drone swoops down from above, sealing us in. As soon as we try to climb above the sheer walls the drone will have a clear shot and take us out.
But we don’t climb. We streak through the valley, which gradually narrows into a bottleneck and then comes to a dead end. We’re flying right at a cliff! At this speed, we’ll smash ourselves to skin and bone fragments in about three seconds. Our only chance is to soar upward and take our chances with the drone, but instead we descend even farther. We’re speeding straight for the base of a cliff!
“Dad, take us up! We’re going to crash!”
I’m not sure how he’s steering this thing, but he looks determined. “This is the only way,” he says through gritted teeth. “Trust me, Jack. Hold on.”
“I don’t trust you. The only way is no way—” I start to shout.
We fly straight into the cliff, and I throw my hands up in front of my face.
43
The dense shrubbery around the base of the cliff whips at my arms, and I steel myself for the final collision with solid rock, but the next thing I know we’re flying through empty blackness.
There was a cave opening at the base of the cliff, and we’re now rocketing through subterranean chambers.
The Star of Dann lights our way. Either my dad is a master navigator or the cherry-colored sled has its own built-in steering system. Despite the fact that we’re slaloming through the caverns at great speed, we never so much as brush a stalactite or nick a stalagmite.
Finally we slow, and soon come to a stop in a large cave chamber. The ninja priests who accompanied my mother and me on our journey are waiting there, and they don’t look surprised to see us arrive. My father or Gisco must have contacted them telepathically.
“Your Majesty, we are overjoyed—” the leader of the priests begins his speech of welcome, but my father cuts him off.
“Help me with the Queen,” he commands, and in seconds Mom is lifted off the red sled and gently helped to the ground.
I’m alarmed at how weak she seems, and how much blood she appears to have lost. I recall my angry words to my parents when the lions attacked, and I suddenly feel very guilty. She could be dying.
One of the ninja priests who doubles as a doctor bends over her and does a quick triage. “She’ll have to stay here, Your Majesty,” he says. “There’s no way she can travel for a few days.”
“Yes,” my father agrees with great sadness, “and we must leave immediately.”
This is news to me. “Where are we going? We just got away from the fortress. Can’t we catch our breath before we take off for the next hideout?”
�
��We’re done with hiding,” he tells me.
“Then what’s our plan?”
“The time has come for a final showdown. We will take them on directly—the might of Dann against all the power of the Dark Army.”
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” I tell him. “Don’t forget the drones. They may not be able to find us down here, but the minute we stick our noses out of a cave opening, they’ll blast us.”
“We’re not going out through a cave opening, Jack,” he tells me.
“Then where are we going?”
“You’re going home, Jair,” my mother whispers from the cave floor.
“Home?” I repeat, as if it’s the strangest word in the world.
“To the world you grew up in,” Dad fills in. “Back to the Turning Point, where all the forces of good and evil will soon be arrayed against one another to turn the future to light or darkness. And I’m coming with you.”
Count me in, too, Gisco chimes in. The food was much better a thousand years ago. And Kidah is waiting for us.
I’m having a little trouble processing this. “If we’re going back through time, why do we have to leave right now? Why can’t we wait here, and make sure Mom is okay? Whether we leave now or a few days from now, it won’t make any difference because we’ll be heading back to the same date a thousand years ago.”
“True,” my father says, “but the Dark Army will guess what we are planning and create as much interference as they can with the time portals. I sense that they have already started. The longer we delay leaving, the more perilous the journey becomes.”
“Yes,” my mother says, “you must go right now, Simeon. I will stay and continue the resistance till you return.”
My father bends to her. “Mira, my love. Fate has been very cruel to us.”
She looks up into his eyes and strokes his white beard. “Don’t cut this till I see you again.”
“Not a hair of it,” he promises.
Watching them, I realize just how heavy their burden is. They obviously love each other deeply. They’ve been separated for years while he languished in prison, and now, at the moment when he’s been liberated and they’re finally back together, he must leave and they may never see each other again.
